Annals of Science最新文献

In this paper, I argue that, by the contingency of organic forms with regard to the mechanical laws of nature, Kant means their accidental or coincidental nature with respect to these laws. Something is coincidental if it cannot be shown why it must be the case given mechanical laws, because it occurs not necessarily or typically but rather due to a specific convergence of circumstances. I suggest that Kant shares with a tradition going back to Aristotle the belief that coincidences neither can nor need to be explained. For Kant, organic forms are not therefore mechanically inexplicable because they are impossible on mechanical laws alone, but rather because they would have to be viewed as mere coincidences on the basis of mechanical laws alone and thereby unworthy of scientific inquiry. To be able to regard the specifically organic features of organic forms as capable and worthy of scientific investigation, Kant argues that we must regard organic forms as due to purposive agency. I briefly indicate how this outlook translates into Kant's own engagement with the life sciences, specifically his insistence that the features underlying human racial variety are purposive rather than mere environmentally induced traits.

In 1786 Georg Forster published a widely read critique of Immanuel Kant's theory of race. Since then, the dispute between Forster and Kant on the unity of mankind has been widely discussed in light of both Forster's essay and Kant's decision to write a lengthy response to Forster in 1788. In this discussion I widen the frame for considering the two positions by focusing on Kant's lectures on Physical Geography. In these notes Kant emerges as an ethnographer asking many of the same questions posed by Forster himself, a man who had become famous since his time spent onboard James Cook's second voyage to the South Pacific (1772-1775). Placing Kant's ethnography in closer conversation with Forster reveals the many similarities (and some well-known differences) between the two. By including some of Forster's other writings from the 1780s in an assessment of their debate, moreover, a much fuller picture can be had regarding natural historical investigations into the unity and difference of mankind at the time.

We provide a reconstruction of Kant's empirical-pragmatic account of science, focusing on psychological, social, and historical conditions that 'pragmatically' promote or hinder the advancement of science. Our novel reconstruction offers a realistic portrayal of Kant's view. Part 1 claims that he presents a differentiated and dynamic account of research. Part 2 looks at psychological conditions, beginning with Kant's analysis of cognitive faculties (2.1), and the distinction between higher and lower faculties (2.2). Then, we turn to layers of scientific cognition: (2.3) observation, (2.4) imagination, (2.5) 'methodical meditation', and (2.6) 'sagacity', the talent for scientific discovery. Part 3 addresses biological, political, and historical conditions that hinder the development of science: mortality, lack of liberty, and 'barbarism'. We explain how Kant conceptualizes science as a collective historical process promoting human flourishing (3.1). To cope with individual limits, Kant demands to divide scientific labour between (3.2) kinds of minds and (3.3) disciplines. Section (3.4) treats his views on truth and testimony as crucial for science. In our conclusion, part 4, we show how Kant thinks the history of science ought to be studied, how his pragmatic approach relates to his claims about reason's role in scientific progress, and what research questions emerge next.

The following paper was inspired by editorial work on some of early precritical writings for the new Academy Edition of Immanuel Kant which can be characterized as more or (more often) less coherent compositions of traditional rational cosmology and physical cosmology of his time, the further transformation of which gave rise to some investigations how basic concepts changed in the period from around 1746-1768. The aim of the paper is twofold: Firstly - and for the first time, as far as I can see - to give a concise account of the most important conceptual developments of Kant's precretical cosmology, especially of his precitical theory of matter. Secondly, to show how innovations in his later pre-critical writings in particular influenced the cosmology of his critical phase, mainly presented in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Although the paper in no way plays down the philosophical significance of Kant's transcendental turn, it intends to show the extent to which argumentative patterns of the precritical period have found their way into his critical philosophy and others have become obsolete as a result of this turn.

This paper deals with Kant's elaboration of a metaphysical foundation of the principle of inertia in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Many of Kant's contemporaries treat inertia not as an issue of mathematical physics but rather as a general feature of material objects that is addressed by metaphysics and, to some extent, by theology as well. In turn, inertia is often seen as the reason why matter is fundamentally passive, thus providing an argument against materialism. In particular, Abraham Gotthelf Kästner and Johann Samuel Traugott Gehler are considered on this score. They agree with Kant in that the principle of inertia follows from the general causal principle. Contrary to Kant, Kästner and Gehler treat inertia as a phenomenon of experience, whereas it seems a unique feature of Kant's approach to conceive of inertia as expressing the lifelessness of matter.

This paper discusses several central features of Kant's account of how regulative principles guide scientific inquiry. Specifically, it focuses on Kant's views on what these regulative principles are, why they are justified, how they function to regulate our inquiry, and what conception of reason can support them.

Debates over the nature, status, and explanatory scope of various ethers were widespread among seventeenth- and eighteenth-century natural philosophers. This article argues that an important feature of Kant's mature natural philosophy is its attempt to combine these issues with the Leibnizian problem of the relation between fundamental and derivative forces. On the one hand, Kant employs the framework of fundamental and derivative forces to structure the disparate phenomena that were at stake in the ether debates. On the other hand, the ether is central to his explanation of the relation between fundamental and derivative forces. After examining the relevant texts and surveying different interpretative options, the article argues that Kant favours an ether-based account of the relationship between fundamental and derivative forces. The account is fleshed out through the case of cohesive force, which I show to be an effect not of the pressure of the ether but of differences in its oscillatory motion.

In his Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755), Kant claims that the Universe has existed for 'a series of millions of years and centuries'. In light of the authority of biblical chronology, according to which God created the world some 6000 years ago, this claim is remarkable. In this paper, I argue that the novelty of Kant's account of the age of the world does not only lie in the sheer size of the number he gives, but also in the fact that it was motivated by cosmological considerations (as opposed to the proto-geological considerations that motivated other contemporary theories that challenged the biblical dogma). Since Kant does not explain how he comes to claim such a high number for the age of the world, I give two possible reasons that can be reconstructed from his 1755 works, both of which rely on his conception of the vast spatial dimension of the visible Universe. The first reason combines this conception with Kant's cosmogony, the second states that the vast spatial extension of the Universe implies an extremely long duration of its existence due to the finitude of the speed of light.

The essay explores Newton's assertion that geometry is grounded in mechanics, and demonstrates that this claim arises from his understanding of mathematical postulates. Several of Newton's unpublished works on the foundations of mathematics are examined, highlighting the various systems of postulates he developed throughout his lifetime as the foundations of geometry. Newton's research is placed in the broader context of seventeenth-century studies on axiomatics, particularly in relation to the works of mathematicians Viète and van Schooten. The article presents an inferential interpretation of Newton's conception of postulates, offering new insights into his philosophy of mathematics. This, in turn, clarifies the significance and implications of Newton's statement regarding the relationship between geometry and mechanics.