Metaphysical foundations of natural science

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Metaphysical Beginnings of Natural Science (abbr. MAN) is the title of a book by the philosopher Immanuel Kant . It appeared in 1786, a year before the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (KrV) was published.

The book is the application of the principles developed in the KrV about human knowledge to the field of physics . Kant had already said in the KrV that this is not a philosophical system , but a "treatise on the method ". The MAN are an application of this method. They show how the principles of knowledge a priori are valid as conditions of the possibility of knowledge of nature. Kant assumed that the laws formulated by Isaac Newton represent an actual description of nature. In accordance with the subdivision of the categories , Kant looked for the principles on which physics are based a priori. The underlying premise of MAN states that movement is the basic definition of objects that can be perceived by the senses. The concept of matter must therefore be examined in terms of the four categories it contains. Accordingly, Kant developed four areas of investigation.

  • I. Movement as quantity is phoronomy
    Direction and speed characterize the relative position of an object in space.
  • II. Movement as quality is dynamism .
    Attraction and repulsion are the foundations of space filling. Attraction is the force of gravity . Kant (not, as is often claimed, Newton) was the first to formulate the concept of instantaneous action at a distance . In the second main part "Dynamics" (a term from Leibniz, see his Specimen Dynamicum from 1695) Kant writes in "Theorem 7": "The attraction essential to all matter is an immediate effect of the same on others through empty space".
  • III. Movement of relation is mechanics .
    Roughly following Newton, Kant formulated three basic principles of mechanics.
  1. With changes, the quantity of matter remains unchanged.
  2. All change in matter has an external cause.
  3. In the case of changes, the effect and counteraction are identical.
  • IV. Movement as a modality is phenomenology .
    In terms of modality, matter is examined as a possible subject of experience.

Kant viewed physics as a "strict science". With this he combined the view that the principles of physics can be represented completely and unquestionably in a mathematical formulation. In Kant's posthumous opus there are records that show that he did not consider the principles set out in the MAN to be final. In practice, the principles of MAN have received little attention. Especially since the establishment of the theory of relativity and quantum physics , Kant's considerations on the basic principles of physics have been considered outdated.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karen Gloy : Kant and the natural sciences - their significance for the present, in: Andreas Lorenz (ed.): Transcendental philosophy today: Breslauer Kant-Symposium 2004, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2007, 39–58.