Kant and the laws of nature / [edited by] Michela Massimi, University of Edinburgh, Angela Breitenbach, University of Cambridge.

Format:

• Book

Contributor:

• Massimi, Michela, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804.
• Science--Philosophy.
• Natural law.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 288 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Summary:

Laws of nature play a central role in Kant's theoretical philosophy and are crucial to understanding his philosophy of science in particular. In this volume of new essays, the first systematic investigation of its kind, a distinguished team of scholars explores Kant's views on the laws of nature in the physical and life sciences. Their essays focus particularly on the laws of physics and biology, and consider topics including the separation in Kant's treatment of the physical and life sciences, the relation between universal and empirical laws of nature, and the role of reason and the understanding in imposing order and lawful unity upon nature. The volume will be of great interest to advanced students and scholars of Kant's philosophy of science, and to historians and philosophers of science more generally.

Contents:

• Part I: The lawfulness of nature
• Kant on the unity and diversity of laws / Eric Watkins
• On universality, necessity, and law in general in Kant / Karl Ameriks
• Imperfect knowledge of nature: Kant, Hume and laws of nature / Paul Guyer
• Part II: The systematicity of nature
• Why must we presuppose the systematicity of nature? / Hannah Ginsborg
• Empirical scientific investigation and the ideas of reason / Rachel Zuckert
• Kant's transcendental principle of purposiveness and the "Maxim of the Lawfulness of Empirical laws" / Thomas Teufel
• Part III: Nomic necessity and the metaphysics of nature
• Kant's necessitation account of laws and the nature of natures / James Messina
• Grounds, modality, and nomic necessity in the critical Kant / Michela Massimi
• Kant on mathematical force laws / Daniel Warren
• Part IV: Laws in physics
• Kant's conception of causal necessity and its legacy / Michael Friedman
• Metaphysical foundations of neoclassical mechanics / Marius Stan
• Part V: Laws in biology
• Laws in biology and the unity of nature / Angela Breitenbach
• The building forces of nature and Kant's technology of the living / Catherine Wilson.

Notes:

• Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 14 Apr 2017).
• Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

• 1-108-13828-4
• 1-108-13901-9
• 1-108-13913-2
• 1-107-54677-X
• 1-316-38964-2
• 1-108-13925-6
• 1-108-13937-X
• 1-108-13985-X