Substance, force, and the possibility of knowledge : On Kant's philosophy of material nature / Jeffrey Edwards.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Edwards, Jeffrey, 1951- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804.

Kant, Immanuel.

Philosophy of nature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (300 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, California : University of California Press, [2000]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

A new understanding of Kant's theory of a priori knowledge and his natural philosophy emerges from Jeffrey Edwards's mature and penetrating study. In the Third Analogy of Experience, Kant argues for the existence of a dynamical plenum in space. This argument against empty space demonstrates that the dynamical plenum furnishes an a priori necessary condition for our experience and knowledge of an objective world. Such an a priori existence proof, however, transgresses the limits Kant otherwise places on transcendental arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason because it establishes a material transcendental condition of possible experience. This finding motivates Edwards to examine the broader context of Kant's views about matter, substance, causal influence, and physical aether in connection with the developmental history of his theory of transcendental idealism. Against the backdrop of early modern metaphysics and contemporaneous physical theory, Edwards explicates the origins of the Third Analogy in Kant's early work on the metaphysics of nature. The argument against empty space presented in the Third Analogy reveals a central aspect of Kant's transcendental theory of experience that Edwards explains lucidly. By clarifying the epistemological standpoint at issue in the Third Analogy, he shows that the fundamental revisions to which Kant subjects his theory of knowledge in the Opus postumum not only originate in his precritical metaphysics of nature but are developments of an argument central to the Critique of Pure Reason itself. Edwards's work is important to scholars working in the history of philosophy and the history and philosophy of science, as well as to Kant specialists.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Note on Sources and Translations

Preface

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION. The Problem of Material Transcendental Conditions in Kant's Theory of A Priori Knowledge

CHAPTER 1. The Transcendental Principle of Community and Its Proof

CHAPTER 2. Problems in the Third Analogy

CHAPTER 3. Influence, Matter, and Force in the Transcendental Analytic and the Metaphysical Foundations of Mechanics

CHAPTER 4. Substance and Substantial Force in Leibniz and Wolff

CHAPTER 5. Dynamical Community, Physical Influence, and Universal Harmony in the Development of Kant's Metaphysics

CHAPTER 6. Corpuscular and Dynamical Theories of Matter in Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century Natural Philosophy

CHAPTER 7. The Theory of Physical Aether in Kant's Philosophy of Nature

CHAPTER 8. The Third Analogy and the Opus Postumum

CHAPTER 9. Kant's Transcendental Theory: Heterodox Considerations on Its History

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-263) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Okt 2020)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780520922808

0520922808

OCLC:

1202623968