Kant as philosopher of science

Abstract

Michael Friedman's Kant and the Exact Sciences (1992) refocused scholarly attention on Kant's status as a philosopher of the sciences, especially (but not exclusively) of the broadly Newtonian science of the eighteenth century. The last few years have seen a plethora of articles and monographs concerned with characterizing that status. This recent scholarship illuminates Kant's views on a diverse group of topics: science and its relation to metaphysics; dynamics and the theory of matter; causation and Hume's critique of it; and, the limits of mechanism and of mechanical intelligibility. I argue that recent interpretations of Kant's views on these topics should influence our understanding of his principal metaphysical and epistemological arguments and positions. © 2004 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.