What Mathematics and Metaphysics of Corporeal Nature Offer to Each Other: Kant on the Foundations of Natural Science

Abstract

Kant famously distinguishes between the methods of mathematics and of metaphysics, holding that metaphysicians err when they avail themselves of the mathematical method. Nonetheless, in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, he insists that mathematics and metaphysics must jointly ground 'proper natural science'. This article examines the distinctive contributions and unity of mathematics and metaphysics to the foundations of the science of body. I argue that the two are distinct insofar as they involve distinctive sorts of grounding relations - mathematics pertains to formal grounding, while metaphysics concerns material grounding - while they are unified insofar as they treat motion, the fundamental determination of the science of body.