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Abstract
This essay explores the undervalued methodological elements underpinning Kant’s Transition from Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics in Opus postumum. I do this by drawing a line between the Architectonic of Pure Reason in Critique of Pure Reason and the Transition, although this line is problematized at various points. What emerges is the call for an explicitly architectonic understanding of the concept of transition in Opus postumum. According to the architectonic of Transition, instead of only devising the strict division of metaphysics and physics we must devise systematic ways of building bridges between them and finding their points of interconnection. When extended to the wider critical edifice this implies a radical departure from the Architectonic of Pure Reason as it was understood in Critique of Pure Reason and a complication of Kant’s theorization of metaphysics, physics, and physiology throughout his corpus.
disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
I would like to thank all those at Angelaki for their time and for publishing my essay, and I warmly thank the anonymous reviewers for their patience, careful reading, and indispensable feedback.
1 I cite passages in Opus postumum according to volume and page number in Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Prussian (now German) Academy of Sciences (1900–), followed by the page number in the English translation: Kant, Opus postumum. I cite all of Kant’s other works according to volume and page number in the Academy edition also, except Critique of Pure Reason, which is quoted according to first and second edition pagination (as is customary). Unless otherwise stated – by marking “t.m.” for “translation modified” or “m.t.” for “my translation” – I follow the translations of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Abbreviations: “C,” Correspondence; “CJ,” Critique of Judgement; “CPR,” Critique of Pure Reason; “LM,” Lectures on Metaphysics; “MF,” Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science; “OP,” Opus postumum; “P,” Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics; “PG,” Physical Geography; “PM,” Physical Monadology.
2 Thus, such concepts as “force,” “matter,” “cohesion,” “ether,” and “dynamics,” which feature regularly in discussions of Opus postumum, will be viewed as constituting the side of the Transition which reformulates the content of Metaphysical Foundations and will accordingly be suspended in favour of the architectonic thematic. By proceeding in this way, I argue that we gain a more macroscopic view of Kant’s intention, enabling us to contextualize the reformulation of Metaphysical Foundations and perhaps provide some clues as to why Kant felt it necessary to modify the foundations of his physical theory in the first place.
3 CPR A832–51/B860–79.
4 As in the Deleuzian–Žižekian formula:
Let us take a great philosopher like Kant. There are two modes to repeat him. Either one sticks to his letter and further elaborates or changes his system […] or one tries to regain the creative impulse that Kant himself betrayed in the actualization of his system (i.e., to connect to what was already “in Kant more than Kant himself,” more than his explicit system, its excessive core). (Žižek 11)
5 Caygill 19.
6 CJ 5:176.
7 I thank the anonymous report from Angelaki for pointing out this connection. They question why I left out the reflections on transition found in Critique of Judgement, which is an excellent point. The reason, as I have stated in the main body of text, is that the notion of transition in the third Critique is tied explicitly to the transition from theoretical to practical philosophy. Although this passage is perhaps one of the greatest questions in Kant scholarship, this is an entirely different problematic to the one I attempt to raise here. Another reason for its absence is the already huge interpretive weight placed on Critique of Judgement as well as more recently the Critique of Practical Reason in the Opus postumum literature. For the former, see Friedman 242–64; Förster; and for the latter see Thorndike.
8 To pick one example, in fascicle V, between OP 21:523, 35 and 21:524, 36, Kant immediately skips from an intense discussion of heat and caloric to a “Preface” in which he discusses the methodological meaning of “science of nature,” “transition,” and the structural role of Metaphysical Foundations.
9 Hall 12.
10 “But there needs to be a transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics for science of nature to become science of reason (philosophia naturalis)” (OP 21:474–75, 39 (t.m.)). Sometimes Kant also refers to this as Scientia naturalis. For an enlightening discussion on this topic, see Michael Friedman’s introduction to the Cambridge Edition of Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science.
11 MF 4:468–69.
12 MF 4:470.
13 See Baumgarten chapter II, section IX (VIIII sic).
14 MF 4:469.
15 MF 4:470.
16 See Friedman 588.
17 CPR Axxxi and Bxliii.
18 CPR Axxi. I am in agreement with Förster 53–54 on this point. See also OP 22:240, 56, where Kant claims that the Transition is not a propaedeutic: “The transition is not merely a propaedeutic, for that would be an unstable concept, and concerns only the subjective side of cognition” (t.m.).
19 MF 4:469.
20 Friedman 216.
21 MF 4:469 (emphasis added).
22 In particular, see Tuschling, “Apperception” 194–95 and Metaphysische 56–61; Friedman 237; 222–42; Förster 61–66; Hall 10.
23 This stems from Metaphysical Foundations of Dynamics, Proposition 5-6 (MF 4:508–12), Proposition 8 (MF 4:516–23) and the General Remark to Dynamics (MF 4:532–35).
24 C 11:376–77.
25 Hall 9. Kant himself notes the paradoxical character of this reasoning in fascicle IX, OP 22:205–06, 27.
26 See Werkmeister 19 for an overview of the argument.
27 In other words, perhaps more speculatively, one side equates to a new Doctrine of Elements, the other to a new Doctrine of Method:
The progression (progressus) in cognition via science in general, starts by finding its elements and then connects them (verknüpfen) in an orderly interconnection (zusammengeordnet) (systematically). Then, the division of this enterprise into a doctrine of elements and a doctrine of method constitutes the supreme division of which the latter arranges the concepts presented by the former to found a scientific whole. (OP 21:386, 13 (t.m.))
28 OP 21:482, 43.
29 OP 21:387, 13.
30 CPR A161/B200 n. A.
31 P 4:303 n. 5. Coincidentally, the position of this note in Prolegomena conforms to the location of the diagrammatic note found in the first Critique: the “dynamical/physiological principles” in the first Critique, or “physical principles” in the Prolegomena.
32 PM 1:475.
33 “it is neither the case that the geometer is mistaken nor that the opinion to be found among metaphysicians deviates from the truth” (PM 1:480).
34 PM 1:475.
35 CPR A845/B873.
36 Ibid.
37 CPR A846–47/B874–5.
38 Kant’s understanding of physiology is multifaceted and indeed transforms throughout his career – in his Lectures on Anthropology, for example, Kant discusses “medical physiology” – for an engaging discussion of this, see Hatfield 41–47. Here I will concentrate only on the transformation the term undergoes in the first Critique and Metaphysical Foundations.
39 Berg 158.
40 Ibid. 161.
41 Ibid. 162.
42 Extrand 136.
43 CPR A847/B875.
44 CPR A846/B874.
45 MF 4:470.
46 See Westphal 49–52 for an engaging discussion of the continuity and subtle transformation of special metaphysics in Metaphysical Foundations.
47 Berg 157.
48 Kant also seems to hint at this argument:
There is still, however, in these Foundations of Natural Science, a tendency toward physics, i.e. to a system of the moving forces of matter which must be taken from experience, and whose investigation (indagatio, perscrutatio naturae), as a system of these forces, is called physics. This is a doctrine of motion from empirical principles which must be [ordered] in a system of perceptions and, hence, formally subordinated to certain a priori principles. (OP 22:189–90, 51)
49 OP 21:310, 25. See also: OP 21:402; 21:407, 18; 21:474, 39; 21:476, 40; 21:524, 36; 22:200, 54; 22:240, 56.
50 See also Ducheyne 6 wherein he locates the importance of delineating metaphysics and physics in Kant’s later career. My problem with Ducheyne’s reading is that he does not give this division its due weight nor recognize its genetic transformation from the first Critique to Metaphysical Foundations.
51 OP 21:475, 39 (t.m.).
52 OP 21:476, 40 (t.m.). I explore the notion of intermediary concepts (Mittelbegriffe) at the end of the next section.
53 OP 21:525, 36 (t.m.).
54 OP 21:474, 39 (t.m.).
55 OP 21:478, 42.
56 OP 21:183, 59.
57 CPR A645/B673.
58 Maimon puts it well: “For Kant, ideas are principles of reason that by their nature demand the unconditioned for every conditioned” (226).
59 CPR A649/B677.
60 CPR A649–50/B677–78.
61 Rueger 34.
62 Kuhn 35.
63 OP 22:240, 56 (t.m.).
64 OP 22:241, 57.
65 PG 9:158.
66 OP 22:509, 150 (emphasis added).
67 Howard 214.
68 LM 28:212.
69 Ibid. (emphasis added). An unlikely echo of this definition is found in Markus Gabriel’s realist manifesto, Why the World Does Not Exist, when he states:
When I say that the answer must be “systematic,” I mean only that we employ considerations in which the principles and thought trains that we establish and justify are connected with one another and make up a single body of thought, a theory. (Gabriel 51)
70 OP 22:322, 108 (t.m.).
71 OP 21:482, 43 (t.m.); see also OP 22:375–76.
72 OP 21:525, 37.
73 Hoppe has also suggested this: “The intermediary concepts (Mittelbegriffe) thus uniquely connect the empirical and a priori; they realize the a priori concept of the object, but simultaneously they objectify the empirically given” (84–85; m.t.).
74 Ibid. 117.
75 CPR A832/B860.
76 CPR A835/B863.
77 CPR A834/B862.
78 CPR A846/B874.
79 This, for example, is Tuschling’s conclusion when he claims: “Thus the entire systematic of the first Critique and, in particular, the relations between Aesthetic, Analytic, and Dialectic are put into question […] A priori and empirical knowledge can no longer be strictly separated” (Tuschling 208–09).