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Module code: UPZPM6-60-MModule name: DISSERTATION IN EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHYModule run: 12JAN/1Coursework code: CW2Coursework title: DISSERTATION

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Kant's Responseto

Newton's Challenge

Contents

Introduction 01

Newton's Challenge 04

Newton's Empiricism 06

Newton's Mathematics 08

Hypotheses Non Fingo 10

Kant's Pre-Critical Response 14

Substantial Force 15

Physical Influx 16

Laws of Motion 18

Organisation 20

Kant's Critical Response 25

First Description of Matter 26

Mechanical Matter 28

Dynamic Matter 32

Critical Physics 34

Conclusion 37

Bibliography 39

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Introduction

The work of Immanuel Kant was concerned from the very beginning with questions of natural philosophy and science. Through the pre-Critical work Kant grappled with the new understanding of celestial mechanics and its consequences for metaphysics. Questions of substance and force; body and space; cause and order suffuse the early work of Kant. These concerns are not forgotten in the Critical work, but radically transformed by the transcendental philosophy. Yet these questions in the Critical work are the more remarkable for having grown out of the pre-Critical investigations. That Kant asks in the Opus Postumum How is the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics possible? (Ak.22:318/1998:105) shows how consistently these questions run through his work. In Kant's lifetime the disciplines of metaphysics and natural science often overlapped, and there was as yet no definitive distinction. It was also, however, a time in which a series of sometimes bitter disputes raged about the proper method for investigating nature and the understanding of nature that resulted from any such investigation. The profound shift, that would culminate in the 19th century and the seemingly definitive disciplinary separation of science and philosophy, had begun with the scientific revolution. The work of one man more than any other epitomises that challenge put to the methods and understanding of natural philosophy: Isaac Newton. The incredible success of Newtonian science, especially following the publication of the Principia, gave to its practitioners a systematic and apodictic method to be held up as exemplary of science generally. Generalisation from empirical data to mathematically demonstrated inductive law provided the de jure method for natural science. In contrast to the positive definition of the empirical and mathematical method, is the negative definition of natural philosophy that deviated from this method. Eric Schliesser has recently labelled this challenge to natural philosophy Newton's Challenge (2011). This project investigates Kant's response to Newton's Challenge.

It is the contention of the current work that no inherent difference separates natural philosophy form natural science. Such was the understanding of these disciplines at the start of the scientific revolution. The disciplinary division subsequent to this time depended on the articulation of a specific set of practices which excluded certain methods from scientific consideration. Proposing to investigate the validity of such an exclusion, we therefore understand both natural science and philosophy to designate study including the systematic

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investigation of nature. The special methods of any particular science or philosophy are not defined beyond this, except insofar as it is relevant to an understanding of a specific methodological dispute. Mechanical science is understood as an empirical method making use of mathematical demonstration. Although the distinction between empiricist and rationalist philosophy is well understood, Anstey and Vanzo have done compelling work recently to demonstrate instead that the empirical-speculative divide was operative across Europe from the mid-17th century (2012). Clearly Kant's own work, the Critical in particular, challenges such distinctions in the long run but as a working concept the current work follows them in distinguishing instead the empirical-speculative divide.

The project is presented in three sections. Section one lays out the claims of Newton's Challenge, and situates them in relation to Newton's own work in natural philosophy. That mechanics must be consulted by anyone engaging in metaphysics; that mechanics is epistemologically prior to metaphysics; that the authority of mechanics can settle philosophical disputes; and that science is immune to metaphysical challenge: these are the claims of Newton's challenge. An overview of Newton's empiricism and Newton's mathematics in relation to the method of mechanics he proposed form the subsequent part of section one. In light of these investigation we will be in a position properly address Newton's most famous philosophical statement: hypotheses non fingo (Newton, 1846:506). Properly understood, the empirical method of Newton's work and the challenge it puts to speculative metaphysics prepares us for section two of the project on Kant's pre-Critical response. Kant's first published work, the True Estimation of Living Forces, provides the starting point for our enquiry into the Newtonian influence on Kant's work. Its attempt to synthesize Newtonian mechanics and Leibnizean metaphysics of substantial forces raises more questions than it answers, and sets the agenda for Kant's pre-Critical project. The question of substance and force as they are developed in the New Elucidation and the Physical Monadology constitutes the second part of section two. Finally, the question of the origin of organisation as it is developed in the True Estimation and especially in the Universal Natural History make clear the problems that will occupy Kant into the Critical period. The third and final section of the project will examine the change that takes place in Kant's work with regard to these questions into the Critical period. The epistemological concerns of the transcendental work and the science that such epistemology makes possible will be examined in the First and Third Critiques and in the Metaphysical Foundations. Question of force, body and order remain central in these works and

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the ways in which Kant attempts to resolve them reveal the continuing and deep influence of Newton.

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Newton's Challenge

When Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow pronounced the death of philosophy in 2010, they also gave the cause for their unceremonious eulogy. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge (2010:1). Science has superseded philosophy, and philosophers by not becoming scientists have made themselves irrelevant. If the questions we ask in our quest for knowledge are part of any systematic endeavour, the claim of writers such as Hawking and Mlodinow is that science is the primary systematic discipline. Philosophy is, by such a definition, not science and its contributions to knowledge are limited to particular domains or denied altogether. However, we may ask on what foundation the strict division of science and philosophy is presupposed. The mere fact of a defined discipline for the investigation of physics as the primary method of acquiring knowledge in systematic form depends upon questions not easily answerable in physical terms. The question of the division of science and philosophy is not new. The appearance from within natural philosophy of mechanical science during the scientific revolution was predicated on the application of specific methods and arguments to distinguish a particular discipline. The 17th century and Newton's publication of the Principia are considered by many to be the height of the scientific revolution and at this time there was little, if any, distinction drawn between the disciplines of science, philosophy or natural philosophy. This is not to say that there were no disputes or competition for recognition within competing enterprises, but there was not yet the departmental division of these enterprises. The change from this period up to the 19th century when science and philosophy became more strictly separate and sometimes antagonistic disciplines was consequent upon changing understandings of the methods, successes and contributions of the two.

Eric Schliesser has identified a set of related claims that he argues became influential in the wake of Newton's work. These claims made use of the authority of empirical and mathematical natural philosophy to settle debates within philosophy. Following Newton's unification of phenomena of bodies under the law of gravity, the growing self-assurance of those who made use of the same empirical and mathematical practices as Newton lead to a series of challenges being made to speculative or non-empirical natural philosophy, particularly metaphysics. Schliesser labels the scientific discipline mechanics/physics and gives to these claims the title

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of Newton's Challenge (2010:3). Four variant claims are distinguished:

(NC1) [] mechanics/physics must be consulted in the process of doing metaphysics;

(NC2) [] mechanics/physics is epistemologically prior to metaphysics;

(NC3) [] appeals to the authority of natural science, which is in some sense (institutionally, methodologically) not philosophy to settle argument over doctrine, method (etc.) within philosophy;

(NC4) [] natural philosophy/science is immune to metaphysical challenge (2010:3)

The claims of Newton's Challenge are a set of interlocking views which seek to define the separation of science and philosophy by declaring the authority, independence and priority of mechanical science. Schliesser's argument is that the developing fields of natural science enjoyed a growing position of intellectual authority, and this authority was used to redefine the disciplinary boundaries of work in the area of natural philosophy.

The 18th century mathematician Leonhard Euler provides an example of the changing relation of science and philosophy in his Reflections on Space and Time. Declaring the undoubtable truth of mechanism as firmly established, Euler presents inertia and the externality of cause and effect as beyond all question.

[T]he awareness of these truths [of mechanics] will be able to serve as a guide in these thorny investigations [of metaphysics]. For we shall be right to reject in this science [of metaphysics] all reasoning and all ideas that lead to conclusions contrary to these truths, however well founded they may be elsewhere; and we shall be authorized to admit only principles that are consistent with these same truths [of mechanics]. (Euler, 2009:1, translation modified)

Euler first endorses mechanics as a guide to metaphysics (NC1) and, perhaps, if mechanics is to serve as a guide considers that it must come prior to metaphysics (NC2). If mechanics has its own access to certain truths apart from philosophy (NC3) then we are warranted in rejecting any ideas of reason that contradict these truths (NC4). Specifically Euler rejects the ideas and reasons of metaphysics, ideas and reasons that are the object of study of a discipline that is distinguished from mechanics. The science of ideas and reasons, however well founded, cannot

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challenge the truths of mechanics. It is interesting to note that the disciplines are distinguished more by methodology than by denomination. Metaphysics is a science, but its principles are poorly established and dangerous to draw conclusions from (Euler, 2009:1). By contrast, the principles of mechanics which are so solidly established that it would be a great error to continue to doubt their truth (Euler, 2009:1). It is finally also worth remarking that, aside from placing mechanical principles beyond reproach, Euler also asserts without argument that both metaphysics and mechanics are concerned with bodies in motion.

Schliesser proposes Newton's Challenge as a challenge made from mechanics to wider debates in philosophy, but most particularly to metaphysics. To attempt a single, inclusive definition for either natural philosophy or mechanical science in this period would be to ignore the diversity of theories and methods of the emerging scientists, and there is not space in the current work to undertake such a broad study. Nevertheless, we intend to take Newton's work as a point of departure for questions regarding the relation of science and philosophy. It is not Schliesser's argument that Newton himself is either solely responsible for the origin or propagation of the views entailed in Newton's Challenge. He had some hand in promoting them, but he is not responsible for all of them (Schliesser, 2010:1). The title of Newton's Challenge is taken to represent the intellectual authority that Newtonian science commanded at the time and the revolution in natural philosophy of which Newton was such an important part. Newton's work in unifying empirical observation under laws of mathematical relation, and the arguments he makes in endorsing a particular method of natural philosophy put questions of the relation of science and philosophy into sharp focus.

Newton's Empiricism

In the opinion of A.E. Burtt: In scientific discovery and formulation Newton was a marvellous genius; as a philosopher he was uncritical, inconsistent, even second rate (2003:208). Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of Newton's work such a judgement can only be based on the prior separation of science and philosophy. The full title of Newton's most famous work contradicts such separation: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. As is shown above by Euler, science in the 17th and 18th centuries was a term used to describe any systematic approach to knowledge and included, not excluded, philosophy and metaphysics. It

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is therefore imperative that we not presuppose any necessary separation of science and philosophy. The question of their relation is the focus of the current work. Newton begins his preface to the Principia with a definition of the rational mechanics which is the science of motions resulting from any forces whatsoever, and of the forces required to produce any motions, accurately proposed and demonstrated (1846:lxvii). As with Euler motion is defined as the area of study with which mechanics is concerned, but Newton is also interested in forces which produce motion. Newton continues his preface and observes that all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena (ibid.:lxviii). So rational mechanics is both the science of motion and the investigation and demonstration by philosophy of the forces productive of motion. Three important aspects of Newton's method are also announced here. The empiricism of Newton's work is clear when he begins from phenomena. The generalisation from particular phenomena to universal applicability is considered the central problem for philosophy. Finally, the demonstration of generalised forces announces the mathematical treatment of phenomena.

In natural philosophy, it is Aristotle who sets the basic method for empirical physics. The natural way of doing this is to start from the things which are more knowable and obvious to us and proceed towards those which are clearer and more knowable by nature (184a17/2001:218). Richard Westfall suggests that Aristotlean philosophy was the first systematic study of nature the young Newton encountered; it provided him with a system that organized the overwhelming diversity of nature into a coherent pattern (2010:85). Newton declares the work of philosophy to be conducted from phenomena in the Preface of the Principia and again in The System of the World reminds readers that our business is with causes of sensible effects (1846:518). Newton's empiricism is made most clear in the Opticks: This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. (Newton, 1979:404). The progression of Newton's work can also be seen in the passage of the Principia. Beginning with the motions of bodies, it is only in the General Scholium that he engages in any discussion of God. This method, from phenomena to universals, is at odds with the other mechanics of the period the mechanical philosophy of Descartes. Descartes radical scepticism drew him into a world of clear and distinct ideas, and it was upon these ideas that the certainty of his physics was founded. The

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Cartesian and the empirical methods differ in the way they prioritise, on the one hand, contingent empirical experience and, on the other, necessary truths arrived at by reason. In Newton's avowal of experimental empiricism we see then the indication of Newton's Challenge. No objections are admitted that are not arrived at by the same empirical method as Newton himself proclaims. Such a method must either be (or be informed by) mechanical physics (NC1), and only truths arrived at by experiment are permitted with the consequence that a priori arguments are excluded (NC2/4).

While the direction of Newton's method is clear however, we must not think that there was an unbroken system of empiricism from Aristotle to Newton. Although there is no explicit mention of Bacon in the Principia, Ducheyne (2005) argues that his method of induction as the primary investigative tool of natural philosophy is evident throughout. The Baconian method is not a method with a direct path from particulars to universals. In the place of a merely enumerative method of induction it attempts to establish axioms by partial generalisation and submits to testing principles made by inference. Generalisations are made from sensible experience to low-level axioms and from these in a gradual and unbroken ascent, going through the intermediate axioms and arriving finally at the most general axioms (Bacon, 2007:5). The quote above from the Opticks describes what Newton calls The Method of Composition (1979:404) and the paragraph concludes: By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; and in general, from Effects to their Causes, and from particular Causes to more general ones, till the Argument end in the most general (1979:404). Here we see not only Newton's empiricism, but also his commitment to a method of gradual induction by progressive steps. Experiment or observation provides only the starting point to the work of rational mechanics. Inferences from particular phenomena provide axioms pertaining to the causes of the phenomena. The task of demonstrating the wider application of mechanical propositions pertains to the mathematical element of Newton's work.

Newton's Mathematics

If Aristotle was the first systematic philosophy of nature that Newton encountered, it is however not likely that he would have considered himself an Aristotlean. For the natural philosophers of the 17th century Aristotlean philosophy was dead beyond resurrection. In its

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place stood a new philosophy for which the machine, not the organism, was the dominant analogy (Westfall, 2010:14). If they differed in the starting points, Newton and Descartes were at least united in this: the new philosophy was mechanical, and the mechanics in nature was mathematizable. The Principa's statement of method concludes with the phrase to demonstrate the other phenomena (1846:lxviii) and this element of demonstration is provided by mathematics. The Principia is conceived as a work of mathematical philosophy. The three books of which it is composed reduce the motions of bodies to a series of mathematical relations and generalise from these relations to propositions which are demonstrated mathematically of other bodies and motions. From the forces derived by empirical study and by other propositions which are also mathematical, we deduce the motions of the planets, the comets, the moon, and the sea (1846:lxviii). Newton distinguishes two aspects of mathematical mechanics: the rational and the practical. Rational mechanics proceeds by demonstration, and what is perfectly rational is geometry. The artificers of mechanics, however, are not perfect and so proceed by mechanical demonstration. Mechanical science requires the solution of problems and it is geometry that teaches us the use of mechanical solutions. Therefore geometry is founded in mechanical practice, and is nothing but that part of universal mechanics which accurately proposes and demonstrates the art of measuring (1846:lxvii). Newton's conclusion here has the most startling suggestion: that even the rational science of geometry is but a part of the practical application of material mechanics. Rational science, even mathematics, comes to us through empirical practice. The question of the relation of mathematics and physics is raised again in Book II in the scholium to his preliminary propositions on resistance. [T]hat the resistance of bodies is in the ratio of the velocity, is more a mathematical hypothesis than a physical one (1846:257). That the propositions on resistance require further demonstration may account for Newton's reticence, but that this demonstration will be mathematical puts into question the method of a physics conducted mathematically. Newton's work argues that science must proceed from phenomena. The demonstration of the truths of mechanical science is guaranteed mathematically, but even this rational element depends upon practical and empirical method. That physical truths are not mathematical truths is further shown when Newton Frankly states that the force of gravity has been treated in a mathematical way to avoid all questions about the nature or quality of this force, which we would not be understood to determine by any hypothesis (1846: 512).

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Hypotheses Non Fingo

The General Scholium of the Principia concludes with perhaps Newton's most famous philosophical pronouncement:

But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy (1846:506-7).

With this, Newton's position within philosophy is made clear. The branch of philosophy which Newton is engaged in he calls experimental and its method is deduction from phenomena. Whatever does not proceed by the empirical method laid out by Newton has no place in his science. This is the basis of Newton's challenge: that the discipline of natural philosophy as it is practised by mechanics that it is by empiricism combined with mathematics is a special area for knowledge claims about nature distinguished from other philosophical methods.

In what, finally, does Newton's empiricism consist? Propositions are generalized from experience and demonstrated in mathematics. Geometry, by which the propositions are demonstrated, is itself taken from experience. In the Principia's Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy Newton restates his commitment to the empirical method of natural philosophy. That all bodies are moveable, and endowed with certain powers (which we call the vires inertiae) of persevering in their motion, or in their rest, we only infer from the like properties observed in the bodies which we have seen. [] And this is the foundation of all philosophy (1846:385, emphasis added). We have seen already that even the rational part of mechanics is derived from experience and it is now clear that in Newton's view there can be little, if any, part in philosophy for purely rational or a priori reasoning. The contrast with Descartes could not be starker and is made abundantly clear in the General Scholium, which Newton begins with criticism of the Cartesian hypothesis of vortices. It is only at the final part of Newton's work that he speaks of God and, true to his method, even theology is an empirical endeavour. And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy (Newton, 1846:506, emphasis added).

If inference from observation is the foundation of all philosophy and even theology is a

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discourse beginning in appearances we may ask in what Newton's concepts of observation and appearance consist. In questions of the basis for our knowledge claims Newton does not appear to have suffered from the doubt which afflicted Descartes. There is, as we have seen, almost no possibility of any a priori in Newton's method and the first truths which form the basis of our universal propositions come to us unproblematically through experiment. The Principia begins with the technical definitions necessary for Newton's mathematical principles but the self-evidence of the more general principles necessary for natural philosophy means that they require, according to Newton, no definition. I do not define time, space, place and motion, as being well known to all (1846:77). In what sense these concepts are known Newton is not immediately clear. Newton criticises the vulgar conception of them as coming to us through the senses, and distinguishes absolute and relative time, space, place and motion. Relative concepts are measured against the other bodies in a system and in our common affairs these concepts suffice. However, in philosophical disquisitions, we ought to abstract from our senses, and consider things themselves, distinct from what are only sensible measures of them (Newton, 1846:79). In what way we abstract from our senses Newton gives no indication, but this abstraction to things themselves suggests to us that it is possible, that in the remote regions of the fixed stars, or perhaps far beyond them, there may be some body absolutely at rest (Newton, 1846:81). Newton's suggestions for the proof of absolute motion, and by connection absolute rest, are experimental. The problem remains in what sense we might abstract from experimental evidence to true knowledge of these absolute concepts. Despite the strong tendency in Newton's work to privilege mechanics over metaphysics, it is clear then that there remain troubling philosophical questions that are difficult to answer within a merely mechanical framework.

Despite declaring in the System of the World that our business is with causes of sensible effects (Newton, 1846:518) Newton is, from the start of the Principia, cautious about the possibility of knowing any such cause. Finally, in the General Scholium, Newton frankly admits that he has found none. But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena (1846:506-7). From phenomena, no cause for the force of gravity has thus far been discovered. In the Preface Newton expresses his wish that the forces not only of gravity but of other natural phenomena might be discovered by mechanical means. I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces [] which forces being unknown, philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in

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vain (1846:xviii). Yet what these reasons might be, and how he comes to have them, Newton never explains. Newton's mechanics elegantly describes the motions of bodies according to their mathematical relations. The impact of his work was profound, and the empirical and mathematical methods put to work by Newton played a part in providing the groundwork for a new conception of the work of natural philosophy. Nevertheless, whatever the successes of the Principia specifically, or the scientific revolution more generally, the task of natural philosophy was not completed and it remains an open question whether the methods of mechanical science provide the resources to justify the extirpation of metaphysics.

The law of gravity formulated by Newton provided an elegant unification of the motions of comets, planets and projectiles. Yet the arrangement of the system of bodies in the universe admits of no easy inferences. Newton easily demonstrated the orbits of the planets by his mathematical law, but of their origin he has no mathematical demonstration. And, as we have seen, mathematical demonstration has nothing to say about the quality or cause of such forces as it describes. This gap in our knowledge becomes the first piece in an argument that asserts the necessity of intelligent design. This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being (Newton, 1846:501); [T]he motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent agent (Newton, 2004:95). On what grounds can Newton deny the natural evolution of the solar system and assert the necessity of intelligent design? Newton imagines the possibility that the planets followed the eccentric motions of comets, in which case we would not see the concentric orbits on a plane that characterises our solar system (Newton, 1846:50). But such an observation amounts to saying that if the planets were comets they would not be planets, and says nothing about the origin of such motions. How can the necessity of an intelligent designer be known to us? We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes (Newton, 1846:506). The organisation which we actually observe is, for Newton the primary argument in favour of a designer.

[A] god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a

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Being necessarily existing (Newton, 1846:506).

Final causes give the solar system its organisation but no force for any such cause has been proposed, least of all demonstrated, by Newton. What force has been demonstrated is necessary relation of mathematically described bodies, from which law there is no deviation or error except by the introduction of new quantities of matter. It is, in fact, Newton's mathematical system of the world that gives us blind metaphysical necessity. But that mathematical system, abstracted from observation, says nothing of the causes of such forces as it describes.

The empirical and mathematical methods of mechanics as they are presented by Newton explicitly put forward the views identified by Schliesser as Newtons Challenge. Mechanics informs metaphysics, especially theology, and is even put forward as the principle method of philosophy (NC1); the empirical method of mechanics is taken to be the primary means of acquiring knowledge against any a priori reasoning (NC2); philosophical arguments, particularly the question of absolute/relative space, are answered by mechanical experiment (NC3); finally, the truths of mechanics are asserted as incontrovertible by any metaphysical argument, and may only be contradicted by other mechanical truths (NC4). There is no question that mechanical science provided a powerful framework for the discovery and unification of natural phenomena that revolutionised natural philosophy. Nevertheless, the acclaim of experimental mechanical science over speculative natural philosophy evident in Newton's work is brought into question by serious philosophical problems for which mechanics provides little purchase. The status of the epistemology of mechanical science, the true causes of the forces of nature and the origin of natural order remain problematic in Newton's work. Burtt's criticism of Newton's philosophy may originate in this: that the extraordinary inventiveness and unprecedented successes of mechanical science are diminished by foundational problems in the wider project of natural philosophy. Newton not only fails to sufficiently address these, but also disparages any attempt to address them that is itself not based in his mechanical principles. One of the most curious and exasperating features of this whole magnificent movement is that none of its great representatives appears to have known with satisfying clarity just what [Newton] was doing or how he was doing it (Burtt, 2003:208).

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Kant's Pre-Critical Response

For some time after leaving university, at least from 1746 to 1770, Kant's intellectual activities were devoted exclusively either to answering scientific questions or to explaining the metaphysical underpinnings of bodies (Watkins, 2005:101)

From his very first published writing Kant was engaging with work in natural philosophy, including Newton's. Scientific knowledge at the time Kant described an irregular body without harmonious proportions and uniformity (Ak.1:9/2012a:16). In Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces Kant attempts to arbitrate between and synthesise the competing systems of Leibniz, Descartes and Newton. In the preface to the work Kant reflects upon the task of critical engagement with highly regarded thinkers. He makes it his goal not to shrink from presenting to them the errors that he feels they have made on the path of science and the discovery of new truths. Henceforth, one can boldly dare to think nothing of the reputation of a Newton and a Leibniz, if it should oppose the discovery of truth, and to obey no persuasions other than the force of the understanding (Ak.1:7/2012a:14). In his stated intention at least, Kant would disregard the intellectual authority of any thinker if truths arrived at by the understanding should make necessary any adjustments in our arguments. Nevertheless, that it is for Kant the understanding, and not experiment, that persuades us of these truths, puts him in the opposition as regards the empirical method associated with Newton's Challenge. Many of the questions which will preoccupy Kant throughout his life are first raised in the True Estimation1 and developed through the Physical Monadology and the New Elucidation. Kant's early writing in metaphysics and science address in particular the metaphysical concepts of bodies, the relation of space and force, and the origin of order. In relation to the last of these the Universal Natural History also expands, in an extraordinary work, Kant's thoughts on metaphysical force and order.

1 Schnfeld seems to separate the True Estimation from the pre-Critical project proper (2000:19). He argues that, though the themes and arguments which develop through the pre-Critical period are present, the True Estimation does not articulate the same determined project as the works that followed. However, It's difficult to understand how such a separation can be made given the clear Newtonian influence that evident throughout in the True Estimation, and the continuity of concerns which running from the work right through the pre-Critical period.

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Substantial Force

Newton's work has shown the method by which it is possible to begin from phenomena and proceed, with the aid of mathematics, to the most general principles of physics. It is evident from Kant's earliest work that he saw the power and strength of Newton's Challenge, at the same time as he was aware of the philosophical questions that still remained. Newton could give no cause for the universal force which all of his empirical and mathematical work proposed. Kant's True Estimation is not a work on the force of gravity, but instead proposes to define the metaphysical concepts of the forces of bodies in general (Ak.1:17/2012a:22). From the very beginning of Kant's work then, it is clear that he would never agree to separation of metaphysics and science, or indeed to the priority of the empirical over the metaphysical. In the Physical Monadology Kant states that Metaphysics, [...] which many say may be properly absent from physics is, in fact, its only support; it alone provides illumination (Ak.1:475/1992b:51). Kant's opposition to the empiricists is compounded when he begins his metaphysical definition with a reference to the Aristotlean entelechy. In Newtonian physics bodies are defined exclusively by their geometric extension, their mass and their motion. The extension of a body requires no further explanation. Kant, on the contrary, is concerned to explain extension by force. In seeking to do so Kant continues his definition with an endorsement for the Leibnizean concept of force inherent to matter: [I]n corporeal things there is something over and above extension, in fact, something prior to extension (Leibniz, 1989b:118). In so doing Kant, again, stands in opposition to the empiricists and comes down firmly on one side of the argument which surrounded forces. Apart from the vis viva debate2, the question of the relation of force and bodies was the subject of much debate. Newton himself denied inherent force. Since, however, his demonstration of gravity strongly suggested action at a distance and repeatedly made reference to the force of bodies, the question of force remained. Kant's intervention in this argument is marked by a criticism of any solely empiricist approach to the question. The concept of external force, communicated from outside, is arrived at only if one looks no further than to what the senses teach (Ak.1:17/2012a:22). The senses, for Kant, cannot be the universal measure of metaphysical truth. The distinction between phenomenal appearance available to empiricism and metaphysical truth available to the understanding is behind his distinction of motion and force. If motion is considered synonymous

2 Leibniz' concept of vis viva measured force according to the equation f=mv2. Newton and Descartes on the other hand measured force by f=mv. Modern mechanics understands the first as a statement of the conservation of kinetic energy and the latter as the conservation of momentum.

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with force then a body at rest will be thought of as without force. The apparent inactivity of a body at rest belies the fact that, according to Kant and following Leibniz, its extension is produced by the relations of substantial force. Kant's metaphysics of these forces depart significantly from Leibniz' own however.

Despite endorsing the Leibnizean concept of inherent force, Kant's treatment of force throughout the pre-Critical work also poses a profound challenge to Leibnizean metaphysics. The activity of Kant's force is the power of a substance to determine other substances. In Leibinzean dynamics the monads determine themselves internally. The pre-established harmony of the system of monads guarantees that each is affected as it would be by the others, in spite of the fact that they never act outside of themselves. Kant's substantial forces on the other hand act reciprocally on each other, and by their conjoined activity determine one another. Such a concept of substantial force entails an entirely different concept of causality. When Kant proposes that all connection and relation of separately existing substances is due to the reciprocal actions that their forces exert on each other (Ak.1:21/2012a:25) he directly contradicts Leibniz's internal and self-determining concept of force. The isolation of the windowless monads means that they require require no substances which act on each other. Such action Leibniz found incomprehensible. He argued, particularly against Descartes, that the impression of certain qualities from one substance to another, even of the same type, was impossible. Such interaction, causality by physical influx, would require the transmission of qualities or accidents from one substance to another. The way of influence [physical influx] is that of common philosophy, but as we cannot conceive of material particles which may pass from one of these substances into the other, this view must be abandoned (Leibniz, 1890:90). In his desire for a metaphysical concept of force Kant's adoption a Leibnizean concept of inherent substantial force is comprehensible. The question remains, however, for what reason Kant would contradict Leibniz on the issue of physical influx.

Physical Influx

In the New Elucidation Kant presents his fullest arguments for the rejection of pre-established harmony. The third section begins with the proposition that: No change can happen to substances except in so far as they are connected with other substances; their reciprocal

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dependency on each other determines their reciprocal changes of state (Ak.1:410/1992b:37). The proposition reiterates his opposition to Leibniz on causation, and in the section that follows Kant presents three arguments in support of this. Kant's first argument against the pre-established harmony holds that causally isolated substances are incapable of change. This argument is based on the understanding that an isolated substance contains within itself its own determination, but for change to be possible new grounds for determination must be introduced. The second arguments holds that whatever is determined by determining ground is posited simultaneously with that determining ground. Change is successive, and Kant argues that any causally isolated substance would be fully determined and incapable of change without the introduction of new determining grounds. Finally, Kant's third argument holds that the unchanging grounds of any causally isolated substance could not be responsible for change. Kant's arguments against the isolation of substances depends upon a concept of substantial force as the ground for the determination of particular entities. At its most basic, force might determine the extension and since the extension of a body presupposes its existence in space position of a body. So far, Kant and Leibniz are in agreement. However, if some new determination is impressed upon that body, Kant will argue that it must be imposed from outside by a new determining ground. Leibniz, on the other hand, holds that the determining ground was placed in the substance at its creation. For Kant, it is not the determination of change which effects new motions or qualities in a body but a change of determination. Since determinations are effected simultaneously with their determining grounds, new determinations must always be introduced that were not present prior to the change.

Newton candidly admits at the end of the Principia that though the force of gravity must proceed from a cause whose effects the work has demonstrated, he has been unable to discover that cause. By Newton's own definition it is questionable whether his method would ever be able to discover anything about a cause whose effects are physical but whose activity is no object to the senses, since it penetrates all matter and extends across vast regions of space without the least diminution of power. The phenomenal effects of gravity have been explained, but the force which causes the motion of the heavens and the seas cannot be discovered by simply describing further phenomenal effects. Kant's desire to specifying the metaphysical concepts of force demonstrates a direct intervention in the scientific project, an attempt to do what Newton could not. To this end his engagement with Leibniz provides a metaphysics of force, and a speculative counterpoint to Newton's empiricism. But Kant's synthesis of these

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ideas brings Newton to Leibniz as much as it brings Leibniz to Newton.

Laws of Motion

Micheal Friedman argues that in the pre-Critical work, especially the True Estimation, Kant introduces the second law of motion to a metaphysics of substantial force (1992:5). It is not only Newton's second law that is apparent in Kant's early work, however. The effects of all three laws of motion can be traced in Kant's development of the metaphysical concept force. Kant's attempts to introduce empirical concepts to his metaphysics often, however, raise more questions than they answer.

In the True Estimation Kant explains that inasmuch as a body acts, it endeavours to attain the state in which it does not act (Ak.1:18/2012a:23). The comparison with Newton's formulation of the law of inertia is illuminating. Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon (Newton, 1846:83). While Newton's focus is the uniformity of a body's motion or rest and the change effected by the impression of new forces, Kant's is on the activity of forces in the attainment of equilibrium. A body in uniform motion across ideal empty space, just as a body at rest, is efficaciously inactive. Judged empirically, it holds no relation to any other body and is therefore subject to no relations of force. However, Kant's adoption of entelechy the force active in the maintenance of a body's simplest determinations makes even such an apparently inactive body the product of forces in tension. There would be no body if at least two forces were not acting on one another. It is to the tension of these forces which Kant is referring when he speaks of the state in which it does not act (Ak.1:18/2012a:23). Kant's response to the law of inertia is complex. His force metaphysics take seriously Newton's proposition that Every body perseveres (1846:83). The metaphysical concept of force active in the production of bodies which Kant develops in the pre-Critical period means that even inertia is result of the activity of force. In the True Estimation this is explicit, but Kant also distinguishes living and dead force. Dead force determines a body externally, while living force is the ability of a body to determine itself (Ak.1:28/2012a:30-31). That a body could determine, for example, its own motion clearly contradicts Newton. By the Physical Monadology, however, Kant makes no mention of the living force and inertia becomes a simple

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property of the elements of which a body is composed. The conceptual tension of a body's necessary determination by reciprocally acting substances and inner determination of a body becomes more pronounced in Kant's work on organisation, and runs into the Critical period.

Kant's separation of substantial force from the pre-established harmony of the monads makes the relations of force reciprocal. [A]ll connection and relation of separately existing substances is due to the reciprocal actions that their forces exert on each other (Ak.1:21/2012a:25). It is for this reason that Friedman argues that Kant has thus imported Newton's second law of motion into the very heart of the monadology (1992:5). Newton's second law states that the force active between bodies is determined in proportion to the relationship of their masses. This relation is an external one, since the bodies exist independently in space, and the force active between them is impressed. The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed (Newton, 1846:83). The influence of Newton's third law on Kant's work is an extension of the second. The equality of action an reaction is difficult to measure in Kant, since his forces are not measured quantitatively, but the mutual action of bodies on each other is a further part of Kant's rejection of pre-established harmony.

Kant's Principle of Succession, that changes in determination require new determining grounds, is central to his rejection of pre-established harmony. In relation to Newton's Laws of Motion, however, it is uncertain if anything about the mechanics is irreconcilable with Leibniz's metaphysics. Leibniz himself did not consider mechanical physics incompatible with his metaphysics of substance. Instead, he distinguished the phenomena of physics from the activity of substances which are non-identical to the material they precede. [W]e acknowledge that all corporeal phenomena can be derived from efficient and mechanical causes, but we understand that these very mechanical laws as a whole are derived from higher reasons (Leibniz, 1989a:126). It is interesting to note that a synthesis of mechanical physics and pre-established harmony could be used to explain action at a distance. This is not the direction that Kant takes, however, and his introduction of physical influx remains problematic. On possible reason for Kant's development physical influx, in contrast to Leibniz, is suggested by Newtonian force relations. While the transmission of qualities was inconceivable for Leibniz, what is transmitted in the relation of gravitational attraction is not quality but quantity of force. Again, however, such speculation is undermined when we recall Leibniz' understand of the relation of mechanical physics and substance metaphysics. [W]e can readily conceive emissions and

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receptions of parts in matter, by which we can reasonably explain all the phenomena of physics mechanically. But [...] material mass is not a substance (Leibniz, 1989b:145). Physical influx is quite conceivable for Leibniz at the level of material interaction, but still not at the level of substantial forces active prior to material extension. Kant's rejection of pre-established harmony must, therefore, be based on a rejection of Leibniz' metaphysics of causality. The necessity of new grounds for new determinations makes succession an integral part of force metaphysics. The contingency this introduces to force relations themselves marks one of the most serious questions of Kant's early work: What is the origin of organisation?

Organisation

One of the consequences of Kant's rejection of pre-established harmony is that contingency becomes a feature of the relations of force. Bodies consist of parts, [] the composition of such parts is nothing but a relation, and hence a determination which is in itself contingent, (Ak.1:477/1992b:53). This contingency is not limited only to the arrangement of extended bodies, but even to the dimensions of extension. The extension of bodies and even their position in space is a product of the reciprocal action of substances on one another. In the True Estimation Kant argues that when we analyze the concept of what we call location, we find that it suggests the actions of substances on one another (Ak.1:21/2012a:25); in the New Elucidation: place, position, and space are relations of substances (Ak.1:414 /1992a:42); and in the Physical Monadology: space is not a substance but a certain appearance of the external relation of substances (Ak.1:480/1992b:57). This much is in line with Leibniz's relative space and contrary to the Newtonian concept of absolute space. Kant goes further than Leibniz, however. In such a system of substance relations an isolated substance will be a real, but not actual entity (Ak1.:21-22/2012a:25). More than this, there is no necessity to the tri-dimensionality of our world. It is possible not only that other worlds exist, but also that these worlds exist in different dimensions to our own (Ak.1:25/2012a:28). Such a metaphysical proliferation represents yet another challenge to Leibniz' pre-established harmony and any concept of the best of all possible worlds. But the contingency of the relations of substance is a problem as regards Newton also. For what reason do we observe only three dimensions and why are bodies attracted by a force determined by the inverse square of their distance?

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In the True Estimation Kant specifies a dependent series of relations in the metaphysics of force. It is easy to show that there would be no space and no extension if substances had no force to act external to themselves. For without this force there is no connection, without connection, no order, and, finally, without order, no space (Ak. 1:23/2012a:23). Force connects substances, the connection of these substances brings order, and consequent to this order relations of space appear. Kant argues that the force essential to substances in the actually existing world of which we are a part have some property which determines their relations appear in three-dimensional extension. The determination of this property, and the inverse square law, are arbitrary and a different world would be manifest if these properties themselves differed (Ak. 1:24/2012a:27-28).Kant's argument in the True Estimation has much in common with the anthropic principle. Although the properties of substances may vary and other worlds may exist, that we observe a world of three-dimensions can be attributed simply to the fact that we are neither present in, nor capable of imagining, a world of more or less dimensions. If the appearance of ordered spatial extension is contingent, however, for what reason does it appear at all?

In the Universal Natural History Kant makes a more robust attempt to explain the origin of order in the actually existing world of our observations. In the opening to the second part Kant considers two theories as regards the organisation of our solar system. Either our solar is arranged by a single pervasive cause which determines each element, or it was arranged by God. Kant, in fact, provides Newton as an example of the design argument:

Newton could not allow any material cause that would maintain the community of motions by extending it into the realm of the planetary system. He asserted that the direct hand of God had arranged this order without the application of the forces of nature (Ak.1:262/2012b:226-7, emphasis added)

Kant claims that the evidence for both theories is equally strong and that both are certainly true. That he works to synthesise the two suggests, however, that separately he sees some problem in them. The final part of his comment on Newton's theological argument shows where he felt the fault to lie. If God has the power to arrange things without the application of force, then God is a supernatural being. This in itself is not problematic but it significantly complicates any attempt to systematically define the metaphysics of natural science, and this is the project in which Kant is engaged. The preface to the Universal Natural History is

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remarkable for Kant's repeated declarations of his piousness, pre-emptively deflecting any accusation of atheism. Such a defence would only be necessary if Kant was aware that his work contained elements which some might interpret as atheist. Despite his insistence that God is an absolutely necessary part of his system, the cosmology which he presents is one in which the order and organisation of our cosmos is a process of the essential forces of matter.

The nebular hypothesis which Kant puts forward imagines a past in which the matter of the solar system was unevenly distributed across space. The force of attraction inherent to all matter brought together the celestial bodies. Nature, however, has still other forces (Ak.1:264/2012b:228), specifically the elastic or repulsive force developed earlier in the Physical Monadology. These other forces are responsible for the deflection of matter from a straight descent into a common centre (which would be the collapse of all matter), and into orbital motions around a common centre. The synthesis which Kant suggests possible between inherent organising force and imposed supernatural design comes in the unity of all causal forces in God's understanding.

All beings are related as a result of one cause, which is the understanding of God; therefore they can have no consequences other than those that include a representation of perfection in that very same divine idea (Ak.1:294/2012b:251)

For Newton, God is infinite and eternal, enduring and present and constitutes duration and space (Newton, 1846:505). Space and duration are also, somewhat cryptically, God's Sensorium (Newton, 2010:403). Nonetheless, Newton also denies the possibility of any knowledge of God in the same way that he denies the possibility of knowing the true metaphysical cause of gravity.

[The] inward substances [of bodies] are not to be known either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds: much less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God. We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes (1846:506)

Kant's speculative metaphysics will not be limited by any merely empirical methodology, however, and the possibility of final causes will come to be central in his complex relation to Newton's work. In the Universal Natural History it is the self-forming nature (Ak.1:264/ 2012b:228) inherent to matter that brings about the beautifully organised system of planets,

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and the hospitable conditions of our own world.

That Kant does claim to synthesise the self-forming forces of matter with God's design problematizes his own criticism of Leibniz pre-established harmony. Kant's central criticsm was based on the necessary succession of causal grounds in determining change. The eternal and unchanging grounds inherent to Leibniz's monads Kant argued were incapable of effecting any new determination. Now, a determining ground has been introduced which totally determines all consequent grounds. Matter, which is the original material of all things, is thus bound by certain laws, and if it is left freely to these laws, it must necessarily bring forth beautiful combinations. It is not at liberty to deviate from this plan of perfection (Ak.1:228/2012b:109). Kant himself appears aware of this tension in the work, as he continually attempts to reconcile the perfection of creation with the contingent and chaotic deviation of the actually observed system. The solar system is not a system of spheres in circles on a plane, it is a system of oblate spheroids in ellipses at varying angles. It is always some disturbance or interfering effect which causes this deviation from true harmony. In fact the very basis of Kant's nebular hypothesis is undermined by his own argument. If the determining ground of all appearance is God's perfection, why did matter originate in chaos and why must the actualisation of perfection be determined successively?

Kant's attempt to provide a metaphysical concepts of the forces of bodies in general (Ak.1:17 /2012a:22) seeks to do what Newton claimed science could not. Kant's project is speculative and indebted to the metaphysical work of Leibniz, but it is also equally informed by the propositions of mechanical science. Considering the first claim of Newton's Challenge, that mechanics must be consulted in the process of doing metaphysics, few better metaphysicians could be found than Kant. The pre-Critical work is scientifically literate and concerned to contribute meaningfully to scientific discourse. Yet nothing would ever induce Kant to submit to the second claim of Newton's Challenge, that mechanics is epistemologically prior to metaphysics. On the contrary, Kant argues that metaphysics is the only support of natural science. It is true that Kant's pre-Critical work does not yet have the sophisticated transcendental epistemology of his Critical project and he gives little explanation of the methodology for natural science. Nevertheless, his speculative metaphysics is never divorced from empirical considerations and the appearance of phenomena is as important as the metaphysical activity of forces. In relation the third claim of Newton's challenge, that

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mechanics can resolve debates in philosophy, Kant does not recognise the distinction. Mechanics is a part of natural philosophy and the introduction of its proposition to metaphysical project are sign of the broadening project of scientific knowledge. Newton and Leibniz are equals as the influences on Kant's work and, despite their different ideas and methods, there is nothing in Kant's work to suggest that he ever considered their work to be in any way separated. That Kant likewise would never assent to the fourth claim of Newton's challenge is clear in the way in which Kant repeatedly challenges mechanics with the truths of metaphysics. Neither method has privileged status or monopoly on truth claims. What method and understanding the practice of natural philosophy might make use of becomes a central element to Kant's later work. The questions of force, substance, space, body and organisation that Kant has addressed in the pre-Critical period are transformed in the Critical work.

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Kant's Critical Response

Kant's interest in natural science did not diminish in the Critical period. Indeed, the influence of mechanics, and Newton in particular, is evident throughout the Critical project. The work that Kant had done in the pre-Critical period was not abandoned, but reconsidered and transformed. The synthesis of design and teleology that Kant attempts in the Universal Natural History becomes in the Critical work an antinomy that condenses the core of the metaphysical difficulties that Kant has worked on in relation to Newton. In the First Critique Kant famously dismisses the ontological argument for the proof of God's existence. In the sections that follow he considers also the cosmological and the physico-theological arguments, and rejects them too for their implicit use of the ontological argument. The physico-theological proof, which argues from the beauty and purposiveness of the world, can never establish the existence of the highest being alone, but must always leave it up to the ontological proof (CPR:A642/B652; 1998:580). The result is that teleology and design become regulative principles, the application of which in science or metaphysics can only be an as if explanation and never a true cause. The question of the origin of organisation returns then with force. The categories of Kant's transcendental deduction seek to ground an empirical understanding the application of which is found in mechanical science. Stated in the Third Critique the antinomy of judgement makes clear the tension inherent in a purely mechanical understanding and the actually observed organisation of the world:

[1.] [] All production of material things and their forms must be judged to be possible in terms of merely mechanical laws.

[2.] [] Some products of material nature cannot be judged to be possible in terms of merely mechanical laws (Ak.5:387/1987:267).

The antinomy of is based on three elements as Kant defines them: judgement, matter, and production. Kant's transcendental treatment of these elements is central to his Critical response to Newton's Challenge.

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First Description of Matter

Perhaps the greatest change from the pre-Critical to the Critical period is Kant's distinction of formal and material nature. Nature in the material sense is the totality of all appearances (Ak.4:318/ 2004:69). Nature in the formal sense is the totality of rules under which all appearances must stand if they are to be thought as connected in an experience (Ak.4:318/2004a:70). In regard to the laws of nature Kant also distinguishes empirical laws of nature, which always presuppose particular perceptions [] [and] the pure or universal laws of nature, which, without having a basis in particular perceptions, contain merely the conditions of their necessary unification in an experience (Ak.4:320/2004a:71). Kant's transcendental project, which aims at an a priori demonstration of the necessary conditions of the possibility of experience, requires that our sensible intuitions be brought by our judgements under the categories of the understanding. Matter is the subject of outer intuition as it is synthesized from the manifold of phenomena and material nature is the sum total of appearances (CPR:A419/B447; 1998:466). Any thoroughgoing description of matter is dependent from the start on the cognitive structure of the subject, since in order for it to be the object of a determinate judgement it must be in agreement with the categories. A first determination of matter by the categories is given in the the Analogies of Experience in the First Critique. The analogies describe three relations of phenomena in time: persistence, succession and simultaneity. From these Kant draws out the necessary form of empirical cognition.

First, while all appearances change in time, objects persist. Therefore there must be a persistent substance of which all changing appearances are accidents. Substance persists as the the substratum of all other relations in time. What persists is an object to which every change belongs as accidents in the Aristotelian sense. Second, there is a temporal successions of prior and subsequent event. These alterations are connected as cause and effect. Following Hume, Kant says that we have no experience of cause and effect, but the temporal succession of our perceptions and that which in general precedes an occurrence provides the conditions for a rule in accordance with which this occurrence always and necessarily follows (CPR:A238/B193; 1998:307). The always successive synthesis of the manifold of experience presupposes the appearances that will follow from those actually experienced. Third, the manifold of sensible intuition contains within it a plurality of substantial appearances and so far as these appear simultaneously (in one apprehension) they exist in relation to one another. This community of

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objects guaranties the coherence of our perception and their continuity in space and time. The analogies of the First Critique are highly abstract. In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, however, Kant expands upon the empirical use of the categories in order to make the transition from a priori deduction to metaphysical application in natural science.

Presented in explicitly Newtonian language the fullest definition of matter is given in four propositions on the foundations of mechanics:

[1.] Matter is the movable insofar as it, as such a thing, has moving force(Ak.4:536/ 2004b:75).

[2.] In all changes of corporeal nature the total quantity of matter remains the same, neither increased nor diminished (Ak.4:541/2004b:80),

[3.] Every change in matter has an external cause (Ak.4:543/2004b:82),

[4.] In all communication of motion, action and reaction are always equal to oneanother (Ak.4:544/2004b:84)

It is clear that the propositions of mechanical science are further specifications of the categories of relation. Here substance, succession and simultaneity find empirical application as the necessary foundation of natural science which is specifically Newtonian3. The specification of the categories for application to in an empirical program of natural science finds a detailed determination of material bodies and a description of certain regularities in their relation. The distinction made between formal and material nature is important here. While the formal laws of experience given in the categories have a priori necessity in order that the manifold of 3 Indeed, Michael Friedman argues that Kant's mechanical propositions can be mapped to the principles of

Newtonian mechanics:

CPR Categories (of relation) MF Proposition Newtonian LawInherence and Subsistence Proposition 2: 1st Law1st Analogy: Substance Persists Persistence of Matter Law of Inertia

Causality and Dependence Proposition 3: 2nd Law2nd Analogy: Cause and Effect External Cause F=ma

Community Proposition 4: Equality 3rd Law: Equality3rd Analogy: Simultaneity of Action and Reaction of Action and

Reaction

Though the mapping of Kantian propositions to Newtonian laws is not exact, the correlation of basic metaphysical principles is instructive.

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phenomenal appearance be cognitively intuitable, the empirical laws of material nature enjoy only a posteriori necessity. In so far as they describe regularities found throughout material nature and are, in theory, universally applicable, no transcendental argument can be given a priori why the laws of material nature should be so and not otherwise.

Kant's Critical work aims to provide a structured philosophical approach to first, the possibility of experience which is grounded in the necessary formal nature of the transcendental subject; second, the metaphysical application of the categories which determines what matter as the object of our outer intuitions can be; and finally, the description of empirical laws of the regularities apparent in material nature as the sum total of appearances. The propositions of mechanics describe this material nature. Propositions two and four introduce the conservation of matter from a substantial basis, and the community of mobile substantial bodies. Proposition one gives the description of matter as movable and having force. The nature of the relation of force to matter, whether external or inherent, is tension in Kant's work which is central to the problem of Kant's recommendations for natural science. Directly related to this, proposition three introduces the concept of a necessarily external cause. The necessity of extra-material origin of efficacious change, which follows from the categories of relation, profoundly impacts on the concept of nature. Kant's work from transcendental deduction through metaphysical determination to empirical application gives a concept of nature is divided between a material nature, which is the subject of natural science, and formal nature which grounds the possibility of the material. Kant's foundations for natural science therefore determine that it deals with substantial bodies, dependent on external forces for all change, and existing in a community of relations with all other bodies.

Mechanical Matter

The system of natural bodies described by Kant in the Critical work has developed from the concerns of the pre-Critical work. The metaphysics of substance still underlies the physics of material bodies, but in the transcendental philosophy the activity of force between these substances can no longer be dogmatically accepted. The genealogy of the categories of inherence and substance, causality and dependence, and community can be seen in Kant' earliest work on metaphysics. His development of Leibnizean dynamics and the criticisms put to

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Leibniz' pre-established harmony are still evident in the Critical work:

[E]ach substance (since it can be a consequence only with regard to its determinations) must simultaneously contain the causality of certain determinations in the other and the effects of the causality of the other, i.e., they must stand in dynamical community (immediately or mediately) if their simultaneity is to be cognized in any possible experience (CPR:A212-3/B259; 1997:318)

The focus of the metaphysics of substances now, however, is of a formal nature as it relates to the necessary relations of experience. With the transcendental work Kant has made the metaphysics of substance the foundation of empirical practice, and the possibility of answering the questions of the causal foundations of such a science is significantly complicated. The force that acted between substances cannot, in the transcendental schema, be a proper object of knowledge. Persistent substantial bodies, as object which can be brought under a category, are objects properly understood in the Kantian sense. Yet while the relation of appearances under the categories give certain concepts of cause, effect, and relation, there is no object of our perception which corresponds to these concepts. The experience of succession gives no direct cognitive intuition of cause and effect, just as simultaneity is not directly a cognitive intuition of relation. Empirical laws describe the regularities of phenomenal nature, but experience gives no reason for these regularities. The methodological impossibility of Newton's work giving a cause for the force of gravity has been transcendentalised and now afflicts Kant's work also.

The related problem of the dualism of body and force also now affects Kant's work. The definition of matter determined in the understanding gives us a inert substance dependent on external an principle for its changes. Kant has abandoned the entelechy and fully adopted the Newtonian concept of inertia. The inertia of matter is, and means, nothing else than its lifelessness (Ak.4:544/2004:83). The lifelessness of matter imposes upon it the necessity of an additional principle to effect any change. Newton admits as much himself: It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate on and affect other matter (Newton, 2004:102). If the forces of change are different in kind from the bodies on which they act how is effective communication to be explained between metaphysically distinct things? This again is a problem experienced by Newton whose detractors targeted the action at a distance of the force of gravity and instead posited some medium of communication. How is the force of gravity transmitted instantly

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through the void without a substantial carrier? However, the interaction problem recurs even with the addition of a medium of gravity. The force acting between bodies is a function of their extensive, massive, and motive properties. Even assuming that a substantial medium in common with that which forms the substrate of material properties permeates every point in space we must find some way of explaining how the the properties of bodies may be communicated in a non-extended, zero-mass and immobile way. A medium for force would share only the substantial substratum of bodies and could not share any other property of matter without become another material body. A material medium of force, however finely distributed, would effect material systems as another body leading once again to the problem of the communication of force.

The principle of succession formed a central part of Kant's argument against pre-established harmony. For changes in determination to be possible new grounds of determination must be successively introduced. Yet, if the dynamics of transcendental substance ground only a mechanical physics, the possibility of genuine temporal succession is called into question. The persistence of substantial bodies, their relations of cause and effect and their community all describe transcendentally necessary relations which are the same everywhere at every time. The empirical laws given by mechanical materialism, as they are based on metaphysical determinations are in no way probabilistic, indeterminate or capable of self-determination. They are precise functions of material systems describable in exact mathematical terms. This is the problem of Laplace's demon. Given a complete description of the cosmos at any time the positions, extensions and motions of every cosmic body a complete description of the cosmos at all times is possible. Such a demonic vision may be unavailable to humans, yet philosophically this raises serious questions, including the reason for the appearance of temporal nature. Atemporal mechanics contradicts metaphysically what is transcendentally necessary; i.e. succession. The problem of time is also connected to questions of the origin and development of material nature. This is a problem present in Kant's antinomy of judgement which enquires about the production of material things. Yet is production possible at all in mechanical terms? This is a problem recognised by Kant in his discussion of a watchmaker. Clocks and orraries, exemplary as mechanical systems, function according to precise laws, but they do not build themselves. Although the production of complex systems from determinate mechanical laws has been argued for4 it is something which Kant explicitly rejects.

4 Most often by compatabilists arguing for free will within a mechanical material concept of nature.

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The problem of the origin and production of mechanical systems cuts to the heart of Kant's antinomy of judgement, especially regarding the possibility of natural science. The determinate relations described by mechanics are brute facts. Observations are described properly according to the empirical application of the categories. Unifiable observations are understood as common exemplifications of certain determinate relations and laws governing these phenomena are described. Yet there remain questions of reason for which no transcendental argument can be given. Why do we experience these laws and not others? What is the origin of these laws? It is here that transcendental philosophy draws a line. No true object of cognitive intuition can come from the ideas of reason and these questions regarding the form of the appearance of material nature is beyond either empirical or transcendental investigation. It is here that we must remember the restraint placed on our investigation into material nature: the persistence, causes and relations of which we speak are appearances only and objects as they are in-themselves are beyond our capacity to know. We may suppose Kant's answer to our questions, drawn from his claimed solution to the antinomy of judgement: there is an indeterminate concept, an idea of reason, a supersensible substrate of appearances in which these questions are resolved but to which we can have no access. Kant's suggestion that we judge purposive form on the assumption of a will that would have so arranged them in accordance with the presentation of a certain rule (1987, 65) refers to the supersensible ideas of God and freedom as the substrate for natural purposiveness. Although this maxim is given in the context of purposive forms for which we can see no mechanical origin it is equally applicable to mechanical systems since any sufficiently complex mechanical arrangement is by Kant's admission inexplicable on mechanical grounds. The purposiveness of nature is not only a question of beautiful and complex living beings, but also of the organised form of mechanical nature. Newton makes this point explicit: The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent agent (2004, 95). The thesis of Kant's antinomy of judgement is fraught with contradictions even before the antithesis.

Despite the predictive and engineering successes of mechanical science, and despite the work that Kant has done to ground natural science, we are ultimately left with a philosophically troubling situation. The assumption that the world purposively formed is the way it would appear if an intelligent will had so formed it applies not only to teleological nature but also to

Conway's Game of Life is the favoured demonstration of this.

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mechanical nature. Mechanical material has been defined in a project running from transcendental deduction to metaphysical and empirical application. Yet questions of reason come back unsettle our empirical investigations. Nature is divided, first formally and materially, and subsequently material nature is divided in a dualism of bodies and forces the problems of which cannot be resolved, except by appeal to a supersensible substrate beyond nature and well beyond the capacity of either philosophy or science to know. There is however, within Kant's work an alternative concept of nature which suggests a different kind of science.

Dynamic Matter

While Kant's antinomy of judgement divides mechanical nature from apparently purposive products of nature he does also recognise the problem of the production of mechanical systems. Machines for Kant have only motive force (1987, 253) and thus he should be in agreement with Newton regarding the impossibility of the origin of our organised solar system on mechanical grounds. Yet, the difficulty of the antinomy, and perhaps also the feeling that its solution is unsatisfactory, comes from the work that Kant has done in attempting to form a concept of nature containing more than mere mechanism.

In his discussion of natural purposes and organised beings Kant contrasts the motive force of mechanical systems to a formative force of organized systems. A formative force propagates itself and is capable of forming organised wholes. Kant makes two requirements of an organised systems: first, the possibility of its parts (as it concerns both their existence and their form) must depend on their relation to the whole (1987, 252); and second, the parts of a thing combine into the unity of the whole because they are reciprocally cause and effect of their form (1987, 252). In contrast to the substantial bodies of mechanical science, no element of a system of in which the parts determine the unity is self-sufficient. No simple description of any entity in abstract isolation is possible since entities in a such a system are products of the inter-relations among every element in the system. The order of a system expresses the character of existent elements which are jointly composed by their mutual communication.

There is in Kant's early work, as we have seen, the basis for a system of reciprocally active forces determining unities that runs counter to his own final pronouncements on the impossibility of a physical purposes. Even in the Critical work there is an argument from

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physical necessity for forces as immanent. Newton sided with his critics when questioned as to whether a body described by it's extension, mass and motion is exhaustively defined and in need of an imposed force to account for any change. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter [] is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it (Newton, 2004:102). Yet, as we have seen, to reject the force of gravity as inherent to matter is only possible in a dualist system whose problems competent philosophers have struggled with for millennia. Perhaps aware of this Kant criticised Newton for not being Newtonian enough (Friedman 1992:139), arguing that by denying gravity as essential to matter he is at variance with himself (Ak.4:515/2004:54). In the chapter prior to the mechanics in the Metaphysical Foundations, Kant attempts again a description of matter which is dynamic. Here, just as it was in the Universal Natural History, matter is considered as the product of two opposing forces in tension. The first force is repulsive, which accounts for a bodies resistance to the imposition or penetration of other bodies. The second, less easy to account for by appeal to our outward senses, is attractive. Kant derives this force from a physical necessity in relation to the first attractive force. Any force exerted outward would continue to expand unopposed, filling space until it encountered a force in the opposite direction. In such a system of forces there would be no void, only matter filling every part of space, and if the forces were in equilibrium there would be no change. Instead Kant's posits a second attractive force of matter which holds the first in check and maintaining the stable and extended character of bodies in a tension of inherent forces. The first interesting thing about the dynamic description of matter is the reversal of the discovery of forces. In the Universal Natural History the attractive force of gravity is taken as demonstrated. It is the repulsive force which Kant speculates in addition to Newton's. In the Metaphysical Foundations the repulsive force is confirmed by our senses, the impenetrability of matter being an object of knowledge for the transcendental subject. It is the attractive force which is more difficult to confirm by experience. The second interesting thing about Kant's Critical dynamic is the way in which Kant arrives at it. The first repulsive force is posited in order to avoid the problems of atomic matter5 and to include elasticity in the description of matter. The repulsive force is relatively easy to understand phenomenologically and is therefore permissible as a metaphysical principal. The attractive force on the other hand does not present itself so immediately to the senses as impenetrability, so as to furnish us with

5 Kant criticised the Atomists for describing a matter which cannot be compressed or divided, and for claiming that atoms had geometrical shapes to which no sensible intuition was possible.

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concepts of determinate objects in space (2004, 50-1). Nevertheless, based on the physical consequences of an unbalanced force of repulsion Kant introduces the attractive to hold the first in check. The exciting possibility of matter as a product of forces is given away however, when in the mechanics the categories come back to impose upon matter the necessity of external force for change, denying once again any inherent power to matter.

Critical Physics

Our first definition of matter in a mechanical system was composed of