Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (abbreviation MAN) is the title of a book by the philosopher Immanuel Kant It appeared in 1786, one year before the publication of the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason ( CPR ).

The book is the application of the developed CPR in the principles of human knowledge to the field of physics. Already in the CPR Kant had said that it is not a question of a philosophical system, but a " Treatise on Method". The MAN is an application of this method. They show how the principles of a priori knowledge are valid as conditions of the possibility of knowledge of nature. Kant was based on the assumption that the proposals formulated by Isaac Newton laws pose an actual description of nature. Accordance with the division of the categories Kant searched for the principles that underlie the physics a priori. The premise underlying the MAN says, exercise is the basic determination of sensible objects. Therefore, the concept of matter must be examined in relation to the four category areas contained therein. Kant developed according to four areas of investigation.

• I. movement than quantity is phoronomy Direction and velocity indicate the relative position of an object in space.

• II movement as quality is dynamic. Attraction and repulsion are the basics of space filling. The attraction is the force of gravity. Kant ( not, as is often claimed, Newton ) first formulated the concept of instantaneous action at a distance. In the second main event " dynamic " (a term of Leibniz, see the Specimen Dynamicum of 1695), Kant writes in " P7 ": " The main attraction of all matter is a direct effect of the same to others through the empty space ."

• III. Movement of the relation is mechanics. As a rough analogy to Newton Kant formulated three basic principles of mechanics.

• IV movement as a modality is phenomenology. Modality with respect to the material is being investigated as a possible object of the experience.

Kant regarded physics as " rigorous science ." This he joined the view that the principles of physics are completely and undeniably represented in a mathematical formulation. In Kant's Opus postumum there are records that show that he did not consider the principles set out in the MAN as final. In practice the principles of MAN have only little attention. In particular, since the establishment of the theory of relativity and quantum physics Kant's reflections on the basic principles of physics are considered obsolete.