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Kant as Philosopher of Science
- Perspectives on Science
- The MIT Press
- Volume 12, Number 3, Fall 2004
- pp. 339-363
- Article
- Additional Information
Michael Friedman's Kant and the Exact Sciences (1992) refocused scholarly attention on Kant's status as a philosopher of the sciences, especially (but not exclusively) of the broadly Newtonian science of the eighteenth century. The last few years have seen a plethora of articles and monographs concerned with characterizing that status. This recent scholarship illuminates Kant's views on a diverse group of topics: science and its relation to metaphysics; dynamics and the theory of matter; causation and Hume's critique of it; and, the limits of mechanism and of mechanical intelligibility. I argue that recent interpretations of Kant's views on these topics should influence our understanding of his principal metaphysical and epistemological arguments and positions.