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The Development of Kant's Conception of Scientific Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Edward MacKinnon
Edward MacKinnon*
Affiliation:
California State University-Hayward
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Extract

Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is undoubtedly the most neglected and misunderstood of all his major works. It should, I believe, be interpreted as an attempted rational reconstruction of the mechanics of Newton and Euler. What Kant attempted to reconstruct, however, were the conceptual foundations of science rather than the logical structure. The reasons for this as well as the particular way in which it was done can best be understood in the light of Kant's own philosophical development. In summarizing this I will focus on two interrelated issues: Kant's concept of matter, which changed somewhat in the course of his long development; and his interpretation of scientific explanation, which changed considerably.

Kant's earliest concerns with scientific explanation involved three aspects of interest here: Christian Wolff's (1679-1754) systematization of philosophy, which served as his point of departure; the ideas on scientific methodology, which he derived from Isaac Newton; and Kant's own work in science.

Type
Part I. History of Philosophy of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1978 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1978 , 1978 , pp. 18 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

This is a digested version of material that will be presented more fully as chapter two in my forthcoming Atomic Physics and Scientific Explanation.

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