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The dynamical theory of matter is one of the main steps of Kant's lifelong attempt at connecting metaphysics with Newtonian physics and is also the single Kantian physical doctrine which still raised a little scientific attention in the XX th Century. 1 Along his career Kant gave two quite different systematic accounts of this kind of theory: the first is the Monadologia physica (1756), the second is the Dynamics chapter of the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786). In the thirty years separating these two expositions Kant's interpretation of Newton's physics and his metaphysical ideas were subjected to parallel transformations. Nonetheless the two theories have significant common features: both provide a more geometrico explanation of the basic property of impenetrability by demonstrating the existence of a repulsive and an attractive force -the latter being conceived as the ground of universal gravitation -and thus introducing Newtonian concepts in a demonstrative, deductive framework; both argue that this theory is an example of how metaphysics and mathematical physics can (and should) be fruitfully be connected. Among the differences stands out the disappearance of the monadological framework: while in the Monadologia physica the subject of forces is a point-like monad, in the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe the subject of forces is a finite part of the continuum of matter, while monadologies of any kind are overtly rejected. The result is a completely different theory of matter, where centres of force no longer correspond to metaphysical substances and whose connection with Newtonian physics faces new, considerable difficulties. Historical research has helped to trace back both systematic expositions of Kant's matter theory to the sources and controversies which provided their 1 Hermann Weyl considered his program of explaning mass in field theory as a realization of Kant's dynamism of the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe.
ArgumentIn this paper I present an interpretation of du Bois-Reymond’s thesis on the impossibility of a scientific explanation of consciousness and of its present importance. I reconsider du Bois-Reymond’s speech “On the limits of natural science” (1872) in the context of nineteenth-century German philosophy and neurophysiology, pointing out connections and analogies with contemporary arguments on the “hard problem of consciousness.” Du Bois-Reymond’s position turns out to be grounded on an epistemological argument and characterized by a metaphysical skepticism, motivated by the unfruitful speculative tendency of contemporary German philosophy and natural science. In the final sections, I show how contemporary research can benefit from a reconsideration of this position and its context of emergence, which is a good vantage point to trace open problems in consciousness studies back to their historical development.
Kant's legacy in the history of life sciences has notoriously included a critique of the use of soul and ‘vital force’ ( Lebenskraft ). In this paper I focus on a less-known side of this legacy, i.e. Kant's late critique of vital materialism and its impact on nineteenth-century German science and philosophy. I show that Kant considered materialism as a kind of metaphysical hypothesis since the 1760s and pointed out that it was empirically impossible to distinguish it from different kinds of hypotheses (such as monadology). I focus on Kant's late essay on Samuel Sömmering (1796), arguing that the critical rejection of materialism and the notion of Lebenskraft belonged to an anti-reductive program for life sciences. I maintain that Kant's views influenced Alexander von Humboldt's turn concerning vitalism in the late 1790s and the anti-metaphysical and physicalist epistemology of Hermann von Helmholtz. I follow this Kantian legacy in the works of Friedrich Lange, Emil du Bois-Reymond and Erich Adickes. Finally, I argue that this tradition provides a vantage point to reconsider contemporary debates over materialism and panpsychism.
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