Kant's Construction of Nature

A Reading of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

Michael Friedman

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780521198394
• eBook ISBN: 9781139602761
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is one of the most difficult but also most important of Kant's works. Published in 1786 between the first (1781) and second (1787) editions of the Critique of Pure Reason, the Metaphysical Foundations occupies a central place in the development of Kant's philosophy, but has so far attracted relatively little attention compared with other works of Kant's critical period. Michael Friedman's book develops a new and complete reading of this work and reconstructs Kant's main argument clearly and in great detail, explaining its relationship to both Newton's Principia and eighteenth-century scientific thinkers such as Euler and Lambert. By situating Kant's text relative to his pre-critical writings on metaphysics and natural philosophy and, in particular, to the changes Kant made in the second edition of the Critique, Friedman articulates a radically new perspective on the meaning and development of the critical philosophy as a whole.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Kant’s Construction of Nature
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface and acknowledgments
• Introduction: The place of the Metaphysical Foundations in the critical system
• Chapter One Phoronomy
• Chapter Two Dynamics
• Chapter Three Mechanics
• Chapter Four Phenomenology
• Conclusion: The complementary perspectives of the Metaphysical Foundations and the first Critique
• Bibliography
• Index