This paper aims to examine Kant’s views on evolution of organized beings and to show that Kant’s antievolutionary conclusions stem from his study of natural history and variability of organisms. Accordingly, I discuss Kant’s study of natural history and consider whether his conclusion about impossibility of knowledge about such history expands on the research of history of organized beings. Moving forward, I examine the notion of variability in Kant’s philosophy, and show that his theory of organized beings relies on the (...) preformationist conception of variability that provides limited insight into the history of organisms. I explain that Kant’s endorsement of preformationism is conditioned by a lack of knowledge about the mechanism that successfully explains adaptation and transmutation of organisms leading towards the creation of new species. Finally, I sumarize the following reasons for Kant’s rejection of the hypothesis of evolution: lack of cognitive ability to discover all changes of natural phenomena in different periods of time and adoption of preformationist conception of variability of organized beings. I finish off with a discussion about mechanical inexplicability of organisms and find a third reason Kant believes that the idea of evolution is only “a daring adventure on the part of reason”. (shrink)

Since his Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft was first published in 1786, controversy has surrounded Immanuel Kant’s conception of matter. In particular, the justification for both his dynamical theory of matter and the related dismissal of mechanical philosophy are obscure. In this paper, I address these longstanding issues and establish that Kant’s dynamism rests upon Leibnizian, metaphysical commitments held by Kant from his early pre-Critical texts on natural philosophy to his major critical works. I demonstrate that, throughout his corpus and inspired (...) by Leibniz, Kant endorses the a priori law of continuity of alteration as a truth of metaphysics, according to which all alterations in experience must occur gradually through all intervening degrees. The principle thus legislates against mechanical philosophy’s absolutely impenetrable atoms, as they would would involve instantaneous changes of velocity in impact. This reveals the metaphysical incoherencies in mechanical philosophy and leaves Kant’s own dynamical theory of matter, grounded on material forces, as the only viable approach to physical explanation. Subsequently, I demonstrate that Kant nevertheless made conceptual space in his system for the theoretical consideration of mechanical explanations, which makes manifest one of the positive roles that the faculty of reason can play with respect to natural science. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In the current debate between scientific realism and empiricism, both sides seem to embrace some sort of structuralism as an important component of their descriptions of science. The structural realism is generally presented in two versions: one ontic and the other epistemic. It has been argued that that epistemic structural realism is close, if not identical, to a Kantian approach. We aim to show that this is not the case, since ESR, being fundamentally a realist position, cannot be fully (...) consistent with a transcendental approach. Such a position is better called transcendental structuralism, an alternative that we believe is worth being investigated on its own. In this paper, we will take Henry Allison's interpretation of transcendental idealism as a starting point to establish the distinctions between ESR and TS.RESUMO No debate atual entre realismo científico e empirismo, ambos os lados parecem abraçar algum tipo de estruturalismo como um componente importante de suas descrições sobre a ciência. O realismo estrutural é geralmente apresentado em duas versões: uma ôntica e outra epistêmica. Tem-se argumentado que o realismo estrutural epistêmico, por sua vez, é próximo, se não idêntico, a uma abordagem kantiana. Nosso objetivo neste artigo é mostrar que esse não é o caso. Sendo o ESR fundamentalmente uma posição realista, queremos defender que ele não pode ser totalmente compatível com uma abordagem transcendental. Uma posição kantiana mais coerente é aqui defendida sob o nome de estruturalismo transcendental. Neste artigo, partiremos da interpretação de Henry Allison do idealismo transcendental para estabelecer as devidas distinções entre ESR e TS. (shrink)

Frege claims that the laws of logic are characterized by their “generality,” but it is hard to see how this could identify a special feature of those laws. I argue that we must understand this talk of generality in normative terms, but that what Frege says provides a normative demarcation of the logical laws only once we connect it with his thinking about truth and science. He means to be identifying the laws of logic as those that appear in every (...) one of the scientific systems whose construction is the ultimate aim of science, and in which all truths have a place. Though an account of logic in terms of scientific systems might seem hopelessly antiquated, I argue that it is not: a basically Fregean account of the nature of logic still looks quite promising. (shrink)

Realism takes many forms. The aim of this paper is to show that the “Critique of pure Reason” is the founding document of realism and that to the present-day Kant’s discussion of realism has shaped the theoretical landscape of the debates over realism. Kant not only invents the now common philosophical term ‘realism’. He also lays out the theoretical topography of the forms of realism that still frames our understanding of philosophical questions concerning reality. The paper explores this by analysis (...) of Kant’s methodological procedure to distinguish between empirical and transcendental realism. This methodological procedure is still of great help in contemporary philosophy, although it has its limits. (shrink)

David Hyder.The Determinate World: Kant and Helmholtz on the Physical Meaning of Geometry. viii + 229 pp., bibl., index. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009.

The traditional ontology within which chemistry has developed involved various versions of a general substance/attribute scheme. Recently this has been challenged by two versions of Dynamism. One version is derived from the writings of A. N. Whitehead and the other from several sources, including G. Leibniz and I. Kant. Both involve the idea of flux of actual occasions. Unlike the former scheme, the latter involves a foundation of causal powers and the energetics of field theory. The situation has been made (...) more interesting because of the revival of trope theory, based on an ontology of particularized attributes. This notion is claimed to resolve philosophical problems about the nature of universals and of substances through the introduction of spatial and temporal sequences of tropes. While trope theory seems, at first sight, to work as an attractive alternative to substance/attribute close inspection shows that it is beset with difficulties that are more problematic that the dynamist ontology based on casual powers, dispositions and affordances. (shrink)

The project of chemistry to classify substances and develop techniques for their transformation into other substances rests on assumptions about the means by which compounds are constituted and reconstituted. Robert Boyle not only proposed empirical tests for a metaphysics of material corpuscules, but also a principle for designing experimental procedures in line with that metaphysics. Later chemists added activity concepts to the repertoire. The logic of activity explanations in modern times involves hierarchies of activity concepts, transitions between levels through non-dispositional (...) groundings. Such hierarchies terminate in powerful particulars, such as elementary charged particles. Do these have a fundamental place in the most recent accounts of molecular architecture, stabilities and transformations? However, a close study of the contemporary chemistry of substances transforming reactions discloses a hybrid metaphysics, making use of both the Boylean corpuscles and Faradayan fields. This is illustrated by an analysis of the metaphysics inherent in John Polanyi’s use of “chemoluminescence” to follow the formation of products in chemical reactions. A brief sketch of a resolution of the tension between the two metaphysical schemes is drawn from Niels Bohr’s radical metaphysics extended from the quantum realm proper to chemistry (and perhaps beyond). (shrink)

Several advocates of the lively field of “metaphysics of science” have recently argued that a naturalistic metaphysics should be based solely on current science, and that it should replace more traditional, intuition-based, forms of metaphysics. The aim of the present paper is to assess that claim by examining the relations between metaphysics of science and general metaphysics. We show that the current metaphysical battlefield is richer and more complex than a simple dichotomy between “metaphysics of science” and “traditional metaphysics”, and (...) that it should instead be understood as a three dimensional “box”, with one axis distinguishing “descriptive metaphysics” from “revisionary metaphysics”, a second axis distinguishing a priori from a posteriori metaphysics, and a third axis distinguishing “commonsense metaphysics”, “traditional metaphysics” and “metaphysics of science”. We use this three-dimensional figure to shed light on the project of current metaphysics of science, and to demonstrate that, in many instances, the target of that project is not defined with enough precision and clarity. (shrink)

Philosophers of biology claim that function talk is consistent with naturalism. Yet recent work in biology places new pressure on this claim. An increasing number of biologists propose that the existence of functions depends on the organisation of systems. While systems are part of the domain studied by physics, they are capable of interacting with this domain through organising principles. This is to say that a full account of biological function requires teleology. Does naturalism preclude reference to teleological causes? Or (...) are organised systems precisely a naturalised form of teleology? In this paper I suggest that the biology of organised systems reveals several contradictions in the main philosophical conceptions of naturalism. To integrate organised systems with naturalism’s basic assumptions—that there is no theory-independent view for metaphysics, and that nature is intelligible—I propose an idealist solution. (shrink)

In this paper I extend the case for a necessitation account of particular laws in Kant's philosophy of science by examining the relation between reason's hypothetical use in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic and the legitimate hypotheses identified in the Doctrine of Method. Building on normative accounts of reason's ideas, I argue that reason's hypothetical use does not describe the connections between objects and their grounds, which lie beyond the reach of the understanding, but merely prescribes the relations between (...) appearances and their conditions, for which the understanding must seek. A legitimate hypothesis, I suggest, is a proposition we hold to be true that fills in one or several of those relations. The problematic character of hypotheses requires that we evaluate our reasons for holding them to be true. While natural modality is grounded in the nature of things, which cannot be fully known, our reasons for assent can and must be grounded on features of objects that are epistemically available to us. (shrink)

Ever since Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense, the transcendental apperception device has become a theoretical reference point to shed light on the criterionless selfascription form of mental states, reformulating a contemporary theoretical place tackled for the first time in explicit terms by Wittgenstein’s Blue Book. By investigating thoroughly some elements of the critical system the issue of the identification of the transcendental subject with reference to the I think will be singled out. In this respect, the debate presents at least (...) two diametrically opposed attitudes: the first – exemplified in the works by Hacker, Becker, Sturma and McDowell – considers the features of the I think according to Wittgenstein’s approach to the I as subject while the second, exemplified by Kitcher and Carl, criticizes the various commentators who turn to Wittgenstein in order to interpret Kant’s I think. The hypothesis that I will attempt at articulating in this paper starts off not only from the transcendental apperception form, but also from the characterizations of empirical apperception. It may be assumed that Kant’s reflection on the problem of self-identification lies right here, truly prefiguring some features of Wittgenstein’s uses of I, albeit from different metaphysical assumptions and philosophical horizons. (shrink)

Neo-Kantianism emerged over the course of the 1860s and it occupied a leading position in the German universities from the 1870s until the First World War. Demands for getting "back to Kant" had become common since the early 1860s, and these demands were discussed in the meetings of the Philosophical Society of Berlin (Philosophische Gesellschaft zu Berlin; PGB), which was the international organization of Hegelians. In this paper I address some reactions among the PGB members to the 1860s Kant revival. (...) The journal "Der Gedanke", the organ of the PGB, reported closely how Kant returned to the spotlight of German philosophy. The reactions of the PGB members to the Kant revival was not only critical. Over the course of the 1860s the interest on Kant among the members grew little by little. (shrink)

Kant’s treatment of organic phenomena in the third _Critique_ is relatively well-known. Less known is that Schelling offered an original answer to the same problems in his early writings on the philosophy of nature. Even less known is the significance of his rethinking of the role of chemistry in his approach to organic phenomena. In this article, after outlining the problem of organic phenomena at the end of the eighteenth century, I reconstruct Schelling’s account of chemistry against the background of (...) Kant’s theory of matter. I show that, while Schelling endorses Kant’s verdict that chemistry is not a proper science, he nevertheless assigns to it a far greater scope and explanatory power than Kant does. After that, I briefly sketch Schelling’s solution to the problem of organic phenomena while stressing the significance of his thinking about chemistry for this solution. (shrink)

We develop a new understanding of the historical horizon of event ontology. Within the general area of the philosophy of nature, event ontology is a still emerging field of investigation in search for the ultimate materialist ontology of the world. While event ontology itself will not be explicated in full mathematical details here, our focus is on its conceptual interrelation with the dominant current of Idealism in Western thought approached by us as a problem in the history of ideas. Our (...) presentation is designed to be accessible to a wider audience. We especially highlight the deep connection between event ontology and postmodernism in general, and the post-war French philosophers Althusser, Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari in particular, who are viewed as main sources for current and future programs of abstract materialism. (shrink)

Proturječnost stavova o položaju biologije unutar ili izvan područja znanosti može se podijeliti na nekoliko osnovnih pristupa. Prvi pristup smješta biologiju izvan znanstvenog područja zbog nedostatka univerzalnosti, nedostatka strogih generalizacija i nedostatka stroge kvantitativne strukture. Drugi pristup smatra biologiju znanošću koju treba svesti na fiziku. Treći pristup vidi značajne razlike između biologije s jedne, i fizike i kemije s druge strane, ali ipak tvrdi da je biologija prava znanost, no samostalna i s vlastitim pojmovnikom i metodologijom. Poredba načela prirodne znanosti (...) s obilježjima biologije ukazuje na nedostatak determinizma, neprikladnost esencijalizma i manjkavosti redukcionističkog pristupa u području biološkog. S druge strane, biologija ima neka posebna obilježja. Biologija je znanost samostalna u određenju svoga područja i biranju prikladnog pojmovnika i metoda proučavanja. Njezino područje, pojmovnik, logika i metodologija ne podudaraju se potpuno s onima ostalih znanosti, ali se u potpunosti ni ne razilaze.Ambiguities of attitudes on the position of biology within or outside of science domain can be divided into few basic approaches. The first approach places biology outside the scientific domain due to its lack of universality, the lack of strong generalizations and the lack of strong quantitative structure. The second approach claims that science of biology should be reduced to physics. The third approach accepts significant differences between biology on one side, and physics and chemistry on the other side, but it still claims that biology is a hard science, autonomous and with its own terminology and methodology. Comparison of principles of natural science with features of biology demonstrates a lack of determinism, inappropriateness of essentialism and pitfalls of reductionist approach in biological sphere. On the other hand, biology has some specific features. Biology is a science that has autonomy in determining its domain and choice of appropriate terminology and inquiry methods. Its domain, terminology, logic and methodology are not entirely in accordance with other sciences, but also are not completely diverse. (shrink)

Although widely used across psychology, economics, and philosophy, the concept ofeffort is rarely ever defined. This article argues that the time is ripe to look for anexplicit general definition of effort, makes some proposals about how to arrive at thisdefinition, and suggests that a force-based approach is the most promising. Section 1presents an interdisciplinary overview of some chief research axes on effort, and arguesthat few, if any, general definitions have been proposed so far. Section 2 argues thatsuch a definition is (...) now needed and proposes a basic methodology to arrive at it, whosefirst step is to make explicit the various tacit assumptions about effort made acrosssciences and ordinary thinking. Section 3 unearths 4 different conceptions of effortfrom research on effort so far:primitive-feelings accounts,comparator-based accounts,resource-based accountsandforce-based accounts. It is then argued that the first 2kinds of accounts, although interesting in their own right, are not strictly speaking abouteffort. Section 4 considers the 2 most promising general approaches to efforts: re-source-based and force-based accounts. It argues that these accounts are not only compatible but actually extensionally equivalent. This notwithstanding, it explains why force-based accounts should be regarded as more fundamental than resource-basedaccounts -/- . (shrink)

This paper consists of two parts. In the first part, I shall expound the kantian concept of paradox and its three different senses, the anthropological, the rhetorical and the metaphysical. In the second part, I shall examine the presence of these senses of paradox in Kant’s texts about Enlightenment. The paradox of immaturity consists of the fact that we are responsible, as human beings, and non-responsible, as subjects of a State, of the exit from it. Another formulation of the same (...) paradox, but in dynamical and metaphysical terms, is that of heautocracy, the paradox of self-constraint, which implies that the subject is at the same time active and passive. Finally, the opposition between public and private use of reason also seems paradoxical, since private use seems to be a prejudiced use while public use seems to be free and reasonable as such. (shrink)

This article aims to develop the outline of a possible philosophy of the digital, as a proper philosophy with its own domain, questions, methods and own theories. The article starts by describing the crisis of liniar thinking undersood, following Vilém Flusser, as as a crisis of historical-causal thinking. Then the digital thinking is described as a new way of thinking which aims to become the dominant way of scientific explanation of our times, by replacing historical-causal explanations with numerical models. The (...) proper domain of a philosophy of the digital is then defined as the digital-life form. The article ends by showing an example of a specific problem for the philosophy of the digital, namley the automatisation of human life. (shrink)