Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:47:56.680Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The relationship between space and mutual interaction: Kant contra Newton and Leibniz

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

James Messina
James Messina*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI53706, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Kant claims that we cannot cognize the mutual interaction of substances without their being in space; he also claims that we cannot cognize a ‘spatial community’ among substances without their being in mutual interaction. I situate these theses in their historical context and consider Kant’s reasons for accepting them. I argue that they rest on commitments regarding the metaphysical grounding of, first, the possibility of mutual interaction among substances-as-appearances and, second, the actuality of specific distance-relations among such substances. By illuminating these commitments, I shed light on Kant’s metaphysics of space and its relation to Newton and Leibniz’s views.

Keywords

Spacemutual interactionNewtonLeibnizKantmetaphysical grounding
Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , 2017 , pp. 43 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brading, Katherine. 2013. “Three Principles of Unity in Newton.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (3): 408–415. doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2012.10.005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchdahl, Gerd. 1969. Metaphysics and The Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chignell, Andrew, and Pereboom, Derk. 2010. “Kant’s Theory of Causation and its Eighteenth-Century German Background.” Philosophical Review 119 (4): 563–591. doi:10.1215/00318108-2010-014.Google Scholar
Chignell, Andrew. 2009. “Kant, Modality, and the Most Real Being.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 91 (2): 157–192. doi:10.1515/AGPH.2009.07.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earman, John. 1989. World Enough and Space-Time. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fine, Kit. 2012. “Guide to Ground.” In Chapter 1 in Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality, edited by Correia, Fabrice and Schnieder, Benjamin, 37–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Förster, Eckart. 2012. The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 10.4159/harvard.9780674064980CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Michael. 1992. Kant and the Exact Sciences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Michael. 2013. Kant’s Construction of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139014083CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, Paul. 1987. Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511624766CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1902. Kants gesammelte Schriften [Kant's Collected Writings]. 29 vols. Issued by the Prussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (vols. 1–22), the Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (vol. 23), and the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (vols. 24–29). Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. 1989. Philosophical Essays. Translated and edited by Ariew, Roger and Garber, Daniel. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Messina, James. Forthcoming. “Where the Laws of Physics (and Geometry) Lie: A Reading of Prolegomena §38.” In Proceedings of the 12th International Kant Congress.Google Scholar
Morrison, Margaret. 1998. “Community and Coexistence: Kant’s Third Analogy of Experience.” Kant-Studien 89 (3): 257–277. doi:10.1515/kant.1998.89.3.257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton, Isaac. 1999. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Translated and edited by Bernard Cohen, I. and Whitman, Anne. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Newton, Isaac. 2004. Philosophical Writings. Translated and edited by Janiak, Andrew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, Gideon. 2010. “Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction.” In Chapter 6 in Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology, edited by Hale, Bob and Hoffmann, Aviv, 109–136. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199565818.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strawson, P. F. 1966. The Bounds of Sense. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Thorpe, Lucas. 2011. “Kant on the Relationship between Autonomy and Community.” In Chapter 3 in Kant and the Concept of Community, edited by Payne, Charlton and Thorpe, Lucas, 63–87. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Watkins, Eric. 2005. Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar