Kant’s dissertation for the Master’s degree Succinct Exposition of Some Meditations on Fire was written in Latin in 1755 as a sample (specimen) preceding a Master’s exam, but its first printing did not appear until 1838. What is the relevance of this Master’s dissertation for historical and philosophical studies? To answer this question I analyse the structure and give a brief summary of the dissertation, look at the history of its writing and try to identify the place of this work (...) among Kant’s other papers on natural philosophy. I then demonstrate that Kant’s concept of ether as an elastic matter of fire, heat and light containing the forces of attraction and repulsion originates in the dissertation On Fire. I identify the provisions in Kant’s early works which he later develops in the Master’s dissertation and establish continuity between the text of On Fire and the so-called Physical Monadology, draw parallels between the ideas enunciated by Kant in his first dissertation and the interpretation of ether in the printed works that followed. Finally, I put forward the hypothesis of the heuristic potential of the On Fire treatise for the analysis of Kant’s manuscript legacy. Perhaps this dissertation will enable researchers to clear up some tangled propositions in Kant’s Opus Postumum. However, a series of further studies is needed to verify the hypothesis. (shrink)

(1999). Sublime Waste: Kant on the Destiny of the ‘Races’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 29, Supplementary Volume 25: Civilization and Oppression, pp. 99-125.

The founders of the Marburger Schule of Neo-Kantianism, Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, laid an emphasis upon a Platonic understanding of mathematics and logic as the paradigmatic epistemological basis of philosophy. Their successors, namely Ernst Cassirer and Nicolai Hartmann, made obvious, however, that new biological thinking can have a strong influence on ontology as well as on the theory of knowledge. They could show that biology was no longer to be treated as a metaphysical system in that pejorative meaning of (...) metaphysics which Kant had so severely been opposing. Against the anti-realistic approach of the older neo-Kantians who wanted to eliminate Kant's thing-in-itself (Ding an sich), both Cassirer and Hartmann returned to a form of realism by way of Hegel's philosophical results and reflections on his method. This makes clear that their realism is still to be taken as a more of less monistic idealism. However, considering that modern biology as an antimetaphysical force became influential in their system for the first time and that it did so in two different but - on second thoughts - complementary ways, it becomes clear that it was necessary to change the paradigms of any neo-Kantian philosophy. Cassirer proved this by his development as a philosopher with a strong historical impetus while Hartmann as a more systematical philosopher only pointed in that direction. (shrink)

Kant’s mourning letter or necrology for his student Johann Friedrich von Funk (1760) has hardly been received. This study attempts to change this by explaining the contexts of the short missive. In the first part this concerns in particular the influence that Gottsched exerted on the style of such printed speeches or necrolo­gies. Kant’s references therefore to the ‘Royal German Society’ in Königsberg and its founder Flottwell, a friend of Gottsched’s, are described. The influence of the Roman Stoa then becomes (...) much clearer through the influence of Gottsched’s rhetoric textbook. All in all, Kant attempts to present rational arguments for dealing with death, which can suddenly strike human life; he writes under the obvious influence of a Stoic mindset (see the second part). Most of the comments by Kant scholars on the little work to date have been negative or vague. Here, the text is to be made fruitful for the development of Kant’s thought by shedding light on its historical contexts. On this basis, the little treatise appears as an important link for Kant’s early thinking. It shows how he makes ancient tradition fruitful again for the Enlightenment as a substitute for rapturous and irrational mysticism as we know it from Jacob Böhme, for example. (shrink)