Die von Jens Timmermann besorgte Neuausgabe innerhalb der Philosophischen Bibliothek bietet den vollständigen Wortlaut der beiden Originalausgaben von 1781 und 1787. Der Kantische Text wurde unter Wahrung der Interpunktion und sprachlicher Eigenheiten sehr behutsam an die heutigen orthographischen Regeln angeglichen. Die semantisch bedeutenden Korrekturvorschläge späterer Herausgeber (nicht nur der Akademie-Ausgabe) sind, wo sie nicht in den Text Aufnahme gefunden haben, am Fuß der Seite verzeichnet. Alle wesentlichen Unterschiede zwischen den Originalausgaben sind durch Kursivdruck hervorgehoben, größere Abweichungen ganzer Textstücke - etwa (...) in der Einleitung und im Kapitel über Phaenomena und Noumena - wurden synoptisch gegenübergestellt, so daß Art und Umfang der Umarbeitung unmittelbar abgelesen werden können. Die durchgängig neu bearbeitete Studienausgabe folgt in den Grundprinzipien der seit 1926 in Forschung und Lehre maßgeblichen Ausgabe von Raymund Schmidt, die hiermit abgelöst wird. Sie wird ergänzt durch eine umfangreiche Bibliographie von Heiner Klemme sowie durch einen ausführlichen Personen- und Sachindex. (shrink)

Kant claims that “empirical psychology must always remain outside the rank of a natural science properly so called.” What led him to this conclusion? Kant first points out that if we take nature to be the totality of things insofar as they can be objects of our senses, then the doctrine of nature will contain two parts corresponding to the two forms of our sensibility: a doctrine of body and a doctrine of mind. But an “historical doctrine of nature comprising (...) nothing but systematically ordered facts” must be distinguished from natural science properly so called. For “only that can properly be called science whose certainty is apodictic; cognitions which can only have empirical certainty are only improperly called science”. Since the chemistry of his day consisted of “mere laws of experience,” Kant held that it was not really a science; the explanations it gives in terms of such laws leave us “unsatisfied because no a priori grounds can be given for these accidental laws which mere experience has taught”. There can be no proper natural science, so Kant argues, without “a pure part on which the apodictic certainty, which reason seeks in it, can be based”. This metaphysical foundation of science is transcendental insofar as it is concerned with the concept of nature in general. If we specify it further by introducing the empirical concept of body, or of mind, the a priori cognitions which can then be established will constitute a pure part of physics, or of psychology, “in which transcendental principles are applied to the two types of objects of our senses”. (shrink)

A scholarly edition of a work by David Hume. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

Common opinion ascribes to Immanuel Kant the view that psychology cannot become a science properly so called, because it cannot be mathematized. It is equally common to claim that this reflects the state of the art of his times; that the quantification of the mind was not achieved during the eighteenth century, while it was so during the nineteenth century; or that Kant's so-called “impossibility claim” was refuted by nineteenth-century developments, which in turn opened one path for psychology to become (...) properly scientific. These opinions are often connected, but they are misguided nevertheless. -/- In Part I, I show how the issue of a quantification of the mind was discussed before Kant, and I analyze the philosophical considerations both of pessimistic and optimistic authors. This debate reveals a certain progress, although it remains ultimately undecided. In Part II, I present actual examples of measuring the mind in the eighteenth century and analyze their presuppositions. Although these examples are limited in certain ways, the common view that there was no such measurement is wrong. In Part III, I show how Kant's notorious “ impossibility claim” has to be viewed against its historical background. He not only accepts actual examples of a quantitative treatment of the mind, but also takes steps toward an explanation of their possibility. Thus, he does not advance the claim that the mind as such cannot be mathematized. His claim is directed against certain philosophical assumptions about the mind, assumptions shared by a then-dominating, strongly introspectionist conception of psychology. This conception did and could not provide an explanation of the possibility of quantifying the mind. In concluding, I reflect on how this case study helps to improve the dispute over when and why psychology became a science. (shrink)