Kant führt in dem Werk einen neuartigen, später ›ontotheologisch‹ genannten Gottesbeweis, den er anschließend für die Verbesserung der Physikotheologie fruchtbar macht.

This volume is the first ever English translation of Kant's last major work, the so-called Opus Postumum, a work Kant himself described as his 'chef d'oeuvre' and as the keystone of his entire philosophical system. It occupied him for more than the last decade of his life. Begun with the intention of providing a 'transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics,' Kant's reflections take him far beyond the problem he initially set out to solve. In fact, he (...) reassesses a whole series of fundamental topics of transcendental philosophy: the thing in itself, the nature of space and time, the concept of the self and its agency, the idea of God, and the unity of theoretical and practical reason. Though never completed, the text reaches a logical albeit not fully developed, conclusion. (shrink)

Starting with some illustrative examples, I develop a systematic account of a specific type of experimentation--an experimentation which is not, as in the "standard view", driven by specific theories. It is typically practiced in periods in which no theory or--even more fundamentally--no conceptual framework is readily available. I call it exploratory experimentation and I explicate its systematic guidelines. From the historical examples I argue furthermore that exploratory experimentation may have an immense, but hitherto widely neglected, epistemic significance.

Consider the laws of nature—the laws of physics, for example. One familiar philosophical question about laws is this: what is it to be a law of nature? More specifically, is a law of nature a regularity, or a generalization stating a regularity? Or is it something else? Another philosophical question is: how, and to what extent, can we have knowledge of the laws of nature? I am interested here in Kant's answers to these questions, and their place within his broader (...) theoretical philosophy during the period spanning from the first to the third Critique. (shrink)

In this innovative study Patricia Kitcher argues that we can only understand the deduction of the categories in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in terms of his attempt to fathom the psychological prerequisites of thought. Thus a consideration of his conception of psychology is essential to an understanding of his philosophy. Kitcher specifically considers Kant's claims about the unity of the thinking self; the spatial forms of human perceptions; the relations among mental states necessary for them to have content; the (...) relations between perceptions and judgment; and the limits of philosophical insight into psychological processes. (shrink)

Why did science emerge in the West and how did scientific values come to be regarded as the yardstick for all other forms of knowledge? Stephen Gaukroger shows just how bitterly the cognitive and cultural standing of science was contested in its early development. Rejecting the traditional picture of secularization, he argues that science in the seventeenth century emerged not in opposition to religion but rather was in many respects driven by it. Moreover, science did not present a unified picture (...) of nature but was an unstable field of different, often locally successful but just as often incompatible, programmes. To complicate matters, much depended on attempts to reshape the persona of the natural philosopher, and distinctive new notions of objectivity and impartiality were imported into natural philosophy, changing its character radically by redefining the qualities of its practitioners.The West's sense of itself, its relation to its past, and its sense of its future, have been profoundly altered since the seventeenth century, as cognitive values generally have gradually come to be shaped around scientific ones. Science has not merely brought a new set of such values to the task of understanding the world and our place in it, but rather has completely transformed the task, redefining the goals of enquiry. This distinctive feature of the development of a scientific culture in the West marks it out from other scientifically productive cultures. In The Emergence of a Scientific Culture, Stephen Gaukroger offers a detailed and comprehensive account of the formative stages of this development---and one which challenges the received wisdom that science was seen to be self-evidently the correct path to knowledge and that the benefits of science were immediately obvious to the disinterested observer. (shrink)

Kants Anthropologie (1798) galt lange als eine bloß popularphilosophische Schrift von allenfalls propädeutischem Wert. Dabei erfüllt sich die Leistung der Anthropologie keineswegs nur in einer vorphilosophischen Verständigung über das theoretische und praktische Vermögen des Menschen. Nur die anthropologische Reflexion verleiht Gewißheit, daß der Mensch "sein eigener letzter Zweck ist". Dies gibt dem Leben seinen Sinn.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

»Die Zeiten ändern sich, und auch die Philosophie hat ihren zeitlichen Ablauf, aber die Philosophische Bibliothek bleibt sich so treu, wie die Philosophie sich selber treu bleibt, allen zeitlichen Veränderungen zum Trotz. Nüchtern und sachlich dem Dienst an der Genauigkeit geweiht, meister diese Bibliothek aber auch immer wieder die jeweils äußerste Höhe kritischer Wissenschaft. Im Jahre 1873 ist Kants Briefwechsel hier erstmals erschienen. Und die nochmals erweiterte Auflage des Jahres 1972 setzt die auf das Jahr 1924 zurückgehende Ausgabe Otto Schöndörffers (...) fort; Rudolf Malter und Joachim Kopper haben eine kluge Einleitung und Nachträge beigesteuert. Sämtliche Briefe Kants und die wichtigsten der an ihn gerichteten Schreiben werden geboten und vergegenwärtigen ein der Philosophie gewidmetes Dasein, wie es so rückhaltlos kaum ein zweites Mal gelebt worden ist. Doch dieses Philosophieren ist sich kein Selbstzweck, sondern wahrhaftige Philosophie, das heißt Besinnung auf das Ganze des Alls und um der Ganzheit dessen willen, der philosophiert.« H.L. Goldschmidt, Information Philosophie. (shrink)

Die Untersuchung wendet sich gegen die von Paulsen, Adickes, Riehl, Kemp-Smith, Strawson u.a. vertretene Ansicht, dass Kant die Gliederungspaare der Kritik der reinen Vernunft unreflektiert aus bloss systematischen Grunden aus der Logik seiner Zeit ubernommen habe. Die Analyse der Nachschriften von Kants Logikvorlesungen und der Reflexionen in seinem Logikkompendium zeigt namlich, dass Kant die beiden grossen Gliederungspaare seines Hauptwerks, transzendentale Elementar- und Methodenlehre und transzendentale Analytik und Dialektik, in seinen Vorlesungen in einem jahrzehntelangen Prozess der Auseinandersetzung mit der traditionellen Logik (...) entwickelt hat. This study opposes the view held by Paulsen, Adickes, Riehl, Kemp- Smith, Strawson etc. that Kant adopted his division into two parts in the Critique of Pure Reason without thinking and for purely systematic reasons from the logic of his time. The analysis of transcripts of Kants lectures on logic and his reflections shows that Kant developed the two major parts of his main work, transcendental doctrine of the elements and transcendental doctrine of method and transcendental analytic and dialectic, in his lectures in an analysis of traditional logic which he did over a period of many decades. (shrink)

Presents Newton's unifying idea of gravitation and explains how he converted physics from a science of explanation into a general mathematical system.