Kant on the Necessity of the Empirical Laws of Nature
Federico Rampinini[*]
Università di Roma Tre – Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”,
Italia
Review
of: Seide, Ansgar, Die Notwendigkeit
empirischer Naturgesetze bei Kant, Berlin-Boston, de Gruyter, 2020, pp. 417.
ISBN: 978-3-11-069713-1.
Immanuel Kant’s philosophy continuously provides us
with schemes for later philosophical reflections. Nowadays, confrontation with
Kant is unescapable in any field of knowledge. Epistemology is with no doubt
one of the fields where the bounds with the transcendental thought are
stronger; especially so, given the great interest towards epistemology in the
contemporary philosophy. Even though, on the one hand, this attention by contemporary
thinkers promotes the study of the epistemological questions arisen by Kant’s
thought, on the other hand, there are many works reading Kant’s texts under the
light of prejudicial theorical structures. With these reasons in mind, and with
the explicit goal to understand and reconstruct “welche Position Kant tatsächlich
vertreten hat” (p. 17), Ansgar Seide focuses on the status of the
empirical laws of nature. In particular, one contemplated question is the
predication of necessity to some laws that, by definition, cannot be inferred a
priori. The works selected by the author are to be found in the period between
the publication of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason
(1781) and the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), because it is
in this phase that Kant’s position on the empirical laws proves to stay
consistent. Nonetheless, the choice to exclude the so-called pre-critical
period and the Opus Postumum from this analysis is bound to generate
some degree of perplexity. The Opus Postumum deals with a new range of
problems, namely the theory of those a priori knowledge that are not pure,
under the management of the faculty of judgement rather than of the understanding.
The author chose to exclude the Opus Postumum precisely because, in
spite of this, its fragmented nature presents several interpretative problems,
deserving a separate specific analysis (p. 18).
In this effort to reconstruct the status of the
empirical laws, Seide is in contrast with other interpreters, e.g. Kitcher (1994:
p. 270): “[I offer] a reading of Kant that links him far more closely with
contemporary naturalism and rejects the aprioristic concern […]. The advantage
of my interpretation is that is produces a Kant who can speak directly to
twentieth century epistemological problems. Its disadvantage is that it may
seem to many not to produce Kant at
all. I shall leave it to devotees of the a priori to find ways of connecting
the themes I slight with those I make prominent”. Kitcher had to exclude the Metaphysical Foundations – in which the
systematicity of experience is not enough to establish the necessity of the
empirical laws, which is guaranteed by the principles of the understanding instead
– because of the clash that would arise with the Critique of the Power of Judgment, the second Introduction grounds the
necessity of the empirical laws on the systematizing function of the faculty of
judgement. On the other hand, Seide pursues a reading of Kant’s doctrine
as organic as possible, trying to keep together the contents of the Metaphysical Foundations and the Critique of the Power of Judgment.
In the Critique
of Pure Reason, Kant famously claims that the understanding prescribes the
laws to nature. This thesis is reinforced in the Prolegomena, further investigating the distinction between “pure or
universal laws” and empirical laws, which “always presuppose particular
perceptions” (Prol, AA 4: 320). The understanding,
while prescribing the transcendental laws to nature, cannot though complete the
process of determination of the empirical laws, which do require the content of
perceptions. Nevertheless, the empirical laws of nature “carry with them an expression
of necessity” (KrV, A 159 / B 198; see
also KU, Einleitung, § IV).
Seide underlines precisely and clearly how, at first
sight, it might seem that the epistemological account of the first Critique
denies any attribution of necessity to the empirical laws of nature. A
proposition is universally valid only if it is valid a priori; though, the
validity of the empirical laws of nature is not verifiable a priori: hence,
these propositions appear to be unsuitable to be formulated as laws and to be
declared universal and necessary. In spite of this, Kant clearly seeks to avoid
such skeptical conclusions. One first insight of this complex effort can be
found in the first Critique, where Kant seems to allow for deriving the
empirical laws on the transcendental laws: «Particular laws, because they
concern empirically determined appearances, cannot be completely derived from
the categories, although they all stand under them» (KrV, B 165).
The relevant literature appears to be deeply undecided
about the interpretation of Kant’s solution to this problem. On the one hand,
Michael Friedman, starting right from the abovementioned passage of the B-Deduction
and from a close analysis of the Metaphysical
Foundations, claimed that not only the necessity of categories but also the
necessity of the empirical laws is secured by the understanding. On the other
hand, scholars such as Gerd Buchdahl, Philip Kitcher, Henry Allison, and Paul
Guyer, mostly relying on the Introductions
of the Critique of the Power
of Judgment, claimed that the necessity of the empirical laws does not
depend on their relation with the transcendental laws of the understanding, but
rather on their reciprocal correlation in the context of the system of
knowledge that is ruled by the faculty of judgement and its principle of
finality. Moving from this
state of the art, Seide tries to walk on a middle road, showing how “die Rollen
des Verstandes auf der einen und der Vernunft beziehungsweise der Urteilskraft
auf der anderen Seite in einer sehr komplexen Weise miteinander verwoben sind”
(p. 5).
Since the conception of the empirical laws is strongly
linked to the problem of causality, the first part of this work (pp. 21-104) explores
the relationship between Kant and Hume. Seide hereby contrasts Gary Hatfield, who
denies the key importance of the confrontation with Hume for the development of
the critical philosophy. On the contrary, according to Seide, Kant views the Scottish
philosopher as an ally at war with the dogmatic metaphysics, despite the
skeptical consequences of his positions.
The analysis of Kant’s texts about the empirical laws
takes place in the second part of this work. The third chapter (pp. 107-187) deals
with the Second Analogy of Experience in the Critique of Pure Reason. On
the one hand, many interpreters, and first of all them Gerd Buchdahl, claimed
how Kant, in the Second Analogy, does not aim to prove the necessary character
of the empirical laws, as, for this purpose, one must take into account also a
finalistic and systematic conception of nature. On the other hand, Friedman saw
the Second Analogy as evidence for the existence of necessary empirical laws. Seide,
while he leaves some space to Friedman’s reading and partly agrees with it,
holds that Kant does not wish to prove the necessity of empirical laws, but
rather aims at explaining how the laws of nature are necessarily valid and how
we can know them, in the context of his overall doctrine. Moreover, “selbst wenn Kant in der Lage sein sollte, den
Nachweis zu erbringen, dass notwendige empirische Naturgesetze existieren, bleibt in der zweiten
Analogie der Erfahrung jedoch offen, wie wir diese erkennen können” (p. 109). So, in the Second Analogy Kant would have merely
claimed that, in order for us to report our perception of objects, and hence to
impose an objective temporal structure to our experience, it is necessary to analyze
and to organize the hypothetical formulations of the empirical laws. The deduction
of the particular empirical laws in the Analytic of Principles would
take second place, as this passage solely deals with the necessity that some
empirical laws be given.
The Metaphysical
Foundations is analyzed in the fourth chapter (pp. 188-291). This work
indeed represents a fundamental frame of reference to understand how Kant grounds
the necessity of physical laws: his goal is precisely to seek an a priori
foundation for physics as an empirical science, in order to secure the necessity
of the physical laws. This is possible only thanks to the creation of a link
between the realm of the pure understanding and that of physics: this link is
constituted by the metaphysical foundations of the natural sciences, which are
in their turns the result of the application of the transcendental laws of the understanding
to the empirical concept of matter.
In the fifth chapter (pp. 292-325), Seide briefly goes
back to the Critique of Pure Reason and
in particular to the Appendix to the
Trascendental Dialectic, because it is in these pages that Kant anticipates
some key themes of the Introductions of the Critique
of Power of Judgment and tackles the problem of the necessity of the
empirical laws of nature. The task to systematize our empirical knowledge is
attributed to the faculty of reason. Kant finds himself nevertheless to face
the problem of the justification of this attribution, whose question remains
open in the first Critique. This is because, while on the one hand the systemic
organization of the empirical knowledge is fundamental for the knowing subject,
on the other hand this organization looks indeed very problematic unless it
directly derives by the empirical world. The presupposition that the laws of
nature are formed in a finalistic form requires some justification. Seide
though highlights how this justification is missing from the first Critique,
and, moreover, it is impossible within the conceptual frame of the work. How
Chignell found as well, the question on the objective reality of a concept is
strictly linked with the question on the real possibility of that concept’s
object: so, “legt Kant sich zumindest indirekt darauf fest, dass das Objekt der
Idee der Systematizität real unmöglich
ist” (p. 314). Kant in fact observes how “In fact it cannot even be seen how
there could be a logical principle of rational unity among rules unless a
transcendental principle is presupposed, through which such a systematic unity,
as pertaining to the object itself, is assumed a priori as necessary” (KrV, A 650-651/B 678-679). Though, like
Kant himself admits right away, the object of this idea is impossible, and for
this reason the idea of the systematicity of nature must be intended as a maximum
(cfr. KrV, A 665/B 693). Then, the regulative principle of the systematic
unity of knowledge, as a logical principle, presupposes a transcendental
principle, according to which the systematicity pertains to the object itself;
this being said, the idea of systematicity is a maximum and its object is
actually impossible.
The last chapter of this
work (pp. 326-401) deals with the Introductions of the Critique of Power
of Judgment, where Kant dismisses reason as the agent of the
systematization of knowledge, as suggested in the Critique of Pure Reason,
attributing this task on the reflective faculty of judgement. According to Seide,
the transcendental deduction of the principle of the systematic constitution of
nature can be realized thanks to the new context of the third Critique. In the Critique of Power
of Judgment, the principle of systematicity is supported also by the symbolic
relation with the experience of natural beauty. “The self-sufficient beauty of
nature revelas to us a technique of nature, which makes it possible to
represent it as a system” (KU, AA 5: 246). The topic of natural beauty
and of the conformity to one’s goals is an evergreen subject of enquiry in
numerous studies; Seide (who limits itself to mentioning Rueger-Evren and
Chignell) highlights the connection between the deduction of the principle of finality
and beauty. The foundation of the principle of finality, in the third Critique, is epistemologically
weaker, as opposed to that of the pure concepts of the understanding in the
first Critique. In spite of this, Kant considers this
explanation correct. With regard to the attribution of the systematicity of
knowledge from the understanding to the faculty of judgement, Seide substantially
accepts Friedman’s proposal, though the author underlines with more force the
importance of the power of
judgment, as implied also in the
foundation of physics (pp. 367-396). “The Metaphysical Foundations
provides an a priori foundation for the most general empirical concept (the
empirical concept of matter) and the most general empirical law (the law of
universal gravitation), which characterize and govern all matter as such –
regardless of the specific differences of various distinct types of matter.
Reflective judgment, by contrast, proceeds from the most specific empirical
concepts and law, and attempts always to unify and consolidate these under more
and more general empirical concepts and laws” (Friedman, 1992: pp. 255-256).
To conclude, I judge
positively Seide’s work. In a simple and original way, he reconstructs with
precision one of Kant’s most important theoretical routes, enjoying a living
and growing attention in the contemporary scenario. Thanks to the exploration
of several texts in which this path takes place, and to the constant
relationship with the secondary literature, Seide indeed puts forth a work of strong
interest and relevance.
Bibliography
Book:
Friedman,
M. (1992), Kant and the Exact Sciences,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.).
Chapter in a collective work:
Kitcher,
P. (1994), “The Unity of Science and the Unity of Nature”, in P. Parrini
(Hrsg.), Kant’s Epistemology and
Philosophy of Science, Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 253-272.
