This book provides the first comprehensive discussion regarding the role that Kant ascribes to systematicity in the sciences. It considers not only what Kant has to say on systematicity in general, but also how the systematicity requirement for science is specified in different fields of knowledge.
The chapters are divided into three thematic sections. Part I is devoted to historical context. The chapters explore precursors of Kant’s account of the systematicity of the sciences. Part II addresses the application of systematicity to the special sciences – cosmology, physics, chemistry, logic, mathematics, the life sciences, and history. Finally, Part III explores the systematicity of philosophy.
Kant and the Systematicity of the Sciences will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Kant and the history and philosophy of science.
Introduction: The Significance of Kant’s Account of Scientific Systematicity Gabriele Gava, Thomas Sturm, and Achim Vesper Part 1: Systematicity: Historical Backgrounds 1. Kant and Crusius on the Hierarchy of Human Ends Gabriele Gava 2. Lambert’s System of the Sciences Henny Blomme Part 2: The Systematicity of Special Sciences 3. Kant’s Early Cosmology, Systematicity, and Changes in the Standpoint of the Observer Fabian Burt and Thomas Sturm 4. Kant and the Idea of a System of Logic Clinton Tolley 5. Systematic Unity and Construction in the Theory of Conic Sections Katherine Dunlop 6. Kant’s Conception of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science: Subject Matter, Method, and Aim Thomas Sturm 7. Systematicity, the Life Sciences, and the Possibility of Laws Concerning Life Hein van den Berg 8. Kant’s Aethereal Hammer: When Everything Looks Like a Nail Michael Bennett McNulty 9. Systematicity and the Definition of a Science: Physics in Kant’s Opus postumum Stephen Howard 10. Systematicity in Kant’s Philosophy of History Andree Hahmann 11. Systematicity with a Worldly Orientation? On Kant’s Theory and Practice of Gazing with an “Eye of Philosophy” Huaping Lu-Adler Part 3: The Systematicity of Philosophy 12. The Systematicity of Natural Science: Logical and Real Eric Watkins 13. What is a System of Moral Philosophy For? Systematicity in Kant’s Ethics Stefano Bacin 14. Kant’s System of Systems Paul Guyer
Gabriele Gava is an Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Turin. He works on Kant, 18th-century German philosophy, pragmatism, and epistemology. He is the author of Peirce’s Account of Purposefulness: A Kantian Perspective (2014) and Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics (2023). Thomas Sturm is ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He works on Kant, theories of rationality in philosophy and the sciences, and as editor for the new Academy edition of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften. Selected publications: Kant und die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (2009), articles in Kant-Studien, Kantian Review, and Synthese. Achim Vesper is an Assistant Professor at Goethe University Frankfurt. He has published extensively on Kant's ethics and aesthetics. Together with Gabriele Gava, he wrote Kants Philosophie (2024). Another book, Kant über Schönheit und systematische Einheit der Natur, will be published in 2025.
