IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB751889929

Living natural products in Kant's physical geography (2019)

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 78
Pages: 101191

URI: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369848619300299

DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2019.101191

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

In this paper I propose a new account of living natural products in Kant's physical geography. I argue that Kant adopts Buffon's twofold conception of natural history, which consists of a general theory of nature as a physical nexus of causes and a particular account of living natural products in the setting of the earth. Yet in contrast to Buffon, who placed the two parts of natural history on equal epistemic footing, Kant's physical geography can be understood as a second, pragmatic level of inquiry that stands under the formal conditions of nature outlined in Universal Natural History. On the higher, formal level, natural history provides a physical account of time and space as an expanding causal sequence. On the lower, pragmatic level, physical geography provides a causal account of particular natural products as developing within a specific place. I argue that this two-tiered account not only clarifies the relation between metaphysics and experience in Kant's pre-critical philosophy, it also sheds light on the continuity between the method of physical geography and the systematisation of nature presented in the critical philosophy.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB751889929/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Vitte, Antonio Carlos; Silveira, Roberison Wittgenstein Dias da; (2010)
Considerações sobre os conceitos de natureza, espaço e morfologia em Alexander von Humboldt e a gênese da geografia física moderna (/isis/citation/CBB001420464/)

Book Mensch, Jennifer; (2013)
Kant's Organicism: Epigenesis and the Development of Critical Philosophy (/isis/citation/CBB001213143/)

Article Anik Waldow; (2016)
Natural History and the Formation of the Human Being: Kant on Active Forces (/isis/citation/CBB003268321/)

Article Andrea Gambarotto; (2017)
The “Kantian Principle” for natural history and its historical significance (/isis/citation/CBB185149271/)

Chapter Gerhard Heinzmann; (2016)
Kant et l'intuition épistémique (/isis/citation/CBB981942154/)

Article Franzel, Sean; (2014)
A “Popular,” “Private” Lecturer? Kant's Theory and Practice of University Instruction (/isis/citation/CBB001201785/)

Article Taylor, Michael; (2014)
British Conservatism, the Illuminati, and the Conspiracy Theory of the French Revolution, 1797--1802 (/isis/citation/CBB001201792/)

Article Alfredo Ferrarin; (2019)
Method in Kant and Hegel (/isis/citation/CBB989725622/)

Article Taylor, Kenneth L.; (2013)
A Peculiarly Personal Encyclopedia: What Desmarest's GéoGraphie-Physique Tells Us About His Life and Work (/isis/citation/CBB001212347/)

Book Cécilia Bognon-Küss; Charles T. Wolfe; (2019)
Philosophy of Biology Before Biology (/isis/citation/CBB297114734/)

Article Raiger, Michael; (2010)
Coleridge's Theory of Symbol and the Distinction between Reason and Understanding: A Genealogical Recovery of the Baconian Method of Science (/isis/citation/CBB001210458/)

Article Massimi, Michela; Bianchi, Silvia De; (2013)
Cartesian Echoes in Kant's Philosophy of Nature (/isis/citation/CBB001320269/)

Book Lauxtermann, Paul F.H; (2000)
Schopenhauer's Broken World-View: Colours and Ethics between Kant and Goethe (/isis/citation/CBB000101529/)

Article Anderson, Gemma; (2014)
Endangered: A Study of Morphological Drawing in Zoological Taxonomy (/isis/citation/CBB001201296/)

Article Andrew Cooper; (2020)
Kant's universal conception of natural history (/isis/citation/CBB971654215/)

Article Jessica J. Williams; (2020)
“The Shape of a Four-Footed Animal in General”: Kant on Empirical Schemata and the System of Nature (/isis/citation/CBB994271803/)

Article Michael J. Olson; (2016)
Kant on Anatomy and the Status of the Life Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB742454603/)

Article Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet; (2019)
From the Folds of the Rhino to the 'Hand of Nature': Maupertuis's Essay on Cosmology and its Reception in the 1750s (/isis/citation/CBB952950350/)

Article Sloan, Phillip R.; (2006)
Kant on the History of Nature: The Ambiguous Heritage of the Critical Philosophy for Natural History (/isis/citation/CBB000770745/)

Book Kant, Immanuel; Friedman, Michael; (2004)
Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (/isis/citation/CBB000770173/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}