Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

This is Volume VI in The Complete Works of Immanuel Kant from Livraria Press.

Published one year before the Critique of Pure Reasons, Metaphysical Foundations is Kant's methodology which would be used in his famous Critique. He attempts to deconstruct an Empiricist Epistemology and show that a priori principles, which are inherently metaphysical in nature, are necessary for the possibility of science to happen in the first place. He is reconciling the new mechanical causality concepts created by Newton with their philosophic preconceptions. While his theory of Phoronomy and movement are not useful to modern physics, this work outlines some basic Epistemological Platonic criticisms of Material Determinism which would be proven Empirically, ironically, by Einstein's Quantum theories and modern theories of perceptual consciousness.

One of the most fascinating contributions Kant brings to modern Science through this work is in Quantum Mechanics. Kant, not Newton or Einstein, was the first to posit the theory of "action at a distance" which would eventually be proven by the observation of Quantum Entanglement. In the second section of this treaty, he writes Theorem 7 as "The attraction essential to all matter is a direct effect of the same on others through empty space"

Kant's Foundations is a great primer on his Critique and outlines the pure materialism, and the Humic ethics which follows, against which Kant is attempting to correct.