Commentary on Immanuel Kant’s Foundations of Natural Science

What makes matter possible, and what can philosophy establish about motion before it must defer to experience? Tosaka Jun’s commentary explores these questions through Kant’s philosophy of nature.

First published in 1929, the work traces Kant’s plans and correspondence before explaining phoronomy, dynamics, mechanics, and phenomenology. Matter, attraction, repulsion, inertia, and the status of space become parts of a connected philosophical argument.

Tosaka then examines the contrast with Schelling and Hegel and asks whether Kant’s foundations can retain their significance as scientific knowledge changes. His argument defends the importance of the exact sciences while questioning the completeness and invariability of an a priori system.