On Kant's Conception of the Scientific Character of Improper Science

ARIAS ALBISU, MARTÍN

Leuven

Conferencia; Leuven Kant Conference; 2017

Universidad Católica de Leuven

In the Preface to his "Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science" (MAN), Kant states that chemistry is an "improper" natural science (AA 04:468-471). What he primarily has in mind is the phlogistic chemistry developed particularly by Georg Stahl. Contrary to mathematical physics, phlogistic chemistry is not a "proper" natural science because it lacks a metaphysical part and mathematics cannot be adequately applied to it. Nonetheless, according to Kant, phlogistic chemistry has its own scientific character. Commentators are divided over the ground of the scientific character of improper science. Friedman maintains that the scientific character of this science can derive only from an a priori foundation of its laws in the principles of pure understanding. Other scholars hold that such scientific character derives mainly from reason's methodological demand for systematicity (Buchdahl; Kitcher; Krausser; Rush), or mainly from reason's methodological requirement to introduce theoretical concepts, such as that of phlogiston (Brittan; McNulty). This paper rejects Friedman´s reading and argue that the latter two interpretations are one-sided. On my view, both the requirements of systematicity and of introducing theoretical concepts are equally needed in order to ground the scientific character of improper science. These methodological requirements are demanded by the regulative function of theoretical reason, which Kant expounds in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic of his "Critique of Pure Reason" (KrV). To support my view, I will first argue that phlogistic chemistry is a science, though in an improper sense, because it has a systematic and experimental character (MAN AA 04:471). On the one hand, Kant connects systematicity and scientificity in KrV (A832/B860) and in MAN (AA 04:467). On the other hand, in KrV (Bxii-xiv) Kant explicitly connects the conducting of experiments in Stahlian phlogistic chemistry with a scientific character. Second, I will contend that the experimental and systematic character of improper science depends on the application of the two aforementioned methodological prescriptions. The first prescription requires certain ideas of reason, which I will call "theoretical concepts", to be employed in empirical hypotheses. An example of a theoretical concept is that of "inflammable beings" or phlogiston (A645-646/B673-674), which is employed in hypotheses pertaining to phlogistic chemistry, in order to explain economically the inflammability of different kinds of appearances. These hypotheses must be tested through experiments. The second prescription consists in a demand for systematicity in relation to the aforementioned hypotheses and the concepts related to them (A646-668/B674-696). While the first prescription grounds the experimental character of improper science, the second grounds its systematic character. The experimental and systematic character of improper science explains, in turn, the scientific nature of this discipline. Indeed, in contrast to empirical generalizations, laws belonging to improper science employ theoretical concepts and thus make accurate and economical explanations of different appearances possible. Laws of this kind can and must be integrated in strictly consistent systems by the application of the requirement of systematicity.