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Space, Time, and the Origins
of Transcendental Idealism
Immanuel Kant’s Philosophy
from 1747 to 1770
Matthew Rukgaber
Space, Time, and the Origins
of Transcendental Idealism
Matthew Rukgaber
Space, Time, and the

Origins of
Transcendental
Idealism
Immanuel Kant’s Philosophy from 1747 to 1770
Matthew Rukgaber
Eastern Connecticut State University
Willimantic, CT, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-60741-8 ISBN 978-3-030-60742-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60742-5
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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Acknowledgments
While I remember having conversations about Kant after my first intro-

duction to his thought, which was given to me by Sandra Edwards, a
medievalist at the University of Arkansas, I did not plan to continue
studying it. However, at the University of Illinois, I was introduced to
the revolutionary interpretation that Arthur Melnick began publishing
in the early 1980s, culminating with Space, Time, and Thought in Kant
(1989, Kluwer) and the more accessible Themes in Kant’s Metaphysics
and Ethics (2004, Catholic University Press). His embedding of Kant’s
mature philosophy in action theory remains central to my own approach.
I owe him a great debt.
While this work is not a part of my dissertation, I do owe my disserta-
tion committee member David Sussman thanks for pushing me to make
sure that my approach to Kant’s theoretical philosophy was able to account
for the metaphysical commitments generated by his moral and religious
philosophy. I owe thanks also to Richard Schacht and William Schroeder,
who sat on that committee, and to Richard Mohr, who (if I remember
correctly) was on it at some point.
Permission has been granted by Penn State University Press to repro-
duce some portions of an earlier article in Chap. 4.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Rukgaber, Matthew. 2018. Immaterial Spirits and the Reform of

Metaphysics: The Continuation of Kant’s pre- Critical Project in Dreams
of a Spirit Seer. Journal of the History of Ideas 79: 363–383.
Permission has also been given by Cambridge University Press for repub-
lication of an earlier version of Chap. 5.
Rukgaber, Matthew. 2016. The Asymmetry of Space: Kant’s Absolute

Theory of Space in 1768. Kantian Review 21: 415–435.
Contents
1 Introduction: An Overview of the Metaphysics of the

Pre-Critical and Critical Kant 1
References 16
2 Space, Force, and Matter in the Early Natural Science

Writings 19
The Alternative to a Relationist Reading of Kant’s Early
View of Space 19
Space and Nature in Thoughts on the True Estimation of
Living Forces 23
Space and Matter in Universal Natural History and
Theory of the Heavens 32
Conclusion 43
References 53
3 Substances, Space, and Causality in the Early Metaphysical

Writings 59
Interpreting the New Elucidation and the Physical
Monadology 59
The Metaphysics of the Causal Nexus in the New Elucidation 61
The Principle of Succession: Physical Influence
or Pre-established Harmony? 68
The Principle of Co-existence: God’s Presence to Substances 74
vii
viii Contents
Space and Bodies in the Physical Monadology 83

Conclusion 95
References 105
4 The Development of Kant’s Pre-Critical Metaphysics

from 1758 to 1766109
The Steady Separation of Sense and Reason 109
Philosophical Method and the Relation of Mathematics to
Metaphysics 111
Interpretations of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer 123
Analysis of the First Chapter of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer:
Clarifying Spiritualism 130
Analysis of the Remainder of Dreams: Reforming
Metaphysics 135
Conclusion 142
References 147
5 The Asymmetry of Space: Kant’s Theory

of Absolute Space in 1768153
Space as Dynamic and Asymmetrical 153
Basic Concepts: Position (Lage) and Direction (Gegend) 155
Kant’s Argument for Absolute Space Based on Incongruent
Counterparts 158
Kant’s Solution and the Fall of Parity 160
Resolution of Some Interpretative Difficulties 162
Conclusion 167
References 171
6 The Moment of Transformation: Time and

the Critical Turn in the Inaugural Dissertation175
The Collapse of the Pre-Critical Metaphysics 175
The Subreptic Axioms and the Role of Time in Kant’s Turn 180
The Dependency of Time on the Subject 189
Conclusion 207
References 214
Contents ix
7 Kant’s Theory of Space in the Inaugural Dissertation

and the Birth of Transcendental Idealism217
Comparing Space and Time 217
The Perceptual Account of Kant’s Theory of Space 219
The Deflationary Account of Kant’s Theory of Space 229
The Constructivist Account of Kant’s Theory of Space 236
The Dependency of Space on the Subject 242
Conclusion 259
References 269
Index275
Abbreviations of Kant’s Works
AA Gesammelte Schriften. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902–.

PND New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition. Trans.
David Walford. In Theoretical Philosophy, 1755–1770. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992.
MonPh The Employment in Natural Philosophy of Metaphysics Combined with
Geometry, … the Physical Monadology. Trans. David Walford. In
Theoretical Philosophy, 1755–1770. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992.
BDG The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the
Existence of God. Trans. David Walford. In Theoretical Philosophy,
1755–1770. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
NG Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into
Philosophy. Trans. David Walford. In Theoretical Philosophy, 1755–1770.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
UD Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology
and Morality. Trans. David Walford. In Theoretical Philosophy,
1755–1770. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
NEV M. Immanuel Kant’s announcement of his programme of his lectures for
the winter semester 1765–1766. Trans. David Walford. In Theoretical
Philosophy, 1755–1770. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
TG Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics. Trans.
GUGR Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in
Space. Trans. David Walford. In Theoretical Philosophy, 1755–1770.
xi
xii Abbreviations of Kant’s Works
MSI On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World. Trans.
V-Lo Lectures on Logic. Trans. J. Michael Young. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992.
KprV Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. Mary Gregor. In Practical
Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
WDO What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking? Trans. Allen Wood
and George Di Giovanni. In Religion and Rational Theology.
V-Met Lectures on Metaphysics. Trans. Karl Ameriks and Steve Naragon.
KrV Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood.
Br Correspondence. Trans. Arnulf Zweig. Cambridge: Cambridge
Prol Prolegomena. Trans. Gary Hatfield. In Theoretical Philosophy after 1781.
MAN Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Trans. Michael Friedman.
In Theoretical Philosophy after 1781. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002.
ÜE On a Discovery whereby any New Critique of Pure Reason is to be Made
Superfluous by an Older One. Trans. Henry Allison. In Theoretical
Philosophy after 1781. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Refl Notes and Fragments. Trans. Paul Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge
GSK Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces. Trans. Jeffery
Edwards and Martin Schönfeld. In Natural Science. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. 2012.
UFE Examination of the Question whether the Rotation of the Earth on its
Axis […] has Undergone any Change. Trans. Olaf Reinhardt. In
Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
FEV The Question, Whether the Earth is Aging, Considered from a Physical
Point of View. Trans. Olaf Reinhardt. In Natural Science. Cambridge:
NTH Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. Trans. Olaf
Reinhardt. In Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012.
Di Succinct Exposition of Some Mediations on Fire. Trans. Lewis White
Beck. In Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012.
NLBR New Doctrine of Motion and Rest. Trans. Olaf Reinhardt. In Natural
Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: An Overview
of the Metaphysics of the Pre-Critical
and Critical Kant
Any work on Kant’s theoretical philosophy must orient itself within a set
of problems that has been developed in a steady stream of literature start-
ing with the initial reviews of the Critique of Pure Reason in the 1780s.
There are many ways to phrase the perennial questions that swirl around
both the pre-Critical and Critical metaphysics. My foci are on the debates
about realism and idealism, the nature of space and time, and the distinc-
tion between things-in-themselves and appearances. While the present
work concentrates on Kant’s early works up to and including the 1770
Dissertation, the interpretation that it provides of Kant’s metaphysics
prior to the Critique of Pure Reason has implications for how we interpret
that work as well. In order to justify a detailed study of Kant’s early
thought, which many might dismiss as superseded by and irrelevant to the
mature works, I want to illustrate, in the clearest terms as possible, how
this present work can be situated within the major trends within Kant
scholarship.
Philosophy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries can be character-
ized by, among other things, the rejection of metaphysical dualisms of any
sort. That trend has deeply informed the research into Kant’s writings,
which has been a remarkable hotbed of activity and has cross-fertilized a
host of topics in Anglo-American philosophy. Out of that prodigious
activity, a division between two approaches to Kant’s potential metaphysi-
cal dualism has emerged. The first approach shows how Kant speaks to
anti-metaphysical research projects in epistemology, the philosophy of
© The Author(s) 2020 1

M. Rukgaber, Space, Time, and the Origins of Transcendental
Idealism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60742-5_1
2 M. RUKGABER
mind, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of psychology, and the

philosophy of language. This approach is championed by scholars like
Henry Allison (2004), who look to defend such an anti-metaphysical
approach as a correct historical reading of Kant, as well those such as Abela
(2002) and Hanna (2001), who follow in the footsteps of Wilfrid Sellars
by using Kant to construct contemporary theories of cognition, percep-
tion, and reference. The second approach follows the tradition of Strawson
(1966) and does not attempt to tame the metaphysical dualism within
Kant’s writings. Instead, it tends to focus on its failures, ambiguities, con-
tradictions, and the general implausibility of some of its core ideas.
Instances of this approach are found in Westphal (2004) and Van Cleve
(1999), although some have argued that such dualism is not as disastrous
as it seems (Langton 1998). These divisions straddle a further distinction
between rationalist reconstructionism or “appropriationism” versus a
more historical “contextualism” (Mercer 2019). The debate between
metaphysical versus anti-metaphysical (cognitive or epistemological)
approaches has the field divided, and it is not clear that either interpreta-
tive method can mediate the dispute. Ultimately, the ambiguity within
Kant’s texts, which allows them to sustain this division, demands a herme-
neutical approach that goes beyond mere historical contextualism. Some
anachronisms are inevitable. There are at least two significant reasons
for this.
Firstly, if scholars make no effort to translate Kant’s language and ideas
into accessible concepts outside of his specialized terminology, then con-
textualist research, whether attempting to avoid or accept metaphysical
dualism, remains of interest only to a few well-trained Kantian scholars.
Kant’s texts and ideas will remain wrapped in an opaque argot. Explanations
of obscure concepts will rely on other equally obscure notions resulting in
an empty and alienating edifice. A sort of scholasticism emerges, which
can of course be said of a great amount of scholarly output in any field, but
which appears to outsiders to be little more than a debate about the num-
ber of angels that can fit on the head of a pin.1 It is telling that Kant’s
notion of an “architectonic” has become synonymous with this for some.
The second barrier to simple contextualism is that Kant himself seems to
have been a less-than-careful reader of other thinkers. Geographically iso-
lated and hampered by his health, his correspondence pales in comparison
to most other major philosophers of the time. His references to and
explicit readings of the work of others are minimal. While contextualism
in Kant scholarship is certainly in full swing as more and more scholarship
1 INTRODUCTION: AN OVERVIEW OF THE METAPHYSICS… 3
appears on German thinkers that may have influenced Kant or that were
contemporaries with him, it is not clear to me that this has moved the
needle in terms of our ability to solve longstanding interpretive disputes.
This lack of progress has less to do with the excellent scholarship on
“minor figures” (according to the mainstream philosophical canon) and
more to do with the idiosyncrasies of Kant’s language and ideas. Kant
seems to have rarely stepped into another’s philosophical system without
distorting it. His influences and contemporaries offer us only more com-
plications to an already complicated, jargon-heavy system. Strangely,
Kant’s own early works are rarely read as a helpful guide to his transcen-
dental idealism. I think that this is a mistake for which Kant himself is
partially responsible as he notoriously disowned his earlier writings.
Kant’s thought is dominated, in my view, by a metaphysical vision that
has been called a “two-world” metaphysics, which I take to mean a dual-
istic vision of two spheres of being, which lack any shared objects or forms,
although it is not impossible that there is some connection between them.
Allais describes it as follows: “The traditional ‘two world’ camp sees Kant’s
appearances and his things as they are in themselves as different kinds of
entities that are in some kind of (unknown) relation to each other, and is
generally committed to understanding appearances in terms of phenome-
nalism, as mental or virtual entities” (Allais 2004, p. 657). So-called one
world views convert this distinction into one between two types of proper-
ties (Langton 1998, p. 13) or aspects (Allison 2004, p. 16) that belong to
the same object. Immediately, I should note that I deny that the two-worlds
interpretation is committed to phenomenalism or to understanding
appearances as intentional, virtual, or mental objects (e.g. Van Cleve 1999,
pp. 8–9). Nor did the pre-Critical Kant think that this relation was
unknown, even if it could not be made fully and determinately under-
stood. Of course, the fundamental issue in the study of Kant’s theoretical
philosophy is not whether he held such a two-world metaphysics between
the years that are my focus (1747–1770). After all, the pre-Critical works
are largely ignored and most who have an opinion about them assume that
they contain objectionable metaphysics of some sort. Most scholars are
concerned with whether he held a two-worlds ontology in the Critique of
Pure Reason.
While I generally do not discuss works after the 1770 Dissertation, I do
give some reasons to think that this ontology may remain in some form in
the Critical era. In particular, I hold that the fundamental assumption that
leads scholars to agree that a two-worlds commitment to
4 M. RUKGABER
things-in-themselves renders observable reality less than real, illusory,

mental, or imaginary is a mistake.2 A two-worlds metaphysics must resist
any connection between worlds that threatens to reduce one to the other
or eliminate one as imaginary, for that would be, by definition, a one-
world view. But critics of two-world views are convinced that the undeni-
able subject-dependence of the notion of appearances inevitably collapses
into a noumenalistic one-world view if any substantial two-world distinc-
tion is allowed. In other words, to allow a two-worlds distinction turns the
world we experience into a subjective projection atop an unexperienced
and, thus, unknown reality. This must be the case, they reason, because
Kant’s theory of space and time is tied to the mental operations that the
human mind performs in perception to represent the world. Given that
space and time are said to be a priori forms of intuition, what else then
could a two-worlds view mean except that the subjective world of appear-
ances is a mental construction? My sense is that such a threat of phenom-
enalist falsification of empirical reality is a problem for both one-world and
two-world theories as long as space and time are something like mental-
perceptual schema. This internalization of space and time makes it difficult
for every sort of interpretation to resist the idea that Kant’s ontology gives
a fundamental status to things-in-themselves and degrades the sensible
world to the mental. By showing that this internalist interpretation of the
Critical theory of space and time is mistaken, I open the door to the pos-
sibility that the phenomenalist threat of a two-worlds metaphysics can be
eliminated. To demonstrate the precise nature of his metaphysical com-
mitments in Critique of Pure Reason is a task for the sequel to the present
work. By exploring a non-phenomenalist two-worlds metaphysics in the
pre-Critical works, the groundwork will have been lain for extending that
view, with appropriate modifications, to the mature works.
A two-world metaphysics is not committed to phenomenalism. The
phenomenalist thinks of appearances as mental entities rather than the
empirically real objects of experience. The lack of ontological reduction on
a two-worlds view is clearly seen in the pre-Critical period, where it is less
controversial (but not entirely without controversy) to say that Kant held
such a view. During this time, he never believed that phenomenalism or
ontological reductionism was the implication of such a metaphysics. While
Leibniz himself was often charged with such phenomenalism, the early
works can be seen as a sort of “apology for Leibniz,” and his two-worlds
division between the Kingdoms of Nature and the Kingdoms of Grace, as
Kant even says of his own Critique of Pure Reason (ÜE, AA 8:250). Kant’s
life-long project in metaphysics was to show that phenomenalism was not

the result of metaphysics: one could maintain a commitment to the reality
and truth of the two separate domains of physics and metaphysics without
one collapsing into the other. The fact that this is not recognized and, in
fact, quite the opposite aim is regularly attributed to him, is puzzling but
not without explanation.
There are (at least) two mistakes—one regarding the pre-Critical writ-
ings and one regarding the Critical writings—that are at work here. Both
mistakes are the heritage of rational reconstructionism with its ambition to
make Kant’s thought speak to our modern anti-metaphysical and anti-
dualistic worldview. In the dominant interpretations of the pre-Critical
philosophy by leading English-language scholars (Laywine 1993;
Schönfeld 2000; Kanterian 2018), it is largely ignored that Kant accepted
the Leibnizian conception of substances as living, mind-like beings, whose
interconnection with each other, via the creative power of God’s divine
intellect, gives rise to the harmonious material order of nature. Even in
works of remarkable insight on Kant’s philosophy of nature (e.g. Friedman
1992; Watkins 2005), it is commonly held that Kant’s pre-Critical meta-
physics is simply an account of “composite corporeal substances,” with a
“monistic conception of substantial force” in which everything is explained
via “the same agency of transuent causation or physical influence”
(Edwards 2000, pp. 74–8). The baroque, dualistic metaphysics that I will
show that Kant held, which tends toward pre-established harmony, is so
far outside the realm of plausibility for most philosophers that I suspect
that it is a mixture of both of the principle of charity and a desire to show
the contemporary value of Kant’s thinking that keeps such a reading from
gaining traction. Yet there is more at work here. In English-language lit-
erature at least, the interpretation of the pre-Critical metaphysics that I
propose is not even mentioned, let alone explicitly excluded for either
textual or charitable reasons, even though it has support in the pioneering
research of Heimsoeth (1960, 1967). One reason for its exclusion cer-
tainly stems from the fact that Kant is often relying ambiguous notion of
substance that is sometimes an appearance in the world (via physical force)
and sometimes a non-spatial and internal essence containing representa-
tions and being preserved by God. Scholars tend to focus on the former
and entirely ignore the latter. Thus, some of the problems here lie with
Kant himself. But I think the contemporary default to eliminate dualism
and read historical works through the presumption of a one-world meta-
physics is also to blame.
6 M. RUKGABER
One consequence of this winnowing of his metaphysical worldview is

that Kant’s pre-Critical theory of space is misunderstood. When Kant says
that the order of space and time is grounded upon the reciprocal determi-
nations of substances, it is assumed that what he means is that substances
are essentially bodies in space, and that space and time are the relations (or
form of the causal reactions) that are between them (Edwards 2000,
pp. 76, 80). In effect, scholars tend to read the pre-Critical Kant as a
“transcendental realist,” who holds that appearances (spatio-temporal
objects) are just collections of things-in-themselves (metaphysical sub-
stances). The pre-Critical Kant was apparently a one-worlder who, accord-
ing to the leading interpretation offered by Schönfeld, wanted to combine
metaphysics and physics into a single room of reality (Schönfeld 2000,
p. 168). According to Allais, the Critical-era “one world” interpretation
“is the view that the very same things that appear to us as being a certain
way have a certain way they are in themselves, which is unknown to us”
(Allais 2004, p. 657). Presumably, the only difference between the pre-
Critical and Critical Kant is that former believed that we could know
something of the way that things are in themselves. The abandonment of
such metaphysical aspirations in favor of a humbler critical epistemology
constitutes the Critical turn, as the story goes. Essentially, the pre-Critical
Kant is thought to hold a one-world metaphysics modeled more on the
mechanics of Newton than the metaphysics of Leibniz, with the addi-
tional, non-Newtonian commitment to things-in-themselves (substances)
as physical beings with causal powers. This aligns well with the standard
reading of Kant’s Critical-era one-world view, in which he rejects the
causal powers of transcendentally real substances and, instead, simply
focuses on the perceptual and cognitive schemas that frame our experience
and support our judgments. But as just stated by Allais, it would appear
that such a Critical one-world view cannot escape some commitment to an
intrinsic nature or set of properties that are unknown to us and that con-
stitute the objects that we experience as they are in themselves.
I maintain that this story of Kant’s pre-Critical and Critical one-world
metaphysics is mistaken. The pre-Critical Kant has a metaphysical notion
of substances and their relation to God, which constitute a set of entities
and relations that are so fundamentally distinct from the natural order of
things that they can rightfully be called their own world, although he
believed that a connection between worlds could be posited. The Critical
Kant effectively widens this gap by arguing that things-in-themselves are
of such a radically different order from the experientially given and
scientifically studied world that to say that the one gives rise to the other
is to gesture unknowingly at an unintelligible miracle. This is because such
things are merely the logical idea of possibilities, which cannot have a
place in our philosophical ontology. I hold that the notion of a thing-in-
itself is the idea of a metaphysical essence that acts as the ground of pos-
sibility. While the pre-Critical Kant saw them as monadic entities capable
of representation, in the Critical philosophy they belong to the realm of
ideas or to the set of compossible things that constitute the idea of this
possible world. Another way to put the difference between the pre-Critical
and Critical philosophies is that the former believes that we can give onto-
logical status to such essences (possibilia) and think of them as living beings
or simple substances that generate the actual world in conjunction with
the creative-preserving act of God. The Critical philosophy holds that
things-in-themselves constitute the transcendental matter of a possible
world. They are purely logical ideas that we cannot eliminate from think-
ing for various reasons but that we also cannot give ontological status to,
at least not without moving into the domain of morality.
Ironically, the opinion of many philosophers who are not Kant special-
ists and who simply take the pre-Critical and Critical Kant to be engaging
in “bad” or “spooky” metaphysics is perhaps closer to the truth than the
readings of specialists in the field. While specialists are right to deny phe-
nomenalism, they attempt to preserve the given world and scientific truth
only by eliminating all signs of a “spooky” metaphysics. But I do not
believe that Kant ever thought that a two-world metaphysics resulted in
such an invalidation of science and experience. The mistaken connection
between a two-world metaphysics and a phenomenalist devaluing of the
given world emerges in interpretations of the Critical philosophy because
of the idea that space and time are a priori forms of intuition. This doc-
trine pushes even those who wish to assert Kant’s “empirical realism” to
accept an internalization of space and time (and the “appearances” within
them) to the human mind. How else is one to then make sense of the idea
that “things as they appear to us are mind-dependent, in some sense and
to some extent” (Allais 2004, p. 656)? Scholars tend to interpret subject-
or mind-dependence by either reducing external objects into mental ones
(Van Cleve 1999) or by weakening the idea to mean that only some aspects
of things are mind-dependent (Allais 2004) or by shifting the topic to a
deflated epistemic claim that knowledge and reference contain inelim-
inable references to the cognitive subject (Allison 2004). My sense is that
these three options are all to be rejected. The first is empirical idealism that
8 M. RUKGABER
Kant openly rejects. The second is a form of transcendental realism that he

also rejects. The third simply eliminates idealism and metaphysics alto-
gether which I call deflationism.
These traditions of interpretation lead many of the best scholars in the
field to argue that the Critical Kant cannot be a two-world “noumenalist”
(Allais 2004, p. 658). This denial of noumenalism is a thesis about the
nature of the things that we experience: we experience what is real, but
perhaps not all of it and not without distortion. Interestingly, an anti-
reductivist two-world noumenalism is simply not committed to the idea
that the ultimate analysis of given objects is that they consist of a “special
kind of object, distinct from the objects of which we have knowledge and
experience, which would be an object for a different kind of intuition than
ours” (Allais 2004, p. 659). The two-world view is not committed to the
intelligibility of this statement simply because of the radical divide between
worlds. They are not committed to the two worlds being the difference
between different types of objects in our world. Nor are they committed
to the two-world thesis even being a claim about objects, as opposed to a
distinction between a world of objects and a world of ideas (in the Platonic
sense). While the pre-Critical Kant refers to these possibilia (essentia) to
explain certain phenomena in our world (esse), the Critical Kant sees this
as a mistake. The ultimate metaphysical analysis of actual objects in the
Critical era appeals only to how space and time are real and yet belong
only to the world that houses our perspective. The two-world view is not
necessarily committed to any sort of shared principle of individuation that
would allow one to keep the reference of “the same object” across the two
worlds. Kant never believed, even in the pre-Critical writings, that the
proper and complete metaphysical analysis of objects consisted solely of
their noumenal description (as monadic essences or principles preserved
and sustained by the divine mind).3 Instead, such a description was meta-
physically generated by the attempt to explain the harmony and perfection
of the universe, which is true even in the Critical Philosophy. In the Critical
period, the ideational essence of things qua things-in-themselves is recog-
nized as a logical posit of pure reason to which we cannot immediately
give any ontological status. But if the two-worlds view does not require
ontological reductionism, then the only thing objectionable about it is its
openness to the conceptual usefulness and non-contradictoriness of a fun-
damentally distinct order of being, which may even be supported by prac-
tical reason. Ironically, after entirely eliminating metaphysics for a theory
of reference, the deflationist approach seems unable to escape a “spooky”
property-dualism as being a part of Kant’s Critical ontology, precisely

because they cannot separate being into two worlds. Many one-worlders
remain ontologically committed to spooky property-dualism because they
have converted an account of the sensible world into an account of sensi-
ble cognition alone and left Kant’s Critical ontology attached to a univocal
notion of being. Ultimately, a two-worlds view ends up having the
resources to thoroughly disentangle these separate ontologies (the ide-
ational and non-relational from the physical and relational), which it can
do because it recognizes that Kant is giving a metaphysical account of
the world.
Undoubtedly, the two-world metaphysics of the pre-Critical Kant is
spooky. After all, the metaphysical foundation of the world is said to con-
sist of simple substances that possess “principles of action” through which
they act in response to their representations of the world. Not only do
they act in response to their representation of alterations external to them,
they do so in reciprocal determination with other substances, while retain-
ing their inner simplicity and their core non-relationality. They are able to
exist in such harmony with other substances because each possesses a rep-
resentation of the universe that is given to them by the preserving and
creative power of God. The substances that underlie material objects are
thought of as slumbering or unconscious monads, which are incapable of
forming a mind, but nevertheless existing as active, representing beings.
Although the non-relational, essential nature of these substances is
unchanging, being a principle of individuation tied to rules of action, their
representational state (a contingent mode of the substance) changes by
their own power. In order that they act in response to each other and to
actual changes in the world, God superadds to them the power to con-
struct material forces in the world. Substances then have a metaphysically
dualistic nature: an internal principle to alter their own inner states and an
external principle to alter force relations in the material world. They are a
mind and body and in this way only are they able to form a perfect, fecund,
and creative nexus. This is the account Kant gives of how the change of
one substance’s state results in a change of the state of the material, force-
based world, which leads to a representational change in other substances
that then alter their own states in response to the evolving picture of the
world. While Kant views this as a version of the physical influence theory
of the mind-body relation, he rejects the defining feature of physical influ-
ence theory, namely, that the only active forces are physical ones. His
metaphysical vision is deeply indebted to Baumgarten, and when he looks
10 M. RUKGABER
back at it from the Critical period, he is able to see its close links to the
doctrine of pre-established harmony and even to a sort of Spinozism.
Admittedly, this exotic two-worlds metaphysics is startling even to many
people familiar with Kant’s work. In the following pages, I will demon-
strate the textual evidence for it and show that it remains relatively
unchanged from 1747 to 1770.
Besides clarifying and unifying the pre-Critical writings, this vision has
surprising advantages when considering the relationship between the early
and mature works. Firstly, it clearly shows that the notion of things-in-
themselves and appearances has a long history in Kant’s thinking and that
its origin is the fundamental ontological difference between a world of
principles or essences, which contains all possible determinations of a
thing, and physical objects and forces that are actualizations of the possi-
bilities of simple substances. The division between a realm of ideas or
principles and a world of material objects and forces presents us with an
ontological divide that resists reduction of one to the other. Secondly,
when Kant comes to reject the legitimacy of explaining the physical world
through the causal powers and temporal properties of simple substances in
1770, the divide between these realms grows in such a way that the onto-
logical status of essences (now mere possibilia) is seriously undermined.
While I cannot defend the status of such notions in the Critical system at
present, I simply want to point out how out of touch with Kant’s usage
and how transcendentally realistic it is to say either that the world as it is
given to us really consists of things-in-themselves or that it is the same
object that is both given as appearance and as possessing of some inacces-
sible inner nature or set of properties that define it as it is in itself. From
the position of a two-world interpretation, these are simply category mis-
takes that make appearances into things-in-themselves. A third advantage
of the view that I offer is that we can precisely identify the break from the
pre-Critical metaphysics in Kant’s elimination of time and, thus, activity
from simple substances in the 1770 Dissertation. This enacts an unbridge-
able gap between the two worlds, a gap that had previously only existed
between the non-spatial and atemporal God and his relation to the simple,
active substances. Now all things-in-themselves (God, simple substances,
and souls) are isolated to the atemporal, logical, and noumenal ground of
the world as possibilia, at least within the domain of theoretical reason.
Fourthly, Kant’s pre-Critical conception of metaphysical, simple sub-
stances illustrates that he thinks of representations as relations that carry
information about the spatio-temporal world. He also always seems to
have thought of representational beings as having an a priori representa-

tion of the world-whole, which obviously is transformed into our idea of
having an a priori intuition of space and time in the Critical era. There are
of course many other connections to be made between the early and
mature works, but that will perhaps be sufficient to convince readers who
are skeptical of the merits of such a “spooky” metaphysics that it has some
value for the interpretation even of Kant’s mature writings.
While the avoidance by scholars of the pre-Critical two-world meta-
physics consists of little more than simply ignoring the discussions of sim-
ple substances and the exact nature that they have to one another and to
God, scholars of the Critical philosophy have legitimate concerns rooted
in the longstanding debate about its compatibility with the restrictions on
knowledge that Kant argues for in 1781. While that cannot be addressed
here, the “internalist” mistake that I mentioned above can be combatted
within the limits of my present focus. The internalization of the notions of
space and time within the mind pushes almost every interpreter—whether
they accept one-world or two—toward the vision of a Cartesian subject
trapped in the theater of the mind. Interestingly, the analysis of Kant’s pre-
Critical account of the mind and representation suggests that he never
accepts such an internalist conception of representation. Representation is
always thought of as a relationship of depiction of and action in the exter-
nal world. Thus, I do not believe that Kant thought we were blocked from
reality by mediating representations that are constructed out of sensations
by a variety of processes either passive or active. This internalist concep-
tion of Kant’s theory of space and time means that the “subject-
dependence” or “mind-dependence” of the world of “appearances” is
little more than the idea that the properties of the objects of experience are
either entirely or partially a mental projection within experience. But what
is the alternative?
The last two chapters of the present work offer what I call an “external-
ist” account of the subjective nature of space and time in the Critical phi-
losophy. Space and time are real relations between events and objects
outside of the mind, relations that we can even perceive empirically.
Contrary to the nearly universal idea that Kant is committed to all spatial
and temporal information being an addition by the subject as he or she
processes and represents the world, all that he is actually committed to
regarding our perceptions of space and time is that they are made possible
by an a priori grasp on the nature of space and time. While our pure rep-
resentations of space and time are an intimate part of our empirical
12 M. RUKGABER
representations, they are not filters on otherwise non-spatial and non-

temporal data. Perception for Kant is of a direct realist variety, and the
objects that affect us are spatio-temporal objects and forces. Kant’s theory
of space and time is not simply a theory of the cognition or mental repre-
sentation of space and time. It is a metaphysical thesis about the subject-
dependence of space and time themselves. In order to be able to say that
appearances simply are spatio-temporal objects outside of the mind whose
properties we are able to perceive, one needs an account of how they and
space and time themselves can be subject-dependent without being men-
tal. That means one needs to understand how the existence of space, time,
and the objects that affect us are metaphysically dependent on the pres-
ence of cognitive subjects and yet are not mere structures within the mind.
The solution depends on Kant’s conception of the natural world, which
he believes to be made up of infinite continua. Totality, either in the suc-
cession of parts toward the whole or in the division of parts toward the
simple, is not a part of nature. This means that there is no simple, intrinsic
metric by which things are naturally individuated. There is no such thing
as a position, point, or a single, simple moment in nature. Instead, every-
thing, as it is given in appearance, is always an infinite succession toward
the One—either the one single world or the one single part. On this view,
nature consists of nothing but relations, which implies that it has no intrin-
sic relata. Therefore, we cannot say that nature is intrinsically spatio-
temporal, because space and time require there to be positions, relations,
and events. Space and time demand determinacy and individuation.
Nature in itself, or what Kant calls “transcendental matter” in 1770, lacks
both of these: it lacks any intrinsic form and, thus, lacks the internal
resources to determine what counts as individuals and what relations hold
between them. Nature in itself is the mere possibility of some system of
individuation and measurement. Calling it intrinsically spatial or temporal
becomes a meaningless, anthropocentric claim. From an eternal perspec-
tive, the entire infinite universe of space and time could just as well be
compacted into a single point in a higher order system. This is what it
means to call the natural world “appearance”: its form of individuation
and relationality is relative to a determinate metrical perspective that pos-
sesses transformation rules for individuating and measuring. Kant’s view is
that the cognitive subject institutes form (individuation and relation) by
existing as an essentially indexical “now” and “here.” These are perspective-
relative simples that act as fundamental units of measure. We also intro-
duce through our mere existence the rules for continuously constituting
the “now” and the “here” through rigid, continuous movements that
have directionality or orientation (past-present-future and up-down-left-
right-front-back). These directional notions are what are sometimes called
A-series relations in the study of time. Kant’s argument for the subject-
dependence and transcendental ideality of space and time is that objective
and positional relations between any two points in space and time (so-
called B-series relations) depend on there being such directionality
(A-series relations). Of course, those A-series or directional notions require
the presence of a relative simple element (the “now” and the “here”),
which is not found in nature and which is the condition upon any possible
measurement. The simple in nature only comes to be through the exis-
tence of the perspective of a cognitive subject such as ourselves. This view
is a version of what is called conventionalism or constructivism.
This too may appear “spooky,” because it suggests that in the absence
of the human perspective, it makes no sense to talk about the planets and
matter whirling about in space. Such a story about matter and the origins
of the universe prior to human existence was of course an important fea-
ture of Kant’s pre-Critical works, although, in truth, none of it was prior
to mind-like substances, whose activity introduced the individuation, met-
ric, and rules of transformation that define the natural world. When such
metaphysical, mind-like objects are not allowed within matter itself, Kant
can of course speak counterfactually of the possible experience of possible
minds that would have experienced planets whirling about in space bil-
lions of years ago. But he must also hold, starting in 1770, that absent the
human perspective, we cannot think of nature as being in and of itself a
world of matter in motion and must conceive of it as the mere possibility
of such a world. While this sounds bizarre to many, it seems to presage a
problem at the heart of modern physics. Arthur Koestler once fretted
about the position modern science places us in:
Each of the ‘ultimate’ and ‘irreducible’ primary qualities of the world of

physics proved in its turn to be an illusion. The hard atoms of matter went
up in fireworks; the concepts of substance, force, of effects determined by
causes, and ultimately the very framework of space and time turn out to be
as illusory as the ‘tastes, odours, and colours’ which Galileo had treated so
contemptuously. Each advance in physical theory, with its rich technological
harvest, was brought by a loss in intelligibility. (Koestler 1959, p. 540)
14 M. RUKGABER
These waves [on the theory of quantum mechanics], then, on which I sit,
coming out of nothing, traveling through a non-medium in multi-
dimensional non-space, are the ultimate answer modern physics has to offer
to man’s question after the nature of reality. The waves that seem to consti-
tute matter are interpreted by some physicists as completely immaterial
‘waves of probability’ marking out ‘disturbed areas’ where an electron is
likely to ‘occur’. ‘They are as immaterial as the waves of depression, loyalty,
suicide, and so on, that sweep over a country.’ From here there is only one
step to calling them abstract, mental, or brain waves in the Universal Mind—
without irony. (Koestler 1959, p. 542)
Thus the medieval walled-in universe with its hierarchy of matter, mind, and
spirit, has been superseded by an expanding universe of curved, multi-
dimensional empty space, where the stars, planets, and their populations are
absorbed into the space-crinkles of the abstract continuum—a bubble blown
out of ‘empty space welded onto empty time.’ (Koestler 1959, p. 543)
Faced with this worrisome situation Koestler sees modern science as filled
with hubris for trying to grasp the impossible. Should we go along with it,
then we must say that “the universe is indeed of such a nature that it can-
not be comprehended in terms of human space and time, human reason,
and human imagination” (Koestler 1959, p. 545). Kant’s Critical view-
point is not so far removed from this. The material world in-itself absent
the human being cannot be said to consist of space and time or to adhere
to human reason and imagination. It can only be thought of logically as
the realm of possibility, which he had in his pre-Critical works thought of
without irony in terms of the Universal Mind. But rather than the despair
that Koestler feels when faced with what seems like the phenomenalist
reduction of the natural world that we experience into an illusion, Kant
recovers the a priori necessity, empirical reality, and transcendental ideality
of that “walled-in world” that Koestler thinks we have lost. Kant recovers
it through our being in the world, our essentially indexical self-experience,
and the a priori form of a being that experiences like we do, which is to
say, that moves about and contacts things as we do, thereby constructing
those walls.
If Kant’s theory of space and time is as revolutionary as I make it out to
be and as central to his Critical turn as it appears, then the fact that his
mature works are rarely read through the lens of his early one is rather
unfortunate. The first four chapters following this introduction aim to give
a detailed, consistent, and textually well-supported account of Kant’s
pre-Critical metaphysical system (1747–1768). They trace Kant’s notion

of space as the first, natural expression of the harmonious interaction of
metaphysical substances and as a field of attractive force, out of which the
rest of nature springs. In spite of Schönfeld’s monograph (2000) and the
more recent work by Kanterian (2018), there is no presentation in the
English-language literature of the pre-Critical philosophy as a coherent ide-
alistic system that uses the mathematical, dynamical, and cosmological per-
fection of the universe as a symbol for the community of ultimate
metaphysical substances or essences. For most scholars, the pre-Critical
writings are plagued with inconsistencies and ambiguities, but I find this
reading to be the result of a failure to trace the two-world or Platonic ele-
ment of Kant’s writings and to see how it is meant to sit alongside a philo-
sophical method that is sensitive to the empirical components of knowledge.
A standard assessment is that “Kant’s original philosophical orientation
may be safely described as rationalist, but his early, ‘pre-Critical’ writings,
taken as a whole do not express a unified philosophical outlook. Nor do
they display cumulative progress towards one. The impression they give is
rather of continual dissatisfaction and experimentation” (Gardner 1999,
p. 13). After these failures, the Critical philosophy emerges as a form of
critical epistemology or transcendental psychology. The classic narrative of
the relation of the early works to the mature ones is that the former are
simply a form of “transcendental realism” that places reality in substances
(monads) but also takes those substances to be given physically. It is then
argued that in the 1760s Kant goes through a skeptical, empiricist phase in
which he doubts the very possibility of such a hybrid physical metaphysics.
Supposedly, this then leads to Critical-era philosophy understood as an
analysis of the nature and structure of human cognition. I intend to show
that this standard view of Kant’s development is mistaken. The viewpoint
that I advocate is one largely absent from the English-language literature,
but it was advocated for by Heinz Heimsoeth (1960) and other German
Kant scholars who are part of the “metaphysical” interpretative tradition.
That tradition says that the pre-Critical philosophy is an idealist metaphys-
ics that is deeply and positively influential of the mature Critical philosophy.
Notes
1. Ironically, this is a topic I will be discussing in Chap. 2.
2. The idea that any attempt to make the distinction a metaphysical one
between “two distinct types of entities” collapses into phenomenalism and,
16 M. RUKGABER
thus, noumenalism or “transcendental realism” is stated by Allison (2004,

p. 55). Critics of Kant’s two-world metaphysics (e.g. Strawson 1966;
Westphal 2004) agree with Allison, as do those who accept such a metaphys-
ics (Van Cleve 1999, p. 123).
3. While this reading of the distinction may strike English readers as strange,
the German metaphysical school of Kant interpretation offers just such a
Platonic-Augustinian interpretation.
References
Abela, Paul. 2002. Kant’s Empirical Realism. Oxford/New York: Oxford
University.
Allais, Lucy. 2004. Kant’s One World: Interpreting ‘Transcendental Idealism’.
British Journal for the History of Philosophy 12: 655–684.
Allison, Henry. 2004. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and
Defense. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
Edwards, Jeffery. 2000. Substance, Force, and the Possibility of Knowledge: On
Kant’s Philosophy of Material Nature. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Friedman, Michael. 1992. Kant and the Exact Sciences. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Gardner, Sebastian. 1999. Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason. London:
Routledge.
Hanna, Robert. 2001. Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Heimsoeth, Heinz. 1960. Atom, Seele, Monade: Historische Ursprünge und
Hintergründe von Kants Antinomie der Teilung. Weisbaden: Verlag der
Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz.
Heimsoeth, Heinz. 1967. Metaphysical Motives in the Development of Critical
Idealism. In Kant: Disputed Questions, ed. Moltke Gram, 158-199. Chicago:
Quandrangle Books.
Kant, Immanuel. 2002. Theoretical Philosophy After 1781. Trans. and ed. Henry
Allison and Peter Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kanterian, Edward. 2018. Kant, God and Metaphysics: The Secret Thorn. London/
New York: Routledge.
Koestler, Arthur. 1959. The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the
Universe. London: Arkana.
Langton, Rae. 1998. Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Laywine, Allison. 1993. Kant’s Early Metaphysics and the Origins of the Critical
Philosophy. Atascadero: Ridgeview.
Mercer, Christia. 2019. The Contextualist Revolution in Early Modern Philosophy.
Journal of the History of Philosophy 57: 529–548.
Schönfeld, Martin. 2000. The Philosophy of Young Kant: The Precritical Project.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Strawson, P.F. 1966. The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant’s Critique of Pure
Reason. London: Methuen.
Van Cleve, James. 1999. Problems from Kant. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Watkins, Eric. 2005. Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Westphal, Kenneth. 2004. Kant’s Transcendental Proof of Realism. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
CHAPTER 2
Space, Force, and Matter in the Early Natural

Science Writings
The Alternative to a Relationist Reading of Kant’s

Early View of Space
Kant’s early writings on physics and cosmology provide an account of
space in which it is an evolving plenum made up solely of attractive force.1
There is little evidence that he holds that space is an immaterial, empty
receptacle.2 Nor do his metaphysics of substance, his claims about the real-
ity of space, and his theory of physical force support the view that space is
nothing but the order of relations among bodies. I shall make the case for
this by looking at Kant’s first work, True Estimation of Living Forces from
1747, several articles from 1754, his famous work on cosmology from
1755 Universal Natural History, and his Latin dissertation from 1755,
Meditations on Fire. These natural scientific writings are prior to his explicit
treatment of metaphysics in the remaining two Latin dissertations from
late 1755 and early 1756, which have dominated scholarly thinking.
Across the course of this chapter and the next, I will show that Kant’s
metaphysics demands a concept of substance that is not simply physically
dynamic but is also capable of representation. A failure to distinguish the
physical from the metaphysical is what I regard to be the fundamental
problem with interpretations of the pre-Critical philosophy. His thought
is often read as an abstract justification of Newtonian physics and a mon-
adology transformed into physical atomism. The result in both cases is the
looming threat of materialism. While the early metaphysics should be read
© The Author(s) 2020 19

M. Rukgaber, Space, Time, and the Origins of Transcendental
Idealism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60742-5_2
20 M. RUKGABER
as compatible with Kant’s philosophy of nature, a fundamental division

between two must be maintained.
It is typically asserted that “early in his career Kant’s view of space was
relationist and basically Leibnizian” (Parsons 1992, p. 67; also Hatfield
1990, p. 87; 2006, p. 69; Carrier 1992, p. 402; Butts 1984, p. 119;
Polonoff 1973, p. 91; Slowik 2016, p. 342).3 According to Buroker, the
pre-Critical Kant’s view is “that physical objects are ontologically indepen-
dent of and prior to space” (Buroker 1981, p. 38; 1991, p. 319). Why
precisely is this view attributed to Kant? This “relationist conception of
space” seems to follow from the fact that “space is the product of the real
interaction of corporeal substances” (Edwards 2000, p. 76).4
Here he returned to a strictly Leibnizian view of space, although he stated a

different reason for it. … Some substances, according to Kant, interact; that
is, they act outside of themselves. Such action is indirectly the basis of the
order which is space. Without interaction, there would be no connection
between substances, and without this connection no order, and without this
order no space. (Garnett 1939, p. 97)
But relationism is in tension with the recognition that Kant also held that
space was “objective and real” rather than ideal or imaginary (Earman
1991, p. 131).5 The problem is that relationism has a difficult time avoid-
ing seeing the relations between substances as insubstantial and second-
ary.6 This problem haunts one of the few extended studies of Kant’s early
thought in English, Schönfeld’s The Philosophy of Young Kant, where he
argues that Kant grants the reality of substance and the reality of their rela-
tions or interactions, which means that the “relative space” of relations is
also a “substantive space” (Schönfeld 2000, p. 167).7 But this account
surely does not avoid making relations into accidents and giving them a
degraded ontological status. After all, spatial relations are “generated by
component substances” or by “extended composites” that are made up by
“smaller extended components” that occupy a space, and so space seems
to be nothing but an order among material things (Schönfeld 2000,
pp. 166, 170). Because space is a product of substances, and those sub-
stances are characterized as corporeal and extended, then it seems unavoid-
able that “space is nothing but the spatial order of bodies” (Carrier 1992,
p. 399). What sense can there be to saying that Kant holds a relational
view of space but is not “downgrading the reality of space” into “an ideal
relative space” (Schönfeld 2000, p. 166)? The order of bodies is an
2 SPACE, FORCE, AND MATTER IN THE EARLY NATURAL SCIENCE WRITINGS 21
accident of substances.8 It is not unreal, but it is ideal, an alterable order

that is extrinsic to the things themselves. While this does not mean that
relations are necessarily imaginary, Kant’s claims about space are far more
realistic than such a view can explain.
Friedman says that Kant sees space as the “phenomenal expression” and
a “secondary reality, derivative from the monads and their external rela-
tions,” but these external relations are “just as real” as their internal ones
and so are not merely a “phenomenal reality” (Friedman 2009, p. 42).9
The difficulty, once more, is that if space is simply relations between bod-
ies, then not only does the space between bodies seem to be an insubstan-
tial void, but even if bodies are more than merely “phenomenal,” it is not
at all clear that the relations between them are. Essentially, the dominant
interpretation of Kant’s view is that substances are in space as the physical
force of impenetrability (i.e. are bodies), and there are causal force rela-
tions between them (attraction, repulsion, and the mechanical transfer of
motion). Thus, the relations of space are merely the mathematical form of
the causal nexus of forces between interacting bodies, which again sug-
gests a downgraded ontological status for spatial relations and for space
itself. They would appear to be, from a metaphysical perspective, phenom-
enal, because substances need not stand in any such relation. The underly-
ing problem is that scholars have not adequately reckoned with the fact
that substances are not primarily conceived of as bodies. Instead, sub-
stances contain a principle of internal activity, thought of as their having
and altering representational states, which I will take to be synonymous
with receiving and acting in response to information about the world.10
Those representing substances give rise to dynamic cells of attractive force
that create space itself as something substantial in a physical sense (i.e.
material and well-founded but phenomenal in a metaphysical sense).
These cells of attractive force exist prior to all “ordinary material objects”
and make space substantive, although not in the classic Newtonian sense
of space being independent of “physical fields” (Sklar 1974, p. 159). Space
is the primary physical field rather than “a passive arena or container of the
world” (Sklar 1974, p. 163). Through interaction with other attractive
corpuscles, a secondary, repulsive force emerges, which causes shape and
material extension to develop.11 In sum, Kant’s view is that space exists
prior to bodies as small vortices of attractive force. These “attraction
points” or molecules of space, as he will initially call them, are not to be
thought of as vortices of tiny bodies (i.e. impentrable extension). These
corpuscles and, thus, space itself evolve over time, but they do not
22 M. RUKGABER
mechanically move the heavenly bodies as on the Cartesian view. Kant

avoids the problems of a dynamically relevant ether, Cartesian “fluid,” or
“heavenly matter” of tiny fast-moving, shape-shifting particles that create
vortices that swirl like a river (Descartes 1982, pp. 93–6).12
Kant’s corpuscles of attractive force draw in other cells and give rise to
what we encounter as impenetrable, extended bodies. Once nature forms
into the Newtonian universe that we experience, only weak cells of force
remain unincorporated into bodies. These weak cells only have “harmless
effects” and constitute what appears as empty space. So while space is the
product of the order of metaphysical substances, it is not merely an order
of relations among bodies. Neither substances nor their initial physical
expressions are bodies. What scholars have thus failed to recognize is that
Kant’s consistent pre-Critical claim that space exists because of the nexus of
substances can have more than one interpretation. The mistaken interpre-
tation is a transcendentally realistic one in which dynamical substances in
space (i.e. atoms and bodies) are taken to be the ultimate components of
his ontology, which makes space into the real (well-founded) but deriva-
tive and accidental relations that appear between them. But a more ideal-
istic interpretation is possible, which is my view. Here the nexus of
substances is recognized as a metaphysical order of supersensible, repre-
senting beings whose interrelation and coordination give rise to a world of
sensible dynamical forces and causal powers that produce, firstly, space
itself and then bodies.13 On this view, Kant can attribute reality to both the
ground and the grounded, because he is operating with two notions of
“reality.” The idea that space is real but an accident of substances qua bod-
ies is a distinction between a substantial and insubstantial level of the same
reality. On a “two-worlds” interpretation, space qua force is the real and
primary manifestation of nature (natura naturans), while substances are a
different world of entirely internal, representational activity, a world, we
might say, of ideas in a substantial sense. Kant’s ontology is richer than a
collection of bodies in space and the forces between them. He can make
sense of a dynamic spatial field of force that is prior to and the ground of
bodies. And his overall ontology contains even more than such dynamic,
natural forces and beings. Kant’s view of space is akin to what Sklar calls a
“variant on the substantivalist position,” in which “all there is spacetime,”
which means that the “ordinary material contents of the world should be
viewed as ‘pieces’ of spacetime itself” (Sklar 1974, p. 166). Such a view is
found in Newton’s (2004) unpublished De Gravitatione, but he uses this
idea to reject the metaphysics of substance altogether. Unlike Newton’s
immaterialism about space, Kant imagines the pieces of space-time to be

the result of ultimate substances, which have the power of representation
and which give rise to a space made of a protean matter that is not yet
impenetrable body and that consists entirely of attractive force.
Space and Nature in Thoughts on the True Estimation

of Living Forces
While it is obvious that Kant’s pre-Critical work is attempting to “recon-

cile” metaphysics and science, interpreters must decide on the nature of
this reconciliation (Schönfeld 2000, p. 9; Kanterian 2018, p. 140). I reject
the idea that Kant aims to show that “both physical and metaphysical enti-
ties were the ontological furniture of the same room of reality” (Schönfeld
2000, p. 168, emphasis added). Ultimately, Kant’s combination of
Leibnizian metaphysics and Newtonian physics cannot place them in the
“same room” and make monads and physical forces simply “different lev-
els of nature” that “complement each other” (Schönfeld 2000, p. 58,
emphasis added). Holding that monads act “on one another and on mate-
rial things by spiritual Newtonian force” is, if not an outright contradic-
tion, little more than a collapse into materialism (Laywine 1993,
p. 83, emphasis added; see also, Carpenter 2001, p. 8; Shell 1996, p. 21).14
Therefore, I maintain that the pre-Critical project keeps Leibnizian meta-
physics and Newtonian physics in separate “rooms” of reality and refers to
the latter as the appearance of the former. While it is true that Kant’s natu-
ral philosophy does argue for a ground floor of active nature, a realm of
inherent force (natura naturans) that is neither simply bodies governed
by Newton’s laws of motion (appearances) nor the representing beings
that are substances, we cannot use this room to unify what is ultimately a
dualism divided between mind and body, between the inner and the outer,
and between representational powers and moving forces. The “essential
force” that “inheres in a body and belongs to it even prior to extension”
remains a postulation of rational physics that cannot combine simple sub-
stances and material extension in motion into a single ontology or reduce
reality to a single type of causality, force, or being (GSK, AA 1:17).15
What Kant means by “inner natural force” in 1747 is the power of mat-
ter to perpetuate motion, which may be triggered by an external collision
(moving force) or by action at a distance (attraction) and is variable due to
the vim inertiae (GSK, AA 1:148, 27). While a dead mechanism
24 M. RUKGABER
description of nature might be mathematically possible, Kant holds it to

be a construct that is not found in nature (GSK, AA 1:139–140). And so
an actual natural body has “the capacity to increase, by itself and in itself,
the force awakened externally by the cause of its motion,” which means
that “there can be units of force in it that did not originate from the exter-
nal cause of motion, that may be larger than this cause” (GSK, AA 1:140).
This idea of a causal power of “intrinsically imperishable force” obviously
is in conflict with Newton’s laws of motion (GSK, AA 1:28). Kant calls it
a “striving intension” within material bodies, by which they “strive” to
preserve motion, implying that the mathematically analyzed account of
motion is merely an estimation of “the outward phenomenon of force”
(GSK, AA 1:141).16 It is clear that Kant’s notion of such striving and its
variation in nature depend on mass and the related notion of the force of
inertia. In fact, he will come to equate the aspect of living force that is his
focus in 1747 with inertia in 1756, claiming that inertia is that power in
virtue of which matter “strives to persevere in the state of motion”
(MonPh, AA 1:485).17 Importantly, Kant is clear that there may be infi-
nitely small inertial masses that, nonetheless, contain living force, but
which can never be vivified to perpetuate motion (GSK AA 1:163–4).18
This is one of several pieces of evidence that he gives to show that the real-
ity of inner force is separate from observable matter and motion. Such tiny
cells would be material by being a weakly attractive force, but their dynam-
ical insignificance would mean that they never react to other attractive
forces and do not make up composite matter (body) as we know it. Nor
would such cells be able to react with bodies in motion and offer resis-
tance. They could in fact appear as empty space but would still be the
product of metaphysical substances.
Motion is merely external and is the “outward phenomenon of the state
of a body,” which means that it is not necessarily indicative of living force
at all (GSK, AA 1:18). Living force is a power of matter, to generate
(attraction) or preserve (inertia) motion. But this living being is itself the
external expression of a monad or a simple substance that “contains within
itself the complete source of all its determinations” and need not “stand in
any connection with other things” (GSK, AA 1:22).19 Thus, even in 1747,
he holds that all substances have an inner and outer being, which is equal
to the distinction of “their being in themselves” versus “their externaliza-
tion in influencing other substances” (Heimsoeth 1967, p. 162).
Substances by definition are not bodies.20 Bodies are composite and,
therefore, consist of relations, whereas substances can be thought of
independent of all relation (GSK, AA 1:22). Monads are the “complete

ground of the thing itself,” and they contain a “law that manifests itself in
its mode of action” and determines how they “propagate their effects in
union with each other” (GSK, AA 1:24).21 Kant informs us that “the
whole” that this propagation gives rise to—namely, space as a whole—has
three dimensions because of this law (GSK, AA 1:24).22 Because he wants
to focus only on “substances in the existing world of which we are a part,”
he will often elide the distinction between a substance and its external
effects within a spatially arrayed community (GSK, AA 1:24). Admittedly,
he causes confusion regarding his ontology by not keeping the spatial
effects of a substance distinct from the substance itself that is the meta-
physical ground of those effects. The reason why Kant should want to
keep these notions distinct is obvious: if he simply equates the notion of
substances with their effects, then he risks a collapse into materialism as
Baumgarten noted (Baumgarten 2013, §395). He will also not be able to
retain the simplicity of substances if he equates them.
One of Kant’s main arguments in the metaphysical section of this early
work is to “derive the origin of what we call motion from the general con-
cepts of active force” (GSK, AA 1:19).23 It is important to note that this
derivation has several assumptions that suggest that Kant’s point is a very
unambitious one. He is simply showing that vim activam is a primitive
notion and that vim motricem is not. Kant begins by asserting that sub-
stances have a force “determined to act externally (that is, to change the
internal state of other substances)” (GSK, AA 1:19).24 While Kant asserts
that his account shows the triumph of “physical influence” over the “doc-
trine of pre-established harmony,” not only does Kant beg that question,
his own view is closer to the latter than he seems to recognize (GSK, AA
1:21). After all, he holds that the soul operates through “representations
and images” and that because motion changes the external states of affairs
that are “spatially connected with it,” then we must say that “matter
changes the state of the soul” only in the sense that it possesses “status
repraesentativus universi” or the “state of representing the world” (GSK,
AA 1:21). The internal state of the soul or of any substance then is not a
force relation: it is “nothing other than the summation of all its represen-
tation and concepts” brought to bear on the information of its situation
vis-à-vis other substances (GSK, AA 1:21). We shall see in the next chap-
ter that this view is consistent with Baumgarten’s definition of pre-
established harmony and incompatible with the true notion of physical
influence, which Kant himself becomes more and more aware of after
26 M. RUKGABER
1747.25 Besides merely asserting the doctrine of physical influence, Kant

does not keep the metaphysical and the physical distinct in this work. He
ends up summarizing the idea of the determination to cause representa-
tional change in other substances as the idea that “all connection and rela-
tion of separately existing substances is due to the reciprocal actions that
their forces exert on one another,” which makes it sound that the exertion
of force simply is all there is to such interaction (GSK, AA 1:21, my stress).
While this sloppiness on Kant’s part helps to explain why scholars have
continually overlooked the representational side of this picture in favor of
the force-based theory of physical interaction, we cannot hope to do jus-
tice to his views if we just focus on one side or the other.
We also should not overestimate what Kant thinks he can show. He
does not argue for, but simply asserts that we are empirically acquainted
with motion because of this substantial activity (GSK, AA 1:19).26 He
notes that if all substantial activity took place all at once, then the world
would be a static one, in which there was no change or motion, but this
just assumes that motion is the appearance of the activity of substances
changing the internal states of other substances. This suggests that Kant is
not attempting to argue from the notion of simple substances as represen-
tational beings to the notion of bodies in motion, a deductive method that
he calls “synthesis” in the 1760s. Instead, I take it that he is taking the
natural world as empirically given and then showing what is implied about
our conceptualization of the substances that are at its foundation. This is
what he calls “analysis” in the 1760s. If so, his point is just that the general
notion of active force is conceptually more primitive than the empirical
notion of moving force. Rather than attempting to overcome or unify the
difference between representation and motion, he is showing that our
concept of substantial interaction hits bedrock with the notion of sub-
stances as having causal powers that produce change in the inner states of
other substance. Thus, he would avoid the circularity of saying that mov-
ing force is the inherent striving to move in that which is movable, which
Kant sees as a problem for the Wolffians but which was also a problem for
Kant’s teacher, Knutzen (Knutzen 2009, p. 62). Wolff’s position is circu-
lar because, according to Kant, it regards living, propulsive force simply as
an infinity of “dead forces,” which then requires a convoluted theory of
vortices with “infinitely many strange motions” (GSK, AA 1:60).27 So it
assumes motion to explain motion.
By beginning with the bare idea of the action of a substance as the
ground of changes in things, Kant is adopting Knutzen’s notion of action
(Knutzen 2009, p. 61).28 It is also clear that Kant is envisioning these

substances being in a “coexistent state of the world” or the world’s first
dimension (GSK, AA 1:19). I take this to simply be Kant’s understanding
of the world as “a real whole <totum reale>” in which all actual things stand
“in real connection <in nexu reali>” (V-Met/Herder, AA 28:39).29 I want
to point out that there is an unfortunate combination of purely metaphysi-
cal and physical notions here. In a treatise on force, his making this dis-
tinction is not a priority, and his failure to do so is indicative of his
inheritance from Baumgarten and Knutzen. The problem is evident when
trying to make clear whether Kant means “simultaneity” by “co-existence,”
which is a problem because the former is one of Baumgarten’s “relative
predicates of being” and already appeals to notions of space, time, and
extension (Baumgarten 2013, §280).30 While I do not think it is Kant’s
aim to start with a purely metaphysical conception of substances, he nev-
ertheless needs to keep these notions distinct or else the idea of the action
of substances threatens to be identical to movement in space. If he were
clearer that co-existence is the universal internal predicate of “connec-
tion,” and that this is conceptually primary, then we would be less likely to
see the idea of being the determining ground of the consequence of modi-
fications of other substances as being just as circular as the account that he
is criticizing.31 Separating conjunction (co-existence in the merely rational
idea of an order) from being part of a spatial whole (simultaneity in an
external, relational system) is a common problem for Kant’s predecessors
who talk of a monad posited in ordered relations of being “next to” and
“after,” which is ambiguous between the rational notions of ordinality or
membership and the relational notions of space and time (Baumgarten
2013, §238). But presumably conjunction in determining relations means
that beings are merely “posited mutually next to or after one another”
and, thus, have relative “position” as a part of the internal predicate of
“order” (Baumgarten 2013, §78–85).
If we are a bit more careful than Kant and stress the idea that these
substances need not stand in any connection to anything and essentially
consist of a principle or internal determination to propagate effects, then
it will certainly be rather mysterious how they interact, have external rela-
tions, and are related to motions in the world. Baumgarten asserts that a
whole of connected monads is extended in spite of the fact that they are
“perfect unities” that are not, in themselves, extended and do not fill up
space or place (Baumgarten 2013, §242, 230). These “absolute elements
of bodes” or “atoms of nature” are “immaterial” or “incorporeal” for
28 M. RUKGABER
Baumgarten (Baumgarten 2013, §422). Since “place and time do not

change a thing internally” (Baumgarten 2013, §325), and substances are
made of internal relations (V-Met/Herder, AA 28:44), embedding the
spatial and temporal notions of position into the mere concept of a con-
nected order (ordinality) seems illegitimate. Nevertheless, insofar as Kant
is simply assuming a connection between action, as a causal power of sub-
stance, and motion in order to show priority relations (a mere “deriva-
tion”) and he is not attempting a deductive proof of one from the other,
then this is more confusing than it is pernicious.32 Again, Kant’s stated
point is merely to avoid the circularity of calling the ground floor of force
and its substantial manifestation in nature (natura naturans) a “moving
force,” because it is the power to move which the philosopher wants to
understand.
After essentially asserting that substances exist in an interconnected
whole that is at least related to the world of space, time, and motion, Kant
argues that the activity of substances cannot happen all at once. This means
that substantial activity must happen successively or in “the world’s second
dimension” of successive change (GSK, AA 1:19). At this stage in Kant’s
description, he already has co-existing substances determined to act and
change the internal states of other substances. I have argued that the “first
dimension” of the world amounts to a merely rational and internal predi-
cate of belonging to the world-nexus rather than already relational, spatial
predicates, although I have also shown why Kant is unclear about this. His
next step is rather harshly criticized by Watkins as entirely unmotivated
(Watkins 2005, pp. 105–6; 2003, p. 8). My sense is that Kant is appealing
to a notion of inertial force and the conservation of force, which Watkins
does not mention. The argument is that if S1 acts on S2 at t1, then at t2, as
S1 continues to act, it must act on other substances (S3). This is because,
he says, there is a limit to the amount of influence that S2 can undergo and,
unless it changes, thereby affecting other substances, then it conserves its
state and can no more suffer more influence at t2 than it could at t1. The
idea here is that a change of state is preserved unless some other action
takes place (V-Met/Herder, AA 28:45). Kant’s view is that it takes a cer-
tain amount of force to stimulate the sort of internal changes that lead to
the vivification of force. And the amount of such stimulation that one
substance needs for its vivification depends on its inertial force (mass).33 So
the change to S2 at t1 is preserved. Furthermore, the amount of influence
at t1 was limited by inertia which designates the quantum of force required
for activation. If more influence could have transpired it would have,

which is the same situation at t2, unless some intervening change takes
place (say at t1.5). So, for S1 to act again, it must act on some other sub-
stance, S3. Kant is relying on the core idea of the sluggishness of matter
that traditionally defines vim inertiae, which was a central force for Wolff,
as well as the idea of the conservation of force (GSK, AA 1:27).34 The fact
that this system of inertial forces is what Kant is describing in this argu-
ment has gone unnoticed.35
Watkins says that the argument is only minimally coherent only if it is
considered to be a mechanistic story about “collisions between impenetra-
ble bodies” and “impenetrability” as a “contact force” (Watkins 2005,
p. 106).36 This seems to miss Kant’s point, which is that the activation of
living force—as both a capacity to suffer modification from a certain quan-
tity of force and to then enact a perpetual motion—is prior to the concept
of “contact forces.” After all, it is Kant’s point that contact or moving
force can be analyzed down to more basic, non-circular concepts.
Furthermore, if we say that Kant is simply offering a story about the force
of “collisions,” then that already presumes motion (Watkins 2005, p. 106).
Such an account, besides making Kant’s argument as viciously circular as
Wolff’s, perpetuates a mistaken view of Kant’s early metaphysics and phi-
losophy of nature as being a mechanistic atomism, which I shall be show-
ing is a mistake. In 1747, Kant only arrives at the notion of motion as
change of location after recognizing that substantial interaction is a con-
stant suffering or being affected by force, which in some cases results in
the vivifying of an internal power. Once that power vivifies, a power that
Kant has said is infinitely persisting and intrinsically imperishable, then
substances must cause other substances to suffer change if they are to con-
tinue acting. Thus, substances must change position to operate on other
substances capable of being affected (GSK, AA 1:19). I do not mean to
defend this argument, as he is clearly looking ahead to the fact that vivifi-
cation and inertial forces are related to spatial position and movement.
While Kant passes quickly from the notion of connection to spatial co-
existence, he does seem to recognize the difference in these predicates
when giving a picture of his force-based theory of the world-nexus: “with-
out this [active] force, there is no connection, without connection, no
order, and, finally, without order, no space” (GSK, AA 1:23). At this
point, Kant has only talked of active force as the alteration of the inner
states of substances and as the suffering of (or affection by) force, which at
certain thresholds results in or appears to us as movement. It is important
30 M. RUKGABER
to see that while the 1747 work is focused on the power to preserve
motion, that is clearly not the whole of Kant’s picture of active force. After
all, that preserving capacity cannot account for the connection of the
world nexus. This means that the 1747 work is using a general notion of
active force in its opening sections that is not entirely explained and which
outstrips the mere notion of the power to preserve motion. There are
multiple interpretative pitfalls here but the source of many is the reduction
of Kant’s project into an account of mechanistic collisions and to identify
the bearers of active force simply with bodies in space.37 While that is a
natural and widespread reading to Kant’s project, it does not align well
with the metaphysics he mentions and that we will then go on to elaborate
in future works.38 In particular, I have noted that Kant seems to acknowl-
edge the fact that there can be cells of active force that have such a small
inertial mass that they theoretically may, but practically never do, vivify
and perpetuate motion. These are real grounds of living force that are
nevertheless too weak to interact with moving forces, which enables the
ontological possibility of cells of active force distinct from bodies. I take
this to be essential for making sense of what Kant does occasionally refer
to as “empty space,” but which he also calls “an infinitely subtile space”
that offers no impediment to movement (GSK, AA 1:29).39 It seems fairly
clear that in 1747, Kant believes that space is made up of “infinitely small
masses of space,” “small parts of space,” or “little molecules of space”
(GSK, AA 1:29).40 This is not the language of a relationist about space.
Based on the view seen so far, we must regard the “molecules of space” as
being an expression of substances that manifest as a cell of active force.
There is nothing else that they could be, but to see that requires a fuller
account of force. This allows space to have a substantial grounding both
as an expression of the inner states of monads and as a real presence rather
than a void or mere relation between presences. On this view, space is not
a tertiary phenomenon following behind both metaphysical substances
and physical bodies—it follows the former and precedes the latter.
I believe that Schönfeld is mistaken to say that Kant’s conception of
space in 1747 “exhibits a slight impediment to motion” (Schönfeld 2000,
p. 42). That Kant supposedly shifts to the idea of an empty, non-resistant
space is a major motivation for Schönfeld’s attribution of a Newtonian
shift in Kant’s thinking in 1754.41 The reason for claiming that Kant has a
resistant notion of space, even though he calls it “infinitely subtile,” is that
he does say that as bodies move through it, they are “perpetually pushing”
these infinitely small masses of space (GSK, AA 1:29). His reasoning here
is motivated by the counterfactual claim that if we could measure “the

sum of all actions that it [a freely moving body] performs to eternity,”
then we would arrive at a measure of its force (GSK, AA 1:29). But, of
course, it is not possible for us to measure any of the effects of bodies on
this “infinitely subtile space,” let alone to measure it for all eternity. Kant
is clear that we do not see or experience “material elements <elemente
materiae>,” which are different than composite, extended, and impene-
trable matter, yet it is with such fundamental elements that we are dealing
with when talking about the molecules of space itself (V-Met/Herder, AA
28:43–4). Kant makes his position on the interaction of space and matter
clearer in the second articulation of this doctrine much later in the text.
There he appeals to Wolff’s idea of “harmless effects (effectus innocuous)”
wherein “force is not used up” to explain how bodies in non-resistant
space still have summable action, which would presumably be available to
an infinite mind but which is entirely hidden to the human mind (GSK,
AA 1:114). The motivation for these “harmless effects,” besides the fact
that Kant holds a force-based materialism about space itself, is that the
active force that sustains motion would be in principle unmeasurable if
that perpetual motion was not conceived as an action of overcoming
obstacles even if, paradoxically, such overcoming and moving of these
small masses of space requires a cost that is entirely negligible. For this
reason, he must think of space “not as perfectly empty, but rather as filled
with an infinitely rarefied matter, which has accordingly infinitely little
resistance,” that is, insufficient force to enact a change in the living force
of a thing (GSK, AA 1:115). Kant clearly accepts that space is a “plenum
in which bodies move freely” (GSK, AA 1:156).42 This must be a rejection
of Leibnizian relationism, Schönfeld’s resistant space, and the
Newtonian void.43
Although Kant’s position gets clearer and his theory of forces in nature
becomes significantly more sophisticated after 1747, it is not clear to me
that he wholly rejects this early work in the 1750s, at least not until he has
doubts about inertia in 1758. Certainly, he quickly sees that his notion of
living force and its operation was not as significant as it seemed. Having
adopted the Leibnizian notion of active force as described in the Specimen
Dynamicum as a power prior to extension in 1747 which, among other
things, acted as an engine inside matter, Kant then arrives at the more
fundamental forces of attraction and repulsion in the 1750s. An important
part of the revision to his view is that he comes to more clearly distinguish
the metaphysically inner states and the activity of simple substances from
32 M. RUKGABER
their external relations. He also more clearly distinguishes the physical

forces that account for space from the force that composes matter.
Space and Matter in Universal Natural History

and Theory of the Heavens
The subtitle of Kant’s 1755 cosmology tells us that he will explore the
“constitution and the mechanical origin of the universe according to
Newtonian principles.” But Kant clearly overstates his adherence to
Newtonian philosophy.44 I do not think that it can be said that Kant
entirely “discarded Leibnizian and Cartesian approaches for the sake of
Newtonian physics” and that he had been entirely “converted” to Newton
(Schönfeld 2000, p. 96).45 After all, he relies upon a notion of attractive
force as an inherent gravity in matter that is generated by metaphysical
substances, a doctrine that Newton himself had rejected.46 In effect, the
1755 cosmology attempts an even deeper investigation of the forces of
natura naturans than the mere idea of an internal power in matter that
can perpetuate motion. At the very outset of the cosmology, its theologi-
cal aspect, which is one of several divergences from Newton, is made clear.
Kant aims to show how the universe achieves a rather marvelous level of
perfection by evolving from a primitive “first state of nature” (NTH, AA
1:221). In response to the 1753 announcement of the 1755 prize-essay
competition from the Prussian Royal Academy of Science, Kant had writ-
ten several notes on the optimism debate.47 In them he sides with Pope
over Leibniz by rejecting the notion that God is constrained by necessities
(metaphysical evil) in his creation. Pope also appears throughout Kant’s
1755 cosmology (NTH, AA 1:241, 259, 318, 349, 360, 365).48 In this
purportedly Newtonian work, nature retains an “essential determination
to perfection” or what Buchdahl calls a “disturbing element of teleology,”
which is Kant’s inheritance from Pope and is a radicalized version of
Leibnizian optimism (NTH, AA 1:347; Buchdahl 1969, p. 485).49
Kant’s cosmology is based on the idea that all of nature emerges out of
“infinitely small seeds” (NTH, AA 1:265).
I assume the matter of the whole world to be universally dispersed and I

make complete chaos out of it. I see matter form in accordance with the
established laws of attraction and modify its motion through repulsion.
(NTH, AA 1:225)
It is hard not to see two distinct notions of matter at work in this quote.
First, he mentions this dispersed matter of the whole world, which is ulti-
mately constitutive of everything else and is chaotically and universally
distributed. Kant sees parallels with his own view and the ancient atomists,
but an essential deviation from their view is that the “infinitely small seeds”
are not thought of as hard, impenetrable, indivisible atoms governed sim-
ply by mechanical law and chance.50 Second, out of that chaos a different
sort of matter forms from the combinations of the forces of attraction and
repulsion, one which is distinct from this original “matter of the whole
world.”51 Therefore, I think it plausible to attribute to Kant the division
between primary and secondary matter. However, his use of that notion is
not the one found in the Leibnizian tradition, which holds “prime matter”
to be an inherent resistance to motion or laziness tied to impenetrability
(inertia) (Baumgarten 2013, §294–5).52 I believe that Kant rejects this
Leibnizian conception of primary matter and sees it as the notion of active
force in general. He thinks of inertia, as we know, in terms of this sluggish-
ness and power to preserve motion, but he also thinks of it in teleological
terms as part of the inherent, divinely created, and, therefore, good nature
of matter that leads toward perfection. It is not a weakness of matter or
metaphysical evil (Baumgarten 2013, §250, 396).
Rather than the Leibnizian tradition of primary matter, Kant’s “Urstoff
of all things” is closer to the idea of a “matter of the heavens” or quintes-
sence, which is connected by Aristotle to eternal circular motion (NTH,
AA 1:228; Aristotle 1984, 270b21). While sometimes thought of as the
ether, Kant has a separate theory of the ether as the matter of light and
fire, which is distinct from this theory of primary matter. Schönfeld identi-
fies Kantian “primary matter” as a “dust,” which is to say that he is think-
ing of it simply as tiny bits of matter (Schönfeld 2000, pp. 114, 117).53
Kant does not use this phrase. Instead, such a description strikes me as
similar to Descartes’s notion of the “matter of heaven” being a fast-moving
fluid made up of a “subtle matter” or a matter of “indefinite smallness”
that is continually changing its shape to fill interstices between spherical
molecules (Descartes 1982, pp. 93–5, 109–110). I think it fair to say that
what Kant tries to do is take a traditional plenum or ether theory of space
and replace the notion of fast-moving, tiny, fluidic matter with the notion
of cells of active, attractive force alone. It should be remembered that in
the Opticks Newton advocated for the ether doctrine and said that this
“medium” offered “so small a resistance” that it makes no “sensible altera-
tion” in cosmology (Newton 1952, p. 352). Kant surely saw himself with
34 M. RUKGABER
the broad range of experimental and speculative natural scientists inspired

by Newton. This ether doctrine quite divides the Newtonians, and one
can find a rejection of it in favor of a pure, immaterial, absolute space or
void in the Principia and in the work of Newtonians such as Musschenbroek
and s’ Gravesande (Van Musschenbroek 1744, p. 42; s’ Gravesande 1747,
p. 26).54
Schönfeld argues that Kant undergoes a full conversion to Newtonian
physics in 1754 in the Spin Cycle essay, accepting Newton’s “universal
account of physical nature” and his idea that “space is empty” (Schönfeld
2000, pp. 79–80; also Baker 1935, pp. 273–5). While Kant rejects the
idea of space being filled with a resistant matter, which he also rejected in
1747, he nevertheless continues to hold that it is not empty. It is filled
with “a substance of infinitely small resistance,” which he sees as compat-
ible with Newtonian philosophy (UFE, AA 1:186). Schönfeld implausibly
tries to ignore Kant’s explicit assertion that space is made up of something,
by claiming that, although what Kant says is literally the same exact
thing he said in 1747, it is a “greatly different” view articulated with “old
words,” because space is no longer “dynamically relevant” in the 1750s
(Schönfeld 2000, p. 80).55 Because Kant always held that these harmless
effects are too small to be dynamically relevant, I see no reason to attribute
a fundamental change in Kant’s views on the basis of the Spin Cycle essay.
The Aging Earth Essay casts doubt on any orthodox acceptance of
Newtonian philosophy by endorsing a naturalized version of the idea of a
“general ‘world spirit’, an imperceptible but universally active principle, as
the secret driving force of nature, whose subtle matter is continually con-
sumed through incessant generation” (FEV, AA 1:203).56
The ever-effective power, which, as it were, constitutes the life of nature,

and which, although imperceptible to the eye, is active in all generation and
the economy of all three realms of nature. … Those who assume the exis-
tence of a general world spirit in this sense do not understand by it some
non-material power … but a subtle though universally active matter which,
in the products of nature, constitutes the active principle and, as a true
Proteus, is able to assume all shapes and forms. (FEV, AA 1:211)57
This active force is a part of nature (natura naturans) that is prior to and
is “consumed” in order to generate bodies (natura naturata). This chal-
lenges the idea that “the fabric of the universe consists of extended bodies
that are in space” and nothing else (Schönfeld 2000, p. 168). This subtle
matter and world spirit are the “force of attraction” in his 1755 cosmol-
ogy, which he describes in non-Newtonian terms as an “essential part of
matter,” the “first cause of motion,” and the “first stirring of nature”
(FEV, AA 1:340).58 I maintain that is also what makes space itself.
Recognizing that his notion of the secret driving force of nature is some-
what occult, he asserts in the Aging Earth essay that it is “not so opposed
to sound natural science and observation as one might think” (FEV, AA
1:211). Newton rejected the idea of gravity being “essential and inherent
to matter,” which is the reason why he explicitly rejects the sort of cosmol-
ogy that Kant provides (Newton 2004, pp. 100, 94; Newton 1999,
p. 940). Indeed, Kant’s entire cosmology is predicated on a rather non-
Newtonian demand for a story about the genesis of the agreement in the
planetary orbits via one “material cause” (rather than divine fiat) that has
pervasive systematic influence through “the entire space of the system” by
putting everything in motion (NTH, AA 1:261–2). Kant admits that
Newton dismisses the possibility that there might be such a unifying mate-
rial cause simply because no such cause is found presently in space.59
In order to see that this account of active force is at the heart of Kant’s
pre-Critical theory of space, we need to better understand what he envi-
sions as the initial state of the universe and how matter and space both
evolved into what we presently observe. He views the universe as an infi-
nite process of creation that begins with what he calls a “silent night of
matter,” before evolving into our present universe, and then, very likely,
aging and degrading back into a state of chaos before being born again
(NTH, AA 1:321).60 He is clear that the “matter” that was distributed
throughout all creation and that is the “natural cause” of all heavenly bod-
ies “cannot be the same matter as that which now fills the space of the
heavens” in the form of planets, stars, and comets (NTH, AA 1:339).61
Initially, what “filled these spaces” and, thereby, constituted space itself
was a “dispersed material of universal matter” (primary matter) of differ-
ing intensities that is then “cleared” from “the spaces that we now see as
empty” and combined into the heavenly bodies (NTH, AA 1:339).62 This
early state of space would not have allowed the sort of free movement that
we now see. Kant suggests that straight line motion toward the centers of
attraction was not possible in the early universe and, instead, the “fine
material of dispersed elements” was “deflected by the diversity of the
attraction points” (NTH, AA 1:340). So Kant has a notion of a protean
matter as he calls it, which consists of “attraction points”—although we
need not think of them as non-extended geometric points rather than
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VI. KAPITEL. [←]
DIE ILLUSTRIERENDE KUNST IN DEUTSCHLAND.
Die deutschen Malerschulen. Der Kupferstich und der Holzschnitt. Michel

Wolgemut. Albrecht Dürer, seine Zeitgenossen und Nachfolger: Hans
Burgkmair, Hans Schaeuffelein, die „Kleinmeister“. Hans Holbein d. j. Lucas
Cranach d. ä. Die Schweizer und Elsasser Künstler. Über die „eigenhändigen“
Holzschnitte der Zeichner.
NTER wenig günstigen Verhältnissen

Die Maler-
hatte die Malerkunst in Deutschland schulen.
sich gestaltet. Das rauhe Klima
gestattete keine Entwickelung der Wandmalerei mit ihren
grossen Verhältnissen und die alles beherrschende gothische
Baukunst benutzte die zeichnenden Künste fast nur zum Zweck der
Ornamentierung. Erst um die Mitte des xiv. Jahrhunderts entstanden
eigentliche Malerschulen, die jedoch in ihrer ganzen Weise noch die
Spuren der früheren Unterordnung der Malerkunst unter die
Architektur tragen.
Köln.
Unter diesen war die rheinische, nach dem
Hauptorte KÖLN gewöhnlich die Kölnische Malerschule genannt, die
bedeutendste. Sie zeichnete sich durch ideales Streben im Dienste
der Kirche aus. Ihr eigentümlich waren demgemäss die schlanken,
duftigen Gestalten mit heiligem Gesichtsausdruck in weichen Farben
auf Goldgrund gemalt. Rundere, gedrungenere Formen entstanden
erst beim Schärferwerden der fortschreitenden Naturbeobachtung
und der Vervollkommnung der Technik. Wie früher die Menschen der
Künstler mehr Heilige waren, so wurden jetzt die Heiligen mehr
gewöhnliche Menschen.
Im Osten war PRAG ein Hauptsitz der Kunst

Prag.
geworden, welche hier unter dem Einfluss des
Kaiserhauses, besonders Karls iv., eine, zunächst
die weltliche Macht verherrlichende Richtung nahm.
Wie Köln und Prag der geistlichen und

Brügge.
staatlichen Gewalt huldigten, so entwickelte sich
in Brügge, wie in Nürnberg, wo Handel und
Verkehr blühten und ein mächtiges Bürgertum herrschte, die Kunst
mehr in der realistischen und begrenzteren Richtung des
Bürgertums. BRÜGGE wurde die Pflanzstätte der niederländischen
Kunst, die ihre besondere Grösse im kleinsten Genre entwickelte
und sich unter der Führung Huberts van Eyck durch eine, bis dahin
unbekannte Naturtreue auszeichnete.
Unterstützt durch die Energie seiner Bürger

Nürnberg.
und begünstigt durch seine, allerdings reizlose,
Zentrallage war NÜRNBERG nicht allein ein
Stapelplatz für die Produkte und Fabrikate Deutschlands geworden,
sondern auch ein Knotenpunkt des Zwischenhandels des Nordens
und des Westens mit dem Süden und dem Osten. Die
Selbstregierung ruhte nach liberalen Grundsätzen in den Händen
eines aufgeklärten und reichen Patriziertums, welches die Rechte
der, in kleineren Verhältnissen Lebenden zu schonen verstand. Der
rege Verkehr hatte den Gesichtskreis nicht allein in staatlichen und
kirchlichen Verhältnissen erweitert, sondern auch den Sinn für
Wissenschaft und Kunst verallgemeinert, und der Reichtum gab die
Mittel, sie zu fördern.
Die Malerschule in Nürnberg nahm zwar unter solchen

Umständen, wie in Brügge, einen bürgerlichen Charakter an, jedoch
mit einer weit vornehmeren, gemütreicheren und religiöseren
Richtung.
Unter Einwirkung der Buchdruckerkunst und

Kupferstich und
der Reformation mussten die neuen Holzschnitt.
Kunstverfahren des Kupferstechers und des
Holzschneiders einen besonders günstigen Boden in Deutschland
finden. Ohne Unterstützung des sinnebestrickenden Farbenreizes
und ohne andere Effektmittel, als die mehr oder weniger
geschwellten Linien und die weiteren oder engeren Strichlagen, war
der Künstler gehalten, eine um so grössere Aufmerksamkeit der
Idee, der Komposition und der korrekten Formengebung
zuzuwenden. Bald erreichten diese Künste, indem sie sich den
Bestrebungen der sich neu gestaltenden Zeit dienstbar machten,
trotz des räumlich kleinen Umfanges die Bedeutung einer
monumentalen Kunst, die am fröhlichsten dort gedeihen musste, wo
die erwähnten Bestrebungen sich am kräftigsten äusserten,
demgemäss also auch in dem geistig-bewegten Nürnberg.
Der erste Formenschneider, der als solcher
im Bürgerbuche genannt wird und zwar in den Die Formen-
Jahren 1449-1492, ist Hans Formenschneider. schneider.
Bei dem langen Zeitraum ist es anzunehmen,
dass man es mit zwei Persönlichkeiten, vielleicht mit Vater und
Sohn, zu thun hat. Auch andere werden genannt, von denen jedoch
keine Arbeiten bekannt sind. Ein sehr unternehmender Mann war um
diese Zeit Hans Sporer d. j. Seine Hauptwerke sind: „Der
Endtkrist“ 2. Ausg. 1472; „Die Kunst zu sterben“ 1473; „Die
Armenbibel“ 1475, in denen der Ausdruck der Figuren zum Teil noch
etwas entschieden Fratzenhaftes und Gespenstisches hat. Auch
Georg Glockendon d. ä. arbeitete schon um 1480 und schnitt u. a.
eine „Marie“ mit fünf weiblichen Heiligen und eine „Himmelfahrt
Christi“. Von Wolfgang Hamer hat man eine „Heilige Familie“[1].
Der eigentliche Begründer der Nürnberger so

Michel Wolge-
berühmten Holzschneiderschule und mut.
wahrscheinlich der Einführer des Kupferstiches in
Nürnberg ist Michel Wolgemut (geboren 1434). Wilh. Pleyden-
Seine künstlerische Ausbildung erhielt er am wurf.
Rhein. Nach Nürnberg zurückgekehrt, heiratete

er die Witwe des Hans Pleydenwurf, eines achtbaren Künstlers.
Einen seiner Stiefsöhne, Wilhelm Pleydenwurf, bildete er als
Künstler aus und errichtete, namentlich um die Ansprüche
Kobergers für seine grossen Unternehmungen befriedigen zu
können, mit ihm zusammen ein Holzschneide-Atelier. Dasselbe
nahm eine grosse Ausdehnung an und es entstanden in sehr kurzer
Zeit die bereits früher erwähnten Werke: „Der Schatzbehalter“ und
Schedels „Buch der Chroniken“[2]. Pleydenwurf starb bereits kurz
nach Vollendung derselben (1495); Wolgemut, der auch eine
bedeutende Thätigkeit als Kupferstecher entwickelte, am 30. Nov.
1519. Abgesehen von seinen eigenen künstlerischen Verdiensten
behält Wolgemut eine grosse Bedeutung als Lehrer Albrecht Dürers,
der stets mit grosser Hochachtung von ihm sprach.
Albrecht Dürer[3], mit dem der Holzschnitt

Albrecht Dürer.
einen hohen Standpunkt erreichte, war am 21.
Mai 1471 als dritter Sohn des gleichnamigen
Vaters in Nürnberg geboren. Dürer d. ä. war als
Goldschmiedegesell 1455 nach Nürnberg gekommen, wo sein
Meister Hieronymus Holper ihm seine Tochter zur Frau gab, die ihm
achtzehn Kinder gebar. Albrecht wurde von seinem Vater in dem
Goldschmiedehandwerk unterwiesen, jedoch auf seinen dringenden
Wunsch, Künstler zu werden, mit seinem fünfzehnten Jahre bei
Michel Wolgemut in die Lehre gebracht, und er nahm somit vielleicht
schon an den Unternehmungen Kobergers thätigen Anteil.
Von seinen Lehrjahren und Wanderungen ist

Jugendjahre.
wenig bekannt. Zu Pfingsten 1494 kehrte er von
letzteren nach Nürnberg zurück mit den äusseren
Vorzügen des Körpers sowohl als mit den inneren des Charakters
und der Tüchtigkeit ausgestattet. Er heiratete Jungfrau Agnes Frey,
die hübsch und nicht unbemittelt war. Es ist behauptet worden, dass
die Ehe nicht glücklich gewesen, doch liegen keine Beweise dafür
vor, wenn es auch den Anschein hat, als sei die Agnes mehr eine
tüchtige Hausfrau, als eine mit der Künstlernatur Dürers sympathisch
gestimmte Seele gewesen. Er bezog ein Haus am oberen Ende der
Zisselgasse, welches er gekauft hatte, um dort sein Atelier
einzurichten. Das Haus, innerlich und äusserlich leidlich unverändert
erhalten, ist in den Besitz des Dürer-Vereins übergegangen.
Dürer, der noch nicht seinen Weltruf hatte,
musste des Verdienstes wegen manche Arbeiten Die Offenbarung
übernehmen, an denen er sich sonst kaum St. Johannis.
versucht haben würde. Aber schon frühzeitig
beschäftigte er sich mit einem Gegenstande, Neue Bahnen für
den Holzschnitt.
woran er seine ganze Kraft bethätigen und sich
selbst genügen wollte. Im Jahre 1498 erschien
sein Bildercyklus von 15 xylographischen Darstellungen in Folio zur
„Offenbarung St. Johannis“. Der Text ist zweispaltig auf die
Rückseite der Bilder gedruckt, jedoch nicht immer so, dass Text und
Bild korrespondieren. Das Werk erschien sowohl in einer deutschen
als in einer lateinischen Ausgabe und in mehreren Auflagen.
Komplette Exemplare sind selten. Hiermit war der, bis dahin
bekannte Kreis der Leistungen weit überschritten und die Thätigkeit
des Geistes zeigte sich selbst der aussergewöhnlichen Fertigkeit der
Hand so weit überlegen, dass die Ausübung der Kunst nicht mehr
als Handwerk gelten konnte.
Dürers bahnbrechende Richtung für den Holzschnitt lag in

seiner Manier für diesen zu zeichnen. Bis dahin bestand der
Holzschnitt hauptsächlich nur in derben Umrissen auf das Kolorieren
berechnet. Zwar hatte Wolgemut eine künstlerische Richtung mit
Glück eingeschlagen, aber erst Dürer erreichte die Vollendung.
Durch Abwechselung von Licht und Schatten erzielte er eine
grössere malerische Wirkung, als durch Kolorit möglich war. Dazu
gehörten jedoch Formenschneider, die auf seine Intentionen
eingingen. Solche konnte aber Dürer ausbilden, denn niemand
verstand es besser, als er, seinen künstlerischen Willen fest und
bestimmt mit der Feder anzugeben. Es blieb für den
Formenschneider nichts anderes übrig, als Strich für Strich der
Zeichnung zu folgen. Dürer wusste ganz genau, was er der Technik
des Holzschneiders zumuten konnte. Es war dies zwar
weitergehenderes als sonst üblich, jedoch nicht mehr, als was mit
dem einfachen Material geleistet werden konnte. Wie sicher er dies
zu berechnen wusste, zeigt am besten der Vergleich seiner
Holzschnitt-Technik mit seiner Kupferstich-Technik, für die keine
solche hemmenden Schranken existierten.
Aus den ersten Jahren des xvi. Jahrh.

Verschiedene
stammen eine grosse Zahl von Zeichnungen, Arbeiten.
Stichen und Holzschnitten von seiner Hand. Sein
überströmender Geist legte in seinen Zeichnungen zum Teil die
Gedanken nieder, die er später zu abgeschlossenen Werken
ausarbeitete.
Nach zehnjähriger und aufreibender Arbeit

Italien. Reise.
machte er eine Reise nach Italien. Aus den
mitgenommenen kleinen Kunstwerken und den
Vorräten seiner Stiche und Drucke hoffte er Vorteile zu erzielen, die
indes nicht so reichlich ausfielen, wie die Ehrenbezeigungen, die ihm
erwiesen wurden. Bei seiner Rückkehr malte er eine grosse
Altartafel für den Kaufherrn Jakob Heller in Frankfurt, welche
allgemeine Bewunderung erregte, aber doch so wenig lohnte, dass
Dürer wieder zur Feder und zum Stichel griff. Zu den bedeutendsten
seiner Leistungen gehören die drei „Passionen“ und das „Leben der
Maria“ in Holzschnitt und Kupferstich. Sie haben durch Jahrhunderte
ihren unvergänglichen Wert behauptet und sind wieder und wieder
nachgebildet, nachdem die Originale nicht mehr für den Bedarf
ausreichten.
Eine der Passionen in Folio und eine in

Die Passionen.
Oktav sind in Holzschnitt ausgeführt, die dritte,
auch in Oktav, ist in Kupfer gestochen. Die beiden ersteren
erschienen 1511 in Buchform. Die „grosse Passion“ ist 12 Blätter
stark mit ebenso vielen Darstellungen; die „kleine Passion“ 38 Blätter
mit 37 Darstellungen, beide mit lateinischen Versen von
Chelodonius, einem Benediktinermönch und Freund Dürers. Die
dritte „Passion“ in Kupferstich von 16 Blättern ward erst 1513
vollendet; sie ist ohne Text und scheint nie in Buchform ausgegeben
worden zu sein. Die, ihrem Stoff nach umfangreichste „kleine
Passion“ fängt mit dem Sündenfall an und endigt mit dem jüngsten
Gericht; die Bezeichnung Passion ist demnach nicht ganz korrekt.
In keinem Werke aber prägt sich der

Unser Frauen
eigentümliche Geist Dürers und überhaupt der Leben.
deutschen Kunst voller und klarer aus, als in der
Reihe von zwanzig, „Unser Frauen Leben“ behandelnden
Holzschnitten. Auch was die Ausführung betrifft, gehört dieser
Cyklus zu dem vorzüglichsten, was die Holzschneidekunst je
geliefert hat.
Neben diesen Hauptwerken schenkte uns

Einzelblätter.
Dürer in diesem Zeitpunkt seines reichen
Schaffens eine grosse Anzahl von Einzelblättern,
die den genannten an Originalität der Erfindung und in der
Ausführung nicht nachstehen. Daneben musste er auch Zeit und
Lust finden, Blätter für Kinder und zum Schmücken von Schachteln;
Zeichnungen von Wappen der Patrizier zum Einkleben in ihre
Bücher; Nachbildungen naturhistorischer Gegenstände, u. dgl. m. zu
liefern.
Eine besondere Klasse von Arbeiten, die zu

Die Arbeiten für
den, für den Typographen interessantesten Maximilian I.
gehören, sind die Werke, die er für den Kaiser
Maximilian ausführte, der zwar ein poetisches Gemüt und einen
regen Sinn für die schönen Künste besass, diese jedoch
hauptsächlich nur durch deren Ausbeutung zu seiner persönlichen
Verherrlichung bethätigte.
Der Kaiser hatte den Gedanken gefasst, die

Hans Burgkmair.
ganze Glanzfülle seiner ruhmreichen
Abstammung, seine weite Herrschaft, Leben und
Thaten durch eine „Ehrenpforte“, einen „Triumphzug“ nebst einem
„Triumphwagen“ darstellen zu lassen. Den hauptsächlichsten Teil der
Arbeit wollte er Dürer übertragen, aber auch andere Künstler sollten
bei den Werken beschäftigt sein. Unter diesen ragte besonders
Hans Burgkmair, geboren zu Augsburg 1473, gestorben
ebendaselbst 1529, hervor, der, durch seinen Aufenthalt in Venedig
von der dortigen Kunst beeinflusst, einer der Hauptvertreter der
Renaissance in Deutschland wurde. Berühmt ist er hauptsächlich
durch seine Holzzeichnungen zu den erwähnten und anderen durch
Maximilian i. hervorgerufenen Werken. Er lieferte 30 Platten zur
Ehrenpforte, 66 zu dem Triumphzug. Von ihm stammen grösstenteils
die 245 Zeichnungen zu dem „Weisskunig“, auch eine
Verherrlichung des Kaisers, des weiteren arbeitete er mit an den 124
Blatt: „Heilige des österreichischen Kaiserhauses“. Berühmt ist auch
sein „Turnierbuch“ mit 52 Illustrationen.
Den Auftrag zur „Ehrenpforte“ erhielt Dürer

Die Ehrenpforte.
mutmasslich schon im J. 1512. Der gelehrte
Johannes Stabius war mit der litterarischen
Leitung und der Abfassung der vielen Inschriften betraut. Dürer
ergriff die Sache mit grossem Eifer und vollendete seine Arbeit
schon 1515, obwohl die Aussichten auf die entsprechende
Entschädigung nicht gross waren, da der Rat von Nürnberg das
Ansinnen des Kaisers, der nicht gern aus eigener Tasche zahlte,
„Dürer Steuerfreiheit zu gewähren“, ablehnte oder vielmehr Dürer
veranlasste, selbst den Antrag zurückzunehmen. Ebenso weigerte
sich der Rat, ein, vom Kaiser auf Grund verschiedener Arbeiten
Dürer zugestandenes Jahresgehalt von 100 Gulden zugunsten des
Künstlers von den an Maximilian zu zahlenden Abgaben in Abzug zu
bringen.
Die „Ehrenpforte“ ist das grossartigste, was jemals in

Holzschnitt geschaffen worden ist. Sie besteht aus 92 Holzstöcken,
die zusammengestellt eine Ausdehnung von nahe an 3 Meter 50
ctm. Höhe und 3 Meter Breite einnehmen. Mit einer Sicherheit ohne
gleichen zeichnete Dürer die Blätter mit Feder und Pinsel. Mit
gleicher Genauigkeit schnitt sie Hieronymus Andreä. Das Werk ist
nicht ein Triumphbogen im antiken Stil, sondern ein hoher
giebelgekrönter Renaissancebau, durch runde Türme flankiert und
mit drei Thoren versehen. Der Reichtum an historischen
Darstellungen, Allegorien, Portraitfiguren und ornamentalem
Schmuck ist geradezu überwältigend.
Der „Triumphzug“ bildet in seiner Entfaltung

Der Triumphzug.
ein Tableau von 54 Metern Länge bei 37 ctm.
Höhe und besteht aus 135 Stöcken, war jedoch
auf eine noch grössere Zahl berechnet. Von den Stöcken lieferte
Burgkmair 66, Dürer zeichnete 24 Blatt. Dieses grossartige
xylographische Werk bietet, abgesehen von dem Kunstgenuss,
einen höchst interessanten Stoff für das Studium der Kostüme,
Waffen, Geräte und Sitten damaliger Zeit. Das eingehende
Programm verfasste des Kaisers Sekretär Marx Treytz-Saurwein.
Der „Triumphwagen“, sozusagen der Mittel-
und Schwerpunkt der gesamten Der Triumph-
Unternehmungen, ist ein Werk Dürers. Die wagen.
Zeichnungen entstanden 1514-1515, die
Holzschnitte waren 1522 fertig. Der Rat Pirckheimer hatte die Idee
ausgearbeitet, die sich lediglich auf schale Lobrednerei gründet. Der
Kaiser fährt auf einem von 12 Pferden gezogenen Triumphwagen,
umgeben von allegorischen Figuren, die alle seine Tugenden
repräsentieren. Die aus 8 Holzstöcken bestehende Komposition hat
eine Länge von 2 Meter 32 ctm. bei einer Höhe von 47 ctm.
Als Kaiser Maximilian am 12. Jan. 1519 starb, gerieten seine

Kunstunternehmungen ins Stocken. Dass der Kaiser nicht gern
zahlte, wurde schon erwähnt. Dürer und Andere hatten ihr Honorar
noch nicht erhalten. Um sich bezahlt zu machen, gab Dürer den
„Triumphwagen“ auf seine Rechnung heraus. Die erste Ausgabe
erschien 1522 mit deutschem, die zweite 1523 mit lateinischem Text;
nachgedruckt wurde das Werk in Venedig 1589. Auch von dem
„Triumphzug“ verkaufte man einzelne Blätter. König Ferdinand, dem
daran lag, dass das Werk des Kaisers nicht in Privathände
zersplittert würde, erwarb durch Vermittelung des Rates zu Nürnberg
die noch unbezahlten Stöcke, die nach Wien kamen. Im Jahre 1759
machte man den Versuch, das ganze Werk herauszugeben. 1799
wurde eine neue Ausgabe veranstaltet und die noch fehlenden
Stöcke durch Radierungen ersetzt.
Zu seinem eigenen Gebrauch hatte

Maximilians
Maximilian ein Gebetbuch zusammenstellen Gebetbuch.
lassen, das er von Joh. Schönsperger in
Augsburg in kostbarem Pergamentdruck ausführen liess. Die
Initialen wurden nach einem, dem Congrevedruck ähnlichen
Verfahren mehrfarbig eingedruckt. Man kennt bloss drei Exemplare
dieses Werkes, eins in der k. k. Bibliothek zu Wien, das andere in
der Münchner Bibliothek, das dritte in dem British Museum. Zu 45
Blättern zeichnete Dürer mit farbiger Tinte Einfassungen, die einen
wahren Schatz von Ornamenten und Allegorien, Ernst und Scherz,
Profanem und Heiligem in bunter Reihe enthalten. Dürer scheint die
Absicht gehabt zu haben, sie durch seine Schüler fortsetzen zu
lassen. Es existieren auch acht Blatt von anderer Hand gezeichnet,
die fälschlich Lucas Cranach zugeschrieben wurden; eher dürften
sie Hans Springinklee gehören[4].
Im Jahre 1520 unternahm Dürer in

Reise nach den
Gesellschaft seiner Frau eine Reise an den Rhein Niederlanden.
und nach den Niederlanden, auf welcher er dort
mit grossen Ehren empfangen wurde und mit vielen berühmten
Persönlichkeiten in Berührung kam. Sein Hauptzweck war, den
Kaiser Karl v., dessen Einzug in Antwerpen und Krönung in Aachen
er beiwohnte, zur Zahlung der, ihm vom Kaiser Maximilian
ausgesetzten Rente zu veranlassen, was ihm auch, nach
verschiedenen vergeblichen Bemühungen an den Kaiser
hinanzukommen, schliesslich in Köln gelang.
Eine Hauptthätigkeit Dürers in den letzten

Litterarische Ar-
Jahren seines Lebens war die Ausarbeitung und beiten.
Herausgabe seiner litterarischen Arbeiten, für
welche er sich durch sein ganzes Leben vorbereitet hatte. Sein
erstes Werk erschien 1525 unter dem Titel: „Underweysung der
Messung, mit dem Zirkel und Richtscheyte, in Linien ebnen wnd
gantzen Corporen“. Für Buchdrucker hat das Werk ein besonderes
Interesse, weil es die Verhältnisse der Buchstaben zum erstenmal in
Deutschland nach geometrischen Grundsätzen feststellt. Es erlebte
mehrere Auflagen, sowie eine Übersetzung in das Lateinische von
Joh. Camerarius. Sein zweites Werk ist eine „Befestigungslehre“;
sein Hauptwerk (1525) führt den Titel: „Hierine sind begriffen vier
Bücher von mennschlicher Proportion“, und erlebte viele Ausgaben
in vielen Sprachen.
Seine letzte Zeit verlebte Dürer geschätzt

Dürers Tod.
von allen bedeutenden Männern in einfachen,
jedoch keineswegs ärmlichen Verhältnissen. In
den Niederlanden hatte er sich ein Fieber geholt, das er nicht wieder
los werden konnte, trotz dessen er aber noch übermässig arbeitete.
Er starb am 6. April 1528. Seit 1840 schmückt sein Standbild aus
Erz den nach ihm benannten Platz in Nürnberg und die dortigen
Künstler begehen zu seinem Geburtstage jährlich an seinem Grabe
eine einfache Feier.
Die Zeitgenossen und Nachfolger Dürers zeigen, mit Ausnahme

des durchaus selbständigen Hans Holbein, einen unverkennbaren
Einfluss des grossen Meisters. Wenige unter ihnen, denen man im
allgemeinen auf Grund der räumlichen Kleinheit ihrer meisten
Arbeiten den Namen „Kleinmeister“ beigelegt hat, standen jedoch als
Schüler in einer näheren Verbindung mit Dürer. Nur von zweien
wissen wir mit Bestimmtheit, dass sie Dürers „Lehrjungen“ gewesen:
Hans von Kulmbach und Hans Springinklee, und gerade über diese
sind die sonstigen Nachrichten dürftig.
Hans Fuss, nach seiner Vaterstadt Hans von

Hans von Kulm-
Kulmbach, trat, nachdem er die Malerei bei bach.
Jacopo dei Barberi (Jakob Walch) gelernt, 1510
bei Dürer in weitere Lehre. Ob er viel für graphische Kunst
gezeichnet hat, ist nicht bekannt. Ein Blatt für den Triumphzug ist
noch vorhanden mit den hineingezeichneten Korrekturen Dürers.
Hans Springinklee, geboren zu Nördlingen

Hans Springin-
1470, entwickelte für die graphischen Fächer eine klee.
grosse Thätigkeit. Er zeichnete 60, durch
seelenvolle Innigkeit sich auszeichnende Bilder zu dem Hortulus
animæ, der zuerst 1516 und dann in mehreren schnell auf einander
folgenden Auflagen bei Koberger erschien. Er arbeitete auch mit an
den Illustrationen zu dem Weisskunig und an verschiedenen
Unternehmungen Dürers, dessen Art er sich innig anschloss. Auch
grössere Einzelblätter hat man von ihm.
Erhard Schön war ein Mitarbeiter

Erhard Schön.
Springinklees bei dem Hortulus animæ (ob auch
bei Dürers Werken ist nicht bekannt), lieferte
auch die zwölf Apostel und 24 Blatt Heilige. Er war Verfasser eines
Lehrbuches: „Unterweysung der Proportion und Stellung der Bossen
(Modellfiguren)“ mit einer Anzahl gut gezeichneter Köpfe und Körper
in verschiedenen Lagen mit Konstruktionsnetzen; geschätzt sind von
Sammlern seine Spielkarten. Er starb zu Nürnberg 1550.
Georg Pencz, Hans Sebald Beham und

Pencz und die
Barthel Beham sind Namen, die nicht allein durch Beham.
die Gemeinsamkeit der Kunstübung, sondern
auch durch die gemeinsamen Schicksale unzertrennlich geworden
sind.
Alle drei lernten in Nürnberg und erhielten in jungen Jahren die

Meisterschaft (ob in der Werkstatt Dürers ist nicht bekannt),
jedenfalls gehörten sie alle zu seinen begabtesten Nachfolgern. In
jugendlicher Schwärmerei wurden sie erklärte Anhänger des
Thomas Münzer, der anfangs der zwanziger Jahre nach Nürnberg
kam. In einen Prozess wegen Verbreitung deistischer und
sozialistischer Ansichten verwickelt, mussten die drei Maler ihrer
Vaterstadt den Rücken kehren.
Pencz wurde nach einem Jahr begnadigt

Georg Pencz.
und später sogar Ratsmaler. Er war ein
vorzüglicher Kupferstecher in einer neuen Manier,
die sich nicht mit den einfachen Strichlagen Dürers begnügte,
sondern nach italienischen Vorbildern malerische Wirkung durch
Licht und Schatten und durch Abstufung der Töne zu erreichen
suchte. Er liebte es, zusammenhängende Folgen von Blättern zu
liefern, z. B. die Geschichte Abrahams, Josephs; 25 Blatt aus dem
Leben Jesu. Vorzugsweise wandte er sich Folgen aus dem
klassischen Altertum zu, als z. B.: „berühmte Liebespaare“,
„Beispiele der Standhaftigkeit“, „unglückliche Frauen“. Man besitzt
von ihm 126 Blätter: Er starb 1550, hinterliess aber, trotz fleissigen
Arbeitens, die Seinen in grosser Dürftigkeit.
Mehr Glück hatten die Behams, namentlich

Hans Sebald
der jüngere, Barthel. Der ältere Hans Sebald Beham.
Beham (geb. zu Nürnberg 1500) steht vielleicht
von allen Kleinmeistern als Zeichner Dürer am nächsten, und
übertrifft ihn als Kupferstecher. Er befindet sich schon vollständig auf
dem Boden der Renaissance. Nach verschiedenen Schicksalen fand
er in Frankfurt 1534 eine bleibende Stätte und ein reiches Feld
seiner Thätigkeit. Für viele Werke Chr. Egenolffs lieferte er
Illustrationen; für die Weltchronik (die in neun Auflagen erschien) 80
Holzschnitte; 26 Holzschnitte zu der Offenbarung St. Johannis; eine
ähnliche Zahl zu dem Neuen Testament; ferner zu einem Handbuch
der Fecht- und Ringerkunst und einem Buch vom gesunden
Lebensregiment u. s. w. Als er 1550 starb, hinterliess er 270
Kupferstiche und an 500 Holzschnitte. Seinen Grundsätzen, für die
er in der Jugend büssen musste, blieb er bis an sein Ende treu.
Die Herausgabe eines „Büchlein von den Proportionen des

Ross“ brachte ihn in Konflikt mit der Witwe Dürers, welche hierin
eine widerrechtliche Aneignung eines Manuskripts Dürers erblickte
und ein Verbot des Buches Behams erwirkte, bis Dürers Werk, das
übrigens von ganz anderen Gesichtspunkten ausgeht, erschienen
sei.
Es wird behauptet, er habe gegen Ende seines Lebens eine

Weinschenke errichtet und einem liederlichen Leben sich ergeben,
dagegen scheint jedoch die grosse Zahl von Arbeiten, die gerade
aus seinen letzten Lebensjahren stammen, zu sprechen.
Barthel Beham ging nach München und trat

Barthel Beham.
1527 in den Dienst des Herzogs Wilhelm von
Bayern, der ihn auf seine Kosten nach Italien
sandte, wo er plötzlich im besten Mannesalter und auf der Höhe
seiner Kunst starb. Von seinen Kupferstichen sind 85 auf die heutige
Zeit gekommen. Ganz vorzügliches leistete er in Ornamentvorlagen
für das Kunsthandwerk, wie in Vignetten für Bücher. In derselben
Richtung zeichnete sich Ludwig Krug in Nürnberg aus.
Hans Leonhard Schaeuffelein (geb. um

Hans
1476) lehnt sich sehr an Dürer an. Er wendete Schaeuffelein.
sich mit Vorliebe dem Holzschnitt zu, dessen
Technik ganz der Richtung seines Geistes entsprach.
Wahrscheinlich lernte er zuerst bei Wolgemut und arbeitete später
bei Dürer, bis dieser 1505, vor seiner Abreise nach Italien, seine
Werkstatt auflöste. Im Jahre 1507 lieferte er bereits eine
Holzschnittfolge von 65 Blatt für das Speculum passionis des Dr.
Pinder. Von ihm rühren 118 Zeichnungen für die Holzschnitte zu dem
Theuerdank (1512) her, die von dem vorzüglichen Holzschneider
Jost de Negker geschnitten wurden. Bei Schönsperger erschien
ferner von ihm „Der Heiligen Leben“ mit 130 kleinen Holzschnitten
und, im Verein mit Hans Burgkmair und Georg Brew, „Das Leiden
Christi“.
Schaeuffelein heiratete die Nürnberger Patriziertochter Afra

Tucher und wandte sich 1515 nach Nördlingen, der Heimat seines
Vaters. Aus der Zeit seines dortigen Aufenthaltes sind zu nennen:
seine Holzschnittzeichnungen zu Ciceros Buch „Von den Pflichten“;
zu den Historien des Boccaccio; zu einem Buche mit dialektischen
Vorschriften; zu dem „goldenen Esel“ des Apulejus und zu mehreren
religiösen Werken. Am bedeutendsten sind einige, dem täglichen
Leben entnommene Darstellungen, Bilder aus dem Soldatenleben
und namentlich 20 Blätter mit Hochzeitstänzern. Ein Abendmahl
zeichnet sich durch seine ungewöhnliche Grösse, 1 Meter 2 ctm.
Breite bei 71 ctm. Höhe, aus. Schaeuffelein besass wenig Genie und
konnte sich nicht von dem noch nicht fertigen Standpunkt der Form
emanzipieren, auf welchem Dürer damals, als er nach Italien reiste,
stand. Schaeuffelein starb 1549.
Albrecht Altdorfer, wahrscheinlich in

Albr. Altdorfer.
Amberg um 1480 geboren, tritt weit selbständiger
und origineller auf als Schaeuffelein, wenn er ihn
auch nicht in der Technik übertrifft. Er zersplitterte seine Kräfte nach
verschiedenen Richtungen hin. 1505 siedelte er nach Regensburg
über und wurde 1526 dort Ratsbaumeister. Er ist als Vater der
modernen Landschaftsmalerei zu betrachten und brachte es auch in
der Ätzmanier zur Virtuosität. Die Zahl seiner Kupferstiche beläuft
sich auf etwa 80, die der Holzschnitte auf 70, die der Radierungen
auf 30. Er starb im Jahre 1538.
Michael Ostendorfer, ein Zeitgenosse

Michael Osten-
Altdorfers (1490-1559), leistete als Zeichner mehr dorfer.
denn dieser und würde sicherlich bedeutendere
Werke geliefert haben, wenn nicht die Not ihn gezwungen hätte, die
Kunst allein als Erwerbsmittel zu betrachten und allerlei, seinen
Fähigkeiten nicht angemessene Arbeiten zu unternehmen. In der
ersten Periode seiner Thätigkeit sind seine besten Arbeiten der
Verherrlichung der Jungfrau Maria gewidmet, besonders ein
Holzschnitt von ungewöhnlicher Grösse: „Die Kirche der schönen
Maria zu Regensburg“. Als diese Stadt 1542 das Augsburger
Bekenntnis annahm, widmete Ostendorfer seine Kunst mit Eifer der
Reformation. Seine bedeutendste Komposition ist ein umfangreicher
Holzschnitt „Die Kreuzabnahme“ (1548).
Aus der grossen Zahl von Zeichnern für Formenschnitt von der
Mitte des xvi. Jahrhunderts ab sind nur wenige nennenswert, unter
diesen besonders: Virgilius Solis, Jost Amann, Peter Flötner und
Melchior Lorch.
Virgil Solis, geboren 1514 zu Nürnberg,

Virgil Solis.
hat für die Typographie eine besondere
Bedeutung, weil er eine grosse Zahl der
schönsten Zierstöcke für Bücherornamentierung erfand. Von ihm
sind 600 Kupferstiche bekannt und die Zahl seiner Holzschnitte ist
ebenfalls gross, als: 100 biblische Figuren zum Alten Testament; 116
zum Neuen; 67 zur Geschichte der Bibel; 178 zu Ovids
Metamorphosen; 194 zu Äsops Fabeln. Er starb um 1562.
Jost Amann[5] war einer der talentvollsten
Holzzeichner seiner Zeit und näherte sich mehr Jost Amann.
als Virgil Solis den alten Meistern. Seine Figuren
haben jedoch etwas theatralisches. Er war im J. 1539 in Zürich
geboren, zog 1560 nach Nürnberg und arbeitete vieles für dortige,
besonders jedoch für Frankfurter Buchhändler, namentlich für Sig.
Feyerabend. Wir haben von ihm Bibelillustrationen; Icones Livianæ,
Bilder aus der altrömischen Geschichte; Zeichnungen zu Reineke
Fuchs; das Stamm- und Wappenbuch; Kostümwerke von
Bedeutung. Bekannt ist das 1564 erschienene: „Hans Sachse,
eigentliche Beschreybung aller Stände auf Erden — aller Künste und
Handwerken“. Wir finden darin auch den Schriftgiesser, Drucker,
Briefmaler, Formenschneider, Buchbinder. Bei etwas grösserer
Aufmerksamkeit auf die Details seitens Amanns würden diese
Abbildungen von grösserem Werte für die ältere Geschichte der
Buchdruckerkunst sein. Der Text in Versen bietet keine besonderen
Anhaltepunkte. Amann starb 1591.
Peter Flötner aus Nürnberg, gestorben

Peter Flötner.
um 1546, war in erster Reihe Bildhauer, doch
auch als Zeichner besonders für den
Formenschnitt thätig. Unter den erhaltenen etwa 60 Holzschnitten
zeichnen sich besonders eine Reihe von Landsknechtsbildern
vorteilhaft aus. Von Wert für die Ornamentik ist noch heute seine
Sammlung von 24 Vorlegeblättern für Goldschmiede und sonstige
Metallarbeiter.
Melchior Lorch aus Flensburg, geb. 1527,

Melchior Lorch.
lieferte schon in seinem 18. Jahre tüchtige Stiche.
Zu Dürer muss er in persönlichen Beziehungen
gestanden haben, da er dessen Portrait 1550 in Kupfer stach,

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Space, Time, and the Origins of

Transcendental Idealism: Immanuel

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The Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Punishment

The World According to Kant: Appearances and Things in

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The Time of the Landscape: On the Origins of the

Space, Time, and the

ISBN 978-3-030-60741-8 ISBN 978-3-030-60742-5 (eBook)

While I remember having conversations about Kant after my first intro-

Rukgaber, Matthew. 2018. Immaterial Spirits and the Reform of

Rukgaber, Matthew. 2016. The Asymmetry of Space: Kant’s Absolute

1 Introduction: An Overview of the Metaphysics of the

2 Space, Force, and Matter in the Early Natural Science

3 Substances, Space, and Causality in the Early Metaphysical

Space and Bodies in the Physical Monadology 83

4 The Development of Kant’s Pre-Critical Metaphysics

5 The Asymmetry of Space: Kant’s Theory

6 The Moment of Transformation: Time and

7 Kant’s Theory of Space in the Inaugural Dissertation

AA Gesammelte Schriften. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902–.

© The Author(s) 2020 1

mind, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of psychology, and the

things-in-themselves renders observable reality less than real, illusory,

life-long project in metaphysics was to show that phenomenalism was not

One consequence of this winnowing of his metaphysical worldview is

Kant openly rejects. The second is a form of transcendental realism that he

property-dualism as being a part of Kant’s Critical ontology, precisely

have thought of representational beings as having an a priori representa-

representations, they are not filters on otherwise non-spatial and non-­

Each of the ‘ultimate’ and ‘irreducible’ primary qualities of the world of

pre-Critical metaphysical system (1747–1768). They trace Kant’s notion

thus, noumenalism or “transcendental realism” is stated by Allison (2004,

Space, Force, and Matter in the Early Natural

The Alternative to a Relationist Reading of Kant’s

© The Author(s) 2020 19

as compatible with Kant’s philosophy of nature, a fundamental division

Here he returned to a strictly Leibnizian view of space, although he stated a

accident of substances.8 It is not unreal, but it is ideal, an alterable order

mechanically move the heavenly bodies as on the Cartesian view. Kant

immaterialism about space, Kant imagines the pieces of space-time to be

Space and Nature in Thoughts on the True Estimation

While it is obvious that Kant’s pre-Critical work is attempting to “recon-

description of nature might be mathematically possible, Kant holds it to

independent of all relation (GSK, AA 1:22). Monads are the “complete

1747.25 Besides merely asserting the doctrine of physical influence, Kant

(Knutzen 2009, p. 61).28 It is also clear that Kant is envisioning these

Baumgarten (Baumgarten 2013, §422). Since “place and time do not

for activation. If more influence could have transpired it would have,

is motivated by the counterfactual claim that if we could measure “the

their external relations. He also more clearly distinguishes the physical

Space and Matter in Universal Natural History

I assume the matter of the whole world to be universally dispersed and I

the broad range of experimental and speculative natural scientists inspired

The ever-effective power, which, as it were, constitutes the life of nature,

DIE ILLUSTRIERENDE KUNST IN DEUTSCHLAND.

Die deutschen Malerschulen. Der Kupferstich und der Holzschnitt. Michel

NTER wenig günstigen Verhältnissen

Im Osten war PRAG ein Hauptsitz der Kunst

Wie Köln und Prag der geistlichen und

1 Introduction: An Overview of the Metaphysics of the

2 Space, Force, and Matter in the Early Natural Science

3 Substances, Space, and Causality in the Early Metaphysical

Space and Bodies in the Physical Monadology 83

4 The Development of Kant’s Pre-Critical Metaphysics

5 The Asymmetry of Space: Kant’s Theory

6 The Moment of Transformation: Time and

7 Kant’s Theory of Space in the Inaugural Dissertation

representations, they are not filters on otherwise non-spatial and non-