The Doctrine of Self-positing and Receptivity in Kant's Late ...

the material must be dynamic and in this continuous and mutually affecting dynamics of
forces always already unified as one. As a consequence of this, one can no longer
legitimately maintain any atomistic paradigm of matter, which assumes the possibility of
empty space. Three points are noteworthy here: first, the transcendental condition
spoken of is material, while those introduced in the KrV are merely formal; second, since
according to the KrV one can only apodictically know formal conditions of possibility of
experience, one of the discovered limitations in any KrV is precisely reason‘s inability to
give an a priori ontological argument; and third, in the second cosmological dialectic of
reason, which arises out of reason‘s thinking the category of quality, Kant affirmed the
undecidability of the fundamental character of matter (atomistic or dynamic).
In the context of the ether deductions, it is also important to point out that Kant was
dissatisfied with the results of his earlier MAN, particularly the chapter dedicated to the
schematization of the pure aspect of the empirical concept of matter, under the category
of ―quality.‖ The heading of this section is entitled ―The Metaphysical Foundations of
Dynamics‖ and through the proofs of eight propositions, Kant‘s aim is to establish the
three necessary characters of matter from a ―qualitative‖ perspective: 1) the real or solid
in space fills this space through repulsive force (―reality‖); 2) in a negative-counter
relation to repulsive force, an attractive force penetrates this space (―negation‖); and 3)
and the limitation of the repulsive by the attractive force, which determines the degree of
filling of ―a space‖ (not just ―space‖) of an object of outer sense (―limitation‖). 22
However, in a later evaluation of his own work in that chapter, Kant acknowledges that
22 Ak: 4:523. Friedman, 233. Under the table of the a priori categories of the
understanding, ―reality,‖ ―negation,‖ and ―limitation‖ are the three parts that constitute
the category of quality (KrV B95).
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