Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci.

34 (2003) 29–43
www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa

Transcendental philosophy and mathematical

physics
Michael Friedman
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2155, USA

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between Kant’s views on the metaphysical foundations
of Newtonian mathematical physics and his more general transcendental philosophy articulated
in the Critique of pure reason. I argue that the relationship between the two positions is very
close indeed and, in particular, that taking this relationship seriously can shed new light on
the structure of the transcendental deduction of the categories as expounded in the second
edition of the Critique.
 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Kant; Mathematical physics; Transcendental deduction

The first edition of the Critique of pure reason appeared in 1781. Soon thereafter,
in January 1782, a highly critical review contributed by Christian Garve and revised
by the editor J. G. Feder was published in the Göttinger Anzeigen von gelehrten
Sachen. This review, as is well known, maintained that what Kant had produced was
simply a new version of an old doctrine—a version of psychological or subjective
Berkeleyean idealism. Kant, not surprisingly, was displeased, and his next statement
of the critical philosophy, the Prolegomena to any future metaphysics of 1783, was
clearly intended, at least in part, to answer this charge of subjective idealism. Indeed,
the Appendix to the Prolegomena, ‘On what can be done to make metaphysics as
a science actual’, is almost exclusively devoted to an explicit reply to the Garve–
Feder review. In particular, Kant attempts conclusively to differentiate his view from
Berkeley’s by focussing on the critical doctrine of space (together with that of time):

E-mail address: mlfriedman@stanford.edu (M. Friedman).

0039-3681/03/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0039-3681(02)00085-7
30 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43

I show, by contrast [with Berkeley], that, in the first place, space (and also time,
which Berkeley did not consider) together with all of its determinations can be
cognized by us a priori, because it, as well as time, inheres in us prior to all
perception, or experience, as pure form of our sensibility, and makes possible all
sensible intuitions and therefore all appearances. It follows [in the second place]
that, since truth rests on universal and necessary laws, as its criterion, experience
for Berkeley can have no criterion of truth—for the appearances (for him) had
nothing a priori at their basis, from which it then followed that they are nothing
but mere illusion [Schein]. By contrast, for us space and time (in combination
with the pure concepts of the understanding) prescribe their law a priori to all
possible experience, which, at the same time, yields the secure criterion of truth
for distinguishing, within experience, truth from illusion. (4: 375)1

The second edition of the Critique appeared four years later, in 1787. Here Kant
extensively revised some of the most central—and most difficult—chapters of the
book: the paralogisms of pure reason, the transcendental deduction of the categories,
and the system of the principles of pure understanding. The chapters dealing with
the first two topics were completely rewritten. In the case of the principles chapter
the revisions are not as extensive, but Kant did add two entirely new sections: the
famous refutation of idealism, and a general remark to the system of principles,
which, among other things, serves as a ‘confirmation’ of the refutation of idealism
(B293). In addition, Kant also significantly revised the structure of the transcendental
aesthetic by separating two distinct lines of argument with respect to both space and
time—one he calls a metaphysical exposition, which articulates the synthetic a priori
character of the representation in question (space or time) by elucidating ‘what
belongs to it’ (B38), and the other he calls a transcendental exposition, which demon-
strates the synthetic a priori character of the representation in question by showing
that only on this assumption is a certain body of assumed synthetic a priori knowl-
edge possible (geometry for example, in the case of space).
Many of these changes introduced in the second edition, as one might expect, are
intended further to delimit Kant’s view from subjective idealism; and they do this,
in particular, by emphasizing the importance of the representation of space in Kant’s
system and that ‘appearances’ include—indeed centrally include—material physical
bodies located outside us in space. This is especially true of the refutation of idealism,
of course, which argues that even my knowledge of my own mental states in inner
sense is itself only possible on the basis of my perception (my immediate perception
for Kant) of external material bodies located outside my mind in outer sense. It is
also true of the general remark to the system of principles, which, after pointing to
the need for given intuitions to instantiate the abstract pure concepts of the under-
standing and thus to provide them with objective reality, goes on to emphasize (in

1
All references to Kant’s writings, except for the Critique of pure reason, are given by volume and
page number of Kant (1902–). The Critique of pure reason is cited by the standard A/B pagination of
the first and second editions. All translations are my own.
 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43 31

a manner clearly reminiscent of the refutation of idealism) the necessity for specifi-
cally outer, that is, spatial intuitions:

It is even more remarkable, however, that, in order to understand the possibility

of things in accordance with the categories, and thus to verify the objective reality
of the latter, we require not merely intuitions, but always even outer intuitions.
If, for example, we take the pure concepts of relation, we find, first, that in order
to supply something permanent in intuition corresponding to the concept of subst-
ance (and thereby to verify the objective reality of this concept), we require an
intuition in space (of matter), because space alone is determined as permanent,
but time, and thus everything in inner sense, continually flows. (B291)

Many other passages in the revised second edition, although not quite as dramatic
as these, also serve to underscore the fundamental importance of space and material
physical bodies located in space.
Between the publication of the Prolegomena and the second edition of the Cri-
tique, Kant published a less well-known work, the Metaphysical foundations of natu-
ral science, appearing in 1786. This work articulates what Kant calls the metaphys-
ical doctrine of body, which examines the a priori principles governing the objects
of specifically outer sense, namely, bodies or what Kant also calls matter(s). These
a priori principles turn out centrally to include fundamental principles of Newtonian
mechanics such as the law of inertia, the conservation of the quantity of matter, and
the equality of action and reaction2. More generally, one of the main burdens of the
Metaphysical foundations is to show how such synthetic a priori principles of ‘pure
natural science’ play a necessary and indispensable role in the argument for universal
gravitation with which Newton’s Principia culminates: the argument of Book III of
the Principia which derives the law of universal gravitation from what Newton calls
the ‘phenomena’ described by Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion and, at the
same time, resolves the issue between the Ptolemaic and Copernican world-systems
by establishing the center of mass of the solar system (which, as Newton demon-
strates, is always very close to the center of the sun) as the privileged frame of
reference for describing the true motions in the solar system—as, according to New-
ton himself, at rest in absolute space.
I have considered the details of Kant’s interpretation of this Newtonian argument
elsewhere3, and I will only sketch its essential features here. Kant, in the first place,
rejects the Newtonian conception of absolute space as some kind of great empty
‘container’ existing prior to the bodies and matter that fill space4. Nevertheless, Kant

2
These same principles are prominently cited in the introduction to the second edition of the Critique
at B17–20, as central examples of what Kant, in the Metaphysical foundations, the Prolegomena, and
the second edition of the Critique, calls ‘pure natural science’.
3
See, in particular, Friedman (1992), Chs. 3, 4.
4
In his own words at A39/B56, Kant rejects Newtonian absolute space as an ‘infinite, self-subsistent
non-entity’.
32 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43

also clearly recognizes that Newton has in fact determined the true motions in the
solar system by showing us how actually to construct the privileged frame of refer-
ence in question. It is this construction, for Kant, that first defines the concept of
‘true motion’, and it does this, in Kant’s own terminology, by showing us how to
transform ‘appearance [Erscheinung]’ into ‘experience [Erfahrung]’, so that the lat-
ter, in particular, is securely distinguished from ‘illusion [Schein]’ (4: 554–555).
More specifically, we begin, as in Newton’s own argument, with the merely rela-
tive motions in the solar system: that is, the motions of the various satellites with
respect to their primary bodies—the moon relative to the earth, the moons of Jupiter
and Saturn relative to their respective planets, Venus and the other planets relative
to the sun, and so on. These merely relative motions are, in Kant’s terminology,
mere appearances, and we are not yet able to distinguish merely apparent motions
from true motions (in particular, we do not yet decide, at this stage, whether the
earth truly orbits the sun or vice versa). These motions, also in Kant’s terminology,
are merely possible. In the second stage of the argument, we apply the law of inertia
and Newton’s second law of motion to conclude that in each system of satellites
together with a primary body there is an inverse-square force acting on the satellites
directed towards the primary body in question. These same motions, now in the
context of Newton’s second law, are, in Kant’s terminology, (provisionally) taken
to be actual. In the final stage of the argument, we apply Newton’s third law of
motion—the equality of action and reaction—to conclude, first, that the forces in
question must act mutually (so that the satellites must attract their primary bodies
in turn) and, second, that there is an inverse-square force, directly proportional to
the product of the masses of the two bodies, between any two bodies (any two
pieces of matter) in the universe. The motions described in this third stage—mutual,
universal, inversely proportional to the square of the distance, and directly pro-
portional to mass—are now declared, in Kant’s terminology, to be necessary. It is
precisely these motions that yield both Newton’s formulation of the law of universal
gravitation and the center of mass frame of the solar system—which, as Newton
proves in accordance with the law of universal gravitation, is always located very
near to the center of the sun.
This Newtonian construction, for Kant, first defines what we mean by ‘absolute
space’. Absolute space is not, as Newton thought, a mysterious metaphysical entity
(or ‘non-entity’) somehow existing ‘behind’ the observable phenomena of motion;
it is rather a privileged frame of reference serving to define the notion of ‘true
motion’ for a given interacting system of interest (in this case, the solar system).
Moreover, it is also this construction, for Kant, that makes the law of universal
gravitation his model for a genuine empirical law of nature—a law which, despite
its undoubted empirical status, also counts as universal and necessary. For, unlike
Kepler’s laws of planetary motion—which, for Kant, are at this stage merely induc-
tive regularities possessing what Kant calls mere comparative universality—the law
of universal gravitation is determined from the initial empirical data (the Keplerian
‘phenomena’) by an a priori constructive procedure making essential use of synthetic
a priori principles of pure natural science (the Newtonian laws of motion).
 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43 33

It follows that the law of universal gravitation is necessary in precisely the sense
of Kant’s official explanation of the category of necessity:

1. That which agrees with the formal conditions of experience (according to

intuition and concepts), is possible.
2. That which connects with the material conditions of experience (sensation),
is actual.
3. That whose connection with the actual is determined in accordance with
universal conditions of experience, is (exists as) necessary. (A218–
219/B265–266)

Since, as we have seen, this same progression from possibility, through actuality, to
necessity is also instantiated, in the present case, by a progression from mere ‘appear-
ance [Erscheinung]’ to ‘experience [Erfahrung]’, where the latter is securely dis-
tinguished from ‘illusion [Schein]’, we now see, at the same time, how the universal
and necessary law of gravitation also serves, with respect to motion, as a ‘secure
criterion of truth’.
I now want to pursue is the question of how deeply Kant’s conception of the
universal and necessary character of Newtonian mathematical physics is connected
with, or embedded in, the transcendental philosophy articulated in the Prolegomena
and the first Critique—especially in the second edition of the Critique, whose
revisions, as we have seen, appear to be centrally motivated by Kant’s ambition to
distinguish his views from subjective idealism. One indication that this connection
may go very deep indeed is that, in the section of the Prolegomena corresponding
to the transcendental deduction of the categories, Kant illustrates one of the central
conclusions of the deduction—that, in the words of the Prolegomena, ‘[t]he under-
standing does not extract its laws (a priori) from, but prescribes them to nature’ (4:
320)—precisely by the law of universal gravitation. A second indication that the
connection goes deep is that the passage we cited from the new general remark to
the system of principles added to the Critique, where Kant emphasizes the need for
specifically outer or spatial intuitions to instantiate the categories and secure their
objective reality, is a very clear echo of a parallel passage in the Preface to the
Metaphysical foundations:

It is also indeed very remarkable . . . that general metaphysics [transcendental

philosophy], in all instances where it requires examples (intuitions) in order to
provide meaning for its pure concepts of the understanding, must always take
them from the general doctrine of body, and thus from the form and principles
of outer intuition; and, if these are not exhibited completely, it gropes uncertainly
and unsteadily among mere meaningless concepts . . . [here] the understanding
is taught only by examples from corporeal nature what the conditions are under
which such concepts can alone have objective reality, that is, meaning and truth.
(4: 478)
34 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43

The Prolegomena and the second edition of the Critique emphasize the fundamental
importance of a priori principles governing specifically outer sense, and it appears
that the a priori principles of outer sense in question are precisely those articulated
in the Metaphysical foundations.
The same point can be made in an even more specific fashion. For what Kant
calls pure natural science or the metaphysical doctrine of body is, first and foremost,
a doctrine of motion. Matter or body is defined, in the very first explication of the
Metaphysical foundations, as ‘the movable in space’ (4: 480), and, as Kant explains
in the Preface, ‘[t]he understanding traces back all other predicates of matter belong-
ing to its nature to this one [motion], and so natural science is either a pure or applied
doctrine of motion throughout’ (4: 476–477). An analogous emphasis on motion is
also central to the revised passages on the necessity for spatial intuition added to
the second edition of the Critique. Thus, the passage from the general remark to the
system of principles continues as follows:

Second, in order to exhibit alteration, as the intuition corresponding to the concept

of causality, we must take motion, as alteration in space, for the example. Indeed,
it is even the case that we can make alteration intuitive to ourselves solely in this
way, as no pure understanding can conceive its possibility . . . How it may . . .
be possible that an opposed state follows from a given state of the same thing is
not only inconceivable to any reason without example, but is not even under-
standable without intuition—and this intuition is the motion of a point in space,
whose existence in different places (as a sequence of opposed determinations)
alone makes alteration intuitive to us in the first place. For, in order that we may
afterwards make even inner alterations intuitive, we must make time, as the form
of inner sense, intelligible figuratively as a line—and inner alteration by the draw-
ing of this line (motion), and thus the successive existence of our self in different
states by outer intuition. (B291–292)

It is even more striking, however, that this passage (from the general remark to
the system of principles) is echoed in turn, in the second edition revisions of the
transcendental deduction of the categories. In a crucial section on ‘the application
of the categories to objects of the senses in general’ (Section 24), Kant explains how
the understanding (and thus the pure concepts of the understanding or categories)
obtains a necessary relation to sensibility (and thus to objects of our senses) by what
he calls a figurative synthesis (synthesis speciosa) or transcendental synthesis of the
imagination. Kant then goes on to illustrate this notion as follows:

We always observe this [the transcendental synthesis of the imagination] in our-

selves. We can think no line without drawing it in thought, no circle without
describing it, . . . ; and we cannot represent time itself without attending, in the
drawing of a straight line (which is to be the outer figurative representation of
time), merely to the action of synthesis of the manifold, through which we suc-
cessively determine inner sense, and thereby attend to the succession of this deter-
 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43 35

mination in it. Motion, as action of the subject (not as determination of an

object∗), and thus the synthesis of the manifold in space—when we abstract from
the latter and attend merely to the action by which we determine inner sense in
accordance with its form—[such motion] even first produces the concept of suc-
cession. (B154–155)

It would appear that a crucial step in the second edition transcendental deduction—
the demonstration of how the understanding is applied to sensibility—proceeds pre-
cisely by the representation of motion. And it would therefore appear that Kant’s
Metaphysical foundations of Newtonian mathematical physics, whose task, as we
have seen, is the elaboration of what Kant calls the pure doctrine of motion, is
centrally implicated in the argument of the transcendental deduction itself.
But perhaps this passage and other related passages from the second edition are
merely illustrative. The pure doctrine of motion, and thus, in the end, Newtonian
mathematical physics as well are, to be sure, exemplary of the application of the
categories. Here we have a body of necessary synthetic a priori knowledge, which,
like all such knowledge, must eventually be grounded in the categories. Indeed, there
is no doubt, for Kant, that Newtonian mathematical physics counts as a particularly
central example of the application of the categories. But it does not follow that the
main argument of the Critique, the transcendental deduction of the categories, is in
any way dependent on this particular example. It would appear, in fact, that the
argument of the first Critique must necessarily proceed at a much higher level of
abstraction and generality, so that, in particular, the proof of the objective reality of
the categories must be completed prior to and independently of all consideration of
this specific example. I would now like to argue, however, that such a merely illustra-
tive and exemplary reading is not sufficient. On the contrary, there is an important
sense in which a consideration of this specific example is built into the very structure
of Kant’s argument.
Kant significantly altered the structure of the transcendental deduction in the
second edition of the Critique. Whereas the first edition did not clearly separate the
respective contributions of the faculties of understanding and sensibility, the structure
of the second edition is deliberately constructed to emphasize this distinction. In the
first half of the argument (Sections 15–20) Kant considers the role of the understand-
ing alone, independently of sensibility. In the second half of the argument (Sections
22–27) Kant introduces the specific features of our human sensibility—that is, the
spatiality and temporality of our forms of intuition—in order to show that there is
a kind of necessary harmony between the understanding and our sensibility. It is
this that shows that the categories—which have their origin in the understanding
entirely independently of our sensibility—nevertheless necessarily apply to all
objects of our senses and thus have objective reality. Between these two parts of
the argument, Kant inserts a Remark (Section 21) explaining the distinction in ques-
tion. Our understanding, like the understanding of any finite creature, must operate
by combining and synthesizing sensory material given independently of the under-
standing itself: it cannot create objects of intuition but only think them. The first
36 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43

half of the argument, where we consider the understanding in abstraction from our
forms of sensibility, does not abstract away this feature, but only the specifically
spatio-temporal character of our particular forms of sensory receptivity. The first
half, in Kant’s terminology, considers only a manifold of intuition in general
(whether spatio-temporal or not), whereas the second half considers the relation of
the understanding to our specific form of a manifold of intuition (that is, to a spatio-
temporal form).
In light of this, Kant explains the relationship between the two parts of the argu-
ment as follows:

In the above proposition [Section 20] the beginnings of a deduction of the pure
concepts of the understanding is made—in which, since the categories arise inde-
pendent of sensibility merely in the understanding, I must still abstract from the
manner in which the manifold for an empirical intuition is given, in order solely
to discern the unity which is added to the intuition by means of the category
through the understanding. In the following (Section 26) it will be demonstrated
from the manner in which the empirical intuition is given in sensibility that its
unity is no other than that which the category, according to the preceding Section
20, prescribes to the manifold of a given intuition in general. In this way, there-
fore, by explaining its a priori validity with respect to all objects of our senses,
the aim of the deduction will first be fully achieved. (Section 21, B144–145)

It would appear, then, that we must invoke the specifically spatio-temporal character
of our (human) sensibility in order fully to achieve the aim of the deduction.
But there is a serious difficulty in understanding Kant’s actual execution of this
strategy—that was first clearly articulated in a ground-breaking article by Dieter
Henrich (1969). For the ‘proposition’ already demonstrated in Section 20 is that
‘[a]ll sensible intuitions stand under the categories, as conditions under which alone
their manifold can come together in a consciousness’, or, as the conclusion of Section
20 puts it, ‘the manifold of a given intuition [in general] necessarily stands under
the categories’ (B143). Kant has already shown, in other words, that all sensible
intuitions in a manifold in general—whether spatio-temporal or not—must necessar-
ily be subject to the categories. How, then, can Kant’s introduction of the specifically
spatio-temporal character of our intuition in the second half of the argument generate
anything more than a trivial instantiation of the more general claim already estab-
lished in Section 20? All intuitions of a manifold in general stand under the categor-
ies; therefore all items in a specifically spatio-temporal manifold of intuition stand
under the categories; QED. How, in particular, can the intricate considerations Kant
actually presents in the second half of the argument—including centrally, the com-
plex and rather murky considerations about the transcendental synthesis of the
imagination Kant presents in Section 24—possibly add anything to this entirely triv-
ial argument by universal instantiation?
Henry Allison (1983) has made the helpful suggestion that there are two notions
of object at work in the two parts of the argument. The first half (where we consider
 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43 37

the contribution of the understanding alone) operates with a relatively thin, purely
logical or intellectual notion of object—the notion of a mere object of thought, which,
in particular, may or may not actually exist—and shows that the categories are neces-
sary conditions for representing objects in this sense. The second half, in contrast,
operates with a much more ‘weighty’ notion of ‘real’ or empirically existing object
(in space and time) and attempts to show that the categories necessarily apply to
such objects as well—in such a way that they thereby generate empirical knowledge
of these more ‘weighty’ objects. Unfortunately, on Allison’s view, the second half
of the deduction does not fully succeed in proving this last claim. As Allison puts
it, ‘[e]ven if we accept all of Kant’s premises, including his doctrine of transcendental
synthesis, his conclusion that the categories make experience [that is, empirical
knowledge] possible and prescribe a priori laws to nature does not follow’ Allison
(1983), p. 171.
I agree with Allison that there are two different notions of object at work in the
two parts of the deduction. I also agree that Kant’s own conclusion, in the second
part, centrally involves the claim that the categories make experience possible by
prescribing a priori laws to nature. Indeed, Kant himself states this conclusion (as
that which is to be proved) at the very beginning of the crucial Section 26, entitled
‘transcendental deduction of the universally possible employment in experience of
the pure concepts of the understanding’:
In the metaphysical deduction the a priori origin of the categories in general was
shown by their complete agreement with the universal logical functions of
thought; in the transcendental [deduction], however, their possibility as a priori
cognitions of objects of an intuition in general was presented (Sections 20, 21).
What is now to be explained is the possibility of knowing a priori, by means of
categories, whatever objects may present themselves to our senses—not, indeed,
with respect to the form of their intuition, but with respect to the laws of their
combination—and thus [how] they prescribe laws to nature, as it were, and even
make nature possible. For without this it would not be clear how everything that
may merely be presented to our senses must stand under laws that arise a priori
from the understanding alone. (B159–160)

I disagree with Allison, however, in so far as I believe that it is a condition of

adequacy for a proper interpretation of the overall structure of the two parts of the
argument—and, in particular, for a proper interpretation of the two notions of object
at work there—that our interpretation show how Kant’s stated conclusion in the
deduction actually follows in the deduction itself5.

5
Allison suggests that Kant does in fact succeed in his aims later in the Critique, in the principles
chapter: ‘the problem [does] not lie so much in the argument of the Deduction itself as in Kant’s tendency
to assign to it a task that should properly have been assigned to the Analytic as a whole’ (Allison, 1983,
p. 172). Of course my condition of adequacy—that the conclusion of the deduction actually follows in
the deduction—does not imply that the argument of the deduction is sound, nor that it is convincing or
even plausible.
38 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43

Let us begin with the notion of object at work in the second part of the argument.
From what Kant says in his statement of the conclusion in Section 26 it appears that
objects in this sense are (mere) objects of sensibility: objects that may in any way
be given or presented to our senses in virtue of affecting our receptivity so as to
produce sensations in it. These objects, of course, are not things-in-themselves, but
rather objects existing anywhere in space and time, which can affect our sensibility
in virtue of our putting ourselves, as it were, into an appropriate spatio-temporal
(perceptual) relation to them. Indeed, Kant’s argument (which immediately follows)
hinges precisely on the fact that since space and time are our forms of intuition, all
objects in the present sense are necessarily given or presented within space and time.
I will return to this argument shortly. But I now want simply to observe that objects
in the sense we are now considering—at work in the second part of the deduction—
are merely specified as objects that may be presented to our senses and thus exist
in space and time. This notion of objects, therefore, is a purely sensible notion of
objects, which, in particular, has not yet been put into any kind of relation to the
understanding—that is, any kind of relation to thought and knowledge. That objects
in this sense are also (and necessarily) objects in relation to the understanding—that
is, objects of thought and knowledge—is precisely what has now to be proved.
If this is correct, it follows that the notion of object at work in the first part of
the deduction (where the understanding is considered on its own, independently of
our particular forms of sensibility) is defined solely in relation to the understanding.
These objects are thus objects of thought and knowledge. But we have not yet shown,
at this stage of the argument, that the only objects of knowledge available to us are
spatio-temporal objects encounterable or presentable in our specific forms of recep-
tivity. Again, that objects of knowledge are in fact restricted in this way is precisely
what then has to be proved in the second half, specifically, in Section 22. So what
are we able to say about objects of the understanding in general—objects, in Kant’s
terminology, of an intuition in general (whether it be spatio-temporal or not)? Kant
explains this notion in a well-known passage in Section 17:

Understanding, speaking generally, is the faculty of cognitions. These consist in

the determinate relation of given representations to an object. But [an] object is
that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition is united. Now all
unification of representations requires unity of consciousness in their synthesis.
Therefore, the unity of consciousness is that on which the relation of represen-
tations to an object rests, and thus their objective validity and [the circumstance]
that they become cognitions; consequently, it is [also] that on which rests the very
possibility of the understanding. (B137)

Objects of the understanding as such—objects of thought and, as it were, of knowl-

edge in general—are therefore defined (independently of space and time) in terms
of that unity which results in a given manifold of intuition in general (spatio-temporal
or not) by synthesizing or unifying that manifold under a concept. Objects in this
purely intellectual sense, in other words, are whatever results from applying the
 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43 39

discursive, conceptual, and judgemental capacities of the understanding to any given

manifold of intuition (again, whether spatio-temporal or not). And it is precisely this
most general and abstract form of purely intellectual synthesis or unity that Kant
here refers to as the unity of apperception or the unity of consciousness.
Given this interpretation of the two notions of object at work in the two parts of
the argument of the deduction (purely intellectual in the first part, purely sensible
in the second), our problem is now to understand why all purely sensible objects
(objects presentable or encounterable in space and time) are also, and necessarily,
intellectual objects as well (objects of thought and knowledge). And this problem is
far from trivial. For, although it is certainly true that spatio-temporal manifolds of
intuition, like all manifolds of intuition, are necessarily subject to the unifying and
synthesizing functions of thought, space and time, as our specific forms of intuition,
also have their own particular structure, which prima facie is entirely independent
of the unifying and synthesizing functions of thought. Indeed, one of the main points
of the transcendental aesthetic, in the metaphysical expositions of space and time,
is that both space and time possess their own characteristic form of unity, and this
form of unity is distinctively non-intellectual or non-conceptual6. Objects of our
senses—objects existing in space and time—are thereby subject to the distinctive,
non-conceptual unity belonging to space and time themselves. What still needs to
be shown, therefore, is that they are also, and necessarily, subject to the purely
conceptual unity arising from the understanding alone, entirely independently of
space and time. What is it that ensures, in particular, that the synthesizing activities
of the understanding penetrate all the way down, as it were, to whatever spatio-
temporal objects may be presented to our senses—and do this, moreover, in such a
way that the understanding thereby prescribes a priori laws of nature to these very
same objects?
It is now time to look at the argument of Section 26:

We have a priori forms of outer and inner sensible intuition in the representations
of space and time, and the synthesis of apprehension of the manifold of appear-
ances [‘through which perception becomes possible’] must always be in accord-
ance with them, for it can only take place via this form. But space and time are
represented a priori, not merely as forms of sensible intuition, but as intuitions
themselves (which contain a manifold) and thus [represented a priori] with the
determination of the unity of this manifold (see the transcendental aesthetic∗).
Therefore, unity of the synthesis of the manifold, outside us or in us, and thus a
combination with which everything that is to be represented in space or time as
determined must accord, is itself already given simultaneously, with (not in) these

6
The distinctively non-intellectual or non-conceptual unity in question consists in the circumstance
that all spaces are necessarily given as parts of a single, unitary, all-encompassing space—and similarly
for time. In the case of discursive or conceptual representation, by contrast, the parts (the constituent
concepts or marks) must precede the whole rather than the other way around, and it may therefore be
concluded, in the metaphysical expositions, that the representations of both space and time are sensible
or intuitive rather than discursive or intellectual. See, in particular, A24–25/B39–40 and A31–32/B47–48.
40 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43

intuitions. But this synthetic unity can be no other than that of the combination
of the manifold of a given intuition in general in an original consciousness, in
accordance with the categories, only applied to our sensible intuition (B160–161)

The crucial point is that space and time are not merely forms of intuitions, in which
all objects of our senses must be given, they are also intuitions themselves. And this
means, in particular, that space and time are objects—which, as such, must them-
selves be represented a priori with the determination of the unity of the manifold7.
Kant justifies this claim by referring us back to the transcendental aesthetic.
In what sense of ‘object’ are space and time, represented a priori as ‘intuitions
themselves’, objects? This cannot be the purely sensible notion of object at work in
the second part of the deduction, for this notion applies only to empirical objects
that can be given or presented to our senses in space and time considered as forms
of intuition. (Space and time themselves do not affect our senses by producing sen-
sations in our receptivity when we encounter them in space and time.) It follows,
therefore, that it can only be the intellectual notion of object that is at work in the
first part of the deduction. Space and time are (intuitive) objects in the sense that
they themselves (as pure a priori formal intuitions) are objects of thought and knowl-
edge. And it is precisely this we learn in the transcendental aesthetic—not in the
metaphysical expositions of space and time, but rather in the transcendental expo-
sitions added in the second edition.
In the transcendental exposition of space, for example, we learn that our synthetic
a priori knowledge of the science of geometry can only be explained by the circum-
stance that our representation of space is a pure a priori intuition (that is, a pure
formal intuition). Since space itself is thus an object of knowledge (and, indeed, an
object of a priori knowledge), space, in its specifically spatial character (that is, its
character as object of geometry), is thereby—by the first part of the deduction—
subject a priori to the synthesizing and unifying functions of the understanding.
Hence, all empirical objects encounterable in space are subject a priori to the synthes-
izing and unifying functions of the understanding as well—indeed, they are thereby
subject to the understanding precisely in virtue of being subject to the laws of
geometry8.

7
Thus, Kant’s footnote begins (B160n): ‘Space represented as object (as one actually requires in
geometry) contains more than the mere form of intuition—namely, [it contains] the [act of] putting
together [Zusammenfassung] the manifold, given in accordance with the form of sensibility, in an intuitive
representation, so that the form of intuition yields merely a manifold, but the formal intuition yields unity
of representation’.
8
This reading is confirmed by the footnote to Section 26, where Kant illustrates the notion of space
as an object by the example of geometry (see note 7 above), as well as by the continuation of the above
passage from Section 17, where the purely intellectual notion of object is also promptly illustrated by
the example of space and geometry (B137–138): ‘in order to know anything in space, e.g., a line, I must
draw it, and therefore synthetically bring about a determinate combination of the given manifold, in such
a way that the unity of this action is, at the same time, the unity of consciousness (in the concept of a
line), and only in this way is an object (a determinate space) known’.
 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43 41

What corresponds to this in the case of the representation of time? What body of
synthetic a priori knowledge is explained by the circumstance that time, too, is a
pure a priori formal intuition? The main burden of the transcendental exposition of
time, also added, of course, in the second edition, is as follows:

Here I may add that the concept of alteration and, along with it, the concept of
motion (as alteration of place) is possible only in and through the representation
of time: so that, if this representation were not an a priori (inner) intuition, no
concept, whatever it might be, could make an alteration—i.e., the combination of
contradictorily opposed predicates (e.g., the being and not-being of one and the
same thing at one and the same place)—conceivable. Only in time can two contra-
dictorily opposed determinations in one thing be met with, namely, successively.
Therefore, our concept of time explains as much synthetic a priori knowledge as
is set forth in the general doctrine of motion, which is by no means unfruitful.
(B48–49)

Time as pure formal intuition is thus the object of the synthetic a priori knowledge
contained in what Kant here calls the ‘general doctrine of motion’—which is the
very same science, I take it, as what the Metaphysical foundations calls the ‘pure
doctrine of motion’ or ‘pure natural science’ and the Prolegomena calls ‘pure mech-
anics’9. And it now follows, just as in the case of space and spatial objects, that all
spatio-temporal objects located in both space and time are necessarily subject a priori
to the laws of the pure doctrine of motion or pure natural science as well; and it is
in this precise sense, finally, that the understanding, as Kant says, does in fact succeed
in prescribing laws to nature a priori.
It is by no means surprising then, that Kant in the Prolegomena illustrates what
he here calls the ‘seemingly bold proposition’, that ‘[t]he understanding does not
extract its laws (a priori) from, but prescribes them to nature’, by Newton’s law of
universal gravitation10. The law of universal gravitation thus becomes the central
example of a genuinely well-grounded (and therefore strictly universal and
necessary) empirical law of nature, which attains this well-grounded status precisely
by being determined, from perception, by the understanding itself. And it is similarly
no wonder, therefore, that Kant illustrates the crucial notion of objectively valid
judgement in Section 19 of the second edition, transcendental deduction by the judge-
ment ‘bodies are heavy [die Körper sind schwer]’ (B142). If we take account of the
fact that, in the Metaphysical foundations, Kant explicitly defines ‘heaviness’ or
‘weight [Schwere]’ as ‘the striving to move in the direction of greater gravitation’,

9
See Section 10 of the Prolegomena (4: 283): ‘pure mechanics can only produce its concept of motion
by means of the representation of time’.
10
More precisely, as I argue in my (1992), Ch. 4, this proposition of the Prolegomena is instantiated
by Newton’s derivation of the law of universal gravitation in Book III of the Principia, where the latter
is derived from the Keplerian ‘phenomena’ by the application of both (Euclidean) geometry and the
Newtonian laws of motion.
42 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43

where ‘gravitation’ is defined as ‘the action of the universal attraction that all matter
immediate exerts on all [other matter] and at all distances’ (4: 518), it appears that
‘bodies are heavy’ is objectively valid precisely because this judgement is grounded
in the law of universal gravitation—which is itself grounded, in turn, in what Kant
calls pure mechanics or the general doctrine of motion. Since this latter science is
then seen, in the second part of the deduction, as the indispensable means by which
the categories ‘prescribe laws to nature, as it were, and even make nature possible’,
it thus becomes clear how the judgement ‘bodies are heavy’ is grounded, and in this
sense made possible, by the understanding itself11.
If I am correct, therefore, Newtonian mathematical physics does not simply consti-
tute one application of Kant’s transcendental philosophy among others. For, if my
reading of the structure of the second edition transcendental deduction is accepted,
we can only make sense of the application of the understanding to sensibility—
whereby the categories acquire objective reality and thereby make experience poss-
ible—precisely by means of this particular application. It is not that the categories
make Newtonian mathematical physics possible, and they also, by a different route,
make experience in general possible. It is rather that the categories make experience
in general possible only in virtue of their prior application in Newtonian mathemat-
ical physics. Kant, in Section 24 of the second edition deduction, maintains that the
two previously independent faculties, pure understanding and pure sensibility, are
now to be integrated or united with one another by a figurative synthesis or transcen-
dental synthesis of the imagination, which is characterized, in turn, as ‘an action of
the understanding on sensibility and its first application to objects of an intuition
possible for us (and at the same time the ground of all other applications)’ (B150–
152). This pure synthesis is the bridge between the two parts of the deduction and
thus between the two notions of object at work there. What I have attempted to
show is that pure natural science and Newtonian mathematical physics are the con-
crete products of this synthesis. It is they, and they alone, that constitute what Kant
here calls the understanding’s first application to objects of an intuition possible for
us. It is they, and they alone, that first make clear, in the words of the Prolegomena,
how ‘the understanding is the origin of the universal order of nature, in that it com-
prehends all appearances under its own laws and thereby first brings about experience
(according to its form)’ (4: 322).

References
Allison, H. (1983). Kant’s transcendental idealism: An interpretation and defense. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.

11
It is at precisely this point that the differences between my approach and Gerd Buchdahl’s become
most explicit and acute. For, in accordance with his ‘looseness of fit’ interpretation, Buchdahl views this
crucial section of the second edition deduction as concerned with a purely contingent and commonsensical
judgement having no essential relation to the specifics of Newtonian (or any other kind of) mathematical
physics: see his (1969), pp. 628–641. Since, however, my own work on Kant’s philosophy of science
was directly stimulated by reading Buchdahl (1969) in the early 1980s, it is a great pleasure indeed to
have the opportunity to present these contrasting ideas here.
 M. Friedman / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 29–43 43

Buchdahl, G. (1969). Metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
Friedman, M. (1992). Kant and the exact sciences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Henrich, D. (1969). The proof-structure of Kant’s transcendental deduction. The Review of Metaphysics,
22, 640–659.
Kant, I. (1902–). Kant’s gesammelte Schriften. Berlin: de Gruyter.