Description: Laws of nature play a central role in Kant's theoretical philosophy and are crucial to understanding his philosophy of science in particular. In this volume of new essays, the first systematic investigation of its kind, a distinguished team of scholars explores Kant's views on the laws of nature in the physical and life sciences. Their essays focus particularly on the laws of physics and biology, and consider topics including the separation in Kant's treatment of the physical and life sciences, the relation between universal and empirical laws of nature, and the role of reason and the understanding in imposing order and lawful unity upon nature. The volume will be of great interest to advanced students and scholars of Kant's philosophy of science, and to historians and philosophers of science more generally.
Brief description: Angela Breitenbach is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of King's College. Her research focuses on Kant, the philosophy of science, and aesthetics.
Review Quotes: 'Kant and the Laws of Nature, edited and with an introduction by Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach, is a collection of thirteen uniformly excellent essays on Kant's philosophical views on the nature and (metaphysical or epistemic) status of laws of nature, produced under the aegis of a three-year international research network running from 2012-15. But as contemporary Kantian philosophers and not merely as Kant-scholars, why should we care about laws of nature? In my opinion, there are at least four good reasons ... Kant's Neo-Aristotelian Natural Power Grid is not only a new, exciting, and philosophically important Kantian conception of natural laws, but ... is well-supported as a post-classical, post-orthodox interpretation of Kant's theory of natural laws by the thirteen excellent essays in Kant and the Laws of Nature.' Robert Hanna, Critique