The Kantian Foundations of Modern Science

One way of putting our Interpretive problem, as Professor Butts, does in his very interesting paper, is to characterize the relation (s) between Kant's transcendental and metaphysical principles, on the one hand, and between these principles and the presumptive laws of empirical science, on the other. Another way of putting the problem is to distinguish between Kant's merely illustrative use of the science of his day, his appropriation, generalization, and redeployment of contemporary, often chemical, concepts, his commitment to certain features of classical physics, in particular, as constitutive of any adequate conception of experience, and his identification of the deep presuppositions of any science worthy of the name. In fact, I do not think that there is any general and precise way in which transcendental and metaphysical principles and the laws of empirical science are related. At best there are analogies.