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The great influence exerted by Kantianism on 19th century physics can be firstly singled out in the process of mathematization which Kant fostered, in particular in Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (from now on MF) (1786),¹ requiring, since its Preface, that chemistry assumed, as a special kind of physics, mathematical clothes in order to become a true science, a science of precision as general physics was already, thus evoking A.L. Lavoisier's contemporary "Newtonian" reform of chemistry. Secondly, Kant's influence on physics can also be seen in the unification of physics Kant himself proposed in MF and physical science developed afterwards, that is, since the early forties of the 19th century, and which was dynamical in character. By stressing the role of movements and tensions in matter, Kant in fact paved the way to the affirmation of the energy concept in subsequent 19th century physics. In fact, in MF, he had even suggested to consider all physical matter as only consisting of elementary dynamical "Newtonian" interactions, attractive and repulsive in character (essentially cohesion and impenetrability), among parts of a unique absolute physical space. Thus, he reduced the essence of material substances, deprived of the absolute impenetrability and bulk they were credited with by previous metaphysics, to their dynamical manifestations and their mutual equilibrium, according to mathematical laws expressing global processes rather than local sequences of physical actions as in previous physics of forces.² In fact, in order to transform this Kantian philosophical intuition into a unitary physical science, just the concept of energy had to be developed, beyond the tendency, dominating in the four early decades of the 19th century, to accept only partial unifications of domains of experience by using mathematics and distinguishing among different forces referring to different forms of experience and experimental data (such as mechanical movements, chemical, optical, electrical, magnetic and heat phenomena).

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-2043-4_27

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