Monadology, Materialism and Newtonian Forces: The Turn in Kant’s Theory of Matter

Kant elaborated his dynamical theory of matter in two quite different systematic accounts, the first in the Monadologia physica (1756), the second in the Dynamics chapter of the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786). In this paper I investigate the transition from the monadological to the “continuum” dynamical theory of matter, whose exact timing and motives are not explicitly clarified in Kant’s writings. I locate Kant’s turn around the middle 1760s, presenting Kant’s abandonment of his own physical monadology as a way out of controversies about monads and materialism which characterized the German intellectual world of his time. Among the results of this crucial modification in matter theory stands out the new interpretation of Newtonian forces in the critical writings, which is not only relevant for Kant’s account of physics, but also plays a major exemplary role for his critical theory of knowledge.