Kant's paradoxical reception of Lavoisier

Abstract

The author discusses the claim made by Michael Friedman that it was the scientific paradigm change from Stahlian to anti-phlogistic chemistry that triggered Kant to start working on the manuscript of the Opus postumum (OP). Friedman had argued that, in the years between the publication of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science and Kant’s work on the OP, new developments in pneumatic chemistry and the science of heat convinced Kant of the possibility of a physical chemistry. While Friedman is right to stress the importance of those developments for a good understanding of certain passages within the OP, Blomme criticizes his merely historical account and develops an alternative interpretation of the role played by Lavoisier’s new model for chemistry within Kant’s OP. Blomme argues that Kant was struck by what made Lavoisier’s theory similar to the one of Stahl and, therefore, by a central reactionary element it contains. Notwithstanding Kant’s recognition of the scientific revolution caused by the new French and British chemistry, what appears to be philosophically relevant for him in the later fascicles of the OP is the fact that Lavoisier, just as Stahl, refers to a principle of heat that is not a direct object of experience.