The Southern Journal of Philosophy (1991) Volume XXX,Supplement

REGULATIVE AND CONSTITUTIVE

Michael Friedman
University of Illinois at Chicago
The distinction between regulative concepts and principles
and constitutive concepts and principles is central to Kant’s
philosophy. In the Critique of Pure Reason this distinction
marks the division between the faculty of reason and the
faculty of understanding. The understanding-together with
its pure concepts or categories-is constitutive of the possibil-
ity of experience. All experience must conform to the concepts
and principles of the understanding, which, accordingly, are
necessarily realized or instantiated in experience: experience
necessarily contains substances, causal connections, and so
on. The faculty of reason, by contrast, is merely regulative in
relation to experience. Although reason too plays an indis-
pensable role in experience, the concepts proper to it-the so-
called ideas of reason, such as the idea of God, or the idea
of the world as a complete totality-cannot be realized or
instantiated in experience at all. Nevertheless, ideas of
reason-the idea of a highest intelligence or wise Author of
the world, for example-still function legitimately to guide
empirical enquiry into the objects that can be given in
experience:
We declare, for example, that the things in the world must be so considered
a8 if they had their existence from a highest intelligence. In such a way
the idea is properly only a heuristic and not an ostensive concept, and it
indicates, not how an object is constituted, but rather how we, under its
guidance, are to seek the constitution and connection of the objects of
experience in general. (A670-67l/B698-699)l
Regulative concepts and principles therefore present us, not
with objects corresponding to them, but rather with a task:
the never ending progress of empirical enquiry whose ideal
terminus-the complete understanding of “the constitution
and connection of the objects of experience”-can only be
approached asymptotically.2
In the Critique of Judgement the regulative/constitutive
distinction is further articulated in the following way. The
transcendental laws of the understanding-the principles of
substance, causality, and so on-leave nature entirely
undetermined with respect to the possible empirical concepts
and laws that may be instantiated therein. We know that our

73
experience must contain some or another substances, causal
relations, and so on; but we are not thereby given an actual
system of empirical science consisting of specific concepts of
substances and specific causal laws. On the contrary, such
a specific scientific system can only be obtained by starting
with lower level empirical concepts and laws and ascending,
by generalization and unification, to higher level empirical
concepts and laws. This is thus a task for reflective, as
opposed to determinative, judgement:
The faculty of judgement in general is the faculty of thinking the par-
ticular as contained under the universal. If the universal (the rule, the
principle, the law) is given, then the faculty of judgement which subsumes
the particular under it (even if, as transcendental faculty of judgement, it
specifies a priori the conditions according to which alone [the particular]
can be subsumed under this universal) is determinative. But if only the
particular is given, for which the universal is to be found, then the faculty
of judgement is merely reflectiue.
The determinative judgement under transcendental laws, given by the
understanding, is only subsumptive; the law is prescribed to it a priori, and
it therefore has no need to think a law for itself in order to be able to
subordinate the particular in nature to the universal. (5,179.19-31)
Determinative judgement therefore corresponds to the consti-
tutive procedure of the understanding, reflective judgement
to what is characterized in the first Critique as the regulative
use of reason.
As the last passage indicates, reflective judgement has its
own peculiar law or transcendental principle, which postu-
lates precisely such unity and coherence of empirical con-
cepts and laws so that an actual system of empirical science
is in fact possible. Kant states the principle of reflective
judgement as follows:
Now this principle can be no other than: that, since the universal law6
of nature have their ground in our understanding, which prescribes them
to nature (although only according to the universal concept of it as nature),
the particular empirical laws, in relation to that which is still left
undetermined by the former, must be considered in accordance with such
a unity as if, a s it were, an understanding (although not ours) had given
them on behalf of our cognitive faculty in order to make a system of
experience according to particular laws of nature possible. Not as if, in this
way, such an understanding must be assumed as actual (for it is only the
reflective judgement for which this idea serves as a principle-for reflecting,
not for determining); rather, this faculty thereby gives a law only to itself
and not to nature. (5,180.18-30)
The unity and coherence postulated by the principle of
reflective judgement are thus not constitutive features of
experience that we know a priori to be necessarily instan-
tiated; rather, they serve precisely as regulative ideas under

74
the presumption of which we seek progressively to maximize
the requisite unity and coherence. Reflective judgement, in
relation to our knowledge of nature, is a purely regulative
fa~ulty.~
The dichotomy in question therefore appears to be clear
and sharp. On the one side lie determinative judgement and
the concepts and principles of the understanding. The latter
delineate the necessary features of any possible experience
and thus any possible scientific system. What is thereby con-
stituted is the general form-the “moments”-of what Kant,
in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, calls
pure (as opposed to empirical) natural science.4 On the other
side lie reflective judgement and regulative concepts and
principles. Their function is precisely to fill in the general
form of pure natural science with actual empirical content,
which can only be done in a progressive and asymptotic
fashion: by ascending from lower level empirical concepts
and laws to higher level empirical concepts and laws, and
from there to even higher level empirical concepts and laws,
and so on without end. Reflective judgement thus never con-
stitutes an actual object in nature, for the maximal unity and
coherence (systematicity) at which it aims i’s never finally
achieved. There are powerful considerations, however, that
call this apparently sharp dichotomy into question.
In the first place, Kant also draws the regulative/consti-
tutive distinction within the concepts and principles of the
understanding. The mathematical concepts and principles
(of quantity and quality) are said to be constitutive, whereas
the dynamical concepts and principles (the analogies of
experience governing substance, causality, and community;
the postulates of empirical thought governing possibility,
actuality, and necessity) are characterized as regulative:
[An analogy of experience] holds as principle of the objects (the appear-
ances) not constitutiuely but merely regulutiuely. Precisely the same holds
also for the postulates of empirical thought in general, which together
concern the synthesis of mere intuition (the form of appearance), perception
(the material thereof), and experience (the relation of these perceptions):
namely, that they are only regulative principles and are distinguished from
the mathematical [principles], which are constitutive, not indeed in
certainty-which in both cases is established a priori-but still in the mode
of their evidence, i.e., in intuitive [evidence] (and therefore also in that of
demonstration).(A180/B222-223)
If some of the concepts and principles of the understanding-
indeed, the most important of these-are merely regulative,
then what sense does it make to characterize determinative
judgement and the understanding as a whole as constitutive

75
while only reflective judgement is characterized as
regulative? What distinction then remains between deter-
minative and reflective judgement?
In the second place, the purportedly constitutive character
of the understanding appears to be on very shaky ground
in any case. The understanding posits the existence of sub-
stances, causal connections, and so on, but only in an entire-
ly indeterminate fashion. The categories thereby delineate
only the general form of pure natural science, yet leave its
actual empirical realization or instantiation completely
unaccounted for. We know that there are some or another
substances, but we are given no empirical concepts of par-
ticular kinds of substances; we know that there are some or
another causal connections, but we are given no empirical
causal laws governing particular instances of such connec-
tions. Indeed, not only is the understanding entirely power-
less with respect to particular empirical concepts and partic-
ular empirical causal laws, but the search for such concepts
and laws lies rather within the purely regulative province of
reflective judgement. Accordingly, there is no guarantee
whatever that the requisite empirical concepts and laws will
in fact be found; there is only the merely regulative demand
that we continue the search without end. How, then, are the
categories really constitutive? What does a guarantee of the
existence of substances in general amount to if there is no
guarantee of the existence of particular kinds of substances?
What does a guarantee of the existence of causal connections
in general amount to if there is no guarantee of the existence
of particular causal laws?
Gerd Buchdahl has developed a subtle and penetrating
interpretation of the role of the regulative use of reason and
reflective judgement in empirical scientific enquiry that
takes very seriously indeed this apparently paradoxical
picture of the relationship between the constitutive procedure
of the understanding and the regulative procedure of
reflective j ~ d g e m e n tOn
. ~ Buchdahl’s account there is in fact
no guarantee-from either reason, reflective judgement, or
the understanding-that nature is governed by empirical
causal laws at all. To say that nature is nonetheless gov-
erned by the transcendental causal principle is to say only
that particular individual events can be determinately
arranged into particular objective sequences of individual
events. No claim is made about the repeatability of such
sequences or, consequently, their subsumption under general
uniformities or causal laws. We know, therefore, that par-
ticular individual events are necessarily subject to the

76
transcendental concept of causality: more precisely, to the
schema of that concept, the a priori representation of neces-
sary or determinate succession in time; but this in no way
guarantees the existence of empirical causal laws. On the
contrary, empirical causal laws can only be extracted from
already given objective sequences of individual events by
standard inductive procedures-which, in turn, are them-
selves necessarily governed by the regulative principles of
reason and reflective judgement.6
Buchdahl’s interpretation is thus undeniably attractive.
Nevertheless, although this is not the place to argue the
point in detail, I do not think it is ultimately satisfactory.’
The main problem is that, for Kant, to say that events occur
in a determinate objective sequence-and hence fall under
the concept of causality-is to say that they are subject to
a general uniformity or causal law. Kant is quite explicit in
the Second Analogy that events acquire determinate position
in time only in virtue of a general rule or law asserting that
all events of the same kind or type as the preceding event
are followed by events of the same kind or type as the
succeeding event;8 and it is clear, moreover, from Kant’s own
examples of objective succession, that the general rule or law
in question is an empirical causal law.9 Accordingly, the
schema of the concept of causality is the representation, not
merely of necessary or determinate succession in time,’ but
of “the succession of the manifold, in so far as it is subject
to a rule” (A144/B183-my emphasis); and, in context, the
rule in question can only be a particular empirical causal
1aw.lO It follows that if the understanding is in fact to
guarantee the existence of particular determinate sequences
of individual events, it must also somehow guarantee the
existence of particular empirical causal laws as well. But
how is the understanding possibly to do this without hope-
lessly confusing the apparently sharp dichotomy between
regulative and constitutive principles?
Finally, Kant himself deliberately blurs the distinction
between regulative and constitutive principles in the Opus
postumum. He there discovers a previously hidden “gap” in
the critical system whose filling requires a radically new
project to be entitled Transition from the Metaphysical Foun-
dations of Natural Science to Physics.11 By “physics” Kant
understands a system of the empirically given forces of
nature, and so what he is here envisioning is a “transition”
from the pure natural science articulated in the Metaphysical
Foundations to empirical science proper. He is envisioning
an a priori explanation of how the purely formal constraints

77
generated by the constitutive procedure of determinative
judgement acquire actual empirical content-a task earlier
apparently assigned exclusively to the regulative operation
of reflective judgement. Here, however, the “transition” is to
proceed from the Metaphysical Foundations to (empirical)
physics proper, and thus constitutive as well as regulative
principles are necessarily involved. Indeed, Kant explicitly
calls for principles that are both constitutive and regulative:
This transition is not merely propaedeutic, for that is an unsteady concept
and concerns only the subjective [element] of cognition. It is a not merely
regulative but also constitutive formal principle, subsisting a prion, of
natural science for a system. (22,240.25-28)
This propaedeutic is itaelf a system which contains the form of the system
of physics a priori. That which contains this whole of the possibility of
physics cannot be a fragmentary aggregate, for as an a priori given whole
it must necessarily be a system which is capable of no increase or
diminution. Regulative principles that are at the same time constitutive.
(241.14-19)

As we have seen, it is perfectly understandable that Kant

should, in the end, have thus blurred the distinction between
regulative and constitutive principles, but the present
demand is paradoxical nonetheless. Since regulative prin-
ciples are first defined in explicit opposition to constitutive
principles, how could there possibly be principles uniting
both characteristics? How could Kant have come to make
such a demand?

I
As a first step towards attempting to untangle these
questions let us return to the initial problem mentioned
above: the circumstance that Kant draws the regulative/
constitutive distinction even within the concepts and
principles of the understanding. The problem, it will be
recalled, is that Kant says in the Critique of Pure Reason
that the dynamical concepts and principles (the analogies of
experience governing substance, causality, and community;
the postulates of empirical thought governing possibility,
actuality, and necessity) are merely regulative, and it then
becomes obscure how the supposedly constitutive procedure
of the understanding really differs from the regulative use
of reason (or reflective judgement). At the end of the section
on the regulative use of reason in the Appendix to the
Transcendental Dialectic Kant clarifies his point:
In the Transcendental Analytic we have distinguished, among the
principles of the understanding, the dynamical [principles], as mere

78
regulative principles of intuition, from the mathematical [principles], which
are constitutive with respect to intuition. In spite of this, the dynamical laws
in question are nonetheless constitutive with respect to experience, in that
they make the concepts without which no experience takes place possible
a priori. On the other hand, principles of pure reason can never be consti-
tutive with respect to empirical concepts, because no schema of sensibility
can be given corresponding to them, and they therefore have no object in
concreto. (A664/B692)12
Kant’s solution to our problem is thus to distinguish two
senses of constitutivity. The mathematical concepts and
principles (of quantity and quality) are constitutive with re-
spect to intuition. The dynamical concepts and principles are
constitutive with respect to experience but only regulative
with respect to intuition. The ideas of reason, on the other
hand, are not even constitutive with respect to experience:
they are purely regulative.
For present purposes, however, what is most significant is
the way in which Kant explains constitutivity with respect
to experience: to be constitutive in this sense is to “make the
concepts without which no experience takes place possible a
priori.” What concepts are in question here? One’s first
thought is that these are just the categories or pure concepts
of the understanding-or, at least, the dynamical pure
concepts of the understanding. Yet Kant, in the very next
sentence, draws the contrast with ideas of reason by
asserting that the latter “can never be constitutive with
respect to empirical concepts.” It appears, then, that the
concepts in question-the concepts thereby constituted by
the dynamical principles of the understanding-are
empirical rather than pure concepts. The dynamical concepts
and principles of the understanding are constitutive with
respect to experience precisely by somehow making empirical
concepts “possible a priori.”
That the dynamical concepts and principles are thus
constitutive of empirical concepts is confirmed by another
important passage from the beginning of the Transcendental
Dialectic:
But if we consider these principles of pure understanding in themselves
according to their origin, then they are anything but cognitions from
concepts. For they would also never be possible a priori, if we did not bring
in pure intuition (in mathematics), or conditions of a possible experience
in general. That everything which happens has a cause can absolutely not
be inferred from the concept of that which happens in general; rather, the
principle [of causality] shows how one can obtain a determinate empirical
concept of that which happens in the first place. (A301/B357)
Here the dynamical principle of causality, in particular, is
said to make possible the empirical concept of that which

79
happens-that is, the empirical concept of a succession of
states or of a n ~1teration.l~
Finally, a passage from the First Introduction to the
Critique of Judgement appears to make an analogous point
With respect to the universal concepts of nature, under which an empirical
concept in general (without particular empirical determinations) is first
possible, reflection already has its instructions in the concept of nature in
general, and the faculty of judgement needs no particular principle of
reflection, but schematizes these concepts a priori and applies these
schemata to each empirical synthesis, without which absolutely no
empirical judgement would be possible. The faculty of judgement is here in
its reflection at the same time determinative, and the transcendental
schematism [of judgement] serves here at the same time as the rule under
which given empirical intuitions are subsumed. (20,212.7-16)
This passage appears to say that one of the tasks of deter-
minative judgement is precisely to apply (through their spatio-
temporal schemata) the “universal concepts of nature”-i.e.,
the categories or pure concepts of the understanding-to
“empirical synthesis” so as to make “an empirical concept in
general” possible. The pure concepts of the understanding and
determinative judgement, in other words, function somehow to
make empirical concepts as such possible. But what can this
possibly mean?
The task of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural
Science is to articulate the empirical concept of matter-the
concept of the movable in space.14 The transcendental con-
cepts and principles of the understanding, which apply to all
objects of the senses in general, are restricted to a particular
species of objects-objects of outer sense or bodies-and a
“special metaphysical natural science’’ or a “metaphysics of
corporeal nature” is thereby generated (4, 469.26-470.12).More
precisely, the task of the Metaphysical Foundations is to make
comprehensible a priori the application of mathematics in
pure natural science (469.13-35)by depicting how the concepts
and principles of the understanding are here brought into
determinate relation with the pure intuitions of space and
time:
However, in order that the application of mathematics to the doctrine of
body, through which alone it can be natural science, be possible, principles
for the construction of the concepts that belong to the possibility of matter
in general must be stated fist. Therefore, a complete analysis of the concept
of a matter in general must be taken as the basis, and this is a task of pure
philosophy. For this purpose the latter requires no specific experiences, but
only that which is met with in the isolated (although intrinsically empirical)
concept itself, in relation to the pure intuitions in space and to time (according
to laws that already essentially depend on the concept of a nature in general);
hence it is a genuine metaphysics of corporeal nature. (472.1-12)

80
The “complete analysis” of the empirical concept of matter
will make it “a priori suitable for application to outer
experience” (472.30-31) by a procedure in which “all determi-
nations of the universal concept of a matter in general [are]
brought under the four classes of categories-those of quan-
tity, of quality, of ‘relation, and finally of modality” (474.2-
476.1). In this way we provide metaphysical foundations for
mathematical natural science.
In particular, the metaphysics of corporeal nature thereby
generates further specifications of the analogies of experi-
ence. Whereas the transcendental principle of substantiality
says that the total quantity of substance in general is
conserved, the corresponding metaphysical principle says
that the total quantity of matter or mass is conserved
(541.28-542.10). Whereas the transcendental principle of
causality says that every alteration in general has a cause,
the corresponding metaphysical principle says that every
alteration of state of motion has a n external cause-a
moving force (543.16-20). Whereas the transcendental prin-
ciple of community says that all external action between
substances is mutual interaction, the corresponding meta-
physical principle says t h a t in all communication of
motion-in virtue of interaction through moving forces-
action and reaction are equal (544.32-547.6). Moreover, the
metaphysics of corporeal nature specifies two particular
moving forces as constitutive of the empirical concept of
matter: the fundamental force of repulsion responsible for
impenetrability and elasticity (496-502), and the fundamental
force of attraction responsible for gravitation and hence
weight (508-518). We thereby obtain a further specification
of the transcendental concept of the real in space.l5
When so further specified the analogies of experience
become very close indeed to the Newtonian laws of motion.
They specify the substances under consideration as massive,
material substances or bodies, and they specify the laws or
principles definitive of the alterations and interactions of
such substances. All alterations are changes in state of
motion according to the first and second laws of motion
(principle of inertia), and all interactions obey the third law
of motion (equality of action and reaction). Moreover, the
above specification of the concept of the real in space
stipulates two particular moving forces responsible for the
fundamental interactions of substances. All substances
attract one another (immediately and at a distance) through
gravitation, and all substances repel one another (on
contact) through impenetrability. In this way the basic

81
framework of the Newtonian natural philosophy is seen to
be a n immediate specification or realization of the transcen-
dental concept of a nature in general.
The procedure by which the Metaphysical Foundations
articulates the empirical concept of matter thus nicely illus-
trates Kant’s explanation of the empirical character of the
concept of alteration in the Second Analogy:
Now how in general something can be altered, how it may be possible
that from one state at one point in time a contrary [state] at another can
follow-of this we have a priori not the least concept. For this, acquaintance
with actual forces is required, which can only be given empirically-e.g.,
the moving forces, or, what is the same thing, certain successive
appearances (as motions) which indicate such forces. But the form of any
alteration-the condition under which it, as the arising of another state, can
alone proceed (the content thereof, i.e., the state that is altered, may be
whatever one desires)-[this form] and therefore the succession of the states
themselves (the happenings) can still be considered a priori in accordance
with the law of causality and the conditions of time.* (A206-207/B252)16

The transcendental principle of causality involves only the

indeterminate concept of the form of an alteration in gen-
eral-whatever the cause of the alteration and the nature of
the state that is thereby altered may be. The empirical con-
cept of matter then specifies both particular causes of alter-
ation (the fundamental forces of attraction and repulsion)
and the nature of the state thereby altered: according to the
Newtonian laws of motion it must be precisely a state of
motion of a massive, material substance.
The principles of pure natural science, unlike the tran-
scendental principles of the understanding, are therefore not
entirely lacking in empirical content. The principles of pure
natural science are equally a priori, but they essentially in-
volve an empirical concept-which, when “brought under”
the transcendental principles, generates a more specific and
determinate conception of the interacting substances in ques-
tion. It follows that empirical concepts do not, as it appeared
above, fall solely within the province of reflective judgement.
The constitutive principles of determinative judgement are
also of fundamental importance in articulating the content
of at least some empirical concepts. Indeed, in the case of
the empirical concept of matter, it is the constitutive proce-
dure of determinative judgement alone that renders it “a
priori suitable for application to outer experience.” And it is
noteworthy, therefore, that this very procedure is explicitly
emphasized in the Critique of Judgement:
A transcendental principle is that through which is represented a priori
the universal condition under which alone things can be objects of our

82
cognition in general. On the other hand, a principle is called metaphysical
if it represents a priori the condition under which alone.objects, whose con-
cept must be empirically given, can be further determined a priori. Thus,
the principle of the cognition of bodies as substances and as alterable
substances is transcendental, if it is thereby asserted that their alterations
must have a cause; it is metaphysical, however, if it is thereby asserted that
their alterations must have 4n external cause: because in the first case
bodies may be thought only through ontological predicates (pure concepts
of the Understanding), e.g., as substance, in order to cognize the proposition
a priori but in the second case the empirical concept of a body (as a movable
thing in space) must be laid at the basis of the proposition-however, as soon
as this is done, that the latter predicate (motion only through external causes)
belongs to body can be comprehended completely a priori. (5,181.1531)
The further specification of transcendental principles of the
understanding into metaphysical principles of pure natural
science via an a priori “complete analysis” of an empirical
concept illustrates concretely how even the dynamical prin-
ciples of pure understanding-unlike the ideas of reason-are
constitutive with respect to experience. Substances, causes,
and so on are indeed given in experience-in virtue of pre-
cisely the fact that material substances interacting in accor-
dance with the laws of motion through the fundamental
forces of attraction and repulsion are given in experience.”
But ideas of reason-such as the idea of a highest intelli-
gence or wise Author of the world-can never be given in
experience.
I1
We have now seen that the constitutive procedure of the
understanding actually extends further into the realm of the
properly empirical than one might first expect. The principles
of pure understanding constitute or “make possible a priori”
the empirical concept of matter; and this concept further
specifies the pure concept of substance to that of massive,
material substance, the alterations of which are necessarily
governed by the Newtonian laws of motion. The concept of
substance articulated by the constitutive principles of the
understanding is thus by no means entirely indeterminate and
devoid of all empirical content. But what about the empirical
causal laws governing the interactions of substances? Do the
constitutive principles of the understanding have a significant
role to play here as well, or rather do these laws, as Buchdahl
has argued, fall wholly within the province of the regulative
use of reason and reflective judgement? If so, then the second
of the two problems we raised above-that the purportedly
constitutive force of the understanding and determinative

83
judgement rests on very shaky ground-would still appear
to be acute indeed.
The Metaphysical Foundations characterizes the empirical
concept of body or material substance in such a way that
two particular forces of interaction-the fundamental force
of attraction and the fundamental force of repulsion-belong
to this concept a priori. The Metaphysical Foundations is
just as clear, however, that the specific laws governing these
forces are empirical:
no law whatever of attractive or of repulsive force may be risked on a priori
conjectures, but everything, even universal attraction, as the cause of
gravity, must, together with its laws, be inferred from data of experience.
(4,534.15-18)
Indeed, it is for precisely this reason that Kant’s “dynamical”
concept of matter, unlike the purely geometrical “mechanical”
concept of matter of the Cartesian natural philosophy (532.34-
533.4), is an empirical concept-whose real possibility or
objective reality cannot be known a priori.18 This is because
“it is in general beyond the horizon of our reason to com-
prehend original forces a priori according to their possibility”
(534.20-22),so that
if the material itself is transformed into fundamental forces (whose laws we
are not capable of determining a priori-and still less can we reliably specify
a priori a manifold of such forces that suffices to explain the specific variety
of matter), then all means escape us for constructing this concept of matter
and for presenting in intuition what we think universally. (525.7-12)
It is precisely because the laws of the fundamental forces,
unlike the merely geometrical concepts and principles
assumed by the “mathematical-mechanical mode of explana-
tion” (524.40-525.7), cannot be mathematically constructed
that the “dynamical” concept of matter is empirical.lg
How, then, are the laws of interaction governing the
fundamental forces to be “inferred from data of experience”?
Although this is not the place to argue the point in detail,
I believe that Kant takes as his model Newton’s derivation,
or “deduction from the phenomena,” of the law of universal
gravitation in Book I11 of Principia.20 Beginning with the
“phenomena” of the observable relative motions of satellites
with respect to their primary bodies in the solar system
described by Kepler’s laws of orbital motion, Newton applies
his general laws of motion to infer first the inverse-square
law and then the law of universal gravitation: every body
in the solar system attracts every other body by a force that
is inversely proportional to the square of the distance
between them and directly proportional to the product of

84
their masses. Newton’s argument thereby finally settles the
dispute between the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems
(more precisely, between the Tychonic and Keplerian
systems) by determining the center of mass of the solar
system as a privileged point at rest. The inverse-square
character of the gravitational force follows from a purely
mathematical analysis of Kepler’s laws (e.g., from motion in
a conic section). To derive the law of universal gravitation
and determine the center of mass of the solar system,
however, we need to make essential use of the laws of
motion, especially the third law-the equality of action and
reaction.
The significance of this derivation, from Kant’s point of
view, is, I contend, to be understood as follows. We begin the
argument with purely observable, purely relative, motions.
At this stage of Kepler’s laws we therefore have merely
empirical or inductive regularities-which, in particular,
possess neither “strict universality” nor necessity.21 When
we apply the laws of motion to these regularities, however,
we bring to bear the dynamical principles of the understand-
ing (in particular, the analogies of experience, of which, as
we have seen, the laws of motion are further specifications)
so as to obtain deductively the law of universal gravitation
describing the “true” or absolute motions in the solar system
(defined relative to its center of mass). We have thus trans-
formed mere “appearance” into objective “experience” and
have thereby obtained a law that is not merely an inductive
regularity or hypothesis.22 If I am not mistaken, then, the
Newtonian derivation of the law of universal gravitation pre-
cisely illustrates the procedure of transforming mere “empir-
ical rules” into necessary “laws” described in 529 of the
Prolegomena:
if [such a] proposition, which is merely a subjective connection of
perceptions, is to be a proposition of experience, it must be viewed as
necessary and universally valid. . . . [The] empirical rule is now viewed as
a law-and, indeed, not as valid merely for appearances, but for them on
behalf of a possible experience, which requires thoroughly-and thus
necessarily-valid rules. (4, 312.13-20)23
If I am not mistaken, the Newtonian derivation precisely
illustrates how “appearance” or “perception” acquires the
status of “experience [which] is only possible through the
representation of a necessary connection of perceptions”
(B218).24
We now have not only an empirical concept (the empirical
concept of matter or material substance) but also a n
empirical causal law: the law of universal gravitation. This

85
law completely determines the temporal or dynamical
evolution of the heavenly bodies in the solar system and
thereby illustrates concretely how the analogies of experi-
ence actually make possible nature as a n object of
experience:
With regard to the relation of appearances, and indeed simply in view of
their existence, the determination of this relation is not mathematical but
dynamical, and is never objectively valid and hence suitable for an
experience unless it stands under a priori principles which make knowledge
of experience with respect to appearances first possible. Therefore
appearances must be subsumed under the concept of substance-which is
the basis for all determination of existence as a concept of a thing itself-
or second, in so far as a timesequence (that is, an event) is met with among
the appearances, under the concept of effect in relation to cause-or, in so
far as simultaneity is to be known objectively (that is, through a judgement
of experience), under the concept of community (reciprocity). And thus a
priori principles are the basis for objectively valid, although empirical
judgements: that is, of the possibility of experience in so far as it is to
connect objects in nature according to their existence. These principles are
the proper natural laws, which can be called dynamical. (Prolegomena $25:
4,307.14-30)
The system of heavenly bodies interacting in accordance
with the law of universal gravitation is thus a complete
empirical realization of the transcendental concept of a
nature in general: the quantity of substance is exactly deter-
mined as the quantity of mass; succession of alterations in
state of motion is entirely explained by the sum of gravita-
tional forces; simultaneity among such alterations is exactly
determined by instantaneous gravitational interaction
according to the equality of action and reaction.
It follows that the dynamical principles of pure under-
standing are “constitutive with respect to experience,” not
only because they make possible an empirical concept, but
also-and, indeed, especially-because they at the same time
make possible an empirical causal law. And it is for precisely
this reason, moreover, that the dynamical principles are not
“constitutive with respect to intuition.” For the dynamical
categories are provided with a corresponding object only in
so far as a particular empirical concept (in this case, the
empirical concept of matter) has a corresponding object; and
the latter has a corresponding object only in so far as a par-
ticular empirical causal law (in this case, the law of
universal gravitation) is satisfied therein. The mathematical
categories and principles, by contrast, are not implicated
with empirical causal laws in this way: all laws made
possible by these categories and principles are purely
mathematical laws governing “perceptions” or “appearances”

86
as such. In particular, no “necessary connection of percep-
tions”-no law of dynamical temporal evolution-is in
question in this group of principles, which, therefore, are
“constitutive with respect to [both pure and empirical]
intuition.”25
Nevertheless, since we are here concerned with a n
empirical concept and an empirical causal law, the regula-
tive use of reason and reflective judgement must also play
an essential role. Indeed, in the Appendix to the Transcen-
dental Dialectic of the first Critique Kant illustrates the use
of his three regulative principles of multiplicity, affinity, and
unity with precisely the Newtonian inference to the theory
of universal gravitation:
The affinity of the manifold, without prejudice to its variety, under a
principle of unity concerns not merely things, but much more, rather, the
properties and forces of things. Thus, for example, when the orbits of the
planets are given us through a not yet fully rectified experience as circular,
and we find deviations, we then suppose such orbits as the circle can be
transformed into through all infinite intermediate degrees in accordance
with a constant law-i.e., the motions of the planets, which are not circular,
perhaps approximate this property more or less exactly-and we hit upon
the ellipse. The comets exhibit a still greater deviation in their paths, since
they (as far as observation reaches) never return in their orbite; but we then
conjecture a parabolic path, which is still akin to the ellipse, and, when the
major axis of the latter is extended very far, it can not be distinguished
from the former in any of our observations. We therefore arrive, under the
guidance of these principles, a t unity in the genera of these orbite in their
figure, and thereby unity i n the cause of all laws of their motion
(gravitation). . .(A662-663/B690-691)
We require the regulative principles, that is, to move from
the observable planetary and cometary orbits to the generic
idea of motion in a conic section, and from there, in turn,
to universal gravitation, the fundamental force of attraction,
and finally the “dynamical” concept of matter articulated in
the Metaphysical Foundations.26 It is only this progression
from the particular observable facts via the regulative
principles of reason that, in the end, explains why the
“dynamical” concept of matter has the specific character it
does; for only such properly empirical considerations can
ultimately show that Kant’s particular concept of matter in
fact has a corresponding object (namely, the heavenly bodies
in the solar system) and is therefore really possible. Kant’s
empirical concept of matter is therefore the product of both
constitutive and regulative principles: by being “brought
under” the categories in the Metaphysical Foundations it is
dekrminately connected to the dynamical principles of the
understanding; as the terminus of a progression from

87
particular observable facts to a generic concept under the
guidance of the regulative use of reason it first acquires
objective reality.27
In this case, then, constitutive and regulative principles,
understanding and reason, determinative and reflective
judgement, cooperate fruitfully in a common endeavor. In
other cases, however, it appears that regulative principles
and reflective judgement are intended to make up for a defect
in the constitutive procedure of the understanding-to
accomplish a quite distinct task that the understanding
perforce cannot even undertake. Consider, for example, the
following well known passage from the First Introduction to
the Critique of Judgement:
We have seen in the Critique of Pure Reason that the whole of nature
as the totality of all objects of experience constitutes a system according
to transcendental laws, namely such that the understanding itself provides
a priori (for appearances, in so far as they are to constitute an experience,
bound together in one consciousness). For precisely this reason, experience
must also constitute a system of possible empirical cognitions, in accordance
with universal as well as particular laws, so far as it is in general possible
objectively considered (in the idea). For this is required by the unity of
nature according to a principle of the thoroughgoing combination of all that
is contained in this totality of all appearances. So far, then, experience in
general is to be viewed as a system according to transcendental laws of the
understanding and not as a mere aggregate.
But it does not follow therefrom that nature is also a system comprehens-
ible to the human faculty of cognition in accordance with empirical laws,
and that the thoroughgoing systematic coherence of its appearances in an
experience-and thus experience as a system-is possible for men. For the
manifoldness and inhomogeneity of the empirical laws could be so great,
that it would certainly be possible in a partial manner to connect
perceptions into a n experience in accordance with particular laws
discovered opportunely, but it would never be possible to bring these
empirical laws themselves to unity of affinity under a common principle-
if, namely, as is still possible in itself (at least so far as the understanding
can constitute a priori), the manifoldness and inhomogeneity of these laws,
together with the corresponding natural forms, were so infinitely great and
presented to us, in this respect, a crude chaotic aggregate and not the least
trace of a system, although we equally had to presuppose such a system
in accordance with transcendental laws. (20,208.22-209.19)
Here it appears that the understanding is concerned only
with transcendental laws. That nature is governed by a sys-
tem of empirical laws as well lies entirely outside the prov-
ince of the understanding: such empirical laws are the con-
cern of reflective judgement and of reflective judgement
alone. This passage therefore suggests the exclusive division
of the constitutive and regulative faculties characteristic of
Buchdahl’s interpretation.

88
 How is the idea of a necessary defect in the constitutive
procedure of the understanding to be understood from the
present point of view? In the first place, as we have seen,
the understanding cannot guarantee that the empirical
concept it makes possible or constitutes has a corresponding
object: the understanding is indeed unable to guarantee the
existence of the requisite empirical laws implicated in the
empirical concept of matter. But there is a second and more
serious problem, which is in fact the theme of the above
passage from the First Introduction. Even if there are empir-
ical laws (however they may be given), the understanding
is still not in a position “to bring these empirical laws them-
selves to unity of affinity under a common principle.” The
possibility of a “crude chaotic aggregate” consists in the
absence of such a “system” of empirical laws, and it is entire-
ly on behalf of such systematicity of empirical laws that the
regulative use of reason and reflective judgement are first
invoked.28 What problem-what possibility left unsettled by
the understanding-does Kant have in mind here?
The constitutive procedure of the understanding has
articulated the most general concept of empirical natural
science (the empirical concept of matter) and the most general
empirical law (the law of universal gravitation). Both apply
to all objects of natural science (massive bodies or material
substances) as such, independently of any further differenti-
ation into a variety of kinds or species of such objects. The
empirical concept of matter is thus the highest genus of
empirical natural science. But what about more particular
species of objects and more particular empirical laws? Such
concepts and laws, precisely in virtue of their specificity,
certainly cannot be directly brought under the categories and
principles of the understanding in the manner of the Meta-
physical foundation^.^^ Yet, as noted above, if any empirical
regularity is to count as a genuine law, possessing both “strict
universality” and necessity, it must somehow be brought
under the categories and principles of the understanding
nonetheless-at least in prospect.30 The further task of
reflective judgement, from the present point of view, is then
to arrange more specific empirical concepts and laws into a
classificatory and hierarchical system under the highest
genus and most general law of empirical natural science
already grounded in the Metaphysical Foundations. For it is
only by thus being indirectly put into contact with the
dynamical categories and principles that more particular
empirical concepts and laws can finally be brought within the
constitutive purview of the understanding.

89
 On this reading, therefore, the regulative procedure of
reflective judgement functions always for the sake of the
constitutive demands of the understanding. It is precisely
because all empirical concepts and laws must eventually
acquire constitutive force under the transcendental princi-
ples of the understanding t h a t reason a n d reflective
judgement pursue the systematicity of empirical laws.31 This
interpretation is confirmed by Kant’s official statement of
the principle of reflective judgement in the First Introduction
to the third Critique:
Now it is clear that the faculty of reflective judgement could not undertake
in accordance with its nature to classify the whole of nature according to
its empirical variety, if it did not presuppose that nature itself specifies its
transcendental laws according to some principle. This principle can now be
no other than that of the suitability to the faculty of judgement itself, to
find sufficient affinity in the immeasurable manifoldness of things in
accordance with empirical laws in order to bring them under empirical
concepts (species) and these under more universal laws (higher genera) and
thus to be able to attain to an empirical system of nature. (215.14-26)
T h e peculiar principle of the faculty of judgement is therefore: nature
specifies its universal laws to empirical [laws], in accordance with the form
of a logical system, on behalf of the faculty ofjudgement. (216.1-3)
For Kant here explicitly says that reflective judgement
functions further to specify the transcendental laws of the
understanding. The present interpretation is also supported
by the passage from 208.22-209.19 with which we began: it
is precisely because of the constitutive demands of the
understanding already established in the Critique of Pure
Reason that “experience must also constitute a system of
possible empirical cognitions, in accordance with universal
as well as particular laws, so far as it is in general possible
objectively considered (in the idea)”-the problem is simply
that the understanding itself provides us with no principles
for attaining such a ~ystem.3~

I11
So matters stand in the critical period. The constitutive
principles of the understanding extend to the very highest
genus and very highest law of empirical natural science: the
empirical concept of matter and the law of universal
gravitation. All the rest of empirical natural science remains
solely within the regulative purview of reason and reflective
judgement, the aim of which is to ascend from lower level
empirical concepts and laws towards ever more general
empirical concepts and laws so as eventually (in prospect)
to attain a complete classificatory and hierarchical system

90
of empirical concepts and laws arranged under the highest
level empirical concept and law already constituted as such
in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Only
in this way can the object of empirical natural science-
namely, matter-be finally comprehended in all of its
“specific variety.”
In the General Observation to Dynamics of the Metaphysi-
cal Foundations Kant speculates on how the “moments”
involved in comprehending the “specific variety” of matter
are to be arranged: they comprise the various states of aggre-
gation (solid, fluid, “elastic fluid” or gaseous) of matter (4,
525.26-530.7) and the chemical (as opposed to mechanical)
interactions of matter (530.8-532.9). Kant is explicit, however,
that the entire discussion is merely tentative (525.20-25);and
there is good reason indeed for this as chemistry has not yet
attained the status of a science properly speaking:
What can be called proper science is only that whose certainty is apodictic;
cognition that can contain merely empirical certainty is only knowledge
improperly so called. Any whole of cognition that is systematic can indeed
thereby be called science and, if the connection of cognition in this system
is an interconnection of grounds afid consequences, even rational science. If,
however, the grounds or principles themselves are still in the end merely
empirical-as, for example, in chemistry-and the laws from which the given
facts are explained through reason are mere laws of experience, then such laws
or principles carry with them no consciousness of their necessity (are not
apodictally certain), and thus the whole [of cognition] does not deserve the
name of a science in the strict sense. Chemistry should thus be called
systematic art rather than science. (468.17-29)
Chemistry has not yet attained the status of a science
precisely because it has not yet been brought under the pure
natural science expounded in the Metaphysical Foundations:
Since the word nature already carries with it the concept of laws, and the
latter carries with it the concept of the necessity of all determinations of
a thing that belong to its existence, one easily sees why natural science must
derive the legitimacy of its title only from its pure part: namely, that which
contains the a priori principles of all other natural explanations. One also
sees why it is only in virtue of this pure part that natural science is proper
science. Finally, one sees by the same token that, in accordance with
demands of reason, every doctrine of nature must finally lead to natural
science and conclude there, because such necessity of laws is inseparably
joined to the concept of nature and therefore must certainly be compre-
hended. Hence, the most complete explanation of given appearances from
chemical principles still always leaves behind a certain dissatisfaction,
because one can cite no a priori grounds for such principles which, as
contingent laws, have been learned merely from experience. (468.34-469.11)
Chemistry thus appears to exemplify perfectly the role of the
regulative use of reason as articulated above. Chemical
regularities are so far merely empirical and, accordingly, do

91
not have the necessity characteristic of proper scientific
laws. Reason therefore attempts to systematize chemical
knowledge so as to connect it, as far as possible, with proper
natural science and thus ultimately (in prospect) with pure
natural science.33
It is not surprising, then, that chemistry furnishes the
primary examples of the application of the regulative
principles of reason in the Appendix to the Dialectic of the
first Critique. At A645-646/B673-674, for example, Kant
appeals to the chemical use of such concepts as “pure earth,
pure water, pure air, etc.” A particularly explicit example of
unification and systematization follows several pages later:
Much was already accomplished when the chemists could reduce all salts
to two main genera, acids and alkalis, and they even attempt to view this
distinction too as merely a variety or diverse manifestation of one and the
same basic material. One has attempted to reduce the various kinds of
earths (the material of stones and even of metals) step by step to three and
finally to two; but, not yet satisfied thereby, [chemists] cannot banish the
thought that suggests that behind these varieties there is nevertheless a
single genus-or even, indeed, a common principle for these and the salts.
(A652-653/B680-681)

Since it has not yet been determinately connected with pure

natural science (and thus, in the end, with the concepts and
principles of the understanding), chemistry has not yet
become a science strictly speaking. For precisely this reason,
however, it presents us with an especially fertile field for the
application of the regulative procedure of reason and reflec-
tive judgement, which strives to unify its lower level concepts
and empirical laws under higher level concepts and laws so
as to approach asymptotically, as it were, the concepts and
principles of pure natural science.
In the critical period Kant also holds that chemistry can
actually achieve the desired scientific status only when
chemical attractions and repulsions (chemical affinities) are
reduced to mathematical force laws analogous to the law of
gravitation:
So long, therefore, as there is still for chemical actions of matters on one
another no concept to be discovered that can be construded-that is, no law
of approach or withdrawal of the parts [of matter] can be specified according
to which, perhaps in proportion to their density and the like, their motions
and all the consequences thereof can be made intuitive and presented a
priori in space (a demand that will only with great difficulty ever be
fulfilled)-chemistry can be nothing more than a systematic art or
experimental doctrine, but never proper science. For its principles are merely
empirical and allow of no presentation a priori in intuition. Consequently,
they do not in the least make the principles of chemical appearances

92
conceivable according to their possibility, for they are not receptive to the
application of mathematics. (4,470.36-471.10)
Since the empirical concept of matter is, first and foremost,
that of the movable in space, it follows that “[proper] natural
science is throughout an either pure or applied doctrine of
motion” (477.1-2). Hence, chemistry can become a proper
science only when it is determinately connected with the
mathematical theory of motion.
By the time of the Opus posturnurn (1796-1803) all this has
changed. Kant is now envisioning a new a priori philosophi-
cal science-the Transition from the Metaphysical Founda-
tions of Natural Science to Physics-whose purpose is
precisely to extend the a priori foundations of empirical
natural science much further than is envisaged in the
Metaphysical Foundations itself. The aim now is somehow
to comprehend a priori, not the universal forces of matter
belonging to all matter as such (attraction and repulsi0n),3~
but rather the “specific variety” of “the moving forces of
matter according to particular laws of motion” (21, 286.2-4)
or the “particular moving forces [that] can be cognized only
through experience and have a tendency to physics” (530.18-
19). The “particular moving forces” in question are precisely
those responsible for the phenomena discussed only tenta-
tively (and as it were parenthetically) in the General
Observation to Dynamics of the Metaphysical Founda-
tions-phenomena involving state of aggregation espe-
cially-and Kant is perfectly explicit that the “physics”
whose scientific status is now to be grounded by the
Transition paradigmatically includes chemistry: “The whole
of chemistry belongs to physics-but in the Topic [the Tran-
sition] only the transition to it is in question.” (288.5-6)
Accordingly, the “particular moving forces” now at issue
paradigmatically include chemical affinities.a5
What factors are responsible for this change? What
explains Kant’s new conviction that an a priori foundation
for “particular moving forces,” and, more generally, for the
science of chemistry, is now possible after all? Although this
is not the place to argue the point in detail, I believe that
the primary factor is Kant’s assimilation-throughout the
1780s and early 1790s-of the developments now compre-
hended under the rubric of the chemical revolution.36 These
include the development of pneumatic chemistry by Black,
Scheele, Priestley, and Cavendish; the advances in the
science of heat by Scheele, Black, and Wilcke; and finally
Lavoisier’s construction of a new systematic chemistry,

93
which effectively integrates the first two developments with
the traditional analytic chemistry, mineralogy, and metal-
lurgy of Boerhaave, Becher, and Stahl via Lavoisier’s
oxygen theory of combustion and acidity. Thus, whereas the
chemistry to which a properly scientific status is denied in
the critical period is the traditional phlogistic chemistry of
Stah1,37 it is clear that the chemistry for which the Transi-
tion is to provide a n entirely new type of a priori foundation
is the revolutionary chemistry of La~oisier.~B Lavoisier-
Kant now sees-has finally put chemistry on “the secure
path of a science”; and he has done this, moreover, not by
formulating new mathematical force laws to explain
chemical affinities, but rather by integrating the theory of
chemical combination with the new advances in pneumatic
chemistry and, above all, in the science of heat.39Kant, who
has long been following the advances in the science of heat,
in particular, with ever increasing interest, therefore sees
that he must now change his mind about the scientific status
of chemistry.40
Yet there is a second factor fueling Kant’s Transition
project which is even more relevant to our present concerns:
his discovery of a “gap” in the critical philosophy that the
Transition project is now intended to fill (see note 11).From
the present point of view this “gap” has actually been
present at least since 1790 (with the Critique of Judgement)
and is to be understood in the following way. The constit-
utive operation of the first Critique and the Metaphysical
Foundations proceeds, as it were, from the top down: the pure
concepts and principles of the understanding are applied,
and further specified, so as to yield the highest genus of
empirical classification and the highest level law of
empirical natural science. By contrast, the regulative
operation of reason and reflective judgement proceeds, as it
were, from the bottom up: lowest level empirical concepts and
laws are progressively unified and specified under higher
level empirical concepts and laws so as to approach asymp-
totically an ideal complete natural science in which all em-
pirical concepts and laws are arranged in a hierarchical
system. But the highest level of this projected system has
already been constituted as such by the Metaphysical Foun-
dations. So what assurance do we have that the regulative
operation of reason and reflective judgement will, proceeding
from the bottom up, actually converge in the direction of this
already constituted highest level? What guarantee is there
that the ideal complete natural science at which reflective
judgement aims asymptotically will in fact contain the

94
specifically Newtonian natural science grounded by the
Metaphysical Foundations?
It should be clear from the above that a necessary con-
vergence of constitutive and regulative procedures is abso-
lutely essential to Kant’s entire project; and it is just as clear,
I believe, that Kant is attempting to achieve this in the Opus
postumum. The Transition project is intended precisely to
establish a necessary connection between the constitutive
procedure of the Metaphysical Foundations and the regula-
tive procedure of the faculty of judgement:
The transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to
physics must not consist wholly in a priori concepts of matter in general,
for then it would be mere metaphysics (e.g., where merely attraction and
repulsion in general are in question), but it must also not consist wholly
of empirical representations, for then this would belong to physics (e.g.,
observations of chemistry)-[it belongs] rather, to a priori principles of the
possibility of experience and thus to natural investigation: i.e., to the
subjective principle of the schematism of the faculty of judgement to classify
the empirically given moving forces as such according to a priori principles
and thus to make the step from an aggregate of [these forces] to a system,
as compilation, to physics as a system thereof. (21,362.28-363.9)“

Accordingly, the Transition project must look for something

common to both procedures-common to both the a priori
constitutive domain of the Metaphysical Foundations and
the regulative, properly empirical, domain of “physics as a
system”:
The metaphysical foundations have a tendency towards physics as a
system of the moving forces of matter. Such a system cannot proceed from
mere experiences-for that would yield only aggregates which lack the
completeness of a whole-and can also not occur solely a priori-for that
would be metaphysical foundations, which, however, contained no moving
forces. Therefore, the transition from the meta. to physics, from the a priori
concept of the movable in space (i.e., from the concept of a matter in general)
to the system of moving forces, can [proceed] only by means of that which
is common to both. . . . (21,478.11-19)

The apparently paradoxical demand for principles that are,

at the same time, both constitutive and regulative-literally
for a n intersection of the constitutive and regulative
domains-is thus a natural and inevitable demand of the
critical philosophy. Although this demand proves ultimately
an impossible one, there is nonetheless a moment when,
deeply impressed by the extraordinary success of the just
completed chemical revolution, Kant thinks he has found a
way to meet i t . 4 2

95
 NOTES

1 All references to the Critique of Pure Reason are given by standard A

and B pagination of the first and second editions respectively. All other
writings of Kant are cited by volume, page, and line numbers of the
Akademie edition of Kant’s gesammelte Schriften. All translations are my
own.
Compare A644/B672: “I therefore assert: the transcendental ideas are
never of constitutive use, so that thereby concepts of certain objects would
be given-and, in that case, understood in this way, they are mere
sophistical (dialectical) concepts. On the other hand, however, they have an
excellent and indispensable necessary regulative use: namely, to direct the
understanding towards a certain goal, at the prospect of which the lines
of direction of all of its rules run together in a point-which, although it
is indeed only an idea (focus imaginarius), i.e., a point from which the
concepts of the understanding actually do not proceed, in that it lies entirely
outside the limits of possible experience, it nevertheless serves to provide
them with the greatest unity together with the greatest extension.”
More precisely, reflective judgement yields a regulative principle for the
cognitive faculty but a constitutive principle for the faculty of pleasure and
displeasure (i.e., aesthetic judgement): “The concept of the faculty of
judgement of the purposiveness of nature still belongs to the concepts of
nature, but only as regulative principle of the cognitive faculty; although
the aesthetic judgement about certain objects (of nature or art) that
occasions it is a constitutive principle in relation to the feeling of pleasure
or displeasure.” (5, 197.5-10)
See BllO (with accompanying note), where the categories of the
understanding are said to “point out all moments of an intended speculative
science, even their order-as I have also given a demonstration of elsewhere.
[Note] Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science.”
5 See especially “The Kantian ‘Dynamic of Reason’ with Special
Reference to the Place of Causality in Kant’s System,” in L. Beck, ed., Kant
Studies Today (La Salle: Open Court, 1969); Metaphysics and the Philos-
ophy of Science (Oxford University Press, 1969). Buchdahl has done more
than any other commentator in recent years to stimulate interest in the role
of the regulative use of reason and reflective judgement in Kant’s
philosophy of science.
6 See, for example, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science, p. 500:
“It should be stressed with particular emphasis that the sequence whose
notion (as an object of cognition) presupposes the concept of cause . . . may
be, and indeed as such must be, regarded as an altogether contingent event
, . . in being simply an individual particular happening, mentioned in some
unique observation report. The question whether some observed event or
change of state is an instance of an empirical law can be determined only
by those inductive procedures distinctive of all scientific enquiry. It follows
that we must interpret the phrase ‘objects of experience conform to universal
laws’ very carefully and sparingly, and not understand it in the normal
sense of such a locution, viz. that all natural processes are in principle
describable as subject to empirical laws (whatever these laws may be which
subsequent inductive investigation may discover). For that there are any
such laws is (even in principle) not determined by the concept of nature and
its possibility.”
7 I consider Buchdahl’s interpretation in particular, and the problem of
causal laws in general, in my “Causal Laws and the Foundations of Natural
Science,” in P. Guyer, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Kant (Cambridge:
University Press, 1992).

96
 8 “In accordance with such a rule, in that which in general precedes an
event there must lie the conditions for a rule according to which this event
follows always and necessarily” (A1931B238-239); “[an event] can acquire
its determinate temporal position in this relation only in so far as something
is presupposed in the preceding state upon which it always-i.e., in
accordance with a rule-follows. . . . if the .preceding state is posited this
determinate event inevitably and necessarily follows” (A198/B243-244);
“that which follows or happens must follow according to a universal rule
from that which was contained in the previous state” (A200IB245); “in that
which precedes the condition is to be met with, under which the event
always (i.e., necessarily) follows” (A200/B246). Clearly, only kinds or types
of events can follow one another always-that is, universally.
9 Some examples: at a freezing temperature the liquid state of water is
followed by the solid state (B162-163); the position of a drifting ship higher
up in the course of a stream is followed by its position lower down (A192-
193IB237-238);in the presence of a hot stove the cool air in a room becomes
warm (A202/B247-248); when scooped out from a larger vessel into a narrow
glass a horizontal surface of water becomes concave (A2041B249); heat
follows the illumination of a stone by the sun (Prolegomena 522: 4, 305.27-
28).
10 “The schema of cause, and of the causality of a thing in general, is
the real, on which, if it is arbitrarily posited, something else always follows”
(A144/B183-my emphasis); compare the passages cited in notes 8 and 9
above.
l 1 For the “gap” in the critical system see E. Ftirster, “Is There ‘A Gap’
in Kant’s Critical System?” Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (1987):
533-555.I propose a rather different interpretation of the “gap” and of the
Transition project in my “Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations
of Natural Science to Physics,” Chapter 5 of my Kant and the Exact
Sciences (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).
l2 Buchdahl comments upon this important passage on pp. 618-619 of op.
cit.
13 See A191/B236: “That something happens, i.e., something or a state
comes to be that previously was not . . .” Kant is explicit that the concept
of alteration is empirical: “For precisely the same reason Transcendental
Aesthetic cannot count the concept of alteration among its a priori data:
for time itself does not alter but only something that is in time. Hence,
required thereto is the perception of some or another existence and the
succession of its determinations-and thus experience” (A41/B58); compare,
ex.,
- . B3. A171/B213.
Thus the concept of motion is also an empirical concept “Finally I
observe: that, since the movability of an object in space cannot be cognized
a priori and without instruction through experience, it could not be
enumerated by me in the Critique of Pure Reason under the pure concepts
of the understanding for precisely this reason; and this concept, as
empirical, can only find a place in a natural science as applied metaphysics,
which is concerned with a concept given through experience, although
according to a priori principles” (4,482.7-13).Compare A41/B58, B155n.
l5 Compare A173/B215 where Kant speaks of “the real in space (I may
here not call it impenetrability or weight, because these are empirical
concepts). . .”
l 6 It is noteworthy that Kant’s footnote explicitly introduces the law of
inertia: “*One should observe: that I do not speak of the alteration of certain
relations in general, but rather of alterations of state. Thus, if a body is
moved uniformly, it absolutely does not alter its state (of motion), but only
if its motion increases and diminishes.” (A207/B252)

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 l7 See B291: “But it is even more remarkable that, in order to understand
the possibility of things in virtue of the categories, and thus to verify the
Objective reality of the latter, we require, not merely intuitions, but even
always outer intuitions. If, for example, we take the pure concepts of
relation, we find, first, that in order to give the concept of substance
something permanent in intuition (and thereby to verify the objective reality
of this concept), we require an intuition in space (of matter), because space
alone is determined as permanent, but time-and thus everything in inner
sense-constantly flows.” Compare the Preface to the Metaphysical
Foundations: “Likewise, it is in fact very remarkable . . . that general
metaphysics, in all instances where it requires examples (intuitions) in order
to provide meaning for its pure concepts of the understanding, must always
derive them from the general doctrine of body-and thus from the form and
the principles of outer intuition; and, if these are not exhibited completely,
it gropes uncertainly and unsteadily among mere meaningless concepts” (4,
478.3-9).
l a Compare the discussion of possibility in the Postulates of Empirical
Thought, where Kant says of empirical concepts-such as specific “concepts
of substances, of forces, of interactions” (A222/B269)-that “their
possibility must either be cognized a posteriori and empirically, or it
absolutely cannot be cognized a t all” (A2221B270). It is clear from note 15
above that both impenetrability and weight are empirical concepts.
l9 It is true that the Metaphysical Foundations does speculate-in the
form of “a small preliminary suggestion on behalf of an attempt a t such
a perhaps possible construction” (518.33-34)-about deriving the laws of
attractive and repulsive forces from the geometrical properties of the spaces
in which they diffuse (518-521). I discuss this kind of geometrical derivation
in my “Kant on Space, the Understanding, and the Law of Gravitation:
Prolegomena 538,’’ Monist 72 (1989): 236-284; this appears, with revisions,
as Chapter 4 of my Kant and the Exact Sciences.
2o See the essay cited in note 19 above, and also my “The Metaphysical
Foundations of Newtonian Science” in R. Butts, ed., Kant’s Philosophy of
Physical Science (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986);the latter appears, with revisions,
as Chapter 3 of my Kant and the Exact Sciences.
21 See B3-4: “Experience never provides true or strict, but only assumed
or comparative universality (through induction) for its judgements, so that
one must properly say: so far as we have observed until now no exception
is found for this or that rule.. . . Where, on the other hand, strict
universality essentially belongs to a judgement, this indicates a particular
source of knowledge for such, namely a faculty of a priori knowledge.” For
the connection between “strict universality” and necessity see A91-921B123-
124: “Appearances certainly provide cases in which a rule is possible
according to which something customarily occurs, but never that the result
is necessary. To the synthesis of cause and effect there consequently also
belongs a dignity that one absolutely cannot express empirically: namely,
that the effect is not merely joined to the cause, but rather is posited through
it and results from it. The strict universality of the rule is certainly not a
property of empirical rules, which, through induction, can possess nothing
but comparative universality: i.e., extended utility.”
22 The Metaphysical Foundations illustrates the transformation of
“appearance” into “experience” precisely by the transformation of apparent
motion into “true” (“actual” or “determinate”) motion; the latter
transformation underlies the possibility of matter “in so far as it, as such
a thing, can be an object of experience.” (554.6-555.13) At 4, 291.2-11 the
Prolegomena illustrates the notion of “mere appearance” with the apparent
planetary motions observed relative to the earth.

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 23 The transition from “empirical rules” to necessary “laws” is explicitly
illustrated by the transition from Kepler’s laws to the Newtonian theory of
universal gravitation in an unpublished Reflexion from between 1776 and
the early 1780s (R. 5414): “Empirically one can certainly discover rules, but
not laws-as Kepler in comparison with Newton-for to the latter belongs
necessity, and hence that they are cognized a priori.” (18, 176.19-21)
Compare also, e.g., 22, 521.11-21, 528.15-529.1; 21, 68.14-20 from the Opus
postumum.
24 Compare 522 of the Prolegomena: “Experience consists in the synthetic
connection of appearances (perceptions)in a consciousness, in so far as this
connection is necessary” (305.8-9). For further discussion see the references
cited in notes 7 and 19 above.
25 Kant gives an especially intriguing example of the application of the
mathematical principles at A179/B221: “Thus I am able, for example, to
compose the degree of illumination of sunlight from approximately 200,000
illuminations of the moon and to give [the former] as determined a priori-
i.e., I am able to construct it.” If we assume that geometrical optics is
grounded by the mathematical principles, and also-as Kant apparently
does at 5,519.8-28of the Metaphysical Foundations-that the inverse-square
law governing degree of illumination is part of geometrical optics, then we
can make sense of this example as follows: According to the inverse-square
law the degree of illumination of an area a on the surface of a sphere of
radius r centered on the source of a quantum of light Q is given by Qa/
4tr2. Assuming that the ratio of the illumination of the sun at a point on
the earth to that reflected from the moon thereby depends only on the radius
of the moon and the distance of the moon from the earth (as the moon and
the earth are at approximately the same distance from the sun), it follows
that, since the moon is approximately 240,000 miles from the earth and has
a radius of approximately 1,100 miles, the ratio in question is indeed
approximately 200,000. Of course, it is an empirical fact that the earth,
moon, and sun are found in the configuration in question; Kant’s point, it
appears, is rather that in calculating the desired ratio we use only
mathematical laws-which are to depend, in the end, simply on the
geometrical properties of lines of sight in Euclidean space.
26 The same progression from circular orbits, to conic sections, and thence
to the law of gravitation is found in 538 of the Prolegomena at 4, 321.3-
15. For discussion see my “Space, the Understanding, and the Law of
Gravitation.” I am indebted to Robert Butts for emphasizing the importance
of A662-663/B690-691 to me.
27 In this respect, Kant’s “dynamical” concept of matter stands in sharp
contrast with the “mechanical” concept of matter to which it is explicitly
opposed in the Metaphysical Foundations. Since the latter is a purely
mathematical, purely geometrical concept, its real possibility or objective
reality can, as we noted above, be known completely a priori via
mathematical construction. For precisely this reason, however, it can also
not be determinately connected to the dynamical principles of the
understanding.
28 In the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic of the first Critique
Kant characterizes the regulative use of reason thus: “If we survey our
cognition of the understanding in its whole extent, then we find that what
is entirely peculiar in that which reason prescribes to it and attempts to
bring about is the systematic [element] of cognition: i.e., its coherence by
means of a principle” (A645/B673). In the First Introduction to the Critique
of Judgement Kant characterizes the peculiar concept of the faculty of
reflective judgement as that “of an experience as system according to
empirical laws” (20,203.3-4).

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 29 In the Metaphysical Foundations Kant explicitly excludes properties of
matter that “[do] not belong to the possibility of matter in general and can
therefore not be cognized a priori as bound up with this”-which properties
“[are] not metaphysical but rather physical, and therefore [do] not belong
to our present considerations” (518.27-31). Accordingly, all problems
concerning the “specific variety of matter” are relegated to as it were
parenthetical treatment in the General Observation to Dynamics: 525.20-
535.10.
30 See A159/B198: “Even natural laws, when they are considered as
principles of the empirical employment of the understanding, at the same
time carry with themselves an expression of necessity and thus a t least the
suggestion of a determination from grounds that hold a priori and
antecedent to all experience. Yet all laws of nature without distinction stand
under higher principles of the understanding, in that they merely apply
these to particular cases of appearance. These principles alone therefore give
the concept that contains the condition, and as it were the exponent, of a
rule in general; but experience gives the case that stands under the rule.”
Compare A127/128, A216/B263. For further discussion see my “Causal
Laws and the Foundations of Natural Science.”
31 Indeed, it is precisely because reason and reflective judgement are
acting on behalf of constitutive demands of the understanding that the
resulting principles are transcendental, although nevertheless only
regulative. See A651/B679: “For the law of reason, to seek [the systematic
unity of nature], is necessary, because without it we would have absolutely
no reason, but without this no coherent employment of the understanding,
and in the absence of this no sufficient mark of empirical truth-and we
must therefore, with respect to the latter, presuppose throughout the
systematic unity of nature a8 objectively valid and necessary.” Compare
A654A3682: “According to [the transcendental principle of genera]
necessary homogeneity is presupposed in the manifold of a possible
experience (although we are also not able to determine its degree a priori),
because without this no empirical concept, and thus no experience, would
be possible.”
32 The same idea appears in Kant’s statement of the principle of reflective
judgement in the published Introduction to the third Critique a t 5, 180.18-
30 quoted above: it is again because “the universal laws of nature have their
ground in our understanding, which prescribes them to nature (although
only according to the universal concept of it as nature)” t h a t the
systematicity of empirical laws is to be pursued.
33 These passages therefore seem to me decisively to undercut Buchdahl’s
interpretation of the “necessitarian character” of empirical laws, according
to which such necessity depends wholly on the systematic structures due
to the regulative use of reason and not on the constitutive principles of the
Understanding. See Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science, p. 505: “The
‘law-likeness of nature,’ in the sense normally understood by this term, is
thus first defined through the systematising activity of reason, and not
through the categories of the understanding, whose sole function it is to
form a framework for the concept of a possible object” (and compare note
6 above); see also “The Kantian ‘Dynamic of Reason’,” pp. 342-343 “The
necessitarian aspect is supplied only by our subjecting a given group of
putative laws to this process of systematisation under the guidance of the
methodological maxims, e.g., that ‘nature takes the shortest way’ ” Note,
in particular, that in the first of the passages cited above Kant explicitly
denies that systematic form alone is sufficient for “necessitarian character.”
34 “The transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science
to physics must not consist wholly in a priori concepts of matter in general,

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for then it would be mere metaphysics (e.g., where merely attraction and
repulsion in general are in question) . . .” (21,362.28-363.2)
35 See 444.16-19: “Chemical attraction is partial or biased, the world-
attraction is impartial and is exerted merely in proportion to the quantity
of matter. The former cannot be viewed as a universal property of matter
nor be cognized a priori according to its law”; and 382.25-28: “The world-
attraction is impartial (gravitation), extends to all distances, and is generic.
Chemical attraction (in contact or striving thereto in solidification) is
specific and has partiality.” At 391.1 such partial attraction is called
“elective-attraction”-a clear allusion to the traditional chemical problem
of “elective affinity.”
36 For details see my “Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations,”
5111. In emphasizing the fundamental importance of Kant’s assimilation of
these scientific developments I am in agreement with B. Tuschling’s
remarks on this matter in his penetrating and seminal study, Metaphy-
sische und transzendentale Dynamik in Kants Opus postumum (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1971), pp. 39-46 (and, in particular, with Tuschling’s criticism of
Adickes in this regard). My disagreements with Tuschling on the
interpretation of the Transition project are explained in “Transition from
the Metaphysical Foundations,” $1.
37 Consider again the example from A652-653/B680-681 quoted above:
Kant explicitly uses the traditional terminology of “salts” to embrace both
acids and alkalis (Lavoisier is the first to use “salts” in the modem sense
for the so called neutral salts or compounds of an acid plus a base);
according to Stahlian doctrine a metal is a composite of an earth plus
phlogiston, which latter is then extracted on calcification (according to
Lavoisier a metal is a simple body to which oxygen is added on
calcification); according to Stahl a “salt” (e.g., an acid) is a composite of
an earth plus water (according to Lavoisier an acid is a compound of an
“acidifiable base” or radical plus oxygen); and so on. In the passage from
A645-646/B673-674 Kant refers explicitly to “inflammable beings” (i.e.,
phlogiston). At Bxii-xiii Stahlian chemistry is the paradigm.
38 By 1797, in the Preface to the First Part of The Metaphysics of Morals,
“there is only one chemistry (that according to Lauoisier)” (6, 207.11-14);
and it is clear from Kant’s letter to S. T. Soemmerring of August 10, 1795
(12, 33.31-34.2) that Kant has completed his conversion to Lavoisier’s new
system by 1795 at the very latest.
39 In particular, Black’s theory of latent heat-heat necessary simply to
effect a state or phase transition from the solid to the liquid state, and from
the latter to the gaseous state-plays an absolutely central role in
Lavoisier’s theory of combustion: combustion occurs precisely when oxygen
gas discharges its latent heat of vaporization while the oxygen base then
combines chemically with the inflammable substance. Lavoisier’s theory of
combustion thereby fits together smoothly with a new general conception
of the states of aggregation, according to which-following Black-the three
states or phases of (ponderable) matter depend entirely on its chemical
relations with the (imponderable) matter of heat or caloric (this conception
is expounded in the first chapter of Lavoisier’s Trait6 klkmentaire de
Chimie). For details see, e.g., H. Guerlac, “Chemistry as a Branch of
Physics: Laplace’s Collaboration with Lavoisier,” Historical Studies in the
Physical Sciences 7 (1976): 193-276.
40 It is noteworthy that most of Kant’s examples of empirical causal laws
from the critical period involve heat related phenomena (see note 9 above).
The example of heat being caused by illumination of the sun-from the
Prolegomena-is especially intriguing. I believe that Kant is here referring
to Scheele’s recently developed theory of radiant heat. According to Scheele

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heat travels not only by ordinary communication and convection through
the atmosphere, but also in rays obeying the laws of geometrical optics. At
relatively low temperatures these rays are invisible or “obscure” (now
understood as infra-red electromagnetic radiation); but at high tempera-
tures, such as that of the sun, visible light rays too carry heat (radiant heat
falls also within the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum). (Scheele’s
Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer appeared in 1777-
Kant certainly had read it carefully by the early 1780s.) For further
discussion of the role of heat-and, in particular, the role of latent heat-
in the Opus postumum see my “Transition from the Metaphysical
Foundations,” QQII,IV.
41 The notion of “natural investigation [NaturforschungJ” occura in the
first Critique at A694/B722-explicitly linked to the regulative use of reason
and teleology-and similarly in the Critique of Judgement at 5, 441.34.
Compare the closely related use of “investigation of nature [Nachforschung
der Natur],” e.g., at 20, 204.1-11 of the First Introduction to the Critique of
Judgement. In the Opus postumum itself, compare especially 22, 263.1-6:
“NB: The transition must certainly not ingress into physics (chemistry, etc.).
It merely anticipates the moving forces which can be thought a priori
according to their form and classifies the empirically universal in such a
way as to regulate the searching out of experience [Aufsuchung der
Erfahrung] for the sake of a system of natural investigation (regulative
principle).”
4 2 For discussion of Kant’s so called aether-deduction (which attempts to
provide an a priori foundation for the imponderable matter of heat or
caloric) and its eventual fate see again my “Transition from the Metaphys-
ical Foundations,” §§IV, V.

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