KANT AND CHEMISTRY WITHOUT MATHEMATICS
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Abstract
In his work Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Immanuel Kant offers a scathing remark that chemistry is not a proper science, meaning that chemistry does not employ constructions of pure intuitions, or, in other words, there is no pure mathematics in chemistry. This may seem odd regarding contemporary quantitative chemistry, but it is also at odds with some of Kant's earliest writings on the natural world. The text Succint Exposition of Some Meditations on Fire is rife with geometric constructions used in explaining the typically chemical phenomenon of heat.A more detailed analysis of this text and its comparison to certain prominent theories of heat leads us to the conclusion that Kant's explanation of heat is dynamical rather than chemical. This insight enables us to straighten out the aforementioned discrepancy: neither Kant changed his views of chemistry nor were his oppinions self-contradictory, but it is ultimately the case that the contents of the text on fire belongs to physics rather than chemistry.
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