Substance, Force, and the Possibility of Knowledge: On Kant's Philosophy of Material Nature

A new understanding of Kant’s theory of a priori knowledge and his natural philosophy emerges from Jeffrey Edwards’s mature and penetrating study. In the Third Analogy of Experience, Kant argues for the existence of a dynamical plenum in space. This argument against empty space demonstrates that the dynamical plenum furnishes an a priori necessary condition for our experience and knowledge of an objective world.

Such an a priori existence proof, however, transgresses the limits Kant otherwis...