Marius Augustin Draghici

The hypothesis that we want to test is whether the Kantian revolution, based on a Copernican-type hypothesis, is a revolution in the Kuhnian sense of “scientific revolution”. By answering it we accomplish the two aims of this paper: to draw a recuperative and justificatory perspective to the fundamental ideas from Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, related in particular to the refutation of Larry Laudan’s criticism on it and, by our own Kuhn-type reconstruction of the term “Copernican revolution” attributed to Kant, to demonstrate the nominal hypothesis formulated above. Accordingly, we argue not only that, with Kant, we find analogously the Kuhntype model of revolution, and that the results of his revolutionary hypothesis on how reporting to the object coincide not only with the results provided by science and with their scientific status; but also that it is consistent with the model provided by Kuhn

My paper focuses on what and how Kant had accomplished with his intended “re- form of metaphysics” through “reason’s entering the secure path of science”. In this respect, I will argue that the influence of (pure) sciences on Kant’s programme was a major one, and this may be best highlighted if one assumes that he developed his mature theory only in the B edi- tion of his Critique (1787), where the influence of the model of pure a priori sciences turn to be decisive. This influence, as we already know, is closely related to the “reform of metaphysics” by “reason’s entering the secure path of science”. My claim is upheld also by the historical ar- gument that only in the Prolegomena (1783) and in the B edition of the Critique Kant explicitly conceived the idea of “metaphysics as science”. Therefore, the necessary steps in dealing with “metaphysics as science” must consider the A Critique, the Prolegomena, and the B Critique in this precise order. Assuming this order, my approach will involve three parts: in the first I will investigate the idea of the reform of metaphysics from the A Critique, in the second I will take into account “reason’s entering the secure path of science” (in the Prolegomena and the B Cri- tique), i.e., philosophy as science (the discipline within the B Critique); finally, I will argue that understanding Kant’s “idea of philosophy as science” can best be achieved by focusing on the role and place that pure sciences have in the transcendental philosophy of the B Critique, where its structure and content are themed and projected within the methodological frame of the “ex- periment of pure reason”.

In this paper I have attempted to provide an application of the „Intermediate Value Theorem of a Continous Function to the outcome of an experiment of quantum mechanics. Our conclusion rises certain question regarding the very nature of the quantum world, the nature of space-time concept of that realm (a continuum space-time)and the status of the concept of causality. Also, yet other questions might be addressed aiming the foundation of our ways of making and reflecting on science (i.e., mathematical and physical instruments, etc.)

The theme of knowledge certainty and of enouncements’ universality the classical issue of radical skepticism synthesized by the necessity of an a priori proof for the reality of the external world, the conscience issue, the status of the object and objectivity, and also the subject-object bound are themes which influenced fundamentally the paradigm of philosophical postmodernism. Before Nietzsche have said that “the world became a story”, Kant himself faced (rather indirectly) the impossibility of offering an a priori proof for the external world: we can now (thoroughly) only in the limits of the phenomena and of an object determined by our epistemic inter-subjectivity.

The aim of this article assumes the following tasks: firstly, it trys to underline the importance of the historical-exegetical point of view with respect to the problem of the sources and reasons of the well-known changes operated by Kant in the second edition of Critique; secondly, it emphasizes an assumed systematic-disciplinary perspective from which is constituted the starting point of the reconstruction approach regarding the Kantian theoretical program, perspective that has the advantage over the first one to have the capacity of building new theoretical reconstructions away from the historical-systematic context; finally, the last task (and the most relevant here) proposes a different perspective from the two which embraces them altogether as one as the most qualified overview that, on the one hand, can solve the theoretical difficulties of the Kantian program of the Critique which the exegesis are dealing with (but not those problems alone) and on the other hand is able to offer the possibility of new theoreticalsystematic openings of the Critique to present.

Noica’s interest in Kant’s philosophy was an ongoing interest for more than fifty years, and it was grounded in his special concern with the ideational core of Critique of Pure Reason, i.e., the transcendental philosophy, the Kantian categories and their deduction. Starting from an accurate understanding of the distinction between „thing in itself” and object/phenomenon, and of the distinction between transcendent and transcendental in how we address the object, Noica had set forth an interpretation of the transcendental philosophy that still stands in nowadays: his view overcomes the mere naive-empiricist understanding of the Critique, for the „Kantian Noica” distinguishes quite clearly between different levels of reporting to reality. Consequently, Noica plainly discerns between the philosophical-speculative discourse and any meta-theory of science. At least in his youth, Noica was highly interested in determining the specific role and task of philosophy, in distinguishing between philosophy and other ways of reporting to the world, particularly the scientific way; and this interest is obviously related to the theoretical core that was the Romanian philosopher’s starting point: the novelty of the Kantian distinctions (thing in itself – phenomenon, and transcendent – transcendental). In this respect, up to a point, Noica himself was a Kantian. This is quite easily noticeable in his Ph.D. thesis. Gradulally, Noica show a transition from the philosophy of the a priori possibilities of reporting to experience to the ontological way of reporting to the world. Although at least in the Becoming... he could easly claim that he is a Hegelian philosopher, the Romanian author Constantin Noica should be regarded, partially, a genuine post-Kantian philosopher.

The notion of axiom occurs in different places in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. The prevailing exegetical approach states that, mainly, in the Transcendental Analytic through Schematism and the System of Principles we are dealing with the „mathematization of experience” in the process of the transition from the categorial level to the phenomenal one. The refined account that we uphold here argues that, in this process, we are dealing rather with a re-examination of the axioms of mathematics (geometry) within the transcendental training. With respect to axioms, Kant’s viewpoint is highly dependent on his transcendental philosophy on which is also grounded his view on the nature of mathematics.