Kant Peers into the Mid-Twentieth Century—Kant Peers into the Seventeenth Century

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this excerpt, Vladimir S. Bibler attempts to demonstrate how the initial concepts of Newtonian mechanics are fraught with contradictions. The first is related to the law of inertia, which states that a body will resist change by an external influence; this means that the body is endowed with its own active force and that, being self-sufficient, it does not enter into external relations with other bodies. Location (space), however, is also part of these relations. If there are no relations, then space does not exist in Newtonian mechanics. Kant therefore suggests a different world that would possess a different space and many geometries. Bibler argues that Kant’s work approaches the basic principles of future Einsteinian physics, where space is a phenomenon of gravity. Developing this argument, Bibler concludes that Einstein’s mechanics seem to bring Newtonian mechanics to their logical culmination.