Remark: The Kantian Construction of Matter

§ 373

Attraction and repulsion are usually regarded as forces.

This determination of them and — the relationships connected with it have to be compared with the Notions which have resulted from our consideration of them.

Conceived as forces, they are regarded as self-subsistent and therefore as not connected with each other through their own nature; that is, they are considered not as moments, each of which is supposed to pass into the other, but rather as fixed in their opposition to each other.

Further, they are imagined as meeting in a third, in matter, but in such a manner, that this unification is, counted, as their truth., on the contrary; each is regarded also as a first, as being in and for itself, and matter, or its determinations, are supposed to be realised and produced by them.

“Matter has the forces within itself” means that the forces are so conjoined in this unity that they are at the same time intrinsically free and independent of each other.

§ 374

Kant constructed matter from the forces of attraction and repulsion. He has set up the metaphysical elements of this construction.

This metaphysical exposition of a subject matter which not only itself but also in its determinations seemed to belong only to experience is noteworthy, partly because as an experiment with the Notion it at least gave the impulse to the more recent philosophy of nature, to a philosophy which does not make nature as given in sense-perception the basis of science, but which goes to the absolute Notion for its determinations; and partly because in many cases no advance is made beyond the Kantian construction which is held to be a philosophical beginning and foundation for physics.

§ 375

Now it is true that matter as it exists for sense perception is no more a subject matter of logic than are space and its determinations.

But the forces of attraction and repulsion, in so far as they are regarded as forces of empirical matter, are also based on the pure determinations here considered of the one and the many and their inter-relationships, which, because these names are most obvious, I have called repulsion and attraction.

§ 376

Kant’s method in the deduction of matter from these forces, which he calls a construction, when looked at more closely does not deserve this name, unless any exercise of reflection, even analytical reflection, is to be called a construction;

Later philosophers of nature have in fact given the name of construction to the shallowest reasoning and the most baseless concoction of unbridled imagination and thoughtless reflection — and it is especially for the so-called factors of attraction and repulsion that such philosophers have shown a predilection.

§ 377

For Kant’s method is basically analytical, not constructive. He presupposes the idea of matter and then asks what forces are required to maintain the determinations he has presupposed.

Thus, on the one hand, he demands the force of attraction because, properly speaking, through repulsion alone and without attraction matter could not exist; and on the other hand he derives repulsion, too, from matter and gives as the reason that we think of matter as impenetrable, since it presents itself under this category to the sense of touch by which it manifests itself to us.

Consequently, he proceeds, repulsion is at once thought in the concept of matter because it is immediately given therein, whereas attraction is added to the concept syllogistically. But these syllogisms, too, are based on what has just been said, namely, that matter which possessed repulsive force alone, would not exhaust our conception of matter.

This is the method of a cognition which reflects on experience, which first perceives the determinations in a phenomenon, then makes these the foundation, and for their so-called explanation assumes corresponding basic elements or forces which are supposed to produce those determinations of the phenomenon.

§ 378

With respect to this difference as to the way in which cognition finds the forces of repulsion and attraction in matter, Kant further remarks that the force of attraction certainly just as much belongs to the concept of matter ‘although it is not contained in it’; this last expression is italicised by Kant.

However, it is hard to perceive what this difference is supposed to be; for a determination which belongs to the concept of anything must be truly contained in it.

§ 379

What causes the difficulty and gives rise to this vain subterfuge, is that Kant from the start one-sidedly attributes to the concept of matter only the determination of impenetrability, which we are supposed to perceive by the sense of touch, for which reason the force of repulsion as the holding off of an other from itself is immediately given.

But if the existence of matter is supposed to be impossible without attraction, then this assertion is based on a conception of matter taken from sense perception; consequently, the determination of attraction, too, must come within the range of sense perception. It is indeed easy to perceive that matter, besides its being-for-self, which sublates the being-for-other (offers resistance), has also a relation between its self-determined parts, a spatial extension and cohesion, and in rigidity and solidity the cohesion is very firm.

Physics explains that the tearing apart, etc., of a body requires a force which shall be stronger than the mutual attraction of the parts of the body.

From this observation reflection can just as directly derive the force of attraction or assume it as given, as it did with the force of repulsion. In point of fact, if we consider Kant’s arguments from which the force of attraction is supposed to be deduced (the proof of the proposition that the possibility of matter requires a force of attraction as a second fundamental force, loc. cit.), it is apparent that their sole content is this, that through repulsion alone matter would not be spatial Matter being presupposed as filling space, it is credited with continuity, the ground of which is assumed to be the force of attraction.

§ 380

If the merit of such a construction of matter were at most that of an analysis (though a merit diminished by the faulty exposition), still the fundamental thought, namely, the derivation of matter from these two opposite determinations as its fundamental forces, must always be highly esteemed.

Kant is chiefly concerned to banish the vulgar mechanistic way of thinking which stops short at the one determination of impenetrability, of self-determined and self-subsistent puncticity, and converts into something external the opposite determination, the relation of matter within itself or the relation of a plurality of matters, which in turn are regarded as particular ones — a way of thinking which, as Kant says, will admit no motive forces except pressure and thrust, that is, only action from without.

This external manner of thinking always presupposes motion as already externally present in matter, and it does not occur to it to regard motion as something immanent and to comprehend motion itself in matter, which latter is thus assumed as, on its own account, motionless and inert. This stand-point has before it only ordinary mechanics, not immanent and free motion. It is true that Kant sublates this externality in so far as he makes attraction (the relation of matters to one another in so far as these are assumed as separated from one another, or matter generally in its self-externality) a force of matter itself; still, on the other hand, his two fundamental forces within matter remain external to and completely independent of each other.

§ 381

The fixed difference of these two forces attributed to them from that external standpoint is no less null than any other distinction must show itself to be which, in respect of its specific content, is made into something supposedly fixed; because these forces are only moments which pass over into each other, as we saw above when they were considered in their truth. I go on to consider these other distinctions as they are stated by Kant.

§ 382

He defines the force of attraction as a penetrative force by which one bit of matter can act directly on the parts of another even beyond the area of contact; the force of repulsion, on the other hand, he defines as a surface force through which bits of matter can act on each other only in the common area of contact. The reason adduced that the latter can be only a surface force is as follows: ‘The parts in contact each limit the sphere of action of the other, and the force of repulsion cannot move any more distant part except through the agency of the intervening parts; an immediate action of one part of matter on another passing right across these intervening parts by forces of expansion (which means here, forces of repulsion) is impossible.’

§ 383

But here we must remember that in assuming ’nearer’ or ‘more distant’ parts of matter, the same distinction would likewise arise with respect to attraction, namely, that though one atom acted on another, yet a third, more distant atom (between which and the first atom, the second atom would be), would first enter into the sphere of attraction of the intervening atom nearer to it; therefore the first atom would not have an immediate, simple action on the third, from which it would follow that the action of the force of attraction, like that of repulsion, is equally mediated. Further, the genuine penetration of the force of attraction could of necessity consist only in this, that every part of matter was in and for itself attractive, not that a certain number of atoms behaved passively and only one atom actively. But we must at once remark with respect to the force of repulsion itself that in the passage quoted, ‘parts in contact’ are mentioned which implies solidity and continuity of a matter already finished and complete which would not permit the passage through it of a repelling force. But this solidity of matter in which parts are in contact and are no longer separated by the void already presupposes that the force of repulsion is sublated; according to the sensuous conception of repulsion which prevails here, parts in contact are to be taken as those which do not repel each other. It therefore follows, quite tautologically, that where repulsion is assumed to be not, there no repulsion can take place. But from this nothing else follows which could serve to determine the force of repulsion. However, reflection on the statement that parts in contact are in contact only in so far as they hold themselves apart, leads directly to the conclusion that the force of repulsion is not merely on the surface of matter but within the sphere which was supposed to be only a sphere of attraction.

§ 384

Kant assumes further that ’through the force of attraction, matter only occupies space but does not fill it’; and ‘because matter through the force of attraction does not fill space, this force can act across empty space since there is no intervening matter to limit it’. This distinction is much the same as the one mentioned above where a determination was supposed to belong to the concept of a thing but not to be contained in it; here, then, matter is supposed only to occupy a space but not to fill it. There it is repulsion, if we stop at the first determination of matter, through which the ones repel one another and so are only negatively related to one another, here that means, by empty space. Here, however, it is the force of attraction which keeps space empty; it does not fill space by its connection of the atoms, in other words, it keeps the atoms in a negative relation to one another. We see that Kant here unconsciously realises what is implicit in the nature of the subject matter, when he attributes to the force of attraction precisely what, in accordance with the first determination, he attributed to the opposite force. While he was busy with establishing the difference between the two forces, it happened that one had passed over into the other. Thus through repulsion, on the other hand, matter is supposed to fill a space, and consequently through repulsion the empty space left by the force of attraction vanishes. In point of fact repulsion, in doing away with empty space, also destroys the negative relation of the atoms or ones, that is, their repulsion of one another; in -other words, repulsion is determined as the opposite of itself.

§ 385

To this effacing of the differences there is added the confusion arising from the fact that, as we observed at the beginning, Kant’s exposition of the opposed forces is analytic; and whereas matter is supposed to be derived from its elements, it is presented throughout the entire discourse as already formed and constituted. In the definition of surface and penetrative force both are assumed as motive forces by means of which matter is supposed to be able to act in one or other of these ways. Here, therefore, they are represented as forces, not through which matter first comes into being but through which matter, as an already finished product, is only set in motion. But in so far as we are speaking of the forces through which different bodies act on one another and are set in motion, this is something quite different from the determination and relation which these forces were supposed to have as [constitutive] moments of matter.

§ 386

The same opposition of attractive and repulsive forces is made by their more developed form of centripetal and centrifugal forces. These appear to offer an essential distinction, since in their sphere there is a fixed single one, a centre, in relation to which the other ones behave as not for themselves, so that the difference between the forces can be linked to this presupposed difference between a single central one and the others which are not independent relatively to it. But if they are to be used for explanation — for which purpose they are assumed to be (like the forces of repulsion and attraction) in an inverse quantitative ratio so that the one increases as the other decreases — then the phenomenon of the motion and its inequality ought to be the result of these forces which were assumed for the purpose of explanation. However, one need only examine the accounts (any of them will do) of a phenomenon like the unequal velocity of a planet in its orbit round the sun, based on the opposition of these forces, to become aware of the confusion which prevails in such explanations, and the impossibility of disentangling the magnitudes of the forces, so that the one which in the explanation is assumed to be decreasing can just as well be assumed to be increasing, and vice versa. To make this evident would require a lengthier exposition than could be given here; but what is necessary for this purpose is adduced later on in connection with the inverted relation.