Abstract

This essay outlines Kant’s acquisition of newtonian conceptual background from the years of his academical education until 1755, following three main phases. 1) His first approach, due to Knutzen’s teachings at the Albertina University. A free and wise Wolffian thinker, respectful towards pietism, interested in logical and gnoseological questions and open to the empirical and scientific instances of British philosophy, Knutzen influenced Königsberg’s academical milieu striving to involve Newton’s gravitational theory in the metaphisical discourse concerning physical influx. 2) The works that made this acquisition possible, notably those by Newton: Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica and Optice, the last one being considered by Hans-Joachim Waschkies even more influential than Principia Mathematica in the cosmogonic-cosmological project defined by Kant in his Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels. Next to Newton’s works are those written by his disciples and main followers, notably by Dutch authors: W. Jacob s’Gravesande, Peter van Musschenbroeck and Hermann Boerhaave, whose “indirect Newtonianismµ (so to speak) plays an important role in Kant’s first years. 2) A check on almost all Kant’s pre-critical writings, considered in their specific contributions and syncretisms: from Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte to Allgemeine Naturgeschichte (with its Kurzer Abriß der nöthigsten Grundbegriffe der Newtonischen Weltwissenschaft), from De igne to Nova delucidatio, a work that introduces Newton to an academic (and metaphisical) circle and testifies to the ultimate consecration of the English physicist’s thought