Kant’s Critical Concepts of Motion

Pollok, Konstantin.

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 44, Number 4, October

2006, pp. 559-575 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/hph.2006.0071

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 concepts of motion 559

Kant’s Critical
Concepts of Motion
Konstantin Pollok*

there are two significant places in Kant’s Critical corpus where he discusses
the concept of motion. The first is in the Critique of Pure Reason, where in the “De-
duction of the Categories” Kant writes:
Motion, as an act of the subject (not as a determination of an object†), and therefore
the synthesis of the manifold in space, first produces the concept of succession—if we
abstract from this manifold and attend solely to the act through which we determine
the inner sense according to its form.
†
(Note:) Motion of an object in space does not belong in a pure science, thus also not in
geometry; for that something is movable cannot be cognized a priori but only through
experience. But motion, as a description of a space, is a pure act of the successive syn-
thesis of the manifold in outer intuition in general through productive imagination,
and belongs not only to geometry but even to transcendental philosophy.1

In this passage Kant simply refers to the concept of motion, and the immediate
context in which this reference occurs reveals little about what he means by it.
In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, however, motion plays a more
significant role, and, concomitantly, it is in his writings on natural science that
Kant most fully expresses his thoughts on the subject. For present purposes, the
most relevant passage is paragraph 15 of the Preface of the Metaphysical Founda-
tions, where Kant says that the
concept of matter had … to be carried through all four of the indicated functions
of the concepts of the understanding (in four chapters), where in each a new deter-
mination of this concept was added. The basic determination of something that is

1 
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason [CPR], trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), B 154–55 (translation altered). References to Kant are to volume
and page of the Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1900–). The Cri-
tique of Pure Reason is cited according to the editions of 1781 (A) and 1787 (B). References to the
Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science [MFNS] are to vol. 4 of the Akademie-Ausgabe, (e.g. 48215–17),
and all translations are taken from Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, trans. Michael Friedman
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

* Konstantin Pollok is Wissenschaftlicher Assistent at the Institut für Philosophie, Philipps-

Universität Marburg.

Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 44, no. 4 (2006) 559–575

[559]
560 journal of the history of philosophy 44:4 october 2006
to be an object of the outer senses had to be motion, because only thereby can these
senses be affected. The understanding traces back all other predicates of matter
belonging to its nature to this, and natural science, therefore, is either a pure or ap-
plied doctrine of motion. The metaphysical foundations of natural science are therefore
to be brought under four chapters. The first considers motion as a pure quantum in
accordance with its composition, without any quality of the movable, and may be
called phoronomy. The second takes into consideration motion as belonging to the
quality of matter, under the name of an original moving force, and is therefore called
dynamics. The third considers matter with this quality as in relation to another through
its own inherent motion, and therefore appears under the name of mechanics. The
fourth chapter, however, determines matter’s motion or rest merely in relation to the
mode of representation or modality, and thus as appearance of the outer senses, and
is called phenomenology.2

The first passage from the first Critique (quoted above) reveals both that the
concept of motion plays a central role in Kant’s epistemology and that he dis-
tinguishes clearly between motion of the object, on the one hand, and action of
the subject, on the other. The two concepts of motion are quite different—the
former belonging to transcendental philosophy and geometry (to “pure science”
in the Kantian sense), the latter to the metaphysical and empirical investigation
of nature. By contrast, the second passage from the Metaphysical Foundations shows
that the conceptual apparatus Kant developed in his transcendental philosophy
is also relevant for understanding the empirical concept of motion. Since all
empirical concepts are based on transcendental conditions for their possibility,
this connection between elements of the Critical philosophy should come as no
surprise. What remains unclear, however, is the sort of connection involved, and
whether in the particular case of motion there might not be a more intimate
relationship between the transcendental conditions and the empirical concept
than one might at first suspect.
Indeed, this is a possibility that has been entertained by a number of com-
mentators. In his investigation of Kant’s metaphysics of nature, Lothar Schäfer,
for example, contends that “the original perspective on the unity of the sensibil-
ity in which nature reveals itself, and which belongs to the conception of nature,
results in the original perspective on motion. Therefore, the laws of nature are
laws of motion … .”3 Similarly, in her book on Kant’s theory of natural science,
Karen Gloy argues that
in the predicable ‘motion’ the connection of elements of the understanding with
pure forms of the sensibility corresponds to a connection of the original synthetic
unity of the apperception including the whole system of categories … with the pure
form (sic.) of space and time. Since this equals a pure schematism of space, time,
and therefore motion, the predicable ‘motion’ and that connection represent a
conceptual system of the pure understanding which is restricted to a comprehen-

2 
MFNS, 476–77. For a detailed discussion of this paragraph, see my Kants “Metaphysische Anfangs-
gründe der Naturwissenschaft.” Ein Kritischer Kommentar [Kants “Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwis-
senschaft”] (Hamburg: Meiner, 2001), esp. 149–65.
3 
Lothar Schäfer, Kants Metaphysik der Natur (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1966), 28: Der dem naturalen
Erfassen zugehörige ursprüngliche Ausblick auf die Einheit der Sinnlichkeit, in welcher Natur begegnet, ergibt im
Einigen von Raum und Zeit den ursprünglichen Ausblick auf Bewegung. Die Gesetze der Natur sind also Gesetze
der Bewegung.
 concepts of motion 561
sive and a priori basis of intuitions. Its systematic explication is to be found in the
Metaphysical Foundations.4

Finally, following Gloy, Thomas Sören Hoffmann defines the concept of motion
as “the predicable of experience as such.” “For, motion,” Hoffmann continues,
“as an appearing outer relation of the change exists at the same time for the outer
understanding, and makes the moments of the relation in the relation and for the
understanding intelligible, motion is the essential instance of the characteristic of
the subjectivity of the modern natural determination.”5
My contention here, however, is that these interpretations tend to misconstrue
important aspects of Kant’s position, and my aim in the present paper is to remedy
this by clarifying the different concepts of motion in Kant’s Critical thought. By
examining the contexts in which Kant discusses the concept, I suggest that mo-
tion is not an unambiguous and homogeneous concept: the empirical concept
of motion should be differentiated from the transcendental concept of synthesis
and the geometrical concept of drawing a line or tracking the movement of a
point. Collapsing these distinctions into a single concept actually distorts Kant’s
position. In what follows, then, I propose to concentrate on two tasks. First, I will
point out the possible misunderstandings in interpreting Kant’s Critical concept
of objective motion. Second, I will offer a positive framework for understanding
Kant’s concept of motion in natural science.

the “motion” of the subject

Before entering into a detailed discussion of Kant’s view, a historical remark is in
order. This will shed light on the passage from the first Critique quoted above and
orient the course of the subsequent discussion. In the passage from the B-deduc-
tion, Kant is clearly reacting to a critical review of the 1781 edition of the Critique
written by Christian Gottfried Schütz and published in the Allgemeine Literatur-
Zeitung. Schütz writes: “We only wished that Mr. K. could broach the following
scruple. We cannot represent a line in an a priori intuition without drawing it in
thought. Drawing, however, is a kind of motion; motion is an empirical concept;
thus, it seems that even lines, and therefore also figures, and therefore also the
conic figure, have need of empirical help in order to be represented.”6 Kant re-

4 
Karen Gloy, Die Kantische Theorie der Naturwissenschaft. Eine Strukturanalyse ihrer Möglichkeit, ihres
Umfangs und ihrer Grenzen [Naturwissenschaft] (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976), 163–64: Der Verbindung von
Elementen des Verstandes mit reinen Formen der Sinnlichkeit entspricht im Prädikabile ‘Bewegung’ eine Verbind-
ung der ursprünglich synthetischen Einheit der Apperzeption mit Einschluß des gesamten Kategoriensystems (im
weiteren auch des gesamten kategorialen Prädikabiliensystems) mit der reinen Raum- und Zeitform. Da dies einem
reinen Raum-, Zeit- = Bewegungsschematismus gleichkommt, repräsentiert das Prädikabile ‘Bewegung’ mit dieser
Verbindung das auf eine umfassende apriorische Anschauungsgrundlage restringierte Begriffssystem des reinen
Verstandes. Seine systematische Explikation erfolgt in den MA.
5 
Thomas S. Hoffmann, “Der Begriff der Bewegung bei Kant. Über den Grundbegriff der Empirie
und die empirischen Begriffe,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 45 (1991), 43: Weil Bewegung als
erscheinendes äußeres Verhältnis der Veränderung so aber zugleich für den äußeren Verstand ist und die Verhält-
nismomente im Verhältnis und für den Verstand intelligibel macht, ist sie die wesentliche Instanz des Grundzugs
der Subjektivität der neuzeitlichen Naturbestimmtheit.
6 
Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung 162 (July 12, 1785). “Erläuterungen über des Herrn Professor Kant
Critik der reinen Vernunft von Johann Schulze, … in Beziehung auf die Critik der reinen Vernunft … und die
Prolegomena … von Immanuel Kant.” Reprint: Rezensionen zur Kantischen Philosophie 1781–87, ed. Albert
562 journal of the history of philosophy 44:4 october 2006
sponds to this objection in the second edition of the Critique by emphasizing that
the pure concept of “motion” (subjective motion, or synthesis) should not be
confused with the empirical concept of motion dealt with in natural science. As
such, the passage from the B-deduction constitutes an answer to Schütz’s “wish”
that Kant distinguish different concepts under the heading of ‘motion’: the motion
of an object and the motion of a subject. More importantly, Kant also implies that
the motion of the subject is itself ambiguous since it can be understood both in a
geometrical and a transcendental sense. As a result, it is possible to specify three
distinct concepts of motion: (i) objective motion, (ii–a) geometrical motion, and
(ii–b) transcendental motion. While these are obviously related, they are not easily
reduced to each other, and in the present context I want to concentrate specifi-
cally on the differences among them.
In this respect, my approach differs somewhat from others who have discussed
Kant’s position. Although aware of the subtlety of Kant’s position, Michael Fried-
man, for example, concentrates on the similarities and connections between the
different concepts of motion. More specifically, Friedman emphasizes that the
“Euclidean” motion of drawing a line and “Newtonian” inertial motions are ex-
plications of and models for the workings of the pure imagination. Indeed, they
prove the objective reality of the categories by providing a first schematization for
them. “In particular,” Friedman writes,
the motion of a point involved in the drawing of a straight line yields a representation
of rectilinear inertial motion—the privileged state of force-free motion serving as the
foundation for all modern physics and thus for “pure natural science.” In finding an
actual domain of concrete objects corresponding to the demands of the categories,
the understanding then has the task of applying these representations—those given
by mathematical construction and the pure representation of rectilinear inertia—so
as to seek out a system of empirical objects whose behavior can actually be described
by them.7

In so far as Friedman explains the relation between the geometrical (ii–a) and the
objective (i) concepts of motion, his account presupposes a difference between
them. I want to suggest, however, that the different status of the “pure” and the
“impure” concepts of motion need to be distinguished even more sharply.
As Friedman connects the motion of a point to that of a body, so Jens Saugstad
links the motion of a (human) body with the transcendental motion of the subject.
“On this (i.e., externalistic) reading,” Saugstad writes
Kant’s position is that human knowledge depends, ultimately, upon our ability to
perform a fixed set of overt actions essentially involving the movement of the human
body. I defend the idea for only a limited, but central part of Kant’s system: the figura-

Landau (Bebra, 1991), 153: Hier wünschten wir nur, daß Hr. K. noch folgenden Skrupel heben möchte. Eine
Linie kann man doch selbst a priori nicht anders in der Anschauung darlegen, als daß man sie in Gedanken
zieht. Ziehen aber ist eine Art der Bewegung; Bewegung ist ein empirischer Begriff; also scheint es, daß doch selbst
auch Linien, folglich auch Figuren, folglich auch die conische Gestalt einer empirischen Beyhülfe bedürfen, um
dargestellt zu warden.
7 
Michael Friedman, “Matter and Motion in the Metaphysical Foundations and the First Critique: The
Empirical Concept of Matter and the Categories,” in Kant and the Sciences, ed. Eric Watkins (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 64.
 concepts of motion 563
tive and successive syntheses of productive imagination, some familiar geometrical
and arithmetical concepts, and the intuitions corresponding to those concepts.8

Saugstad admits some paragraphs later that “it might be objected that the formal
conditions of experience are presuppositions of, and so cannot be formed through,
learning behavioral techniques. The objection fails,” he concludes, because “Kant
says explicitly that absolutely all representations, including the form of things in
space and time and the transcendental concepts of the understanding, are ac-
quired.”9 The textual basis for this latter claim is rather thin, however. Saugstad
refers to a passage in the New Discovery, which Makes Any New Critique of Pure Reason
Unnecessary Because of an Older One (1790) where, against Eberhard, Kant writes,
“The Critique completely rules out any originally created or innate representations;
all of them in their entirety, no matter whether they are concepts of intuition or
understanding, are assumed to be acquired concepts.”10 Yet Kant himself goes on
to qualify this claim in such a way as to rule out the kind of externalism for which
Saugstad argues. Kant writes:
But there exists also an original acquisition (as the teachers of natural law say). There-
fore, there is also an acquisition of something that did not have any prior existence,
and therefore did not belong to anything before this act (of acquisition). The Critique
claims that the following (representations) belong to this category: first, the form of
things in space and time, and second the synthetic unity of the manifold in concepts;
for neither of them is derived by our faculty of cognition from the objects as they are
given in themselves, but is brought forth a priori by the faculty of cognition.11

This “acquisition” means nothing but the fact that we do not possess any form of
intuition or any pure concept before we encounter an object of possible experience;
if Kant had meant more than this, then talk of apriori elements would no longer
make sense.12 In fact, Saugstad’s distinction between the Kantian “motion of an
object” and “motion of the subject” finally amounts to the difference between any
body and the human body: “Kant is of course right that there is a fundamental
difference between the motion of a physical object in space and the bodily motion
involved in the description of a space: while both motions are observable, only
the latter is part of an action performed by a human agent.”13 Yet for the Critical
Kant the human body is nothing but one possible object of experience, and in
no sense is it a transcendental concept. Thus Saugstad’s identification of “action
of the subject” and “description of space” with bodily motions directly contradicts
Kant’s own argument and the hierarchical structure he gives it. A constitutive dif-
ference between my body and other bodies is not available within Kant’s Critical
writings,14 and at one point Kant states the very opposite to Saugstad’s view: “That I
distinguish my own existence as that of a thinking being, from other things outside
me—among them my body—is likewise an analytic proposition; for other things are

Jens Saugstad, “Kant on Action and Knowledge,” Kant-Studien 83 (1992), 381.

8 

Ibid., 382.
9 

10 
Kant, New Discovery, 8:221.
11 
Ibid.
12 
See Saugstad, “Kant on Action and Knowledge,” 389 n..
13 
Ibid., 385.
14 
For a different approach in the Opus postumum, see, e.g., Kant 12:357.
564 journal of the history of philosophy 44:4 october 2006
such as I think to be distinct from myself.”15 Apart from a merely metaphorical
use on Kant’s part, there is no textual evidence for proposing a close connection
between the concepts of geometrical (ii–a) and transcendental motion (ii–b) and,
consequently, between those and motion in the objective sense (i). As a result,
Saugstad’s view must be rejected.
In fact, a closer look at the passage from Metaphysical Foundations quoted above
provides an alternative way of understanding Kant’s position. The concept of mo-
tion set out in the Preface to the Metaphysical Foundations and expounded in the
following four chapters cannot mean “motion, as action of the subject” (CPR, B
154), because this covers every (spatial) synthesis of the manifold and would even
couple the synthesis of a trunk with its branches and leaves to the concept of an
unmoving (albeit movable) tree. In other words, the concept of synthesis does not
refer necessarily to motion understood as change in the outer relations of a thing
to a given space;16 and it is this latter issue with which Kant is primarily concerned
in the Metaphysical Foundations, where he aims to clarify natural scientific concepts
(see MFNS, 48215–16). In contrast to the (objective) concept of motion, the concept
of synthesis is an active concept; motion of an object is caused by something outside
the subject.17 A synthesis, however, can only come about spontaneously: as Kant
says, it is the “action of putting different representations together with each other
and comprehending their manifoldness in one cognition” (CPR, A 77). Although
everything represented as being moved in space is subjected to the “pure act of
the successive synthesis of the manifold in outer intuition in general through
productive imagination” (CPR, B 155 n.), the very same act is also required for
all other knowledge of the spatio-temporal manifold. The concept of synthesis is
a necessary, but not a sufficient—and hence, not a specifying—condition of the
objective concept of motion.
Moreover, at no point in the Metaphysical Foundations does Kant expand on
this relationship. If the concept of motion—ostensibly the basic determinant of
matter—were intended to be identified with motion as an action of the subject,
then Kant would need to address this in the Metaphysical Foundations.18 Otherwise
the sentence following the explanation of the concept of matter through that of
motion in paragraph 15 (quoted above) would make no sense: “The metaphysical
foundations of natural science are therefore to be brought under four chapters.”
The sentence does make sense, however, because in outlining the content of the
four chapters it refers back to the basic determination of matter with a ‘therefore’

15 
CPR, B 409; my emphasis.
16 
It might simply trace the “outline” of a tree, for example (see CPR, B 162).
17 
See MFNS, 543–4; see also 5477–40, connected with 4896–12, which reveals the special status of
the Phoronomy within the Metaphysical Foundations (see the diagram on 567–68 below). The Phoronomy
does not essentially deal with causation; neither is it a doctrine of body (no forces are to be consid-
ered), nor simply geometry (time is to be considered as well as space). Kant characterizes the work
as the “pure theory of quantity (mathesis) of motions” (48911–12) which takes the concept of motion
to describe space from geometry, adding the attention to time (4896–11) and being open for further
dynamical, mechanical and phenomenological determinations (see 48218–24).
18 
The first chapter, Phoronomy, might be excluded here, at least partly, since it is concerned with
the geometrical concept of motion, or the synthesis speciosa (CPR, B 151). It does contain a transition
from the pure geometrical concept to the concept of motion as considered in natural philosophy,
however, and for this reason I will consider it (see MFNS, 4811–48213). See also note 24 below.
 concepts of motion 565
(MFNS, 4773). The four chapters are concerned with material nature, its determina-
tion by the concept of motion, and our experience of it, and not with experience in
general and its synthetic unity. The ‘therefore’ in the sentence that follows prevents
a “transcendentalization” of the concept of motion and, hence, of the Metaphysical
Foundations in general. The Phoronomy is concerned with the motion of a point,
and the subsequent chapters with the motion of matter—the latter being nothing
but the “motion of an object in space” (CPR, B 155 n.). In this particular sense,
the Metaphysical Foundations does not represent “pure science” (ibid.)—which in
this context means “transcendental philosophy” or “geometry”—because it takes
an empirical concept as its basis.19 To this extent the work can only amount to
“applied metaphysics.”20 The Metaphysical Foundations does not explicitly deal with
the concept of synthesis, but with that of locomotion; as Kant puts it, “Motion of
a thing is the change of its outer relations to a given space” (MFNS, 48215–16).
In fact, distinguishing between the subjective (ii–b) and objective (i) concepts
of motion in this way also serves to differentiate the geometrical (ii–a) concept of
motion from its objective counterpart (i). For the geometrical concept also pre-
supposes no knowledge of anything movable “found in space only through experience,
(and is) thus an empirical datum” (CPR, A 41). This concept of motion refers to
that kind of synthesis speciosa (CPR, B 151), which determines our outer intuition
through the understanding (see CPR, B 155 n.). The “pure theory of motion,”
which already underlies geometry, cannot therefore amount to the “pure theory
of quantity (mathesis) of motion” (MFNS, 48911–12) that Kant writes about in the
Phoronomy: “In phoronomy,” he says, “motion can only be considered as the de-
scribing of a space—in such a way, however, that I attend not solely, as in geometry,
to the space described, but also to the time in which, and thus to the speed with
which, a point describes the space” (MFNS, 4896–11). So the “pure theory of mo-
tion” presupposed by geometry is the theory of synthesis and hence transcenden-
tal philosophy; it is the subjective and transcendental concept of succession, the
“action of the subject … through which we determine inner sense in accordance
with its form” (CPR, B 155).21 The reason that motion as the action of the subject
(ii–b) goes beyond geometry is that motion as a geometrical concept (ii–a)—draw-
ing a line—is not considered under the general aspect of synthesis, but under a
spatial aspect ; geometry deals exclusively with the synthesis of a manifold in outer

19 
See MFNS, 4705, 4728, 4827–13, and Michael Friedman (“Matter and Material Substance in Kant’s
Philosophy of Nature: The Problem of Infinite Divisibility“, Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant
Congress, Memphis 1995, vol. 1–2 [Milwaukee, 1995]: 595–610). I return to this issue in the second
part of the paper.
20 
MFNS, 48211. At first sight this could be read as contradicting certain passages where Kant speaks
of the Metaphysical Foundations as a pure science (see 46817–47035). Since the Metaphysical Foundations
contains the application of pure principles to an empirical concept, however, it is also a pure natural
science. The relationship between apriori and aposteriori aspects within the concepts of matter and
motion will become clearer in the course of this paper.
21 
There are different relationships between the concepts of motion and time. The synthetic action
of the subject is the determination of inner sense; the geometrical concept of drawing a line abstracts
from time (see MFNS, 4896–11); and the phoronomical concept of motion considers both space and
time in regard to a moving point/object. Again, this reveals the difference between the meanings of
the word ‘motion’ reflected in the distinctions I have drawn: to ask for the speed of the subject’s ac-
tion of synthesis would be absurd.
566 journal of the history of philosophy 44:4 october 2006
intuition and constructs only spatial figures. The transcendental aspect of drawing
a line as its constitutive feature holds also for every determination of inner sense
and lies outside geometry in the realm of transcendental philosophy (i.e., in the
theory of cognition).
Since it abstracts from the concept of perceived impenetrability (i.e., the filling
of space), the Phoronomy can be understood as a “pure theory of quantity (mathesis)
of motion.”22 The chapter is not primarily concerned with the motion of bodies,
but with the motion of a mathematical point. In this sense the Phoronomy is the
spatio-temporal counterpart to the merely spatial geometry referred to at CPR, A
163, where Kant writes that “On this successive synthesis of the productive imagi-
nation, in the generation of shapes,23 is grounded the mathematics of extension
(geometry).” These figures are spatial quanta, just as the point-motion stands for
the representation of a spatio-temporal quantum. The size (quantitas) of figures in
geometry or the magnitude of motion in the pure theory of motion24 provides
applications of arithmetic—lines, surfaces, volumes of determinate size, or mo-
tions of determinate magnitude (velocity).25 The numbers themselves are not in
time, but the determinate counting of the space traversed requires temporality.
Thus the discussion of the phoronomical concept of motion, with its geometrical
representation of directions and the arithmetic representation of velocities, is
not a problem for general metaphysics, but instead concerns the application of
directions and velocities to the objects of the outer senses. As Kant writes in the
first Critique :
The pure image of all magnitudes (quantorum) for outer sense is space; for all ob-
jects of the senses in general, it is time. The pure schema of magnitude (quantitatis),

22 
MFNS, 48911–12, my emphasis.
23 
Friedman proposes ‘figures’ instead of ‘shapes’ as a translation of Gestalten.
24 
In this context we can only talk about the phoronomical, not the mechanical quantity of motion,
since the dynamical and mechanical concepts of force, mass, and inertia have not yet been introduced.
Nevertheless, Michael Friedman (“Kant on Concepts and Intuitions in Mathematical Sciences,” Synthese
84 [1990], 242–3; and Kant and the Exact Sciences [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992], 41–42
and 132–34) suggests that phoronomical motion is inertial motion, because its force-freeness means
that in certain time-sections the same space-sections are covered. However, this tends to undermine
the methodological structure of the Metaphysical Foundations, since the law of inertia (see MFNS,
54315–54430) is introduced in the third and not the first chapter. One thing that might speak in favor
of Friedman’s reading is that Kant ties inertia to the category of causality (see 5518–14), and according
to the second edition of the Critique this category is linked to the phoronomical “motion of a point
in space” (CPR, B 292). Nevertheless, Kant points out on various occasions that the Phoronomy is in-
dependent of the concepts of mass and acceleration (see e.g., MFNS, 48012–21). Kenneth R. Westphal
also suggests that the Phoronomy is ‘infected’ by causality in a way: “If Kant were not anticipating the
application of his phoronomic analysis to actual motions of physical bodies, he would have no grounds
for focusing on rectilinear or even curvilinear motions, as contrasted with, e. g., triangular motions or
just plain random ones” (Kenneth R. Westphal, “Kant’s Dynamic Constructions,” Journal of Philosophical
Research 20 [1995], 381–429, 419). One might go further and suggest that the anticipation (of which
Kant himself speaks at MFNS, 48021) of something that is not essentially at issue in the Phoronomy is the
only reason that this chapter is part of the metaphysics of corporeal nature. In support of the Kantian
position one might suggest that the Phoronomy belongs to this applied metaphysics because, on the one
hand, geometry has to abstract from time and, on the other hand, transcendental philosophy considers
motion without any objectivization.
25 
See MFNS, 49536–37, 53721–22. See also James W. Ellington (“The Unity of Kant’s Philosophy of
Nature” in Immanuel Kant: Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970],
204) who differs from this evaluation. For more details, see also my Kants “Metaphysische Anfangsgründe
der Naturwissenschaft,” 217–22.
 concepts of motion 567
however, as a concept of the understanding, is number, which is a representation that
summarizes the successive addition of one (homogeneous) unit to another. Thus
number is nothing other than the unity of the synthesis of the manifold of a homo-
geneous intuition in general, because I generate time itself in the apprehension of
the intuition. (CPR, A 142–43)

The Phoronomy is concerned not with these pure images and schemata, but with
linking the pure schema of magnitude (quantitas) to the pure image (quantum)—or
with the schema of a sensible concept (CPR, A 141–42)—in the concept of mo-
tion. (The objectivity of the concept of motion, presupposed in all four chapters,
is specifically discussed in the next section of the present paper.) Phoronomical
aspects are of course part of the meaning of this concept. Even though they do
not provide the differentia specifica—for all bodies are characterized by relative
motion, as well—the concept cannot be thought without them. But since relative
motion can also be predicated of mathematical points, Kant also must deal with
the specific differences between movable points and bodies. He does this in the
Dynamics chapter.
The elements of motion in general—namely, schemata of lines and the count-
ing of traversed space—are connected making direction and speed the features
of an object’s motion (see 48017). The concepts and their relationships can be
represented in the following way:

Synthesis
— a priori
intellectual (synthesis intellectualis)—understanding (merely logical connec-
tion, e.g. of the homogeneous, i.e., a magnitude), see CPR, B 150–52
= synthesis of apperception (CPR, B 162 n.)
figurative (synthesis speciosa)—imagination (understanding determines
sensibility; representing an object that is not necessarily itself present), see
CPR, B 150–2
= Motion as action of the subject, description of a space (geometry and
transcendental philosophy), see CPR, B 155 n.
— a posteriori
synthesis of apprehension, e.g. of a house (CPR, B 162 n.)
increase of conceptual and intuitional complexity

“Motion”
— a priori (subject)
transcendental philosophy: figurative synthesis (synthesis speciosa)—imagi-
nation (understanding determines sensibility; representing an object that
is not necessarily itself present), abstracts from space (see CPR, B 150–52,
154–55)
geometry: figurative synthesis (synthesis speciosa), describing space as a pure
act of the successive synthesis of the manifold in outer intuition in general
(see CPR, B 155 n.)
568 journal of the history of philosophy 44:4 october 2006
Motion (predicable)
— a priori (subject/object)
“Phoronomy”: synthesis speciosa with attention to time, i.e., speed (MFNS,
4896–12), object of the motion is a point, not matter (MFNS, 48012–18)
— a posteriori (object) see e.g., CPR, A 41, and MFNS, 4827–13
“Dynamics”: repulsion/attraction
“Mechanics”: inertia
“Phenomenology”: modalities of motion of bodies
increase of conceptual and intuitional complexity

the motion of an object

How then do things stand with respect to the content of this “actual” concept of
motion which cannot, as I have argued, be reduced to the concept of transcen-
dental synthesis? The answer to this is to be found in Kant’s claim that, in order
to determine a theory of bodies or matter as “something that is to be an object of
the outer senses” (MFNS, 4769–10) and thus an “empirical concept” (MFNS, 4702),
a further concept is required. This concept is motion, or the “accident of mat-
ter” (CPR, A 186) from which all other predicates can be derived. Thus, in the
four chapters of the Metaphysical Foundations, and in agreement with the a priori
framework of concepts of the understanding and the “System of Principles,” Kant
attempts to demonstrate the properties matter must possess if it is to be an object
of outer experience.26
In all four chapters of the Metaphysical Foundations, Kant treats the concept of
motion in terms of its applicability to the concept of outer objects. For this reason
the work represents a particular part of the metaphysics of nature and should be
understood as the “pure … doctrine of motion” (MFNS, 4772). In the Preface, Kant
emphasizes that this metaphysical science of nature is to be followed by mathemati-
cal and empirical natural science, with the latter being grounded on the former.
It is this mathematical and empirical natural science that Kant refers to when he
speaks of the “applied doctrine of motion” (MFNS, 4772, my emphasis). Whereas
physica rationalis—that is the Metaphysical Foundations—examines the concept of
matter and ultimately of bodies with respect to their conceptual constitution using
the concept of motion, physica generalis—or the mechanics of Newton—is designed
to determine mathematically the laws of motion for empirical bodies (see CPR,
A 847; MFNS, 4735–8).
The argument of each of the four chapters begins with an initial Explication,
and is based on the central proposition of paragraph 15 of the Preface—the
principium of the Metaphysical Foundations in general—that “Matter is the mov-
able” (MFNS, 4806, 4966, 5366, 5546). Kant writes that “the basic determination
of something that is to be an object of the outer senses had to be motion, because
only thereby can these senses be affected” (MFNS, 4769–12). This, however, raises

26 
For a discussion of the historical development of Kant’s theory, see my “‘Fabricating a World
in Accordance with Mere Fantasy…’? The Origins of Kant’s Critical Theory of Matter,” Review of Meta-
physics 56 (2002): 61–97.
 concepts of motion 569
two questions of interpretation. In what does the affection of the senses consist?
And how is one to understand the concept of motion?
One way to approach these questions is by way of Kant’s thesis that natural
science (understood as the theory of bodies) is nothing other than the theory of
motion—a claim that is itself based on the idea that, as “an object of the outer
senses” (MFNS, 47610), matter is the basic concept of outer nature. Kant presup-
poses the existence of matter since it must appear as an affection of the outer
senses and is thus given a posteriori. The possibility of such affection by matter
presupposes that it can be determined through motion, and this is what Kant must
explain. The theory of bodies is thus the theory of motion, since nothing is to be
discovered in matter but the conditions of its given-ness or, as Kant puts it, the
“particular ways for it to exist” (CPR, A 186). Kant accomplishes this task in the
pure part of natural science—the Metaphysical Foundations—through a categorial
analysis of these conditions.
In order for matter to become the object of possible outer experience, some-
thing must be perceived; that is to say, the spatial distance between the subject of
cognition and the object of cognition must be somehow traversed. This concept
of relative motion is the fundamental determination of matter: matter is the mov-
able in space (see MFNS, 4806, 4966, 5366, 5546). The existence of such a movable
thing cannot be shown a priori, however, for as Kant writes: “that the transcendental
aesthetic cannot contain more than these two elements, namely space and time, is
clear from the fact that all other concepts belonging to sensibility, even that of mo-
tion, which unites both elements, presuppose something empirical” (CPR, A 41).
In order to distinguish a priori where the a posteriori (the sensation which reveals
existence) begins and ends, Kant must establish that perception of resistance is
possible. He undertakes this task in the Dynamics, which parallels the Anticipations
of Perception in the first Critique. I will return to this point below.
The concept of a dynamical resistance of matter also clarifies the kind of affec-
tion of the senses to which Kant is referring in this context. Kant is not concerned
with affection through things in themselves—that transcendent affection to which
he refers in the Critique when he remarks that “how things in themselves may be
(without regard to representations through which they affect us) is entirely beyond
our cognitive sphere” (CPR, A 190). Although this epistemological view has gen-
erated much discussion among commentators, the affection it involves is clearly
not the same as the affection Kant addresses in the Metaphysical Foundations. Since
the spatio-temporal motion which appears in the latter is not a property of things
in themselves,27 the idea that Kant is here discussing the problem of “double-af-
fection” can be safely rejected.28 One should begin instead with sensible outer

27 
In §12 of his Inaugural Dissertation (1770), Kant already wrote: “Whatever, as object, relates to
our senses is a phenomenon” (2:397). See Konrad Cramer, Nicht-reine synthetische Urteile a priori. Ein
Problem der Transzendentalphilosophie Immanuel Kants [Urteile] (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1985), 148.
28 
Erich Adickes (Kants Lehre von der doppelten Affektion unseres Ich als Schlüssel zu seiner Erkennt-
nistheorie [Tübingen: Mohr, 1929], 9–10) introduces the term ‘doppelte Affektion,’ and speaks of an
‘empirische Affektion’ in regard to the Metaphysical Foundations too (esp. MFNS, 4769–12 and 5104–24). See
also Gerold Prauss, Kant und das Problem der Dinge an sich (Bonn: Bouvier, 1989), 192–227; Paul Guyer,
Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 335; Henry E. Al-
lison, “Transcendental Idealism: The ‘Two Aspect’ View,” in New Essays on Kant, eds. B. D. Ouden and
570 journal of the history of philosophy 44:4 october 2006
affection by an appearance or phenomenon. Since Kant is concerned with the
principle of the metaphysical theory of bodies which fixes the basic determination
of any object’s outer experience, an a priori statement is still involved. For if one
inferred this basic determination from empirical intuitions through experience
by comparison, reflexion, and the abstraction of representations, the concept of
matter which would result could not be reconciled with the aim of the Metaphysical
Foundations itself, namely, to demonstrate the universality of conceptual content
(see MFNS, 4769–4771). Experience cannot show that matter must be movable and
that immovable material cannot exist. Ultimately movability is to be dealt with not
in physics but in its foundations—in “applied metaphysics” (MFNS, 48211). Thus
the empirical character of matter (see, e.g., MFNS, 4705) designates something
other than the way of forming empirical concepts demonstrated in logic. Only
the objective reality of the concept—“that such objects do exist” (10:285)—is
actually observed; its content is demonstrated in “a complete analysis of the con-
cept of a matter in general” (MFNS, 4724–5): the very task Kant undertakes in the
Metaphysical Foundations.
So when Kant speaks of the “basic determination of something that is to be
an object of the outer senses” (MFNS, 4769–12), he is referring to the empirical
concepts of matter and motion. Yet at the same time, the phrase ‘matter is the
movable’ (see MFNS, 4806, 4966, 5366, 5546) has a metaphysical rather than an
empirical meaning. If this were not the case, Kant would not speak of metaphysical
foundations. The claim that the statement about the basic determination of mat-
ter (MFNS, 4769–12) is part of the particular rather than general metaphysics of
nature or “transcendental philosophy” (MFNS, 46926–47012) is supported by the
fact that the concepts in question are empirical in nature. Unlike transcendental
a priori concepts, their objective reality cannot be demonstrated by referring to the
conditions of possibility of objects of experience in general. While the content of
the concept of motion can be constructed a priori (MFNS, 4907–49526), its reality
presupposes the perception of something movable (MFNS, 4827–13), a material
substance whose concept is itself determined by that of motion, or, more precisely,
that of force or dynamical resistance.
At first sight one might suspect a circularity in Kant’s position here; but on
closer inspection the circularity turns out to be only apparent, since the argument
does not directly involve conceptual contents, but refers instead to the objective
reality of both concepts. On the one hand, the concept of matter is determined
by the predicable of motion (a point which will become clear in the following
paragraphs), but on the other hand, the concept of motion as such does not
presuppose the concept of matter since it holds also of geometrical points. The
objective reality of both concepts, however, can and must be observed through one
and the same datum. It is for this reason that when Kant discusses motion as an
empirical concept, he speaks of movability in terms of motion and an object of
motion: through the sensation of spatio-temporal resistance which can be anticipated but

M. Moen (New York: Lang, 1987), 155–78; Hoke Robinson, “Two Perspectives on Kant’s Appearances
and Things in Themselves,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 32 (1994): 411–41; Heiner F. Klemme,
Kants Philosophie des Subjekts. Systematische und entwicklungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von
Selbstbewußtsein und Selbsterkenntnis (Hamburg: Meiner, 1996), 245–70.
 concepts of motion 571
not deduced, the cognizing subject establishes the objective reality of both concepts.
This is a metaphysical (rather than physiological) understanding of the princi-
pium of the Metaphysical Foundations and, as Kant argues in the Dynamics, has the
sensation of resistance, or “the quality of empirical intuition,”29 as the condition
for its objective reality.30
For further clarification of this concept of motion “as the determination of an
object” (CPR, B 154–55), I now turn to the relation of two different aspects: the
a priori and the a posteriori character of the concept of motion.
The fact that the concept requires a representation of something movable in
space supports the idea that motion is an empirical concept.31 The concept of
motion is not a pure intuition, and for that reason it cannot be dealt with in the
Transcendental Aesthetic; for every change presupposes identity of the thing being
changed, viz. something conceptual. It cannot be dealt with in the Transcendental
Logic either, since, along with the Aesthetic, the Transcendental Logic assumes
that objective reality can be proven a priori.
On occasion Kant does designate this objective motion as an a priori concept.32
His use of a priori and a posteriori in this context can be understood as the combina-
tion of both aspects in a single concept, which he subsequently clarifies by taking
the concept of motion as predicable33 and possessing a content determined by

29 
Prolegomena, 4:309. In the Critique Kant writes: “the material or real element, the something
which is to be intuited in space, necessarily presupposes perception. Perception exhibits the reality
of something in space; and in the absence of perception no power of imagination can invent and
produce that something. It is sensation, therefore, that indicates a reality in space or time, according
as it is related to the one or to the other mode of sensible intuition” (CPR, A 373–74).
30 
See Peter Plaaß, Kants Theorie der Naturwissenschaft (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1965),
trans. Alfred and Maria Miller (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994), 89 and 95–99; Gloy, Naturwissenschaft,
165–73; and Cramer, Urteile, 148–50. Hansgeorg Hoppe (Kants Theorie der Physik. Eine Untersuchung
über das Opus postumum von Kant [Frankfurt/M: Klostermann, 1969], 42–43, 63–66) and Ralph C. S.
Walker (“The Status of Kant’s Theory of Matter,” Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress, ed.
Lewis W. Beck, [Dordrecht: Reidel, 1970]: 591–96, 593) are of the opinion that the statement itself
is empirical and refers only to the human conditions of experience. Daniel O. Dahlstrom (“Kant’s
Metaphysics of Nature,” Nature and Scientific Method, ed. D. Dahlstrom, [Washington: Catholic Univer-
sity of America Press, 1991], 271–90, 285) speaks of an “empirical necessity.” As I show in the cur-
rent paper, however, like Hoppe and Walker, Dahlstrom misunderstands the status of Kant’s central
proposition in paragraph 15 of the Preface (MFNS, 4769–12). In short, if Kant considered the concept
of motion (and consequently, the concept of matter) to be an empirical concept “in the sense that
the concept’s contents as well as its instantiation are dependent upon experience, specifically upon
the contingent makeup of human sensibility” (Nature and Scientific Method, 288), then Kant could not
have spoken of the Metaphysical Foundations as a “metaphysics of corporeal nature,” a “pure doctrine
of motion,” or the “pure part of natural science.” Of course, this does not mean that the theory is free
from criticism, but this should be distinguished from any interpretation of the text. So, Dahlstrom
must conclude his investigation with a question which in Kantian terms is unanswerable: “Whence the
necessity of a science based upon the contingent fact that human beings only experience objects,
given motion in space?” (ibid., 290).
31 
See, e.g., CPR, A 81, A 282; Prolegomena 4:295; MFNS, 4827–13.
32 
In the Prize Essay of 1791, On the Progress of Metaphysics since Leibniz and Wolff, Kant writes: “To
the categories as the original concepts of the understanding belong also the predicables, which arise
from the composition of the categories and are therefore derivative concepts, either pure concepts
of the understanding or sensibly conditioned a priori concepts. The former represent existence as a
quantity, i.e. duration, or change, as existence with opposite determinations. An example of the latter
is the concept of motion, as change of place in space …” (20:272; cf. Prolegomena 4:323).
33 
See Cramer, Urteile, 119–61; and Carlos Másmela, Kants Theorie der Bewegung. Eine Untersuchung
über die Metaphysischen Anfangsgründe der Phoronomie (Heidelberg, 1980).
572 journal of the history of philosophy 44:4 october 2006
the “categories [i.e., of causality] combined … with the modis of pure sensibility”
(CPR, A 82).34 The objectivity of the concept, however, can only be established
a posteriori. Thus the difference between the predicable of motion and the cat-
egories lies in the fact that motion is the synthetic unity of space and time and,
unlike the categories, need not and cannot be shown to have an objective reality
a priori.35 Motion is an “accident of matter” (CPR, A 186), i.e., a kind of existence
of movable things—a reality of “sensible intuition” (CPR, A 282) that can only be
found a posteriori.
In his exposition of Kant’s concept of motion, Peter Plaaß has ingeniously
reconstructed a metaphysical deduction (omitted by Kant) which demonstrates
the non-arbitrariness of the space-time synthesis in the concept of motion. Plaaß
writes:
on the one hand every appearance to the external sense must contain the determi-
nation of space and the determination of time as components, and an object of the
external senses must, as appearance, determine an objective connection of both
these elements. On the other hand, it is precisely the empirical concept of motion
“that unites both elements” (CPR, A 41), and thus contains precisely this connection.
Therefore it follows: ‘The fundamental determination of a something (eines Etwas)
that is to be an object of the external senses had to be motion.’ (MFNS, 4769–11)36

34 
Guyer and Wood omit the translation of the Kantian word ‘reinen.’ The translation by Norman
Kemp Smith (London, 1958) is, in this case, more accurate.
35 
A result of Kant’s shift in emphasis from the noumenal to the phenomenal after the “Göttingen
Review” of the first Critique, in the B-edition the interconnections between the concepts of causality,
alteration and motion are rather puzzling. In the “General Remark to the System of Principles” (CPR,
B 292–3) the concept of motion is the only evidence for the objective reality of alteration and causality
where motion alone refers necessarily to outer intuition. This outer intuition alone provides some-
thing permanent (see MFNS, 4783–19). For the increasing importance of outer experience in Kant’s
thought, see Michael C. Washburn, “The Second Edition of the Critique. Toward an Understanding
of its Nature and Genesis,” Kant-Studien 66 (1975): 277–90; esp. 281–87 and Eckart Förster, “Is There
‘A Gap’ in Kant’s Critical System?,“ Journal of the History of Philosophy 25 (1987): 533–55, esp. 541–43).
See also Kenneth R. Westphal (“Does Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science Fill a Gap in
the Critique of Pure Reason?,“ Synthese 103 [1995]: 43–86, esp. 47–49 and 76) who, although in general
agreement with Washburn and Förster, downplays Kant’s shift in emphasis from the noumenal to the
phenomenal in the Paralogisms of the first edition (CPR, A 381). For a discussion of the objective
reality more generally, see Günter Zöller, Theoretische Gegenstandsbeziehung bei Kant. Zur systematischen
Bedeutung der Termini “objektive Realität“ und “objektive Gültigkeit“ in der “Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 1984), esp. chs. 2–3.
36 
Plaaß, Kants Theorie der Naturwissenschaft, 99: einerseits muß jede Erscheinung vor dem äußeren Sinn
Raumbestimmung und Zeitbestimmung als Komponenten enthalten, und ein Gegenstand äußerer Sinne muß, als
Erscheinung, eine objektive Verknüpfung dieser beiden Stücke bestimmen. Andererseits ist es gerade der empirische
Begriff der Bewegung, “welcher beide Stücke vereinigt” (KrV, A 41), also gerade diese Verknüpfung enthält. Mithin
folgt: “Die Grundbestimmung eines Etwas, das ein Gegenstand äußerer Sinne sein soll, mußte Bewegung sein”
(MadN, 4769–11). Brigitte Falkenburg and Hans-Jürgen Engfer, agree with Plaaß, though they ignore
the view developed by Cramer (Urteile). See Falkenburg, Die Form der Materie. Zur Metaphysik der Natur
bei Kant und Hegel (Frankfurt/M: Athenäum, 1987), 53; and Engfer, Empirismus versus Rationalismus?
Kritik eines philosophiegeschichtlichen Schemas (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1996), 403–04. By and large, in
his remarks on Philip Kitcher, Charles Parsons seems to agree with Plaaß (Parsons, “Remarks on Pure
Natural Science” in Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy, ed. A. Wood [Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1984]: 216–27, 220). Parsons raises a similar criticism to Cramer which I discuss below, and he is am-
biguous when he writes: “Plaass’s argument seems to me fallacious. … I do not know whether Plaass
or Walker is right concerning Kant’s meaning. … Walker is, in my view, quite convincing in arguing
that outer experience as such does not require physical motion” (222–23). For Walker’s position see
note 30 above.
 concepts of motion 573
In contrast to Gloy,37 Plaaß argues that, even though the objective reality of the
concept of motion can only be established a posteriori, this does not establish the
possibility of unmovable matter. Plaaß’s reconstruction of the metaphysical deduc-
tion of the concept of motion attempts to show that material substance necessarily
involves accidental motion. Accordingly, matter can only be represented a priori
as something movable. The objectivization of the connection of various space-
time determinations—that such an object comes into appearance—cannot be
deduced a priori.
Taking Plaaß’s analysis as a point of departure, and largely agreeing with it,
Konrad Cramer argues against the idea of a “metaphysical deduction.”38 Cramer
takes issue with the view that the logical content of the concept of motion must arise
a priori and argues instead that the objective reality of the concept of motion “can
be demonstrated only by recourse to the experience really made of an object which
corresponds with its logical content.”39 Cramer objects to Plaaß’s determination of
the content of the concept of motion, pointing out that a metaphysical deduction
of this kind ignores how modal determinations are constitutive for the concept
of motion and that the mere unification of space and time leaves the concept of
motion underdetermined. “The metaphysical deduction of the concept of mo-
tion,” Cramer writes, “would have to establish that every object of the outer senses
must be so determined with respect to its determination as being something in
space that salva identitate sua it must be able to be in different relations to a given
space. This is only possible in succession.”40 Cramer is quite correct to point out
that the concepts of motion and rest contain transcendental determinations of
time with differing content; but these determinations alone would not result in
the complete concept of motion, terminating instead in the concept of change.
In addition to the temporal modes (permanence, succession, coexistence), the
modes of space such as right/left, above/below, in front of/behind—not even

37 
Gloy disagrees with Plaaß’s view that the objective reality of the concept of motion can be stated
synthetically a posteriori: “For if the applicability of motion to matter depends on empirical examples,
the fundamental character (i.e., of the concept of motion) is made doubtful in principle because of
the possibility of unmovable matter.” (Translated from Gloy: Naturwissenschaft: Denn wenn die Anwend-
barkeit der Bewegung auf Materie von empirischer Beispielgebung abhängt, ist der Fundamentalcharakter wegen
möglicherweise auftretender unbeweglicher Materie grundsätzlich in Frage gestellt, 170.)
38 
See Cramer (Urteile, 307–09) and his objection to Gloy (Naturwissenschaft, 363–68).
39 
Cramer (Urteile, 160): deren objektive Realität aber nur im Rekurs auf die wirklich gemachte Erfahrung
eines Gegenstandes, der ihrem logischen Inhalt korrespondiert, dargetan werden kann. Eric Watkins criticizes
Plaaß’s “transcendental deduction” of the empirical concept of matter, but this criticism is based on a
misunderstanding. Plaaß’s point is that the conceptual contents of matter and motion can and have
to be determined a priori, whereas their objective reality can only be demonstrated a posteriori. Watkins
writes: “my position allows for empirical elements to function as conditions of the applicability of
(empirical) concepts without requiring a Transcendental Deduction to account for these empirical
elements” (Watkins, “Is a Transcendental Deduction Necessary for the Metaphysical Foundations?,”
Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress, [Memphis, 1995, vol. 2-1; Milwaukee, 1995], 384).
This is exactly the result of Plaaß’s and Cramer’s views.
40 
Cramer (Urteile, 309): Die metaphysische Deduktion des Bewegungsbegriffs müßte nachweisen, daß ein
jeder Gegenstand äußerer Sinne mit Bezug auf seine Bestimmtheit, etwas im Raum zu sein, so bestimmt sein muß,
daß er salva identitate sua in verschiedenen Verhältnissen zu einem gegebenen Raum sein können muß. Das ist
nur im Nacheinander möglich.
574 journal of the history of philosophy 44:4 october 2006
mentioned by Kant in a Critical context41—are also relevant when considering
the concept of motion.
If one takes Kant’s diffidence about being able to derive these modes from the
concepts of space and time42 as an expression of their necessarily a posteriori nature,
then the concept of motion (and thereby the concept of matter as well) can be
seen to contain empirical elements which concern not only the objective reality
of these concepts, but also their logical content. This conclusion, however, also
serves to undermine the central claim of the Metaphysical Foundations itself, namely:
“The basic determination of something that is to be an object of the outer senses
has to be motion” (MFNS, 4769–10), or that “Matter is the movable.”43 In this sense,
Kant’s uncertainty concerning the a priori character of this principle undermines
the very idea of metaphysical foundations. Yet if one assumes that the modes of
space and time are a priori determinations, then the concept of motion continues
to possess a priori content. Disregarding their modes, the intuitions of space and
time are robbed of their content, and this speaks in favor of the latter assumption,
namely, the possibility of an a priori content of the concept of motion. The modes
of pure sensibility would thus be nothing but the determinations of the two forms
of intuition as far as their content is concerned. Neither of the two assumptions,
however, can be established unambiguously on the basis of Kant’s texts.

conclusion
In the four chapters of the Metaphysical Foundations, then, Kant aims to provide a
complete conceptual determination of motion and matter. In this paper my goal
has been to investigate the conceptual context for Kant’s discussion of motion
which forms the center piece of his natural philosophy. This investigation should
also help clarify the connection between this objective motion and the transcen-
dental “motion” of the subject. As such, my present argument might be seen as a
response to Eckart Förster’s claim that “to the present day there is no agreement
as to whether the concept of motion in the Metaphysical Foundations is a transcen-
dental or a metaphysical concept.”44 Although the work involves accidentally the
pure concepts of synthesis (the motion of the subject), which essentially belong to
Kant’s transcendental philosophy, the concept of motion at issue refers to objects

41 
For Kant’s pre-Critical view on this subject see his On the First Ground of the Distinction of the
Regions in Space from 1768 (2:375–83).
42 
Cramer (Urteile, 303–06) illustrates this uncertainty with relevant passages from the Critique.
43 
MFNS, 4806, 4966, 5366, 5546.
44 
Förster, “Kant’s Notion of Philosophy,” The Monist 72 (1989): 285–304, esp. 295. Kant’s state-
ment that the concepts and propositions of the transcendental philosophy obtain sense and meaning
only by the metaphysics of corporeal nature (see MFNS, 47815–19) is not a good reason for ascribing a
transcendental status to the Metaphysical Foundations. Transcendental philosophy—understood in terms
of Kant’s writings of the 1780’s—cannot start with an empirical concept (MFNS, 46926–47012, Critique
of Judgment, 5:181). In Kant’s view, the concept of motion is the missing link between transcendental
philosophy and natural science (see the diagram on 567–68 above).
 concepts of motion 575
of the outer senses. Neither matter nor (objective) motion can be transcendental
concepts, since apart from the a priori determination of the former through the
latter, their complete cognition requires particular sensations.45

45 
I would like to thank Michael Friedman for many helpful discussions on Kant’s epistemology
and natural philosophy; Reinhard Brandt, Andrew Janiak, Heiner F. Klemme, Manfred Kühn, and
Daniel Sutherland for their comments and objections on earlier versions of the paper. I am very
grateful to Timothy Costelloe, not only for his help with the English, but also for his critical reading
of the paper. I am also grateful to the Midwest Study Group of the North American Kant Society for
the opportunity to read and discuss this paper at their Fall Meeting in Chicago, 1998. Finally, I would
like to acknowledge the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for financial support during
my stay at Indiana University, Bloomington.