Kant and the Systematicity of the Sciences

This book provides the first comprehensive discussion regarding the role that Kant ascribes to systematicity in the sciences. It considers not only what Kant has to say on systematicity in general, but also how the systematicity requirement for science is specified in different fields of knowledge.

The chapters are divided into three thematic sections. Part I is devoted to historical context. The chapters explore precursors of Kant’s account of the systematicity of the sciences. Part II addresses the application of systematicity to the special sciences – cosmology, physics, chemistry, logic, mathematics, the life sciences, and history. Finally, Part III explores the systematicity of philosophy.

Kant and the Systematicity of the Sciences will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Kant and the history and philosophy of science.

Gabriele Gava is an Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Turin. He works on Kant, 18th-century German philosophy, pragmatism, and epistemology. He is the author of Peirce’s Account of Purposefulness: A Kantian Perspective (2014) and Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics (2023).

Thomas Sturm is ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He works on Kant, theories of rationality in philosophy and the sciences, and as editor for the new Academy edition of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften. Selected publications: Kant und die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (2009), articles in Kant-Studien, Kantian Review, and Synthese.

Achim Vesper is an Assistant Professor at Goethe University Frankfurt. He has published extensively on Kant's ethics and aesthetics. Together with Gabriele Gava, he wrote Kants Philosophie (2024). Another book, Kant über Schönheit und systematische Einheit der Natur, will be published in 2025.