Physics for Humans: Kant, Physics, and the Neo-Aristotelian Natural Power Grid

In this chapter, I argue that there is a distinctively different, arguably true, and above all thoroughly anti-skeptical, contemporary Kantian third alternative, between (i) the Scylla of failed noumenalistic and classical Rationalist-style, God’s-eye-view metaphysical scientific realism and (ii) the Charybdis of failed phenomenalistic and classical Empiricist-style, anti-realist communitarian scientific relativism. In Kant, Science, and Human Nature, I argued that for Kant and for contemporary Kantians, mathematics is not only an objectively true a priori science (Wissenschaft), but also an irreducibly human or moral science (Geisteswissenschaft): I called that thesis mathematics for humans (Hanna R, Kant, science, and human nature. Clarendon/Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006: ch. 6). In this chapter, I argue the same thing, mutatis mutandis, for physics: for Kant and for contemporary philosophers inspired by Kant’s work, physics is not only an objectively true a priori science, but also an irreducibly human or moral science: I call this thesis physics for humans.