Date/Time
Date(s) - 05/05/2024
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Location
The Crown Lavender Hill
Immanuel Kant was born 300 years ago on 22nd April 1724 *,
so it is appropriate to celebrate his Birthday by reviewing aspects of his Philosophy.
What would Kant have made of Quantum Mechanics? Perhaps a more important philosophical question to ask is ‘How can Kant’s Critical Philosophy help us to understand the fundamental physics of our own day?’. There is no doubt that we need to update some of the ‘Critical’ position that Kant developed in his Critique of Pure Reason (CPR – 1781 & 1787) – we must take a Neo-Kantian approach – but I will argue that many of Kant’s core ideas, particularly his ‘Copernican Revolution’, and his positions on Time, Imagination and Causality, provide valuable insights into present day fundamental physical science and metaphysics. We should not forget that Kant made original contributions to the physical sciences in his ‘Pre-Critical’ years (roughly 1747-1770) and was not afraid to revise and correct his own earlier thought. Kant, in the CPR, invited enlightened followers to join in with his Critical enterprise as fellow workers to advance our understanding of the world, so we should be happy to take up his invitation and investigate how modern physics and Kantian metaphysics, working together, can help us to achieve that aim.
* He died on 12th February 1804 – a little short of his 80th Birthday. His last words were (said to be): ‘Es ist gut’.
Bob Clarke will give his talk at The Crown, 102 Lavender Hill, London, SW11 5RD but the meeting will also be on Zoom see SLPC Zoom Meeting
Bob has provided the attached PDF Handout Kant Meets QM – Handout and References
and a PDF version of the slides from the talk Kant Meets QM – May 24 – v4