De ontvangst van Kant bij enige Nederlandse natuurwetenschapsbeoefenaars omstreeks 1800

Abstract

SUMMARY:The reception of Kant in the work of a number of Dutch natural scientists about 1800. The influence of German philosophy on scientific thinking at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century is an important chapter in the historiography of the sciences. At an early date there were in the Netherlands adherents of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. In the journal of Paulus van Hemert, «Magazijn voor de critische wijsgeerte, en de geschiedenis van dezelve» (1799-1803) we find articles of a number of Kantian scientists. The chemist Jan Rudolph Deiman, the mathematician and philosopher Johann Frederik Lodewijk Schroder, the physicians Jacob Elisa Doornik and Willem Servaas, and the minister and philosopher Jacob Nieuwenhuis all defended the dynamical theory of matter of Kant. However, they did not gave further applications of it on the natural sciences and they confined themselves only to a reflection of the views of the Koningsberger philosopher. Prom the article it is evident that in the Netherlands Kant had but few influence on the study of the natural sciences about 1800.