Contours of Modern Philosophy of Nature

The previous section itself no longer served the sole purpose of defining the concept of mechanism as a classical philosophy of nature. Historically, all three lines persisted well into the nineteenth century, predominantly accompanied by an absolute claim to validity, which in itself is sufficient for associating them with the classical notion of science. But at no time were they exclusively valid. By contesting, from the dawn of early modern times onward, the validity of each other’s claim to comprehensive knowledge of nature and by coexisting, albeit to varying degrees of acceptance, as alternate approaches, they in fact constituted a variety of ideas of the philosophy of nature, which first came to be legitimized by modern conceptions of science. From the standpoint of mechanism’s traditions, the renouncement of the classical claim to truth in a way does justice to the factual situation. Modernity unleashes a plurality of theories for which the scientific community already had a disposition.

On the other hand, in terms of the formal aspects of the legitimating strategies, the range of possibility gets narrowed down. Historically, modern conceptions of science dominate in their criticism of metaphysical foundations, which, advocated paradigmatically by Descartes, Leibniz and Kant, establish science’s claim to truth a priori. Except for documenting it by way of Helmholtz’s relationship to Kant, I shall not elaborate the demise of the metaphysical strategy.