New Elucidation

Wolff, German Metaphysics

prop. 2; 1:389.3-6/CETP70:7). Reality is structured by two first axioms ("bina sunt principia absolute prima," 1:389.3), and their propositional umbrella is contradiction.

In this sense-and only in this sense-is contradiction the "absolutely supreme" principle (prop. 3; 1:390.33/CETP70:9). Although Kant defers to the consensus that puts contradiction first, he does so with the caveat of there really being no "first".

Reality is complex, and its first cognitive principle is a derivative synthesis of affirmation and negation.

In section II, Kant examines the second ontological axiom, the law of causation. Determining reason governs natural processes in the guise of efficient causation.

Anything that exists is caused by something else, and nothing that exists has the ground of being in itself (prop 6, 1:394/CETP70:14). This also applies to God.

Contradicting Wolff's claim that God is above the causal structure of reality by having the ground of existence in Himself (cf. Philosophia prima sive Ontologia [1730] §309), Kant suggests that God should rather be defined as the "Being, the existence of which is prior to the very possibility both of itself and of all things" (prop. 7, 1:395/CETP70:15). God is "the absolutely necessary principle of all possibility" and also the only being "in which existence is prior to, or ... identical with possibility"

(1:395-396/CETP70:16-17). Traditionally (cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 9.1-3), possibility is thought to precede existence and necessity. But in his ontological argument in prop. 7, Kant reverses this sequence and claims that necessity is prior to existence, and existence prior to possibility, an argument he will develop at length in OPA [1763] (2:79-83/CETP70:124-128).

Since the principle of determining reason implies that nothing that exists "can be without a ground which determines its existence antecedently" (prop. 8; 1:396.8-9/CETP70:17), this raises the question of freedom. Freedom has the structure of spontaneous causation: a free action is the effect of a single, complete cause, and this cause is not caused by something else. So the intention or inclination of the will, which grounds free action, must be unconstrained. Instead of being determined by an open-ended chain of antecedent causes, the spontaneity of free action issues from an inner principle, the inclination (prop. 9, 1:402.12/CETP70:25).

But how can freedom, governed by spontaneous causation, occur in a world determined by chains of efficient causation? Efficient causation has the structure that each cause is the effect of a prior cause. Nothing comes out of nowhere; anything that exists is merely the most recent link of a chain. Kant addresses this difficulty in a dialogue (1:401.19-405.11/CETP70:24-30) between a proponent of determinism, Caius, and a defender of freedom, Titius. Kant/Titius suggests that the chain of efficient causes supplies motives (motiva) for intentions (1:403.14/CETP70:27), but the will is not compelled to act on them, for "we are eminently able to either focus our attention on them, or to suspend our attention, or to turn it in another direction"

(1:403.14-15/ibid.). There is a gap between the last link in the efficient chain, the motive, and the first link of spontaneous causation, the inclination. This allows the will to pivot. The will can turn to motives of its choice. This power rests on the inner principle of spontaneity. It lets the will incline to motives that are weaker than others (1:403.19-24/CETP70:27). Free action results from such pivots (1:402.3-13/CETP70:25).

By differentiating externally caused motives from spontaneously arising inclinations, Kant seeks to integrate lawful processes in the world with free actions of the mind.

Arguably, his compatibilist proposal only shifts the problem to a mind-internal gap between deterministic and free causes, which raises further questions. In CPrR

[1788], Kant would dismiss this notion of freedom as "no better than that of a turnspit, which when once wound up also carries out its motions of itself" (5:97/CEPP:218). Yet despite this later dismissal, the compatibilism of NE represents a metaphysical explanation. The problem of free will may not have a logical solution but can still be elucidated in dynamic terms. Minds exist in the world as monads that are wellsprings of power in interactive networks. Free are those minds that prevail over exterior impacts. Whether a mind is free is a matter of its relative strength in the network. Autonomy is the result of resistance produced by the "spontaneous power of self-determination" (semet ipsa sponte determinandi potestate; 1:404.8/CETP70:28).

In section 3, Kant proposes two further principles, which are "derivative" of determining reason (1:410.15/CETP70:37) and permit "deeper" metaphysical cognition (1:416.5-6/CETP70:45). The first of these principles is the principle of succession. It states that "no change can happen to substances except in so far as they are connected with other substances" (prop. 12;. This axiom of interconnectedness is the schema of physical processes. It accounts for change and time, and serves as the ontological platform for Newton's law of motions. The principle of succession in NE foreshadows Kant's later project in MNS [1786].

The second of these derivative causal laws is the principle of coexistence. It states that "finite substances do not, in virtue of their existence alone, stand in a relationship with each other, nor are they linked together by any interaction at all, except in so far as the common principle of their existence, namely the divine understanding, maintains them in a state of harmony in their reciprocal relations (prop. 13;. Coexistence complements succession.

Interaction, while essential for change, is not essential for the existence of substances.

The result is an integrative proposal. With the binary basis of contradiction developed in section 1, and the compatibilist proposal in section 2, NE supplies the ontological framework to the evolutionary philosophy of nature developed in TE

[1749] and UNH [1755]. In TE ( §1-10), Kant contends that nature stems from an energetic state whose forces are twofold, and in UNH (II.2 and II.7), he suggests that the interplay of attractive and repulsive forces creates a world of matter and minds.

With the derivative principles of succession and coexistence formulated in section 3, Kant hopes to arrive at a conciliatory conclusion that combines aspects of the theory of physical influx-advocated by early modern Neo-Aristotelians and more recently by Leonard Euler in Gedanken von den Elementen der Körper [1746] to account for action at a distance in Newtonian mechanics-with aspects of the theory of pre-established harmony advocated by Leibniz and his students.

(1500 words) Martin Schönfeld