Kant and the tradition of axiomatic chemistry

In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science , Kant famously argues that chemistry is not a proper science because chemistry does not allow for the application of mathematics. Although existing work on Kant and chemistry has greatly clarified many aspects of Kant's views on chemistry, a contextualized account of Kant's views on chemistry in relation to the chemistry books of his day is still a desideratum of Kant scholarship. In this article, I relate Kant's views on chemistry to the views of Stahl (1659-1734), Wiegleb (1732-1800), Erxleben (1744-1777), Weigel (1748-1831), Lavoisier (1743-1794), and Gren (1760-1798). I will highlight the structure and method of chemistry in Kant's time, arguing that chemistry was construed as ideally an axiomatic science in which non-fundamental judgments are deductively derived from fundamental judgments. Kant's denial that chemistry is a proper science can be fruitfully understood as a denial that chemistry has attained a proper axiomatic form. In line with this interpretation, I argue that it is not the case, as McNulty claims, that for Kant there are chemical laws. • Chemistry is construed in the 18th century as ideally an axiomatic science. • Kant denies chemistry the status of a proper natural science. • Chemistry lacks proper mathematization. • For Kant, mathematics is construed as Newtonian mathematical modeling.