Michael Albrecht / Heinrich P. Delfosse: Band 36.1-2: Stellenindex und Konkordanz zu den ›Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte‹

In his first book (started in 1744, not published until 1749), the young Kant, confident and courageous, got involved in the dispute between the Cartesians and the Leibnizians about the calculation of the living force, a fundamental problem of physics at that time. His ›Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte‹ (Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces) do not however play an important part in the history of the vis viva dispute. What was in fact more important was the fact that the book was the nucleus of Kant’s thinking. In it, Kant took the view that contemporary metaphysics showed a basic weakness. He linked the precedence of the methodology problem to this and looked for the origins of the dispute.