Gedanken

In-8 de (9) ff., [3]-240 pp., 2 planches dépliantes.
Cartonnage bleu à motifs de l’époque, exemplaire non rogné, reliure frottée.

210 x 137 mm.

Kant, Immanuel. Gedanken von der wahren Schaetzung der lebendigen Kraefte und Beurtheilung der Beweise derer sich Herr von Leibnitz und andere Mechanikerin dieser Streitsache bedienet haben, nebst einigen vorhergehenden Betrachtungen welche die Kraft der Koerper ueberhaupt betreffen.
Koenigsberg, Martin Eberhard Dorn, 1746.

The exceedingly rare first editionof Kant's first work.
Warda, 1 ; Goedeke, V, 2, B1 ; Ziegenfuss/Jung, I, 614 ; Neufforge, p. 557 ; DSB, VII, 226 ; Dt. Museum, Libri rari p. 151.

In this very important book, Kant “makes an attempt to "settle the dispute between Leibniz, on the one hand, and Descartes and Euler, on the other hand, about whether the forces of moved bodies should be expressed appropriately in the formula mv2, that is the product of mass and velocity squared, or in the formula mv, that is the product of mass and simple velocity” (Ziegenfuss/Jung).

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), now considered, along with Plato and Aristotle, the most important philosopher of all time, entered the university of Koenigsberg at the age of 16, in 1740 where he studied mathematics and physics under Martin Knutzen and Johann Teske.
It is here that he writes the works that have changed the entire trajectory of modern thought - his three seminal critiques, that of pure reason, that of practical reason, and that of judgment. The foundation of Kant's philosophy is laid during his early years of studying, which culminate is this his first publication, “thoughts on the true estimation of Living Forces” [the present work] which constitutes an attempt to determine space dimensionality from a physical law.

Kant's first work constitutes a milestone in the modern discussion of dimensionality.

The nature of space and time was what interested the young Kant most in these disputes between Leibniz and Newton.

He studied the famous exchange of letters between Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, a defender of Newton's philosophy. In his early years Kant pondered the nature of space and time first from the point of view of Leibniz and then of Newton, but eventually he found both positions unsatisfactory. Kant initially adapted Leibnitz's view and tried to explain the nature of space by means of the forces of monads that cause such substances to interact” (Ellington, in DSB).

The nature of space and space dimensionality that Kant attempts to uncover and explain in this his first work comes to found a basis for all his later thought. The role that physics, especially the concepts of space and time, plays for his view of the world and for the development of his philosophical thought is immense, and his earliest thoughts on the subject understream all of his later thought.

An exceptional untrimmed copy preserved in contemporary boards.