Universal Natural History

Abstract This chapter examines Kant’s early work on natural history. It argues that Kant’s first major work on the subject, Universal Natural History, must be situated against the backdrop of a fierce debate regarding the extension of Newtonian method if its full significance is to be appreciated. In contrast to standard readings, the chapter claims that Kant builds on the materialist interpretation of Newtonianism advanced by Maupertuis and Buffon to elevate natural history to the status of a physical science capable of explaining the present diversity of things. Kant’s conception of natural history is universal to the extent that it grounds the mathematical principles of Newtonianism in quasi-Leibnizian material forces, thereby situating the diversity of natural products within a single causal nexus that traces back to an original diffusion of matter.