© 2024. All rights reserved.
Site created with
Hakyll.
Modified theme
lanyon-hakyll
based on
Lanyon.
© 2024. All rights reserved.
Site created with
Hakyll.
Modified theme
lanyon-hakyll
based on
Lanyon.
On the one hand, there has been a substantial body of literature claiming that Niels Bohr’s philosophical standpoint aligns closely with Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism. Scholars have emphasized Bohr’s insistence on the necessity of classical concepts to describe empirical phenomena, which appears reminiscent of Kant’s categories and forms of intuition. Bohr’s explicit use of “anskuelighed” naturally suggests a connection with Kant’s “Anschaulichkeit”.
On the other hand, some contemporary philosophers take the intimations of Kant in Bohr as (yet another) reason to steer widely clear of his views. For these critics, anything to do with Kant’s critique of metaphysics is confused and epistemically timid. (I admit that I find this stance to be extremely odd. Kant liked metaphysics, but he had to figure out how to respond to Hume’s powerful arguments. Contemporary analytic philosophers claim to like both metaphysics and empiricism, but they often forget that there is some tension between them.)
However, the historical reality is more nuanced: Bohr was not simply or straightforwardly Kantian. Indeed, his intellectual context was deeply influenced by thinkers who came after Kant. Between Kant (1724–1804) and Bohr (1885–1962), European philosophy underwent profound developments through figures such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Johann Friedrich Herbart, Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg, and Hermann Lotze. Each of these thinkers critically engaged with Kant’s philosophy, modifying or rejecting central Kantian themes. Even more important for Bohr’s mindset is the peculiar — and little known — Danish philosophical tradition of the nineteenth century.
Bohr’s philosophical mentor, Harald Høffding (1843–1931), was deeply familiar with these post-Kantian philosophical currents. A perceptive historian of philosophy, Høffding critically assessed the major philosophical movements of the 19th century without fully aligning himself with any single one. Indeed, Høffding might be aptly compared to a figure such as contemporary philosopher Larry Sklar: knowledgeable about many schools of thought but resistant to exclusive allegiance.
Late nineteenth-century Danish philosophers, including Høffding and Rasmus Nielsen (1809–1884), had certainly incorporated some Kantian insights, particularly the critique of speculative metaphysics. They saw themselves as “post-critical”—acknowledging Kant’s limitations on knowledge without embracing his specific framework. Rasmus Nielsen, writing in 1880, provides a clear example of this post-Kantian skepticism. Five years before Bohr’s birth, Nielsen explicitly criticized the central Kantian claim about the limits of knowledge:
The incompleteness of our knowledge, says the ‘Critique,’ manifests itself in the fact that we recognize only the laws of things, not their essence; of course, we have no concept of complete knowledge.
Vor Videns Ufuldkommenhed skal, siger ‘Kritiken’, vise sig deri, at vi kun erkjende Tingenes Love, men ikke deres Væsen; selvfølgelig have vi intet Begreb om en fuldkommen Viden. (Almindelig Videnskabslære i Grundtræk, p. 65)
Immediately following this remark, Nielsen asserts that “Kritiken” (i.e. Kant’s Critique) had made a fundamental mistake, arguing instead that our knowledge, though limited, does not necessarily preclude insight into the essential nature of things.
Bohr also encountered philosophical questions rooted in Kant’s Critique of Judgment, specifically the debate between mechanism and vitalism. Kant’s third critique critically examined whether life processes could be fully explained mechanically or whether they implied purposiveness, a hallmark of vitalism. Bohr, operating in the context of 20th-century physics and biology, found himself navigating related epistemological tensions: could quantum phenomena and life itself be captured fully by mechanistic explanations, or did they demand a more holistic, possibly non-mechanical understanding? Although Bohr did not explicitly advocate vitalism, his emphasis on complementarity resonates with Kant’s recognition of teleological judgments as indispensable yet not reducible to purely mechanistic explanations.
Thus, Bohr inherited a philosophical tradition already thoroughly critical of Kant, a tradition that acknowledged Kant’s revolutionary contribution but considered itself as having moved beyond it.