Kant’s Dissertation for the Master’s Degree On Fire and the Transformations of his Ideas of Ethereal Matter
... question I analyse the structure and give a brief summary of the dissertation, look at the history of its writing and try to identify the place of this work among Kant’s other papers on natural philosophy. I then demonstrate that Kant’s concept of ether as an elastic matter of fire, heat and light containing the forces of attraction and repulsion originates in the dissertation On Fire. I identify the provisions in Kant’s early works which he later develops in the Master’s dissertation and establish ...
