The Meaning and Function of the Concept of Antagonism in Kant’s Philosophy

Antagonism, although often neglected, is one of the key categories of Kant’s philosophy. Its formation in Kant’s pre-critical works on natural philosophy owes much to the influence of Newton. Kant overcomes Newton’s static and providential mechanicism with his concept of dynamic development of the universe out of natural causes. He challenges the monistic and harmonious view of preceding metaphysical (Leibnizian) and “mathematical” (Newtonian) doctrines with a pluralistic and antagonistic one, the sole force of gravitation with the dualism of attraction and repulsion. The result is the characteristic Kantian concept of natural history as the development of the universe through the interaction of opposites whereby human history is an extension of natural history. Kant generalised the physical results by elaborating a metaphysical distinction between logical and real opposites. The role of repulsion and attraction as necessary concepts in the consideration of matter is grounded in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. This development was the underlying foundation of the widely known concept of “unsociable sociability” in Kant’s critical philosophy of history and politics.