Riedesel, Pietismus und Orthodoxie, p. 142; Erdmann, Knutzen, pp. 44f. Fischer
was, by the way, neither the first nor the only "materialist" and "Spinozist" who
had come out of Königsberg. Theodor Ludwig Lau was another materialist,
atheist, and native of Königsberg; he had studied with Thomasius in Halle. See
G. Stiehler (ed.), Materialisten der Leibniz Zeit (Friedrich Wilhelm Stosch, Theodor
Ludwig Lau, Gabriel Wagner, Urban Gottfried Bucher) (Berlin: VEB Verlag der
deutschen Wissenschaften, 1966). His De Deo, Mundo, Homine or Philosophical
Considerations of God, the World and Man of 1717 had created something of a sen¬
sation in all of Germany. Lau had tried — unsuccessfully, of course — to obtain
a position at the University of Königsberg in 1727. He was denied the position
because of "paradoxical doctrines." In 1729 he had to openly recant his materi¬
alism. He died in Altona in 1740. Fischer was often compared to the "notorious
Lau." Rogall complained in 1724 of "the atheism and Epicureanism that is
dominant here and cannot be eradicated" (see Hinrichs, Preußentum und Pietismus,
P- 425)-
Konschel, "Christian Gabriel Fischer," pp. 437f.
Ritter, Frederick the Great, p. 50. The entire chapter, "The King's View of the
World," is a good introduction to Frederick's thought. Frederick's view of the
world is important for understanding the climate in which Kant's thought
matured.
Konschel, "Christian Gabriel Fischer," p. 439; Kant would later offer very sim¬
ilar arguments defending his own view. See pp. 404—405 of this volume.
Waschkies, Physik und Physikotheologie, pp. 296-347. This prediction was appar¬
ently based on Newton's theory of the course of periodic comets, according to
which they orbit the sun in ellipses.
This book, which Kant essentially completed in 1746, appeared in 1749.
See Waschkies, Physik und Physikotheologie, p. 310; see also Ferdinand Josef
Schneider, "Kometenwunder und Seelenschlaf (Johann Heyn als Wegbereiter
Lessings)," Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistes¬
geschichte 18 (1940), pp. 201-232. Schneider does not mention Knutzen, but he
shows that Heyn was important at the time (and that he was close to many of the
younger adherents of Enlightenment philosophy, such as Lessing and Abraham
Kästner).
Waschkies, Physik und Physikotheologie, p. 310.
It appeared in Berlin and Leipzig in 1742 with a Preface by Gottsched. Heyn also
published a translation of Maupertuis's "Lettre sur la comete " together with a
letter by himself.
Waschkies, Physik und Physikotheologie, p. 335.
Waschkies, Physik und Physikotheologie, pp. 34Sf.
See pp. 98-99 of this volume.
no. Giorgio Tonelli, "Das Wiederaufleben der deutsch-aristotelischen Terminologie
bei Kant während der Entstehung der 'Kritik der reinen Vernunft,'" Archiv für
Begrijfsgeschichte 9 (1964), pp. 233—242, argues that Aristotelian terminology was
