John Keill and the Pre-Critical Kant

This paper focuses on John Keill’s influence on Kant’s pre-critical thought, as well as on his early understanding of Newtonianism. The first section reconstructs the spread of Newtonianism in Königsberg during Kant’s university years. The second deals with Keill’s method of philosophizing and its impact on Kant’s methodological reflections in his early scientific writings. The third and fourth examine how Keill’s conceptions of inverse square law, solidity, extension, and divisibility helped Kant find his own eclectic way in combining metaphysics and mathematics.