Kant and the Lisbon earthquake: cosmologic «developmentalism» in the pre-critical period

Abstract

Within the context of his pre-critical thinking, Kant elaborated, in 1756, three works in reference to the Lisbon earthquake. In those works, he exposes a vision of natural phenomena consistent whit the stand (cognate to «optimism»), previously exposed in writings prior to the earthquake. Consequently, that perspective is not conjuctural, it is laid out in continuity with the conceptions already stablished in his physic geography studies. To show that is the aim of this work. To that end it will be necessary to expose some basic elements of the kantian conception of natural laws: its epistemic character and the place that God have in them. We will show that «cosmological developmentalism» conform to the earlier aspects, and it is the key piece in his «optimistic» vision.