Did Immanuel Kant influence Charles Lyell?
Kant's view of metaphysics and synthetic a priori sounds as if it could have affected the idea of uniformitarianism.
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I don't doubt that. Both Kant and Lyell show deep anthropological thought in their metaphysical and geological work respectively. In fact one quote from Kant really highlights uniformitarianism for me. Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but ... let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition. That for me sounds like something Lyell would take influence from when developing his philosophy. |
