Direzioni del moto e direzioni nello spazio: Berkeley e Kant

One of the steps that led to a better comprehension of Kant’s essay "Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der gegenden im Raume" (1768) has been its comparative reading with Euler’s "Réflexions sur l’espace et le tems" (1748). There could have been, however, another work that influenced Kant, namely Berkeley’s "De Motu" (1721). The reasons for such an hypothesis are both textual and hermeneutical. The paper shows that there are resemblances between parts of Kant’s text and sections of "De Motu", and it explains why Berkeley’s criticism of absolute space may have moved Kant’s towards a proof of its existence based on incongruent counterparts. This can be important because the originality of Kant’s argument is that it is a 'static' proof (concerned only with geometrical concepts), while previous attempts, including Euler’s one, were 'dynamical' proofs (which made reference to the concept of motion and inertia).