Kant's brief yet very significant treatise, with the full title Physical Monadology: The Combined Use of Metaphysics in Natural Philosophy with Geometry, a first sample of which includes physical monadology, was composed in 1756. It is thus classified among the so-called "pre-critical" writings of the great German philosopher, that is, those written before the Critique of Pure Reason, this monumental work that marks a turning point for all modern philosophy.

In this work, Kant explores the critical and difficult question of how the concepts of metaphysics and mathematical physics regarding the composition and divisibility of matter and space can be compatible with each other, that is, how it is possible for material bodies to be constituted from simple and indivisible parts (the "monads"), while space is infinitely divisible.

The solution he proposes is based on an original dynamic theory for the monads, according to which each monad occupies a certain space due to the sphere within which its forces act (attraction and repulsion), thereby not losing its simplicity.

The Physical Monadology examines a question that is very important also for the Critique of Pure Reason, which appears there in the form of a "controversy," a "dialectic of reason," yet it explores it further under the lens of the metaphysics of Leibniz and Wolff.

The approach to the question in the 1756 treatise is particularly interesting both in itself and because it simultaneously sheds light on the path Kant's thought took to arrive at his "critical" philosophy.