Kant's view on space and time

Science & Technology Biosciences
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For my history in 19th century philosophy class we have been studying Immanuel Kant in order to gain a much needed understanding in how Kant influenced the bulk of 19th century philosophy. We are solely concerned with the Critique of Pure Reason.

I have recently completed the section on Kant’s science of the transcendental aesthetic in which he argues that space and time exist as a priori (prior to experience) intuitions in the human mind. Space and time, for Kant, are the pure forms of intuition that order our empirical intuitions (sensations) and allow us to have them. Thus, the essence of his view in this regard is that space and time are subjective human conventions that our mind brings to the realm of experience.

There is on argument of Kant’s for space being a pure intuition in particular that I find compelling (so far). Essentially, Kant says that empiricists advocate that the concepts of space and time are derived from our sense experience. Kant argues however, that it would be impossible for space and time to be concepts derived from sense experience because of the fact that all of our sensory experience is already ordered spatially (by our mind).

In my study of Kant’s view, I have so far found a few possible problems with his argument about space.

  1. Could this be considered to be comitting the logical fallacy of begging the question? Space is an a priori concept which forms our sensory experience. Why? Because our sensory experience is ordered spatially by our mind. Therefore, space is a pure intuition. (This may however be an oversimplification).

  2. Continuing in the same line of thought, it seems rather arbitrary that Kant posits space to the realm of the mind as opposed to some fact about existence (whether space be an entity or a relation between objects). The above argument alone that Kant uses to advocate that space is only in the mind can seemingly be used to argue that space exists as an entity or as a relation between objects.

  3. If we take Kant’s view seriously, the result seems almost absurd. If space and time do not exist in reality, but only in the human mind, then reality as it exists would essentially have to be one whole. There could not be multiple objects in reality because then there would be space between them and time as measured by distance between them. Thus, reality as it actually is could not be pluralistic. (I see two responses to this view: one, Kant would have to grant this; and two, Kant would grant that it is possible that space and time exist in reality itself but we can have no knowledge of it. However, this second response seems to severely weaken Kant’s overall argument about space and time.)

Any responses would be more than welcome. :stuck_out_tongue:

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If space and time do not exist in reality, but only in the human mind, then reality as it exists would essentially have to be one whole

Actually, Kant poses that there exists, a “noumena” other than phenomena. “Reality” can either be the emipirical/phenomenal world, or the non-emprical (other than our mind states) noumenal world, or they could be both. The noumena may somehow house or eminate the “manifold” that is in our minds in order to perceive empirical space and time. Kant points out that we can simulataneously view both the empirical reality of space (qualities,quantity,etc.) as well as the transcendental ideality (the fact that space applies to every empirical object in the universe).

As far as a “whole” or one whole (as in reality being bound in time and space), Kant posits that we cannot succesfully conceive of the whole, or entire entity of time, or space (Kant calls space the void, and time infinite time), because it is supposed to be infinite as, in never-ending and formless. I can show you the finite shape or form of an object, wether felt, heard, felt, tasted, or shown, but I cannot succefully show you the “shape” or “form” of either space or time itself, only the objects and events that reside within them.

Kant points out that we dream, yet dreams are not empirically spatial. We can only say, I had a dream at such and such a time, yet we cannot go there, as in going to an actual physical place, so dreams are only temproal. Yet, dreams are still part of “reality.” The same applies for time and space.

Kant does not explicitly say this, but I think he would agree, that if the universe existed and absoultely nothing would move or change, we would say,reality is only spatial. But since observable objects do actually move or change (even our dreams and emotions) “time,” as a mental construct, seems to be a human mechanism granted to us in order to make sense of temporal events, since time only moves foward (never backward) in linear pattern.