03/07/2021 Kant’s Views on Space and Time > Notes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Notes to Kant’s Views on Space and Time

1.
See, inter
alia, Buchdahl 1969, 587–9; Kemp Smith 1918, 140–2; Paton 1936, 1:
171–6; Broad 1978, 50–
1; Heidegger 1962, 155; Martin 1955, 12–15; Wolff
1963, 4–8; Allison 1983, 12, 107–111; Guyer 1987,
350–6; and, van Cleve
1999, 114.

2.
In §1 of
the Jäsche Logic (Ak 9: 91), Kant writes: “All cognitions
[Erkenntnisse], that is, all
representations consciously
referred to an object, are either intuitions or
concepts. Intuition is a singular
representation
(repraesentatio singularis), the concept is a general
(repraesentatio per notas communes) or
reflected
representation (repraesentatio discursiva).” For an
illuminating discussion of these issues, see
Thompson 1972, 323.

3.
For several
influential accounts that differ in the details, see Thompson 1972,
Friedman 1992, Parsons
1992, and most recently, Posy 2000.

4.
Hence some
interpreters have understood intuition as providing us with singular
direct reference—see
especially Posy 2000 for an illuminating
understanding of that, and several related, ideas.

5.
It does so
because in Kant’s terminology, <desk> contains
<furniture> which means, in turn, that <desk>
is a species
of the genus, <furniture>. It is also possible to read Kant as
arguing that concepts represent
objects mediately not because of the
higher-level genus of which they are a species, but because of the
lower-
level species for which they serve as a genus. I do not have the
space to explore the details of that reading
here, but see
A68–9/B93–4.

6.
Commentators
sometimes think that Kant’s use of Begriff here presents
a problem, since Kant himself tries
to show that the representation of
space is not begrifflich (conceptual) in character (see
below). But Begriff
also has the general meaning of a notion
or a representation, which seems to be the usage here. The term also
has a more technical meaning in the Kantian vocabulary—one noted
above—but the two should not be
conflated.

7.
The full passage
reads as follows (L 5: 47):

I will show here how men come to form the notion [la notion] of
space. They consider that many
things exist at once and they observe
in them a certain order of co-existence, according to which
the
relation of one thing to another is more or less simple. It’s
their situation or distance. When it
happens that one of those
co-existent things changes its relation to a multitude of others,
which
do not change their relation among themselves; and that another
new thing acquires the same
relation to the others, as the former had,
this change we call a motion in that body wherein is the

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immediate
cause of the change. And though many, or even all, the co-existent
things should
change according to certain known rules of direction and
swiftness, yet one may always
determine the relation of situation,
which every co-existent acquires with respect to every other
co-existent; and even that relation which any other co-existent would
have to this, or which this
would have to any other, if it had not
changed, or if it had changed any other way. And
supposing, or
feigning, that among those co-existents there is a sufficient number
of them which
have undergone no change, then we may say, that those
which have such a relation to those fixed
existents, as others had to
them before, now have the same place which those others
had. And
that which comprehends all those places, is
called space. Which shows, that in order to have the
idea of
place, and consequently of space, it suffices to consider these
relations and the rules of
their changes, without needing to form an
absolute reality [réalité absolue] out of the things
whose situation we consider.

8.
One of
Leibniz’s points seems to be that his relationalism is perfectly
compatible with the contention that
the representation of
space is empirical (for the view that some of the arguments in the
Metaphysical
Exposition are intended to undermine Leibnizian
relationalism, see Guyer 1987, 349; Wojtowicz 1997, 79,
84, 87; Brandt
1997, 96–7; Walker 1978, 42–4; Parsons 1992, 68). He apparently employs
this tactic to show
that perceivers can obtain a representation of
space via the perception of spatial relations among objects
without
recourse to the view that space is ontologically independent of
objects. This parallels Locke’s
attempt to show that one can
obtain an Idea of space while having distinct ideas of space and of
body. So the
idea—popular among Newton’s supporters like
Locke—that the representation of space is empirical in origin
is
perfectly compatible with relationalism. Indeed, Locke’s view may
very well have been on Leibniz’s mind
when he argued for the
compatibility of an empiricist conception of the representation of
space with his
relationalist conception of space’s ontological
status because of his considerable interest in Locke’s theory of
ideas. This is a clever tactic on Leibniz’s part: when writing to
Newton’s most prominent defender in
England, Samuel Clarke, he
accepts an empiricist view of the representation of space in order to
show that
this acceptance does nothing to upset his defense of the
relationalist conception of space’s ontological status.

9.
For
differing accounts of this issue, see, for instance, Parsons 1992, 68
and Collins 1999, 68–9, 191 note 9.

10.
On this
point, see especially Leibniz’s letter to Arnauld of 30 April
1687 in Leibniz 1890, 2: 101. See
also New Essays, 110 and L5:
32. For an illuminating discussion of reification, see Cassirer 1902,
247, 254.

11.
See
“Vienna Logic,” Ak 24: 910–913 and “Jäsche
Logic,” §§7–9, Ak 9: 95–98 and Ak 9: 40.

12.
Of course, a
Leibnizian would deny this point, and it is unclear that Kant has any
argument against an
alternate view—this may represent a bedrock
disagreement. For discussion, see Friedman 1992, 62–8 and
Posy 2000,
161–2.

13.
See the
so-called Physical Monadology at Ak 1: 479ff; for a discussion of this
aspect of Kant’s pre-
critical views, see Friedman 1992, 7–9.

14.
For a
distinct interpretation, one according to which this may not be
possible after all, see Buroker 1981,
8–9, 22.

15.
On this
point, see especially the “Amphiboly of the Pure Concepts of
Reflection,” which serves as an
Appendix to the Transcendental
Analytic in the first Critique—A260–92/B316–49.

16.
These ideas
are discussed and clarified in Adams 1994, 181–2, 246–7 and Langton
1998, 93–121.
Langton in particular attempts to provide a reading of
Leibniz’s metaphysics—especially its treatment of
relations
and of space and time—that helps to illuminate Kant’s
transcendental idealism.

17.
Other
passages corroborate the impression that this sentence leaves. For
instance, in the first passage in
the Aesthetic in which Kant claims
that transcendental idealism is correct, he writes: “Space
represents no
property at all of any things in themselves nor any
relation of them to each other, i.e., no determination of
them that
attaches to objects themselves and that remains even if one abstracts
from all subjective conditions
of intuition” (A26/B42; cf.
A39/B56). And in a later passage in the Critique, after
describing transcendental
idealism, Kant adds (in a section of the text
quoted above): “To this idealism is opposed a
transcendental

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realism, which regards time and space

as something given in themselves (independent of our
sensibility)”
(A369; the passage is retained in the second
edition).

18.
In a recent
paper, Jauernig (2008) presents a markedly different interpretation, in
part in an attempt to
indicate that Kant’s criticisms in the
Critique are often intended to undermine various
Leibnizian positions
that Leibniz himself did not embrace. In
the course of presenting this interpretive perspective, Jauernig
provides a very helpful reading of the so-called Amphiboly, the text in
which Kant discusses Leibnizian
philosophical views in the most
depth.

19.
The
contention that transcendental idealism and transcendental realism
differ in their conceptions of the
relation between space and
intuition, rather than space and the mind,
is significant. For as we have seen,
Leibniz does not think
that space is real in the sense of being independent of the mind
per se; space is a
relational order and relations are
dependent on “the understanding.” Rather, on Kant’s
reading, he thinks
space is independent of intuition per
se.

20.
Yet if
Leibniz thinks that space is a relational order, that relations are
mind-dependent, and that our
<space>confused is
dependent upon sense perception, is he committed to the idea that space
itself is somehow
dependent upon sense perception? If so, it is not
clear that Kant’s characterization of him through the lens of
transcendental realism is fair. First, as Kant well knew, Leibniz
contends in the New Essays that relations are
not merely
mind-dependent, but in fact dependent on the understanding, rather than
on sense perception.
This may suggest that when we consider space
through the lens of the understanding—when we focus on our
<space>clear & distinct—we find that space
is a relational order that depends upon the understanding because
it
depends upon relations, which in turn are “added” by the
understanding to the objects that exist. Perhaps
the suggestion here is
that relations themselves are not an aspect of our
<space>confused but in fact are an
aspect of our
<space>clear & distinct. One might think our
confused representation of space represents space as
a kind of
independent entity, and not as a relational order, since for Leibniz,
the ordinary conception is
mistaken in its portrayal of space as a kind
of quasi-entity. Of course, space is not actually a quasi-entity, and
therefore the correct view of the origin of our representation of
space, outlined in Leibniz’s last letter to
Clarke, should not
present space in that fashion. Instead, the correct view of the origin
of our representation
of space ought to presuppose that space is merely
a relational order, and ought to be able to explain that
origin while
making that presupposition, despite the fact that the representation
itself represents space as
something other than a relational
order. When we focus on our <space>clear &
distinct, we find that space is
represented as a
relational order, and as we have seen, those relations are dependent
upon the understanding.

21.
He makes a
similar charge elsewhere in the Aesthetic:

For if one regards space and time as properties whose possibility must
be found in things in
themselves [Sachen an sich], and considers the
absurdities in which one is then entangled, in that
two infinite
things [Dinge], which are not substances nor something actually
inhering in
substances, must yet exist, nay, must be the necessary
condition of the existence of all things,
and also must remain even if
all existing things are removed,– one cannot blame the good
Berkeley if he degraded bodies to mere illusion [bloßem
Schein]… (B70–1; cf.
Inaugural
Dissertation, Ak 2: 403–4).

22.
See, e.g.,
A172–5/B214–17 and Metaphysical Foundations, Ak 4: 534–5,
563–5.

23.
Vorländer reprints the review in his edition of the
Prolegomena (Kant 1920) at 167–74, along with letters
between
Garve and Kant from 1783 at 175–88.

24.
It is
certainly possible to read this passage differently, and to regard
Berkeley as a transcendental realist
in Kant’s schema. If
transcendental realism is the view that we can obtain knowledge of
things in themselves,
and if Berkeley can be understood as arguing that
we know things in themselves to be nothing but
concatenations of
ideas—and the remaining things to be minds, and perhaps
God—then he can be
understood as a transcendental realist.

25.
This seems
to be Kant’s interpretation of Berkeley, despite some obvious
shortcomings. Kant seems to
ignore the fact that for Berkeley, the
mind—and also God—are independent of intuition, or of sense

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perception. In other words, Berkeley surely takes God and minds to be

real entities in the sense that they,
unlike everything else, are not
mere congeries of ideas.

26.
There is
also some contemporary support for reading Leibniz as a kind of
idealist—see especially the
interpretation in Adams 1994.

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