Team Working

76

Kant calls space the form of outer sense because it structures the experience of objects external to us. This means that we apprehend spatially only what affects our sense-organs.

It is impossible to grasp an object as an object unless we delineate the region of space it occupies. Without spatial representations, our sensations are undifferentiated and cannot ascribe properties to particular objects.

Space conditions every experience we have. Space includes nothing such as here and there, high and low, large and small, near and far, up and down, around, proximately and so forth. ⁹ The fact that every actual experience we have ever had has been conditioned by space is a human construct, something our minds add to experience in order for it even to register with us.

But even more importantly, our minds are simply incapable of even imagining what a spaceless experience would be like. The fact that we cannot even imagine a non space conditioned perception ought to make us even more suspicious that space is a condtion our minds add to perceptions.

This made Kant to say that „‟the fact that all our actual and all our possible experience is conditioned by space is an indication that space is one of the minds necessary categories of perception‟‟.

77

Time is therefore given a priori. In it alone is actuality of appearances possible at all.

Appearances may one and all vanish but time (as the universal condition of their possibility) cannot itself be removed.

3. The possibility of apoideictic principles concerning the relations of time or of axioms of time in general is also grounded upon or of axioms of time in general is also grounded upon this a priori necessity.

Time has only one dimension, different times are not simultaneous but successively (just as different spaces are not successive but simultaneous). Kant argued that these principles cannot be derived from experience for experience would give neither strict universality nor apoideictic certainty.

4. Time is not a discursive or general concept but a pure form of sensible intuition.

Different times are nothing but part of one and the same time. The proposition that different times can be simultaneous is not to be derived from a general concept. The proposition is synthetic and cannot have its origin in concepts alone. It is immediately contained in the intuition and representation of time.

5. The infinitude of time signifies nothing more than that every magnitude of time is possible through limitations of one single time that underlies it. The original representation of time must therefore be given as unlimited. ¹⁰

However, in the transcendental explanation of time, Kant explains what is alteration. In defining alteration, Kant merged it with motion and defined both of them as concepts of alteration of place which is possible only through time and in representation of time.

Kant is of the opinion that this representation must be an a priori (inner) intuition, if not no concept no matter what it might be could render comprehensible the possibility of an alteration.

This means that combination of contradictory opposed predicates in one and the same object known as one after the other.¹¹

Thus our concept of time explains the possibility of that body of a priori synthetic knowledge which is exhibited in the general doctrine of motion and which by no means is unfruitful. ¹²

78

Kant made the following conclusions about metaphysical and transcendental explanations of time.

a. Time is not something which exists of itself or which inheres in things as an objective determination and it does not remain when abstraction is made of all subjective conditions of its intuition.

b. Time is nothing but the form of inner sense that is of the intuition of ourselves and of our inner state. It can be determination of outer appearances; it has to do neither with shape nor position but with the relation of representations in our inner state.

c. Time is the formal a priori condition of all appearances whatsoever. Space as the pure form of all intuition is so far limited, it serve as the a priori condition only of outer appearances. But since all representation whether they have for their objects outer things or nor belong in themselves as determinations of the mind, to our inner state and since this inner state stands under the formal condition of inner intuition and so belongs to time.

Time is an a priori condition of all appearances whatsoever.¹³

Moreover, time like space is not a thing existing in itself out there in the universe. Instead it is a form in which objects appear to us.

Kant calls time the form of inner sense because mental states necessarily occur to us in a temporal succession. Kant is of the view that time is one of the primary categories that shapes our perception.

Time shapes our perception because our minds are simply incapable of having any perceptions except those that are conditioned by time.

Categories of time include now and then, earlier and later, before and after, fast and slow, durations etc.

Kant says that we have all experienced time as seeming to slow down or speed up but none of it has ever had an experience that is not conditioned by time.

Every experience we had has occurred in time. That‟s why our mind must add time to our experiences in order for the experience to register with us.

79

For example, memorable days and dates like birthdays, weddings, survival from accidents, illnesses are not easily forgotten or when we lose a dear one, robbery attacks etc. are not easily forgotten too. These events are remembered in years to come and are told later as history in remembrance dates.

Time is something in us rather than out in the world because our actual experiences occur in time.

It will be difficult for our minds to imagine time-less experience. The fact that we cannot imagine a non-time conditioned perception ought to make us believe that time is a condition our minds add to perceptions. That‟s why Kant says that:

“The fact that all our actual and all our possible experience is conditioned by time is an indication that time is one of the minds necessary categories of perception”. ¹⁴

This means that it is impossible for us to have any experience of objects that are not in time.

However we have seen that space-time are a priori intuitions. They are forms of our sensible intuitions. They are perceiving subjects (that‟s why they are known as forms of sense perceptions too) rather than being out there in the world existing independent of us. This means that they are necessary features of our experience rather than qualities found in the things-in-themselves. This is Kant‟s conception of sensibility that is the capacity of the mind to receive representations through the presence of objects. It would be impossible for us to have experience of objects which are not placed in space-time.

These conditions of sensibility are due to our „‟consciousness which must apprehend objects as occupying a region of space and persisting for some duration of time. ¹⁵

This means that we perceive objects as they are located in space and time. This condition of experience is that whatsoever events that occur shall take place in a spatial and temporal character. That is the world as it appears to us (the phenomenal world) must have this spatial and temporal characters.

80

Thilly explained it in simpler terms when he elucidated thus:

[

Sensation must be referred to space and time. It must be perceived as something outside by the side of other things. Our sensations are arranged in a spatial and temporal order.

Sensations constitute the raw materials (colours, sound, and weight) which are arranged by sensibility into the frame work or form of space and time and so become percepts. The soul not only receives sensation, but by virtue of its faculty of intuition perceives them, it sees the colours, hears the sound outside of itself in space and in a time order. ¹⁶

Finally, we will conclude the space time by asking the question. In what sense is it plausible to claim that space, time and causality are universally valid and necessary forms?

Skirbekk and Gilje answered the question in reference to Kant and gave their own illustrations about it thus:

Kant answered that our knowledge of things must always be marked by space and time (forms of cognition or forms of sense experience) and causality (one of the twelve categories). Illustration of space, time, causality. A constable reported of a collision. He was asked where it happened, he said no particular place, when did it happen he said no particular time, what caused it he said nothing.

One can see that there is something wrong with the constable. ¹⁷

In other words, space, time and causality are necessary and universally valid forms because our knowledge must be marked by time, space and causality in order to be comprehensible that is in order to be a complete form of knowledge. Space, time and causality are therefore conditions for possibility of knowledge.