Ventricle Structures

Kant explained what space is all about from the metaphysical and transcendental dimensions. The metaphysical contains that which exhibits the concepts as a given a priori while the transcendental is all about mathematics or geometry which could give us synthetic a priori knowledge.

Kant gave the metaphysical definitions of space as the following:-

1. Space is not an empirical concept which has been derived from outer experience. The representations of space cannot therefore be empirically obtained from the relations of outer experience. On the contrary, this outer experience is itself possible through the representations.

73

2. Space is a necessary a priori representation which underlies all outer intuitions. We can never represent to ourselves the absence of space, though we can quite well think it as empty of objects. It must therefore be regarded as the condition of the possibility of appearances and not as a determination dependent upon them. It is an a priori representation which necessarily under lies outer appearances.

3. Space is not a discursive or general concept of relations of things in general but a pure intuition. For in the first place, we can represent to ourselves only one space and if we speak of diverse spaces, we mean thereby only parts of one and the same unique space.

Secondly these parts cannot precede the one all embracing space as being, as it were constituents out of which it can be composed, on the contrary they can be thought only as in space is essentially one, the manifold in it, and therefore the concept of space depends solely on limitations. Hence it follows that an a priori and not an empirical intuition underlies all concepts of space.

4. Space is represented as an infinite given magnitude. Space as a concept cannot be thought as containing an infinite number of representations within itself. All parts of space co-exist ad infinitum. Consequently the original representation of space is an a priori intuition not a concept. ⁴

Bertrand Russell gave the interpretation of the above definitions as follows:

The First Metaphysical Argument

For in order that certain sensation may be referred to something outside me (that is to something in a different position in a space from that in which I find my-self) and further in order that I may be able to perceive them as outside and beside each other and this is not merely different but in different places, the presentation of space must already give the foundation. Different external experience is only possible through the presentation of space.

The phrase „‟outside me‟‟ (that is in a different place from that in which I find myself) is a difficult one. As a thing-in-itself, I am not anywhere, and nothing is spatially outside me, it is only my body as a phenomenon that can be meant. What induces me to arrange objects of perception as I do rather than otherwise?

For example, why do I always see people‟s eyes above their mouths and not below them?

74

According to Kant, the eyes and the mouth exist as things-in-themselves and cause my separate percepts, but nothing in them corresponds to the spatial arrangement that exists in my perception.

The Second Metaphysical Argument maintain that it is possible to imagine nothing in space but impossible to imagine no space. It seems to me that no serious argument can be based upon what we can or cannot imagine.

You can imagine looking at the sky on a dark cloudy night, but then you yourself are in space and you imagine the clouds that you cannot see. Kant‟s space is absolute, like Newton‟s and not merely a system of relations.

The Third Argument

The nature of this Argument is the denial of plurality in space itself. What we call „‟spaces‟‟

are neither instances of a general concept „‟a space‟‟ nor parts of an aggregate. I do not know quite what according to Kant their logical status is but in any case they are logical subsequent to space.

The fourth Argument is chiefly concerned to prove that space is an intuition, not a concept.

It‟s premise „‟space is imagined (or presented) as an infinite given magnitude‟‟. This is the view of a person living in a flat country like that of Konigsberg. I do not see how an inhabitant for an Alpine valley could adopt it. It is difficult to see how anything infinite can be „‟given‟‟. I should have thought it obvious that the part of space that is given is that which is peopled by objects of perception and that for other parts we have only a feeling of possibility of motion. ⁵

However, according to Kant „‟transcendental exposition is the explanation of a concept as a principle from which the possibility of other a priori synthetic knowledge can be understood‟‟. ⁶

With the above explanation, Kant explains the transcendental meaning of space.

The Transcendental Meaning of Space

Sensibility imposes the intuition of space and objects around us. By making synthetic judgements on that space, we form the concepts of geometry. Geometry `is a science which

75

determines the properties of space synthetically and yet a priori. This means that pure geometry must exist and must consist of a priori synthetic truths. How is this possible?

Kant‟s answer is that

Space in its origin must be intuition, for from a mere concept no propositions can be obtained which go beyond the concept as it happens in geometry. This intuition must be a priori that is it must be found in us priori to any perception of an object and must therefore be pure not empirical Intuition. ⁷

Kant‟sanswer means that Euclidean geometry reflects the requirements of our own mental powers. If we are to represent things as objective in relation to us that is as existing and surviving independently of our experience, we must situate them in space. Space enables us, so to speak to turn our back on them to situate them in a place where we might have observed but which we do not observe. In experiencing something as objectives, therefore we represent it as spatial. In Kant‟s words „‟space is the form of outer sense. Outer sense being the capacity to perceive what is outside me, what is objective in relation to me, what is not part of my inner realm‟‟.

Synthetic a priori judgements are possible in geometry because space is an a priori form of sensibility. This means that we can know the claims of geometry with a priori certainly only if experiencing object in space is the necessary mode of our experience.

From both the metaphysical and the transcendental explanations of space, Kant concluded the following:-

a. Space does not represent any property of things in themselves nor does it represent them in their relation to one another. That is to say space does not represent any determination that attaches to the objects themselves and which remains even when abstraction has been made of all the subjective condition of intuition.

b. Space is nothing but the form of all appearances of outer sense. It is the subjective condition of sensibility under which alone outer intuition is possible for us. ⁸

However, we do not experience space, but we experience objects that are spatially structured in a particular way.

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‟‟.