In order to establish what is named today, as I understand it, as Indirect Realism, still not accepted by the Direct Realists after 200 years of debate, including people such as Hilary Putnam and John Searle. — RussellA

Kant wrote CPR in order to investigate on Reason, and make secure footing for Metaphysics as Science. So he wasn't quite interested in idealism or realism, but he was more into proving into the limitations and capacities of Reason, and the legitimacy of Metaphysical knowledge i.e. how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible .

I don't think he was denying space and time for empirical reality at all. He presupposed it. But he had to postulate space and time as pure intuition in CPR in order to give ground for necessity of a priori knowledge such as Geometry and all the Metaphysical judgments, which are supposed to be superior to the natural science based on the space and time of the empirical reality. Inevitably Kant was a dualist.

↑ mostly adapted from earlier posts and other posters — jorndoe

Great summary :up:

I agree. — RussellA

:up:

IE "space" and "time" as pure intuition refer to known perceptions in the mind, whilst "space" and "time" as empirical reality refer to unknown things existing in a mind-independent world causing our known perceptions. — RussellA

So your view is also for Kant's space and time as both empirical reality and pure intuitions too. :up:
Any idea why he had to go that way in CPR?

This idea comprises a central piece of Kant’s views on space and time, for he famously contends that space and time are nothing but forms of intuition, a view connected to the claim in the Transcendental Aesthetic that we have pure intuitions of space and of time. — RussellA

Kant mentions dichotomy of the types of knowledge, experience and the world in CPR i.e. a priori / a posteriori, analytic / synthetic, phenomenon / noumenon, transcendental idealism / transcendental realism, ... therefore why not space and time as pure intuition / space and time as empirical reality? CPR has many suggestive writings on the dichotomies. I am not sure why most of the traditional Kant commentators have been seeing only the one side of the story.

It is vital to bear in mind that I am not denying Kant said that space and time was a priori pure intuition in CPR. He did. But he also had in mind that space and time is empirical reality out there too, although he doesn't make big song and dance about it. We need to consider why Kant had to do that in the full schema of his plans, ambitions and duties in CPR. There must be reasons for him having done what he did.

From SEP article on Kant's Views on Time and Space — RussellA

I try not to 100% rely on or accept the internet sites information even SEP (because even SEP they don't have various different commentaries on the same topic - they tend to have 1 commentary or article on 1 topic - entails possible biased view). I try to read the original works and various printed commentaries.

If you claim that Space and Time was solely pure intuitions and concepts in Kant, and has nothing to do with the physical entity in the external world, then should you not brand Kant as an idealist, rather than Representative Realist?

It looks a contradiction to accept the view Kant's concept of Space and Time was solely internal intuition or concept, and then at the same time claiming that he was a some sort of Realist.

Space and time are the Categories are both a priori, however, space and time is the necessary foundation for the categories. For example, we have the concept of space and we have the concept of a number such as two, though it is a fact that although we can imagine empty space empty of numbers, we cannot imagine numbers outside of space. Consequently, first is the pure intuition of space and time within which are the pure concepts of the understanding (the categories).

We can use our cognitive facilities on our sensibilities about external objects affecting our sensibilities, but what we are able to cognize is limited by our a priori pure intuition of space and time and the a priori pure concepts of the understanding (the Categories). — RussellA

Kant is a Realist because, for him, the cause of our seeing the colour red originated outside our mind rather than within our mind. — RussellA

I am not sure if anyone claims that space is internal intuition or categories, then whether he could be qualified as a realist. Shouldn't he be an idealist?

Balboa Park, San Diego, 1971, windowpane. — Mww

Sounds like a nice place. Never been there, so afraid it is a place of imagination for me.

You know, laying in the grass, you can’t tell the difference between imagining the grass is growing or your head is shrinking? — Mww

If you are an idealist, then none of your claims can be refuted suppose. :D

True story. I missed most of the 60’s and all the 70’s, being as stoned as that person seems to be. — Mww

Wow cool ~ :cool:
It might be the case that the state of altered consciousness might see space better actually.

Was just responding to your questions and objections. :D
If you want to know further on how to see physical space, here is a video.

OK. So can I hear space? — Mww

If you are in space where it is not purely empty, then there would be all the molecules and dusts of tiny sizes will be floating in the space. If you had highly sensitive hearing, then you can hear them moving floating in the space. But because your naked eyes wouldn't be able to see them, the space will appear still empty, but the sounds of the molecules and dusts floating would be audible to you. But have you got highly sensitive hearing which can hear the super sonic noise? Guess not.

Space is visual object, so you cannot perceive it via the other sense organs apart from with your eyes primarily and perhaps with your body such as leg, when you lift your leg, it travels from a point of location where it was, to the new location, and you pull it back, and when it returns - you shall feel the space from your leg as it travels through it.

I’m beginning to think you’re pullin’ my leg here. — Mww

No no, just letting you know that you have been perceiving physical space all your life without knowing it. :)

I have a plain 1950s HB copy of NKSmith CPR. It feels nice, and vintage. But I am not sure if the translation is best compared to the others.

The very idea of seeing space is logically contradictory, re: impossibility of receiving a sensation from the inside of an empty bucket, and just plain silly otherwise. WTF would space even look like when I see it? — Mww

I see space all the time. The primary property of space is invisibility and emptiness. So space is substance which is invisible and empty. You are seeing an invisible object when you are seeing space. That is why you are mistaken to think that you see nothing, or you are not seeing it. But you are seeing a substance which is invisible and empty.

Because of the emptiness of space, you can have existence in it. Yes, the only way to see space is through the material objects i.e. you look into an empty bottle, and you see the invisible substance called space, and through the space you are seeing the bottom of the bottle.

You look into your bookshelf. Without space, you cannot place books in it. When you take out your copy of CPR, you see the space between the other books where the CPR was sitting, as invisible and empty substance.

Space perception is the precondition for your sense of reality. Without that, you don't have the sense of reality at all. Because in all other instances of your perception i.e. dreams, imaginations and visualisations, your space perception appears conceptually as a pure intuition.

Yes, we are talking CPR, and in which we find….we don’t perceive a tree in the first place. We perceive “an undetermined object” by its appearance to our sensibility. The undetermined object doesn’t obtain its name, which represents how understanding thinks it, until further along in its systemic process. So not perceiving a tree without space around it is just nonsense, from the perspective of strict CPR textual reference. — Mww

I am not getting your point why you cannot see space when seeing a tree. Tree is occupying the space it is standing. Without space, existence is impossible. All the quotes from CPR I brought in were mostly about this point. Space is empirical reality's precondition for all the existence in the universe.

There is only one type of perception. What your intermingling with it, are apprehension, contained in sensibility when considered transcendentally, and apperception, also much further along in the systemic process. — Mww

Visualising is active perception which is closer to imagination.  You conjure up the non existing image into your intuition by imagining them.  Seeing is visual perception with physical objects in front of you usually, and it implies passive perception.  You perceive the objects without having to try to perceive them. They are different types of perception in terms of the availability and type of objects, and also the way of perception too.

Crap. I forgot Meiklejohn had two middle initials. — Mww

My JMD Meiklejohn CPR is an old battered copy printed in 1959, and it is around 500 pages (well less than any other translated versions), but it seems written more clearly than the other translation versions.  I like the Max Muller version too.  I am not a fan of NK Smith version, but it seems to be the most widely used CPR.  I am not sure what the GUYER version from Cambridge (the most recently published version) would be like.

A tree….with space. A tree with bark, a tree with leaves. A tree with branches, roots, cones/nuts. A tree with space? What does space do for the tree as those other properties do? — Mww

We are talking Kant's CPR here. You cannot perceive a tree without space around it.

Man, are you gonna have fun wading through the schematism of the pure understanding, wherein visualizing takes precedence over seeing. — Mww

It is not about precedence, but it is about different type of perceptions.

Good quote. What’s JMDM? — Mww

J M D Meiklejohn

You do understand, right? That phenomena cannot be external? — Mww

Not necessarily. Phenomena is external. You seem to have forgotten, that Kant said in the preface, all internal mental sense content comes from empirical experience.

By external phenomena, he means those external things which become phenomena according to their sensations. Hence, because phenomena are internal, and space is the condition for phenomena, then space is internal — Mww

If your space is internal to your mind, you would be saying, you are sitting in your mind.

Yes, he was, but to make the point that is not what it supposed to happen. Think of it as a minor antinomy. — Mww

Here is another quote from CPR in JMDM version.

"For example, the proposition, 'All objects are beside each other in space,' is valid only under the limitation that these things are taken as objects of our sensuous intuition. But if I join the condition to the conception, and say 'All things, as external phenomena, are beside each other in space', then the rule is valid universally, and without limitation." -pp.46

"With the exception of Space, there is no other subjective representation referring to something external that would be called a priori objective." - CPR Max Muller Version pp.66

Yes, he was, but to make the point that is not what it supposed to happen. Think of it as a minor antinomy. Something reason lets us do (think the empirical reality of space), before making us see that’s not the right way of doing it (space is not an empirical reality) but something else (space is a transcendental ideality in the form of a pure intuition) is better suited to explain what we want to know. — Mww

Space in Transcendental Ideality case is for doing Geometry, and visualising a postbox in mind. In that case, it is in the form of a pure intuition. But seeing a tree in the garden is via your sensibility. You will always see a tree with space.

Nope, not the bottom line. I wasn’t talking about either of those things, yet you want to qualify something I was talking about, with something I wasn’t. — Mww

Here I am seeing an empty cup in front of me. There is space in the cup, and also around it. Without space, the cup wouldn't even exist, let alone be visible. If I was visualising the cup, not seeing it, then the space in the cup and around it would be a priori pure condition which made the visualisation possible.

What is it with people……. — Mww

I find strange that anyone would insist that you see a cup in front of you, but the space is in your mind as a pure intuition. Space is what contains the universe and all the objects outside of you. :grin:
The triangle you visualise in your mind would be in space of your intuition of course.

That doesn’t relate to his maintaining the empirical reality of space? I couldn’t locate the exact wording he “asserts space as Empirical Reality” and highly doubt he would have capitalized it anyway, so I just figured it was your wording. — Mww

In NKS version he makes it in italics, "We assert, then, the empirical reality of space, as regards all possible outer experience;" He was not just saying, but he was asserting.

You mean, like, space for this object, space for that object? Are you wanting the space an object is in to be as real as the object itself? How would that work? — Mww

Space for the objects would be one, which applies to all the objects for the perceptual instances universally, I would think. The bottom line is, you cannot see empty bucket without space around it.

Break it down, and see if you find, as I did: We maintain the empirical reality of space…..if we look upon space as something that belongs to things in themselves. Which, of course, we don’t, insofar as how can we know space belongs to things-in-themselves when our knowledge is not and cannot be of them. — Mww

I am not sure why we are now looking into space for thing-in-itself, when we have been talking about space for the objects in the empirical reality.

it is nothing as soon as we withdraw the condition upon which the possibility of all experience depends. — Mww

Withdrawing it as that condition makes it nothing, and if it is nothing, to then declare it an empirical reality, is self-contradictory, and if it is self-contradictory it is immediately false, and the whole aesthetic argument falls apart. — Mww

I wonder if we are allowed to withdraw the condition upon which the possibility of all experience depends. Kant would say, the condition is a necessary a priori condition, which is given as innate nature of human mind.

What is this alleged transcendental ideality anyway, and where in the bloody hell does it come from, and why MUST I have to admit to it. (Sigh) — Mww

It is in CPR, and Kant is propounding for the legitimacy of its operation when we work on Geometry or imagining a postoffice on the street contrasted to seeing an empty bucket.

Some quotes are clear, others…..not so much. — Mww

He is also known to be inconsistent, hence requires the reading clubs suppose. :nerd:
Well, I was quite happy to see the quote in CPR, because from the quote, Kant sounded very much in line with what I was thinking on his concept of Space. It was the most clear part in CPR I have come across.

You seriously think there are no instances where someone has said something is nonsense only to later be proven wrong? Strange. — I like sushi

I am not sure on other cases, but I am only commenting on your case, because your claim was found to be groundless.

Anyway, this is just degenerated into pointless back and forth so I am out. Bye :) — I like sushi

Indeed it is pointless to dip into this and that threads in the forums for exchanging light hearted negative comments without any interest, enthusiasm or good arguments for the topic. It would be waste of time on you and the others too. All the best. :grin:

You think there are no grey areas? — I like sushi

No. I think there are fallacies in your claims.

Yet again, the relative obscurity has nothing to do with individual understandings. While it may be true there is no obscurity in the quotes, it remains, insofar as the quotes are minor extracts from a whole…. — Mww

Kant had been clear about this point in the quotes. He "asserts space as Empirical Reality " for perceptions via sensibility. He then goes on making points on space as internal a priori necessary condition in the case of Transcendental Ideality. How much else could he have been clearer? I don't think the quotes are minor extracts. If you are reading CPR word by word, nothing is minor.

THAT should be clear to everyone. Well, actually, everyone who “….rises to the height of speculation….”. Which leaves aside, as you say, the so-called “vulgar”, who do not. — Mww

You seem to be disregarding the other side of his points only seeing the one side.

I was taking an extreme example to highlight that there are grey areas. — I like sushi

We call it a nonsense.

100% subjectivity is pretty much where we all begin. We are not given a manual about how to perceive reality or what reality is. — I like sushi

You can begin wherever you like, but if anyone will agree with you is another matter. No one is quibbling about how or what you see in your perception, but claiming it is REAL would be regarded as a fallacy or illusion.

Wrong. I’m not accepting what you think Kant is saying. — Mww

What Kant was saying is not that obscure in the quotes of CPR on this issue. It is very clear for everyone. I was just giving examples of perception how it maps to what Kant was saying.

Wasn’t what I asked.

What is it with people, who can’t maintain dialectical consistency. If a guy asks about a certain thing, but gets a response that doesn’t contain anything about that thing…..what a farging waste of the guy’s time, I would think. — Mww

You insist that this is a thread for Kant's CPR reading, but you are not even accepting what Kant was saying in CPR in plain English (translated of course).

But what if it is not? Of course if I said to you I saw a flying elephant you would question my mental faculties … but maybe I actually did and there are genetically modified elephants flying around somewhere. — I like sushi

Now you are being an extreme sophist.

ou see how you see. It is a matter of subjectivity.

What you see and claim to know is necessarily limited. — I like sushi

Well if you are talking 100% from your subjectivity only, then you cannot communicate with anyone apart from you. We are searching for some degree of objectivity. That is what philosophical discussions are about.

Guess you didn’t think about the empty bucket, huh? I was kinda looking forward to your account of what kind of sensation you got from its apparent emptiness. — Mww

If you see empty bucket, then the bucket and space in and outside of it are all outside of you. But if you imagine or visualise empty bucket, then the bucket and space in and outside of it are all in your mind.

Sorry, but I cannot find a justification that it isn’t exactly that. In other words, I find that is precisely what he’s saying. And not only that with respect to perception, but indeed, because the space in which the extension of things occurs cannot be thought away as can all its properties, it absolutely must reside in the subject himself. — Mww

Well, there are clear quotes from CPR what Kant is clearly saying, which are contradicting what you are saying. I suppose you have read them. And I have explained about them too with the example of tree and triangle.

What is sensible to me is real to me unless I recognise an illusion. What is a delusion is obviously beyond my examination (because a delusion is believed). — I like sushi

Was just pointing out, what you claim as Real in your perception might be Unreal. Due to the nature of our sense organs, we sometimes perceive Unreal objects.

False. You asked me the question using that term regarding my seeing an elephant flying (not ‘imagining’ one flying). What is sensible to me is real to me unless I recognise an illusion. What is a delusion is obviously beyond my examination (because a delusion is believed). — I like sushi

How can you imagine a flying elephant without seeing it? Your point was that either you were seeing or imagining a flying elephant, and it is REAL. My point was that ok, I am not denying your seeing it or imagining it, but it must be UNREAL. Who is right here on the basis of common sense, logical and epistemological view?

Yep. Sounds pretty much like what I said 7 hours ago. — Mww

I read the other translation copies of CPR, and they all seem to be saying the same thing.
When you are seeing a tree in the garden, that is perception via your sensibility.  The tree is seen out there in the world, and space is also in the world.  You see the tree in the external world, but you cannot say that space is in your mind (which you have been saying). That doesn't add up.

But when you are doing Geometry, you think about a triangle. The triangle is in your mind i.e. intuition. You cannot think about the triangle in your intuition without space for it. The space in this case is in your mind, as a necessary a priori condition.

So, Kant was not simply saying that all space is internal and necessary a priori condition for all perception.

Rather, he had two cases of explanation for space to be both in the world externally for the sensibility perception, and also space as internal necessary a priori condition for intuition when performing Geometry proofs, or imagining a postbox on the street in your mind.

You’ve presented an antinomy justifying the antithesis of an idea. My response is merely a further counter-claim extending from the thesis of that idea. — Mww

There are more quotes from CPR suggesting that Kant had the dual perspectives on the concept of Space. By the way, this quote is not from the antinomy.

"If, now, I add the condition to the concept, and say that all things, as outer appearances, are side by side in space, the rule is valid universally and without limitation. Our exposition therefore establishes the reality, that is, the objective validity, of space in respect of whatever can be presented to us outwardly as object, but also at the same time the ideality of space in respect of things when they are considered in themselves through reason, that is without regard to the constitution of our sensibility." - CPR B44/A28

" .... We assert, then, the empirical reality of space, as regards all possible outer experience; and yet at the same time we assert its transcendental ideality-"

"It will be evident that what we here desire to say is that empty
space, so far as it is limited by appearances, that is, empty space
within the world, is at least not contradictory of transcendental
principles and may therefore, so far as they are concerned, be
admitted. " CPR B461 :)

What….that reason can do pretty much whatever it wants? Sure, but then what? — Mww

Reason deals with both aspect of space as implied in Antinomy of Pure Reason in CPR.

Not in CPR, is doesn’t.
(Glances up at thread title) — Mww

Wouldn't it be better reading between the lines at times where it appears inconsistent and vague, rather than reading the word by word? :)
When there are Phenomenon and Noumenon in his system, he cannot possibly live with space and time as a priori intuition only. Objects and the world are existing in space and time as physical existence in front of him.

Yes, but to presuppose is to deduce, it is not to perceive. — Mww

Presupposition is condition, not to deduce.

Then you must grant that space can affect the senses in the same manner as objects, which reduces to the necessity that space must have properties. At which point, upon determining that space cannot have properties, insofar as there is no possibility of space appearing to you as an object, — Mww

Yes, isn't it what exactly Kant was pointing out? Space is a necessary precondition for appearance of objects in TI. But it is also an object of perception in material empiricism. (according to Antinomy of Pure Reason).

Space has both aspects of being a priori condition for perception as well as physical object. Space as object has its physical properties.

"Dimensions: Space is typically described in terms of three spatial dimensions (length, width, and height). In the context of spacetime in relativity, time is considered a fourth dimension.

Curvature: The curvature of space is a fundamental concept in Einstein's theory of General Relativity. Massive objects, like stars and planets, curve the fabric of spacetime around them, influencing the motion of other objects.

Expansion: The universe itself is expanding. Galaxies are moving away from each other over time, indicating that the fabric of space is stretching. This expansion is a key feature of the Big Bang theory.

Gravity: Space is influenced by gravity, and gravity is often described as the warping or curvature of spacetime caused by mass. Objects with mass, like planets and stars, influence the geometry of space around them.

Vacuum Energy: Even in seemingly empty space, there is a concept known as vacuum energy or dark energy. This is a mysterious form of energy that is thought to be responsible for the observed acceleration of the expansion of the universe." - ChatGPT notes

I always suffer when my beliefs turn out to be groundless. — RussellA

That sounds like psychological not epistemological. :nerd:

How this maps onto what is existent is another matter and kind of what Kant went into in a deep way in terms of investigating what can be known prior to experience. — I like sushi

That is not the only thing Kant was writing about. He wrote about wide variety of topics.

If Real is taken to be existence, then it relates to the problem of belief in the existence of the world, and also Kant's paralogism. I thought this was obvious.

After all you brought in the term 'Real' in your claim. I just thought we could clarify on what you were claiming about.

If space is incomprehensible…..
— Corvus

It isn’t. — Mww

Sorry I thought you were claiming that space is incomprehensible.

No. The objective validity of that which relates the objects as separate from the perceiver, or as separate from each other, is deduced from perception of objects. — Mww

Were we not talking about perception of space? My point was that you cannot perceive objects without perceiving space. Space is presupposed in the perception of the objects. It follows that space or perception of space cannot be illusion, be transcendental or empirical.

What about you? If you see an elephant flying in the sky how do you know about it? — I like sushi

For me, I also can see a flying elephant, when I try to imagine one in my mind. It does have a pair of wings, and flies above the clouds like a hang glider. The image is vivid and feels REAL to me.
But I am not sure if I can claim the flying elephant in my mind is real.
Because it is unreal, and I was seeing the UNREAL object which was made up in my imagination.
I was going to claim that we see real objects as well as UNREAL objects too. My flying elephant in my imagination is UNREAL.

Your saying that you see a flying elephant and it is real to you, is a self-contradiction.
Because the flying elephant was an unreal object to you and to the world. You were seeing an unreal flying elephant.

Just to point out your saying that your flying elephant is real, which is unreal was denying the principle of consistency A=A. You were saying A = Not A.

I believe "I saw an Ichthyocentaur in the garden". I reason that my belief was groundless.

Could I then not say "I was suffering an illusion"? — RussellA

Suffering sounds like from "illness" or "pain". No.
You were having a groundless belief, and your reason confirmed it as a groundless belief.

Asked and answered. — Mww

n so far as space is merely itself a representation, and perception of representations is impossible, perception of space is incomprehensible. — Mww

If space is incomprehensible / impossible to perceive, then how is it possible to perceive the objects in it? Isn't perception of space necessarily deduced in the perception of objects? Surely that is what Kant meant by space and time are necessary a priori condition for appearance.

Perception is an activity; space is a pure representation. — Mww

Ehyyyy - I was not asking about Perception, but Perception of space.