Kant I

Space as transcendental Idea ...

I am drawn back to the idea (pardon the pun) of space as used by Kant in The Critique of Pure Reason. Along with his use of time, there, it is a special concept in Kant's mature philosophy. [Using the term "concept" here in the general sense of the term, not in Kant's technical sense.]

The space "out there" which science can investigate and in which we encounter everyday life, this really is not what Kant has in mind by the notion of space as a transcendant idea. Kant was familiar with the ideas at the time on space "out there" and in his younger days took the Leibniz-ian view there-of. In the decade preceeding The Critique, though, he switched to a more Newtonian view.

[At the time the Newtonian and Leibnizian camps pretty much defined the scientific debate on space and time.]

The notion of space as a transcendant idea turns space into a special kind of predicate, that is, a predicate with a special status. Special status? "Being" is often considered such a predicate. I won't go into why right now on that one, but for those familiar with the concept that is the notion i am pushing. It is different for space, but still special.
The argument goes very roughly ... for there to be differentiations in space, per se, we must have an internal capacity to see space as we encounter it in the worls ... and time. And Kant is going to refer to this grouding, this framework, as the space and time that are transcendant.

As just stated, though, that sounds pretty much like a Platonic Idea or Russelian Universal. But i see the claim as slightly different. Where-as a Universalist theory would claim that for something to be blue, there must be blue-ness ... this is more akin to a phenomenalism claim which might state that for blue to be perceived there must be a mechanism for seeing blue. The latter does not address the question of how the thing itself is blue, Universals theory may be the answer [though we think that unlikely], but that part of the question is left open. It is a question of the necessity of a mechanism for perceiving blue.

The claim is that there necessarily is a mechanism for encountering space (and time) in humans (and probably also other conscious creatures). And necessarily, for Kant, this mechanism must be prior to experience as experience is what takes place in the space and time we study in science, space and time per se.
So, Kant believes the space and time that is transcendant is a priori.

(Per earlier posts ... that is why the claim is that this is outside discourse.)


So ... i want to talk more about what this space and time might be. Kant chooses to use the words space and time by i find the appelation to be arbitrary at this point. Right now there is just something, some mechanism, that allows us to experience space and time per se. I see no reason to call it space and time too, even if we tag it the transcendant notion.
I will call it Mechanism X for now.
Perhaps we'll change that after a little more work on the Newton - Leibniz debate.

Keep in mind that the longterm question is whether there are mechanisms outside discourse/language, and whether these mechanisms, if they exist, are useful for grounding scientific knowledge in an interesting (non tataulogous and non circular) manner.
How can we escape the the notion that the mechanisms of the brain used to experience knowledge will have to be discoveries of science, which are certainly not a priori in nature (pardon the pun, again)? ... or can we not?
Hypothesis: certainly not certainly, but perhaps there is reason for pause and reflection.