display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
| 16922 | Space must have three dimensions, because only three lines can meet at right angles [Kant] |
| Full Idea: That complete space …has three dimensions, and that space in general cannot have more, is built on the proposition that not more than three lines can intersect at right angles in a point. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 285) | |
| A reaction: Modern geometry seems to move, via the algebra, to more than three dimensions, and then battles for an intuition of how that can be. I don't know how they would respond to Kant's challenge here. |
| 17736 | We can't learn of space through experience; experience of space needs its representation [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Thus the representation of space cannot be obtained from the relations of outer appearance through experience, but this outer experience is itself first possible only through this representation. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B038/A23) | |
| A reaction: There is an obvious symbiosis between the mental experience of such things as space and the nature of the thing itself, but I don't see what basis Kant can have for his confident distinction. |
| 5531 | Space is an a priori necessary basic intuition, as we cannot imagine its absence [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Space is a necessary representation, a priori, which is the ground of all outer intuitions. One can never represent that there is no space, although one can very well think that there are no objects to be encountered. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B038/A24) | |
| A reaction: The proposal that space is a mental intuition rather than a reality strikes me, and most people, as daft, but the observation that we are incapable of imagining the absence of space is striking. It is one of the basics of thought. |