Single Idea 5536

[catalogued under 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / a. Absolute time]

Full Idea

Those who decide in favour of the subsistence of the absolute reality of space and time must assume two eternal and infinite self-subsisting non-entities which exist (without there being anything real) only to comprehend everything real within themselves.

Gist of Idea

If space and time exist absolutely, we must assume the existence of two pointless non-entities

Source

Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B056/A39)

Book Reference

Kant,Immanuel: 'Critique of Pure Reason', ed/tr. Guyer,P /Wood,A W [CUO 1998], p.166


A Reaction

This is an attack on Newton, and modern physics seems (thanks to Einstein) to agree with Kant. However the modern view strikes me as the usual confusion of epistemology and ontology. Physicists report what we can know, without speculation about how it is.