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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.
Gist of Idea
Space is an a priori necessary basic intuition, as we cannot imagine its absence
Source
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B038/A24)
Book Ref
Kant,Immanuel: 'Critique of Pure Reason', ed/tr. Guyer,P /Wood,A W [CUO 1998], p.158
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.
13180 | Space is the order of coexisting possibles [Leibniz] |
17736 | We can't learn of space through experience; experience of space needs its representation [Kant] |
5531 | Space is an a priori necessary basic intuition, as we cannot imagine its absence [Kant] |
16922 | Space must have three dimensions, because only three lines can meet at right angles [Kant] |
24096 | Unlike time, space is subjective. Empty space was assumed, but it doesn't exist [Nietzsche] |
6468 | There is 'private space', and there is also the 'space of perspectives' [Russell] |
7552 | Six dimensions are needed for a particular, three within its own space, and three to locate that space [Russell] |
15321 | Space can't be an individual (in space), but it is present in all places [Harré/Madden] |
21112 | Empty space contains a continual flux of brief virtual particles [Krauss] |
9922 | If space is really just a force-field, then it is a physical entity [Burgess/Rosen] |
10683 | We could ignore space, and just talk of the shape of matter [Hossack] |
19947 | Hilbert Space is an abstraction representing all possible states of a quantum system [New Sci.] |