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5531
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Space is an a priori necessary basic intuition, as we cannot imagine its absence
[Kant]
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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.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B038/A24)
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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.
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16922
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Space must have three dimensions, because only three lines can meet at right angles
[Kant]
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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.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 285)
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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.
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24096
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Unlike time, space is subjective. Empty space was assumed, but it doesn't exist
[Nietzsche]
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Full Idea:
Space, like matter, is a subjective form. Time is not. Space first emerged through the assumption of empty space. This doesn't exist. Force is everything.
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From:
Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 1[003])
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A reaction:
I would think modern physics endorses his opinion of space. The original atomists proposed a 'void', to prevent traffic jams of atoms. Now we see space as fields, so it is never empty.
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6468
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There is 'private space', and there is also the 'space of perspectives'
[Russell]
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Full Idea:
In addition to the private spaces, ..there is the 'space of perspectives', since each private world may be regarded as the appearance which the universe presents from a certain point of view.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Relation of Sense-Data to Physics [1914], §VII)
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A reaction:
This replaces his concept of 'public space', which he introduced in 1912. Russell gradually dropped this, but I like the idea that we somehow directly perceive space in two ways simultaneously (which led him to say that space is six-dimensional).
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7552
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Six dimensions are needed for a particular, three within its own space, and three to locate that space
[Russell]
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Full Idea:
The world of particulars is a six-dimensional space, where six co-ordinates will be required to assign the position of any particular, three to assign its position in its own space, and three to assign the position of its space among the other spaces.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.134)
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A reaction:
Not a proposal that has caught on. One might connect the idea with the notion of 'frames of reference' in Einstein's Special Theory. Inside a frame of reference, three co-ordinates are needed; but where is the frame of reference?
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9922
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If space is really just a force-field, then it is a physical entity
[Burgess/Rosen]
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Full Idea:
According to many philosophical commentators, a force-field must be considered to be a physical entity, and as the distinction between space and the force-field may be considered to be merely verbal, space itself may be considered to be a physical entity.
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From:
JP Burgess / G Rosen (A Subject with No Object [1997], II.A.1)
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A reaction:
The ontology becomes a bit odd if we cheerfully accept that space is physical, but then we can't give the same account of time. I'm not sure how time could be physical. What's it made of?
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