display all the ideas for this combination of texts
8 ideas
| 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. |
| 5536 | If space and time exist absolutely, we must assume the existence of two pointless non-entities [Kant] |
| 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. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B056/A39) | |
| 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. |
| 5534 | One can never imagine appearances without time, so it is given a priori [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Time is a necessary representation that grounds all intuitions. In regard to appearances in general on cannot remove time, though one can very well take the appearances away from time. Time is therefore given a priori. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B046/A31) | |
| A reaction: As with space, the notion that time is a purely a priori intuition, and not a real feature of the 'space-time manifold' strikes me as absurd (though, unlike space, a reductive account of time might be possible), but its absence is indeed unimaginable. |
| 5535 | That times cannot be simultaneous is synthetic, so it is known by intuition, not analysis [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The proposition that different times cannot be simultaneous is synthetic, and cannot arise from concepts alone. It is therefore immediately contained in the intuition and representation of time. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B047/A32) | |
| A reaction: It seems possible that this proposition is in fact analytic. What would it be like for two times to be simultaneous? If it happened we would not accept it, because it would violate our very concept of an instant in time. |
| 5560 | The three modes of time are persistence, succession and simultaneity [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The three 'modi' of time are persistence, succession and simultaneity. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B219/A177) | |
| A reaction: I find such an assertion quite breathtaking in its confidence. How does he know this? It is tempting to try to reduce the three modes down to two or one. See Ideas 2608 and 4230 for McTaggart's reduction to two. |
| 5561 | If time involved succession, we must think of another time in which succession occurs [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If one were to ascribe succession to time itself, one would have to think yet another time in which this succession would be possible. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B226/A183) | |
| A reaction: The implication of this might be that while we must believe that time exists, we are utterly incapable of imagining its existence. |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |