In the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant asserts that space and time are not absolutely real. He asserts their "objective validity" and their "transcendental ideality" which amounts to Kant saying that space and time arise from within subjects. In addition to this he says that space and time are not "things" or "objects". The conditions for the possibility of intuiting anything through sensibility (regardless of what that thing is) are space and time. They are forms of intuition and so cannot be things, because things are only only possibly sensible through space and time. I would like to juxtapose this with a (very shallow and popular) representation of special relativity as envisioned by Albert Einstein.
1) Special relativity treats space as a thing. It is not a thing in the sense that it is composed of matter, but it is a thing in the sense that it can undergo change. For example, when a large mass is resting in space, it curves space and so causes other bodies near it to behave as if they were on a slanted plane.
2) Special relativity treats time as something more than a form of intuition. I am hesitant to call it a thing, but it is not a constant and it is relative to different observers. For instance time can speed up or slow down depending on the rate of velocity of the subject. This brings me to my third point-
3) Special relativity treats space and time not as two distinct "entities" (or whatever they are) but as two aspects of one unity: spacetime.
As I said earlier I have a very limited understanding of special relativity. Kant may be able to get around the second objection by saying that none-the-less, time is still the form of all intuition. In fact, Kant might say, when you say time you are talking about something that is relative to two different observers and thus we are not even speaking of the same thing, because you still have to admit of my "time" which is different than yours.
I don't know how Kant could get around the first or third objections. It may be that none of these are contradicting Kant's thesis, but at the very least he has some explaining to do. To put this in question form, can Kant maintain that space and time are nothing but pure intuitions while incorporating the a priori theories of post-Einsteinian classical physics? Does he need to? Can Kant explain the relevant empirical data with a different interpretation while still holding his view of space and time?
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The story is the same with modern geometry (which these newer physical theories sometimes incorporate). As it turns out, Euclid's parallel postulate is not provable a priori, and strictly speaking classical geometry is wrong for most applications. Our belief in classical geometry seems somewhat a posteriori, because classical geometry "works" in the small spaces that we humans typically deal with.
ReplyDeleteI still think Kant can hold up, because space also involves the fact that there is an external world.
Besides, it is incredibly difficult to wrap our minds around elliptical and hyperbolic geometries. I think when we start making these "strange" kinds of claims--270 degree triangles, impossibility of parallel lines, Einstein saying that space can be curved--I think we're not talking about experience anymore. The following is mere speculation, so anybody more qualified please correct me or at least comment, but I think if we could be immediately presented with curved space, it would appear to us as if the things in space were curved, not that space itself is curved.
I think both of you are making the case for Kant. Insofar as we can experience appearances, they are subject to space and time. Regardless of how space and time are represented in their interaction with appearances (as curving them or not) their logical priority is not threatened. At most, Mr. York's einsteinian objections suggest that space is MORE THAN a logical and perceptual condition, but not yet that Kant is wrong in deducing the minimum true claim that must be made about space.
ReplyDeleteIs spacetime a claim about things in themselves? Or is it just a new way of talking about the form of sensibility? If the latter, we have no problem, if the former, Kant has shown, supposedly, why it is impossible to know. Is there a third option? Not for Kant. Interestingly spacetime suggests the priority of space while Kant will, in the B deduction, affirm the priority of time as the basis of inner sense which will, in a way, be the basis for outer sense.
So it's not a problem that we are saying that space and time are more than just pure intuitions? Could Kant say that anything we have added besides what he gives us is a synthetic a priori judgment and is not technically in the definition of space?
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