scholarly journals Incongruent counterparts and the absolute nature of space in Kant’s 1768 essay, "Directions in Space"

2020 ◽  
pp. 267-286
Author(s):  
Gaston Robert
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Spatial Properties ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Incongruent Counterparts

This article argues that Kant’s argument from incongruent counterparts in his essay, Directions in Space (1768) yields not the conclusion that space is an objective reality, but rather that it is an absolute and dynamical framework that grounds spatial properties, a view which is neutral with respect to the objective/subjective nature of space. It is suggested that, so construed, Kant’s argument in this essay can be made consistent with his later employment in support of transcendental idealism with regard to space.

Embodied Cognition in Berkeley and Kant: The Body’s Own Space

2019 ◽  
pp. 74-94
Author(s):  
Jennifer Mensch
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Spatial Intuition ◽  
Incongruent Counterparts

Berkeley and Kant are known for having developed philosophical critiques of materialism, critiques which lead them to propose instead an epistemology based on the coherence of our mental representations. For all that the two had in common, however, Kant was adamant in distinguishing his own ‘transcendental idealism’ from the immaterialist consequences entailed by Berkeley’s account. In this essay I return to their respective theories of spatial intuition, since it is by paying attention to Berkeley’s account of space that we discover a surprising account of embodied cognition, of spatial distance and size that can only be known by way of the body’s motion and touch. More striking than this, is the manner in which Kant’s approach to the problem of incongruent counterparts also relies on a proprioceptive cognition. Thus while cognition theorists today have recognized that certain challenges faced by perception and cognition can only be resolved by way of an appeal to the facts of embodiment, my aim in this essay is to show that such recourse is not new.

scholarly journals Fichte et la première philosophie de la nature de Schelling

Dialogue ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-238
Author(s):  
Claude Piché
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Absolute

AbstractWhen we reconstruct Fichte's philosophy of nature of the Jena period, we notice striking similarities between the conception of organism in the Doctrine of Science and Schelling's corresponding developments in his early Naturphilosophie. Even though both thinkers agree to consider organic nature within the framework of transcendental idealism, it is nevertheless possible at this stage to discover slight differences in their interpretation which announce their future disagreement on the status of a philosophy of nature. If, for instance, organism for both Fichte and Schelling can be considered as an analogon of the absolute, much depends on whether they conceive this analogy from a practical or theoretical point of view.

scholarly journals Kant Meets Cyberpunk

Disputatio ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (55) ◽  
pp. 411-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schwitzgebel
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Fundamental Structure ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Spatial Properties ◽  
The Way

AbstractI defend a how-possibly argument for Kantian (or Kant*-ian) transcendental idealism, drawing on concepts from David Chalmers, Nick Bostrom, and the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. If we are artificial intelligences living in a virtual reality instantiated on a giant computer, then the fundamental structure of reality might be very different than we suppose. Indeed, since computation does not require spatial properties, spatiality might not be a feature of things as they are in themselves but instead only the way that things necessarily appear to us. It might seem unlikely that we are living in a virtual reality instantiated on a non-spatial computer. However, understanding this possibility can help us appreciate the merits of transcendental idealism in general, as well as transcendental idealism’s underappreciated skeptical consequences.

Three Remarks on the Interpretation of Kant on Incongruent Counterparts

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 30-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogério Passos Severo
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Absolute Space ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Incongruent Counterparts ◽  
Number Of Authors

In recent times, a number of authors have systematically criticized Kant's 1768 ‘proof’ of the reality of absolute space. Peter Remnant may have been the first do to so, but many others have since joined him, either challenging the argument itself or showing how relationist conceptions of space can account for incongruent counterparts just as well as absolutist conceptions. In fact, Kant himself abandoned his main conclusion soon after publication, favouring instead the doctrine of transcendental idealism. I do not see how the 1768 proof can be saved, nor will I defend it here. However, in dismissing it some critics seem to have gone too far, and either failed to fully acknowledge Kant's contribution, or attributed to him thoughts he is unlikely to have had. Kant's treatment of incongruent counterparts in his Dissertation of 1770 has also met strong opposition. In particular, his claim that the difference between a pair of incongruent counterparts cannot be apprehended by means of concepts alone has been taken to be a mathematical falsehood. Indeed, incongruent counterparts have been shown to be mathematically distinguishable, with no intuitions needed for that purpose.

Philosophy, Religion, and the End of Hegel

2003 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 61-72
Author(s):  
John Walker
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Objective World ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
As If

I want to begin with two of Hegel's endings, one well known, the other less so. First, some words from the closing paragraphs of Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy:A new epoch has arisen in the world. It seems as if the world spirit has succeeded in casting off everything in objective reality which is alien to itself, in order to comprehend itself as absolute spirit: to produce its own objective world from itself and to keep that world serenely in its own power. The struggle of the finite self-consciousness with the absolute self-consciousness, which once appeared as an alien reality, is now coming to an end. The finite self-consciousness has ceased to be finite; and, by the same token, the absolute self-consciousness has achieved the reality which it formerly lacked. The whole of world history and especially the history of philosophy is the representation of this conflict. History now seems to have achieved its goal, when the absolute self-consciousness is no longer something alien; when the spirit is real as spirit. For spirit is this only when it knows itself to be absolute spirit; and this it knows in speculative science (Wissemchaft).

scholarly journals O problema da intuição intelectual enquanto postulado prático em Fichte [The problem of intellectual intuition as a practical postulate in Fichte]

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (43) ◽  
pp. 131
Author(s):  
Arthur Martins Cecim
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Intellectual Intuition ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
The Absolute

Na Modernidade, o idealista alemão Fichte reconstrói o conceito de intuição intelectual não mais em termos de um procedimento teórico-reflexivo que visa o conhecimento da pretensa coisa-em-si, mas em termos de uma intuição de cunho prático, a partir do conceito kantiano de postulado prático, o que acaba por refletir a primazia da liberdade da razão prática sobre a razão teórica, tendo em vista a impossibilidade de conhecermos as realidades absolutas. Não obstante, essa intuição é problemática por não tratar de uma realidade objetiva, mas tão somente de uma subjetividade autorreflexiva.[In Modernity, the German idealist Fichte reconstructs the intellectual intuition not in terms of a theoretical-reflexive procedure that aims at the pretense knowledge of the thing-in-itself, but in terms of a practical-oriented intuition, from the Kantian concept of practical postulate, which ultimately reflects the priority of freedom in the practical reason over the theoretical reason, taking into account the impossibility of knowing the absolute realities. Nevertheless, this intuition is problematic, for it does not concern an objective reality, but only a self-reflected subjectivity]

Denken und Welt – Wege kritischer Metaphysik

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Haag ◽  
Till Hoeppner
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Alternative Conception ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Proper Point ◽  
The Way

Abstract We begin by considering two common ways of conceiving critical metaphysics. According to the first (and polemical) conception, critical metaphysics analyses nothing more than the form of thought and thereby misses the proper point of metaphysics, namely to investigate the form of reality. According to the second (and affirmative) conception, critical metaphysics starts from the supposed insight that the form of reality can’t be other than the form of thought and it is thus not necessary to analyse anything but that form. We argue that the first conception is too weak while the second is too strong. Then we sketch an alternative conception of critical metaphysics, a conception we find expressed both in Kant’s B-Deduction and in the way Barry Stroud has recently investigated the possibilities of metaphysics. According to such a conception, a properly critical metaphysics needs to proceed in two steps: first, it needs to analyze the most general and necessary form of any thought that is about an objective reality at all; second, it needs to investigate how that form of thought relates to the reality it purports to represent. But unlike Kant, Stroud remains sceptical regarding the possibility of a satisfying transition from thought to reality in metaphysics. We argue that this dissatisfaction can be traced back to a notion of objectivity and reality in terms of complete mind-independence. Then we sketch an alternative notion of objectivity and reality in terms of distinctness from subjects and acts of thinking, and argue that it is that notion that allows Kant, with his Transcendental Idealism, to make the transition required for any satisfying metaphysics, namely that from the form of thought to reality.

Handedness, Idealism, and Freedom

2021 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-449
Author(s):  
Desmond Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Relative Position ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Surprising Result ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Incongruent Counterparts ◽  
The Way

Incongruent counterparts are pairs of objects which cannot be enclosed in the same spatial limits despite an exact similarity in magnitude, proportion, and relative position of their parts. Kant discerns in such objects, whose most familiar example is left and right hands, a “paradox” demanding “demotion of space and time to mere forms of our sensory intuition.” This paper aims at an adequate understanding of Kant’s enigmatic idealist argument from handed objects, as well as an understanding of its relation to the other key supports of his idealism. The paper’s central finding is that Kant’s idealist argument from incongruent counterparts rests essentially on his theory of freedom. The surprising result sheds new light on deep and overlooked links among the pillars of transcendental idealism, pointing the way to a comprehensive and unified reading of Kant’s system of idealist arguments.

Russian Philosophy and the Policy of Russia

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 249-257
Author(s):  
Alexander L. Kazin
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Russian Philosophy ◽  
The West ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
The World ◽  
The Gift ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Independent Individual

The article is devoted to the fundamental differences in the basic grounds of the Western, Eastern and Russian philosophy. When in the philosophy o the East God is perceived as the Absolute and the task of man and people is to follow His laws, the philosophy of the West adheres to consistent rationalization, which in its turn leads to the perception of God “from the outside” and notionally by an independent individual and in the course of certain evolution results in the rejection of the integral world view- “the truth is that there are many variants of truth”. Russian philosophy interprets the world as the unity of faith, thought and love that can be described as the principle of the believing mind. Due to this conciliar integrity this philosophy has the gift of speculation and the possibility to see spiritual light in the objective reality. It’s not possible to separate man, and especially his thought, from God, and this postulate makes Russia the land of future, which can preserve the world for the man, and the man for God.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document