Compare Kant’s theory of transcendental idealist space with that if one of the philosophers (Newton/Clarke) that Kant claims have a transcendental realist conception of space. Which conception if space is more true and why?

The ontological nature of space is one of the fundamental questions in Kant’s metaphysics and is the foundation around which he constructs his notion of transcendental idealism laid out in his Critique of Pure Reason. Written in response to the previous ‘realist’ conceptions of space Kant challenged strongly the view of its ultimate reality and served to shift the scope of the ontological argument from one of ‘absolutism’ versus ‘relationalism’ to a more developed debate of ‘realism’ against ‘idealism’ as he brought the relationship between space and time, and the mind strongly to the fore. In this essay I am going to contrast this Kantian notion of space as being ‘transcendentally ideal’ against the branded ‘transcendental realism’ of Newton and Clarke. Starting with the latter I’ll go on to bring in the former then proceed to analyse the developments Kant forges past his predecessors. I will then conclude by assessing how and why his view holds more metaphysical depth than that put forward in the Newtonian model by looking at how he accounts for the scope and perspective of human consciousness and the epistemological limits inherent within it. To begin however I will now go to the absolutist models put forward by Newton and Clarke.

Prior to Kant, the arguments with regards to spaces ontology were primarily orientated around whether space was absolute (i.e. real in its own nature and independent of objects) or relational (merely relations of objects and nothing more). While both of these were seen as transcendentally real perspectives by Kant the particular model I am analysing in the essay (that of Newton and Clarke) is one of absolutism. This is a clear example of transcendental realism in contrast to relationalism where the label is somewhat more questionable. In the scholium to the definitions in his ground-breaking Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica Newton outlines his view of space claiming that “absolute space, in its own nature, without relation to anything external, remains always similar and immovable.” (Rynasiewicz, 2011) This view portrays space as a homogenous, continuous, infinite and indivisible three-dimensional framework in which the universe plays out and sees its existence as being in no way object-dependant. Space is hereby seen as preceding the physical world as its lack of relation to external objects is stated, it is the framework through which object representation occurs and is therefore prior to these representations. This same view is held by Clarke who contests that this absolute depiction of space is necessarily true as, while one can conceive of a lack of physical objects, “to suppose any part of space removed, is to suppose it removed from and out of itself: and to suppose the whole to be taken away, is supposing it to be taken away from itself, that is, to be taken away while it still remains: which is a contradiction in terms” (Yenter, 2009) i.e. one cannot suppose a lack of space therefore it’s reality is a necessary truth. It is these claims of the objective reality of space as a necessary truth that display the transcendental realism that Kant criticises. Transcendental realism itself is generally defined as ‘any position that argues that the structure of thought itself implies that there is a real structure of the world in excess of the structure of thought.’ (Wolfendale) Essentially it is a position that makes claims of a reality which transcends our personal perspective and sphere of consciousness. Given this definition it is evident that the absolutist’s view of space falls under this heading as their assertion of the objective reality of space as a necessary truth implies that its existence transcends our thought structures entirely. One can see how this is an easy conclusion to jump to, especially in the context of the natural sciences as Newton’s conception of space was very much forged in the context of his mechanics, however how much legitimacy can such a claim have in a philosophical sense? How can one make assertions about an objective reality transcending our thought-structure when that thought-structure is all we ourselves possess? It is in the context of these questions that Kant’s transcendental idealism arises.

Kant’s transcendental idealism is first introduced in his Critique of Pure Reason in the section on the Transcendental Aesthetic. In it he outlines his belief that human beings do not experience an objective reality (things in themselves), as the transcendental realist arguments imply, but can experience nothing more than appearances. His view of space, in this regard, is not one of an underlying objective reality in which things in themselves are presented and experienced, but instead is one where space is seen as a singular, immediate, non-empirical representation that exists a priori in the mind, it is what he calls a pure form of intuition. He articulates this pure form of intuition as that which remains once one abstracts from all forms of sensation and understanding, namely time and space, and it is to be distinguished from empirical intuition which develops a posteriori. A general summary of Kant’s transcendental idealism can be seen in the following passage from his Critique.
“We have therefore wanted to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us; and that if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, then all constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us.” (A42) (Kant, pg.168)
So unlike his predecessors who asserted a reality of space that transcends our sensibility and experience Kant held that the notion could only be ideal once we transcend our own perspective. While the former claimed knowledge of things in themselves and ultimate reality Kant’s discussion of this served only to articulate an epistemological limit. However, this lack of knowledge of things in themselves should not be misconstrued as dismissing knowledge in an empirical sense. When considering Kant’s transcendental idealism it is paramount to account for the inextricable link it possesses with empirical realism i.e. reality within the field of appearances. Though he holds that we cannot know that which transcends our subjective sensibility (things in themselves) Kant by no means dismisses knowledge in an empirical sense within this field of sensibility. He sees appearances as conforming to a priori concepts in our mind (causality, substance etc.) as ‘we can know a priori of things only what we ourselves put into them’ (Kant, 1781)’, and from this, claims an objective reality within the scope of appearances i.e. the fact that the reality of appearances is derived from subjective constitution does not deplete the certainty of the empirical world’s conformity. The world of appearances in Kant’s model still exists in rule-ordered connection. The natural sciences are therefore still accommodated for as his high-blown transcendental idealism is grounded by his pragmatic empirical realism.
I will now go on to discuss directly the contrast between realism and idealism in the transcendental sense and assess the legitimacy of the two sides.

In comparing these two theories of transcendental realism and idealism it is around the area of things in themselves or ‘noumenon’ that we see the essential divide as they are the very content of what transcends our sensibility and intuition. The realist conception of space articulated by Newton and Clarke prima facie seems quite legitimate and in a simple sense accounts for the realities of human perception, in this regard it must also be accounted for that Newton’s depiction came largely from a scientific perspective and less so from a philosophical one as the idea of mind-dependence doesn’t even come into the equation in his theory. It would seem that the absolutists are asserting knowledge of an ultimately reality without enough consideration for the epistemological background for their claim to hold weight in a philosophical sense. Quite simply, from Kant’s perspective the absolutist depiction illegitimately infers a grander notion of the reality of space than our human scope can credibly allow.
For Kant, in discussing things in themselves in an ontological sense (or any sense for that matter) it would appear that he runs into an immediate contradiction as he analyses noumenon through the very categories that he asserts they operate outside. However if we were to take an interpretation to reconcile Kant we can look at his discussion of things in themselves not in an ontological sense but merely as a means of articulating and emphasizing the epistemological limit interwoven with appearances being all that we perceive. Evidence to support this can be found in the critique as Kant asserts that ‘What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknowable to us.’ (A42) (Kant, 1781) If we take this view, things in themselves are that entire realm that operates outside our field of perception and they serve solely as a negative function that label’s that which we can never known. Our knowledge may only come through the frameworks of pure intuitions (space and time) within which our sensibility functions, claiming anything past that is merely a guessing-game. Here it can be seen that Kant’s perspective, in contrast to Newton and Clarke’s, grounds itself in a strongly in an epistemological sense and can most certainly hold its own in a philosophical context.
To flesh out explicitly the contrast between these two models of spaces existence I’m now going to consider the zen koan “If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” and analyse the parallels that can be drawn between the ways one can answer this question and how the transcendental realist and transcendental idealist notions of space differ. If we were to take the answer yes, the sound waves that move out from where the tree falls and crashes are not contingent on a human observer and the tree will still make a sound, we can see trends with the transcendental realist perspective as a question outside the human scope (given in the question that nobody is present) is answered by an inference of the way things are by what seems like common sense. In contrast, if we look at another response to this question stating that it is enigmatic, arguing that contained within the question is the negation of the conditions in fact needed to answer the question, we see the trends with Kant’s transcendental idealist perspective and the strong legitimacy it possesses as no claims are made of noumenum due to the enigmatic nature of attempting to make any such claims. It is here that we see the greater philosophical depth in Kant’s model and the greater truth-value to his transcendental idealist perspective as he accommodates for the limits inherent within human perspective and the impossibility of gaining knowledge of anything outside it.

So in comparing Kant’s transcendental idealist notion of space against the transcendental realist notion of Newton and Clarke we can see the theoretical background from which Kant structures his model holds considerably more credibility. The simplistic transcendental realist view here claims the existence an ultimate reality that transcends our scope of knowledge, a self-refuting assertion as it makes this claim from the very scope it aims to transcend. In contrast Kant’s view makes no such claim and by articulating space as a pure form of intuition he creates an inextricable link between observer and the reality of space. The shift of discussion from ‘relationalism’ versus ‘absolutism’ to ‘idealism’ against ‘realism’ was driven totally by this issue of the bounds of our knowledge and mind-dependant reality coming to the fore. While the absolute and transcendentally real notion of Newton and Clarke was brilliant and in the realm of the natural sciences was part of a series of developments that were ground-breaking in their magnitude, under scrutiny from a philosophical lens we see it is a notion that comes up lacking in its simplicity and see the transcendental idealist conception of space articulated by Kant as holding more truth value.

Bibliography

Immanuel Kant, (1781) The Critque of Pure Reason Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1998

P Wolfendale, Essay on Transcendental Realism, http://deontologistics.files.wordpress.com available at: http://deontologistics.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/essay-on-transcendental-realism.pdf

Andrew Janiak, (2009) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Kant’s Views on Space and Time available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-spacetime/

Michael Rohlf, (2010) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Immanuel Kant, available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/

Robert Rynasiewicz, (2011) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Newton's Views on Space, Time, and Motion, available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-stm/

Timothy Yenter, (2009) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Samuel Clarke, available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/clarke/

Sephorah Mangin, Kant's Transcendental Idealism, available at: http://www.sephorahmangin.info/selected_essays/Kant_Transcendental_Idealism.pdf