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1 The Consistency of Kant’s Theory of Space and Time In the Aesthetic Kant holds that space and time are given in pure intuition . In the Transcendental Deduction he holds that they are due to a synthesis of the transcendental imagination. Since a synthesis is a putting together, this seems to contradict the view of the Aesthetic that space and time are simply given. At least, in both these sections, Kant holds that space and time are pure manifolds. However, in the Analogies he holds a “dynamical” conception of space and time, according to which objects (appearances) “determine for one another their position ” (A200, B245, p. 226).1 This apparently relational account of space and time seems to contradict the account of them as pure manifolds in both the Aesthetic and the Deduction.2 In this essay I want to argue that Kant holds a constructivist theory of space and time in the Aesthetic, and that this constructivist theory is consistent with what he holds both in the Deduction and the Analogies. 1. the aesthetic Space and time, for Kant, are given in pure intuition. Now, intuition, for Kant, is a representation in which the object (that which is represented ) is given to us, and an intuition is pure if it does not involve sensation (A19, B34, p. 65–A200, B34, p. 66). Thus, for space and time to be given in pure intuition means they must be given or be immediately present without sensory affection by objects. One way for something to 1. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (Boston: Bedford , 1965). All references are to this edition. 2. For the supposed discrepancies in Kant’s account as between the Aesthetic and the Analytic, see, for example, Hans Vaihinger, Commentar zu Kants Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, vol. 2 (Berlin: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1892), 224, 227–29; Norman Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1918), 45; Peter Strawson, The Bounds of Sense (London: Methuen, 1966), 123; T. K. Swing, Kant’s Transcendental Logic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 151–52; and Robert Paul Wolff, Kant’s Theory of Mental Activity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), 228, 244, 263. 3 be given or present without sensation is for us to produce it and thus present it to ourselves. Thus, if I draw or construct a line, an actual individual expanse is thereby made present without sensory affection by objects. If we take expanses of space to exist in such constructions, we have one way of understanding how there can be pure intuition (viz., non-sensory presentation). A constructivist view, then, is at least consistent with Kant’s characterization of space and time as given in pure intuition , so long as we note that it is by our constructing that they are thus given. By a constructivist view of space and time, I mean a view parallel to the constructivist account of numbers in mathematics, according to which numbers exist only in procedures; say as termini of possible countings. What I wish to argue is that such an account of space and time makes sense of Kant’s arguments and conclusions in the Aesthetic .3 Kant’s first argument regarding space in the Metaphysical Exposition is that in order to represent things “as not only different, but in different places, the representation of space must be presupposed” (A23, B38, p. 68). Kant clearly means that some non-sensory representation of space is presupposed for representing objects as spatially related . But why should this be so? Why can’t I just see that one object is “outside and alongside” another? If we presume that part of what is involved in two objects having a spatial relation to each other is that they are separated from each other by a continuous expanse of space, it is no longer obvious that one can “just see” one object as outside another, for it is not obvious that one can sense continuity. On the other hand, suppose I look at the first object and then sweep my attention along to the second object. This sweep or flow of attention is something I do (something I produce). Equivalently, it is a mental act or performance “added” to sensation, not something given in sensation. It is in this flowing performance, I suggest, that Kant thinks continuity exists. This is the non-sensory representation that is presupposed in sensing one object’s being outside or...

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