Essay about Kant: Metaphysical Exposition of Space

In this paper, I will argue Kant’s categorical imperative's through a condensed summation of his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals with specific regard for the need for categorical imperative and how it's flaws can disband the efficacy of his claim.

Allan Poe states in his essay on cosmology titled Eureka, that “space and duration are one.” To many, this is portrayed as the first known instance of suggesting space and time to be joined together as one thing. Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity is the very beginning of a theory related concept of spacetime, but the first mathematical theory of spacetime actually created by one of his own early teachers named Hermann Minkowski. He created the concept of “Minkowski Space” which is the earliest recommendation to the treatment of space and time as two separate entities of one unified whole. The idea of Minkowski space has led up to special relativity being viewed more so in a geometrical way rather than a scientific and mathematical way. Minkowski space is described as the mathematical formation for which special relativity can be conveniently formulated. In this setting the three dimensions of space are combined with one dimension of time to create a four-dimensional whole expressed together as spacetime.

Newton was the Englishmen who formulated the modern laws of motion and mechanics. It remained unchallenged until the twentieth century. The core of his thinking was the concept of the universe. He declared that all bodies whatsoever are endowed with the principle of mutual gravitation. He was the grand unifying idea of early modern science. (Ways of the World, 557)

Kant (1724-1804) is known as one of the great philosophers of modern times. Despite skeptics like Hume and others of the associationism movement, Kant sought to settled debate between empirical and rationalist schools of thought. Of his many beliefs, he held that space and time were ideas essential to human experience.

2. The formula of the Law of Nature. “Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature.” This formulation is troublesome as it is nearly identical to the first with the major difference being that you will your maxim to be a law of nature not a rational law. Laws of nature are the physical laws that bind all things to act in the way they do except for ration agents. Only humans, as rational beings, can choose to act in a particular way. All other animals and all inanimate objects can only act as nature wills (if nature had a will) with no choice in the matter. With this formulation Kant is saying that you should act as thought what you are doing is guided by a physical law that you have no choice to act on.

Kant’s intuitions are representations given by sensation that provide the beginning for all cognition. Essentially, it is the way in which we receive representations which relate immediately to the object. The distinctions between intuitions and pure intuitions lies in the method of affection. Intuitions spur from the input of sensation whereas with pure intuitions there is no mingling of sensation. Pure sensations are transcendentally ideal meaning they are necessary forms of cognition. In virtue of reason, a transcendental truth cannot be denied and it is not necessary to test since it must be real. Pure intuitions determine exactly how we receive sensory input; they are not empirical and can be viewed more as a process where intuitions are passive experiences that happen to a person.

Some people highly criticize Kantian philosophy. It is thought of to be a deception. It is an illusion to goodness. It calls for all duties to be

Hume believes it is human nature to trust the causal laws, but fears that if his critique of induction is correct there could be a day when there is a cause without an expected effect, disproving causal laws. Kant combats this fear with Transcendental Idealism, which argues that the world as we know it exists in the mind. Phenomena embodies this argument by representing how our mind has glasses that cause itself to see the world based on how it wants to. This new idea caused a Copernican revolution bringing forth a new idea that the object around us conforms to the mind. Kant uses this theory to give Hume absolute certainty that there will never be a cause without an effect because if he wants to see the effect, the objects will conform to that desire, no matter if it happens in the real world or

Newton arguing for absolute space used a thought experiment to illustrate that true rotational motion cannot be defined as the relative rotation of the body with respect to the immediately surrounding bodies. Absolute space is immovable and similar without any external force or object acting upon it. It is the study of space as an unmoving reference point for what inertial systems such as planets and other objects exist within. Every object has an absolute state of motion relative to absolute space, so an object must either be in a state of absolute rest, or moving at some absolute speed. Newton does not succeed entirely in making his claim for absolute space.

Sir Isaac Newton was one of the big names who represents the side of the spatial substantivalists, and who was a nemesis to Leibniz in more ways than just space and time (they both found calculus independently of each other and both claimed to be the discoverer) (Huggett, 159). While Leibniz promoted the relationalists view, which we will get to in a moment, Newton suggested the opposite view and hypothesis that space is an entity of itself. Or in other words space is absolute (Newton, 408). Space being absolute called for Newton to characterize space as

Kant demonstrates that our sense of space cannot come from experience. When one perceives an object they relate the sensations that coordinate to that object a place. For example, one gets the sensation of the color of an apple and coordinates that color to the apple and the space that the apple occupies, in order for the apple to be red. The color red corresponds to the apple while the color of the table it is resting on coordinates to the table, keeping to two distinct positions in space. In order for an individual to relate an object as outside of them, they must assign them to a place. If this is the case, then space is a necessary base to one’s perception of an object. So one cannot gain the intuition of space empirically as space is necessary to one’s experience of the external world in order to have sensibility, or the faculty to passively know objects through sensation. Space is a condition of the perception of objects rather than a property of the objects themselves so there cannot be a perception of the objects without space. “It is impossible to have a representation of there being no space, though one can very well think of space without objects to fill it.” (B39

Kant demonstrates that our sense of space cannot come from experience. When one perceives an object they relate the sensations that coordinate to that object a place. For example, one gets the sensation of the color of an apple and coordinates that color to the apple and the space that the apple occupies, in order for the apple to be red. The color red corresponds to the apple while the color of the table it is resting on coordinates to the table, keeping to two distinct positions in space. In order for an individual to relate an object as outside of them, they must assign them to a place. If this is the case, then space is a necessary base to one’s perception of an object. So one cannot gain the intuition of space empirically as space is necessary to one’s experience of the external world in order to have sensibility, or the faculty to passively know objects through sensation. Space is a condition to the perception of objects rather than a property of the objects themselves so there cannot be a perception of the objects without space. “It is impossible to have a representation of there being no space, though one can very well think of space without objects to fill it.” (B39

However, since the relationalist defines motion as a relative quantity between two objects, and the distances between the two globes don’t change in either world, there doesn’t seem to be any relative quantities to be found in this second universe. Therefore, the relationalist seems forced to claim that there is no motion in either universe. Newton believes that this example demonstrates that the relationalist conception of space is incorrect, since we can directly observe the motion of the globes despite there being no relational quantities to show this motion. Newton concludes that the globes must be moving with respect to an absolute space.

Kant believed that there are different concepts and intuitions in which intuitions are put under concepts. Kant refers these intuitions into what he calls the three-fold synthesis. Kant describes the three fold synthesis as “the capacities in the understanding to compare, connect, and unify the fragmentary manifold items in intuition” (A97). To put it in different terms, the three fold synthesis describes the necessary components for intuition of what is happening in the outside world. It allows us to Kant believed that the three fold synthesis is divided into three different types of synthesis. According to Kant, it is required that all of the synthesis work in unison in order for experience to happen. Experience is what makes possible the synthesis of apprehension, in return makes the possibility of the synthesis of reproduction, which creates the possibility of the synthesis of recondition. Therefore, Kant argues, the synthesis of recondition is contingent on experience. Kant also stated that for each of the three fold synthesis, there are both empirical and pure levels. In other words, each of the three fold synthesis have two ways of being interpreted in the mind, one based on our intellects because it is gathered through experience, and another based upon the fact that the manifold works in unison with the others and are dependent on each other for experience to happen.

Newton had given the world what we now know as physics. For the past three hundred years Newtonian Mechanics have been taught to every student aspiring to elevate their minds. Newtonian Mechanics were the end all to the questions that had plagued thinkers since the beginning of time. The key difference is that Newton was never exposed to the world of science that technology had made prevalent to the likes of an Einstein or Hawking, or even my colleague studying neuro surgery at John’s Hopkins University. When Newton was sitting under his apple tree conjuring up ideas for how and why he did not fly off into space or why the harder you hit something the farther it goes, technology was moving along at the rate of most people’s grandmothers in their walkers. The scientists that had surrounded Newton knew only of what they could see. Their were no people looking to the far ends of the galaxies and their were no people looking in to the unseen cells that make up everything that we can see. Basically, Newton did not have a reason to explain what he was not aware of. He did have quite good reason, however, to explain why he got a bump on his head from that ripe apple that no longer needed the shelter of the tree. According to Shlain, Newton set the world he knew to mechanics and set the parameters for the new and final, well what was thought to be the final paradigm of the world. Then in 1905,