Kant’s Original Space and Time as Mere Grounds for Possibilities

Abstract

In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant appears to make incompatible claims regarding the unitary natures of what he takes to be our a priori representations of space and time. I argue that these representations are unitary independently of all synthesis and explain how this avoids problems encountered by other positions regarding the Transcendental Deduction and its relation to the Transcendental Aesthetic in that work. Central is the claim that these representations (1) contain, when characterized as intuitions and considered as prior to any affections of sensibility, only an infinitude of merely possible finite spatial and temporal representations, and (2) are representations that are merely transcendental grounds for the possibilities for receiving or generating finite representations in sensibility that are determined (immediately, in the case of reception) by means of syntheses that accord with the categories.

The Unicity, Infinity and Unity of Space

“…While Messina interprets the unity of space's requiring a synthesis as actually a requirement of synthetic unity without a synthesis, Thomas Raysmith (2021) focuses upon a different sense in which the unity of space requires a synthesis. He thereby also deviates from the standard assumption that the synthesis in question is the figurative one.…”

“…In so doing, he is addressing a standard concern with a ‘brute given’ understanding of space. The issue was flagged, among others, by Williams (2018: 84) and Raysmith (2021: 10): if the manifold in intuition is already given in a unified intuition that is independent of the categories, this contradicts Kant’s claim that the way appearances are given is such that their unity is that of syntheses that accord with the categories (cf. A84/B116ff.…”

“…To avoid the problem flagged earlier of a brute given unity of space, i.e. that space is actually given in a manner which does not accord with the TUA, Raysmith (2021: 10–12) first proposes that the form of space, which he takes to be ‘original space’, is a ‘unitary representation’ that is a ‘transcendental ground … for the possibilities of … spatial … representations’, i.e. which ‘giv[es] a manifold of merely possible representation[s]’.…”

“…Raysmith (2021: 14–15) then argues that what requires a synthesis is not the formal unity of space but our ability ‘to think this unity’, and therefore that since this must involve a ‘concept of original space’ a synthesis is indeed required. That is, the synthesis required by the unity of space is that of these features qua marks of this concept: it is through such a synthesis ‘that we first think this unity [of space]’ (p. 14).…”

“…This interpretation of the synthesis requirement is problematic. If, as Raysmith claims, this were ‘the synthesis of the various conceptual marks that results in the formation of the concept of original space’ (Raysmith 2021: 15), Kant would not have characterized it as ‘first’ making ‘concepts of space’ ‘possible’. First, the plural ‘concepts of space’ does not refer to the concept of space in general in the TAe (B40), but geometric concepts: Kant makes it clear that this footnote is dealing with space as object, as is ‘required in geometry’ (B160n.).…”