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Chapter 10 - Absolute Space as a Necessary Idea

Reading Kant’s Phenomenology through Perspectival Lenses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2022

By
Michela Massimi
Edited by
Michael Bennett McNulty
Michael Bennett McNulty
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
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Summary

Kant’s engagement with Newton’s notion of ‘absolute space’ is fascinating, complex, and spans over both the pre-Critical and the Critical period. The received view has it that in the pre-Critical period Kant shifted from an originally Leibnizian view of space (still visible in Physical Monadology [MonPh, 1756], and New Doctrine of Motion and Rest [NLBR, 1758]) to a proper Newtonian view of absolute space via the incongruent counterparts argument in Directions in Space (GUGR, 1768), for then abandoning absolute space in the Inaugural Dissertation (MSI, 1770). Indeed, the same argument from incongruent counterparts was later employed in the Prolegomena (1783) as an argument for space as “the form of outer intuition of … sensibility” (Prol, 4:286).

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Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science
A Critical Guide
 , pp. 215 - 239
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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