Kant's Subjectivist Theory of Space

Authors

Mark C. Timmons, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Date of this Version

1979

Document Type

Article

Comments

Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences- Volume VII, 1979. Copyright © 1979 Timmons

Abstract

In his 1780 Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, Kant rejects those objectivist views of space according to which space belongs to the order of things in themselves, either as itself a thing in itself (Newton), or reducible to properties of things in themselves (Leibniz), and argues for a subjectivist alternative. What this subjectivist view comes to is unclear. This paper provides an analysis of a few key passages from the Kritik in an attempt to reconstruct Kant's doctrine of space.