>At the same time, space is necessary for objectivity; without space, there is no idea of external objects.
Why is space necessary? “External” seems like a good description of the relationship of objective stuff to minds, but that relationship doesn’t seem like it couldn’t be well-described in non-spatial terms. E.g. “reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t stop affecting you”. (Though I had to modify the “go away”.)
>Time is nothing other than the form of the inner sense
I doubt or don’t understand this. I agree that time is the form of the inner sense, but it’s also the form of other things. E.g. if there’s a crater on the moon, and inside that crater is another smaller crater, that’s manifesting the form of time, no?
>Relational knowledge allows us to know objects as they relate to us, but not as they don’t relate to us.
Is relational knowledge supposed to characterize all knowledge? If so this seems very imprecise or wrong because by using induction we can know what’s likely about objects as they haven’t yet related to us. I think when people talk about reality, objectivity, things in themselves, etc., under the hood they’re using intuitive beliefs that this sort of induction works / is useful, and I think they’re generally correct.
Why is space necessary? “External” seems like a good description of the relationship of objective stuff to minds, but that relationship doesn’t seem like it couldn’t be well-described in non-spatial terms. E.g. “reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t stop affecting you”. (Though I had to modify the “go away”.)
Such a sense of reality might be external in the sense of “unpredictable” but not in the sense of “apparently outside me”.
I doubt or don’t understand this. I agree that time is the form of the inner sense, but it’s also the form of other things. E.g. if there’s a crater on the moon, and inside that crater is another smaller crater, that’s manifesting the form of time, no?
This is subjective time; to some extent other forms of time are derived from subjective time. I’m not really sure what you mean in the crater example, I guess you’re saying that we infer from the two craters that one came after the other. When we do this we’re sort of imagining seeing the moon, seeing the first crater form, then seeing the second crater form.
Is relational knowledge supposed to characterize all knowledge? If so this seems very imprecise or wrong because by using induction we can know what’s likely about objects as they haven’t yet related to us.
Suppose I use induction to show that there’s a spot 1m forward from me, then another spot 1m forward from that, and so on. All these distances are relational even though they go to infinity.
Alternatively I could do mathematical induction to show that all naturals are odd or even. These “relate to me” in that I can imagine them in intuition (up to a point), but they aren’t unique to me, since the could be imagined equivalently in another context.
One of the many confusing things about Kant is that he uses words in idiosyncratic ways. His “necessary” is usually “any possible experience”. At least that keeps the usual.equation between “necessary” and “all.possible”. Anyway, space is necessary for any possible experience involving a subject and an object, because spatial separation is what distinguishes a subject an an object.
Thanks.
>At the same time, space is necessary for objectivity; without space, there is no idea of external objects.
Why is space necessary? “External” seems like a good description of the relationship of objective stuff to minds, but that relationship doesn’t seem like it couldn’t be well-described in non-spatial terms. E.g. “reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t stop affecting you”. (Though I had to modify the “go away”.)
>Time is nothing other than the form of the inner sense
I doubt or don’t understand this. I agree that time is the form of the inner sense, but it’s also the form of other things. E.g. if there’s a crater on the moon, and inside that crater is another smaller crater, that’s manifesting the form of time, no?
>Relational knowledge allows us to know objects as they relate to us, but not as they don’t relate to us.
Is relational knowledge supposed to characterize all knowledge? If so this seems very imprecise or wrong because by using induction we can know what’s likely about objects as they haven’t yet related to us. I think when people talk about reality, objectivity, things in themselves, etc., under the hood they’re using intuitive beliefs that this sort of induction works / is useful, and I think they’re generally correct.
Such a sense of reality might be external in the sense of “unpredictable” but not in the sense of “apparently outside me”.
This is subjective time; to some extent other forms of time are derived from subjective time. I’m not really sure what you mean in the crater example, I guess you’re saying that we infer from the two craters that one came after the other. When we do this we’re sort of imagining seeing the moon, seeing the first crater form, then seeing the second crater form.
Suppose I use induction to show that there’s a spot 1m forward from me, then another spot 1m forward from that, and so on. All these distances are relational even though they go to infinity.
Alternatively I could do mathematical induction to show that all naturals are odd or even. These “relate to me” in that I can imagine them in intuition (up to a point), but they aren’t unique to me, since the could be imagined equivalently in another context.
One of the many confusing things about Kant is that he uses words in idiosyncratic ways. His “necessary” is usually “any possible experience”. At least that keeps the usual.equation between “necessary” and “all.possible”. Anyway, space is necessary for any possible experience involving a subject and an object, because spatial separation is what distinguishes a subject an an object.