I don’t intend to bicker, I think your point is a good one independently of these examples. In any case, I don’t think at least the first two of these examples of the phenomenon you’re talking about.
Well, the most famous (or infamous) is Kant’s argument the space must be flat (in the Euclidean sense) because the human mind is incapable of imagining it to be otherwise.
I think this comes up in the sequences as an example of the mind-projection fallacy, but that’s not right. Kant did not take himself to be saying anything about the world outside the mind when he said that space was flat. He only took himself to be talking about the world as it appears to us. Space, so far as Kant was concerned, was part of the structure of perception, not the universe. So in the Critique of Pure Reason, he says:
...if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, then all constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknown to us. (A42/B59–60)
So Kant is pretty explicit that he’s not making a claim about the world, but about the way we percieve it. Kant would very likely poke you in chest and say “No you’re committing the mind-projection fallacy for thinking that space is even in the world, rather than just a form of perception. And don’t tell me about the mind-projection fallacy anyway, I invented that whole move.”
Another example was Lucretius’s argument against the theory that the earth is round: if the earth were round and things fell towards its center than in which direction would an object at the center fall?
This also isn’t an example, because the idea of a spherical world had in fact been imagined in detail by Plato (with whom Lucretius seems to be arguing), Aristotle, and many of Lucretius’ contemporaries and predecessors. Lucretius’ point couldn’t have been that a round earth is unimaginable, but that it was inconsistent with an analysis of the motions of simple bodies in terms of up and down: you can’t say that fire is of a nature to go up if up is entirely relative. Or I suppose, you can say that but you’d have to come up with a more complicated account of natures.
Kant did not take himself to be saying anything about the world outside the mind when he said that space was flat. He only took himself to be talking about the world as it appears to us. Space, so far as Kant was concerned, was part of the structure of perception, not the universe.
And in particular he claimed that this showed it had to be Euclidean because humans couldn’t imagine it otherwise. Well, we now know it’s not Euclidean and people can imagine it that way (I suppose you could dispute this, but that gets into exactly what we mean by “imagine” and attempting to argue about other people’s qualia).
And in particular he claimed that this showed it had to be Euclidean because humans couldn’t imagine it otherwise.
No, he never says that. Feel free to cite something from Kant’s writing, or the SEP or something. I may be wrong, but I just read though the Aesthetic again, and I couldn’t find anything that would support your claim.
EDIT: I did find one passage that mentions imagination:
Space then is a necessary representation a priori, which serves for the foundation of all external intuitions. We never can imagine or make representation to ourselves of the non-existence of space, though we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it.
I’ve edited my post accordingly, but my point remains the same. Notice that Kant does not mention the flatness of space, nor is it at all obvious that he’s inferring anything from our inability to imagine the non-existence of space. END EDIT.
You gave Kant’s views about space as an example of someone saying ‘because we can’t imagine it otherwise, the world must be such and such’. Kant never says this. What he says is that the principles of geometry are not derived simply from the analysis of terms, nor are they empirical. Kant is very, very, explicit...almost annoyingly repetitive, that he is not talking about the world, but about our perceptive faculties. And if indeed we cannot imagine x, that does seem to me to be a good basis from which to draw some conclusions about our perceptive faculties.
I have no idea what Kant would say about whether or not we can imagine non-Euclidian space (I have no idea myself if we can) but the matter is complicated because ‘imagination’ is a technical term in his philosophy. He thought space was an infinite Euclidian magnitude, but Euclidian geometry was the only game in town at the time.
Anyway he’s not a good example. As I said before, I don’t mean to dispute the point the example was meant to illustrate. I just wanted to point out that this is an incorrect view of Kant’s claims about space. It’s not really very important what he thought about space though.
I don’t intend to bicker, I think your point is a good one independently of these examples. In any case, I don’t think at least the first two of these examples of the phenomenon you’re talking about.
I think this comes up in the sequences as an example of the mind-projection fallacy, but that’s not right. Kant did not take himself to be saying anything about the world outside the mind when he said that space was flat. He only took himself to be talking about the world as it appears to us. Space, so far as Kant was concerned, was part of the structure of perception, not the universe. So in the Critique of Pure Reason, he says:
So Kant is pretty explicit that he’s not making a claim about the world, but about the way we percieve it. Kant would very likely poke you in chest and say “No you’re committing the mind-projection fallacy for thinking that space is even in the world, rather than just a form of perception. And don’t tell me about the mind-projection fallacy anyway, I invented that whole move.”
This also isn’t an example, because the idea of a spherical world had in fact been imagined in detail by Plato (with whom Lucretius seems to be arguing), Aristotle, and many of Lucretius’ contemporaries and predecessors. Lucretius’ point couldn’t have been that a round earth is unimaginable, but that it was inconsistent with an analysis of the motions of simple bodies in terms of up and down: you can’t say that fire is of a nature to go up if up is entirely relative. Or I suppose, you can say that but you’d have to come up with a more complicated account of natures.
And in particular he claimed that this showed it had to be Euclidean because humans couldn’t imagine it otherwise. Well, we now know it’s not Euclidean and people can imagine it that way (I suppose you could dispute this, but that gets into exactly what we mean by “imagine” and attempting to argue about other people’s qualia).
No, he never says that. Feel free to cite something from Kant’s writing, or the SEP or something. I may be wrong, but I just read though the Aesthetic again, and I couldn’t find anything that would support your claim.
EDIT: I did find one passage that mentions imagination:
I’ve edited my post accordingly, but my point remains the same. Notice that Kant does not mention the flatness of space, nor is it at all obvious that he’s inferring anything from our inability to imagine the non-existence of space. END EDIT.
You gave Kant’s views about space as an example of someone saying ‘because we can’t imagine it otherwise, the world must be such and such’. Kant never says this. What he says is that the principles of geometry are not derived simply from the analysis of terms, nor are they empirical. Kant is very, very, explicit...almost annoyingly repetitive, that he is not talking about the world, but about our perceptive faculties. And if indeed we cannot imagine x, that does seem to me to be a good basis from which to draw some conclusions about our perceptive faculties.
I have no idea what Kant would say about whether or not we can imagine non-Euclidian space (I have no idea myself if we can) but the matter is complicated because ‘imagination’ is a technical term in his philosophy. He thought space was an infinite Euclidian magnitude, but Euclidian geometry was the only game in town at the time.
Anyway he’s not a good example. As I said before, I don’t mean to dispute the point the example was meant to illustrate. I just wanted to point out that this is an incorrect view of Kant’s claims about space. It’s not really very important what he thought about space though.