The trouble with Kant's spatial metaphor
"In consequence of this revolutionary assertion Kant states that: 'Space is not an empirical concept which has been derived from outer experiences.' (B/38) On the contrary: '…it is the subjective condition of sensibility, under which alone outer intuition is possible for us.' (A/26; B/42)
In other words, Kant asserts that space (and time) are not objective, self-subsisting realities, but subjective requirements of our human sensory-cognitive faculties to which all things must conform. Space and time serve as indispensable tools that arrange and systemize the images of the objects imported by our sensory organs. The raw data supplied by our eyes and ears would be useless if our minds didn't have space and time to make sense of it all. ...
Kant's view of space (and time) is the groundwork of his Critique [of Pure Reason], However the inseparable bond he claimed between geometry and the nature of space serves to undermine his case rather than support it. ...
When Kant refers to geometry, he must mean Euclidean geometry, since Non-Euclidean geometry, the brainchild of the 19th Century, was unknown to him. Hence space, in Kant's philosophical system must conform to Euclidean geometry. Norman Kemp Smith, in his Commentary on the Critique, remarked that for Kant '…space in order to be space at all, must be Euclidean.'
Space, in Euclidean Geometry, is a concept which is independent of the attributes of our human minds and senses. The word Geometry is derived from Greek - geo 'earth', and metron 'to measure', namely 'earth measurement'. With such semantic-conceptual roots its hardly conceivable that Euclid regarded Geometry as divorced from an objective independent space."
(Pinhas Ben-Zvi, 2005, Philosophy Now)
Ben-Zvi, P. (2005). "Kant on Space." Philosophy Now, January/February 2005(49).
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Rob Bryanton: Imagining the 10th Dimension
"Since the extra dimensions beyond spacetime that physicists talk about are all spatial dimensions (or 'space-like' as some prefer to say), thinking about how the simplest spatial dimensions relate one to another gives us tools for imagining the more complex ones. The key to remember with all this is that each additional spatial dimension is at 'right angles' to the one before: so each new dimension allows an observer to see 'around the corner' in a way that was unattainable from the previous dimension. This time, let's work through the dimensions with that idea in mind."
(Rob Bryanton, October 2009)
Rob Bryanton (2006). "Imagining the Tenth Dimension: A New Way of Thinking About Time and Space", Trafford Publishing.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Ayn Rand: objective reality
"In this engaging 1959 interview, her first on television, Ayn Rand capsulizes her philosophy for CBS's Mike Wallace. The discussion ranges from the nature of morality to the economic and historical distortions disseminated about the 'robber barons.' She also comments on her relationship with Frank O'Connor, provides some autobiographical information and gives her perspective on the future of America."
(Uploaded by hastelculo on 8 Jan 2008)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Scientists revise their criteria of rationality as they enter new domains
"The conventional model of science, technology and society locates sources of violence in politics and ethics, that is, in the application of science and technology, not in scientific knowledge itself.
The fact-value dichotomy is a creation of modern, reductionist science which, while being an epistemic response to a particular set of values, claims to be independent of values. According to the received view, modern science is the discovery of the properties of nature in accordance with a 'scientific method' which generates 'objective', 'neutral', 'universal' knowledge. This view of modern science as a description of reality as it is, unprejudiced by value, can be rejected on at least four grounds.
All knowledge, including modern scientific knowledge, is built through the use of a plurality of methodologies. As Feyerabend observes:
There is no 'scientific method'; there is no single procedure, or set of rules that underlines every piece of research and guarantees that it is 'scientific' and, therefore, trustworthy. The idea of a universal and stable method that is an unchanging measure of adequacy and even the idea of a universal and stable rationality is as unrealistic as the idea of a universal and stable measuring instrument that measures any magnitude, no matter what the circumstances. Scientists revise their standards, their procedures, their criteria of rationality as they move along and perhaps entirely replace their theories and their instruments as they move along and enter new domains of research (Feyerband, 1978, p. 98).
The view that science is just a discovery of facts about nature does not get support from philosophy either. If scientific knowledge is assumed to give true, factual knowledge of 'reality as it is', then we would have to 'conclude that Newtonian theory was true until around 1900, after which it suddenly became false, while relativity and quantum theories became the truth' (Bohm, 1981, p. 4)."
(Vandana Shiva, 1990)
1). Shiva, V. (1990). 'Reductionist science as epistemological violence'. 'Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity'. A. Nandy, Oxford University Press: 314.
Paul Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society (London: New Left Books, 1978).
David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981).
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
