Space and Time

My research paper will focus on the concepts of space and time, and their application in metaphysical thought. Specifically, I want to address the issues of whether space and time are real things that occur in nature, or if they are simply constructed by the mind. To answer this question, as well as establish more fundamental ideas about the functions of space and time, I will primarily consult the metaphysical writings of Immanuel Kant, Henri Bergson, and Martin Heidegger. Since we have not yet covered Heidegger’s Being and Time in class, this particular argument will not be discussed in my presentation. In my paper, I will draw from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, as well as the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Bergson’s Creative Evolution, and certain academic articles about these philosophers’ views on space and time.

First, it is important to put space and time in the chronology of philosophical thought. To do this, I will discuss the differences between philosophers writing pre-skepticism and then post-skepticism, the era of Kant, Bergson, and Heidegger. Space and time were important aspects of ancient Greek philosophy, but Greeks never imagined a world separate from the mind and our knowledge. This idea originated in the “skeptic” period of philosophy, and it serves as the basic principle upon which these three post-skepticism philosophers are writing about space and time in metaphysics. In order to concretely examine the problem Kant and company are writing about, it is necessary to understand the original ideas held by the ancient Greeks. In the Physics, Aristotle establishes his basic assumptions of space (which he called “place”) and time in Book 4 (Delta). Aristotle’s concept of place is very different from the neutral, blank Cartesian space, especially because it is oriented toward and around, and effectively determined by, the objects in it. Place of anything, for Aristotle, is “the first unmoved boundary of what surrounds it” (Hope, 66). Place is unlike “space” in that instead of co-existing with an object, a place is rather a boundary or surface for the object. Only movable bodies can be in a place. Being in time is being measured, since an object’s being is measured in time. Time is a constant attribute of movements, so things that do not move or rest are not in time. Because it is relative to the motion of things, Aristotle does not define time as existing on its own. A brief inclusion of Aristotle’s notions of place and time serve to show the progression of thought on these concepts, since Aristotle was not even asking the same question as post-skepticism philosophers because the Greek philosophical world view did not account for separating the world from our mind.

Kant, Bergson, and Heidegger all agree that space and time are not natural or just independent things in the world, but rather that they are our mind’s way of positively conditioning the world so that we can have knowledge of it. However, each philosopher differs on certain aspects of these concepts, which have larger implications both in their works and metaphysics itself. The goal of the paper will be to examine the purposes and consequences of the commonalities and differences amongst these three philosophers.

Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, devotes the Transcendental Aesthetic to the essential elements knowledge is constructed of (but do not constitute knowledge itself), including the formal, a priori intuitions of space and time. Time and space, are formal because they impose positive conditions on the world, and Kant takes care to specify that although we impose these properties and they may therefore be fictive, they are still necessary conditions for our intuition of an object. They must be a priori because every intuition we have ever had is spatiotemporal, indicating that we simply cannot conceive of anything that does not exist in space or time, and time is in fact meaningless apart from its application to objects. The parts of Kant’s argument I want to examine are the relationship between space and time (as a priori forms of intuition) and reason, and between our minds and the natural world. Reason, according to Kant, wants to take concepts and the categories outside of the boundaries imposed by space and time. I also want to apply this seemingly contentious relationship to the connection between the world and our minds. Since we impose conditions and forms of intuition (space and time) upon the world, what does this mean for our worldview, as well our ability to participate in a “natural world” fundamentally defined by our own mental capabilities? Besides drawing mainly from the Transcendental Aesthetic in the Critique of Pure Reason to provide the evidence to ground these claims, I will use the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics to incorporate the few examples and clarifications Kant provided after writing the CPR.

In Creative Evolution, Bergson identifies time as something lived, that fundamentally defines our experiences in the world and within our own minds. He argues that our minds, as well as science, function on the cinematographic model, by which we use events as markers to break the continual monotony of duration. Bergson claims that “life and action are free” by virtue of “making ourselves conscious of our progress in pure duration, the more we feel the different parts of our being enter into each other” (201). He also asserts that our personalities and minds are at ease with and function within space, because the mind uses the form of space to divide matter as the needs of our actions necessitate. According to Bergson, space is neither “so foreign o our nature as we imagine, nor is matter as completely extended in space as our senses and intellect represent it” (202). The parts of Bergson’s argument I want to incorporate draw more heavily from his discussion of time, specifically the impact of his concept of time upon memory, consciousness, and the real duration of life. In providing his explanation of space, Bergson directly responds to Kant, and I plan to incorporate this argument in the paper to establish not only what Bergson wished to critique in Kant’s argument, but what effect that has on his own.