I have one nagging question about things in themselves being outside of space and time. How do we locate objects in space and time? Why are some objects in our vicinity and others far away? The objects could be anywhere in space and time. They have no "label". Why is my glass of beer in front of me, and the moon so far away? I have never seen any reference to this question. I hope someone can help me.
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2The moon nor the glass is a thing-in-itself. I do not see why spatial vicinity of objects should have anything to do with their epistemological, much less metaphysical status.– Philip Klöcking ♦Sep 3, 2022 at 12:26
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1Perhaps you've misunderstood the concept of the "things in themselves". It is outside space and time, and hence have no spatial relation, so you can't really "locate" it. Can you "locate" a belief system you hold? Or a mathematical "1"? Well, some would perhaps say you can, but in a kantian system you cannot, unless it's a "mere" representation of the thing in itself.– Yechiam WeissSep 3, 2022 at 13:30
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Of course I know that things in themselves are outside space and time. That is the point. The question is how we locate objects of experience (representations) in the empirical world given that their noumenal correlates nave no location.– MarekSep 4, 2022 at 5:23
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It may be that, once the thing in itself is identified as an object, it is the senses that locate it. This of course would mean two stages of perception. I don't think this is what Kant had in mind.– MarekSep 6, 2022 at 7:55
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2@Marek "According to Kant, I think, we do know that things in themselves exist": Kant never sustained such thing. Perhaps this is a simulation, perhaps everything occurred in our mind, or the mind of God (see George Berkeley). Reference?– RodolfoAPSep 6, 2022 at 7:59
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7 Answers
You seem to think that the thing-in-itself was "the real thing" and our representation is just a bad similacrum. That is simply wrong.
The real world, that which counts, is the world of representations in Kant. In it, objects just do have spatial properties and stand in spatial relations. And that is the basis of all knowledge proper.
The only reason he speaks of "things-in-themselves" at all, as a figure of speech instead of being about any metaphysical statement, is that if we understand that whatever input there may be and wherever that comes from is mediated by our understanding, this naturally leads to the possibility of different ways of understanding that does not mediate in the same way. And the common gound would be that the same "something" that produces our sensual input would be the source of their knowledge.
That is also why Kant posthumously wrote that the thing-in-itself is not even a thing proper, since "thing" (as opposed to object) is a category that only makes sense for our way of understanding.
Thus, your question is based on an essentialist misunderstanding. It's not like Kant ever stated that noumenal objects indeed had any properties we perceive so that we could say 'if we perceive spatial properties, we should be able to state at the very least that there is something space-like about noumenal objects and, put backwards, if we say there is nothing space-like about noumenal objects, how could we ever perceive spatial properties of them?' This is, interestingly, exactly the Sellarsian reinterpretation of Kant where the noumenal becomes the real object of which we gradually get a better picture through scientific inquiry.
But for Kant, this is not true. He radically rejects any characterisation of the noumenal in conceptual - representational - terms. He would not even state that noumena were outside of space and time, rather that we simply don't know what to say about noumena at all and because of that (see his logic) even to say they exist would be dubious. Kant rather speaks of thing-in-themselves to gain reality (Wirklichkeit) through transcendental necessity but this is how ideas become real in his system, not things, so this is not the same understanding of reality as it pertains to empirical objects. We don't "perceive properties of noumena" in Kant. We perceive (apprehend) properties of representations. Full stop. The very talk of 'properties' and, indeed even 'objects' already produces a category error if applied to the noumenal. Kant deliberately left the step from the noumenal to the manifold of intuition (the raw sensual data in a sense) out as explicitly inexplicable. The thing-in-itself does not "exist" in a meaningful way, it is basically something we posit to make sense out of the fact that we do not have immediate access to the fabric of reality.
The main takeaway from Kant should be "That which we cannot know about we should not speak about as if we did. Therefore, we should make very clear to ourselves what we actually can know anything about and questions beyond that are meaningless".
answered Sep 6, 2022 at 8:14
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Kloeking No. I do not think that our representations are bad similacrums. It is the orthodox reading of Kant that we apply our space-time intuitions on things in themselves. So you think that, having applied our spacial intuitions on things in themselves to see objects, they just happen to have spacial locations? For what reason? Given that things in themselves are outside of space-time, there seems to be nothing to determine position in space. Is it we ourselves who constitute the location of objects? Or God? As you know Kant's position was in opposition to Berkeley's.– MarekSep 9, 2022 at 7:01
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@Marek No, that is not the orthodox reading. The orthodox reading is that we organise the manifold of intuition in the forms of time and space. Thinking that this was the same as the things-in-themselves is plainout wrong.– Philip Klöcking ♦Sep 9, 2022 at 7:03
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OK, we organise the manifold intuition, What difference does this make? Does the manifold intuition include spatial position? By the way, I am reading Sebastian Gardner's Companion to Kant. According to this things in themselves are the absolute reality.– MarekSep 9, 2022 at 7:09
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@Marek This is a specific reading of Kant which is, in my opinion, diametral to the very core of transcendental philosophy, which is that reality is based on empirical grounds (4:373fn.). For more technical arguments and citations, see this answer of mine.– Philip Klöcking ♦Sep 9, 2022 at 7:44
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The attribution of “things in themselves” being merely a figure of speech to Kant brought accusations that Kant is an extreme idealist. What would you say is the point of his two refutations of idealism as a response to these accusations in the 2nd edition of the his “Critique of Pure Reason”? What do they establish in your view? Sep 30, 2022 at 15:48
Kantian things in themselves not in space or time. How do we locate them? (...) How do we locate objects in space and time?
The Kantian idea is that space and time are pure a priori forms of sensible intuition, not properties of things in some real world that would exist outside our mind. According to this, we locate objects in space and time because the objects and their location in space and time is actually part of our sensible intuition, not something real outside our mind. Thus, the real world we think we perceive and believe exists outside our mind is really an idea, inside our mind.
This does not seek to explain how come we have this idea. Rather, it seeks to make clear what we really know, namely, our intuition, and what we don't, for example how the things we believe exist outside our intuition really are.
This also does not deny that there is a real world outside our mind, only that whatever there is, we don't know what it is because we only know the contents of our own mind, so to speak.
answered Sep 7, 2022 at 17:36
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I have probably got the wrong idea, but it seems that the idea of the thing in itself is superfluous from your point of view. How does your view differ from pure idealism a la Berkeley, which Kant was opposed to?– MarekSep 10, 2022 at 11:49
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@Marek "the thing in itself is superfluous" I was trying to convey Kant's idea, so I was certainly not trying to make the idea of thing-it-itself look superfluous. 2. "from pure idealism a la Berkeley" I don't buy the idea that Berkeley's view were "pure idealism" but as for myself I am agnostic: "we don't know what it is because we only know the contents of our own mind" Sep 10, 2022 at 16:32
- How do we locate objects in space and time?
We locate objects in space by measuring their distance from a given point.
We locate events in time by measuring the time period between a given point in time and the point in time when the event happens.
Note: We do not locate objects, but events in time. Further questions about the possibility of distinguished positions or time periods as well as questions about the relativity of distances and time periods are the subject of physics, in particular of the Theory of Relativity.
These considerations do not apply to things in themselves, as taken according to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. We do not have direct access to things in themselves. In particular, we cannot measure them. Even more: We cannot even apply our common concepts to them.
All we can do is to hypothesize that things in themselves exist and affect our senses. Subsequently our senses and our mind generate some corresponding experience.
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Are you saying that we impose our spatio-temporal intuitions (as Kant says) to things in themselves, and hey presto we have events ordered spatio-temporally?– MarekSep 7, 2022 at 11:36
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Of course we detect objects, or events if you will, with our senses. The question is how the order of events comes about. We of course can't get this information from things in themselves which are outside space-time.– MarekSep 7, 2022 at 11:39
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@Marek. Concerning your first question: No, I do not say that we impose spatio-temporal relations onto things in themselves. I say: We measure the spatio-location of objects and events. They are elements of our experience, different than the things in themselves in the Kantian sense. - Can you please expand your second question 'How does the order of events comes about?'. Thank you. Sep 7, 2022 at 12:15
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We measure the location of object and events. But how do the locations of objects and events come about in the first place? The order surely exists independently of our perceptions unless you espouse idealism. Kant was arguing against Berkeley. What makes available to us a coherent system of events given that things in themselves do not exist in space-time. A realist would say that objects have their relative positions according to events guided by the the laws of physics after the start of the whole process of existence. Kant, does not have this option.– MarekSep 8, 2022 at 11:55
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If I impose my intuitions of space and time on a thing in itself what makes the object near to me, or far from me?– MarekSep 8, 2022 at 11:55
We can't. We can't even assume that they exist, or that a thing-in-itself corresponds to a thing-as-it-appears (therefore, every atom-as-it-appears would correspond to one atom-in-itself... what???).
In we take such assumptions, we know something about the thing-in-itself, which is by definition contradictory.
What we locate are the things-as-they-appear, which do exist in time and space.
My understanding of this is that for Kant space and time are "the pure forms of intuition" whereas things are representations. Kant says in hist first Critique, if I remember correctly, that in order for there to be representations there must be "something" which is represented. He sees a logical requirement that there must be "things in themselves" which give rise, along with our cognitive faculties; our conceptual categories of judgement, to the representations we call "things".
I would say that basic to our capacity to conceptualize space and time is our capacity to perceive differences,similarities, repetitions and patterns. This capacity also enables us to conceptualize things as entities, each with their own unique identity.
So my question to Kant would be as to why, if we think things in themselves, we should not think space in itself and time in itself. Things are as they are for us, as they are perceived and understood by us, so why should not space and time, which are also as they are for us, as they are conceived and understood by us, not lead to a notion of space and time in themselves?
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"I would say that basic to our capacity to conceptualize space and time is our capacity to perceive differences,similarities, repetitions and patterns." That is all very well. But we have to perceive the right objects. Imagine a man waking up in a room with only a jug of water in it. Why does he perceive only the jug of water, and not everything else in the universe. The thing in itself can have no space-time information since it is outside space and time.– MarekSep 15, 2022 at 9:32
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Space and time are conditions for perceiving things. They are not things, It just doesn't seem to fit Kant's system that space and time could be things in themselves though they are transcendentally ideal.– MarekSep 15, 2022 at 9:32
What provides us with representations of spatial locations? This is not a complete answer, but it at least suggests there is a question. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-spacetime/notes.html This passage:
One of the clearest recent discussions of intuition, sensation and the representation of space in the first Critique can be found in Allais 2009. She argues that intuition provides us with representations of particulars - of things with spatial locations - independently of concepts, urging that we distinguish this claim about representation from the famous Kantian thought that we cannot achieve cognition without both intuitions and concepts (Allais 2009, 390).
According to Allais it is intuition that presents us with the locations of things.
Unfortunately, I cannot access Allais's paper, and I don't see how intuition can actually provide the locations.
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Google scholar gives this link, where the paper is freely available. Allais' point is that an intuition (ie. a particular intuition) is necessarily the intuition of a particular object, ie. the representation of a particular object, and that this involves spatial properties without concepts. That does not mean that everything within a particular intuition is given through sensibility, though. In Kant, the ability to form particular intuitions already involves some steps, including the forms of intuition coming into play.– Philip Klöcking ♦Sep 18, 2022 at 6:03
Perhaps the answer to the problem of the spatiotemporal location of objects lies in Kant's notion of the Transcendental Subject. It seems to be the regulator of empirical reality. "Kant's view of subjectivity implies a twofold consideration of the idea of subject. On one hand, there is the empirical self, and on the other hand, there stands the transcendental subject as the principle of the unity of experience, and therefore, as the principle of the existence of the empirical self. Kant's transcendental subject is an effort to suggest a theory of subjectivity, which is impersonal and non-atomistic, that is to say a model that intends to exclude individualism. Yet, this model fails to constitute the factually existing person as subject. Kant's theory of transcendental subject is rooted in his subjectivist idealist philosophy; the transcendental subject appears to be another type of the idea of absolute."
http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.eceb03ac-439d-3788-9407-25877316471c