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The conception of space in Kant's work "Concerning the Distinction of the Directions in Space"

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2012

Abstract

This article is firstly concerned with the question of whether Kant still holds Newton's conception of space in his work Concerning the Distinction of the Directions in Space, as his reference to "absolute space" seems to suggest. The author attempts to show that this is not in fact the case since the term "absolute space" should not be interpreted as referring to Newton's conception of space.

In the second part of the article, the author focuses on the critique of Leibniz's conception of space that is the main theme of Kant's aforesaid work. Leibniz's conception, in Kant's view, is shown to be inadequate because it comes into conflict with phenomena by not being able to explain the existence of incongruent counterparts, such as right and left hands.