Selections from “Critique of Pure Reason” by Immanuel Kant: Transcendental Doctrine of Elements – of Space, Part 1 of 2

Immanuel Kant was one of the most influential German philosophers in modern Western philosophy. His most famous work was in the area of ethics and metaphysics. Kant’s work in the area of morality was considered completely new at the time. He stated, first of all, that all humans are worthy of dignity and respect. His philosophy also said that motivation, not outcome, is the most important determinant of goodness. We are now going to present a selection from one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy, “Critique of Pure Reason.”

“By means of the external sense (a property of the mind), we represent to ourselves objects as without us, and these all in space. Herein alone are their shape, dimensions, and relations to each other determined or determinable. The internal sense, by means of which the mind contemplates itself or its internal state, gives, indeed, no intuition of the soul as an object; yet there is nevertheless a determinate form, under which alone the contemplation of our internal state is possible, so that all which relates to the inward determinations of the mind is represented in relations of time. Of time we cannot have any external intuition, any more than we can have an internal intuition of space.”

“Space is not a conception which has been derived from outward experiences. For, in order that certain sensations may relate to something without me (that is, to something which occupies a different part of space from that in which I am); in like manner, in order that I may represent them not merely as without, of, and near to each other, but also in separate places, the representation of space must already exist as a foundation.” “For, in the first place, we can only represent to ourselves one space, and, when we talk of diverse spaces, we mean only parts of one and the same space. Moreover, these parts cannot antecede this one all-embracing space, as the component parts from which the aggregate can be made up, but can be cogitated only as existing in it.”