Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
The proof in favour of the infinity of the cosmical succession and the
cosmical content is based upon the consideration that, in the opposite
case, a void time and a void space must constitute the limits of the
world. Now I am not unaware, that there are some ways of escaping this
conclusion. It may, for example, be alleged, that a limit to the world,
as regards both space and time, is quite possible, without at the same
time holding the existence of an absolute time before the beginning of
the world, or an absolute space extending beyond the actual world—which
is impossible. I am quite well satisfied with the latter part of this
opinion of the philosophers of the Leibnitzian school. Space is merely
the form of external intuition, but not a real object which can itself
be externally intuited; it is not a correlate of phenomena, it is the
form of phenomena itself. Space, therefore, cannot be regarded as
absolutely and in itself something determinative of the existence of
things, because it is not itself an object, but only the form of
possible objects. Consequently, things, as phenomena, determine space;
that is to say, they render it possible that, of all the possible
predicates of space (size and relation), certain may belong to reality.
But we cannot affirm the converse, that space, as something
self-subsistent, can determine real things in regard to size or shape,
for it is in itself not a real thing. Space (filled or void)[54] may
therefore be limited by phenomena, but phenomena cannot be limited by
an empty space without them. This is true of time also. All this being
granted, it is nevertheless indisputable, that we must assume these two
nonentities, void space without and void time before the world, if we
assume the existence of cosmical limits, relatively to space or time.
[54] It is evident that what is meant here is, that empty space, in so
far as it is limited by phenomena—space, that is, within the
world—does not at least contradict transcendental principles, and may
therefore, as regards them, be admitted, although its possibility
cannot on that account be affirmed.
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