Three Remarks on the Interpretation of Kant on Incongruent Counterparts

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 30-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogério Passos Severo
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Absolute Space ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Incongruent Counterparts ◽  
Number Of Authors

In recent times, a number of authors have systematically criticized Kant's 1768 ‘proof’ of the reality of absolute space. Peter Remnant may have been the first do to so, but many others have since joined him, either challenging the argument itself or showing how relationist conceptions of space can account for incongruent counterparts just as well as absolutist conceptions. In fact, Kant himself abandoned his main conclusion soon after publication, favouring instead the doctrine of transcendental idealism. I do not see how the 1768 proof can be saved, nor will I defend it here. However, in dismissing it some critics seem to have gone too far, and either failed to fully acknowledge Kant's contribution, or attributed to him thoughts he is unlikely to have had. Kant's treatment of incongruent counterparts in his Dissertation of 1770 has also met strong opposition. In particular, his claim that the difference between a pair of incongruent counterparts cannot be apprehended by means of concepts alone has been taken to be a mathematical falsehood. Indeed, incongruent counterparts have been shown to be mathematically distinguishable, with no intuitions needed for that purpose.

The Asymmetry of Space: Kant’s Theory of Absolute Space in 1768

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew S. Rukgaber
Keyword(s):  
Directional Asymmetry ◽  
Absolute Space ◽  
Dynamic Features ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Incongruent Counterparts ◽  
Ultimate Ground

AbstractI propose that we interpret Kant’s argument from incongruent counterparts in the 1768 article ‘Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space’ in light of a theory of dynamic absolute space that he accepted throughout the 1750s and 1760s. This force-based or material conception of space was not an unusual interpretation of the Newtonian notion of absolute space. Nevertheless, commentators have continually argued that Kant’s argument is an utter failure that shifts from the metaphysics of space to its epistemology, because he has no way to connect ‘directionality’ and ‘handedness’ to absolute space. This supposed failure is based on an understanding of absolute space in purely mathematical terms and as an absolute void that lacks any qualitative or dynamic features. If we recognize that Kant held that space had an intrinsic directional asymmetry then his argument successfully connects incongruent counterparts to absolute space. The presence of this notion in Kant’s pre-Critical thought is rarely noted, and its necessity in understanding his incongruence argument is novel.

About acute non-suppurative thyroiditis  

1930 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-56
Author(s):  
M. M. Lyakhovitsky  
Keyword(s):  
Thyroid Gland ◽  
Rare Diseases ◽  
Acute Inflammation ◽  
Thymus Gland ◽  
Suppurative Thyroiditis ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Acute Thyroiditis ◽  
Number Of Authors

Acute thyroiditis, especially non-purulent, are very rare diseases. The first works devoted to the description of acute inflammation of the thyroid gland date back to the beginning of the last century. In the works of a number of authors (Conradi, W eitenwebe.r'a, Bauchet'a, Pi II c hod), the essence of this disease has already been successfully clarified and the difference between thyroiditis inflammation of a healthy thyroid gland and strumite inflammation of the thymus gland is firmly established. In the process of further study of this issue, a number of works appeared (Lcbert'a, Kocher'a, Mygind'a, etc.), in which, along with elucidation of a number of etiological moments that cause this disease, and a description of the pathological anatomical picture, were questioned and even the existence of primary non-suppurative thyroiditis was denied.

scholarly journals Hands, screws, triangles and absolute space

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-302
Author(s):  
Nenad Filipovic
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Absolute Space ◽  
Original Argument ◽  
Critical Writings ◽  
Incongruent Counterparts

Hands and other incongruent counterparts are enough argument against relationist, at least Kant thought so, since some of his pre-critical writings. Arguments with incongruent counterparts are elegant and effective and they are quite attracted great attention of numerous authors who have criticized or defended the arguments in different ways. In a meanwhile discussions have gone too far from Kant's original argument, and from the spirit of that time, and received characteristics of modern philosophy and geometry. This text should show that Kant, as well as those who later defended him, did not achieve their goal - no conclusive argument against relationist have been brought by them.

Finding "tuberculous" bacilli in the blood of healthy individuals and patients with tuberculosis

1913 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-82
Author(s):  
A E Leman
Keyword(s):  
Acetic Acid ◽  
Healthy Individuals ◽  
Tuberculosis Patients ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Number Of Authors

For the study of blood in the presence of tuberculosis bacilli, they began to use the Stubli method 1), with 3% acetic acid, and Uhlenhuth 2) antiformin, which, as is known, is a mixture of 7.52% chlorine. For example, the number of authors who found acid-resistant bacilli in the circulating blood of tuberculosis patients began to grow rapidly, and nowadays one can count more than twenty works on this issue. The difference lies only in the process of finding sticks by various authors.

Embodied Cognition in Berkeley and Kant: The Body’s Own Space

2019 ◽  
pp. 74-94
Author(s):  
Jennifer Mensch
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Spatial Intuition ◽  
Incongruent Counterparts

Berkeley and Kant are known for having developed philosophical critiques of materialism, critiques which lead them to propose instead an epistemology based on the coherence of our mental representations. For all that the two had in common, however, Kant was adamant in distinguishing his own ‘transcendental idealism’ from the immaterialist consequences entailed by Berkeley’s account. In this essay I return to their respective theories of spatial intuition, since it is by paying attention to Berkeley’s account of space that we discover a surprising account of embodied cognition, of spatial distance and size that can only be known by way of the body’s motion and touch. More striking than this, is the manner in which Kant’s approach to the problem of incongruent counterparts also relies on a proprioceptive cognition. Thus while cognition theorists today have recognized that certain challenges faced by perception and cognition can only be resolved by way of an appeal to the facts of embodiment, my aim in this essay is to show that such recourse is not new.

Kantian Things in Themselves, Leibniz-Wolffian Things in Themselves, and Fictionalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 319-354
Author(s):  
Anja Jauernig
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
The Difference

An account is provided of how Kant’s apparent endorsement of fictionalism about things in themselves, as well as his apparent endorsement of the Leibniz-Wolffian conception of things in themselves, can be reconciled with the reading that he is a realist about things in themselves as characterized in critical idealism. In this context, the difference between Kantian things in themselves and noumena, that is, objects of the pure understanding, is explained as well. Furthermore, two additional arguments for transcendental idealism that are suggested by Kant are subject to scrutiny, both of which seem odd at first glance since they rely on premises about things in themselves to which he does not appear to be entitled within the framework of the critical philosophy.

scholarly journals The Legacy of Newton for the Pre-Critical Kant

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michela Massimi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Period ◽  
Absolute Space ◽  
Matter Theory ◽  
Incongruent Counterparts

This chapter assesses Newton’s legacy for Kant by concentrating on the evolution of Kant’s view of space in the pre-Critical period (1748–1768), with two main goals in mind. The first goal is to draw attention to the role that Newton’s matter theory and chemistry played for the young Kant. The second is to argue against the received view that has portrayed the young Kant as embracing Newton’s absolute space in 1768 via the argument from incongruent counterparts (short-lived as this conversion to Newton’s absolute space proved to be). By contrast to the received view, this chapter shows that in the period 1748–1768, Kant was working with a thoroughgoing relationalism, consonant with Kant’s matter theory, which was, in turn, inspired by speculative Newtonian experimentalism itself. Hence, the case is made for a slightly different interpretive stance on Newton’s legacy for the young Kant.

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