CRITIQUE OF KANT’S SPACE AND TIME AS

A PRIORI FORMS OF SENSIBILITY

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2018.

The Transcendental Aesthetic

Aesthetics or Esthetics1 here in the Transcendental Aesthetic (or Transcendental Esthetic)

of Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) Critique of Pure Reason2 (first edition 1781, second edition
1
Studies on Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic of the Critique of Pure Reason: C. B. GARNETT, The Kantian
Philosophy of Space, Columbia University Press, Morningside Heights, New York, 1939 ; R. A. SMYTH, Forms of
Intuition: An Historical Introduction to the Transcendental Aesthetic, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1978 ; W.
HARPER, Kant on Space, Empirical Realism and the Foundations of Geometry, “Topoi,” 3 (1984), pp. 143-161 ; C.
PARSONS, The Transcendental Aesthetic, in The Cambridge Companion to Kant, edited by P. Guyer, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 62-100 ; L. FALKENSTEIN, Kant’s Intuitionism: A Commentary on the
Transcendental Aesthetic, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1995 ; R. BRANDT, Transzendentale Ästhetik, §§
1-3, in Kritik der reinen Vernunft, edited by G. Mohr and M. Willaschek, Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 1997 ; D.
WARREN, Kant and the A Priority of Space, “The Philosophical Review,” 107 (1998), pp. 179-224 ; C. POSY,
Immediacy and the Birth of Reference in Kant: The Case for Space, in Between Logic and Intuition: Essays in
Honor of Charles Parsons, edited by G. Sher and R. Tieszen, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000 ; L.
FALKENSTEIN, Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic, in The Blackwell Companion to Kant, Blackwell, Oxford, 2006,
pp. 140-153 ; G. HATFIELD, Kant on the Perception of Space (and Time), in The Cambridge Companion to Kant
and Modern Philosophy, edited by P. Guyer, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006 ; A. T.
WINTERBOURNE, The Ideal and the Real: Kant’s Theory of Space, Time and Mathematical Construction,
Abramis, Arima, Bury St. Edmunds, 2007 ; A STEFANOV, Kant’s Conceptions of Space and Time and
Contemporary Science, Minkowski Institute Press, Montréal, 2015.
2
Studies on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: N. K. SMITH, A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,
Macmillan, London, 1930 ; H. J. PATON, Kant’s Metaphysic of Experience: A Commentary on the First Half of the
Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2 vols, Macmillan, New York, 1936 ; A. C. EWING, A Short Commentary on Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason, Methuen, London, 1938 ; C. G. GARNETT, The Kantian Philosophy of Space, Columbia
University Press, New York, 1939 ; T. D. WELDON, Introduction to Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason,’ Clarendon
Press, Oxford, 1945 ; G. MARTIN, Kant’s Metaphysics and Theory of Science, Manchester University Press,
Manchester, 1955 ; G. BIRD, Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1962 ; R. P.
WOLFF, Kant’s Theory of Mental Activity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1963 ; N.
ROTENSTREICH, Experience and Its Systematization: Studies in Kant, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1965 ; J.
BENNETT, Kant’s Analytic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1966 ; D. P. DRYER, Kant’s Solution for
Verification in Metaphysics, Allen & Unwin, London, 1966 ; H. HEIMSOETH, Transzendentale Dialektik: Ein
Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 4 vols., Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1966-1971 ; J. HARTNACK,
Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1967 ; M. S. GRAM, Kant, Ontology, and the A
Priori, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1968 ; T. K. SWING, Kant’s Transcendental Logic, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 1969 ; S. J. AL-AZM, The Origins of Kant’s Arguments in the Antinomies, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1972 ; A. MELNICK, Kant’s Analogies of Experience, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, 1973 ; A. LLANO, Fenómeno y trascendencia en Kant, EUNSA, Pamplona, 1973 ; L. BECK (ed.), Kant’s
Theory of Knowledge, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1974 ; J. BENNETT, Kant’s Dialectic, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1974 ; W. H. WALSH, Kant’s Criticism of Metaphysics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1975 ;
T. E. WILKERTON, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976 ; R. VERNEAUX, E.
Kant: ‘Critica della ragion pura,’ Japadre, L’Aquila, 1979 ; J. N. FINDLAY, Kant and the Transcendental Object:
A Hermeneutic Study, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981 ; J. V. BUROKER, Space and Incongruence: The Origin
of Kant’s Idealism, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1981 ; K. AMERIKS, Kant’s Theory of Mind: An Analysis of the
Paralogisms of Pure Reason, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982 ; J. N. MOHANTY and R. W. SHAHAN
(eds.), Essays on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1982 ; R.
WALKER, Kant on Pure Reason, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982 ; R. B. PIPPIN, Kant’s Theory of Form:

1
1787) means what was originally denoted by αίσθησις, namely, the doctrine of sense perception.
Kant calls “transcendental” every knowledge that has something to do with the way the human
mind knows objects. “Transcendent” is that which goes beyond all experience. The
transcendental esthetic’s scope is to examine how mathematics and geometry are possible. He
retains that these sciences are possible because the mind is endowed with two a priori forms that
have the characteristics of universality and intuitivity: space and time. Space and time are not,
for him, extra-mental realities but a priori forms of the human mind.3 Kant writes: “In a
phenomenon I call that which corresponds to the sensation its matter; but that which causes the
manifold matter of the phenomenon to be perceived as arranged in a certain order, I call its form.
Now it is clear that it cannot be sensation again through which sensations are arranged and
placed in certain forms. The matter only for all phenomena is given us a posteriori; but their
form must be ready for them in the mind (Gemüth) a priori, and must therefore be capable of
being considered as separate from all sensations…In the course of this investigation it will
appear that there are, as principles of a priori knowledge, two pure forms of sensuous intuition

An Essay on the Critique of Pure Reason, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1982 ; H. E. ALLISON,
Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1983 ; G. NAGEL, The Structure of
Experience: Kant’s System of Principles, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1983 ; R. E. AQUILA,
Representational Mind: A Study of Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1983 ;
K. ASCHENBRENNER, A Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: Transcendental Aesthetic and Analytic,
University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 1983 ; P. GUYER, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1987 ; A. T. WINTERBOURNE, The Ideal and the Real: An Outline of Kant’s Theory
of Space, Time, and Mathematical Construction, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1988 ; P. FAGGIOTTO,
Introduzione alla metafisica kantiana della analogia, Massimo, Milan, 1989 ; F. O’FARRELL, Per leggere la
‘Critica della ragion pura’ di Kant, Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome, 1989 ; R. E. AQUILA, Matter in Mind:
A Study of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1989 ; P. KITCHER, Kant’s
Transcendental Psychology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1990 ; V. MELCHIORRE, Analogia e analisi
trascendentale. Linee per una nuova lettura di Kant, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1991 ; B. FREYDBERG, Imagination
and Depth in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Peter Lang, New York, 1994 ; S. GARDNER, Kant and the Critique
of Pure Reason, Routledge, London, 1999 ; J. F. ROSENBERG, Accessing Kant: A Relaxed Introduction to the
Critique of Pure Reason, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005 ; E. WATKINS, Kant and the Metaphysics of
Causality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005 ; A. SAVILLE, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: An
Orientation to the Central Theme, Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ, 2005 ; J. V. BUROKER, Kant’s Critique of Pure
Reason: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006 ; G. BIRD, The Revolutionary Kant: A
Commentary on the Critique of Pure Reason, Open Court La Salle, IL, 2006 ; J. LUCHTE, Kant’s Critique of Pure
Reason: A Reader’s Guide, Continuum, London, 2007 ; D. BURNHAM and H. YOUNG, Kant’s Critique of Pure
Reason: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2007 ; K. MOSSER, Necessity
and Possibility: The Logical Strategy of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Catholic University of America Press,
Washington, D.C., 2008 ; E. WATKINS, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: Background Source Materials, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2009 ; O. HÖFFE, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: The Foundations of Modern
Philosophy, Springer, Dordrecht, 2010 ; P. GUYER (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure
Reason, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010 ; B. HALL, M. BLACK and M. SHEFFIELD, The
Arguments of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2010 ; J.
O’SHEA, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction and Interpretation, Routledge, Abingdon, 2014 ; M.
FERRARIS, Goodbye, Kant!: What Still Stands of the Critique of Pure Reason (Suny Series in Contemporary Italian
Philosophy), SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 2014 ; L. J. KAYE, Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Categories:
Unity, Representation, and Apperception, Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2015 ; J. W.
LONG, The Grad Student’s Guide to the Critique of Pure Reason, iUniverse, Bloomington, 2016 ; J. R. O’SHEA
(ed.), Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017 ; M.
O’SULLIVAN, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Macat Library, Abingdon, 2017 ; Y. YOVEL, Kant’s
Philosophical Revolution: A Short Guide to the Critique of Pure Reason, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ,
2018.
3
I. KANT, op. cit., B 42 and B 49.

2
(Anschauung), namely, space and time.”4 Bittle observes that “bearing in mind Kant’s axiom that
nothing necessary and universal can be derived from experience, but must proceed exclusively
and a priori from the mind itself, Kant finds that sense-perception contains a double element: the
‘manifold’ of sense impressions, which is derived from experience, and ‘space’ and ‘time,’
which are pure forms of the mind. External to the mind there exists a world of things-in-
themselves (Dinge-an-sich) or noumena; they are real physical beings. These make impressions
on the sense-faculty, and the faculty responds with an ‘intuition’ or perception. These
impressions are unarranged, chaotic. This chaotic ‘manifold’ must be arranged in a certain order,
and this is done by means of the two sense forms ‘space’ and ‘time.’ Space and time are in no
way attributes of the things-in-themselves,5 but merely ‘cause the manifold matter of the
phenomenon to be perceived as arranged in a certain order,’ i.e., as arranged in the order of
‘space’ or in the order of ‘time.’ Since all intuitions or perceptions appear as arranged in a spatial
and temporal order, ‘space’ and ‘time’ are universal and necessary conditions of sense-
perception and as such must exist a priori in the mind. They are like mental molds into which the
unarranged raw materials of sense are poured, so that, after the molding process of cognition is
completed, all phenomena appear arranged and molded in ‘space’ and ‘time.’ The objects
themselves are, so far as we know spaceless and timeless.”6

Llano observes that, in the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant “develops a theory of

sensation and of the phenomena of experience understood as the indeterminate object of an
empirical intuition. The matter of the phenomenon is sensation, the subjective reaction of
consciousness to having the senses affected. The matter of phenomena is given to us a posteriori
since it comes from exterior reality, whose existence Kant must admit, in some way, as the origin
of the empirical data passively received by our senses. The primal characteristic of empirical
data is their multiplicity, because they come from multiple stimuli. In contrast, the forms of
phenomena – space and time – are the unifying and ordering structures of empirical intuitions.
Space and time are conditions for the possibility of empirical phenomena. These a priori or pure
forms are imposed upon phenomena by the nature of our senses: space is the form of the
intuitions of the external senses and time is the form of the intuitions of the internal senses. As
forms of all phenomena, space and time are universal and necessary; thus scientific (synthetic a
priori) judgments are possible in geometry (constructed upon the pure spatial form) and in
arithmetic (built upon pure temporal structures).”7

For Kant, the impression of our external and internal senses makes up the matter of all
knowledge. And this matter is elaborated in us, the first elaboration being due to two a priori
forms or determinations which belong to the structure of the faculty of sense-knowledge,
namely, time and space. The external senses represent all objects as extended in space, while the
internal senses represent all conscious states as succeeding one another in time. Space and time
are thus a priori conditions of sensation, two a priori forms of sensibility, pure forms of our
intuition. They are molds, so to speak, into which the impressions of our internal and external
senses are received. For Kant, then, a sensation of an object would be an impression formed in
space and time.

4
I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason, (trans. Max Müller), Macmillan, New York, 1927, pp. 16-17.
5
Cf. I. KANT, op. cit., pp. 18-20, 24-28.
6
C. BITTLE, Reality and the Mind, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1936, p. 111.
7
A. LLANO, Gnoseology, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 2001, pp. 94-95.

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 In the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant treats of space and time as the two a priori forms
of sensory intuition. These “mere forms of appearances” are two a priori forms constituting the
primary fundamental forms whereby the human mind orders or shapes the raw material of
sensation. The space and time a priori forms work upon this sensuous material of sensuous
affection to make all knowledge, even that of sense perception, possible.

For Kant, the intuition of time is logically prior to that of space, the latter – space – being
the condition of external (outer) sense perception, and the former – time – being the condition of
internal (inner) sense perception. And since the outer sense perceptions come under the internal
sense, this sense is placed above these perceptions. For Kant, all intuitions of space are
considered in terms of time, but not vice versa. Time, being more important for Kant than space,
would constitute the intuitional form of all phenomena in general (time also plays an important
role in the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason, in Kant’s elaboration of the
categories of the understanding).

The forms of sense-perception, inasmuch as they are universal and necessary, are the
same in every man; in every human person every sensible impression appears necessarily in
space and time. But because these forms belong entirely to the structure of the faculty of sense-
knowledge, their value can be only phenomenal, not noumenal; we cannot apply to things-in-
themselves (noumena) the properties in accordance with which they appear before us
(phenomena).

The only form of intuition that man is endowed with is sensible intuition. Thus the mind,
for Kant, can reach only phenomena (things which appear to us) and not noumena (things-in-
themselves). We only know things as they appear to the human mind and not extra-mental reality
as it is in itself. In The Critique of Pure Reason and in the Prolegomena to any Future
Metaphysics Kant affirms the existence of noumena (things-in-themselves) as the cause of the
initial raw sense data, but as to what noumena are in themselves we simply do not know.8 Bittle
explains Kantian noumenal agnosticism, writing: “Do we really perceive external objects, so that
the objects of sense actually exist, as we perceive them, outside our person? We do not. The real
objects of the physical world can never be perceived; we know absolutely nothing about the
noumena or things-in-themselves: ‘All our intuition is nothing but the representation of
phenomena…Nothing which is seen in space is a thing-in-itself, nor space a form of things
supposed to belong to them by themselves, but objects by themselves are not known by us at all,
and that what we call external objects are nothing but representations of our senses
(phenomena).’9 All we can know, then, are phenomena or appearances, and these are always
subjective in character, without any resemblance to the things-in-themselves. Even man’s
perception of his own body is thus seen to be only ‘phenomenal’; whether any extra-mental
reality corresponds to what he perceives to be his ‘body,’ man can never know. Kant admits the
existence of things-in-themselves as the exciting cause of sense-perception on the grounds of
inference; but they remain an unknown and unknowable X…Since all our knowledge in sense-
perception is limited to intra-subjective phenomena, he is a transcendental idealist. He failed to

8
Cf. I. KANT, The Critique of Pure Reason, A 19, A 109, B 34; Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Prologue
13, remark 2.
9
I. KANT, op. cit., pp. 34, 24.

4
overcome the Cartesian antithesis between mind and matter; the mind remains imprisoned in its
conscious states and can know nothing of the external world and non-ego objects.”10

Kant’s “matter” receiving its primary elaboration by the two a priori forms of sensibility,
space and time, that is, the impression, is incapable of telling us anything at all of the inner
nature of the extramental world, since every impression, as it is in us, is anthropocentrically
‘informed,’ ‘elaborated,’ or ‘structured.’ Thus, in the immanentist transcendental idealism of the
philosopher of Königsberg, things-in-themselves or noumena, in contrast with things which
appear to us or phenomena, must always remain unknown and unknowable. Kant describes his
anthropocentric and subjectivist phenomenalist immanentism at the end of his exposition of the
Transcendental Aesthetic, writing: “What we have meant to say is that all our intuition is nothing
but the representation of appearance; that the things which we intuit are not in themselves what
we intuit them as being, nor their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us, and
that if the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, be removed,
the whole constitution and all the relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time
themselves, would vanish. As appearances, they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What
objects may be in themselves, and apart from all their receptivity of our sensibility, remains
completely unknown to us. We know nothing but our mode of perceiving them – a mode which
is peculiar to us, and not necessarily shared in by every being, though, certainly by every human
being.”11

For Kant space and time are a priori forms of sensibility. They are sense-forms, not
derived from sensation but preceding it. Space and time in Kant’s system of transcendental
idealism, are a priori mental endowments, pure forms of sensibility, which render sense
perception possible. For Kant, every act of sensibility is ruled by two prior conditions, namely,
space for the external senses, and time for the internal senses. Space and time are conditions
giving the characteristics of necessity and universality. Space and time are necessary, Kant says,
for their suppression entails the destruction by that act every sensible action; space and time are
universal, he also says, for they are required for all acts of sensibility whatever they may be,
without exception. Space and time are thus opposed to the contingenly given “matter,” being a
priori determining forms of sensibility, not pertaining to reason.

The entire action of sensible intuition, in Kantian transcendental idealism, is therefore

composed of matter and form: matter, which are “sensations,” unified by the a priori forms of
space and time. The resulting object thus elaborated Kant calls the phenomenon.

Kant attempts to prove the a priori intuitional character of space and time and does this
by attempting to prove that space and time are sensible intuitions and not speculative concepts,
and also by attempting to prove that space and time are a priori and not a posteriori or
consequent to experience. Kant subsequently gives four arguments to prove the above claims, the
first two being intended to demonstrate space and time’s apriority, and the last two being
intended to demonstrate their intuitional character. Hirschberger summarizes Kant’s four
arguments as follows: “(1) We cannot acquire representations of space and time through
abstraction for the following reason: If we should attempt to derive the representations of space

10
C. BITTLE, op. cit., pp. 111-112.
11
I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason, A 42, B 59, Norman Kemp Smith edition, Macmillan, London, 1933, p. 82.

5
and time from the juxtaposition of bodies and the ordered succession of events, we must first of
all assume them, because juxtaposition and succession are themselves nothing more than the
representations of space and time. (2) Time and space are representations which we must always
have. We cannot intuit being and the world without them. What we must always possess and
what is consequently necessary is a priori. (3) Space and time are not universal notions, but each
is a representation of something particular. When we speak, therefore, of particular spaces
(places), and definite periods of time, we mean only quantitative particles of space and time. One
place is not changed and represented in a special way as are various specimens arranged under a
species; it remains always qualitatively the same, a space (place). This holds true also of time.
(4) Space and time are infinite and contain particular spaces (places) and times within
themselves, not beneath themselves, as do the universal ideas their concrete individuations.
Space is not, like universal ideas, contained in concrete realities, in particular places, but places
are in space. And this holds true also of time.”12

Critique of Kant on Both Space and Time as A Priori Forms of Sensibility

Celestine Bittle’s Critique of Kant’s Space and Time as A Priori Forms of Sensibility:
“Kant’s theory is contrary to the science of psychology. He maintains that ‘space’ and ‘time’ are
subjective ‘forms’ of the mind, given prior to all experience. The findings of psychology are
definitely opposed to this claim. Sensory experience contributes its share to our perception of
‘space’ and ‘time,’ as experimental psychology has definitively established. We acquire our
knowledge of space and time from a perception of objects which are larger or smaller and which
are at rest or in motion. Persons suffering from a congenital cataract have no antecedent
knowledge of visual space; after a successful operation, they must acquire knowledge of space
through experience and perception. If the subjective mental form of ‘space’ were, as Kant
claims, a necessary condition for perception, making the perception of phenomena possible, then
there seems to be no valid reason why the mind cannot impose the form of ‘visual space’ upon
the incoming impressions, even though a person be congenitally blind. The evidence, however,
points clearly to the fact that the knowledge of space on the part of the mind is conditioned by
the perception of objects, and not that the perception of space is conditioned by some a priori
form present in the mind antecedent to experience. But if ‘space’ is an attribute of bodies, then so
is ‘time,’ because both are on a par in this respect.”13

Critiques of Kant on Space as an A Priori Form of Sensibility

J. A. McWilliams’ Critique of Kant on the Genesis of the Notion of Space: “Kant held that
the notion of space is a part of the mental equipment with which we come into the world. But
that conclusion of his was a result of self-deception. The error occurs in the following manner. I
reflect that I always see bodies, and think of them, as in space; they occupy space, they are each
contained in just so much space, they are surrounded by space, they are immersed in space, and
if they move there must be ahead to them ready and waiting a space into which to move. But if
the notion of space thus antecedes the most direct sense perception, that notion must be innate.
The deception comes from supposing that we have always, even from our earliest infancy,
perceived bodies as in space, and that we cannot perceive them, or think of them otherwise. A

12
J. HIRSCHBERGER, The History of Philosophy, vol. 2, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1959, pp. 284-285.
13
C. BITTLE, The Whole Man, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1956, p. 312.

6
little analysis of the data of consciousness will reveal the fact that the notion of space is not the
first item, as Kant supposed, but the third. The first perception is that of extended bodies, which
we become aware of by their color, or their resistance, and by our own movement about or
among them. The next mental act is to make an abstraction. We prescind from their hardness or
softness, their smoothness or roughness, their color, and all such qualities, and concentrate our
attention upon their extent. We now have arrived at the notion of abstract extension, but this is
not as yet ‘space.’ We have achieved a representation of extension from which all existing and
individual bodies are obliterated, of extension as something standing alone by itself and
independent of all bodies. The third operation is to restore the bodies to the expanse from which
they have been banished. It is only then that we think of bodies as in space. But the whole
completed operation is so much a matter of habit in adult life that we are apt to overlook the fact
that it contains three distinct mental acts instead of one. The seeing of bodies in space is so far
from being a primitive fact of consciousness that it is really the last of the trio. The direct
perception of bodies does not suppose the notion of space, but is two removes in advance of that
notion.”14

Alessi’s Critique of Kant on Space as an A Priori Form of Sensibility. Adriano Alessi

critiques Kant’s views on space as an a priori form of sensibility in his Sui sentieri della materia
as follows: Insostenibilità della concezione kantiana dello spazio. La riduzione dello spazio a
forma a priori della sensibilità è insostenibile per vari motivi.

“A. Precomprensioni problematiche. Anzitutto essa si fonda su due presupposti che la

inficiano alla radice: il primo di derivazione newtoniana, il secondo di ascendenza cartesiana.

“Infatti, da un latto, «tutta la problematica di Kant parte dalla scienza del suo tempo,
quella di Newton, che aveva assolutizzato lo spazio, facendo di esso una realtà, una specie di
ambiente o di quadro obiettivo nel quale situare il mondo».15 D’altro lato, il filosofo di
Königsberg accoglie la riduzione dello spazio a pura estensione proposta da Cartesio.

“Ora, come abbiamo visto, sia la concezione dello spazio in termini assoluti, sia la sua
equiparazione con il semplice avere partes extra partes, sono in contrasto con una visione
adeguata dello spazio reale.16

“B. Un’antinomia fallace. Inoltre, l’argomentazione kantiana, tesa a dimostrare

l’antinomia cui lo spazio (e, conseguentemente, l’estensione) darebbe adito se fosse inteso in
senso entitativo, se è corretta nei confronti dello spazio assoluto (che dovrebbe essere allo stesso
tempo finito e infinito) non regge nei confronti dello spazio fisico. Infatti, lo spazio reale, per
quanto si possa estendere in maniera illimitata con il moltiplicarsi dei corpi, non preesistendo a
essi, ma fondandosi sulle relazioni dimensive che li vincolano vicendevolmente, rimarrà sempre
un’attribuzione finita della realtà materiale. Ne consegue che l’antinomia kantiana come non

14
J. A. McWILLIAMS, Cosmology, Macmillan, New York, 1937, pp. 96-98.
15
Cfr. J. M. AUBERT, Cosmologia. Filosofia della natura, Paideia, Brescia, 1968, p. 383.
16
Cfr. F. SELVAGGI, Filosofia del mondo fisico, vol. 2, Roma, 1977, vol. 2, p. 40: «La dottrina di Kant sullo
spazio e sul tempo, essendo essenzialmente basata su presupposti in parte newtoniana, in parte empiristici, viene a
cadere col rigetto di questi presupposti».

7
dimostra l’irrealtà dello spazio reale, così non comprova il carattere non obiettivo della
quantitas.

“C. Un concetto a posteriori. Infine, per Kant la riduzione dello spazio a forma a priori
della sensibilità si giustifica perché non si dà conoscenza sensibile che non sia spazialmente
connotabile. Ne consegue che, non trovando riscontro nella realtà, è un modo di vedere del
soggetto senziente, ossia una forma a priori, universale e necessaria, della sensibilità.17…

“ – Anzitutto Kant considera che tale forma a priori, dalle valenze universali e
necessarie, è unica ed è quella di spazio secondo la concezione propugnata dalla geometria
euclidea. Ora, i concetti moderni di spazio a più di tre dimensioni, come pure quello di spazio
curvo, dimostrano che – a livello concettuale – sono possibili, non essendo intrinsecamente
contradditorie molteplici intuizioni sensibili dello spazio, non di rado, radicalmente diverse…”18

Copleston’s Critique of Kant on Space: “Attention must also be drawn to a feature of

Kant’s theory of geometry which has led critics to maintain that the theory has been discredited
by subsequent mathematical developments. By space Kant meant Euclidean space, and by
geometry he meant Euclidean geometry.19 It follows, therefore, that if the geometer reads off, so
to speak, the properties of space, the geometry of Euclid is the only geometry. Euclidean
geometry will necessarily apply to empirical reality, but no other geometrical system will apply.
Since Kant’s time, however, non-Euclidean geometries have been developed, and it has been
shown that Euclidean space is but one of the conceivable spaces. Moreover, Euclidean geometry
is not the only one which will fit reality, as it were; which geometry is to be used depends on the
mathematician’s purpose and the problems with which he has to deal. It would, indeed, be absurd
to blame Kant for having a prejudice in favour of Euclidean geometry. At the same time the
development of other geometries has rendered his position untenable.

“…We find him saying…that ‘there is no contradiction in the concept of a figure which
is enclosed within two straight lines. For the concepts of two straight lines and of their
intersection contain no negation of a figure. The impossibility is found, not in the concept in
itself, but in the construction of the concept in space; that is, in the conditions and determinations
of space. But these have their own objective reality; that is, they apply to possible things,
because they contain in themselves a priori the form of experience in general.’20 But even if we
take this passage as saying by implication that a non-Euclidean geometry is a bare logical
possibility, Kant clearly states that such a geometry cannot be constructed in intuition. And this
is really, for Kant, the same thing as to say that there cannot be a non-Euclidean geometrical
system. Non-Euclidean geometry may be thinkable in the sense that it is not ruled out simply by
application of the principle of contradiction. But, as we have seen, mathematics for Kant does
not rest simply on the principle of contradiction; it is not an analytic but a synthetic science.

17
Cfr. S. VANNI ROVIGHI, Elementi di filosofia, vol. 3, La Scuola, Brescia, 1976, p. 31: «Secondo Kant “lo
spazio non è un concetto universale dei rapporti delle cose in generale, ma un’intuizione pura. Infatti ci si può
rappresentare solo uno spazio unico, e quando si parla di molti spazi, si intende con ciò solo le parti di un unico e
medesimo spazio.” Anche qui osserviamo che quel che dice Kant è vero dello spazio immaginario.»
18
A. ALESSI, Sui sentieri della materia, LAS, Rome, 2014, pp. 141-142.
19
Leibniz had also understood by space Euclidean space.
20
B, 268; A, 220-221.

8
Hence constructibility is essential for a geometrical system. And to say that only Euclidean
geometry can be constructed is really to say that there cannot be non-Euclidean systems.

“If, therefore, we assume the constructional character of geometry, and if non-Euclidean

geometries can be constructed, it follows at any rate that Kant’s theory of geometry cannot be
accepted as it stands. And if non-Euclidean systems can be applied, this tells against Kant’s
theory that the intuition of Euclidean space is a universal and necessary condition for the
possibility of objects.”21

Artigas and Sanguineti’s Critique of Kant on Space: “…Nella fisica classica e nelle
diverse interpretazioni filosofiche ad essa collegate, si è attribuito un carattere reale a questo
«spazio assoluto» (indipendente dai corpi), dotandolo di alcune proprietà che venivano a
identificarlo di fatto con lo spazio della geometria euclideo.22 Kant, notando che la realtà dello
spazio assoluto non era sostenibile e pensando che la geometria euclidea fosse la «geometria
naturale» e unica, trasferì le proprietà dello spazio assoluto di Newton alla struttura stessa della
conoscenza umana, affermando che la conoscenza sensibile applica necessariamente questa
nozione di spazio per ordinare le sensazioni; lo spazio sarebbe così una «forma a priori» della
sensibilità.

“Lo spazio non è una forma a priori (indipendentemente dall’esperienza) nel senso
kantiano. Le relazioni di distanza sono reali, e mediante la nozione di spazio le consideriamo nel
loro aspetto meramente dimensionale: la nozione di spazio dipende quindi dalla realtà
dell’esperienza e non è qualcosa di «posto a priori» dal soggetto razionale (certo che, come
vedremo più avanti, nello spazio astratto vi sono elementi costruttivi).

“…Oltre ad altre difficoltà, la nozione kantiana di spazio viene eliminata se si tiene

presente la possibilità di costruire geometrie non euclidee applicabili anche allo studio scientifico
della realtà.23”24

Critiques of Kant on Time as an A Priori Form of Sensibility

Kant holds a subjectivist view of time: like space, it is an a priori form of sensibility.
While space, for the philosopher of Königsberg, is “the form of all appearances of the external
senses, that is, the subjective condition of sensibility, under which alone external intuition is
possible for us,’25 time would be “the form of the internal sense, that is, of the intuition of
ourselves26 and of our internal state.”27

21
F. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, book 2, vol. 6, Image Doubleday, New York, 1985, pp. 245-246.
22
Esso sarebbe uno spazio omogeneo, continuo, tridimensionale e infinito, nel quale si possono dimostrare i teoremi
della geometria «ordinaria» a partire dagli assiomi di Euclide.
23
Cfr. R. VERNEAUX, E. Kant: Critica della ragione pura, Japadre, L’Aquila, 1978; J. VUILLEMIN, Physique et
métaphysique kantiennes, PUF, Paris, 1955; R. MASI, Cosmologia, Desclée, Roma, 1961, pp. 364-375.
24
M. ARTIGAS and J. J. SANGUINETI, Filosofia della natura, Le Monnier, Florence, 1989, pp. 158-159.
25
B, 42; A, 26,
26
Kant is referring to the empirical ego, not to the spiritual soul.
27
B, 49; A, 33. The foundations for Kant’s doctrine on the external senses and internal senses comes, not from
Aristotle or Aquinas, but from the subjectivist and immanentist empiricism of Locke. Coffey writes: “Now Kant
adopted (from Locke) this description of the facts in terms of ‘external sense’ and ‘internal sense.’ For him,

9
 R. P. Phillips’ Critique of Kant on Time: “Kant regarded time as an a priori intuition of
the sensibility, something, that is, which belongs to the very texture of our senses: so that, for
him, it is purely subjective. This is evidently false if we recognize motion as a real foundation of
time; and moreover it is contrary to experience, since, in observing some extended sensible
object, such as a landscape, our observations are successive, while the landscape appears as a

however, the term ‘sense’ cannot mean the affecting of physical sense organs by bodies, but the affecting of the
mind by things in themselves, i.e., things independent of the mind. ‘External sense’ or ‘outer sense’ is then, for
Kant, the mind’s capacity for receiving impressions (‘receptivity of impressions’) produced by things independent of
the mind, and of becoming thereby aware of mental states or appearances or phenomena: the supposed things in
themselves remaining unknowable. So too, the mind, in order to perceive itself and its own states or activities, must
be affected by itself, by its own states (parallel to its capacity to be affected by things independent of itself), and this
capacity Kant calls the internal sense. Moreover, if the external sense does not reveal things, but only sensations or
representations or appearances produced by things, so too the internal sense cannot reveal the mind itself or its states
or activities, but only appearances produced by these: ‘and since time is a mode of relation of these appearances, it is
a determination not of ourselves [the real or transcendental Ego], but only of the appearances due to ourselves [the
empirical, phenomenal Ego],’(H. A. PRICHARD, op. cit., p. 107) – just as space is a determination not of things
[the real or transcendental non-Ego], but only of the appearances due to things [the empirical or phenomenal
universal]. Thus, then, through ‘external sense’ we do not know whether things in themselves are either spatial or
temporal; we know the states or appearances produced by them in the mind to be spatial, because by the a priori
form of space we arrange these appearances spatially; but by the internal sense we do not know these mental states
to be really and in themselves temporal, for we do not know these mental states as they are in themselves (Therefore
it should follow that we do not know even these ‘phenomena’ or ‘mental appearances’ to be in themselves spatial: it
is only our [a priori ‘temporal’] representations of these representations that we could really know to be [both]
spatial [and temporal]) or in the real mind: we only know the representations produced in our minds by these states
or activities. It is only this second layer, so to speak, of representations – representations of ourselves, appearances
produced by the action of our own mental states upon our minds – that we can know to be really temporal: inasmuch
as time is the a priori form under which alone all mental activities, states, appearances, etc., can be perceived or
apprehended.”(P. COFFEY, Epistemology, vol. 2, Peter Smith, Gloucester, MA, 1958, pp. 203-204).
Coffey then exposes the many inconsistencies and contradictions of Kant’s subjectivist transcendental idealist
doctrine on the external senses and internal senses: “Now it will be manifest to anyone who follows Kant’s line of
thought, as just indicated, that on his own principles he could have had absolutely no ground for distinguishing
between ‘external’ and ‘internal’ sense. For, manifestly, if we cannot know our real selves or minds, any more than
real things, we have no means of determining whether any given representation is due to ‘things’ or to our ‘selves.’
To be consistent he should ascribe all representations alike to ‘unknowable reality,’ and recognize the mind’s
inability to distinguish this latter into a transcendental Ego and a transcendental non-Ego, and consequently to
distinguish between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ sense.
“Not only, however, is the distinction between ‘external’ and ‘internal’ sense incompatible with the general
theory that reality is in itself unknowable. It can also be shown, and this is more important still, that Kant’s doctrine
on the ideal or phenomenal character of space, and the consequent unknowability of things in themselves, rests on
the assumption that we can at least know our own minds, or our own mental states, as they are in themselves, – an
assumption which, nevertheless, he flatly contradicts by his contention that time is an a priori form whereby alone
we can perceive our own minds and their states not as they really are, but only as they appear under this form. For
why does Kant hold that we cannot know things in themselves, but only the ‘mental appearances’ produced by
them? Why does he hold that space cannot be a determination of things in themselves but can only be a
determination of phenomena or mental appearances? Because he accepts unquestioningly the fundamental postulate
of Idealism that the mind cannot transcend itself to know the extramental, or what is independent of mind. But this
at least implies that the mind can know the intramental, or what is dependent on mind, i.e., can know its own
conscious states, representations, etc., as these really are. Otherwise what right has he to assert that space is mental?
– or that any of the other supposed a priori factors of knowledge are mental? Therefore it appears that the mind can
know its own states as they really are. But temporal succession is an essential characteristic of these states;
therefore, since they are real, and are known as real, time, which is a characteristic of them, is likewise real, and is
not merely an a priori form or mode under which or in which they are perceived”(P. COFFEY, op. cit., vol. 2, pp.
204-205).

10
static whole. If, however, succession were something which directly affected our sensibility
alone, both it and its objects ought to be affected by it, or neither of them; so that, on Kant’s
hypothesis, it should be impossible for us to have a successive knowledge of a simultaneous
whole.”28

Nys’s Critique of Kant on Time as an A Priori Form of Sensibility: General Criticism of

the Kantian Subjectivist Position on Time: “According to Immanuel Kant, the a priori form of
time leaves its impress directly only on the subjective acts of sensitive life. Indirectly it affects
also the objects of these acts, inasmuch as they are represented in internal actions. Matters cannot
be otherwise if all data relating to time are derived from the same source, the a priori form of
time.

“Now what does experience say about this fundamental principle of the Kantian theory?
Many times we exhaust the apparent reality of the objects surrounding us only by means of
several sensitive representations. In order to take a pastoral scene in completely, we must regard
each and every one of its constituent parts: the trees, the bushes, the flowers, the mountains, the
brooks, and the animals. So that while the scene, despite the multiplicity and the complexity of
its parts, appears to be one permanent and coexistent whole, the sensations which render us
aware of it, succeed one another, or at least become more confused and more vague in proportion
as they come closer to being coexistent. Permanence and coexistence, mobility and succession
are the antithetical characteristics which differentiate the object of our sensitive representations.

“How explain this radical difference? If the a priori form of time or the intuition of our
inner sense affects directly only the acts of internal sensibility, and if it influences the objects
represented only through the intermediary of these acts, both the subjective representations and
the objects of these representations must be subject to the same temporal relations. It is
inconceivable, therefore, that the ones be successive, and the others simultaneous or coexistent.
In other words, the perception of any form of simultaneity by means of successive and
continuous representations cannot be effected in the Kantian hypothesis. Moreover, the fact that
the same external objects appear coexistent in time, and successive at another is incompatible
with this a priori form which is unique and always the same. On the other hand, the fact is easily
explained when we argue that the difference in our subjective impressions has its true source in
the different states of external objects. This is an additional proof of the empirical origin of the
concept of time.”29

Coffey’s Critique of Kant on Time: “The argument against Kant’s view that time is an a
priori form of our perception of our own mental states or activities, or, in other words, that it is a
‘form of internal sense intuition,’ is briefly this, that his own proof of the phenomenality of space
(if we may coin the expression) implies the reality of time. As Prichard puts it, ‘Kant must at
least concede that we undergo a succession of changing states, even if he holds that things, being
independent of the mind, cannot be shown to undergo such a succession; consequently he ought
to allow that time is not a way in which we apprehend ourselves, but a real feature of our real
states.’30 Or, finally, to put the argument in the converse way, if Kant will not allow that we can

28
R. P. PHILLIPS, Modern Thomistic Philosophy, vol. 1, Burns Oates & Washbourne, London, 1941, p. 124.
29
D. NYS, Cosmology, vol. 2, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1942, pp. 329-331.
30
H. A. PRICHARD, Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1909, p. 114.

11
apprehend any ‘real feature of our real states,’ or that we can therefore know time to be such,
then he destroys the ground of his own contention that space is not a characteristic of things but
only of mental representations or phenomena, for the ground of this contention is that whereas
we cannot know things that are ‘external’ or ‘independent of the mind,’ as they really are, we
can know states that are ‘internal’ or ‘dependent on the mind,’ as these states really are.

“One final and fatal flaw in Kant’s thesis that time is a form of our perceptions of events
is this. He himself is forced to recognize that some temporal relations belong to the physical
events which we perceive: that there are, in these, temporal successions, which, by virtue of their
irreversibility, differ from mere successions of our perceptions: that we can apprehend this
distinction in general, and apply it in detail so as to apprehend some successions (e.g., that of the
moon moving round the earth), as objective, from other successions (e.g., of our impressions as
we survey the parts of a house), as subjective (cf. section 93). Hence time would not be a form or
character of our perceptions exclusively, but also of things perceived. Of course if Kant were
consistent he should see that his theory, by identifying perceptions with things perceived, makes
it impossible to apprehend, either in general or in detail, any such distinction between two
classes of temporal successions.31”32

Alessi’s Critique of Kant on Time: “Incongruenze della riduzione kantiana del tempo a
forma a priori della sensibilità. Al pari della concezione che Kant ha dello spazio, anche quella
riguardante il tempo è insostenibile.

“Anzitutto essa si fonda su un presupposto che la inficia alla radice, vale a dire la
concezione del tempo inteso come ricettacolo assoluto in cui collocare gli eventi che si
susseguono nell’universo. Ora, come abbiamo visto, ogni assolutizzazione del tempo a modo di
entità preesistente al mondo è insostenibile.33

“…Per Kant la riduzione del tempo a forma a priori della sensibilità si fonda sul fatto che
non si dà conoscenza sensibile che non sia cronologicamente connotabile. Ne consegue che esso,
non avendo valore noumenico, è una forma a priori, universale e necessaria, della sensibilità

“…Kant considera unica, universale e necessaria, la forma a priori del tempo. Ora, in
sede scientifica sono stati elaborati concetti plurimi di tempo che non sono intrinsecamente
contraddittori. È, cioè, possibile pensare il tempo in categorie diverse da quella ammessa da
Kant…”34

Jolivet’s Critique of Kant on Time: “Il tempo come forma a priori della sensibilità. Kant
ha proposto una teoria soggettivista del tempo, che come quella dello spazio, è in reazione al
realismo newtoniano, cui vuole sostituire un soggettivismo radicale in virtù del quale “il tempo

31
Cf. H. A. PRICHARD, op. cit., p. 139.
32
P. COFFEY, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 207.
33
Cfr. F. SELVAGGI, Filosofia del mondo fisico, vol. 2, Roma, 1977, vol. 2, p. 40: «La dottrina di Kant sullo
spazio e sul tempo, essendo essenzialmente basata su presupposti in parte newtoniana, in parte empiristici, viene a
cadere col rigetto di questi presupposti».
34
A. ALESSI, op. cit., pp. 163-164.

12
non è altro che l’intuizione del nostro stato interiore.”35 Kant intende dimostrare questa dottrina
con gli argomenti seguenti: la successione e la simultaneità si percepiscono solo con la
rappresentazione del tempo, che è quindi la loro condizione a priori; non si possono concepire i
fenomeni senza il tempo, ma si può concepire questo senza i fenomeni: è dunque dato a priori;
gli “assiomi del tempo” (il tempo non ha che una dimensione, tempi diversi sono
necessariamente successivi) non possono essere tratti dall’esperienza, che non dà né universalità
né certezza assoluta, ma sono la condizione a priori dell’esperienza. (Critica. Estet. trasc., 2a s.,
§ 4). Kant giunge così alla “realtà empirica” del tempo (in quanto l’esperienza è necessariamente
affetta dalla forma del tempo) e alla sua “idealità trascendentale” (come forma a priori).36

“Per valutare la dottrina di Kant, si può notare anzitutto che essa si fonda su una teoria
della conoscenza di natura soggettivista, i cui principi (che discuteremo nella critica della
conoscenza) sono contestabili. Possiamo tuttavia anche discutere direttamente gli argomenti
kantiani. Il primo afferma a torto che le idee di successione e di simultaneità sono condizionate
dalla nozione di tempo: infatti la successione è data nel movimento, prima del tempo che ne è la
misura (la misura è logicamente posteriore al misurato). In quanto alla simultaneità, essa appare
anzitutto come negazione della successione, cioè del prima e del poi (del movimento). In
secondo luogo si possono concepire i fenomeni prescindendo dal tempo, (cioè dalla misura
attuale), come pura successione, ma non il tempo senza i fenomeni (o la successione) perché
significherebbe concepire una misura che non misura nulla o un calcolo del nulla, il che è
assurdo. Ne consegue che, contrariamente a ciò che afferma Kant, sono i fenomeni (o la
successione) che condizionano la nozione di tempo e non l’inverso. Infine, gli “assiomi del
tempo” sono necessari e universali in ragione non dell’apriorismo formale del tempo ma del
concetto dell’essenza del tempo nel tempo reale e concreto dell’esperienza.”37

Answer to the A Priori Subjectivism of Kant on Time: What is Time?

Time38 is defined by Aristotle as “the number of movement according to before and

39
after.” “This definition,” explains William Wallace, “develops from three inductive

35
Cfr. Critica della ragion pura. Estetica trascendentale, 2.a sezione, § 6: «Il tempo non è qualcosa che esiste in sé
o sia inerente alle cose come una determinazione oggettiva e che, di conseguenza, sussista quando si fa astrazione da
tutte le condizioni soggettive della loro intuizione (...). Il tempo non è altro che la forma del senso interno, cioè
dell’intuizione di noi stessi e del nostro stato interiore (...). Il tempo è la condizione formale a priori di tutti i
fenomeni in generale».
36
Questa dottrina è stata ripresa, sotto forme diverse, dai neo-criticisti. Renouvier (Essais de Critique générale, I, p.
183 sgg.) riduce lo spazio e il tempo, in quanto numeri, alla pura relazione. Hamelin (Essai sur les éléments
principaux de la représentation, p. 51 sgg.) considera il tempo come risultante dalla sintesi della relazione (come
continuo irreversibile) e del numero (come composto di unità discrete).
37
R. JOLIVET, Trattato di filosofia, vol. 2 (Cosmologia), Morcelliana, Brescia, 1957, no. 42.
38
Studies on time: J. A. GUNN, The Problem of Time, London, 1929 ; A. MANSION, La théorie aristotélicienne du
temps chez les péripatéticiens médiévaux Averroés, Albert le Grand, Thomas d’Aquin, “Revue néo-scolastique de
Philosophie,” 36 (1934), pp. 275-307 ; M. F. CLEUGH, Time and Its Importance in Modern Thought, London, 1937
; L. R. HEATH, The Concept of Time, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1936 ; J. SIVADJIAN, Le Temps,
Paris, 1938 ; M. JOCELYN, Discrete Time and Illumination, “Laval Théologique et Philosophique,” 2 (1946), pp.
49-57 ; J. F. CALLAHAN, Four Views of Time in Ancient Philosophy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA,
1948 ; H. REICHENBACH, The Direction of Time, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1956 ; J. M.
DUBOIS, La signification ontologique de la définition aristotélicienne du temps, “Revue thomiste,” 60 (1960), pp.
38-79, 234-248 ; M. BORDONI, Tempo, quantità, anima nel pensiero aristotelico-tomista, “Aquinas,” 4 (1961), pp.
293-323 ; A. GRÜNBAUM, Philosophical Problems of Space and Time, New York, 1963 ; J. M. DUBOIS, Les

13
determinations that successively establish (1) time as something of motion, (2) time as

présupposés originels de la conception aristotélicienne du temps, “Revue thomiste,” 63 (1963), pp. 389-423 ; M.
BORDONI, Senso metafisico della durata temporale, “Aquinas,” 7 (1964), pp. 29-50 ; R. M. GALE (ed.), The
Philosophy of Time, Doubleday, New York, 1967 ; W. DESAN, Totality and Time, “The Thomist,” 39 (1975), pp.
696-711 ; P. DAVIES, The Physics of Time Asymmetry, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1977 ; J. B.
BOLZAN and A. A. BRABOSCHI, La perceptión del tiempo, “Anuario filosófico,” 11 (1978), pp. 19-37 ; W. H.
NEWTON-SMITH, The Structure of Time, Routledge and Kegan, London, 1980 ; I. PRIGOGINE, From Being to
Becoming: Time and Complexity in Physical Sciences, W. H. Freeman, New York, 1980 ; J. WHITROW, The
Natural Philosophy of Time, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980 ; A. MORENO, Time and Relativity: Some
Philosophical Considerations, “The Thomist,” 45 (1981), pp. 62-79 ; J. T. FRASER, The Genesis and Evolution of
Time, The Harvester Press, Brighton, 1982 ; H. HOLLINGER and M. ZENZEN, The Nature of Irreversibility,
Reidel, Dordrecht, 1985 ; P. KROES, Time: Its Structure and Role in Physical Theories, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1985 ; J.
T. FRASER, Time: The Familiar Stranger, Tempus Books, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 1988 ; R. FLOOD and M.
LOCKWOOD (eds.), The Nature of Time, Blackwell, Oxford, 1986 ; G. A. KENDALL, Space-Time and the
Community of Being: Some Cosmological Speculations, “The Thomist,” 51 (1987), pp. 480-500 ; I. PRIGOGINE
and E. BELLONE, I nomi del tempo, Boringhieri, Turin, 1989 ; J. WHITROW, Time in History, Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 1990 ; J. R. PAMBRUN, Ricoeur, Lonergan, and the Intelligibility of Cosmic Time, “The Thomist,”
54 (1990), pp. 471-498 ; P. COVENEY and R. HIGHFIELD, The Arrow of Time: A Voyage Through Science to
Solve Time’s Greatest Mystery, Fawcett Columbine, New York, 1991 ; H. D. ZEH, The Physical Basis of the
Direction of Time, Springer, Berlin, 1992 ; R. LE POIDEVIN and M. MACBEATH (eds.), The Philosophy of Time,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1993 ; J. HALLIWELL, J. PÈREZ MERCADER and W. ZUREK, Physical
Origins of Time Asymmetry, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994 ; P. DAVIES, About Time: Einstein’s
Unfinished Revolution, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1995 ; S. HAWKING, A Brief History of Time: From the
Big Bang to Black Holes, Bantam Books, New York, 1998 ; P. TURETZKY, Time (Problems of Philosophy),
Routledge, London, 1998 ; D. MELLOR, Real Time II, Routledge, London, 1998 ; E. MARIANI (ed.), Aspetti del
tempo, Quaderni dell’I.P.E., Naples, 1998 ; M. CASTAGNINO and J. J. SANGUINETI, Tempo e universo. Un
approccio filosofico e scientifico, Armando, Rome, 2000 ; S. HAWKING and R. PENROSE, The Nature of Space
and Time, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2000 ; R. McLURE, The Philosophy of Time: Time Before
Times, Routledge, London, 2005 ; L. HOLFORD-STREVENS, The History of Time: A Very Short Introduction,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005 ; D. BRADSHAW, Time and Eternity in the Greek Fathers, “The Thomist,”
70 (2006), pp. 311-366 ; J. BUTTERFIELD (ed.), The Arguments of Time, British Academy Centenary
Monographs, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006 ; D. FALK, In Search of Time: The History, Physics, and
Philosophy of Time, St. Martin’s Griffin, New York, 2010 ; A. BARDON (ed.), The Future of the Philosophy of
Time, Routledge, London, 2011 ; A. BARDON, A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 2013 ; C. CALLENDER (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 2013 ; U. MEYER, The Nature of Time, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013 ; M. CAPEK, The New
Aspects of Time: Its Continuity and Novelties (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol. 125),
Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2013 ; L. N. OAKLANDER (ed.), Debates in the Metaphysics of Time,
Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2014 ; S. ALBEVERIO and P. BLANSHARD (eds.), Direction of Time, Springer,
Dordrecht, 2014 ; J. HARRINGTON, Time: A Philosophical Introduction, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2015 ;
F. SANTOIANNI (ed.), The Concept of Time in Early Twentieth-Century Philosophy: A Philosophical Thematic
Atlas, Springer, Cham (Switzerland), 2016 ; B. L. CURTIS and J. ROBSON, A Critical Introduction to the
Metaphysics of Time, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2016.
39
ARISTOTLE, Physics, IV, 11, 220a 25. Explaining the parts of this definition of time, Bittle writes: “It is the
‘number’ of movement, because we measure time by numbering the parts of the movement. These parts are not
actual and separated, but potential, because the movement is continuous; consequently, the number of these parts is
itself not actual, but potential. It is the number of ‘movement,’ insofar as this movement is successive and
continuous in its passage from a starting point to a goal; time is found only in this kind of movement. It is the
number of movement ‘according to before-and-after.’ This is obvious from the fact that the movement, which we
call ‘time,’ is gradual and successive and is realized bit by bit, so that the parts of the movement follow each other in
a steady flow; in other words, these parts stand to each in the relation of ‘before’ and ‘after.’ That is why St.
Augustine says: ‘If nothing went by, there would be no future time: the present, however, if it always remained
present, would not be time, but eternity’(ST. AUGUSTINE, Confessions, XI, 14)”(C. BITTLE, From Aether to
Cosmos: Cosmology, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1949, p. 208).

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continuous, and (3) time as number. (1) Time is not the same thing as motion, for many different
motions can take place in the same time, and motions can be fast or slow whereas time remains
uniform in its flow. On the other hand, time inevitably accompanies motion, for where there is
no awareness of motion or change there is no passage of time. (2) Time is continuous because it
is associated with motion that traverses a continuous magnitude. A continuum is formally one
but materially made up of parts: these parts, joined to each other by indivisibles, constitute an
order of local before and after. A motion that traverses such a spatial continuum has also an order
of before and after, as does time’s passage, e.g., when punctuated by the sun’s rising and setting,
the moon’s phases, the ebb and flow of the tides, the position of hands on a dial. (3) Time is a
numbering of the successive ‘nows’ that serve to mark its passage. To grasp its being one must
visualize a before and after under the common aspect of their being a now and count them as two
nows, i.e., as a now-before and a now-after. These nows, the correlates of the here-before and
there-after in motion, are the numbered terminals of the continuum that itself is time. The
numbering referred to here is not that of an absolute or mathematical number divorced from
passage. Time is rather numbered number, the number of and in motion that is indissociable
from its flux.”40

Charles Hart writes that “time takes note of the changing states of quantified bodies
which momentarily endure in one state to be succeeded by a new state. It therefore considers
bodies dynamically. Hence Aristotle’s famous definition: ‘Time is the measure of motion
(change) conceived as before and after,’41 that is, as the passing state and the state coming in to
being. Thus the notion of time involves duration and succession and lends itself to counting or
measuring this continuous flow of states when the mind holds them together in the present state
of consciousness. Thus the foundation in reality for time is the reality of the successive states of
change in extended bodies.”42

Kenneth Dougherty states that time “is a continuous movement considered as a measure
of the duration of mobile beings; time as such is, therefore, a product of the mind with a
foundation in mobile being,” writing: “We shall show that time is materially founded on mobile
being (e.g., the movement of the earth on its axis and around the sun) although time is formally
in the mind’s measuring. We assert, as an example, that the mind assigns parts to the successive
motion of the earth, hence one can number other successive motions according to those parts as
things related to a measure.” Dougherty then gives a proof (in three parts) for the definition of
time he has given: “Proof: Part 1: Time is a continuous movement considered as a measure of
the duration of other things. Time is essentially an uninterrupted progression to which other
things are referred as co-existent. But this uninterrupted progression is continuous movement
considered as a measure of the duration of other things. Therefore, time is continuous movement
considered as a measure of the duration of other things.

“Major. Every part of time, however small, follows another part and that without the
slightest break in the course. There is nothing in the corporeal universe which we cannot affirm
to be co-existent with some point in time.

40
W. WALLACE, The Elements of Philosophy, Alba House, Staten Island, New York, 1977, pp. 53-54.
41
ARISTOTLE, Physics, IV, ch. 11.
42
C. HART, Thomistic Metaphysics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1959, p. 222.

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 “Minor. But this uninterrupted progression is continuous movement. Movement
expresses change of any kind, but as applied to time it is commonly associated with local motion,
that is for man on this planet, the movement of the earth on its axis and around the sun. This is
usually the material element of time for man.

“The co-existence of things with some length of time is why we say that they are
contained in time. We have for example, the events of George Washington’s life which co-exists
with a definite span of years. It is this span of time that sets them apart and measures them from
preceding as well as subsequent events. There is always time to serve as a measure.

“Proof: Part 2: Time is a product of the mind. Time is formally conceived as a measure.
But a measure cannot be formed except by an act of the mind. Therefore, time is a product of the
mind.

“Major: Evident from the proof of the first part.

“Minor: Measure implies a collection of parts into some unity and also their comparison
among themselves. But the collection of the parts of time and their comparison is not an
objective phenomenon. It is formally constituted by the work of the mind which collects the
elements of time into a unity and compares them as past, present, future. This measure is more
accurately established as a numerical series which is applied to events by the mind measuring.
The years 1750, 1850, 1950 are concepts of the mind as measuring.

“Proof: Part 3: Time has a foundation in mobile being. The motion of mobile being is
real and exists independently of the mind. But the motion of mobile being is the foundation of
time. Therefore, time has a foundation in mobile being.

“Major: Motion takes place in the world whether we think about it or not, whether we
know about it or not.

“Minor. Time is not identical with any mobile being for such a being can stop, start, vary
its speed. Time cannot conceivably do these things. Yet we build up our concept of time upon
motion. We select one motion as a standard, and we complete the notion of time as a continuous
uniform rate of change.”43

43
K. DOUGHERTY, op. cit., pp. 78-80.

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