KANT'S THEORIES OF SPACE AND TIME IN 19TH CENTURY PHYSICS AND PHYSIOLOGY

This paper considers the 19th c. dispute between thinkers such as Hermann von Helmholtz, who claimed that modern mathematics and sense-physiology refuted Kant on geometry, and neo-Kantian defenders of Kant, who held that the normative role of geometry in physical science placed it beyond empirical investigation. It is argued that 20th c. critics of Kant's theories of mathematics, by following the latter approach, thereby misunderstand the wide scope of Kant's original claim. They interpreted these earlier debates epistemologically, as concerning the difference between the "natural" and the "normative", whereas the fundamental issue was metaphysical, even if it had important methodological consequences. By contrast, the present paper focuses on the role of the ideality of space and time, while remaining fully within the scientific context.