Monday, July 23, 2012

Physics, Space, Direction

The main ambition of Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is to ground Newtonian Physics in the a priori structures of Experience--Space, Time, and the Categories of the Understanding.  For the most part, the correlation between e. g. Category and Newtonian Principle, is explicit, with one exception--Direction.  Kant comments that the "usual definition" of the latter is sufficient, with the qualification that, as he shows in the Prolegomena, any perceived asymmetry is derived from the forms of Intuition, and is neither a intellectual concept nor a property of things-in-themselves.  Lacking, therefore, is an explicit demonstration of the ground of Directionality that is as exhaustive as most of his other deductions.  One such available demonstration begins with the irreducible Here-There asymmetry of the oriented Space of the experiencing Subject, on the basis of which all others can be projected--not only Right-Left, but Above-Below, Clockwise-Counterclockwise, as well as any angular degree, for example.  The seeming impossibility otherwise of Directionality in non-oriented Newtonian Space demands this more thorough demonstration.

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