Monday, October 1, 2012

Intensive Magnitude and Depth Perception

Kant's thesis that matter fills its space is grounded in the principle, that governs the "anticipations of perception", i. e. that an "object of sensation has intensive magnitude, that is, a degree".  Now, though he never explicitly uses the phrase, implicit in his examples is that the type of consciousness governed by this principle is often termed 'depth perception'.  But, if so, then he has not responded to Berkeley's challenge that 'depth' is merely an intellectual construct, without sensory correlate.  In other words, a deduction of the very possibility of depth perception seems to be lacking in his exposition, without which his study of Dynamics, and of any Physics that presupposes it, is ungrounded.  Now, one such deduction begins by recognizing that depth is perceivable only via the penetration of some matter, by a perceiver.  But, such penetration is a repulsive force in the perceiver, externally directed.  So, depth perception, on this deduction, presupposes that the perceiver is, itself, constituted by a dynamic force, i. e. by Repulsion, a presupposition that is not easily ascribable to Kant's system, but without which, his Anticipations of Perception, and his Dynamics, seem problematic.

No comments:

Post a Comment