Metaphysics: Immanuel Kant: Space Motion Synthetic a priori

[karene]

Metaphysics of Immanuel Kant

Time was, when she (Metaphysics) was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour. Now, it is the fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon her; and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba .. her empire gradually broke up, and intestine wars introduced the reign of anarchy; while the sceptics, like nomadic tribes, who hate a permanent habitation and settled mode of living, attacked from time to time those who had organized themselves into civil communities. But their number was, very happily, small; and thus they could not entirely put a stop to the exertions of those who persisted in raising new edifices, although on no settled or uniform plan.
(Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781)

Kant's Error: From Space and Time to Space and (Wave) Motion as Synthetic a priori
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is the most famous metaphysicist throughout the history of philosophy, and there is no doubt that his 'Critique of Pure Reason' (1781) is the most comprehensive analysis of Metaphysics since Aristotle's pioneering work which founded this subject.
Kant clearly realized the unique importance of Space as being a priori (necessary) for us to be able to experience and sense the world around us, and that Metaphysics (and thus Physics) depend upon this a priori knowledge.

Natural science (physics) contains in itself synthetical judgments a priori, as principles. ... Space then is a necessary representation a priori, which serves for the foundation of all external intuitions. (Kant, 1781)

Unfortunately for Human knowledge, Kant made a simple error when he assumed Time as the second a priori existent, rather than the PROPERTIES of Space as a wave-medium.

Time is not an empirical concept. For neither co-existence nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation a priori. (Kant, 1781)

And because Kant could not unite Space and Time back to One common connected thing he assumed that they must exist merely as ideas or representations of the world. His error can be clearly seen when he writes that motion is empirical / a posteriori and first depends upon the a priori existence of time.

Here I shall add that the concept of change, and with it the concept of motion, as change of place, is possible only through and in the representation of time. & Motion, for example, presupposes the perception of something movable. But space considered in itself contains nothing movable; consequently motion must be something which is found in space only through experience -in other words, is an empirical datum. (Kant, 1781)

The correct answer is that Space in itself must have Properties. i.e. That Space exists with the properties of a wave-medium and thus contains wave-motions which ultimately cause not only time, but also matter and its forces. (Kant made the common mistake of only considering Motion of matter particles and not the (wave) Motion of Space itself!) Thus Space and Motion are a priori and first necessary for us to experience the world. This then explains the current confusion of modern physics due to the incorrect conception of the Motion of matter 'particles' in Space and Time, rather than the spherical wave-motion of Space causing both matter 'particles' and time. Significantly, Kant realized the importance of this problem of synthetic a priori knowledge as the foundation of the Sciences and thus of certainty of knowledge.

Upon the solution of this problem, or upon sufficient proof of the impossibility of synthetical knowledge a priori, depends the existence or downfall of metaphysics. (Kant, 1781)