Editing Space (section)

=== Kant ===
[[Image:Immanuel Kant portrait c1790.jpg|upright|thumb|[[Immanuel Kant]]]]
In the eighteenth century the German philosopher [[Immanuel Kant]] published his theory of space as "a property of our mind" by which "we represent to ourselves objects as outside us, and all as in space" in the [[Critique of Pure Reason]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Allison |first=Henry E. |author-link=Henry E. Allison |title=Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense; Revised and Enlarged Edition | page=97-132 |isbn=978-0300102666 |year=2004 |publisher=Yale University Press}}</ref> On his view the nature of spatial predicates are "relations that only attach to the form of intuition alone, and thus to the subjective constitution of our mind, without which these predicates could not be attached to anything at all."<ref>{{cite book |last=Kant |first=Immanuel |author-link=Immanuel Kant |title=Critique of Pure Reason (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant) | page=A3/B37-38 |isbn=978-0-5216-5729-7 |year=1999 |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref> This develops his theory of [[knowledge]] in which knowledge about space itself can be both ''a priori'' and ''[[analytic-synthetic distinction|synthetic]]''.<ref>Carnap, R. ''An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science''. pp. 177–178.</ref>
According to Kant, knowledge about space is ''synthetic'' because any proposition about space cannot be true ''merely'' in virtue of the meaning of the terms contained in the proposition. In the counter-example, the proposition "all unmarried men are bachelors" ''is'' true by virtue of each term's meaning. Further, space is ''a priori'' because it is the form of our receptive abilities to receive information about the external world. For example, someone without sight can still perceive spatial attributes via touch, hearing, and smell. Knowledge of space itself is ''a priori'' because it belongs to the subjective constitution of our mind as the form or manner of our intuition of external objects.