February 19-21, 1995
From: blais@philos.umass.edu (Andrew L. Blais)
Query: I've been reading R.C.S. Walker's book on Kant, the chapter on the a priori status of our representations of space and time, and in which he offers a number of thought-experiments that are supposed to get us to see that timeless experience is possible. I was wondering this: How is one supposed to tell whether one has imagined a timeless experience, or one has imagined an experience that is temporally extended, but that has exactly the same content at every moment? I'd appreciate any comments, private or not.
I think that a timeless experience cannot be distinguished from a temporally extended experience that has exactly the same content at every instant. A very similar problem reveals a flaw in the second argument of the "Meta- physical Exposition of the Concept of Space" and "... of Time" respectively.
One of the most lucid accounts of the various psychological types of "time consciousness" that I have read is Maurice Nicoll's Living Time. Amidst discussion of Plato, Buddha, Spinoza, Kant, Nietsche, Ouspensky, and others, Nicoll makes the comment that:
"We must recall here the general rule that a change in the time-sense characterizes higher degrees of consciousness." (p.142, his italics)
The ability to attain a conscious awareness of a state "outside" of time might be an example of this rule and fit Andrew's question regarding the possibility of a timeless experience. But what would Kant say about this state? As was pointed out in a subsequent post, Kant says in the "Metaphysical Exposition of the Concept of Time" (Argument #2):
"Time is a necessary representation that underlies all intuitions. We cannot, in respect of appearances in general, remove time itself, though we can quite well think time as void of appearances... Appearances may, one and all, vanish; but time (as the universal condition of their possibility) cannot itself be removed." (NKS, A31/B46)
Given the absolutely central position of Time in the Critique of Pure Reason I cannot imagine Kant agreeing to the possibility of a "timeless" experience (or state of consciousness). I do, however, think it is quite feasible, given the architectonic unity of the Kantian system, to achieve a state of consciousness in which 1) the transcendental unity of apperception, 2) time as an intuitable form, and 3) sensibility (as a manifold receptive surface) are collapsed onto one another in such a way as to be indistinguishable from a point of zero dimension. The juxtaposition of such a "point" or "origin" with the external sense (the form of space) yields a state of consciousness in which Time has seemingly vanished.
Perhaps it was such a state that Spinoza had in mind when he wrote that "Eternity cannot be defined by time or have any relation to it."
Well, this is about as mystical as I get. Hope this clarifies more than it confuses.
Of course Kant despised mysticism. His essay "On Enthusiasm and the Means for its Prevention" contains an attack on Schwedenborg. Somewhere in the critiques he likens Spinozism to the work of the "monster Lao Tzu". Unmediated experience clearly made no sense to Kant, and Time and Space are the mediators.
Kant had a more differentiated attitude to Spinozism. There is no such essay by Kant as "On Enthusiasm...". Do you mean the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer? Or the "Essay on the Diseases of the Head"? The interesting thing is they are a few traces of some sort of Spinozism in the early Kant. His witty comments are strategic, like everybody else's, and often addressed to himself - as caveats.
There is an essay with that title. You are right about dreams of a spirit seer. My mistake. But if you look in the Cassirer edition of Kant's work ( and surely elsewhere) you will find the essay I mentioned. You are correct about Kant's different views of Spinoza, my point though was that in one place where he discusses Spinoza he likens one of his views to those of Lao Tzu.
I hope you will look up the essay and let me know what you think. It is an interesting piece.
I think I agree with the writer who points out that Kant would not have countenanced the idea of a timeless experience, and for several reasons that haven't been mentioned yet. "Experience" for Kant means not just a state of consciousness but judgments; if there were the sort of bizarre states of consciousness that have been conjectured in these posts, they would probably evoke from Kant something like Wittgenstein's response in the Investigations, re the "private" object: I do not say it is nothing, I only say a nothing would do as well as a something about which nothing could be said! So whatever Borges or a mystic imagines, Kant would shrug his shoulders and ask to be addressed in the language of mere mortals like himself, since he could not understand the "insights" of inspired people [Hamann, not Swedenborg, gave rise to this particular crack] with non-sensible intuitions [which would be atemporal, since time is one of the forms of human sensibility. Forgive my rambling.
A good place to check Kant's comments about mysticism is in the second Critique, Ak. 70-71. The whole context is needed for the full force of his view, but Kant does sat there that "...mysticism is compatible with the purity and sublimity of the moral law..." and "...empiricism is far more dangerous than all mystical enthusiasm..." (CPR 71). I take this to mean that Kant views mysticism as partly the result of reason's unguided venture beyond the bounds of experience, whereas his transcendental idealism is the result of venturing out there with practical reason providing the necessary guidance. Does this seem an appropriate reading, anyone?
Yes, it does seem appropriate as long as you remember that it's not that mysticism is acceptable. It's just a less extreme or dangerous error than "empiricism" because it maintains its "purity" from empirical influence. There's a similar comment at Ak.443 in the Groundwork where Kant says that he prefers the "concept of perfection" to "moral sense" as a basis of morality because "[perfection] at least withdraws the settlement of this question form sensibility and brings it before the court of pure reason." It therefore "does still preserve unfalsified...the indeterminate Idea (of a will good in itself)." The translation is Paton's.
I'm not sure if we need conclude that "sensibility" needs to be utterly excluded from morality. But it is certainly the case that when determining the Idea(s) or principles (i.e., determining the "rational bases of morality" - Ak.443) is at stake, sensibility cannot be involved. I think there's room then to integrate our sensible natures (I'm thinking in particular of feeling) according to and in service to the principles we determine "by reason alone".
Steve Hoath says he "cannot imagine Kant agreeing to the possibility of a "timeless" experience (or state of consciousness)", and then supplies an interesting, semi-mystical caveat.
What Kant would not countenance, however, would be the possibility of a timeless experience producing any knowledge. That such an experience is possible (provided it remains a mystery) he never denies. Moreover, the most clearly Critical of all his pre-1770 writings, Dreams of a Spirit Seer, explicitly defends the possibility of such experiences, provided they be interpreted in a practical light, rather than theoretically. In this sense, this early work paves the way for several of the central themes of the Critical System.
I was glad to see Willi Goetschel's correction along these lines of the overly anti-mystical remarks posted by "Citabria@aol.com". But I believe the case for interpreting Kant as someone who at least flirted with mystical ideas can be put even more strongly. Anyone interested in reading such an argument might wish to consult a pair of articles published a few years ago in Philosophy & Theology under the general title "Kant's Critique of Mysticism". The first one provides a thoroughgoing interpretation of Kant's much-neglected Dreams, while the second one traces mystical tendencies of various sorts in other aspects of Kant's life and writings. Unfortunately, the articles were published with (literally) several hundred gross editorial errors and misprints, and the proofs were only sent to me after publication. So if anyone wants to read (and hopefully comment on!?) a "clean" copy of the articles, please send me your address privately and I'd be happy to mail a copy.
As far as Walker's arguments are concerned, I was unconvinced that any of his thought-experiments pose any relevant problems for Kant's epistemology, which always focuses on what we do know, not on what we can imagine.
The text and interpretation provided by Susan Robbins is an excellent example of what I call Kant's "Critical mysticism" (i.e., his view that "fanatical mysticism" must be rejected, not in order to do away with all mystical claims, but rather to temper them with the guidelines of practical reason).
Arnulf Zweig is certainly right about the meaning of the technical term "experience". However, Kant does occasionally use this term in a less technical sense, as referring to the sensibly-received-but-not-(yet?-)conceptually- processed data of intuition. In a few places he uses the term "immediate experience" to distinguish this from the full-fledged experience of judgment. I take Kant's position in CPR to be that the only type of intuition we have that can ever lead to empirical knowledge is the kind that is informed by space and time. That leaves open a "space" (as he puts it) for other formative influences, such as (most notably) practical reason.... In any case, I would caution against putting too much weight on Kant's wise-cracks. Sometimes the ones he makes fun of are the one who attract him the most. In this respect, Kant is at times not unlike Nietzsche.