Kant's Third Analogy

8/13/06 11:58 AM The Third Analogy

My problem with the Third lies in my understanding of the First and the Second. The first analogy has provided a substrata to the visible world that is called endurance, and so there is no change in the total. This is the proxy for time here, that the things do not go in and out of existence, but rather endure always.

This is necessary for the Second Analogy, for here we want to go from the subjective apprehension of a succession to an objective, determined apprehension of a succession. By virtue of the continuation of matter per the First, we can now focus on the changes in that matter and are able to look at a perception and see that it was the perception of a change in the object, apart from the perception, and are enabled to question what marked the beginning of that change, its arrival in the spectral world, and to seek something out. Thus upon perceiving now the ice where last night there was water (and assuming the continuation of matter per the First Analogy), I recognize a new development in the object (and not just as it appears to the perception), i.e., something has happened, and search it to be in the cold air that arose during the night (itself an event and requiring a marked boundary, and at first merely a theory which would have to be tested by some observation again).

And so so far we are quite unified and the thought fits together. Now here is where my own problem with the Third Analogy. Kant seems to be saying that without the Third Analogy we would not be able to say that things are simultaneous. According to Kant when you negate succession you do not derive and conclude simultaneous, but merely that particular negative, i.e., it is not successive. And yet it seems to me that by virtue of the First Analogy we know that things don’t go out of existence and come into existence, but rather endure always, and so therefore wouldn’t that mean that all things are simultaneous? And if so, then why the Third Analogy? The information would be derived analytically from the understanding and import of the information from the First Analogy. So, it is not yet clear to my mind and will require further consideration.

12:12 PM It seems so intuitive that the two relationships in time are succession and simultaneity. And so if something is not successive, it would be simultaneous. That seems so obvious. And we know then that everything stays as it is unless something happens, and so unless something has happened, everything as remained the same, and so they are all simultaneous. That seems so clear.

OK, let’s go to the perceptions. When we examine a series of back and forth perceptions from perception A to perception B and then to perception A (indistinguishable except that it is later) we know that perception A, as a perception, cannot exist upon perception B, and vice-versa, but that’s all we can recognize by looking. There is nothing else given to suggest simultaneity. Based on the looking alone you could make only a guess, but not judgment. In order even to suggest the idea of simultaneity you must first make clear what you mean and you do that, it seems, by means of this Third Analogy. The Third Analogy gives us the idea of the interplay between all objects at any given point in time and whereby then we can know that the things behind our backs are still there just as they were when looked at a moment ago, or else something has happened (and going out of existence is not a happening).

And so I face East and then I face West, and while facing West I know that the East is just as I saw it or else is just as I would see it now if I were looking the other way, looking at the East. And that understanding is made possible by the assumption of the Third Analogy concerning the interplay among all things.

Now can we come to this conclusions by first of the First Analogy where the quantity of matter remains constant? When facing the West I would think to myself: things cannot simply go out of existence, and so that means that what I saw earlier cannot have gone out of existence, for that is impossible, and so that means that the East is as I saw it, or as it is now and as I would see if I were looking back toward the East. I would insist: it has to be still there, i.e., all those things, those mountains and such that I saw just now. They have to be really there.

Somehow this logical conclusion doesn’t seem very convincing, and I could not turn around and be sure as I turned, but at most be not surprised to find the East looking pretty much as I remembered. For, I mustn’t forget, it really has to still be there, and just needing a look. Logically speaking.

What does it mean to say that two perceptions are in one and the same time? The only way that can take place is successively. And so A and B are put into the same time (a span of succession) when A is the cause of B. And so what does it mean to say instead that A and B are at the same time? this would put a point on time and declare that A and B are at that point. But what does that mean? I think then Kant wants to say that the only way that a positive meaning (and not just: not successive) can be given here is by virtue of the Third Analogy giving expression to simultaneity through the interplay and reciprocity among all existing things. Otherwise we would not be able to understand what was meant by things existing simultaneously. It would simply be: not successive; but would have no positive meaning.

In his Prolegomena (sp?) earlier Kant illustrated the notion of simultaneity by drawing a straight line to represent time, and then at every point on that line to draw a perpendicular line and then positioning on all things at the same time as points on that perpendicular line and then considering the surface which is created as a result as a representation of existence both as substance and as accident, as object and mode of existence of that object, e.g., in motion or blue.

And so, as I muse, it is not enough to picture an East while facing West and thinking that East exists right now while I am looking West or even to picture them both from a different vantage point, which is always contingent. In order to recognize what is meant by simultaneous I must be able to conceive of the East and the West in an ongoing interaction through space, and then I know the East is there when I am looking West. And in my imagination I can picture them together in a necessary way, i.e., in the interactive way.

And so things existing at the same time are in a state of mutual affectation. In this way we come to understand what is meant by “same time existence” besides just "not successive." And so we think of regularity not only successively but also simultaneously, and both are ways the mind considers the existence of enduring things as specters in time and space. There is a successive affectation (Second Analogy) and a simultaneous affectation (Third Analogy), causation and reciprocity.