I would like to ask a question of neuroscientists.
The 18th century German-Idealist Philosopher Immanual Kant argues in the
*Critique_of_Pure_Reason* that everything we perceive from the senses is
subjected to the human modes of perception, namely space and time.
Briefly, it is because all our empirical knowledge is thus conditioned,
that mathematics (Euclidean geometry in particular) can be synthetic
apriori.
Kant goes on to say that there are 12 categories of the understanding.
These 12 categories, falling into four subgroups are as follows:
Group 1 of Quantity Group 2 of Quality
1. Unity 4. Relation
2. Plurality 5. Negation
3. Totality 6. Limitation
Group 3 of Relation Group 4 of Modality
7. Of inheritance 10. Possibility &
impossibility
and subsistence
8. Of cause and effect 11. Existence &
Non-existence
9. Of reciprocity 12. Necessity &
contingency
According to Kant, these modes reside in our understanding. Anything we
understand must conform to these categories.
If this is so, then there must exist some mechanism of understanding
which forms these categories. It would be a set of circuit structures,
or chemical messengers or some other neural mechanism that causes this.
Is there anything in neuroscience that resembles this, that could
account for either the 12 categories of the understanding, or the space
and time modes of perception?
Thanks for considering this question- Jerry McNerney
