Kant and the limits of space and time.

One's whole experience is conditioned in the sense of being limited. If one thinks of oneself as a perceiving subject, if one thinks of oneself as perceiving, an objective world, a universe, out there, then that perception would seem to take place under certain conditions or limitations. One would seem to perceive, not the thing directly, but to perceive it through veils, in accordance with the nature of the perceiving instrument.

It's generally agreed in Western philosophy, since the time of Kant, that space and time are not objective realities, but part of the apparatus of perception itself. This would certainly be the Buddhist point of view, that space and time are concepts and not entities. You don't see space and time. Space and time are part of the way in which you see things, primarily. So your mind, your individual consciousness, is of such a nature, is so structured, so constituted, that it perceives things through that particular medium. Not that the medium is separate from the perceiving mind itself, but it's part of your apparatus of perception. Space and time are built into your perceiving process. So when you think of things, you cannot but think of them in terms of space and time because you cannot but perceive them in terms of space and time. So even when you're thinking about the spiritual life, even when you are thinking about Reality itself, you cannot but envisage it either in terms of space, or in terms of time. Either by way of an analogy with space or by way of an analogy with time.

The Buddha himself seems to have done both, and oscillated between the two modes of expression. So you can have the Absolute with a capital A. You can think of this Absolute in terms of space, or you can think of it in terms of time. When you think of it in terms of space, it is static, it exists out there. It is a sort of object, even a sort of ground. And it's thinking of it in that way, envisaging it in that way, that the Buddha said;

There is, O monks, that sphere of Reality which is permanent, fixed, unchanging, where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no air. If it were not for that sphere of Reality, O monks, there would be no release from this Samsara.

The Absolute is envisaged in terms of space. It is static. It is unchanging.

But then again the Buddha also speaks in terms of conditioned co-production, of even the series of transcendental states or stages, of which there seems to be no definite end, it goes on and on. So here you have got a conception of the Absolute not as something static, not as something fixed, not as something conceived in terms of space, but as something conceived in terms of time. That is to say what I've called a process of irreversible creativity, which also corresponds to the unchanging Absolute.

You can read Sangharakshita’s thoughts and reflections on:
Nietzsche, Milton, Handel and artistic inspiration.
Nietzsche, Goethe and the enemy.
Nietzsche, Zen and Sudden Enlightenment.
Kant, the Buddha and the limits of reason.
The limits of space and time.
Baudelaire and awareness of others.
Spiritual friends.
Giving style to one’s character.
Anarchism.
Schopenhauer and the will to live.
Schopenhauer and aesthetic appreciation.
Mozart and pauses.
Mozart and the unpredictable.
Mozart and the concentrated mind.

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Dernière mise à jour:
04 avril, 2007.