Advaita As a Global International Relations Theory by Deepshikha Shahi

Author:Deepshikha Shahi [Oduntan, Oluwatoyin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Fragmentations of time and space in Eurocentric IR: a dualist Kantian index

The dichotomized and mutually irreconcilable (and hence fragmented) positioning of time and space as ‘linear-material’ in rationalist/positivist theories, and ‘non-linear-discursive’ in reflectivist/post-positivist theories, is largely an index of the Kantian antinomies. One of the Kantian antinomies determines time and space as ‘a priori intuition which is empirically real and transcendentally ideal’ (Bird, 2013). In order to illustrate the meaning of this Kantian suggestion – which is central to the understanding of the fragmented nature of rationalist/positivist and reflectivist/post-positivist delineations of temporality and spatiality in Eurocentric IR – it is crucial to first separately clarify the Kantian conceptualization of ‘a priori’, ‘intuition’, ‘empirically real’, and ‘transcendentally ideal’.

The Kantian conceptualization of a priori encompasses those knowledge-forms that bear ‘universality and necessity’ in the sense that they cannot be imagined otherwise by a subject of a knowledge-situation: as such, they are ‘independent of all particular experiences’ (Greenberg, 2010). While ‘empiricism’ (as a knowledge-form based on ‘experience’) does not bear universality and necessity as it teaches a particular subject that a thing is so and so, but not that it cannot be otherwise, ‘rationalism’ (as a knowledge-form based on ‘reason’) establishes time and space as universal and necessary presuppositions which cannot be imagined otherwise, and therefore hold the character of ‘a priori’: as such, no subject of a knowledge-situation can reasonably relate to an object without situating it in the pre-supposed/pre-imagined frameworks of time and space. In other words, since time and space are pre-imagined by experience (a priori), they cannot be derived from experience (posteriori)11.

Furthermore, the subject of a knowledge-situation combines the a priori frameworks of time and space with intuition – that is, a mode of subject’s mind that immediately relates to object – thereby enabling the occurrence of ‘sensation’ and ‘appearance’: according to Kant, that part of subject’s intuition which relates to object through ‘sensation’ is empirical, whereas the undetermined object of an empirical intuition (the array of sensations whose form and content eventually get determined by process of understanding in subject’s mind) is entitled ‘appearance’ (Ward, 2006). As such, time and space are a priori ‘subjective representations’ that underlie all intuitions (including sensations and appearances): a subject of a knowledge-situation can never represent to himself/herself the absence of time and space.

Once the ‘subjective nature’ of time and space is established (that is, as soon as time and space are recognized as a subject’s intrinsic a priori framework for intuiting/sensing/understanding an object), Kant proceeds to argue that the a priori intuition of time and space is empirically real and transcendentally ideal. In order to uncover this denotation of ‘empirical reality’ and ‘transcendental ideality’ of time and space, Gram (1967: 499) quotes an extract from Kant’s antinomies as phrased in his famous work, The Critique of Pure Reason:

If we regard the two propositions, that the world is infinite in magnitude and that it is finite in magnitude, as contradictory opposites, we are assuming that the world, the complete series of appearances,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.