Co-seeing and seeing through: reimagining Kant’s subtraction argument with Stumpf and Husserl

Mac Cumhaill, Clare

Abstract

I draw on Carl Stumpf’s essay “Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie” (1891), and his precocious On the Psychological Origin of the Idea of Space (1873), to set out a charge he raises against Kant’s form/matter distinction. The charge rests, I propose, on the supposition that colourless extension, or empty space, cannot be seen. I consider an objection that Stumpf raises against Kant’s notorious ‘subtraction’ argument. Kant supposes that we can ‘take away’ from the representation of a body all that the understanding thinks in relation to it and extension would yet remain (Remainder), separate from all sensation (Separateness). Stumpf denies both claims but I suggest he needn’t. I outline a way of defending Remainder without Separateness, extrapolating from some neglected descriptive phenomenology in Husserl’s 1907 “Thing and Space” lectures: we see empty regions insofar as we see things through them. Finally, by appeal to so-called ‘structural’ features of visual experience, I detail a distinctive approach to making the subtraction argument intelligible.

Citation

Mac Cumhaill, C. (2020). Co-seeing and seeing through: reimagining Kant’s subtraction argument with Stumpf and Husserl. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 28(6), 1217-1239. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2019.1695579

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 16, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Mar 10, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020
• Deposit Date: Mar 25, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 25, 2020
• Journal: British Journal for the History of Philosophy
• Print ISSN: 0960-8788
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-3526
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 1217-1239
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2019.1695579
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1305544