ABSTRACT
By “metaphysical exposition,” Immanuel Kant means that he is defining space in terms of its characteristics and thereby explaining what it is. What follows in the Metaphysical and Transcendental Expositions is a series of arguments that rule out both of these possible explanations of space, exclude a third possibility, and advance Kant’s position as the only coherent alternative. Expositors of Kant disagree as to whether the Transcendental Exposition is a further argument for the claim that space is a form of sensibility or whether it is intended merely to demonstrate the applicability of space to actual experience. In the Transcendental Exposition, Kant investigates the conditions for “the possibility of other synthetic a priori cognitions”—in particular, the claims of geometry. Commentators usually focus on section one of the Transcendental Aesthetic, which deals with space, because there Kant initiates a pattern of argument that basically recurs in the second section, where he deals with time.
