Kant's Stance on the Relationalist-Substantivalist Debate and Its Justification

kant famously claims that space is merely a feature of the mind—something subjective—rather than a mind-independent feature of reality in itself.1 In accepting the subjectivity thesis, Kant rejects the transcendental realist assumption that he thinks has traditionally, albeit tacitly, been made in debates about the nature of space. According to this assumption, space has to do with things in themselves. For the Newtonians, as Kant understands their position, space is a substance-like thing in itself; for the Leibnizians, space consists in relations among things in themselves.2 Kant breaks sharply with these traditional accounts.However, it would be a mistake to think that Kant's commitment to the...