The more recent interpretations of Kant’s 1768 essay Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space stressed the important role of the human body in determining the spatial feature of directionality. For that reason it seems to provide great support to an alternative account of Kant’s official doctrine of space in the Trascendental Aesthetic, namely a reading grounded on a «phenomenological» approach to the text. The present article firstly explains why a revision in translation allowed to discover (...) in the 1768 essay the new topic of the body. Then it shows how Kant’s remarks have been connected with his mature views by ascribing to him a constant phenomenological attitude. Finally it argues that a similar hypothesis is not much consistent with Kant’s aims, because of the methodological rules of philosophizing he was following in 1768. (shrink)

The more recent interpretations of Kant’s 1768 essay Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space stressed the important role of the human body in determining the spatial feature of directionality. For that reason it seems to provide great support to an alternative account of Kant’s official doctrine of space in the Trascendental Aesthetic, namely a reading grounded on a «phenomenological» approach to the text. The present article firstly explains why a revision in translation allowed to discover (...) in the 1768 essay the new topic of the body. Then it shows how Kant’s remarks have been connected with his mature views by ascribing to him a constant phenomenological attitude. Finally it argues that a similar hypothesis is not much consistent with Kant’s aims, because of the methodological rules of philosophizing he was following in 1768. (shrink)