Kant – A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself

Here, he observes that given some object, we can imaginatively separate the space and the time in which the object is situated for independent consideration. Once we perform this abstraction, we can see that without the spatio-temporal form, there can be no object to perceive. The object depends upon the spatio-temporal form, but the spatio-temporal form does not depend upon the object. This is the crux of the argument. The spatio-temporal form is therefore independent and prior to the objects within it.

Each is an isolated, self-enclosed, ‘windowless’ whole. Each soul’s set of perceptions is nonetheless synchronized with all of the others, like an arrangement of movie theatres along a street, all of which play a similar movie, and where each movie contains a segment that represents what is happening simultaneously in the other movies. God, as the supreme soul and centrally controlling movie projectionist, one could say, coordinates this set of souls in a pre-established harmony. Another name for simple soul is ‘monad’, which Leibniz uses to characterize these substances, or fundamental spiritual points that constitute the universe.

Kant rejected this equation in favour of a more traditional conception, where God is set beyond and independent of time and space. He consequently sought a way to conceive of time and space that would preserve their scientific effectiveness, but which would keep space and time separated from the absolute order of things. His way to do this, as we shall see, was to conceive of them as being merely modes of human awareness.