What Peter didn't know. Reflections on spatial size
Journal article, Peer reviewed
Accepted version
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http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2588559Utgivelsesdato
2018Metadata
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Originalversjon
Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung. 2018, 72 (4), 502-510. 10.3196/004433018825140403Sammendrag
The person of the initial thought experiment knows all non-indexical physical facts about things of the external world but not their real size. This highlights a tension between two rather uncontroversial views about spatial objects: (1) the particular size of such objects is non-conceptual; (2) truths about a quantity like size are relational. The problem is that relational truths about size are conceptual. And in order to distinguish particular from conceptual size, one seemingly needs a measure of 'worlds'. I argue that in the role as embodied agent, man may supply such a measure. This is also taken as an argument for Kantian transcendental idealism and empirical realism.