Abstract:

The neurobiological findings of the Nobel laureates John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser have been widely discussed in the context of a “Kantian View of Space”. Thus, spatially tuned cells have been considered the physiological substrate of Kant’s a priori representation of space. Based on neuroscientific and philosophical considerations, the authors maintain that such an interpretation is misleading. Referring to Kant’s own arguments in dealing with Soemmerring’s assertion according to which the cerebral fluid of the ventricles constitutes the physiological substrate of the soul, the authors argue that attributing epistemic functions to a physiological substrate constitutes a vitium subreptionis. However, when used as an analogy, the transfer of concepts from one discipline to another can promote the interdisciplinary dialogue, as shown here on the example of the a priori representation of space.