Incongruent Counterparts

Abstract

Kant maintains that a right- and a left-hand glove are enough to shatter Leibniz’s theory of space. For there is a difference between them that the relational theory can never capture. The difference in orientation, in handedness, cannot be reduced to any difference in the relations between things or between the parts of things; the two gloves share all their relational properties and all their non-spatial properties as well, yet they are quite clearly and obviously different. We can see the difference between them, but we cannot specify what it amounts to in any way that would be acceptable to Leibniz. There must be more to space, therefore, than Leibniz will allow.