as alternatively-reciprocal,[1] but none as absolute motion or rest (since, inasmuch as one is called moved, the other, with reference to which our former is moved, may be similarly conceived as absolutely resting). Absolute space is then necessary, not as a conception of a real object, but as a mere idea which is to serve as a rule, for considering all motion therein as merely relative, and all motion and rest must be reduced to absolute space if the phenomenon of the same is to be transformed into a definite conception of experience (which combines all phenomena).
In this way the rectilinear motion of a body in relative space, is reduced to absolute space, which does not fall within the range of the senses if I conceive the body, as at rest in itself, and this presentation as that which gives precisely the same phenomenon, whereby all possible phenomena of rectilinear motions, which a body may happen at the same time, to possess, are reduced to the conception of experience, which unites them together (namely, to that of merely relative motion and rest).
Circular motion, inasmuch as, according to the second proposition, even without reference to the external empirically given space, it can be given as real motion in experience, seems to be really absolute motion. For the relative in
- ↑ In logic the either or always denotes a disjunctive judgment; for if one be true, the other must be false. For instance, a body is either moved or not-moved, that is, at rest. For it is simply the relation of the cognition to the object which is there spoken of. In phenomenal doctrine, where the relation to the subject is referred to, in order therefrom to determine the relation to the object, it is otherwise. For there the proposition: the body is either moved and the space at rest, or conversely, is not a disjunctive proposition in an objective, but only a subjective connection, and both these judgments therein contained are alternatively valid. In the same phenomenology, where the motion is considered not merely phoronomically, but rather dynamically, on the contrary, the disjunctive proposition is to be taken in an objective signification, that is, in place of the turning of a body I cannot assume its rest and the opposite motion of the space. But even where the motion is regarded mechanically (as when a body rushes against another apparently resting) even then, the, as regards form, disjunctive judgment in respect of the object is to be employed distributively, so that the motion must not be attributed either to the one or to the other, but to each an equal share. This distinction of alternative, disjunctive and distributive determinations of a conception as regards mutually opposed predicates has its importance, but cannot lie further discussed here.
