Look Ma, No Hands!: A New Direction in Kant's Metaphysics of Space Before Directions ' Incongruent Counterparts

abstract: According to a common narrative, Kant held a kind of relationalist view of space from the time of his earliest publication, Living Forces , until 1768, when he published Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space . The narrative holds further that considerations about incongruent counterparts prompted an abrupt volte-face—concerns about right and left hands were supposedly the decisive factor in causing a sudden shift to the metaphysical view expressed in Directions . I argue that the common narrative is wrong, offering a new account of the timeline of, and reasons behind, Kant's rejection of relationalism.