Search
Submit an article RU
Kantian Journal

2026 Vol. 45. №1

Back to the list Download the article
ENG
Сохранить XML для: JATS (вып.)
RUS
Сохранить XML для: JATS (вып.)
Bazhanov V. A.

Echoes of Kant’s Ideas in Modern Cognitive Research

DOI
10.5922/0207-6918-2026-1-4
Pages
78-96
Kantian research programme in neuroscience “sense of number” “sense of space” modular brain theory transcendentalism biocultural co-constructivism SNARC-type effects

Abstract

This article examines Kant’s ideas on the a priori character of space and time in the context of modern cognitive research and neuroscience. Proceeding from the Kantian view of space and time as forms of sensibility, I look at how neurobiological data confirm and simultaneously modify classical philosophical nativism. I pay particular attention to empirically-confirmed, inborn cognitive mechanisms such as the “sense of number” and the supposed “sense of space” which have ontogenetic and neural foundations. I look at discoveries pertaining to the brain’s navigation systems, including “place” cells, which point to the existence of a functionally autonomous “geometric” (and not just a “number”) module. This module has been shown to play a key role, not only in one’s orientation in physical space, but also in the formation of abstract concepts, semantic structures, and social ties. I examine data on the independence of basic geometric intuition from cultural and sensory experience, including research on spatial representations in born-blind individuals. A special section is devoted to the analysis of the Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect: its possible influence on the character of the writing system, and, conversely, of script configuration on spatial-numerical and cognitive associations. This phenomenon demonstrates an interconnection between the perception of numbers and direction in space, which is partly determined by cultural features: people with left-to-right writing associate numbers of a larger magnitude with the right side, while people who write from right to left have the reverse association. Thus, human perceptions of space and time are the result of intricate interactions between congenital properties of the nervous system and extra-personal cultural influence. In conclusion, I stress the prospectivity of the concept “biocultural co-constructivism”, according to which congenital neuron structures and cultural practices are in dynamic interaction, and which promises deeper insight into the meaning of the Kantian research programme as implemented in modern neuroscience.

Reference

Amalric, M., Wang, L., Pica, P. et al., 2017. The Language of Geometry: Fast Comprehension of Geometrical Primitives and Rules in Human Adults and Preschoolers. PLOS. Computational Biology, 13(1), Art. e1005273. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005273.

Bazhanov, V.A., 2019. Mozg — kul’tura — sotsium: kantianskaya programma v kognitivnykh issledovaniyakh [Brain — Culture — Society: A Kantian Programme in Cognitive Researches]. Moscow: Kanon+ ROOI Rehabilitation. (In Rus.)

Bazhanov, V.A., 2021. Number and the Kantian Research Programme in Modern Neuroscience. Voprosy filosofii, 7, pp. 50-60. (In Rus.)

Biederman, I., 2013. Psychophysical and Neural Correlates of the Phenomenology of Shape. In: L. Albertazz, ed. 2013. Handbook of Experimental Phenomenology: Visual Perception of Shape, Space and Appearance. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. P. 4125-4136. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118329016.

Brown, T. I., 2021. Cognitive Mapping: Anchoring our Brain’s Sense of Space in a Dynamic World. Current Biology, 31, pp. R291-R295. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.041.

Buzsaki, G. and Llinas, R. 2017. Space and Time in the Brain. Science, 357(6362), pp. 482-485. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan886.

Carey, S., 2009. The Origin of Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chiandetti, C. and Vallortigara, G., 2008. Is there an Innate Geometric Module? Effects of Experience with Angular Geometric Cues on Spatial Re-Orientation Based on the Shape of the Environment. Animal Cognition. 11. pp. 139-146. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-007-0099-y.

De Cruz, H. and De Smedt, J., 2010. The Innateness Hypothesis and Mathematical Concepts. Topoi, 29, pp. 3-13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-009-9061-8.

Dehaene, S. and Brannon, E., 2011a. Space, Time, and Number: A Kantian Research Program. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(12), pp. 517-519. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.09.009.

Dehaene, S. and Brannon, E., eds. 2011b. Space, Time and Number in the Brain: Searching for the Foundations of Mathematical Thought. L.: Academic Press.

Dehaene, S., Sablé-Meyer, M. and Ciccione, L., 2025. Origins of Numbers: A Shared Language-of-Thought for Arithmetic and Geometry? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 29(6), pp. 526-540. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.03.001.

Dillon, M.R., Huang, Y. and Spelke, E., 2013. Core Foundations of Abstract Geometry. PNAS, 110(35), pp. 14191-14195. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.13126401.

Fias, W., Dijck, van J.-P. and Gevers, W., 2011. How is Number Associated with Space? The Role of Working Memory. In: S. Dehaene and E. Brannon, eds. 2011. Space, Time and Number in the Brain: Searching for the Foundations of Mathematical Thought. L.: Academic Press, pp. 133-147.

Fodor, J., 1983. The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Gromov, M., 2011. Structures, Learning, and Ergosystems: Chapters 1-4, 6. December 30, 2011 (Unpublished). Available at: <https://www.ihes.fr/~gromov/wp- content/uploads/2018/08/ergobrain.pdf> (Accessed 18 November 2025).

Gromov, M., 2018. Great Circles of Mysteries: Mathematics, the World, the Mind. Cham: Birkhauser.

He, Y., Nuerk, H. -C., Derksen, A. et al., 2021. A Gifted SNARC? Directional Spatial-Numerical Association in Gifted Children with Hugh-Level Skills do not Differ from Controls. Psychological Research, 85, pp. 1645-1661. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-020-01354-9.

Heimler, B. Behor, T., Dehaene, S. et al., 2021. Core Knowledge of Geometry Can Develop Independently of Visual Experience. Cognition, 212, Art. 104716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104716.

Izard, V., Pica, P., Spelke, E. et al., 2011. Flexible Intuitions of Euclidian Geometry in an Amazonian Indigene Group. PNAS, 108(24), pp. 9782-9787. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1016686108.

Jackson, A., 2002. The World of Blind Mathematicians. Notices of AMS, 49(10), pp. 1246-1251.

Joseph, A., Francis, N. and Balay, M., 2025. Brain-Inspired AI with Hyperbolic Geometry. arXiv:2409.12990v3 [q-bio.NC], 03 Feb. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2409.12990.

Kant, I., 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by P. Guyer and A. W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kant, I., 1992. On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World [Inaugural Dissertation]. In: I. Kant, 1992. Theoretical philosophy, 1755-1770. Translated and edited by D. Walford фтв R. Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 373-416.

Khachouf, O. T., Poletti, S. and Pagnoni, G., 2013. The Embodied Transcendental: A Kantian Perspective on the Neurophenomenology. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, Art. 611. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00611.

Kinzler, K. D. and Spelke, E. S., 2007. Core Systems in Human Cognition. Progress in Brain Research, 164, pp. 257-264. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-6123(07)64014-X.

Król J., Schumann, A., Bielas K., 2022. Brain and Its Universal Model of Multi-Agent Biological Systems. Logica Universalis, 16, pp. 671-687. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11787-022-00319-3.

Krupic, J., Bauza, M., Burton, S. et al., 2015. Grid Cell Symmetry Is Shaped by Environmental Geometry. Nature, 518(7538), pp. 232-235. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14153.

Larson, C. L., Aronoff, J. and Steuer, E. L., 2012. Simple Geometrical Shapes are Implicitly Associated with Affective Value. Motivation and Emotion, 36, pp. 404-413. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9249-2.

Lopiccolo, D. and Chang, C.B., 2021. Cultural Factors Weaken but Do not Reverse Left-to-Right Spatial Biases in Numerosity Processing: Data from Arabic and English Monoliterates and Arabic-English Biliterates. PLoS One, 16(12), Art. e0261146. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261146.

Low, I. and Giocomo, L., 2021. Fifty Years of the Brain’s Sense of Space. Nature, 599(7885), pp. 376-377. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03010-7.

Manin, Y. I., 2015. Neural Codes and Homotopy Types: Mathematical Models of Place Field Recognition. Moscow Mathematical Journal, 15(4), pp. 741-748. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1501.00897.

Marchetti, I. and Koster, E., 2014. Brain and Intersubjectivity: A Hegelian Hypothesis on the Self-Other Neurodynamics. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, Art. 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00011.

Moser, E. I. and Furstenberg, A., 2025. Theory and Practice in Neuroscience Modelling of Thought: An Interview with Edward I. Moser. Human Arenas, 8, pp. 803-808. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-024-00436-z.

Nemeh, F., Humberstone, J., Yates, M.Y. and Reeve, R.A., 2018. Non-symbolic Magnitudes are Represented Spatially: Evidence from a Non-symbolic SNARC Task. PLOS One, 13(8), Art. e0203019. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0203019.

O’Keefe J. and Dostrovsky, J., 1971. The Hyppocampus as a Spatial Map. Preliminary Evidence from Unit Activity in the Freely-Moving Rat. Brain Research. 34, pp. 171-175. https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-8993(71)90358-1.

Padakannaya, P., Georgion, G. K. and Winskel, H., 2022. Script’s Influence on Reading Processes and Cognition: A Preamble. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 6, pp. 93-96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-022-00109-9.

Pae, H. K., 2022. Toward a Script Relativity Hypothesis: Focused Research Agenda for Psycholinguistic Experiments in the Science of Reading. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 6, pp. 97-117. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-022-00103-1.

Pantsar, M., 2022. On the Development of Geometric Cognition: Beyond Nature vs. Nurture. Philosophical Psychology, 35(4), pp. 595-616. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2021.2014441.

Pettit, N. L., Yap, E -L., Greenberg, M. E. and Harvey, Ch. D., 2022. Fos Ensembles Encode and Shape Stable Spatial Maps in the Hippocampus. Nature, 609, pp. 327-333. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05113-1.

Prpic, V., Fumarola, A., De Tommaso M. and Baldassi G., 2013. A SNARC-like Effect for Music Tempo. Review of Psychology, 20(1-2), pp. 47-51.

Rav, Y., 2006. Philosophical Problems of Mathematics in the Light of Evolutionary Epistemology. In: R. Hersh, ed. 2006. 18 Unconventional Essays on the Nature of Mathematics. New York: Springer, pp. 71-96.

Sablé-Meyer, M., Benjamin, J., Potier Watkins, C. et al., 2025. A Geometrical Shape Regularity Effect in the Human Brain. eLife, 14, Art. RP106464. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.106464.3.

Sablé-Meyer, M., Ellis, K., Tenenbaum, J. and Dehaene, S., 2021. A Language of Thought for the Mental Representation of Geometrical Shapes. PsyArXiv. Preprint, 23 Dec 2021. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/28mg4.

Sablé-Meyer, M., Fagot, J., Caparos, S. and Dehaene, S., 2021. Sensitivity to Geometric Shape Regularity in Humans and Baboons: A Putative Signature of Human Singularity. PNAS, 118(16), Art. e2023123118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023123118.

Spelke, E. S. and Kinzler, K. D., 2007. Core Knowledge. Developmental Science, 10(1), pp. 89-96. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00569.x.

Tooley, U. A., Bassett, D. S. and Mackey, A. P., 2021. Environmental Influences on the Pace of Brain Development. Nature Review Neuroscience, 22, pp. 372-381. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-021-00457-5.

Vaid, J., 2022. Biscriptiality: A Neglected Construct in the Study of Bilingualism. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 6, pp. 135-149. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-022-00101-3.

Vallortigara, G., 2012. Core Knowledge of Object, Number, and Geometry: A Comparative and Neural Approach. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 29(1-2), pp. 213-236. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643294.2012.654772.

Vandervert, L. R., 1994. How the Brain Gives Rise to Mathematics in Ontogeny and in Culture. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 15(4), pp. 343-350.

Zaitseva, N. V. and Zaitsev, D. V., 2017. Phenomenological Perspective in Contemporary Neuroscience. Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences, 1, pp. 71-84. (In Rus.)