rceived involves a
contradiction. To take Plato's example, suppose that we are looking at
a straight stick, partially immersed in water. If we have not
previously seen the stick, and are ignorant of the laws of refraction,
we say that the stick is bent. If, however, we learn the effect of
refraction, and observe the stick from several positions, we alter our
assertion. We say that the stick is not really bent, but only looks or
appears bent to us. But, if we reflect at all, we do not express our
meaning by saying that the stick _is_ bent to us as perceiving, though
not in reality.[2] The word 'is' essentially relates to what really
is. If, therefore, the phrase 'to us as perceiving' involves an
opposition to the phrase 'in reality', as it must if it is to be a
real qualification of 'is', it cannot rightly be added to the word
'is'. To put the matter more explicitly, the assertion that something
_is_ so and so implies that it is so and so in itself, whether it be
perceived or not, and therefore the assertion that something is so and
so to us as perceiving, though not in itself, is a contradiction in
terms. The phrase 'to us as perceiving', as a restriction upon the
word 'is', merely takes back the precise meaning of the word 'is'.
That to which the phrase can be added is not the word 'is', but the
word 'looks' or 'appears'. We can rightly say that the stick looks or
appears bent to us as perceiving. But even then the addition only
helps to make explicit the essential meaning of 'appears', for
'appears' really means 'appears to us', and 'as perceiving' only
repeats the meaning of 'appears' from the side of the perceiving
subject as opposed to that of the object perceived. The essential
point, however, is thereby brought out that the phrase 'to us as
perceiving' essentially relates not to what a thing is, but to what it
looks or appears to us.

[2] Similarly, we do not say--if we mean what we say--of a
man who is colour blind that an object which others call blue
_is_ pink to him or to his perception, but that it _looks_
pink to him.

What, then, is the proper statement of Kant's view that space is a
determination of things only as they appear to us, and not as they are
in themselves? It should be said that things are not in reality
spatial, but only look or appear spatial to us. It should not be said
that they _are_ spatial for our perception, though not in themselves.
Thus the view properly stated impl