e dependent on “the understanding.” Rather, on Kant's reading, he thinks space is independent of intuition per se.
20. Yet if Leibniz thinks that space is a relational order, that relations are mind-dependent, and that our <space>confused is dependent upon sense perception, is he committed to the idea that space itself is somehow dependent upon sense perception? If so, it is not clear that Kant's characterization of him through the lens of transcendental realism is fair. First, as Kant well knew, Leibniz contends in the New Essays that relations are not merely mind-dependent, but in fact dependent on the understanding, rather than on sense perception. This may suggest that when we consider space through the lens of the understanding—when we focus on our <space>clear & distinct—we find that space is a relational order that depends upon the understanding because it depends upon relations, which in turn are “added” by the understanding to the objects that exist. Perhaps the suggestion here is that relations themselves are not an aspect of our <space>confused but in fact are an aspect of our <space>clear & distinct. One might think our confused representation of space represents space as a kind of independent entity, and not as a relational order, since for Leibniz, the ordinary conception is mistaken in its portrayal of space as a kind of quasi-entity. Of course, space is not actually a quasi-entity, and therefore the correct view of the origin of our representation of space, outlined in Leibniz's last letter to Clarke, should not present space in that fashion. Instead, the correct view of the origin of our representation of space ought to presuppose that space is merely a relational order, and ought to be able to explain that origin while making that presupposition, despite the fact that the representation itself represents space as something other than a relational order. When we focus on our <space>clear & distinct, we find that space is represented as a relational order, and as we have seen, those relations are dependent upon the understanding.
21. He makes a similar charge elsewhere in the Aesthetic: “For if one regards space and time as properties whose possibility must be found in things in themselves [Sachen an sich], and considers the absurdities in which one is then entangled, in that two infinite things [Dinge], which are not substances nor something actually inhering in substances, must yet exist, nay, must be the necessary condition of the existence of all things, and also must remain even if all existing things are removed,– one cannot blame the good Berkeley if he degraded bodies to mere illusion [bloßem Schein]… (B70-1; cf. Inaugural Dissertation, Ak 2: 403-4).
22. See, e.g., A172-5/B214-17 and Metaphysical Foundations, Ak 4: 534-5, 563-5.
23. Vorländer reprints the review in his edition of the Prolegomena (Kant 1920) at 167-74, along with letters between Garve and Kant from 1783 at 175-88.
24. It is certainly possible to read this passage differently, and to regard Berkeley as a transcendental realist in Kant's schema. If transcendental realism is the view that we can obtain knowledge of things in themselves, and if Berkeley can be understood as arguing that we know things in themselves to be nothing but concatenations of ideas—and the remaining things to be minds, and perhaps God—then he can be understood as a transcendental realist.
25. This seems to be Kant's interpretation of Berkeley, despite some obvious shortcomings. Kant seems to ignore the fact that for Berkeley, the mind—and also God—are independent of intuition, or of sense perception. In other words, Berkeley surely takes God and minds to be real entities in the sense that they, unlike everything else, are not mere congeries of ideas.
26. There is also some contemporary support for reading Leibniz as a kind of idealist—see especially the interpretation in Adams 1994.