QUANTITY

Abstract

Kant here draws a connection between the transcendental concept of quantity and addition. What does this mean? Does the transcendental concept of quantity presuppose addition, or is it even the same thing as addition? If so, what is meant here by addition? Is it the silent calculation of abstract numbers in the head? Or is it addition understood as an embodied practice, such as when we count on the fingers? In the previous chapter I argued that there are embodied practices that can be a priori conditions of experience in a Kantian sense. I also argued that at a general level, Kant's theory of the a priori conditions of experience is not inconsistent with the general idea that the categories are embodied practices. In this and the following chapter I will discuss Kant's theory of the categories more specifically, and examine whether the idea that they are such practices is supported by textual evidence from the Critique. The topic of this chapter is the transcendental concept of quantity . In his table of the categories at A 80/B 106 Kant lists three categories of quantity.² In the following, however, I will discuss only the transcendental concept, or category, of quantity in general. This is because my discussion will be based on what Kant says about quantity in the schematism chapter and the Analytic of principles where he deals with quantity in general only.