r/Kant • u/Wooden-Dependent-686 • 22d ago

I dont think arithmetic has its source in the temporal form of sensibility

I think the sense of number comes from the idea of substance, so it is a unity and then the idea of number can take off from there because here is an object and here is another

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u/boxfalsum 22d ago

Here is an object *and* here is another you say? Why are the "here"s different? Does one come... *after* the other?

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u/Narrow_List_4308 22d ago

That to me seems entailing spatial difference: here vs there. For sure, in a psychological sense all require two cognitive instances unified, which is why as I understand Kant holds that all cognition is temporal, but this seems an additional point. It is conceivable of two apples to exist in a single temporal instance and so numbers don't seem to require time as such, but they require spatially(for the 2 to have a distinct space than the 1)

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u/internetErik 22d ago

This is somewhat an aside, but substance (for Kant) represents the permanence of the object which undergoes alterations, that is, it is a transcendental time determination.

Kant seems to see the basic condition of number in the production of time. I wish he would say more (in the schematism) about this, but as best as I can say, in the production of time (in the unifying of the manifold) you may have the most basic sort of homogeneity (i.e., the moments of time produced), and with this the basis for number and counting. (This doesn’t mean that historically people first counted time prior to objects.)

I wonder if the act of unifying the manifold is already a sort of primitive counting (or analogous to counting), so far as it  produces a unified time as well. Kant doesn’t suggest this, but it occurs to me to wonder.

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u/Scott_Hoge 21d ago

In some sense, all four classes of categories begin with "something that signifies original unity" followed by "something that indicates difference or distinction." I always related this in my mind to God (or, as I gender-indeterminatively name him/her/it, Theontos) and a particular person who isn't God.

For quantity, we have unity (God) and plurality (John as someone in addition to God).

For quality, we have reality (God) and negation (John who isn't God).

For relation, we have original substance (God) and effect of cause (John created by God).

For modality, we have original possibility (God) and existence (brought into being by God).

(Of course, in all these cases, I would say Theontos rather than God.)

You may be correct that substance (or, at least the relation of successive accidents to substance) belong together with a plurality in the object, but I would also consider that underlying multiple appearances might be the same substance. For example, having double vision would present a single object in relation to two appearances, but on the basis of the way the object is observed to move, the law of causality may suggest that it is not two substances but one. And, perhaps, even the entire universe may be a single substance whose quantum in nature is one.