The problem continuous quantity: Immanuel Kant and Francisco Suarez

Abstract

This paper represents a study of the concepts of extensive and intensive magnitude in the Analytic of Principles in Kant’s first Critique. It focuses on the discussion of the concept of continuous quantity in Suarez’s Disputationes Metaphysicae. Our analysis takes as its starting point the two cosmological propositions stated by Kant in his Vorlesungenüber Metaphysik, as described by Count Dohna-Wundlacken in his notes: «in mundo non daturabyssus» and «in mundo non datursaltus». It is in this context that we try to understand the strategy used by Kant to explain the way in which discrete time, understood as a serie, and continuous time, can be reconciled.