KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Antinomy of Division 97
then not be something unconditioned but rather merely something
that could not itself condition anything else. Thus the antinomy of
division, the Second Antinomy, would just disappear; for it is impossible
for both the division and the composition of matter to be a
regress.
For the argument made in this study it is important to note
that Kant runs into difficulties with his own sytematics here by presupposing
that the parts condition the whole. He ventures no argument
in the Critique of Pure Reason as to why this must be the case.
The problem is covered up by calling the spatial composition of the
world a regress — in violation of the definition of the concept.
2.4 The Antinomy of Division
The Second Antinomy like the First is resolved as a contrary
opposition. It is easily recognized as a presentation of the opposition
between the Newtonian and the Leibnizian theory of matter and is
the only antinomy in which Kant rather clearly wins a round
against Leibniz. The question at issue is whether there are simple,
indivisible, ultimate particles of matter (atoms) or whether matter is
actually divided up into infinity. Kant's resolution will be the suggestion
that matter be considered as infinitely divisible but not
infinitely divided. Three points have to be clarified with regard to
this antinomy before we can proceed: 1) Why the division of a whole
must be called a regress in the first place; 2) Why the division of a
body can be called a regress in infinitum (not merely in indefinitum);
and 3) what Kant rejects in Leibniz' conception of the organism.
However, since there has been a great deal of misunderstanding
of this antinomy in connection with the concept of 'monad', I
shall also take up the question of the antinomy's relation to Leibniz's
'monadology', as soon as I have briefly reported Kant's formulation
of the antinomy.
As presented in the Critique of Pure Reason, the antinomy of
division reads:
Thesis
Every composite substance in the world is made up of simple parts, and
nothing anywhere exists save the simple or what is composed of the
simple. (B462)