BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

9. QUANTITY
The pure schema of magnitude (quantitatis),
however, as a concept of the understanding, is
number, which is a representation that
summarizes the successive addition of one
(homogeneous) unit to another.
From the Critique 1
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.
Despite the rather abstract style of the text, I shall argue that it invites
us to conceive of the category of quantity as an embodied practice. More
specifically, I claim that Kant’s theory of quantity in general may be
interpreted as referring to a class of embodied practices that all have in
common the fact that they represent a sort embodied addition. One
1 A 142/ B 182
2 In German they are; Einheit, Vielheit and Allheit.