BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

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THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES
substance as Kant prefers to call it, remains the same even if its
determinations change and so is perfect for serving as the representation
of time in general. Substance is a representation of time in general
Consequently it is in the objects of perception, i.e., the appearances,
that the substratum must be encountered that represents time in
general… (B 225).
The term ‘substance’ seems to be used somewhat ambiguously in the
text. In the first part of the first analogy the term is used in the singular,
and from the context seems to refer to the idea of some unobserved
primary matter underlying all empirical reality. The principle of the first
analogy, claiming that the quantity of substance in nature neither
increases or decreases, seems to confirm this reading. Then, however,
Kant begins to use the term in the plural, talking about substances, 4 as if
he were using the term in an Aristotelian sense, talking about tables and
trees and other empirical objects in space. Later in the text, as in the
third analogy, the term is undoubtedly used in this sense.
The apparent dilemma is best solved, I think, by remembering that
the term ‘substance’ when used transcendentally refers neither to objects
in space nor to an unobservable primary matter, but to a conceptual
synthesis by means of which something permanent is thought in the
empirical world, without, however, committing us to any particular
metaphysics. 5 What the first analogy teaches us is that this synthesis may
be performed in two different ways; one in relation to nature at large,
and one in relation to what we refer to as empirical objects. It may also
be argued, however, that Kant’s argument in the first analogy rests
primarily on the first of the above-mentioned uses. What he needs here is
the representation of something unchanging that neither increases or
decreases in quantity. This kind of stability may only be found, I think, if
we consider nature at large.
The kind of stability just mentioned plays a fundamental role in the
argument found at A 188/B 231. Imagine new substances coming into
being while others disappeared, Kant suggests. That would not only do
away with the empirical unity of time, it would abolish even the
4
See especially the part following A 188/ B 230.
5 Here I agree with Gardner (1999), 174. I take also Allison (1983), 209 to be
making the same point, when, in discussing this part of the first analogy, he
comments: ‘It should be kept in mind, however, that this is a strictly
transcendental claim, which tells us nothing about the nature of this matter.’