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Kant on the Continuity of Alterations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2019

Tim Jankowiak*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Towson University, Towson, Maryland, USA

Abstract

The metaphysical “Law of Continuity of Alterations” (“LCA”) says that whenever an object alters from one state to another, it passes through a continuum of intermediate states. Kant treated LCA as a transcendental law of understanding. The primary purpose of the paper is to reconstruct and evaluate Kant’s three arguments for LCA. All three are found to be inadequate. However, a secondary goal of the paper is to show that LCA would have more naturally been construed as a regulative principle of reason (rather than a law of understanding). I conclude with some remarks about how this could work.

Type
Article
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

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