Some Kantian Thoughts on Propositional Unity

Abstract

Kant's name is seldom mentioned in discussions of mereology or in surveys of its history. And this omission would of course make sense if, as the authors of one such survey claim, 'the whole-part relation does not play an important role in Kant's mature philosophy, and it is not included by Kant among the categories'.2 Conversely, moreover, mereological notions and doctrines have seldom been invoked in the interpretation and evaluation of Kant's Critical thought itself.3 My overall aim in what follows is to try and counteract this tendency, and to indicate the fundamental role played in Kant's mature thought by explicitly mereological problems, concepts, and theories. Perhaps this will turn out to be no hard task if, as I suspect, a mereological reading is required for the Kantian categories of Unity, Plurality, Totality and Community, as well as for such central concepts as those of combination, synthesis, analysis, manifold, number, system, aggregate, synthetic unity, and