Singular Representation, Construction, and Apprehension: Comments on Sutherland’s Kant’s Mathematical World

Source abstract

Abstract I begin by introducing Sutherland’s account of why Kant takes mathematics to require a non-conceptual source of knowledge of bare numerical difference. Given that objective space and time are wholes, however, I wonder why, according to Sutherland, such a source of knowledge can’t be circumvented by taking each spatial or temporal position to have conceptualizable features sufficient for distinguishing them. I then point to an issue with Sutherland’s appeals to “construction” and argue that if Sutherland more sharply distinguished between the syntheses involved in mathematical construction and empirical apprehension, then he could avoid some problems that his reading faces.