ABSTRACT
Kant argues that no metaphysical principle can be verified without establishing what must hold of any object for empirical knowledge to be got of it. Any sort of quantity is an additive or extensive quantity only if it could be ascertained by adding up successive applications of a unit. Kant argues that it is only when we go beyond the pure concept of quantity and take account of what enables us to ascertain the quantity of an object that we come upon number. Kant points out that it is not possible for us to obtain an empirical intuition of an object unless it presents itself in some determinate space or time. Bertrand Russell holds that Kant is at fault in seeking to explain numbers in terms of counting. He maintains that counting can only be explained in terms of numbers but that numbers can be explained independently of counting. Number is a representation which comprises the addition of homogeneous units.
