Abstract
Kant’s argument in the First Analogy for the permanence
of substance has been cast as consisting of a simple quantifierscope
mistake. Kant is portrayed as illicitly moving from a
premise such as (1) at all times, there must exist some substance,
to a conclusion such as (2) some particular substance must exist at
all times. Examples meant to show that Kant makes this mistake
feature substances coming into and out of existence, but doing so at
overlapping times. I argue that Kant offers an argument against
this kind of example in the following passage. Kant’s claim is that,
were substances to be created and destroyed as in the example,
the appearances would then be related to two different times,
in which existence flowed side by side, which is absurd. For there
is only one time, in which all different times must not be placed
simultaneously but only one after another (A188–9/B231–32).