not be determined to a particular species called “Next to” or “Under,” because relation-in-general is not the underlying basis of the “next to” and the “under” and the “over” in the sense of making them possible—as if first there had to be “relation” in order that there could be a “next to.” It’s the other way around. Only because the next-to is intrinsically what it is, can it, qua next-to, be understood as a relation. If I determine the “next-to” or the “under” as relations, I say nothing about them as a “next-to” or as an “under.” “Relation” is also a feature of phrases like “more boring than” or “more stupid than.” As regards their content, “more boring than” and “next to one another” have nothing to do with each other. They are completely disparate, and yet I can determine both of them as relations. So, in calling both of them “relations,” I am saying nothing. That is, “relation” says nothing about the content that belongs to the essence of “next-to” or “under.”

In keeping with its essential content, this pure manifoldness—space—has to be given. And it underlies all particular spaces, which themselves are specific limitations of space. We also say that spaces are “this or that large” according to certain ways of measuring them. But space itself, the pure manifold, is not [301] “this or that large,” but is what makes it possible for anything to be “this or that large.” So when Kant says that space and time are infinite given magnitudes, he does not mean they are something “infinitely large.” I will delay for a bit my interpretation of the word “infinite,” but the word “magnitude” in this context means the same as “quantity,” or as Kant puts it, quantum. The way Kant uses Latin terms here is the exact opposite of German usage, and this has easily led (and continues to lead) to a misunderstanding. When Kant wants to indicate that “magnitude” refers to quantity, he uses the word quantum. But when he wants to indicate that it refers to this or that “quantum”—i.e., a specific amount—he uses quantitas.⁶⁵ In German we put it the other way around. We call a ration of beer a quantum, and what we mean is: this much beer as regards quantity. So we use quantum for “this much” or “that much,” and we use “quantity” for much-ness. Kant uses the words in the opposite sense, and he has his own good reasons for doing so. He cannot use the word “quantity” to indicate that

65. [To belabor the point: (1) In general usage, the Latin quantum (from the adjective quantus) has to do with a concrete, specific amount of this or that. (Question: “How much iron?” Answer: “That much iron.”—Quaestio: “Quantum ferrum?” Responsio: “Tantum ferrum.”) (2) The Latin quantitas is an abstract noun that indicates not a specific “this much” or “that much,” but the general “how-much-ness” of this or that. But Kant inverts these two meanings, as if he were translating Quantitas non est qualitas (Quantity is not quality) by Quantum non est quale. That is: to indicate Größe (“magnitude”) in the abstract sense of Großheit, Kant uses quantum rather than quantitas; to indicate Größe in the sense of a concrete, specific so und so groß, he uses quantitas.]