Continuity (philosophy)

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The continuity (of lat. Continuitas denotes a seamless connection, a continuity, a smooth transition, an interrupted by no limit context, "synonymous"); an uninterrupted, even process. It is therefore expressed that processes or changes in nature do not take place suddenly and suddenly - discontinuously - but in principle continuously or steadily. It also rules out that something disappears into nothingness or emerges from nothing (law of conservation of energy ).

Concept history

The Eleatons were supporters of a continuity without divisibility. The unity of being in the sense of Parmenides of Elea paradoxes inspired by it ( antinomies of Zenon of Elea ) presuppose continuity as the most fundamental theoretical concept. Even Aristotle was of the concept of continuity.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz adopts the continuity principle from Aristotle (see natura non facit saltus ) and formulated the law of continuity ( lex continui ). The law of continuity (law of formation ): stimuli that appear to be a continuation of previous stimuli are regarded as belonging together.

In Immanuel Kant comes in the Pure Reason 2. antinomy first the contradictions and equality for the thesis of continuity and its anti-thesis of the discontinuity expressed. He knows how to justify both, but ultimately tends to resolve the antinomy formulated for the composition of the substance according to continuity. Continuous quantities are space and time for Kant, which thus includes all appearances.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel criticized Kant on this question. He emphasized that both provisions are only true in their unity. While Hegel saw continuity as an essential characteristic of space and time, for him the discontinuity is only the abstract negation of the continuity. Hegel regards quantity as "uninterrupted continuity"; but since it also contains the one , the element of discretion can also be attributed to it.

From the point of view of materialistic dialectics , continuity is an essential characteristic of the existence, movement and development of matter. It finds its expression in the continuous universal connection of all forms of matter and movement, but also in the mutual connection and the mutual dependency of the elements or states of an individual object or process.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Cf. Andreas Dorschel , Ins word fall. Figures of interruption. In: Merkur 73 (2019), Issue 4, pp. 37-46. Preview . Dorschel works out the social character of discontinuity (in contrast to the continuity of nature).
  2. ↑ Michael Friedman, Kant's construction of nature: a reading of the "Metaphysical foundations of natural science" , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013, passim .

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