1. Updated May 2016
A Concordance of Immanuel
Kant’s The Critique of Pure Reason
Edited and compiled by Philip Ng under the direction of
Professor K. Codell Carter

2. 2
Legend: 1
Blue = Carter
Green = Ratke2
Orange = Thorpe
Gold = Caygill
Dark Red = Stockhammer
Purple = Holzhey and Mudroch
ACCIDENT [Akzidenz] : see also SUBSTANCE
- “Determinations of a substance that are merely particular ways in which the substance exists
are called accidents. They are always real because they follow from the existence of the
substance.” {Carter 139:30-32}
- An accident can be identified “through the way the being of a substance is positively
determined.” {Carter 139:37-38}
ACTUALITY [Wirklichkeit] :
- “Actuality is one of the categories of modality. In the table of the categories it is presented
under the concept of ‘existence,’ together with its opposite ‘nonexistence.’ . . . Kant stresses that
the predicate ‘actual’ does not augment the determination of the object, but expresses the relation
to the faculty of cognition. It is the mark of an ‘actual’ object (as opposed to one that is merely
thought) that its existence is not only posited in thinking, but that there is an object outside the
understanding that corresponds to the concept of the object within the understanding.” {Holzhey
and Mudroch 33-34}
- “Two features of Kant’s discussion of actuality were important for subsequent philosophers.
First, it did not simply mean ‘reality’ or sensation, but perception in accord with the analogies of
permanence, succession and co-existence. Second, it was both a categorical principle and the
condition for categorical synthesis.” {Caygill 52}
- Regarding the second postulate of empirical thought in general, Kant states that “[t]he postulate
concerning knowledge of the actuality of things does not require direct observation (and,
therefore, sensation of which one is aware) of the objects themselves. However, it does require
that the object is connected to some observation in accordance with the analogies of experience
which define all real connection in experience in general.” {Carter 157:14-18}
AESTHETIC [Ästhetik] :
- “The term [aesthetic] comes from a Greek root meaning things perceivable by the senses—
material things as opposed to things only thinkable. In the middle of the Eighteenth century, one
of Kant’s contemporaries, Alexander Gottlob Baumgarten, applied the term to the criticism of
taste considered as a science or a branch of philosophy. Kant and others protested against this
misuse of the term, but Baumgarten’s use achieved popular acceptance and by the 1830s that use
1 The underlined portions of the texts signify the corresponding author’s translation of The Critique of
Pure Reason; the non-underlined portions signify the author’s commentary.
2 Ratke’s text is exclusively in German. Therefore, excerpts from Ratke are my own translations. You can,
however, find the original German text for each of the excerpts from Ratke in the endnotes section.

3. 3
of the term had become common. Kant uses the term ‘aesthetic’ in a way closer to its original
sense, namely as a rational investigation of perception.” {Carter Glossary}
ANALOGIES [Analogien] :
- “According to Kant, thinking in analogies is permissible only when they are not employed as
an inference that extends our cognition. In philosophy, analogy may be used solely in a
qualitative sense, that is, one may determine on the basis of three given members only the
relation to a fourth one, but not this fourth member itself. . . . for example, when we compare the
reasons for the artificial constructions of animals with those of humans, we may conceive an
‘instinct’ as an analogue to human reason, without, however, knowing what this instinct is.”
{Holzhey and Mudroch 41}
- “For Kant, cognition by analogy ‘does not signify (as is commonly understood) an imperfect
similarity of two things, but a perfect similarity of relations between two quite dissimilar things’.
Analogy may be used legitimately to gain ‘relational knowledge’ but not objective
knowledge . . .” {Caygill 66}
- “In philosophy, analogy does not consist in the equality of two quantitative, but of two
qualitative relations, so that when two terms are given I may learn from them a priori the relation
to a third only, but not that third itself.” {Stockhammer 17}
ANALYTIC [analytisch] and SYNTHETIC [synthetisch] :
- “In [the] Prolegomena, Kant says ‘all analytic judgments depend wholly on the law of
contradiction, and are in their nature a priori cognitions, whether the concepts that supply them
with matter be empirical or not.’ Probably the best characterization of the distinction would be
that a judgment or proposition is analytic if its truth depends only on definitions or the laws of
logic. ‘Synthetic’ means not analytic.” {Carter Glossary}
- “In all theoretical judgments in which there is a relation between subject and predicate, that
relation can be of two kinds. Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A as something
contained in the concept A; or B lies outside the sphere of the concept A, though somehow
connected with it. In the former case I call the judgment analytical, in the latter synthetical.”
{Stockhammer 17}
ANTICIPATION [Antizipation] :
- “Kant uses the term ‘anticipation’ to translate Epicurus’ term prolepsis, which designates a
preconception that allows perception to take place. Kant regards the understanding as ‘ascribing
a degree to all that is real in appearances’ . . . distinguishing between the accidental qualities of
an empirical act of sensation – ‘colour, taste, etc.’ – and the anticipation that every sensation will
possess a degree of reality. This is the only quality which may be assumed a priori, and is the
basis for the subsequent assignment of any empirical qualities.” {Caygill 74}
- “Knowledge by which I know and determine a priori what belongs to appearances <in advance
of their being given> can be called anticipation. This is undoubtedly the sense in which Epicurus
used his term prolepsis <= anticipation>.” {Carter 129:39-41}
A POSTERIORI [a posteriori] : see A PRIORI

4. 4
APPEARANCE [Erscheinung] :
- “All appearances . . . are continuous magnitudes both in respect to their perception, which is
extensive, and to their observation (sensation and so reality), which is intensive.” {Carter 131:1-
3}
- “Nature, in an empirical sense, is understood as the connection of the existence of appearances
according to necessary rules, that is, according to laws.” {Carter 153:21-22}
- “[A]ppearances must not be subsumed under the mere categories, but under their schemata.”
{Carter 136:43-44}
- “Absolute time is not observed, so the location of appearances cannot be determined in
reference to absolute time. Rather, appearances themselves must determine each other’s location
in time, and make these temporal locations necessary. In other words, there must be a rule by
which that which follows or happens must come after that which was contained in a preceding
state.”{Carter 146:39-43}
- “As the word 'phenomenon' means "that which appears," it is not surprising that Kant links
appearances to phenomena, sometimes even treating the two terms as synonyms. However, the
relation is not completely straightforward, since Kant also tends to equate phenomena with the
lawful relations of appearances.” {Holzhey and Mudroch 49}
APPERCEPTION [Apperzeption] :
- “[Leibniz] uses the word 'apperception' to refer to the capacity to engage in reflective thought,
and Kant uses the word in a similar sense. Apperception, then, is the capacity for thought to
reflect on itself and so involves a certain type of self-consciousness.” {Thorpe 27-28}
- “[S]ynthetic unity of apperception is the highest point to which we attach every use of the
understanding, even of all logic, and so of transcendental philosophy. Indeed, apperception is the
understanding itself.” {Carter 92f}
- The transcendental unity of apperception: “Transcendental apperception is among the central
concepts of the Critique . . . [it] refers to a kind of unity in the knowing subject more
fundamental than anything that could be discovered through mere introspection. Hume saw, and
Kant agreed, that no abiding self is to be found in the flux of inner appearances. . . .
Apperception means something very much like consciousness; Kant may have used this rather
obscure term precisely to make it clear that he was not talking about the kind of empirical
consciousness that Hume analyzed.” {Carter 86:29-35}
APPREHENSION [Apprehension] :
- “By the synthesis of apprehension I understand the connection of the manifold in an empirical
[perception].” {Stockhammer 19} ← The word marked in square brackets was originally
‘intuition’ (as per Stockhammer’s translation), but I have replaced it with ‘perception.’ To
understand why this is so, see PERCEPTION
- Differences in usage between first and second editions: “In the first edition apprehension—as
the successive composition of the manifold—is pure and empirical. In the second edition it is
only empirical. In the place of pure apprehension is the ‘successive synthesis of the productive
imagination.’” {Ratke 20}i
- “Apprehension of the manifold is always successive.” {Carter 142:11}

5. 5
A PRIORI [a priori] :
- “The distinction between a priori and a posteriori is essentially an epistemological one, having
to do with knowledge. A priori knowledge is knowledge that is prior to or independent of
experience, whereas a posteriori knowledge is empirical knowledge that is posterior to or
dependent upon experience [emphasis added].” {Thorpe 29}
- It is important to understand, however, that a priori knowledge is not the same as innate
knowledge. This is explained in the following two points:
- “A priori knowledge is not of a psychological origin, and it is not innate.” {Ratke 22}ii
- “It is important to distinguish between a priori and innate knowledge. The word innate is
derived from the Latin natus (birth), so innate knowledge or ideas are those that we are born with.
Kant does not identify a priori knowledge with innate knowledge [emphasis added]. Thus,
for example, mathematical knowledge is a priori but not innate. We are not born knowing that 7
+ 5 = 12 as we have to learn how to count first, so such knowledge is not innate. Such
knowledge is, however, a priori because once we have learnt basic arithmetic we know that such
judgements are true independently of any experience.” {Thorpe 29}
- “Analytical judgments are also called a priori knowledge, even though their concepts are
empirical.” {Ratke 23}iii
- “Apriority and spontaneity are interchangeable concepts; The concept of a priori knowledge
already contains in itself the concept of the spontaneity of thought.” {Ratke 22}iv
CATEGORIES [Kategorien] :
- “Kant uses [this] term to refer to the pure (a priori) concepts that together constitute the concept
of an object. Thus, they are universal; they apply to every object. When we consider that an
object is essentially sensible content held together in a necessary synthetic unity, we see that this
unity is the universal and necessary character of every object. Hence, more precisely, a category
is a pure concept of the necessary synthetic unity manifested in every object.” {Carter Glossary}
CAUSE / CAUSALITY [Ursache / Kausalität] :
- “Consider the claim, ‘Everything that happens has a cause.’ In the concept of something
happening, I think of an existence for which time passes etc.; from this, one can derive analytic
judgments. But the concept of a cause is of something entirely outside this concept of something
happening. Hence, it is not contained in this presentation.” {Carter 27:29-33}
- “The cause asserts, under a presupposed condition, the necessity of an effect.” {Stockhammer
30}
- “We require the principle of the causality of the natural phenomena among themselves, in order
to be able to look for and to produce natural conditions of natural events.” {Stockhammer 30}
- In response to the Humean notion of causality, “[Kant] claims that causality is part of the
conceptual apparatus that makes experience possible and that grounds objective, lawful
successions of appearances. Causality is what gives us an object of experience in the first place.
Without causality there would be no cognition.” {Holzhey and Mudroch 71}
- “Most efficient causes in nature are simultaneous with their effects, and the sequence in time of
the latter is only because the cause cannot instantaneously achieve its whole effect. But in the
moment that the effect first comes to be, it is invariably simultaneously with its cause. If the

6. 6
cause ceased to exist a moment before, the effect would never have come to be. It is the order
rather than the elapse of time that is crucial [emphasis added].” {Carter 147:44 – 148:5}
COGNITION : see KNOWLEDGE
COMMUNITY [Gemeinschaft] :
- “As the third category of relation, community (Gemeinschaft) is usually defined in terms of
interaction (Wechselwirkung) or reciprocity (Wechselseitigkeit) . . . The main issue Kant is
addressing with this category is that of accounting for the interaction between objects in the
world.” {Holzhey and Mudroch 77}
- “In the German language, the word ‘community’ [Gemeinschaft] is ambiguous. It can refer to
membership in groups in which there either is or is not active interaction between members
<DK>. Here, we use the word only in the former sense, in reference to a dynamic interaction,
without which even a community of location could never be known.” {Carter 152:8-12}
- It is important to be aware that Kant identifies the category of community with that of mutual
interaction, and often uses the words ‘community’ and ‘interaction’ interchangeably. {Thorpe 45}
- “Without community, every observation of an appearance in space is broken off from every
other observation, and the chain of empirical presentations, that is, experience, would begin
anew with the observation of each new object. It could have no connection with, or stand in any
temporal relation to, any earlier observation.” {Carter 152: 24-28}
- Perhaps this is another instance in which Kant is responding to Hume
- “It is important to note that Kant believes that the concept of interaction is to be sharply
distinguished from that of mutual causation, for the categories of community and causation are
derived from different forms of judgment.” That is, the category of causation is derived from a
hypothetical form of judgment (p → q) whereas the category of community is derived from a
disjunctive form of judgment (p v q v r). {Thorpe 45-46}
COMPOSITION [Zusammensetzung] and CONNECTION [Verknüpfung]:
- “All combination is either composition or connection. [Composition] is a synthesis of the
manifold whose constituents do not necessarily belong to one another[;] . . . [Connection] is a
synthesis of the manifold whose constituents necessarily belong to one another.” {Carter 126fn}
CONCEPT [Begriff] :
- “The German noun [Begriff] comes from the root of the verb greifen which means to catch,
hold, or grasp either physically or mentally. By concepts we grasp and hold together perceptions
or other concepts. Concepts can be either pure or empirical; they do not apply directly to objects,
but to other presentations (qv) which can be either perceptions or other concepts. Kant says that
through perceptions objects are given, [but] through concepts they are thought (B125). Kant
sometimes speaks of concepts as rules (A106).” {Carter Glossary}
CONSCIOUSNESS [Bewußtsein] : see also APPERCEPTION, SELF
- “Without consciousness that what I think now is the same as what I thought a moment before,
all reproduction in the series of presentations would be pointless. . . . Often this consciousness is
so weak that we do not connect it with the act of unification itself, that is, directly with the
generation of the presentation, but only with the outcome <that is, with that which is thereby

7. 7
presented>. But in spite of these differences, consciousness must always be present, even when it
is obscure; without it, concepts, and thus the knowledge of objects, are completely impossible.”
{Carter 83:33-34; 84:18-22}
- “Only through the identity of consciousness are presentations ‘my presentations,’ otherwise, I
would have as many different kinds of self as I have presentations.” {Ratke 35}v
- “Kant develops the thought that consciousness is one with self-consciousness, but refuses to
regard the latter as the property of an empirical subject. . . . [Hegel] criticized Kant and Fichte for
eliding consciousness and self-consciousness, arguing that this led to the positing of an
unknowable and yet sovereign self-consciousness which treated other self-consciousnesses as if
they were things. In the Phenomenology of Spirit [Hegel] gave an exposition of the emergence of
consciousness and self-consciousness in terms of a struggle for recognition in which self-
consciousness was discovered through the recognition of another self-consciousness. This
development away from the theoretical alignment of self-consciousness and the unitary subject
anticipated many twentieth-century developments in the philosophy of consciousness, especially
those in the field of psychoanalysis, where the unconscious is considered to be a source of
meaning situated beyond the individual subject.” (Caygill 127)
DEDUCTION [Deduktion] :
- Kant makes the analogy that a deduction is like a question of law: “When speaking of rights
and claims, jurists distinguish questions of law from questions of fact. Both require proof.
Resolving a question of law, which establishes a right or legal claim, is called a deduction.”
{Carter 72:25-27}
- The next two points explain the contrast between a transcendental deduction and an empirical
deduction:
- “The transcendental deduction [explains] how the categories can apply to objects and this, in
turn, [reveals] the limits of their application.” {Carter 74:11-12}
- “[A]n empirical deduction [shows] only how a concept is obtained from experience and from
reflecting on experience. So an empirical deduction concerns, not the legitimacy, but only the
facts concerning how possession has come about.” {Carter 73:5-7}
- How Kant differs from Locke (and Hume): “Locke’s attempted physiological derivation
concerns questions of fact and so it can never count as a deduction.” {Carter 73:25-26}
- Kant, incidentally, states that a transcendental deduction has never been done before: “The
deduction of the categories is so difficult and requires such deep penetration into the first
grounds of the possibility of knowledge in general, that to avoid the breadth of a complete theory
but to omit nothing essential to our study . . . I will prepare rather than instruct the reader. . . .
[D]o not be deterred by obscurity. It is unavoidable in following a path that has never yet been
explored.” {Carter 80:41 – 81:3}
- Distinction between the two approaches (progressive and regressive) to the transcendental
deduction: “Sometimes Kant begins with sensation and works forward to objects; this means
taking the subjective stage first and the approach is called progressive (or synthetic). Elsewhere
he begins with objects . . . and works backwards to sensations; this means taking the objective
stage first and the approach is called regressive (or analytic).” {Carter 77:22-26}
- Distinction between the objective and subjective stages: “The objective stage rests on the
insight that all experience is of objects and that objects can only be thought by the categories; the

8. 8
subjective stage rests on the insight that, for humans, sensations must be synthesized into
perceptions that conform to the conditions of space and time.” {Carter 79:37-40}
- Regarding the use of the objective and subjective stages, Kant states that “the reader may
suspect that I am merely advancing an opinion and that differing opinions are equally possible.
To forestall this misunderstanding, I remind the reader that, even if the subjective deduction does
not prove to be as convincing as I expect it to be, the objective deduction is my main concern.”
{Carter 5:4-7}
- Despite the fact that the objective and subjective stages arrive at the same overall conclusion—
“laws of appearances in nature must [conform to] the understanding and its a priori form, that is,
with its faculty of combining the manifold in general”—the distinction between the two seems to
have played a critical role in the overall history of philosophy. As Caygill states, “expressing a
preference for one or the other of the deductions has become a shibboleth in Kant studies, with
Heidegger and the continental tradition preferring the [account of the transcendental deduction in
the first edition], and the more Cartesian Anglo-American tradition opting for the [account of the
transcendental deduction in the second edition].” {152-153}
DETERMINE [bestimmen] :
- “[Kant uses bestimmen] to refer to the process in which perceptions are brought under concepts
in experiencing objects.” {Carter 8:5-7}
- “All determination in time requires the observation of something permanent.” {Carter 158:24-
25}
DISCURSIVE [diskursiv] :
- “[A]t least for humans, knowledge drawn from the understanding must be knowledge by
concepts, so it is discursive rather than intuitive [intuitiv].” {Carter 60:17-19} ← Note Kant’s
use of the word intuitiv for ‘intuitive’. This is another indication that Anschauung should be
translated as perception rather than intuition
- “Time and space are not discursive concepts, but rather pure perceptions.” {Ratke 48}vi
- “‘Discursive’ sometimes means inferential, proceeding from premises to a conclusion, but Kant
means that this knowledge is a matter of judgment rather than of direct awareness . . . humans
are incapable of direct intuitive knowledge of objects.” {60:21-25}
EXPERIENCE [Erfahrung] :
- “There is no doubt that all knowledge begins with experience . . . But while all our knowledge
begins with experience, it may not arise only out of experience. For even our empirical
knowledge may be a combination of what we receive as impressions and what our power of
knowing supplies from itself.” {Carter 22:7, 14-17}
- “Kant rejects Locke’s view that ideas (in his case concepts and intuitions) may be derived
from outer experience, and inclines to Leibniz’s position that they are presupposed by
experience.” {Caygill 186}
- “[T]he subversive potential of [Kant’s] limitation of knowledge to objects of possible
experience provoked critiques from those who would defend the ideas of God, the world and the
soul. A popular avenue of criticism claims . . . that Kant in [The Critique of Pure Reason]
worked with an impoverished concept of experience, namely one restricted to the objects of

9. 9
Euclidean geometry and Newtonian mechanics. Against this it was possible to point to [The
Critique of Practical Reason] and [The Critique of Judgment] for broader notions of moral and
aesthetic experience. This position however, exaggerates the restrictions on the concept of
experience employed in [The Critique of Pure Reason], and underestimates the ways in which
the three critiques complement each other in extending and refining aspects of the received
notions of experience” {Caygill 187}
- Additionally, Kant’s critics seem to be mistaken in believing that they need to defend
the idea of God from Kant’s ideas on knowledge and experience. See next bullet point
- “[O]ne of the most important conclusions of Kant’s Critique is that we can have experience or
scientific knowledge only of what we can perceive. Thus, traditional metaphysics (and with it
natural theology) can yield no knowledge. On the other hand, Kant’s distinction between
thinking and knowing leaves open the possibility that one can think God, freedom, etc.” {Carter
99:40-42}.
- “Experience is empirical knowledge, that is, knowledge that determines an object through
observation.” {Carter 134:20-21}
- “Experience is empirical synthesis. Thus, in so far as experience is possible, it will be the one
kind of knowledge that can impart reality to any other synthesis.” {Carter 123:39-40}
- “Experience itself, that is, empirical knowledge of appearances, is only possible if we subject
the sequence of appearances, and thus all changes, to the law of causality.” {Carter 142:2-4}
- “Experience is not a conclusive whole, rather it is an ever progressing recognition process.”
{Ratke 62}vii
EXTENSIVE MAGNITUDE [Extensive Größen] :
- “I use ‘extensive magnitude’ to refer to a presentation whose parts make possible, and so
necessarily precede, the presentation of the whole.” {Carter 127:19-20}
- “All perceptions are extensive magnitudes.” {Carter 126:20}
- Kant uses the example of creating a line to describe extensive magnitude: “I cannot imagine a
line, however small, without drawing it in thought, that is, without starting from a point and
generating its successive parts; this first generates the perception.” {Carter 127:20-22}
EVENT [Begebenheit] : see also APPEARANCE
- The following excerpts come from the Second Analogy of Experience (i.e., the Principle of
Succession in Time According to the Law of Causality). In this analogy, Kant seeks to answer
Hume’s analysis of causation:
- “[I]n observing an event, there is always a rule that makes necessary the order of the
observations.” {Carter 143:32-33}
- “[T]hat which precedes an event must include the condition of the rule according to which the
event invariably and necessarily follows. On the other hand, I cannot go backward from the
event and determine, through apprehension, what went before.” {Carter 144:6-7; 12-13}
FIGURATIVE (SYNTHESIS) [Figürliche Synthesis (synthesis speciosa)] :
- “[The] synthesis of the manifold of sensible perception, which is a priori and essential, can be
called figurative to distinguish it from the synthesis that is thought in a mere category in respect

10. 10
to the manifold of a perception in general and which is called combination by the
understanding . . . When the figurative synthesis applies only to the original synthetic unity of
apperception, that is, to the transcendental unity that, by the categories alone, can only be
thought, it is called the transcendental synthesis of imagination (this distinguishes it from the
merely intellectual combination <achieved by the understanding alone>).” {Carter 101:17-20;
32-35}
FUNCTION [Funktion] : see also SELF
- “All perceptions, being sensible, rest on affections, but concepts rest on functions. By ‘function’
I mean the unity of the act of ordering various presentations (whether concepts or perceptions)
under a common presentation (a concept).” {Carter 60:27-29}
- “The identity of the mind is an identity of action or function.” {Carter 87:29}
- “[Kant] traces the source of the unity of a function, also described as its ability to combine
synthetically, to the transcendental unity of apperception or ‘the original and necessary
consciousness of the identity of the self.’” {Caygill 209}
INTUITION/INTUITIVE [Intuitiv] : see PERCEPTION
JUDGMENTS [Urteile] :
- “Judgment is a way of bringing a given cognition to the objective unity of apperception.”
{Carter 96:22}
- Kant distinguishes his use of judgment from that of former logicians. Traditional syllogistic
logic (developed by Aristotle) explained judgment as the presentation of a relation between two
concepts. Kant believes, however, that this is incomplete, for it applies only to categorical and
not to hypothetical or disjunctive judgments. {Carter 96:2-9}
- Kant is only interested in judgments of fact; that is, claims to objective rather than subjective
unity. For example, ‘the book is red’ and ‘the book seems red’, respectively. {Carter 96:28 - 97:1}
- “If the understanding in general is thought of as a faculty of rules, judgment will be the faculty
of subsuming under rules, that is, of deciding whether or not something falls under a rule.”
{Carter 111:3-5}
- “[J]udgment is mediate <=indirect> knowledge of an object, that is, a presentation of a
presentation of it.” {Carter 61:1-2}
- Kant uses a table to display the forms of judgments which are “brought under four headings,
each of which contains three moments <=components>.” {Carter 61:40-42}
KNOWLEDGE [Erkenntnis]:
- Note on translation: “The word ‘knowledge’ is usually a translation of Erkenntnis, but there are
problems: (1) Erkenntnis has a plural and can be used with an indefinite article, neither of which
are true of ‘knowledge.’ For these reasons some translators prefer the word ‘cognition.’ But,
unlike the English word ‘cognition’ . . . Erkenntnis is a common German word, and usually it is
most natural to translate the word as ‘knowledge.’ In contexts where the indefinite article or the
plural form seem necessary, Erkenntnis is translated [as] ‘cognition.’ (2) Another problem is that
Kant sometimes distinguishes between Erkenntnis and Wissen; both are best translated into
English as ‘knowledge.’ In such cases, Wissen implies the sort of knowledge yielded by science
while Erkenntnis is a less rigorous kind of knowing. Thus, Kant allows that we can have

11. 11
Erkenntnis, but not Wissen, of God. Where appropriate, I mark the distinction by translating
Wissen as ‘scientific knowledge.’ Thus . . . we can have knowledge, but not scientific knowledge,
of God.” {Carter 3:16-29; Glossary}
LAWS [Gesetze] :
- “Nature, in an empirical sense, is understood as the connection of the existence of appearances
according to necessary rules, that is, according to laws.” {Carter 153:21-22}.
- The law is a rule of necessary existence: “Everything that happens is hypothetically necessary;
it is a principle that all changes in the world are subject to law, that is, to a rule of the necessity
of existence, without this, nature itself would be impossible.” {Carter 160:29-32}
- Kant doesn’t include the word ‘Gesetz’ when referring to the law of contradiction. In German,
the law of contradiction is der Satz des Widerspruchs. Satz is often used to mean the linguistic
term ‘sentence’, but it can also be used to refer to philosophical or scientific assumptions. In
referring to the law of the continuity of all change, however, Kant does use Gesetz.
- “Specific laws can only be learned through experience.” {Carter 108:16-18}
LOGIC [Logik] :
- “Kant claimed to have made completeness a chief goal in the first Critique, and the
achievement of this goal rested on his idea that logic, as he knew it, was complete. The notion
that the logic he knew was complete is sometimes taken to mean that syllogistic (or Aristotelian)
logic is complete—but Kant specifically denied this. No doubt, Kant failed to grasp the richness
of what we now know as first order logic, but his failure was not naïve or simplistic—at least not
to the degree that it is sometimes taken to have been.” {Carter 7:1-6}
- Kant regards the attempt to expand logic [towards certain psychological, metaphysical, and
anthropological topics] as inappropriate. He states that “[Logic’s] sole concern is identifying and
proving the formal rules of all thought, whether one’s thinking is a priori or empirical, whatever
its origin or object, and whatever obstacles, incidental or natural, it may encounter.” {Carter
7:14-16}
MANIFOLD [Mannigfaltige] :
- Mannigfaltige functions as an adjectival noun
- “The word [manifold] is used in its ordinary English sense, namely, as a whole that unites or
consists of many diverse elements. Kant uses the word to talk about the different perceptions that
are united into one object or . . . the different concepts that are united in a single concept.”
{Carter 27:4-7} ← This makes sense since the German mannigfaltig can be translated as ‘diverse’
or ‘various.’ The word itself, however, seems to be limited to philosophical usage and not in
everyday speech.
- “Space and time contain a manifold of pure a priori perception.” {Carter 65:26-27}
- “Kant distinguishes two manifolds and two syntheses: the manifold of sensibility [sensible
perception] and the manifold of perception in general. He calls the synthesis of the first manifold
figurative and that of the second combination.” {Carter 101:22-24}
- “Perception is the only way in which a manifold can be given to us, and the categories are
merely a way of combining a manifold that is characteristic of our understanding; thus, in the
absence of a manifold, the categories signify nothing.” {Carter 169:39-42}

12. 12
MEMORY [Gedächtnis] :
- “Memory is implied in two of the three syntheses of the ‘transcendental faculty of imagination’
presented in the deduction of [The Critique of Pure Reason]: in the ‘synthesis of apprehension’
where it informs the consistency of appearances, and in the ‘synthesis of recognition’ where it is
implied in the continuity of the consciousness of appearances.” {Caygill 290-91}
MOMENT [Moment] :
- “[T]he concept of an object, being the grand unifying concept in experience, falls apart into
twelve component concepts or moments (in this context, a moment is an element or component
of a complex concept).” {Carter 59:2-4}
- As an example, Kant mentions gravity: “Partly because of the moment of gravity (weight) and
partly because of the moment of resistance to other matter in motion, one observes differences in
the quantities of matter of different kinds in bodies of a given volume.” {Carter 132:7-9}
NATURE/NATURAL [Natur/natürlich] : see also LAWS, TOTALITY
- “Categories are concepts that prescribe a priori laws to appearances and, therefore, to nature,
which is the sum of all appearances.” {Carter 107:21-22}
- “Nature is the totality of all objects of experience.” {Carter 12:19}
- “It is a principle that all changes in the world are subject to law, that is, to a rule of the
necessity of existence, without this, nature itself would be impossible.” {Carter 160:30-32}
NECESSARY/NECESSITY [notwendig/Notwendigkeit] :
- Necessity is one of the two characteristics/conditions of a priori knowledge; the other is
universality.
- Like universality, Kant’s use of necessity is important in distinguishing his concept of
causation from that of the empiricists: “Observation alone <even assisted by the imagination>
leaves the objective relation of the sequential appearances undetermined. Thus, for the relation
between the two states to be known as determined, it must be thought in such a way that it is
necessary [emphasis added] which comes before and which after and that they cannot be placed
in reverse order.” {Carter 141:33-37}
- “[T]he criterion for necessity lies entirely in the law of possible experience—namely,
everything that happens is determined a priori by its cause in the field of appearances.” {Carter
160:21-23}
- “Everything that happens is hypothetically necessary; it is a principle that all changes in the
world are subject to law, that is, to a rule of the necessity of existence, without this, nature itself
would be impossible. Therefore, it is an a priori law of nature that nothing happens by blind
chance.” {Carter 160:29-32}
NOUMENA [Noumena] :
- “If we use the term [noumenon] to refer to an object of non-sensible perception, we assume a
certain kind of perception, namely intellectual perception, of which we are incapable and which
we do not understand; this is the positive sense of noumenon.” {Carter 170:16-18}
- In contrast with phenomena: “Suppose we call certain things appearances, or sensible entities,
or phenomena, as a way of distinguishing the way we perceive them from the way they are in
themselves. This implies that things as they are in themselves, which we do not perceive,

13. 13
together with other things that are not objects of the senses, are merely thought by the
understanding. We can then call these intelligible things or noumena.” {Carter 169:42 – 170:2}
OBJECT / THING [Gegenstand, Ding] :
- Conceptually there is an important distinction between an ‘object’ and a ‘thing.’ Basically,
when Kant speaks of objects loosely, we should use the term ‘thing’ rather than ‘object’—which
is reserved for genuine objects of experience that conform to the categories {Carter 75:5-9}.
Kant, however, isn’t very careful in the use of his terms to make this distinction. In fact, Holzhey
and Mudroch point out that “Kant uses the three German terms [Ding, Gegenstand, and Objekt]
more or less interchangeably.” {197} Moreover, Caygill mentions that “Kant’s concept of an
object is extremely subtle, although its nuances are often lost in the indiscriminate and
unsystematic translation of his terms Ding, Gegenstand, and Objekt.” {304}
- Objects are possible only insofar as we have (in us) the rules of the understanding {Carter
11:33-38}
- “Our thought of the relation of any cognition to its object has an element of necessity. The
object is regarded as that which prevents our knowledge from being haphazard or arbitrary and
that determines it a priori in some definite way. For in as much as knowledge relates to an object
it must necessarily agree with itself in relation to the object. That is, it must have the unity that
constitutes the concept of the object.” {Carter 84:35-39}
OBSERVATION [Wahrnehmung] : see PERCEPTION
PERCEPTION [Anschauung] :
- Note on translation: “Perception is one of Kant’s most important technical terms. Kant uses
Anschauung to refer to (approximately) any awareness or capacity for awareness of concrete
particulars ([e.g.,] tables, people, dogs, trees) in ordinary experience. In ordinary speech,
Anschauung is usually translated ‘perception,’ but in Kant scholarship the word is generally
translated ‘intuition.’ But ‘intuition’ is a bad translation for several reasons. [emphasis added]
(1) Anschauung comes from a commonly used verb, anschauen, meaning simply to look at or
see. (Kant uses the noun in a slightly broader sense to refer to perception in general, not just to
seeing). By contrast, in common English, ‘intuition’ suggests a non-perceptual almost instinctive
awareness, which is definitely not what Kant had in mind.
(2) From Aristotle through the Eighteenth century, words based on the Greek root from whence
we have ‘intuition’ were regularly used to refer to direct comprehension of truth—which nearly
everyone agreed was different from simple perception (cp. Locke), and Kant himself used
‘intuitive’ in this way (B93, B200). In standard translations, ‘perception’ is reserved for Kant’s
Wahrnehmung. Kant often uses these words interchangeably. One important difference is that a
Wahrnehmung requires sensation whereas an Anschauung can be pure (i.e. devoid of all
sensation); thus one can have pure Anschauungen of space and time even devoid of objects
(B212), but no Wahrnehmung of either. Wahrnehmung comes from roots that mean, literally, a
grasping or recognition of truth, and to me it seems best to translate this term [(Wahrnehmung)]
as ‘observation’—a term that can refer either to a careful empirical scrutiny of something or a
statement of truth based on such a scrutiny. Thus, I translate Kant to say that we can perceive
space and time (even devoid of objects), but that we cannot observe them. Like concepts (qv),

14. 14
perceptions are one kind of presentation (qv); [but] unlike concepts, perceptions are always
particular and concrete.” {Carter Glossary; see also 10:14-30}
PERMANENT [beharrlich] :
- “All determination in time requires the observation of something permanent. However, the
permanent cannot be something in me because it is only by means of the permanent that my
existence in time can be determined.” {Carter 158:24-27}
- “The statement that substance is permanent is a tautology. For permanence is the reason we
apply the category of substance to appearances.” {Carter 138:38-40}
PHENOMENA [Phaenomena] : see also NOUMENA
- “Appearances, so far as they are thought as objects according to the unity of the categories, are
called phaenomena.” {Caygill 80}
POSSIBILITY [Möglichkeit] :
- “Possibility emerges as the first postulate of empirical thinking in general: ‘whatever agrees
with the formal conditions of experience (in accordance with intuition and concepts) is possible’
(A 218/B 265). . . . [Kant] stresses the fact that concepts for which real possibility is claimed
must not only satisfy the criterion of noncontradiction, but must in addition either provide the
conditions of the possibility of experience or be given in experience.” {Holzhey and Mudroch
212}
- “To know an object I must be able to prove its possibility either from its actuality as shown in
experience or a priori through reason. But I can think whatever I like as long as I do not
contradict myself, that is, as long as it is logically possible that an object could answer to my
thought. Of course, I may still not know that such an object is actually possible. For this,
something more is required than mere logical possibility. However . . . this something more need
not be sought in the theoretical sources of knowledge; it may be provided by those that are
practical.” {Carter 15fn}
- “Kant thinks that the only criterion we have for whether something is really possible is whether
or not an object corresponding to the concept can be intuited. And because our form of intuition
is spatio-temporal, which means that we can only intuit things in space and time, the only objects
that we can know are really possible are objects that can exist in space and time. [This] does not,
however, imply that objects that cannot exist in space and time are really impossible, it just
means that we have no way of knowing whether or not such objects are really possible or not. So,
for example, our ideas of the soul, the intelligible world and of God are thinkable without
contradiction so these three things are logically possible.” {Thorpe 162-3}
- “The concept of ‘possibility’ also plays an important role in Kant’s rejection . . . of the
traditional arguments for the existence of God. Again falling back on the distinction between
logical and real possibility, Kant now charges that the arguments fail to prove anything, because
real possibility cannot be demonstrated by showing that a concept is noncontradictory, but must
have some foundation in actual existence.” {Holzhey and Mudroch 212-13}
- Kant’s distinction between logical and real possibility is central to his claim that we cannot
have knowledge of things-in-themselves. {Thorpe 163}  Remember, however, that we are still
able to think things-in-themselves. See THINKING

15. 15
PRESENTATION [Vorstellung] : see also PERCEPTION
- Note on translation: “In general the verb vorstellen (literally: to place before or in front of) can
mean either to present something physically (e.g., to introduce someone) or it can mean to
present something in thought by way of imagination. In having a Vorstellung[,] something is
always presented to one. [Particularly in Kant] Vorstellung is used as a generic term that includes
sensations, perceptions (qv) (whether or not empirical), concepts, and certain other mental
phenomena such as schemata. Thus, there can be presentations of things that do not actually exist
(e.g. my concept of a unicorn). Vorstellung is often translated ‘representation,’ but this suggests
that perceptions or concepts stand in a symbolic relation to that which they present, which is not
the case. Some older translations render Vorstellung as ‘idea.’ However, ‘idea’ has no correlated
verb by which one can translate vorstellen, and Kant also uses the German cognate of idea, Idee,
in a different technical sense.” {Carter Glossary}
PURE [Rein] : see also A PRIORI
- “‘Pure’ means the same as a priori. In spite of what seems to be the case from the titles of the
first and second critiques, ‘pure’ does not contrast with ‘practical.’ ‘Pure’ or a priori contrasts
with ‘empirical’ or a posteriori. On the other hand, ‘practical’ contrasts with ‘speculative’ or
‘theoretical.’” {Carter Glossary}
REALITY [Realität] :
- “Kant places reality as the first of the categories of quality (i.e., before negation and limitation).”
{Holzhey and Mudroch 229}
- How the three categories of quality relate to one another: “Limitation is nothing other than
reality connected with negation.” {Ratke 201};viii
“Reality, negation, and limitation yield the
principles that make up the anticipations of perception.” {Caygill 345}
- “Reality is that which corresponds to a sensation in general: that, therefore, the concept of
which <indicates by itself being>” {Stockhammer 186}; or rather <points to being (in time)>
{Caygill 345}
- “Since Descartes, philosophers had conceived of reality as possessing degree, as in the view
that substance possessed more reality than its accidents. Kant used this quality of reality to
underwrite the claim for the existence of a continuum between reality and negation, one ‘which
makes every reality representable as a quantum.’ This quality is then extended to sensation or the
representation of objects in intuition” {Caygill 345} Note Caygill’s use of the word ‘intuition’;
this is yet another case in which we should understand ‘intuition’ as ‘perception’
- “Contrary to what Norman Kemp Smith’s translation of the Critique of Pure Reason
occasionally suggests . . ., reality for Kant does not lie beyond the realm of appearances, nor does
Kant ever contrast reality with appearance {Holzhey and Mudroch 229}
RECIPROCITY [Wechselseitigkeit] : see COMMUNITY
REFLECTION [Überlegung] :
- “Reflection is not concerned with objects themselves, in order to obtain directly concepts of
them, but is a state of mind in which we set ourselves to discover the subjective conditions under
which we may arrive at concepts.” {Stockhammer 188}

16. 16
REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION [reproduktive Einbildungskraft] :
- Kant makes an important distinction between reproductive imagination and productive
imagination: “Since imagination is an exercise of spontaneity, I sometimes call it productive
imagination. This distinguishes it from the merely reproductive imagination whose synthesis is
entirely subject to empirical laws . . . Reproductive imagination contributes nothing to the
explanation of the possibility of a priori knowledge; it is part of psychology rather than of
transcendental philosophy.” {Carter 102:5-10}
- “We can only say that an image is the product of the empirical power of reproductive
imagination . . .”  Carter mentions that Kant actually wrote ‘productive imagination’ and that
several observers have commented that ‘productive imagination’ makes more sense {Carter
116:2-7}
- The synthesis of reproduction in imagination is one part of the three-fold synthesis (the other
two being the synthesis of apprehension in perception and the synthesis of recognition in a
concept)
SCHEMA [Schema] :
- “[Schema is] a kind of mediating link that connects concepts with perceptions. In fact, both
empirical and pure concepts require schemata, but the only ones that Kant really considers are
those that mediate the application of the categories. Each of these schemata can be thought of as
the application of a pure category to the pure manifold of space and time; this provides the
category with a pure content that contains conditions that every empirical perception must satisfy
(since space and time are the forms of perception). In this way the schema is homogeneous
(Kant’s term) with both a pure category and empirical perception and can provide a mediating
link between them.” {Carter Glossary}
SCIENCE / SCIENTIFIC [Wissenschaft / Wissenschaftlich] : see also KNOWLEDGE
- “If reason functions in some science, that science must contain a priori knowledge.” {Carter
7:36}
- “[n]o empirical deduction of the a priori concepts, such as both philosophers [Locke and Hume]
sought, can be reconciled with the fact that we actually have a priori scientific knowledge,
namely, pure mathematics and universal natural science.” {Carter 78:15-17}  Carter notes that
“Kant saw that empiricism could not be reconciled with the fact of scientific knowledge.” {78:20}
- Kant explains certain conditions by which a purported system of rational knowledge can be
called scientific: “<1> If in pursuing one’s work, however carefully, one always gets stuck, <2>
if one must continually start over, each time taking a new approach, or <3> if participants in the
same project disagree about how their work should even be carried out, then we can be sure that,
instead of following the path of science, reason is groping aimlessly.” {Carter 6:31-34}
SELF [Selbst] :
- “Consciousness of self through inner observation according to the conditions of our situation is
only empirical and is always changing. No fixed or abiding self can be given in this flow of inner
appearances that is usually called inner sense or empirical apperception. That which is to be
presented as necessarily numerically identical cannot be thought as having this quality merely
through empirical data.” {Carter 86:21-25}

17. 17
- “The empirical consciousness of one’s self is at any time changeable.” {Ratke 218}ix
← The
empirical consciousness is what Hume had analyzed {Carter 86:35}
- The transcendental unity of apperception is the key to Kant’s explanation of the self: “[T]he
original and necessary consciousness of the identity of the self is at the same time also a
consciousness of the identity of the synthesis of all appearances according to concepts, that is,
according to rules.” {Carter 87:17-20}
- In two ways, Kant diverges from Descartes’ idea of the self (the cogito). 1. “[T]ranscendental
apperception refers to the kind of unity in the knowing subject more fundamental than anything
that could be discovered through mere introspection.” {Carter 86:30-32} 2. “[T]he identity of the
mind is an identity of action or function; in this context, Kant never suggests that the identity of
the self is a matter of substance (as Descartes would have insisted).” {Carter 87:29-30}
SENSIBILITY [Sinnlichkeit] :
- “Sensibility, a kind of receptivity, is the capacity to gain presentations by being affected by
objects.” {Carter 35:31-32}
- Kant makes a distinction between sensibility and understanding: “[O]bjects are given to us by
sensibility, and it alone yields perceptions; but objects are thought by the understanding, and
concepts arise from it.” {Carter 35:32-33}
- “Sensibility and understanding are two completely different sources of perception.” {Ratke
221}x
- “Sensibility is how the manifold is given without spontaneity.” {Ratke 219}xi
- “Sensible perception is either pure (time and space) or empirical. . . .” {Ratke 219}xii
SPACE [Raum] : see also TIME
- Space, like time, is a pure form of sensible perception that yields a priori knowledge
- “Geometry is a science that determines the properties of space synthetically and yet a priori.”
{Carter 39:11-12}
- “Space is not an empirical presentation derived from outer experience.” {Carter 38:7}
- “Space is a necessary a priori presentation that provides a basis for all outer perceptions. One
can never imagine the absence of space, but one can easily imagine space with no objects in it.”
{Carter 38:14-16}
- “Space is <originally> not a discursive concept [Begriff], that is, a concept of relations among
things in general; rather it is a pure perception.” {Carter 38:24-25}
- “Space is presented as an infinite given magnitude.” {Carter 38:34}
- “[T]he original presentation of space is a perception, not a concept.” {Carter 38:38}
- “Space is not a property of things in themselves or of their relations to one another.” {Carter
39:36-37}
- “Space is nothing but the form of all appearances of outer sense.” {Carter 40:6}
- Empty space is not an object of our possible experience. Kant doesn’t deny that empty space
exists; however, it is something beyond observation {Carter 30-31}
- Space requires a deduction that is not empirical, but rather transcendental—“Any attempt at an
empirical deduction of pure a priori concepts is wasted effort.” {Carter 73:28-29} ← Kant is
referring to Locke here.
- Space requires a synthesis (i.e., space is a synthetic function)

18. 18
SPECULATIVE [Spekulativ] :
- Kant uses ‘speculative’ as an adjective, usually to modify the nouns ‘reason’ and ‘knowledge’.
- Speculative reason is theoretical knowledge and science {Carter 13:25}
- “Speculative (scientific) knowledge never advances beyond appearances to things in
themselves. Thus, it can be contrasted with practical (non-scientific) knowledge, and
consequently with morality, for practical knowledge concerns things in themselves.” {Carter
47:9-12}
- “[A]ll possible speculative knowledge of reason is limited to objects of experience. But while
we cannot know objects as things in themselves, we must at least be able to think of them in this
way.” {Carter 15:27-29}
- “Pure speculative reason has a twofold peculiarity: it can identify the different ways in which it
can think objects, and it can completely survey its own abilities and enumerate its own activities.”
{Carter 14:11-13}
SPONTANEITY OF THOUGHT [Spontaneität des Denkens] :
- “[C]oncepts arise from the spontaneity of thought as sensible perceptions arise from the
receptivity of impressions.” {Carter 60:41-42}
- “Only by means of spontaneity can connected knowledge arise from receptivity. This
spontaneity is the ground of the threefold synthesis that is necessary in all knowledge . . .”
{Carter 80:23-25}
- “As it is impossible to arrive at a beginning of the conditions in causal relations, reason creates
for itself the idea of spontaneity, or the power of beginning.” {Stockhammer 210}
- “The function of spontaneity is to combine the manifold given by the sensibility or to
synthesize it in the production of experience. This requires of spontaneity not only that it be
purified of all trace of receptivity, but also that it give itself its laws or rules of synthesis.”
{Caygill 375}
- “[Kant] contrasts spontaneity with the receptivity of sensibility; the former is determining, the
latter the determinable. Kant claims that it is legitimate to ascribe spontaneity to the productive
imagination, in spite of the fact that the imagination in general belongs to sensibility, since this
attribution is restricted to only one act of imagination, namely, to its performance of a
transcendental synthesis that pertains merely to the unity of apperception.” {Holzhey and
Mudroch 249-250}
SUBJECTIVE [Subjektiv] and OBJECTIVE [Objektiv] :
- “Kant was exclusively interested in what we call objective knowledge. Kant was aware of the
distinction that we mark by these two words . . . but his distinction was a completely different
one. Roughly speaking, Kant uses ‘objective’ to refer to some aspect of objective (in our sense)
experience that flows from the concept of an object independent of the conditions of human
perception. By contrast, he uses ‘subjective’ to refer to some aspect of objective (in our sense)
experience that flows from the conditions of human perception. Thus, space and time are
subjective (in Kant’s sense) conditions for objective (in our sense) experience; by contrast, the
categories are objective (in Kant’s sense) conditions for objective (in our sense) experience
although they are no more objective (in our sense) than space and time.” {Carter Glossary}

19. 19
SUBSTANCE [Substanz] : see also PERMANENT
- Kant says that it is difficult to give a definition of substance which does not fall into circularity.
However, he believes that he has a way to solve this problem: “Action concerns the relation of a
subject of causality to its effect. An effect is something that happens, and, therefore, it implies a
change and this implies a succession in time, but the subject, which is the basis for succession, is
the permanent, that is, substance. According to the principal of causality, action is always the
first basis of all change in appearances and so this basis cannot be found in something that, itself,
changes because in that case, still other actions and another subject would be required to
determine this change.” {Carter 148:34-40}
- “It is not the existence of things (substances) that we can know to be necessary but rather their
state, and this is possible only, through empirical laws of causality, from other states that are
observed.” {Carter 160:18-20}
- The first analogy of experience is the principle of permanence of substance: “In all change of
appearances, substance is permanent; in nature its quantity is neither increased nor diminished.”
{Carter 137:20-21}. Furthermore, it is substance which is the substratum of all the real: “The
substratum of all the real, that is, of anything belonging to the existence of things, is substance,
and all that belongs to existence can only be thought as a determination of substance.” {137:38-
40}. However, in this discussion, we should not take ‘substratum’ in a metaphysical sense, but
rather in the sense of a logical condition or ground. {137:28-29}
SUBSTRATUM [Substratum] : see also SUBSTANCE
- “If the aspect of appearance that we call substance is to be the substratum of all determinations
of time, then all existence in past or future time can be determined only in and by it.” {Carter
139:13-15}
- “Substance is the substratum of all reality and change.” {Ratke 236}xiii
- “The substratum of the thinking self is unknown.” {Ratke 236}xiv
SYNOPSIS [Synopsis] : see also SYNTHESIS
- “Sensory perception contains a manifold, so if I ascribe to it a synopsis <= a connectedness that
provides unity>, there must always be a corresponding synthesis.” {Carter 80:22-23}
THINKING [Denken] :
- Distinction between thinking an object and knowing it: “To think an object and to know it are
not the same. Knowledge involves two elements: first, the concept through which an object in
general is thought (the categories), and second perception, through which it is given. If no
perception can be given corresponding to some concept, the concept will be the form of a
thought but without an object, and no knowledge of anything will be possible by its means.”
{Carter 99:15-19}
- “[I]t is possible to think things-in-themselves, but not to know them.” {Caygill 394}
THOUGHT [Gedanke; Überlegung] :
- “Thoughts without content are empty, perceptions without concepts are blind.” {Carter 54:7-8}
- “[T]hought is knowing by way of concepts.” {Carter 61:24}

20. 20
TIME [Zeit] :
- Kant believes that time is an a priori perception (i.e., time is given a priori).
- “Kant argues that time is the foundation for the basic principles of Newtonian physics.” {Carter
41:37-38}
- “Time is not an empirical concept derived from some experience, for we could never perceive
events as happening simultaneously or successively unless time were presented as underlying
them a priori.” {Carter 41:40-42}
- “Time is a necessary presentation that underlies all perception. One can never remove time
from appearances, but one can remove appearances from time.” {Carter 41:44 – 42:1}
- Kant’s conclusions are:
a) Time is not something that exists for itself <Newton’s view>, nor does it depend on things as
an objective determination that remains even if one removes all subjective conditions of
perception <Leibniz’s view>
b) Time is nothing but the form of inner sense, that is, of the perception of ourselves and of our
inner state
c) Time is the formal a priori condition of all appearances generally. This is because external
objects, as well as inner experience, must be brought into my own experience in order for me to
comprehend them. {Carter 43:8-26}
- “Although Kant discusses space and time together in the ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’ he accords
time a more fundamental role in the determination of experience.” {Caygill 398}
TOTALITY [Allheit] :
- Note on translation: “[Totality] is the usual English rendition of at least two different German
words, namely 'Allheit,' which Kant qualifies in brackets with the Latin 'universitas' and which
could, and perhaps should, be rendered as 'allness,' and 'Totalität '; Norman Kemp Smith also
translated 'Ganzes' and 'All ' as 'totality,' though 'whole' and 'all,' respectively, are surely
preferable. Unfortunately, Kant himself neither kept these terms completely separate, identifying
'allness' (Allheit, universitas) and 'totality' at least twice . . . nor did he bother to explain how they
are related. The term 'allness' appears chiefly as the third of the categories of quantity and is, as
such, defined as "plurality considered as unity" (B 111).” {Holzhey and Mudroch 267}
- Kant illustrates the category of totality in the following example: “[S]uppose I observe a house
by apprehending an empirical manifold. The necessary unity of space and of outer sensible
perception in general is the basis of my observation, and I draw, as it were, the shape of the
house according to this synthetic unity of the manifold in space.” {Carter 106:21-24}
TRANSCENDENTAL [Transzendental] :
- “Kant writes, ‘I entitle transcendental all cognitions that do not concern objects but rather our
way of knowing objects insofar as this is possible a priori.’ The distinction between the
metaphysical and transcendental expositions was added in the second edition; it is not
consistently followed and it is less helpful than one might hope. Roughly, the metaphysical
exposition of a concept is an account of the a priori content of the concept; the transcendental
exposition shows how synthetic a priori knowledge can be derived from it. Kant usually uses
‘transcendent’ (rather than ‘transcendental’) when discussing attempts to apply the categories
outside the realm of empirical experience; such attempts yield only illusion.” {Carter Glossary}

21. 21
UNDERSTANDING [Verstand] and REASON [Vernunft] :
- “Kant often uses both [of these] terms loosely. When he is precise, ‘understanding’ is used in
two senses: first, in some cases he uses it to contrast with ‘perception’ and in this sense it
includes other faculties such as ‘judgment’ and ‘reason’; in other cases, he uses the word to
contrast with these other faculties. (This is like ‘man’ which to contrast with other animals or
with ‘woman’). . . . We are primarily interested in ‘understanding’ in the narrow sense. In
knowing anything, in having experience, one must have both perceptions and concepts. The
faculty that generates and deals with concepts is the understanding (in the narrow sense).
Judgment then brings things (sometimes perceptions, sometimes other concepts) under these
concepts by making a judgment. For example, in the judgment ‘Dogs are mammals’, the concept
‘dog’ is brought under the concept ‘mammal.’ Reason can now be used to draw inferences by
connecting judgments. Notice that the understanding can generate concepts that have no
empirical content; Kant says that such concepts are empty. For example, if I tell you that
heliotrope is a color, you have a concept of heliotrope but chances are there is no sensory content.
Indeed, the understanding can form concepts that never have sensory content in the ordinary
sense (e.g., the concept of an infinite set or of the God of classical theology). None of this
presents problems to reason or to judgment, both of which can work on concepts whether or not
they have content. The German word for ‘concept’ has a strong connection with greifen and for
this reason (among others) it seems . . . that comprehension or apprehension, which have similar
(although weaker) connotations, are better translations, but ‘understanding’ is the standard
term . . .” {Carter Glossary}
UNITY [Einheit] :
- “Unity is a ubiquitous concept in Kant’s philosophy, and is consequently used in specific and
general senses.” (Caygill 407)
- “The unity of the world as a whole, in which all appearances are to be connected, is clearly a
mere consequence of the tacitly assumed principle of the community of all coexistent substances.
For, if appearances were isolated, they would not constitute one whole.” {Carter 154fn}
- “[E]xperience derives its unity only from the synthetic unity imparted originally and from itself
by the understanding to the synthesis of imagination in respect to apperception.” {Carter 166:29-
31}
- “Insofar as we think of objects, our knowledge must be internally consistent—it must fit
together into a unity, and it must be the same for everyone . . . the necessary synthetic unity of
our presentations must result from the rules that constitute the concept of an object.” {Carter
85:1-5}
UNIVERSAL/UNIVERSALITY [allgemein/Allgemeinheit] :
- allgemein can be used to mean a law or rule that is universally applicable. It applies to
everyone and is binding on everyone (für alle geltend, verbindlich). So allgemein seems to be an
appropriate translation.
- Universality is one of the two characteristics/conditions of a priori knowledge.
- “[N]ecessity and strict universality are sure and inseparable characteristics of a priori
knowledge.” {Carter 23:22-23}

22. 22
- Kant’s use of universality is important in distinguishing his concept of causation from that of
the empiricists.
- If we assume the empiricists’ concept of causation, then “[a]ll universality and
necessity would be fictitious and lack any universal validity because, being founded
only on induction, nothing would be a priori.” {Carter 145:9-11}
- “Experience cannot provide <the necessity of the connection>, because the claim
‘everything that happens has a cause’ is universal and necessary; thus, it is entirely a
priori, and the second presentation <the cause> is connected to the first <the event>
through mere concepts.” {Carter 27:30;38-40}
- “[E]xperience never yields judgments with true or strict universality, but only (by
induction) statements with assumed or comparative universality.” {Carter 23:9-11}
i
Die Apprehension als sukzessive, bloß anschauliche, Zusammensetzung eines
Mannigfaltigen . . . ist in der [ersten] Auflage rein und empirisch. Die [zweite] Auflage kennt nur
eine empirische Apprehension. An die Stelle der reinen Apprehension tritt hier die „sukzessive
Synthesis der produktiven Einbildungskraft“.
ii
Eine Erkenntnis a priori ist nicht psychologischen Ursprungs . . . [und sie ist] nicht angeboren.
iii
[D]ie analytischen Urteile werden auch „Erkenntnisse a priori“ genannt, „wenngleich ihre
Begriffe empirisch sind“.
iv
Apriorität und Spontaneität sind Wechselbegriffe; der Begriff der apriorischen Erkenntnis
enthält schon den Begriff des spontanen Denkens in sich.
v
Nur durch die Identität des Bewußtseins sind die Vorstellungen „meine Vorstellungen“, sonst
würde ich „ein so vielfarbiges verschiedenes Selbst haben, als ich Vorstellungen habe“.
vi
Zeit [und] Raum [sind] keine (diskursive) Begriffe, sondern reine Anschauungen.
vii
Erfahrung bedeutet kein abschließbares Ganze, sondern einen stets fortschreitenden
Erkenntnisprozeß.
viii
Limitation (Einschränkung) ist nichts anderes als Realität mit Negation verbunden.
ix
[D]as empirische Bewußtsein seiner selbst [ist] jederzeit wandelbar.
x
Sinnlichkeit und Verstand [sind] „zwei ganz verschiedene Quellen von Vorstellungen“.
xi
[W]ie das Mannigfaltige ohne Spontaneität gegeben wird, heißt Sinnlichkeit.
xii
„Sinnliche Anschauung ist entweder reine Anschauung (Raum und Zeit) oder empirische
Anschauung . . .“
xiii
Die Substanz [ist das] Substrat alles Realen . . . alles Wechsels.
xiv
[Das] Substratum des denkenden Selbst (Ich) [ist] unbekannt.

23. 23
Works Cited
Carter, K. Codell. Translation and commentary for Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
Caygill, Howard. A Kant Dictionary. Cambridge: Blackwell Reference, 1995. Print. The
Blackwell Philosopher Dictionaries.
Holzhey, Helmut, and Vilem Mudroch. Historical Dictionary of Kant and Kantianism. Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press Inc., 2005. Print. Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies,
and Movements 60.
Ratke, Heinrich. Systematisches Handlexicon zur Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Hamburg, Germany:
Felix Meiner Verlag, 1972. Print. Philosophische Bibliothek 37b.
Stockhammer, Morris. Kant Dictionary. New York: Philosophical Library, 1972. Print.
Thorpe, Lucas. The Kant Dictionary. Bloomsbury Philosophy Dictionaries. New York:
Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. Print.