This classic of Kant scholarship, first published in 1932, addresses a challenging topic in the Critique of Pure Reason: the relationship between Kant's table of judgments and the table of categories. The "Metaphysical Deduction" attempts to derive categories from judgments, setting the stage for the crucial Transcendental Deduction. Many scholars have overlooked the Metaphysical Deduction, often criticizing its premises as ungrounded and its arguments as flawed. Critics claim Kant inadequately justified the forms of judgment, suggesting he merely adapted them from contemporary logic textbooks to create the necessary categories. Such criticisms were prevalent during Kant's lifetime, echoed by Hegel, and continue to be common in Kantian discourse today. This work offers the most comprehensive evaluation of the Metaphysical Deduction, arguing that its main conclusion is valid despite Kant's failure to substantiate it within the original text. The author defends this conclusion using Kantian materials that were only made available in the 1920s and remain untranslated into English. This translation allows English-speaking scholars to engage with this overlooked aspect of the Critique of Pure Reason, finally granting it the attention it merits.
