mpossibility, of
actuality and non-actuality, and of necessity and contingence. Now,
from the point of view of Kant's argument, these conceptions, like
those which he holds to be involved in the other divisions of
judgement, must be considered to relate to reality and not to our
attitude towards it. Considered in this way, they resolve themselves
into the conceptions of--

(1) the impossible (impossibility);
(2) the possible but not actual (possibility, nonexistence);
(3) the actual but not necessary (existence, contingence);
(4) the necessary (necessity).

But since it must, in the end, be conceded that all fact is necessary,
it is impossible to admit the reality of the conception of the
possible but not actual, and of the actual but not necessary. There
remain, therefore, only the conceptions of the necessary and of the
impossible. In fact, however, the distinctions between the assertoric,
the problematic, and the apodeictical judgement relate to our attitude
to reality and not to reality, and therefore involve no different
conceptions relating to reality. It must, therefore, be admitted
that the 'metaphysical' deduction of the categories breaks down
doubly. Judgement, as Kant describes it, does not involve the
forms of judgement borrowed from Formal Logic as its essential
differentiations; and these forms of judgement do not involve the
categories.

CHAPTER VIII

THE TRANSCENDENTAL DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES

The aim of the _Transcendental Deduction_ is to show that the
categories, though _a priori_ as originating in the understanding, are
valid, i. e. applicable to individual things. It is the part of the
_Critique_ which has attracted most attention and which is the most
difficult to follow. The difficulty of interpretation is increased
rather than diminished by the complete rewriting of this portion in
the second edition. For the second version, though it does not imply
a change of view, is undoubtedly even more obscure than the first.
It indeed makes one new contribution to the subject by adding an
important link in the argument,[1] but the importance of the link
is nullified by the fact that it is not really the link which it
professes to be. The method of treatment adopted here will be to
consider only the minimum of passages necessary to elucidate Kant's
meaning and to make use primarily of the first edition.

[1] Cf. p. 206-10.

It is necessary, however, first to consider the passage i