Abstract

Kant’s derivation of the table of categories from logical functions of judgments in the metaphysical deduction remains one of the least convincing arguments of the Critique of Pure Reason. This article presents an alternative approach to the question of the a priori origin of the table of categories. By circumventing the metaphysical deduction, I show the possibility of demonstrating the exact functions and necessity of the twelve categorial forms as emerging from the interaction of the synthetic unity of apperception with the manifold content of the a priori intuition of space and time. I argue that this a priori material of cognition imposes a constraint on the spontaneity of understanding, thus giving rise to the specific rules of synthesis that make up the table of categories. On the reading I suggest, the table of categories can be understood as expressing the a priori form of self-consciousness in the face of space and time.