Abstract

Realism takes many forms. The aim of this paper is to show that the “Critique of Pure Reason” is the founding document of realism and that to the present-day Kant’s discussion of realism has shaped the theoretical landscape of the debates over realism. Kant not only invents the now common philosophical term ‘realism’. He also lays out the theoretical topography of the forms of realism that still frames our understanding of philosophical questions concerning reality. The paper explores this by analysis of Kant’s methodological procedure to distinguish between empirical (i.e. nonmetaphysical) and transcendental (metaphysical) realism. This methodological procedure is still of great help in contemporary philosophy, although it has its limits.