Abstract

Kant calls himself a realist, qualifying this label with the adjective ‘empirical’. It is fair to say that most critics take this qualification as somehow implying that his idealism, itself qualified as ‘transcendental’, is primary. It is often assumed that the realism is merely a concession Kant makes from within an epistemological framework that is basically and in the final analysis an idealist one. There is an interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism that supposes that there is a sense in which it is true to say that “mind makes nature”. Typically, metaphors used to describe the relationship between the mind and the world are ones that suggest the imposition of form on a material in itself shapeless. This article pursues the question which of the rival interpretations of Kant’s realism should be adopted.