Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason — trans. F. Max Müller

which in a general way may be called the pure concept of the understanding. The same understanding, and by the same operations by which in concepts it achieves through analytical unity the logical form of a judgment, introduces also, through the synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, a transcendental element into its representations. They are therefore called pure concepts of the understanding, and they refer a prioid to objects, which would be quite impossible in general logic.

In this manner there arise exactly so many pure concepts of the understanding which refer a priori to objects of intuition in general, as there were in our table logical functions in all possible judgments, because those functions completely exhaust the understanding, and comprehend every one of its faculties. Borrowing a term of Aristotle, we shall call these concepts categories, [p. 80] pur intention being originally the same as his, though widely diverging from it in its practical application.

TABLE OF CATEGORIES

Of Quantity

Unity.

Plurality.

Totality.

II

Ill

Of Quality

Of Relation

Reality.

Of Inherence and Subsistence

Negation.

{s7ibsta7itia et accidens^.

Limitation.

Of Causality and Dependence

(cause and effect).

Of Community (reciprocity between the active and the passive) .

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IV

Of Modality

Possibility. Impossibility. Existence. Non-existence. Necessity. Contingency.

This then is a list of all original pure concepts of synthesis, which belong to the understanding a priori, and for .which alone it is called pure understanding ; for it is by them alone that it can understand something in the manifold of intuition, that is, think an object in it. The classification is systematical, and founded on a common principle, namely, the faculty of judging (which is the same as the faculty of thinking). It is not the [p. 8i] result of a search after pure concepts undertaken at haphazard, the completeness of which, as based on induction only, could never be guaranteed. Nor could we otherwise understand why these concepts only, and no others, abide in the pure understanding. It was an enterprise worthy of an acute thinker like Aristotle to try to discover these fundamental concepts ; but' as he had no guiding principle he merely picked them up as they occurred to him, and at first gathered up ten of them, which he called categoi^ies or predicaments. Afterwards he thought he had discovered five more of them, which he added under the name of post-predicaments . But his table remained imperfect for all that, not to mention that we find in it some modes of pure sensibility {quando, nbi, sitics, also prius, simnl), also an empirical concept {motus), none of which can belong to this genealogical register of the understanding. Besides, there are some derivative concepts, counted among the fundamental concepts {actio, passio), while some of the latter are entirely wanting.

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With regard to these, it should be remarked that the categories, as the true fundamental concepts of the pure understanding, have also their pure derivative concepts. These could not be passed over in a complete system of transcendental philosophy, but in a merely critical [p. 82] essay the mention of the fact may suffice.

I should like to be allowed to call these pure but derivative concepts of the understanding the predicabilia, in opposition to the predicame^tta of the pure understanding. If we are once in possession of the fundamental and primitive concepts, it is easy to add the derivative and secondary, and thus to give a complete image of the genealogical tree of the pure understanding. As at present I am concerned not with the completeness, but only with the principles of a system, I leave this supplementary work for a future occasion. In order to carry it out, one need only consult any of the ontological manuals, and place, for instance, under the category of causality the/r^- dicabilia of force, of action, and of passion ; under the category of community the predicabilia of presence and resistance ; under the predicaments of modality the predicabilia of origin, extinction, change, etc. If we associate the categories among themselves or with the modes of pure sensibility, they yield us a large number of derivative concepts a priori^ which it would be useful and interesting to mark and, if possible, to bring to a certain completeness, though this is not essential for our present purpose.

I intentionally omit here the definitions of these categories, though I may be in possession of them.^ In the

1 See, however, Karl's remarks on p. 210 (p. 241 of First Edition).

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