Was versteht Kant unter einem „übersinnlichen Gebrauche der Kategorien“? Eine Interpretation von KpV, Ak. 5, S. 5.24–6.1: Historisch-systematische Beiträge

Abstract

The expression of a „supersensible use of the categories“ utilised in the „Preface“ to the Critique of Practical Reason has barely received any attention in literature on the „categories of freedom“. Typically, it is interpreted solely in the sense of an extension of reason towards the supersensible, which was to be justified by the insight into the practical reality of freedom legitimised by the fact of reason. This paper analyses KpV, Ac. 5, pp. 5.24-6.1 against the backdrop of Kant’s reflections on the categories of freedom in the „Second Chapter“ of the analytic and the role of the non-schematised categories in the second edition of the first Critique. It attempts to show that by the phrase „supersensible use of the categories“ in the „Preface“ Kant refers to the categories of freedom - and that these are, thus, declaredly and systematically at the centre of the second Critique.