O Projeto Kantiano de uma lógica transcendental e a dedução metafísica das categorias

Abstract

The present work aims at examining the Metaphysical Deduction of the Categories in view of Kant‘s project of a transcendental logic that establishes the legitimacy of the categories. In the Introduction to edition B of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant states that, only by establishing that the categories are representations a priori it is possible to guarantee their necessity as the pure concepts of the understanding for the representation of the objects of experience – a necessity without which it will not be possible to establish their necessity. In order to accomplish this task, Kant derives these concepts from the logical functions of judgment by means of an analysis of the pure understanding which he names transcendental logic. This new logic should establish the a priori status and legitimacy of the categories, in parallel to the investigation of the a priori forms of sensibility, carried out in the section of the Critique named Transcendental Aesthetics. With this aim, in the section of the of the Transcendental Logic entitled Metaphysical Deduction of the Categories, Kant counters general logic, that is, Aristotle‘s formal logic, to transcendental logic, in order to determine the complete inventory of the pure concepts of the understanding and to establish that, as a priori forms of the understanding, the categories are the representation of the necessary unity of the understanding for the diverse of given intuitions by sensibility for the representation of the objects of experience.