Immanuel Kant: Synthetic a priori and Twelve Categories


The set Immanuel Kant: Synthetic a priori and Twelve Categories focuses upon the two fundamental concepts formulated in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 1781, 1787):

Kant’s Synthetic a priori

Chart illustrates the relationship between a posteriori and a priori propositions, on one axis, and analytic and synthetic propositions, on another, especially as this facilitates an understanding of Kant’s Synthetic a priori.

  • For Leibniz and others prior to Kant, all the propositions that we know only through experience (a posteriori) are synthetic and all synthetic propositions are only known through experience. All the propositions that we know self-evidently (a priori) are analytic.
  • Kant admits that propositions that we know only through experience are synthetic, but he does not admit that all synthetic propositions are only known through experience. Some synthetic propositions are known a priori: self-evidently — e.g., Kant’s categories (causality, etc.).

Kant’s Twelve Categories

Chart / illustration of Kant’s list of twelve categories, made up of four groups (‘moments’) of three categories each.

  • Quantity
    • Unity
    • Plurality
    • Totality
  • Quality
    • Reality
    • Negation
    • Limitation
  • Relation
    • Substance-Accident
    • Cause-Effect
    • Reciprocity
  • Modality
    • Possibility
    • Existence
    • Necessity

Note the PDF’s relatively large, 2.6 mb, download size.

PDF ver. 2014-03-01
2 pp. 7.08 x 4.67, 4.67 x 7.08″ 2.6 mb (larger size)
5323000-mod-1724-1804-kant-set-bcrx-20140301

PDF version history:
2014-03-01: Updated SKU; combined
2011-09-17: Changes, Twelve Cat.
2010-07-19: New release, Twelve Cat.
2010-01-27: New release, Synthetic apriori

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