Kant’s terminology is well known for being hard to grasp. The author himself often make this task harder by providing too few definitions and sometime convoluted ones. Mainly, the difficulty resides in the fact that Kant read writing from different langages and integrate what he learn from them inside his writings. He therefore sit at a crosspath few people know how to navigate.

I decided to put some definitions here to help others and myself better understand Kant. My main focus is the Critique of Pure Reason, so I will be referring to extracts from this book.

Table of Content

Abstraction, Analysis, Antinomy, Apperception, Categories, Conception, Dogmatic, Empirical, Experience, Judgement, Imagination, Intuition, Logic, Manifold, Metaphysics, Noumenon, Senses, Sensibilities, Substance, Reason, Science, Synthesis, Transcendental, Understanding

Abstraction

To abstract

“But then I expand my cognition: by looking back to the experience from which I have abstracted this concept of body, I also find heaviness to be always connected with the above characteristics; and so I add it, as a predicate, to that concept synthetically. Hence experience is what makes possible the synthesis of the predicate of heavi ness with the concept of body.” (Kant et al., 1996, p. 113-114) (pdf)
“Space is not an empirical concept that has been abstracted from outer experiences.” (Kant et al., 1996, p. 137) (pdf)

Analysis

Antinomy

Apperception

Categories

Conception

• Concept
• Pure concept

Dogmatic

Empirical

Experience

Judgement

Imagination

Intuition

• Internal intuition
• External intuition

Logic

• Applied logic
• General logic
• Transcendantal logic

Manifold

Metaphysics

Noumenon

Senses

Sensibilities

Substance

Reason

• Pure reason

Science

Synthesis

Transcendental

• Transcendental logic

Understanding