O objetivo e a estratégia de Kant na dedução transcendental dos conceitos puros do entendimento

Abstract

This study is dedicated to investigating Kant's central objective in the intricate transcendental deduction of the categories, as presented in the Critique of Pure Reason, and the argumentative strategy he employs to achieve this end. In essence, we seek to examine the arguments that, in Kant's view, justify the application of the pure concepts of the understanding to the objects of our experience. The fundamental question that permeates this investigation is: how is it possible for our pure concepts, which have an a priori origin, to legitimately connect with empirical reality, thus avoiding the pitfalls of skepticism? To answer this important question and prove the objective validity of the categories, Kant develops a complex strategy in deduction. He argues that the very possibility of experience presupposes a fundamental unity of consciousness, that is, an a priori synthesis that unifies the various sensory perceptions into a determined object. In this way, the categories, as a priori forms inherent to the faculty of understanding, are applied to the data provided by the senses, giving them the unity and objectivity necessary for us to know them. Therefore, in this study, we have set out to thoroughly analyze the arguments Kant makes throughout the text of the deduction. Our aim is to understand how he responds to the problem of the objective validity of the categories, a problem that ultimately concerns the very foundation of human knowledge. We seek to explain how the pure concepts of the understanding, which are not derived from experience, can be legitimately applied to the objects given to us in experience, establishing the conditions for our knowledge.