Kant and the objective, logical and transcendental meaning of the categories

Abstract

The “Transcendental Analytic” of the Critique of Pure Reason contains a complex theory of the meaning (Bedeutung) of the categories. The main purpose of this article is to identify and reconstruct three levels of meaning in that part of the first Critique. In particular, I argue that: (1) the categories receive an objective meaning insofar as they are applied to sensible intuitions given to our spatial and temporal sensibility; (2) the categories retain a logical meaning after elimination of the forms of our sensibility, but not of the sensible character of intuition; (3) the categories have a transcendental meaning insofar as all sensible intuition is suppressed; (4) logical and transcendental meanings are the result of different kinds of abstractions made on the basis of objective meaning.