On the definition of the transcendental Dialectic as critique and its relationship with the problem of the possibility of metaphysics in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Abstract

In this paper I intend to elucidate the meaning in which Kant defines the Transcendental Dialectic as a critique. By opposing the interpretation supported by most interpreters I argue that, with such definition Kant does not mean that the Transcendental Dialectic has, in its examination of the claims of reason that leads through ideas beyond the limits of all possible experience, only a skeptic purpose that turn it into an entirely negative discipline. To the extent that the Transcendental Dialectic itself presents a positive development of the claims of reason, which seeks to give even a convenient articulation, it cannot be described in negative terms. Taken this into account I will seek to provide a different interpretation, capable of expressing the critical sense of the Transcendental Dialectic in all its complexity. I start by establishing the meaning of the Kantian concept of critique in general as it is considered in the 1770s and in the Critique of pure Reason, and afterwards I extend it to explain the specific critical character of the Dialectic. This will finally allow a satisfactory interpretation of why the Transcendental Dialectic is a critique, without introducing inconsistencies in its argumentative development.