The World According to Kant: Appearances and Things in Themselves in Critical Idealism

Jul 6, 2026

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The World According to Kant: Appearances and Things in Themselves in Critical Idealism examines Kant’s mature critical philosophy by focusing on the role of things in themselves and their relation to appearances. The study frames a double question: what things in themselves are, and how (if at all) meaningful thought or cognition about them is possible. It argues that understanding this topic requires reconstructing Kant’s ontological views and his theory of meaning, reference, thought, and cognition, while also engaging Leibniz-Wolff conceptions as key reference points.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages394

Reading Time10 h 7 min

Preface and Acknowledgments

The double question about things in themselves

The relation between things in themselves and appearances

Engagement with ontological and epistemological background

The World According to Kant The World According to Kant Appearances and Things in Themselves in Critical Idealism ANJA JAUERNIG 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Anja Jauernig 2021 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2021 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945711 ISBN 978–0–19–969538–6 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199695386.001.0001 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. für meine Eltern Preface and Acknowledgments Things in themselves play a central role in Kant’s critical philosophy, that is, his mature philosophy that he presented to the world in his publications from 1781 onwards starting with the Critique of Pure Reason. As allegedly unknowable grounds ofall knowable objects, things in themselves are as important in Kant’s ontology as they are perplexing in his epistemology. The present book grew out of the question of how to think about things in themselves, according to Kant. This question can be understood in two ways. First, one can take it as a broadly ontological question about Kant’s conception of things in themselves. What sort of things are they? What are their properties? What is their ontological status in Kant’s critical philosophy? Second, one can regard it as a question about whether, and if so how, we can have meaningful thoughts about or even cognize things in themselves, according to Kant’s theory of thinking and cognition. In virtue of what can our concepts refer to them? How can we manage to cognitively access them through our thinking? What sort of cognition of them, if any, is possible for us? More than a decade ago, in my (then) youthful naïveté and optimism, I decided to select this double-sided question as the topic for a short essay intended as a brief restorative diversion from my ‘real’ project at the time (which was to sort out the precise relation between Kant’s philosophy, the philosophy of Leibniz, and the philosophy of Wolff and his followers) . The diversion turned out to be neither brief nor restorative. Kant is a truly systematic thinker; most of his doctrines and arguments are intricately connected with one another. As a result, in order to make genuine headway on any particular question about Kant’s philosophy, one is forced to cast one’s net rather widely. The question of how to think about things in themselves is no exception. In order to properly understand Kant’s conception of things in themselves, one also has to understand his conception of appearances and his views about how things in themselves and appearances are related. One also must take into account Kant’s evaluation of th

FAQs

What is the central focus of the book’s inquiry into Kant’s philosophy?

The book focuses on things in themselves and how they relate to appearances within Kant’s critical philosophy.

How does the text frame the problem of thinking about things in themselves?

It treats the problem in two ways: as an ontological question about what things in themselves are, and as an epistemological question about whether and how meaningful thoughts or cognition of them are possible.

Why does understanding things in themselves require more than a narrow analysis?

The text explains that a satisfactory account depends on understanding Kant’s views about appearances, his ontological commitments more broadly, and his theory of meaning, reference, thought, and cognition, including his evaluation of other philosophers such as the Leibniz-Wolff tradition.

Jul 6, 2026

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