<m1> [B89] Transcendental Logic

This Analytic consists in the resolution of all our apriori knowledge into the elements of the pure knowledge of the understanding. Essentially it comes down to the following points:

1. the concepts must be pure, and not empirical concepts;
2. they must not belong to intuition or sensibility, but to thought and understanding;
3. they must be elementary concepts, and be kept entirely distinct from concepts derived or compounded from them;
4. the table of these concepts must be complete, and utterly exhaust the whole scope of the pure understanding.

<m2> This completeness required of a science cannot be guaranteed by a rough calculation based on a disconnected heap of experiments. Rather, its completeness can be established only by means of an idea of the apriori knowledge of the understanding as a whole, and through the classification of its component concepts as determined by that idea — in other words, only through the interconnection of these concepts within a system. The pure understanding is entirely separate, not merely from everything empirical, but even from all sensibility. It is therefore a self-subsistent and self-sufficient unity, [B90] which cannot be enlarged by anything additional coming into it from outside. So the sum total of its knowledge constitutes a system which comes under, and is determined by, one single idea. At the same time, the completeness and articulation of the system can provide a touchstone for the correctness and legitimacy of all the components of knowledge contained within it.

<m3> This part of the Transcendental Logic consists of two books, the first of which covers the concepts of the pure understanding, and the second its axioms.

<m4> The Transcendental Analytic

By ‘analytic of concepts’ I do not mean the analysis of concepts, or in other words the usual procedure in philosophical investigations of resolving the content of any concepts that arise into their parts, in order to make these parts explicit. Instead, I mean the analysis of the faculty of understanding itself — something that has rarely been attempted before. The purpose of the analysis is to investigate the possibility of apriori concepts, by looking for them in the understanding alone as their birthplace, and by analysing the pure use of the understanding in general. This is the special business of a [B91] transcendental philosophy — anything else belongs to philosophy in general, as the logical treatment of concepts. I shall therefore trace the pure concepts back to their original seeds with which the human understanding is equipped. These seeds lie ready in the understanding, until they finally germinate on the occasion of experience, and the same understanding frees them from the empirical circumstances by which they are surrounded, and reveals them in their purity.

<m5> The Analytic of Concepts

A faculty of knowledge can be activated by a whole range of stimuli, and each kind of stimulus will bring a different concept to the fore. These concepts make the faculty knowable, and the concepts themselves can be collected together into a more or less complete treatise, depending on how long and how intelligently they have been observed. However, this, so to speak, mechanical procedure will never allow us to determine with certainty when the investigation has actually been completed. Furthermore, since these concepts have been discovered randomly, they will show no order or systematic unity. [B92] Rather, they will ultimately be paired up merely on the basis of similarities, or put into sequences on the basis of the amount they contain, from the simple to the more composite. But although such sequences have been constructed in a way which is to a certain extent methodical, it is anything but systematic.

<m6> Transcendental philosophy has the advantage of being able to seek out its concepts in accordance with a principle (indeed, it has the duty to do so). This is because its concepts spring pure and unmixed from the understanding as an absolute unity, and must therefore be connected together under one single concept or idea. And interconnectedness of this sort supplies us with a rule for determining apriori the place of each pure concept of the understanding, and the completeness of them all taken together. Otherwise this would depend on our arbitrary decisions, or on chance.

<m7> The Transcendental Guide for the Discovery of All Pure Concepts of the Understanding

So far I have explained what the understanding is only negatively, namely as a non-sensory faculty of knowledge. Since we depend on sensibility for all our intuitions, the understanding cannot be a faculty of intuition. Apart from intuition, there is [B93] only one other way of attaining knowledge, namely through concepts. Therefore the knowledge possessed by every understanding (or at least every human understanding) is knowledge through concepts; and it is not intuitive, but discursive. Since all intuitions are sensory, they depend on affections of the senses, whereas concepts depend on functions. By ‘function’, I mean the unity of the act of subsuming different representations under a single representation common to them all. So concepts are grounded in the spontaneity of thought, whereas sensory intuitions are grounded in the receptivity of impressions.

<m8> The only use the understanding can make of concepts is to form judgments with them. Since intuitions are the only representations which relate to their object directly, a concept never relates to an object directly, but only to some other representation of it, whether this is an intuition, or itself already a concept. So judgment is the knowledge of an object through an intermediary, and hence a representation of a representation of the object. In every judgment, there is a concept which applies to many representations; and of these possible representations just one is actually given, and it relates directly to the object. For example, in the judgment ‘All bodies are divisible,’ the concept of the divisible could relate to various other concepts. But in this judgment it is related specifically to the concept of body, and the concept of body is related to certain appearances which are available to us. So [B94] these objects are represented indirectly, through the concept of divisibility.

<m9> Consequently, all judgments are functions of unity among our representations. That is to say, instead of using an individual, direct representation for knowing an object, the understanding uses a higher-order representation, which includes the direct representation as only one among many. In this way, a single act of knowing embraces a whole range of possible instances of knowledge. But we can trace all acts of the understanding back to judgments, with the consequence that the understanding in general can be represented as a faculty for making judgments. For, as I have already said, the understanding is a faculty for thinking, and thinking is knowledge through concepts. But since concepts are predicates of possible judgments, they relate to some representation or other of an object which has not yet been determined.

<m10> For example, the concept of body refers to something — metal, let us say — which can be known through that concept. So it is a concept simply by virtue of the fact that other representations are subsumed under it, and it can relate to objects only by means of these other representations. This is how it comes to be the predicate of a possible judgment — for example, that every metal is a body. So we can discover the sum total of all the functions of the understanding, if we can provide a complete list of the functions of unity in judgments. The following section will show that this can be achieved very easily.

<m11> [B95] The Guide to the Discovery of All Pure Concepts of the Understanding

If we leave out of account all the content of a judgment in general, and attend only to the pure form of understanding it contains, we find that the function of thought in a judgment can be subsumed under four headings, with three elements in each. It is simplest to lay them out in the form of a table:

[B96] Since this division appears to diverge on some points (though not essential ones) from the technical distinctions traditionally observed by logicians, the following observations may be useful for fending off misunderstandings which could be a cause for concern.

<m12> Note 1

Logicians rightly say that, when judgments are used in syllogisms, singular judgments can be treated in the same way as universal ones. For precisely because they have no extension at all, the predicate cannot relate to just one of many things covered by the concept of the subject, and fail to relate to some of the rest. So it is valid of that concept without exception, just as if it were a universal concept which had an extension to which the whole denotation of the predicate applied. On the other hand, if we compare a singular judgment with a universal one simply in terms of the quantity of knowledge they contain, then the ratio between them is one to infinity — so in this respect they are in themselves essentially different from each other. So when I evaluate singular judgments, not merely as to their inner validity, but also as to the quantity of knowledge in general they contain in comparison with other knowledge, then they are utterly different from universal judgments. They therefore deserve their own special place in a complete table of the elements of thought in general, though certainly not in a logic which is limited merely to the use [B97] of judgments in relation to each other.

<m13> Note 2

Similarly, in a transcendental logic, infinite judgments must be kept distinct from affirmative ones, even though in general logic they are rightly included under them, and do not constitute a distinct member of its classification system. General logic leaves out of account all content of the predicate (even if it is negative), and considers only whether the predicate or its opposite is attributed to the subject. But transcendental logic also considers the value or content of the logical affirmation that is made in a judgment by means of a merely negative predicate, and what sort of addition it makes to our knowledge as a whole.

<m14> If I said ‘The soul is not mortal,’ I would at least have prevented an error through a negative judgment. But if I utter the sentence ‘The soul is immortal,’ I actually affirm something as far as the logical form of the sentence is concerned, since I place the soul in the unlimited scope of the immortal. Now the scope of all possible beings contains two parts: that of mortal beings, and that of immortal beings. So all my sentence says is that the soul is one of the infinite number of things which remain if I take away all the mortal ones. But my sentence restricts the infinite scope of all possible beings only to the extent that mortal beings are separated from it, [B98] and the soul is placed in the remaining part of the scope of all possible beings. But even after this separation, the remaining part is still infinite; and yet more parts can be removed without the concept of the soul being enlarged at all, or determined positively.

<m15> So these judgments are infinite with respect to their logical scope, but in fact they are merely limiting with respect to the content of knowledge in general. They must not be omitted from the transcendental table of all the elements of thought in judgments, since the function of the understanding exercised by infinite judgments can perhaps be of importance in the area of the pure apriori knowledge of the understanding.

<m16> Note 3

The only relations between thoughts in judgments are:

1. that of the predicate to the subject;
2. that of the ground to the consequent;
3. that between disjunctive knowledge and all the parts of the disjunction.

In the first kind of judgment we consider the relationship only between two concepts, in the second between two judgments, and in the third between a number of judgments.

<m17> The hypothetical proposition: ‘If there is perfect justice, then obstinately evil people will be punished,’ essentially contains the relationship between two propositions: ‘There is perfect justice,’ and ‘Obstinately evil people will be punished.’ Here it remains undecided whether either of these propositions is actually true. All that is thought in this judgment is the inference from the one to the other.

<m18> Ultimately, a disjunctive judgment contains [B99] a relation between two or more propositions. However, the relation is not that of logical consequence, but that of logical opposition, since the scope of the one excludes the scope of the other. On the other hand, the relation is also one of community, in that, taken together, the disjuncts completely fill the scope of the knowledge in question. It is therefore a relation between the parts of the scope of such knowledge, since the scope of each part is complementary to the scope of the other parts, so as to make up the sum total of the disjunctive knowledge.

<m19> Take, for example, the proposition: ‘The world exists either through blind chance, or through an inner necessity, or through an external cause.’ Each of these propositions takes up a part of the scope of all possible knowledge about the existence of the world, and all of them together occupy its scope completely. Taking knowledge out of one of these areas means putting it into one of the others; on the other hand, putting it into one area means taking it out of the others.

<m20> So in a disjunctive judgment there is a certain community between the items of knowledge it consists in, since, although they exclude each other, this very mutual exclusion means that they determine genuine knowledge when taken together as a whole. For, taken together, they constitute the whole content of a single given item of knowledge. In view of what follows, this is all I find necessary to say here.

<m21> Note 4

The modality of judgments is a quite special function, in that it contributes nothing to the content of a judgment. This makes it essentially [B100] distinct from the other functions, since quantity, quality, and relation are the only functions that constitute the content of a judgment. Instead, modality concerns only the value of the copula in relation to thought in general. Judgments are problematic when we take their affirmation or denial as merely possible (voluntary); they are assertoric when we consider their affirmation or denial as actual (true); and apodeictic when we consider their affirmation or denial as necessary.*

<m22> When a judgment relates two subordinate judgments, then both the subordinate judgments are problematic: that is, in the case of hypothetical judgments (antecedent and consequent) and disjunctive judgments, where there is a reciprocal relation between the subordinate judgments (they are members of a divided whole). In the example I gave above, the proposition: ‘There is perfect justice,’ is not stated assertorically, but is thought only as a voluntary judgment which anyone can assume. Only the logical relation between the two judgments is assertoric. Consequently, it is possible for both antecedent and consequent to be evidently false, but taken problematically, to be preconditions for knowledge of the truth. Again, in the other example of a disjunctive judgment, the judgment: ‘The world exists through blind chance’ is meant only problematically, in the sense that anyone might entertain the proposition [B101] for a brief moment. Yet it helps us find the true proposition, like indicating a wrong route at a crossroads where there are a number of possible routes.

<m23> So:

• A problematic proposition is one which expresses only a logical rather than an objective possibility — a free choice to take such a proposition as valid, and complete discretion to entertain it in the understanding.
• An assertoric proposition refers to logical actuality, or truth. For example, in a hypothetical syllogism, the antecedent occurs problematically in the major premise, and assertorically in the minor premise. What an assertoric proposition indicates is that the proposition has already been taken into the understanding in accordance with the laws of the understanding.
• In an apodeictic proposition, an assertoric proposition is thought as determined through these laws of the understanding themselves, and hence as making an apriori affirmation. In this way, it expresses logical necessity.

<m24> Thus everything is incorporated into the understanding by stages. First something is judged problematically, then it is taken as true assertorically, and finally it is affirmed as inseparably bound up with the understanding — that is, as necessary and apodeictic. Consequently, we can call these three functions of modality so many elements of thought in general.

<m25> [B102] The Guide to the Discovery of All the Pure Concepts of the Understanding

As I have already said many times, general logic leaves out of account all content of knowledge. It waits to be given representations from some other source, whatever it may be, before it can turn them into concepts by a process of analysis. By contrast, transcendental logic has in front of it a multiplicity of apriori sensibility, which is supplied by the Transcendental Aesthetic. This serves as the material for the pure concepts of the understanding, without which they would be without any content, and therefore completely empty.

<m26> Space and time contain a multiplicity of pure apriori intuition. Nevertheless, they are among the preconditions for the receptivity of our mind. These preconditions must be met if the mind is to receive representations of objects, and therefore they must also always affect the concept of such objects. However if the spontaneity of our thought is to make any knowledge out of the multiplicity of pure intuition, it must first go through it, take it up, and connect it together in a particular way. I call this act ‘synthesis’.

<m27> [B103] By synthesis in its widest sense, I mean the act of putting different representations together and embracing their multiplicity in one act of knowledge. Such a synthesis is pure, when the multiplicity is not empirical, but is given a priori, as in the case of space and time. Our representations must be given before they can be analysed, and no concepts can come into being analytically, as far as their content is concerned. The synthesis of a manifold (whether this manifold is given empirically or apriori) is what first produces knowledge, although this knowledge may initially still be raw and confused, and therefore in need of analysis. However, synthesis is still essentially what collects together the elements necessary for knowledge, and unites them into a specific content. So synthesis is the first thing we must attend to, if we are to judge about the first source of our knowledge.

<m28> As we shall see later, synthesis in general is merely the operation of the imagination, which is a blind, though indispensable function of the soul. Although we are hardly ever conscious of it, we would have no knowledge at all without it. However, bringing this synthesis to bear on concepts is a function which belongs to the understanding, and through which the understanding first provides us with knowledge properly so called.

<m29> [B104] Now pure synthesis, conceived universally, gives us pure concepts of the understanding. By this synthesis, I mean one that depends on an apriori basis of synthetic unity. For example, our counting is a synthesis in accordance with concepts — and this is especially obvious in the case of large numbers. It is such a synthesis because counting is carried out in accordance with a common basis of unity — the number ten, for example. Through this concept, the unity in the synthesis of the multiplicity becomes a necessary one.

<m30> Different representations are brought under a single concept analytically; but this is a process which is dealt with by general logic. What transcendental logic teaches us is, not how to bring representations to concepts, but how to bring the pure synthesis of representations to concepts. In order for us to have apriori knowledge of all objects, the first thing that must be given is the multiplicity of pure intuition. The second requirement is the synthesis of this multiplicity through the imagination — but this is still not enough to give us knowledge. The third requirement for knowledge of an object that comes before us is the concepts which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist only in the representation of this necessary synthetic unity. And these concepts depend on the understanding.

<m31> The function that gives unity to the different representations in a judgment is the same function as also [B105] gives unity to the pure synthesis of different representations in an intuition. In general terms, this function is called a pure concept of the understanding. Therefore one and the same understanding performs one and the same action in order to achieve two outcomes:

• to bring about the logical form of a judgment in concepts by means of analytic unity;
• to bring a transcendental content into its representations by means of the synthetic unity of the multiplicity in intuition in general.

This is why they are called pure concepts of the understanding. Moreover, they apply to objects apriori — which is something that general logic cannot achieve.

<m32> The earlier table specified the number of logical functions in all possible judgments. But the argument I have just given shows that there must arise exactly the same number of pure concepts of the understanding applying apriori to objects of intuition in general. For the understanding has absolutely no functions other than the above, and they constitute an exhaustive list of all its powers. I shall follow Aristotle in calling these concepts categories, since our fundamental objective is the same, even though we have carried it out very differently.

<m33> [B106] Table of Categories

<m34> This is a complete catalogue of all the originative pure concepts of synthesis which the understanding contains within itself apriori. It is only because of them that it is a pure understanding, since through them alone can it understand anything in the multiplicity of intuition — that is, can think an object of intuition. The classification has been generated systematically from a single common principle, namely the capacity to form a judgment — which amounts to exactly the same as the capacity to think. It has not come into being randomly, as the result of a serendipitous search for pure concepts. If it had, we could never be certain of its completeness, [B107] since it would have been inferred merely by induction. We should also bear in mind that induction could never tell us why just these concepts and no others should reside in the pure understanding.

<m35> Aristotle’s project of searching out these fundamental concepts was worthy of such a clever man. However, since he had no principle to guide him, he grabbed at whatever he stumbled upon, and originally rounded up ten of them, which he called categories or ‘predicaments’. Later, he believed he had discovered five more, which he added to the list, calling them ‘postpredicaments’. But his table of categories still had some omissions. On the other hand, it also includes various items which do not belong to such a list of the originative contents of the understanding. For example, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘position’, ‘before’ and ‘at the same time as’ are modes of pure sensibility; and ‘motion’ is an empirical concept. There are also some derivative concepts which Aristotle treats as primary ones (‘action’, ‘passion’), and some primary concepts are missing altogether.

<m36> As for these primary concepts, it should be noted that, since the categories are the genuine originative concepts of the pure understanding, as such, they also have their pure derivative concepts. These derivative concepts could in no way be omitted from a complete system of transcendental philosophy. But in an essay which is confined to a critique, it is enough for me simply to mention them.

<m37> [B108] Let me call these pure but derivative concepts of the understanding the predicables of the pure understanding, to distinguish them from the ‘predicaments’. Once we have the originative and primitive concepts, it is easy to add the derivative and subsidiary ones, and to fill out the details of the family tree of the concepts of the understanding. I leave this completion for a later work, since here I am concerned only with the principles for a complete system, and not with the system itself. However, this objective can be largely fulfilled with the help of ontological textbooks — for example, by classifying the predicables of force, action, and passion under the category of causality; those of presence and resistance under the category of community; those of coming to be, ceasing to be, and alteration under the predicaments of modality, and so on. A large number of derivative apriori concepts are generated by combining the categories with the modes of pure sensibility, or even with each other. It would be a useful and not unpleasant task to identify, and, where possible, to make a complete catalogue of such derivative concepts. However, it is unnecessary for me to do this here.

<m38> In this treatise, I deliberately refrain from providing definitions of the categories, even though I might be in possession of them. In what follows, I shall analyse these concepts only to the extent that is required [B109] for the doctrine of method I am developing. Definitions would rightly be expected in a system of pure reason. But in this treatise, they would merely divert attention from the main point of the investigation, by giving rise to doubts and objections. So I can easily defer them to a later task, without detracting from my essential purpose. Nevertheless, it is obvious from the little I have said about this, that a complete dictionary with all the necessary explanations is not only possible, but even easy to create. The divisions of a classification system are already in place, and all that is needed is to fill them in. With a systematic classification such as the present one, it is difficult to make mistakes about the proper place in it for every concept, and it is at the same time easy to detect which divisions are still empty.

<m39> §11

Interesting points can be made about this table of the categories — points which could perhaps have considerable consequences for the scientific form of all rational knowledge. For a start, in theoretical philosophy, this table is exceptionally useful — indeed, indispensable — for outlining the complete plan for a whole science derived from apriori concepts, and for classifying it systematically in accordance with determinate principles. This is already self-evident from the fact that the above table contains all the elementary concepts of the understanding in their entirety, and even the form of a system [B110] of these concepts in the human understanding. Consequently it specifies all the elements of a projected speculative science, and even their order — as I have proved elsewhere.*

<m40> The following are some of the points that can be made:

Although the table contains four classes of concepts of the understanding, there is a more basic distinction between two higher-level classes:

1. those that are concerned with objects of intuition, pure as well as empirical; and
2. those that are concerned with the existence of these objects, whether in relation to each other, or in relation to the understating.

I would call the categories in the first class mathematical, and those in the second class dynamical. As you can see, the categories in the first class have no existing object corresponding to them, whereas those in the second class do. Yet this distinction must be grounded in the nature of the understanding.

<m41> Point 2

Since every apriori classification of concepts must consist in binary divisions, the fact that the number of categories in each class is three must give pause for thought. But in each case, the third category arises from the combination of the second category in each class with the first.

<m42> [B111] Thus totality is nothing other than plurality considered as a unity; limitation is nothing other than reality combined with negation; community consists in substances mutually causing each other’s determinations; and, finally, necessity is nothing other than existence given through possibility alone.

<m43> But it should not be thought that this makes the third category in each class merely derivative, and not an originative concept of the pure understanding. For the connecting of the first and second concepts in order to generate the third, requires a special act of the understanding, which is not the same as that performed in the case of the first or second concepts. Thus the concept of a number (which belongs to the category of totality) is not always itself possible in cases where the concepts of plurality and unity are possible — for example, in the representation of the infinite. Nor do I get the concept of influence simply by combining the concepts of a cause and of a substance, since this does not give me to understand how one substance can be the cause of something in another substance. From this it is obvious that a special act of the understanding is required — and the same goes for the other categories.

<m44> Point 3

In the case of one category, it is not as obvious as it is with the others, how it accords with the corresponding form in the table of logical functions. This is the category of community, which comes under the third heading; [B112] and the corresponding form is that of a disjunctive judgment.

<m45> In order to be assured that it does indeed accord with it, we must note that in every disjunctive judgment, its scope (the totality of everything that is contained under it) is represented as a whole divided into parts (the subordinate concepts). Since one subordinate concept cannot be contained under the other, they are thought as co-ordinated with each other, and not as subordinated one to another. Moreover, they determine each other, not in one direction only (as in a series), but in all directions (as in an interactive whole, where assuming one member of the classification excludes all the others, and vice versa).

<m46> A similar connection is thought in a whole consisting of things. Here, one thing is not subordinated to another as an effect, where the other is the cause of its existence. Rather, each is simultaneously and reciprocally co-ordinated with the other, with each being the cause of the determination of the other (as, for example, the parts of a body reciprocally attract, but also repel each other). This is a completely different kind of connection than is to be found in the simple relation between cause and effect (or ground and consequence). Here, the consequence does not reciprocally determine the ground, and hence the two together do not constitute a single whole — just as the world and its creator do not constitute a single whole.

<m47> So the understanding follows the same procedure when it [B113] represents to itself the scope of a disjunctive concept, as when it thinks a thing as divisible. In the case of concepts, the members of the disjunction exclude each other, and yet are combined in a single scope. Similarly, in the case of things, the understanding represents to itself the parts of a thing as substances, each of which exists exclusively of the rest, and yet as combined in a single whole.

<m48> §12

In the history of transcendental philosophy, there is another chapter which contains pure concepts of the understanding. Although they are not numbered among the categories, the ancients took them to be apriori concepts of objects. But if so, these concepts would enlarge the number of categories — which cannot be. They are listed in the famous scholastic tag: Every being is one, true, and good. In fact, this principle has turned out to be of very little use, since only tautologies follow from it — so useless that, in modern times, it is usually allowed a place in metaphysics only out of little more than courtesy. Nevertheless, despite its apparent vacuity, a thought which has survived for such a long time always deserves to have its origins investigated. It is also reasonable to suppose that it is based on some rule or other of the understanding, which has merely been misinterpreted — as often happens.

<m49> These supposedly transcendental [B114] predicates of things are nothing other than logical requirements and criteria for any knowledge of things in general, and they ground this knowledge in the categories of quantity, namely those of unity, plurality, and totality. However, the ancients must have taken these predicates, which are essentially material, as belonging to the possibility of things themselves. In fact they needed them only in a formal sense, as belonging to the logical requirements for any knowledge; but they carelessly turned these criteria for thought into properties of things in themselves.

<m50> To explain:

1. In all knowledge of an object, there is the unity of the concept. This can be called qualitative unity, in that only the unity of the synthesis of the multiplicity of knowledge is thought through it — this is rather like the thematic unity of a play, a speech, or a story.
2. Then there is the truth of a concept with respect to its consequences. The more true consequences that flow from a given concept, the more indications there are of its objective reality. This could be called the qualitative plurality of the common, defining characteristics which belong to the core of a concept, and which are not thought in it quantitatively.
3. Finally there is perfection, which consists in the fact that the above plurality goes inwards as well as outwards. It leads back to the unity of the concept, and it is in complete harmony with this concept, and with no other. This can be called its qualitative perfection, or totality.

<m51> From this it is obvious [B115] that confusing these logical criteria for the possibility of knowledge in general with the three categories of quantity corrupts the categories. In the categories, the unity of the process of creating a particular quantity must be taken as thoroughly homogeneous. But here the categories are transformed, simply in order to connect additional heterogeneous elements of knowledge in a single consciousness, using the quality of the knowledge as a principle.

<m52> So the criterion for the possibility of a concept is its definition; but the definition is not the criterion for the possibility of the object of the concept. The definition includes everything required for constructing the whole concept:

• the unity of the concept;
• the truth of everything that can be immediately deduced from it;
• and finally the completeness of what has been deduced from it.

<m53> Similarly, the criteria for the validity of a hypothesis are:

• the reasonableness of the assumed basis for explanation, or its unity without auxiliary hypotheses;
• the truth of the consequences which can be drawn from it — that is, their internal consistency and their correspondence with experience;
• and finally the completeness of the basis for explanation of these consequences.

These consequences lead us back to nothing more or less than what was already assumed in the hypothesis. What was thought synthetically apriori comes back to us analytically aposteriori, and the two are in accordance with each other.

<m54> So the transcendental table of the categories would not be completed by adding the concepts of unity, truth, and perfection, as if it were somehow defective without them. [B116] Rather, we use them as coming under the universal logical laws of the consistency of knowledge with itself, since the relation of these concepts to objects is completely irrelevant.

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