Abstract

In the Transcendental Dialectic of the first Critique Kant sets forth the ancient problem of freedom and determinism by way of the Third Antinomy. The problem, according to Kant, arises out of a conflict of reason with itself as it seeks an unconditioned ground which will provide a unity for all conditions. In the thesis of the Third Antinomy reason sees the necessity of postulating a free causality “without which, even in the [ordinary] course of nature the series of appearances on the side of the causes can never be complete.” On the other hand, in the antithesis, there is a denial of such transcendental freedom on the ground that it would undercut the unity of the work of the understanding so that “the appearances which in their natural course are regular and uniform would be reduced to disorder and incoherence.”