Abstract

The aim of this essay is to investigate various attempts at possible answers regarding the question of what is real. The basic assumption is that Kant had provided a philosophical theory of a kind such that it allows this question to be answered in a novel way. In order to show that, the philosophical conceptions of his predecessors are investigated: the metaphysical concept of A. G. Baumgarten on the one hand, the empirical concept of D. Hume on the other. The main result of the investigation is that, according to Kant, we can take something to be real only insofar as it is in a relationship to ourselves.