Kant borrowed the term categories from Aristotle, but with the concession that Aristotle's own categorizations were faulty. Aristotle's imperfection is apparent from his inclusion of "some modes of pure sensibility (quando, ubi, situs, also prius, simul), also an empirical concept (motus), none of which can belong to this genealogical register of the understanding."
Kant's divisions, however, are guided by his search in the mind for what makes synthetic a priori judgments possible.
Function of thought in judgment | Categories of understanding | Principles of pure understanding |
---|---|---|
Quantity | Quantity | |
UniversalParticularSingular | UnityPluralityTotality | Axioms of Intuition |
Quality | Quality | |
AffirmativeNegativeInfinite | RealityNegationLimitation | Anticipations of Perception |
Relation | Relation | |
CategoricalHypotheticalDisjunctive | Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens)Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)Of Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient) | Analogies of Experience |
Modality | Modality | |
ProblematicalAssertoricalApodeictical | Possibility-ImpossibilityExistence-Non-existenceNecessity-Contingence | Postulates of Empirical Thought in General |