Abstract

The debate over Kant’s transcendental idealism focuses on two variants of the two-aspect view: an »ontological« reading challenges the Prauss /Allison interpretation, by arguing that Kant is ontologically committed to the existence of things as they are in themselves. With this paper the original view strikes back: it will be shown that its characterization as being merely »methodological« is a misunderstanding. The original view rather implies an ontology, according to which the appearance aspect is fundamentally more basic than the in-itself aspect. This renews the sense in which Kant’s philosophy is as well a critical metaphysics as a transcendental idealism.