Alternative to Ontology or Alternative Ontology? Allison on the ‘Proud Name’ of Ontology (A247/B303)

Abstract This paper argues that, far from supporting, an oft-cited passage of the Phenomena and Noumena chapter (A247/B303) instead belies, Allison’s influential thesis that Kant’s transcendental idealism is not an ‘alternative ontology’ but a methodological or meta-epistemological ‘alternative to ontology’ that is devoid of specific metaphysical content. Following a programmatic sketch of Kant’s system of principles as a regional ontology of nature, it is argued that the precise wording and original punctuation of that passage suggest that the transcendentally realist ontologies of the past are to ‘give way’ to just such an immanent ontology of the world of outer experience.