Kant on Complete and Thoroughgoing Determination

Abstract In section two of the Ideal of Pure Reason in the Critique of Pure Reason , Kant provides an intricate attempt to ground possibility in the idea of “all of reality” ( omnitudo realitiatis ). The section begins with two principles, 1) the principle of determinability and 2) the principle of thoroughgoing determination. How the two principles work and relate to each other has been a matter of scholarly debate. The paper contributes to this debate first by outlining Kant’s different senses of ‘determination’. It then uses the senses to suggest a distinction between thoroughgoing determination and complete determination. The distinction enables a reading of the first moves of Kant’s argument in the section. Then the paper places Kant’s use of complete determination in the context of his theory of cognition and criticism of the Leibnizian rationalist tradition.