Kant’s Metaphor by Analogy between Ontology and Transcendental Philosophy

In the whole Critique of Pure Reason, the word ontology appears only three times, twice in the German form Ontologie (KrV, A 247/B 303, A 846/B 874), and once in the Latin form Ontologia (KrV, A 845/B 873). Most relevant is the contradictory meaning characterizing the term between the end of the Transcendental Analytic and the Architectonic of Pure Reason. In the first passage Kant declares that “the proud name of an ontology” must “give way to the modest one of a mere analytic of pure understanding” (KrV, A 247/B 303; Kant, 1998, p. 245),1 but actually ontology seems to survive such a harsh sentence. Indeed, in the Architectonic, Kant uses the Latin word Ontologia in brackets, to integrate the definition of transcendental philosophy as a subject treating “only the understanding and reason itself in a system of all concepts and principles that are related to objects in general, without assuming objects that would be given (Ontologia)” (KrV, A 845/B 873, Kant, 1998, p. 698). In this article we will focus on the contribution of the lectures on metaphysics to the achievement of the transcendental perspective. Our goal is to show the different levels of implication of ontology within the critical turn. This analysis will also enable us to discover the implicit use of a particular kind of metaphor in the shift from ontology to transcendental philosophy.