Abstract

In current research, there is an increasing tendency to subject the Critique of Pure Reason to a realist reading and to understand Kant's concept of experience in the tradition of British Empiricism. In contrast, against the background of the paradigm of imagination advanced by Descartes and Locke in the 18th century, the present study tries to demonstrate in a historical as well as systematic perspective that Kant’s theoretical decisions solely concern »appearances«, which as constitutional achievements of subjective productivity cannot be reconciled with a realist interpretation – just as little as Kant’s discursive concept of truth in his theory of judgement, with which apriorism becomes dependent on social acts of recognition.