This chapter presents a novel interpretation of the transcendental deduction which uses judicial imputation as a guide for understanding the structure and aim of the argument. Møller argues that the metaphysical deduction should not be read as the answer to the question quid facti, which should instead be found within the transcendental deduction. The parallel with judicial imputation shows that the transcendental deduction is a proof of an authorisation to judge. Judicial imputation presupposes that the judge has both the authority to subsume the case under the law and to apply the effects of the law to the case. This leads to a two-step interpretation of the B edition of the transcendental deduction, which focuses on appearances necessarily falling under the categories and the authorisation of the understanding to apply the categories to appearances.

This chapter is an investigation of the quid juris metaphor that introduces the transcendental deduction. It focuses on the parallel with legal deductions and the importance of this parallel for the transcendental deduction as a philosophical argument. This importance is explored through an analysis of the analogy between concepts and property, the quid juris metaphor and the historical background of deduction writings in Prussia. This analysis leads Møller to reject Henrich’s understanding of the transcendental deduction as a loosely structured proof of an origin.

This chapter explores the parallels between the critique of pure reason and the establishment of a civil condition in natural right theory. It shows how Kant’s conception of laws is ingrained in an extensive legal framework by focusing on two images, the one portraying the critique as the tribunal of reason and the other depicting the critique as the establishment of a rightful condition which is analogous to the establishment of a civil state. These images show that Kant’s account of a priori laws is not merely a colourful way of expressing a new philosophical approach; he is building an entire framework around a legal structure. In addition, the state of nature metaphor shows how the critique aims to provide a procedure for ending conflicts in metaphysics and thereby establish perpetual peace in philosophy.

This chapter explores the political aspect of the legal metaphors. The main question is how epistemic authority can be both individual and shared. The key metaphors in this chapter are the political community and the distinction between valid laws and arbitrary decrees. To understand this relationship, Møller considers the way we can conceive of the thinking self as a critical authority. On the political nature of pure reason, Onora O’Neill has provided a groundbreaking analysis, which Møller discusses in detail. The thought-provoking accounts of the legal structure of reason by Susan Meld Shell and Friedrich Kaulbach are also considered. Building on this discussion, Møller shows that the lawful nature of reason is a presupposition of its political use in debates and an enlightened community.

This chapter considers the presentation of reason as judge and its ability to distinguish between rightful claims and groundless pretensions. As background for this parallel, Møller considers the eighteenth-century debate on the problem of outdated laws. As a solution to this problem, two positions on judicial discretion emerged: the discretionary position, in which judges should be given greater discretion, and the positivist position, which promotes legal reform. Møller then shows that the metaphor of reason as judge should be read in consideration of the background of the debate on legal reform: at the beginning of the Critique, reason is a judge who is dissatisfied with the laws proposed by metaphysicians, but through the work these are revised and made to accord with reason’s own principles, thus making it legitimate to make judgements in accordance with the approved laws. This account of epistemic authority should be understood in connection with the formulation of cognition as judging, which makes the central question of epistemology one of legitimacy, proving which judgements thinkers can legitimately make.

This chapter shows that the antinomies of pure reason present an analogy between the critique and a civil trial in which reason in the narrow sense is challenged to prove that it can legitimately possess and use its ideas. In reconstructing the different parts of this image, Møller suggests reading the tribunal image as a second-order model of evaluation of judgements. In order to achieve this aim, Møller inspects the different roles and procedures mentioned in the juridical metaphors to see how they fit the different procedures in the antinomies. The chapter untangles the notions of the tribunal itself, the trial, the witnesses, the audience and the verdict. The image of the reader as judge is considered in its intellectual historical context, which shows an affinity between Kant’s use of this image and the project of enlightenment.

Beginning with Plato’s Republic, there is a long philosophical tradition of describing the mind as analogous to a state. The idea is that the lower cognitive faculties are governed and held in check by the higher faculties of which reason is the sovereign. This catalogue of analogies between reason and state is no doubt part of the tradition which Kant intends to evoke in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant’s legal metaphors are in this sense not historically unique or innovative and he makes no such claim. What is different about Kant’s legal metaphors is that the lawfulness of reason provides the constitutive structure of experience. Because of this focus on lawfulness, the legal metaphors prevail over the political ones.

The legal metaphors give a tangible comprehension of reason. As symbolic hypotyposes, they give us an idea of what reason might look like.

This chapter compares the portrayal of the critique as an inner tribunal to the traditional image of moral conscience as an inner tribunal. The main argument is that moral conscience is a model of the way in which a reflexive investigation can be both internal and objective. In support of this argument, Møller considers Kant’s claim made in the 1790s that an erring conscience is an absurdity. She argues that this claim should be understood in light of Kant’s account of moral conscience as a second-order capacity, which is not merely judicial but also legislative and executive. This analysis shows that Kant’s mature account of moral conscience is not a departure from but rather a development of the inner tribunal image. The parallel between the two inner tribunals shows that an internal investigation can reach a valid outcome if this outcome depends on the valid use of impersonal cognitive faculties.

This final chapter shows how Kant understands philosophical systematicity in analogy with legal systematicity. Taking into account the two other central illustrations of systematicity, architecture and organisms, Møller argues that only the legal metaphors illustrate the function of inner critique and the power-conferring role of reason’s lawfulness. This leads to an account of philosophy as the science of the laws of reason which takes into account the legal aspects of Kant’s philosophical methodology.

This chapter places Kant’s conception of a priori laws within the framework of the legal metaphors. It introduces the relevant aspects of natural right theory and the notion of laws in the natural sciences as historical background to the legal metaphors. The main argument is that Kant’s notion of laws is embedded in his legal metaphors and his account of natural regularities as lawful also originates in the natural right framework. This serves as background to Kant’s account of the understanding as prescribing laws to nature and to thought. The background of Kant’s notion of laws in natural right and natural science shows how reason’s a priori laws are both descriptive of regularities in nature and prescriptive of valid judgements.

Kant illustrates the Critique of Pure Reason with an intricate collection of legal images; the whole work is populated with laws, judges, lawyers, tribunals, legislators, witnesses and many other references to legal theory and practice. Both the critique of pure reason and reason as such are described as legislator, judge and tribunal. In the A edition’s preface, we learn that the task of a critique of reason is to institute a tribunal which is ‘none other than the critique of pure reason itself’ (A xii). In order to function as a court of justice, the critique of pure reason must also act ‘as wise legislators do’ (A 424/B 452) and revise proposed laws when they lead to contradictory judgements. Our approach to nature must be ‘like an appointed judge who compels witnesses to answer the questions he puts to them’ (B xiii). The critique of pure reason thus investigates whether reason can legislate and judge legitimately.