Kants Kritik am Prinzip der Identität der Ununterscheidbaren

Abstract

Allais’ analysis of Kant’s transcendental idealism invites us to rethink its relationship to other forms of idealism. The paper starts with an outline of Kant’s criticism of Leibniz’ principle of the identity of the indiscernibles: according to Kant, two things are identical only by virtue of the identity of both their intrinsic and their relational properties. The argument is the following: 1) Kant asserts empirical realism against Berkley’s subjective idealism; 2) the particular version of structural realism that follows from his rejection of subjectivism is not self-sufficient, since relations need ontological grounding; 3) contrary to Leibniz, Kant decouples ontological grounding from logical reduction. Thus, a distinction must be drawn between intrinsic and relational properties.