The phenomenological interpretation of Kant's “threefold synthesis” in Martin Heidegger's Kant and the problem of the Metaphysics

Abstract

The following essay aims to analyze Martin Heidegger's phenomenological interpretation of the function of pure (or transcendental) imagination in Immanuel Kant's threefold synthesis –according to the first edition of the Critique of pure reason. In the first part, we will review the threefold synthesis in analytical terms, in order to place the function of the transcendental imagination. On the second part, we will discuss the specific interpretation of the transcendental imagination in Martin Heidegger's Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. To what extent does Martin Heidegger's phenomenological interpretation contravene the foundations of transcendental philosophy?