(1) the impossible (impossibility); (2) the possible but not actual (possibility, nonexistence); (3) the actual but not necessary (existence, contingence); (4) the necessary (necessity). But since it must, in the end, be conceded that all fact is necessary, it is impossible to admit the reality of the conception of the possible but not actual, and of the actual but not necessary. There remain, therefore, only the conceptions of the necessary and of the impossible. In fact, however, the distinctions between the assertoric, the problematic, and the apodeictical judgement relate to our attitude to reality and not to reality, and therefore involve no different conceptions relating to reality. It must, therefore, be admitted that the 'metaphysical' deduction of the categories breaks down doubly. Judgement, as Kant describes it, does not involve the forms of judgement borrowed from Formal Logic as its essential differentiations; and these forms of judgement do not involve the categories. CHAPTER VIII THE TRANSCENDENTAL DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES The aim of the _Transcendental Deduction_ is to show that the categories, though _a priori_ as originating in the understanding, are valid, i. e. applicable to individual things. It is the part of the _Critique_ which has attracted most attention and which is the most difficult to follow. The difficulty of interpretation is increased rather than diminished by the complete rewriting of this portion in the second edition. For the second version, though it does not imply a change of view, is undoubtedly even more obscure than the first. It indeed makes one new contribution to the subject by adding an important link in the argument,[1] but the importance of the link is nullified by the fact that it is not really the link which it professes to be. The method of treatment adopted here will be to consider only the minimum of passages necessary to elucidate Kant's meaning and to make use primarily of the first edition. [1] Cf. p. 206-10. It is necessary, however, first to consider the passage in the _Metaphysical Deduction_ which nominally connects the list of categories with the list of forms of judgement.[2] For its real function is to introduce a new and third account of knowledge, which forms the keynote of the _Transcendental Deduction_.[3] [2] B. 102-5, M. 62-3. Cf. pp. 155-6. [3] The first two accounts are (1) that of judgement given B. 92-4, M. 56-8, and (2) that of judgement implicit in the view that the forms of judgement distinguished by Formal Logic are functions of unity. In A. 126, Mah. 215, Kant seems to imply--though untruly--that this new account coincides with the other two, which he does not distinguish.