Kantian Prequel

This chapter argues that Kant in the Critique of Pure Reasons and his Prolegomena problematized the distinction between substance and attribute long before the advent of analytic philosophy. Kant did so because he realized that the distinction between the concepts of substance and attribute is problematic if the concept of causation is problematic, for the reasons Hume gave. Kant’s efforts, including his Metaphysical Deduction and Second Analogy, to transcendentally justify the employment of the category of substantia et accidens were ultimately a failure. This set the stage for Moore’s conceptual realism, an ontological scheme free of both substances and attributes.