La nouvelle conception kantienne de l’ontologie a la fin des annees 1760. l’indetermination empirique du concept de « ein etwas überhaupt »

Abstract

This paper starts from the idea that Kantian ontology should not be interpreted as a mere critical reconsideration of the theory of “being in general”, but rather as a new kind of science dealing with the “being in general object” of the phenomenon. In this regard, through an analysis of the new definition of ontology that Kant proposes in Reflection 3959, we will try to show that the grounds supporting this reading are to be found in the new profile of indeterminacy that characterizes the direct precursor of the critical concept of “an object in general”, i.e. the notion of “ein Etwas überhaupt”. In particular, we will show that this concept, while still possessing a metaphysical indeterminacy in the sense of the classical ontological paradigm in the context of the Beweisgrund (1763), takes on a profile of indeterminacy in the late 1760s that is functional for the anticipation of the empirical matter of phenomena in accordance with the new Kantian “Lehrbregriff” about the formal ideality of space and time.