Abstract

This paper aims to elucidate the Kantian notion of the “concept of an object in general”. In a passage from the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant offers a clue to this by indicating that the categories are the concepts that define the object in general. This paper seeks to clarify the notion of “concept of an object in general” by analyzing how the relationship between categories and the object is to be understood. For this, it first explains the Kantian doctrine of conceptual inclusion and of the highest genus, and relates it to the notion at hand. Secondly, it investigates the way in which the relationship between the concept of an object in general and the categories is to be understood, based on the aforementioned passage of the First Critique. Finally, it shows the role that referentiality plays in the way that this concept and its relation with the categories should be understood.