Abstract
The centre of Kant's analysis in the first Critique is commonly set in the "transcendental deduction" of the categories. This has been described as "one of the most abstruse passages of argument, as also one of the most impressive and exciting, in the whole of philosophy." Philosophical excitement, however, is at some remove from the circus and the stadium. We may, perhaps, be reminded of a tightrope artist at work but scarcely of a dramatic victory against the odds. Any thrill the philosopher has to offer tends to come with a platitude rigorously examined and established.