ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that a proper interpretation of Immanuel Kant's political philosophy is possible only if one recognizes the distinctive approach he employs to the issue of political authority. It argues that at the core of Kant's mature political philosophy–as it is expressed in his Die Metaphysik der Sitten–lies a transcendental deduction of political authority. Kant's theory would be shown to designate a way between the empirical idealism of proce-duralism and the transcendental realism of natural law. The chapter deals with some general remarks concerning the basic framework of transcendental deductions, particularly with regard to their employment in the justification of regulative ideas. It provides an exposition of the core deduction establishing the legitimacy of political authority as it is presented in the first part of the Die Metaphysik der Sitten, commonly referred to as the Rechtslehre. The chapter concludes with a brief assessment of the import of this analysis for the interpretive approaches.
