Note 1350 — TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC DIVISION II THE TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC INTRODUCTORY COMMENT UPON THE COMPOSITE ORIGIN AND CONFLICTING TENDENCIES OF THE DIALECTIC.

The problem of freedom is first met with in Kant’s Lectures on Metaphysics (Pölitz, edition of 1821, pp. 89, 330), but is not there given as an antinomy, and is treated as falling within the field of theology. In Reflexion ii. 585, also, it is equated in terms of the category of ground and consequence, with the concept of Divine Existence, the “absolute or primum contingens (libertas).” Upon elimination of theology, and therefore of the cosmological argument, from the sphere of antinomy, Kant raised freedom to the rank of an independent problem.