The quantity of judgments and the categories of quantity: a problem in the metaphysical deduction

In the KrV and in Prolegomena the table of judgments establishes a correspondence between the quantity of judgments and the categories of quantity: universal judgment corresponds to unity, particular judgment to plurality, singular judgment to totality. Many commentators have dismissed this correspondence as ‘wrong’. I maintain that this is against the letter and the spirit of Kant’s view of what it means to use a logical Leitfaden to find the categories as Denkformen. I show that the correlation between the quantity of judgment and categories of quantity in KrV and the Prolegomena takes into account the distinction between omnitudo distributiva and omnitudo collectiva occurring in many logic textbooks (e.g. Wallis, Wolff, Reusch, Knutzen). In this perspective the singular judgment only allows for omnitudo collective and is therefore the only adequate clue to the category of totality, meant as a category related to those of unity and plurality, but still independent of them.