If the critique is right to take the object in two meanings, freedom can be thought without contradiction

The passage

If the critique has not erred in taking the object in two meanings, as appearance or as thing in itself, and the principle of causality applies only to things as objects of experience, then the same will is thought as not free in the appearance and as free as belonging to a thing in itself, without contradiction; and if a will thinkable as free without contradiction gives a representation of freedom without contradiction, which is the map's assumption, then, if the critical distinction and the restriction hold, freedom can be thought, its representation containing no contradiction.

The argument

1. P1The same will is thought as not free in the appearance and as free as belonging to a thing in itself, without contradiction
2. P2Assumption. If the same will is thought as free, as belonging to a thing in itself, and as not free in the appearance without contradiction, then the representation of freedom contains no contradiction in itself (the map's bridge from the will of B xxvii–xxviii to the freedom of B xxviii; Kant's text moves from the one sentence to the next by »Ob ich nun gleich ... so kann ich mir doch«, and the two words »Widerspruch« do not say the same thing, as the body explains).
3. Infer.hypothetical syllogism
4. CFreedom can be thought without contradiction, if the critical distinction of the two kinds of representation holds

The argument is the two sentences at B xxvii–xxviii (AA 3:17.18–18.11), and its conclusion is as conditional as they are. Premise 1 is the first sentence whole: if the critique has not erred in taking the object in two meanings, and if its deduction is right, so that causality is restricted to things as objects of experience, then the same will is thought as not free and as free »ohne daß hiebei ein Widerspruch vorgeht« (3:17.18–28). The conclusion is the main clause of the second sentence: »so kann ich mir doch die Freiheit denken, d. i. die Vorstellung davon enthält wenigstens keinen Widerspruch in sich, wenn unsere kritische Unterscheidung beider (der sinnlichen und intellectuellen) Vorstellungsarten und die davon herrührende Einschränkung der reinen Verstandesbegriffe ... statt hat« (3:18.06–11). The form reaches it by hypothetical syllogism under the one antecedent, the two meanings and the restriction together.

Three things are the map's and are said here. First, the step from premise 1 to the conclusion: Kant's first sentence concludes that the will is thought free without contradiction, his second that freedom can be thought, its representation containing no contradiction, and the text joins them only by the concessive »Ob ich nun gleich ... so kann ich mir doch«. The two words »Widerspruch« are not the same: the first (3:17.28) is a contradiction between the two predicates, free and not free, of one will; the second (3:18.07–08) is a contradiction inside the representation of freedom. The bridge that passes from the one to the other is the second premise, an assumption, and that passage is what a reader may dispute. Second, the antecedent: the first sentence's conditions are that the critique rightly »das Object in zweierlei Bedeutung nehmen lehrt« and that »die Deduction ihrer Verstandesbegriffe richtig ist, mithin« causality is restricted (3:17.18–24); the second sentence's are »unsere kritische Unterscheidung beider ... Vorstellungsarten und die davon herrührende Einschränkung« (3:18.08–11). The form takes the two meanings of the object and the two kinds of representation as one distinction, k, and the restriction as one, r, which the first sentence draws from the deduction and the second from the distinction itself; both identifications are the map's. Third, the deduction: the first sentence makes the restriction depend on it (»wenn die Deduction ... richtig ist, mithin«, c-kant-causality-applies-only-to-things-as-objects-of-experience), and the second sentence does not name it; since the conclusion claim's antecedent has the restriction and not the deduction, the form takes r as given in the antecedent and the sentence on the deduction is not a premise. It is the sentence that supplies r, and a reader who wants the deduction in the chain may ask for the step.

The truth table says only that the conclusion holds in every assignment that satisfies the premises. It does not say that the critique is right, that the deduction is right, or that the two meanings remove the contradiction, which is premise 1 and a matter of fidelity, nor does it settle how »zweierlei Bedeutung« is to be read (two-aspect, two-object). The negative half of the case, that without the distinction the contradiction stands (c-kant-without-distinction-free-will-is-a-contradiction), is not a premise here; it is the contrast the argument answers. Why freedom cannot be cognized, though thought, is the concessive clause of the same second sentence (c-kant-freedom-cannot-be-cognized-by-speculative-reason).