The same will is thought as not free in the appearance and as free as belonging to a thing in itself, without contradiction

The passage

If the critique has not erred in teaching that the object is to be taken in two meanings, as appearance or as thing in itself, and if the deduction of its concepts of the understanding is right, so that the principle of causality applies only to things as objects of experience and the same things as things in themselves are not subject to it, then the very same will is thought, in the appearance, the visible actions, as necessarily conforming to the law of nature and so far not free, and yet, as belonging to a thing in itself, as not subject to that law and hence as free, without any contradiction.

The whole sentence at B xxvii–xxviii (AA 3:17.18–28), the positive half of the case of the will. The statement is conditional because the sentence is: Kant makes the result depend on the critique's not having erred and on the deduction's being right, and does not here assert either, though the »da« of »da sie ... nehmen lehrt« says that the critique does teach the two meanings. The result itself has three parts, kept in order: the will in the appearance is »dem Naturgesetze nothwendig gemäß und so fern nicht frei«; the same will »als einem Dinge an sich selbst angehörig« is »jenem nicht unterworfen, mithin als frei«; and the two are thought »ohne daß hiebei ein Widerspruch vorgeht«. The verb is »gedacht«, thought, not cognized; the next sentence says why it cannot be cognized (c-kant-freedom-cannot-be-cognized-by-speculative-reason).

Kant says the will is thought »als einem Dinge an sich selbst angehörig«, as belonging to a thing in itself, and no passage in the map says that the will is the thing in itself; the comparison with Schopenhauer, who says »Ding an sich aber ist allein der Wille« (WWV I § 21), rests on that difference and is set out on the comparison page. On the two-aspect reading the »zweierlei Bedeutung« are two ways of considering one object and the will's belonging to a thing in itself is the same will considered apart from the conditions of sensibility; on the two-object reading the thing in itself the will belongs to is a being distinct from the appearance. The sentence's »eben derselbe Wille« is one will under both; the map does not pick. The negative half of the case, what would follow had the distinction not been made, is c-kant-without-distinction-free-will-is-a-contradiction, and the application to one action, »in anderer Beziehung genommen«, is c-kant-same-action-in-another-relation (B xxviii–xxix). It is a premise of a-kant-freedom-thinkable-under-the-critical-distinction.