 Thinking, as we saw in  Section 4,  moves forward in a “synthetic” fashion from the less to the more determinate. That is, in taking up a second-order phenomenon, thinking works on an object that retains, qua appearance (phenomenon), an as yet undetermined subjective, doxastic residue. It brings (some of) this residue under laws, thus determining the object further: it is now better known and scientifically understood. Now, instead of seeking the constitutive legislative framework that transcendentally “grounded” that determination (the task of critical philosophy), critical psychology performs a “methodical regression”, viz., by undoing the object’s most recent determinations, thus revealing its prior, relatively more “subjective” phase.