 The arguments about the world are referred to by Kant as “antinomies” because in the field of cosmology, reason gives rise to sets of opposing arguments (the “thesis” and the “antithesis”) with respect to each issue. Thus, the case here differs from the paralogisms (and, as we shall see, from the Ideal). The reason for this difference resides in the nature of the idea of reason in question. The idea of the “world” purports to be an idea of an unconditioned but somehow still sensible object (cf. A479/B509). Unlike the soul and God, which are clearly supposed to be non-sensible metaphysical entities, the sum total of all appearances refers specifically to spatio-temporal objects or events. Kant highlights this unique feature of the idea of the world by noting that whereas the ideas of the soul and God are “pseudo-rational,” the idea of the world is “pseudo-empirical.” It is precisely this feature of the idea (that it both purports to refer to a somehow sensible object AND that it involves thinking that object as already given in its unconditioned totality) that leads to the two opposed sets of arguments. For with respect to each problem addressed (the finitude vs. the infinitude of the world, freedom vs. causality, etc.), one can either adopt a broadly “dogmatic” (Platonic) or broadly “empiricist” (Epicurean) approach, each reflecting a different way of thinking the totality of conditions (See A471–2/B499–500). More specifically, one can either think the unconditioned as an intelligible ground of appearances, or as the total (even if infinite) set of all appearances. Unfortunately, each of these conceptual strategies is unsatisfying. To accommodate the thesis interest in ultimate (intelligible) beginnings is to posit something “too big” for the understanding, something that is never to be met with empirically (e.g., freedom, ultimately simple substances). Thus, although the thesis positions satisfy reason’s demand for the unconditioned, they do so by fleeing (however unwittingly) into an intelligible realm, by providing explanations that abstract from that which is or could be given in any spatio-temporal experience. But adopting the empiricist approach is no more rewarding, in the final analysis; although the antithesis positions remain securely lodged within “nature’s own resources,” they can never measure up to the demands of reason’s ideas. Such a strategy is “too small” for reason which, even despite its capacity to think beyond all standards of sense and by its demand for more thorough explanation. Worse, the antithesis arguments, in refusing to go beyond the spatio-temporal realm, end up being just as dogmatic as their opposites, for the assumption is that whatever holds within space and time also holds generally. To assume this is to take what are for Kant merely subjective features of our intuition (forms of sensibility, space and time) to be universal ontological conditions holding of everything whatsoever. 