 However, the phenomenalist reading of transcendental idealism has been challenged on many fronts, both as an interpretation of Kant and (often on the assumption that it is Kant’s view) on its own philosophical merits. This section explores the origin of the phenomenalist reading in the Feder-Garve review and its basis in the text of the Critique. The next section provides some reasons to think that the phenomenalist reading is more defensible as an interpretation of Kant than is sometimes appreciated. Section 3.4 explores influential objections by Kant’s contemporaries to transcendental idealism, on the assumption that the phenomenalist interpretation of that doctrine is correct, which were later taken up as criticisms of the phenomenalist interpretation itself.  Section 4  introduces a theme explored in greater detail in later sections: the development of non-phenomenalist interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism.