Über den Ausdruck ›Erkenntnis‹ in Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft.

German words ending in ›-nis‹ can have either the female or the neutral gender. As is well known, in his Critique of Pure Reason as well as in other writings, Kant often shifts from the neuter to the feminine for words having the mentioned ending, without thereby leading to a difference in meaning. However, in German the word »knowledge « (as a neuter noun) does not only have an epistemological meaning, but a legal sense as well. It has the meaning of »arbitration award, a judge´s decision, verdict«. In the present article I try to prove that Kant occassionally uses the word »knowledge« in the legal sense rather than in the epistemological sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]