In this talk, I develop  a novel interpretation of one line of Kant’s criticism of the claims of traditional metaphysics. While it is common to think that for Kant the objects of traditional metaphysics—the soul, freedom and God—cannot be cognized either because they cannot be given (e.g., in sensible intuition) or because arguments that lead to conclusions asserting their existence are defective, I argue that Kant is also criticizing claims about such objects because, of those objects of which we can be aware (e.g., by them being given in intuition), we cannot be aware of them as instantiating the positive properties represented by the concepts of the objects of traditional metaphysics, for there is a fundamental mismatch between how we represent objects that are given to us and the content represented in the concepts of the objects of traditional metaphysics. In addition, I consider how this line of criticism is relevant to the practice of contemporary analytic metaphysics. -Professor Eric Watkins