The Doctrine of Self-positing and Receptivity in Kant's Late ...

distinguished from this ―I‖). 173
These two interpretative schemes of the idea of the ―wodurch,‖ however, should
be taken here as mere descriptive folds as they add nothing substantial to Kant's main
argument for the necessity of a synthetic unity of apperception for representations to be
possible, including synthetic a priori judgments. This main argument was already
accounted for as a ―logical act.‖ Their importance resides instead in that this concept
appears used in Kant‘s discussion of apperception as both object and means of self-
objectification.
There remains, however, a terminological problem when these passages from the
Op are taken together: the first speaks of the subject making itself into a Gegenstand and
the others speak instead of the making itself into an Object. 174 The significance of this
terminological difference is, of course, an old subject of debate in interpretations of
Kant‘s theoretical philosophy. Eisler‘s entry for ―object‖ in his Kant-Lexicon claims that,
because there is no consistency in Kant‘s differing use of these terms, both concepts are
interchangeable. Förster‘s translation of the Op appears to support such an approach, as
it does not provide the reader with any editorial apparatus through which to identify
which term is being used when. Caygill‘s Kant Dictionary, on the other hand, takes the
distinction to be ―crucial to his transcendental philosophy.‖ A Gegenstand, according to
Caygill, is an object of experience or appearance that conforms to the limits of the
understanding and intuition, but may be an object of intuition without being related to the
functions of the understanding; it only becomes an Object when it is cognized by the
173 B407-9
174 In congruence with Kant‘s own text, I maintain the spelling of the word as Object and
not Objekt, which is the modern German spelling.
119