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

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y Descartes description that any time my thinking ceases so does any possibility of knowing if the ―I‖ exists. The recognition is also immediate because the evidence of my thinking, which assumes an ―I‖ to which all awareness is attributed, is one and the same as my awareness of this evidence. In other words, this awareness of the ―I think,‖ which is an awareness of all this ―I‖ is conscious, is also the recognition of something that belongs to it and with which it cannot be parted. Without entering the greater debate of the success or failure of this proof on its own terms, here is one suggestion as to how this proof may be legitimate. The key would reside in the first person character of ―I am.‖ Because the result of this intuitive reasoning is in the first person, there is no need to verify outside itself if it is in fact the case. In other words, that ―I am‖ cannot be falsified in light of my thinking the intuition of ―I am‖ is both evident and certain. 198 This first person relation is what would make the cogito the ideal candidate for arriving at a necessary truth. The reason for introducing feeling as a form of instantiation of intuition here is to be able to make the thinking activity through which the proof takes place somewhat concrete. Appealing to the absence of a referent—the actual movement of the body as one walks—for the possibility of asserting the truth of these feelings as conceived here as thought exemplifies in what way one‘s thinking in general is itself self-referential. This self-referentiality together with the idea that all thought or awareness is possible only as mine is what allows for the intuition of the existence of myself. There are no other representational, conceptual, creative tools at play in this form of thinking. Once Descartes takes away the referent in his explanation of the way in which ―I walk‖ can be 198 This is an idea taken from a much more complex argument in Bernard Williams‘ ―The Certainty of the Cogito.‖ The discussion here is not meant to represent that complexity. 134
true, the nature of intuition concretely reveals itself. The appeal to feeling as an instantiation of intuition also allows one to enter into the present and immediate phenomenal experience of what is otherwise a private event of the mind. Even if one is not engaging in walking or seeing in the outer world, that is to say, even if it is an illusion, one can identify what the appearance of this ―feels like.‖ As such, the analogy between both intuitive events draws one closer to its lived experience, that is to say, to the ―what it is like‖ to think thought and intuitively discover that ―I am.‖ Here there is no longer space for illusion. Although not immediately relevant in this context, it is of significance to note briefly that in Descartes‘ proof, he concludes that the ―I‖ is a ―thinking thing.‖ However, the ontological status of this ―I‖ is open to interpretation, at least within the bounds of the second Meditation. Is there anything other than the identification of the ―I‖ with ―thinking‖? In his lectures on the second Meditation David Allison claims that at this level the ―I‘s‖ ontological status remains undefined. If it is not defined, however, then when Descartes asserts that all we know is that the ―I‖ is a thinking thing, the ―thing‖ in this statement connotes the existence of a substance with thought as an attribute. As seen already in sections two and three, in Kant‘s account of apperception as an act through which the subject knower can be proven to be an existent ―I‖ limited to thought alone. If, contrary to Allison, Descartes‘ proof alone assumes a substance, then there remains here a fundamental difference. However, regardless of the answer to this question, which would affect the degree to which Descartes holds that the cognition of the soul or mind is possible, a Kantian critique of it is still in order with respect to the concept of thought itself. As just shown, 135
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The Doctrine of Self-positing and R
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Abstract of the Dissertation The Do
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Contents Abbreviations vi Preface v
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Preface The interest in the Opus po
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Acknowledgments I am in the debt of
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Introduction The Selbstsetzungslehr
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of receptivity‖ reveals also the
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enables thinkers in the twenty firs
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form of ―principles of synthesis
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a transition that has its own ―sp
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the English language literature tha
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his account was circular. As Först
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fascicle written by Kant between 18
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the doctrine of self-positing attem
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preemptively with this retrospectiv
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meaning of its particular relations
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ii. a. Ontological Proof In its com
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ecause the only operative rule for
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In the context of the BDG, the natu
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3. It is unconditionally impossible
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. We know that a condition for inne
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Realerklährung - an explanation of
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ii. b. Setzung‘s Function as Posi
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Negation can also result from chang
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ii. Kritik der reinen Vernunft ii.
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foreclosed. This is precisely what
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none of this is particularly new. N
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elations of thoroughgoing determina
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that exhibits it must share in the
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of this ideal and its final personi
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it perceives only its effects. In a
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category causality in the second an
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Just as time functions as the form
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spontaneous nature. Or perhaps it r
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points to the fact that in the act
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latter (as for the other dynamical
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unity is expressed. In the second a
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Kant‘s new transcendental idealis
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idealize what can be claimed to be.
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The structure in the schematic of t
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critical model entails thus the sub
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continuous reiteration of the most
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[machen] of experience with the sou
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and not actuality. 103 These fields
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functions as ground to a universal
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appearance, phenomenon, and noumeno
Page 93 and 94: Handschrift, when he writes: The mi
Page 95 and 96: thought. While the spirit of the cr
Page 97 and 98: faculties of representation in ligh
Page 99 and 100: particularly in their presence, uni
Page 101 and 102: knower to thin an objective represe
Page 103 and 104: doctrine, the name is oftentimes qu
Page 105 and 106: to intuition. This status brings to
Page 107 and 108: Chapter Three: The Analytic Level 1
Page 109 and 110: ―Paralogisms‖ section. 136 Desp
Page 111 and 112: the Selbstsetzungslehre. In this re
Page 113 and 114: Not being able to be thought by the
Page 115 and 116: This connection between the single
Page 117 and 118: it concerns the possibility of the
Page 119 and 120: perspective of its relation to the
Page 121 and 122: apperception and b) the synthetic o
Page 123 and 124: and the section ―On the Paralogis
Page 125 and 126: synthetic determination of its intu
Page 127 and 128: on the possibility of attaching the
Page 129 and 130: distinguished from this ―I‖). 1
Page 131 and 132: object. 177 The consciousness of my
Page 133 and 134: doctrine. One finds, in fact, that
Page 135 and 136: perspective, contained analytically
Page 137 and 138: an inference: [...] 186 The first s
Page 139 and 140: this follows from the fact that for
Page 141 and 142: feeling can be said to be a form of
Page 143: that of which we are conscious as o
Page 147 and 148: This formulation of the ―I am‖
Page 149 and 150: Chapter Four: The Ontological Level
Page 151 and 152: of identity, the analytic containme
Page 153 and 154: there Kant nevertheless asks: ―An
Page 155 and 156: objectification and ―I am‖ as V
Page 157 and 158: The first synthetic act of consciou
Page 159 and 160: introducing a different field of de
Page 161 and 162: where the earlier indeterminate emp
Page 163 and 164: What is given first to the power of
Page 165 and 166: epresentation that was given prior
Page 167 and 168: outside itself, which it can then d
Page 169 and 170: ground that can accommodate the exp
Page 171 and 172: These passages by no means say the
Page 173 and 174: sensible‖ (as Deleuze would phras
Page 175 and 176: schematization. What that is like w
Page 177 and 178: from which the ―I think‖ gains
Page 179 and 180: The path taken to arrive at a basic
Page 181 and 182: As seen in chapter four, the relati
Page 183 and 184: In so far as the Selbstsetzungslehr
Page 185 and 186: MAN that, indeed, no science unders
Page 187 and 188: medical doctors, educators, and phy
Page 189 and 190: the grounding of the human sciences
Page 191 and 192: ______ ―Metaphysical Foundations
Page 193 and 194: S. Harris. Revised Edition. Indiana
Page 195 and 196:
Critique of Pure Reason. Chicago, U
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