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

after the consequence of the appearance of A, which is = 0.
Without going any further into NG, it is possible to see that within Kant‘s
conceptualization of negation qua reality, the concept of Position functions as a fold over
and against the concept of negative magnitude. Common to two real opposite predicates,
the Position of the subject functions as the positive placeholder or loci of the
consequence of their relation. In this way it marks a particular individuation out of
relations of positivity and, in the case of relations of real opposition, positivity conceived
as negativity with respect to its opposite. The negation that results from these relations
constitute real determinations of the thing that is posited – the body is at rest, for example
– which in turn configure possible determinations of immanent relations among the sum
total of posited things in the real world.
With NG it is possible to see in what way the concept of Position plays out as one
of the constitutive parts of a different –yet intimately related – point. The function of the
concept appears to be in complete agreement with what is said in BDG, and the essay as a
whole can be seen as an extension of the latter. If the BDG introduced a definition of the
concept as well as the kind of inner possibility and ground that belongs to any complete
account of Sein überhaupt, NG developed the concept of negation, not as aufhebung
(essential to BDG‘s arguments ), but as the result of positive relations in reality. The latter
is a natural outcome of both thinking Sein überhaupt as absolute position and
understanding further the characteristics of the material element of inner possibility. 53
53 This is not to deny that some of the elements in NG were already discussed in BDG;
they were. It is simply that they are now at the heart of Kant‘s thought, and, for the
purposes of this chapter, the essay represents a different place where Position acquires
significance.
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