The Doctrine of Self-positing and Receptivity in Kant's Late ...
The Doctrine of Self-positing and Receptivity in Kant's Late ...
The Doctrine of Self-positing and Receptivity in Kant's Late ...
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
elation to what came before, <strong>and</strong> judge a relation <strong>of</strong> causality (that may or may not judge<br />
the nature <strong>of</strong> the cause correctly, but has the conditions that make the latter consideration<br />
possible).<br />
vi. General Conclusion: Doma<strong>in</strong>s <strong>of</strong> Positivity<br />
This chapter traced the significance <strong>and</strong> function <strong>of</strong> a concept that comes to<br />
dom<strong>in</strong>ate Kant‘s articulations <strong>of</strong> his transcendental philosophy <strong>in</strong> his Selbstsetzungslehre.<br />
<strong>The</strong> trajectory began with a study <strong>of</strong> the implication <strong>of</strong> the concept <strong>of</strong> Setzung <strong>in</strong> Kant‘s<br />
pre-critical pro<strong>of</strong> for the existence <strong>of</strong> god, proceeded then <strong>in</strong>to an account <strong>of</strong> its<br />
<strong>in</strong>volvement <strong>in</strong> Kant‘s account <strong>of</strong> the possibility <strong>of</strong> determ<strong>in</strong>ation <strong>of</strong> particulars by means<br />
<strong>of</strong> a concept <strong>of</strong> negative magnitude grounded on the positivity <strong>of</strong> existence, <strong>and</strong> f<strong>in</strong>ally<br />
ended with the use <strong>of</strong> the concept to refer to a function <strong>of</strong> self-affection <strong>of</strong> the subject‘s<br />
m<strong>in</strong>d that enacted the necessary determ<strong>in</strong>ations for the possibility <strong>of</strong> cognition <strong>of</strong> an<br />
object. Every s<strong>in</strong>gle one <strong>of</strong> these texts – <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g the Dialectic‘s depiction <strong>of</strong> reason‘s<br />
natural need to give itself an ideal object – exhibited the centrality <strong>of</strong> f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g a legitimate<br />
ground from which to underst<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> secure the possibility for a synthesis between the<br />
unify<strong>in</strong>g role <strong>of</strong> the copula <strong>and</strong> predicates that conta<strong>in</strong> more than just further analytically<br />
composed concepts. That ground for the possibility <strong>of</strong> synthesiz<strong>in</strong>g more than the<br />
predicative content <strong>of</strong> a concept, <strong>of</strong> determ<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g the concept as also be<strong>in</strong>g-there, was at<br />
first posited <strong>in</strong> a necessary existence <strong>of</strong> an entity – god – to only then be situated with<strong>in</strong><br />
the <strong>in</strong>troduction <strong>of</strong> space <strong>and</strong> time as the a priori sensible forms <strong>of</strong> <strong>in</strong>tuition, as part <strong>of</strong><br />
64