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

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<strong>The</strong> analytic <strong>and</strong> ontological parts <strong>in</strong> the Selbstsetzungslehre are furthermore<br />

framed with<strong>in</strong> a discourse that articulates them as be<strong>in</strong>g for the purpose <strong>of</strong> experience or,<br />

<strong>in</strong> <strong>Kant's</strong> words, zum behuf der Erfahrung. In this respect, they can be situated with<strong>in</strong> the<br />

Op's larger project <strong>of</strong> f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g legitimate grounds for the possibility <strong>of</strong> a science <strong>of</strong> physics<br />

understood as a system <strong>of</strong> empirical cognitions; a system that <strong>in</strong> the doctr<strong>in</strong>e is articulated<br />

as noth<strong>in</strong>g other than a s<strong>in</strong>gle experience. In addition, without stepp<strong>in</strong>g out <strong>of</strong> this<br />

framework, one f<strong>in</strong>ds that three ontological Actus also <strong>in</strong>troduce a genetic account <strong>of</strong> the<br />

<strong>in</strong>dividuation <strong>of</strong> the Kantian subject—until now known theoretically <strong>in</strong> terms <strong>of</strong> the<br />

constitutive elements <strong>of</strong> a subjective universality—as participant <strong>in</strong> a dynamical<br />

unbounded world <strong>of</strong> empeiria. <strong>The</strong> character <strong>of</strong> this empeiria as such is the result <strong>of</strong> the<br />

differential relations <strong>in</strong> <strong>and</strong> among the fields <strong>of</strong> determ<strong>in</strong>ability brought forth by the<br />

subject's Act der Receptivität. Because for the purpose <strong>of</strong> the mak<strong>in</strong>g <strong>of</strong> experience these<br />

fields must be essentially capable <strong>of</strong> be<strong>in</strong>g given for them to become determ<strong>in</strong>ed, it is<br />

also necessary that the subject to which they are given posit itself through an Act der<br />

Spontaneität. It does so <strong>in</strong> two senses. In this latter Act, the subject affirms itself<br />

simultaneously as these fields <strong>of</strong> determ<strong>in</strong>ability <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong> them; it is concurrently the<br />

source <strong>of</strong> the conditions that constitute the character <strong>of</strong> what can be given <strong>and</strong> it is<br />

positioned with<strong>in</strong> these conditions <strong>in</strong> order to come to the encounter <strong>of</strong> that which is<br />

given. In <strong>posit<strong>in</strong>g</strong> itself as such, the subject confirms <strong>and</strong> configures its own basic<br />

cognitive character as source <strong>and</strong> limit <strong>of</strong> as well as subjection to the spatio-temporal,<br />

dynamic <strong>and</strong> unbounded world <strong>of</strong> empeiria. <strong>The</strong> Kantian model <strong>of</strong> the subject that<br />

th<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> itself, the acts <strong>of</strong> spontaneity <strong>and</strong> receptivity, <strong>and</strong> (through their comb<strong>in</strong>ation to<br />

unity) the act <strong>of</strong> reciprocity – […].‖ Orig<strong>in</strong>al: Die re<strong>in</strong>e Anschauung a priori enhält die<br />

actus der Sponteneität und Receptivität und durch verb<strong>in</strong>dung derselben zur E<strong>in</strong>heit der<br />

Act der Reciprocität […]. (Ak: 22:28. Förster 172). Cf. Ak: 22:31. Förster, 173.<br />

78

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