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

particularly in their presence, unique involvement and mutual relationship in making
possible that something be capable of being given to the subject for cognition. In the
Selbstsetzungslehre, Kant's concern is still primarily with the status of the cognition of
objects (although now especially empirical ones) and thinking remains the valid ground
for any solution; the concern is neither with the shared nature of the different forms of
representation involved in the cognition of objects nor with grounding his theoretical
philosophy on a higher general faculty of mere representation. This is because an appeal
to such a unified faculty (vis representativa), even if its existence can be speculated to be
a condition for the possibility of consciousness, it cannot be central to a philosophical
project of legitimizing a critical system upon which to construct a metaphysics. Reason,
governed by principles of thought alone can serve to demonstrate apodictic truth to serve
for such a foundation.
iii. b. G.E. Schulze (Aenesidemus) and the possibility of necessity in outer sensations
Known under the pseudonym Aenesidemus, Schulze was a Humean skeptic who
launched a serious enough attack against Kant‘s critical philosophy that he becomes
(together with Tiedemann under the pseudonym Theätet) one of the most referenced
name in the Selbstsetzungslehre (especially fascicles vii and i). There is agreement that
Schulze‘s critique is directed mostly against Reinhold, as the latter had been the first to
represent and clarify Kant‘s critical philosophy after the publication of the KrV. To
conclude from the doctrine of self-positing that Kant was either concerned with providing
an alternative explanation of his philosophy in order for it to become clearer and thus less
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