Kant and the simple representation I

Theoria. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science, 2019

The aim of this paper is to address the semantic issue of the nature of the representation I and of the transcendental designation, i.e., the self-referential apparatus involved in transcendental apperception. The I think, the bare or empty representation I, is the representational vehicle of the concept of transcendental subject; as such, it is a simple representation. The awareness of oneself as thinking is only expressed by the I: the intellectual representation which performs a referential function of the spontaneity of a thinking subject. To begin with, what exactly does Kant mean when he states that I is a simple and empty representation? Secondly, can the features of the representation I and the correlative transcendental designation explain the indexical nature of the I? Thirdly, do the Kantian considerations on indexicality anticipate any of the semantic elements or, if nothing else, the spirit of the direct reference theory?

dialectica, 1981

The paper discusses major issues concerning the A104-10 transcendental-object theory. For that theory, our de re knowledge becomes related to its object just because our understanding (using the concept of a transcendental object) thinks a certain object to stand related to the intuition via which we know. Employing an apparatus of intensional logic, I argue that this thought of an object is to be understood as a certain sort of intuition-related, de dicto thought. Then I explore how, via such a de dicto thought, we can nevertheless achieve de re knowledge. This question involves an important Kantian reduction of de re to de dicto outer-object thinking, which I consider. Finally, I investigate some further topics about the transcendental object. I endeavor to show, throughout, that Kant's theory of that object is crucially related to matters of intensionality. Rksume Cet article discute les problkmes principaux soulevks par la thkorie de I'objet transcendental A104-10. Selon cette theorie, notre connaissance de re est mise en relation avec son objet precisement parce que notre entendement (utilisant le concept d'objet transcendental) pense un certain objet comme &ant relie A l'intuition a travers laquelle nous connaissons. Employant un formal i m e de logique intensionnelle, je montre que cette pensee d'un objet doit &re comprise comme une pensee de dicto reliee a I'intuition. J'explore ensuite comment, a partir de cette pensee de dicto, nous pouvons neanmoins atteindre une connaissance de re. J'examine la manikre dont Kant reduit ainsi la pensee d'un objet exterieur du de re au de dicto. Finalement, j'explore quelques autres points concernant I'objet transcendental. Dans tout I'article je montre combien la theorie kantienne de I'objet transcendental est fondamentalement relike d I'intensionalite (au sens logiw e). Zusammenfassung Der Aufsatz hehandelt wichtige Themen, die die in A104-10 formulierte Theorie des transzendentalen Gegenstandes betreffen. Dieser Theorie nach bezieht sich unsere de re Erkenntnis auf ihren Gegenstand eben deshalh, weil unser Verstand, indem er den Begriff eines transzendentalen Gegenstandes verwendet, denkt, dass ein gewisser Gegenstand in Beziehung zur Anschauung steht, * The research underlying this paper was supported in part by an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, by the SUNY Research Foundation, and by a National Endowment for the Humanities summer stipend. I thank these organizations for their help. My work has benefitted from the reactions of the audience at the IVth. International Colloquium at Magglingen, May 1-4, 1980, and from subsequent comments of the audience at the University of Bielefeld.

Paradigmi, 2019

The analysis of the structure of the I-thoughts is intertwined with several epistemic and metaphysical questions. The aim of this paper is to highlight that the absence of an identification component does not imply that the “I" doesn’t perform a referential function, nor that it necessarily involves a specific metaphysical thesis on the nature of the self-conscious subject. Particularly, as far as the Cartesian illusion concerning the thinking subject’s immaterial nature is concerned, Kant and Wittgenstein seem to share the same philosophical concerns and focus on the same type of reference involved in the “I", obviously via different philosophical paths and antipodal metaphysical assumptions.

Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht; Ed. by Bacin, Stefano / Ferrarin, Alfredo / La Rocca, Claudio / Ruffing, Margit, 2013

In the last few years, various Kantian commentators have drawn attention on a number of features in the self-reference device of transcendental apperception having emerged from the contemporary debate on the irreducibility of self-ascription of thoughts in the first person. Known as I-thoughts, these have suggested a connection between some aspects of Kant’s philosophy and Wittgenstein’s philosophico-linguistic analysis of the grammatical rule of the term I. This paper would like to review some of such correspondences, avoiding any mechanical association between Kant and an elusive reading of the I think, e.g. as suggested mutatis mutandis by McDowell and Kitcher.

Studi Kantiani , 2023

Despite the recent flurry of books or essays on Kant's supposed theory of 'the self', one may wonder whether Kant even has a concept of 'the self'. If he does, what is that concept? Does it differ from 'the I', 'the soul' or 'the mind'? If it does differ, in what ways does it differ? The paper is an attempt at answering some of these questions. I focus on Kant's use of the substantivized reflexive 'the self' ('das Selbst') and its differences, if any, from Kant's use of the substantivized first-person pronoun 'the I' ('das Ich'). I argue that Kant's use of two different terms reflects two contrasting influences. On the one hand, Kant inherits the notion of 'the self' from Locke and the empiricist tradition in psychology (therefore, Kant's term 'das Selbst'). On the other hand, he is the heir of the discussion of Descartes' Cogito argument in the rationalist tradition (therefore, Kant's 'I think' and Kant's use of the substantivized 'das Ich'). The paper defends the claim that from these two contrasting influences, Kant elaborates an original and complex notion of 'the self' or 'being self to oneself'. That notion is expressed in using 'I' as the (logical) subject in the proposition 'I think'. This explains why, in Kant's use of the expressions, the two notions, 'the self' and 'the I' converge. Neither of them is the concept of an object. Both notions refer to the subject of thinking in virtue of the fact that the subject is, in thinking, self to itself. Section 1 of the paper offers and analysis of Locke's idea of 'the self' as an ancestor of Kant's notion. Section 2 offers an analysis of Kant's notion of the self in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. Section 3 analyzes Kant's contrast between the 'standing and abiding self' of transcendental apperception and the forever changing consciousness of oneself in the empirical unity of apperception. Section 4 analyzes the relation between Kant's notion of 'the self' and Kant's analysis of the proposition 'I think'. To conclude, the paper takes stock of the original features of Kant's notions of 'the self' and 'the I'.

In the paper we have attempted to consider Kant’s transcendental philosophy as a special type of philosophizing and the new transcendental paradigm, which differs from both the ‘object’ metaphysics of Antiquity and ‘subject’ metaphysics of the Modern Age (transcendent — transcendental — immanent metaphysics). For this purpose we shall introduce the methodological terms ‘transcendental shift’ and ‘transcendental perspective’. The basis for such representation of transcendentalism is the cognitive and semantic reading of the Critique and theory of ‘two aspects’. While in classical metaphysics cognition is interpreted as a relation between empirical subject and object, in transcendental metaphysics (perspective) ‘possible experience’ (Erfahrung) shall be understood as a relation between ‘consciousness generally’ (transcendental subject) and ‘thing-in- general’ (transcendental object). In this, Kant’s transcendentalism, in contrast to classical contemplative metaphysics, acts as an ‘experimental’ metaphysics and the transcendentality is defined as the intermediate between the immanent and transcendent ontological area (as a “instrumental” component of our cognition).

Kant's Philosophy of the Unconscious, 2012

A question that has gone unasked for a long time in Kant research is whether and to what extent, in the Critique of Pure Reason, the central concept of apperception or the so-called transcendental or original selfconsciousness implies a form of concrete consciousness beyond purely formal and functional characteristics. It is thought to be entirely uncontroversial that that which produces objective knowledge and which Kant denoted with the concept of apperception only has transcendentally necessary significance and is entirely inaccessible to concrete consciousness. This deeply entrenched interpretation can be explained by programmatic reasons above all, whereby the lesson of the paralogisms chapter in the Critique of Pure Reason plays an important role. Here Kant shows that there can be no justification for assuming a Cartesian soul that would be accessible to knowledge. This can only make it seem substantially wrong-headed to wish to interpret the consciousness involved in apperception, which according to Kant underlies all structured thought, as a form of phenomenal consciousness that could somehow be made apparent from the first-person perspective. One could even argue that the very attempt to locate any phenomenal self-consciousness in the Critique of Pure Reason is contrary to the entire project of the critique of knowledge, since Kant is concerned to justify propositional knowledge through conditions that are independent of experience and can be legitimately applied to the material of empirical intuition. This sort of approach necessitates a strict distinction in the theory between a priori structures on the one hand and empirical or psychological aspects of the consciousness of objects on the other hand-a distinction famously reflected in the Critique of Pure Reason in the sharp terminological oppositions of attributes such as "empirical" and "pure/transcendental", "a priori" and "a posteri-1 This paper was originally published in German in 2007 under the title "Vorbegriffliches Selbstbewusstsein bei Kant?". Translation by Karsten Schçllner.

Reflection in the anatomy of the Kantian mind, 2022

The present dissertation shows the centrality of Kant’s notion of ‘reflection’ to the project of the Critique of pure reason. I argue that Kant was unquestionably in possession of a unified conception of reflection that is operative at several central junctures in the Critique. On the account I develop, Kant takes reflection to be a fundamental act of the intellect, which secures the unity of consciousness by being aware of the compatibility between any given set of representations and the unity of consciousness in representing them. Thus, reflection is a necessary part of any conceptualizing act by securing the status of the concept as a representation of the unity of mind in representing a given representational manifold. This notion of reflection, I show, is applicable not only across textual and topical occurrences of the term but also across what we might term reflective types. Thus, while some readers might expect there to be an essential difference between Kant’s conception of what has come to be termed ‘logical reflection’ and ‘transcendental reflection’ it is the upshot of my analysis that these are not two wholly separate types of reflection. Rather, both aim to secure the unity of consciousness in essentially the same way, only transcendental reflection includes an awareness of the distinction between representational types. The four chapters of the dissertation show that this conception of reflection connects Kant’s uses of the term in the context of self-consciousness, the acquisition of the categories, judgment-formation and evaluation and discussions of method. In chapter 1, I argue that Kant is committed to a view of apperception as essentially reflective but show that the essential reflectiveness of apperception neither turns apperception into a higher-order self-consciousness nor makes it identical to reflection. Rather, I argue, we should understand the relationship between apperception and reflection in terms of a bi-conditional: apperception if and only if reflection. Chapter 2 develops and expands on the claim in Chapter 1 that reflection provides apperception with its necessary form of though by developing an account of the role of reflection in what Kant calls the original acquisition of the categories. Reflection is requisite for the acquisition of the categories as the necessary form of thought expressed in the “I think” but cannot for that reason be taken as a pre-condition of apperception. Chapter 3 continues this trajectory by arguing that reflection is a constitutive part of our cognition of objects by being a constitutive part of the act of judgments. Thus, I argue that when Kant states that “all judgments […] require a reflection” (A 261/B 317), there are good reasons for thinking that he takes that to be more than a mere normative requirement. Rather, both logical and transcendental reflection are necessary elements in our coming to form judgements. In this way, Chapter 3 rounds off an argument developed throughout all three chapters that reflection in Kant’s specifically technical sense plays a central role at all levels of first order cognition. In the fourth and final chapter, I turn to the question of reflection in the context of the method of the Critique and argue that far from suffering from what some commentators see as a failure of self-reflection, Kant adopts an essentially reflective methodology. In particular, I show that reflection plays a crucial role in this method by being essential to the isolation and distinction of our cognitive faculties. The chapter thus concludes the reflective movement of the dissertation – from the reflective subject to the objects and back - by showing that reflection is not just essential for having first-order thoughts and cognitions but equally essential if we want to give a stable account of thinking and cognizing in general.

2007

The paper presents one of the sources of the incoherence objection to Kant’s transcendental idealism, i.e. the problem of “affection” between the “transcendental ground” and mental representations. It is divided into two sections: in the first the historical context of the problem is sketched; in the second two contemporary solutions to the problem are suggested. The latter include N. Rescher’s “conceptual idealist” interpretation, which postulates a logical (rational) relation between representational content and its “ground”, and A. Brook’s cognitivist explanation, which appeals to a materialist hypothesis that makes use of a kind of correlation between the mental and the physical. The conclusion grants both stances considerable plausibility, admitting that, as often is the case, Kant’s way of posing questions here too leads to contradictory answers. It seems that the options suggested cannot be reconciled: one has to choose between the presence of metaphysics in Kant’s critical p...

The grounds for my essay is to evaluate the move Kant makes against Cartesian external world skepticism, that is, the view which posits a gap between subject and object. Kant’s project in the B deduction of the Transcendental Deduction is to close this gap by the unification of said subject and object. Kant's position is that we have the ability to construct and “experience objects'' in space and time, which is ultimately the grounds for experience, but, we have to ask the question at the same time, what is involved in the process of representing objects of experience to ourselves? Or in other words, why is it that we have an “objectivity of experience”? When objects are understood they are understood through what Kant names to be the a priori categories of the understanding. This adherence of the categories to objects of experience is necessary for subjective judgment of said objects. This ability to grasp (begreifen) is what Kant calls apperception, and in the B deduction he will call this the transcendental unity of self-consciousness. My paper turns on a line in the B deduction that reads “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me that could not be thought at all…” (Kant, 1781, B132).The transcendental unity of apperception, or self consciousness for that matter is introduced in order for the a priori categories of the understanding to apply to objects of intuition. In order for the ability for unity of consciousness to occur there must be a subject and just as important, an object to grasp. Kant is responding to Cartesian dualism that allows for the cogito to be pure thinking, while Kant wants to show that “I” (the cogito) can ONLY think of objects in space, therefore the idea of pure thinking, or thinking without objects is absurd for the Kantian model. My paper explores what IS this transcendental unity of self-consciousness, and ultimately looks at the integral relationship between the transcendental object and the transcendental subject and why the phrase “I Think” is crucial for this unity of subject and object.