Kant and the Demands of Self-Consciousness

This study offers a striking new interpretation of Kant's theory of self-consciousness.

Pierre Keller (Author)

9780521630771, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 February 1999

296 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.61 kg

"Keller (Univ. of California, Riverside) offers an original reading of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason that combines thematic focus and comprehensive scope." Choice

In Kant and the Demands of Self-Consciousness, Pierre Keller examines Kant's theory of self-consciousness and argues that it succeeds in explaining how both subjective and objective experience are possible. Previous interpretations of Kant's theory have held that he treats all self-consciousness as knowledge of objective states of affairs, and also that self-consciousness can be interpreted as knowledge of personal identity. By developing this striking new interpretation Keller is able to argue that transcendental self-consciousness underwrites a general theory of objectivity and subjectivity at the same time.

1. Introduction
2. Introducing apperception
3. Concepts, laws, and the recognition of objects
4. Self-consciousness and the demands of judgement in the B-deduction
5. Self-consciousness and the unity of intuition: completing the B-deduction
6. Time-consciousness in the analogies
7. Causal laws
8. Self-consciousness and the pseudo-discipline of transcendental psychology
9. How independent is the self from the body?
10. The argument against idealism
11. Empirical realism and transcendental idealism
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: History of Western philosophy [HPC]