Kant and the Demands of Self-Consciousness

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

Pierre Keller (Author)

9780521004695, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 22 February 2001

296 pages
22.8 x 15.5 x 1.9 cm, 0.402 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]