KANT'TA TRANSANDANTAL BEN BÎLÎNCİ

Year 2004, Issue: 39, 136 - 153, 01.07.2004

Sahabettin Yalçın

Abstract

The Conciousness of Transcendental Self in Kant

Abstract

This paper examines one of Kant's most controversial concepts, namely the 'transcendental apperception'. Kant introduces this notion primarily for epistemological reasons, as it plays a crucial role in the formation of knowledge. Although the transcendental apperception does not provide any substantial a priori knowledge about the nature of the thinking self - because we do not have any intuition of this self; Kant rejects the existence of intellectual or a priori intuition in human beings - it nevertheless yields pure a priori awareness of its existence and functions. This pure self-consciousness is neither an intuition nor even a concept, but rather an empty 'thought'. The thinking self which is characterized by Kant as the formal or the logical subject of thought, functions as the source of the categories and a priori principles of experience. As I have tried to show in this paper, however, Kant's notion of the transcendental apperception faces some serious problems which affect his theory of knowledge in general.

Keywords

Kant, Self, Transcendental, Knowledge.

References

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