Kant and the Demands of Self-Consciousness

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.

• Important contribution to the debate about Kant • Written with clarity: accessible to upper-level students • Striking new interpretation which takes issue with some of the leading work on Kant

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.