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Kant and the transparency of the mind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Alexandra M. Newton Open the ORCID record for Alexandra M. Newton [Opens in a new window]
Alexandra M. Newton*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign-Urbana, IL, USA
*
Alexandra M. Newton amnewton@illinois.eduDepartment of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA
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Abstract

It has become standard to treat Kant'scharacterization of pure apperception as involving the claim that questions about what I think are transparent to questions about the world. By contrast, empirical apperception is thought to be non-transparent, since it involves a kind of inner observation of my mental states. I propose a reading that reverses this: pure apperception is non-transparent, because conscious only of itself, whereas empirical apperception is transparent to the world. The reading I offer, unlike the standard one, can accommodate Kant'sclaim that the I of pure apperception is the same as the I of empirical apperception.

Keywords

Self-consciousnesstransparencyapperceptionKantSartreEvans
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 49 , Issue 7 , November 2019 , pp. 890 - 915
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2018

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