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Publication Details

Transcendental Subject vs. Empirical Self: On Kant’s Account of Subjectivity

(Original title: Transcendental Subject vs. Empirical Self: On Kant’s Account of Subjectivity)
Filozofia, 65 (2010), 3, 269-283.
Type of work: Pohľad za hranice
Publication language: English
Abstract

Kant’s view of subjectivity implies a twofold consideration of the idea of subject. On the one hand, there is the empirical self, and on the other hand, there stands the transcendental subject as the principle of the unity of experience, and therefore, as the principle of the existence of the empirical self. Kant’s transcendental subject is an effort to suggest a theory of subjectivity, which is impersonal and non-atomistic, that is to say a model that intends to exclude individualism. Yet, this model fails to constitute the factually existing person as subject. Kant’s theory of transcendental subject is rooted in his subjectivist idealist philosophy; the transcendental subject appears to be another type of the idea of absolute.

Keywords

Kant, Hume, Subjectivity, Self, Transcendental, Empirical

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