Journal of Philosophical Investigations

نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی- پژوهشی

نویسنده

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

چکیده

This paper has the ambitious aim to clarify the putative different meanings of "consciousness" in Kant's Critique, particularly focusing on the concept of apperception. Often misinterpreted merely as the potential for self-attributions of experiences and mental states—technically, as the individual's ability to knowingly refer to himself—such readings overlook the pivot role of transcendental apperception in bridging the inherent gap between nonconceptual content of sensible intuitions and the higher-level conceptual content of propositional attitudes, essential for reasoning and the rational control of actions. In this context, "consciousness" or "self-consciousness" means cognitive accessibility (in Block's sense). But Kant's texts reveal additional meanings of consciousness. Notably, "sensation" means the raw material of intuition when it is apprehended through a synthesis of imagination without conceptual determination, capturing the subjective "what-it-is-like" phenomenal aspect of perception. Conversely, its objective correlate—the ability to discriminate and single out objects from their surroundings—embodies what can be described as "de re awareness" of a yet conceptually undetermined object of intuition. 

کلیدواژه‌ها

موضوعات

عنوان مقاله [English]

Consciousness and Cognition in Kant's First Critique

نویسنده [English]

  • Roberto Pereira

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

چکیده [English]

This paper has the ambitious aim to clarify the putative different meanings of "consciousness" in Kant's Critique, particularly focusing on the concept of apperception. Often misinterpreted merely as the potential for self-attributions of experiences and mental states—technically, as the individual's ability to knowingly refer to himself—such readings overlook the pivot role of transcendental apperception in bridging the inherent gap between nonconceptual content of sensible intuitions and the higher-level conceptual content of propositional attitudes, essential for reasoning and the rational control of actions. In this context, "consciousness" or "self-consciousness" means cognitive accessibility (in Block's sense). But Kant's texts reveal additional meanings of consciousness. Notably, "sensation" means the raw material of intuition when it is apprehended through a synthesis of imagination without conceptual determination, capturing the subjective "what-it-is-like" phenomenal aspect of perception. Conversely, its objective correlate—the ability to discriminate and single out objects from their surroundings—embodies what can be described as "de re awareness" of a yet conceptually undetermined object of intuition. 

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • Transcendental Consciousness
  • Access Consciousness
  • Nonconceptual Sensible Intuition
  • Cognition
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VMVorlesungen über die Metaphysik Ak. 28 (1821). Lectures on Metaphysics edited and translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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