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3 - The Form of Reflexivity and the Expression “I think”

from Part II - Self-Consciousness and the “I” of the Understanding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

Katharina T. Kraus
Katharina T. Kraus
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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Summary

Chapter 3, “The Form of Reflexivity and the Expression of Self-Presence”, explores the role of transcendental apperception for inner experience according to the Transcendental Deduction (B) of the first Critique. By showing the insufficiencies of two alternative views defended in the literature, namely the psychological view and the logical view, the chapter argues that transcendental apperception is the capacity for reflexive consciousness in general. Its characteristic form, the general form of reflexivity, is the most general condition on any conscious representation and can be expressed by the phrase “I think”. The chapter concludes by arguing that the phrase “I think”, if in fact attached to a representation in thought, expresses self-reference to oneself as individual thinker, yet without determining oneself.

Keywords

self-consciousnessreflexivityreflectionself-referenceexpressivismtranscendental apperception"I think"logical subjectunderstanding
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Chapter
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Kant on Self-Knowledge and Self-Formation
The Nature of Inner Experience
 , pp. 83 - 129
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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