History Workshop, Work-In-Progress Seminar: Frank Li "Apperception in Kant’s Duisburg Nachlass"

Abstract: In the “first paralogism of pure reason,” Kant purports to refute the rationalist argument concluding with the self’s metaphysical substantiality by showing that its syllogistic inference equivocates on the middle term. Despite the consensus that Kant follows this strategy in the B-edition, a number of commentators contend that (i) Kant in the A-edition rather grants the syllogism’s formal validity and its conclusion, thereby allowing our cognitive access to the metaphysically substantial self that can only be located in the noumenal realm. Furthermore, it is argued that (ii) this violation of the Critical epistemic humility is motivated by Kant’s theoretical––not just practical––commitment to the self’s transcendental freedom.

In this talk, I show that Kant’s treatment of apperception in the Duisburg Nachlass (mid-1770s), a series of notes generally assumed to be formative to the later Critique, offers surprising evidence supporting both (i) and (ii). Moreover, I show that the structure of apperception presented here gives us a helpful clue on why Kant transforms his strategy in the B-edition. Importantly, to make sense of these notes, we must be careful about where Kant still relies on the framework of (broadly construed) Leibnizian rationalist psychology, and where he significantly departs from it.