Transcendental Self in Kant and Shankara

Source: Advaita Vedanta/Wikipedia

Three states of consciousness and Turiya

Advaita posits three states of consciousness, namely waking (jagrat), dreaming (svapna), deep sleep (suṣupti), which are empirically experienced by human beings,^[125][126] and correspond to the Three Bodies Doctrine:^[127]

1. The first state is the waking state, in which we are aware of our daily world.^[128] This is the gross body.
2. The second state is the dreaming mind. This is the subtle body.^[128]
3. The third state is the state of deep sleep. This is the causal body.^[128]

Advaita also posits “the fourth,” Turiya, which some describe as pure consciousness, the background that underlies and transcends these three common states of consciousness.^{[web 7][web 8]} Turiya is the state of liberation, where states Advaita school, one experiences the infinite (ananta) and non-different (advaita/abheda), that is free from the dualistic experience, the state in which ajativada, non-origination, is apprehended.^[129] According to Candradhara Sarma, Turiya state is where the foundational Self is realized, it is measureless, neither cause nor effect, all pervading, without suffering, blissful, changeless, self-luminous,^{[note 7]} real, immanent in all things and transcendent.^[130] Those who have experienced the Turiya stage of self-consciousness have reached the pure awareness of their own non-dual Self as one with everyone and everything, for them the knowledge, the knower, the known becomes one, they are the Jivanmukta.^{[131][132][133][134][135]}

Advaita traces the foundation of this ontological theory in more ancient Sanskrit texts.^[136] For example, chapters 8.7 through 8.12 of Chandogya Upanishad discuss the “four states of consciousness” as awake, dream-filled sleep, deep sleep, and beyond deep sleep.^[136][137] One of the earliest mentions of Turiya, in the Hindu scriptures, occurs in verse 5.14.3 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.^{[note 25]} The idea is also discussed in other early Upanishads.^[138]

Key Terms

• Advait Vedanta
• Sankara
• Shankara
• Immanuel Kant
• Samkara
• German Idealism
• Transcendental Idealism
• Phenomenology
• Absolute Consciousness
• Phenomenal Consciousness
• Idealism vs Realism
• Maya
• Illusionism
• Appearance
• Reality
• Four States of Consciousness
• Turiya
• Jivanmukta
• Brahman Satyam, Jagat Mithya
• Maha Vakyas of Vedas

Kant and Shankara

08 SAMKARA AND KANT (Apr 1960)

VISHWANATH PRASAD VARMA

1. INTRODUCTION

Both Samkara and Kant were supreme thinkers who have played an almost revolutionary role in the philosophical history of India and Europe respectively. Samkara (788-820) was a great poet, a prince among dialecticians, a peripatetic teacher of Vedanta and a great system-builder. He tried to establish the foundations of Vedanta on the bases of the Upanishadic metaphysics. His philosophical constructions are characterized by logical subtlety, speculative fearlessness and a deep and profound concern for spiritual reality. Kant (1724-1804) was a great mathematician, a conservative social and political philosopher and the founder of the matchless majestic idealistic philosophy of Germany.¹ An acute and analytical thinker, a man of tremendous learning, Kant lived a very simple life. While Kant’s eminence is confined to the realms of philosophy and political thought, Samkara’s position is far greater in the religious history of India.² Samkara is hailed not only as a philosopher but a great religious leader who appeared as the spokesman of the old social and religious traditions against the devastating challenges of the Buddhist subjectivists and nihilists.

The bases of Samkara’s system are derived from the old tradition of idealistic wisdom recorded chiefly in the principal Upanishads although like all creative thinkers Samkara does add to them the fund of his own intuitional experiences and reflections. He flourished at the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth century A.D. when there was slender development of the physical sciences in the country. Hence Samkara’s system is logical, poetic and metaphysical but it has no roots in the physical sciences. The foundations of the Vedantic ideas regarding the origin and nature of the five physical elements and human physiology are largely intuitional and speculative and have no concrete experimental data behind them. 

Kant, on the other hand was a far greater expert in science. His researches in cosmogony embodied in the famous nebular hypothesis although refuted by a later body of scientific knowledge show the cast of his intellectual temper. Kant appreciated the keen significance of scientific advancements. He wanted to make philosophy follow the road of science. The secret of the success of science is its methodology. Science is based on the acceptance of synthetic a priori judgments and they impart to it universality. The scientific advancements of the seventeenth century impressed Kant. He believed that the knowledge of mathematics and physics has the element of necessity and universality which are the dominant characteristics of objectivity. Kant differentiated the synthetic constructive character of mathematical propositions from the formal and analytical character of logical propositions. But these judgments can be applied only in the realm of the phenomenal and sensuous. Hence there can be no dogmatic assertions about the transcendent reality if metaphysics is to follow the methodology of the natural sciences. Kant is emphatic in his statement that the categories of the understanding do not apply to the Unconditioned. The unconditioned or the totality of conditions is for Kant an Ideal of Reason.³On this point the mystical tradition of the Vedanta which posits a sharp separation between the province of conceptual reason and the super-sensuous mystical immediacy of intuition would agree with him. According to Kant, speculative metaphysics transcending the bounds of the phenomenal sensuous concrete realm of experience is liable to the fallacies of the transcendental dialectic.

Although in his later writings he made concessions to the religious tradition, the scientific spirit is far more present in Kant than in Samkara, though it must be acknowledged that the great difference in their times—almost nine hundred years, is responsible for it.

Both Samkara and Kant were idealists. But while Samkara was a spiritual monistic idealist, Kant was an ethical idealist. The supreme brahman, beyond all subjects and objects is the sole real. Hence Samkara has been regarded as a ‘rigorous monist’. Samkara cannot be called an absolute idealist because in his system there is no dialectical derivation of the realms of the subject and the object from the supreme idea. Instead, the utter absolute spiritual real or brahman is intuited in mystical experiences and from that standpoint there is nothing real besides the brahman. Samkara is a transcendental idealist because the supreme brahman transcends the categories of predication by human thought but remains the fundamental real.

Kant, on the other hand, is both a transcendental idealist as well as an ethical idealist. Kant’s transcendental or logical idealism consists in the view that the phenomenal world of objects which is the only realm which has the characteristic of cognisability is an ideal construction framed by the application of the forms of intuition and the categories of the understanding to the sense-data. Sometimes the transcendental idealism of Kant is also called phenomenal idealism; Kant is also an idealist in the sense that he attributes primacy to moral values. He refutes, however, two types of idealism—the problematical idealism of Descartes and the dogmatical idealism of Berkeley.⁴ Kant recognizes the multiplicity of things-in-themselves although he denies the possibility of their knowledge. It is said by absolute idealists that the recognition of the things-in-themselves in the Kantian system is a relic of the Cartesian dualism of mind and matter. From the monistic standpoint while Samkara accepts the sole truth of the nirguna brahman, Kant recognizes, as if the perceived phenomenal multiplicity is the re-furnished garb of the multiple things-in-themselves. Thus theoretically speaking, the spiritual monistic idealism of Samkara is more satisfying than the objective idealism of Kant. Both Samkara and Kant remain critics of subjectivism. Samkara refutes the subjectivism of the Yogacara school of Buddhists. In refuting the standpoint of the Buddhist subjectivists, Samkara makes concessions to empirical inductive realism based on the universal concensus in fields of common perception of the same objects. He frankly states that the dominant activities in the mundane sphere would be impossible. Kant refutes the subjectivism of Berkeley.

2. METAPHYSICS

(a) Possibility and Nature of Knowledge

Samkara flourished at a time when the philosophical world was dominated by the Buddhists. The concept of Sunya as popularized by the Buddhist nihilists was a counterpoise to any fresh philosophic endeavour. In a way it amounted to the assertion of the futility of all epistemological constructions because nothing conclusive could be predicated either about the processes of knowledge or about the conclusions. Sunyavada implied the worthlessness of all categories of predication. Samkara took up this challenge. Following the traditions of Yajnavalkya and Uddalaka, Samkara once more asserted the possibility of knowledge. He recognized the limitations of the instruments of cognition but in spite of this awareness he gave, credence to the validity of a set of theoretical generalizations. Hume’s scepticism was an indirect challenge to all philosophical attempts at the construction of a cosmology and a philosophy of life. Kant recognized the necessity of using the process of self-scrutiny to the instruments of cognition. Kant is an exponent of the critical methodology which probes into a searching investigation of the potencies of reason. It gives transcendental knowledge ‘which does not relate so much to objects of knowledge, as to our mode of knowing them, in so far as knowledge is possible a priori’. If according to Samkara the inadequacies of empirical knowledge are to be traced to the blinding tantalizing potencies of maya or the indescribable (anirvachaniya) cosmic ignorance, Kant refers to the inadequate powers of the human instruments of knowledge in explaining these inadequacies. But in spite of the critical application of reason to the bases and limitations of reason, Kant rendered a great service to philosophy by stressing the necessity of a scientifically-oriented metaphysics, a task which, however, remains an aspiration rather than a realization. Kantian metaphysics, however, landed in phenomenalism and agnosticism because according to him the things-in-themselves remain permanently unknown and there can be no knowledge of the non-sensuous supersensible entities. Hence metaphysics as a science of the ultimate primordial reals is impossible. Metaphysics in the Kantian sense is mainly reduced to epistemological scrutiny. If the human reason attempts to overstep its province and aims to apply to regulative ideas of the reason—soul, world and God to experiential continuum the result is paralogism, antinomies and dogmatic assertions. The limitation of metaphysical enquiries to the realm of the sensuous is indicative of the influence of contemporary science on Kant.

One of the essential ingredients in the apercus of idealistic philosophy is the distinction between different levels of knowledge. This epistemological gradation is an analogue to the ontological gradation. If there is a distinction between the supreme supersensuous real being and the external surface phenomenal manifestations then the knowledge or apprehension of them must be obtained by different organs and instruments. Samkara accepts a fundamental distinction between the paramarthika truth—intuited by a transcendent supreme knowledge and the vyavaharika satta or the empirical layer of phenomena. The latter is comprehended by the commonplace media of sensuous apprehension. This distinction has its roots in the Upanishadic differentiation between tarka, vijnana or medha, that is, empirical understanding and prajnaor nidhidhyasana or supreme integral insight. In the Tripitakas we find Buddha making a similar distinction between the apprehension of the average man—the prithagjana and the transcendent vision of the sarnyak sambuddha. In the school of Nagarjuna there is a distinction between the samvriti satya and the paramartha satya. According to Samkara, the supreme transcendent indeterminate Brahman appears as a differentiated incongruous manifold under the clouding veil of the indescribable cosmic Maya. Kant did not accept the reality of a super-rational vision or intuition. He engages in a more thorough investigation of the nature of reason than Samkara. He makes a distinction between illusory knowledge and empirical knowledge. He accepts that the things-in-themselves are unknowable. Kant, however, holds that the things-in-themselves are somehow the significant factor in the generation of our experience although their own nature remains unrevealed in our experiences.

Samkara believed in the reality of a non-sensuous super-phenomenal immediate apprehension of the supreme real—anubhava-vasanatvat brahmavijnanasyat.⁵ He is a mystic and he accepts the possibility of a metaphysics based on the esoteric realizations of the old seers and sages. The critical philosophy of Kant, on the other hand, accepts that the regulative Ideas of Reason’ are methodological devices. There is no sense-experience corresponding to them. While Kant is emphatic in his assertion that sensibility is the sole giver of the content of experiences, Samkara in the perennial tradition of mystic spiritualism believes in the veracity of non-sensuous modes of immediate yogic realization. According to the Vedantic and Yogic tradition there is a direct luminous’ awareness of the supreme real if there is a regeneration of the human heart and if the necessary disciplines in the shape of intellectual purification have been undergone. The bodhi or the prajna is the culminating point of a sustained process of philosophical concentration and absorption. The mystical tradition is far stronger in the case of Samkara. Kant refuses to accept that there can be any non-sensuous intuitional immediacy.⁶ Thus while Samkara is a believer in mystical metaphysics, Kant is a metaphysical agnostic accepting the permanent non-cognisability of the things-in-themselves. Both Samkara and Kant are agreed that the postulational conceptual categories of human deliberation are non-applicable to the supreme real but while Kant does not point to any super-rational faculty, Samkara accepts the testimony of inspired mystical vision and revelation. While Kant keeps himself confined to the legitimate province of philosophy, Samkara makes a transition to the realms of theology and mysticism. While Kant defined philosophy as the criticism of cognition and thus was mainly preoccupied with the transcendental foundations of the possibility of knowledge, Samkara adhering to the long line of Indian spiritual tradition sang hymns in praise of the supernal self.

A familiar element in any idealistic theory is the notion of superposition or illusion. If the brahman is the sole spiritual real, there must be some intellectual device to explain the appearance of this phenomenal world. Samkara adopts the concept of adhyasa for it. Adhyasa implies the imposition of the categories of the non-ego upon the ego and vice versa. In other words adhyasa flourishes on a confusion between the attributes of the subject and the object. The appearance of the world is a case of adhyasa which is founded upon the peculiar conjunction of truth and error. This concept is similar to the Kantian theory of transcendental illusion according to which phenomenal predications are applied to the cognising subject which is supposed to be another to the realm of external objects. The illusion consists in the antithetical juxtaposition of the thinking subject and the external things outside of it. Kant, however, would ascribe greater reality to the phenomenal world than Samkara. He does not regard the phenomenal world as illusory or as a shadow. He only indicates that it implies something of a transcendent order to justify its existence. The mystic-ascetic Samkara harps on the non-being of the world in endless refrain.

(b) Theory of God

According to Samkara, from the human standpoint, God is the highest reality and is the subject of adoration. Though the conception of God is accounted for on a dualistic hypothesis, God, basically is the same as the supreme real, the Brahman or the Sachchidananda. The Saguna Brahman or the personal Lord or Isvara is the same fundamental reality as the Brahman or the absolute. But Kant does not acknowledge this distinction between the impersonal philosophical absolute and the personal God. Samkara was a theist from the practical standpoint although from the standpoint of abstract philosophical-mystical contemplation he recognized the sole reality of a superior absolute. He does recognize that the adoration of God is a necessity so long as the dualistic standpoint relevant to the phenomenal world is there. In establishing the reality of God Samkara took recourse to the cosmological argument. The Upanishads refer to the cosmological argument and thereby point to the reality of a creative supreme agency—tajjalaniti. The Yoga system and Leibnitz accept the teleological argument for theism. There is the implicit acceptance of the teleological argument also in the Vedanta philosophy. But the Vedanta as interpreted by Samkara puts the basic emphasis on the cosmological argument. Samkara refers to the statement of the Taittiriya Upanishad—Yato imani bhutani jayante and says that this refers to the Saguna Brahman. Kant pointed out the difficulties and insufficient character of the ontological, the cosmological, and the physico-theological arguments.⁷ His famous ridicule of the Ontological or Cartesian argument for the existence of Supreme Being contained in his saying that there is a lot of difference between the idea of hundred dollars (or marks) in the mind and hundred dollars in your pocket shows his humourous mode of argumentation.⁸ Instead of these arguments, Kant sponsored the moral argument which accepts God as a regulative Idea of Reason and as a postulate of the moral life. Thus if the cosmological argument is sponsored by Samkara, Kant is an advocate of the moral argument. In Kant’s philosophy of theism there is a dual standpoint. Sometimes his rationalism and scientific training make him conceive of God, as in the Critique of Pure Reason as a methodological device or a regulative notion of reason that helps in conceiving objects of our thought as integral elements in a systematic whole. According to Kant the Ideal of Reason is the final presupposition of limited experiences. He stated that the three Ideas of Reason—World, Soul and God, do not constitute the entities corresponding to them. They are unobjectified regulative principles. Hegel is critical of the Kantian view regarding the supra-experiential character of the Ideal of Reason and he identifies it with philosophical conceptualization. In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant justified the existence of God on moral grounds. Although God’s existence cannot be logically demonstrated on the theoretical foundations of pure reason God is a necessity of the moral life. A second view of God is also quite implicit in the writings of Kant. Sometimes Kant gives indirect hints of his belief in the Christian conception of God as Saviour.⁹

I am more inspired by the Samkarite conception of God because I think that it attributes greater importance to the being of God. Kant’s conception of God as a regulative idea of reason or as a mere postulate of the moral consciousness reduces the exaltedness and sublimity that attach to God when he is conceived as a being or a spiritual ultimate real. The conception of God as a regulative Idea of Reason deprives him of all substantiality.

(c) The Atman and the Transcendental Ego

Samkara believed in the reality of the atman which is the inmost essence and real spiritual being of man. The reality of the atman is established on the evidence of immediate apprehension. No sentient being ever experiences as if he were “not”. Everyone feels and thinks that he is. This universally felt and cognized self-certainty, according to Samkara, is the basis of the belief in the reality of the self. Samkara accepts the identity of the innermost being of the individual with the brahman. Samkara teaches the identity of the cosmic brahman and the individual inmost self. Each individual self is the supreme brahman fully. But separate distinctions and multiple particularisations have been caused by maya which imposes the upadhi on the brahman. But the individualization brought about by maya is only a phenomenal feature. Essentially the jiva or the individual self is the same reality as the brahman. He refuses to believe in the eternal continuous monadic entities or personal distinct individual selves. There are no separate real selves. They are only apparent particularizations of the supreme real. Thus the atman represents for Samkara, the supreme subject which can never be objectified. The acceptance of the reality of the self was aimed as a counterpoise to the Buddhist concept of anatman.The atman cannot be sensuously perceived and intellectually cognized. According to Samkara ‘the witness self illumines consciousness, but never itself is in consciousness.^’ It is a nonobjective non-experiential super-subject. It is the referent in all acts of experience though by itself it transcends the acts of experience.

Hume had, like the Buddhists, denied the substantialist conception of the Self. Kant took up this challenge. He accepted the distinction between perception and apperception made by Leibnitz and recognized the reality of a transcendental unity of apperception as the necessary organizing faculty behind all transformations of the sense-manifold into items of knowledge through the mediating agency of the categories of understanding. Kant says: ‘The I think must accompany all my representations, for otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought; in other words, the representation would either be impossible, or at least be, in relation to me, nothing. That representation which can be given previously to all thought, is called intuition. All the diversity or manifold concept of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary relation to the I think, in the subject in which this diversity is found. But this representation, Ithink, is an act of spontaneity; that is to say, it cannot be regarded as belonging to mere sensibility. I call it pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from empirical; or primitive apperception, because it is a self-consciousness which, while it gives birth to the representation Ithink, must necessarily be capable of accompanying all our representations. It is in all acts of consciousness one and the same, and unaccompanied by it, no representation can exist for me. The unity of this apperception I call the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, in order to indicate the possibility of a priori cognition arising from it. For the manifold representations which are given in an intuition would not all of them be my representations, if they did not all belong to one self-consciousness, that is, as my representations (even although I am not conscious of them as such), they must conform to the condition under which alone they can exist altogether in a common self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not all without exception belong to me.’¹⁰ This transcendental unity of apperception is the synthetic power of self-consciousness. It accounts for the unity in experiences which are in themselves diverse and multisided. It provides the ‘affinity of phenomenal forms.’ The subjective and objective dichotomies in the empirical plane of consciousness are conceived on the basis of this fundamental self. This transcendental unity of apperception is never, however, the simple monadic immortal substance. This noumenal or transcendental ego, or the knowing subject, according to Kant, is the fundamental basis of empirical consciousness but is never itself a factor in or participant in empirical consciousness. It is the condition and the possibility of the awareness of multiple phenomena. But it cannot be objectified. Thus Kant made the transcendental unity purely formal and hence could not make it the supreme derivative principle for all experience. This cannot be known through the categories of the understanding which pertain to the field of scientific experience. The transcendental ego is the pre-condition of empirical knowledge and itself is never the subject of knowledge. Kant says: ‘What I must pre-suppose in order to know an object I cannot know as an object.’

Both Samkara and Kant accept an organizing foundational basis for the systematization of bits of experiences into knowledge. But while the atman, according to Samkara is a real entity and the subject of immediate non-sensuous apprehension, the Kantian transcendental unity of apperception is a synthesizing construction or even a non experienceable logical abstraction and is, at best, parallel to the Vedantic concept of the buddhi but never to that of the atman.¹¹ While the atman is an unchangeable real, Kant demolished the Cartesian notion of the substantialist character of the soul-substance. In his Paralogism of Rational Psychology Kant maintained only the logical, non-substantialistic, dynamic unitive character of mental life and operations. On the other hand in the Samkarite conception the substantialistic independent character of the atman is of uppermost significance. While the atman is the highest being whose essence is bliss and consciousness and which is intuited in the highest stages of Samadhi, the transcendental unity of apperception is a mere logical coordinating possibility and a contentless pure form.

3. ETHICAL TRANSCENDENCE VERSUS ETHICAL ABSOLUTISM

Samkara does acknowledge the necessity of mental and moral purification or sadhana chatustaya for the preparation of a life of philosophical gnosis. But he does not care much for the social implications of his propositions. In his philosophic reveries over-anxious to establish the separate dimensions of ethics and philosophical gnosis—jnana, he relegates ethics to the subordinate realm of mundane phenomena and illusion.

The system of Kant ascribes a more exalted and dignified place to ethical experience. Moral commands are unconditioned, universal and imperative. They have a categorical binding character. According to Kant virtue consists in ceaseless moral endeavours towards perfection. The rationality of human nature demands the realization of the summum bonum whose attainment implies holiness or the perfect congruity between the psychic structure of man and the moral law. There is no point in time when the goal may be said to have been attained. The exaltedness of the moral man lies in the constancy of the moral exercise which imparts to him ever-growing realization. Kant makes the moral consciousness almost akin to religious consciousness.¹² The voice of conscience becomes for him the command of God almost. The immense importance of ethical experience in Kantian philosophy proceeds from two sources, (a) It ascribes to man moral primacy and regards him as a citizen of the kingdom of ends. Thus the belief in the universality of the moral law ultimately leads to the conception of a spiritual commonwealth, (b) To register the validity of the belief in the commensurability of moral acts and their meritorious rewards Kant postulates the existence of a God whose reality is the guarantee of the final redemption of virtue. Like Plato and Aristotle, Kant accepted the supreme worth of virtue but to the classical conception of virtue he also added the utilitarian conception of happiness which in its origins is a secularized form of the Christian concept of felicity and beatitude. Kant accepted the reality of the universal instinct in man which seeks to apportion happiness as a reward of virtue. If virtue is to be fully realized and if the proportionate amount of happiness is to be attained, there must be the immortality of the soul. A cessation of life would imply the end of the virtuous life once begun. Hence Kant accepted the reality of a God who dispenses happiness in accordance with virtue.

In spite of the inner consistency of his system, from the standpoint of a democratic, social and political philosophy Samkara’s system is less satisfying than that of Kant. While Kant is all the time anxious to view moral laws with an attitude of dignity, awe and reverence, the ascetic Samkara sings hymns in praise only of knowledge and views moral piety with some kind of indifference. Samkara has thus rendered a positive disservice to the cause of ethical life.

4. CONCEPT OF FREEDOM

According to Samkara the universe is the vivarta or only the apparent transformation of brahman, hence there is no real scope for any genuine exercise of freedom by the human self which in its actions in the world is impelled by the force of maya. But in the spirit of the Upanishads Samkara agrees that whosoever knows the brahman and cognizes his inmost seif to be that same brahman, he attains freedom or yathakamachara.According to Samkara the brahman is supreme freedom and absolute non-difference and its creative abundance is unhindered by any competing eternal ideas. Kant also accepted that in the phenomenal realm of the universal operation of natural forces there could be no question of freedom. He however maintained that ‘man is free’ and thus in place of phenomenal determination stood for the creative autonomy of man. In place of phenomenal rigidity he stood for spontaneity. Kant bases the freedom of man on moral foundations. Freedom is the demand of a moral life. Kant pointed out that it is not possible for theoretical reason to emancipate itself from the limitations consequent upon the dualistic juxtaposition of the subject and the object. In the realm of the practical reason the self can transcend these barriers and enjoy the creative spontaneity of a free self-expressive life. The theoretical reason is chained to the sensuous objective phenomenal world which obeys the necessary laws, but the practical mind solely determined by the moral law which is its own prescription is emancipated from necessity and in its free autonomous orientation to an absolute teleology is a citizen of a superior kingdom. Thus if Samkara bases the freedom of man on spiritual knowledge, Kant bases human freedom on the concept of moral autonomy and spontaneity.

There is a tendency in the interpreters of the Vedantic thought to find the final roots of all modern values like freedom in the concept of the brahman.¹³ But I regard it as unfortunate. From the standpoint of the development of human personality and social growth it does not serve any purpose to compose poems of eulogy about the transcendence and supreme luminosity of the brahman. Kant has a far greater appreciation of the significance and ramifications of freedom. Samkara flourishing in an era of monarchical despotism and feudalism did not have as keen an appreciation of freedom as Kant who flourished at an epoch when Lutheranism had proclaimed the sanctity of individual conseience and capitalism was proclaiming the absence of restraint on competition in the economic field. While to Samkara everything attains its final salvation in getting sunk into a mighty indeterminate brahman, Kant’s modernism is revealed in his greater appreciation of the ethics and sociology of freedom.

5. CONCLUSION

The monistic trend is far stronger in Samkara than in Kant. At the epistemological level the latter points the duality between sense-data and the intuitional forms and categories of the understanding. At the ontological level there is the duality between the things-in-themselves and the phenomenal world. Kant posits three regulative ideas of reason and does not derive them from a higher or superior idea. It is true, however that the theme of unity was not absent from his mind. There are hints of the concept of unity in the Prolegomena. But the unitary implications of the Kantian system were only drawn out in the later phases of the German idealistic philosophy. Samskara’s conclusion is partly in consonance with the later developments of German idealism in Schelling and Hegel. The indeterminate featureless brahman, however, reminds me more of the One of Parmenides than of the identity in difference which is the cardinal element in Hegelian idealism. Modern Indian interpreters of Samkara try to bring out the superiority of the latter to Kant by stating that the former could independently arrive at the conclusions which became explicit only in the later post-Kantian idealism.¹⁴ But it should be pointed out that the concept of Samkara’s brahman has its foundation in the intuitional grasp of the poets and seers, although it is, later on, substantiated by a vast framework of logical arguments. On the other hand, the scientific positive background of the Kantian philosophy should be stressed. I do not consider the mere arrival at the concept of unity to be of great philosophical significance. The eminence of a philosophical system lies in its capacity to synthesize the knowledge derived from the natural sciences and the social sciences as well as from literature and other disciplines, Kant’s philosophy attempts to harmonize a far greater range of knowledge than Samkara’s.

There was a time when I had profound reverence for Samkara on nationalistic and emotional grounds. Now I believe in a synthetic comprehensive approach to problems of philosophy. It is not possible to revive the scholastic and dogmatic methodology of Samkara. Neither is there any basis to give credence to the theory of three disparate sectors of the mind—cognitional, practical and emotional-aesthetic. Both Samkara and Kant have failed to utilize thoroughly the possible contributions of the social and historical sciences for the elaboration of their metaphysical structure, though Kant should be given the credit for having written three books in the field of political philosophy. In modem Indian thought the influence of Samkara is in one sense marked because all idealistic scholars pay homage to him but almost all of them have bid good bye to the Samkarite concept of maya and even the faithful are too busy reading the ideas of phenomenalism in his thought. There had been a revival of Kantianism and Natrop, Cohen, Vorlander, Cassirer, Adler, Eduard Benstein and others tried to re-buttress some of the ideas of the German philosopher. But neo-Kantianism also is a passing phenomenon. On logical grounds there are vital difficulties in the acceptance of the systems of both Samkara and Kant. On rational grounds Samkara’s eschatology cannot be defended, neither is it possible to work out a defence of space and time as subjective forms of intuition. But nevertheless Samkara and Kant stand as vindications of the superiority of the quest into cosmology and axiology. They have permanent and epoch-making place in the history of philosophy. Even for a construction of metaphysical system in the present, their inconsistencies and contradictions can provide suggestions. Although ī find both Samkara and Kant unsatisfying, I have always been impressed by the Kantian concept of moral autonomy. In the days of blighting totalitarianism the Kantian theory of the autonomy, spontaneity and dignity of man is a great theme in the history of human civilization. It may not be possible to support the exact structure of concrete values for which Samkara stood but still he has taught the abnegation of the superficial concern with external glamour and sensual attractions. Hence although the epistemological and ontological bases of the Samkarite and Kantian philosophies be not palatable in our world, both of them are undaunted spokesmen of the superiority of a dignified free philosophic life.

References:

¹ A modem German existentialist philosopher like Karl Jasper hails Kant as ‘the philosopher par excellence’ and ‘the prototype of a philosopher’ (den philosophen schlechthin). The Philosophy of Karl Jasper, Edited by P. A. Schilpp, (New York, Todor Publishing Company, 1957), pp. 381, 424.

² C. N. Krishnaswami Aiyar, Life And Times of Samkara, pp. 8-9; D. N. Pal, Samkara The Sublime. See also the Samkara-Digvijaya.

³ Sometimes it is said that Kant upheld the view that the Unconditioned is amenable to the grasp of intellectual intuition.

⁴ Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. E. T. by J. M. D. Mikeljohn (New York, 1900), p. 147.’

⁵ Experience is the culmination of divine gnosis.

⁶ There seems to be no corroboration for S. Radhakrishnan’s view: ‘Kant spoke of an intellectual intuition to indicate the mode of consciousness by which a knowledge of things in themselves might be obtained in a non-logical way.’ See S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, (Indian Edition), Vol. II. pp. 512-513. The Kantian term intuition, does however, comprehend both sensibility and intellectual intuition.

⁷ Fant, Critique of Pure Reason, op. cit., pp. 331-337, ‘Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God’; pp. 337-347, ‘Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the Existence of God’; pp. 347-353, ‘Of the Impossibility of a Physics-Theological Proof’.

⁸ Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, op. cit.,pp. 335-6.

⁹ Clement Weble, Kant’s Philosophy of Religion,p. 158 says that Kant criticized Judaism as misanthropic, Mohammedanism as proud, Hinduism as pusillanimous and the spurious Christianity of Pietism, hoping to acquire merit by self-contempt as servile. Kant, however, was influenced by the teachings of Protestantism. For Kant’s conception of the Christian conception of Grace, see Edward Caird, The Critical Philosophy of Kant,Vol. II, p. 545.

¹⁰ I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reasoti, E. T. by ĩ. M. D. Mikelejohn, Renaissance Edition, (New York, The Colonial Press, 1900), pp. 76-77.

¹¹ When the transcendental ego is compared to the atman, then the empirical ego is regarded as the analogue of the Vedantic concept of manas and buddhi. The Kantian concept of the synthetic unity of apperception in which there is the recognition of the centrality of consciousness was universalized by Hegel into a pan-logical self-conscious absolute.

¹² In his Religion Within the Bounds of Pure Reason, (1793) Kant tries to reduce religion to morality. He states that there is a necessary transition from morality to religion because the highest good or summum bonum is a necessary ideal of the reason. 

¹³ Mahendranath Sircar, Hindu Mysticism London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubuer & Co., 1934), p. 3, says: ‘He (Kant) did not see that the soul can be spontaneously creative and at the same time transcendent. Its creativeness is apparent, transcendence is its being’ I regard it as a confusion to identify creative freedom with an ocean of transcendence.

¹⁴ P. T. Raju, Thought emit Reality (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1937); Ibid., Idealistic Thought of India (London, George Allen & Unwin. 1953); H. JM. Bhattacharya, The Principles of Philosophy (University of Calcutta. 1948); P. T. Raiu ‘Kant’s Idea of Reason and the Brahman of Samkara’, Proceedings of the Eighth Indian Philosophical Congress (Calcutta. Town Art Press, 1933), pp. 290-291.

My Related Posts

You can search for these posts using Search Posts feature in the right sidebar.

• Ether in Kant and Akasa in Prasastapada: Philosophy in comparative perspective
• God, Space and Nature
• Purush – The Cosmic Man
• The Transcendental Self
• Ervin Laszlo and the Akashic Field
• Five Types of Systems Philosophy
• Hua Yan Buddhism : Reflecting Mirrors of Reality
• Indira’s Pearls: Apollonian Gasket, Circle and Sphere Packing
• Process Physics, Process Philosophy
• Networks and Boundaries
• Networks and Hierarchies
• Myth of Invariance: Sound, Music, and Recurrent Events and Structures
• Sounds True:  Speech, Language, and Communication
• Consciousness of Cosmos: A Fractal, Recursive, Holographic Universe
• Fractal and Multifractal Structures in Cosmology
• Cantor Sets, Sierpinski Carpets, Menger Sponges
• Fractal Geometry and Hindu Temple Architecture
• Rituals | Recursion | Mantras | Meaning : Language and Recursion
• From Systems to Complex Systems
• Hierarchy Theory in Biology, Ecology and Evolution
• Theories of the Self 
• Theories of Consciousness
• What is Yogacara Buddhism (Consciousness Only School)?
• Self and Other: Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity
• A Calculus for Self Reference, Autopoiesis, and Indications
• Individual Self, Relational Self, and Collective Self
• Semiotic Self and Dialogic Self 
• Drama Therapy: Self in Performance
• Narrative Psychology: Language, Meaning, and Self
• Mind, Consciousness, and Quantum Entanglement 
• Geometry of Consciousness
• The Harmonic Origins of the World
• From Individual to Collective Intentionality
• Lifeworld, System, and Intersubjectivity: Jurgen Habermas’ Communication Theory of Society
• Intersubjectivity in Buddhism
• Meditations on Emptiness and Fullness
• Charles Sanders Peirce’s Continuum
• What and Why of Virtue Ethics ?
• The Aesthetics of Charles Sanders Peirce
• Individual, Relational, and Collective Reflexivity
• Semiotics and Systems
• Dialogs and Dialectics
• Phenomenological Sociology
• Phenomenology and Symbolic Interactionism
• Aesthetics and Ethics
• Maha Vakyas: Great Aphorisms in Vedanta
• On Synchronicity
• Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
• Indra’s Net: On Interconnectedness 
• On Holons and Holarchy
• Levels of Human Psychological Development in Integral Spiral Dynamics
• The Great Chain of Being 
• Cyber-Semiotics: Why Information is not enough
• Integral Philosophy of the Rg Veda: Four Dimensional Man
• Systems View of Life: A Synthesis by Fritjof Capra
• Society as Communication: Social Systems Theory of Niklas Luhmann
• Truth, Beauty, and Goodness: Integral Theory of Ken Wilber

Key Sources of Research

The Relevance of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism to Advaita Vedanta, Part I

The Relevance of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism to Advaita Vedanta, Part I

The Relevance of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism to Advaita Vedanta, Part II

The Relevance of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism to Advaita Vedanta, Part II

The Relevance of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism to Advaita Vedanta, Part III

The Relevance of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism to Advaita Vedanta, Part III

The Ontological Status of the Transcendental Self: A Comparative Study of Kant and Sankara.

Sewnath, Ramon (2005).

Thesis (Ph. D.)–University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1996

Peter Lang.

https://philpapers.org/rec/SEWTOS

SANKARĀCHĀRYA AND KANTIAN NOTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Manas Sahu

In this paper, my objective is to show how Sankarāchārya’s concept of reality is different from the Kantian notion of reality, despite many similarities between them. Cartesian skepticism of universal doubt is a challenge for the Kantian notion of reality; however, it can’t be applied to Sankarāchārya’s concept of reality because of the acceptance of different paradigm to explain the reality and his non-representationalistic approach towards the reality. The attack on representationalism can’t be applicable to Sankarāchārya’s philosophy.

https://www.academia.edu/41473169/SANKARĀCHĀRYA_AND_KANTIAN_NOTION_OF_CONSCIOUSNESS

An Advaitic View of Kantian Philosophy

SWAMI SHANTIDHARMANANDA SARASWATI
PUBLISHER: KALPAZ PUBLICATIONS
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
EDITION: 2005
ISBN: 817835321

https://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/advaitic-view-of-kantian-philosophy-uan743

Space and time a comparative study of Kant and Sankara

http://hdl.handle.net/10603/69509

Name of the Researcher Goswami, Geeta
Name of the Guide Chakravarty, D K
Completed Year 31/12/1995
Name of the Department Department of Philosophy
Name of the University Gauhati University

https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/10603/69509

Consciousness Indian and Western Perspectives (Sankara, Kant and Hegel, Lyotard, Derrida and Habermas)

Hardcover – January 1, 2008
by Raghwendra Pratap Singh (Author)

Atlantic (January 1, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 560 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 8126909773
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8126909773

Śaṅkara

SEP

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/shankara

“Atman is Brahman” – How Absolute Idealism originated in Indian Philosophy

http://critique-of-pure-interest.blogspot.com/2017/06/atman-is-brahman-origin-of-absolute.html

Chapter 3. The History of Religious Consciousness: Kant, Hegel, Descartes and Shankaracharya

The Development of Religious Consciousness

by Swami Krishnananda

https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/conscious/consc_3.html

The Vedanta of Shankara

IGNCA

Click to access 4627.pdf

The Real and the Constructed.

Click to access 29-2&3-10.pdf

The Philosophy of Shankara

M A Buch

Click to access b20782842_C020830084.pdf

The Absolute of Advaita and the Spirit of Hegel: Situating Vedānta on the Horizons of British Idealisms.

Barua, A.

 J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 34, 1–17 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-016-0076-4

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40961-016-0076-4

08 SAMKARA AND KANT (Apr 1960)

VISHWANATH PRASAD VARMA

https://vk.rkmm.org/s/vkm/m/vedanta-kesari-1960/a/08-samkara-and-kant-apr-1960

Vedanta or the Science of Reality

NAB767
AUTHOR: K.A. KRISHNASWAMY IYER
PUBLISHER: ADHYATMA PRAKASHAN KARYALAYA, BANGALORE
EDITION: 2018
PAGES: 540

https://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/vedanta-or-science-of-reality-nab767/#

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.22640

Click to access index.pdf

The System of Sankara

Dr. Will Durant

https://www.kamakoti.org/souv/2-6.html

Kant and Śankara on Freedom.

Stroud, Scott R. (2003).

South Pacific Journal of Philosophy and Culture 7.

Advaita Vedanta

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta

The Absolute of Advaita and the Spirit of Hegel: Situating Vedānta on the Horizons of British Idealisms

26 October 2016

The Absolute of Advaita and the Spirit of Hegel: Situating Vedānta on the Horizons of British Idealisms

Abstract

Purpose

A significant volume of philosophical literature produced by Indian academic philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century can be placed under the rubric of ‘Śaṁkara and X’, where X is Hegel, or a German or a British philosopher who had commented on, elaborated or critiqued the Hegelian system. We will explore in this essay the philosophical significance of Hegel-influenced systems as an intellectual conduit for these Indo-European conceptual encounters, and highlight how for some Indian philosophers the British variations on Hegelian systems were both a point of entry into debates over ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ in contemporary European philosophy and an occasion for defending Advaita against the charge of propounding a doctrine of world illusionism.

Methodology

Our study of the philosophical enquiries of A.C. Mukerji, P.T. Raju, and S.N.L. Shrivastava indicates that they developed distinctive styles of engaging with Hegelian idealisms as they reconfigured certain aspects of the classical Advaita of Śaṁkara through contemporary vocabulary.

Result and Conclusion

These appropriations of Hegelian idioms can be placed under three overlapping styles: (a) Mukerji was partly involved in locating Advaita in an intermediate conceptual space between, on the one hand, Kantian agnosticism and, on the other hand, Hegelian absolutism; (b) Raju and Shrivastava presented Advaitic thought as the fulfilment of certain insights of Hegel and F.H. Bradley; and (c) the interrogations of Hegel’s ‘idealism’ provided several Indian academic philosophers with a hermeneutic opportunity to revisit the vexed question of whether the ‘idealism’ of Śaṁkara reduces the phenomenal world, structured by māyā, to a bundle of ideas.

Similar content being viewed by others

The theme of the emergence of certain forms of Hinduisms through various types of east–west dialogical interactions has been extensively studied in recent decades. From around 1900 onwards, some Hindu thinkers began to assimilate and critically interrogate a diverse range of European ‘imaginations’ of India, such as Christian missionary critiques of Hindu socio-religious universes, Orientalist projections of golden Vedic antiquities and enquiries into Indo-European linguistic morphologies, and utilitarian denunciations of the ‘primitivism’ of Hindu cultural systems. A topic that has been relatively underexplored in these intellectual transmissions and exchanges is the engagement of a range of Indian academic philosophers in the first half of the last century with a variety of Hegel-inspired philosophical systems. A significant volume of philosophical literature from this period can be placed under the rubric of ‘Śaṁkara and X’, where X is Hegel, or a German or a British philosopher who had commented on, elaborated or critiqued the Hegelian system. We will explore in this essay the philosophical significance of Hegel-influenced systems as an intellectual conduit for these Indo-European conceptual encounters, and highlight how for some Indian philosophers the British variations on Hegelian systems were both a point of entry into debates over ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ in contemporary European philosophy and an occasion for defending Advaita against the charge of propounding a doctrine of world illusionism.

The reception in Indian academic philosophical milieus of Hegelian thought, often mediated through British philosophers such as T.H. Green (1836–1882), E. Caird (1835–1908), and F.H. Bradley (1846–1924), was not uniform. While H. Haldar (University of Calcutta) was primarily a Hegelian thinker, who only occasionally employed Vedantic terminology to elucidate certain aspects of Hegel’s system, A.C. Mukerji (University of Allahabad), P.T. Raju (Andhra University and the University of Rajasthan), S.N.L. Shrivastava (Vikrama University, Ujjain), and others directly drew from the perspectives of Advaita to critique specific themes in Hegelian thought. For Mukerji, Raju, Shrivastava, and others, Hegelian idealisms provided the common conceptual currency with which they could critically intervene in European philosophical disputes and also present Advaita Vedānta to European audiences. Consequently, the term ‘Absolute’ routinely appears in their texts, and, in fact, as S. Deshpande has noted, ‘the singular question that occupied these philosophers in the early part of the twentieth century was as follows: “What is the nature of the Absolute?”’ (Deshpande 2015: 19). As we will see, Mukerji, Raju, and Shrivastava developed distinctive styles of engaging with Hegelian idealisms as they reconfigured certain aspects of the classical Advaita of Śaṁkara through contemporary vocabulary. These appropriations of Hegelian idioms can be placed under three overlapping styles: (a) Mukerji was partly involved in locating Advaita in an intermediate conceptual space between, on the one hand, Kantian agnosticism and, on the other hand, Hegelian absolutism; (b) Raju and Shrivastava presented Advaitic thought as the fulfilment of certain insights of Hegel and Bradley; and (c) the interrogations of Hegel’s ‘idealism’ provided several Indian academic philosophers with a hermeneutic opportunity to revisit the vexed question of whether the ‘idealism’ of Śaṁkara reduces the phenomenal world, structured by māyā, to a bundle of ideas. Our exploration of three central texts, Mukerji’s The Nature of Self (1943), Raju’s Thought and reality: Hegelianism and Advaita(1937), and Shrivastava’s Śaṁkara and Bradley: A Comparative and Critical Study (1968), will indicate that these philosophical currents formed a dense network stretched across three vertices: Hegel himself; the receptions and the reconfigurations of Hegel in a wide range of British idealists, from Green to Caird to Bradley; and the Indian philosophical interrogations, from the perspectives of modernized Advaita, of both Hegel himself and the British idealists who incorporated aspects of Hegelianism into their own metaphysical systems. While ‘British Idealism’, which emerged from around 1870, was not a singular movement but a group of somewhat divergent philosophical standpoints, D. Boucher and A. Vincent highlight a few shared themes. First, according to British idealism, there are no isolated entities or processes, and everything has to be understood in terms of their relationships within an internally differentiated whole. Second, the world is dependent on mind, not in the sense that it owes its very existence to mind but that it derives its intelligibility from mind. The claim is not that, for instance, a table ceases to exist once it is taken away from an observer, but that carpenters, scientists, and artists could see three different types of tables, where these differences are dependent on mind (Boucher and Vincent 2012: 39). These themes were critically received by the British idealists from the philosophical projects of German idealists who sought to respond to the critical idealism of Kant, variously by searching for an unconditional first principle of knowledge (Fichte), a philosophy of identity (Schelling), the absolute knowing which overcomes all subject–object dualisms (Hegel), and so on (Dudley 2007). Mukerji, Raju, Shrivastava, and others, as we will see, critically appropriated specific aspects of the ‘holism’ of the Hegelian Absolute, and also the post-Kantian critique of Berkeleyean idealism, as they reformulated, for the purpose of their philosophical conversations with Hegelianisms, some of the metaphysical themes of Advaita Vedānta. The Absolute of Advaita, it turns out, is not to be understood as the ‘subjective idealism’ of Berkeley, but not quite as the ‘absolute idealism’ of Hegel either, though it is conceptually much nearer the latter standpoint than the former.

Advaita Between Kant and Hegel

Mukerji’s The Nature of Self (henceforth, NS) is a careful and systematic exploration of certain philosophical positions in British idealisms regarding the self. He sketches three broad patterns of British philosophical responses to Kant. First, though Kant had critiqued the basic assumption of Hume’s empiricism, namely, that the epistemic subject first begins with a bundle of atomic sensations and then proceeds to unite them through psychological bonds of association, his transcendental idealism has not been properly appreciated in some strands of British philosophy. Various forms of contemporary realisms, pragmatisms, and pluralisms operate with the pre-Kantian view that things are self-existing distinct entities before they enter into relations with one another. While some philosophers have indeed rejected the basic thesis of British empiricists such as Locke, Berkeley, and Hume—that the world is composed of self-existing, metaphysically independent and isolated entities which are only subsequently related to one another through conceptual abstractions—they have arrived at two somewhat divergent conclusions. First, some have moved towards Kant’s agnosticism regarding the noumenon, and view the self as a bare that which remains completely unknowable. Second, others have elaborated Hegelian understandings of self-consciousness in terms of the self’s developing awareness of itself through its awareness of objects, thereby reducing the self, according to Mukerji, to the status of an empirical entity. At this critical stage of the argument, Mukerji presents Śaṁkara’s Advaita as a via media between these extremes in post-Kantian idealisms: on the other hand, the Absolute of Advaita (unlike the Kantian noumenon) is not utterly unknowable, for it is the self-revealing consciousness which is the ever-present background illumination in all empirical knowledge, but, on the other hand, the Absolute of Advaita (unlike the Hegelian organic whole) is a pure undifferentiated unity and not the self-consciousness structured by identity-in-difference of various British ‘neo-Hegelian’ idealisms. Mukerji’s philosophical project, then, is not a nativist-styled return to Śaṁkara, but a creative intervention, from modernized Advaita perspectives, in post-Kantian metaphysical and epistemological debates about the nature of consciousness.

Mukerji begins by noting that the problem of the self is structured by a paradox: while every object implies a self that knows that object, this statement would suggest that there must also be a knower that knows the self (NS, 5). According to Mukerji, the question ‘Who knows the knower?’ signals a key debate across a range of contemporary British philosophers, who have, however, missed the point that the self is not only not an empirical object but also not a psychological subject. The notion that the self is essentially unknowable through empirical modes is found in various Upaniṣadic texts and subsequently in Śaṁkara’s understanding of the self. This doctrine has recently emerged in Kant’s critical philosophy, where his critique of rational psychology for mistakenly extending the categories of thought to the transcendental ego is, according to Mukerji, reminiscent of the teachings of the Upaniṣads and Śaṁkara (NS, 24). Philosophers should avoid the confusion, labelled transcendental illusion by Kant and adhyāsa by Śaṁkara, of mistaking the pure ego with the objects of knowledge, for by overlooking the distinctions between the innermost subject and the empirical objects, there arises various mistaken theories such as epiphenomenalism and behaviourism (NS, 26).

Mukerji notes that two methods have been developed in recent British philosophy to resolve the egocentric paradox, namely, the experimental or inductive method, and the logical or transcendental method. The former is employed by psychologists such as J.B. Watson who seek to replace the vocabulary of consciousness with that of physiological processes. These attempts to remove the pure ego from an analysis of knowledge commit the fallacy of the ‘decentralization of the self’, which involves the misidentification of the real self with objective entities and states, which are in fact spurious egos. The fundamental problem that theories produced through this method have to face is that of an infinite regress: when a subject S knows objects O, each with specific properties, S itself cannot have these properties, for it would then become another object and would require S^* by which it can be known (NS, 9–12). The basic error lies in the forgetfulness on part of the subject S that S itself stands in a unique relation to the objects which cannot be excavated through an empirical analysis. For instance, when knowledge is reduced to a set of physiological and mental processes, it is forgotten that these processes are intelligible to S only if the transcendental conditions of S’s relation to them are not reducible to the relations between objects. One such transcendental condition for the conceivability of an object is that it is a self-consistent unity. Therefore, when S knows an object A and another object B, the interobjective relations that obtain between A and B are completely distinct from the ‘relation’ of A and B individually with S. The inductive method is not capable of uncovering these transcendental conditions of possible experience, because it is precisely these conditions, discoverable only through a reflective analysis of the nature of knowledge, that make the application of the method possible (NS, 15). On the other hand, the Kantian transcendental method correctly emphasizes that the ‘logical implicates of experience’ such as space, time, and causality cannot be known in the same way that specific empirical objects are known. The post-Kantian developers of this method argue that all objective entities, such as tables and trees, as well as the universal conditions of objects of experience, such as space and time, exist for the self which is in this sense ‘the centre of the universe’. Mukerji notes that this method has ‘staunch advocates not only in England where Hegelianism has come to establish itself as a permanent philosophical tendency, but it is accepted as final also by many accomplished thinkers of contemporary Italy and India …’ (NS, 17).

However, while British idealists such as Green and Caird have correctly accepted the transcendental approach to the ego, they are engaged in a ‘logical see-saw’ in which they have alternately emphasized one of the following points, both of which they have inherited from Kant: the self as the transcendental presupposition of empirical objects, and the self as unknowable. Green has highlighted the distinction between the pure ego and empirical objects and denied that the pure ego is knowable, while Caird has emphasized the knowability of the pure ego and almost removed its distinction from empirical objects (NS, 70). Mukerji has in mind statements of Green such as the following: ‘That there is such a consciousness is implied in the existence of the world; but what it is we only know through its so far acting in us as to enable us, however partially and interruptedly, to have knowledge of a world or an intelligent experience’ (NS, 74). According to Mukerji’s reading, if Green veers, in this manner, towards a deep agnosticism about the self, Caird, on the other hand, mistakenly introduces empirical categories into the self. Caird argues that the self constitutes itself by opposing itself as its object, and by overcoming this very opposition, such that the self is a concrete unity of identity-in-difference. Unity and difference should be seen as inseparably connected in self-consciousness, through which the self knows itself and all its objects: ‘the self exists as one self only as it opposes itself, as object, to itself, as subject, and immediately denies and transcends that opposition. Only because it is such a concrete unity, which has in itself a resolved contradiction, can the intelligence cope with all the manifoldness and division of the mighty universe …’ (Caird 2002[1883]: 116). Responding to Caird’s notion of the self as an ‘organic unity’, Mukerji allows that unity-in-difference may be the most universal form to which every object of experience conforms; however, this universality does not show that the true subject itself is a unity-in-difference, for the subject is the logical presupposition of all categories, including the category of ‘unity’ which cannot be applied to the subject (NS, 18–19). Therefore, he criticizes Caird for viewing the self as the correlative of the not-self, arguing that on this account the self is another empirical object, and not the real self which is the presupposition of all objects (NS, 21). Mukerji’s Kantian point is that since a ‘category’ is a principle of interpretation that is employed to objects of experience, the self cannot itself be a category, even the highest category, since every category implies an ultimate unity (NS, 98–99).

The point of this subtle discussion of the complexities of British idealisms emerges gradually: Mukerji seeks to situate Advaita in a conceptual space somewhere between the systems of Caird and Green. On the one hand, because Caird views self-consciousness as a unity that is mediated through its consciousness of objects, he effectively views the self as an empirical object (NS, 90). Noting Caird’s view that only with the ‘return’ of the self to itself or the reduplication of the self in the judgment ‘I am I’, that the ‘ego, strictly speaking, comes into existence’ (Caird 1889: 403), Mukerji argues that this developmental account of the self, which progresses from consciousness to self-consciousness, presupposes the categories of space and time which are the transcendental conditions of any entity that undergoes a processive change. Therefore, Caird’s developmental self cannot be the true subject, which is the very source of the categories and cannot be an object which is comprehended by the categories (NS, 88). Mukerji is more sympathetic to Green’s engagements with Kant, noting that both Green and Śaṁkara view consciousness as a reality which has none of the characteristics that belong to knowable objects (viṣaya) (NS, 144). He argues that Śaṁkara’s argument that every perceptual judgement involves two principles, namely an unchanging spiritual unity (cit) and a stream of transient cognitions (vṛtti–pravāha) of the mind (antaḥkaraṇa), is analogous to Kant’s distinction, later elaborated by Green, between the transcendental unity of apperception and the successive states of knowledge. Mukerji comments: ‘And what must be eminently interesting for a modern philosopher is the similarity of Green’s analysis with that of Sankara’ (NS, 175). However, while both Śaṁkara and Green highlight the point that the self is the logical presupposition of experience and hence cannot be placed under the categories, there is a fundamental divergence in their conceptual systems regarding the question of knowledge of the self. While Green, following Kant, exhibits a ‘drift to agnosticism’ and regards the noumenal self as completely unknowable, the Advaita standpoint is that self-revealing consciousness (svayaṃprakāśa), which is both eminently real and yet not an object, is present in all empirical consciousness (NS, 129–130). According to Mukerji, the basic error of Kant, and of Green in his Kantian moments, is to view reality, on the one hand, and the phenomenal world, on the other hand, as congruent, and to conclude from this equivalence that the noumenal self, because it is unknowable, is merely an imaginary point. According to Advaita, however, reality is more expansive than Kant’s phenomenal world, so that the pure consciousness of Advaita, though indescribable, is not a completely inconceivable x, but rather ‘the indispensable support of all objects and of all relations among the objects’ (NS, 342). Therefore, the Advaita of Śaṁkara gives us, according to Mukerji, a conceptual pathway that avoids the errors of Caird and Green: on the one hand, the Absolute of Advaita cannot be characterized in terms of any empirical categories which are relational, but, on the other hand, it is not a Kantian thing-in-itself which is entirely unknown. Sankara avoids the ‘opposite fallacies’ of viewing the self as an empirical object (which, according to Mukerji, is effectively Caird’s response to Kant) and as a pure nothing (which is the ‘drift’ of Green), for while Sankara emphasizes that the conditions under which objects are known cannot be applied to the knower, he also asserts that ‘what is thus beyond the conditions of the knowable objects is our very self. The self in this sense is said to be beyond the known and above the unknown’ (NS, 270). Thus, the Advaitic self is not unknown and unknowable in the same sense as the Kantian noumenon. The self is said to be self-revealing, for everyday experience presupposes a ‘self-experience’ which is the condition of empirical knowledge. However, this ‘self-experience’ is not the experience of the self as an object, rather it is a non-objectifying immediate experience which, in an Advaita analogy, is like light which does not stand in need of an external light for is own illumination. The ‘entire tenor and drift’ of the Upaniṣads is that Brahman, far from being a transcendental principle that is unknown or otherwise accessible only to mystics, is ever present in the ‘self-experience’ of everyday life (NS, 378). The self of Advaita should not be viewed as a transcendental Principle, along the lines of a Platonic archetype, but rather as the immanent presupposition of all experience. Therefore, the unity of consciousness, for Śaṁkara, is not an abstract unknown but is ‘real in a certain sense’ (NS, 341).

The crucial phrase here is ‘in a certain sense’, for if Mukerji seeks to situate Śaṁkara between Green and Caird, this is also because he presents Advaita as an intermediate path through the systems of Kant and Hegel. While the Absolute of Advaita is the most foundational reality, and not a mere conceptual limitation such as the Kantian noumenon, it is not a relational whole such as the Hegelian Absolute. On the one hand, Mukerji draws extensive parallels between Śaṁkara’s views on the self and Kantian statements about the noumenal self. Mukerji argues that Kant’s affirmation of the transcendental unity of apperception can be put in Śaṁkara’s terms as follows: the conscious self is the presupposition (grāhikā) of the fleeting events of knowledge (NS, 218). Pointing out that Śaṁkara restricted categories such as generic unity, specific difference, action, quality, and relation to empirical objects, Mukerji comments that it may be ‘remarked without running the risk of being accused of overzeal that Sankara was essentially expressing the same truth that inspired Kant’s doctrine at a later age’ (NS, 157). The most significant of Śaṁkara’s conclusions, namely, that the ‘foundational character’ of unvarying consciousness is the presupposition of our experience of objects is also a theme that is shared by the contemporary ‘idealistic school’ which states that the self provides the a priori conditions of the determination of the objects of experience. Mukerji states that the ‘development of post-Kantian idealism bears eloquent testimony to the vitality of the Advaita position and the former may in this respect be regarded as an elaborate exposition and ramification of the latter’ (NS, 119). However, as we have noted, Mukerji’s basic objection to the Kantian system is the postulation of the noumenon, and he argues that this thing-in-itself has been ‘rightly rejected’ by idealists such as Fichte and Bradley. While Kant concludes with an agnosticism about the self, for Śaṁkara the Absolute is the pre-established ground (svayaṃsiddha) of all relational thought (NS, 308–309). Śaṁkara does claim that the Absolute is beyond all speech and thought, but he also affirms that Brahman is not a mere nothing (abhāva) (Brahma–sūtra–bhāṣya III.2.22; NS, 311). On the other hand, Mukerji’s rejection of the Kantian noumenon does not amount to a full-fledged acceptance of the Hegelian system. He argues that while the Advaita tradition agrees with Hegel that distinctions presuppose an underlying unity, it rejects Hegel’s understanding of the infinite. Whereas for Hegel, true infinity is not opposed to its other but includes it, so that the highest category of reality is that of unity-in-difference, Advaita responds that unity-in-difference itself is a category that applies to objects but not to the Absolute which is the very presupposition of these objects (NS, 350). Mukerji therefore offers a critique of post-Kantian idealisms for transforming Kant’s transcendental subject into a universal Spirit by viewing the Kantian logical unity as a determinate object, which is a unity manifested in differences. The error lies, according to Mukerji, in viewing the noumenal subject not simply as a limiting concept but as a positive, though trans-phenomenal, thing or object of thought (NS, 104–105). These post-Kantian idealists view subject and object as correlative terms, so that an object of thought should be properly understood in terms neither of identity nor of difference, but of identity-in-difference, which is a unity of differents. At the same time, the subject is regarded as a higher-order reality, because this correlativity of subject and object is a correlativity for the subject. This line of argument ‘gradually leads to the conclusion that the world is the self-manifestation of a spiritual principle which is a universal that differentiates itself and yet is one with itself in its particularity’ (Mukerji 1936: 448). Mukerji rejects the basic premise of this argument, namely, that subject and object are correlative, noting that the true subject cannot be placed under any empirical categories that apply to objects, since it is the logical presupposition of empirical experience. However, because of the influence of Hegelianism, thinkers from different countries mistakenly continue to reject the notion of the self as pure consciousness. They wrongly assume that the self comes into existence through the I-consciousness which contrasts itself with consciousness of objects; rather, it is because the self exists as a synthetic principle that the I-consciousness can emerge with pure consciousness as its transcendental presupposition (NS, 333). Therefore, while there is a ‘strong tendency’ on the part of some Indian philosophers such as Haldar to minimize the distinctions between Advaita and Hegelian absolutism, there is in fact a ‘deep chasm’ between the two: Hegelian idealism is based on the mediated unity of the concrete universal, whereas Advaita is grounded in a pure immediacy which is not an organic unity of distinct individuals (NS, 277–79).

Advaita as the Fulfilment of Hegel and Bradley

Mukerji’s basic theme that Advaita rejects the Hegelian Absolute as a spiritual unity-in-difference which expresses itself in parts also appears in Raju and Shrivastava, who expressly present the Absolute of Advaita as the most consistent resolution of the conceptual puzzles involved in ‘relating’ the one and the many. By drawing on various classical Advaitins such as Śrī Harṣa, they argue that the Hegelian Absolute, which they read as a relational whole of the eternal and the temporal, is logically contradictory—the Advaita of Śaṁkara, in contrast, cannot be placed under any categories of thought, including identity-in-difference which is a relational category. They highlight the point that Bradley places his Absolute above the operations of categorical thought: according to Bradley, relational experience is riddled with inner contradictions which can be resolved only in the ‘immediate experience’ of the supra-rational Absolute. Bradley’s Appearance and Reality contains various turns of phrase which, for his Indian Vedantic interlocutors, are reminiscent of the Advaita theme of māyā as the principle of the phenomenal world’s inexplicability, for instance, Bradley’s statement that ‘[t]he fact of appearance, and of the diversity of its particular spheres, we found was inexplicable. Why there are appearances, and why appearances of such various kinds, are questions not to be answered’ (Bradley 1893: 511). However, while Bradley’s Absolute approximates to the Absolute of Advaita in some respects, his Vedantic readers ultimately reject his system on the grounds that he retains the Hegelian error of regarding the Absolute as an organic whole of interrelated elements.

Raju argues in his Thought and reality: Hegelianism and Advaita (henceforth, TR) that while Hegelians struggle to explain the relation between the infinite and the finite, the proper response to this problem is that, strictly speaking, no such relation can be logically elaborated. If this relation is viewed as an identity-in-difference, this category is simply a restatement of the problem in different terms, for one would have to explain the relation itself between identity and difference (TR, 44). He discusses various Hegelian attempts to relate individuals to the organic whole of the Absolute and argues that they are unsuccessful in logically spelling out the relation between distinct substantial selves and the eternally perfect Absolute (TR, 58). The ‘relation’ of the finite and the infinite, the ‘crux of all monism’, has been most successfully addressed by Śaṁkara: while all finite selves are, sub specie aeternitatis, identical with Brahman, they are, sub specie temporis, characterized by multiplicity. If one self is liberated, māyā, which structures the phenomenal world, disappears only for it and not for others, so that in this sense each self has a distinct individuality. However, noumenally the self does not exist as a substantial identity, for it is one with Brahman, which is without a second. Therefore, we can move from Bradley to Śaṁkara with only a ‘few steps’: Bradley correctly notes that appearances, such as the finite self, are riddled with internal contradictions, and these must undergo a complete transmutation into the Absolute. However, Bradley continues to retain the appearances somehow in the Absolute, because he is not entirely willing to view the Absolute as totally beyond thought. Raju claims that ‘[h]ad Bradley given up his Hegelian bias, rejected the appearance as such as in no way forming part of reality, and thus saved the eternal perfection of the Absolute, he would have joined hands with Sankara’ (TR, 61).

Raju’s claim that Bradley was inconsistent in holding on to the appearances in the Absolute is a recurring theme in Shrivastava’s Śaṁkara and Bradley: A Comparative and Critical Study (henceforth, SB), which both provides detailed analogues between Bradley’s thought and the Advaita of Śaṁkara, and argues that the former remains contains some contradictions that can be resolved by the latter. On the one hand, Shrivastava argues that various aspects of Bradley’s thought resonate with the basic themes of Śaṁkara’s Advaita. For Bradley, relational modes of thinking, which apply to concepts such as space, time, and self, are riddled with contradictions, so that reason yields only appearances and not truth. The contradictions in the appearances which structure everyday life can be resolved only in the Absolute which, like the Absolute of Śaṁkara, transcends all discursive reasoning. On the other hand, however, Śaṁkara and Bradley disagree over the nature of this supra-relational Absolute: for Śaṁkara, the Absolute is indivisible, undifferentiated, and one, such that differences are superimposed on it only through ignorance (avidyā), whereas for Bradley the Absolute is a ‘concrete individual’ which is a unity of sameness and difference. Shrivastava argues that Bradley’s position is similar to the bhedābheda Vedantic doctrine, according to which identity-in-difference is the proper characterization of the relation between the substantially real world and the Absolute, so that the critiques of Advaitins such as Śrī Harṣa against the bhedābheda also apply to Bradley’s understanding of the Absolute (SB, 7). As the reference to bhedābhedasuggests, Shrivastava’s engagement with Bradley proceeds through a critical examination of Bradley’s attempt to affirm, on the one hand, that every appearance is real, although to different degrees, and, on the other hand, that every appearance has to be ‘transmuted’, through mutual supplementation and rearrangement, into the Absolute (Bradley 1893: 489). Thus, Bradley argues: ‘[I]n the Absolute no appearance can be lost. Each one contributes and is essential to the unity of the whole … Every element however subordinate, is preserved in that relative whole in which its character is taken up and merged’ (Bradley 1893: 456–457). Therefore, while it is a half-truth that no individual appearance is the perfection of the Absolute, it is also a half-truth that ‘[t]he Absolute is its appearances, it really is all and every one of them’ (Bradley 1893: 431). Seeking to preserve the reality of the appearances in the Absolute, Bradley argues in this manner: ‘The Absolute … has no assets beyond appearance; and again, with appearances alone to its credit, the Absolute would be bankrupt’ (Bradley 1893: 489). Shrivastava seizes on these statements and argues that Bradley’s position involves the contradiction of stating that ‘an appearance retains its individuality’ in the Absolute and ‘an appearance is transmuted’ in the Absolute (SB, 85). When Bradley claims that ‘[e]verything in the Absolute is still that which it is for itself. Its private character remains, and is but neutralized by complement and addition’ (Bradley 1893: 511), Shrivastava responds that a finite appearance cannot undergo such a transformation while simultaneously maintaining its specificity. However, Bradley’s position can be rendered consistent through Śaṁkara’s understanding of reality in terms of the supra-relational one which appears, through avidyā, in the diversities of a phenomenal word (SB, 7). That is, while the inconsistences of Bradley’s system are a result of his understanding of the Absolute as a harmonious blend of eternally existing appearances, for Śaṁkara it is illogical to speak in this manner of integrating the phenomenal world into the timeless Brahman (SB, 47). Bradley’s view that the Real is qualified by diversity, when translated into Vedantic categories, approximates to the cosmological notion of saprapañca–brahmavāda, according to which a substantially real world (prapañca) is grounded in the ultimate reality, Brahman. If Bradley had simply asserted that the Absolute is an organic unity of diverse components or even that it is not an undifferentiated unity, this view, Shrivastava claims, would at least have been comprehensible; however, Bradley contradicts his own statement that the Absolute is utterly non-relational by speaking of the many as ‘qualifying’ the one (SB, 56). Echoing Raju’s claim that we noted earlier, about Bradley ‘joining hands’ with Śaṁkara, Shrivastava too states: ‘The super-relational Absolute cannot … possess internal diversity or distinctions … If only Bradley had realized what his own premises pushed to their logical conclusions lead to, he would have come to this very conclusion and joined hand with Śaṁkara’ (SB, 246).

Advaita as the Synthesis of ‘Idealism’ and ‘Realism’

The emergence of post-Hegelian debates over ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ in British philosophical circles was roughly concurrent with British Orientalist representations of Advaita Vedānta as a system of world negation and cosmic illusionism. Therefore, the interrogation of the multiple significances of ‘idealism’ in British philosophical thought was also an occasion for reclaiming, or foregrounding, some of the empirically realist strands in Śaṁkara’s Advaita. Figures such as Mukerji emphasized that the ‘idealism’ of Śaṁkara should not be confused, any more than the idealisms of Hegel, Bradley, and others, with a sort of Berkeleyanism that analyses the phenomenal world in terms of ideas. While the foundational nature of consciousness is often interpreted as a denial of the extra-mental reality of the world, Mukerji argues that it is important to clearly distinguish between this metaphysical idealism and the assertion of the logical priority of consciousness. The notion of consciousness as the logical presupposition of all experience is compatible with both metaphysical realism and metaphysical idealism: ‘Even if it be granted that knowledge does not create but only reveals a pre-existent reality, yet it would remain unchallengeable that the external reality could not be revealed to us apart from consciousness which is the principle of revelation’ (NS, 122). That is, even if we accept the metaphysically realist thesis that there is a mind-independent world, for an object to be known by a self, it must be apprehended by the self through the transcendental conditions of experience (NS, 8–9). Mukerji concedes that a metaphysical realist might argue that this epistemological priority of consciousness should not be conflated with its chronological priority, so that although consciousness is presupposed in every act of knowing, the emergence of consciousness has a developmental history. Mukerji notes, however, that this response ignores ‘the plain fact that the quid anterior to consciousness has no meaning for us, and so cannot be appealed to in explanation of anything …’ That is, the non-conceptualized quid that materialist theories of consciousness appeal to is a quid that is intelligible only insofar as it is presented to a self. This is how he reads Śaṁkara’s argument that while cognitions have specific temporal determinations, ‘that for which these temporal relations have a meaning cannot be itself in time; it is in this sense an eternal presence’ (NS, 144–45). Mukerji, in fact, suggests that Śaṁkara was an empirical realist about the phenomenal world. The statement that all empirical reality is rooted in the Absolute does not imply that everyday objects are dissolved into the Absolute, or that human moral and religious aspirations are demoted to the status of mere illusions: ‘To urge that my world would not exist if I had not existed is not to prove that the world I know is my ideas only’ (NS, 323). We should therefore understand the difference between ‘realism’ and ‘idealism’ in this manner: while the realist accepts as unproblematic the ‘fact’ that we inhabit an external world, the idealist asks for an analysis of the conditions under which this ‘fact’ is established. Therefore, while the realist ‘takes the facts “at their face-value”, the idealist asks for the conditions involved in the factual nature of the so-called facts’ (Mukerji 2011: 475). Provided the terms are understood in this manner, we can see that in his response to Hume Kant not only ‘undermined the basis of realism’ but also developed a form of idealism which is opposed to subjective idealism. Mukerji argues that a Kantian can agree with a realist that the world is not composed merely of bundles of fleeting ideas, even while pointing out to the realist that the nature which is the subject of scientific investigation is not given to us in any way other than through our scientific theories, and it is therefore not possible to check whether these theories correspond to an extra-theoretical nature. As N. Bhushan and J. Garfield point out, Mukerji’s idealism is not subjectivist and it does not reject an extra-mental world; rather, ‘Mukerji defends a robust realism about the natural world and an intersubjective account of the constitution of our ontology’ (Bhushan and Garfield 2011: 461).

While Hiralal Haldar did not directly draw on Śaṁkara, his synthesis of idealism and realism resembles Mukerji’s rejection of Berkeleyan subjectivism and the affirmation of the self’s categorical presuppositions in empirical experience. Haldar describes his intellectual debt to Hegel in these terms: ‘I have seen myself described as a Hegelian. The basis of my thought is undoubtedly Hegelian, but in the course of years … I have been led to modify in many ways what I have learned from Hegel’ (Haldar 1936: 316). Haldar argues that the subjective idealist conflates the subjective mental ideas with their objective referents in the external world whose existence is not dependent on the mind. However, while the error of Berkeleyean idealism is to minimize the opposition between subject and object, realism makes the opposite error of setting them apart completely. Both ‘undifferentiated unity’ and ‘pure difference’ are abstractions, and in the concrete world unity and difference are interrelated as aspects of the Absolute which does not obliterate the distinctions between self and not-self, but maintains and transcends them (Haldar 1936: 322–323). Haldar argues that mind and matter should not be seen as mutually opposed for they are correlated aspects of the universal Spirit. Therefore, idealism, properly understood, does not deny the reality of the external world, but goes farther than realism by ‘maintaining that the world is indeed real … but that in order to know that it is real it has got to have mind’ (Haldar 1936: 323). This Hegelian thesis of the identity of thought and being can be understood, according to Haldar, as the logical culmination of Kant’s critical philosophy. While Kant demonstrated in his transcendental deduction that our knowledge of the objective world and the synthetic unity of self-consciousness are relative to each other, Hegel developed this Kantian theme to the conclusion that there is a higher unity which both comprehends and transcends the self and the world, and makes possible their correlativity (Haldar 1896: 265). Thus, as T. Biswas (2015: 116) notes: ‘Unlike realism, Haldar’s Realistic-Idealism does not consider the division between mind and matter as Absolute, nor like subjective idealism does it reduce matter to mental states’.

Advaita and the Project of Comparative Philosophy

Mukerji, Raju, and Shrivastava, in their somewhat distinctive ways, intervened in post-Kantian debates, sometimes mediated by British philosophers, about the nature of the self and the Absolute. Their hermeneutic projects were also pioneering exercises in ‘comparative philosophy’, and they often reflected on the methodologies of their readings, from within the contexts of Advaita, of various British idealists. Raju notes that comparative philosophy has been criticized for focusing primarily on similarities and not engaging critically with differences across conceptual systems. For example, when Śaṁkara’s Brahman is compared with Spinoza’s eternal substance, it is forgotten that Śaṁkara applies a dialectic in indicating the self-established Brahman and would have disagreed with Spinoza’s attempt, through his geometrical method, to deduce the phenomenal world from the eternal. Therefore, Raju argues that comparisons should be attempted between entire systems of concepts with their detailed interrelations, and not between individual concepts (TR, 25). The emphasis on the methodical exploration of conceptual systems is reiterated by Shrivastava more specifically in the case of comparative studies of Śaṁkara and Bradley, which, he notes, ‘have usually contented themselves with merely pointing out superficial similarities and have therefore failed to probe deeper into their fundamental differences; or else they have overemphasized differences and consequently failed to appreciate the underlying unity in the thinking …’ (SB, 5).

A cursory reading of Mukerji’s Nature of Self would seem to suggest that he is engaged in merely cataloguing resemblances between European philosophical standpoints and Advaitic themes. For instance, Mukerji notes that Śaṁkara, in his commentary on the Praśnopaniṣad VI.2, had discussed four competing theories of consciousness and argues that ‘almost every theory of consciousness that is still in the forefront of philosophical discussion today’ can be placed under one of Śaṁkara’s headings (NS, 117). Again, he argues that Śaṁkara’s arguments against the Buddhist understanding of causality in terms of dependent arising ‘embody essentially Green’s criticism of Hume’s attempt to combine the theory of flux with causal connection’ (NS, 195). After quoting Green’s remark, ‘yet, just so far as they [Hume’s impressions] are qualified by likeness or unlikeness to each other, they must be taken out of that succession by something which is not itself in it, but is individually present to every moment of it’ (Nettleship 1888, vol. I: 176), Mukerji argues that this statement indicates that Śaṁkara had anticipated Green’s critique of the Humean reduction in the self to bundles of perceptions (NS, 200). However, Mukerji highlights these parallels, in the course of offering detailed readings of the metaphysical and epistemological projects of certain post-Kantian idealisms, only to engage his British interlocutors in philosophical conversations whose themes are partly shaped by Advaitic vocabularies. He too criticizes attempts to compile lists of conceptual parallels across European and Indic systems, without highlighting their locations in distinctive philosophical contexts. While anyone with an ‘unprejudiced insight into Indian philosophy’ will know that the classical traditions possessed numerous dialectical weapons which are as effective in the dialectical engagements of contemporary philosophy as they were in ancient India, one should be aware that post-Kantian epistemology is structured by highly specific problems which were not the concerns of the ancient Indian thinkers. Therefore, if we wish to gain ‘by thinking modern problems of European philosophy in Indian terms without misrepresentation of either and yet with a considerable clarification of both methods of thought, we must give up the practice of finding Kant and Hegel, for instance, in the Upanishads; these are misrepresentations which do not clarify but compound problems’ (Mukerji 1928: 379). For instance, the Kantian distinction between precept and concept, or between sense and thought, emerges from within a European intellectual atmosphere and is not found, Mukerji argues, in classical Indian philosophical texts. Therefore, he criticizes attempts to align the Kantian view of sensations conforming to a priori structures with Upaniṣadic vocabularies by offering ‘extremely far-fetched interpretations’ of the terms manas and vijñāna as perception and understanding, respectively (Mukerji 1928: 401–402). The ‘most deep-lying contrast’ between Vedantic thought and post-Kantian European philosophy is that while the supra-rational experience of unity with the cosmic consciousness is the very foundation of Vedantic metaphysics, the latter exalts reason as the ultimate court of appeal in epistemology (Mukerji 1928: 393). Whereas for Śaṁkara intuitive experience is the ultimate criterion of truth, and reason is viewed as an auxiliary to the revelation of reality, Hegelians do not accept the possibility of such an experience and speak of the revelation of reality through the mediating activity of thought.

Therefore, the interrogation of a variety of Hegelianisms through the prisms of Advaita Vedanta was also a crucial moment in the constructions of Hindu thought as spiritual, intuitive, or experiential. Wilhelm Halbfass pointed out that various European figures, starting from the early nineteenth century down to Edmund Husserl in the last, associated ‘philosophy’ with ‘pure theory’, ‘rejection of mythos’ and ‘autonomous thinking’ which were believed to be distinctively Greek and lacking in the Indian and Oriental traditions (Halbfass 1990: 145–159). Opposing this exclusion of ‘philosophy’ from India, pivotal figures such as Swami Vivekananda and S. Radhakrishnan presented Indian ‘philosophy’ in oppositional terms to European ‘philosophy’, such that while the latter was merely rational, analytic and restricted to the empirical plane, the former was essentially spiritual, based on ‘intuitive experience’, and provided an overarching framework which synthesized the European manifold of ‘economics’, ‘sociopolitical existence’, and ‘religion’ (Halbfass 1990: 287–309). These ‘synthetic’ visions of modernized Advaita are deeply resonant with the metaphysical systems of the British idealists who, R. Sinnerbrink argues, ‘shared a critical attitude towards reductive empiricism, a commitment to metaphysical holism and a valorization of moral freedom’ (Sinnerbrink 2007: 33). British Idealism, which emerged in late Victorian England against the backdrop of various sociocultural upheavals that had followed rapid industrialization and expansion of global trade, was both a philosophical movement which opposed the strains of empiricism, naturalism, and utilitarianism in British thought, and a social reformist force which emphasized social justice and social responsibility in conditions of exploitation, poor working conditions, and widespread disease. Boucher and Vincent argue that ‘British Idealism was a social philosophy that exuded optimism at a time of extreme social dislocation and pessimism. In summary, it acted as a profound interrogation, critique and metaphysical counterbalance to the individualism of the variants of an instinctive British utilitarianism and naturalistic evolutionism’ (Boucher and Vincent 2012: 4).

Diverse aspects of these British Hegelian visions were appropriated, in the sociopolitical contexts of late colonial India, through the lenses of reconfigured versions of classical Advaita. While we cannot discuss the momentous question of what Hegel himself meant by the Spirit (Geist), Hegel’s view that in the Absolute idea there is the reconciliation of subject and object has been understood in at least two ways. On one reading, Hegel is extending Kant’s transcendental idealism by rejecting the thing-in-itself and emphasizing the social nature of the categories of thought. For Hegel, the world is the work of reason in the sense that the objects of experience are constituted through the categories of rational thought. However, on another reading, especially of late texts such as the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel is suggesting that the world is the product of divine reason, and human beings can understand this world because their reason is identical with divine reason (Norman 1976: 110–115). Of the philosophers we have discussed, Haldar occasionally tends towards the second reading of Hegel: he views Hegel’s Absolute as an organic unity which is subject–object, where the subject is a community of selves and the objects are a system of interrelated things (Haldar 1917: 390–393). The Absolute is one not because it is beyond all differences but precisely because it is expressed in and through differences. Therefore, on the one hand, the Absolute does not dissolve into itself the plurality of the selves, and on the other hand,  it does not stand beyond them as an independent and abstract unity. The Absolute is a ‘complex unity’, and not a mere aggregate, of finite individuals, and it invests them with a new significance by encompassing them (Haldar 1918: 377). While finite minds seek the Absolute that they are in potentia, the Absolute urges them on to their perfection, through ever-deepening bonds of interrelationality and mutuality. This Absolute is the universal Spirit which is manifested in, and is the ground of, the community of human beings (Haldar 1936: 330–331). However, as we have seen, Mukerji rejected the Hegelian equivalence between reality and rationality and argued that reason should be seen as subordinate to intuition, for reasoning applies only to empirical ways of knowledge, while ultimate reality is apprehended only through intuitive experience (Mukerji 1928: 428). The pure being of Advaita is not a bare abstraction, as Hegelians claim, for while it is ‘equal to nothing from the standpoint of conceptual thought’ it can also be ‘the content of an intuitional experience’ (Mukerji 1928: 411). Shrivastava develops this critique of Hegelianism in his study of Bradley and Śaṁkara—while they both speak of ultimate reality as an immediate experience which is beyond all relations, they disagree over the possibility of attaining such an experience. For Śaṁkara, the Absolute is not completely inaccessible, since it is present as the true self in everyday experiences, whereas for Bradley it is a ‘mere focus imaginarius’ which is conceivable but not actually attainable (SB, 36). Bradley’s view is, in fact, representative of the agnosticism that Western philosophy culminates into, since it relies solely on reason without the supplementation of an intuitive vision of reality. Bradley arrives at his Absolute through speculative reasoning, and his Absolute is at best an idea of reason in the Kantian sense and not an indubitable fact of everyday experience (SB, 40).

In other words, while Hegelian absolutisms provided the common philosophical vocabularies with which one could speak of the Absolute of Advaita, a fundamental assumption of these absolutisms had to be rejected, namely, the view that the deep structures of reality were amenable to discursive reasoning. For instance, N.G. Damle argues for an ‘integral idealism’ which rejects any ‘abstract or exclusive form of monism, whether materialistic or spiritualistic …’ Damle rejects the subjectivist view that one can ‘destroy the world by going to sleep’, such that one can dissolve into an impersonal Absolute which consumes everything, and also a spiritual pluralism which views the world as composed of metaphysically real finite selves alongside the Absolute. However, the Absolute, which is a ‘concrete, spiritual whole in which all differences are reconciled’, can be apprehended not through conceptual means but through an intuition in which the duality between the subject and the object is dissolved (Damle 1936: 188–189). He presents his idealism in these terms: ‘According to our theory, reason criticizes itself, and recognizing its own limitations it points beyond itself to intuition. It implies disagreement with the view that identifies Thought and Being, Real and Rational, and thus is opposed to Pan-logism’ (Damle 1936: 192).

Conclusion

Our study has highlighted some distinctive ways in which Advaitic themes were reconfigured by Mukerji, Raju, Shrivastava, and others, through a critical interrogation of a variety of Hegelian idealisms. Given the declining fortunes of Hegel in many Anglophone philosophical circles during the second half of the last century, these figures are rarely studied today because of their association with Hegelian idioms. However, several reassessments of post-Kantian idealisms have pointed to the continuing significance of Hegelian themes in both the ‘analytic’ and the ‘continental’ traditions (Dunham, Grant, and Watson 2011). The term ‘idealism’ itself, it is pointed out, is not equivalent to some form of Berkeleyeanism, for the trajectories of post-Kantian thought, involving figures such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, were shaped by a wide range of idealisms such as material idealism, empirical idealism, critical idealism, transcendental idealism, and absolute idealism (Altman 2014: 4). The precise characterization of Hegel’s ‘idealism’ too has been an intensely debated topic in Hegel scholarship, with some interpreters arguing that it is a misreading of Hegel to understand him as propounding a metaphysical-religious view in which reality is constituted of Spirit which is actualized in the world (Wartenberg 1993: 102–129). In the light of these recent evaluations, we can view the philosophers we have discussed as engaged in diverse modes of interrogating and appropriating elements of post-Kantian idealisms mediated through Green, Caird, and Bradley. By positioning Śaṁkara vis-a-vis Hegelianisms, they became participants in contemporary Indo-European philosophical conversations and added a significant chapter to the ongoing receptions of the ‘idealism’ of Śaṁkara in modern Advaita.

References

• Altman, M. C. (2014). Introduction: What is German idealism? In M. C. Altman (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of German idealism (pp. 1–11). London: Palgrave Macmillan.Chapter  Google Scholar 
• Bhushan, N., & Garfield, J. L. (2011). The Plato of Allahabad: A.C. Mukerji’s contributions to Indian and to world philosophy. In N. Bhushan & J. L. Garfield (Eds.), Indian philosophy in English: From renaissance to independence (pp. 455–469). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Chapter  Google Scholar 
• Biswas, T. (2015). The notion of absolute: Hegel and Hiralal Haldar. In S. Deshpande (Ed.), Philosophy in Colonial India (pp. 103–118). New Delhi: Springer.Google Scholar 
• Boucher, D., & Vincent, A. (2012). British idealism: A guide for the perplexed. London: Continuum.Google Scholar 
• Bradley, F. H. (1893). Appearance and reality. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co.Google Scholar 
• Caird, E. (1889). The critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant (Vol. I). Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons.Google Scholar 
• Caird, E. (2002) [1883]. Hegel. London: Cambridge Scholars Press Ltd.
• Damle, N. G. (1936). The faith of an idealist. In S. Radhakrishnan & J. R. Muirhead (Eds.), Contemporary Indian philosophy (pp. 177–194). London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.Google Scholar 
• Deshpande, S. (2015). Introduction-modern Indian philosophy: From Colonialism to Cosmopolitanism. In S. Deshpande (Ed.), Philosophy in Colonial India (pp. 1–39). New Delhi: Springer.Google Scholar 
• Dudley, W. (2007). Understanding German idealism. London: Acumen.Google Scholar 
• Dunham, J., Grant, I. H., & Watson, S. (2011). Idealism: The history of a philosophy. London: Acumen.Google Scholar 
• Halbfass, W. (1990). India and Europe: An essay in philosophical understanding. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas.Google Scholar 
• Haldar, H. (1896). Some aspects of Hegel’s philosophy. The Philosophical Review, 5, 263–277.Article  Google Scholar 
• Haldar, H. (1917). Leibniz and German idealism. The Philosophical Review, 26, 378–394.Article  Google Scholar 
• Haldar, H. (1918). The absolute and the finite self. The Philosophical Review, 27, 374–391.Article  Google Scholar 
• Haldar, H. (1936). Realistic idealism. In S. Radhakrishnan & J. R. Muirhead (Eds.), Contemporary Indian philosophy (pp. 315–331). London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.Google Scholar 
• Mukerji, A. C. (1928). Some aspects of the absolutism of Shankaracharya (a comparison between Shankara and Hegel). Allahabad University Studies, 4, 375–429.Google Scholar 
• Mukerji, A. C. (1936). Suggestions for an idealistic theory of knowledge’. In S. Radhakrishnan & J. R. Muirhead (Eds.), Contemporary Indian philosophy (pp. 433–453). London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.Google Scholar 
• Mukerji, A. C. (1943). The nature of self. Allahabad: Indian Press.Google Scholar 
• Mukerji, A. C. (2011). The realist’s conception of idealism. In N. Bhushan & J. L. Garfield (Eds.), Indian philosophy in English: From renaissance to independence(pp. 473–498). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar 
• Nettleship, R. L. (Ed.). (1888). Works (Vol. 3). London: Longmans and Green.Google Scholar 
• Norman, R. (1976). Hegel’s phenomenology: A philosophical introduction. London: Sussex University Press.Google Scholar 
• Raju, P. T. (1937). Thought and reality: Hegelianism and Advaita. London: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd.Google Scholar 
• Shrivastava, S. N. L. (1968). Śaṁkara and Bradley: A comparative and critical study. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Google Scholar 
• Sinnerbrink, R. (2007). Understanding Hegelianism. London: Acumen.Google Scholar 
• Wartenberg, T. E. (1993). Hegel’s idealism: The logic of conceptuality. In F. C. Beiser (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Hegel (pp. 102–129). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
2. Ankur Barua

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ankur Barua.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Reprints and permissions

The Transcendental Self

Key Terms

• Fichte, J.G. 
• Transcendental Idealism,
• Moral Deliberation,
• Selfhood
• Transcendental Self
• Transcendentalism
• Henry David Thoreau
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Pragmatism
• Phenomenology
• Transcendental Subjectivity
• Intersubjectivity
• Transcendental Intersubjectivity
• Transcendental Phenomenology
• Kant
• Fichte
• Hegel
• Nietzsche
• Husserl
• Heidegger
• Merleau-Ponty
• Wittgenstein
• the Stoics
• Rüdiger Bubner
• Self-Referentiality
• Dynamic principles
• Contingency
• Transcendental
• Critique of Pure Reason
• Edmund Husserl
• Paul Natorp

Key Researchers

• Sebastian Luft
• David Carr  
• Günter Zöller
• Gabriele Gava
• Robert Stern
• Sebastian Gardner
• Matthew Grist
• Dermot Moran

Source: The Persistent Problems of Philosophy

The Transcendental Turn

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Source: The Transcendental Turn/Introduction

Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

Source: Phenomenology and the Transcendental

My Related Posts

You can search for these posts using Search Posts feature in the right sidebar.

• Theories of the Self 
• Theories of Consciousness
• What is Yogacara Buddhism (Consciousness Only School)?
• Self and Other: Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity
• A Calculus for Self Reference, Autopoiesis, and Indications
• Individual Self, Relational Self, and Collective Self
• Semiotic Self and Dialogic Self 
• Drama Therapy: Self in Performance
• Narrative Psychology: Language, Meaning, and Self
• Consciousness of Cosmos: A Fractal, Recursive, Holographic Universe
• Mind, Consciousness, and Quantum Entanglement 
• Geometry of Consciousness
• The Harmonic Origins of the World
• Ervin Laszlo and the Akashic Field
• From Individual to Collective Intentionality
• Lifeworld, System, and Intersubjectivity: Jurgen Habermas’ Communication Theory of Society
• Intersubjectivity in Buddhism
• Hua Yan Buddhism : Reflecting Mirrors of Reality
• Meditations on Emptiness and Fullness
• Charles Sanders Peirce’s Continuum
• What and Why of Virtue Ethics ?
• The Aesthetics of Charles Sanders Peirce
• Individual, Relational, and Collective Reflexivity
• Semiotics and Systems
• Dialogs and Dialectics
• Phenomenological Sociology
• Phenomenology and Symbolic Interactionism
• Aesthetics and Ethics
• Maha Vakyas: Great Aphorisms in Vedanta
• On Synchronicity
• Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
• Indra’s Net: On Interconnectedness 
• On Holons and Holarchy
• Levels of Human Psychological Development in Integral Spiral Dynamics
• The Great Chain of Being 
• Cyber-Semiotics: Why Information is not enough
• Integral Philosophy of the Rg Veda: Four Dimensional Man
• Systems View of Life: A Synthesis by Fritjof Capra
• Myth of Invariance: Sound, Music, and Recurrent Events and Structures
• Society as Communication: Social Systems Theory of Niklas Luhmann
• Truth, Beauty, and Goodness: Integral Theory of Ken Wilber

Key Sources of Research

The Coherence of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism

By Yaron M. Senderowicz

Transcendental self-consciousness. 

Cassam, Quassim (1995) 

In: Sen, Pranab Kumar and Verma, Roop Rekha, (eds.) The Philosophy of P.F. Strawson. New Delhi : Bombay: Indian Council of Philosophical Research ; Distributed by Allied Publishers. ISBN 9788185636160

The Transcendental Turn

Sebastian Gardner and Matthew Grist (eds.), The Transcendental Turn, Oxford University Press, 2015, 380pp., ISBN 9780198724872.

Reviewed by Robert Howell, University at Albany, SUNY, and Moscow State University

2016.01.24

https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-transcendental-turn/

Source: The Transcendental Turn

Source: The Transcendental Turn

Source: The Transcendental Turn

---

The idea of a special “transcendental knowledge,” an autonomous philosophical cognition that marks out necessary structures in our knowledge and its objects, goes back to Kant. The idea continues in the nineteenth century and is stressed anew by Husserl (who introduces the talk of a transcendental turn) and his successors. The present volume is part of a revived interest in such philosophy among Anglophone thinkers in the past fifty or so years. It derives from a research project organized by the late Mark Sacks.

The volume collects important studies on the relations of key European thinkers to the transcendental tradition: Kant (essays by Henry E. Allison, Karl Ameriks, Paul Abela); Fichte (Daniel Breazeale, Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Paul Guyer); Hegel (Robert Pippin, Stephen Houlgate); Nietzsche (Béatrice Han-Pile); Husserl, phenomenology, and Heidegger (Dan Zahavi, Steven Crowell, Taylor Carman, Cristina Lafont); Merleau-Ponty (Sebastian Gardner); Wittgenstein (Stephen Mulhall); and (as a pre-Kantian predecessor) the Stoics (Wayne M. Martin). Gardner contributes an introduction. The essays are intended to elucidate the thought of these thinkers and the extent to which they belong to a transcendental tradition incorporating metaphilosophical views deriving from Kant. It is impossible to do full justice here to any of the discussions, but I will note main points and various questions that arise.

In the first Critique, Kant describes transcendental cognition as an (i) a priori, (ii) second-order investigation into the nature of our a priori knowledge. (iii) This investigation examines the cognitive faculties of the knowing subjects. (iv) Its characteristic mode of argument is “transcendental proof,” which establishes conditions necessary for the possibility of knowledge. (v) The Copernican Revolution — objects conform to our a priori knowledge, rather than conversely — encapsulates Kant’s strategy; and (vi) this conformity is understood according to Kant’s transcendental idealism. The authors in this volume tend to stress various features descending from this cluster, although they do not agree on all the details. Kant’s understanding of (v) and (vi) also has been disputed recently, and aspects of that dispute appear in the opening contributions by Allison and Ameriks.

Allison develops a new approach to his earlier nonmetaphysical interpretation of transcendental idealism. This approach is independent of his original interpretation but, for him, helps to explain the attractions of such interpretations. Allison argues that besides using “transcendental” in the Critical way indicated above, Kant also uses it in a traditional ontological fashion to refer to features predicated of all objects in general, of objects “as such.” The traditional ontological framework assumes that space and time apply to objects in general and so with strict universality (28). One might now take Kant’s transcendental turn simply as a move within this framework — a move denying spatiotemporality to any objects in general (regarded as existing in cognition-independent forms) and restricting it to objects as they appear. However, it is preferable to read this turn as a deflationary move rejecting the traditional framework altogether and adopting a new, nonmetaphysical view. That view takes spatiotemporal predicates simply to apply to all objects of our possible experience without introducing any ontologically separate realm of objects in themselves.

Like his original interpretation, Allison’s new approach raises important questions. I believe, however, that this approach is historically mistaken. It appears that space and time are not considered, in the traditional ontology, transcendental predicates that belong universally to objects as such. Thus Baumgarten takes space and time to belong only to composite beings, not to simples (Metaphysica, §§230 ff., §§239-42); and he takes space and time not to belong to God (§§840-42, 849-50).[1] As far as I can tell, there never was an ontological view, utilized by Kant, that attributes space and time flatly to all beings as such, a view that Kant then replaces with Allison’s deflationary treatment. Moreover, Kant’s “concept of an object in general” — a concept which, as far as I know, does not feature in the traditional ontologies — can be used to judge that (as Descartes holds) some entities as such are spatial, but others are not. Kant’s mere use of this concept thus doesn’t support Allison. I also don’t see the philosophical attractions of Allison’s approach, unless it abandons Kant’s idealism altogether and reads him as a realist.

Ameriks wants to distance Kant from extreme forms of a metaphysics of things in themselves while defending the legitimacy of metaphysics within Kant’s position. For Ameriks, the Transcendental Turn claims, nonmetaphysically, that “there are immanently determinable necessary structures of our experience and its objects,” structures discovered by investigating “what is immanently demanded by our own epistemic practices” (36, 35). Kant’s appeal to idealism to explain the existence of these structures is a separate claim that does, however, make metaphysical commitments.

Ameriks proposes a three-level Kantian account. In Hegelian metaphysics, the Concept is the fundamental, unconditioned thing. In Ameriks’ Kantian account, the third, fundamental level consists of things in themselves. On these things depend the second-level things, the spatiotemporal objects that we know. The first level is the private mental items (sensations, thoughts, etc.), through which we know those objects. The second-level things are empirically real but still count as appearances — not because they depend subjectivistically on individual minds, but because (analogously to Hegel’s view) they are conditioned by and so depend on the fundamental level, things in themselves. (Compare the idea that colors, although phenomenally real features of objects, depend on the physical microstructure that determines how objects visually appear.)

Ameriks’ interpretation has many attractions and deserves extended development. Two concerns: first, if Kant’s proofs of idealism fail, we lack good reasons to accept the three-level view as true, although some naturalized version might still be defensible, à la Sellars’ picture of the manifest and scientific images of the world. Second, Ameriks’ interpretation looks like reconstruction, not simple Kant interpretation. There are, for instance, strongly subjectivist elements in Kant that Ameriks’ reading plays down. (Thus, for Kant, I — the I to which objects appear — appear to myself in inner sense as an individual, finite mind; and so on.)

Breazeale and Horstmann describe Fichte’s responses to Kant. Breazeale notes that Fichte’s method of a priori genetic description is meant to fill gaps in Kant’s account of how transcendental philosophy proceeds. By “thinking the I” in self-positing acts, observing what further acts that thinking requires, then observing the requirements of those further acts, and so on, one determines the a priori structure of the world. Breazeale gives a very useful, even-handed account of Fichte’s views and the difficulties that arise.

Horstmann argues that Fichte’s focus on first-person consciousness is part of the German idealists’ attempts to escape skepticism about Kant’s theory. In something of an expositional tour de force, he surveys major Fichtean arguments in theWissenschaftslehre from 1794 to after 1800 and provides critical evaluations. Up to around 1800 Fichte tries to ground knowledge in a fact (say, the “A = A” truth) or in an act (of self-positing). After that, he focuses on “absolute knowing.” His thought then becomes extraordinarily obscure. But Horstmann gives comprehensible sketches of main ideas even here. Like Breazeale’s, his essay does an excellent job of explaining Fichte and will help anyone struggling with the texts.

Abela and Guyer focus on ethics. Abela defends the anti-naturalistic force of Kant’s account of moral obligation. However, meeting our moral obligations is, for Kant, framed by the task of realizing the highest good (of making oneself worthy of happiness). Achieving happiness is in fact central to the successful employment of practical reason. Kant’s characterization of that task converges in rewarding ways with current empirical research on happiness.

Guyer examines Fichte’s discussion, in the 1798 System of Ethics, of Kant’s theory of practical reason. Fichte takes transcendental philosophy to discover the structures in experience that are necessary for the possibility of experience. He identifies these structures by appeal to the self’s self-positing actions. Fichte tries, by appeal to those actions, to solve three problems for Kant: (a) demonstrating the holding of the categorical imperative; (b) showing that the moral law manifests itself through a special feeling of respect; (c) making Kant’s proof of freedom compatible with the fact that people sometimes act immorally. Guyer brings out the intrinsic interest of Fichte’s attempts to resolve these problems. The attempts may not fully succeed. But anyone concerned with these issues can benefit from Guyer’s discussion.

With Fichte, we are still close to Kant’s own understanding of transcendental philosophy. The work of Hegel and the later thinkers treated in this volume begins to diverge more sharply from Kant, although crucial aspects of their ideas still derive from his approach.

Pippin updates his influential, nonmetaphysical reading of Hegel. What one might call Hegel’s metaphysics is a “logic” that yields the categories via which we experience the world. Unlike Kant, Hegel doesn’t restrict these categories to human experience or transcendentally deduce them. But he is still a transcendental philosopher. He holds, for example, that “objective purport” (the possibility of reference to objects) requires a categorial structuring of experience.

Pippin argues from this perspective that, without appealing to non-conceptual content, Hegel can account for empirical constraints on knowledge. The self-negation performed by the subject of thought involves the idea that that subject regards its judgments as defeasible. Hegel’s “self-determination of the Concept” allows for individual conceptual views (and the normative authority of conditions of objective purport) to be corrected from the inside, not through nonconceptual experience but through our experience of the partiality of our own conceptions. Pippin covers many related topics in a dense, allusive discussion. He touches elliptically on other significant recent interpretations — for example, accounts of Hegel’s relations to skepticism; and the metaphysical reading mentioned above, which yields a conceptual monism in which the Concept dialectically differentiates into the natural world and our own reasoning and then, in our reasoning, obtains absolute knowledge of itself. Pippin may defend his interpretation as one that makes philosophical sense of central Hegelian points, but the recent interpretations are historically compelling. Readers of Pippin’s essay will learn valuable new things about his ideas. His opponents will hold, however, that he does not make clear how far Hegel’s actual views count as transcendental.

Houlgate argues against treating the Phenomenology of Spirit as Kantian transcendental philosophy. Kant’s transcendental approach identifies, through transcendental arguments, conditions of ordinary consciousness; these arguments depend on premises that Kant simply assumes. But, for Hegel, this appeal to assumptions begs the question against other positions. It also runs contrary to Hegel’s idea that it is through a purely phenomenological, presuppositionless study of the commitments made by ordinary consciousness that we ultimately reach — not Kantian conditions for the possibility of our finite attempts to know individual objects — but the standpoint of absolute knowledge.

Houlgate makes a convincing case. But the discussion is hampered by the differing accounts of “transcendental” that are available. Read liberally, Ameriks’ above characterization can be applied to the Phenomenology, after all. That book shows the rational, necessary structure that is disclosed in our experience. It does so by studying natural consciousness’s increasingly accurate understanding of the epistemic practices that ultimately yield “actual knowledge of what truly is.” So in this sense it counts as transcendental philosophy.

Han-Pile’s essay brings us to a further philosopher whose transcendental bonds have been controverted. Maudemarie Clark and Brian Leiter both argue that Nietzsche begins as a transcendental idealist but eventually adopts naturalism. Han-Pile replies that the texts show that he struggles between such positions throughout his career; he is best read as trying to overcome the transcendental-naturalistic divide. While later rejecting things in themselves, he continues to accept a priori forms that structure objects. But these forms do so not in a traditional, unconditionally necessary way but only relative to our differing perspectives on the world. The forms evolve along with the perspectives; they persist when they preserve and enhance the way of life that embodies them. Han-Pile compares this naturalized a priori to Michel Foucault’s idea of a “historical a priori.”

The interesting idea of a relativized a priori recurs in later essays, and Han-Pile’s discussion throws important light on Nietzsche. However, I suspect that Clark and Leiter will simply respond that Nietzsche sketches a high-level, naturalistic theory of how epistemic perspectives, with their a priori forms, arise for evolutionary reasons and persist to the extent that, pragmatically evaluated, they further our interests. Han-Pile’s apparent rejection of such a reading seems to depend on a narrow view of what counts as naturalistic explanation (see 212, 213).

The phenomenologists’ treatments of the transcendental now come into focus. Zahavi gives a lucid overview of Husserl’s transformations of that notion. For Husserl, phenomenology is transcendental insofar as it explores the essential conditions, within our experience, of objects’ being given to us. Husserl generalizes experience to include all modes of experiencing entities. He criticizes Kant’s approach as metaphysically contaminated and rejects Kant’s transcendental argumentation.

Zahavi also stresses the fundamental importance to Husserl of intersubjectivity. Unlike Kant, Husserl argues that my constitutive acts of positing entities depend on my experience of other subjects. The subject must be socialized and embodied in the world it constitutes. There is no fixed world, only worlds relative to the structures taken as normal within a social tradition. In the end (and consonant with Foucault’s view of phenomenology), Husserl undermines any strict transcendental-empirical distinction. Transcendental and empirical perspectives become complementary, not incompatible.

Crowell describes the development of Heidegger’s work from Husserl’s. Like Zahavi, Crowell takes Husserl to generalize Kant by investigating conditions on the general possibility of our experiencing objects as such-and-such, as having various sorts of meaning. This investigation proceeds through a second-order study of first-person intentional experiences. It is normative: it determines what grounds our claims — defeasible, and so norm-governed — to experience something of a given sort.

Husserl explains such grounds in terms of rule-governed relations among the acts of perception (noeses) that present the object to the subject, anticipate its future appearance, and so on. For Heidegger, such acts are abstractions; they have their identities only as parts of totalities governed by the abilities and skills that the subject exercises on the object. Practical intentionality is thus necessary for act intentionality. But practical intentionality is not sufficient; the object must count as being such-and-such. So I must be able to regard the object as satisfying the norms for being such-and-such. I cannot do that, however, unless I take myself (and my regarding) to be subject to norms, treat myself as able to succeed or fail in my projects. But my so taking myself is not passive; it is a commitment I make. So it is because I can commit myself to norms that things themselves are subjected to norms by me and so are disclosed, in my experience, as being of such-and-such sorts. For Heidegger, phenomenology is thus transcendental insofar as it accounts, in this way, for the possibility of intentionality. Crowell’s rich, compact discussion does an excellent job of elucidating this central Heideggerian train of thought.

Carman examines Heidegger’s view of truth. Heideggerian truth is correctness, correctness being an “uncovering.” Ernst Tugendhat has objected that regarding truth as an unconcealment won’t distinguish truth from falsity. But Heidegger is not giving a theory of truth; he simply describes the kind of experience that motivates us to regard a belief as true. Uncovering is itself a kind of commitment — to regard a belief as true, we must have it. As regards the transcendental, Carman says simply that truth is ontologically fundamental to transcendental philosophy. One wonders about the prospects for a viable Heideggerian account of truth itself. And does regarding a belief as true imply having it? Can’t I take your first belief yesterday to be true without having that belief myself?

Lafont confronts a tension in Being and Time that resembles the one that Han-Pile sees in Nietzsche. As Crowell notes elsewhere, that book is supposed to continue the ahistorical investigations of traditional transcendental philosophy into necessary structures of human experience. But the book also stresses the radical historicity of human existence. In response, Lafont develops her own hermeneutic reading: Heidegger is committed to a priori structures in experience, but structures of a relativized sort.

Heidegger investigates the transcendental conditions of understanding anything as meaningful. Lafont agrees that these general conditions will be universal. But our experiences of entities depend, in a transcendental-idealist way, on our underlying projections of those entities’ structures. These projections vary with our contexts; each projection assumes a particular structure, a priori relative to that projection, which the entities recognized by that projection must satisfy. The result is an incommensurable, idealistic, conceptual pluralism. Heidegger’s relativization of the a priori undermines traditional transcendental readings of his work. But because he still takes our meaning projections to structure our experience of entities, that work remains within the transcendental orbit.

This is an illuminating discussion that raises many questions about Heidegger, questions reinforced by the themes shared with Han-Pile’s essay. Given Lafont’s incommensurabilist interpretation, the concern about the possibility of a Heideggerian account of truth also returns with a vengeance. In addition, Crowell has recently argued that Heidegger can allow for universal norms independent of particular interpretive frameworks. He also criticizes Lafont’s notion of Heidegger’s “hermeneutic idealism”.[2] One hopes that Lafont will respond. This debate raises fundamental issues of interpretation.

Gardner offers a philosophically fascinating account of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. He rejects the “Psychological Interpretation,” which takes Merleau-Ponty’s work to converge with the naturalistic kinds of philosophy of mind that invoke Merleau-Ponty in their studies. On Gardner’s “Transcendental Interpretation,” Merleau-Ponty develops an antinaturalistic form of transcendental philosophy that is committed to a transcendental-idealist metaphysics.

Merleau-Ponty wants to understand perception’s objectual character, its articulation into objects. That character is inexplicable by objective thought. Rather, it is explained by discovering transcendental — a priori, necessary — conditions of experience’s objectual character. Such conditions are necessities present within concrete, pre-objective experience, not externally imposed conceptual forms. The presence of the phenomenal body is such a condition, as is pre-objective perception, given through the body. Moreover, our human existence has features (intersubjectivity, temporality, freedom) that themselves cannot be grasped objectively. For this fact to hold, the world itself must have a pre-objective character. (This is the experienced world, treated idealistically as existing only relative to perceiving subjects; it is this world that is grounded in pre-objective being.) The result is a special transcendental idealism. Empirical reality is not, contra Kant, constituted through intuition and objectivity concepts. Instead, it is given through the pre-objective, perceptual world, which itself is shot through with ambiguities in a way that objective thought cannot capture.

This theory is anti-naturalistic. Merleau-Ponty does not synthesize transcendental philosophy and empirical science. He appeals to psychology simply to free transcendental philosophy from objective-thought misconceptions of perception. The parts of psychology worth saving are to be transformed into phenomenology.

This is an enlightening, comprehensive discussion that makes a forceful case for its conclusions. It should be an asset to everyone interested in Merleau-Ponty. To note three points: (a) even given Gardner’s interpretation, it doesn’t follow — and Gardner doesn’t claim — that Merleau-Ponty’s work shouldn’t continue to function as a resource for naturalistic philosophy of mind. (b) We still need to ask whether Merleau-Ponty’s idealism, distinctive as Gardner shows it to be, is philosophically viable. (c) Merleau-Ponty’s position, as described by Gardner, may be unnaturalizable. Still, naturalistic interpreters will surely propose analogues. Thus Merleau-Ponty’s account might be read as a high-level, but empirically-based, theoretical description of basic relations that obtain among our experiences and their phenomenal objects, those relations holding insofar as our experiences and those objects exist inside the manifest image. That image and those relations would then depend on whatever is the underlying physical reality.

The book concludes with Wittgenstein and the Stoics. Mulhall makes a pointed case against Bernard Williams’ well-known reading of the later Wittgenstein as a transcendental idealist. He demonstrates that Wittgenstein need not be taken to espouse the “first-person plural” idealism that Williams describes, and he develops an attractive alternative reading of Wittgenstein’s grammatical remarks about what “we” say. However, I suspect that much still remains to be determined, beyond this dispute with Williams, about Wittgenstein’s overall transcendental affinities.

Martin notes that from premises about the possibility of certain sorts of experience (desires, perceptions), some Stoics infer the existence of a kind of self-consciousness — namely, the existence of an implicit, nonconceptual understanding of (and concern for) the body and what preserves it. These inferences resemble Kantian arguments from the possibility of experience. So the Stoics develop a proof strategy that leads eventually to Kant’s transcendental proofs and beyond.

Martin is right to investigate possible antecedents to Kant. But the Stoic self-consciousness is implicit and nonconceptual, unlike Kant’s I think; the Stoic claims apply to all animals, not just to beings with discursive understandings; and, as Martin notes, the Stoic arguments aren’t a priori in the Kantian way. Moreover, the abstract argument structure here — from the possibility of exercising quasi-cognitive capacities to logico-metaphysical conclusions about us or the world — is found before the Stoics. Note, for example, Phaedo 74a-76a, arguing for (recollection of) the Forms, and various versions of Aristotle’s defense of noncontradiction. In appealing to specifically conceptual capacities, these arguments seem closer to Kant’s transcendental proofs than does the Stoic reasoning. Yet none of these ancient inferences suggests anything like the Copernican Revolution, and I know no evidence that they influenced Kant. Martin is right in claiming that the Stoics (among other classical thinkers) employ an argument structure that Kant also uses. But in seeing “an ancient precedent for Kant’s transcendental approach” in the Stoics’ work (342), he goes too far, if he goes beyond that specific structural claim.

Martin’s essay leads to a central question for this anthology — what is transcendental philosophy and the “turn”? Individual authors do a fine job of interpreting their philosophers; some of these essays should become standard references for their topics. The authors and their chosen thinkers focus on one or more of the Kantian points noted above, or on descendants of those points, extending or radically transforming them. But they don’t agree on exactly what transcendental philosophy and the turn come to. Is there really a well-defined such philosophy whose delineation will yield historical insights and perhaps new tools for systematic thought?[3]

In the Introduction, and without trying to give an exact definition, Gardner proposes five characteristics of transcendental philosophy. It (a) accepts the need for metaphysics; (b) seeks anti-skeptical foundations; (c) derives such foundations, as conditions of possibility, from the subject’s cognitive powers; (d) views those conditions as forming a logic with a normative character; and (e) uses a distinctive mode of transcendental argumentation.

These characteristics, and Gardner’s subsequent discussion, are interesting. They overlap the six Kantian features noted above. But they drop Kant’s focus on a priori knowledge; they stress metaphysics more than all the transcendental figures in this volume will accept; (b), (c), and (d) don’t seem to be accepted (at least in the same sense) by all the philosophers involved; and (e) is abandoned by at least Nietzsche and the phenomenologists. (Hegel also rejects (e), given Houlgate’s discussion.) Neither Kant’s nor Gardner’s set of features in fact provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the current understandings of “transcendental.” Given this fact and the divergent past uses of the term, I doubt the assumption (which some of Gardner’s later comments seem to suggest) that there is a single definite, theoretically-useful notion of transcendental method that is still awaiting its exact delineation by philosophers.

Perhaps there is such a notion, but the historical development, as evidenced in this volume, suggests a shifting group of features united by their origins in the Kantian cluster noted above and especially in Kant’s idea of a priori conditions for the possibility of knowledge and his notion of the Copernican Revolution. Roughly, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Nietzsche focus on conditions for the possibility of knowledge of various sorts. The phenomenologists then shift this focus by isolating, within it, the notion of conditions for the possibility of intentionality, of reference to objects. They also generalize by considering such reference wherever it occurs. (Within this shift there then occur further transitions, for example from Kant’s I think to Fichte’s self-positing I-act; to first-person, phenomenological awareness; and beyond.) In both these approaches, the Copernican notion appears that features of the objects experienced are somehow idealistically constituted or otherwise constrained by the structure of our experience.

If this picture of the development of transcendental thought is right, we need more historical as well as systematic study — for example, the role of the neo-Kantians in establishing current conceptions of the transcendental appears central but isn’t considered in this book.[4] Gardner is well aware of the ongoing character of this research; the volume and his introduction are refreshingly open-minded about these issues. But all this needs further investigation.

Finally, what are the prospects for transcendental philosophy, as its development is laid out in this volume? I’ve indicated sympathy for naturalized forms of transcendental theories, and this idea has certainly been pursued by many contemporary analytic thinkers. One will have to see where this project goes — and whether any genuinely autonomous, a priori form of transcendental investigation is still viable. Gardner’s introduction contains thoughtful reflections about such issues. The widespread although not universal acceptance of transcendental idealism by major transcendental philosophers also needs further testing. The tests won’t come just from analytic philosophers, various of whom have of course criticized idealism at least since G. E. Moore. The European New Realists have now opened new lines of attack, and those sympathetic to transcendental idealism need to answer all these criticisms, not just to rehearse the usual arguments. About such idealism Gardner’s introduction also contains stimulating remarks.

Whatever the outcome of these questions, this is a fine anthology of first-rate essays on one of the great sequences of work in modern philosophy. I recommend it wholeheartedly; the fact that it raises such issues is a tribute to its value.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Brad Armour-Garb, Ron McClamrock, Nathan Powers, and Vadim Vasilyev for helpful discussions of these topics.

---

[1] See Kant, Academy edition, 17:78 ff., 163, 165; Courtney Fugate and John Hymers, trans., Alexander Baumgarten, Metaphysics (Bloomsbury, 2013). Scotus recognizes transcendentals that are not common to all beings — e.g., disjunctive transcendentals such as “finite”-“infinite.” See Wouter Goris and Jan Aertsen, “Medieval Theories of Transcendentals” §4.3, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2013. Compare Baumgarten, Metaphysica, §6; “Metaphysik Mrongovius,” 29:784. Baumgarten’s space and time predicates seem to fall here. He defines them in the chapter “Internal disjunctive predicates of a being.” Note also Ameriks, 46-47.

[2] Steven Crowell, Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

[3] Lafont notes Sami Pihlström’s contention that nothing actually distinguishes transcendental from other kinds of philosophy (“Recent Reinterpretations of the Transcendental,” Inquiry, 2004, 47, 289-314).

[4] See Frederick Beiser on Hermann Cohen’s “discovery of the transcendental” in The Genesis of Neo-Kantianism, 1796-1880 (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Kant’s Transcendental Deduction and the Theory of Apperception: New …

edited by Giuseppe Motta, Dennis Schulting, Udo Thiel

Transcendental Self: A Comparative Study of Thoreau and the Psycho-Philosophy of Hinduism and Buddhism

Pillai, A. K. B.

ISBN 10: 0819145734  ISBN 13: 9780819145734

Publisher: Univ Pr of Amer, 1985

Immanuel Kant: The Self as Transcendental Unity

Author: Levin, Jerome D. Ph.D.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis

“TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM’S THEORY OF SELFHOOD: FICHTE ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KNOWING ONESELF AND MORAL DELIBERATION”

Buchanan, Caroline Ann,

(2017). Theses and Dissertations–Philosophy. 15. 

https://uknowledge.uky.edu/philosophy_etds/15/

Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

edited by Gabriele Gava, Robert Stern

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Source: Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Kantian Reflections on the Givenness of Zahavi’s Minimal Experiential Self, 

James R. O’Shea (2015) 

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 23:5, 619-625, 

DOI: 10.1080/09672559.2015.1096295

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09672559.2015.1096295?src=recsys

Abstract

At the core of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was a decisive break with certain fundamental Cartesian assumptions or claims about consciousness and self-consciousness, claims that have nonetheless remained perennially tempting, from a phenomenological perspective, independently of any further questions concerning the metaphysics of mind and its place in nature. The core of this philosophical problem has recently been helpfully exposed and insightfully probed in Dan Zahavi’s book, Self and Other: Exploring Subjectivity, Empathy, and Shame (OUP, 2014). In these remarks I suggest that Zahavi’s view of what he calls ‘The Experiential Self’ defends precisely the sorts of claims to which a Kantian account of consciousness is fundamentally opposed, and while assessing the overall merits of the two contrasting outlooks is no easy matter, I side with the Kantian view.

Kant on Empirical Self-Consciousness, 

Janum Sethi (2021) 

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, DOI: 10.1080/00048402.2021.1948083

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00048402.2021.1948083

ABSTRACT

Kant is said to be the first to distinguish between consciousness of oneself as the subject of one’s experiences and consciousness of oneself as an object, which he calls transcendental and empirical apperception, respectively. Of these, it is empirical apperception that is meant to enable consciousness of any empirical features of oneself; what this amounts to, however, continues to puzzle interpreters. I argue that a key to understanding what empirical apperception consists in is Kant’s claim that each type of apperception corresponds to a distinct type of unity of apperception—that is, a distinct way in which representations can be related for a subject. Whereas transcendental unity of apperception requires that representations be actively combined by the understanding, empirical unity of apperception obtains when representations are passively combined by the reproductive imagination. In light of this, I develop a novel account of Kant’s two types of apperception, according to which they correspond to a cognitive subject’s consciousness of two essential aspects of herself—namely, her spontaneity and receptivity.

Notes

1 Kant characterizes apperception in general as a subject’s consciousness of itself (B68, A107, B132).

2 Versions of this view are suggested by Smith [Citation1923: 293–4], Mohr [Citation1991: 104–5, 157–8], Brook [Citation1994: 56–7, 66–7, 78], Ameriks [Citation2000: 252–4], Sturm [Citation2001: 174], Allison [Citation2004: 277–80], Rosefeldt [Citation2006: 287], Sturm and Wunderlich [Citation2010: 55], Kitcher [Citation2011: 25–6, 129, 159], Schmitz [Citation2013: 1058], Renz [Citation2015: esp. 593–4], Bader [Citation2017: 132], Longuenesse [Citation2017: 91, 110], Kraus [Citation2019: 172, 190], and Khurana [Citation2019: 964]. A variant treats empirical apperception through inner sense as a subject’s awareness of any of her representings as acts of awareness [Weldon Citation1958: 261–2; Wolff Citation1963: 198–9]. Longuenesse [2006: 302] briefly lists possible readings of EA, one of which is similar to the view that I defend. While the correspondence between EA and the empirical unity of apperception is central to my view, however, Longuenesse’s alternative takes the representations of which the subject is conscious in EA to stand in the transcendental unity of apperception [ibid.: 305]. Keller [Citation1998] and Valaris [Citation2008] argue that EA, through inner sense, makes a subject aware of her ‘point of view’ on outer experience. As Valaris notes, this reading is an ‘inference to the best explanation’ [ibid.: 3] and not directly supported by Kant’s text. I will argue that the text directly supports a different reading.

3 Kant also calls TUA the original/pure/synthetic/objective unity of apperception/consciousness/self-consciousness (A107, B139–40, B135–6) and EUA the subjective unity of apperception/consciousness (B139–40).

4 Arguably, Kant allows that representations can be united in one consciousness—namely, when a subject has representations that bear some relation to each other—without being united for that consciousness—that is, without the subject being aware of her representations as so related. See note 8.

5 It might be objected that Kant is not claiming here that EUA obtains prior to combination by the understanding, but only that the manifold of intuition is given for combination through inner sense. While the sentence in question is ambiguous, I believe that my reading is preferred when read together with the subsequent sentence that I highlight below, in which Kant claims that EUA obtains through association of representations. As I will discuss, he argues that association by the imagination in the synthesis of reproduction is necessary for and precedes the synthesis of the understanding by which the manifold of intuition is united in a concept of the object. This reading is also supported by Kant’s claim in §8 that ‘consciousness of itself (apperception)’ through inner sense—i.e. EA—’requires inner perception of the manifold that is antecedently [vorher] given in the subject, and the manner in which this is given in the mind without spontaneity’ (B68, my emphases). This suggests that EA—like EUA, which it accompanies—requires consciousness of intuitions as they are given prior to combination by the understanding. I thank two anonymous referees for urging me to defend my reading of this sentence.

6 Schmitz does argue that what one is aware of through inner sense is temporally ordered outer intuitions[Citation2013: 1052]. She does not, however, discuss EUA, or its relation to association.

7 As I explain in section 3.1, Kant does argue that association by the reproductive imagination plays an essential role in awareness of a temporal series of intuitions as a series. But the Standard View does not recognize this connection between awareness of temporal relations and association. Kitcher notes that EUAis said to occur through association. She does not, however, connect it to EA, but treats it as a ‘special case’ of TUA that is ‘irrelevant to cognition’ [Citation2011: 158–9]. I disagree with both claims. First, as I will discuss, Kant identifies TUA with the objective unity of consciousness, which requires that representations be fully determined by the understanding. In contrast, EUA is a merely subjective unity of consciousness that obtains in merely associated representations that are not fully determined by the understanding. Thus, EUA cannot be an instance of TUA. Second, I will argue that, far from being irrelevant to cognition, EUA underlies cognition of both outer objects and the self.

8 To satisfy this condition, S need not be aware that intuitions are associated. It is sufficient that (1) S is aware of the temporal relations between a set of intuitions; (2) these temporal relations obtain merely because of corresponding associations; and (3) S does not judge whether these temporal relations are required in light of the objects that the intuitions are of. I explain (3) in sections 3.3 and 3.4.

9 Since I do not have space to discuss the difference between ‘intuition’ and ‘perception’, I treat these terms interchangeably. See Tolley [Citation2020] for discussion.

10 See Strawson [Citation1970] and Matherne [Citation2015].

11 This is compatible with the claim, defended, e.g., by Allais, that intuition alone suffices to presentparticulars in some sense to a subject. As Allais allows, this is consistent with its being the case that perceivingsomething requires the subject to be aware that she is doing so [Citation2017: 26].

12 Of course, it is possible to be aware of smoke after being aware of fire, without coming to be aware thatone is aware of smoke after being aware of fire. Animals have the former kind of awareness without the latter. See McLear [Citation2011].

13 Thus, I disagree with Valaris’s claim that consciousness of a ‘temporal series of outer perceptions in me’ just is consciousness of ‘temporal goings on outside me’ [Citation2008: 15]. I can be aware of a representation as of fire followed by a representation as of smoke, without judging that these representations correspond to an actual succession of fire and smoke outside me.

14 See Longuenesse [Citation1998: 212–25], Allison [Citation2004: 189–92], Longuenesse [Citation2005: 64–78], and Messina [Citation2014] for discussions of the role that the understanding plays in determining pure intuitions of space and time.

15 Henceforth, I typically avoid confusion by using the generic term ‘representation’ rather than ‘intuition’ to mark that—as discussed above—the awareness in question involves the understanding.

16 Recall Kant’s claim that apprehension is inseparable from reproduction.

17 That is, although P was only perceived at t₁, since Q was perceived at t₂, and Q inheres in P, P must exist at t₂.

18 §18 is entitled ‘What objective unity of self-consciousness is’ and begins thus (B139, see also B137, A105–8):

The transcendental unity of apperception is that unity through which all of the manifold given in an intuition is united in a concept of the object. It is called objective on that account, and must be distin­guished from the subjective unity of consciousness …

19 Since my main focus in this paper is on EUA, I set aside questions about how pure intuitions are determined by the understanding.

20 More specifically, this requires that no element of the set is left undetermined by a category. Kant argues that the objective unity of consciousness (i.e. TUA) requires that intuitions be determined ‘with regard not only to one, but rather to all the logical functions of judgment’ (R5932, 18: 391). This cannot mean that every intuition must be subsumed under all twelve categories, since some are incompatible. Rather, it (and its relations) must be determined by at least one category from each of the four titles. My thanks to an anonymous referee for raising this question.

21 One might object that this conflicts with Kant’s claim in §15 that application of the categories presupposes a still ‘higher’ unity (B131). While I do not have space for a full discussion, I take Kant’s main point to be that the unity of TUA ultimately depends on the identity of the act of uniting representations in one consciousness: that is, it depends on the same subject being conscious of each representation and of uniting them. That identity is presupposed by, and is in that sense ‘higher’ than, any particular act of categorial unification performed by a subject (see A107, B413). However, Kant is clear that the subject only comes to be conscious of the identity of her acts in virtue of performing them——i.e. through combining representations in accordance with the categories (A108; see also B133–5). Each such act generates representations that are instances of TUA. My thanks to an anonymous referee for raising these issues.

22 The distinction that I am drawing here appears to cut across the two types of unity discussed by McLear [Citation2015]. On the one hand, EUA is a unity brought about by sensibility (broadly construed to include the reproductive imagination), independently of the understanding (although, as I have noted, application of the mathematical categories is necessary in order for the subject to think of EUA as a determinate unity). Moreover, in being conscious of EUA, the subject does not think of the combination of representations as required by the objects that the representations are of. In both respects, EUA is closer to what McLear calls ‘aesthetic unity’. However, it is not a unity for which the whole is prior to its parts; rather, as with what McLear calls ‘discursive unity’, the whole is composed out of the intuitions that are its parts.

23 One exception is Tolley, who carefully distinguishes between perception and cognition. He does not, however, identify the former with EUA, and appears to ascribe unity of apperception as such to the understanding [Citation2020: 3227n27].

24 Thiel notes that, in addition to a ‘substantial unity’ of the self and a unity that is ‘a necessary condition of mental activity’, Tetens—whose views on self-consciousness are widely believed to have influenced Kant’s—also identifies a unity of the self that is ‘psychological’ and ‘observed’ [Citation2015: 157–8, Citation2018: 68–71]. In contrast, Thiel claims that, for Kant, there is no ‘observed unity’ of the psychological self based on inner sense alone [Citation2015: 159, Citation2018: 73]. But this at least partially overlooks Kant’s distinction between TUA and EUA. Although EUA does not itself afford awareness of an identical self, Kant explicitly characterizes it as a type of unity of apperception that is both passively observed and governed by psychological laws. On my view, there is an important similarity here between Kant and Tetens.

25 I have modified the Guyer/Wood translation to read ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. ‘Wenn’ is ambiguous between the two; however, the former better conveys that this judgment reports that a sequence of representations is ‘found together in perception’.

26 I take the former to be expressed by what Kant calls a ‘judgment of perception’ and the latter by a ‘judgment of experience’ (Pr., 4:299–301). See Sethi [Citation2020] for a full defence.

27 A related question asks whether the reproductive imagination can generate a genuine unity of consciousness. I believe that it can: Kant speaks specifically of the ‘unity of association’ (A121) and the ‘empirical unity of consciousness’ that results when perceptions are ‘combined by the imagination’ (R5933, 18: 392; see also B139–40), claiming neither that such unities are impossible nor that they are simply instances of the objective unity of the understanding. Rather, he describes them as subjective unities, albeit ones of which one can be conscious as unities only on the basis of an ‘objective ground’—namely, the unity of time in which they are represented (which itself depends on TA [B140]). See also note 39.

28 E.g. A194/B239, A156/B195, A201–2/B247, A368. Representations lack ‘relation to an object’ when they are not judged to correspond to an object that the representations are of. See Tolley [Citation2020].

29 E.g. A53/B77, A201–2/B247, A376; Anthropology 7:133–7, 7:180, 7:208, 7:240n21, 7:241; CJ, e.g., 5:230, 5:243–5, 5:256, 5:317, 5:321, 5:323, 5:350, R6315, 18:621. Cf. A239/B298.

30 Kant draws a related—but, I believe, different—distinction between the active and passive self in his discussion of self-affection (B153). There, his main point seems to be that, in EA, the self is both the active subject of consciousness and the passive object that is affected and given to consciousness (see B68, 20:270). The contrast in the Anthropology goes further and concerns whether the subject is active or passive with respect to the manifold of intuition in general. I discuss self-affection in note 47.

31 Boyle also claims that Kant distinguishes between knowledge of the self as active and as passive. Since Boyle’s goals are not exegetical [Citation2009: 134], however, he does not fully defend this reading. Moreover, he takes knowledge of the self as passive to consist merely in knowledge of one’s sensations and appetites, and he does not mention EUA or the imagination’s role in producing it. On my view, both are central to EA as awareness of a unity of representations that is passively brought about.

32 Note Kant’s description of a ‘play of impressions’ as those that occur ‘from nature’ rather than through the subject’s activity.

33 Or, less ambiguously, ‘When I represent a body, I represent weight.’

34 Although Kant paradigmatically describes TA as accompanying acts of unifying intuitions, it also accompanies acts of combining mere concepts (A79/B105, R6311,18:610–11).

35 One might worry that this definition is not general enough, since it ties TA to the understanding in particular, rather than to theoretical reasoning in general. I believe that the text supports this: Kant consistently links TA with the understanding, even substituting the former for the latter (A94/B127, 18:272, 23:18). Although I cannot fully defend this, I don’t take this to mean that there are uses of reason not accompanied by TA. For one, the principles of theoretical reason serve precisely to regulate uses of the understanding (A665–6/B693–4). As for thoughts involving ideas of reason, these are akin to thoughts involving concepts without intuitions. I am indebted to an anonymous referee for urging me to consider the applicability of TA in contexts other than the synthesis of intuitions.

36 Here, one might point out that it is equally true on my view, as on the Standard View, that consciousness of EA is a consciousness of representations qua representations (although we disagree about whichrepresentations). The phrase ‘qua representations’ is employed by the Standard View to flag that, in EA, the subject turns her attention away from the objects represented by fully synthesized representations to the very same fully synthesized representations qua representations in time. In contrast, my view does not hold representations fixed across TA and EA: I have argued that TUA requires a further act of subsuming representations with EUA under the relational categories. Thus, the phrase ‘qua representations’ is not needed to capture the difference between EA and TA, on my view, although neither is it inaccurate. I thank an anonymous referee for pressing this point.

37 On Hoppe’s reading, in contrast, Kant denies that there can be any non-objective unity of consciousness [Citation1983: 129–40, 221–2] and considers consciousness of non-objective states to be entirely separate and scattered [ibid.: 132ff.].

38 See Corr. 11:52 and McLear [Citation2011].

39 The fact that our capacities for TA and EA depend on each other in these ways does not entail that there is no in-principle difference between them. I have argued that TA and EA, respectively, accompany awareness of two types of unity that, Kant makes clear, are in-principle different: TUA is an objective unity fully determined by the understanding, and EUA is a merely subjective unity due to association by the imagination. Now, as discussed, in order for S to be aware of a merely associated series of representations in time as a unity (i.e. in EUA), she must represent time itself as a unity (i.e. in TUA). Moreover, in order to ascribe a merely associated series of representations to herself, she must be able to think of herself as the identical subject who can actively bring those representations into TUA. But the fact that her awareness of EUA depends in these ways on her capacity to bring representations into TUA does not entail that merely associated representations themselves are already in TUA, precisely because they are merely associated. Nor should the difference between TUA and EUA be thought to be one of degree. No increase in the degree of associative unity between representations can bring them into objective unity; rather, what is required is an act of a fundamentally different kind—an act of the understanding, rather than of the reproductive imagination.

40 Thus, I agree with Dyck that consciousness of myself as I appear (i.e. EA) is a necessary component of every perception. For Dyck, however, this is because the former consists in awareness of ‘the unity of time as an object’ [Citation2006: 43], which he claims to obtain through the active unification of successive acts of attention that accompany the synthesis of apprehension. On my view, whereas EA depends on awareness of time as a unity, it is not identical with it.

41 Of course, experience does not require that the subject actually self-ascribe either transcendental or empirical unities. Rather, it presupposes the kind of awareness that makes such self-ascription possible.

42 I believe that my account also aligns better with Kant’s conception of the ethical subject. In the Groundwork [4:452], he says that

a rational being … has two standpoints from which he can regard himself and cognize laws for the use of his powers … first, insofar as he belongs to the world of sense, under laws of nature (heteronomy); second, as belonging to the intelligible world, under laws which … [are] grounded merely in reason.

The former are ‘law[s] of desires and inclinations’ (4:453); the latter, laws of morality. This accords well with my claim that the cognitive subject also has two standpoints from which she is conscious of herself as governed by natural laws of receptivity and rational laws of spontaneity, respectively. Indeed, Kant himself draws this parallel at 4:451. See also Choi [Citation2019].

43 Nayak and Sotnak [Citation1995: 149] and Emundts [Citation2007: 197] claim that the category of causality is not applicable to inner sense. I disagree. First, Kant repeatedly describes representations as the effects of causes, both external and internal (e.g. A98, B276, A368). Second, he makes clear that inner perceptions are governed by laws of nature, such as the psychological laws of association. (e.g. B141–2, B152; Pr. 4:295; Anthr. 7:140–1). Third, contra Nayak and Sotnak, the Second Analogy does not argue that it is necessary to distinguish between a subjective and objective succession in order to apply the category of cause; it claims only that the latter is necessary for the former. Finally, despite initially suggesting otherwise, the discussion at B291–2 concludes (in line with the Refutation of Idealism) that we can think of the succession of inner states as alterations (and therefore as caused) if something persistent is given in outer intuition (see also 18: 611). See Hatfield [Citation1992] and Frierson [Citation2014] for discussion of Kant’s empirical psychology, and Sturm [Citation2001] for further criticisms of Nayak and Sotnak’s claim. See also Chignell [Citation2017].

44 Frierson argues that Kant allows empirical application of the category of substance to the soul [Citation2014: 21–6), whereas Kraus [Citation2019] argues that such application is merely regulative.

45 Representations bear causal relations not only to other representations, but also to objects. Plausibly, the latter type of relation also falls under the scope of empirical psychology, although I cannot explore this further here.

46 My emphasis on the natural laws of psychology might seem to draw my view close to ‘empiricist’ accounts of Kant’s theory of mind, defended, e.g., by Kitcher [Citation1990] and Brook [Citation1994]. There are some crucial differences, however. Most importantly, to the extent that Kitcher and Brook seek to give empiricist accounts, it is of the operation of all of Kant’s mental faculties, especially the activity of the understanding by which representations are brought into TUA, which they take to be governed by causal psychological laws [Kitcher Citation1990: 83, 122–3; Brook Citation1994: 5–7, 35]. Second, both discuss only briefly EA and inner experience, and appear to endorse versions of what I call the Standard View (see note 2). Finally, neither takes Kant’s empirical psychology and the laws of association to be relevant to cognition [Kitcher Citation1990: 77–9, 153ff.; Brook Citation1994: 8–9, 106–7, 135]. In contrast, I have argued that psychological laws govern only the syntheses of the reproductive imagination by which representations come to have EUA, whereas the subject brings representations into TUA in accordance with rational laws of the understanding (see note 47). Indeed, I take the difference between the kind of law that governs them to be crucial to the distinction between TUA and EUA. Moreover, I argue that it is precisely the laws of empirical psychology that underlie self-cognition.

47 One might object that this does not go far enough: surely it must also be possible to situate the activesubject and her judgments in time? On my view, however, a judgment is essentially an act of the understanding for Kant, rather than an item that can be grasped through inner sense, and I do not think that he regards these acts as events in time. For one, everything that occurs in time is governed by laws of nature, whereas acts of the understanding are governed by rational laws (see McLear [Citation2020]). Second, in a Reflexionthat asks ‘Is it an experience that we think?’, Kant argues that, since the acts of thinking that constitute experience involve determining the objective position of events in time, if they were themselves in time then it would have to be in a different, higher-order time in which the acts of first-order time-determination occurred. He concludes that this is absurd, and so that thinking itself is not experienced in time (R5661, 18:318–19; see R6311, where he indicates that mere thoughts without intuitions do not affect inner sense [18:611]). Third, he makes clear that it is only through her empirical character that the subject belongs to the phenomenal world, whereas the ‘actions and inner determinations’ that the subject is conscious of through ‘pure apperception … cannot be accounted at all among impressions of sense’ (A546–7/B574–5). How does this square with Kant’s doctrine of self-affection? In the above Reflexion, he says that, whereas consciousness of a mere thought of a square is not an experience, ‘this thought brings forth an object of experience or a determination of the mind that can be observed, insofar, namely, as it is affected through the faculty of thinking’ (18:319). Although it might seem like Kant is claiming here that the mere thought of a square can be observed, I believe that his point is rather that this thought only becomes an experience when an a priori intuition of a square is added to it through the imagination (see also B154). This is why Kant continues that, through this experience, one can ‘demonstrate [the square’s] properties’, since geometrical demonstration always requires construction in intuition for him. Space restrictions prevent me from further exploring his vexed doctrine of self-affection, but I do not believe that it amounts to the claim that thinking in general can be observed through inner sense. Rather, Kant ties self-affection in particular to the figurative synthesis (B153–4) and the successive acts of apprehension through which the manifold of intuition is grasped in time through inner sense. The latter enable consciousness of the subjective series of perceptions. As Kant says ([Leningrad Fragment on Inner Sense, tr. in Notes and Fragments, 366; see also B155, 20:270, and Dyck [Citation2006]):

That we can affect ourselves … is possible only through our apprehending the representations of things that affect us, i.e., of outer things, for thereby do we affect ourselves, and time is properly the form of the apprehension of representations which are related to something outside us.

My thanks to an anonymous referee for pressing these points.

48 I first formulated the main ideas in this paper as part of the core argument of my dissertation. I am indebted to my advisors, Hannah Ginsborg and Daniel Warren, for their invaluable guidance and insight. For discussion, advice, or comments on various stages of the paper’s development, I am very grateful to Gordon Belot, Richard Booth, Matt Boyle, Sarah Buss, Victor Caston, Peter Epstein, Patrick Frierson, Katharina Kraus, Olga Lenczewska, Béatrice Longuenesse, Ishani Maitra, Colin Marshall, Laura Ruetsche, Tad Schmaltz, Umrao Sethi, Clinton Tolley, Jessica Williams, the NAKS Workshop for Junior Women Scholars, audiences at the 2021 Pacific APA, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Clark University, as well as two anonymous referees for this journal.

TRANSCENDENTAL SUBJECT VS. EMPIRICAL SELF: ON KANT’S ACCOUNT OF SUBJECTIVITY

SIYAVES AZERI, Department of Philosophy, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

FILOZOFIA 65, 2010, No 3, p. 269

Click to access 269-283.pdf

“Transcendental Idealism and the Self-Knowledge Premise” 

Tse, Chiu Yui Plato.

Journal of Transcendental Philosophy, vol. 1, no. 1, 2020, pp. 19-41. https://doi.org/10.1515/jtph-2019-0014

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jtph-2019-0014/html?lang=en

“Transcendental Idealism and Naturalism: The Case of Fichte” 

Phillips, Rory Lawrence.

Journal of Transcendental Philosophy, vol. 1, no. 1, 2020, pp. 43-62. https://doi.org/10.1515/jtph-2019-0013

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jtph-2019-0013/html

The meaning of transcendental idealism is as disputed as the truth of it. Kant tells us that transcendental idealism is both a doctrine about 1) the empirical reality but transcendental ideality of space and time, and 2) the distinction between things in themselves and appearances.^[1] Kant is keen to distinguish his own position from other forms of idealism, mainly on the grounds that transcendental idealism does not, on many standard pictures of the view, reduce the world to our mental contents only.^[2] There has been a wide-ranging debate over the nature of transcendental idealism and whether it has metaphysical commitment or is essentially an epistemic position.^[3] For the purposes of this paper, I need not take a stance on whether any of these readings are correct about Kant, because Fichte denies (at least, on the standard story) that things in themselves exist – which are necessary for Kant’s version of transcendental idealism.^[4] Instead, Fichte argues that we have no need of such things, because philosophy as Wissenschaftselehre can help us to see that experience can be explained by reference to the subject – that is, by reference to general conditions on subjectivity only. Fichte is then seen as the ultimate philosophical champion of the freedom and independence of pure selfhood in the face of any and all external factors or influence. In the standard narrative of German Idealism, this account convinced the young Schelling, who, in his early essays was a follower of Fichte, but then Schelling became convinced of the necessity of a philosophical account of nature to complement transcendental idealism.^[5] Soon after this, Schelling turned toward giving his Naturphilosophie philosophical priority over transcendental idealism.^[6] This, inter alia, led to Schelling and Hegel’s co-operation and eventually the development of Hegelian philosophy.^[7] The rest, as they say, is history.

Self-referentiality in Kant’s transcendental philosophy

Is part of
Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress ; vol. 1, Memphis (Tenn.), 1995, pp. 259-267.
Publisher(s) Marquette University Press 1995
Author(s) Piché, Claude

https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/xmlui/handle/1866/21452

Abstract(s)

Inspired by the thesis of Rüdiger Bubner according to which Kant’s argumentation in the Transcendental Deduction is self-referential, I propose to extend the scope of this thesis to the transcendental Analytic as a whole. The question at stake is: What are the rules that guide transcendental critique if it is not to transgress the finiteness of its standpoint? I suggest that they are to be found in the dynamic Principles of the Analytic since these are also valid, mutatis mutandis, for the transcendental critique that describes them. In other words: these Principles are self-referential. For instance Kant claims that they are necessary for experience in general, but that their application is “contingent” (A 160/B 199). They are not necessary in themselves, no more than a necessary cause within experience is in itself necessary, but rather contingent, i.e.: dependent on another cause, as the principle of causality specifies. Now the dynamic principles are themselves contingent in their implementation, that is: dependent on the material conditions of experience in general. The transcendental conditions here are conditioned by the empirical conditions.

WHY TIME IS IN YOUR MIND: TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM AND THE REALITY OF TIME

Guus Duindam

Why Time Is In Your Mind: Transcendental Idealism and the Reality of Time

The varieties of self-transcendent experience

David Bryce Yaden, Jonathan Haidt, Ralph W. Hood, David R. Vago, Andrew B. Newberg

https://pure.johnshopkins.edu/en/publications/the-varieties-of-self-transcendent-experience

Abstract

Various forms of self-loss have been described as aspects of mental illness (e.g., depersonalization disorder), but might self-loss also be related to mental health? In this integrative review and proposed organizational framework, we focus on self-transcendent experiences (STEs)—transient mental states marked by decreased self-salience and increased feelings of connectedness. We first identify common psychological constructs that contain a self-transcendent aspect, including mindfulness, flow, peak experiences, mystical-type experiences, and certain positive emotions (e.g., love, awe). We then propose psychological and neurobiological mechanisms that may mediate the effects of STEs based on a review of the extant literature from social psychology, clinical psychology, and affective neuroscience. We conclude with future directions for further empirical research on these experiences.

On the Metaphysics and Ethics of the Transcendental Self

Sami Johannes Pihlström

• Faculty of Theology

In Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy
Editors Gabriele Gava, Robert Stern
Publisher Routledge – Taylor & Francis Group
Publication date 2015
ISBN (Print) 978-1-13-879191-6

https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/publications/on-the-metaphysics-and-ethics-of-the-transcendental-self

Subjectivity and Lifeworld in Transcendental Phenomenology

by Sebastian Luft

Book

Subjectivity and Lifeworld in Transcendental Phenomenology contributes to discussions about Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology in light of the ongoing publication of his manuscripts. It accounts for the historical origins and influence of the phenomenological project by articulating Husserl’s relationship to authors who came before and after him. Finally, it argues for the viability of the phenomenological project as conceived by Husserl in his later years, showing that Husserlian phenomenology is not exhausted in its early, Cartesian perspective, which is indeed its weakest and most vulnerable perspective. Rather, Sebastian Luft convincingly argues, Husserlian phenomenology is a robust and philosophically necessary approach when considered from its late, hermeneutic perspective.

The key point Luft brings into focus is that Husserl’s hermeneutic phenomenology is distinct from other hermeneutic philosophers’, namely Ernst Cassirer, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Unlike them, Husserl’s focus centers on the work subjects must do in order to uncover the prejudices that guide their unreflective relationship to the world. Luft also demonstrates that there is a deep consistency within Husserl’s own writings—from early to late—around the guiding themes of the natural attitude, the need and function of the epoché, and the split between egos, where the transcendental self (distinct from the natural self) is seen as the fundamental ability we all have to inquire into the genesis of our tradition-laden attitudes toward the world.

INTRODUCTION PART I. HUSSERL: THE OUTLINES OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL-PHENOMENOLOGICAL SYSTEM 
Chapter 1. Husserl’s Phenomenological Discovery of the Natural Attitude 
Chapter 2. Husserl’s Theory of the Phenomenological Reduction: Between Lifeworld and Cartesianism 
Chapter 3. Some Methodological Problems Arising in Husserl’s Late Reflections on the Phenomenological Reduction 
Chapter 4. Facticity and Historicity as Constituents of the Lifeworld in Husserl’s Late Philosophy 
Chapter 5. Husserl’s Concept of the “Transcendental Person.” Another Look at the Husserl-Heidegger Relationship 
Chapter 6. Dialectics of the Absolute: The Systematics of the Phenomenological System in Husserl’s Last Period 

PART II. HUSSERL, KANT, AND NEO-KANTIANISM: FROM SUBJECTIVITY TO LIFEWORLD AS A WORLD OF CULTURE 
Chapter 7. From Being to Givenness and Back: Some Remarks on the Meaning of Transcendental Idealism in Kant and Husserl 
Chapter 8. Reconstruction and Reduction: Natorp and Husserl on Method and the Question of Subjectivity 
Chapter 9. A Hermeneutic Phenomenology of Subjective and Objective Spirit: Husserl, Natorp, and Cassirer 
Chapter 10. Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Between Reason and Relativism. A Critical Appraisal 

PART III. TOWARDS AN HUSSERLIAN HERMENEUTICS 
Chapter 11. The Subjectivity of Effective Consciousness and the Suppressed Husserlian Elements in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics 
Chapter 12. Husserl’s “Hermeneutical Phenomenology” as a Philosophy of Culture 

Bibliography

Kant’s Transcendental Psychology, and: Kant’s Theory of Self-Consciousness (review)

Günter Zöller

Journal of the History of Philosophy

Johns Hopkins University Press

Volume 30, Number 4, October 1992

pp. 619-621

10.1353/hph.1992.0077

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/226187

Immanuel Kant: Transcendental Idealism

IEP

Kant: Transcendental Idealism

My Subconscious Mind: A Path To The Transcendental Self 

by  Stuart Alan Williams  (Author)

The Paradox of Subjectivity: The Self in the Transcendental Tradition 1st Edition 

by  David Carr  (Author)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (June 3, 1999)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 168 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0195126904
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195126907

Much effort in recent philosophy has been devoted to attacking the metaphysics of the subject. Identified largely with French post-structuralist thought, yet stemming primarily from the influential work of the later Heidegger, this attack has taken the form of a sweeping denunciation of the whole tradition of modern philosophy from Descartes through Nietzsche, Husserl, and Existentialism. In this timely study, David Carr contends that this discussion has overlooked and eventually lost sight of the distinction between modern metaphysics and the tradition of transcendental philosophy inaugurated by Kant and continued by Husserl into the twentieth century. Carr maintains that the transcendental tradition, often misinterpreted as a mere alternative version of the metaphysics of the subject, is in fact itself directed against such a metaphysics. 
Challenging prevailing views of the development of modern philosophy, Carr proposes a reinterpretation of the transcendental tradition and counters Heidegger’s influential readings of Kant and Husserl. He defends their subtle and complex transcendental investigations of the self and the life of subjectivity. In Carr’s interpretation, far from joining the project of metaphysical foundationalism, transcendental philosophy offers epistemological critique and phenomenological description. Its aim is not metaphysical conclusions but rather an appreciation for the rich and sometimes contradictory character of experience. The transcendental approach to the self is skillfully summed up by Husserl as “the paradox of human subjectivity: being a subject for the world and at the same time being an object in the world.” 

Proposing striking new readings of Kant and Husserl and reviving a sound awareness of the transcendental tradition, Carr’s distinctive historical and systematic position will interest a wide range of readers and provoke discussion among philosophers of metaphysics, epistemology, and the history of philosophy.

Review

David Carr’s Paradox of Subjectivity is a brilliant and challenging defense of the legitimacy and distinctiveness of the transcendental tradition in modern philosophy. This is a splendid book, to be enjoyed by anyone interested in Kant, or in the philosophical problems that gripped him.

The Philosophical Review

“…a timely and refreshing defense of the tradition of transcendental philosophy in Kant and Husserl against Heidegger’s influential attack….The erudition and clarity of this fine study make it accessible to both undergraduate and graduate audiences. This is a welcome addition to all collections supporting a major in philosophy.”–Choice“

A brilliant and challenging defense of the legitimacy and distinctiveness of the transcendental tradition in modern philosophy takes the world as given and explores it factually…this is a splendid book, to be enjoyed by anyone interested in Kant, or in the philosophical problems that gripped him.”–The Philosophical Review

The ontological status of the transcendental self : a comparative study of Kant and Śaṅkara

Date 1996
Authors Sewnath, Ramon R.

Theses for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (University of Hawaii at Manoa). Philosophy; no. 3335

https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/b5b60552-ca4b-43eb-878c-42e6aa274c1e

Abstract

The focus of this dissertation is on a comparative study of the notion of the transcendental self or, briefly, the Self as developed by Kant and Sarikara. The main purpose is, however, not simply to compare the views of Kant and Sarikara, but rather to use the rich sources of both the West and the East–that is, in this case the insights of both Kant and Sarikara–to rethink and to elucidate the question of the Self. More specifically, the main problem that is addressed in this dissertation is: what is the ontological status of the Self? Drawing on the insights of both Kant and Sarikara, an attempt is made to elucidate, as well as to provide a possible answer to this question. At the very outset of their projects both Kant and Sarikara have started out with basically different questions and assumptions, and as a result divergent views of the Self have emerged. This is, however, not to say that there are no similarities in their viewpoints. Both claim, for example, that the Self is not an object of empirical consciousness. And, furthermore, that the Self is original pure consciousness. These similarities, even though superficial and functional in nature, nevertheless point to some common concerns, which in turn may be useful in extending our understanding of the Self. But what is perhaps most important is that the discussion of the views of both thinkers in the comparative context shows that the ontological significance attached to the Self varies with the epistemological assumptions with which we operate. This makes it indeed difficult, but certainly not impossible to grasp the ontological status of the Self. A possible way of understanding the ontological status of the Self is to distinguish between the reflexive state of consciousness and original consciousness. While reflexive consciousness is vital for our existence, it keeps us in a perpetual state of becoming. It is suggested that original consciousness as my very mode of being cannot become an object of reflection. It is an experienced reality and not a concept. Thus it is possible to attain genuine self-knowledge when we reach beyond the boundaries of the reflexive state of consciousness.

The Transcendental Self.

Greenham, D. (2012).

In: Emerson’s Transatlantic Romanticism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137265203_5

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137265203_5

‘Husserl’s Phenomenology and the Project of Transcendental Self-Knowledge’, 

Moran, Dermot, 

in Ursula Renz (ed.), Self-Knowledge: A History, OXFORD PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS (New York, 2017; online edn, Oxford Academic, 16 Feb. 2017), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190226411.003.0016, accessed 3 Nov. 2023.

https://academic.oup.com/book/4734/chapter-abstract/146976192?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Abstract

This chapter explores Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology of self-knowledge, including his conceptions of subjectivity, sense constitution, and the divide between natural and transcendental self-experience. Husserl regards self-knowledge as the key to all knowledge, and he sees his project as a radicalization of Descartes’ exploration of the first person. All objectivity is the achievement of constituting subjectivity, and so coming to know this subjectivity is of the greatest importance to overcome naturalistic objectivism. Self-knowledge, moreover, for Husserl, involves a commitment to be an autonomous responsible subject living a life of clarified rational motives. This chapter outlines Husserl’s rich conception of the self and its self-knowledge, including its temporal and habitual character, the nature of the splitting of the ego in natural and transcendental reflection, and the relation of I to not-I.

“The Transcendental Self in Husserl’s Phenomenology: Some Suggested Revisions.” 

OBERLANDER, GEORGE E.

Research in Phenomenology 3 (1973): 45–62. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24654257.

The transcendental self 

The search for meaning and value

Issue 89, 9th June 2020

John Cottingham 

| Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Reading, Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Roehampton, London, and an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford University

https://iai.tv/articles/the-transcendental-self-auid-1560

Kant’s View of the Mind and Consciousness of Self

SEP

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-mind/

Self to Self: Selected Essays, Second Edition

J. David Velleman

https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/rv042w25m

AN INTRODUCTION TO ‘SELF AND ĀTMAN’

Lunneihoi Thangeo

An Introduction to ‘Self and Ātman’

AN INTRODUCTION TO ‘SELF AND ĀTMAN’

Lunneihoi Thangeo

Lunneihoi Thangeo is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at North-Eastern Hill University, India. She also teaches introductory courses in philosophy to undergraduates at St. Anthony’s College as a part-time lecturer. Her main interests are metaphysics and epistemology.

Ātman can be variously understood as the inner being, the eternally existing, the conscious, and the witness. It has also been called the true self that remains constant amidst all bodily changes. In Indian philosophy, there is a distinction between the lower self and the higher self. The consciousness of the lower self is finite, while the consciousness of the higher self is infinite. The lower self is trapped in the cycle of rebirths and re-deaths due to the law of karma, while the higher self is free. However, the lower self can get liberation from the karmic cycle using right knowledge and right action. Depending on the school of Indian philosophy, at liberation, the lower self can attain any of these three states – it realizes that it had always been the higher self, it becomes identical to the higher self, or it attains communion with the higher self.

The first sense of liberation (where the lower self realizes that it had always been the higher self) is the theme of the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna during the Kurukshetra War. The Kurukshetra War was a struggle for power between two groups of cousins. These were the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Arjuna belonged to the Pandava army and Krishna was his charioteer during the war. When they reached the battlefield, Arjuna’s determination to fight was weakened after recognizing familiar faces in the opposing army. Besides his cousins, he recognized his uncles and former teachers whom he did not want to harm. When Krishna saw this hesitancy, he began to instruct Arjuna on the true nature of the self. The Bhagavad Gita mentions Krishna as saying,

“The one who thinks that Ātman is a slayer, and the one who thinks that Ātman is slain, both are ignorant, because Ātman neither slays nor is slain… It is unborn, eternal, permanent, and primeval. The Ātman is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.” (2.19-20)

Purusha

The nature of the self that emerges in the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna is that of pure consciousness. Such a theory of self is taught by the Sāṅkhya and Yoga schools of Indian philosophy (henceforth, Sāṅkhya-Yoga). To say that the self is pure consciousness means that consciousness is the essence of the self. In other words, it means that the self is consciousness itself. This is different from saying that the self possesses consciousness. For the self to possess consciousness, we would have to think of the self as a substance. But Sāṅkhya-Yoga philosophers deny that the self is a substance.

To clarify the point of how the self is not a substance, let us consider the meaning of a substance. By ‘substance’, we mean the basic constituent of reality. A substance is called the substratum of qualities. As a substratum, the existence of a substance is supposed to be prior to and separate from the qualities that are found in it. For instance, take the conception of a substance found in another Indian school of philosophy called the Vaiśeṣika. According to the Vaiśeṣikas, a total of nine substances make our reality. These are earth, air, water, fire, ether, space, time, soul, and mind. Each substance possesses unique qualities that differentiate it from others. Earth has the unique quality of smell, air has touch, water has taste, fire has color, ether has sound, space has extension and co-existence, time has duration and changes, the soul has consciousness and mind has perception. As per Vaiśeṣika philosophy, the soul substance represents the true nature of the self. The soul substance is not always conscious. The quality of consciousness is activated only when it comes into contact with the mind substance, which in turn has to be in contact with the physical substances. This means that in Vaiśeṣikas philosophy, we can separate the self from consciousness. But we cannot do the same in Sāṅkhya-Yoga philosophy. In Sāṅkhya-Yoga philosophy, the self is always conscious. This eternally conscious self is called purusha.

In Sāṅkhya-Yoga philosophy, there is no fundamental difference between the higher self and the lower self. The higher self is the original state of purusha, while the lower self is the ignorant state of the same purusha. Purusha has always existed. It cannot be killed. Purusha is Ātman. This is why Krishna could say to Arjuna,

“There was never a time when I, you, or these kings did not exist; nor shall we ever cease to exist in the future.” (2.12)

Krishna was talking about purusha and not the physical body. The physical body is a part of matter. In its original state, purusha is infinite and independent of matter. In its ignorant state, purusha is limited and dependent on matter. Matter is co-eternal with purusha. The name given to this primordial  matter is prakrti.

Prakrti

Prakrti is uncaused and independent. While purusha is the conscious self, prakrti is the unconscious matter. Prakrti is a unity of three essential constituents. These are sattva guṇa, rajas guṇa, and tamas guṇa. Each of them has a distinct character. Sattva guṇahas the nature of illumination and pleasure. Rajas guṇa has the nature of activity and pain. Tamas guṇa has the nature of ignorance  and indifference.

The creation of the universe cannot take place without prakrti. But prakrti alone cannot begin producing. Prakrti needs purusha to commence the creation process. We can understand the exact roles played by each using Aristotle’s classification of causes. Aristotle had divided all causes into formal, material, efficient, and final. The formal cause is that according to which the effect is to be formed or shaped. For instance, when an architect plans for a bamboo house, the blueprint of the bamboo house is the formal cause. The material cause is that out of which the effect will be formed. In the example of the bamboo house, the material cause is bamboo. The efficient cause is the force that will transform matter according to the plan. The energy of the builders will be the force that converts the bamboo sticks into the planned bamboo house. Lastly, the final cause is the driving reason behind the other causes. If the bamboo house was built for commercial purposes, then the final cause of the house is profit-making.

We can now put the roles of Purusha and Prakriti in terms of these four causes. Prakrtiperforms the three roles of being the formal, material, and efficient cause. Prakrti is the formal cause because the nature of guṇas determines the form of everything that comes into existence. The combination of the three guṇas is present in all things in different proportions. Prakrti is the material cause of the universe because there is no other matter besides it. Prakrti is also the efficient cause because it already possesses the energy required for creation in the form of rajas guṇa. The final cause is purusha. Purusha is the witness to the creation process. Creation takes place for the self-realization of purusha.

In Sāṅkhya-Yoga philosophy, prakrti is not just the cause of the sense and motor organs, but also the intellect, mind, and ego. Thus, in human beings, the ability to sense pain and pleasure, to be at rest or perform an activity, and to gain knowledge or remain ignorant are the potentials of the material body and not the self.

Bondage and Liberation

Even though prakrti possesses the potential for sensations and mental formations, these cannot be experienced by prakrti. Prakrti is devoid of all awareness. Even the mind and ego  seem to be aware only because they reflect the consciousness of purusha. The mind and ego  can reflect the consciousness of purusha because they are dominated by sattva guṇa, the guṇa of illumination. This can be illustrated in the following way. Of all the natural surfaces, the water surface possesses the property of reflection. So, when we want to see the reflected image of the bright moon at night, we approach a water surface. Although the water surface has this extra reflective property compared to say, a mound of earth, it does not know about it. The water surface remains as unconscious as the mound of earth. This is the same thing that happens with the mind and ego. They are like the water surface, capable of reflection, but they are not aware that they are reflecting. The mind and ego remain as unconscious as the sense and motor organs.

If the mind and ego remain unconscious, then what is it that says, ‘I have a mind’ or ‘This is my body’ or ‘I am feeling pleasure’? According to Sāṅkhya-Yoga philosophers, this is purusha. We can explain this by taking the example of the moon again. The moon seems encaged by the boundaries of the water body which reflects it. In the same way, purusha seems confined by the mind and ego that reflects it.

But purusha does not possess guṇa so it cannot have sensations and mental formations. However, since purusha is awareness, what happens here is that it becomes aware of the sensations and mental formations taking place in prakrti. So, purusha experiences pain and pleasure only in association with prakrti. In other words, purusha has a sense of having a finite body and limited perception only in association with prakrti. 

During this association, purusha ignores its true nature by paying attention to its reflection in prakrti. It begins to appropriate the physical and psychical changes occurring in prakrti as its own. This mistaken identity can trap purusha for a long time. Since matter goes through composition and decomposition, purusha also seems to pass through recurring cycles of births and deaths according to the law of karma.

Purusha can get liberated from this endless cycle by realizing that it is eternally independent of prakrti. There was never an actual association between them. Matter cannot imprison consciousness. Rather, consciousness seems to be imprisoned only by a misconception.

Meditative  practices can also facilitate the removal of misconception. The purpose of meditation is to wean the consciousness away from the various sensations in the body and the ever-changing thoughts in the mind. At first, a single object is chosen as the locus of concentration. When consciousness gets distracted, it is brought back to this object. The ultimate aim, however, is to transcend  even this locus of concentration and become free of all thoughts. Only then will purusha become truly liberated.

There are two kinds of liberation – jῑvanmukti and videhamukti. In jῑvanmukti, the self is enlightened, but it has not yet discarded the body. However, it is no longer moved by pain or pleasure and the fear of death is removed. In jῑvanmukti, the discriminatory knowledge of the self and the not-self is achieved. In videhamukti, the self transcends this discriminatory  knowledge and returns to its original state of pure consciousness. Pure consciousness is devoid of intellectual content, change, and activity. Videhamukti is the event of the release of the enlightened self from the body at death.

Even though videhamukti is the final liberation, it cannot be achieved withoutjῑvanmukti. A jῑvanmukta continues to perform actions but only out of a sense of obligation. When actions are performed without any self-interest, then no new karmaresidues are collected. For this reason, a jῑvanmukta is also a karma-yogi.

Karma-yogi

After talking about the true nature of the self, Krishna then instructs Arjuna to follow the path of karma-yoga. Karma-yoga is the practice of doing things without the expectation of results. A person who takes this path is called a karma-yogi. 

“A Karma-yogi whose mind is pure, whose mind and senses are under control, and who sees the same Self in all beings, is not bound (by Karma) though engaged in work.” (5.07)

When the true nature of the self is known, then struggling ends. No action can enrich or take away anything from the self. The true self, purusha, is never-changing, does not have any requirements, and does not aspire to become anything else. A  karma-yogi is no longer enticed by praise, material possessions, or heavenly bliss. A karma-yogi is also not driven by negative emotions such as hatred, jealousy, or vengeance. The actions of a karma-yogi are passionless. The only motivation for action is to meet the demands of the various responsibilities that one is given in life. These responsibilities could be that of a parent, a student, a laborer, or a warrior as in the case of Arjuna.

Reading Questions

1. What do you understand by Ātman?
2. Illustrate how purusha is the true self and ego is the false self.
3. Explain how purusha gets associated with prakrti.
4. Can prakrti ever become conscious?

References

Levin, Noah, ed. “Self and Atman.” In SOUTH AND EAST ASIAN PHILOSOPHY READER, AN OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE, 105–15. NGE Far Press, 2019. https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Philosophy/Book%3A_South_and_East_Asian_Philosophy_Reader_(Levin_et_al.)

“Self and Atman.”

Levin, Noah, ed.

In SOUTH AND EAST ASIAN PHILOSOPHY READER, AN OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE, 105–15. NGE Far Press, 2019.

https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Philosophy/Book%3A_South_and_East_Asian_Philosophy_Reader_(Levin_et_al.)

Bergson’s and Sartre’s Account of the Self in Relation to the Transcendental Ego,

Roland Breeur (2001)

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 9:2, 177-198,

DOI: 10.1080/09672550110035899

Click to access BergsonSelf.pdf

Subjectivity and Lifeworld in Transcendental Phenomenology

By Sebastian Luft

Husserl and the Promise of Time: Subjectivity in Transcendental Phenomenology

By Nicolas de Warren

“The Overabundant Self and the Transcendental Tradition: Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the Self-Reflective Subject.” 

Marsh, Charles.

Journal of the American Academy of Religion 60, no. 4 (1992): 659–72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1465588.

“Is Kant’s Transcendental Philosophy Inconsistent?” 

Pereboom, Derk.

History of Philosophy Quarterly 8, no. 4 (1991): 357–72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27743992.

The Self, the Good Life and the Transcendent

John Cottingham

Chapter 10 in The Moral Life
Essays in Honour of John Cottingham
Edited by
Nafsika Athanassoulis
Keele University, UK
and
Samantha Vice
Rhodes University, South Africa

https://www.almutadaber.com/books/book1_10601.pdf#page=242

The transcendental – phenomenological perspective on intersubjectivity: Various aspects

Alexandru Petrescu

Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 71 (2013) 14 – 20

https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/277811/1-s2.0-S1877042813X00035/1-s2.0-S1877042813000049/main.pdf?X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEIH%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJGMEQCIH6KkUL6AYUakN%2FbH9og%2B%2FWAZEcI8a3qwAsKEBpehYGnAiBh5V0T7A0SBF%2BSlL5tHnlUUo4kJyvogfAQNTAiUZFL3Cq7BQi6%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F8BEAUaDDA1OTAwMzU0Njg2NSIMQqWp310AkJczvwV7Ko8FL%2BUiBpMyepBwY6FOEdJdsIfjUsPR%2FPb%2BZBkH6g28B26c0PGZzfgAl3KAI4PXf7%2FhxZclIOgspvMnGvhAVuPbA%2BGnBuID%2BZeBAlYpe%2BvZqLfte7aRO0%2BNxLXeOSSi2mxXswEmKb9O0i2y45z4Asrhu5598asFq983Aq38pWOz9O7sivNn8iF32%2Fk5KkDrDhNIzht%2BLt97j1bunKIMfEgxvg2AP%2FfJWQFDAxxNmRSI4pGEC7u%2Bf2qnLxZ16tTGxWs%2FzlJHEWdc%2BcHYns83ntgglJJ%2FoYO%2FaXsvRhdkl9rBnigWAImuq7lBL0sb%2Fuc3h%2BRLAoBxZKu1FcYqnT5N5oDpNZ%2Bg3ZLJyQiJABkxM0v8wMyO0Mk666SX%2BJXclGGkJl1oEL8xILyM8itlyaP8cZFwugiCMPkeEzwASLZH70a1vrrBBGrnnf5dxkQsunCGvOyBTyGO5eYvbI5ae4BI%2BIZWlRZTrSPO0WthYBSI2OubNjOdy6snL0WQeysmNDpnz%2FIwSZUkwCO%2BDh1WhQi1GtP1foZLki9Y3BVvOEqcrdcCUrexuK%2BHagL8wuzDcC4EPOKEpYYXAcXcF1lrT8Eq0JTFOVMwVJCJIKscAEDWjyUIKuz3f7iN3ULdAnV%2Bt9xr191h%2BSFX2I2X%2B58BbAx7SKHlTxWnthlLSs0MybVQp1R%2Fepc7JHNA%2F5JZqgW16qJL0BKnplQg%2ByCiLpAKUgnFK3gpp%2BY5Nqnwcj6%2FeisdzG8HSVzL7DGAhsk8z%2F9WwcJgS6Y5sLiUzcBJIW5OL4Xgzk5DbCO17q3Mb8NvNyrTlVjXeA%2FONqMxz6Lu%2FWadXZJOfa89AfTP3%2Fzk1Rlj8XCI9fACoNwUOshvbTp7RQ2ExxUJnzD%2Fjq2qBjqyAXLw%2ByO%2BTRkpdbO%2Fl2EXm6PQI%2BN6eMkhu53uICTjnuufq4D528pWbKMUXH0Hg8rlixRMk8F707vuhkmNNDWTiTYldU%2FbMHB%2BWoFpkCPCtfpdr3aRNddo%2FgUwZHFZ4R8e%2B91DCuqugicUfpqGrIJL8vBmUd%2BWRegUscC2k2ebhgLDF5wtSgeNxrQNzig4SlnYv7d0w8e2ySYtxlLNtf2GajwJUasYfdxOZ%2FBnmWUMzqq9y%2FQ%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20231108T092313Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAQ3PHCVTYXCEWFBHX%2F20231108%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=233b2ba0dae32ca3da86c8feb8d47da4a5540efa12d392d0fe31a7bef8caaa6d&hash=29ac652407f4f13e8bec68f340f101533db0580726d4faa5928c4964120830c0&host=68042c943591013ac2b2430a89b270f6af2c76d8dfd086a07176afe7c76c2c61&pii=S1877042813000049&tid=spdf-881d9515-f4de-4c0e-989a-f76fbdc990e6&sid=d6dc55513b75d44cd699d2a2b16f7523fa97gxrqa&type=client&tsoh=d3d3LnNjaWVuY2VkaXJlY3QuY29t&ua=0f155d54560601535c5c55&rr=822cc1891bab7ff7&cc=us

Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Self-Transcendent States: Perceived Body Boundaries and Spatial Frames of Reference

Adam W. Hanley1,2, Michael Dambrun3, Eric L. Garland1,2
1=Center on Mindfulness and Integrative Health Intervention Development (C-MIIND), University of Utah

2=College of Social Work, University of Utah
3=Laboratory of Social and Cognitive Psychology, Université Clermont Auvergne

Mindfulness (N Y). 2020 May ; 11(5): 1194–1203. doi:10.1007/s12671-020-01330-9.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7968136/

Formal and Transcendental Logic

By Edmund Husserl

Transcendental Subjectivity and the Human Being

Hanne Jacobs

Penultimate version of article forthcoming in: Phenomenology and The Transcendental, edited by Sara Heinämaa, Mirja Hartimo, Timo Miettinen, Routledge, forthcoming.

The Empirical and Transcendental Ego.

Natanson, M. (1962).

In: Literature, Philosophy, and the Social Sciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9278-1_4

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-011-9278-1_4

From transcendental egology to orientation theory: Toward a mereological foundation for the different senses of the “self” in conscious experience

Joan González Guardiola^*

• Department of Philosophy and Social Work, University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), Palma, Spain

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1069448/full

Nagarjuna and the Art of Negation: Discerning Subjectivity, Emptiness …

By Mathew Varghese

“The Question of the Subject: Heidegger and the Transcendental Tradition.” 

Carr, David.

Human Studies 17, no. 4 (1994): 403–18.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20011059

Transcendental Philosophy and Intersubjectivity: Mutual Recognition as a Condition for the Possibility of Self-Consciousness in Sections 1–3 of Fichte’s Foundations of Natural Right

Jacob McNulty

First published: 14 February 2016

https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12131

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ejop.12131

Abstract

In the opening sections of his Foundations of Natural Right, Fichte argues that mutual recognition is a condition for the possibility of self-consciousness. However, the argument turns on the apparently unconvincing claim that, in the context of transcendental philosophy, conceptions of the subject as an isolated individual give rise to a vicious circle the resolution of which requires the introduction of a second rational being to ‘summon’ the first. In this essay, my aim is to present a revised account of the opening arguments on which they are more convincing. In particular, I argue that the problem of a circle is genuine and may be seen to result from a relation of mutual dependence between agency and cognition which ensures that for an exercise of either capacity to take place, an exercise of the other would have already had to have taken place with the result that neither can occur. Moreover, the solution is successful. The summons (the claim of the other) prevents us from being driven around the circle once more because it is a ‘synthesis’ that reconciles the constraint to which I am subject as a cognizer of independently given objects and my freedom as a self-determining subject.

Kant and the Demands of Self-Consciousness

By Pierre Keller

The Spiritual Brain: Selective Cortical Lesions Modulate Human Self-Transcendence

• Cosimo Urgesi
• Salvatore M. Aglioti
• Miran Skrap
• Franco Fabbro

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2010.01.026

https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0896-6273(10)00052-8

“What Is the Western Concept of the Self? On Forgetting David Hume.” 

Murray, D. W.

Ethos 21, no. 1 (1993): 3–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/640288.

Fichte’s Transcendental Philosophy: The Original Duplicity of Intelligence …

By Günter Zöller

Phenomenology and the Transcendental

edited by Sara Heinämaa, Mirja Hartimo, Timo Miettinen

Problems of Other Minds: Solutions and Dissolutions in Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Jack Reynolds

First published: 07 April 2010

Volume5, Issue4

April 2010

Pages 326-335

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00293.x

https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00293.x

Abstract

While there is a great diversity of treatments of other minds and inter-subjectivity within both analytic and continental philosophy, this article specifies some of the core structural differences between these treatments. Although there is no canonical account of the problem of other minds that can be baldly stated and that is exhaustive of both traditions, the problem(s) of other minds can be loosely defined in family resemblances terms. It seems to have: (1) an epistemological dimension (How do we know that others exist? Can we justifiably claim to know that they do?); (2) an ontological dimension that incorporates issues having to do with personal identity (What is the structure of our world such that inter-subjectivity is possible? What are the fundamental aspects of our relations to others? How do they impact upon our self-identity?); and (3) A conceptual dimension in that it depends on one’s answer to the question what is a mind (How does the mind – or the concept of ‘mind’– relate to the brain, the body and the world?). While these three issues are co-imbricated, I will claim that analytic engagements with the problem of other minds focus on (1), whereas continental philosophers focus far more on (2). In addition, this article will also point to various other downstream consequences of this, including the preoccupation with embodiment and forms of expressivism that feature heavily in various forms of continental philosophy, and which generally aim to ground our relations with others in a pre-reflective manner of inhabiting the world that is said to be the condition of reflection and knowledge.

Mind, Meaning and World

A Transcendental Perspective

Authors: Ramesh Chandra Pradhan

DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7228-5
Publisher Springer Singapore
Hardcover ISBN 978-981-13-7227-8
Published: 08 May 2019

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-13-7228-5

First book to defend the transcendental theory of consciousness in recent times
Brings Vedanta and Buddhism into the mainstream of philosophy of mind to counter naturalism
Brings the continental and analytic thinkers along with the thinkers from the East on one platform

The present book intends to approach the problem of mind, meaning and consciousness from a non-naturalist or transcendental point of view. The naturalization of consciousness has reached a dead-end. There can be no  proper solution to the problem of mind within the naturalist framework. This work intends to reverse this trend and bring back the long neglected transcendental theory laid down by Kant and Husserl in the West and Vedanta and Buddhism in India. The novelty of this approach lies in how we can make an autonomous space for mind and meaning without denying its connection with the world. The transcendental theory does not disown the embodied nature of consciousness, but goes beyond the body in search of higher meanings and values. The scope of this work extends from mind and consciousness to the world and brings the world into the space of mind and meaning with a hope to enchant the world. The world needs to be retrieved from the stranglehold of scientism and naturalism. This book will dispel the illusion about naturalism which has gripped the minds of our generation. The researchers interested in the philosophy of mind and consciousness can benefit from this work. 

Ramesh Chandra Pradhan was Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Hyderabad during 1998–2015. He taught at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, and Karnatak University, Dharwad, before joining the University of Hyderabad in 1987. He was a Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellow at the University of Oxford during 1990–1991. He has specialized in the philosophy of Wittgenstein, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and metaphysics. He has authored a number of books on the philosophy of Wittgenstein, philosophy of language and metaphysics. He has contributed many papers to philosophy journals. Professor Pradhan is at present National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.

HUSSERL’S INTERSUBJECTIVE TRANSFORMATION OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY

Dan Zahavi
University of Copenhagen

Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 27/7, 1996, 228-245

DOI: 10.1080/00071773.1996.11007165

“Hegel and Transcendental Philosophy.” 

Williams, Robert R.

The Journal of Philosophy 82, no. 11 (1985): 595–606. https://doi.org/10.2307/2026413.

Transcendence and the Transcendental in Husserl’s Phenomenology

Caputo, John D

Philosophy Today; Celina, Ohio Vol. 23, Iss. 3,  (Fall 1979): 205.

Transcendental Consciousness
A Fourth State of Consciousness Beyond Sleep, Dreaming, and Waking

Chapter

By Charles N. Alexander, Robert W. Cranson, Robert W. Boyer, David W. Orme-Johnson
Book Sleep and Dreams
Edition 1st Edition
First Published 1987
Imprint Routledge
Pages 35
eBook ISBN 9781315311579

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315311579-10/transcendental-consciousness-charles-alexander-robert-cranson-robert-boyer-david-orme-johnson

ABSTRACT 

This chapter introduces a fourth major state of consciousness–transcendental consciousness–to distinguish it from the states of deep sleep, dreaming, including lucid dreaming, and waking, and to suggest its role in a model of human development to higher states of consciousness. The experience of the fourth state of consciousness has been described and its physiological correlates have been predicted by the Vedic psychology of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. This comprehensive psychological theory and technology of human development is based on the ancient classical science of the Veda which emphasizes the subjective approach to gaining knowledge, as well as the objective approach of modern science. Psychophysiological research indicates that transcendental consciousness can be distinguished from deep sleep on a number of dimensions. The dreaming state is subjectively characterized by illusory perception of the self and the environment and their interaction. Typically, the dreamer’s awareness is completely identified with a dream self as it appears in the dream, or with other dream content.

In defence of the transcendent

Les Lancaster

Transpersonal Psychology Review, 2002, 6 (1), 42-51

“Transcendental Idealism in Wittgenstein, and Theories of Meaning.” 

Moore, A. W.

The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-)35, no. 139 (1985): 134–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/2219340.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2219340

The Transcendental Circle 

Jeff Malpas

Click to access The-Transcendental-Circle.pdf

The Embodied and Transcendental Self

Toward a Synthesis and a Way of Knowing

Ralph D. Ellis

Philosophy in the Contemporary World

Realism, Constructionism, and the Self

Volume 5, Issue 2/3, Summer/Fall 1998 Pages 67-83

https://doi.org/10.5840/pcw199852/316

https://www.pdcnet.org/pcw/content/pcw_1998_0005_0002_0067_0083

The ‘embodied self’ is the purposeful dimension of any organism capable of acting toward a unified motivation to maintain a self-organizing structure by appropriating, replacing, and reproducing material components to serve as substrata. We reflect on the ‘self’ in this sense when we direct attention away from the objects of experience and toward the way our bodies motivate our experiences in terms of emotional purposes of the organism, by looking, searching, shifting the focus of attention, etc.—actions rather than reactions of our bodies and nervous systems. The ‘transcendental self,’ by contrast, cannot be identified with any particular embodied state of consciousness, because it is that which unifies all the particular stages and gives them direction. It is argued here that affect and motivation are the keys to understanding and unifying the transcendental and embodied selves, because both reflect the organism’s self-organizing tendency; and that we can know ourselves by understanding the way affect and motivation shape the pattern and direction of our stream of consciousness.

Self and World in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy

By Christopher Janaway

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: History and Interpretation

edited by Peter Sullivan, Michael Potter

Making sense

Husserl’s phenomenology as transcendental idealism

By Dermot Moran
Book From Kant to Davidson
Edition 1st Edition
First Published 2002
Imprint Routledge
Pages 27
eBook ISBN 9780203219577

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203219577-4/making-sense-dermot-moran

Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Categories: Unity, Representation and Apperception

By Lawrence J. Kaye

Is Svasavitti Transcendental? A Tentative Reconstruction Following Śntarakita

Dan Arnold

Asian Philosophy, 15:1, 77-111, DOI: 10.1080/0955236052000341050

“Review of R. C. Pradhan (RCP)’s Mind, Meaning and World: A Transcendental Perspective, Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd., 2019”. 

Nath, R.

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, 400076, India

AI & Soc (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-022-01556-2

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-022-01556-2

Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition

By Michael Steven Green

“Kant, Transcendental Arguments and the Problem of Deduction.” 

Bübner, Rüdiger, and Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe.

The Review of Metaphysics 28, no. 3 (1975): 453–67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20126664.

Consciousness and Veda: Research into Direct Experience of the Self-Interacting Dynamics of Transcendental Consciousness through Maharishi Technologies of Consciousness, Including Vedic Sound

Runkle, Susan J

Maharishi University of Management 

ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  2022. 29068046.

From a Transcendental-semiotic Point of View

By Karl-Otto Apel

Merleau-Ponty’s Transcendental Theory of Perception

Sebastian Gardner

Click to access S_Gardner_Merleau-Ponty.pdf

Kant, Neo-Kantians, and Transcendental Subjectivity

Charlotte Baumann

DOI: 10.1111/ejop.12162

European Journal of Philosophy 25:3 ISSN 0966-8373 pp. 595–616

Click to access BAUKNA-2.pdf

“Schelling’s Concept of Self-Consciousness in His System of Transcendental Idealism (1800).” 

Lang, Stefan.

Archiv Für Begriffsgeschichte 55 (2013): 165–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24361936.

Self and World

By Quassim Cassam

Transcendental Apperception: Consciousness or Self-Consciousness? Comments on Chapter 9 of Patricia Kitcher’s Kant’s Thinker

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2014

Ralf Busse

Kantian Review Volume 19 Issue 1

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/kantian-review/article/abs/transcendental-apperception-consciousness-or-selfconsciousness-comments-on-chapter-9-of-patricia-kitchers-kants-thinker/3CB41E47928F75805487C87278F6F79E

Contemporary Hegelian Scholarship: On Robert Stern’s Holistic Reading of Hegel

Paniel Reyes Cárdenas

Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, Puebla panielosberto.reyes@upaep.mx

Click to access n50a6.pdf

Kant on Intuition

Western and Asian Perspectives on Transcendental Idealism

Edited By Stephen R. Palmquist

ISBN 9780367732523

334 Pages

Published December 18, 2020 by Routledge

https://www.routledge.com/Kant-on-Intuition-Western-and-Asian-Perspectives-on-Transcendental-Idealism/Palmquist/p/book/9780367732523

Kant on Intuition: Western and Asian Perspectives on Transcendental Idealism consists of 20 chapters, many of which feature engagements between Kant and various Asian philosophers. Key themes include the nature of human intuition (not only as theoretical—pure, sensible, and possibly intellectual—but also as relevant to Kant’s practical philosophy, aesthetics, the sublime, and even mysticism), the status of Kant’s idealism/realism, and Kant’s notion of an object. Roughly half of the chapters take a stance on the recent conceptualism/non-conceptualism debate. The chapters are organized into four parts, each with five chapters. Part I explores themes relating primarily to the early sections of Kant’s first Critique: three chapters focus mainly on Kant’s theory of the “forms of intuition” and/or “formal intuition”, especially as illustrated by geometry, while two examine the broader role of intuition in transcendental idealism. Part II continues to examine themes from the Aesthetic but shifts the main focus to the Transcendental Analytic, where the key question challenging interpreters is to determine whether intuition (via sensibility) is ever capable of operating independently from conception (via understanding); each contributor offers a defense of either the conceptualist or the non-conceptualist readings of Kant’s text. Part III includes three chapters that explore the relevance of intuition to Kant’s theory of the sublime, followed by two that examine challenges that Asian philosophers have raised against Kant’s theory of intuition, particularly as it relates to our experience of the supersensible. Finally, Part IV concludes the book with five chapters that explore a range of resonances between Kant and various Asian philosophers and philosophical ideas.

“The Role of Apperception in Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Categories.” 

Castañeda, Hector-Neri.

Noûs 24, no. 1 (1990): 147–57. https://doi.org/10.2307/2215618.

Transcendental Philosophy As Capacities-First Philosophy

Karl Schafer

First published: 17 November 2020

Volume103, Issue3

November 2021

Pages 661-686

https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12740

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phpr.12740

Husserl’s transcendental philosophy and the critique of naturalism

Dermot Moran

Cont Philos Rev
DOI 10.1007/s11007-008-9088-3

Click to access Husserls-transcendental-philosophy-and-the-critique-of-naturalism.pdf

Chapter 3
Transcendental Apperception and Consciousness in Kant’s Lectures on Metaphysics

Dennis Schulting

workshop Kant as Lecturer/ Philosopher: Connections between his Lectures and Philosophy, at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Uni- versität in Munich on 3–4 May 2013.

Click to access SCHTAA-16.pdf

Transcendental Unity of Apperception and Non-reflective Consciousness of Self

Sorin Baiasu

http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/76051/1/54.pdf.pdf#page=29

System of Transcendental Philosophy

Friedrich Schelling (1800)

Click to access schelling_transc_philos.pdf

Polarity processing 

Self/No-Self, the Transcendent Function, and wholeness

By Deon van Zyl

Chapter

Book Self and No-Self

Edition 1st Edition First Published 2009

Imprint Routledge Pages 12 eBook ISBN 9781315787558

Schopenhauer and Kant’s Transcendental Idealism

PETRI RÄSÄNEN

ACADEMIC DISSERTATION
To be presented, with the permission of
the Faculty of Information Sciences of the University of Tampere, for public discussion in the Paavo Koli Auditorium of the University, Kanslerinrinne 1, Tampere, on October 15th, 2005, at 12 o’clock.

https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/67524/951-44-6421-4.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

HEGEL’S IDEALISM

ROBERT STERN

Click to access WRRO_43842.pdf

HEIDEGGER’S TRANSCENDENTALISM

DANIEL DAHLSTROM

Boston University

Click to access d-heidegger-transcendentalism.pdf

Reconstruction and Reduction: Natorp and Husserl on Method and the Question of Subjectivity1

Sebastian Luft 

Marquette University

META: RESEARCH IN HERMENEUTICS, PHENOMENOLOGY, AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY VOL. VIII, NO. 2 / DECEMBER 2016: 326-370, ISSN 2067-3655

Click to access 04-luft-meta-luft-final.pdf

Was Merleau-Ponty a ‘transcendental’ phenomenologist?

Kant, Hegel, and the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

Kourosh Christian Alizadeh

DISSERTATION DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Philosophy

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE

Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology
Nature, Spirit, and Life

Andrea Staiti, Boston College, Massachusetts

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Online publication date: November 2014
• Print publication year: 2014
• Online ISBN: 9781107588875
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107588875

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/husserls-transcendental-phenomenology/2B25ED1C3CE802A1DD74D9F064078AD0#fndtn-information

Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) is regarded as the founder of transcendental phenomenology, one of the major traditions to emerge in twentieth-century philosophy. In this book Andrea Staiti unearths and examines the deep theoretical links between Husserl’s phenomenology and the philosophical debates of his time, showing how his thought developed in response to the conflicting demands of Neo-Kantianism and life-philosophy. Drawing on the work of thinkers including Heinrich Rickert, Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, as well as Husserl’s writings on the natural and human sciences that are not available in English translation, Staiti illuminates a crucial chapter in the history of twentieth-century philosophy and enriches our understanding of Husserl’s thought. His book will interest scholars and students of Husserl, phenomenology, and twentieth-century philosophy more generally.

Transcendental Inquiry

Its History, Methods and Critiques

Editors Halla Kim, Steven Hoeltzel
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40715-9
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan Cham

Hardcover ISBN
978-3-319-40714-2
Published: 12 January 2017

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-40715-9

Kant’s Transcendental Idealism as Empirical Realism

By Lewis Edward Clarke

Submitted for the degree of PhD at the University of East Anglia, Department of Philosophy

August 2016

Click to access Thesis_Manuscript_%28Final_Submission%29.pdf

“Toward a Transcendental Pragmatic Reconciliation of Analytic and Continental Philosophy”

Jerold J. Abrams

In: Bergman, M., Paavola, S., Pietarinen, A.-V., & Rydenfelt, H. (Eds.) (2010). Ideas in Action: Proceedings of the Applying Peirce Conference(pp. 62–73). Nordic Studies in Pragmatism 1. Helsinki: Nordic Pragmatism Network.

Click to access Abrams.pdf

Kant, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology

Sebastian Luft
Marquette University, sebastian.luft@marquette.edu

(2018). Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications. 772.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/phil_fac/772

https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1776&context=phil_fac

The Great Phenomenological Schism:

Reactions to Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism

The North American Society for Early Phenomenology

June 3-6th, 2015
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City

Click to access PROGRAMA-THE-GREAT-PHENOMENOLOGICA-SCHISM.pdf

Sartre’s Critique of Husserl 

Jonathan Webber

Author’s post-print. Final version to appear in

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

2019

Click to access SartresCritiqueOfHusserl.pdf

Sartre’s Transcendental Phenomenology 

Jonathan Webber

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology

edited by Dan Zahavi Oxford University Press, 2018

Click to access SartresTranscendentalPhenomenology.pdf

2 Transcendence and Transcendental Strategy

Chapter 2

https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/handle/2123/1965/03chapter2.pdf;jsessionid=39085AE78699BFA8C62A208B9571A85D?sequence=3

“Transcendental Philosophy and Naturalism,”

Smith, Joel, and Peter M. Sullivan. 2011.

August.

https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199608553.001.0001.

https://oa.mg/work/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199608553.001.0001

Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism

Henry Somers-Hall
First published: 07 March 2019

https://doi.org/10.1111/sjp.12313

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/sjp.12313

Transcendental Idealism at the Limit: On A. W. Moore’s Criticism of Kant. Philosophical Topics

Gardner, S; (2016)

Click to access 79496812.pdf

The Transcendental Turn

Introduction

Chapter of the book

Sebastian Gardner

Click to access Gardner_Introduction.book.chapter.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286466555_The_Transcendental_Turn

THE TRANSCENDENTAL DIMENSION OF PHENOMENOLOGY

SEBASTIAN LUFT

Diálogos, 91 (2008) 1 pp. 7-18

Click to access 03-The-Transcendental-Dimension-Sebastian-Luft-n.pdf

From Kant to Post-Kantian Idealism: German Idealism: Sebastian Gardner

Sebastian Gardner
First published: 07 January 2003

https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8349.00096

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8349.00096

From Kant to Post-Kantian Idealism: German Idealism: Paul Franks

Paul Franks
First published: 07 January 2003

https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8349.00097

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8349.00097

Transcendental Arguments About Other Minds and Intersubjectivity

Matheson Russell, Jack Reynolds

First published: 04 May 2011

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2011.00394.x

Abstract

This article describes some of the main arguments for the existence of other minds, and intersubjectivity more generally, that depend upon a transcendental justification. This means that our focus will be largely on ‘continental’ philosophy, not only because of the abiding interest in this tradition in thematising intersubjectivity, but also because transcendental reasoning is close to ubiquitous in continental philosophy. Neither point holds for analytic philosophy. As such, this essay will introduce some of the important contributions of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Karl-Otto Apel, all of whom use transcendental reasoning as a key part of their analyses of intersubjectivity, and we also consider the work of Peter Strawson who does likewise in the analytic tradition.

• Apel, K. O. From a Transcendental-Semiotic Point of View. Ed.  M. Papastephanou. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.
  • Google Scholar
• Apel, K. O. The Problem of Philosophical Foundations in Light of a Transcendental Pragmatics of Language. Man and World 8 (1975):  239–75.
  • View
  • Web of Science® Google Scholar
• Apel, K. O. Selected Essays; Volume 1: Towards a Transcendental Semiotics. Ed.  E. Mendieta. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1994.
  • Google Scholar
• Chase, J. and J. Reynolds. Analytic Versus Continental: Arguments on the Methods and Value of Philosophy. Durham, UK: Acumen, 2010.
  • Google Scholar
• Crowell, S. The Project of Ultimate Grounding and the Appeal to Intersubjectivity in Recent Transcendental Philosophy. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 7.1 (1999):  31–54.
  • View
  • Web of Science® Google Scholar
• Duke, G., E. Walsh, J. Chase and J. Reynolds. Postanalytic Philosophy: Is the ‘Divide’ Being Overcome? Postanalytic and Metacontinental: Crossing Philosophical Divides. Eds.  J. Reynolds, J. Chase, J. Williams and E. Mares. London: Continuum, 2010.  7–26.
  • Google Scholar
• Habermas, J. A Reply. Communicative Action. Ed.  A Honneth and H. Joas. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991.  214–64.
  • Google Scholar
• Habermas, J. What is Universal Pragmatics? On the Pragmatics of Communication. Ed.  Maeve Cooke. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998.  21–103.
  • Google Scholar
• Heidegger, M. Being and Time. Trans.  J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. London: Blackwell, 2004.
  • Google Scholar
• Husserl, E. Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology. Trans.  D. Cairns. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960.
  • View
  • Google Scholar
• Husserl, E. Formal and Transcendental Logic. Trans.  D. Cairns. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969.
  • View
  • Google Scholar
• Körner, S. The Impossibility of Transcendental Deductions. The Monist 51.3 (July 1967):  317–31.
  • View
  • Web of Science® Google Scholar
• Levinas, E. Totality and Infinity. Trans.  A. Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1979.
  • View
  • Google Scholar
• Merleau-Ponty, M. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans.  C. Smith. London: Routledge, 2005.
  • Google Scholar
• Merleau-Ponty, M. The Visible and the Invisible. Trans.  A. Lingis. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964.
  • Google Scholar
• Sacks, M. Sartre, Strawson and Others. Inquiry 48.3 (2005):  275–99.
  • View
  • Web of Science® Google Scholar
• Sartre, J. P. Being and Nothingness. Trans.  H. Barnes. London: Routledge, 1994.
  • Google Scholar
• Stawarska, B. Between You and I: Dialogical Phenomenology. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2009.
  • View
  • Google Scholar
• Strawson, P. Individuals. London: Routledge, 1990.
  • Google Scholar
• Stroud, B. Transcendental Arguments. Journal of Philosophy 65 (1968):  241–56.
  • View
  • Web of Science® Google Scholar
• Zahavi, D. Beyond Empathy: Phenomenological Approaches to Intersubjectivity. Journal of Consciousness Studies 8.5-7 (2001a):  151–67.
  • Web of Science® Google Scholar
• Zahavi, D. Husserl and Transcendental Intersubjectivity. Trans.  E. A. Behnke. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2001b.
  • Google Scholar

The Persistent Problems of Philosophy

An Introduction to Metaphysics through the study of Modern Systems

Mary W Calkins

1919

4th edition