Richard E. Aquila

I argue for a basically Sartrean approach to the idea that one's self-concept, and any form of knowledge of oneself as an individual subject, presupposes concepts and knowledge about other things. The necessity stems from a pre-conceptual structure which assures that original self-consciousness is identical with one's consciousness of objects themselves. It is not a distinct accomplishment merely dependent on the latter. The analysis extends the matter/form distinction to concepts. It also requires a distinction between two notions of consciousness: one relates to the employment of already formed concepts, the other to the structures of imaginative apprehension that help to constitute (empirical) concepts from the start. We need to see that (1) so far as objects are only conceptualized appearances, the material through which we apprehend them must be reflected in that apprehension itself; (2) the corresponding material consists of a manifold of pre-conceptually active anticipations and retentions concerning the course of one's own experience. The resultant structure imposes an orientation on the world of appearances that does not derive from a concept of oneself as an individual in it, but that nevertheless provides the only possible basis for such a concept. One's self-concept, at least as empirical subject, is simply that ofwhatever subject is indicated, in an appropriate way, by that orientation.

This survey of problems is motivated by the conviction that the Fregean revolution in logic inaugurated a renewal of classical metaphysics and also provides the best structure for formulating its problems. The main issues of concern in contemporary analytical metaphysics seem to be touched. Reference, however, to particular philosophers is often by name only, and the historical comments are occasionally misleading: regarding Locke, for example, and in the broad use of the term "Cartesian," now common in philosophy but perhaps misleading for the general reader.

Transcendental consciousness is described by Kant as 'the one single thing' in which 'as in the transcendental subject, our perceptions must be encountered.' The unity of that subject depends on intellectual functions. I argue that its singularity is just the same as that of Kant's pre-intellectual 'form' of spatiotemporal 'intuition.' This may seem excluded by Kant's claim that it is through intellect that 'space or time are first given as intuitions.' But while preintellectual form is insufficient for space and time as distinct 'things,' it is sufficient for the constitution of a 'single thing' indifferently construable as both. Contrary to what are typically seen as the main differences between Kant and Hume on identity of 'self,' there is thus already a difference in play below the level of either's concern with the sorts of connections available for the combining, or illusion of combining, of manifolds of 'impressions' or 'ideas.'

In the Critique of Fure Reason Kant distinguishes two sorts of conditions of knowledge. First, there are the space and time of pure intuition, introduced in the Transcendental Aesthetic. They are grounded in our dependence on a special sort of perceptual field for the location of objects. Second, there are pure concepts of the understanding, or categories, introduced in the Analytic. In one respect these are grounded in the logical function of the understanding in judgements, introduced in the first chapter of the analytic of concepts: Clue to the Discovery of All Pure Concepts of the Understanding; in another respect, they are grounded in transcendental unity of apperception, which is introduced in the second chapter: Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding, or Transcendental Deduction. I shall be concerned with the latter and its contribution to the overall strategy of argument in the analytic. Within the Analytic, Kant distinguishes between an Analytic of Concepts and an Analytic of Principles. This corresponds to a traditional distinction between a doctrine of concepts and judgement. It is arguable that Kant's theory of concepts undermines this distinction. However, I shall not deal with that general issue, but with a more specific issue related to the first two chapters of the Analytic of Principles: the Schematism and the System of Principles.