Nisha Khsoa 300062153

In his paralogisms of pure reason Kant works off of the assumption that the soul or self is a substance or a thinking being. Kant disproves many of the assumptions that are made by his predecessors. Those who came before him claim that the self or soul has substance, is is simple and is an identical substance, and that we perceive things directly, which contrasts objects, since their existence only a possibility. Kant did not agree with this view, he claimed that their view of the nature of the self was the result of their confusion between the representation of something and the thing itself. In other words, we are confusing our representations of soul or self with our actual soul; because we confuse the appearance of things with the things in themselves we gain the false belief that external objects belong to a questionable reality. Kant answers these statements by asserting that the the self is a substance in idea only, the self cannot be simple, the idea of having a personal identity is in itself just a representation and that the self is a presupposition of every possible experience and therefore cannot be known in itself. In his first paralogism Kant states that as a thinking being the soul is a substance. He goes on to say that while the soul fills the logical demands of the concept of substance it cannot be used as the purpose of another thing. However, according to Kant that still does not prove the soul or self remains. Kant believes that if we are to apply the concept of substance to the object, then the existence of that particular object must be grounded in experience; because as Kant says, simply adding the category of 'substance'

to an object does not prove that the object has any objective value (Kitcher 521) . As Kant sees it, the transcendental self has no intuition, therefore, it cannot exist. However, it seems that Kant later changes his mind about what the definition of substance is. Earlier on he claims that the soul is a substance in the idea but not in reality, he maintains that the lack of acknowledgment of the self does not signify that an object is self-subsisting being or substance. Kant shifts from attacking the deduction of 'I am substance, therefore I persist' to 'I am always subject and never implied, therefore I am substance'. Kant takes substance from being a concept applicable transcendental objects to being applicable only to appearances. In his second paralogism Kant asserts the self cannot be simple, but he does it in two parts. First he makes the distinction between the representation of simplicity and the simplicity of a thing. As Kant says claiming that I am simple signifies no more than that...it as an absolute (though merely logical) unity(A355). Kant then asks the question, what if the self is simple? Kant goes on to describe that the simplicity of the self is just as useless as the self being a substance in an objective sensehe believes that physical matter should be referred to as an appearance and not as a thing in itself. Like he showed with his transcendental aesthetic, the concepts of extensions and impenetrability, which define physicality, apply only to appearances. But, the transcendental self as shown in the deduction is not merely an appearance; we must therefore, compare it to as Kant puts it something that grounds outer appearances and affects our sense so that it receives the representations of shape, matter, space etc

(A358). But, since we cannot know anything about the transcendental object, we cannot know if it is indeed the subject of thoughts , hence, the simplicity of the self could not prove that the soul is inherently different from matter and therefore it cannot be proven that it is not corruptible. In the third paralogism Kant argues that if the self cannot be shown as being simple then it cannot be shown to be numerically identical. Because the self is composed of perceptions that make up a person's intuitions, so in the case of a single person it would be a single identical thing, but it does not mean that others are the same as they are. Because the things that form one person's intuition and make them identical to themselves are not the same for other people. Kant uses the example of two balls, one that is moving and one that is still; when the moving ball collides with the other it's motion, and subsequently its entire state (A363) is given to the still ball by the one that is moving. Kant deducts that if there are substances that think then the soul moves from substance to substance. Because the transfer from substance to substance would require the transfer of the whole self, the self would be unaware of this migration taking place from substance to substance. Kant also says that we cannot judge from our own consciousness whether or not we are continuing on or not because we can only ascribe to our identical self when we are conscious (A365). Kant argues that the self is something that exists but there are no properties that can be given to it. Kant believes the self is just a placeholder that underlies our individual perceptions. By treating the self as an object of knowledge is to have the self

appear to us as we percieve it. Human perception of the self is in itself empty, it is defined by our experiences but it is only known through intuition. Works Cited

Lawhead, William F. The Voyage of Discovery: The Modern Voyage 1400-1900. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2002. 325-345. Print.

Kant, Immanuel, Werner S. Pluhar, and Patricia Kitcher. Critique Of Pure Reason.
Cambridge, MA : Hackett Publishing Company, 1996.

Kitcher, Patricia. "Kant's Paralogisms." Philosophical Review 91.4 October, 1982. 515547. JSTOR. Web. 10 Oct 2011.