Notes on the forms of existing: an interlocution between Kant and Maine de Biran

Abstract

This work proposes to demonstrate that the Kantian critique of psychology did not attribute due importance to the volitional action of the subject (I). Kant admits an empirical apperception along with a transcendental apperception and maintains this distinction; such a position raises both the question of the activity of the I(s) and of their respective awareness. Kant is more attentive to the logical order of the mechanisms of consciousness; and as a result of this, he ends up not giving due attention to the primitive fact of the intimate sense, the internal awareness of himself, to this activity of the subject, to this intimate feeling of our own existence, attested and defended by the philosopher Maine de Biran. Finally, we will highlight that Kant's position on the forms of existing was what prevented the German philosopher from progressing in his investigation of internal experience.