Kant's Transcendental Deduction: a Wittgensteinian Critique

Abstract

Kant's transcendental deduction and his conception of transcendental and empirical self-consciousness are subjected to Wittgensteinian criticism. The roots of Kant's conception of transcendental apperception are exposed, and the doctrine of transcendental synthesis is found wanting. While his criticisms of the ‘rationalist doctrine of the soul’ are brilliant, Kant's conception of apperception is still in thrall to Cartesian/Lockean misconceptions about consciousness and self-consciousness. Most importantly, he confuses a fictitious form of self-consciousness (the ‘I think’ that must be capable of accompanying all my representations) with the ability to say what one perceives and that one perceives it (the ‘I say’ that must be capable of accompanying all my perceptions). The Kantian ‘I think’ is neither a form of self-consciousness nor an accompaniment of self-consciousness. Kant failed to see that the possibility of groundless (original) self-ascription of experience depends on mastery of the grounds (constitutive criteria) for the other-ascription of experience. His mistaken analysis is compared and contrasted with Wittgenstein's.