Self-Consciousness, Transparency, and Reflection

Abstract

The capacity of human knowers to turn their cognitive powers upon themselves has long fascinated philosophers.  My book Transparency and Reflection grew out of an attempt to comprehend a fundamental thought from Kant about the significance of this capacity for self-consciousness: namely, that it transforms the general character of human knowing, giving rise to a distinctively rational form of cognition and supplying the basis for a distinctively philosophical understanding of our own minds and of the world with which they engage.  In seeking to understand these Kantian ideas, however, I found myself struggling with difficulties that led me to re-think my approach, moving away from a Kantian formulation of these points and toward one inspired by ideas from Sartre.  In the present essay, I describe the difficulties that led me from Kant to Sartre, and I also seek to explain how, in spite of this shift in perspective, my book bears out various fundamental Kantian thoughts about the significance of human self-consciousness.