Kant’s Account of Independence as Self-Dependence:
The Noumenal Personality in a Phenomenal World
Antonino Falduto·
Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Italy
Abstract
In this paper, my aim is to furnish a possible interpretation of “independence”
in terms of “self-dependence or dependence
on our proper self” in the context of Kant’s philosophy. In order to do this,
I will primarily focus on the concept of independence as based on the human
being’s noumenal personality and as expression of the human being’s “proper
self” (eigentliches Selbst). This concept will be contrasted with the
one of dependence upon the human being’s animality (Tierheit). In this
way, I will present independence in terms of the human being’s independence
from its sensible, animal nature, but nonetheless as a form of dependence:
namely, the human being’s dependence on its rational nature.
Keywords
Kant – Independence – Self-dependence – Noumenal Personality – Human
Being (Mensch)
0. Introductory Remarks
In this paper, my aim is to furnish a
possible interpretation of what it might mean to talk about “independence” in
terms of “self-dependence” in the context of Kant’s philosophy.[1] In order to do so, I will
shed some light on Kant’s account of noumenal personality. I will argue that the
concept of “independence as self-dependence” is grounded in Kant’s way of
considering what the “human being” is, which, in turn, is based on the
noumenal/phenomenal divide. Against this background, I will primarily concentrate
on the concept of “personality” as the expression of the human being’s rational
nature. The following argumentative steps will be taken:
1. personality will be presented as the element originating from the human
being’s independence from animality (Tierheit);
2. independence from animality will be shown to imply the human being’s
independence from the mechanism which is the whole of nature;
3. independence in terms of the human being’s independence from its sensible,
animal nature and from the mechanism of the whole of nature will be presented
as the human being’s dependence on its rational nature, i.e., the human being’s
dependence on its proper self (eigentliches Selbst).
I will show why,
according to Kant, human beings, in order to become independent, should rather
become dependent on their (our) “proper self”, i.e., dependent solely on reason.
In
contrast to other studies dedicated to Kant’s account of “independence”, in
what follows I do not take into consideration Kant’s concept of Selbstständigkeit,
as it has been defined in the context of legal philosophy,[2] or in that of philosophy
of history.[3]
A few studies have already been dedicated to the treatment of the concept of
independence as Selbstständigkeit and scholars have already rightly pointed
out the political spectrum of this account of independence.[4]
Contrariwise,
in what follows, my aim is rather that of furnishing a systematic account of
what “independence” as “self-dependence” or “dependence on the proper self” in
the context of Kant’s philosophy could mean – and why this counts, if we are to
seriously deal with some aporias of Kant’s philosophical account of the human
being as rational and sensible at the same time. The idea of “independence as self-dependence or dependence on the proper
self” points out Kant’s unsatisfying way of explaining what a human being in
its entirety is, in that it shows how Kant’s account always implies a
dependence of the homo phenomenon, i.e., the sensible, natural, “animal”
human being, on the homo noumenon, i.e., the rational human being. The
core notion of independence as self-dependence will finally turn out to be a
striking one – because it is a paradoxical one.
In order to elucidate my argument, I will divide my paper into two parts. In
the first part, I will deal with some passages concerning the idea of person
and personality from the Critique of Pure Reason, the Religion within
the Boundaries of Mere Reason, and the Metaphysics of Morals, in
order to show how, according to Kant, “being a person” solely depends on the
rational (and not also on the “animal”) part of the human being and is dependent
on pure practical reason. In the second part, I will concentrate on the Groundwork
of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason – and
I will shed some further lights on the concept of “noumenal personality”, which
I outline already in the first part, and furthermore on the concept of the “proper
self”. In order to do so, in this second part I will begin with Kant’s definition of the human being and the human
being’s belonging to two “worlds”, i.e., the sensible world of appearances and
the intelligible world of the supersensible. I will then underscore how the
human being’s personality, which corresponds to the “proper self” upon which
the sensible human being is dependent, strictly pertains to only one of these
worlds, namely the intelligible world.
In a nutshell, I will show how, according to Kant, “being
a human being” and personality are characterized by and grounded in the intelligible
nature of the human being, i.e., in its rationality only or in its “proper self”,
rather than in both its rational and sensible nature, since reason is
the sole element that makes the human being’s personality possible. As a
consequence of this, it becomes clear why “independence as self-dependence or
dependence on the proper self” cannot furnish a satisfactory account of what
independence should – intuitively – genuinely mean.
1. Towards the “Proper” Self: The Concept of Personality and the Move from
the Theoretical to the Practical Point of View
In the search for a definition of the concept of “person”
(Person) in Kant’s philosophy, a good place to begin is the section of
the Paralogisms chapter that Kant re-wrote for the second edition of the first Critique.[5] In this
section, Kant introduces and distinguishes the metaphysical from the practical
use of the concept of reason. He notes that the capital error of psychologia
rationalis consisted in the alleged possibility of analysing the properties
of the soul. Kant’s objection is summarized in the well-known assumptions that “through
the analysis of the consciousness of myself in thinking in general not the
least is won in regard to the cognition of myself as object” and that “the
logical exposition of thinking in general is falsely held to be a metaphysical
determination of the object”.[6] .
As a result of this assessment, no theoretical
argument for the metaphysical existence of the soul and of a metaphysical
personality can be attained, according to Kant. Kant argues that, from a
theoretical perspective, we refer to the concept of “person” only in a
“transcendental” sense. As Kant puts it:
In thinking my
existence, I can use myself only as the subject of judgement, which is an
identical proposition, that discloses absolutely nothing about the manner of my
existence.[7]
Even if Kant
does not further elucidate the concept of personality through the activity of
our reason in its theoretical use (spekulativer Vernunftgebrauch), the
practical use of reason (praktischer Vernunftgebrauch) opens up new
philosophical perspectives.[8] A fully developed
definition of what Kant means when he refers to the concept of “personality”
from the perspective of the practical use of reason is to be found, among the
others, in the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and in the Metaphysics
of Morals.
In the first part of the Metaphysics of Morals,
i.e. the Doctrine of Right, Kant writes that a person is “a subject
whose actions can be imputed to him”.[9]
From this, it follows that moral personality can be defined as “nothing other
than the freedom of a rational being under moral laws (whereas psychological
personality is merely the ability to be conscious of one’s identity in different
conditions of one’s existence)”.[10] This definition
contrasts with the definition of a “thing” as “that to which nothing can be
imputed”, that is “any object of free choice which itself lacks freedom”.[11]
In order to distinguish between a person and a thing,
the concept of freedom is needed. In the case of a thing, we are speaking of an
object that lacks freedom. In the case of a person, we are speaking of a
subject who can act freely. The concept of freedom is grounded in reason, i.e.,
in the notion of a moral law that functions as a causality in the intelligible (and
the sensible) world and distinguishes itself from the causality that rules the
sensible world of appearances. This is the concept of freedom as autonomy and
self-legislation as we find it best explained in the context of the second Critique
– an account to which I will come back in the next part of the paper.
In dealing the “original predisposition to good in
human nature” in the Religion, Kant notoriously brings this
predisposition under three headings, which are defined as “elements of the determination
of the human being”. [12]
These are:
1. The
predisposition to the animality of the human being, as a living being;
2. T[he
predisposition t]o the humanity in him, as a living and at the same time
rational being;
3.
T[he predisposition t]o his personality,
as a rational and at the same time responsible being.[13]
Kant contrasts
here personality (Persönlichkeit) with animality (Tierheit) on
the one hand, and humanity (Menschheit) on the other. Kant defines animality
as “physical or merely mechanical self-love, i.e., a love for which
reason is not required”.[14]
Humanity is rather characterised by “a self-love which is physical and yet
involves comparison (for which reason is required)”.[15]
Contrariwise, the predisposition to personality is defined as
the
susceptibility to respect for the moral law as of itself a sufficient incentive
to the power of choice. […] The idea of the moral law alone, together with the
respect that is inseparable from it, cannot be properly called a predisposition
to personality; it is personality itself (the idea of humanity considered
wholly intellectually).[16]
The
predisposition to personality alone “is rooted in reason practical of itself,
i.e., in reason legislating unconditionally”.[17]
What happened in the time following the publication
of the first Critique with regard to the concept of personality? Without
considering philological questions – connected particularly to the genesis of
the new Paralogisms chapter in the first Critique and the consequences
for Kant’s further work – it might be sufficient to consider the shift from the
theoretical to the practical use of reason. This shift gives us an answer to
the question of why Kant provides a new definition of “personality” in the
mentioned passage from the Metaphysics of Morals. Or, at least, it provides
us with a definition of “person” that is grounded in the new, practical use of
reason.[18]
2. “Proper Self” and Independence as Self-Dependence: The Groundwork and the Second Critique
If we want to
understand the significance of the “noumenal personality” – and how this
concept is linked to the one of “independence as self-dependence” –, we should
begin with what is arguably the best-known passage from Kant’s corpus: the Conclusion of the Critique of
Practical Reason.[19]
Let us consider the famous passage in question:
Two things fill the mind with ever new and
increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily one
reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me […].
The first begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense and
extends the connection in which I stand into an unbounded magnitude with worlds
upon worlds and systems of systems, and moreover into the unbounded times of
their periodic motion, their beginning, and their duration. The second begins
from my invisible self (unsichtbares Selbst), my personality, and
presents me in a world which has true infinity, but which can be discovered
only by the understanding.[20]
This passage, written in an unusually
felicitous rhetorical style, expresses the consequences of the dualism inherent
in the human being, rooted in the distinction
between sensibility and reason, and relatedly in the distinction between the
spheres of nature and freedom. These distinctions are not solely due to the requirements
of Kant’s practical philosophy but also, and most importantly, to the
principles underlying his theoretical philosophy.
Kant had already illustrated these in the first Critique, most
notably in the context of his doctrine of Transcendental Idealism.[21] There, he lays forth the terms of his
Copernican Revolution in theoretical philosophy,
which implies the impossibility of cognizing things in themselves and the limitation
of possible speculative cognition of reason to mere objects of experience.[22] In doing so, Kant is careful not to rule out our being able to think of
things in themselves. In fact, as Kant
himself writes in the Architectonic chapter at the end of the first Critique, the difference between phenomena
and noumena opens a broad horizon for philosophy as the “legislation of
human reason” that pertains to two objects: nature and freedom.[23]
The dualistic approach underlies the whole of Kant’s philosophy – and it
is strictly interwoven with the new definition of the concept of freedom as
autonomy and self-legislation.
This new concept of freedom as autonomy and self-legislation is not a
complete novelty in the history of philosophy. Rousseau had already stated in
the Social Contract that “the
acquisition in the civil state of moral liberty […] makes the human being truly
the master of himself. For to be driven by appetite alone is slavery, and
obedience to a law one has prescribed for oneself is liberty”[24]
However, arguably the most important consequences of this Rousseauian insight
are drawn through Kant’s philosophy. Kant follows Rousseau in his definition of freedom as
autonomy. Importantly, this pushes Kant to admit a strong dualism in the nature
of the human being. Kant illustrates these
distinctions in the first Critique, most notably in the context of his
Refutation of Idealism when explicating his doctrine of Transcendental
Idealism. There he lays forth the terms of his philosophical Copernican
Revolution and, in discussing the
solution to the third antinomy (of spontaneity and casual determinism), he
refers to freedom by connotating it as self-determination. In this way, he opens
up the vast discussion about the possibility of true independence in the aetas
kantiana.[25]
On the basis of the considerations from the first and the second Critique, the human beings are permitted to
acknowledge their (=our) place in the world of appearances ruled by the laws of
nature, but we are also permitted to refer to our existence as intelligible
beings. Kant’s idea of freedom thus seems to suggest a new gap: one between our
worldly nature and the “second” nature of our intelligible existence. Our
reason not only makes clear our visible connection to the world of phaenomena
but also provides us with a further clue about a world that has “true infinity”,
disclosed to us by our personality, defined in the quoted passage as the
“invisible self” (unsichbares Selbst).This invisible self is the proper
consciousness of the moral being – a self that is not observable through
sensible “intuitions” (Anschauungen) but rather consists in the “personality”
that derives from the law-giving characteristic of reason.[26]
This
“invisible self” (das unsichbare Selbst) corresponds to the
“proper self” (das eigentliche Selbst), to which Kant refers in the Groundwork:
So it is that the human
being claims for himself a will which lets nothing be put to his account that
belongs merely to his desires and inclinations, and on the contrary thinks as
possible by means of it – indeed as necessary – actions that can be done only by
disregarding all desires and sensible incitements. The causality of such
actions lies in him as intelligence and in the laws of effects and actions in
accordance with principles of an intelligible world, of which he knows nothing
more than that in it reason alone, and indeed pure reason independent of
sensibility, gives the law, and, in addition, that since it is there, as
intelligence only, that he is his proper self (as a human being he is
only the appearance of himself), those laws apply to him immediately and
categorically, so that what inclinations and impulses (hence the whole nature
of the world of sense) incite him to, cannot infringe upon the laws of his
volition as intelligence; indeed, he does not hold himself accountable for the
former or ascribe them to his proper self, that is, to his will […].[27]
It is through autonomy that we human
beings achieve consciousness of our belonging to an infinite world, which is
not visible, observable, or perceptible through the senses. Personality is
grounded in this infinite world. Our reason as our “proper self” (eigentliches
Selbst) opens this infinite world. As human beings, our sensible nature is
subjected – and dependent upon – our “proper self”, i.e., our noumenal
personality.
As
Kant further notes, this second view of the human being begins with the moral
law and “infinitely raises my worth as an intelligence by my personality, in
which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of
the whole sensible world”.[28] Kant infers this independence from animality and the sensible world “from
the purposive determination of my existence by this law, a determination not
restricted to the conditions and boundaries of this life but reaching into the
infinite”.[29]
The life that is grounded in my animality, i.e., the
life of the human being grounded in sensible presuppositions and reducible to
the sensible world, is not what is at stake when we, as human beings, refer to
ourselves as persons. It is the moral law, derived from autonomy as the
self-legislation of reason, that elevates the human being beyond its finiteness
and points to the infinity of another world, namely the world of reason. We are
genuinely independent of our animality only if we are completely and solely
dependent on our “proper self”, which is reason. In this way, according to
Kant, independence should be defined as “self-dependence”, i.e., as dependence
on our “proper self” or dependence on our noumenal personality.[30]
Only one element can elevate humanity and render it
independent:
It is nothing other than personality, that
is, freedom and independence from the mechanism of the whole of nature,
regarded nevertheless as also a capacity of a being subject to special laws –
namely, pure practical laws given by his own reason. So that a person as
belonging to the sensible world is subject to his own personality insofar as he
also belongs to the intelligible world.[31]
On the one hand, the human being is a
member of the sensible world, where it considers itself an appearance, a member
of nature and, consequently, as acting under the laws of nature, according to a
strict natural causality and necessity. On the other hand, the human being
possesses personality, i.e., a noumenal personality and, in this way, it can consider
itself not only as an appearance in the natural world, but rather also from the
perspective of its “invisible” or “proper self”. The human being is a member of
the intelligible world and can act under a law it gives itself. It can act
according to freedom as autonomy, the self-legislation of reason, as
independence from the mechanism of the whole of nature.
Personality
introduces the highest vocation of the human being and reverence towards
humanity, i.e., a reverence that is due to its characteristic of being the bearer
of rationality:
It is then not to be wondered at that a
human being, as belonging to both worlds, must regard his own nature in
reference to his second and highest vocation only with reverence, and its laws
with the highest respect.[32]
The concept of “personality” is, thus, fundamentally
dependent on and explained by reference to an infinite world, in which noumenal
personality is infinite and grounded on a “proper self” that is unknowable and
corresponds to the rational nature of the human being. Reason is the grounding
element of this infinite world, and through its connection to reason alone the
concepts of personality and independence acquires significance.
“Noumenal
personality” and “dependence on the proper self” are the grounding elements in defining
what “being a human being” means, such that neither sensibility nor the sensible
world need to be part of the foundation of the concept of what a person is – or
of what fundamentally constitutes a human being. “Being a human being” (Menschsein)
in its highest expression involves realising our rational nature and our noumenal
personality. No reference to the sensible world is needed. From this, it
follows that the concept of “independence as self-dependence or dependence on
the proper self” undermines the notion of independence of the human being in
its entirety (as both a sensible and, at the same time, a rational being).
Then, the sensible human being is not independent at all – but rather
completely dependent on the “proper self”.
3. Concluding Remarks
By this stage, I
hope to have shed some light on Kant’s concept of personality and on the
meaning of “independence as self-dependence or dependence on the proper self”.
According
to Kant, personality is fundamentally based on pure reason, and not, at the same
time, also on the human being’s sensible nature – or the world of appearances. In
the necessary presuppositions for the grounding of the concept of personality,
Kant makes no overt claims about the world of appearances, or on the necessity
of the existence of fellow human beings, or either on the presupposition of
intersubjectivity, when it comes to a proper foundation of the realisation of
freedom. Against this background, Kant’s grounding of what a human being is
does not have to contemplate any reference to the sensible world, in order to
explain what personality or the proper self is – this enterprise is not part of
the critical system and its foundation, but it is rather confined to the
further part of philosophy, i.e., to anthropology and philosophy of history –
and, in this way, beyond the limits of transcendental philosophy.
By focusing on Kant’s concept of personality and
self-dependence, the differences between him and other philosophers at the end
of the eighteenth century, like Reinhold, Fichte, Schiller, or Hegel, just to
mention the most obvious ones, become clear at once. A Kantian account of
“independence as self-dependence or dependence from the proper self” has been
questioned by numerous early readers of Kant’s work, who underscored the necessity
of giving a more important role to the human being’s sensible nature and the
social world as a precondition of the proper realisation of human personality –
and of a more genuine and complete account of independence.
In limiting himself to the rational grounding of independence
in the concept of the “proper self”, in making independence solely dependent on
rationality, Kant put unacceptably strict limits on what the foundation of “being
a human being” should be.
The contemplation of the concept of “independence as
dependence on the proper self” sheds some light on the limits of Kant’s account
of independence, since “being a human being” (Menschsein) is presented
as fundamentally depending solely on the human being’s noumenal personality – and,
in this way, the sensible counterpart in the human being risks becoming completely
neglected. Even though Kant refers to the sensible counterpart as “animality” (Tierheit)
and discusses the sensible constitution of the human being and its belonging to
the world of appearances in the context of the grounding of his works (i.e., in
the three Critiques), and even if he diffusively deals with the
necessity of taking into account the realisation of the human being in its sensible
world (most importantly in the context of his anthropological discussions in
the Anthropology), he does nonetheless avoid taking the sensible world
into account when it comes to the very grounding of what a “person” (Person)
and “personality” (Persönlichkeit) is. Nor does he refer to the sensible
side of the human being when discussing the foundation of what the human being
(Mensch) is, since the characteristic of “being a human being” (Menschsein)
in the context of his transcendental enterprise, is exclusively the human being’s
rational side – the sensible counterpart is dealt with only in the context of
anthropology and, more generally, in the philosophy of history.
The counterposing of Kant and his critics, based on
their accounts of the importance of realizing both rationality and sensibility in
striving for the perfection of personality, gives us the opportunity to reflect
on further implications of the concepts of independence (as self-dependence) and
personality. But this certainly constitutes an aim of further investigations.
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