Kant on Self-Knowledge and Self-Formation The Nature of Inner Experience

As the pre-eminent Enlightenment philosopher, Kant famously calls on all humans to make up their own minds, independently from the constraints imposed on them by others. Kant's focus, however, is on universal human reason, and he tells us little about what makes us individual persons. In this book, Katharina T. Kraus explores Kant's distinctive account of psychological personhood by unfolding how, according to Kant, we come to know ourselves as such persons. Drawing on Kant's Critical works and on his Lectures and Reflections, Kraus develops the first textually comprehensive and systematically coherent account of our capacity for what Kant calls 'inner experience'. The novel view of self-knowledge and self-formation in Kant that she offers addresses present-day issues in philosophy of mind and will be relevant for contemporary philosophical debates. It will be of interest to scholars of the history of philosophy, as well as of philosophy of mind and psychology.

Introduction: from inner experience to the self-formation of psychological persons; Part I. The Appearing Self: 1. Inner sense as the faculty for inner receptivity; 2. Temporal consciousness and inner perception; Part II. Self-Consciousness and the 'I' of the Understanding: 3. The form of reflexivity and the expression 'I think'; 4. The conditions of self-reference; Part III. The Human Person and the Demands of Reason: 5. The guiding thread of inner experience; 6. The demands of theoretical reason and self-knowledge; 7. The demands of practical reason and self-formation; Epilogue: individuality and wholeness.

Katharina T. Kraus is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. She has published numerous articles on Kant's theoretical philosophy in journals such as Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, European Journal of Philosophy and Noûs.