Abstract

The Kant-Hegel theory of the self allegedly prevents us from explaining how we can attribute passitivity and activity to one and the same self without either destroying the distinction or covertly assimilating one part of it to the other. Kant's theory of the self inaugurates Hoffman's problem. Kantian synthesis is the work of the Understanding. But the awareness that a series of representations belongs to a single object is not another element in the synthesized manifold. It is supplied by the pure ego and we are passive when we intuit objects; active when we synthesize them. The form of an object in general is supplied by the pure self. Thus the ostensible facts of passive intuition turn out to be covert facts of conceptual transcendental activity. In the Transcendental Aesthetic, moments are parts of one time. In the Transcendental Analytic, the unity of time is a product of the pure ego. The unity of time is not itself another moment in time. Thus, the unity of temporal succession is not just a concept of such a unity but a fact about the activity of the pure ego. We are not merely unable to know time independently of an act of the pure ego. Time itself cannot exist apart from such an act.