Abstract

Looks at the legacy Kant left for theorizing about the subject, taken in two senses: the subject of will and action, and the subject of experience and knowledge. Kant argues for transcendental freedom, producing a conception of the self as subject of free will, while claiming that the agent's actions, as part of the empirical world, are causally determined. He argues also that the ‘I’ is not a substance, but must be conceived as existing over and above its experiences as their unitary subject. Both discussions of the subject are extremely influential on Schopenhauer.