Notes on Kant and the Subject 2

One of the more interesting aspects of Kant's positing of the Subject is its perpetual condition of non-stasis, of motion. This subjectivity-as-moving target in human consciousness inheres, in Kant's schemas, because what he calls the unity of apperception (the cogito, "I think") must constantly re-position itself between levels one and two of his cognitive model (sensibility and understanding). The Subject, within his/her cognitions, interprets the manifold of intuitions drawn from spatial/temporally determined sensibility as a mode of vertical ascension into the formation of conceptions of the understanding as a function of judgment-within-understanding. In other words, the Subject inheres as a go-between for the functional interplay and interaction of levels one and two of the Kantian cognitive model. The point of interest here is the Subject's unrest, non-stasis; and what the significations of a non-static model of Subjects and subjectivity might be. As to the connection between the noumena and the unity of apperception (substance and Ego), as it is posited here- there arises a striking and superficially unlikely contradiction. The noumena, substance, causality accompanies the phenomenal appearance of objects but without being affected by their changing forms- in other words, substance/causality is not supposed to be subject to formal change. The unity of apperception, site/home-base of the Ego in human consciousness, does nothing but move, darting back and forth perpetually between cognitive levels. Thus, there must be a disjunct between the human Ego, as distinguished in human consciousness by Kant, and whatever of the noumena, substance, causality lies hidden behind the phenomenal appearances of interior or exterior temporally/spatially limited forms.

The posited disjunct between the human Ego and the noumena cannot be healed by any readily available connective cognitive tissue. It points back to an issue I raised in the first portion of these notes- whether there is a visible route towards secure belief in the noumena, as defined by Kant, or not. The route to solidifying the noumena, in the manner that Kant has solidified and consolidated the theoretical apparatuses of cognition itself, via his three-tiered model, is one which must first establish a secure relationship to this model- and the mystery inhering in how this might be done has to do with the incompatibility of states of rest and unrest, stasis and dynamism, implacable stillness and change.