8. Eight Lecture: Obscurity of Concepts, Unconscious, Primordial Subjectivity

In this lecture, I present a straightforward idea that unveils a key to understanding much of the material, if not the key to all major concepts, by Schelling, Fichte, Lacan, Žižek, and many others. I demonstrate that Kant's work not only aligns with these authors but, in fact, serves as a foundation for their ideas. The key elements in their material either originate from Kant or are also represented in his work in a way that does not conflict with their views. In my advanced lectures, I expand on this foundation by incorporating insights from Jung, Dawkins, and others. (I understand this combination may initially seem counterintuitive; however, for most students, it begins to make perfect sense when considered alongside religious thought.)

Please refer to the bold paragraph below to gain a clear and concrete understanding of how I connect these authors with the (inaccessible) True Subjectivity, also referred to as Primordial Subjectivity in the model of Evolutionary Truth.


Obscurity of concepts and collective unconscious

To finalize the conceptualization of both “I”-s, we must also understand the role of transcendental apperception in relating the “I of the pure apperception” to any sort of collective unconscious (as developed, for instance, by Jung, universal consciousness, or a united mind that does not directly belong to the subject). Although it may seem tempting to do so (and this idea has been developed by many scholars), we cannot force that idea onto Kant’s approach to transcendental apperception. One simple reason is the nature of transcendental apperception: it is an idea, a construct, not something containing content that the subject could receive.

Thus, whenever Kant refers to us receiving ideas from an “unknown source,” consciousness has always been present prior to that. For example, he states: “Men who never think independently have nevertheless the acuteness to discover everything.” Or when he refers to scientific discoveries, stating that “for the founder and even his most recent successors often fumble around with an idea that they have not even made distinct to themselves and that therefore cannot determine the special content,” he does not speak about some collective transcendental source of knowledge.

The same applies to random thoughts we might have when we do not govern our thinking process with reason. He says: “[Concentrating on one’s inner history of the involuntary course of one’s thoughts and feelings] is the most direct path to illuminism or even terrorism, by way of a confusion in the mind of supposed higher inspirations and powers flowing into us, without our help, who knows from where.”

Kant by no means denies that we can have obscure representations (in fact, most of our representations are obscure to a certain extent), but he states that these cannot enter our mind without the use of our primordial transcendental apperception and its function, which is the synthetic unity of consciousness (without forming concepts out of intuitions).

Kant explains this in the following passage: “The word 'concept' itself could already lead us to this remark [consciousness being needed a priori to form a concept regardless of its clarity]. For it is this one consciousness that unifies the manifold that has been successively intuited, and then also reproduced, into one representation. This consciousness may often only be weak, ... but regardless ... one consciousness must always be found, even if it lacks conspicuous clarity, and without that, concepts, and with them cognition of objects, would be entirely impossible.”

He also states: “The synthetic proposition that every different empirical consciousness must be combined into a single self-consciousness is the absolutely first and synthetic principle of our thinking in general. ... I in relation to all others ... is the transcendental consciousness. Now it does not matter here whether this representation be clear (empirical consciousness) or obscure, even whether it be actual.”

What one can do (without being conscious of it) is to create obscure representations with that self-consciousness. For example, he says: “For the manifold representations that are given in a certain intuition would not all together be my representations if they did not all together belong to a self-consciousness; i.e., as my representations (even if I am not conscious of them as such).” He adds: “Without any consciousness we would make no distinction in the combination of obscure representations; ... So there are infinitely many degrees of consciousness down to its vanishing.”

In simplest terms, we can say that transcendental apperception and the pure “I” of apperception are not related to the collective unconscious. Consciousness is needed to form even the most obscure concept. What one can do, however, is to become better at recognizing those obscure thoughts in one’s mind.

The primordial subjectivity and pure apperception

Finally, let us turn to the “active agent” and explore it in relation to Kant. When it comes to primordial subjectivity (“S0”), the actual agent of introspection, we see Kant acknowledging the impossibility of directly exploring it.

In the Critique of Pure Reason, he admits: “Through this I, or He, or It (the thing), which thinks [‘I of the pure apperception’], nothing further is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts = x, which is recognized only through the thoughts that are its predicates, and about which, in abstraction, we can never have even the least concept; because of which we therefore turn in a constant circle, since we must always already avail ourselves of the representation of it at all times in order to judge anything about it.”

Here, Kant stresses that the formation of a thought can only be facilitated by transcendental apperception. Thus, in that sense, it is always present, providing the principles for understanding each sensory experience. However, it cannot be turned into an object because it is a contentless cognition—something closer to the presence of an absolute or irreducible remainder than any sort of content or concept. Thus, Kant was also able to say that “psychology may not ever hope to complete this task and answer satisfactorily the question: ‘What is the human being?’”

In the context of the model of Evolutionary Truth, this situation presents the basic question of understanding the distinction between primordial subjectivity “S0” and “S1.” One should realize the connection of “S0” to the absolute—the nothingness that exists in this concept.

The very fact that we can never escape the “perpetual circle” (or, as Kant put it, we are stuck [in einem beständigen Cirkel herumdrehen]) due to the contentless transcendent noumenal absolute always being present in the system but never directly accessible—be it the irreducible remainder (Schelling), Anstoss (Fichte), Objet petit a (Lacan), or indivisible remainder (Žižek)—is not a limitation of the subject but the very feature that enables us to construct our identity and cope with the world.

In simplest terms, Kant's "double I" emerges because of the subject's primordial subjectivity as pure apperception and subjective identity as empirical apperception—the latter being enabled by the former. We can never know who we are, but only how we appear to ourselves. Our primordial subjectivity can only be noticed by its predicates.