By Katharina T. Kraus
Abstract:This paper explores the transcendental sources that Kant’s philosophy is able to offer to empirical psychology as the study of the empirical aspects of the human mind. I argue that Kant’s transcendental philosophy defines a set of distinctive conditions in terms of an idea of reason – the idea of the soul – which gives systematic unity to psychological knowledge. The idea of the soul primarily serves as the most general genus-concept of the domain of inner nature, i.e., the idea defines what counts as a psychological phenomenon to be investigated in empirical psychology. In addition, the idea of the soul serves as a placeholder for the complete species-concept of an individual person.
Published:
2019
DOI:
doi.org/10.1515/9783110673692-007
Online available:
www.degruyter.com