A Kantian Solution to the Problem of Reflection
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences January 30, 2026 Konstantinos Morfis, Anthony Hatzimoysis
The paper explores the link between Immanuel Kant's transcendental self-consciousness and Dan Zahavi's pre-reflective self-consciousness to address how reflection is possible. Zahavi holds that pre-reflective self-consciousness involves an identity of the subject with its experience, while reflection introduces a difference by objectifying experience. The problem is how identity in pre-reflective self-consciousness can ground the difference in reflection. The authors adopt a first-order reading of Kant's transcendental self-consciousness as intrinsic to synthesis, not a second-order awareness. They argue that Kant's distinction between transcendental self-consciousness (outward, self-enlarging) and the self-consciousness of the intuitive understanding (inward) provides a solution by accounting for internal differentiation in pre-reflective self-consciousness, clarifying the transition to reflection.