412 Kant: A Biographyfor the first solution is no better. Starting from the idea that we can know
nature only on the basis of certain subjective conditions, Kant argues that
we know the moving forces in bodies only because we are "conscious of
our own activity." For this reason, he finds that the "concept of originally
moving forces... must lie a priori in the activity of the mind of which we
are conscious when moving."^113 I am conscious of moving only as an
embodied being, and as an embodied being I am an object of experience
among other objects of experience. The activity of the mind of which we
are conscious when moving does not therefore necessarily disclose an a
priori concept of originally moving forces either. This argument is just as
much a non-starter as the earlier one.
In his discussion of ether and caloric forces, Kant was influenced by
contemporary discussions of physics and chemistry. Pörschke claimed that
"the last books he read" were physics texts, and that new discoveries in
physics "disturbed him internally."^114 What he read during the last years
had probably a great deal to do with the new developments in physics that
resulted from Lavoisier's discoveries. Physico-chemical conceptions of
physics had replaced his more mechanical views in the Opus postumum.
Friedman is certainly correct in suggesting that "his growing awareness of
the new physical chemistry,... more than any other factor, fuels the new
optimism about the empirical or experiential sciences manifest in Kant's
Transition project."^115 From the point of view of his critical enterprise,
such confidence is misplaced. The experiential sciences cannot themselves
solve the problem of his a priori foundations of physics, just because they
are experiential.
Still later, Kant tried to fix the argument by introducing language first
used by Fichte. The subject constitutes itself as a subject. Kant now argues
that we can be aware of being moved only insofar as we move ourselves,
and, more importantly, that we are aware of other things only insofar as we
are aware of ourselves. In a most remarkable passage, Kant claims that "I
am an object of myself and of my representations. That there is also
something external to me is my own product. I make myself. We make
everything ourselves." More specifically, the
understanding begins with the consciousness of itself (apperceptio) and performs
thereby a logical act. To this the manifold of outer and inner intuition are joined, and
the subject makes itself into an object by a limitless sequence. But this intuition is not
empirical ... it determines the object a priori by the act of the subject that it is the
owner and originator of its own representations.. ,^116