Abstract

This dissertation is an investigation into the mode of self-understanding that arises once the conception of subjectivity is displaced from its foundational position in metaphysics. I examine the problem of the displacement of the subject by focusing on the philosophy of Kant and Heidegger. I choose Kant and Heidegger for two reasons: first, Kant's Copernican Revolution places the subject at the ground of metaphysics and defines the place of the subject in philosophy up to the contemporary period; second, Heidegger's investigation of Kant displaces the metaphysical conception of the subject and gives rise to other possible understandings of the self. ;The dissertation consists of four chapters. First, I develop the problem of displacement, place my dissertation within the context of contemporary thought, and discuss three modes of reading the history of philosophy. Of the three readings, I choose to conduct both a destructive and a deconstructive reading of the history of philosophy. Second, I explain the Kantian conception of subjectivity in terms of the Copernican Revolution and introduce the Kantian conception of the imagination. Third, I examine the relationship between the imagination and subjectivity as it emerges in the two transcendental deductions of the Critique of Pure Reason. In this chapter, I show the ontological priority of the imagination in Kant's thought. Contrary to the 'orthodox' body of Kantian interpretation, I argue that Kant retrieves the findings of the A deduction within the B deduction and that the imagination maintains its place of importance in Kant's thought. Fourth, I examine Heidegger's understanding of the imagination in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. I show how the temporal character of the imagination displaces the conception of a self-grounding subject and replaces the subject with an understanding of ourselves as the questioner. After discussing this mode of the self, I show how the imagination deconstructs subjectivity and the metaphysical project. The deconstructive reading leads to a discussion of the self within a Derridean and Nietzschean context