Abstract
This essay not only offers a direct comparison between Leibniz and Kant on the meaning of the term ‘apperception’ or ‘consciousness’ (the I), but, above all, it explores the systematic position of this term within these thinkers’ respective philosophical contexts and examines Kant’s critique, both explicit and implicit, of Leibniz’s conception of consciousness. First, I will analyze Leibniz’s conception of apperception and explain his understanding of consciousness and reflection as a kind of self-relation, through which he develops elements of a theory of consciousness that are independent of a metaphysics of substance, including spontaneity, freedom, and personality. Second, I examine Kant’s conceptions of the empirical and of the original synthetic unity of apperception, in view of which I inquire into which theoretical implications of his theory of consciousness could have their roots in Leibniz’s theory of apperception.
