Abstract
Developmental analyses of Kant’s conception of subjectivity typically take the 1770s as their starting point. And indeed, what has been called Kant’s “turn to the I” or subject belongs to this period. This essay argues, however, that there is an important link regarding the issue of subjectivity between the period prior to Kant’s “turn to the I” and his development post-1770. The essay examines Kant’s pre-1770 comments on ideas such as consciousness, inner sense and self-consciousness and considers them in their immediate contexts by taking into account relevant ideas in thinkers as diverse as Georg Friedrich Meier, Christian August Crusius, Christian Ernst Simonetti, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Post-1770 Kant does not simply abandon his earlier ideas. Rather, he takes them up and modifies them, if in different systematic contexts and with different argumentative purposes.
