Abstract

In this paper, I outline Kant’s attempt to account for the category of relations, which is concomitantwith his effort to prove that atomism cannot describe human experience. Kant’s journey from the FirstCritique to his last work the Opus Postumum is a struggle against atomistic versions of the world. Inthe last instance, it is a transit from I think to I act; and it is also recognition that to act can only beperformed in a relational manner in community with others. In order to substantiate his explanation ofreal forces in the world, Kant rethinks and extends his understanding of the subject from the subject asthe unity of apperception to the self-positing subject living in the world with others. In order to defend‘the being in the world’ who ‘has rights,’ I argue that we need to return to Kant’s general account ofrights for all humans in the world