Negative attitude on Transcendental Ego in Kant

Abstract

Transcendental ego is not only one of the essential elements in Kant’s philosophical system, but also is the supreme principle in it. One way of deliberating the Problem of Transcendental is to investigate and analyze it from the negative point of view because a negative approach to some problems is an appropriate guide to the affirmative approach. In this article, first, we have compared the transcendental ego with the other cases such as metaphysical ego, empirical ego, mystical ego, physiological ego, and pragmatic ego. In this comparison, we showed that the transcendental ego is not similar to them. Second, we have pointed to some negative characteristics of transcendental ego as follows: 1- Transcendental ego is not an empirical subject. 2- It is not a concept. 3- It is not a representation. 4- It is not intuition. 5- It is not a category. 6- It has not any content. It lacks an ontological aspect.

Keywords

• Ego
• theories
• transcendental ego
• negative approach
• the negation of non-transcendental selves
• the negation of non-transcendental characteristics