A "Dedução Transcendental": o cartesianismo posto em questão

Resumo

Abstract

The article contains with small modifications the text of a lecture read at the International Descartes Congress in Rio de Janeiro. It intends to show that Kant's philosophy represents a breach with Cartesianism in what concerns the notion of consciousness and the role played by it in the philosophy of knowledge, esp. the refutation of skepticism. Taking its starting point from a consideration of Lachièze-Rey's opposite thesis, according to which Kant preserved in the "Deduction" of the first Critique the "autonomy of the Cartesian cogito", it argues that not only the (empirical) consciousness that an individual has of his epistemic states, but also the (a priori or transcendental) consciousness that he has of himself as the subject of these states depends on the imagination's power to make syntheses (according to the first edition) or alternatively (according to the second edition) on the power to judge objectively. Attempts to bring these Kantian theses into line with a Cartesian conception of consciousness are discussed and objected to.