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Show Chapter II. Reason in the Structure of the Self 84 4. Horizontal and Vertical Consistency 4.1. Horizontal Consistency Next consider the sum total of things and properties that are simultaneously rationally intelligible to an agent at a particular moment, and the higher-order properties that make them so to her. Call the set S of concepts c1, c2, c3 … cn an agent has of these things and properties the agent's perspective. The relation between this limited set of concepts and the agent is something like the relation, according to Kant, between the concepts, both empirical and a priori, jointly necessary and sufficient for experience, and the "transcendental subject" whose concepts they are (1C, A 58/B 83 - A 62/B 87, 18 A 127-8, B 165, 190-7, A 159, and especially A 651/B 679). S includes concepts of properties of the external world, like length, as well as of the agent's own states, like desiring O or believing P or being in pain. To say that S comprises an agent's perspective and not merely that of a static subject, abstractly conceived, implies that the agent's perspective changes over time, and with changes in her state, character, surroundings, and history. It evolves both progressively and regressively as the agent 19 evolves over time, and may contain mostly different members at one moment from those it contains at another. S as it is defined here comprises only those concepts by which the agent actually does make things rationally intelligible at a particular moment, not the ones by which she could have made them so, nor any other concepts she has at her cognitive disposal. To this extent the concepts that constitute an agent's perspective S at a particular moment in time are occurrent, but need not be linguistically explicit or manifest in overt behavior. Agents' perspectives differ with respect to the things and properties of which they have concepts (this is one reason why people sometimes find each other incomprehensible), and differ also with respect to the scopes of instantiation of those concepts (this is one reason why people who share the same assumptions and vocabulary often disagree with or misunderstand each other), and so with respect to the conceptual necessity of their instances. For example, most of us would probably agree that a three-dimensional thing instantiates, as a matter of conceptual necessity, the concept of a thing's having length; but would show less consensus that going to the store instantiates, as a matter of conceptual necessity, the concept of a tedious 18 Elsewhere I show how we can understand this relation without imputing to Kant an objectionable or exotic metaphysics of the sort for which Kant is, in many circles, infamous. See ibid. 19 but not entirely; see Section 6 and Chapter III below. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
