Abstract for the Kant in Asia International Conference

at Hong Kong Baptist University

20-23 May 2009

Claudia Bickmann, “Immanuel Kant's Critical Concept of a Person: The Noumenal Sphere Grounding the Principle of Spirituality”

I. Kants critical concept of a person will be considered as a unity - relating the idea of a stable ’entity over time’ with the immanence of a historically bounded personality. We ask why in Kants theory ’the noumenal ground within us’ does not contradict the ever changing patterns of our phaenomenal self and 2. why according to Kant we may understand the spiritual principle within us only by reference to the idea of a noumenal world.

II. We will investigate the affinity of Kants critique of Leibniz’ and Wolff’s rational concept of the self to different Buddhist and Taoist attempts to overcome the miraculous ’transcendent entity’ called Atmen and Brahman. As they argue the only essences we might be aware of, are the ever changing patterns of the phenomenal self.

Why did Kant draw a different conclusion?

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