ABSTRACT
The following two propositions about the self are false: (a) that the self is distinct from, wholly above, the series of its experiences, and (b) that the self is nothing other than its experiences. Both are false, though each expresses part of the truth. I am not simply the sum of my experiences, but neither am I wholly detached from them. This amounts to a highly complex requirement for a theory of the self, and there does not seem to be, on the face of it, any way to accommodate it. The philosophical agenda informing the two propositions was set long ago, and is exemplified by Hume's discussion of personal identity in the Treatise, his own doubts about that discussion in the Appendix, and Kant's response to Hume in the Critique of Pure Reason. The story is a complex one, involving at least Descartes in addition - Hume responds to Descartes, and Kant responds to both Descartes and Hume - but I do not propose to go into the full story. My interest in the story lies particularly in the way in which Kant tries to go beyond these two predecessors.
