Only recently, I found out that Reinhard Hiltscher published a rather good (though critical) 10pp. review of my 2018 book Kant's Deduction From Apperception in Kant-Studien in 2022. Some issues he raises concern the idea behind nonconceptual mental content (not his terms) and the derivation from the I or cogito, which I get back to later this summer.
I fundamentally disagree with the point he makes that "Das „an sich zerstreut“ [in B133] ist also eine explikatorische Abstraktion Kants und beschreibt eine ‚Situation‘, die erkenntnisfunktional als solche niemals stattfindet". My take is more in line with Ameriks’s.
Secondly, Hiltscher thinks that Kant rather doesn't derive the categories from the cogito, but "aus den Urteilsfunktionen, sofern diese als Spezifikationen der vorausgesetzten Grundform des Denkens qua ursprünglich synthetische Einheit der Apperzeption verstanden werden können”.
The decisive point here concerns the role of "vorausgesetzten". One has to explain, and can't just assume, the relation between judgement and the SUA, and hence the 'I'. Much like Hegel later, Kant can't start with judgement (in the TD), even though it turns out that judgement......is the fundamental structure of cognition, and that the self-conscious, apperceiving, 'I' is always a judging ‘I'.
There are more points where Hiltscher misinterprets my interpretation, such as here: "...die Identität der Apperzeption nach Kant ein Prinzipienmoment der Urteilsform ist, das nicht dann erst entstehen kann, wenn Urteilen sich faktisch vollzieht". This would suggest that the identity of apperception is somehow *derivable* from the event of judging as such, which is certainly not what I argue. Even though apperception is a "Prinzipienmoment" of judgement, apperception only exists in judging.
There's much more to say, which as said I'll get back to later this year on kritik.substack.com.
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