The thing in-itself and its role in the constitution of objectivity: A critical reading of Onof´s reconstruction of transcendental affection

Abstract

In this paper I consider some conclusions drawn by Christian Onof in a recent paper, in which the author analyzes the problem of transcendental affection. Onof assumes that Kant´s references to the thing-in-itself as the cause (or ground) of sensible affection reveal a commitment to a metaphysical assumption, that is: the existence of something real beyond the subject's mind. I will suggest, on the contrary, that Kant´s confidence in the existence of a non-subjective reality should not be characterized as a metaphysical but as a pre-philosophical assumption, that is: an unproblematic starting point for the critical investigation which Kant did not consider as demanding any particular justification. In the second place, I will try to show that affection should not be characterized (as Onof suggests) as a transcendental condition of the constitution of objectivity, but rather as a transcendent condition (directly related to sensations, which provide the matter of appearances). Finally, I will try to demonstrate that the two-aspects interpretation (which Onof explicitly rejects) is compatible with the conception of the thing-in-itself as the unknown cause or ground of appearances, since it is possible to articulate such conception with the thesis that affirms that the thing-in-itself is nothing ontologically different from the empirical object given in experience.