Existence dualism in Kant and its Cartesian roots

Resumo

We argue that Kant advocates existence dualism in a largely Cartesian vein. In such a dualism, there are two basic kinds of existence or ways of being: I-existence and categorial existence. I-existence denotes my existence, while categorial existence denotes, basically, the existence of ordinary things. First, we show how the route to existence is fundamentally different in the two cases. Then we ask whether they also indicate two ontologically distinct kinds and argue that I-existence should be regarded as the fundamental kind of existence in any case. One important consequence of this is that I-existence stands outside the Kantian conditions of experience, being the one un-Copernican element left intact after Kant’s Copernican turn.