Gefühl eines Daseins in Kant, Tetens and Feder: On the Plausibility of a Continuity Thesis

In the Prolegomena, Kant says that the transcendental self can be represented as a "feeling of existence" (Gefühl eines Daseins) (4: 334n). It remains uncertain whether such a description of the transcendental self can be made consistent with Kant's overall system. In this essay, I address this larger question by examining whether Kant's claim that the transcendental self can be represented as Gefühl eines Daseins might be seen to be in continuity with two key eighteenth century philosophical texts, both of which Kant knew well—Feder's textbook Logik und Metaphysik (1769), and Tetens' Philosophische Versuche (1777-). If such a continuity thesis could be defended, it would not merely help clarify Kant's notion of Gefühl eines Daseins in light of the philosophical discourse to which he belonged, but also raise the possibility that Kant may have taken up this notion with the aim of explicating the transcendental self to his contemporaries (since the Prolegomena was supposed to be a popular work). By discussing a set of passages in both Tetens and early Feder, I argue that, despite the undeniably radical nature of Kant's transcendental turn vis-à-vis his contemporaries, these passages, minimally, point to the possibility that, in some respects, Kant's conception of Gefühl eines Daseins may be consistent with, perhaps even draw on, discussions of the term Selbstgefühl in Tetens and Feder.