The Potentiality of Apperception

In this article, I present a reading of Kant's notion of apperception in the B-version of the Critique of Pure Reason that is inspired by Giorgio Agamben's reading of Aristotle in "On Potentiality." My aim is to show that an important characteristic of Kant's understanding (Verstand)—the capacity to judge—can be found by considering it as a specific kind of potentiality, namely, as a potentiality that exists as a mere potentiality instead of as a possible actualization. I argue that this particular notion of potentiality can be found by investigating the notions of empirical and pure apperception and the analytic and synthetic unities of apperception.