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The result of the investigations of the last two chapters has been to show that on the one hand there is a limit to "austere" constructions of an account of objectivity from the very nature of judgment alone but that once one admits to the need for an account of synthesis there are parallel difficulties with comprehending how "synthesis" is itself possible. What any cautious philosophical inquiry into the nature and possibilities of a transcendental description of experience would deduce from these outcomes is that we need, in the first instance, to describe how the description of apperception can reveal reciprocal connections between the nature of consciousness and the nature of its awareness of "objects". This requires us to think of the model of a form of "transcendental psychology" that can be based on an account of apperception that is still conceived of in an "austere" way, that is with minimal reference to the machinery of synthesis. The prime exemplar of such an approach is Strawson's description of the strategies for a transcendental argument that will justify the notion of objectivity from what seems to be required even to have a conception of consciousness itself. The nature and the limits of this approach will hence be our first quarry.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230501195_3

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