Kant's Account of Independence as Self-Dependence: The Noumenal Personality in a Phenomenal World

In this paper, my aim is to furnish a possible interpretation of “independence” in terms of “self-dependence or dependence on our proper self” in the context of Kant’s philosophy. In order to do so, I will primarily focus on the concept of independence as based on the human being’s noumenal personality and as expression of the human being’s “proper self” (eigentliches Selbst). This concept will be contrasted with the one of dependence upon the human being’s animality (Tierheit). In this way, I will present independence in terms of the human being’s independence from its sensible, animal nature, but nonetheless as a form of dependence: namely, the human being’s dependence on its rational nature.