Kant and Vasubandhu on 'Transcendent Self'

Rough first draft. Please do not quote. Thank you.

Kant and Vasubandhu apparently make the same distinction between the empirical self and what might be called the ‘transcendent' self. The key question is how similar or how different these two conceptions are. The well known passage where Kant mentions that the ‘I think' must be able to accompany all my representations, points to the fact that there must be an overarching conception of a self that binds up the various representations into a single whole so that judgment is possible. Among these various representations are conceptions of the empirical selves, the uses of ‘I' in various circumstances. I will compare and contrast Kant's argument here with that found in Vasubandhu's Viṃśatikakārikā, where the same kind of distinction between the ‘ordinary' self and the ineffable ‘substantial' self is being made.