Externalization and Internalization

Kant's problems with his attempt to distinguish 'Outer' and 'Inner' begin with his apparent indecision as to whether or not the former is relative or absolute. On the one hand, it is natural to interpret 'outer' as meaning 'outside one's body'. But such an interpretation is difficult to sustain given that since any part of the body can be seen or touched, even the sense organs, the body itself would seem to be 'outside' as well, thereby committing Kant to a Cartesian position that the entire physical world is 'outside'. In contrast, his treatment of 'Inner' receives greater attention, and is thus more clearly developed. 'Inner' means 'inside Me', wherein experiences of all kinds are arranged successively. However, the unclarities pertaining to this 'Me' are amplified by his overlooking that while referring e. g. a sense-event to oneself entails its being placed subsequent to a previous e. g. sense-event, the process of referral is always subsequent to what gets referred. In other words, he misses that the very process of referral is itself a reference to 'Me', entailing relations that his account does not cover. The analysis of Propriation, previously presented here, shows how the 'I' is constructed, and how Interiority is created. But even given the emergence of an I, a fundamental problem with Kant's entire System restricts him from using that as a point of reference for Outerness. That problem is that it treats Outerness as pertaining fundamentally to sense activity, whereas, he might have more fruitfully assigned it to his theory of action, i. e. to treat it in his Critique of Practical Reason. For, 'Outer' can only be a product of a process like Exposition, in which the 'I' produced by Reflection is externalized. Otherwise, from the Inside, there is no cognitive ground for even positing the existence of an Outside, as his very denial of the knowability of a 'thing-in-itself' articulates. 'Outer' is fundamentally the relation of a motion to the 'I' in the intention that motivates it. That an object is given in Outer Sense only means that it is encounterable in a process of Exposition, e. g. the ball to which the 'red' datum is referred is something that I may kick, or trip over, or walk around.