In using the word “logical,” Kant means to say: The entity is not intuited nor given in its “what,” but is posited and comprehended in its existence merely as data.86 [329] And this cogito me cogitare is an act of spontaneity, constantly repeatable in self-identity, such that I identify myself as existing, as in existence, and only to that extent. To say that this act is “logical” certainly does not mean, “Thinking thinks something that is thought,” whence one might try to infer the following: “If what it thinks is a mere thought, something merely logical, then it is a concept; and therefore the epistemological subject is a mere concept”—as if Kant would ever have let himself imagine that the highest point to which all philosophy can be attached—indeed, all transcendental philosophy—is a mere concept.
This self-positing I, this I that gives itself in its being-present, is the “logical personality” (Reflexionen, no. 5049).87 But in no way does that mean that it is “logical” in the sense of something merely thought, and even further in the sense of a concept. In its self-positing, the I gives itself as existing. It expresses no “what,” i.e., it attributes no predicate to itself. Rather, this I is the subject of a predicate-less pro-position, the subject of a positing.88 That is, the I is a “subject” and only a subject.89 This subject underlies every proposition and every expression—every cogitare is a me cogitare:
But for that reason, it is only a subject to which no predicate is attached, (1) because no subject is thought in regard to it; (2) because it is presup-position and substratum of other subjects. (Reflexionen, no. 5297)
In this passage we note how Kant gives the concept “subject” a peculiar twofold meaning. In the first sense, the subject is a “grammatical subject” as distinct from a “predicate.” That is what Kant means when he says the I is a predicate-less subject. However, this predicateless subject qua I is also a “subject” as contrasted with an “object.” The original synthesis of unity is grounded in this subject and directly constitutes its being. [330] So the subject is the condition of the possibility of comprehending any entity insofar as any comprehending of an entity presumes the co-comprehending of that entity as one.
That is why Kant calls this I that can be comprehended in pure apperception,
86. [„. . . nur als Befund,“ i.e., merely as findings.]
87. Kant, Akademie-Ausgabe, vol. 18, p. 72.88. [Heidegger is playing on the connection of Satz (proposition) with Setzung (positing).]
89. Ich—sum, und zwar Ich—cogitans; Ich, der Verbindende des Verbindens; mein Mitvorhandens ein jederzeit in allem Verbinden. [Perhaps: “Sum cogitans: I—precisely as I—am thinking. The I, the one who is the (a priori) combiner in all acts of combining. My being (is) ever present with and in every act of combining.”]