The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant: Applied to the Systemised Self – Part 6, Masters Series

Abstract

This paper explores an intersection between the Transcendental Idealism of Immanuel Kant and a contemporary critical theoretical model of The Systemised Self (Galu & Kairos, 2026a). Transcendental idealism: human experience as a construct of the mind, meaning we only perceive things as they appear to us (phenomena), not as they exist independently of our perception (noumena). The systemised self describes a socio-technological condition where human interiority, linguistic capabilities, and cognitive structures are impacted and influenced by intensified hyper-personalised curation with algorithmic systems (transformer based large language models). By examining Kant's cornerstone framework, the Copernican Revolution in epistemology, the distinction between Autonomy and Heteronomy, the Categories of Understanding, and the Transcendental Unity of Apperception, this essay traces how AI integration and intensification could produce a structural atrophy of the rational subject in terms of agency. The essay positions that hyper-personalised AI models and predictive feedback loops could lead to an inversion of Kant’s Copernican Revolution: instead of the digital world conforming to the human subject, the human cognitive architecture incrementally conforms to rigid computational automated syntax. The engine driving such an inversion being intensified user engagement with hyper-optimised predictive feedback loops. Such a dynamic shifts the locus of human thought from autonomous, rational self-legislation to a state of algorithmic heteronomy. Under this paradigm, Kant’s transcendental subject is hollowed out, the conscious space required for active moral and logical deliberation is atrophied, positioning the individual within an imitation of liberation.

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