Critique of Pure Reason a real substance. Unlike Descartes who believes that the soul may be known directly through reason, Kant asserts that no such thing is possible. Descartes declares "cogito ergo sum" but Kant denies that any knowledge of "I" may be possible. "I" is only the background of the field of apperception and as such lacks the experience of direct intuition that would make self-knowledge possible. This implies that the self in itself could never be known. Like Hume, Kant rejects knowledge of the "I" as substance. For Kant, the "I" that is taken to be the soul is purely logical and
Mr. Cogito human personality. The third, "Pan Cogito a perła" ("Mr. Cogito And A Pearl") – an unrhymed narrative of a pearl stuck in Mr. Cogito's shoe, treated as a metaphor of having to face life's adversities. The next poems – "Pan Cogito myśli o powrocie do rodzinnego miasta" ("Mr. Cogito Considers Returning to His Native Town"), "Pan Cogito rozmyśla o cierpieniu" ("Mr. Cogito Meditates on Suffering") and "Przepaść Pana Cogito" ("The Abyss of Mr. Cogito") depict Mr. Cogito confronting various existential dilemmas. Existential problems are a presence throughout the collection, appearing in the following texts: "Pan Cogito a myśl czysta" ("Mr.