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conjunction, and that analysis, which appears to be its contrary,

must, nevertheless, always presuppose it; for where the

understanding has not previously conjoined, it cannot dissect or

analyse, because only as conjoined by it, must that which is to be

analysed have been given to our faculty of representation.

But the conception of conjunction includes, besides the conception

of the manifold and of the synthesis of it, that of the unity of it

also. Conjunction is the representation of the synthetical unity of

the manifold.* This idea of unity, therefore, cannot arise out of that

of conjunction; much rather does that idea, by combining itself with

the representation of the manifold, render the conception of

conjunction possible. This unity, which a priori precedes all

conceptions of conjunction, is not the category of unity (SS 6); for

all the categories are based upon logical functions of judgement,

and in these functions we already have conjunction, and consequently

unity of given conceptions. It is therefore evident that the

category of unity presupposes conjunction. We must therefore look

still higher for this unity (as qualitative, SS 8), in that, namely,

which contains the ground of the unity of diverse conceptions in

judgements, the ground, consequently, of the possibility of the

existence of the understanding, even in regard to its logical use.

*Whether the representations are in themselves identical, and

consequently whether one can be thought analytically by means of and

through the other, is a question which we need not at present

consider. Our Consciousness of the one, when we speak of the manifold,

is always distinguishable from our consciousness of the other; and

it is only respecting the synthesis of this (possible) consciousness

that we here treat.

Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception. SS 12

The "I think" must accompany all my representations, for otherwise

something would be represented in me which could not be thought; in

other words, the representation would either be impossible, or at

least be, in relation to me, nothing. That representation which can be

given previously to all thought is called intuition. All the diversity

or manifold content of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary relation

to the 'I think," in the subject in which this diversity is found. But

this representation, "I think," is an act of spontaneity; that is to

say, it cannot be regarded as belonging to mere sensibility. I call it

pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from empirical; or

primitive apperception, because it is self-consciousness which, whilst

it gives birth to the representation" I think," must necessarily be

capable of accompanying all our representations. It is in all acts

of consciousness one and the same, and unaccompanied by it, no

representation can exist for me. The unity of this apperception I call

the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, in order to indicate

the possibility of a priori cognition arising from it. For the

manifold representations which are given in an intuition would not all

of them be my representations, if they did not all belong to one

self-consciousness, that is, as my representations (even although I am

not conscious of them as such), they must conform to the condition

under which alone they can exist together in a common

self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not all without

exception belong to me. From this primitive conjunction follow many

important results.

For example, this universal identity of the apperception of the

manifold given in intuition contains a synthesis of representations

and is possible only by means of the consciousness of this

synthesis. For the empirical consciousness which accompanies different

representations is in itself fragmentary and disunited, and without

relation to the identity of the subject. This relation, then, does not

exist because I accompany every representation with consciousness, but

because I join one representation to another, and am conscious of

the synthesis of them. Consequently, only because I can connect a

variety of given representations in one consciousness, is it

possible that I can represent to myself the identity of

consciousness in these representations; in other words, the analytical

unity of apperception is possible only under the presupposition of a

synthetical unity.* The thought, "These representations given in

intuition belong all of them to me," is accordingly just the same

as, "I unite them in one self-consciousness, or can at least so

unite them"; and although this thought is not itself the consciousness

of the synthesis of representations, it presupposes the possibility of

it; that is to say, for the reason alone that I can comprehend the

variety of my representations in one consciousness, do I call them

my representations, for otherwise I must have as many-coloured and

various a self as are the representations of which I am conscious.

Synthetical unity of the manifold in intuitions, as given a priori, is

therefore the foundation of the identity of apperception itself, which

antecedes a priori all determinate thought. But the conjunction of

representations into a conception is not to be found in objects

themselves, nor can it be, as it were, borrowed from them and taken up

into the understanding by perception, but it is on the contrary an

operation of the understanding itself, which is nothing more than

the faculty of conjoining a priori and of bringing the variety of

given representations under the unity of apperception. This

principle is the highest in all human cognition.

*All general conceptions- as such- depend, for their existence, on

the analytical unity of consciousness. For example, when I think of

red in general, I thereby think to myself a property which (as a

characteristic mark) can be discovered somewhere, or can be united

with other representations; consequently, it is only by means of a

forethought possible synthetical unity that I can think to myself

the analytical. A representation which is cogitated as common to

different representations, is regarded as belonging to such as,

besides this common representation, contain something different;

consequently it must be previously thought in synthetical unity with

other although only possible representations, before I can think in it

the analytical unity of consciousness which makes it a conceptas

communis. And thus the synthetical unity of apperception is the

highest point with which we must connect every operation of the

understanding, even the whole of logic, and after it our

transcendental philosophy; indeed, this faculty is the understanding

itself.

This fundamental principle of the necessary unity of apperception is

indeed an identical, and therefore analytical, proposition; but it

nevertheless explains the necessity for a synthesis of the manifold

given in an intuition, without which the identity of

self-consciousness would be incogitable. For the ego, as a simple

representation, presents us with no manifold content; only in

intuition, which is quite different from the representation ego, can

it be given us, and by means of conjunction it is cogitated in one

self-consciousness. An understanding, in which all the manifold should

be given by means of consciousness itself, would be intuitive; our

understanding can only think and must look for its intuition to sense.

I am, therefore, conscious of my identical self, in relation to all

the variety of representations given to me in an intuition, because

I call all of them my representations. In other words, I am

conscious myself of a necessary a priori synthesis of my

representations, which is called the original synthetical unity of

apperception, under which rank all the representations presented to

me, but that only by means of a synthesis.

The Principle of the Synthetical Unity of Apperception

is the highest Principle of all exercise of

the Understanding. SS 13

The supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in

relation to sensibility was, according to our transcendental

aesthetic, that all the manifold in intuition be subject to the formal

conditions of space and time. The supreme principle of the possibility

of it in relation to the understanding is that all the manifold in

it be subject to conditions of the originally synthetical unity or

apperception.* To the former of these two principles are subject all

the various representations of intuition, in so far as they are

given to us; to the latter, in so far as they must be capable of

conjunction in one consciousness; for without this nothing can be

thought or cognized, because the given representations would not

have in common the act Of the apperception "I think" and therefore

could not be connected in one self-consciousness.

*Space and time, and all portions thereof, are intuitions;

consequently are, with a manifold for their content, single

representations. (See the Transcendental Aesthetic.) Consequently,

they are not pure conceptions, by means of which the same

consciousness is found in a great number of representations; but, on

the contrary, they are many representations contained in one, the

consciousness of which is, so to speak, compounded. The unity of

consciousness is nevertheless synthetical and, therefore, primitive.

From this peculiar character of consciousness follow many important

consequences. (See SS 21.)

Understanding is, to speak generally, the faculty Of cognitions.

These consist in the determined relation of given representation to an

object. But an object is that, in the conception of which the manifold

in a given intuition is united. Now all union of representations

requires unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them.

Consequently, it is the unity of consciousness alone that

constitutes the possibility of representations relating to an

object, and therefore of their objective validity, and of their

becoming cognitions, and consequently, the possibility of the

existence of the understanding itself.

The first pure cognition of understanding, then, upon which is

founded all its other exercise, and which is at the same time

perfectly independent of all conditions of mere sensuous intuition, is

the principle of the original synthetical unity of apperception.

Thus the mere form of external sensuous intuition, namely, space,

affords us, per se, no cognition; it merely contributes the manifold

in a priori intuition to a possible cognition. But, in order to

cognize something in space (for example, a line), I must draw it,

and thus produce synthetically a determined conjunction of the given

manifold, so that the unity of this act is at the same time the

unity of consciousness (in the conception of a line), and by this

means alone is an object (a determinate space) cognized. The

synthetical unity of consciousness is, therefore, an objective

condition of all cognition, which I do not merely require in order

to cognize an object, but to which every intuition must necessarily be

subject, in order to become an object for me; because in any other

way, and without this synthesis, the manifold in intuition could not

be united in one consciousness.

This proposition is, as already said, itself analytical, although it

constitutes the synthetical unity, the condition of all thought; for

it states nothing more than that all my representations in any given

intuition must be subject to the condition which alone enables me to

connect them, as my representation with the identical self, and so

to unite them synthetically in one apperception, by means of the

general expression, "I think."

But this principle is not to be regarded as a principle for every

possible understanding, but only for the understanding by means of

whose pure apperception in the thought I am, no manifold content is

given. The understanding or mind which contained the manifold in

intuition, in and through the act itself of its own

self-consciousness, in other words, an understanding by and in the

representation of which the objects of the representation should at

the same time exist, would not require a special act of synthesis of

the manifold as the condition of the unity of its consciousness, an

act of which the human understanding, which thinks only and cannot

intuite, has absolute need. But this principle is the first

principle of all the operations of our understanding, so that we

cannot form the least conception of any other possible

understanding, either of one such as should be itself intuition, or

possess a sensuous intuition, but with forms different from those of

space and time.

What Objective Unity of Self-consciousness is. SS 14

It is by means of the transcendental unity of apperception that

all the manifold, given in an intuition is united into a conception of

the object. On this account it is called objective, and must be

distinguished from the subjective unity of consciousness, which is a

determination of the internal sense, by means of which the said

manifold in intuition is given empirically to be so united. Whether

I can be empirically conscious of the manifold as coexistent or as

successive, depends upon circumstances, or empirical conditions. Hence

the empirical unity of consciousness by means of association of

representations, itself relates to a phenomenal world and is wholly

contingent. On the contrary, the pure form of intuition in time,

merely as an intuition, which contains a given manifold, is subject to

the original unity of consciousness, and that solely by means of the

necessary relation of the manifold in intuition to the "I think,"

consequently by means of the pure synthesis of the understanding,

which lies a priori at the foundation of all empirical synthesis.

The transcendental unity of apperception is alone objectively valid;

the empirical which we do not consider in this essay, and which is

merely a unity deduced from the former under given conditions in