ON THE TRANSCENDENTAL UNITY OF APPERCEPTION IN THE B DEDUCTION OF

KANT’S FIRST CRITIQUE

MICHAEL MILLERMAN

Kant calls the unity of apperception the supreme principle of human cognition

(B135). The goal of this paper will be to sketch out an explanation of what Kant

might have meant by that remark. Parts of the exposition remain tentative. We

cannot, as Kant put it, have “insight” into this unity (B176, a note; E LIV; p.27;

23:27). But there is enough evidence in the B deduction to piece together a fairly

plausible account of what role that unity plays in Kant’s system.

The phrase “unity of apperception” first appears in the B Deduction in the title of

section 16: On the original-synthetic unity of apperception (B131). In the body of

that section, the phrase first occurs in a remark differentiating the analytical from

the synthetic apperception (B133). It is said there that the analytical unity of

apperception is only possible “under the presumption of some synthetic one.” The

analytical unity of apperception is, says Kant, a representation of “the identity of

the consciousness” in a manifold of representations; the synthetic, the combination

of “a manifold of given representations in one consciousness.”

Let’s look a little closer. Although the phrase “unity of apperception” occurs first in

section 16, a major clue to the understanding of that unity as it is mentioned in

B133 can be found in section 15 (B130-131). In that section, called “on the

possibility of a combination in general,” it is written that “the combination of a

manifold in general can never come to us through the senses, and therefore cannot

already be contained in the pure form of sensible intuition.” Rather, combination is

an act of the understanding (B130). Whether or not we’re conscious of the act,
whether it combines intuitions that are sensible or not, or concepts, any

combination is an act. Combination, alone of all representations, Kant says, “is not

given through objects but can be executed only by the subject itself, since it is an

act of its self-activity.”

Combination is designated by the term “synthesis” (B130). Analysis, “the

dissolution that seems to be its opposite” in fact requires a previous synthesis, for

the understanding can only dissolve what it has first combined; and what it first

combines is a manifold. But combination is not merely synthesis of a manifold, it is

synthesis of a unified manifold. It is “the representation of the synthetic unity of

the manifold” (B130-131). This unity “first makes the concept of combination

possible” (B131). In a way, then it is prior or the foundation of combination. As to

what unity this is– “synthetic unity of the manifold,” as yet, being too unspecific for

us, - Kant gestures toward it in a footnote (B131). There he writes that what is “at

issue” for him in probing into the unity that combination “carries with it” (B130) “is

only the synthesis of... (possible) consciousness.”

It is the search for this unity “in that which itself contains the ground of the unity of

different concepts in judgements, and hence of the possibility of the understanding”

(B131) that is undertaken in section 16. It is not called by name in section 15. It

occurs first, as noted, in the title of section 16.

The synthetic unity of apperception is that “that which” just referred to. It explains

the possibility of combination in general because it contains “the ground of the

unity of different concepts in judgments.” I am arguing that the synthetic unity of

apperception is the foundational unity, the unity of consciousness that grounds that

unity that the concept of combination “carries with it.” Since combination “is the
foundation of the categories,” and the categories are in a way constitutive of the

understanding as such, transcendental self-consciousness is the sine qua non of the

understanding.

Kant tell us that the synthetic unity of apperception is not only “the highest point to

which one must affix all use of the understanding” but that “this faculty is the

understanding itself” (B133-134; footnote). I propose that we understand Kant

thus: the synthetic unity is first grasped by the understanding as a first principle,

(i.e. as “the highest point”), through Kant’s Critical Philosophy. When thus grasped,

it reveals itself as constitutive of the understanding as such. At any rate, the

synthetic unity of apperception looks to be that without which there could be no

understanding, whether it is thought of as the principle of the understanding or as,

in some sense, the understanding itself.

Well, there’s no doubt about its importance for Kant...but can we bring it a little

closer to home? In the B Deduction, starting with section 16, Kant calls it “The I

think” (B131). Without this “I think,” whatever is represented in me could not be

thought at all, “which is as much as to say that the representation would be either

impossible or at least would be nothing for me” (B132). What is given prior to

thinking is intuition. Therefore, the manifold of intuition must be related to the “I

think” to be anything for me. But the “I think” does not itself belong to sensibility,

it is an act of the self, as I’ve said above, and Kant calls it “pure apperception” to

distinguish it from empirical apperception. It is “pure” or “original” because “it is

that self-consciousness which, because it produced the representation I think, which

must be able to accompany all others and which in all consciousness is one and the

same, cannot be accompanied by any further representation” (B132). That is, it is

the consciousness (the “I think”) that is self-consciousness (the “I think” that

produces the thought “I think”).

Now, Kant calls this self-consciousness, the pure apperception, not only synthetic

and original but transcendental. The reason for calling it transcendental is that a

given manifold of representations must be for-a-self-consciousness to be my

representation, contra Hume (B132). Kant emphasizes this point years after the 2nd

edition of the Critique had been published in letters to Herz: e.g. “[objects are]

dependent on the uniting of the manifold in a consciousness [my emphasis], that is,

on what is required for the thinking and cognizing of objects by our understanding.

Only under these conditions...can we have experiences of this objects” (11:51); and

to Beck: “in the empirical concept of something composite [Kant’s emphasis] the

composition itself cannot be given or represented by means of mere intuition and

its apprehension but....can be represented only in a consciousness in general” [my

emphasis] (11:376).

Thus, for Kant, the synthetic unity of apperception is the self-consciousness for

which a manifold is. It is that which conditions, via the pure categories of the

understanding, through which it acts (or: which are its acts? Vide B75), what is

possible as an experience or cognition. Again: understanding is what allows for

cognition; cognition determines representation to an object; in the concept of an

object the manifold of intuition is united; the unification of what’s given in intuition

requires a unity of consciousness in the combination of what’s given; therefore the

unity of consciousness is that “on which even the possibility of the understanding

rests” (B137).
Let’s distinguish the analytical unity from the synthetic. “[I]t is only because I can

combine a manifold of given representations in one consciousness,” says Kant, back

in the B Deduction, “that it is possible for me to represent the identity of the

consciousness in these representations itself, i.e., the analytical unity of

apperception is only possible under the presupposition of some synthetic one”

(B133-134). Evidently, the analytic unity of apperception is unity of consciousness

in a representation. But because representations are something like a flux, if I

could not ground the analytic unity of apperception in a steady, synthetic unity, I

“would have as multi-colored, diverse a self as I have representations of which I am

conscious” (B134).

An analytical unity of consciousness must have a synthetic unity as ground because

one must unite in consciousness the possible applications of a conceptual mark to

whichever representations call for it before that concept is applied. For example, to

apply the concept “red” to a thing, I will have to have synthetic unity at least of

what is red and not red in those things to which I am going to apply the concept

(B133). I shall also have to combine the several red things that are to be

distinguished.

There is something confusing about this. Kant says about the

transcendental/synthetic unity of apperception that although it “declares as

necessary a synthesis of the manifold given in intuition,” it is itself “an analytical

proposition” (B135). This is confusing inasmuch as the “thoroughgoing identity of

self-consciousness” that is this principle “could not be thought” without that

necessary synthesis. The principle, then, is an analytic proposition that is

unthinkable in the absence of synthesis of a manifold in intuition. Or, in other

words, the synthesis of a manifold in intuition makes the transcendental unity of

apperception possible for thought.

But wait! Doesn’t the transcendental unity of apperception explain how there can

be a synthesis of the manifold in intuition? Doesn’t the latter require the former as

the ground of the possibility of combination in general? If the synthesis of the

manifold in intuition is carried out through the categories, and the categories are in

some sense founded on the non-categorial concept of combination, and if the

concept of combination rests on a unity that finds its ultimate justification in the

transcendental unity of apperception, then are we not in the most vicious of circles?

It cannot be that the transcendental unity of apperception is constituted by the

synthesis of the manifold of intuition. I’ve given some reasons for why I think it

cannot be. The foremost of those reasons it that the synthesis of the manifold in

intuition depends on the transcendental unity of apperception. “The transcendental

unity of apperception”, Kant writes, “is that unity through which all of the manifold

given in an intuition is united in a concept of the object” (B139). If the manifold of

intuition is first synthesized for us through the transcendental unity of apperception,

then the former cannot arise from, be founded on or have its constitution in the

latter. At the risk of redundancy, I repeat: the transcendental unity of apperception

is the foundational, sine qua non of all thought: nothing constitutes it; it is the

irreducible self-consciousness that constitutes and is the pinnacle of the

understanding and hence, for us (B138/139), it is the I THINK behind all cognition, to

which all cognition is referred. In other words, I reject the interpretation according

to which the I THINK is made possible by the synthetic unity of the manifold of

intuition. On my explanatory schema, the relationship is not bidirectional.

The confusion in fact disappears and my interpretation finds support in light of

B138. There, Kant explains what he means by the statement that the principle of

the synthetic unity of apperception is itself analytic. In short, it is analytic that

whatever is thought is thought such that I can represent them “to the identical self”

as mine, “through the general expression I think.” It is analytic that what is united,

synthesized, perceived, cognized, or whatever, is so for an identical self-

consciousness1

To sum up: I take the unity of apperception – the pure, synthetic unity of

apperception – to be a crucial and necessary component in Kant’s argument for

objective validity of the categories, for the pure concepts of the understanding, in

short, for “everything” (see footnote 1). Without it, he cannot explain whence the

unity that combination “carries with it.” But because combination, as an act of the

synthetic unity, is “the foundation of all the categories,” he cannot have the

objective validity of the categories without having combination, nor combination

without that original-synthetic pure and transcendental, somewhat inscrutable

unity. Among the implications that my position has for the bigger picture

interpretative issues of the Critique as a whole is that it suggests a radical and

thorough-going psychologistic undertaking on Kant’s part. I see no hope for any

reading that ignores the supreme importance of what is a thoroughly psychologistic

principle and no justification for the divestment of the psychologistic nature of that

principle in a reading or interpretation that aims to be faithful to Kant’s project.

1
11:376; In my judgement everything depends on this: since, in the empirical concept of
something composite the composition itself cannot be given or represented by means of
mere intuition and its apprehension, but can only be represented by means of the self-active
connection of the manifold given in intuition – that is, it can be represented only in a
consciousness in general (which again is not empirical) – it follows that this connection and
its functioning under a priori rules, rules that constitute the pure thought of an object in
general (the pure concept of the understanding) must be in the mind. [Needless to say, I
reject, on good textual evidence, the anti-psychologistic interpretation of the First Critique.]