Transcendental Unity of Apperception and Its Necessity

Abstract

As we saw in Chapter Six, (S) is the strong unity-of-apperception claim that all the elements of i are such that H is or can become conscious, in thought, that the I think accompanies all those elements taken together. Given the failure of our Chapter Six arguments for (S), it seems impossible for Kant to prove that i’s elements form a synthesis-established (and necessary) unity within H’s mind in a way that leads to category application to the object of i. So, also, he cannot generalize to the main, B-Deduction first-half conclusion that, necessarily, the object of any sensible intuition in general through which a being like us knows is subject to the categories. And hence in the second half of the B-Deduction he cannot apply that conclusion to the human a priori intuitions of space and time in such a way as to reach the final B-Deduction result that, necessarily, the object of any sensible, empirical intuition through which we know falls under the categories. Kant’s failure to demonstrate (S) thus abruptly halts the argument of the B-Deduction (and of the A-Deduction), and so we must decide how to proceed if something like the Deduction reasoning is to be maintained.