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multiplicity of space and time is the foundation of the perceptions of the sensibility."[53] [52] _Erkenntnisse._ [53] A. 106-7, Mah. 200-1. The argument is clearly meant to be 'transcendental' in character; in other words, Kant continues to argue from the existence of knowledge to the existence of its presuppositions. We should therefore expect the passage to do two things: firstly, to show what it is which is presupposed by the 'unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold'[54]; and secondly, to show that this presupposition deserves the title 'transcendental apperception'. Unfortunately Kant introduces 'transcendental apperception' after the manner in which he introduced the 'sensibility', the 'imagination' and the 'understanding', as if it were a term with which every one is familiar, and which therefore needs little explanation. To interpret the passage, it seems necessary to take it in close connexion with the preceding account of the three 'syntheses' involved in knowledge, and to bear in mind that, as a comparison of passages will show, the term 'apperception', which Kant borrows from Leibniz, always has for Kant a reference to consciousness of self or self-consciousness. If this be done, the meaning of the passage seems to be as follows: [54] We should have expected this to have been already accomplished. For according to the account already considered, it is we who by our imagination introduce necessity into the synthesis of the manifold and by our understanding become conscious of it. We shall therefore not be surprised to find that 'transcendental apperception' is really only ourselves as exercising imagination and understanding in a new guise. 'To vindicate the existence of a self which is necessarily one and the same throughout its representations, and which is capable of being aware of its own identity throughout, it is useless to appeal to that consciousness of ourselves which we have when we reflect upon our successive states. For, although in being conscious of our states we are conscious of ourselves we are not conscious of ourselves as unchanging. The self as going through successive states is changing, and even if in fact its states did not change, its identity would be only contingent; it need not continue unchanged. Consequently, the only course possible is to show that the self-consciousness in question is presupposed in any experienc
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