a knowing self, not only to be
identical throughout its thoughts or apprehendings, but to be capable
of being conscious of its own identity. Sec. 6 runs: "The empirical
consciousness which accompanies different representations is in itself
fragmentary, and without relation to the identity of the subject."
Kant is saying that if there existed merely a consciousness of A which
was not at the same time a consciousness of B and a consciousness
of B which was not at the same time a consciousness of A, these
consciousnesses would not be the consciousnesses belonging to one
self. But this is only true, if the one self to which the
consciousness of A and the consciousness of B are to belong must be
capable of being aware of its own identity. Otherwise it might be one
self which apprehended A and then, forgetting A, apprehended B. No
doubt in that case the self could not be aware of its own identity in
apprehending A and in apprehending B, but none the less it would _be_
identical in so doing. We reach the same conclusion if we consider the
concluding sentence of Sec. 10. "It is only because I can comprehend the
manifold of representations in one consciousness, that I call them all
my representations; for otherwise I should have as many-coloured and
varied a self as I have representations of which I am conscious."
Doubtless if I am to _be aware of_ myself as the same in apprehending
A and B, then, in coming to apprehend B, I must continue to apprehend
A, and therefore must apprehend A and B as related; and such a
consciousness on Kant's view involves a synthesis. But if I am merely
to _be_ the same subject which apprehends A and B, or rather if the
apprehension of A and that of B are merely to _be_ apprehensions on
the part of one and the same subject, no such consciousness of A and B
as related and, therefore, no synthesis is involved.

[76] Secs. 5-11.

Again, the third paragraph assumes the possibility of
self-consciousness as the starting-point for argument. The thought[77]
seems to be this: 'For a self to be aware of its own identity, there
must be a manifold in relation to which it can apprehend itself as one
and the same throughout. An understanding which was perceptive, i. e.
which originated objects by its own act of thinking, would necessarily
by its own thinking originate a manifold in relation to which it could
be aware of its own identity in thinking, and therefore its
self-consciousness would need no synthesi