s. But our understanding,
which is not perceptive, requires a manifold to be given to it, in
relation to which it can be aware of its own identity by means of a
synthesis of the manifold.' If this be the thought, it is clearly
presupposed that _any_ understanding must be capable of being
conscious of its own identity.[78]

[77] Cf. B. 138 fin.-139 init., M. 85 fin.

[78] B. 139 init., M. 85 fin. also assumes that it is
impossible for a mind to be a unity without being able to be
conscious of its unity.

Further, it is easy to see how Kant came to take for granted the
possibility of self-consciousness, in the sense of the consciousness
of ourselves as the identical subject of all our representations. He
approaches self-consciousness with the presupposition derived from his
analysis of knowledge that our apprehension of a manifold does not
consist in separate apprehensions of its elements, but is one
apprehension or consciousness of the elements as related.[79] He
thinks of this as a general presupposition of all apprehension of a
manifold, and, of course, to discover this presupposition is to be
self-conscious. To recognize the oneness of our apprehension is to be
conscious of our own identity.[80]

[79] It is in consequence of this that the statement that 'a
manifold of representations belongs to me' means, with the
probable exception of Sec. 1, not, 'I am aware of A, I am
aware of B, I am aware of C,' but, 'I am aware, in one act of
awareness, of A B C as related' (= ABC are 'connected in' or
'belong to' one consciousness). Cf. Secs. 4, 8 ('in one
consciousness'), 9, 10 ('in one consciousness'), and A. 116,
Mah. 208 ('These representations only represent anything in
me by belonging with all the rest to one consciousness
[accepting Erdmann's emendation _mit allen anderen_], in
which at any rate they can be connected').

[80] The above criticism of Kant's thought has not implied
that it may not be true that a knowing mind is, as such,
capable of being aware of its own unity; the argument has
only been that Kant's proof is unsuccessful.

Again, to pass to the second main point to be considered,[81]
Kant has no justification for arguing from the possibility of
self-consciousness to that of the synthesis. This can be seen from the
mere form of his argument. Kant, as has been said, seems first to
establish the possibility of self-consciousne