What Objective Unity of Self—consciousness is.
SS 14.
It is by means of the transcendental unity of apperception that
all the manifold, given in an intuition is united into a conception of
the object. On this account it is called objective, and must be
distinguished from the subjective unity of consciousness, which is a
determination of the internal sense, by means of which the said
manifold in intuition is given empirically to be so united. Whether
I can be empirically conscious of the manifold as coexistent or as
successive, depends upon circumstances, or empirical conditions. Hence
the empirical unity of consciousness by means of association of
representations, itself relates to a phenomenal world and is wholly
contingent. On the contrary, the pure form of intuition in time,
merely as an intuition, which contains a given manifold, is subject to
the original unity of consciousness, and that solely by means of the
necessary relation of the manifold in intuition to the I think,
consequently by means of the pure synthesis of the understanding,
which lies a priori at the foundation of all empirical synthesis.
The transcendental unity of apperception is alone objectively valid;
the empirical which we do not consider in this essay, and which is
merely a unity deduced from the former under given conditions in
concreto, possesses only subjective validity. One person connects
the notion conveyed in a word with one thing, another with another
thing; and the unity of consciousness in that which is empirical,
is, in relation to that which is given by experience, not
necessarily and universally valid.
