ABSTRACT
At A115-118 Kant contrasts empirical sources of cognition (perception, association, and “empirical consciousness” or empirical apperception) with pure sources. He says that pure apperception (representations belonging with all others in one consciousness) presupposes a pure synthesis of imagination, as opposed to a reproductive synthesis that rests on empirical conditions. The synthesis, or putting together, of an extended episode, then, is not governed by empirical connections of perception. At B152 the pure imagination (fi gurative synthesis) is said
to determine sense a priori in respect of its form. (italics mine)
Thus the synthesis that constitutes an extended episode is the synthesis of the manifold of space and time, and it is this synthesis that, governed by the unity of the understanding, constitutes pure apperception. As I showed in Chapter 7, empirical apperception is the identity or constancy of the self in keeping to a rule for unifying an associative synthesis of perceptions. As empirical perception is contrasted by Kant at A115 with pure intuition (time) and association with the pure synthesis of the imagination (which concerns the form of intuition, or time), it is plausible to conclude that pure apperception (representations belonging with all others in one consciousness) is the identity or constancy of the self in keeping to a rule unifying a pure (productive) synthesis of the manifold of time. Pure apperception, then, is that identity effected by bringing time (and space) under rules.
