CONSCIOUSNESS

[B208] Kant distinguishes pure and empirical consciousness; the former is a precondition of the latter, which is the result of a complex process of synthesis and judgment (we have empirical consciousness of appearance). Presumably, pure consciousness is required for the unity of apperception; Kant associates it with the "merely subjective representation, which gives us only the consciousness that the subject, and which we relate [through synthesis] to an [empirical] object in general. By contrast, empirical consciousness involves an objective representation in which "the real of sensation" is apprehended. Due to the importance which Kant accords self-consciousness (i.e., consciousness of the unity of apperception), for Kant all consciousness necessarily involves self-consciousness; it also turns out that self-consciousness involves consciousness, namely, (pure) consciousness through inner sense of one's own mental states, and also (pure) consciousness through outer sense of one's self as an empirical object which has these states. This suggests that we are not conscious of "pure consciousness" (which in any case is not "empirical")--pure consciousness occurs before we have any possible experience.