PRODUCTIVE SYNTHESIS

[A116] For Kant, in the Deduction in A, the productive synthesis of the imagination is the source of the a priori synthesis presupposed by "the transcendental unity of all that is manifold in our representations", i.e. presupposed by us being conscious of anything in intuition. It is in the context of this discussion that Kant speaks of our a priori consciousness "of the complete identity of the self", which Kant asserts of representations "in me they can represent something only in so far as they belong with all other to one consciousness, and therefore must be at least capable of being so connected. Apparently, it is the productive synthesis of the imagination which does this connecting.