Abstract
In Kant’s first Critique, the transcendental deduction of the categories plays a key role in establishing a new foundation for metaphysics. The subjective deduction begins with an account of the „original synthetic unity of apperception“ and its function in establishing a priori the possibility of cognition of objects of sensible intuition. This essay analyzes this function and the conditions for this unity of self-consciousness, which is fundamental for grounding the objective validity of the categories in the deduction. Decisive is the introduction of the „objective“ synthetic unity of apperception as that which underlies the form of all judgments and thus also establishes the possibility of empirical judgments. „Nature in general“, i. e., the lawfully ordered unity of all appearances in space and time, is the object of this possible experience. The objectivity of „experience in general“ is thereby grounded a priori in the unity of apperception.
