Kant and the Non-Conceptual De Se: Apperception, Identity and the Second Step of the B-Deduction

I argue that, for Kant, intuition involves a non-conceptual de se representation. This unlocks a new reading of the B-Deduction and connects it to contemporary work on first-person representation. Kant must explain how the categories apply generally to objects of sense without reducing intuition to judgment. The Deduction’s aim is to show that a single synthesis both unifies a manifold in intuition and, when taken up discursively, yields a unified cognition. The synthesis-identity claim is supported by the subject’s awareness of itself as the identical bearer of synthesis in intuition and corresponding judgment that make up cognition.