1. In all judgements I am the determining subject of that relation
which constitutes a judgement. But that the I which thinks, must be
considered as in thought always a subject, and as a thing which cannot
be a predicate to thought, is an apodeictic and identical proposition.
But this proposition does not signify that I, as an object, am, for
myself, a self-subsistent being or substance. This latter statement—an
ambitious one—requires to be supported by data which are not to be
discovered in thought; and are perhaps (in so far as I consider the
thinking self merely as such) not to be discovered in the thinking self
at all.
2. That the I or Ego of apperception, and consequently in all thought,
is singular or simple, and cannot be resolved into a plurality of
subjects, and therefore indicates a logically simple subject—this is
self-evident from the very conception of an Ego, and is consequently an
analytical proposition. But this is not tantamount to declaring that
the thinking Ego is a simple substance—for this would be a synthetical
proposition. The conception of substance always relates to intuitions,
which with me cannot be other than sensuous, and which consequently lie
completely out of the sphere of the understanding and its thought: but
to this sphere belongs the affirmation that the Ego is simple in
thought. It would indeed be surprising, if the conception of
“substance,” which in other cases requires so much labour to
distinguish from the other elements presented by intuition—so much
trouble, too, to discover whether it can be simple (as in the case of
the parts of matter)—should be presented immediately to me, as if by
revelation, in the poorest mental representation of all.
3. The proposition of the identity of my Self amidst all the manifold
representations of which I am conscious, is likewise a proposition
lying in the conceptions themselves, and is consequently analytical.
But this identity of the subject, of which I am conscious in all its
representations, does not relate to or concern the intuition of the
subject, by which it is given as an object. This proposition cannot
therefore enounce the identity of the person, by which is understood
the consciousness of the identity of its own substance as a thinking
being in all change and variation of circumstances. To prove this, we
should require not a mere analysis of the proposition, but synthetical
judgements based upon a given intuition.
4. I distinguish my own existence, as that of a thinking being, from
that of other things external to me—among which my body also is
reckoned. This is also an analytical proposition, for other things are
exactly those which I think as different or distinguished from myself.
But whether this consciousness of myself is possible without things
external to me; and whether therefore I can exist merely as a thinking
being (without being man)—cannot be known or inferred from this
proposition.