[74] A third alternative is to understand Kant to be thinking of all thought as self-conscious, i. e. as thinking accompanied by the consciousness of thinking. But since in that case Kant would be arguing from thinking as _thinking_, i. e. as apprehending objects, the possibility of self-consciousness would only be glaringly assumed.
[75] The same is true of A. 116 and A. 117 note, Mah. 208, where Kant also appears to be offering what he considers to be an argument.
In the next paragraph[76]--which is clearly meant to be the important one--Kant, though he can hardly be said to be aware of it, seems to _assume_ that it is the very nature of a knowing self, not only to be identical throughout its thoughts or apprehendings, but to be capable of being conscious of its own identity. § 6 runs: "The empirical consciousness which accompanies different representations is in itself fragmentary, and without relation to the identity of the subject." Kant is saying that if there existed merely a consciousness of A which was not at the same time a consciousness of B and a consciousness of B which was not at the same time a consciousness of A, these consciousnesses would not be the consciousnesses belonging to one self. But this is only true, if the one self to which the consciousness of A and the consciousness of B are to belong must be capable of being aware of its own identity. Otherwise it might be one self which apprehended A and then, forgetting A, apprehended B. No doubt in that case the self could not be aware of its own identity in apprehending A and in apprehending B, but none the less it would _be_ identical in so doing. We reach the same conclusion if we consider the concluding sentence of § 10. "It is only because I can comprehend the manifold of representations in one consciousness, that I call them all my representations; for otherwise I should have as many-coloured and varied a self as I have representations of which I am conscious." Doubtless if I am to _be aware of_ myself as the same in apprehending A and B, then, in coming to apprehend B, I must continue to apprehend A, and therefore must apprehend A and B as related; and such a consciousness on Kant's view involves a synthesis. But if I am merely to _be_ the same subject which apprehends A and B, or rather if the apprehension of A and that of B are merely to _be_ apprehensions on the part of one and the same subject, no such consciousness of A and B as related and, therefore, no synthesis is involved.