Why aren't pure apperception and empirical apperception structurally identical, even though they are functionally identical in Kant's Anthropology?

Question

I can't be the only one who finds this strange. Section 7 of *Anthropology from a Pragmatic Perspective*, entitled "On Sensibility in contrast to understanding", reads as follows: >In regard to the state of its representations, my mind is either *active* and exhibits a faculty (*facultas*), or it is *passive* and consists in *receptivity* (*receptivitas*). A *cognition* contains both joined together, and the possibility of having such a cognition bears the name of *cognitive faculty* - from the most distinguished part of this faculty, namely, the activity of mind in combining or separating representations from one another. >Representations in regard to which the mind behaves passively, and by means of which the subject is therefore *affected* (whether it *affects itself or is *affected* by an object), belong to the *sensuous* cognitive faculty. But ideas that comprise a sheer *activity* (thinking) belong to the *intellectual* cognitive faculty. The former is also called the *lower*, the latter, the *higher* cognitive faculty. The lower cognitive faculty has the character of *passivity* of the inner sense of sensations; the higher, of spontaneity of apperception, that is, of pure consciousness of the activity that constitutes thinking. It belongs to logic ( a system of rules of the understanding), as the former belongs to psychology (a sum of all inner perceptions under laws of nature) and establishes inner experience. So, even when I'm just staring idly at the wall painted red, both cognitive faculties are at work, the one receiving the sensations of the red wall, the other applying all the rules of time and space, etc to it so that I can recognize that I'm looking at a red wall. That's Kant right? The gist is, affection and intellection submit to two entirely different rule sets. Affection follows the laws of nature, and so has a physiological basis, but intellection submits to the rules of logic (which is carefully defined in a separate book, appropriately titled *Logic*). So while in function, the two faculties are the same, structurally they are distinct. But that would mean that the laws of nature don't command all of reality, or at least, as far as Kant goes, the laws of nature are incapable of eventually accounting for intellection! Hang on, there's evidence, and this is where things get *really* tricky. In the handwritten manuscript to *Anthropology*, Kant crossed out, and so didn't publish, a whole subsequent section which clarifies some of the ambiguities of this idea of cognition. The chunk of it deals with the weirdness of claiming, following these distinctions, that human beings can never know themselves in themselves ([*an-sich*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_sich)): >In the self-cognition of the human being through inner experience he does not *make* what he has perceived in himself, for this depends on impressions (the subject matter of representations) that he *receives*. Therefore he is so far enduring, that is, he has a representation of himself as he is affected by himself, which according to its form depends merely on the subjectivity property of his nature, which should be interpreted as belonging to the object, even though he still also has the right to attribute it to the object (here he is own person), but with the qualification that he can only recognize himself as an object through his representation in experience as he *appears* to himself, not as he, the observed, is in himself. - If he wished to cognize the latter way, he would have to rely on a consciousness of pure spontaneity (the concept of freedom), (which is also possible), but it would still not be perception of inner sense and the empirical cognition of his inner self (inner experience) which is based on it. Rather it can only be consciousness of the rule of his actions and omissions, without thereby acquiring a theoretical (physiological) cognition of his nature, which is what psychology actually aims at. - Empirical self-cognition therefore presents to inner sense the human being as he appears to it, not as he is in himself, because every cognition explains merely the *affectability* of the subject, not the inner characteristic of the subject as object. and further on: >One must therefore distinguish pure apperception (of the understanding) from empirical apperception (of sensibility). The latter, when the subject attends to himself, is also at the same time affected and so calls out sensations in him, that is, brings representations to consciousness. But that doesn't make any sense! If I perceive myself through inner sense, even if these are filtered as representations, the fact alone that the 'I' is self-affecting means that the distinction between pure and empirical can't hold, unless I have a soul that just happens to be hanging out with body. Like, isn't this is a solution Aristotle deemed laughable in *De Anima*? If pure and empirical apperception aren't the same thing then bodies are completely interchangeable. And if I'm self-affectable through inner sense, then what keeps pure apperception from being just another representation aside from Kant just asserting that it's not the case, and that something, completely unbeholden to the laws of nature, is there instead? I'm not a grad student or professional or anything, just an amateur enthusiast for philosophy, so forgive me if I'm misreading what;s going in Kant. Thanks for the assistance, whatever it may be.

Answer 1

You are absolutely NOT the only one to find this strange!

Kant’s distinction between pure apperception (“the transcendental unity of self-consciousness”) and empirical apperception (“inner sense, the consciousness of my state”) can feel puzzling because both involve a self relating to its representations. Your question rightly notices that in lived experience, the mind seems to perform one unified act: “I take myself to be the subject of my representations.” So why does Kant insist these two forms of self-relation are not structurally identical?

The short answer is:

Pure apperception is an a priori condition for the possibility of experience; empirical apperception is itself an object of experience. That ontological difference forces a structural difference, even if the phenomenology looks similar.

Below is the long answer—with Kant’s own architecture of the mind as the guiding thread.

1. Pure Apperception = The Rule-Giver, Not a Representation

Kant repeatedly emphasizes that the “I think” is not itself a representation but the form that unifies all representations under a single subject (B132–134). This means:

1. It contributes no content
2. It cannot appear in intuition
3. It is not given through inner sense
4. It is the condition for the unity of anything that appears

Thus pure apperception is not an event in time. It is the ontological precondition for the synthesis that generates temporal order. Empirical apperception, by contrast, is:

1. A consciousness of my states as they appear in time
2. Given through inner sense
3. Subject to psychological laws and variation

Therefore, they cannot be structurally identical because one (pure apperception) is not in the domain of appearances at all. Kant insists on this because if the unity of the self were empirical, it would itself require the unity it is supposed to ground—classic regress.

2. The Functional Similarity You Noticed Is Not Structural, but Methodological

You are right that both pure and empirical apperception involve a “self relating to itself.” But what looks similar functionally is radically dissimilar structurally.

1. Pure apperception:

The subject legislates the form of experience (“the I think must be able to accompany…”).

This unity is transcendental and necessary.

1. Empirical apperception:

The subject becomes aware of contingent inner states (sensations, feelings, thoughts).

This unity is contingent and psychological.

Kant’s phrase “apperception” unfortunately masks how different these are. Heidegger called it “a terminological disaster” for exactly this reason.

3. Anthropology Complicates Matters—But Only on the Surface

You are absolutely correct that Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View describes:

1. higher vs. lower faculties
2. activity vs. passivity
3. receptivity vs. spontaneity

And empirical apperception indeed belongs to the domain of receptivity: the mind is “affected by itself” (i.e., inner sense). But Kant’s Anthropology is an empirical science. It describes how human beings happen to experience themselves. It does not revise the transcendental architecture.

That’s why the distinction holds firm:

Pure Apperception	Empirical Apperception
Not an appearance	Appearance of inner states
A priori condition	A posteriori content
Timeless (not in inner sense)	Temporal (in inner sense)
Ground of unity	Effect within unity

Kant even says explicitly:

“Inner sense yields only the appearance of myself, not the self as it is.” (B155)

This single line is enough to secure the structural difference.

4. Your Question About “Functional Identity” Is Excellent—Here’s Kant’s Answer

You’re noticing a real tension:

If empirical apperception gives me a unity of inner states, and pure apperception gives me the logical unity of consciousness, aren’t they doing the same job?

Kant’s answer:

No—because empirical unity presupposes transcendental unity.

Empirical apperception cannot unify anything unless the I think has already done the work of:

1. synthesizing the manifold
2. applying the categories
3. structuring time as a form of inner sense

This means the “functional similarity” runs only in one direction:

1. Pure apperception → makes empirical apperception possible
2. Empirical apperception → never grounds pure apperception

A condition cannot be structurally identical to what depends upon it.

5. Why Kant Keeps the Distinction: Freedom and the Moral Self

The final reason is practical, not theoretical.

If pure apperception were reducible to empirical apperception, then:

1. the self would be nothing more than a bundle of inner appearances
2. the unity of reason would collapse into psychology
3. freedom would be impossible
4. morality would lose its transcendental foundation

Kant draws this line sharply because the self that legislates the moral law cannot be the same self that appears in time as a psychological object.

1. Pure apperception = the noumenal self as lawgiver
2. Empirical apperception = the phenomenal self as appearance

Even if they feel similar “from the inside,” they have fundamentally different roles in Kant’s system.

Conclusion

Pure apperception and empirical apperception are NOT structurally identical because:

1. Pure apperception is the condition for the possibility of experience.
2. Empirical apperception is an object within experience.
3. One is atemporal and non-representational; the other is temporal and representational.
4. The unity given by empirical apperception presupposes the unity legislated by pure apperception.

They appear similar only because both involve self-relation—but the first grounds the unity of cognition, while the second describes the unity of consciousness as it appears. This is why Kant maintains the structural distinction even in the Anthropology, where he adopts more empirical language that can blur the lines.