pre-view of anything on the basis of which the “combineds” might be combined into one. Rather, the pre-viewed unity is itself one of the “combineds.” As [antecedently] brought together with the I as “I think” (the cogito, the I-place-before-myself in the broadest sense), the previewed unity requires no further unity. Rather, the “togetherness” that goes with the act of combining is the very givenness-for-an-“I.”⁹³

At the same time, pre-viewing the “I am the one who thinks” (the ego sum cogitans) is the synthesis, because I as such means “I think,” i.e., “I relate myself to the given.” To comprehend the I in its presentness (as a comprehension of the “I think”) is a co-apprehension of what is thought in the I’s thinking. That is why Kant insists so emphatically that the I cannot be given as an object [Objekt] in the sense of an object [Gegenstand]; it is not something that I could stay with awhile and say something about. Instead, comprehending the “I think” means comprehending the for-whom or for-what. It is to comprehend the “give-able-for. . .” Comprehending the I means that the comprehending I carries out the “I think,” carries out the thinking—i.e., the determining, i.e., the combining of the manifold. For the I to be given in its pure presentness qua I means for it to “be” the “for,” i.e., it means for the I to make possible the very give-ability of the given for me.

What makes it difficult to understand these phenomena is the inadequacy of the means that Kant had for his effort of understanding them. For example, the formal structure of the act of combining had to suffice for determining an entity (the I) that has an entirely unique kind of being; and then, throughout the entire treatment, the meaning of the being of this entity is left undetermined—or, what more disastrous, he understands that being in the simple and direct sense of mere presence.

93. [The argument seems to be: (1) “I think” means “I combine something with the I that does the combining,” i.e., with the “I-combine.” (2) But “to combine” means “to bring into unity,” i.e., to bring about the togetherness-in-unity of what is to be combined. (3) Such bringing-into-unity is unification and as such requires a unity as the basis on which (or the prior norm whereby) the to-be-combineds are unified. (4) That unity is not perfect one-ness. Rather, as the prior norm for unifying, that unity means: “unified-with-me-the-unifier,” the one who is, and cannot exist without, the unification-of-something-with-me. (5) In that sense, the antecedent normative unity is a “must-be-a-unity-such-as-I-am,” and thus indicates not an absolutely perfect unity but a combined or synthetic unity as is the I qua “Icombine” or “I-synthesize.”(6) When the to-be-unified is a priori brought together with the “I-synthesize,” the synthetic unity prescribed by the pre-viewed “unifiedthe-way-the-I-is-unified” is a priori effected, and no further unity is required. (7) “Unified” means Zusammensein—having-been-brought-together-in-unity. As regards what gets unified, its “being-together-with-the-I-unify” is its “being-given-forthe-I-unify.” (8) Therefore, whatever is combined is ipso facto given-for-the-I.]