I shall now summarise these introductory discussions in a brief tabulated outline of the main steps in the argument of the two deductions, and shall add a concluding note upon their interconnection.
Subjective Deduction.—1. Consciousness of time is an experience whose actuality cannot be questioned; by its actuality it will therefore establish the reality of everything that can be proved to be its indispensable condition.
2. Among the conditions indispensably necessary to all consciousness of time are synthetic processes whereby the contents of consciousness, occurring in successive moments, are combined and unified. These processes are processes of apprehension, reproduction, and recognition.
3. Recognition, in turn, is conditioned by self-consciousness.
4. As no consciousness is possible without self-consciousness, the synthetic processes must have completed themselves before such self-consciousness is possible, and consequently are not verifiable by introspection but only by hypothetical construction.
[1, 2, 3, and 4 are steps which can be stated independently of the argument of the objective deduction.]
5. Self-consciousness presupposes consciousness of objects, and consciousness of objects presupposes the synthetic activities of productive imagination whereby the matter of sense is organised in accordance with the categories. These productive activities also are verifiable only by conjectural inference, and only upon their completion can consciousness of any kind make its appearance.
6. Consciousness of self and consciousness of objects thus alike rest upon a complexity of non-phenomenal conditions. For anything that critical analysis can prove to the contrary, consciousness and personality may not be ultimates. They may be resultants due to realities fundamentally different from themselves.
[5 is a conclusion obtained only by means of the argument of the objective deduction. 6 is a further conclusion, first explicitly drawn by Kant in the Dialectic.]
Objective Deduction.—1. The starting-point coincides with that of the subjective deduction. Consciousness of time is an experience by whose actuality we can establish the reality of its indispensable conditions.