Empirical consciousness, as described by Humean psychological theory, is in itself dispersed and without relation to the identity of the subject.

Moreover, it might well be that the argument of §16 features a subtlety that obviates the need for actual co-consciousness. The text indicates that the argument crucially turns on the claim that only a priori synthesis – that is, synthesis by a priori concepts – can explain how I might represent the identity of my apperceptive consciousness (B133) or how I might represent the identity of the apperceiving subject (B135) for different elements of the manifold of intuition to which I can attach the