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Thinking (Denken) is distinct from both knowing (Wissen) and cognition (Erkenntnis), although these distinctions are not observed in translation; nor are they uniformly observed by Kant. Thinking consists in 'uniting representations in a consciousness' and the latter is a description of judgement; 'thinking therefore is the same as judging' (Prolegomena SS22). As such it is an activity proper to the understanding, for 'through mere intuition nothing is thought' (Critique of Pure Reason A 253/B 309). The unification of representations accomplished in thinking is based on spontaneous, pure apperception of the 'I think', which is also entitled the 'transcendental unity of self-consciousness' which indicates 'the possibility of a priori knowledge arising from it' (CPR B 132). Although at one point Kant describes thinking as 'cognition by means of concepts' (CPR A 69/B 94), apparently suggesting that thinking is a form of cognition, he otherwise consistently distinguishes between them. In order to cognize an object 'I must be able to prove its possibility, either from its actuality as attested by experience, or a priori by means of reason' but 'I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself' (CPR B xxvi). Thus it is possible to think things-in-themselves, but not to know them, for as Kant 'reminds' his readers 'for thought the categories are not limited by the conditions of our sensible intuition, but have an unlimited field' (CPR B 166). It is, of course, also possible for thinking to be consistent with cognition, as in the case of synthetic a priori judgements where 'thinking is the act whereby given intuitions are related to an object' (CPR A 247/B 304). Such thinking must fulfil the conditions for the subsumption of intuitions under concepts, and its objects are accordingly restricted to those of a possible experience.
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