  For Kant, this distinction between consciousness of oneself and one’s states by doing acts of synthesis and consciousness of oneself and one’s states as the objects of particular representations is of fundamental importance. When one is conscious of oneself and one’s states by doing cognitive and perceptual acts, one is conscious of oneself as spontaneous, rational, self-legislating, free—as the doer of deeds, not just as a passive receptacle for representations: “I exist as an intelligence which is conscious solely of its power of combination” (B158–159), of “the activity of the self” (B68) (Sellars, 1970–1; Pippin, 1987).