 The second kind of mental processing is “combination” (Verbindung) or “synthesis”, carried out by the intellect broadly conceived (i.e., the “higher” cognitive faculties of understanding, judgment, and reason). Kant characterizes synthesis as that activity by which the understanding “runs through” and “gathers together” representations given to it by sensibility in order to form concepts, judgments, and ultimately, for any cognition (in its “proper” sense) at all to take place (A77-8/B102-3). Synthesis is not something we are always, or even typically, aware of doing. As Kant says, it is “a blind though indispensable function of the soul…of which we are only seldom even conscious (A78/B103).” Kant typically contrasts synthesis with other ways in which representations might be related, most importantly, by association (e.g., B139-40). In contrast with association, synthesis is a fundamentally active process, dependent upon the mind’s spontaneity, and is the means by which genuine judgment is possible. Moreover, at least by the time of Kant’s writing of the B-Deduction of the first Critique, he is clear that judgments, as outcomes of synthesis, are unique in our mental economy in that they are complex representations that possess the capacity to be true or false. As Kant’s discussion in §19 of the B-Deduction shows, a judgment isn’t simply a “representation of a relation between two concepts” (B140), which doesn’t rule out mere association between concepts, but is rather a representation of an objectively valid relationship in virtue of which the judgment may be seen as an objective claim to truth (B142).