In the Transcendental Deduction "Kant is asking the question how we can have knowledge of objects." (Ewing 70) To describe the grounds which make knowledge and therefore experience possible is what he is trying to achieve in the synthesis. This subjective deduction is just one the strategies Kant uses to make his point. To begin to discuss anything from the transcendental deduction first there must be an understanding of the transcendental aesthetic. Here Kant demonstrates the a priori nature of space and time. "Transcendental" can be defined as a mode of knowledge that is a priori. "A priori" refers to necessity and universality to something, knowledge independent of sense experience, and any possible experience of space and time. "Aesthetic" can be simply described as perception. .
Experience of space is where intuitions, or given perceptions, are from. Space is a priori because a condition of any possible experience is for the things which are being experienced to exist in space. Space is an essential element for experience because without space, experience is not possible. Also experience must happen in time. Time exists only if there is someone to experience it. With this rough overview of the transcendental aesthetic now we may move on to the three synthesis of the transcendental deduction.
Important to understand is that Kant's three synthesis are actually the same single synthesis being described in different ways. It could be looked at as the different aspects of a single explanation. Kant states that an a priori concept may relate to an object, however, may not relate to experience. In order for "a priori" concepts to exist, nothing can be derived from experience. Rather, these a priori concepts serve as the conditions that any experience rests upon. "Synthesis" means the act of combining something. The three synthesis to be discussed can be thought of as a priori conceptual synthesis which serve as experience conditions.
