apperception

What it means

1. especiallyuncountableKantianismThe mind's perception of itself as the subject or actor in its own states, unifying past and present experiences; self-consciousness, perception that reflects upon itself.
2. uncountablePsychological or mental perception; recognition.

   For as she smiled I was gifted a glimpse past the apperception of an anonymous spherical quantity of human flesh; and into the individual.

   2009, Adam Roberts, Yellow Blue Tibia

   1 more example

   Conception is... the simplest act of thinking; it is the apprehension of the universal, as perception is the apperception of the particular.

   1887, John Dewey, Psychology

3. countablehuman sciencesThe general process or a particular act of mental assimilation of new experience into the totality of one's past experience.

In a sentence

Conception is... the simplest act of thinking; it is the apprehension of the universal, as perception is the apperception of the particular.

1887, John Dewey, Psychology

Where it comes from

1. Frenchaperception
2. Englishapperception

Borrowed from French aperception (New Latin apperceptiō, used by Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716)).