Immanuel Kant

Basic Kantian Terms A POSTERIORI (to come after in time): That which follows upon or depends upon sense experience; a knowledge of things which cannot be arrived at or deduced from definitions alone. E.g., if it is raining today I could not know that fact simply by knowing the definitions of "rain," "today," etc. I must learn about it by either observing it for myself or having some other observer convey the information to me. A PRIORI (prior to in time): That which comes before sense experience; that which does not require sense knowledge to be known as true. Cf. "armchair" mathematicians. E.g., I know a circle is round by definition, even if I had never seen a circle in my life. Unit 4: Modern Philosophy Activity 6: Kant Source: F. F. Centore. A Brief Philosophical Lexicon

ANALYTIC STATEMENT: (see A Priori). APPEARANCE (ad-parere; to come forward and show yourself): That which shows itself in any way, either to the senses or to the mind. Cf. PHENOMENON (phainein; to show). CONTINGENT (com—tangere; to touch upon): That which need not be the case; something which could be otherwise; the accidental; something which just happens to be the case. NOUMENA: The thing in-itself, as opposed to the PHENOMENA, which is the thing as it appears to us. The noumena is unknowable, according to Kant.

UNIVERSAL (unus—vertere; one turn): Covering the whole; taking into account the entire situation, etc. In logic, a UNIVERSAL PROPOSITION is one which states something about the nature of the subject, e.g., the statement "All men are mortal" tells us that it is of the nature of humans to be liable to death; to be a human is to be liable to death. This means that the predicate, in this case "mortal," must apply to each and every possible case considered under the subject term, "men." Thus the use of "all" is justified.

Recall that in Aristotle, the categories were categories of real being. The tree is really a substance existing outside the mind, as well as its space and time, relation, quantity and quality, etc.

With Kant we see a 180 degree reversal. The categories become conditions for the possibility of knowing anything. They exist as forms inside the mind. It is the mind that gives substance to what it knows. It is the mind that provides the notion of necessity, and cause and effect, etc. As a result, all we know are things as they appear to us, not as they are in themselves.

The situation can be compared to a man who has always worn glasses with a pink tint. If he has never taken them off, the world appears to him as pink. All white things are really pink. He does not know the colors of things in themselves (noumena), but only as they appear to him (phenomena).