Kant on the “conditions of the possibility” of experience

Abstract

This chapter focuses on a famous expression in the first Critique, “the conditions of the possibility of experience,” in order to set out some features of Kant’s conception of transcendental philosophy. It is then suggested that transcendental philosophy does not essentially transcend the limits that it sets to this knowledge. In the first Critique Kant regards experience as a mere “possibility.” The Critique also explains that the human understanding cannot conceive of an absolute possibility, but only a relative one, namely a possibility that is tied to conditions. And possible experience as a whole is no exception here. This also means that experience, as a mere possibility, is “contingent.” The most important transcendental conditions for this experience, that is the dynamic principles, are then themselves “contingent.” Consequently, these transcendental conditions are not unconditioned. Kant renounces the standpoint of the absolute for his philosophical discourse.