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2) By universal conditions of experience we intend laws that are part of every experience,
and so the determination of the connection (in the actual) is by laws which apply to every
experience. Some may doubt that we can prove such laws, and this is due to a
misunderstanding of what is being attempted.
A frequent way of misunderstanding Kant comes along with the following objection: when
we find a rule in our experience, it is always due to some regularity that we discover; these
regularities - being empirical - can never be known necessarily. The response Kant has for
this is to grant the whole argument; it is perfectly accurate to say that we acquire empirical
rules from regularities in experience, however, we are granting that there are such things as
regularities. The universal conditions of experience are general characterizations of regularity
in general - not any particular regularity.
Considering our example, objects that fall are not in every experience, and so 'falling' is not
a universal condition of experience, however, a) that we can relate the multiple
representations to the same object, and b) that the order of these representations is able to
have a significance, are not due to generalizations on witnessing objects fall (or doing
anything particular). That is, for a), there is nothing about the representations that show that
they are of the same object, and if we did not have the capacity to relate representations, then
we would never have objects that take up more than one moment of perception; and, for b), if
we could not judge that there was significance in the temporal order of two representations,
then there would be no significance to an object falling that would be distinct from an object
rising: for an object falling, or rising, we have the same representations, only the order is
significant; if we couldn't recognize significance in an order, then we couldn't say something
was occurring (falling being a kind of occurrence). The former of these connections Kant
refers to as the category of Substance, the later the category of Causality.
Here when we see the falling object, the necessary judgments involved are that the
representations relate to the same object, and that the representations are in a definite
sequence. This is the same as saying that the actual (representations) are thought under
conditions that apply in every experience (universal conditions of experience), which means
conditions required in every experience. Here these conditions were that an object
experienced over time involves representations related to each other both as a single thing,
and in a certain sequence. If something can't be shown to be a part of every experience, and
as a form of that experience generally (pertaining to regularity in the broadest sense), then it
is also not necessary.
Anything that is empirical is automatically excluded from the necessary, since it is the
empirical that is made possible (for us to observe) in an experience that has regularities. If
experience had no regularity, generally, then observation itself would be impossible.
If we review Kant's definition again, it should make more sense: "That which in its
connection with the actual is determined in accordance with universal conditions of
experience is (that is, exists as) necessary."
An additional note can be made here that offers a great deal of added clarity: the categories
of Modality (possibility, existence, necessity) do not involve determinations of objects as
they are in themselves, but merely different ways in which objects are thought in relation to
our way of knowing them. So, by saying we know something be necessity, we are saying that
we know it by virtue of (and as) a general sort of pure regularity of experience. We can not
claim that we know whatever judgment we made was necessary to make (such as,
recognizing something falling), but rather that in experiencing (something falling) there are a
regularity in it that could not first be learned from experiences, since experiences already
have some degree of regularity.