Kantian Derivitives, pt.2

The Kantian thesis that if there is an external reality, in the objective sense, it must lie outside of our intellection and therefore be wholly unknowable; even to be known if it exists or not is impossible.

This thesis seems quite admissible, for everything which we experience is in some sense or another a manner of relation - that is, of ourselves to another. These relations are manifested in extension, wherein dimension and depth are functions of relations of perspective; in qualities of the senses in general, as the formerly termed secondary qualities, functions of relations between waves, particles, strings, etc.

So the correctness of the Kantian thesis might be stated: We never experience anything which is without relation. Or, what we experience must involve within it relations. This is the more metaphysical derivative of the thesis of Kant.

But we may all acknowledge this thesis, in fact, we do all acknowledge it. We might all accept it when restated as: Every being has a certain character of experience according to its manner of relation to other beings - ie. the manner in which it relates. The thought: Rose Glasses as perceivers, not veils. So then it seems unquestionably true that all of our experience is conditioned by the subject of the experience, namely us.

But we must realize that there is something over which the subject of experience does not have 'control' - the possibilities of what is experienced. That is, that it may appear to us in such a fashion. For the allowance of appearance is by no means dependent on our experience, which Kant recognized in positing our minds as that which makes experience possible - that is, what makes experience possible is not what is experienced.