L'absolu et le relatif : le statut des concepts modaux dans le discours transcendantal
This paper deals with the three modal categories : possibility, necessity and contingency, as they are used not so much at the level of experience as at the level of the transcendental discourse that describes the conditions of the “possibility” of this experience. We notice for instance that the principles of the Analytic of the CPR are without doubt conditions sine qua non for experience, that is: “necessary,” but also that the implementation of those among the principles that are called dynamic is “contingent.” What does that mean? One can also examine the recourse by Kant to the adjective “supreme” (oberst, B 136) to characterize the two ultimate principles of human knowledge: 1- the subjection of all the manifold of intuition to the formal conditions of space and time and 2- the subjection of this manifold to the transcendental apperception. Can the word supreme here have another meaning than “absolute”?
Kant Modal categories Transcendental discourse Supreme principle