Introduction

Abstract

A standing problem in philosophy is the problem of relating the empirical with what is supposed to transcend experience. But the problem of transcendence in relation to experience — in other words, the relation of the empirical with the trans-empirical — seems to take a particularly acute shape in modern non-speculative philosophy, or Critical philosophy since Kant. Not prepossessed by the task of constructing a metaphysical system of “First Principles”, critical philosophy at large has been, in one way or other, preoccupied with the major problem of establishing a necessary link between the empirical and the non- empirical. The latter, however, is not a priori posited as the realm of supersensible realities. For critical philosophy would depend neither on pure rationalizing nor on deductive procedure out of certain postulates and general principles.