EXISTENCE

[A171/B220] Kant writes that the Analogies of Experience are concerned "with the existence of...appearances and their relation to one another in respect of existence....Since existence cannot be constructed, the principles can apply only to the relations of existence, and can yield only regulative principles. We cannot, therefore, expect either axioms or anticipations" about the existence of appearances. Perhaps Kant means something like this: According to him, our knowledge of existence is limited to knowledge of the relations among "given" objects. We can only apply a coherence criterion of existence, that is, analyze relations obtaining among given appearances and conclude that some are actual and others are not. Apart from the bare knowledge that they must exist in some sense, we cannot know anything about the existence of either the "transcendental object=x" which an appearance represents, nor about the "affecting objects" which" provoke the receptivity into producing intuitions--about things beyond the transcendentally ideal realm of appearances, we can have knowledge neither about what things exist nor about why they exist. Thus: (A226/B274) "Our knowledge of the existence of things reaches...only so far as perception and its advance according to empirical laws can extend".

The assertion that a thing is, not what it is as a concept of essence. For existentialists, existence is mere consciousness and precedes essence. It is like a man who finds himself existing and then by a deliberate choice and act becomes essence. See Authentic existence ; Struggle for existence ; and Self-existence