Constitutive
Constitutive
Of the essential nature; internal; component; inherent. Internal relations are constitutive because they are integral parts or elements of the natures which they relate, whereas external, non-constitutive relations may be altered without change in the essential natures of the related entities.
In KantWhatever enters into the structure of actual experience. Thus, the categories are constitutive of knowledge of nature because they are necessary conditions of any experience or knowledge whatever. In contrast, the transcendent Ideas (God, the total Cosmos, and the immortal Soul) are not constitutive of anything, since they do not serve to define or compose real objects, and must be restricted to a regulative and speculative use. See Crit. of Pure Reason, Transc. Dialectic, Bk. II, ch. II, Sec. 8. — O.F.K.