ANSWER
Kant argued that our experience of the world isn’t a direct reflection of reality “as it is” (the noumenal world), but is shaped by innate mental structures or “categories” (like time, space, and causality). These categories act as filters, organizing sensory data into a coherent, intelligible experience (the phenomenal world). In short, we don’t perceive raw reality; we perceive reality as structured by our minds. This means the world we know is, in part, a product of our cognitive framework.