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How did Kant distinguish between knowledge that begins with experience and knowledge that arises from experience?

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Painting by Joseph Aubert of Saint Thomas Aquinas seated with a book, wearing a halo and black and white robes, surrounded by ornate patterns in St. Stephens Church, Jerusalem. — Western philosophy Painting of scholastic philosopher St. Thomas of Aquinas by Joseph Aubert, 1900.

In Western philosophy, Immanuel Kant distinguished between knowledge derived from experience and knowledge that is independent of it through the concepts of a posteriori and a priori knowledge.1

A posteriori knowledge is derived from experience. Such judgments are contingent, meaning they are dependent on sensory data and may acknowledge possible exceptions. Examples include observations like "the cat is on the mat".12
A priori knowledge is acquired independently of any particular experience. These judgments hold universally and are considered necessary truths.1

Kant’s central philosophical project was to explain the possibility of synthetic a priori propositions—knowledge that is not merely explicative of concepts (like "all bachelors are unmarried") but provides new information while remaining independent of experience. He argued that such knowledge is possible because the human mind is not a passive observer; rather, it imposes specific "forms" and "categories" on the data of experience.123

By contributing structures like space, time, and causality, the mind makes experience intelligible, thereby allowing us to know necessary truths about the world as it appears to us (phenomena).32