The term "metaphysics" still confuses me
I must have looked up this word at least 10 times. Here's what comes up:
So how can something be a "first principal"? Do you agree with google or not?
When people say "that's meta" in daily usage, they're usually talking about something in a philosophical sense...like the general characteristics, or the bigger narrative behind something. If that's what metaphysics are in philosophy, then metaphysics is a rendundant term.
the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
So how can something be a "first principal"? Do you agree with google or not?
When people say "that's meta" in daily usage, they're usually talking about something in a philosophical sense...like the general characteristics, or the bigger narrative behind something. If that's what metaphysics are in philosophy, then metaphysics is a rendundant term.
Comments (261)
For example, "which propositions are true?" is not a metaphysical question. But "what is truth?" is.
"Which propositions are known?" is not a metaphysical question. But "what is knowledge?" is.
"Which actions are right and which ones wrong?" is not a metaphysical question. But 'what is rightness?' is.
And so on. I think the same distinction is drawn by talking about 'first order' questions and 'second order' questions, where the latter are about the nature of the subject matter of the first.
The word 'meta' originally meant 'after', but I think it has subsequently come to mean the above.
I thought “meta” referred to self-referential discourse.
It comes from 'metaphysics' which was simply the title given to one of Aristotle's treatises - the one that came 'after the physics'.
In philosophy it is the study of what things are, in and of themselves.
So this discussion is a metaphysical discussion?
How ever it came to be called "Metaphysics", that book is concerned with "being as being" and whether there could be such an investigation.
It denoted its placement in an order, not its subject matter.
I was not arguing against that idea. It is a received opinion. I figure we cannot know for sure. What the writing talks about is the best indication of its meaning.
It is a properly of the act of wantonly killing another that it is wrong. But that is not a metaphysical claim, though the fact acts can have that property may tell us something about what wrongness itself is. And that - the investigation of what wrongness is, in and of itself, is metaphysical.
That's not what the word means today. In philosophy it has come to mean the study of the nature of things - so, what something is in and of itself (partly no doubt as a result of the content of the treatise that had been so-labelled). Not that there are any strict rules about it and not that there isn't room for some dispute over exactly when an area of philosophical inquiry becomes metaphysical (there is room for that).
So then how is this not a metaphysical discussion on metaphysics? I only asked because trying to remember the definition kept alluding me, but a full duscussion, mostly, would give me a lasting idea of how to use the word.
But it's really important to grasp the Aristotelian origin - which is not easy to do as Aristotle is a very big subject. But the reason it's necessary, is because metaphysics is not just anyone's 'theory about what is real' or 'anything which isn't explainable in terms of physics'. It starts out with Aristotle's efforts to define terms and basic concepts rigorously. These were then laid out in a number of books (14 volumes in all!) Not that we can be expected to plough through all this content. But it's important to get some idea of where it started, otherwise talk of metaphysics easily degenates into vacuous phrases.
Maybe check out this lecture or the entries on Aristotle: Metaphysics at the Internet and Stanford Encyclopedias of Philosophy.
"What does the word 'metaphysics' mean?" is not a metaphysical question. I'm not doing philosophy in answering it, I'm just trying to explain what it means in philosophy (though with the caveat that there will be grey areas). It means the study of what things are, in and of themselves. I don't think it can be captured any better than that.
Or read the book itself. If one wants to swim, jump into the pool.
Imagine 'The House Next Door' is the title someone gives to a book I wrote about the composition and appearance of the house next door.
Subsequently 'Thehousenextdoor' becomes a word that starts to be systematically used to refer to what a house - any house - may be made of.
Well, it would be quite misguided to think that one gains insight into what the word 'thehousenextdoor' means by reading the original work that gave the world the word, for then one would believe it is exclusively about what a particular house is made of, plus about its appearance.
Words change their meaning over time. It is of philosophy pub-quiz use to know that the word's origin came from its being used to denote a particular book's placement in an author's list of works.
That is a good translation. Apostle is also good.
Are you suggesting that reading the actual book would be misguided?
The word 'cartoon' originally referred to a kind of paper on which artists would draw the outline of a painting for transfer onto wood or canvas.
Then it came to refer to the actual depiction - the working drawing itself.
Then it came to refer to, well, what we call cartoons today.
But if you want to know what 'cartoon' means it would be quite misguided to suggest going and looking at drawings by Raphael or a paper mill in Italy.
It's not 'the etymological fallacy'. Certainly the word 'metaphysics' has acquired many meanings over time but, especially in this case, it's important to have a clear grasp of what it originally meant, as it's a highly complex subject. Which means that a very large percentage of what is written in popular sources about metaphysics is mush.
There's another way into the subject also, which is that certain philosophica and scientific issues raise metaphysical questions. Classics include the interpretation of the wave-function in quantum physics, and whether abstract entities like numbers are real and if so in what sense. But those questions provide a specific focus, which poorly formed 'what is metaphysic?' questions do not.
The etymological fallacy occurs when someone argues that the current meaning of a word is determined by its original or historical meaning, yes?
Metaphysics is the study of what things are, in and of themselves.
Thanks, but I choose my sources carefully. [/s]
What I mean is - 'what is a "thing?" What does "exist" mean? Does "exist" and "real" have the same meaning? - and so on. These are metaphysical questions, that sound straightforward, but they need a framework in which to be discussed. That is provided by the literature.
Quoting R.G. Collingwood - An Essay on Metaphysics
Here's what he says about absolute presuppositions:
An understanding of what is meant by "absolute presupposition" is at the heart of this approach. As I understand it, its two most important aspects are 1) that its application can be limited, as Collingwood notes, to specific people, at a particular time, for a particular purpose. And 2) that it can be neither true nor false. The value that an absolute presupposition has is dependent on it's usefulness for a particular purpose, not its truth value.
There's obviously a lot more to say about this. I'll try to give an example of what this means in a clearer context. I've taken this from E.A. Burtt's "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science." A great book. It's his summary of the changes that took place in scientific metaphysics during the 1600s with the work of Copernicus, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, and all those other guys.
One more thing--If you want a quick overview of all the things "metaphysics" might mean, this is a link to an old discussion. In the OP I lay out a bunch of definitions then in the first few posts, others put in their own $0.02 worth.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12096/what-is-metaphysics-yet-again/p1
they all matter though...even though cartoons today are now more than likely computer generated, it's still basically the same thing as the series of drawings.
Good links, "Metaphysics" is on my reading list for ancient philosophy, yet viewing some preliminary materials will probably help me understand it better...
(2020)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/526452
It’s rare for someone to go back and look into old threads. The one I linked is four years old. There have been lots of threads on metaphysics in the interim. I wouldn’t have linked it except I thought the interactions among posters on that first page would be helpful to get an overview of how different people think about the subject. As you can see, I was sort of trying to do the same thing that you’re doing here.
Metaphysics is hard. Almost nobody agrees on what it actually means. That’s why I was pleased to find Collingwood. I found something that suits me and I can stick with it and don’t have to rethink it every time this subject comes up.
When it comes to ethics I am interested in metaethics, which is more or less looking at the fundaments of what ethics means, how valid it is and what alternative perspectives there are of looking at behaviours and ideas considered as ethical that can be framed as something apart or a part of ethics.
Think of it as what aliens would do if they came across a TV for the first time. They would explore its function, purpose and what it consists of. They may never figure out its use doing so but they would certainly be able to discover a lot about the object before them.
There is a lot of jargon across academia. I think when it comes to the sciences and philosophy it is often needed. Beyond that it is just pure obfuscation used in an attempt to make something look intellectual-- Foucault, Heidegger and Derrida are some examples of this in philosophy. That is not to say just because people do it they mean to always fool the reader, but some do, and themselves too just as often.
It is a lesson in being concise so as not to trick youself. If you find the term useless do not use it and question it when you see it used. I have struggled with the very same issue as you too. Just stay alert and keep questioning what people mean and if they are really saying anything at all :)
I was thinking about this some more. The thing about metaphysics for me is that it’s the most useful idea I’ve ever come across. It colors all of my understandings about, not only philosophy, but everything conceptual and intellectual.
So, that’s what I’d say to you, find a definition of metaphysics that you can use as a tool.
Even more so, I think of metaphysics (ontology) as a synoptic, rational study (contemplation) of fundamental (a priori) questions (aporia) ... from which axiology (ethics, aesthetics) and epistemology (phronesis-praxis) can be derived within constraints (a posteriori) via philosophical discourses (e.g. poetics, dialectics, critiques, hermeneutics, experiments, etc).
What is the way to understand what 'metaphysics' means? Listen to @Clarendon says on it?
I like that answer because it opens up ancient through to modern iterations without putting a finger on the scale regarding them.
That's an excellent quotation.
Quoting ProtagoranSocratist
Dictionaries are a good starting-point, but are also often not particularly helpful. The list of topics suggests that metaphysics is defined by its subject-matter. The quotation from Wilfrid Sellars in @180 Proof's post above expands on this by giving the questions, not just the topics. But what really distinguishes metaphysics is how you set about answering the questions - methodology. But don't look for an explanation of the methodology - watch how people conduct their discussions. You'll get some idea from that and then you can build on that by joining in.
A good idea is to look at what people discussing metaphysics are talking about and how they are talking about it. You could even ask a question or two.
You'll have gathered that it is a contentious question, and that there are people who think metaphysics doesn't exist or is an illusion. (I admit I am among them.) I think you'll find it most helpful to look around for books and articles that discuss the topics listed and try to make sense of those. (Google will help, but choose carefully. There's good stuff out there, but also lots of rubbish.)
The most important thing is to see what the questions are. There's a famous hint from St. Augustine. He said that he knew fine what time is until he asked himself what it is and found he could not explain it. That puzzlement about something that is entirely familiar and everyday is what motivates philosophy - in my opinion, of course.
I wish you good hunting!
The claim that metaphysics is empty (‘otiose’ was Ayer’s term) is itself a metaphysical claim. That’s basically what sunk the positivists. I think some of the bad rap metaphysics gets is because of its repetition by those who repeat it in slogan form without really grasping it.
...it would seem you're right if very vague things can't really exist (which is usually how i navigate information in general), but what I've gotten so far is that metaphysics is either very basic knowledge about a thing...like, what separates a tortoise from a non-tortoise...or maybe as the guy in the you tube video that @Wayfarer posted is implies, something that's in the realm of super-human knowledge that can't really be known. Other than that, I guess I'll keep intercepting information about metaphysics until I no longer do.
But as for 'super-human knowledge' - this is a delicate question. There are hints in Aristotle and other ancient sources, of the experience of higher states of awareness in which something vital about truth is grasped. You find allusions to it in the writings of St Augustine. It is also encountered in Eastern sources (Hindu and Buddhist) that refer to samadhi states. A lof of ancient metaphysics have these references but they're very difficult to interpret. And also, the subject is prone to a lot of sensationalism by popular writers who are seeking to exploit them.
In today's culture, because these insights are categorised along with religion then they're generally disregarded or deprecated.
Actually now that I think of it, I have a .pdf of a very good, recent textbook on metaphysics. It's not that big of a book, but well worth reading if only the intro section, and the section on Plato. Any questions, please feel free to bring them up here, as it's on-topic.
Thinking Being: An Introduction to Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition, Eric Perl.
Your advice was very good on the Burtt book, so I’ll definitely give it a look.
I'm trying to give up arguments of that form. I used to love them, but I've come to appreciate how important it is to understand that arguments fully before dismissing them. I can't resist pointing out that, by their definition of "empty", they were correct. Which possibly means they missed the point.
For myself, I am stuck in that I cannot see that it matters greatly whether you say that the concept of matter is meaningless or that matter doesn't exist. In other words, de re and de dicto are, in a sense, images of each other. For all my criticism of idealism, in the end, I think that there is nothing that idealists cannot say in the language they allow themselves that realists cannot say in the language they claim for themselves. So perhaps it comes to a question of what hangs on the issue, if anything.
Quoting Wayfarer
It's difficult, though. Either one has to refute a generic form of idealism, which will likely consist of mostly slogans, or one has to refute a specific idealism, which leaves the rest unrefuted. It is perfectly clear that metaphysics has not finished, and that fact sends its own message. The anti-metaphysics of the early 20th century is not the first of its kind and I'm sure it will not be the last. A slogan - "The most fundamental problem in metaphysics is whether metaphysics exists". :smile:
Quoting ProtagoranSocratist
The most important thing I was trying to say was that you are unlikely to find a good definition of metaphysics and then go on to study it. The trick is to get involved in the discussions and let the definition take care of itself. The discussions are much more interesting anyway.
Quoting Wayfarer
The problem is that it is very hard to sort out the false from the true, the helpful from the unhelpful. In the end one has to look at their effect on the lives of those who take them seriously. That means their lives beyond the experiences themselves.
That's not what he was suggesting. He was disagreeing with Wayfarer that the best place to start is by reading Aristotle, which is perspective from two thousand, three hundred years ago. He prefers a more contemporary starting point. What's your stance?
Well asked. :up:
The odd thing is that in asking the question, one also answers it. (emoticon of scratching head in bewilderment - the classical philosophical position.)
Metaphysics asks those questions we don’t need to know the answer to, but which we are curious to know the answer to.
All WH questions are open ended and used to gain knowledge, but some WH questions are metaphysical and some aren’t. Metaphysical questions ask questions that we don't need to know the answer to because they have no import on our ability to live our lives, but only ask out of intellectual curiosity.
1 “Where is Paris?” is not a metaphysical question, as we need to know that Paris is in France when planning a holiday.
2 “When does the train arrive?” is not a metaphysical question, as we need to know this when trying to get to work.
3 “How does a rocket get off the ground?” is not a metaphysical question, as the rocket scientist needs to know the answer.
4 “What is the time?” is not a metaphysical question, as we may need to know the correct time when catching a train, but "what is time?” is a metaphysical question, as knowing the nature of time is irrelevant to the question “what is the time?”.
5 “Who is Aristotle?” is not a metaphysical question if the answer is “Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher”, but is a metaphysical question if the questioner is wanting to know his underlying philosophical identity, as knowing his underlying philosophical identity is irrelevant to knowing his philosophy.
6 “Why does a rock fall to the ground?” is not a metaphysical question if the answer is “because if follows the law of nature that d = 0.5 f t²”, but it is a metaphysical question if the questioner is wanting to know “why is d = 0.5 f t²”, as knowing why d = 0.5 f t² is irrelevant to knowing that d = 0.5 f t².
As described, metaphysics is over and above the axioms of physics. Physics only needs to know that certain axioms work, whereas metaphysics wants to know why these particular axioms work. Knowing why certain axioms work is not something that Physics needs to know.
Unfortunately, the very name metaphysics contains the seeds of its own destruction. For example, the fundamentals of language can only be understood using a meta language, something external to language itself. But when this meta language uses language itself, an impossible conundrum results. Similarly, the fundamentals of (physical) concepts can only be understood using meta concepts, something external to the concepts themselves. When these meta concepts use the same concepts as the concepts being investigated, another impossible situation arises.
Or at the very least, presupposes the possibility of it. From there, it’s legitimate to propose a theory under which it may be described.
Maybe so. I started with Bertrand Russell's book on the history of philosophy. He's engaging and really funny.
My reason for responding to @Clarendon was because I thought Clarendon might be committing the same fallacy he's accusing @Wayfarer of, but not noticing it because it has been used for less time.
I.e. to ascribe a real meaning to "metaphysics" such that one can say "That's not how to understand 'understand metaphysics" is to simply point to a different body of texts that define it differently, rather than to argue for why that's the better way.
Given my various stances on metaphysics I've said it's a similar bubble-popping method that I'm employing.
Sure, but I think sending someone who's asked about metaphysics to read Aristotle is nuts.
Metaphysics is about the nature of reality. It's pretty simple.
I think it's not so easy to define, but I agree with your assertion that metaphysics is about the nature of reality.
"Being qua being" would be the Aristotelian approach, as I understand his metaphysics.
I suppose really I just want to highlight that even giving a suggestion for a starting point -- be it a quick and easy definition or a reference to a historical text -- is the sort of thing which metaphysics can question, which is why it's hard to define.
I understand that instinct, but to reject Aristotle on the subject while comparing him to cartoons is to misunderstand the subject.
That would probably be true if metaphysics was just something interesting to talk about as opposed to something really important and useful that has important consequences.
The contents of this thread, and all the other metaphysics threads, demonstrate it’s not simple at all, although it could be if everyone would just agree with me.
Now what?
Nobody was really doing that though, they were just pointing out that his writing is where the term originated...
I watched the entire hour and 14 minute video that Wayfarer posted on the book last night: it's a decent synopsis. Some of Aristotle's ideas are very clear, others are vague and confusing chains of logic. It's interesting to know also that "Metaphysics" isn't even a precise way to label his book, it's terminology after the fact.
If you’ve read many of my posts, you know the subject of metaphysics comes up all the time. A large portion of the fruitless arguments here on the forum result from lack of metaphysical clarity.
Now what?—Use it.
So true. Probably the best way to understand metaphysics is to read Otto Von Simpson's book on the philosophy of gothic cathedrals. Ars sine scientia nihil est. Yay! It's complicated!
:up:
You left out the most important thing—the “agree with me” part.
Yup. That much is good to note, I think, because it shows how Aristotle isn't the arbiter of metaphysics, but rather the term was developed over time and became to mean something.
That goes without saying.
First principle, in that these are concepts that are not simply compounds of other concepts. Diamond is a hard sparkly carbon substance, but substance itself, is just substance. We might look up diamond in a dictionary if we were unfamiliar with them, but we cannot look up substance. The definition only tries to codify our pre-existing intuitions of what substance is. If we lacked that intuition somehow, the definition would be meaningless to us.
This is what I take 'first principal' to mean. Not something that is necessarily ontologically basic. But something that is conceptually basic, the mental building blocks from which we build more complex conceptual structures, such as "wedding ring". Trivial seeming, but an intricate compound of the concepts 'marriage', 'diamond', 'ring', 'wealth', 'commitment', etc. And each of these are themselves compound. Because it is compound, discussion of "wedding ring" is not metaphysical, it is definitional, practical, cultural. Whereas, if you break these concepts down, you hit a kind of bedrock, where you find concepts like being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
These concepts cannot be broken down definitionally. They can only be philosophized, by creatively, artfully constructing a definition, which involves creating a deeper conceptual space into which these seemingly primordial concepts are placed. This is metaphysics.
Why is it redundant?
Metaphysics is truly a tricky concept. There is actually a short clip where Michael Gorman talks about waiting in line at the store: 23:55. That is one example of a shift into a metaphysical mode of thinking. Although metaphysics has lots of different related definitions, it has to do with thinking about real things in a deeper way, and this means thinking about their deeper commonalities. So when you are at the store and instead of just grabbing, buying, and leaving, you stop to think about the whole concept of a market, or of trade, or of money, etc., then you are shifting into a more metaphysical register. Metaphysics is not some hermetically sealed compartment that is distinct from all other compartments of thinking. It is more a kind of valence or mode or abstraction that occurs in thinking.
(Different thinkers cash this out in different ways, but given what I infer about your background I think Gorman's example of standing in line at the store might be more helpful than a deep dive into Husserl, for example.)
Because philosophy primarily speaks of things in generalities as well, but ignore that comment, i was just thinking aloud
Quoting Leontiskos
Yep, that's aristotle's book "metaphysics" in a nut shell, an early version of taxonomy in biology and chemistry classifications.
That's sort of right, but the reason it's not simple is this. If metaphysics is about the nature of reality, then what is not metaphysics? What activities do we engage in that are unrelated to reality? Or that are not about reality or its nature?
Given that everything is reality and nothing is not reality, if metaphysics exists at all then it must represent a more subtle distinction. Or else it must distinguish the more real from the less real (or something like that).
But this is correct. Metaphysics and philosophy do have a strange overlap; a strange redundancy.
Quoting ProtagoranSocratist
Actually Aristotle's Metaphysics is precisely not about classifications in biology or chemistry. In some sense, for Aristotle, metaphysics is about the sort of classifications that apply equally to biology and chemistry (and physics and every other particular area of study). Metaphysics is about the non-particular. What sort of things tie all particular disciplines together? Things like 'being', 'truth', 'God', etc. So metaphysics can reasonably be understood as the "height" of generalization and abstraction, where we are considering concepts that are applicable to literally everything (i.e. being qua being). Yet my point was that every time we shift in the direction of increased generalization and abstraction (or "depth"), we are shifting into a more metaphysical mode.
:up:
Yea. It's about ultimate truth, which is why I brought up gothic cathedrals. Metaphysics is tinged with the idea that we're finding a hidden, but grand truth about what's right under our feet.
Quoting frank
I don’t get it. If it’s so simple why have people been arguing about it for thousands of years with no resolution in sight—just going around and around and around.
Materialism, realism, idealism, anti-realism, existentialism, stoicism, nihilism, empiricism, rationalism, utilitarianism, and all the other isms—do you really think one of those is right and all the rest are wrong?
I recommend “Introduction to Metaphysics,” by Heidegger. Don’t let his reputation dissuade you; it’s worth the read.
The trouble is that, when we come to looking for an answer, we find it very difficult to articulate one that acquires the consensus that needs to coalesce around a truth. That's why it is different from science.
Quoting T Clark
Yes. Perhaps we would do well to spend more time articulating why the questions are so important and what important consequences answers have.
Quoting T Clark
World peace! Yay! But the end of all the fun and excitement of doing philosophy. It'll be hard to wean people off that.
Quoting Leontiskos
I'll buy the scope of the concepts that fall under metaphysics and consequently that very high levels of abstraction are in play. That's the problem. We think our ordinary ways of talking about concepts are going to work for us. But they don't. I'll push your metaphor further and claim that the height of abstraction is such that it has no oxygen - that is, it's a problem, not a feature.
Quoting frank
I know what truth is (except when I'm doing metaphysics). But what's ultimate truth?
Quoting T Clark
Long ago I remember reading a piece by Isaiah Berlin about philosophy (reference forgotten) that claimed that philosophy is about all the questions that nobody knows how to answer. That caught my attention and eventually sucked me into philosophy. It would explain the phenomena.
Quoting T Clark
You've got a point there. So it may be that truth or falsity isn't the issue. I've got time for the idea that metaphysics is about how to interpret - think about - the world and life and Grand Questions. Truth is beside the point or perhaps not the whole point.
Quoting Wayfarer
Perhaps we need to consider positivism in its context - which is the development in physics of some really mad theories. Many philosophers dismissed them out of hand - and they were not wrong. Positivism set up a framework - instrumentalism - that provided a justification for pursuing them even though they were clearly impossible. That focus is what led to the sharp distinction between descriptive, factual, true-or-false statements and the rest. Physics was true to its mission and defined a boundary that enabled the project to proceed. Perhaps that's an example of what @T Clark meant when he talked about metaphysics as "something really important and useful that has important consequences". I'm not sure that physics has yet abandoned it, so perhaps talking of it as sunk is a bit premature.
For example, the speed of light is a fundamental constant in nature, and is known to be 299 792 458 m / s. Physics knows that the speed of light is constant and is universal. Physics may ask why a constant and why a universal, but in order to undertake physics, physics does not need to know the answers to these questions. Metaphysics is concerned with those questions about the nature of reality that physics does not need to know the answer to.
Metaphysics asks questions, such as why does light exist, why does it have the specific value it has, why is its speed universal throughout the Universe, what does it mean to be universal, what exactly is a space encompassing 299 792 458 metres, what exactly is a time of one second, what does the number 299 792 458 mean and how does the mind know about things such as space, time, numbers and universals.
So we can ask these metaphysical questions, such as “do universals exist”, but as FH Bradley wrote "metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct" and as Wittgenstein wrote "most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical".
Metaphysical questions and answers only exist in language, and the truth of a proposition can never be discovered within language. It is not the case that “the apple is on the table is true” but rather “the apple is on the table” is true IFF the apple is on the table. Truth transcends language. Not only is it the case that it is logically impossible to discover the truth of a metaphysical answer within philosophical language, it is also logically impossible to know whether the metaphysical question itself is valid. As both Bradley and Wittgenstein infer, truth, including metaphysical truth, cannot be discovered within language.
If metaphysical truth cannot be discovered with philosophical language, then we need to look elsewhere for metaphysical truths.
It would help to bear in mind the question for which an answer is sought. If it is the case that answers sustained by experience determinable through science, are vastly more consensual than answers sustained by logical speculation determinable through metaphysics, it follows that the questions related to the one are very different than the questions related to the other.
While it is true metaphysics cannot be a science in the sense of the established empirical sciences, there is no contradiction in treating metaphysics scientifically, that is, in accordance with basic principles as grounds for its speculative maneuvers.
A human does, after all, use his one brain to ask vastly different kinds of questions, which presupposes the brain’s capacity for addressing either one. Mathematics is sufficient proof, in that for what reason proposes from itself metaphysically, experience proves with apodeictic certainty naturally.
Otherwise, how well the address in general, is another matter entirely. Like….you know…gods and stuff. And that gadawful notion of possible worlds. (Sigh)
How do we achieve or pursue metaphysical clarity?
After 3,000 years I would, and do, suspect there are no answers to the questions.
Quoting Ludwig V
I think this is exactly right. It's at the heart of what metaphysics means to me. This is what I posted back on the first page of this thread:
Quoting R.G. Collingwood - An Essay on Metaphysics
Here's what he says about absolute presuppositions:
Geez, now you're going to make me put my money where my mouth is. I'll take a first swing at it. Here are some characteristics of metaphysically clear writing:
As I noted, this is a first take. I don't like it much. Definitely needs work. Beyond what's on the list, just general good writing rules also apply.
I've been listening to William James recently. He writes wonderfully clearly about metaphysics. I'll think more about what I like about his work to tighten up my thoughts.
actually, based on my research this isn't accurate. Earlier, i only said that aristotle presented an earlier version of classification for the natural scienes. Having read small sections of "Metaphysics", the similarities in thought became pretty clear to me, so I just assumed that book supplied the basic logic for taxonomy classifications since I've heard before in my schooling that Aristotle formed the basis for modern sciences. They never taught us anything substantive about aristotle, but I saw the connection in reading a few paragraphs of metaphysics online...
https://journal-redescriptions.org/articles/10.33134/rds.314
They can be, though. Elements aren't elemental, they can be further broken down into more basic particles. But discovering this more basic structure required tremendous intellectual work.
This is the same kind of work metaphysical philosophy attempts. But, as there is no standard of success, there is no real progress, unlike the sciences. We are more or less stuck with the same basic concepts we've used for millennia.
Well if you look at the paper they are primarily drawing from Aristotle's zoological works, and the Metaphysics is more subsidiary:
Quoting From Aristotle to Contemporary Biological Classification: What Kind of Category is Sex?
But the thesis of the paper is salutary. Sex is a cross-species or meta-species classification. It is something that subdivides species of animals, and therefore requires a level of abstraction and generality beyond zoological studies considered according to species. In a philosophical and theological sense sex has always been somewhat elusive in that way. This elusiveness of sex is therefore in some manner a metaphysical issue, given that it requires a reconceptualization of the whole in light of some common aspect. Even current day disputes between different schools of feminism could be cashed out in terms of this elusiveness, where "TERFs" will tend to emphasize sex as being more than a kind of accidental division subordinate to the animal species.
(This is incidentally why is mistaken when he views metaphysics as merely a matter of "height," as if it were a hermetically sealed compartment at a certain "altitude" of thought. That is a very common misunderstanding.)
That paper is narrowly focused on a particular set of issues. The Metaphysics draws sharp differences between the ease with which we can observe kinds as a grouping in a system of classification and what might be an understanding how those species came into being. The many discussions concerning the "actual" in relation to the "potential;" are problems that cut across all enquiries of the nature of beings. The methods of analysis in the biological works are attempts to apply the ideas of causality developed in the Metaphysics to figure how particular beings come into being.
If you search the site, you will see the issue has consumed much digital ink.
This is an interesting idea. I have so many questions. But it seems better to read the book and then ask questions. It's 200 pages, so that will take time. It's a pity, but perhaps there will be an opportunity on another occasion. I have downloaded the book.
Quoting T Clark
I don't disagree with you, though I would vastly prefer - "explained" instead of "defined" in the first point. If one offers definitions, there is a serious risk one will never get any further. "Definitions first" is a recipe for stalling. "Definitions last" would be a lot more realistic. If that approach was good enough for Socrates, it is good enough for me.
But the biggest issue is about clarity. The analytic tradition sets a lot of store by it. I'm never quite sure what they mean. The standard of clarify in that tradition is logical analysis. But that is a poor model for many topics and requires a good deal of input on the part of most readers - in that they have to learn logic first, which presumably can only be clearly introduced and explained in ordinary language. I don't know what other traditions say about this, but one would think that they would be inclined to sign up, with a different idea of what clarify is.
Quoting Mww
Oh yes, certainly. That's why I said that the question defines its answer (normally). What counts as an answer depends on the question. Different kinds of answer for different kinds of question.
Quoting Mww
OK. I understand why one might include logic and mathematics as sciences; they do have some basic principles. They are different from the principles of physics &c. That is the result of the kind of questions that they ask, so it is not a problem.
But what are the basic principles of metaphysics? Maybe one could venture that they are the principles of logic applied to certain concepts that are used in almost every context. One might get assent to the proposition, but then comes the question why no progress is made.
Perhaps we should not be asking that, but asking what counts as progress. That might reveal a good deal about the nature of the enquiry.
Here's what really puzzles me. Metaphysics is said to be about the world - de re. Why, then, is it not an empirical science like physics, etc.
Quoting Mww
What's the phrase - "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics"? It's a good point. Someone is sure to ask whether there are questions for which a mathematical answer is not appropriate and if so, why?
Quoting ProtagoranSocratist
I would suggest that the point is that the Aristotelian approach was developed to apply universally, but it seems reasonable to suppose that Aristotle got the model from his biological work. Certainly, it has turned out to be a lot more useful in biology than in physics. Against that idea is the fact that Plato developed the idea of "forms" or "ideas" in the context of mathematics, and Aristotle must have been influenced by that.
I'm a bit surprised that you don't mention the distinction between sex and gender in this connection. It is, perhaps, only a beginning to addressing the complications you refer to. But it is at least a start.
Quoting Leontiskos
I did recognize that I was pushing a metaphor. But I did so in order to bring it into question.
Quoting Leontiskos
I'm not sure I would put it in just that way, but I don't disagree with you. It seems to me that the difficulty of characterising it shows that metaphysics is not a discipline or subject like any other. That's why, in my book, presenting actual metaphysical discussions is the best way of introducing it to people.
Some metaphysical theories may be about the world, but I wouldn’t hold with any of them. But then, as well, metaphysics is sometimes said to be above or after physics, and I don’t agree with that at all.
Nahhhh….metaphysics, as a conception, is the “science” of human reason, the limitations and applicability thereof, at least according to some early modern, re: post-Renaissance, philosophers.
Then, of course, after having figured out the limitations and applicability of reason, it follows the investigations of the world, through the practice of empirical science, becomes attuned to it. So metaphysics is actually lower than and before physics, and thus not about the world, it being given whatever it may be, but establishes a method by which humans comprehend it.
Bottom line is, I suppose, because there’s no cut-and-dried consensual definition of metaphysics, you can call it just about anything you like, limited only be staying away from names already taken.
——————-
Quoting Ludwig V
Hmmmm.
Maybe.
Because mathematics is conditioned by the impossibility of its negation…2 + 2 /= 4 is contradictory hence impossible….maybe it is, that for those questions conditioned by the impossibility of the negation of its answer, those answers are appropriately mathematical. It follows that those questions having nothing to do with, or make no allowances for, possible contradictions in their answers, mathematical answers would not be appropriate.
The most obvious, ubiquitous with respect to humanity in general, of these kinds of questions refer to feelings, the answers to questions of feelings being aesthetic, regulated not by pure logic, but merely how the subject doing the asking, finds himself inclined. From there, it’s a short hop to mathematical answers to moral questions are not appropriate.
Just a thought…..
"Metaphysics" may be the most debated concept on this forum. The confusion may stem from the fact that the idea of Nature, as a hierarchical system, can be found in the original source : Aristotle's treatise on Nature (Greek : physis)*1 began with with a review of then-current knowledge about the non-human natural world, describing classes, species & specific instances.
But, as an afterword (Meta-Physis) : principles and causes of change and motion in nature, he added an off-topic addendum to discuss, not specific items of objective Nature per se, but abstract subjective conjectures & generalizations & principles that had been imagined or inferred, not observed, by various philosophers, including Ari, Plato & Socrates. By contrast with the cycles of evolving Nature, Principles were presumed to be eternal and changeless.
Objective facts are seldom controversial, because you can point to an actual exemplar, instead of using abstract words to define what you are talking about. Therefore, I would categorize the main body of Aristotle's Physics as "hard" Science, but the addendum (the Meta) as"soft" Philosophy.
However, the label "Metaphysics"*2 was later associated with a legalistic sub-category of General Philosophy : Theology (god-science). And that ideology is further associated with a sub-category of Religion known as scriptural Monotheism. Unfortunately, it's the dogmatic & legalistic sophistry & casuistry of Theology that have given Aristotle's philosophy of principles a bad name. :cool:
*1. Aristotle's Physis is his foundational text on nature, or "physics," which explores the principles of change, motion, and existence, and is a cornerstone of Western thought. It introduces concepts like potentiality and actuality, the four causes (material, efficient, formal, and final), and argues that all things are in motion, driven by an Unmoved Mover. This work laid the groundwork for many subsequent fields, including biology and psychology, and has influenced scientific and philosophical inquiry for centuries
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=aristotle+physis
*2. Aristotle Physics vs Metaphysics :
Aristotle's physics was the study of nature and change, focusing on the physical world through observation and empirical study. In contrast, his metaphysics (which he called "first philosophy") was the study of being itself and the unchanging, immaterial entities that underlie the physical world, such as God. While physics dealt with the changeable, metaphysics addressed the principles behind things, like "being as such".
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=aristotle+physics+vs+metaphysics
For what it’s worth, the big ideas are upfront in the first few chapters. The rest of the book tracks the implications and gives some examples. And there will definitely be plenty of more opportunities to discuss. Metaphysics pops up at least a couple of times a month.
Quoting Ludwig V
@Jamal and I have disagreed about this in the past. This thread provides good evidence that you need to put your money down on specific definitions or you’ll never be able to discuss beyond just the surface of metaphysics. If we come back in a month and have the same discussion, the same arguments will just get recycled over and over without ever having a resolution. If you want to go deeper, you have to commit.
This is too permissive in my understanding. Aristotle regards metaphysics as the first science since it deals with all that is unchangeable & immaterial. By this qualification, the "things" cannot be reduced to any natural substances, such as material entities and/or their compositions. In other words, metaphysics deals primarily with the intelligible realm - the realm of grounding & causality, with universals & forms.
[quote=Aristotle, Metaphysics book XI - 8]Now if natural substances are the first of existing things, physics must be the first of sciences; but if there is another entity and substance, separable and unmovable, the knowledge of it must be different and prior to physics and universal because it is prior[/quote]
This quote has a radical proposal. It's not saying metaphysics can be physics, which would be a plain contradiction to Aristotle, but that if physics is the first science, then there can never be metaphysics. It would be unintelligible. The possibility of metaphysics hinges on metaphysical naturalism & its adjacent views like materialism, empiricism (YES), nominalism, mechanism being flawed or incomplete.
:up: ... That said, I often wonder (like Heraclitus, Buddha & Nietzsche) if it's even possible to understand movable & immovable, material & immaterial etc as strict contraries, whether as substances or modes or what have you. Why not collapse the categories ? But that would destroy the reliability & intelligibility of both metaphysics & natural sciences. The flux of Heraclitus destroys the possibility of any knowledge. It throws us before life with no wits.
This isn't fair. I regard the Neoplatonist polytheists, Muslims & Christians as some of the best commentators of Aristotle & you can't grasp the peripatetic TRADITION without them. Aristotle himself regarded metaphysics as a divine science, with the unmoved mover(s) serving as Gods or our philosophical models of Gods - the divine of divine. Metaphysics is Theology.
[quote=Aristotle, Metaphysics book XI - 7]Physics deals with the things that have a principle of movement in themselves; mathematics is theoretical, and is a science that deals with things that are at rest, but its subjects cannot exist apart. Therefore about that which can exist apart and is unmovable there is a science different from both of these, if there is a substance of this nature (I mean separable and unmovable), as we shall try to prove there is. And if there is such a kind of thing in the world, here must surely be the divine, and this must be the first and most dominant principle. Evidently, then, there are three kinds of theoretical sciences-physics, mathematics, theology. The class of theoretical sciences is the best, and of these themselves the last named is best; for it deals with the highest of existing things, and each science is called better or worse in virtue of its proper object.[/quote]
Lol. Except Wittgenstein doesn't regard any of these as fictional or non fictional for that matter. That would involve backdoor metaphysics & Wittgenstein is smart enough to avoid that.
If I have to give a name to his position, it would be weak paradigmatic linguistic transcendentalism. He is niether a strict transcendentalist like Kant who searches for private a priori, fixed categories or conditions, nor is he is conventionalist like Carnap or other neo-positivists.
If you told Wittgenstein, the existence of electrons is fictional just like the existence of Harry Potter, he would clearly be disappointed since the usage of "fictional" in physics & story telling is quite different. In fact, deciding whether something is fictional or not is itself a language game & not a pseudo property of language games.
Turning different usages of languages, such as language acquisition, into conditions for the possibility of language is a mistake Wittgenstein corrects quite early on. The foundation of language games must be sought in life forms, which are evidently beyond the crude categories of fictional or non fictional.
It is my understanding, which admittedly is not deep, that ancient philosophers were not materialists or empiricists. For them, the world was infused with spirit and human value.
Some were materialists, some were not. Democritus, Leucippus and Epicurus believed the soul was material (made of atoms, specifically), along with everything else.
Quoting T Clark
I understand where you are coming from. Does the atom of Democritus belong to the same kind of atom modern physics posits ? A simple way to go about this is to distinguish the methods by which the two paradigms arrive at the "atom", pre/pseudo (fill your criteria) scientific & scientific. But that's a lost cause. You can check Feyerabend on this.
Instead, we should look at the subject matter.
A safe bet is to see if we can extend Aristotle's categorization of physics (a branch of natural philosophy) to the present & to see if it would result in the destruction of metaphysics if it is taken to be basic. The study of all that changes & is inseparable from matter (not intelligible & extra mental)
Democritus's atom is clearly something which changes & it is inseparable from matter. It's easy to see where nominalism fits in this. The particular atoms are all that happen to be. At worst, the atoms can instantiate universals in our minds (also atoms), we can take this kind of moderate realism to be a weak version of nominalism, in so far as the basic make-up/grounding of the world is concerned. Mechanism is a tough nut to crack but it can be understood as a subcategory of change which is restricted to space & time. This is a minimalist description which covers all kinds of mechanistic systems.
All of this fits quite nicely with people who champion modern physics as the best guide to understanding the world in of itself. They are committed to all of the above.
I should have clarified, by empiricism, I mean the Humean kind, which reduces the world to appearances, the sensible realm. All ideas are obtained from basic impressions, "X appears as Y". This can be traced back to the Pyrrhonists or Skeptics in general. I'm not sure if I would ascribe this kind of epistemic attitude to Democritus though. I would not...After all, Hume was NOT a materialist (or an anti materialist). He discarded substances & accidents (to be immanent forms) all together :lol: , AND without forms or substantial forms, there can be NO metaphysics
Well, I must admit I have no idea where you’re coming from. I learned a new word recently— incommensurable. That’s what your philosophy and mine are. That’s not a criticism, you really sound like you know what you’re talking about. It’s just that I see things really differently.
I will leave Laozi aside for now. He is a Neoplatonist to me, a perfect non-dualist.
The infinite & indivisible substance of Spinoza is a bare substratum, which can never be actual in of itself, since it lacks determination altogether. An undetermined being violates the Permeinides unity of being & intellect, the ground of metaphysics ; what can be thought of/be as must be intelligible & that which we can't think or be as, it is non-existent.
Guess who else doubted the Permeinides unity of being & intellect ? Kant. But he was far more intelligent than Spinoza & understood the consequences it entailed. (Reality is ultimately unintelligible & non critical metaphysics a fool's quest). Unfortunately, his project has deep contradictions & at best, you end up with Pyrrhonism or worse Academic Skepticism, nothing close to metaphysics.
There's a problem with the logical entailments you mentioned. It's a nice attempt at smuggling EXPLANATIONS (answers to why ?)
As I see, it's clear your logical entailments will be dependent on the mental modes of the infinite substance & incapable of playing the causal role required of them to establish the connection between various minds (passive intellect for peripatetics) & matters. BUT if you allow them independence from both mind & matter & all other modes, then we are back with forms as substantial forms. Now unless you want the forms to be free floating (nowhere) - which is bad to both Aristotle AND Plato, you will ground them in the active intellect, thought thinking itself, the prime mover, the pure act, the first substance. Everything other than it is its effect or consequent, not its mode, since that which is completely actual has no parts or dependence (all of which are potentials)
I agree that one has to pay attention to the ways that words are used - the concepts that define the discussion. But I do not agree that laying down a definition at the start avoids the issues - though I do not deny that it may sometimes be helpful.
But no definition (rule) can cater for all future possibilities - there can always be cases where interpretations of the rule differ. There's no reason why these can't be sorted out, but they can only be sorted out when they appear; they cannot be sorted out in advance.
This is all particularly tricky in philosophy, because disagreements so often turn on different uses of words - different presuppositions.
One aspect is that metaphysics is not verifiable, as metaphysics is undertaken using language, and truth cannot be discovered within language. Truth transcends language.
It is not the case that i) “everything within the empirical realm is in constant state of actuality (what it is now) versus potentiality (what it could be) is true” but rather ii) “everything within the empirical realm is in constant state of actuality (what it is now) versus potentiality (what it could be)” is true IFF everything within the empirical realm is in constant state of actuality (what it is now) versus potentiality (what it could be).
As Collingwood said, absolute presuppositions are not verifiable, because, as Hume pointed out, even though all our knowledge comes from sensory experiences, we can only directly observe the regularity of events, never the cause of these regularities. Through reason and logic we hypothesise a speculative cause for these regularities, and we can only reason about our sensory observations. In the absence of any sensory observation, there would be nothing for reason to reason about.
The speculations of metaphysics are not verifiable, and can only be supported by empirical observation. In physics, it is a supposition that the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s, and in metaphysics it is a supposition that stealing is wrong. These suppositions cannot be arrived at by reason alone. The supposition of the speed of light is supported by empirical observation of astronomical events and the supposition that stealing is wrong is supported by empirical observation of human behaviour.
As with Kant, there must be a unity between what the mind observes, empirical sensory observations, and the mind’s comprehension in what it observes, logical reasoning. Also with Aristotle, there is unity between passive intellect, receiving and processing of sensory information, and active intellect, thought and reasoning.
Reason may be used to generalise the particular. From the particular, that his stealing that woman’s bag is wrong, to the general and universal, that stealing is wrong. Reasoning about empirical observations enables generalisations about particulars. Only particulars can be empirically observed. Last year in Paris the speed of light was measured as 299,792,458 m/s. Last week in Seattle, the speed of light had the same measurement. This morning, here in Copenhagen, the speed of light also had the same measurement. That the speed of light is universally 299,792,458 m/s cannot be empirically observed. It is only through reason that particular facts in the world may be universally classified. It is not only in physics that the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s, but also in mathematics that 1+1=2. In chemistry, water is H2O, in ethics stealing is wrong, in religion that God exists and in psychology humans have free will.
Even logic cannot be thought about in the absence of reference to facts external to the thinker. The logic of the syllogism that i) all x are y, ii) z is x, iii) therefore z is y is part of linguistic thought, and as Wittgenstein pointed out, language cannot be private. Logical thought is founded on elements such as “all”, “x” and “therefore”, elements that can only be known to the thinker within a public language, and being public only accessible through sensory empirical observations.
All knowledge is speculative, whether that of physics or metaphysics, as knowledge is contained within language, and truth transcends language. Such speculation is founded on the unity between the passive intellect, empirical sensory observations, and the active intellect, reasoning, thought and logic. The only difference is the degree of public consensus. A more general consensus is that the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s, and a more limited consensus is that stealing is wrong. All knowledge requires a fusion of reason with observation. Yesterday’s metaphysical knowledge might be today’s physical knowledge.
yes, someone on the internet recommended Heidegger to me a while ago for ontology reflections with "Being and Time". I purchased it over 5 years ago and I didn't like it, but the Joan Stambaugh translation seems to be better. Heideggar himself seems to be a pretty pivotal figure in modern philosophy. I'll definitely consider "introduction to metaphysics" as a companion to aristotle's work, because i'm currently determined to read as much about ancient philosophy as I can. It will probably be a project that lasts a few years.
And yeah I don't really care that Heideggar fell for Nazi ideology and promoted it a little bit as a professor, what matters to me more is the actual content that someone wrote, not their political identity. The Milgram experiment in psychology was largely designed to show that the Third Reich and The Holocaust could have basically happened anywhere. As I've talked about in other threads, part of not falling for authoritarian techniques is being able to understand that people like Heideggar may still have something valuable in their work even though they made some mistakes and fell for the popular ideas of their contemporaries.
As I noted previously, this is why our discussions of metaphysics never get beneath the surface—why we repeat the same arguments over and over again.
Well said.
Quoting Ludwig V
Sure, I agree with that.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Then that's a terrible reading of Nietzsche & "seduction of grammar" is such a Wittgensteinian turn of phrase that you can forgive me for thinking you are lying & very bad at that.
You don't become an anti-Platonist by creating a God out of logos (discourse), who rules over all of us & there's no escape from him. Language as a cage. It's all immanent Platonism if anything else, as noted by Deleuze.
So here's the deal buddy, Nietzsche did have a metaphysics of becoming & his essence or substance (what it is) of the world was nothing other than "will to power" - in tribute to Heraclitus. Yes. Pure difference. Check the reading of Heidegger here.
I know there are interpreters who read "will to power" as some physiopsychological drive inherent in all of us, but that commits Nietzsche to a prioritization of the unsophisticated & reductive "natural" over other interpretations of the world, in flat contradiction to his perspectivism.
Nah, you're just trying to reify what I'm saying through your filters and it's not registering because, you simply haven't the right optics for understanding. A similar but all together different set of stimulus receptors after all.
Nietzsche has many facets, that metaphysics is fictional doesn't mean it doesn't exist within thought...it's conceptual device created by humans.
As to knowing your Nietzsche it's obvious you didn't get his take on grammar
Nietzsche on Truth as a seduction via grammatical construction:
Of which he goes through several of these seductions through the opening of BGE...
And furtherstill we see in books like Twilight of Idols Nietzsche details that grammar shapes how we view the world in Reason in Philosophy...
How is it that grammar creates Gods? By the way we end up categorizing things. The "will", or "nature" or "God" all unify a multiplicity of experience stimuli into a single word—a daring generalization—that exists as is, as the thing in itself...you can check out more on that via BGE 19 and 24, and Twilight: The Four Great Errors § 3 [I]The Error of False Causality[/i].
Quoting RussellA
It's useless to tell us whether this or that is unverifiable until you tell us your criteria for verification. Not only that, you will also have to justify it.
Ofcourse, if language is a tool, then it cannot be the subject matter of any science which aims to discover truths. This was known to Aristotle. But the [neo-] positivists you are echoing actually disputed this. They regarded language as unveiling the structure of the world & mind. How ? Well, they never justified it. It was always begged. The Tractatus has no arguments & Wittgenstein was intelligent enough to cast all of it under the mystical (ineffable woo woo). The whole movement was an utter sham, complete embarrassment.
Quoting RussellA
This is a mistake. Actual & Potential are not mere substitutes for what is & what is possible. Both the actual & possible participate in being for Aristotle. The actual exists, the possible subsists. They come equipped with ontology. Both are also capable of interacting with one another. Why ? Because the possible has 2 aspects, one of which coincides with the actual & the other of which is oriented towards the future.
Secondly, pure actuality is never in time & is prior to time. It has essential priority, which cannot be described as "what is now". "Now" involves temporal ordering.
Thirdly, nothing in the empirical realm can be described as actual if you take empiricism in the sense of Hume. The sensible realm is the realm of potentiality by default for Aristotle. If you really want some modality within empiricism, it better be cashed out as your ignorance of the complete picture of the world. "What is possible" turns into "What is probable". There's no point in using Aristotelian terminology here.
Quoting RussellA
"All of our knowledge comes from sensory experience", a statement which can never be verified by any empirical method - that's an absolute presupposition if there ever was one. It's not ? Then you lose your reason for denying the possibility of non sensible or sensible intuition as an infallible source of knowledge. I recommend you to check the Critique of Pure Reason. Hume easily went too far. If you want a metaphysics which determines our conditions for the possibility of experience, then Kant is your guy, not Hume.
Quoting RussellA
Except the active intellect of Aristotle has non sensible direct intuition of intelligible forms. It is immaterial & described as the highest aspect of the soul. Kant denied all of this. You guys need to stop with the lazy comparisons.
No. You have the cart before the horse. The metaphysics of being is a fiction because the metaphysics of Nietzsche is related to becoming.
Thanks for proving my point with the quote you brought. The reason language & thought itself is deceptive for Nietzsche is because it conceals the metaphysics of becoming & provides support to the metaphysics of being. Nietzsche clearly knows there's a way to overcome the limitations of language to grasp the true reality of the world. This would be impossible if metaphysics was SOLELY a byproduct of misunderstandings caused by language. Which it isn't. This is what I am disputing. You reducing Nietzsche to some sort of pseudo/proto Wittgensteinian.
Now it's my turn to quote Nietzsche but I don't want to turn this into a Nietzschean Bible quoting competition.
If you aren't functionally illiterate, then after having read all these quotes, you will acknowledge Nietzsche is a metaphysician & he isn't beholden to conceptual schemes. That would be a complete mockery & caricature of his actual stance, which favors direct sensible intuition to uncover reality. He even lists his "doctrines", which are the positive elements of his thoughts.
[quote=Ecce Homo] I still remained a little doubtful about Heraclitus, in whose presence, alone, I felt warmer and more at ease than anywhere else. The yea-saying to the impermanence and annihilation of things, which is the decisive feature of a Dionysian philosophy; the yea-saying to contradiction and war, the postulation of Becoming, together with the radical rejection even of the concept in all these things, at all events, I must recognise him who has come nearest to me in thought hither to. The doctrine of the “Eternal Recurrence” —— that is to say of the absolute and eternal repetition of all things in periodical cycles — this doctrine of Zarathustra’s might, it is true, have been taught before. In any case, the Stoics, who derived nearly all their fundamental ideas from Heraclitus, show traces of it.[/quote]
[quote=The Twilight of the Idols]But Heraclitus will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction. The “apparent” world is the only one: the “true” world is merely added by a lie.[/quote]
[quote=Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks]Heraclitus has as his royal property the highest power of intuitive conception, whereas towards the other mode of conception which is consummated by ideas and logical combinations, that is towards reason, he shows himself cool, apathetic, even hostile, and he seems to derive a pleasure when he is able to contradict reason by means of a truth gained intuitively, and this he does in such propositions as: “Everything has always its opposite within itself,” so fearlessly that Aristotle before the tribunal of Reason accuses him of the highest crime, of having sinned against the law of opposition. Intuitive representation however embraces two things: firstly, the present, motley, changing world, pressing on us in all experiences, secondly, the conditions by means of which alone any experience of this world becomes possible: time and space. For these are able to be intuitively apprehended, purely in themselves and independent of any experience; i.e., they can be perceived, although they are without definite contents[/quote]
Maybe you two should have this argument in a Nietzsche specific conversation.
Heidegger redefined metaphysics, or rather replaced the old metaphysics with what he thought was a better use of the word. I think he saw it as rehabilitation.
He said old metaphysics studied Being as if it's a thing, which became identified with God. In his metaphysics, Being is studied through phenomenology, or from the nature of experience. We always find ourselves in a world, and in fact, me and world are inextricably bound (logically speaking). Expanding on that thought is what Heidegger thought of as metaphysics.
For him, this was tied to a eschatological vision. Eschatology is traditionally a part of Abrahamic religions that deals with a final judgment and a profound change in the universe. But this kind of vision outgrew Christianity and took up residence in continental philosophy, starting with Hegel and continuing on through Nietzsche and Heidegger, who thought the great final transformation of humanity would come from the rise of Germans to world power, manifesting their potential to live in authenticity. He also believed all Jews would have to die in order for this grand vision to be realized. That's why you'll find in the book @Mikie referenced a nod to the 'inner greatness of National Socialism.' That book is partly famous because it contains Heidegger's attempt to cover up his attachment to the Nazis.
All of this is a long rabbit hole away from what an anglophone philosopher would mean by metaphysics, which is usually just the nature of reality.
Sounds good. It’s actually not a long read, and isn’t as difficult as Being and Time. The last section is especially clear (“the restriction of being”). I think pairing this with Aristotle can be helpful, but isn’t completely necessary in my view.
Still, one can’t go wrong reading more Aristotle.
Quoting ProtagoranSocratist
I don’t care either.
P.S., don’t listen to what anyone tells you about what Heidegger meant or who offers simple explanations. Most are so radically wrong it’s cringe-inducing. Just read it.
:up: :up:
Quoting Sirius
Obviously you've not [I]studied[/I] Spinoza's work.
So what? Hume dispenses with this "axiom" (more recently Q. Meillassoux's [I]anti-correlationism[/I]).
Explain how and why "metaphysics" requires a "ground".
:roll:
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg, is it any wonder a person often only finds in something the bs they put into it in the first place?
My guy, Hume dispenses with metaphysics as well. Don't you know he denied the intelligibility & usefulness of substances & accidents altogether ?
It's gross incompetence on your behalf to conflate Kant's correlationism with the correlationism of Permeinides. Kant does allow you to posit entities that are beyond intelligibility, UNLIKE Permeinides. Check his refutation of idealism, which gives key support to the 2 world interpretation - a part of CPR severely disliked by Schopenhauer.
As for Meillassoux. Don't get me started on that. His works stand refuted. All I need to do is reach for my shelf. Hyperreal Speculative metaphysics was a fad, nothing more. Great for hoo haa & parties.
Quoting 180 Proof
Obviously, 360 proof. It just so happens that my objection to Spinoza is exactly the same one offered by another dumb guy by the name of Hegel, who also failed to STUDY Spinoza. :lol: , we poor peasants can only arrive at misunderstandings of Spinoza. Enlighten us Sh?f?.
@Clarendon yesterday produced a very good post in another thread which covers the issue of definitions in metaphysics:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1026833
Highly recommendended. He or she puts it much better than I ever did.
Aside from that, I thought you and I had reached a compromise agreement some time ago, which is that you don't begin a philosophical discussion with the definition of the concept you centrally want to discuss, but it can help, for the sake of argument, to define any supporting concepts.
Quoting 180 Proof
Put up or shut up, son.
I don’t remember that at all. It doesn’t sound like something I would agree with.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/802351
Although I did say...
Quoting Jamal
Oh boy, 360 proof, the ground of metaphysics I'm referring to is the principle of intelligibility. It has many different names. The principle of unity & sufficient reason. Does that ring a bell?
Your question, "WHY we need IT ? :joke: " presupposes it !!! Had you read Schopenhauer, which I did many moons ago, you would know this.
If you want to question everything, then don't stop in the middle & fashion naturalist castles in air (Spinoza's metaphysics). Half-assed skepticism is intellectually dishonest.
Ascetic Socratism, decadence, self-hate, life-denying...
Gotta be careful here. Is to posit an entity to think it?
Kant allows the understanding to think whatever it wants, but these thoughts are mere conceptions, for understanding is primarily the faculty of conceptual representation. And if understanding can think a conception, to then deem the concept unintelligible is contradictory.
Entities, then, might better be considered as the possible representation of that which is subsumed under the conception. In the case of those conceptions that are intelligible insofar as understanding thinks them, re: noumena, but objects the conceptions of which are not, it is the understanding itself in which resides the intelligibility quality, not the object.
The proof: there is no such thing as a noumenal entity, for the human intelligence, which is to say Kant does not allow positing entities beyond intelligibility. To posit that which understanding cannot think, is impossible.
This is not to say noumenal objects are impossible; only that they are not within the human capacity to think, therefrom to cognize, which just is to posit, at all.
“…he will not even be able to justify the possibility of such a pure assertion, without taking
account of the empirical use of the understanding, and thereby fully renouncing the pure and sense-free judgment. Thus the concept of pure, merely intelligible objects is entirely devoid of all principles of its application, since one cannot think up any way in which they could be given…”
(A260/B315)
You know…..just sayin’.
A statement has been verified if the statement is discovered to be true.
It has been asked “what is metaphysics?”. One characteristic of metaphysical questions is that they are never verified to be true. For example, does anyone know the true answer to the metaphysical question “why is there something rather than nothing” or “do we have free will” or "what is the nature of reality”. In fact, if a statement can be verified, such that the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s, then by definition it cannot be a metaphysical statement.
Quoting Sirius
It is sufficient justification that metaphysical statements are not verifiable by pointing out that no metaphysical statement has been verified to be true.
Quoting Sirius
Science is always concerned about the tools it uses. A faulty tool will give faulty answers. For example, when studying cells, the microscopes being used are constantly being tested for optical quality, resolution, etc.
Quoting Sirius
Truth cannot be found within language. Truth transcends language. It is not the case that “Paris is in France is true” but rather “Paris is in France” is true IFF Paris is in France.
The neo-positivists (aka logical positivists, logical empiricists) followed the verification principle, in that a statement can only be meaningful if either empirically verifiable or a tautology.
As regards the world, a statement such as “Paris is in France” can be empirically verified, and therefore is meaningful, but as regards the mind, a statement such as “this painting is beautiful” cannot be empirically verified, and is therefore meaningless.
For the neo-positivists, language was very limited in its ability to unveil the structure of the world and mind, as not only was it forced to reject any statement that could not be empirically verified but also was forced to reject all poetic, metaphorical and emotive language.
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason discusses a priori pure intuitions of time and space and a priori pure concepts of the Categories. This is knowledge, but not innate knowledge that precedes our sensibilities. This is knowledge that derives from the very sensibilities that it needs to make sense of, ie, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism.
This is why I wrote “All our knowledge comes from sensory experience”.
Kant did not propose that we have knowledge prior to our sensibilities, which we then apply to our sensibilities. Kant proposed in Transcendental Idealism that a priori knowledge is that knowledge derived from our sensibilities that is necessary to make sense of these very same sensibilities.
I don't want to derail this thread but I will respond to your objection. The fact of the matter is CPR has a 1st & 2nd edition. Almost all Kantian scholars agree the two editions appear to have contradictory claims & the majority do think the contradictions are real & ireconcilable
This is why I mentioned Kant's refutation of idealism, which he added to his 2nd edition of CPR. Here is where he makes strange claims in regards to noumena
[quote=CPR, B276, translation of Pluhar (the best)] I am conscious of my existence as determined in time. All time determination presupposes something permanent in perception. But this permanent something cannot be something within me, precisely because my existence can be determined in time only by this permanent something.Therefore perception of this permanent something is possible only through a thing outside me and not through mere presentation of a thing outside me [/quote]
From this quote, it's clear the ground of our representations, all of phenomena, can't be an object of phenomena. It must be an object in the realm of noumena & it must exist in order for empirical realism to be true.
Quoting Mww
The quote you provided doesn't refute my claim since I'm not saying Kant claims we have non sensible intuition of intelligible objects & thus we can posit them. Rather, I say Kant allows us to posit unintelligible objects for which we have no DIRECT sensible (the only kind for Kant) intuition in his refutation of idealism.
Unc trying to ragebait me. :lol: , it won't work. I'm too playful to get butthurt.
No. Whether metaphysics is possible or not & under what conditions, all of that involves studying the ground of metaphysics.
It's not a coincidence that the principle of intelligibility is looked upon at the beginning of the inquiry. It deals with the question whether the structure of Intellect & Being has any link & what kind. If it fails, all fails.
This is a perennial question & I'm stupefied to see you so lost in understanding its importance
Guilty as charged. Where's my punishment for corrupting the youth ?
….and I’m saying to posit unintelligible objects, is itself unintelligible. We don’t care about the intuition we don’t have; we only care about setting limits on understanding, in order to prevent having to ask why we don’t, or, what would happen if we did.
To me, metaphysics means more of a methodology of revealing about the world i.e. the universe. It adopts a critical reflection on the basis of the questions how and why on all the objects in the universe exist, change and behave as they do, and aims to arrive to the analytical and logical conclusions on the questions.
Notice that he starts with "I am conscious of my existence as determined in time." That is phenomenology. He's pointing out that he experiences himself as being in motion through time. If he's in motion, it has to be relative to something stationary. If all he is resides within this thing traveling through time, then there must be something other than himself that is a stationary object.
So when you go to form conclusions from this, keep in mind the nature of the argument. It's phenomenology and its logical (if A is moving, there must be a not-A that's stationary.) There is no transcendental vantage point from which to verify it. It's in the category of "I reckon."
Ok. If it isn’t unintelligible, indicating it is intelligible, what would it look like….what conditions would have to be met….to go ahead and do it? How would you intelligibly posit unintelligible objects?
Seriously. I mean….I can’t so would like to be informed as to why that is.
A specific unintelligible object makes explicit the possibility of a multiplicity of them. If one is unintelligible to posit, and if there is a multiplicity of them, then they all are, insofar as whichever unintelligible object it is, that is posited, is undeteminable. If they all are unintelligible merely bcause one of them specifically is, then none of them can be posited, which is just the same as there is no positing of unintelligible objects.
Stupid f’ing language games.
‘Preciate it. I got two of ‘em, a rarity I must say.
There are the concepts and objects that we know by reflecting, intuiting and thinking about them, rather than by physical observations, for instance all the examples listed above. The methodology and subject for dealing with these concepts are Metaphysics.
I've just done it, and you have intellectually grasped what I'm getting at or your response would be incoherent.
That's the difference between positing unintelligible objects (Kant) and positing a specific unintelligible object (I don't know who...). Because it would be insane (literally, not pejoratively) to expect something unintelligible to be intellectually graspable. That does not mean we cannot post they exist - we just can't pick any out because that is what intellectual grasping would be. This seems.. pretty damn standard language and not gaming anything.
I suggest you have simply read past what I said.
You’re right. This is the quote from three years ago that you linked.
Quoting Jamal
I did agree with that then and I do agree with it now. It was misleading for me to call you out on that in my post to @Ludwig V.
i get what you are saying, but to me "unintelligible object" is really quite an intriguing concept. Overall, I'm a very skeptical person that still has an eye for the strange and mysterious.
I think you have it the wrong way here. I'm not defending Kant here & I do believe his claims are inconsistent. I'm an Aristotelian after all, not a Kantian.
But we must get the claims of Kant right first & this is where I 180proof disagree. He seems to think Kant held to the Permeinides thesis on the unity of being & intellect, that we must only posit intelligible entities, but he didn't. I have shown this by citing Kant's refutation of idealism.
I think you’re right. If noumena aren’t phenomena, then they aren’t entities. In Taoism, the Tao, which cannot be spoken, is, as I understand it, not a thing at all. If it’s not a thing, then it doesn’t really exist at all. Taoists sometimes call it non-being. If it doesn’t exist, then it can’t be posited.
Of course, that leads to the irony that we’re here talking about what can’t be talked about. Eastern philosophies seem more comfortable accepting that than western philosophies do.
No. He is clearly not referring to any presentable object outside of him. A stationary object involves the intuition of time & space, it is a presentable object.
Furthermore, the empirical unity of consciousness is just an appearance amongst appearances. It is a presentable object. To claim empirical sensible objects (stationary) exist in a separable or independent manner from it is to undo empirical realism, which Kant is defending here (inconsistently, but that's not my concern for now)
[quote=CPR,B140, Pluhar ]Whether I can be conscious empirically of the manifold as simultaneous or as sequential depends on circumstances or empirical conditions. Hence empirical unity of consciousness, through association of presentations, itself concerns an appearance and is entirely contingent[/quote]
Please read Kant for who he is, not who you want him to be. If you like phenomenology, fine, but don't project it onto Kant unnecessarily.
I am certainly not a Kant scholar, but it’s my understanding that he did see a priori knowledge as coming before any sensory input. It’s part of our human nature. Konrad Lorenz claims that that knowledge results from biological and neurological Darwinian evolution. That makes a lot of sense to me.
This is something I’ve struggled with, but I will say it is not obvious and clear.
Noumena is in the plural. If it's just that which is unknown or beyond naming, then why does it have a singular & plural form which Kant uses (knowingly) throughout his book ?
The claim that the thing in itself is distinct from the noumenon is also very weak. Throughout CPR, Kant refers to things in themselves, not just thing in itself
I see this common misinterpretation of Kant a result of Schopenhauer's conscious reinterpretation of Kant gaining currency in the public imagination. Unfortunately, even this involves misunderstandings since Schopenhauer has no room for "thing in itself" in his philosophy
Schopenhauer criticizes Kant for referring to things-in-themselves on the grounds that if, as Kant asserts, there is no space and time outside of perception, then there can be no diversity. So, if I recall correctly, Schopenhauer refers to the noumenon as Will and claims that we can know it as such. For me, this makes no sense either, since even willing would seem to presuppose diversity.
I think you may be mistaken when you say Schopenhauer has no room for the thing-in-itself in his philosophy as I seem to remember that he constantly refers to the Will as the thing-in-itself. I could be wrong about that though since it is long since I read the work, and also I read an English translation.
Sorry for the confusion. I should have added there's no room for Kantian "thing in itself" for Schopenhauer. In other words, that which is not an aspect of this world as representation or will but beyond it.
Here's the relevant quote & it's right in the beginning of his text
[quote=The World as Will & Representation, $1]But in this first book it is necessary to consider separately that side of the world from which we start, namely the side of the knowable, and accordingly to consider without reserve all existing objects, nay even our own bodies (as we shall discuss more fully later on), merely as representation, to call them mere representation. That from which we abstract here is invariably only the will, as we hope will later on be clear to everyone. This will alone constitutes the other aspect of the world, for this world is, on the one side, entirely representation, just as, on the other, it is entirely will. But a reality that is neither of these two, but an object in itself (into which also Kant's thing-in-itself has unfortunately degenerated in his hands), is the phantom of a dream, and its acceptance is an ignis fatuus in philosophy. [/quote]
From this, it should be clear that Schopenhauer not only attributed the 2 world view to Kant, but sought to correct it. So in order to understand Kant himself, you can't rely on Schopenhauer. Unfortunately, a lot of people are still told to understand Kant through him & this has led to the popularization of 2 aspect reading of Kant.
In my reading of both Kant & Schopenhauer, I believe the latter's criticism of the earlier USUALLY holds very little value. This is a testimony to the genius of Kant, to the radical proposal of his program.
First of all, this world being representation is a claim of Schopenhauer, not of Kant. In no place does Kant claim we have no understanding of the world outside of perception. We do. Our intuition of space & time & even matter (substance) falls under that. Their mode of existence is related to how we condition our experience.
Perception for Kant is void of any understanding. Our senses provide raw data that does not have any relation of space, time, substance or causality as given. The question whether raw data given to the senses is undifferentiated or not is from a Kantian POV, without any sense. We simply don't have a non sensible intuition of intelligibility & differentiation to judge this - which we do in the cognitive frameworks of traditional metaphysics.
I agree. By stationary, I meant a stationary vantage point from which to watch a person passing through time, so a spot outside of time.
Quoting Sirius
I'm just point out that any argument that starts with an examination of experience is phenomenology. I think I misunderstood what you were trying to do with Kant's argument. I thought you were presenting it as a proof of an external world. I don't think it works for that. As Hume said, you can't prove the existence of something with an entirely apriori argument.
As I mentioned in that post, the Taoist idea of the Tao is similar to Kant’s noumena, but there are differences. At the same time, I think they’re talking about the same unnameable… The Tao is not spoken of in the singular and plural. There is only the One.
Quoting Sirius
The idea that reality is an unnamable One is not limited to Kant or Lao Tzu. It is common in many philosophies. There comes a point when you can’t count on what other people say and you have to just look for yourself.
Thanks, that makes sense now.
Quoting Sirius
It's a little unclear as to whether you are meaning to equate the two, but I had thought that the "2 world view" and the "2 aspect view" were competing interpretations in Kant scholarship.
Quoting Sirius
Right, though it does seem easy to read the Kantian idea that all we perceive are appearances as equivalent to "all we perceive are representations". That said, I don't doubt there are nuanced differences, but it is long since I studied Kant's work, and I never studied it intensively or extensively.
Kant's a priori categories of judgement and pure forms of intuition (space and time) although said to be prior to experience, have always seemed to me to be derived by post-experiential phenomenological reflection on perceptual experience and judgement, and to thus be "prior" only in the sense that once these forms and categories are established perceptions can be universally characterized in terms of them without continually checking them anew.
I don't buy this mystical woo woo interpretation of most ancient philosophers. It amounts to cognitive & spiritual nihilism if taken seriously.
This is why we must restore paganism in philosophy, echoing Heidegger. There is no the One that can't be named. Rather, there are Gods (proper sense of beyond being) who have fashioned the world with intelligible forms. We do have names for them & we worship them. We worship their presence in this world.
These Gods are present with us in ways monotheists with their hatred of idolatry (metaphysics really) can never imagine. We seek less navel gazing, more pagan festivals.
Then we probably don’t have much to talk about.
No. I don't mean to equate the two & they are indeed competing interpretations of Kant. My simple claim is Kant held to the 2 world view & Schopenhauer also read him like that, to his dismay, since in the latter's philosophy, there is only one word with 2 aspects.
The most radical difference between Kant & Schopenhauer has to do with their methodology. Kant accepts transcendental deductions. Schopenhauer rejects them in favor of abstractionist analysis, which falls under his categorization of reason. Ofc, this is nothing new, David Hume himself regarded ideas as being derivative of impressions, but Schopenhauer's unique twist is he adds understanding (immediate & beyond analysis in contrast to reason) to perception itself.
Quoting Janus
If by appearance you mean some kind of a picture or moving pictures (images) etc, then that's out of question. The representation only comes about when your sensible intuitions + understanding + affections of senses work together. In other words, you need a schema of imagination.
I will just quote Kant here so that you can see this for yourself.
[quote=CPR, A140, B179-B180, Pluhar ]We saw, moreover, that the only way in which objects can be given to us is by modification of our sensibility and, finally, that pure a priori concepts, besides containing the function of understanding implicit in the category, must also a priori contain [enthalten] formal conditions of sensibility (of inner sense, specifically), viz., conditions comprising the universal condition under which alone the category can be applied to any object [enthalten]. Let us call this formal and pure condition of sensibility, to which the concept of understanding is restricted in its use, the schema of this concept of understanding; and let us call the understanding's procedure with these schemata the schematism of pure understanding. A schema is, in itself, always only a product of the imagination [Einbildungskraft]. Yet, because here the imagination's synthesis aims not at an individual intuition but at unity in the determination of sensibility, a schema must be distinguished from an image [Bild]. [/quote]
Trust me, my Nietzsche, who holds the torch of Heraclitus, is the true follower of Dionysus & not the postmodernist, timid, scrupulous & "it's just conceptual schemes, bro" Nietzsche you want me to accept. Never.
All the Greeks of the tragic age you admire were supreme metaphysicians. I will not deny this privilege to Nietzsche.
What we need more than ever now is pagan metaphysics. The Gods must return.
I’m finding I should have led with this at the beginning of our dialectic: for you, what does it mean to posit?
——————-
Quoting Sirius
What citation can be taken from the refutation that references unintelligible objects?
—————-
It is indeed far better to get Kant’s claims right, then to attribute to him mistakenly. Best way to do that is to keep in mind what’s said in the beginning, when examining what’s said towards at the end. CPR is intended as an exposition of a particular systemic rational method; it must be maintained in its entirety as such.
From that if/then, follows necessarily that because noumena are not phenomena, noumena cannot be entities, insofar as phenomena are necessarily representational entities, within that metaphysics demanding that status of them.
—————-
Quoting T Clark
In a sense, yes. But there isn’t talk of noumena other than the validity of it as a mere transcendental conception, having no prescriptive properties belonging to it. There is no possible talk whatsoever of any specific noumenal object, which relegates the general conception to representing a mere genus of those things the existence of which cannot be judged impossible but the appearance of which, to humans, is.
Why all this comes about, is more important within the metaphysical thesis overall, than the fact that it does.
Subject/copula/predicate: consciousness/is/appearance; consciousness/is/(presentable)object.
Really?
The unity of consciousness is apperception; when that which is united, is determinable only by empirical conceptions synthesized with the intuition of an appearance. Conscious unity belongs to understanding, appearance belongs to sensibility.
Benefit of the doubt: what is the empirical unity of consciousness, and what is an appearance, such that the unity of consciousness is one?
Mine as well, that knowledge a priori arises from pure reason itself, in the form of principles.
When I observe, e.g., an object falls to the ground when I let go of it, it is not given because of it that I know that every object I let go of will fall to the ground. I know it, but not because of any singular instance of its observation. It becomes, then, that the observation is proof of what I already knew, but didn’t know I knew. And maybe don’t even care that I knew. Hence….pure a priori cognitions, which in the end, is knowledge, and the prime mover, the raison d’etre of CPR, from the 1781 get-go.
Today it makes sense to talk about innate knowledge in the brain built up through 3.5 to 4 billion years of evolution. However, Kant in the 18th C did not regard a priori pure intuitions of space and time and a priori concepts of the categories as innate as we would understand them today. Kant's a priori is part of his Transcendental Idealism.
Kant is not using the term “a priori” to indicate the passage of time, and is more in line with Aristotle’s material cause (edited) than Hume’s causation. In Latin, “a priori” means “from the former” and can be used in an atemporal sense about something that exists outside any considerations of time.
Therefore, the relationship between a priori pure intuitions of space and time and a priori pure concepts of the categories and the phenomenology of experiences, a person’s sensibilities, should be thought about without any regard to the passage of time.
As I wrote before: “Kant did not propose that we have knowledge prior to our sensibilities, which we then apply to our sensibilities. Kant proposed in Transcendental Idealism that a priori knowledge is that knowledge derived from our sensibilities that is necessary to make sense of these very same sensibilities.”
As an analogy, suppose you fly over an island about which you have no previous knowledge. You observe stones on the beach in the form of the letters SOS. You may have the thought that these stones rolled into that position accidentally through the forces of nature, whether the wind or waves, but find such a thought almost impossible to believe. The only sensible explanation for your observation would be the existence of a human agency, even if you have no direct knowledge of such human agency.
Your belief in the existence of a human agency doesn’t transcend your observation, but is transcendental to your observation.
Your phenomenological experience is not proof of the existence of a human agency external to your observation, but neither is Kant’s Refutation of Idealism proof of his two world view. However, it clearly shows his belief in a two world view and his determined attempt to prove two realms of existence, the phenomenal and the noumenal.
Neither the desert island analogy nor Kant's Refutation of Idealism prove the two world view, but both are strong justifications for the two world view.
As I see it, as regards Kant, the intuitions of space and time and the concepts of the categories that are needed to make sense of phenomenological experiences are determined a priori (atemporally) by the very same phenomenological experiences that they need to make sense of.
They are, but should they be? I recommend the section which is commonly, but without proper warrant, called the Copernican revolution, the major premise being….
“…. We here propose to do just what Copernicus did in attempting to explain the celestial movements. When he found that he could make no progress by assuming that all the heavenly bodies revolved round the spectator, he reversed the process, and tried the experiment of assuming that the spectator revolved, while the stars remained at rest….”
…all that follows from this at Bxvi through the footnote at Bxx is an exposé for the prelude to the speculative metaphysics of pure reason, which just is the world as it is, compared to the world as it is for us. Or, perhaps better known philosophically as the world as it is given and the world as it is thought. After 700-odd pages we find the world as it is and the world as it is thought are nowhere near the same thing but that is very far from meaning there are two worlds.
Pretty easy to see the 2-aspect condition of one world, n’est ce pas?
Yes, this is the quote I responded to. Unless I’ve misunderstood you, this is not how I understand what Kant was saying.
Quoting RussellA
Again, this is not my understanding of what a priori means. As I wrote previously, I see it as knowledge we have as part of our human nature. It’s built into us.
No doubt derivations from Descartes and Spinoza, respectively. I read Kant as contra the latter (re: "pure reason") and yet inconsistently far more the former (along with Plato's "Allegory of the Cave").
Agreed.
Quoting Mww
In the context of Taoism, I think of speaking the unspeakable as something of a joke, or at least a self-aware irony. Hey… What else are you gonna do?
That remark overlooks the role of the transcendental object in Kant's argument. Here it is how it is presented in A:
Quoting Critique of Pure Reason, A109
The same formulation is used in B, now with the role of categories having been established:
Quoting ibid. A250/B305
Further in the same section, Kant makes a distinction that is missing your account:
Quoting ibid. A253/B308
Good.
But ya know…realm of noumena. Understanding. Same as the transcendental object. Both concepts thought transcendentally.
What is transcendental thinking?
I always thought there was a certain irony in referring to Kant's project as a "Copernican revolution", since Copernicus removed us from the centre of things and Kant does precisely the opposite.
I think it is easy for us to see things in terms of two aspects since our natively dualistic mode of thought, consequent of the binary nature of language (or vice versa?"chicken or egg") ensures that every thought inevitably produces its opposite.
Quoting 180 Proof
I tend to agree. I hadn't ever thought of the tie-in with Descartes and Spinoza, but it seems to make good sense. It's hard to see how Kant's project does not result in the world of human experience being counterposed to the world of the "in-itself".
From the perspective of Enlightenment philosophy in general, and Kantian metaphysics in particular, transcendental thinking is thinking (the synthesis of conceptions by means of the reproductive imagination) in which the conceptions are a priori (not only having nothing to do with this or that experience, but having nothing to do with any experience whatsoever).
A priori. Not of this or that experience, not of any experience whatsoever, but always for any possible experience whatsoever.
Transcendental whatever, is just the condition by which that whatever comes about. Transcendental cognitions are a priori; transcendental judgements, transcendental ideas, transcendental knowledge and so on.
All reason is transcendental, but not all transcendental is reason.
Understanding does not originate any transcendental conceptions, but uses them to construct mathematics, which is a system of synthetic a priori judgements.
Nutshell….
We see a visual field that has within it objects. For me the question for Kant is whether we see the actual objects or merely mental representations of the objects. It's like the debate between direct and indirect realism. The former say that we see the actual objects and the latter say we see representations of the objects, but that the representations present us with aspects of the objects. However, the aspects are relational in that they only show us the results of the objects' affects on our bodies, and show us nothing of how the objects are in themselves.
How did Enlightenment thinkers explain apriori knowledge? Like from God?
Yeah, that is ironic, hence ill-warranted “revolution”. That and the notion of treating metaphysics as a science. Still, both manifest as paradigm shifts in their respective disciplines.
Quoting Janus
That’s just logic, right? Principle of Complementarity? So two aspects of thought, yes, but the subject was two aspects of the world. Not sure complementarity works there.
I thought that might be what you had in mind.
Quoting Mww
I can't remember from my long ago readings of Kant and his commentators, whether he ever explicitly states that, despite the fact that we think of the world dualistically as "for us" and "in itself", the world is really one (non-dual).
The puzzle for me is what it could really mean to say the world is empirically real and yet transcendentally ideal. I always thought it would be more accurate to say it is empirically ideal and transcendentally real?in that what it is for us is always mixed up with our ideas, whereas what it is in itself has nothing to do with our ideas.
Hardly from god. Kant’s motto, circa 1784: sapere aude.
From the nature of human intelligence.
Speculative metaphysics means you gotta stop somewhere in formulating tenets supporting your theory. Infinite regress on one hand, inevitable contradiction on the other, in going too far.
Technically, it is things in the world that are empirically real. The world is a general conception representing the totality of those empirically real things, but is not itself empirically real. Hence an a priori conception representing an object in general, or, an ideal originating in reason.
Kant defines “object” to accord with perception and phenomena, from which it is deductible that “world” is not an object, hence cannot be empirically real. I’m find that for you if you’re interested.
I don't think sapere aude conflicts with identifying logic as God. Most rationalists did see God as foundational and indispensable, and accepting apriori knowledge is a rationalist attitude. Locke wouldn't have accepted it. So how would Kant have answered Locke's view? I'm curious. :smile:
No. I haven't ignored anything. It simply looks like you haven't been reading my posts carefully. I do believe Kant's refutation of idealism (ROI) is INCONSISTENT with his project of transcendental idealism. So merely pointing to contrasting views expressed elsewhere in edition A or B does nothing unless you can show us a different plausible reading of ROI, which you haven't
I prefer Pluhar's translation & I will tell you what I think about the passage you just quoted, beginning from the 2nd edition as it's the most relevant, showing Kant 's failure to remain consistent
[quote=CPR, A250,B305] Now, it is true that all our presentations are by the understanding referred to some object; and since appearances are nothing but presentations, the understanding refers them to a something as the object of sensible intuition. But this something is in so far only the transcendental object [/quote]
In this passage Kant appears to tells us the transcendental object is itself an appearance & presentation (focus on the italicized part). You can pick 2 options here.
Either this transcendental isn't the object Kant talks about in his ROI, in which case you won't have a clear contradiction, but the passage won't refute my interpretation, whereby Kant claims noumenal objects exist
Or you can claim this transcendental object is exactly the object Kant talks about in his ROI, but then you will arrive at a clear contradiction since in his ROI he explicitly states this object CANNOT be a presentation.
I quote again
[quote=CPR,B276]I am conscious of my existence as determined in time. All time determination presuppose something permanent in perception. But this permanent something cannot be something within me, precisely because my existence can be determined in time only by this permanent something.[b]Therefore perception of this permanent something is possible only through
a thing outside me and not through mere presentation of a thing outside me[/b]. Hence determination of my existence in time is possible only through the existence of actual things that I perceive outside me.[/quote]
Going back to the part you quoted.
[quote=A250,B305]This, however, signifies only a something = x of which we do not know-nor (by our understanding's current arrangement) can in principle! ever know-anything whatsoever. [/quote]
This remaining passage of A250,B305 isn't problematic in any regards in so far as positing the existence of a noumenal object is concerned. Why ? Because not knowing anything about X does not imply you can't say it exists. Why ? Because existence for Kant has no analytic or synthetic relationship to an object. It niether belongs to its essential concept nor can it ever add to its concept.
Some people unfortunately don't have this in mind when they read this passage & thus end up claiming if we don't know anything about x, we surely can't know if it exists since that is also a conceptual claim regarding x. In complete contradiction to Kant.
Quoting Paine
It's not missing. I told you I'm aware of the contradictions. The passage you quoted (A253,B308) doesn't save you from anything. It merely presents a dilemma. Either the transcendental object is not related to noumena & in which case, it says nothing about the object posited in ROI (not presentation, appearance, phenomenon) or Kant is wrong in claiming the transcendental object does not belong to the noumenal realm. Which is it ? Pick your horn or show us a third way.
Yes. Kant's CPR is inconsistent & I'm not the first one to point this out. So go & face ROI.
The most prominent relation Kant had with Locke’s philosophy, as far as I know, is the notion of innate knowledge, which Kant rejected. As far as empirical realism is concerned, Kant maintains that for Locke’s version, and Hume’s as well, space and time must be properties of things, whereas…as we all know…Kant restricts space and time to our own internal faculty of intuition. For an infinitely divisible yet immaterial thing to be a property, is absurd, for Kant.
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Quoting Janus
Another technicality. For a thing to be something in itself is just to be a thing in itself, and while it is necessary to say such a thing exists, it is not necessary to say it is real. To do so is to contradict the category, insofar as reality is the conjunction of a thing with perception and we never perceive things-in-themselves. From which follows it must be that the thing of the thing in itself, is that which is in conjunction with perception, and the thing is real to us.
The main point is that things must be real, insofar as they appear to the senses, but things-in-themselves, insofar as they are as they are in-themselves they do not appear to our senses, so the major criteria for being real, is absent.
But if your way makes sense to you, far be it from me to intrude. You know…like I just did.
Locke rejected innate knowledge. Kant accepts that we have knowledge a priori. My question was: how would Kant defend a priori knowledge to Locke?
Hume was accepting Newton's version of things. The success of Newtonian physics would have been a basis for Hume's acceptance. I think Kant's whole project may have been more phenomenological than we sometimes imagine. So transcendental thinking is just there. We experience it. We can't follow it down to its roots, so we just leave that issue to the side. So there wouldn't have been a clear inner/outer distinction. Kant was a phenomenologist. That's my theory.
Hmmmm, I’m not sure he could. I doubt Locke had any inkling, nor entertained the possibility, of knowledge given from man himself. Empiricists in general attributed knowledge to experience alone. Impressions and whatnot. But ol’ Johnny was pretty smart, so Kant might have enabled him to see the transcendental light.
I doubt it. :razz:
To say something exists necessarily involves saying it is real, as far as i can tell. I mean, you might say that the category
Quoting Mww
You are stipulating a tendentious definition of real?a definition which is not in accordance with common usage. If the thing of the thing in itself is real as perceived, and it necessarily exists else we could not perceive it, how could it make sense to say it is not real in itself?
Quoting Mww
So, here is the same mistake. The major criteria for things being real, according to common usage, is that they exist, not that they be perceived (although the latter, if hallucinations be not counted as perceptions, is another criterion).
I know you don't like OLP, but it does have a point, which is that if we are free to use terms however idiosyncratically we like, then that pretty much enables us to say whatever we like without the risk of being wrong. There is no absolute fact of the matter as to the meaning of the terms we use in philosophy, so most common usage is the only guide we have.
Fair enough.
My point even annoys me. I just can't get out of it, in my own thinking.
Many people believe that “knowledge results from biological and neurological Darwinian evolution”, as do I. In this context, the term “a priori” has a particular meaning.
However, if we are talking about Kant, this is not what Kant meant by “a priori”. In this different context, the term “a priori” as used by Kant has a different meaning
Yeah, I’ll own that. All that is real are the schemata of “reality”, just as are all things the schemata of “world”. Postmodern/current philosophy does nothing for me, so there’s no positive reason to update myself from such….tendeneity? Is that a word? If it wasn’t, it is now.
That which exists but is not perceived is only understood as having to be real, via inference. That which is perceived necessarily exists and is known to be real, via experience.
The necessary existence of the thing-in-itself, and the perceived thing of the thing-in-itself, is simply a matter of the time of the one relative to an observer and the time of the other relative to the same observer. At this time it is a thing existing in-itself, at that time it is a thing existing as perceived and represented in him.
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Quoting Janus
I understand that, and agree. To be real is to exist. But that’s not the contentious issue, that being, what is it to exist and be real, however idealistically contentious that may be?
That thing is red, just asks…what thing is red? A thing exists and is real, just asks…what thing exists and is real?
Hardly anyone asks what is it to exist and be real, but certain philosophers do, and seriously inquisitive regular folks might.
Simplest, most parsimonious, and altogether non-contradictory response, as far as we humans are concerned, is….a thing that exists and is real is that thing effecting the senses. That which doesn’t meet the criteria of effecting the senses can only be said to a possible thing, some thing conceived in thought, the reality of which is not addressed by the mere thought of its possibility.
BOOM!!!! Done deal, can’t argue that one bit without being stupid.
—————-
On OLP:
When doing philosophy as a subjective personality, or even philosophizing with respect to a given thesis objectively…are we allowed to use terminology any way we like?
As you say, there is no absolute fact of the matter as to the meaning of the terms we use in philosophy, generally, for which common usage would then be a proper guide, but there is, or can be, facts of the matter relative to terms used in particular philosophies. And if a guy deviates from such facts of the textual matter, e.g., “….by this I mean to say…”, or, “….in this is to be understood….”, he falsifies the very thesis he presents, and if he is a position to be teaching it, that deviation teaches sheer nonsense.
But I get your point. Phenomenon, say, means this for this guy, it means that for that guy. Whether they are using the term wrong depends on the source they acquire it from. No term in its use could possibly be wrong if he invents the term for a purpose, but it could be very wrong if he uses it in some sort of opposition to the source, not himself, he learned it from. He would have to prove the original was wrong, in order for his use not to be.
I picked phenomenon because some folks like to call Kant a phenomenologist, which of course he would never call himself, which makes explicit he was not. And he wouldn't call himself that because he already stated for the record what he thought of himself as being, and that wasn’t it. Whoever says that considers himself at liberty to say whatever he likes merely because he thinks it the case. One might say, here, OLP was his guide.
Hey now. It worked for me, and I’m richer, smarter and immeasurably better looking.
In case you’re interested, here’s a link to an article by Lorenz—“Kant's Doctrine Of The A Priori In The Light Of Contemporary Biology.”
https://archive.org/details/KantsDoctrineOfTheAPrioriInTheLightOfContemporaryBiologyKonradLorenz
Both may be thought "transcendentally" but are not identical. The point of my looking at the precise way Kant expresses the transcendental object was to question the statement made that the A and B editions were fundamentally different in this regard.
In both places, the transcendental object is not an appearance but a part of establishing 'objective validity' for representations. It is not called the noumenon because it is part of our process of understanding what is given through intuition of the senses. In making the point, Kant is constantly comparing it to an intuition that we do not have but can think as possible. So, the "object in general" is recognized as:
Quoting ibid. A254/B309
Not being able to determine a "greater sphere of objects" undermines saying:
Quoting Sirius
The existence of noumena has not been asserted or denied anywhere in the work. To call it a realm is to ignore:
Quoting ibid. A255/B311
I am not aware of any place in the Critique where Kant argued differently from this.
Of course they are not identical, never said they were, and never should have been thought to imply they were. That they have common source can be described as both belonging to the realm…or faculty, or domain or some such…..of understanding. No big deal.
Your exposé of the transcendental object, while quite good, has nothing to do with what I said.
I did not mean to provide an opposing argument, only to clarify that I was not trying to avoid the "transcendental" in your comment.
We’re good.
It involves a mixture of philosophy speculation and maths. The question may be about where the pathways of human understanding come in, with the concepts of physics being more than decorative aspects of the field of physics.
Top tier evidence. Thank you.
An inquiry into – speculation about – 'what (the synoptic results of) physics means for understanding existence' ...
Physics is a basis for understanding the laws of the physical world. The nature and purpose of 'existence' is more complex. There may be meaning, or no meaning, depending on how a person's construction of 'reality- But, as far as I see it metaphysics involves the issues of 'beyond' the physical, whether the physical comes down to laws of nature or substantive aspects of the 'truths' underlying the nature of 'reality'.
:up:
How do you know existence has "purpose"? What is that "purpose"?
If "a person" is real, then s/he belongs to "reality", therefore s/he cannot "construct reality".
By "beyond" you mean like math or poetry?
I have already told you I believe CPR is inconsistent. So I'm not surprised Kant makes contradictory claims. The best we can do is give his intended & inconsistent reading.
Going back to a very old objection. For Kant, the transcendental object is the CAUSE of all appearances & clearly not an appearance. The obvious problem here is there is no sense in attributing a causal or grounding role to that which you don't even know if it exists or not. The agnosticism must apply to its causal & grounding role as well.
You may retort that the transcendental object is more like a rule or procedure but this makes no sense. It does not belong to any category of Kant, nor do the categories have anything to do with it, except maybe for causation (in contradiction)
[quote=CPR, A288,B344,Pluhar] But the understanding thinks it only as transcendental object. This object is the cause of appearance (hence is not itself appearance) and can be thought neither as magnitude nor as reality nor as substance, etc. (because these concepts always require sensible forms wherein they determine an object). Hence concerning this object we are completely ignorant as to whether it is to be found in us--or, for that matter, outside us; and whether it would be annulled simultaneously with sensibility, or would still remain if we removed sensibility. If we want to call this object noumenon, because the presentation of it is not sensible, then we are free to do so.[/quote]
Another clear contradiction here to those with eyes is elsewhere Kant claims ALL presentations are appearances & here he has a presentation which isn't an appearance :lol:
So yes. CPR is irredeemable. It's full of contradictions. Kant to me is simply a dumber version of Sextus Empiricus, who was smart enough to use noumena & phenomena as dispensable distinctions, ready to be thrown out in the manner of Wittgenstein's (who was also a Pyrrhonist) ladder once the job has been accomplished.
All of the text I quoted clearly rules out the transcendental object being an appearance.
Where, in the text, do you see the transcendental object being a cause in itself? It seems more like a concept that gives us permission to propose causes even though we know very little.
Do you have any idea what "noumena" is? I've been reading this Kant quotes in my thread, and I'm having issues making sense of them...
Assuming you haven't ignored the quote of Kant I presented, the noumenon (transcendental object here) is the cause of appearance, phenomenon.
I don't know what you mean by "cause in itself". Do you mean uncaused ? Well, it is uncaused in the sense that all phenomena has a cause which can't be attributed to noumena
"Seems more like a concept" - it can seem anything to you but you can't attribute it to Kant for that reason.
Remember the Kantian slogan "Thoughts without content are empty" - the content of thought is provided by sensible intuition, which is totally lacking in the case of transcendental objects
An empty thought is no thought (concept) at all...
Then all my efforts to distinguish the two in the text have been for naught.
B344-5 in Guyer/Wood, is understanding warning sensibility not to exceed its purpose, which it would be doing if it treated the object understanding thinks of its own accord, a noumenon or a transcendental object, as the cause of what sensibility takes as an appearance. The warning because such object, the one merely thought, can never be an appearance.
Reference ibid Bxxvii.
To be fair, there's no clear answer to this. But there are 3 main interpretations, all of which have problems
1. Noumena is the class of transcendental objects that act as a cause or ground of all phenomena, appearances or presentations. This causing or grounding is ontological. I prefer this.
2. Noumena is a rule or procedure which allows us to have a nexus of intuition & concept (understanding) come together under affections of senses. In this sense it's not much different from the schema of imagination.
3. Noumena is the boundary or limit of appearances. Like the frame of a picture which isn't the picture but enables you to see the picture. (The obvious problem here is if appearances have a limit, we will have to know the limit on the other side as well, irl, we do see the frame too & what's beyond it lol)
You don't need to be harsh on yourself. Your efforts were not wasted. The interpretation you were offering is still a plausible one. But there's not much we can do to make a definite or demonstrative case here, given the internal contradictions of CPR.
Only the few Godlike philosophers, such as Aristotle, can escape plain contradictions (when read properly)
Do you have access to a clean copy of the article. From the Internet Archive, the “full text” comes out as:
I agree when the paper writes “In view of the indubitable fact of evolution”. The question is, did Kant mean by “a priori” what today is meant by “a prioiri”?
What does Kant mean by “a priori”?
Reason must have content, As Kant said "thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind”. Reason must be about something. Pure reason, which is reason without content, is impossible. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is a critique of pure reason, not an acceptance of the existence of pure reason.
For Kant in the CPR, all knowledge must be synthetic a priori, meaning that there can be neither purely synthetic knowledge nor purely a priori knowledge.
5+7=12 is an example of synthetic a priori mathematical knowledge, and the syllogism that all humans are mortal, Socrates is human, therefore Socrates is mortal is an example of synthetic a priori logical knowledge.
For Kant, the conscious reasoning about content is not innate in humans at birth. Children have to mature a certain number of years before being able to consciously reason about content.
If all knowledge must be synthetic a priori, which derives from reasoning about content, and there can be neither purely a priori knowledge nor purely synthetic knowledge, then reasoning can neither be temporally before nor after content. Reasoning must be contemporaneous with its content. Synthetic refers to the content and a priori refers to the reasoning, but as reasoning is contemporaneous with its content, the term “a priori” must also be considered in an atemporal sense. Atemporal in the same sense of Aristotle’s material cause (edited) rather than Hume’s temporal causation.
Kant’s synthetic a priori uses a transcendental argument, whether a Transcendental Deduction or a Transcendental Idealism.
In the Empiricism of Hume, some concepts, such as one billiard ball hitting another causes a movement, are derived using reason temporally after particular observations. Within Empiricism, these concepts are therefore contingent and accidental to particular observations, and are the basis of modern science.
In the Rationalism of Descartes, some concepts are innate, and temporally precede particular observations. Within Rationalism, these concepts, such as “there is a God”, are therefore necessary and universal.
Kant’s principle of synthetic a priori knowledge uses a transcendental argument that is neither Empiricism nor Rationalism. Within Kant's synthetic a priori, some concepts, such as the Categories, are necessary and universal because they create the very experiences that they derive from.
For Kant, in the CPR, the term “a priori” means neither innate nor inherent, in the sense of temporally preceding something else. It is meant in a transcendental atemporal sense, in that some concepts, such as the Categories, are a priori to the very experiences that they are derived from.
If you go to the linked page and scroll down, you’ll find options to provide the document in various formats. Push on PDF with text then download to your files. What you get is a fairly bad scan of the article, but it’s searchable and you can copy text out of it.
Well, Lorenz certainly thought so and he was a pretty smart guy. He was also much more familiar with Kant’s philosophy than I am. I suggest you read the article.
Although I am very far from a Kant scholar, I’ll go back and take a look and see if I can answer your question myself later today.
:up:
-noumena
-the transcendental object
-the thing in itself
If CPR has 3 terms in it that are not at all clear, and the discussion is based around these terms, then how is it possible to understand his argument? Everytime I try to confront Kant's writing in this thread, it seems I just get further and further away from understanding it...
all things are things within themselves. Is he maybe saying that nothing is independent, and that all things are connected to multiple things?
I’m taking a shot at this, but as I noted, Kant's work is not something I have deep insight into.
I come to this question through the back door–through my interest in psychology and cognitive science. It is my understanding--and there is evidence to support it--that human nervous systems, sense organs, and minds are structured in such a way that we exhibit the mental processes we observe and experience. Example–studies by Karen Wynn show that children only a few months old exhibit behaviors that show a capacity for simple moral and mathematical thinking. Another example–Stephen Pinker and others have described innate language acquisition. It's not that they have innate knowledge, what you call content, it's that they have the capacity to gather and process that content–to think in structured and organized ways. To be fair, these claims are not without controversy.
The thing that jumped out to me when I read about the critique of pure reason was that Kant identified space and time as being known a priori. These strike me as exactly the kind of structured principles I described above. Time and space are not what you call "content," they are principles that allow us to organize and process content provided by our senses. Is this the same thing you meant when you wrote what I've quoted below? I don't know.
Quoting RussellA
I disagree with this. Maybe we could read through the Transcendental Aesthetic together and come to agreement. Who's up for that?
You may be right, my wording may not have been the best.
The concept of the transcendental is important to the CPR, and is important to Kant’s principle of synthetic a priori. The Transcendental Aesthetic is 21 pages long, from A19/B33 to B73, so would be a major project.
To my understanding, for Kant, only the synthetic a priori can give knowledge. The synthetic by itself (the intuition of sensibilities, observations, appearances, experiences) cannot give knowledge. The a priori by itself (pure intuitions of space and time, pure concepts of understanding ( the Categories), pure logic, pure reason, pure judgement) cannot give knowledge. Knowledge may only be gained when the synthetic is spontaneous with the a priori.
For example, we make an observation which we make sense of using the Categories. But in Kant’s transcendental sense, these Categories did not exist temporally prior to the observations, but spontaneously came into existence at the same time as making the observations necessarily in order to make sense of the observations. Without the Categories we could not make sense of our observations, and without our observations we could not have any categories making sense of our observations.
In a transcendental argument, a strong premise about a situation leads to a reasonable conclusion. This reasonable conclusion then becomes a valid justification for the strong premise.
Perhaps the following wording would be better:
If you’ve any serious interest, I highly recommend at least the translator’s intro, CPR, Guyer/Wood, Cambridge Press, 1998…
https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/5/25851/files/2017/09/kant-first-critique-cambridge-1m89prv.pdf
….a ~100-odd page altogether outstanding synopsis, including originally unpublished footnotes, and other cool stuff. While it may be true there’s some subjectivity involved with the language translation differences, that’s going to be the case no matter who’s translating German to English.
While the intro alone is worth spending some time with, the text itself remains the typical Kantian grammatical morass of paragraph-sized sentences, and the like. Genius at work, donchaknow.
I think we're on the same page. A reason to reject the empiricist view that I learn about space and time from experience is that I can't imagine such a process. It isn't possible that I looked at a chair and observed that it has spatial and temporal extension. I can't imagine a chair that doesn't possess those properties. The concepts are fused.
On the other hand, time and space have no meaning in a void. There has to be at least two objects moving relative to one another to have space and time. So again, the experience of observing an object and knowledge of space and time happen simultaneously.
Cool. Bookmarked.
I agree. Another example. I cannot see the colour red when I close my eyes, but have the ability to see the colour red when there is something red present in my field of vision.
Quoting T Clark
I agree that we are born not so much with innate knowledge but with innate ability.
Carrying this idea forward, we could say that we are not born with an innate knowledge of space and time, but have an innate ability to recognise space and time in our sensibilities. In today’s terms, we could say that my innate ability to recognise space and time is a priori, where a priori is being used in a temporal sense.
However, as I understand it, this is not how Kant uses the term a priori. Kant is not using the term a priori in a temporal sense. It is being used to describe the relationship between two events that are simultaneous, contemporaneous. The concept of a cause that is contemporaneous with its effect is called "simultaneous causation”. Stephen Mumford argues that causation is always simultaneous. Aristotle’s material cause is in a sense about simultaneity. For Kant, our pure intuitions of space and time don’t originate temporally before our particular sensibilities (observations, experiences) but originate transcendentally from the very same sensibilities that they are needed to make sense of.
For Stephen Pinker, we are born with certain innate abilities that allow us to make sense of the experiences we have today, and in this sense a priori. For Kant, the abilities we have that allow us to make sense of the experiences we have today derive in a transcendental sense from the very experiences themselves, and in this sense a priori.
Because our a priori pure intuitions of space and time have transcendentally derived from our synthetic experience of space and time, these pure intuitions are necessarily necessary and universal. This is different to Hume’s observation of regularities in our synthetic experiences which are necessarily contingent and particular.
Kant believes there is something external that is causing our observations, from which we transcendentally derive our pure intuitions of space and time, but this external something, like the thing in itself, must forever remain unknown. This external something may in fact be exactly the same as our concept of space and time, but then again, it may not. We will never know.
However, as a personal opinion, there must be a real relation between our pure intuitions of space and time and the something external and unknowable, which may or may not be the same as our pure intuitions. Because our pure intuitions have been transcendentally derived from appearances, these pure intuitions must be necessary and universal as Kant proposes, even if only metaphorically necessary and universal.
The problem is two-fold. First, CPR goes to great lengths to show that thinking is wrong, and second, doesn’t go to hardly any length at all to show why it matters that much to be that wrong.
That an object possesses the properties of space and time just is the empiricist view Kant himself found reason to reject.
Why is it, do you think, that the thing you learn about empirically through the senses, and the thing representing it that you merely remember, are close enough to each other that, as a rule, the rememberance doesn’t confuse you? Better yet, why is it you don’t have to learn what a thing is, each and every time you perceive it?
The point being, even if speculative theoretical metaphysics can’t answer those questions, it is in fact reason itself that presents them, and the critique of reason is only that cautionary tale for how NOT to bother with some of that which reason asks. Or, as The Man says, to “guard against” those “transcendental illusory” cognitions.
“…. For if one regards space and time as properties that, as far as their possibility is concerned, must be encountered in things in themselves, and reflects on the absurdities in which one then becomes entangled, because two infinite things that are neither substances nor anything really inhering in substances must nevertheless be something existing, indeed the necessary condition of the existence of all things, which also remain even if all existing things are removed; then one cannot well-blame the
good Berkeley if he demotes bodies to mere illusion; indeed even our own existence, which would be made dependent in such a way on the self-subsisting reality of a non-entity such as time, would be transformed along with this into mere illusion; an absurdity of which no one has yet allowed himself to be guilty….” (B71)
I think you misunderstood my post.
Oh. Sorry.
There, again, reference is made to an intuition we do not possess but can imagine as possible. There is an interesting discussion much later in the book where the "object in general" is a valid question even though we cannot answer it:
Quoting ibid. A479/ B 507
I concur with your findings. That is the translation I have been quoting and linking from.
:100: :up:
We have reached the end of what I’m willing to say about what Kant described. You certainly know more about that than I do. I haven’t read the Lorenz article in several years, so I think I’ll go back and reread it.
Yes, the intellectual intuition. Understanding is that faculty for which no other kind than the discursive could even be imagined, and no other at all could we possess and remain of human intelligence.
Yep. Still, for those objects in general, which I think Kant wants understood as “objects of reason” derived from cosmological ideas, the questions regarding their constitution, which just is what they are, are better left unasked. Reason is always at liberty to present a question, but it not necessarily obliged to pursue it.
Caveat: the higher pagination is tough on me. Layer upon layer, hard to assimilate into a system, as he wants us to do.
That is a good observation. Kant had figured that he had nailed down the uses of psychology but the time since then has proven otherwise.
Aristotle was concerned with the ground of being, in modern parlance, the nature of the world. By the time Descartes uses the term, he uses metaphysics to cover a lot of the questions we would label as "epistemology", concerning the way we interpret the world.
Back then "epistemology" was not used, as this term was coined in mass contemporary usage by the late 19th century.
So Kant in talking about metaphysics discusses issues that are "metaphysical" in the ancient sense but also "epistemological" in our sense.
But I don't think Aristotle would've agreed with how the term was latter used. Not that he used the word. But the book is about the world and its nature.
I think these aspects complicate the situation.
Good to know. :up:
It's my opinion that the term "metaphysical" has to relate to what he was getting at in his book though...but that's just me, it will be interesting to see what heideggar has to say about it.
That's fine. But why do you think that?
because so far, nobody has been able to give a clear and distinct definition to the term: it still has multiple meanings, and overlap between the definitions of philosophy, epistemology, and ontology. Since this is the case, all the more reason to ground the notion of "metaphysics" in the first place it was used.
I've noted the way people have defined it, but the real groundbreaker would be if someone could give examples of both what it is and isn't. However, if that continues not to be the case, I'll just assume it means "relating to the basic/fundamental characteristics of a thing", like talking about "essence", and then i'll personally just use philosophy, epistemology, and ontology. The latter two are more specific and easier to explain, but come to think of it, philosophy isn't a more specific term than metaphysics...however, it is more familiar, and more likely to be understood by others.
I'm aware that the name "metaphysics" didn't come about for aristotle's work until centuries later, but it's still significant considering the utter lack of surviving documentation we have from the ancient greeks and romans.
What does Kant in the CPR mean by noumena, transcendental object and thing in itself?
The problem of exegesis
An exegesis of Kant’s CPR is problematic because his ambiguity of language makes it often difficult to determine the exact meaning of his text. Therefore, rather than trying to directly interpret his given text, and on the assumption that his underlying ideas are sensible, it may be a better approach to first establish one’s own opinions about the subject and then confirm that your own opinions are a valid interpretation of the given text. Unfortunately, following this approach, there is the real possibility that two different valid interpretations may be discovered about the same given text. A problem with David Hume, who may be read either as an Empiricist or Rationalist.
The noumenon and thing in itself in the two world view
It is clear that our concept of a red postbox may be very different from the reality of a red postbox. For example, we perceive the colour red, yet science tells us that the postbox actually emits a wavelength of 700nm. This begins to lead into the two world view, in that there are two types of object, the object as we conceive it in our mind having the colour red, a noumenon, and the object as it really is in the external world emitting a wavelength of 700nm, a thing in itself.
Even though a wavelength of 700nm is still another concept, we can reasonably conclude that what we perceive may or may not exist in the external world. In the external world what may exist may be the colour red, may be a wavelength of 700nm or may be something else altogether, say X.
The transcendental object in the two aspect view
There is also the two aspect view, where the object as we conceive it in our mind and the object as it really is in the external world are but two aspects of the same object. For a single object, having the colour red may be thought of as a different aspect of the external reality X. In other words, we start with the premise that seeing the colour red is another aspect of the emission of the external reality X. We see the colour red. We conclude that our seeing the colour red is another aspect of the external reality X. Our conclusion that seeing the colour red is another aspect of the external reality X is a justification for our premise that seeing the colour red is another aspect of the external reality X.
This is a transcendental argument. Therefore, the object that has one aspect of having the concept of the colour red and another aspect of an external reality X may be named a transcendental object. Being a transcendental object, there is a necessary and universal connection between the colour red and the external reality X.
The background to the transcendental object
All we directly know are our thoughts (concepts, ideas, reasoning, judgements, understanding) and appearances (phenomena, sensibilities). Kant wrote his Refutation of Idealism in defense of Realism, the idea that there is an external ground for these appearances. If there is an external ground for these appearances, then these appearances are determined externally and not by any human observer of them. Therefore, these appearances must have an internal reason and internal logic that mirrors their ground. Not an internal reason and logic determined by the human observer, but an internal reason and internal logic determined by the external ground. It is up to the human observer using their own reason and logic to discover within these appearances the internal reason and internal logic that already exists. It is therefore through human reason and logic that the human has a direct pathway to an external reality. Not a direct literal pathway, but a direct metaphorical pathway, where a metaphor creates a relationship between two different entities by stating that one is the other.
My explanation
Thing in itself = an object as it exists in the external world independently of our perceptions. I can think about the concept of a thing in itself, in the same way that I can think about the concept that there are things that I don’t know. However, I can never know what a thing in itself is. It is part of the two world view.
Noumenon = an object as it exists as a concept in our mind, such as our concept of a red postbox. Our concept may or may not be the same as the thing in itself, but this is unknowable. It is part of the two world view.
Transcendental object = an object as it exists in the two aspect view. The first aspect is as a noumenon, a concept in the mind. The second aspect is as a thing in itself, the ground of appearances. As knowledge of the object is synthetic a priori, which is transcendental, such knowledge is both necessary and universal.
What's hard about defining metaphysics as being about the (fundamental features of) world?
At the end of the day, it's terminological preference, so I can't say my "definition" of metaphysics is more correct than yours.
Because it's a philosophy term that does not refer to concrete objects.
I don’t think this is true. I gave a clear and distinct definition that you and most others don’t like. The confusion can only be resolved by consensus, which is unlikely, as evidenced by this and past discussions here on the forum. There will be another one just like it within a month and the same arguments will be regurgitated over and over.
What's wrong with this?
Quoting 180 Proof
e.g.
https://bigthink.com/thinking/4-hardest-unsolved-problems-philosophy/ :chin:
This is an understandable criticism, yet i personally think a clear explanation of what metaphysics is not is needed in order to put the matter to rest. So far, i've concluded that the words philosophy and ontology have a lot of common ground with metaphysics, but it isn't clear how metaphysics is distinct, or if it is distinct.
@Clarendon did claim that defining metaphysics is not:
Quoting Clarendon
But to me this logic doesn't any sense.
Keep in mind you can leave the conversation anytime you want if i seem too obtuse or stupid, but i do think remembering a word does have to do with the specifications i've layed out here.
Quoting ProtagoranSocratist
I’m not sure, is this addressed to me? Are you saying if I don’t agree with something you write, I should go away?
What did I say to you that was insulting? I only said I thought what you wrote was wrong and then I explained my reasons. I don’t understand.
And why are you taking my other comment so personally? I was trying to give everyone license to disagree with me or keep using my thread for whatever benevolent purpose. I already explained that i was not directing that exclusively at you.
OK, I will take your suggestion and go elsewhere.