About Time

…..the existence of individual sentient (or perhaps 'rational') beings is contingent…

The OP and its arguments have nothing to do with the being or becoming of, hence attempts no explanation for the existence of, any kind of creature, individually or in general,

The Earth, the cosmos, are older than the human. They were already existing before the human came to be an entity. One can hardly refer, in a more decided and persuasive way, to entities that are what and how they are independently from the human. Yet, in order to exhibit such entities, is it necessary to make the cumbersome appeal to the results of modern natural science regarding the various ages of the Earth and the human? To these researches, one could right away pose the awkward question as to where they take the time periods from for their calculation of the age of the Earth. Is this sort of time simply found in the ice of the “ice age”, whose phases geology calculates for us?

To exhibit entities that are independent from the human, it is enough simply to point to the Alps, for example, which tower up into the sky and in no way require the human and his machinations to do that. The Alps are entities-in-themselves—they show themselves as such without any reference to the various ages of the Earth’s formations and of human races.When one unhesitatingly invokes entities such as these, which manifestly exist in themselves, and presents them as the clearest thing in the world, one must also however accept the question, with respect to these entities-in-themselves, as to what is thereby meant by being-in-itself. Is the latter as crystal clear as these entities-in-themselves? Can one grant the claim of being-in-itself in the same hindrance-free way as the invocation of entities-in-themselves, with which one deals day in and day out?

The Alps – one says – are present at hand, indeed before humans are on hand to examine them or act with respect to them, whether it be through research, through climbing them, or through the removal of rock masses. The Alps are before the hand – that is, lying there before all handling by the human. Yet does not this determination of entities-in-themselves as present at hand characterize the said entities precisely through the relation to the handling by the human, admittedly in such a way that this relation to the human portrays itself as independent from the human?

… the invocation of Kant is too hasty; for, although Kant experiences scientific representation as empirical realism, he interprets the latter in terms of his transcendental idealism. In short: Kant posits in advance that being means objectivity. Objectivity however contains the turnedness of entities toward subjectivity. Objectivity is not synonymous with the being-in-itself of entities-in-themselves.

it seems to me that the view expressed by Wayfarer in the OP doesn't give us an explanation of their (and our) existence

The OP and its arguments have nothing to do with (…) any kind of creature….
— Mww

This is true. And while I agree with the OP, I think we need to do better at responding to the type of question that boundless raises.

'antinomy' is a call for a resolution/explanation rather than a statement that such a resolution is impossible.

Time, he argues, is a pure form of intuition²?-?the a priori (already existing) condition required for appearances to be given as successive or as simultaneous. If we abstract from the subjective conditions of intuition, Kant writes, then time in itself "is nothing." This does not mean that time is unreal, but that its reality is inseparable from the standpoint of possible experience, and cannot be projected back onto things as they might exist independently of appearance.

The appeal to a "pre-history" of the universe, taken as decisive against the primacy of consciousness, presupposes precisely what is at issue: a notion of temporal succession that is already meaningful independently of any standpoint.

Bergson reserves the term durée (duration) for lived temporality: the continuous, qualitative flow in which moments interpenetrate rather than succeed one another like points on a ruler. Duration is not composed of separable instants, nor can it be exhaustively captured by clocks or equations. It is the form taken by inner life itself?-?memory, anticipation, and the felt passage from past to present.

This distinction matters because it sharpens the point already made in connection with Kant. The time parameter of physics can order states and define relations, but it does not, by itself, yield temporal passage or succession as such. Bergson's claim is not that physics is mistaken, but that it necessarily abstracts particular values from what makes time what it is for a conscious being. In doing so, it substitutes a mathematical schema for the reality of temporal existence.

To recap: on the one hand, scientific explanation requires us to say that conscious beings emerge only after a long causal sequence unfolding in time. On the other hand, time itself?-?understood as succession or temporal sequence?-?exists only as a form of representation, and therefore presupposes a knowing subject.

In the final analysis, reality is not something from which we stand apart. As Max Planck remarked:

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.

The appeal to a "pre-history" of the universe, taken as decisive against the primacy of consciousness, presupposes precisely what is at issue: a notion of temporal succession that is already meaningful independently of any standpoint.

it seems to me that this position gives no explanation of their existence and their coming into being.

If I measure 1 second forward, then one second later I have recorded and measured one second backwards. Again, follow the velocity of an object over time on a graph. If I set up a crash stunt, I have to measure the forces and time. Once the stunt is complete, I can see if the number of seconds that passed, did. To arrive at the point after the stunt is complete, time would have had to pass in the measure that noted, or else the current measure of time would be off. 1 minute past is what happened to be at the current time correct? Time is simply measured the change of one thing in relation to another thing. But to say time doesn't exist prior to consciousness is to claim there was no change prior to consciousness. An observer can observe and measure change, but an observer is not required for change to happen.

Physics relates states to one another using a time parameter. What it does not supply by itself is the continuity that makes those states intelligible as a passage from earlier to later. A clock records discrete states; it does not experience their succession as a continuous series amounting duration.

The fact that we can say “one second has passed” already presupposes a standpoint from which distinct states are apprehended as belonging to a single, continuous temporal order.

So the claim is not that change requires an observer, but that time as succession—as a unified before-and-after—does.

What I am suggesting is that, in your examples, the role of the observer in supplying continuity and relational unity between discrete events goes unnoticed.

Once this abstraction has been made, the subject — as the individual scientist — can indeed be set aside, creating the impression that objects and interactions are being described as they are in themselves.

the world comes into existence only with the "first eye that opens."

Lao Tzu - Excerpt from Verse 1 of the Tao Te Ching. Ellen Marie Chen translation:Tao that can be spoken of,
Is not the Everlasting Tao.
Name that can be named,
Is not the Everlasting name.

Nameless, the origin of heaven and earth;
Named, the mother of ten thousand things.
Non-being, to name the origin of heaven and earth;
Being, to name the mother of ten thousand things.

The "pre-history" objection baldly states that there was a time before any observers existed, and that this fact alone is sufficient to show that mind cannot be fundamental. But what is taken for granted in this conjecture, without any real argument, is that temporal succession itself?-?"earlier", "later", "before", "after", and "duration"?-?is real independently of perspective.

the fact that the sentient/rational being's existence is contingent to me 'cries' for an explanation.

Physics can describe relations between states using a time parameter, but that parameter by itself does not amount to temporal succession. A mathematical ordering does not yet give us a meaningful before and after. The fact that most fundamental physical equations are time-symmetric illustrates the point: the time parameter in physics functions is an index of relations between states, not an account of temporal succession or passage. Direction, duration, and the sense of "before" and "after" enter only at the level of interpretation, description, and experience. Hence the philosophical problem of "time's arrow", which is understood to be absent from the equations of physics.

If we accept what Schopenhauer and Lao Tzu were saying, doesn't the inconsistency you've identified disappear?

The fact that we can say “one second has passed” already presupposes a standpoint from which distinct states are apprehended as belonging to a single, continuous temporal order.
— Wayfarer

I don't see that as a pre-supposition, but an observed reality.

The scientific method is attempting to represent reality in a measurable and objectively repeatable way. Science in its fine print never claims it understands truth. It claims it has been unable to falsify a falsifiable hypothesis up until now.

Right - agree. But here we're discussing a philosophical distinction. This understanding of 'the mind's role in the pursuit of scientific understanding' is not itself a scientific matter, right?

I don't see that as a pre-supposition, but an observed reality.
— Philosophim

It's a measured reality - and that is a world of difference. 'One second' is a unit of time. As are hours, minutes, days, months and years. But (to put it crudely) does time pass for the clock itself? I say not. Each 'tick' of a clock, each movement of the second hand, is a discrete event. It is the mind that synthesises these discrete events into periods and units of time.

The problem is that, insofar as understanding cannot work with a mere idea, re: the existential contingency of sentient beings in general, there can be no empirical resolution possible from judgements made relative to those ideas, that isn’t either thetic or antithetic, meaning in dogmatic conflict with each other relative to the idea.

But as said, I have no reason to contest evolutionary theory or geological history. I’m not providing an alternative account of the evolutionary origins of our species. I suppose you could say that what is being questioned is the support that evolutionary theory provides for philosophical naturalism. Naturalism says, after all, that the mind is of a piece with all the other elements and attributes of humans and other species, and can be treated within the same explanatory matrix. That is what is being called into question here. Which is why I'm not contesting the empirical accounts.

But what if the way the world really is is best described by a phenomenological analysis of the structure of self-reflexivity itself? And this analysis is conducted not from an objective distance but from within this reflexivity?

Indeed, and as I said, I wonder whether philosophy is the right mode to give that explanation. We can't know for sure, but it has the feel to me of a question that, several hundred years from now, people will be amused was considered philosophical and not scientific.

The OP is primarily questioning the idea that the apparent linearity or successiveness of time would be evidence against mind as constitutive of reality, since mind appeared at some point in time.

For Lao Tzu it is naming--something human consciousness does--that brings the world into existence.

10

When the perfect gnosis sees

That things come from ignorance as condition,

Nothing will then be objectified,

Either in terms of arising or destruction.

...

12

And even with respect to most subtle things

One imputes originations,

Such an utterly unskilled person does not see

The meaning of conditioned origination.

...

21

Since there is nothing that arises,

There is nothing that disintegrates;

Yet the paths of arising and disintegration

Were taught [by the Buddha] for a purpose.

22

By understanding arising, disintegration is understood;

By understanding disintegration, impermanence is understood;

By understanding how to engage with impermanence,

The sublime dharma is understood as well.

This is very similar to Ven Nagarjuna's views (however, Nagarjuna would perhaps disagree that what remains after 'erasing' objectiification is the 'Tao'*):

Oddly, enough, as a (panen)theist, I actually agree that 'things' arise thanks to a rational mind that is able to distinguish, classify 'things' etc. However 'we' are not responsible for that differentiation.
Also, if 'our' minds are responsible for differentiation, how could we arise as distinct beings from an undifferentiated (?) world?

What is the source of intelligibility of the empirical world? These 'transcendental' idealist/phenomenologist approaches, as I understand them, say that it is the faculties of the rational or sentient beings. Fair enough. However, it seems to me that the question that follows up is: considering that the existence of these beings seems to be contingent (and, indeed, the analysis of the empirical world suggests that), how did they come into be?

The problem is that, insofar as understanding cannot work with a mere idea,…..
— Mww

Not sure of what you mean.

You start at X second and end at Y second to get a minute. It is a discrete measurement that is broken down into smaller discrete measurements in order. When we measure a minute, we have to watch for 60 seconds.

To clarify, time as an observable measurement only exists as a form of representation and can only be understood by a conscious subject. That doesn't mean that what is being represented does not exist independent of our ability to measure it.

What is the source of intelligibility of the empirical world?

I had never heard of Nagarjuna

Of course, no contest. But the point is, the observer is watching, measuring, deciding on the units of measurement. The relationship between moments in time and points in space is made in awareness.

And the argument is that time has an inextricably subjective ground, that were there no subject, there would indeed be no time.

Now obviously that's a big claim, but I've provided the bones of an argument for it in the OP. It can also be supported with inferential evidence from science itself.

I think you need to resolve the fact that measuring something doesn't mean we've created the thing that we've invented a measurement for.

What can exist without observers are physical processes and relations between states.

My point is not to deny physical reality . . .

It's a measured reality - and that is a world of difference. 'One second' is a unit of time. As are hours, minutes, days, months and years. But (to put it crudely) does time pass for the clock itself? I say not. Each 'tick' of a clock, each movement of the second hand, is a discrete event. It is the mind that synthesises these discrete events into periods and units of time. That's the point you're missing.

But the point is, the observer is watching, measuring, deciding on the units of measurement.

….measuring something doesn't mean we've created the thing that we've invented a measurement for.

What 'thing' is being discussed? TIme is not 'a thing'.

My claim is that time as succession or duration does not exist independently of the awareness of it.

Presuming anything is the act of a conscious being, so it is certain that presumption of the physical world presupposes a conscious being. But we know that the physical world existed long before any conscious beings existed (at least on this planet) and, since we know of no conscious beings that exist without a physical substrate, we can be sure that the physical world can exist without any conscious beings in it.

My claim is that time as succession or duration does not exist independently of the awareness of it. What can exist without observers are physical processes and relations between states.

It’s also worth noting that contemporary physics itself no longer treats space and time as fully observer-independent in the classical sense.

My point is not to deny physical reality, but to note that the naive realist picture of time as an observer-free container is no longer supported — even by physics.

The relation we create is the thing we invent measurement for, given some difference we observe.

I will argue that time itself is inextricably bound up with observation, and that this is the seat of a genuine paradox ?-? one that an appeal to the geological or evolutionary facts, taken on their own, does not resolve.

Time is the fact of change. When you say time doesn't exist prior to consciousness, you state change didn't happen prior to consciousness. Thus, I understand why you say time starts with consciousness, as change would start with consciousness. The primacy of consciousness. But there is no evidence that change doesn't happen prior to consciousness by your points presented.

I am entirely confident that the broad outlines of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution developed by current science are correct, even if many of the details remain open to revision.

Ultimately, the passage of time ought to be considered as an immaterial activity, which all material activities may be compared with (measured by). However, this presents us with the problem of determining exactly what this immaterial activity is, so that we might figure out a way to measure it. We actually already have a good idea about what it is, it is a wave activity, the vibration of the cosmos.

Change — understood as physical variation or state transition — can perfectly well occur without observers.

If you think that is being denied, then you’re not engaging the point of the argument.

What I am questioning is whether physical change, by itself, amounts to time in the absence of an observer.

The period prior to the evolution of h.sapiens can indeed be estimated and stated, but that estimation is performed by an observer using conceptual units of time that are meaningful to human cognition.

It’s therefore important to see that this is not an empirical argument about what we observe, and hence not a question of empirical evidence as such.

A useful parallel is the long-standing problem of interpretations of quantum mechanics: all interpretations start from the same empirical evidence, yet they diverge radically in what that evidence is taken to mean. The disagreement is not evidential, but conceptual.

I did note that you claimed you weren't denying science, and it seemed to me that you weren't denying change. My point as been that this means you also cannot deny succession and duration, at least with how I've understood your argument so far.

Nothing like that is required. What appears mysterious is not some hidden feature of the world, but the fact that the conditions which make the world intelligible are not themselves part of what appears, but are provided by the observer. That is exactly what “transcendental” means: essential to experience, but not visible within it.

We know there is activity independent from the observer, and any activity requires the passage of time.

But I respectfully suggest that you haven't. You will invariably view it through the frame of scientific realism, and the only kind of arguments you would consider, would be scientific arguments. Let's leave it at that, and thanks for your comments.

The observer knows there is activity independent from the observer”. He does indeed.

Then the measurement, which is subjective, is taken to be "time".

Isn't the measurement objective? The feel, knowing and perception of time is subjective, but any measurements are objective i.e. by watch or clock, isn't it? Your 1 hour must be same as my 1 hour, and for the folks in the down under, and the folks in the whole world.

The measurement is never objective, because it is always entirely conceptual, property of the subject. Nor is the measurement something we say about the object itself, because measurement is applied to a specific parameter (property) of the object.

Isn't the measurement (of time) objective?

Measurement is agreed way of setting and counting the figures of objects, be it size, weight or time.

If it is not objective, then everyone will have different way of measurement on days, hours, minutes, distance, size, weight etc, which will make Science and daily life chaotic?

It is. If you read the OP as saying it isn’t, then you’re not reading it right.

Isn't the measurement objective?

So it makes no sense to look for an empirical cause of Kant’s categories.

But Kant considers transcendental subjectivity to be an atemporal condition of possibility of time.

In Husserl, transcendental subjectivty is nothing but the structure of time itself. It is not contingent; it is contingency itself.

There is no pre-given temporal form that consciousness then inhabits; temporality is inseparable from the flow of conscious life itself. Transcendental subjectivity is therefore not “before” time, nor “outside” time, nor a condition of possibility in the Kantian sense of a formal constraint. It is a self-temporalizing process.

Interesting. I had never heard of Nagarjuna. So, what is left after objectification? The Tao is also known as non-being and is often not considered a thing at all.

I don't think what the Taoists call "the 10,000 things," i.e. the multiplicity of the world, arise only from rational thought. Our minds are doing a lot we are not fully aware of. I am strongly drawn to the idea we are all subject to human nature--both ours as human beings and our own as individuals. Taoists call this "Te." As I understand it, our human nature includes a structured mind that limits and directs us to a particular relationship with, particular knowledge of, the world, including a particular division of the Unity, whatever you call it, into the vast universe of things we find ourselves in.

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.

Intelligibility is not something the world produces, but something that arises in the relation between a world and a mind capable of making sense of it. For a contemporary cognitive-science way of expressing this without metaphysical commitments, John Vervaeke’s notion of “relevance realisation” points in a similar direction: intelligibility emerges as an ongoing activity of sense-making enacted by cognitive agents in their engagement with the world.

I was only voicing concern for attributing to time plausible explanatory ground for the existence of sentient beings. It’s like…seeking an answer the truth of which is impossible to prove, given from something the truth of which is impossible to know.

an impossibility to know an explanation isn't a conclusive evidence of an absence of an explanation.

was only voicing concern for attributing to time plausible explanatory ground for the existence of sentient beings. It’s like…seeking an answer the truth of which is impossible to prove, given from something the truth of which is impossible to know

The fact that it might be impossible for us to know how sentient beings came into existence doesn't exclude that an explanation is possible in principle.

The philosophical point, however, is that the act of measurement itself cannot be regarded as truly independent of the observer who performs and interprets the measurement.

The point is that this quietly undermines the assumption that what is real independently of any observer can serve as the criterion for what truly exists. That move smuggles in a standpoint that no observer can actually occupy. It’s a subtle point — but also a modest one. It doesn't over-reach.

Size", "weight", etc., are not "the object", those terms refer to a specific feature, a property of the supposed object, and strictly speaking it is that specific property which is measured, not the object.

You have to understand that the act of measurement assumes something is there independent of the measurer

No two things can be in one space, but any one thing can be in two times.

Where it does appear to be controversial is insofar as it calls into question the instinctive sense that the universe simply exists “just so,” wholly independent of — and prior to — any possible apprehension of it. But again, that is a philosophical observation, not an argument against science. It is an argument against drawing philosophical conclusions from naturalistic premises.

Distance does not disappear if no one measures it — but “distance in meters,” embedded in a metric geometry and operationalized by instruments and conventions, does not exist independently of those frameworks. Likewise with clock time. What exists is change, passage, becoming; what we measure is an abstracted parameter extracted from it.

The philosophical claim is simply that it does not follow from the existence of something independent to be measured that reality itself can be specified in wholly observer-independent terms.

That further move is a metaphysical assumption, not something licensed by the practice of measurement itself. It overlooks the role of the observing mind.

The point is that this quietly undermines the assumption that what is real independently of any observer can serve as the criterion for what truly exists.

I think there’s a deeper issue lurking here. Absent any perspective whatever, what could it even mean to say that something “exists”?

Space and time are intrinsic to that discriminative capacity. Without spatial differentiation and temporal ordering, there could be no stable objects, no persistence, no comparison, no calculation — and therefore no measurement at all. Conscious awareness and intelligibility presuppose these structuring forms.

That’s actually on point. It’s very close to Bergson’s argument about clock time: what gets measured is not concrete duration itself, but an abstracted, spatialized parameter extracted for practical and mathematical purposes. Precision applies to the abstraction — not to the lived or concrete whole. But then, we substitute the abstract measurement for the lived sense of time.

We can measure this quantitatively with time, but the qualitative concepts still exist without our measurement or observation.

Therefore, as I interpret ?Wayfarer's intent : we humans only know how Time seems (subjectively) to us star-gazing animals, who measure Change in terms of astronomical or historical events*2. But the universe is, compared to us earthlings, near infinite.

Therefore, based on the incomplete information of our native senses, and our artificial extensions, we can only know how Time appears to us (subjective observers) from our ant-like perspective. Even methodical & mathematical Science can only approximate what Time is*3 for the practical purposes of dissecting reality.

Consequently, quantitative scientific-measurements-of-appearances, and qualitative philosophical-inferences-of-meaning only tell us --- "late arrivals in the long history of the universe" --- how Cosmic Change seems to us, not how it absolutely IS, beyond the scope of our measurements or meanings.

The distinction made between a realm of becoming and the realm of eternity in early Greek thought is an interesting frame to consider.

Change becomes the most difficult thing to talk about.

The independent existent we are measuring, does not overlook the role of the observing mind.

The dependence of what is observed upon the choice of the experimental arrangement made Einstein unhappy. It conflicts with the view that the universe exists "out there" independent of all acts of observation. In contrast, Bohr stressed that we confront here an inescapable new feature of nature, to be welcomed because of the understanding it gives us. In struggling to make clear to Einstein the central point as he saw it, Bohr found himself forced to introduce the word "phenomenon". In today's words, Bohr's point - and the central point of quantum theory - can be put into a simple sentence: "No elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is a registered (observed) phenomenon".

You can absolutely logically claim that if observers weren't there, the measurements that they invented in themselves would not exist. But you haven't proven that what is concluded inside of the framework itself, that there is change which independently exists of our measurement, isn't necessary for the framework to work. That is why it is not an assumption that if you remove the measurement, that the independent thing being measured suddenly disappears.

The independent existent we are measuring, does not overlook the role of the observing mind.
— Philosophim

But it does! This is the basis of the major arguments about 'observer dependency' in quantum physics.

Bohr stressed that we confront here an inescapable new feature of nature, to be welcomed because of the understanding it gives us.

Notice this - the 'iron posts' are observations and measurements. But the shape of the R itself is a 'paper maché construction of imagination and theory'. That is what I mean by the way 'mind constructs reality'.

But the issue is, you can't stipulate anything about the 'independent thing' without bringing the mind to bear upon it.

I notice that you haven't actually commented on any of the philosophical arguments presented in the original post.

Scientific realism is based on conviction of the reality of the observed world, and to question it is really a difficult thing to do.

The quantum realm is so minute that the measuring tools we use to monitor the quantum state affect the state itself. Non-quantum measurement is like rolling a ping pong ball at a bowling ball. We bounce the ping pong ball off, then measure the velocity that the ball comes back to determine how solid the bowling ball is. The ping pong ball is rolled to not affect the movement of the bowling ball.

The explanation of uncertainty as arising through the unavoidable disturbance caused by the measurement process has provided physicists with a useful intuitive guide… . However, it can also be misleading. It may give the impression that uncertainty arises only when we lumbering experimenters meddle with things. This is not true. Uncertainty is built into the wave structure of quantum mechanics and exists whether or not we carry out some clumsy measurement. As an example, take a look at a particularly simple probability wave for a particle, the analog of a gently rolling ocean wave, shown in Figure 4.6.

Since the peaks are all uniformly moving to the right, you might guess that this wave describes a particle moving with the velocity of the wave peaks; experiments confirm that supposition. But where is the particle? Since the wave is uniformly spread throughout space, there is no way for us to say that the electron is here or there. When measured, it literally could be found anywhere. So while we know precisely how fast the particle is moving, there is huge uncertainty about its position. And as you see, this conclusion does not depend on our disturbing the particle. We never touched it. Instead, it relies on a basic feature of waves: they can be spread out.

There is a need to know the exact location and velocity of every electron circling an atom, and yet we don't have the tooling to get that

But the issue is, you can't stipulate anything about the 'independent thing' without bringing the mind to bear upon it.
— Wayfarer

Barring one thing: That it is independent. Meaning you are saying it exists apart from your observation. How? Who knows really. That's the definition of true independence. It does not depend in any way on your comprehension of it. You know it can exist in a way based on your tested and confirmed model. But how does it behave apart from that model? At that point, you can glean certain qualitative logic that necessarily must be from the working model. One being, "That is independent". Meaning it exists apart from observation. How exactly? Who knows. Its the "Thing in itself" problem from Kant. And it is a fascinating topic. I like your exploration of it here. My point is that if it is not independent, what does that logically mean? Does that break our current model use, our definition of observer, and everything we comprehend? It would seem to. Maybe it doesn't, and I was curious if you had given it thought and could propose what that would be like.

What I mean is this: the “in itself” is what lies beyond our conceptual and sensory reach. It is not just unknown in practice; it is unknowable in principle insofar as any determination already brings the mind’s discriminations to bear. Even to say “it exists independently” is already to ascribe an ontological predicate to what is supposed to lie beyond all predication.

What I mean is this: the “in itself” is what lies beyond our conceptual and sensory reach. It is not just unknown in practice; it is unknowable in principle insofar as any determination already brings the mind’s discriminations to bear. Even to say “it exists independently” is already to ascribe an ontological predicate to what is supposed to lie beyond all predication.

From that point of view, saying that the 'in-itself exists' is already a kind of over-specification — but saying that it does not exist is equally a mistake. Both moves bring in conceptual determinations into what is precisely not available to conceptual determination. We 'have something in mind'. That’s the sense in which 'it' is neither existent nor non-existent: not as a mysterious third thing, but because the existence / non-existence distinction itself belongs to the world as it is articulated for us.

None of this breaks scientific models or the practical notion of an observer.

Bottom line: reality itself is not something we're outside of or apart from. We are participants in it, not simply observers on the outside of it.

If there is, it is utterly independent of our perceptions and consciousness

Once we start saying, of the in itself, that “it exists,” “it is independent,” “it has properties,” we have already introduced the very conceptual determinations that the notion of the in-itself was supposed to suspend.

the “in itself” is what lies beyond our conceptual and sensory reach.

You say I think Kant is dogmatic, and I do because Kant, having said we can say nothing about the in itself, inconsistently and illegitimately denies that the in itself is temporal, spatial or differentiated in any way, which is the same as to say it is either nothing at all or amorphous. He would be right to say that we cannot be sure as to what the spatiotemporal status of the in itself else, and that by very definition.

Tautologically true; we’re here, for which some explanation is necessary.

I don’t want to give the impression that I doubt science’s capacity for extraordinary accuracy in the measurement of time (and distance).

The point is that this quietly undermines the assumption that what is real independently of any observer can serve as the criterion for what truly exists. That move smuggles in a standpoint that no observer can actually occupy. It’s a subtle point — but also a modest one. It doesn't over-reach.

Presuming anything is the act of a conscious being, so it is certain that presumption of the physical world presupposes a conscious being. But we know that the physical world existed long before any conscious beings existed (at least on this planet) and, since we know of no conscious beings that exist without a physical substrate, we can be sure that the physical world can exist without any conscious beings in it.
— Ludwig V
This is a popular and seemingly knock-down objection to philosophical idealism. After all, how could the mind (or the observer, or consciousness) be fundamental to reality, as such, when rational sentient beings such as ourselves (and ours are the only minds we know of) are such late arrivals in the long history of the universe? 
It is this line of argument that is to be scrutinised here (sc. in the thread "About Time.

You haven't presented evidence that the world did not exist prior to consciousness. The only thing you've observed is that humans have measured change with units we call time, and you think that if there isn't a consciousness measuring change that change cannot happen. That's a big claim with nothing backed behind it.

To begin with, it is important to be clear about what is not at issue. I am entirely confident that the broad outlines of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution developed by current science are correct, even if many of the details remain open to revision. I have no time (irony intended) for the various forms of science denialism or creationist mythology that question its veracity. I am well acquainted with evolutionary theory as it applies to h.sapiens, and I see no reason to contest it.

What the following argument turns on instead is the role of the observer in the constitution of time.

So the claim is not that change requires an observer, but that time as succession—as a unified before-and-after—does. Without such a standpoint, we still have physical processes, but not time understood as passage or duration.

Physics relates states to one another using a time parameter. What it does not supply by itself is the continuity that makes those states intelligible as a passage from earlier to later. I don't understand this. Every morning, the sun rises, then it moves across the sky and finally sets. That seems like succession and continuity to me. The dawn is before noon and dusk is after noon.

However, I do accept that developing clocks changes things radically.
[quote="Wayfarer;1033989"]A clock records discrete states; it does not experience their succession as a continuous series amounting duration. The fact that we can say “one second has passed” already presupposes a standpoint from which distinct states are apprehended as belonging to a single, continuous temporal order.

Well, "objective" has many meanings. Here, you imply that if two people agree, then it is "objective". That would imply a meaning of "objective" which is based in intersubjectivity. So, when I said the measurement is "subjective", this is not inconsistent, or contrary to your use of "objective" here.

You ignored the point I made. "Size", "weight", etc., are not "the object", those terms refer to a specific feature, a property of the supposed object, and strictly speaking it is that specific property which is measured, not the object.

So measurement is twice removed from the object. It is not a property of the object, but a property of the property. It is an idea applied to an idea, therefore subjective.

The point I made is that if we adhere to a strict definition of "objective", meaning of the object, then measurement is not objective. This is because measurement assigns a value to a specified property, it does not say anything about the object itself. Assigning the property to the object says something about the object, but assigning a value to the property says something about the property.

Note the use of “is” and "it" here — “if there is X,” “if there is something unknown.” In designating it as a something, the grammar is already treating it as a determinate entity, when the whole point of the discussion is precisely that it is not even a thing in that sense. (In fact, this is where I think Kant errs in the expression 'ding an sich', 'thing-in-itself'. I think it would be better left as simply 'the in itself'.)

The deeper point is simply this: we are not outside reality looking in. We are participants within it. Treating the in-itself as a hidden object that either exists or does not exist already presupposes a spectator standpoint that the argument is calling into question.

To insist that “if there is an in-itself, then it must be utterly independent” is already to assume the very issue under question — namely, that reality must be a kind of thing standing over against a mind, describable in abstraction from the conditions under which anything becomes intelligible at all.

Glad we have some points of agreement here and I appreciate the way you’ve framed this.

Where I still want to be careful is about sliding from that logical indispensability to an ontological claim that what plays this limiting role therefore exists independently as some kind of determinate something — even if we immediately say it is unknowable or indefinable. My worry is that this quietly reintroduces the very reification the limit-concept was meant to address.

I’m not saying there’s a hidden thing behind the world that we can’t access. I’m saying that the fact we’re always inside reality — participating in it rather than standing outside it — means that our ways of describing it are never final or complete. Reality keeps pushing back on our concepts and forcing revision, but that doesn’t mean there’s a separate metaphysical object called “the in-itself.” The limit shows up in the openness and corrigibility of our own understanding, not as a mysterious thing beyond it.

So I’m not trying to remove the limit, but to interpret it differently: not as a hidden entity or substrate standing apart from us, but as a structural feature of our participation in reality — the fact that conceptual determination never closes upon itself, that experience is always constrained and corrigible without being exhaustively capturable in metaphysical predicates.

And with that, I've said enough already, I need to log out for a few days to return to a writing project which is languishing for want of concentration. But thanks for those last questions and clarifications, I think the discussion has moved along.

Many things seem to share the same space, and that becomes problematic for physics.

….you accept the idea that intelligibility doesn't come from the subject?

….this tension could label Kant as dogmatic on noumena…

….he is meant to remain entirely agnostic, yet he slips into asserting what the noumenon cannot be….

I'll be quick on the quantum answer as I don't want to distract from your real point. The reason we measure as a wave vs an point is again a limitation of measurements. Lets go back to the waves of the ocean for example. We have no way of measuring each molecule in the wave, and even if we did, we would need a measurement system that didn't change the trajectory of the wave itself. I agree, its not all 'lumbering instruments', sometimes its just the limitation of specificity in measurement. Even then, such specificity is often impractical and unneeded. Fluid dynamics does not require us to measure the force of each atom.

You say I think Kant is dogmatic, and I do because Kant, having said we can say nothing about the in itself, inconsistently and illegitimately denies that the in itself is temporal, spatial or differentiated in any way, which is the same as to say it is either nothing at all or amorphous. He would be right to say that we cannot be sure as to what the spatiotemporal status of the in itself else, and that by very definition.

So I get that it can rightly be said that the in itself cannot be known to be spatial, temporal or differentiated in the ways that we understand from our experience inasmuch as we have defined it as being beyond experience, but it does stretch credibility to think that something which is either utterly amorphous or else nothing at all could give rise to the world of phenomena. Kant posits it simply on the logical grounds that if there are appearances then there must be something which appears.

You misunderstood my point. I never said or implied, just 2 folks agreeing on something is objective. My idea of objectivity means - widely or officially accepted by scientific tradition or customs in the world.

Measurement is not idea. It is reading of the objects in number. Numeric value read by the instruments i.e in case of time or duration, it would be stop watch or clock. The instruments are set for the universal reading methods in numeric value, which is objective knowledge on the objects.

Your confusion seems to be coming from the fact that you misunderstands the ideas of "measurement". Please read the proper definition from my previous post. It is not property of property. Measurement is always in numeric value of the objects read by the instruments.

True enough, but my response would be….my experiences are not on so small a scale. I remember reading…a million years ago it seems….if the nucleus of a hydrogen atom was the size of a basketball, and it was placing on the 50yd-line of a standard American football field, its electron’s orbit would be outside the stadium. Point being, there’s plenty of room for particles to share without bumping into each other. And even if the science at this scale says something different, it remains a fact I can’t seem to get two candles to fit in the same holder without FUBARing both of ‘em.

I'm sorry Corvus, but this line, ("It is reading of the objects in number") makes no sense to me at all. How could a person read an object, unless it was written language like a book. Are you suggesting that you, or an instrument, could look at an object and see numerals printed on it, and interpreting these numerals forms a measurement? That's craziness.

Yikes! You seem to believe in that craziness.

Yes. Intelligence comes from the subject; intelligibility is that to which the subject’s intelligence responds.

Kant posits it simply on the logical grounds that if there are appearances then there must be something which appears.

I thought that Kant believed we could know nothing of the noumenon.

And although the energy is known to be transmitted as wave activity, the transmitted energy can only be measured as particles. This is not an issue of limited specificity, it is an issue having no understanding of the relationship between the material particle which is measured, and the immaterial wave which cannot actually be measured.

But we only know this within our frame of referents as observers. You're removing an observer, than adding something an observer would include back in.

Right, we are observers who measure what is independent of us. My point is that we cannot be observers without the notion of something independent that we observe. Under what logic can we say that if we remove observers, what is independent of us will also cease to be?

Logically, time as a qualitative concept or 'change of states' would have to be as that is independent of us. Our measurement of that independent state would vanish, but not the independent state itself by definition.

Yes, this tension could label Kant as dogmatic on noumena: he is meant to remain entirely agnostic, yet he slips into asserting what the noumenon cannot be, which, in effect, are claims about the thing-in-itself. Is this just one those performative contradictions many theories seem to generate?

This is some good stuff, I must say. Well-thought, well-written.

Two relatively minor counterarguments, if I may:

One, at the beginning, where you relate the in-itself to mind-independence. No conception can be mind-independent, and any thinking with respect to a mere concept, is itself conceptual, hence likewise must not be mind-independent.

“…. The concept of a thing that is not to be thought of as an object of the senses but rather as a thing in itself (solely through a pure understanding), is not at all contradictory…” (A255/B310)

The text designates the thing-in-itself as a conception, so…..

I think correctly placed, the logic adhering to the “in-itself” says, that because there are things that appear, there must be things in themselves from which the things that appear are given.

It is in this way the perceiver is relieved from being in any way necessary causality for the things that appear, which immediately falsifies the proposition we create our own reality, and as an offshoot of that he can say he doesn’t care where a thing comes from or how it got to be as it is, but only cares about how he is to know it, the possibility of which is the primary consideration of the CPR thesis anyway.

I was trying to make you understand what measurement means.

Why can’t two things occupy the same field without occupying the same space?

If the sun’s light is a field projected from itself, how can it occupy the same field as that which receives it?

"Space and time are the pure forms of intution"?not dogmatic.
"Space and time are nothing but the pure forms of intution"?dogmatic.

You're talking nonsense just like Corvus is. I see no substantial difference between the two phrases. Why does one appear dogmatic, and the other not dogmatic to you? Are you that sensitive to the qualification of "nothing but"?

What I was talking about is distinct fields in the same place.

The first statement says that space and time are relevant to or operative in some domain, which doesn't rule out that they are also relevant to or operative in other domains. The second says they are relevant to and operative in only one domain. If you cannot see the difference in meaning between the two statements then I don't know what else to say.

Earth’s magnetic field and gravitational field are in the same space. But the particles associated with those fields are not in each other’s spaces.

But I see your point. It was Feynman in a CalTech lecture, who said fields could be considered things, insofar as they do occupy space. But you know ol’ Richard….he’s somewhat cryptic, if not facetious.

He didn’t believe it; he stated for the record that nothing can be known of noumena as a logical deduction in accordance with a theory he himself constructed. I’d rather think he trusted in the logical construction of the theory, rather than only believed in its conclusions.

All I can say, is that what "measurement" means to you is nothing like what it means to me. And since what you said looks nonsensical to me, I can tell you with a high degree of confidence, that you will never be able to make me understand what measurement means

Why is it so difficult to see it?

Is the in itself purely imaginary or is it real?

Would you say the refusal to infer from experience the nature of the in itself (while acknowledging that it cannot be certainly known) is motivated by the practical reason of making room for faith?

Feynman was actually very good at explaining complicated physics.

I believe his 'system' implies that it arises from the 'interaction' between the subject and the 'noumenon'

I can't see how his system doesn't say that: the noumenon is in part the 'basis' for the arising of the empirical world.

Also it is hard to me to think how could the noumenon be 'structureless/inintelligible' if it is the basis for the arising of the empirical world.

Notice that I do agree with Kant that the 'empirical world' arises also from the cognitive faculties of the subject.

1. The person using the instrument reads the number from the instrument.
2. The instrument does not read anything from the object.

3. As I already explained, it is not "the value" of the object itself which is determined by the measurement, but the value of a specific measurement parameter, which we might call a property of the object.

Hmmm…..the in-itself is purely conceptual, as a mere notion of the understanding, thus not real, so of the two choices, and in conjunction with conceptions being merely representations, I’m forced to go with imaginary. But every conception is representation of a thought, so while to conceive/imagine/think is always mind-dependent, we can further imagine such mind-dependent in-itself conceptions as representing a real mind-independent thing, by qualifying the conditions the conception is supposed to satisfy. This is what he meant by the thought of something being not at all contradictory.

Hmmm…..the in-itself is purely conceptual, as a mere notion of the understanding, thus not real, so of the two choices, and in conjunction with conceptions being merely representations, I’m forced to go with imaginary. But every conception is representation of a thought, so while to conceive/imagine/think is always mind-dependent, we can further imagine such mind-dependent in-itself conceptions as representing a real mind-independent thing, by qualifying the conditions the conception is supposed to satisfy. This is what he meant by the thought of something being not at all contradictory.

If you could think of some measuring instrument, you will change your mind I am sure.

Think of the speed detection machine for detecting cars driving over the speed limit on the road.

The machine monitors the road via the camera vision, and reads the speed of every passing cars. When it detects cars driving over the set speed limit in the machine, it will take photo of the car's number plate, and sends it to the traffic control authorities, from which they will issue a fine and warning letter with the offense points to the speeding driver.

Time doesn't have physical existence itself. It is measurement of perceived duration.

I gave you a couple of examples of measuring instruments, in my examples. I used a tape measure, keeping things nice and simple so as to avoid unnecessary complications. And in the case of measuring time I used a clock. What more are you asking for?

I wouldn't use a "speed detection machine" as an example, because I really don't know exactly how it works. I do however know that it works by radar, not "camera vision". So you are just continuing to demonstrate how wrong you are.

Then what does "duration" as the thing measured, refer to, if not a length of time? And if it does refer to a length of time, how can there be a "length" of something which has no physical existence?

Noumenon means literally 'object of nous' (Greek term for 'intellect'). In Platonist philosophy, the noumenon is the intelligible form of a particular. Kant rejects the Platonist view, and treats the noumenon primarily as a limiting concept — the idea of an object considered apart from sensible intuition — not as something we can positively know. And it’s worth remembering that Kant’s early inaugural dissertation already engages directly with the Platonic sensible/intelligible distinction.

I am not asking for anything. I am just stating that any act of reading measurements is involved with some sort of measuring tools. You cannot read size, weight or time with no instruments or measuring tools. The measuring instruments or tools become the part of reading measurements. You cannot separate them.

To take photos of the speeding cars, it uses camera vision, not the radars. Radars are used for mostly flying objects in the sky and aeronautical or military applications, not for the speed traffic detection.

Why and how does your ignorance on the technology proves that I am wrong?

This is a good question. Measurement of time is always on change. That is, the changes of movement of objects. It is not physical length. It is measurement of the duration on the start and end of movement the measured objects.

Think of the measurement for a day. It is the duration of the earth rotating once to the starting measurement geographical point. It takes 24 hours. Think of the length of a year. It is the set point where the earth rotates around the sun fully, and returns to the set point, which the duration of the movement is 365 days.

Think of your age. If you are X years old now, it must have counted from the day and year you were born until this day. For this measurement, you don't need any instruments, because it doesn't require the strict accuracy of the reading / counting. However, strictly speaking, we could say that your brain is the instrument for the reading.

Notice that I do agree with Kant that the 'empirical world' arises also from the cognitive faculties of the subject.
— boundless

Only if the empirical world is a general conception representing all possible real things does it arise from the cognitive faculties of the subject. For any particular thing in the collection of all possible things, given to the senses in perception and by which experience is possible, that thing does not arise from the cognitive faculties of the subject, but, insofar as it is given, arises from Nature herself

….see if it makes sense to you. (…) the idea 'the in itself' is undoubtedly purely conceptual. What does the idea refer to? Well, it refers to the in itself of course.

Sensibility is not a passive window onto a ready-made Nature…

What is given is given in space and time….

….the phrase “given to the senses” already presupposes the subject’s contribution.

….empirical object is “given by Nature herself” as opposed to arising from cognitive faculties….

the empirical world “arises also from the cognitive faculties of the subject” is correct if it is understood transcendentally rather than causally.

Kant is an empirical realist because he insists that objects of experience are not illusions or mere ideas

To invoke “Nature herself” as the source of particular empirical things is to speak as if we had access to Nature as it is in itself.

….the illusion his critical philosophy is meant to dispel.

the 'transcendental idealist' takes the 'transcendental subject' as being an individual sentient (or rational*) being.

the transcendental idealist wants to deny that "the world without reference to any sentient/rational being" has any intelligibility and is completely unknowable even in principle.

I think the main difference between Plato and Kant, is that Kant denies the human intellect direct access to the noumenon as intelligible object.

Kant's own model…..

I can make sense of what you say there.

….some resonate and others not so much…

Making sense for somebody, isn’t the attempt to make him believe…

…just like that.

To say that the empirical world “arises also from the cognitive faculties of the subject” is correct if it is understood transcendentally rather than causally. The subject does not produce empirical objects, but it provides the necessary conditions under which anything can appear as an object in a unified world.

Kant is not dividing labor between the subject (general concepts) and Nature (particular things). Instead, he is saying that Nature itself is Nature as appearance, which exists only in relation to the subject’s forms of intuition and categories. To invoke “Nature herself” as the source of particular empirical things is to speak as if we had access to Nature as it is in itself. From Kant’s point of view, that is precisely the illusion his critical philosophy is meant to dispel.

So, yes, the “in-itself” idea can only refer to itself, but from which occurs a problem for the other cognitive faculties, for a reference to itself contains no relations, hence would be worthless as a principle.

But I will call out the language of “intelligible objects.” I think this is where a deep metaphysical confusion enters. Expressions like “objects of thought” or “intelligible objects” (pace Augustine) quietly import the grammar of perception into a domain where it no longer belongs. They encourage us to imagine that understanding is a kind of inner seeing of a special type of thing. I'm of the firm view that the expression 'object' in 'intelligible object' is metaphorical. (And then, the denial that there are such 'objects' is the mother of all nominalism. But that is for another thread.)

But to 'grasp a form' is not to encounter an object at all. It is an intellectual act — a way of discerning meaning, structure, or necessity — not the perception of something standing over against a subject. Once we start reifying intelligibility into “things,” we generate exactly the kind of pseudo-problems that Kant was trying to dissolve.

Actually, measurement in its basic form, is simply comparison. So no "instrument" is required for basic measurements. If Jim is short, and Tom is judged as taller, that is a form of measurement. The tools, standard scales, and instruments, just allow for more precision and complexity, for what is fundamentally just comparison.

We're talking about measurement, not taking pictures of the measured thing. The radar instrument, with the integrated computer analysis is what measures the speed. The camera does not, it takes a picture of the speeding car, to be sent to the owner. That's why it's called "photo radar", the radar machine measures, and the photo machine pictures what was measured.

So I asked you, if duration is measured, and it has no physical existence, then what is it? It must be something real, if we can measure it.

So, yes, the “in-itself” idea can only refer to itself….
— Mww

The relation between a thing and itself is what Aristotle called "identity".

But it is relevant to the thread because it is known as a temporal relation, constituting the temporal extension of a thing

I don't agree. Measurement is not comparison. Measurement is finding the numeric value of the measured objects or movements.

Yes, I know, but the thing’s identity as itself, the first law of rational thought, is not what the transcendental idea “in-itself” is about.

But there’s no change in the “in-itself”, so any measure in units of time, are impossible.

You have requested a distinction between a "transcendental" understanding, and a "causal" understanding. Can you explain this difference better, for me? "Nature herself" you say, is not the source of empirical things. So nature is not causal in this respect. And, you describe "the conditions" for empirical appearance, as the a priori intuitions. What could be the cause of those empirical appearances then? As empirical appearances they ought to be understandable, and this implies that we ought to be able to speak of causation. If the human mind itself is not taken to be the cause, then they end up as causeless eternal objects, like Platonic objects.

Why would you say this? I think it clearly is.

The transcendental subject, being nothing but the consciousness of every thought, A346/B404, cannot be subject or predicate in a composed logical proposition.

I think Joshs previous comment (above your reply to me) holds, I hope that what I've been arguing so far conforms with it.

Here, you are treating the transcendental subject as if it were an entity that could itself be viewed from an external standpoint and compared with a “world without it.” But the whole point of the transcendental analysis is that there is no such standpoint. The subject here is not a being in the world, but the condition under which anything can appear as world. So asking how the world would be “without reference to it,” or how it “comes into existence,” already presupposes what the analysis rules out.

And what world would that be? Presumably, the earth prior to the evolution of h.sapiens . But then, you're conflating the empirical and transcendental again. Notice that even to name or consider 'the world without any sentient/rational being' already introduces the very perspective that you are at the same time presuming is absent.

Constitution here is not a causal relation. Appearances are not freely invented by us, there is something independent of our spontaneity involved in experience. But Kant denies us any right to describe that involvement in causal terms. Within experience, every appearance stands under causal laws. What Kant denies is that we can step outside that framework and demand a further causal story about why the framework itself exists.

How would you determine the numeric value of anything without comparison to a scale? That's what the instrument does, it applies the scale to the item and makes a comparison. Think of the tape measure example, a thermometer, a clock, any sort of instrument of measure.

Is the 'consciousness of every thought' the consciousness of a given individual sentient/rational being?

I think that Kant's 'transcendental idealism' (…) mistaken because (…) the 'framework' in which it makes sense to speak of an intelligible world is contingent.
Am I wrong about this?

The 'main reason' why I think that Kant's 'transcendental idealism' and those 'transcendental approaches' advanced by some phenomenologists are mistaken because they are positing that the 'framework' in which it makes sense to speak of an intelligible world is contingent.
Am I wrong about this?

Is the transcendental subject (or an analogous concept in those views that are similar to Kant's but not exactly the same) contingent? Do you think that asking if it is contingent doesn't make sense? If so, why?

Note that if, instead, you say that the transcendental subject is a 'pragmatic model' used to 'make sense' of the world without asserting that it is 'real', then you imply a non-dualist view (i.e. the very distinction of 'subject-object' is provisional). In these kinds of view, there is no need to explain how the subject came into existence. It is, after all, an useful 'map' at best.

• 1. The transcendental subject is a condition of intelligibility.2. But if it is contingent, it must have an explanation.3. If it has an explanation, there must be something beyond it.4. Therefore transcendental idealism is incomplete or unstable.

Here it is: from my perspective, by saying “Exactly”, you’ve eliminated the very plurality in views you’ve asked me to imagine.

Notice that I do agree with Kant that the 'empirical world' arises also from the cognitive faculties of the subject. However, I believe Kant overreaches in saying that we can't know absolutely nothing about the noumenon.

Isn't the measurement (of time) objective? — Corvus


It is. If you read the OP as saying it isn’t, then you’re not reading it right.

We are acquainted with the noumenon through our presence in the world.

This does not negate our knowing it by other means. Kant is only talking about reason, rational thought. We are acquainted with the noumenon through our presence in the world.

This just says we can think noumenon simply because we exist.

With respect to the real world in general, why would anyone care that he is acquainted if he cannot know from possible experience what he is acquainted with?

So it is, not consciousness, but pure speculative reason in its transcendental use, from which the subject in its transcendental meaning originates, and that is a faculty of individual rational beings in general.

No. The framework is speculative, hence all its conclusions are contingent on the premises from which the conclusions are inferred.

Kant argued that the transcendental conditions for the possibility of the intelligiblity of time, space and empirical causality are not contingent but a priori. Hegel argued instead that these conditions are contingent, and the phenomenologists followed his lead. But according to Hegel and phenomenology , subjective consciousness is not contingent. This may sound confusing, but it’s a matter of of the difference between thinking about subjectivity in terms of a fixed set of conditions of possibility (Kant) vs as a site of interaction with the world in which schemes of intelligibility undergo historical change (Hegel) .

Kant is saying we can’t know anything about the noumenon with rational thought. Basically it is veiled from us. This does not negate our knowing it by other means. Kant is only talking about reason, rational thought. We are acquainted with the noumenon through our presence in the world.

Kant never refers to the transcendental subject or transcendental ego. That comes with later philosophers. But also, notice that in singling out the subject as an individual being, you're already treating this as an object of thought. That is what I mean by taking an "outside view".

his is, precisely something like 'the Cartesian anxiety'

And perhaps, now, the 'useful map' analogy is a good one. In presenting this OP, I didn't set out to offer a 'theory of everything'. Really the point is to call out the naturalistic tendency to treat the human as just another object — a phenomenon among phenomena — fully explicable in scientific terms. This looses sight of the way that the mind grounds the scientific perspective, and then forgets or denies that it has (which is the 'blind spot of science' in a nutshell).

The point is not to replace scientific realism with something else, but to recall that the very intelligibility of scientific realism already presupposes what it cannot itself objectify: the standpoint of the embodied mind. So I'm not presenting it as 'the answer' but as a kind of open-ness or aporia.

Good as starting points and good to avoid dogmatisms but they can't structurally be 'the last world'. They seem to point to some conclusion and just stop before asserting it. In other words, these approaches seem to point beyond themselves naturally.

But according to Hegel and phenomenology , subjective consciousness is not contingent. This may sound confusing, but it’s a matter of of the difference between thinking about subjectivity in terms of a fixed set of conditions of possibility (Kant) vs as a site of interaction with the world in which schemes of intelligibility undergo historical change (Hegel) .

Kant never refers to the transcendental subject or transcendental ego

Now to these concepts four paralogisms of a transcendental doctrine of the soul are related, which are falsely held to be a science of pure re son about the nature of our thinking being. At the ground of this doctrine we can place nothing but the simple and in content for itself wholly empty representation I, of which one cannot even say that it is a concept, but a mere consciousness that accompanies every concept. Through this I, or He, or It (the thing), which thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts = x, which is recognized only through the thoughts that are its predicates, and about which, in abstraction, we can never have even the least concept; because of which we therefore turn in a constant circle, since we must always already avail ourselves of the representation of it at all times in order to judge anything about it; we cannot separate ourselves from this inconvenience, because the consciousness in itself is not even a representation distinguishing a particular object but rather a form of representation in general, insofar as it is to be called a cognition; for of it alone can I say that through it I think anything.

ibid A350:From this it follows that the first syllogism of transcendental psychology imposes on us an only allegedly new insight when it passes off the constant logical subject of thinking as the cognition of a real subject of inherence, with which we do not and cannot have the least acquaintance, because consciousness is the one single thing that makes all representations into thoughts, and in which, therefore, as in the transcendental subject, our perceptions must be encountered; and apart from this logical significance of the I, we have no acquaintance with the subject in itself that grounds this I as a substratum, just as it grounds all thoughts. Meanwhile, one can quite well allow the proposition The soul is substance to be valid, if only one admits that this concept of ours leads no further, that it cannot teach us any of the usual conclusions of the rationalistic doctrine of the soul, such as, e.g., the everlasting duration of the
soul through all alterations, even the human being's death, thus that it signifies a substance only in the idea but not in reality.

More at A355, B427, and B441. To the matter of objects, this footnote ties it to the limits of a transcendental object:

[quote="ibid. B506"]* To the question, "What kind of constitution does a transcendental object have?" one cannot indeed give an answer saying what it is, but one can answer that the question itself is nothing, because no object for the question is given. Hence all questions of the transcendental doctrine of the soul are answerable and actually answered; for they have to do with the transcendental subject of all inner appearances, which is not itself an appearance and hence is not given as an object, and regarding which none of the categories (at which the question is really being aimed) encounter conditions of their application. Thus here is a case where the common saying holds, that no answer is an answer, namely that a question about the constitution of this something, which cannot be thought through any determinate predicate because it is posited entirely outside the sphere of objects that can be given to us, is entirely nugatory and empty.

Hope all goes well, I too will be taking a few days out.

A person might look at oneself, a human subject, as purely noumenal, but only by looking exclusively at the temporal intuition, and filtering out any influence from the external (spatial) intuition, if this is possible.

The problem of explaining the community of the soul with the body does not properly belong to the psychology that is here at issue, because it intends to prove the personality of the soul even outside this community (after death), and so it is transcendent in the proper sense, even though it concerns an object of experience, but only to the extent that it ceases to be an object of experience. Meanwhile in accord with our doctrine a sufficient reply can also be given to this problem. The difficulty presented by this problem consists, as is well known, in the presumed difference in kind between the object of inner sense (the soul) and the object of outer sense, since to the former only time pertains as the
formal condition of its intuition, while to the latter space pertains also. But if one considers that the two kinds of objects are different not inwardly but only insofar as one of them appears outwardly to the other, hence that what grounds the appearance of matter as thing in itself might perhaps not be so different in kind, then this difficulty vanishes, and the only difficulty remaining is that concerning how a community of substances is possible at all, the resolution of which lies entirely outside the field of psychology, and, as the reader can easily judge from what was said in the Analytic about fundamental powers and faculties, this without any doubt also lies outside the field of all human cognition.

Kant never refers to the transcendental subject or transcendental ego
— Wayfarer

He does refer to it, albeit in as a source of misunderstanding

Bitbol argues in Is Consciousness Primary? (that) consciousness is not an object among objects, nor a property waiting to be discovered by neuroscience. It is not among the phenomena given to examination by sense–data or empirical observation. If we know what consciousness is, it is because we ourselves are conscious beings, not because it is something we encounter.

I think learning to accept and live with the elusive nature of the self/subject/'I' is a fundamental life lesson.

Getting the sense for what 'empirical realism' means for Kant is not a wholesale rejection of Descartes.

By his account, the transcendental subject cannot be a 'creator' (I believe that Kant would say that it has not an 'intellectual intuition').

So, indeed, it seems that reason, according to Kant, can say something about the noumenon: there is 'something beyond' the subject and this 'beyond' is also related to the 'empirical world' (i.e. the world of appearances ordered by the cognitive faculties). That's why I think that there is an unresolved tension in Kant's model.

pure speculative reason in its transcendental use (…) is a faculty of individual rational beings in general.
— Mww

Ok. But it is instantiated in individual rational beings?

So, if individual rational beings are contingent so is pure speculative reason.

The framework is speculative ..…
— Mww

Not sure what you mean by 'speculative' here.

if I am right in what I said above, it also seems that the framework is speculative.

The problem he says arises from an assumed "difference on kind" between the intuition of space as an object, and the intuition of time as an object.

…the only reason why the resolution to this problem lies outside the capacity of human cognition is that he has incorrectly reduced space and time to two dimensions of the same thing.

The dialectical illusion in rational psychology rests on the confusion of an idea of reason (of a pure intelligence) with the concept, in every way indeterminate, of a thinking being in general. I think of myself, in behalf of a possible experience, by abstracting from all actual experience, and from this conclude that I could become conscious of my existence even outside experience and of its empirical conditions. Consequently I confuse the possible abstraction from my empirically determined existence with the supposed consciousness of a separate possible existence of my thinking Self, and believe that I cognize what is substantial in me as a transcendental subject, since I have in thought merely the unity of consciousness that grounds everything determinate as the mere form of cognition.

I think of myself, in behalf of a possible experience, by abstracting from all actual experience, and from this conclude that I could become conscious of my existence even outside experience and of its empirical conditions. Consequently I confuse the possible abstraction from my empirically determined existence with the supposed consciousness of a separate possible existence of my thinking Self, and believe that I cognize what is substantial in me as a transcendental subject, since I have in thought merely the unity of consciousness that grounds everything determinate as the mere form of cognition.

A grasp of what the problem actually is, rather than misrepresenting what it arises from, might be helpful.

Time and space are both intuitions, hence there is no difference in kind between them;
Space and time never were and cannot be treated as objects, hence the assumption of a difference in kind in their treatment is not the problem being addressed in the text.

Time doesn’t change at all; one moment is exactly the same as every other.

It isn’t the passage of time we notice; it is change in relations.

Time is not known or knowable, so there’s no need of perception of change for that reason.

Intuition is a mental activity, time is not a mental activity therefore not an intuition, but derived nonetheless from mental activity.

Space and time are both intuitions. This statement needs some clarification.

But if nothing changed at all in the world, would anyone perceive time? The fact of the matter is, things change (e.g. Sun rises every morning), hence people notice time passing.

The point which Reitan goes on to make is that both Hegel and Schleirmacher say that though we can't know the self as such, because we are the self, so this fact of our identity as the self could 'serve as a wedge to pry open a doorway'. But then, considering the great complexity (not to say prolixity) of Hegel's philosophy, this is not simple or straightforward.

Within the Indian traditions the self can be known.

So your remarks about time being objective are broadly correct, but its objectivity is not really the point at issue

Yes, it does. Thanks for pointing it out, and sorry I was inattentive with my statements in the first place.

The deeper question is: in what sense would time exist absent any awareness of it? The difficulty is that as soon as you begin to think about that question, you are already bringing time into awareness, or rather, bringing your mind to bear on the question. So time is always already part of the consideration.

….the statement that Time is intuition, said by Kant.

But if space and time, in and of themselves alone, are said to represent conceptions the transcendental expositions of which are idealities, must it then be possible to intuit idealities in the same regard as appearances? No, for to cognize transcendentally is to reason, from which follows in the cognition of a ideal representation, we in effect represent to ourselves purely a priori nothing more than the ground of a principle, in this case for the use of sensibility in general insofar as by it the representation of appearances in intuition, re: phenomena, becomes possible.

Capital ‘S’ Self. Which is the entire aim of the path. There’s nothing really corresponding with that in Western culture save as a kind of import from Indian sources. Which is not to imply disrespect but mindfulness of context.

I think learning to accept and live with the elusive nature of the self/subject/'I' is a fundamental life lesson.
— Wayfarer

That's a bit pf a tantalising idea. Are there 2 or 3 aspects of this particularly you can dot point?

We have therefore wanted to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us; and that if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, then all constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves, would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknown to us. We are acquainted with nothing except our way of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us and does not necessarily pertain to every being, though to be sure it pertains to every human being.

• •“Aesthetic” in contemporary usage usually refers to beauty or artistic appreciation. In Kant, it simply means what pertains to sensibility or sense-perception (from aisth?sis), as distinct from logic. Aesthetic concerns how things are given to us in experience; logic concerns how we think about what is given.• Note here the centrality of the subject (nowadays often referred to as “the observer”). This passage makes very explicit the constitutive role of the subject in the form of experience — arguably one of the most radical passages in the Critique.• “Objects in themselves” are said to be entirely unknown to us. This is not to say that they cease to exist, but that whatever kind of existence they may have independently of our mode of cognition is inaccessible to us.• Finally, note the qualification “every human being.” Kant allows for the possibility that other kinds of beings might have different forms of cognition, and elsewhere he speculates about what a divine intellect might be like. It does give a hint of the breadth of his considerations (elaborated at greater length in some of his other works).

E.g. reflecting on which things are you or yours. We do this casually every day.

So: the self that has experiences is a noumenal reality. ...Hegel believed that this fact could be made use of, so that somehow the self could serve as a wedge to pry open a doorway through the wall of mystery, into an understanding of reality as it is in itself.

If all of this (i.e. Kant's argument) is correct, then “ultimate” reality is unknowable. And...this implication of Kant’s thought was not one that others were prepared simply to accept. In the intellectual generation immediately following Kant, there were two towering figures in philosophy and theology who, each in his own way, sought a pathway beyond the wall of unknowability that Kant had erected around the noumenal.

What follows is not intended as a summary of their responses, but mainly to point out that they were reacting against Kant's declaration of the unknowable nature of the in-itself.

If my understanding of myself is at odds with what I am in myself, Hegel thought this would become apparent as I attempt to be (in practice) what I take myself to be (in theory). There arises a clash between my self-concept and what the self really is, a clash that manifests itself as a “contradiction,” one that then forces a revision in my self-understanding. When I try on this new self-understanding and attempt to live it out, another contradiction emerges. And so on. The resulting “dialectic” (Hegel’s name for this evolutionary process) continues until (at the end of history, so to speak) I finally reach a self-understanding that generates no contradictions when lived out. At that point, the phenomenal self has collapsed into the noumenal self—and I come to see what I am in myself.

According to Hegel’s own developed philosophy, the vision I have of my noumenal self turns out to be not just a vision of one small piece of the noumenal realm, but rather a vision of the Absolute (Hegel’s term for the ultimate noumenal reality).

According to Hegel’s own developed philosophy, the vision I have of my noumenal self turns out to be not just a vision of one small piece of the noumenal realm, but rather a vision of the Absolute (Hegel’s term for the ultimate noumenal reality).

We could like to try to figure out what the nature of time could be in more understandable and realistic manner from our own material world we live in.

Why should I accept this interpretation? Hegel does not, to my knowledge, use the term "noumena" in this way.

then on that assumption we must accept that the 'ultimate' nature of time is unknowable.

I did say they were intuitions, when I should have said they were the pure forms of intuitions, and of sensibility in general.

“Objects in themselves” are said to be entirely unknown to us. This is not to say that they cease to exist,

but that whatever kind of existence they may have independently of our mode of cognition is inaccessible to us.

What do you mean by sensibility in general….

…..and the pure form of intuitions?

It doesn’t help that Kant didn’t discuss intuition all that much either, so there’s precious little to interpret, forcing us to just accept what there is in the way of description of methodological processes.

Judging from my own study of Hegel (admittedly many a year ago now) he rejects the idea of noumena and the "in itself" altogether. "The Rational is the Real"

Hegel's Logic, being part one of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences translated by William Wallace:44.] It follows that the categories are no fit terms to express the Absolute—the Absolute not being given in perception;—and Understanding, or knowledge by means of the categories, is consequently incapable of knowing the Things-in-themselves. The Thing-in-itself (and under 'thing' is embraced even Mind and God) expresses the object when we leave out of sight all that consciousness makes of it, all its emotional aspects, and all specific thoughts of it. It is easy to see what is left,—utter abstraction, total emptiness, only described still as an 'other-world'—the negative of every image, feeling, and definite thought. Nor does it require much penetration to see that this caput mortuum is still only a product of thought, such as accrues when thought is carried on to abstraction unalloyed: that it is the work of the empty 'Ego,' which makes an object out of this empty self-identity of its own. The negative characteristic which this abstract identity receives as an object, is also enumerated among the categories of Kant, and is no less familiar than the empty identity aforesaid. Hence one can only read with surprise the perpetual remark that we do not know the Thing-in-itself. On the contrary there is nothing we can know so easily.

ibid. section 142:Thought in such a case is, on one hand, the synonym for a subjective conception, plan, intention or the like, just as actuality, on the other, is made synonymous with external and sensible existence. This is all very well in common life, where great laxity is allowed in the categories and the names given to them: and it may of course happen that e.g. the plan, or so-called idea, say of a certain method of taxation, is good and advisable in the abstract, but that nothing of the sort is found in so-called actuality, or could possibly be carried out under the given conditions. But when the abstract understanding gets hold of these categories and exaggerates the distinction they imply into a hard and fast line of contrast, when it tells us that in this actual world we must knock ideas out of our heads, it is necessary energetically to protest against these doctrines, alike in the name of science and of sound reason................................

In that vulgar conception of actuality which mistakes for it what is palpable and directly obvious to the senses, we must seek the ground of a wide-spread prejudice about the relation of the philosophy of Aristotle to that of Plato. Popular opinion makes the difference to be as follows. While Plato recognises the idea and only the idea as the truth, Aristotle, rejecting the idea, keeps to what is actual, and is on that account to be considered the founder and chief of empiricism. On this it may be remarked: that although actuality certainly is the principle of the Aristotelian philosophy, it is not the vulgar actuality of what is immediately at hand, but the idea as actuality. Where then lies the controversy of Aristotle against Plato? It lies in this. Aristotle calls the Platonic idea a mere ???????, and establishes in opposition to Plato that the idea, which both equally recognise to be the only truth, is essentially to be viewed as an ?????????, in other words, as the inward which is quite to the fore, or as the unity of inner and outer, or as actuality, in the emphatic sense here given to the word.

Anyhow my ideas of the interpretation on the issues might be different from yours or others.

Yeah, standard state of affairs, right? Human subjectivity…the bane and the blessing of philosophical discourse.

Have fun with it, I say

Kant's introduced the concept of the “thing in itself” to refer to reality as it is independent of our experience of it and unstructured by our cognitive constitution. The concept was harshly criticized in his own time and has been lambasted by generations of critics since. A standard objection to the notion is that Kant has no business positing it given his insistence that we can only know what lies within the limits of possible experience. But a more sympathetic reading is to see the concept of the “thing in itself” as a sort of placeholder in Kant's system; it both marks the limits of what we can know and expresses a sense of mystery that cannot be dissolved, the sense of mystery that underlies our unanswerable questions. Through both of these functions it serves to keep us humble.

What is your stance on the issue?

There is a significant element in Hegel regarding time and history. Can that be approached through an enlargement of the general ideas or does the new philosophy introduce incompatible ideas?

I think it is inapt to say we don't know anything about things in themselves, because the idea of a thing in itself is nothing more than an abstraction.

So, we don't know anything exhaustively.

I think all readers can agree that Hegel does not put forward the humility of Kant. That means we should be extra careful about how to compare their language.

Things in themselves sounds like contradiction. If we don't anything about it, we couldn't even name it or talk about it.

What does knowing something exhaustively mean? Does it mean there are degrees of knowing something? Any examples?

Does Hegel say time is just subjective perception? Or does he talk about time as some external entity in the material world?

Spirit, on the contrary, may be defined as that which has its centre in itself. It has not a unity outside itself, but has already found it; it exists in and with itself. Matter has its essence out of itself ; Spirit is self-contained existence (Bei-sich-selbst-seyn). Now this is Freedom, exactly. For if I am dependent, my being is referred to something else which I am not; I cannot exist independently of something external. I am free, on the contrary, when my existence depends upon myself. This self-contained existence of Spirit is none other than self-consciousness — consciousness of one's own being. Two things must be distinguished in consciousness; first, the fact that I know; secondly, what I know. In self consciousness these are merged in one; for Spirit knows itself. It involves an appreciation of its own nature, as also an energy enabling it to realize itself; to make itself actually that which it is potentially. According to this abstract definition it may be said of Universal History, that it is the exhibition of Spirit in the process of working out the knowledge of hat which it is potentially. And as the germ bears in itself the whole nature of the tree, and the taste and form of its fruits, so do the first traces of Spirit virtually contain the whole of that History.

Hegel's Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (pp. 309-310:The notion, too, is extremely hard, because it is itself just this very identity. But the actual substance as such, the cause, which in its exclusiveness resists all invasion, is ipso facto subjected to necessity or the destiny of passing into dependency: and it is this subjection rather where the chief hardness lies. To think necessity, on the contrary, rather tends to melt that hardness. For thinking means that, in the other, one meets with one's self.—It means a liberation, which is not the flight of abstraction, but consists in that which is actual having itself not as something else, but as its own being and creation, in the other actuality with which it is bound up by the force of necessity. As existing in an individual form, this liberation is called I: as developed to its totality, it is free Spirit; as feeling, it is Love; and as enjoyment, it is Blessedness.—The great vision of substance in Spinoza is only a potential liberation from finite exclusiveness and egoism: but the notion itself realises for its own both the power of necessity and actual freedom.

but as with a situation where you see a shadow, but have no access to its causal object, we can say not much. Perhaps speculation is allowable as a matter of curiosity..

It just means we don't know everything about anything.

In Hegel, the life of an individual human being happens in the context of an unfolding over time of the potential for freedom to actually come into concrete existence:

He certainly does not treat the things in themselves as a mysterious region behind the veil of appearance:

which cannot be subjectively imposed on them

Do you see "what you have read" in the portions I have quoted from Hegel?

I don't understand

which cannot be subjectively imposed on them

Your statement sounds like a particular reading of Kant, I suppose.