Anyone care to read Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"?
I am severely inadequate in terms of reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. It's a book that fascinates me, and I think will be even more appreciated in the future, when space-time is shown to be two different entities rather than one, perhaps, according to Quantum Dynamics.
I hope someone could start a reading group on Kant's monumental work. I have my edition ready; but, don't dare to want to lead a reading group on it.
@Moliere would you be willing to help us out? I know you've started a reading group before on the work by Kant. Perhaps you could help us out here and import your knowledge on these forums?
I hope someone could start a reading group on Kant's monumental work. I have my edition ready; but, don't dare to want to lead a reading group on it.
@Moliere would you be willing to help us out? I know you've started a reading group before on the work by Kant. Perhaps you could help us out here and import your knowledge on these forums?
Comments (626)
I mean to imply that we start a reading group on Kant's monumental work with some companion in mind. It was a Copernican revolution in philosophy, according to Kant himself.
I don't know how many times I'd need to read the work to get a good grasp on it. Perhaps, ten (?) times? Have you read it?
Quoting tim wood
I'm using the Britannica's edition of Kant. Here's all the info on the subject:
John Searle has some great lectures on Kant as does Dan Brown, but I won't be attempting the book any time soon.
*laughs*
Do you want to be the leader of the reading group on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason? I'd happily oblige to your directionality on the issue.
Oh, okay. Sorry to misinform otherwise. I'm sure a PDF is available online somewhere. I go search for one, now.
Do you want to assist us with this reading group?
http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/kant-first-critique-cambridge.pdf
Translation by PAUL GUYER University of Pennsylvania ALLEN W. WOOD Yale University.
And a second one:
http://files.libertyfund.org/files/1442/0330_Bk.pdf
Translation by: F. MAX MULLER
This was the original title.
Also - again, not that I've read them all - but I really enjoyed Adorno's lecture series on the CPR, which one can find in published form as an accompanying text.
I know that I prefer the Pluhar translation for its consistency and readability. But potaytoe potahtoe -- I don't know if it really matters all that much.
But if you want the group I'd suggest just starting up and leading it. It doesn't take any special knowledge -- just energy, dedication, and a willingness to be wrong.
I progress at a slow pace. I'm a slug when it comes to reading.
That's fair enough. I don't devour books the way some others here do either. All I'm saying is if that's the case maybe be a bit more conservative in your involvement in these things.
Ok, I'll refrain from starting new group readings. I'm awash in Schopenhauer's WWAR and others as it already stands.
Good reason to start 20 different reading groups at the same time.
I can't help it. Curiosity, you know?
I didn't want to lead this reading group; but, follow it.
Sure, but why not just systematically tackle one thing at a time? I don't know how many pages you can feasibly do in a day, but even if it's just 5, say, you'd get through all of Philosophical Investigations in less than a month, and then all of the World as Will and Representation in less than two months . . . you could tackle 6-8 of the major philosophy texts per year at least. If you could do 10 pages per day, you could double that. You just would need to make a commitment to sit down every day and read however many pages, concentrating on one thing at a time until you finish it.
Well, to my case, the Naming and Necessity reading group is doing well with the grace of Banno. Schopenhauer is a difficult beast to tackle so, I'm doing slowly on that. The Philosophical Investigations thread is doing alright, though quite haphazardous. What am I doing wrong here?
Just picking up the Critique for the first time. Having traversed most of it's themes and ideas in other people's work, this should be a great straightening-out for me :)
Anyone want to read along?
Also Online editions of CPR
I'm finding that as long as i read slowly, it really isn't that hard to grasp. The schematic above is helping my trust that intuition.
But even with this secondary literature, there's a whole lot that is just hard to follow, because he is just way too technical. But of course, it has come excellent ideas.
Any specific recommendations? I'm finding it very dense, but going slowly is giving me some confidence im my interpretations. I'd like to know if i'm just not getting it LOL
Mmm. It's not super, super easy, but, much easier than the Critique, Lucy Allais' Manifest Reality is sublime. Try that one out.
Then read his (Kant's) Prolegomena. After that, you could try other sources, or just struggle with the darn thing.
Or get yourself an @Mww, if they are up for sale. They can help a lot. :cool:
Hey, now!!! I’ll have you know, I’m cheap but I ain’t easy. (Grin)
Oh heavens.
If it were easy, it would be no fun. :cool:
Seems an exemplary book, thanks for the tip :clap:
Anytime! :cheer:
I think so too, she starts, iirc, speaking about how Kant is an empirical realist but also a transcendental idealist, that he is both and that there is no contradiction. You say something similar.
She'll go on to speak about how he would fit today under different analytic interpretations (realism vs. anti-realism, metaphysical vs. deflationary interpretations, etc.)
But the part I liked the best is the last 2 (maybe 3) chapters, which is what I've read many times.
Entire book 2. So, if you do agree with her, seems to me you have a decent theory in the works. :)
It is interesting question why on seeing a broken window I instinctively believe that something broke it, even though I may never know exactly what. Why do I have a primitive belief that if something happens there must have been a reason? Why does my belief in cause and effect seem innate?
It is a matter of debate whether the Kant's Category of Causality applies only to Appearances or also to Things-in-Themselves.
First, Kant was not a Phenomenologist, in that he believed there are objects outside the mind and second, he made use of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, where any change in time of an object of experience must conform to causal law.
Kant does say in A20/B34 that an object may be understood in two ways, as an Appearance and as a Thing-in-Itself.
The effect of an object on the capacity for representation, insofar as we are affected by it, is sensation." That intuition which is related to the object through sensation is called empirical. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called appearance.
In numerous passages, Kant does describe the Appearance and Thing-in-Itself distinction, but it can be argued not as a distinction between two different objects but as two ways of considering the same object, inferring what is called the Dual Aspect View.
The Dual Aspect view of Kant, developed in the 1960's and 70's attempted to overcome the Phenomenalist problem with Affection, and argued that the Phenomenologists had mistakenly assumed that appearance and things-in-themselves are ontologically distinct kinds of objects.
Kant wrote in the Preface that the same object can be considered as it appears to us or as it is in itself.
The same objects can be considered from two different sides, on the one side as objects of the senses and the understanding for experience, and on the other side as objects that are merely thought at most for isolated reason striving beyond the bounds of experience. (Bxviii–Bxix, note) the reservation must well be noted that even if we cannot cognize these same objects as things in themselves, we are at least able to think of them as things in themselves. (Bxxvi)
There are passages in the Fourth Paralogism where the Thing-in-Itself is declared the cause of Appearance
A380 The transcendental object that grounds both outer appearances and inner intuition is neither matter nor a thinking being in itself, but rather an unknown ground of those appearances that supply us with our empirical concepts of the former as well as the latter.
Kant also writes in Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics 1783 that the category of cause and effect can be applied to things-in-themselves.
"And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something."
Kant can be argued to be avoiding an ontological distinction between Appearance and Things-in-Themselves in favour of a distinction between the form of an Appearance, in other words its phenomenology, and the content of an Appearance, in other words things-in-themselves. The consequence is that it is not the case that Causality can only be applied to Appearance, but can in fact be applied to the content of the Appearance as it affects the form of the Appearance. Kant claims that only the form of experience is mind-dependent, not its matter, as the matter of experience depends on a source outside the mind. Kant may be read as arguing that the sensory content is affected by the matter of mind-independent objects, things-in-themselves, while the form of experience is determined by the mind alone. Kant makes the point that the sensory content is not generated by the mind, but is generated by affection with mind-independent objects, things-in-themselves, which are then structured by the categories.
Kant wrote: the Critique posits this ground of the matter of sensory representations not once again in things, as objects of the senses, but in something super-sensible, which grounds the latter, and of which we can have no cognition. (Discovery, Ak. 8:205)
As Kant was not a phenomenologist, and believed in both Appearance and Things-in-Themselves, where the Things-in-Themselves are the cause of the Appearance, the Category of Causality cannot apply just to the Appearance but must also apply to the cause of that Appearance, ie the Things-in-Themselves.
Wikipedia - Thing-in-Itself
Claude Pichet - Kant and the problem of affection
https://hume.ucdavis.edu/kant/CAUSE.HTM
YouTube - Kant's Categories - Daniel Bonevac
He stated without equivocation the principle of causality could not, why it should now be category of causality, and that it might, I have no idea. So…..you can say whatever you like.
Would I be right in saying that you see Kant as regarding the ding an sich as the real object, from which apparent objects are merely derivative? Does he say in so many words that the ding an sich is the cause of the appearance? Kant's philosophy implies that while there is something that exists independently of our perception (the thing-in-itself), our understanding of it is always mediated by our cognitive faculties. Therefore, while it's reasonable to think that the thing-in-itself is related to appearances, asserting a direct causal relationship in the empirical sense between the thing in itself and the appearance would be an over-extension of his philosophy - an inference of your own devising. And I think you hold to that interpretation, because you yourself are committed to a realist ontology.
Quoting Corvus
Suppose someone sees a red postbox.
If they were a Phenomenalist, the Appearance is the real world.
If they were an Indirect Realist, they would say that although the postbox appears red, the postbox as a Thing-in-Itself is not necessarily red. For the Indirect Realist, although the Appearance is real, the real world is the unknown Thing-in-Itself that is the cause of the Appearance.
If they were a Direct Realist, they would say that because the postbox appears red then the postbox as a Thing-in-Itself is red. For the Direct Realist, as the Appearance is directly of the thing-in-itself, not only is the real world the thing-in-itself, but they have direct knowledge of the real world through its Appearance.
As far as I know, Kant's position can be described as that of an Indirect Realist.
I see Mary in the office, being professional, managing the office, arriving on time, smartly dressed and courteous to her workmates. I see Mary on the weekend, drinking in the bar, late leaving the house, dressed sloppily, shouting at the noisy neighbour and forgetting to buy soap at the supermarket. Which is the "real" Mary?
Wittgenstein wrote in PI 404 "Though someone else sees who is in pain from the groaning" . There is the public and objective behaviour of pain, the groaning, the Appearance, describable in words and there is the private and subjective feeling of pain, the Thing-in-Itself, indescribable in words. Which is the "real" pain, the Appearance of pain or pain as a Thing-in-itself?
An Astronomer looking into the distant sky sees galaxy HD1. The Astronomer is only seeing the Appearance of HD1, a few photons of light entering their telescope that left the galaxy 13.5 billion years ago, yet HD1 as a Thing-in-Itself has the mass of possibly 1.5 trillion solar masses. Which is the "real" HD1, the Appearance of HD1 in the Astronomer's telescope or HD1 as a Thing-in-itself?
In the 1960's and 70's was developed the "dual aspect" view of the relationship between Appearance and Thing-in-Itself. In numerous passages Kant describes the appearance and thing-in-itself distinction, not as a distinction between two different objects, but as two ways of considering the same object.
Kant wrote in the Preface that even though we cannot cognize about a Thing-in-itself , we can still think about possible Things-in-Themselves as long as we are able to justify our reasoning:
Bxxvi "even if we cannot cognize these same objects as things in themselves, we at least must be able to think them as things in themselves.
Some believe in an Epistemological dual aspect, in that we can consider objects as objects of appearance or we can consider objects as things in-themselves. Others believe in a Metaphysical dual aspect, in that objects of appearance are bearers of empirical relational properties, while objects as things-in-themselves are bearers of non-empirical intrinsic properties.
The Merriam Webster Dictionary list several meanings of the word "real" as an adjective, so which meaning of the word" real" is the real one?
(SEP - Kant's Transcendental Idealism)
Was Kant a Realist?
Kant was not an Idealist but a Realist, in that Things-in-Themselves in the world are the grounds for the Appearances in our minds.
Although we cannot cognize about the Thing-in-Itself, we can still think about them.
CPR Preface Bxxvi "even if we cannot cognize these same objects as things in themselves, we at least must be able to think them as things in themselves.
GJ Mattey in his lecture notes wrote about Kant's acceptance of the existence of an external world.
In Remarks II and III of Part One, Kant confronted the issue directly, and dangerously. Genuine idealists hold that the only real beings are thinking beings, everything else being representations in the thinking beings. Kant, on the other hand, denies this thesis. Appearances are appearances of things in themselves, so that what we call bodies exist not merely as representations (as stressed in the Fourth Paralogism), but as things in themselves. "I grant by all means that there are bodies without us, that is, things which, though quite unknown to us as to what they are in themselves, we yet know by the representations which their influence on our sensibility procures us. These representations we call 'bodies,' a term signifying merely the appearance of the thing which is unknown to us, but not therefore less actual. Can this be termed idealism? It is the very contrary" (Ak. 290). A vital feature of this claim is that the unknown thing is said to "influence" our sensibility, and as such, we can only postulate it as a cause. But then it seems that we are back to the original problem, i.e., the dubiousness of causal inference. Kant might respond that what is dubious in causal inference is not that there is a cause, but what the cause is. And he has admitted that the cause of our representations of bodies is unknown. "Neither the transcendental object which underlies outer appearances nor that which underlies inner intuition, is in itself either matter or a thinking being, but a ground (to us unknown) of the appearances which supply to us the empirical concept of the former as well as of the latter mode of existence" (A379-80). Unfortunately, Kant had also claimed that the concept of causality can be justifiably applied only to objects of experience, as the condition of rule-governed change of the states of empirical objects. Thus his appeal to the unknown cause of our representations falls victim to his limitation of the use of our understanding to experience.
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Quoting Wayfarer
Does Kant's Category of Causation apply to Things-in-Themselves?
Kant writes in Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics 1783 that the category of cause and effect can be applied to things-in-themselves.
"And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something."
It is true that the Categories in general apply only to Appearances, the Phenomena, but it can be argued that the Category of Cause is a special case and does also apply transcendentally to the Thing-in-Itself, the Noumena.
Claude Piche in his article Kant and the Problem of Affection makes this point, where he concludes:
The contribution of this paper is that I have tried to make sense of the thing in itself as the "transcendental ground" of appearances. Rather than simply consider the thing in itself as a "necessary" concept, as in Allison's view, my purpose is to demonstrate that for Kant the actuality of the thing in itself as the cause of appearances must be necessarily posited. The thing in itself is not merely an epistemic condition that we must "think"; it is a critical-metaphysical assumption that must be made, one that becomes part of philosophical knowledge. The critical philosopher knows that there is something beyond the appearances. But in this case, there is nothing dogmatic about such an assumption since it is required by the transcendental explanation of our knowledge itself. I have tried to argue that there is a legitimate philosophical use of the category of causality which links affection to the thing in itself, as long as the constraints implied by such a concept (Le., heterogeneity and indeterminateness of the correlate) are respected, even at this higher level of argumentation. The normative constraints of such a transcendental discourse cannot be empirical, nor can they be the product of pure invention. The self-referentiality of philosophy, as it has been sketched here, entails that the transcendental use of a category is permissible strictly in view of the explanation of the only way in which experience is rendered possible.
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Quoting Wayfarer
How can we talk about Things-in-Themselves if we are unable to cognize about Things-in-Themselves?
Kant wrote in the Preface that even though we cannot cognize about a Thing-in-itself , we can still think about possible Things-in-Themselves as long as we are able to justify our reasoning:
Bxxvi "even if we cannot cognize these same objects as things in themselves, we at least must be able to think them as things in themselves.
We can't talk about something that we don't even know exists, meaning that when we do talk about something either we believe it exists, believe it could possibly exist or know it exists.
As we do talk about things-in-themselves, this means that we either believe they exist, believe they could possibly exist or know they exist.
How can we believe that something exists, believe that it could possibly exist or know it exists without first cognizing about the subject of our belief or knowing?
Quoting RussellA
Quoting RussellA
1. Do the Phenomenalists claim to know the real world perceived as the appearance? Or is it unknown existence?
2. What would be the differences between Appearance of the postbox, and Sense-Data of the postbox?
I challenge that claim. I see Kant as a qualified realist - he describes himself as being at the same time, an empirical realist but also a transcendental idealist, and says that these are not in conflict. I know that there are deflationary readings of Kant, which attempt to show that he was, at heart, a realist, but then, there are many different interpretations on this point. The key factor in all this is the Kant denies that space and time have mind-independent existence.
[quote=A370]The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum. For because he allows this matter and even its inner possibility to be valid only for appearance– which, separated from our sensibility, is nothing –matter for him is only a species of representations (intuition), which are call external, not as if they related to objects that are external in themselves but because they relate perceptions to space, where all things are external to one another, but that space itself is in us. [/quote]
Quoting RussellA
I think that you need the concept of the thing in itself to stand in for what you understand as what is real, independently of any mind, as the mind-dependence of things is too radical a position for you to accept.
I think your belief in the mind-independent nature of existence is innate. The following is a lengthy quote, but it brings the issue into sharp focus. It's from Bryan Magee's book on Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Schopenhauer having refined and sharpened Kant's idealism.
[quote=Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy]Schopenhauer's reformulation of Kant's theory of perception brings out implications of it which Kant touched on without giving them anything like the consideration their importance demanded ‚ and this must mean, I think, that he was not consistently aware of their importance. The first of these is that if all the characteristics we are able to ascribe to phenomena are subject-dependent then there can be no object in any sense that we are capable of attaching to the word without the existence of a subject. Anyone who supposes that if all the perceiving subjects were removed from the world then the objects, as we have any conception of them, could continue in existence all by themselves has radically failed to understand what objects are. Kant did see this, but only intermittently ‚ in the gaps, as it were, between assuming the existence of the noumenon 'out there' as the invisible sustainer of the object.
He expressed it once in a passage which, because so blindingly clear and yet so isolated, sticks out disconcertingly from his work: 'If I take away the thinking subject, the whole material world must vanish, as this world is nothing but the phenomenal appearance in the sensibility of our own subject, and is a species of this subject's representations.'
We have already mentioned one of the obvious objections to which this view appears to be open, namely the problem about the sharedness of the world. We shall return to that later. Another objection would run: 'Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to what Kant has just been quoted as saying, that is impossible.'
Schopenhauer's defence of Kant on this score was twofold. First, the objector has not understood to the very bottom the Kantian demonstration that time is one of the forms of our sensibility. The earth, say, as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry in which we have come to know a great deal; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the same room. The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper.
This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood, so that these statements appear faulty in ways in which, properly understood, they are not. Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them.
This, of course, is one of the explanations for the almost unfathomably deep counterintuitiveness of transcendental idealism, and also for the general notion of 'depth' with which people associate Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. Something akin to it is the reason for much of the prolonged, self-disciplined meditation involved in a number of Eastern religious practices.
Schopenhauer's second refutation of the objection under consideration is as follows. Since all imaginable characteristics of objects depend on the modes in which they are apprehended by perceiving subjects, then without at least tacitly assumed presuppositions relating to the latter no sense can be given to terms purporting to denote the former‚ in short, it is impossible to talk about material objects at all, and therefore even so much as to assert their existence, without the use of words the conditions of whose intelligibility derive from the experience of perceiving subjects.[/quote]
Note this phrase: 'the assumptions of "the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect" enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood.' That is what I think I'm seeing in your analyses.
It's a complicated topic that I only vaguely comprehend, and can only understand using simple analogies. For example, if I put my hand on a radiator and feel intense heat, my moving my hand has been determined by my immediate experience, not by any consideration about the cause of my experience. At a later time, I can contemplate about possible reasons why the radiator was hot, but thoughts about the cause didn't determine my action, my experience determined my action .
Husserl seems central to Phenomenology. From SEP Phenomenology:
Still, the discipline of phenomenology, its roots tracing back through the centuries, came to full flower in Husserl.
Husserl's concept of "bracketing" seems important to Husserl. From Wikipedia Bracketing (phenomenology)
The preliminary step in the philosophical movement of phenomenology is describing an act of suspending judgment about the natural world to instead focus on analysis of experience.
As Husserl built on Kant's Transcendental Idealism, I imagine the Phenomenologist immediately experiences Appearance and only transcendently knows the world outside of experience. From Wikipedia Bracketing (phenomenology)
Edmund Husserl, building on Kant’s ideas, first proposed bracketing in 1913, to help better understand another’s phenomena.
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Quoting Corvus
Speaking as an Indirect Realist, I would say that Appearance and Sense-data are synonyms, where both are figures of speech, and are two different ways of looking at the same thing.
This would be in opposition to the Direct Realist, who would say neither exist, in that when looking at a postbox we are looking directly at the postbox and not at some intermediary thing. IE, we are directly looking at the postbox, not a representation of the postbox.
There seem different schools of Phenomenology. For example, Heidegger's Phenomenology is much different from Husserl's. Merlou-Ponty has again different Phenomenology in its methodology and subjects too. Hence framing Kant as a Phenomenologist needs close investigation i.e. first defining what Phenomenology is, then under what ground Kant is Phenomenologist or not.
Quoting RussellA
I think this is a fair comment. Appearance and sense-data is very similar if not the same. Kant keeps saying Appearance and objects are the same in CPR. Would it be the ground for making Kant an Indirect Realist? Kant definitely says that TI is nothing to do with idealism in the Prolegomena.
To my understanding, Kant cannot be described as a Phenomenologist, as phenomena are only one part of his "Transcendental Idealism".
As the IEP article Phenomenology writes:
[i]Phenomenology, then, is the study of things as they appear (phenomena).
Kant endorsed “transcendental idealism,” distinguishing between phenomena (things as they appear) and noumena (things as they are in themselves)
On Kant’s view, the I is purely formal, playing a role in structuring experience but not itself given in experience. On Husserl’s view, the I plays this structuring role, but is also given in inner experience.[/i]
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Quoting Corvus
:up: I would argue that Kant is in today's terms definitely an "Indirect Realist".
Only thing about "Indirect Realism" is that, "Indirect" sounds a bit vague. Would it not be better called something like "Representational Realism"? Because appearance and sense-data represent the contents in the mind.
What would be the ground of making him anything but what he made himself?
Quoting Corvus
So a guy knows what TI stands for, then reads herein TI has nothing to do with idealism. What’s he to think, when he understands perfectly well that the I in TI intentionally represents idealism? Then, the poor guy, reading the reference material promising that TI has nothing to do with idealism, comes across “…The principle that throughout dominates and determines my Idealism…”, aannnndddd…..he’s farging lost it. He slams the book shut, walks off, goes back to his comic books or video games, or whatever it is that doesn’t stress his intellect enough to discover that which is at least purported as “useful truths”.
Rhetorical. The answer is in the Critique, and “…. could have been very easily understood from the general bearing of the work, if the reader had only desired to do so….”.
It come down to definition.
Some believe that the world exists in a mind, such as Berkeley, and others believe that there is also a world that exists outside the mind, such as Kant.
I agree with the SEP article on Idealism that within modern philosophy there are sometimes taken to be two fundamental conceptions of idealism:
[i]1) something mental (the mind, spirit, reason, will) is the ultimate foundation of all reality, or even exhaustive of reality, and
2) although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, everything that we can know about this mind-independent “reality” is held to be so permeated by the creative, formative, or constructive activities of the mind (of some kind or other) that all claims to knowledge must be considered, in some sense, to be a form of self-knowledge.[/i]
I agree with the SEP article of Realism that there are two general aspects to realism:
There are two general aspects to realism, illustrated by looking at realism about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties. First, there is a claim about existence. Tables, rocks, the moon, and so on, all exist, as do the following facts: the table’s being square, the rock’s being made of granite, and the moon’s being spherical and yellow. The second aspect of realism about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties concerns independence. The fact that the moon exists and is spherical is independent of anything anyone happens to say or think about the matter.
I agree that Kant is described as both an Empirical Realist and Transcendental Idealist. However, Kant did propose that the phrase "Transcendental Idealism" could be improved.
In the Introduction to the CPR by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood:
Specifically, he differentiated his position from Berkeleian idealism by arguing that he denied the real existence of space and time and the spatiotemporal properties of objects, but not the real existence of objects themselves distinct from our representations, and for this reason he proposed renaming his transcendental idealism with the more informative name of "formal" or "critical idealism," making it clear that his idealism concerned the form but not the existence of external objects.
The key factor that Kant denied that space and time have a mind-independent existence is similar to my position as an Indirect Realist in my belief that the colour red has no existence outside of my mind. If I see a red postbox, it is not the case that the postbox is red, but rather the postbox appears red in my mind. The fact that when I taste an apple as sweet does not mean that sweetness exists in a mind-independent world. The fact that I see a spatial relation between two objects, in that I see an apple above a table, does not mean that spatial relations ontologically exist in a mind-independent world.
To see something in the world does not of necessity mean that it exists in the world, as in bent sticks.
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Quoting Wayfarer
I feel I went to sleep in Dublin and have been teletransported to Königsberg.
Concepts in the mind must refer to something. They cannot be empty terms.
We say that the concept in the mind of a thing-in-itself refers to a real thing existing in a mind-independent world.
But the problem is, things-in-themselves in a mind-independent world are by definition mind-independent.
But the concept in the mind of a thing-in-itself must refer to something. What do you think the concept in the mind of a thing-in-itself refers to?
Possibly. The Wikipedia article on Direct and Indirect Realism does give alternate names:
In the philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, direct or naïve realism, as opposed to indirect or representational realism, are differing models that describe the nature of conscious experiences.
The problem is, is it possible to describe a theory about which millions of words have been written using just two words.
I think of "Indirect Realism" as a name rather than a description, as the Taj Mahal is the name of and not a description of a building. Similarly I think of "Transcendental Idealism" as a name rather than a description.
It must be all the recent Kant commentators who pigeonholed Kant to be an idealist, realist, or phenomenologist etc etc, and we are just to trying to find on what basis was Kant so and so-ist? Maybe Kant had all those characteristic tendencies in his writings? It is just part and parcel of trying to understand Kant better suppose. Of course Kant was a Kantian.
Quoting Mww
Could Transcendental have implied "Anti"? I am not quite sure what the true definition of "Transcendental" in Kant exactly means either. I am suspicious if it meant simply "prior to experience".
What are your definitions of "Transcendental" and "Transcendental Idealism" in Kant?
Yeah, whenever I read "Indirect X", I always get curious, "Indirect" from what, how and why?
Quoting RussellA
Perhaps you could be right.
Inevitably ending in making of him something for which he would be in no position to affirm or deny. So what’s the point? What does it matter with respect to his philosophy, which is all anyone should care about anyway.
Quoting Corvus
It’s defined, without equivocation, in the very text from which his metaphysical philosophy gets its name. How could it be left to mere supposition, for his successors to guess about, that which is the formal ground of a paradigm shift in human thought? The fact of it, as you’ve hinted yourself, is completely irrelevant, even if its logical consistency and internal integrity are absolutely necessary.
Quoting Corvus
No.
(I’m not aware of any indication that it does)
Quoting Corvus
It doesn’t.
(There is another term representing “prior to experience”)
Quoting Corvus
Mine are his. But having the definition still requires understanding the myriad instances of the term in accordance with it. THAT’S the hard part.
Neutral Monism denies the reality of the Earth
From the position of Neutral Monism, there is only one substance, elementary particles and elementary forces in space-time, and there is only one aspect of it, neither mental nor material, but rather, in some sense, neutral between the two.
From the position of Nominalism, universals and abstracts don't exist in the world.
From the position of Conceptualism, universals and abstracts don't exist outside the mind's perception of them.
From the position of Reductionism, complex systems are no more than the sum of their parts. For example, biological life can be explained in terms of its physical processes and the temperature of a gas can be explained by the average kinetic energy of its molecules in motion.
As regards the question, did the Earth exist before there was life, it depends on what one means by the Earth. In one sense it did exist and in another sense it absolutely didn't exist.
If the Earth is a concept in the human mind, amongst many other concepts such as apples, tables, angst, love, pain, fear, mountains, governments, then prior to the human mind, before there was life, then of course it didn't exist. How can a concept which depends for its existence on the human mind exist before there were human minds to have the concept.
If the Earth is a concept in the human mind, then from the viewpoint of today, I can say that "the Earth existed before there were human minds", as the Earth I am referring to is not something that existed prior to the human mind, but the Earth as it exists as a concept in my mind at this present moment in time.
If the Earth is not a concept in the human mind but exists independently of any human mind, then there are serious problems as to what exactly judges in the absence of any human mind when something is the Earth and when it is no longer the Earth, as the Earth is in a continual process of change. For example, the Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula, a mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the Sun. What decided that 5 billion years ago the mass of dust and gas was not the Earth, but 4 billion years ago the mass of dust and gas was now the Earth. A human mind could make the judgement, but Bryan Magee is not saying that, he is inferring that in the absence of any human mind, something has judged at what moment in time a mass of gas and dust becomes the Earth.
I agree that if all the characteristics that we are able to ascribe to phenomena are subject dependent then there can be no object in any sense. I agree that if the subject is the human mind and the object is the Earth, if there is no human mind then there can be no Earth. But this ignores Neutral Monism, where if there is no subject, the human mind, there can still be an object, elementary particles and elementary forces existing in space and time.
In this case, the prefix "in" means "not". Therefore, some people are direct realists, and some people are not-direct realists.
The problem is then knowing what "direct" refers to. Does it mean causally direct or cognitively direct?
Yes, as with Chomsky, I believe in a certain amount of Innatism. As the Wikipedia article on Innatism writes:
In the philosophy of mind, innatism is the view that the mind is born with already-formed ideas, knowledge, and beliefs. The opposing doctrine, that the mind is a tabula rasa (blank slate) at birth and all knowledge is gained from experience and the senses, is called empiricism.
Such Innatism can be combined with the principle of Enactivism. As the Wikipedia article on Enactivism writes:
Enactivism is a position in cognitive science that argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment.
For me, Kant's references to the "a priori" are explained by what we know today as Innatism, a natural consequence of life's 3.7 billion years of evolution in a dynamic dance with the world of which it is a part.
As Bryan Magee wrote: "the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect"
What is Kant's own definition of Transcendental Idealism? I was under impression that he hadn't given out clear definitions on TI as such. According to your answer, it sounds like it is highly challenging or even impossible to come up with a clearcut definition of TI. But there got to be one, if you claim that yours is Kant's definition.
Another case of linguistic aberration?
Instinct?
Find A491/B519.
It will tell you what you want to know, but not what you should be asking, at least with respect to Kantian metaphysics in general and CPR in particular.
(well aware you did not ask me.. Just adding a perspective as I'm reading CPR right now for the first time so feel like i need this type of thing to nut out whether i understand.. any.. of it LOL)
My understanding of 'Transcendental' is that it denotes the concepts which transcend phenomena/experience. So these 'a priori' concepts are transcendental, as are the processes by which we make use of them but the concepts are how we experience sensory data. I don't think its strictly a placeholder for 'a priori' but it does encapsulate that there are concepts necessarily experienced in a representation-to-come, yet understood prior to experience of the representation, making the 'giving' of the object possible to our senses. I've not gotten far enough to tease out whether this could (as seems obvious to me) apply to things that don't actually exist (i.e, if: there is no object which could be 'given to' us, could we yet ascribe these transcendental concepts to figures of hte mind not ever present to our senses?). Issue is, it seems to me Kant denies the 'actual' existence of the object aside from the inner sense of it, so... I need to read more lol.
Thank you for your post. It is always good to have more different opinions on the topic, which makes discussions more diverse and interesting.
Quoting AmadeusD
Yes, I think this is quite interesting point and also where there are different interpretations between the traditional and contemporary commentators on Kant.
From my understanding, Kant was elucidating the both side of pure reason i.e. TI side which assumes the perceived objects belonging to Thing-in-Itself, which appears in minds as mere representation of the objects into the schema of a priori form of space and time which are all internal. We don't know anything about Thing-in-itself, hence we cannot even ask about it.
And then there is material empiricism side of pure reason, which takes the perceived objects as the real objects in the external world as they are. The reason sees the appearance, which are the actual objects that one can grab touch feel and manipulate. Thing-in-itself is part of the world we don't fully know, but is conceivable.
Pure reason deals with this conflicting nature of our perception. That's why Kant is explaining about them in the section called "Antinomy of Pure Reason". Therefore Kant was not committing himself as either idealist or realist at all in CPR. His aim was to investigate what Pure Reason does, and how it does it viz. the limitation and methodology of Pure reason.
I am also in the middle of reading Kant, and trying to understand him better. I use read him a few year ago, but stopped for a while doing other things. Recently I have been trying to get back to reading him again.
Could it be the part of CPR where Kant explains the antinomy of Pure Reason? The reason has to deal with two controversial cases in perception.
First case is, TI, that perceived objects appear in mind as internal representations, and even space and time must be regarded as internal forms of the mind. In this case, the perceived objects are treated as the existence in Thing-in-itself, and we are not supposed to know anything about them at all.
The other case is that objects in perception exist as external to the mind as real objects. You see the appearance, but you realise that they are actually the real objects, which you can grab, touch, feel and manipulate. Even space and time feels external, where space is the external existence and time is the external process. This is the case of material empiricism.
The pure reason has both sides to deal with, and both are true. Kant seemed to be NOT committing himself as either an idealist or realist at this part of CPR.
The explanation of the antinomies, the exposition of what they are, is A407/B434, wherein pure reason is concerned only with itself and the troubles it causes itself. However such examples of these conflicts manifest, isn’t as important as recognizing how they occur.
Kant states for the record he considers himself a transcendental idealist. Being that kind of idealist grants to empirical conditions their just warrant, so his favoring one name for a philosophy, doesn’t negate his regard for the world with the other.
I get the idea that Plato’s appeal to the ‘innate wisdom of the Soul’ can be explained naturalistically with reference to evolutionary psychology. Makes sense, kind of. But that is a Darwinian account of mind, which I think tends towards biological reductionism (in other words, reducing all our faculties to the biological). After all, Darwinian theory is not a theory about the mind, it is a theory about the evolution of species. And evolution is concerned with no other end than successful reproduction.
But no other evolved species has the capacity for abstract reasoning and language in anything more than rudimentary forms. H. Sapiens alone is able to peer into the domain of reason and symbolic form. (Speaking of Chomsky, he co-authored a book on this very question, Why Only Us?, with Robert Berwick.) So my rather more idealist stance is that the human being is able to transcend the biological - that we are more than physical (and therefore more than simply biological). So our cognitive horizons are greater than those of purely sensory creatures. And that is without denying the facts of evolution, although it may be calling what is generally taken as its meaning into question.
Quoting RussellA
I appreciate the care you've taken in your replies. I think the view I’m coming to is that we have nowadays a very restricted view of what is real. You’re saying, ideas must refer to something - they must have a real referent that exists ‘out there somewhere’ as the saying has it. That is what I think Magee is referring to when he wrote "the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect". It is what later phenomenology refers to as ’the natural attitude’.
//Incidentally I acknowledge that the above is not directly relevant to Kant per se, although as I've said in the Mind-Created World OP, I believe my philosophy is convergent with Kant's.//
Not really, it depends what the word "direct" is referring to.
The Phenomenological Direct Realist would say that they have both a direct perception (causally direct) and direct cognition of the postbox as it really is in a mind-independent world.
The Semantic Direct Realist would say that they have an indirect perception (causally indirect) but a direct cognition of the postbox as it really is in a mind-independent world.
The Indirect Realist would say that they have an indirect perception (causally indirect) and indirect cognition of the postbox as it really is in a mind-independent world.
I believe that Kant would say that he has both an indirect perception (causally indirect) and indirect cognition of the postbox as it really is in a mind-independent world, ie, the same as what an Indirect Realist would say.
What do the Indirect Realist say about A priori concepts and space and time? Can these be mind-independent?
Trying to keep the post relevant to Kant through understanding the word "transcendence".
Why cannot abstract reasoning and language be explained within biology?
If abstract reasoning and language could be explained within biology, then it would not be necessary for any transcendence of the biological.
Biological processes are capable of many surprising things. Taking one example at random, the ScienceDaily has a 2009 article Scientists Show Bacteria Can 'Learn' And Plan Ahead
Bacteria can anticipate a future event and prepare for it, according to new research at the Weizmann Institute of Science. In a paper that appeared June 17 in Nature, Prof. Yitzhak Pilpel, doctoral student Amir Mitchell and research associate Dr. Orna Dahan of the Institute's Molecular Genetics Department, together with Prof. Martin Kupiec and Gal Romano of Tel Aviv University, examined microorganisms living in environments that change in predictable ways. Their findings show that these microorganisms' genetic networks are hard-wired to 'foresee' what comes next in the sequence of events and begin responding to the new state of affairs before its onset.
Other examples can be found showing simple mechanical structures looking surprisingly life-like.
The word "transcendental " has different senses
From the Merriam Webster dictionary, "transcend" as a transitive verb can mean
1a to rise above or go beyond the limits of
1b to triumph over the negative or restrictive aspects of
1c to be prior to, beyond, and above (the universe or material existence)
2 to outstrip or outdo in some attribute, quality, or power.
There seem to be two distinct uses. The first is that of being explainable, as in "Great leaders are expected to transcend the limitations of politics". The second is that of being unexplainable, as in "certain laws of human nature seem to transcend historical periods and hold true for all times and all places".
But the fact that something is unexplainable today does not mean that it will be forever unexplainable.
Today we may say that "language transcends biology" in the second sense of the word as unexplainable, but it may well be the case that in the future as we gain more knowledge we may say that "language transcends biology" in the first sense as explainable.
Similarly for Kant in 1781, he may be using the word "a priori" as "transcendental" in the second sense as unexplainable, but today, over 200 years later, with our knowledge of Innatism and Enactivism, we can use the word "a priori" as "transcendental" in the first sense as explainable.
That's a big question, but again, because biology is the science of living organisms and their environments, their physiology, reproduction, evolution and so on. It's not logic, mathematics or linguistics. I'm familiar with those materials you mention, all of which serve to illustrate the falsity of mechanistic reductionism. All living things, from the very simplest, display intentional behaviours and perform tasks which mechanical devices do not (although they can of course nowadays be modelled in software but again I question the degree to which that could be described as 'mechanical'.) To the extent that we ourselves are biological creatures then we share all of those basic traits with the entire organic kingdom.
But by 'transcending the biological' I mean h. sapiens has capacities and abilities which are beyond those biological functions, amazing though they might be. I see that as having occurred in the process of social development over many hundreds of thousands of years, with the appearance of art, literature, religion, language and story-telling. I think there are many human capacities which have no rationale or even utility from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology (although Dawkins suggests that just as a peacock's tail evolved because it was attractive to peahens, certain memes, like language, spread and evolve because they are attractive or useful to their human hosts. The idea is that language, like a peacock's tail, may have originally arisen for one purpose such as communication but then took on additional roles and became more elaborate, partly due to social selection - that is, being attractive or impressive to other humans. But I see that as reductionist - it reduces culture to a utility in the service of reproduction, or a byproduct of it, rather than having an instrinsic reality. I also include religious consciousness (though not all forms of religious belief or ideology) for which I don't think there is a biological rationale.
I'm using the term 'transcendent' more in the dictionary sense above, although I'm also drawn to the traditionalist idea that reason itself is a higher form of cognition. (This shows through in debates about Platonic realism and the nature of universals, i.e. that man 'the rational animal' is able to grasp through reason principles that are not perceptible to the senses alone and to other creatures.) So I think the attempt to account for human capacities purely through the lens of biological evolution is generally reductionist (see Anything But Human.) Of course I also understand that many people will say 'but what else is there?' as evolution to all intents is the 'secular creation myth'.
Incidentally, as this thread is about Kant, we should mention his distinction between the two terms:
Transcendental: In Kant's philosophy, "transcendental" refers to the conditions that make knowledge possible. It is not about the objects of knowledge themselves but about our mode of knowing those objects prior to the experience of them. Transcendental concepts are a priori, meaning they exist prior to experience. They are necessary conditions for the possibility of experiencing and understanding the world. For example, time and space are transcendental ideas; they are not derived from experience but are the necessary conditions under which any sensory experience can occur.
Transcendent: On the other hand, "transcendent" refers to that which goes beyond the limits of experience and possible knowledge. It deals with things that lie beyond what we can cognitively grasp. In Kant's view, transcendent ideas are those that venture beyond the boundaries of human understanding and into the realm of the unknowable. For instance, the concept of God, the soul, or the totality of the universe are transcendent ideas because they are beyond the scope of empirical investigation and human comprehension.
Does what we perceive as time and space exist outside our perception of it?
I can only see a red postbox because I was born with the innate ability to see wavelengths of between about 400nm to 700nm, meaning that I cannot see ultra-violet, as it has a wavelength lower than 400nm.
It is not so much that I have a priori knowledge of the colour red, but more that I have the a priori ability to see the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 650nm.
I can reason that time exists independently of the mind, but as I can only exist in one moment of time, I can only ever perceive one moment in time. This means that I can never perceive the passage of time, as I can never perceive two different moments in time at the same time.
So our perception of time is an illusion
I can reason that objects such as apples exist in a mind-independent world, but this depends on the ontological existence of spatial relations in a mind-independent world, such that the top of the apple is "above" the bottom of the apple. But the ontological existence in a mind-independent world of spatial relations is problematic, because, although matter may experience forces acting upon it, matter doesn't experience spatial relations acting upon it.
So our perception of space is also an illusion.
As an Indirect Realist, I am not saying that there isn't a cause in a mind-independent of our perceptions, but am saying that what we perceive to be in the world doesn't actually exist in the world. When I perceive the colour red, my reason tells me that there is something in the world that caused me to perceive the colour red, but what is in the world is not how I perceive the colour red. Similarly, when I perceive time and space, my reason tells me that there is something in the world that caused me to perceive time and space, but what is in the world is not how I perceive time and space.
Quoting RussellA
But in Kant, Space and Time are a priori condition for our experience of the external world. He doesn't see them as illusion. On that basis, can Kant be branded as an Indirect Realist?
It wouldn't be an illusion if I saw an Ichthyocentaur, but to think that Ichthyocentaurs exist in the world would be an illusion.
I agree that for Kant, Space and Time are a priori condition for our experience of the external world, and doesn't see them as illusions.
However, there are different aspects to the meaning of "illusion". For example, if I walk outdoors and see an Ichthyocentaur walking along the road, one the one hand this is not an illusion as this is what in fact I see, but on the other hand, I may reason that because of its improbability, this is in fact an illusion .
My innate ability to see the colour red is a prior condition of my ability to experience an external world, but this does not mean that the colour red exists in the external world.
On the one hand the fact that I see the colour red is not an illusion, as I truly see the colour red, though on the other hand I can reason that as the colour red doesn't exist in a mind-independent world, my seeing the colour red is in fact an illusion.
Similarly, one the one hand the fact that I perceive things in time and space is not an illusion, as it is a fact that I do perceive things in time and space, but on the other hand, I can reason that what I perceive is not what exists in the world, and in this sense it is an illusion to think that what I perceive also exists in the world.
An appearance can never be an illusion, though one can reason that the appearance is an illusion.
Transcendent: one of two domains to which cognitions relate.
Transcendental: that mode of pure reason by which certain modes of cognition are determined.
Humans are a funny bunch. They create for themselves those things to which they actually attribute the impossibility of experiencing in the same way as they experience material things, from which follows they immediately prevent themselves from knowing those things they create, in the same way they know rocks roll downhill. That one domain in which cognitions of knowledge is abolished in favor of mere cognitions of belief, or, which is the same thing, any knowledge of its objects is impossible, is called transcendent.
But humans also create for themselves that which they may or may not then construct as things in the real world. Insofar as knowledge of objects in this domain is at least possible, it is called immanent.
Transcendent is that in the juxtaposition of domains in which experience is the arbiter.
—————-
That humans in general can create as thought, what is not yet, and even may never, be constructed in the world as real, is possible insofar as the human intellect is endowed with a particular capacity, and anything which follows in accordance with that capacity, regardless of the reality of its objects, is transcendental.
Transcendental is, then, the mode of pure reason as an intrinsic human intellectual capacity, by which all its exercises relate to those pure a priori cognitions it creates for itself, thus having nothing whatsoever to do with experience as such.
The discipline in which all such exercises of this one faculty relate to, and legislate the operation of, the other higher cognitive faculties, re: understanding and judgement, is metaphysics.
The system in which this discipline administers the natural world, and by which experience is possible, is transcendental philosophy.
Or not…..
Aren't illusions to do with unfounded or mistaken sense perception?
"For example:
Auditory Illusions: These involve the sense of hearing. An example is the Shepard tone, an auditory illusion that sounds like a continuously ascending or descending pitch but is actually a cyclically repeating pattern.
Tactile Illusions: These involve the sense of touch. The rubber hand illusion is an example, where a person can be made to feel as if a rubber hand is their own by simultaneously stroking their real hand and a rubber hand.
Olfactory Illusions: These involve the sense of smell. Sometimes, our brain can interpret smells in a way that doesn't match the actual stimuli, creating olfactory illusions.
Gustatory Illusions: These involve the sense of taste. Flavor perception can be influenced by various factors, leading to illusions in the perception of taste." - CHATGPT
OR Visual illusions like from your own case, seeing an Ichthyocentaur, when it was actually a next door neighbor's dog, or a shadow of a chair.
You wouldn't say your thinking that 1+1=5, or your belief that there are Martians dancing in Mars are illusion.
To think that something exists in the world when it doesn't is misunderstanding or fallacies. To believe in something that is not the case is a groundless belief or fallacies, but not an illusion.
Here is a perfect transcendental illusion:
One intelligence puts forth a certain proposition, in which there resides in the subject a certain conception.
Another intelligence, upon reception of the proposition as an appearance, attaches to the subject of the received proposition, a conception that was not antecedently contained in it, thus does not consequently belong to it.
PERCEPTION (of space is an illusion) becomes SPACE (is an illusion).
If it be assumed the second intelligence understands the conceptions contained in the originating proposition, and judges them as united without contradiction in it, but nonetheless projects an understanding of his in the form of his own proposition, in which the subject in his does not relate to the subject in the other’s, his reason has deluded itself without his conscious awareness.
Such is not the least a slight on intelligence in general, but on reason itself, to which every intelligence is susceptible. These, while entirely unremedial, can be nonetheless guarded against.
What are the differences on PERCEPTION of space and SPACE?
Yes, I cannot have an idea without the idea being about something, in that I can have a concrete idea, such as the idea of a house, or I can have an abstract idea, such as the idea of angst. Such ideas refer to something, which could be a concept such as house or angst, or an instantiation of a concept such as this house or my angst.
Are concepts such as house or angst real? Are instantiation of concepts such as this house or my angst real? Depends what is meant by "real".
Do concepts such as house or angst exist? Do instantiations of concepts such as this house or my angst exist? Depends what is meant by "exist".
I see a house and I feel angst, naively this is just a fact, not to be questioned but accepted for what they appear to be, taking no position as to the reality of what I see, and withholding any conscious opinion as to the ontological status of what I see. What I see is part of a world existing prior to my having perceived it. The Natural Attitude of the phenomenologist and the inborn realism of Bryan Magee.
Within the Phenomenalist's Natural Attitude, my concept of a Thing-in-Itself is then just its appearance .
So far so good, yet the Phenomenologist goes further than this naive Natural Attitude by freeing themselves of the restrictions of the Natural Attitude by using the principle of Phenomenological Reduction. This recognizes that others are not objects but subjects like myself, where my experience becomes inseparable to the experiences of others and by revealing a transcendental subjectivity and intersubjectivity.
Within the Phenomenalist's Reduction, my concept of a Thing-in-Itself is then more than just its appearance.
But how can my concept of a Thing-in-Itself be more than just its appearance, if by definition it is impossible to conceptualise a Thing-in-Itself outside of its appearance?
(Marc Applebaum, Key Ideas in Phenomenology: The Natural Attitude)
Perception is an activity; space is a pure representation.
In so far as space is merely itself a representation, and perception of representations is impossible, perception of space is incomprehensible.
Yours was valid as a question, but dialectically irrelevant.
Ehyyyy - I was not asking about Perception, but Perception of space.
Asked and answered.
I suppose the answer could reduce to…space is comprehensible, perception of space is not. Hence, the difference.
Quoting Mww
If space is incomprehensible / impossible to perceive, then how is it possible to perceive the objects in it? Isn't perception of space necessarily deduced in the perception of objects? Surely that is what Kant meant by space and time are necessary a priori condition for appearance.
I believe "I saw an Ichthyocentaur in the garden". I reason that my belief was groundless.
Could I then not say "I was suffering an illusion"?
Suffering sounds like from "illness" or "pain". No.
You were having a groundless belief, and your reason confirmed it as a groundless belief.
It isn’t.
Quoting Corvus
No. The objective validity of that which relates the objects as separate from the perceiver, or as separate from each other, is deduced from perception of objects.
Deduction is a logical function; perception is a physiological activity. They do not relate to each other. A logical object cannot be perceived, a perceptible object has no need of being deduced.
Sorry I thought you were claiming that space is incomprehensible.
Quoting Mww
Were we not talking about perception of space? My point was that you cannot perceive objects without perceiving space. Space is presupposed in the perception of the objects. It follows that space or perception of space cannot be illusion, be transcendental or empirical.
We could be biological machines. Why should the philosophical doctrine of Determinism not be valid?
Quoting Wayfarer
Humans only discovered how to fly 120 years ago. How do we know that in another 120 years humans won't be able to explain our capacities and abilities in terms of our biological functions?
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree that it may be distasteful to think that humans can be reduced to products of mindless evolution, but does this necessarily mean that this is not the case?
Quoting Wayfarer
Is this comparable to a mechanical logic gate which can make decisions based on what is input?
Quoting Wayfarer
Perhaps what are described as transcendental ideas have derived from the experience of evolving in synergy with the world for more than 3.7 billion years?
Quoting Wayfarer
How can the soul be beyond the scope of human comprehension as millions of words have been written about it?
I always suffer when my beliefs turn out to be groundless.
That sounds like psychological not epistemological. :nerd:
Yes, but to presuppose is to deduce, it is not to perceive.
Quoting Corvus
Then you must grant that space can affect the senses in the same manner as objects, which reduces to the necessity that space must have properties. At which point, upon determining that space cannot have properties, insofar as there is no possibility of space appearing to you as an object, you’ve contradicted yourself.
Presupposition is condition, not to deduce.
Quoting Mww
Yes, isn't it what exactly Kant was pointing out? Space is a necessary precondition for appearance of objects in TI. But it is also an object of perception in material empiricism. (according to Antinomy of Pure Reason).
Space has both aspects of being a priori condition for perception as well as physical object. Space as object has its physical properties.
"Dimensions: Space is typically described in terms of three spatial dimensions (length, width, and height). In the context of spacetime in relativity, time is considered a fourth dimension.
Curvature: The curvature of space is a fundamental concept in Einstein's theory of General Relativity. Massive objects, like stars and planets, curve the fabric of spacetime around them, influencing the motion of other objects.
Expansion: The universe itself is expanding. Galaxies are moving away from each other over time, indicating that the fabric of space is stretching. This expansion is a key feature of the Big Bang theory.
Gravity: Space is influenced by gravity, and gravity is often described as the warping or curvature of spacetime caused by mass. Objects with mass, like planets and stars, influence the geometry of space around them.
Vacuum Energy: Even in seemingly empty space, there is a concept known as vacuum energy or dark energy. This is a mysterious form of energy that is thought to be responsible for the observed acceleration of the expansion of the universe." - ChatGPT notes
What….that reason can do pretty much whatever it wants? Sure, but then what?
Quoting Corvus
Not in CPR, is doesn’t.
(Glances up at thread title)
Reason deals with both aspect of space as implied in Antinomy of Pure Reason in CPR.
Quoting Mww
Wouldn't it be better reading between the lines at times where it appears inconsistent and vague, rather than reading the word by word? :)
When there are Phenomenon and Noumenon in his system, he cannot possibly live with space and time as a priori intuition only. Objects and the world are existing in space and time as physical existence in front of him.
Not from my point of view. That something appears inconsistent and vague may be my fault, in which case reading between the lines just shirks the responsibility of doing a better job.
space, so far as it is limited by appearances, that is, empty space
within the world, is at least not contradictory of transcendental
principles and may therefore, so far as they are concerned, be
admitted. " CPR B461 :)
Ok. Nothing untoward about that. It’s a footnote, and says nothing about perception of space or that space can be an appearance. It just says space with nothing in it is a valid conception, re: non-contradictory. In addition, the last sentence of the footnote warns that just granting the non-contradictory nature of the admission does not imply the possibility of the idea the antithetical argument presents. And in fact, the argument in the thesis denies such possibility.
Think….empty bucket. That the bucket itself encloses a space, and that enclosed space presents to sensibility no appearance, but without which that things could be put in the bucket that would be appearances, becomes impossible.
You’ve presented an antinomy justifying the antithesis of an idea. My response is merely a further counter-claim extending from the thesis of that idea.
Reason doing its thing, only this time from two different intellects, one on each side, rather than one intellect merely confusing itself by taking both sides. Or, maybe not being persuaded by one over the other.
I think you need to step back and try to re-focus on the basis of this debate. It is that the mind is not a blank slate which passively receives impressions from the world, but an active agent that dynamically constructs the experience of the world ('the world'). The human brain is the most complex natural phenomenon known to science. It works on many levels, from the autonomic, parasympathetic to the unconscious, subconscious and conscious levels (and beyond!) I'll mention again a recent book on cognitive science and philosophy, Mind and the Cosmic Order, by Charles Pinter, which makes the case in the light of current science. I give some details in my OP Mind-Created World.
But the thing is, we can't see that process from the outside. We can't objectify the process, because it is the basis on which objectivity works - it is the process that creates both the object and the subject. And we also can't get outside it in the other sense of seeing the world as it would be in the absence of consciousness. (Yogis and mystics 'go beyond' but I'll leave that aside here).
To put it in one of the quotes I read on this forum (I've since read the book it came from):
[quote=Dan Zahavi, Husserl’s Legacy: Phenomenology, Metaphysics, and Transcendental Philosophy, Dan Zahavi]Ultimately, what we call “reality” is so deeply suffused with mind- and language-dependent structures that it is altogether impossible to make a neat distinction between those parts of our beliefs that reflect the world “in itself” and those parts of our beliefs that simply express “our conceptual contribution.” The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a re-presentation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned.[/quote]
There is quite a bit of discussion about this idea in current culture, see for example this video Is Reality Real? I'm not endorsing everything in it, but it shows at least how even neuroscience [s]tends to undermine scientific realism[/s] is asking these questions.
Quoting RussellA
It's an invalid metaphor, as organisms display fundamental characteristics which machines do not. Machines are built by external agents (namely, humans) to perform functions. Organisms do not conform to that description and besides are not created by an external agency to serve a purpose. The mechanist analogy is a hangover from early modern science.
Quoting RussellA
That is part of a much larger argument. My view is that the idea of mindless nature is specific to a particular phase of cultural development which was dominant in the late modern period, but which I believe is falling from favour.
Quoting RussellA
Kant would say that it's because the mind has a tendency to seek answers to unanswerable questions.
If you've experienced an altered state of consciousness, that conclusion (that a 'soul' is beyond comprehension) is perhaps best thought off as an approximation. IN altered states, things become comprehensible which are not in normal waking consciousness. The reality of those things (as with a soul) are up in the air, or perhaps leaned-against. But there are concepts such as the 'soul' or a clear conception (at a very base level) of something 'unimaginable' that don't inspire typical incredulity or awe in those mind states. Being and not being do not always appear contradictory in those states.
We know very little about them and their function. My policy has been, and remains to wait until far more work has been done into the nature of the mind and its, hitherto almost ignored functionality, before making any sweeping statements of the kind made in the 18th and 19th (or even 20th) centuries about them. Without a systematic consideration of that which we know apply, but don't yet understand it seems a bit premature to posit absolutes about the ability to perceive/conceive certain things.
There are more quotes from CPR suggesting that Kant had the dual perspectives on the concept of Space. By the way, this quote is not from the antinomy.
"If, now, I add the condition to the concept, and say that all things, as outer appearances, are side by side in space, the rule is valid universally and without limitation. Our exposition therefore establishes the reality, that is, the objective validity, of space in respect of whatever can be presented to us outwardly as object, but also at the same time the ideality of space in respect of things when they are considered in themselves through reason, that is without regard to the constitution of our sensibility." - CPR B44/A28
" .... We assert, then, the empirical reality of space, as regards all possible outer experience; and yet at the same time we assert its transcendental ideality-"
Yep. Sounds pretty much like what I said 7 hours ago.
No it doesn't. I make no comment on what you're actually saying/trying to say or whether interpretation is an issue - but it certainly did not sound like that.
By "approximation", do you mean that the "soul" can be understood as a figure of speech such as "gravity" can be understood as a figure of speech?
:up: I think that Kant would agree.
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Quoting Wayfarer
:up: Yes, as an Indirect Realist, I would agree with both Dan Zahavi, who wrote "The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a re-presentation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned" and Beau Lotto who said "Is there an external reality. Of course there is an external reality , the world exists, it's just that we don't see it as it is. We can never see it as it is".
If Kant had had the technology in 1781, he could have created the 2021 YouTube video Is reality real? These neuroscientists don’t think so.
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Quoting Wayfarer
Where does Kant's "a priori" come from?
Yes, machines are built by external agents, ie, humans.
But it seems equally the case that humans have been "built" by an external agent, ie, the world in which they live, the world in which they have evolved and the world in which they have to survive or be wiped out. Not consciously built, but built nevertheless by the situation it finds itself. In the same way that sand dunes have been "built" by the wind acting on the particles of sand, a process of Enactivism and Embodied Cognition.
As the SEP article on Embodied Cognition writes
Unifying investigators of embodied cognition is the idea that the body or the body’s interactions with the environment constitute or contribute to cognition in ways that require a new framework for its investigation.
As the Wikipedia article on Enactivism writes
Enactivism is a position in cognitive science that argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment
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Quoting Wayfarer
If nature isn't mindless, what kind of mind do you envisage nature having?
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Quoting Wayfarer
Isn't this a lost cause, answering the unanswerable?
As soon as you have to enclose the key word in scare quotes, it's game over ;-)
Quoting RussellA
'New' in comparison to what, do you think?
Quoting RussellA
The kind that manifests where living organisms appear.
Quoting RussellA
It can be, but I still find the term 'soul' meaningful, although it's notoriously difficult to define such terms. The Aristotelian approach of the soul being the form of the body - note that 'form' is nothing like 'shape', more like 'organising principle' - rings true to me.
Machines are built by an external agents, who happen to be conscious humans. Humans are built by an external agent, which happens to be an unconscious world.
The Merriam Webster definition of "build" as "to form by ordering and uniting materials by gradual means into a composite whole" doesn't refer to the cause as being either conscious or unconscious.
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Quoting Wayfarer
New in comparison to traditional cognitive science, which conceived of the brain as the source of all cognitive mental processes, rather than the brain being just a part of a body that interacts with its environment.
I read the other translation copies of CPR, and they all seem to be saying the same thing.
When you are seeing a tree in the garden, that is perception via your sensibility. The tree is seen out there in the world, and space is also in the world. You see the tree in the external world, but you cannot say that space is in your mind (which you have been saying). That doesn't add up.
But when you are doing Geometry, you think about a triangle. The triangle is in your mind i.e. intuition. You cannot think about the triangle in your intuition without space for it. The space in this case is in your mind, as a necessary a priori condition.
So, Kant was not simply saying that all space is internal and necessary a priori condition for all perception.
Rather, he had two cases of explanation for space to be both in the world externally for the sensibility perception, and also space as internal necessary a priori condition for intuition when performing Geometry proofs, or imagining a postbox on the street in your mind.
The word "build" is intended more as a figure of speech than literally.
In fact, when you wrote "Machines are built by external agents (namely, humans) to perform functions", your word "built" was also intended more as a figure of speech than literally, as many machines are in fact built by other machines, as in a car factory.
Your word "built" inferred the figurative meaning "consciously designed" rather than the literal meaning "physically built".
The same for Kant, in that the term "Transcendental Idealism" should also be considered as a figure of speech rather than literally.
Yes, he did. One was the transcendental exposition, the other the metaphysical exposition. The former concerns objects thought, re: your example regarding mere geometric figures, the latter objects perceived, re: your example of seeing the tree. Both expositions restrict space to the mind, or, as I prefer, the condition of the subject, and can only be attributed as external to the subject, iff it is a property of things-in-themselves, which, of course, cannot be determined as being the case.
Quoting Corvus
Sorry, but I cannot find a justification that it isn’t exactly that. In other words, I find that is precisely what he’s saying. And not only that with respect to perception, but indeed, because the space in which the extension of things occurs cannot be thought away as can all its properties, it absolutely must reside in the subject himself.
Guess you didn’t think about the empty bucket, huh? I was kinda looking forward to your account of what kind of sensation you got from its apparent emptiness.
Hmmmm……
He said Kant said: Our exposition therefore establishes (…) the objective validity…
I said: The objective validity (…) is deduced
He said Kant said: …..presented to us outwardly as object….
I said: …..relates the objects as separate from the perceiver.
You’re quite correct; my fault. The pressure waves corresponding to the sounds of these two sets of words would be somewhat different.
Still, isn’t somewhat different synonymous with pretty much the same?
Jeeezz….and I thought I was the last remaining fundamental literalist in the generation infamous for them.
If you see empty bucket, then the bucket and space in and outside of it are all outside of you. But if you imagine or visualise empty bucket, then the bucket and space in and outside of it are all in your mind.
Quoting Mww
Well, there are clear quotes from CPR what Kant is clearly saying, which are contradicting what you are saying. I suppose you have read them. And I have explained about them too with the example of tree and triangle.
Wasn’t what I asked.
What is it with people, who can’t maintain dialectical consistency. If a guy asks about a certain thing, but gets a response that doesn’t contain anything about that thing…..what a farging waste of the guy’s time, I would think.
You insist that this is a thread for Kant's CPR reading, but you are not even accepting what Kant was saying in CPR in plain English (translated of course).
Wrong. I’m not accepting what you think Kant is saying.
You probably want to say I’m not understanding what Kant is saying, and thereby I’m complicating the general discussion by not accepting your corrections.
Now, you may actually have a better understanding than I, but if you can’t convince me of it, trusting that I’d concur given sufficient reason, I’m at liberty to make the same attempt at convincing you.
All of which is absolutely impossible without dialectical consistency, in which each of our arguments relate to each other specifically.
What Kant was saying is not that obscure in the quotes of CPR on this issue. It is very clear for everyone. I was just giving examples of perception how it maps to what Kant was saying.
Yet again, the relative obscurity has nothing to do with individual understandings. While it may be true there is no obscurity in the quotes, it remains, insofar as the quotes are minor extracts from a whole…..
“…. A philosophical system cannot come forward armed at all points like a mathematical treatise, and hence it may be quite possible to take objection to particular passages, while the organic structure of the system, considered as a unity, has no danger to apprehend. But few possess the ability, and still fewer the inclination, to take a comprehensive view of a new system. By confining the view to particular passages, taking these out of their connection and comparing them with one another, it is easy to pick out apparent contradictions, especially in a work written with any freedom of style. These contradictions place the work in an unfavourable light in the eyes of those who rely on the judgement of others, but are easily reconciled by those who have mastered the idea of the whole.…”
….by thinking Kant tributes to space as you’ve indicated, as one of those particular passages, the entire transcendental thesis self-destructs. It is the case Kant does not want it understood that space is external to the mind, that space has properties as do real objects, and foremost, that space has any meaning whatsoever beyond the human cognitive system, according to this particular speculative metaphysical theory.
THAT should be clear to everyone. Well, actually, everyone who “….rises to the height of speculation….”. Which leaves aside, as you say, the so-called “vulgar”, who do not.
Kant had been clear about this point in the quotes. He "asserts space as Empirical Reality " for perceptions via sensibility. He then goes on making points on space as internal a priori necessary condition in the case of Transcendental Ideality. How much else could he have been clearer? I don't think the quotes are minor extracts. If you are reading CPR word by word, nothing is minor.
Quoting Mww
You seem to be disregarding the other side of his points only seeing the one side.
“…. We maintain, therefore, the empirical reality of space in regard to all possible external experience, although we must admit its transcendental ideality; in other words, that it is nothing, so soon as we withdraw the condition upon which the possibility of all experience depends and look upon space as something that belongs to things in themselves…..”
Break it down, and see if you find, as I did: We maintain the empirical reality of space…..if we look upon space as something that belongs to things in themselves. Which, of course, we don’t, insofar as how can we know space belongs to things-in-themselves when our knowledge is not and cannot be of them.
Another way to break it down: it is nothing as soon as we withdraw the condition upon which the possibility of all experience depends. Which is the same as saying, it is only something [u]iff IT IS[/u ] the condition upon which the possibility of all experience depends, from which follows the whole reason for the transcendental aesthetic, re: to prove that’s exactly what it is….the necessary condition for the possibility of all experience. Withdrawing it as that condition makes it nothing, and if it is nothing, to then declare it an empirical reality, is self-contradictory, and if it is self-contradictory it is immediately false, and the whole aesthetic argument falls apart.
And that’s not even the hard part. What is this alleged transcendental ideality anyway, and where in the bloody hell does it come from, and why MUST I have to admit to it. (Sigh)
Some quotes are clear, others…..not so much.
I am not sure why we are now looking into space for thing-in-itself, when we have been talking about space for the objects in the empirical reality.
Quoting Mww
Quoting Mww
I wonder if we are allowed to withdraw the condition upon which the possibility of all experience depends. Kant would say, the condition is a necessary a priori condition, which is given as innate nature of human mind.
Quoting Mww
It is in CPR, and Kant is propounding for the legitimacy of its operation when we work on Geometry or imagining a postoffice on the street contrasted to seeing an empty bucket.
Quoting Mww
He is also known to be inconsistent, hence requires the reading clubs suppose. :nerd:
Well, I was quite happy to see the quote in CPR, because from the quote, Kant sounded very much in line with what I was thinking on his concept of Space. It was the most clear part in CPR I have come across.
That doesn’t relate to his maintaining the empirical reality of space? I couldn’t locate the exact wording he “asserts space as Empirical Reality” and highly doubt he would have capitalized it anyway, so I just figured it was your wording.
Quoting Corvus
You mean, like, space for this object, space for that object? Are you wanting the space an object is in to be as real as the object itself? How would that work?
In NKS version he makes it in italics, "We assert, then, the empirical reality of space, as regards all possible outer experience;" He was not just saying, but he was asserting.
Quoting Mww
Space for the objects would be one, which applies to all the objects for the perceptual instances universally, I would think. The bottom line is, you cannot see empty bucket without space around it.
Yes, he was, but to make the point that is not what it supposed to happen. Think of it as a minor antinomy. Something reason lets us do (think the empirical reality of space), before making us see that’s not the right way of doing it (space is not an empirical reality) but something else (space is a transcendental ideality in the form of a pure intuition) is better suited to explain what we want to know.
Quoting Corvus
Nope, not the bottom line. I wasn’t talking about either of those things, yet you want to qualify something I was talking about, with something I wasn’t.
What is it with people…….
Space in Transcendental Ideality case is for doing Geometry, and visualising a postbox in mind. In that case, it is in the form of a pure intuition. But seeing a tree in the garden is via your sensibility. You will always see a tree with space.
Quoting Mww
Here I am seeing an empty cup in front of me. There is space in the cup, and also around it. Without space, the cup wouldn't even exist, let alone be visible. If I was visualising the cup, not seeing it, then the space in the cup and around it would be a priori pure condition which made the visualisation possible.
Quoting Mww
I find strange that anyone would insist that you see a cup in front of you, but the space is in your mind as a pure intuition. Space is what contains the universe and all the objects outside of you. :grin:
The triangle you visualise in your mind would be in space of your intuition of course.
Here is another quote from CPR in JMDM version.
"For example, the proposition, 'All objects are beside each other in space,' is valid only under the limitation that these things are taken as objects of our sensuous intuition. But if I join the condition to the conception, and say 'All things, as external phenomena, are beside each other in space', then the rule is valid universally, and without limitation." -pp.46
"With the exception of Space, there is no other subjective representation referring to something external that would be called a priori objective." - CPR Max Muller Version pp.66
A tree….with space. A tree with bark, a tree with leaves. A tree with branches, roots, cones/nuts. A tree with space? What does space do for the tree as those other properties do?
Quoting Corvus
Man, are you gonna have fun wading through the schematism of the pure understanding, wherein visualizing takes precedence over seeing.
————-
Quoting Corvus
Good quote. What…or who….is JMDM?
You do understand, right? That phenomena cannot be external? They’ve already been defined as representations, all of which are internal in the subject. By external phenomena, he means those external things which become those kinds of representations. Hence, because phenomena are internal, and space is the condition for phenomena, then space is internal.
We are talking Kant's CPR here. You cannot perceive a tree without space around it.
Quoting Mww
It is not about precedence, but it is about different type of perceptions.
Quoting Mww
J M D Meiklejohn
Quoting Mww
Not necessarily. Phenomena is external. You seem to have forgotten, that Kant said in the preface, all internal mental sense content comes from empirical experience.
Quoting Mww
If your space is internal to your mind, you would be saying, you are sitting in your mind.
I guess i'm making a bit of a woo-woo claim here, but couching it merely in experience, not truth. It is possible, in those states of consciousness, to fully conceive, with no apparent metaphysical discomfort, the concept of a 'soul' beyond the human imagination - but these states purport to take you to that 'beyond' space. Again, the actuality of that experience, imo, is up for debate. But hte point is that, i think the claim that those concepts are beyond human cognition, is a placeholder for 'beyond normal, waking cognition'.
Yes, we are talking CPR, and in which we find….we don’t perceive a tree in the first place. We perceive “an undetermined object” by its appearance to our sensibility. The undetermined object doesn’t obtain its name, which represents how understanding thinks it, until further along in its systemic process. So not perceiving a tree without space around it is just nonsense, from the perspective of strict CPR textual reference.
Quoting Corvus
There is only one type of perception. What your intermingling with it, are apprehension, contained in sensibility when considered transcendentally, and apperception, also much further along in the systemic process. And there must be precedence somewhere along the line, in order for an “undetermined object of external intuition” to obtain a representation of its conception, from which follows the name for how that object is to be known.
Probably best that I grant you’re defining terms in nonconformity with CPR, in which case your seeing and visualizing means different things than that which is derivable from the text itself. In CPR, however, seeing is a perception for which the sensation is an image, the matter of which is given a posteriori. A visualization, on the other hand, is the mere thought of some possible object, its content, which would be its matter if it were perceived, is given as the schema of the conception understanding thinks belongs to it.
So it is that we do not see (perceive with eyes) with understanding but we visualize, and, we do not visualize (think with conceptions) with sensibility but we see. In CPR, then, insofar as the exposition on seeing and sensibility in general is ~90 pages, and the exposition on visualizing and understanding in general is ~200 pages, suggests the one has rather a greater precedence over the other. At ~400 pages of course, pure reason has the greatest precedence of all te members of the tripartite transcendental system.
Crap. I forgot Meiklejohn had two middle initials.
I am not getting your point why you cannot see space when seeing a tree. Tree is occupying the space it is standing. Without space, existence is impossible. All the quotes from CPR I brought in were mostly about this point. Space is empirical reality's precondition for all the existence in the universe.
Quoting Mww
Visualising is active perception which is closer to imagination. You conjure up the non existing image into your intuition by imagining them. Seeing is visual perception with physical objects in front of you usually, and it implies passive perception. You perceive the objects without having to try to perceive them. They are different types of perception in terms of the availability and type of objects, and also the way of perception too.
Quoting Mww
My JMD Meiklejohn CPR is an old battered copy printed in 1959, and it is around 500 pages (well less than any other translated versions), but it seems written more clearly than the other translation versions. I like the Max Muller version too. I am not a fan of NK Smith version, but it seems to be the most widely used CPR. I am not sure what the GUYER version from Cambridge (the most recently published version) would be like.
I use JMDM for its searchable text. Guyer/Wood has C & P but isn’t searchable. Plus, it has an outstanding editor’s synoptic introduction. Quite academic without appearing opinionated. When I’m given the Berlin Academy pagination, I have to use my hard copy Kemp Smith….a first edition 1929 red leather/ gold inlay, ex libris Cambridge University Library (he said, gloating like that was a big deal). Guyer /Wood has the pagination in the margin, but has to be scrolled, and higher A/B’s take forever.
Quoting Corvus
The very idea of seeing space is logically contradictory, re: impossibility of receiving a sensation from the inside of an empty bucket other than its bottom, and just plain silly otherwise. WTF would space even look like when I see it? If what I see can be described and thereby conforms to what you see, that makes sense. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how to describe to you what space would look like when I see a tree.
Referencing an object to a space, like….over there, up there, next to, and so on, which is the relation of an object to something else, is not to see a space. All space was ever meant to do, was be that by which objects relate either to the consciousness of a perceiver, or to each other as determined by the consciousness of a perceiver.
That and of course, there must be that in which an object can be said to exist, as far as the consciousness of a perceiver is concerned, without which none of this even happens.
Quoting Mww
I see space all the time. The primary property of space is invisibility and emptiness. So space is substance which is invisible and empty. You are seeing an invisible object when you are seeing space. That is why you are mistaken to think that you see nothing, or you are not seeing it. But you are seeing a substance which is invisible and empty.
Because of the emptiness of space, you can have existence in it. Yes, the only way to see space is through the material objects i.e. you look into an empty bottle, and you see the invisible substance called space, and through the space you are seeing the bottom of the bottle.
You look into your bookshelf. Without space, you cannot place books in it. When you take out your copy of CPR, you see the space between the other books where the CPR was sitting, as invisible and empty substance.
Space perception is the precondition for your sense of reality. Without that, you don't have the sense of reality at all. Because in all other instances of your perception i.e. dreams, imaginations and visualisations, your space perception appears conceptually as a pure intuition.
OK. So can I hear space? If I close my eyes I can’t see bacon frying, but I can still smell it. Space isn’t then, perceivable to all the senses? Or actually, it is only perceivable by one sense? But many objects are perceivable simultaneously by more than one sense. I can only see the moon right now, but I’m telling you I could stomp on it if only I could get to it. As well, am I to think the part of the moon I can’t see during some one of its phases, leaves the space of that part still perceivable, even though it isn’t really empty?
I’m beginning to think you’re pullin’ my leg here.
If you are in space where it is not purely empty, then there would be all the molecules and dusts of tiny sizes will be floating in the space. If you had highly sensitive hearing, then you can hear them moving floating in the space. But because your naked eyes wouldn't be able to see them, the space will appear still empty, but the sounds of the molecules and dusts floating would be audible to you. But have you got highly sensitive hearing which can hear the super sonic noise? Guess not.
Space is visual object, so you cannot perceive it via the other sense organs apart from with your eyes primarily and perhaps with your body such as leg, when you lift your leg, it travels from a point of location where it was, to the new location, and you pull it back, and when it returns - you shall feel the space from your leg as it travels through it.
Quoting Mww
No no, just letting you know that you have been perceiving physical space all your life without knowing it. :)
Oh. Good to know. But, seeing as how none of that’s in CPR, and that’s my only interest here, guess I’ll mosey along, leave you to it.
If you want to know further on how to see physical space, here is a video.
True story. I missed most of the 60’s and all the 70’s, being as stoned as that person seems to be.
The 2010s for me.
Wow cool ~ :cool:
It might be the case that the state of altered consciousness might see space better actually.
Balboa Park, San Diego, 1971, windowpane. You know, laying in the grass, you can’t tell the difference between imagining the grass is growing or your head is shrinking?
Quoting AmadeusD
In my terms, in my normal waking state when looking at a wavelength of 700nm, my seeing the colour red is not a conscious decision, in that I cannot consciously decide to see the colour red rather than the colour green for example. My seeing the colour red is beyond my normal waking cognition to alter.
There are some things that are comprehensible to me not because of any conscious active deliberation on my part about them during my normal waking life, such as the colour red, but because of the pre-determined, a priori, innate and inborn state of my brain that is beyond my conscious ability to subsequently alter. I can only work within the limitations set by the physical structure of my brain.
I interpret this innate and inborn state of my brain with Kant's concept of the a priori.
Introduction to CPR: Kant attempts to distinguish the contribution to cognition made by our receptive faculty of sensibility from that made solely by the objects that affect us (A 2 1-2 /B 36), and argues that space and time are pure forms of all intuition contributed by our own faculty of sensibility, and therefore forms of which we can have a priori knowledge.
Though, that being said, if I did change my normal waking consciousness by some means, whether chemical or meditation, then I agree that this would change my normal waking consciousness into an altered waking consciousness, possibly allowing me to comprehend things that were not comprehensible to me before.
IE, altering the physical state of the brain would automatically alter what that brain comprehends.
Yeah for sure it boils down to this. I think there are certainly novel ways of thinking not available to that everyday normal consciousness. I think we’ve been robbed of decades of potentially very fruitful work with altered states by the drug war and social mores. Tsk tsk. That said, it’s clearly a tool and guarding against overzealousness in many forms is important. You are after all, out of your mind
The term "Transcendental Idealism" is central to the Critique of Pure Reason
In the Conceptual Map of the Critique of Pure Reason, the first item is Transcendental Idealism, establishing the importance of the term.
Kant defines "Transcendental Idealism" in the Fourth Paralogism"
A 369 I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not as things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves.
In today's terms, Indirect Realism, aka Representative Realism.
Kant did propose that the term could be improved
However, Kant did propose that the phrase "Transcendental Idealism" could be improved.
In the Introduction to the CPR:
Specifically, he differentiated his position from Berkeleian idealism by arguing that he denied the real existence of space and time and the spatio-temporal properties of objects, but not the real existence of objects themselves distinct from our representations, and for this reason he proposed renaming his transcendental idealism with the more informative name of "formal" or "critical idealism," making it clear that his idealism concerned the form but not the existence of external objects.
Therefore, the term Transcendental Idealism should be treated more as a figure of speech than literally.
It is a transcendental idealism not a transcendent idealism
Note that it is Transcendental Idealism not Transcendent Idealism, meaning that it is about the limits of what we can cognize about our experiences having been determined a priori before having such experiences. It is not about being able to cognize about our experiences beyond limits predetermined a priori .
Kant is putting a limit on our cognitive abilities.
A priori pure intuition of space and time and a priori pure concepts of the understanding (the Categories)
Space and time are the Categories are both a priori, however, space and time is the necessary foundation for the categories. For example, we have the concept of space and we have the concept of a number such as two, though it is a fact that although we can imagine empty space empty of numbers, we cannot imagine numbers outside of space. Consequently, first is the pure intuition of space and time within which are the pure concepts of the understanding (the categories).
We can use our cognitive facilities on our sensibilities about external objects affecting our sensibilities, but what we are able to cognize is limited by our a priori pure intuition of space and time and the a priori pure concepts of the understanding (the Categories).
What for Kant is the source of the a priori?
Kant says we have no innate knowledge of any particular proposition, ie, "postboxes are red", but he does say that it is not the case that our sensibilities are the cause of what we cognize about them but rather an priori cognitive ability makes sense of these sensibilities, ie, I perceive the colour red rather than the colour green when looking at a wavelength of 700nm
Introduction: Kant agrees with Locke that we have no innate knowledge, that is, no knowledge of any particular propositions implanted in us by God or nature prior to the commencement of our individual experience. But experience is the product both of external objects affecting our sensibility and of the operation of our cognitive faculties in response to this effect (A I, B I), and Kant's claim is that we can have "pure" or a priori cognition of the contributions to experience made by the operation of these faculties themselves, rather than of the effect of external objects on us in experience.
IE, Kant's position is that of Chomsky's Innatism rather than Skinner's Behaviourism.
Understanding Transcendental Idealism using the analogy of colour
When a wavelength of 700nm enters my eye, I see the colour red because I have the innate ability to see the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm. When a wavelength of 300nm enters my eye, I don't see the colour ultra-violet, because I don't have the innate ability to see the colour ultra-violet when looking at a wavelength of 300nm.
This is the meaning of transcendental in "Transcendental Idealism", in that the colours I can see when looking at different wavelengths has been limited by a priori conditions of perception. and has the consequence that because I can see a colour such as red, this doesn't of necessity mean that the colour red exists in the world.
The fact that I cannot see the colour ultra-violet when looking at a wavelength of 300nm is why the term isn't "transcendent idealism".
"Idealism" because the colour red exists in my mind not the world.
Kant is a Realist because, for him, the cause of our seeing the colour red originated outside our mind rather than within our mind.
The relationship between objects and their properties
Kant does not directly deal with objects of empirical cognition, but investigates the conditions of the possibility of our experience of them by examining the mental capacities that are required for us to have any cognition of objects at all. (Introduction page 6)
As regards properties, suppose I see a red postbox. The postbox is an object and redness is a property. But what are objects? An object is no more than a set of properties, in that if all the properties of an object were removed, no object would remain, in that is it impossible to imagine an object if it has no properties.
So a postbox is the set of properties such as redness, rectangular, extended in space, etc, but as the property redness only exists in the mind of the perceiver and not the world, one can conclude that the object, which is no more than a set of properties, where properties exist in the mind of the perceiver and not the world, also only exists in the mind of the perceiver and not the world.
Therefore, not only do properties such as redness only exist in the mind, but also objects such as postboxes only exist in the mind as concepts.
Interpreting A369
I understand by transcendental idealism that all appearances of objects such as postboxes and properties such as redness are to be regarded as mere representations and not as things in themselves, ie, postboxes and the colour red existing in the world, and accordingly, what we perceive as space and time only exists in the mind as a foundation for being able to perceive objects and their properties as mere representations and not as things-in-themselves.
The space, time, objects and properties we perceive only exist in the mind, although we can reason about their existence in the world using the transcendental category of causation.
Sounds like a nice place. Never been there, so afraid it is a place of imagination for me.
Quoting Mww
If you are an idealist, then none of your claims can be refuted suppose. :D
Quoting RussellA
I am not sure if anyone claims that space is internal intuition or categories, then whether he could be qualified as a realist. Shouldn't he be an idealist?
Apart from Kant:
A23: Space is not an empirical concept that has been drawn from outer experiences. For in order for certain sensations to be related to something outside me (i.e., to something in another place in space from that in which I find myself), thus in order for me to represent them as outside one another, thus not merely as different but as in different places, the representation of space must already be their ground) Thus the representation of space cannot be obtained from the relations of outer appearance through experience, but this outer experience is itself first possible only through this representation.
A25: Space is not a discursive or, as is said, general concept of relations of things in general, but a pure intuition.
From SEP article on Kant's Views on Time and Space
The distinction between sensation and intuition in Kant’s thinking is fundamental to his overarching conception of space and time. This is the case for several reasons, not least because one should avoid thinking that Kant takes us to have a sensation of space; we have, rather, an intuition of it (see Carson 1997).
This idea comprises a central piece of Kant’s views on space and time, for he famously contends that space and time are nothing but forms of intuition, a view connected to the claim in the Transcendental Aesthetic that we have pure intuitions of space and of time.
I try not to 100% rely on or accept the internet sites information even SEP (because even SEP they don't have various different commentaries on the same topic - they tend to have 1 commentary or article on 1 topic - entails possible biased view). I try to read the original works and various printed commentaries.
If you claim that Space and Time was solely pure intuitions and concepts in Kant, and has nothing to do with the physical entity in the external world, then should you not brand Kant as an idealist, rather than Representative Realist?
It looks a contradiction to accept the view Kant's concept of Space and Time was solely internal intuition or concept, and then at the same time claiming that he was a some sort of Realist.
Kant mentions dichotomy of the types of knowledge, experience and the world in CPR i.e. a priori / a posteriori, analytic / synthetic, phenomenon / noumenon, transcendental idealism / transcendental realism, ... therefore why not space and time as pure intuition / space and time as empirical reality? CPR has many suggestive writings on the dichotomies. I am not sure why most of the traditional Kant commentators have been seeing only the one side of the story.
It is vital to bear in mind that I am not denying Kant said that space and time was a priori pure intuition in CPR. He did. But he also had in mind that space and time is empirical reality out there too, although he doesn't make big song and dance about it. We need to consider why Kant had to do that in the full schema of his plans, ambitions and duties in CPR. There must be reasons for him having done what he did.
I agree.
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Quoting Corvus
Kant is an idealist in the same sense that an Indirect Realist is an idealist, in that what is perceived is only a representation of something existing outside the mind. IE, because we perceive a bent stick does not mean that the stick is actually bent in the world.
Kant is a realist in the same sense that an Indirect Realist is a realist, in that the representation of something in the mind has been caused by something outside the mind. IE, there is actually something in the world causing our perception of a bent stick.
If, however, Idealism was defined as the belief that there is nothing outside the mind and Realism was defined as the belief that there is something outside the mind, then in that case one could only be a believer in either Idealism or Realism. Under this definition, Kant would be a believer in Realism.
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Quoting Corvus
I agree that Kant as a believer in Realism would have agreed that there is a world outside the mind that exists independently of the mind. Within this world there is something that can be called space and time that is the cause for the perception of space and time in our minds.
However, the space and time we perceive in our mind is not of necessity the same as the space and time existing in a mind-independent world that is causing our perception. For example, when looking at a wavelength of 700nm we may perceive the colour red. It is true that the wavelength of 700nm caused our perception of the colour red, but it cannot be argued that a wavelength of 700mnm and our perception of the colour red are in any way similar.
"Space" and "time" can refer to what we perceive in the mind and can also refer to the cause of our perception existing in a world outside the mind. We know our perception of space and time in the mind, but the space and time in a mind-independent world are just names for unknown things.
IE "space" and "time" as pure intuition refer to known perceptions in the mind, whilst "space" and "time" as empirical reality refer to unknown things existing in a mind-independent world causing our known perceptions.
:up:
Quoting RussellA
So your view is also for Kant's space and time as both empirical reality and pure intuitions too. :up:
Any idea why he had to go that way in CPR?
Yes, for Kant, space and time are empirically real, and space and time are pure forms of all intuitions.
Introduction to CPR - Kant's thesis that space and time are pure forms of intuition leads him to the paradoxical conclusion that although space and time are empirically real, they are transcendentally ideal, and so are the objects given in them.
Introduction to CPR - Kant argues that space and time are both the pure forms of all intuitions, or ''formal principle(s) of the sensible world," and themselves pure intuitions. They are the forms in which particular objects are presented to us by the senses, but also themselves unique particulars of which we can have a priori knowledge, the basis of our a priori knowledge of both mathematics and physics. But the embrace of space and time "is limited to actual things, insofar as they are thought capable of falling under the senses" - we have no ground for asserting that space and time characterize things that we are incapable of sensing.
However, this does not mean that we know the reality of space and time in the world, as we can only know them transcendentally.
As an analogy, if I am within a closed room and hear a knocking of the outer wall, I know that there is something outside the room even if I don't know what it is from the principle that every effect has a cause. The fact that I know there is something does not mean that I know what it is.
As an another analogy, although when perceiving the colour red, I know something caused my perception, I don't know of necessity what that something was.
As an another analogy, I know something that exists wrote "So your view is also for Kant's space and time as both empirical reality and pure intuitions too", but I don't know what that something is.
Similarly, Kant knows that space and time are empirically real in the world from the Principle of Sufficient Reason, but has no knowledge as to what they really are.
In order to establish what is named today, as I understand it, as Indirect Realism, still not accepted by the Direct Realists after 200 years of debate, including people such as Hilary Putnam and John Searle.
To establish the reality of space empirically, such that it may be an empirical reality, is to establish that space corresponds to a sensation. And, accordingly, each space its own sensation.
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“…. The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation….”
It follows that space, if it is an empirical reality and corresponds to a sensation, is an effect upon the faculty of representation insofar as we are affected by it, hence, is the effect of an object, from which follows necessarily that space is an object.
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“… In whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate to objects, it is at least quite clear that the only manner in which it immediately relates to them is by means of an intuition. (…)
“….That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition. (…)
Space, insofar as it is an empirical reality corresponding to a sensation, and insofar as space relates to an object via its sensation, is space therefore an empirical intuition.
“….The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon. That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter….”
Space, as an undetermined object of an empirical intuition, has that which corresponds to its sensation, and is its matter.
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“….Those who maintain the empirical reality of time and space, whether as essentially subsisting, or only inhering, as modifications, in things, must find themselves at utter variance with the principles of experience itself. For (…) they must admit two self-subsisting nonentities, infinite and eternal, which exist (yet without there being anything real) for the purpose of containing in themselves everything that is real.…”
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“…. Our expositions, consequently, teach the reality (i.e., the objective validity) of space in regard of all which can be presented to us externally as object, and at the same time also the ideality of space in regard to objects when they are considered by means of reason as things in themselves, that is, without reference to the constitution of our sensibility.…”
The expositions teach, from the perspective of 1780’s physics, but transcendental philosophy proves the expositions are wrong. In other words, Kant’s expositions merely reiterate the SOP of the day, given Newtonian conditions, which just is to profess that our knowledge is of things as they are in themselves. To remove the absurdities of operating with infinities, it must be shown space and time do not belong to things of which our knowledge consists. To show space and time do not belong to those things, it must be shown that it is not things as they are in themselves of which our knowledge consists. It follows that if it is not things in themselves we know, it is not necessary for that of which we do know, to have space and time attributed as belonging to them, even if it remains necessary for some account of them in relation to that of which our knowledge does consist.
If Kant were to think space and time inhere or subsist in themselves, and thereby they represent empirical reality, hence can be properties of things, he contradicts the tenets of his own epistemological metaphysics, not to mention it beggars the imagination as to why he would spend ten years constructing a philosophy in which it is proved they don’t, for the excruciatingly simple reason everything we know of empirical content, without exception….is in fact in reference to the constitution of our sensibility.
I'm still interested in Critique of Pure Reason.
For Kant, as an Empirical Realist, space and time and the matter within it are empirically real. However, this can only be established by synthetic a priori judgements, empirically through the sensible intuitions of phenomena and appearance and transcendentally through the non-sensible intuitions and understanding.
Introduction to CPR - Kant's thesis that space and time are pure forms of intuition leads him to the paradoxical conclusion that although space and time are empirically real, they are transcendentally ideal, and so are the objects given in them.
Kant was trying to save rationalism from Hume's sceptical challenges particularly wrt causation. Empiricism as hume developed it starts with something like, "Life is not an argument. Shit happens and minds have to try and make sense of it, get used to it and hope the sense will continue. " Rationalism always wants certainty in its ordering like an obsessive compulsive: retreating from reality precisely in order to make it conform to the logic of the mind - hence the contortions admirably laid out by @RussellA.
Kant wrote CPR in order to investigate on Reason, and make secure footing for Metaphysics as Science. So he wasn't quite interested in idealism or realism, but he was more into proving into the limitations and capacities of Reason, and the legitimacy of Metaphysical knowledge i.e. how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible .
I don't think he was denying space and time for empirical reality at all. He presupposed it. But he had to postulate space and time as pure intuition in CPR in order to give ground for necessity of a priori knowledge such as Geometry and all the Metaphysical judgments, which are supposed to be superior to the natural science based on the space and time of the empirical reality. Inevitably Kant was a dualist.
Did he not oppose to both rationalism and empiricism? He wanted to combine the two schools, saying that both rationalism and empiricism lack in coherence in their perspective. He then set up his own system amalgamating the two, and proved Metaphysics has more legitimacy than Natural Science, because metaphysical knowledge is based a priori categories and pure intuitions.
Quoting Corvus
Despite the direct textual references refuting that opinion, you both continue the misunderstanding. Or I do. One or the other.
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Quoting Corvus
Absolutely. Why else to start a ~800 page treatise with something, re: sensibility, having nothing to do with the overall philosophical theme, re: reason.
If space and time are empirical realities they absolutely cannot be pure a priori conditions residing in the constitution of the subject, and if such were the case, that they are empirical realities, Kant could not justify them as antecedent conditions for anything of pure a priori content.
I might say, rather than being presupposed, the empirical reality of space and time was the standing hypothesis for the physics of the time, in which human knowledge was understood as being of things as they are in themselves. In which case, Kant’s entire academic exposure was in keeping with it, along with everyone else, and eventually becoming the starting point for refutation of that standing hypothesis.
If Kant's view on space and time was only pure intuitions, and there is no physical space and time as such, then he wouldn't have been taken seriously by the current philosophy or science. :)
Quoting Mww
Kant was a dualist. Space and time was physical existence in empirical reality as well as pure intuitions for metaphysical knowledge. He had been only focusing on the latter in CPR.
Is it the case that for Kant, space and time are empirically real?
In the Introduction to CPR by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood is the statement that, for Kant, space and time are empirically real.
Kant's thesis that space and time are pure forms of intuition leads him to the paradoxical conclusion that although space and time are empirically real, they are transcendentally ideal, and so are the objects given in them.
Kant writes that a transcendental idealist can be an empirical realist
A370 - The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito, ergo sum.
The SEP article on Kant's Transcendental Idealism writes that Kant was an Empirical Realist:
This provides a further sense in which Kant is an “empirical realist”
I would say that the above is some evidence that for Kant, as an Empirical Realist, space and time are empirically real.
That argument may have some validity. In The Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science are the quite gentle objections, absent strict conclusive evidence, brought against Newton.
Quoting Corvus
Those are not what Kant uses to describe himself as a dualist. Empirical reality yes; empirical reality of space and time, no. Empirical reality, that is, experience a posteriori, then, in juxtaposition to cognitive constructs, that is, pure thought a priori. THAT is the proper Kantian dualism.
Exactly. Existence of matter. Things. Objects. That which appears to human sensibility. That of which sensation is possible. That for which phenomena are given. In Kant, space and time are none of those. And I warrant he more than merely concedes the reality of matter, but theorizes on the very necessity of it.
Quoting RussellA
I understand you think that to be the case. The Critique, understood in its entirety as a system, disagrees with you.
Yup, I read that Kant has been taken seriously by the current scientists especially, because his idea on Space and Time is not just for empirical reality, but also for pure intuitions. This perspective of space and time warrants for more rigorous perception of the reality.
Scientists have been trying to find rationally justified warrant for infallible validity from their observations, theories, knowledge and claims on the reality out there, and they believe Kant's TI has it due to its dualism.
Observations on objects in the space of empirical reality alone has possibility of illusions. They want further verifications on their data by the pure space a priori intuitions, concepts and reasoning.
I agree that matter and space and time are different kinds of things, in that I can imagine space empty of matter, yet I cannot imagine matter not being in a space. But the fact they are different kinds of things does not mean they cannot both be real, albeit we only they are real transcendentally.
This doesn't answer Guyer's and Woods statement in the Introduction to the CPR that for Kant, space and time are empirically real.
Kant's thesis that space and time are pure forms of intuition leads him to the paradoxical conclusion that although space and time are empirically real, they are transcendentally ideal, and so are the objects given in them.
If we all accept that for Kant matter is empirically real, then how could it be the case that matter is empirically real yet the space and time that this matter is existing within is not empirically real?
What does it mean that the matter is real yet the space and time it exists within is not real?
Th only conclusion is that if matter is empirically real, then the space and time that it is existing within must also be empirically real.
“…. Our expositions, consequently, teach the reality (i.e., the objective validity) of space….”
(B44, in….well, everybody)
Validity being, of course, a logical condition. So yes, space and time can be thought as empirically real, such that the extension of things has that which is extended into, making the shape and/or motion of things comprehensible, yet they are not in themselves empirically real.
Parenthesizing objective validity also dissipates the necessity of implementing the category of quality under which is subsumed the conception “reality”, all of which is the functional purview of understanding, the faculty of logic, which Kant isn’t yet considering. In addition, the use of objective in the exemption subsidizes the use of empirical, such that reality in 44 becomes empirical reality in 45.
Imagine how practically impossible it would be to talk about things, if it were denied from the outset such things were not, and could not, be thought as extended in space. From the perspective of the thesis itself, it was never meant to imply there actually is such a thing as space into which things extend, but only that the constitution of the human intellect can’t function without the transcendentally given objective validity granting it.
As you say, Kant wanted to combine the two schools of rationalism and empiricism.
However, not to show that Metaphysics is superior to the Natural sciences, but rather better explain both Metaphysics and the Natural Sciences. Neither Metaphysics nor the Natural Sciences could be properly understand without first amalgamating both rationalism and empiricism.
Kant's synthetic a priori amalgamating transcendental idealism and empirical realism is necessary to better understand both Metaphysics and the Natural Sciences. He was a dualist.
How could it be the case, that matter is real but space isn’t? That’s easy: come up with a whole bunch of ideas demonstrating how space isn’t real, let qualified investigators decide for themselves.
You know, like…..parts of space are just space, from which, incidentally, it acquires its ideality; space is no appearance or sensation or phenomenon, as do all real things; the space of a thing is one of two that cannot be thought away from the existence of a thing, hence cannot be the predicate in a judgement regarding what the thing is; space and time are not in the list of categories, hence are not, with respect to human understanding, necessary for the reality of things, but only for the knowledge of them. From which follows necessarily, that the knowledge of things is the determinant factor for their reality, the space of them utterly irrelevant, insofar as the thing must be whatever it is regardless of the space of it.
Better question might be….why does space have to be real? If you say, space is that which is contained in an empty bucket, what have you actually said? Even to say space is that which contains all things, doesn’t tell you a damn thing about any those things the totality of which is impossible for you anyway, which is the same as not knowing anything at all.
I agree that it would be impossible to talk about things if we denied they could be extended in space, but it is Kant's position that there is in fact a space into which things extend.
From the SEP article section 2.3 on Kant’s Transcendental Idealism:
Kant in the Prolegomena was apoplectic that Feder and Garve had claimed that his Transcendental Idealism was just a Berkeleyan or Phenomenalist idealism, and pointed out that in the CPR bodies exist in space and that we have immediate, non-inferential knowledge of them. He pointed out that his idealism is merely a formal idealism, and it is only the form of objects that is due to our minds not the matter of the objects, in that the matter we experience depends on a source outside of the mind.
This does not mean that the matter in space we perceive as appearance is the same as the matter in space that exists outside our perception of it. For example, thinking about the analogy of colour, we perceive the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm. Our perception of the colour red has been caused by the wavelength of 700nm, yet what we perceive, the colour red, is different to what caused it, a wavelength of 700nm.
We can talk about there being the colour red in the world even though the colour red doesn't exist in the word, yet although the colour red doesn't exist in the world there was something, a wavelngth of 700nm, that caused our perception of the colour red.
For Kant as a Empirical Realist, there has to be something in the world for us to be able to perceive something, but the something we perceive doesn't of necessity have to be the same thing as the something that caused our perception in the first place.
:up:
Quoting RussellA
In the preface CPR, Kant sounds like he is on duty to reinstate Metaphysics as the queen of all Science.
Quoting RussellA
Kant's Space in TI of CPR is intuited pure concepts, and he is talking about how Metaphysics works. He is not talking about the space in empirical reality in CPR (it is presupposed existence). They are totally different things all together. If Kant denied the existence of the physical space in empirical reality, he would commit himself to an immaterial idealist like Berkeley. I don't see Kant would have done that at all. As you indicated, I agree, Kant was a dualist.
Space allows me to compare sizes. For example, the distance between the two sides of a garden bucket is less that the diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy.
If space wasn't real, then the garden bucket would be the same size as the Milky Way Galaxy.
To reinstate a scientific metaphysics in place of traditional metaphysics, from his position as Scientific Realist.
Introduction to CPR - Kant's position thus required him not only to undermine the arguments of traditional metaphysics but also to put in their place a scientific metaphysics of his own, which establishes what can be known a priori but also limits it to that which is required for ordinary experience and its extension into natural science.
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Quoting Corvus
:up: As a thing-in-itself it cannot be talked about (like the Fight Club)
A resolute agreement :up:
“…. In whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate to objects, it is at least quite clear that the only manner in which it immediately relates to them is by means of an intuition…..”
This just says knowledge of objects is mediated by intuition. Objects are given immediately, but not known immediately; to be known or experienced, an object must run the procedural gauntlet of human cognition, the representation of which begins with intuition.
Quoting RussellA
We don’t experience matter. We experience representations of real things, consisting of the synthesis of its matter, given a posteriori by the senses, with a form, given a priori by “the mind”. Nevertheless, it is true matter depends on a source outside the mind, an external thing appearing to the senses.
Quoting RussellA
Irrelevant. Color is just another sensation, given from an undetermined appearance.
Quoting RussellA
So you’re saying the something we perceive might not be the something that caused our perception. So what? The system as a whole only operates in accordance with that which is given to it. In what other way is it possible to get from red to 700nm, then to begin with the former and reason to the latter?
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Quoting RussellA
Ok. How do you get from the fact they are different sizes, that space is real? Couldn’t it as well be that one is bigger than the other simply because it takes longer to perceive the galaxy than it takes to perceive the bucket? That only tells you there is more of the one than the other, a measure of relative quantity, which is…..yep, a category, which space…..yep, is not.
Quoting RussellA
Yes, it does. Allows YOU to compare, which asks…..where is the comparison taking place, if not in the constitution of the subject, in this case…YOU.
“…. when I say, “All bodies are extended,” this is an analytical judgement. For I need not go beyond the conception of body in order to find extension connected with it, but merely analyse the conception, that is, become conscious of the manifold properties which I think in that conception, in order to discover this predicate in it….”
If I think object, the extension of it is given. If I need not go beyond the conception of a body, I need not consider space. And because it’s an analytic judgement, true because of itself, there’s no need for the synthetic a priori judgment the pure intuition of space provides.
“….. if I take away from our representation of a body all that the understanding thinks as belonging to it, as substance, force, divisibility, etc., and also whatever belongs to sensation, as impenetrability, hardness, colour, etc.; yet there is still something left us from this empirical intuition, namely, extension and shape. These belong to pure intuition, which exists à priori in the mind, as a mere form of sensibility, and without any real object of the senses or any sensation….”
Why can’t the extension of an object be predicated entirely on what that object actually is? Why can’t it simply be, that this object I know as an ant cannot be a basketball just because its size alone contradicts what I know?
I agree, otherwise Kant's Transcendental Idealism would just be a Berkeleyan or Phenomenalist idealism.
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Quoting Mww
Yes the colour red is a phenomena, but there are different opinions as to the relationship between a phenomena in the mind and its cause, a noumena in the world.
I would guess that half of the Forum are Direct Realists and as such have no regard for the CPR, whilst the other half are Indirect Realists, for whom the CPR might be relevant.
The Direct Realist, such as Austin and Searle, holds the position that if they perceive a red postbox there is a red postbox in the world, ie, in perceiving a phenomena in the mind they are also perceiving the noumena in the world.
The Indirect Realist such as Kant, holds the position that what we perceive might not be the same thing that caused our perception, in that although we perceive the colour red we might be looking at a wavelength of 700nm. IE, the phenomena perceived in the mind is not of necessity the same as what caused this perception.
Colour is a phenomena in the mind, but colour can also be used to enable a metaphorical understanding of the relationship between phenomena and noumena. George Lakoff makes the point that the metaphor is fundamental in how humans understand complex abstract ideas.
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Quoting Mww
If space wasn't real, how could things be of different sizes?
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Quoting Mww
A proposition may be analytic or synthetic
[i]A7/B11 - “…. when I say, “All bodies are extended,” this is an analytical judgement. For I need not go beyond the conception of body in order to find extension connected with it, but merely analyse the conception, that is, become conscious of the manifold properties which I think in that conception, in order to discover this predicate in it….”
A7/B11 - On the contrary, if I say: "All bodies are heavy," then the predicate is something entirely different from that which I think in the mere concept of a body in general. The addition of such a predicate thus yields a synthetic judgment.[/i]
It is true that a body by its very nature is extended in space, in that the word "body" means being extended in space. This is analytic, regardless of the nature of the world.
Similarly the word "unicorn" means a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead. This is also analytic, regardless of the nature of the world.
The fact that I can say "all bodies are extended" and "unicorns have a a single straight horn projecting from its forehead" does not presuppose that either bodies or unicorns exist in the world.
If I want to know whether "bodies" or "unicorns" exist in the world, this requires a synthetic judgement.
In Kant's Realism, he does believe that objects exist in the world
From the SEP article section 2.3 on Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, in his Prolegomena he was apoplectic that Feder and Garve had claimed that his Transcendental Idealism was just a Berkeleyan or Phenomenalist idealism, and pointed out that in the CPR bodies exist in space and that we have immediate, non-inferential knowledge of them.
For Kant, bodies exist in the world, even if we only have transcendental knowledge of them. As by definition of the word "body", such bodies are extended in space, this means that if the body is real then the space the body extends into must also be real.
What is size, but a relation to a subject? Only an intelligence thinks about or compares sizes. Why not, then, limit the conditions by which relative size is cognizable, to that intelligence wanting to know of it?
That he thinks this object is bigger than that object, merely from its greater degree of extension in space, all he’s done is manufacture a means by which the relation he perceives accords with the relation he thinks.
By both the metaphysical exposition and the transcendental exposition of space, is that means by which the subject comprehends relative extensions of objects given. As an added bonus, that same means is that by which all objects relate, not only to each other, but also and equally, to him, as being closer or further from him, beside or behind him, above or below him, and so on.
As you say, on the other hand, the pure physicalist may insist the extension of objects, and the relation of objects to each other, is impossible without the necessary condition of empirical space. But in CPR no pure physicalist excuses are to be found, except the natural existence or possible existence of real things.
————
Quoting RussellA
I agree with what you’re saying, but this part should read, propositions may be analytic or synthetic. The way you’ve written it, it indicates a proposition can be both at the same time, which is not the case.
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Quoting RussellA
Please refrain from repeating yourself; it’s boring as hell, and carries the implication you doubt the thoroughness of people’s dialectical participation. Like….I didn’t see it the first time.
Boring as hell, in that this is a thread grounded in the reading of CPR, which presupposes it’s been read, and the ensuing dialectic is derived from it alone. By second-handing the content of the original, the poster is merely holding with the opinion of the secondary author, rather than presenting his own in accordance with the actual reading of the text. Even when the secondary author directly quotes the original, he is still of the opinion the quote is pertinent, at the expense of the reader who is supposed to be familiar enough to recognize it either may not be, or may not be enough.
Besides, the Prolegomena is what nowadays would be labeled CPR for Dummies, and Kant himself states it is less comprehensive and thereby less precise than CPR. Doesn’t make much sense, in the examination of what he thinks, for it to be taken from an abridged version. Same with any SEP or IEP or (gaspgagchoke) wiki reference.
Sapere aude, dammit!!!!!
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Quoting RussellA
You can see the body, but can you see the space? Say a balloon, before adding air, it’s small. Add air, it gets bigger, extending into space. What happened to the space of each increment of its growing? Is space displaced, and if so, where did it go? Did it just move adjacent space aside, expanding the totality of space? If the totality of space expands, what does it expand into?
So it isn’t that space gets moved aside or expands, but that objects have a space of their own, such that it can be said each object occupies a space. Small objects occupy a small space, bigger objects a bigger space. This object in this space, that object in that space. So space can be treated as a property of each object. Other properties like shape, composition, texture, weight, mass….all determinable quantities. What is the measure of the property of space?
If we say a box measures 3 x 4 x 5 feet, we are describing the dimensions of the box, but are we in fact determining the property of space? Even if we say we’ve measured the property of the space the box occupied, we still only actually measured the box.
By the same token, go out and take three measurements all orthogonal to each other, that is, on three axial dimensions, and say you’ve measure a space. But in this case, without an object, space is not a property of anything, which reduces to the fact you’ve measured nothing which could be an experience. So you can say you measured space, but in fact all you did was move a measuring device from one place to another, which is nothing but the relation of one thing to itself in different times. No matter how you look at it, the relative positioning of the measuring device doesn’t enclose anything. And to use three devices, one for each dimension, you still haven’t enclosed anything, enclosure being the only true representation to which the conception of space can be attributed.
Even to measure a space for a potential object, say a bookshelf, the spatial measurement is merely in relation to that object, but still not a property insofar as there is no bookshelf to which the property may belong.
So….you can’t get from objects are real therefore the space of them must be real. You can’t get there legitimately, that is. Sure, you can say it, you can think it, but what have you actually done? Imma gonna tell ya whachu done: you committed a transcendental illusory faux pas, affectionately known as a syllogism of catastrophic delinquency:
“…. transcendental paralogism has a transcendental foundation, and concludes falsely, while the form is correct and unexceptionable. In this manner the paralogism has its foundation in the nature of human reason, and is the parent of an unavoidable, though not insoluble, mental illusion….”
What about them apples, huh?
Seeing is not a property for space. Space has a few properties based on physics, but visibility is not one of them.
Maybe, dunno, but we’re not doing physics. We’re doing transcendental philosophy.
I don’t recall saying or implying that seeing was a property of space. Or anything, for that matter.
Then, the question, Quoting Mww
is irrelevant in Transcendental philosophy?
More than irrelevant; incomprehensible. Vision needs that which appears, space does not appear, space cannot be a sensation, space cannot be real.
It can be said, however, space can be real in a different way than that which appears. Which is an entirely different philosophy on the one hand, and a separate science on the other.
Nevertheless, whichever it is, reason is absolutely necessary for whatever the conclusions might be.
mmm. Good. I needed this.
Presupposing something you didn’t need. What might that be?
No idea what you think you're asking, soz.
Ok. Never mind.
Happy to be of service, nonetheless.
If you accept, space is invisible emptiness which contains all the objects in universe, then you are seeing it, when you don't. Sense perceives invisible objects.
Quoting Mww
Kant is not talking about the space in empirical reality in CPR, but he seems mentioning its legitimacy in various places from presupposition. He is talking about space as intuited concept in TI to explain how Geometry and visualisation works. And whatever you are perceiving, they originate from the external objects.
Quoting Mww
Yes, hence his CPR.
The poster presents their own opinions as to both the primary and secondary sources
The OP of this Thread suggests a reading group of the CPR, reading the book and sharing thoughts about it. There is no restriction within the OP that only the primary source must be used.
To ignore secondary sources about such a complex book would be foolhardy, in that very few of us have had the time to read the almost 800 pages, analyse and study the almost 900 paragraphs, and compare and contrast the CPR within the body of his other works.
As long as these secondary sources are referenced, and on the assumption judged worthy of inclusion, reasons should given for sources that support one's position and reasons given against sources that don't support one's position.
The use of secondary sources shows that one is not trying to reinvent the wheel, but is constructively building on different debates and different perspectives of academics over a period of 200 years who have devoted their careers to this particular topic.
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Quoting Mww
"Repetition is the mother of learning"
I try to make my posts complete, and if a particular quote or idea helps to make the post understandable then I will use it, regardless of how many times I have used it before.
Kant in his Prolegomena made clear that he believed space is empirically real
In the Introduction to CPR by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood is the statement that, for Kant, space and time are empirically real.
Kant's thesis that space and time are pure forms of intuition leads him to the paradoxical conclusion that although space and time are empirically real, they are transcendentally ideal, and so are the objects given in them.
From the SEP article section 2.3 on Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, Kant in the Prolegomena was apoplectic that Feder and Garve had claimed that his Transcendental Idealism was just a Berkeleyan or Phenomenalist idealism, and pointed out that in the CPR bodies exist in space and that we have immediate, non-inferential knowledge of them.
In his Prolegomena, Kant wrote that space is real and exists outside of ourselves:
Here’s something else that can be proved ·as a requirement for the intellectual management· of experience, but can’t be shown to hold of things in themselves: Our outer experience not only does but must correspond to something real outside of ourselves. That tells us this much: there is something empirical—thus, some phenomenon in space outside us— ·the existence of· which can be satisfactorily proved. ·That’s all it tells us·, for we have no dealings with objects other than those belonging to possible experience; because objects that can’t be presented to us in any experience are nothing to us. What is empirically outside me is what appears in space.
It is true that in the CPR Kant writes that we have an a priori pure intuition of space
Kant argues that our perception of space is not a posteriori derived from experience, but must be a priori in order to underlie all experience.
A24/B38 - 2) Space is a necessary representation, a priori, which is the ground of all outer intuitions. One can never represent that there is no space, although one can very well think that there are no objects to be encountered in it. It is therefore to be regarded as the condition of the possibility of appearances, not as a determination dependent on them, and is an a priori representation that necessarily grounds outer appearances.
Understanding A24/B38 using the analogy of perceiving the colour red, we can only perceive the colour red because we have the innate ability to perceive the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm. The fact that we perceive the colour red doesn't mean that the colour red exists in the world. In fact, it is the wavelength of 700nm that exists in the world, and this wavelength of 700nm is the cause of our perception of the colour red.
The fact that we do perceive the colour red suggests that there is in fact something in the world causing such perception, which may for convenience be called" red". There is a dualism in reference, in that red may refer either to what we perceive or the cause of what we perceive. It should be noted that what is referred to by the same term are of different kinds.
The fact that we do perceive space as an outer intuition suggests that there is in fact something in the world causing such perception, which may for convenience be called "space". There is a dualism in reference, in that space may refer either to what we perceive or the cause of what we perceive. It should be noted that what is referred to by the same term are of different kinds.
Where does Kant write in the CPR that space is not empirically real?
There is a dualism in reference of the word space, in that space may refer either to what we perceive or the cause of what we perceive. Whilst Kant does discuss space as referring to what we perceive, where does Kant in the CPR write that space as referring to the cause of what we perceive doesn't exist?
Or, understanding thinks invisible objects.
Quoting Corvus
Almost, yes. He is talking about space as an intuited a priori representation, in order to remove it from the necessity of being a phenomenon.
Yep. Now all you gotta do is figure out exactly what that means, and how it reflects on the human cognitive system overall.
Your modern mentality combined with fixation on a single phrase has made thinking like an Enlightenment-era Prussian impossible.
Yes, that was my point all the way along. Glad to see some sort of agreement. Well almost.
JMD Meiklejohn version CPR is only 500 pages long (the 2nd edition only). All the other versions are 700 - 800 pages because they combined the 1st and 2nd Editions into one book.
Devil’s in the details. What is a phenomenon; how did it get to be one; what makes it possible;
What does “pure” mean; what does “a priori” mean;
Virtually every term in CPR is re-defined from the status quo of the age, and when there wasn’t one suitable for what he wanted to say, he invented one and made it known what it was supposed to mean.
Empirical….nothing but a way to think about stuff, just like to think of stuff transcendentally, logically or hypothetically. To think space empirically is not to think it as being real, but merely to think of it as that which contains the real, in order for the relations of things becomes comprehensible.
If it were as real as that which it contains, it would have to be a phenomenon, which makes explicit it could never be pure a priori, and the entire system contradicts itself.
“…. It is therefore from the human point of view only that we can speak of space, extended objects, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition, under which alone we can obtain external intuition, or, in other words, by means of which we are affected by objects, the representation of space has no meaning whatsoever.…”
If the representation has no meaning whatsoever, to then talk of its empirical reality, is sheer nonsense. That Kant uses that wording, indicates he means something else by it.
What does it mean that we have an a priori pure intuition of space
As with the colour red, where we have the innate ability to perceive the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm, it means that we have the innate ability to perceive objects in space when looking at the world.
It means that neither the object nor the space that we perceive actually exist in the world, but there is definitely something in the world that we can name for convenience as object and space that has caused our perception of an object in space.
I am using the Cambridge Edition, translated and edited by Guyer and Wood, which includes the first and second editions.
Pure in CPR means "a priori".
Quoting Mww
A tree is standing in the space and on the ground. For you to perceive the tree, the physical space must allow the particles of the light which reflected from the tree, to enter to your eyes. Without the physical space, the light won't be able to travel from the tree to your eyes making all visual perception impossible. So physical space in empirical reality has to be real existence.
Quoting Mww
When empirical reality caused the representation to happen in the mind, but if the mind thinks it is sheer nonsense, then it is a problem of the mind.
Kindasorta, I suppose. We have the physiological capacity to perceive, in various modes, given from the type of biological being we are.
Quoting RussellA
No it doesn’t. That objects don’t exist contradicts the human experience.
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Quoting Corvus
Yes, but a priori is not necessarily pure:
“…. “Every change has a cause,” is a proposition à priori, but impure, because change is a conception which can only be derived from experience….”
A priori carries the implication of universality and necessity; pure/impure carries the implication of the contingency of experience.
Kant wants it understood that by a priori, he means without regard to any experience or possible experience whatsoever. He just released himself from having to qualify the term with “pure” every time he used it, the word in the book’s title sufficing as the ground of the whole, the justification for the ground given early on in the text itself.
1) When we perceive the colour red, the colour red doesn't exist in the world, what exists in the world is a wavelength of 700nm.
2) When we perceive a bent-stick, there is no bent-stick in the world, it is a straight stick in water.
3) When we perceive an elliptical coin, there is no elliptical coin in the world, it is a circular coin on its side.
4) When we perceive a mountain to be the same height as a person, a person the same height as a mountain doesn't exist.
5) When we perceive the two sides of a road approaching each other in the distance, the two sides of the road in the world are in fact parallel.
6) Whe one perceives a pink elephant, there is no pink elephant in the world, only an hallucination caused by delirium tremens.
7) When we perceive an apple, apples don't exist in the world, what exists in the world are
fundamental particles and fundamental forces existing in space and time.
The object that we perceive in our mind is not of necessity the same as the object that exists in the world, meaning that the object we perceive in our minds does not of necessity exist in the world.
Only the Direct Realist would say that the phenomena we perceive in our minds is the same as a noumena that exists in the world.
Not sure what I’m supposed to do with all that.
Pink elephants and noumena are of no interest to me, and I’ve never seen 700nm.
Kant mainly uses a priori to mean pure in CPR.
Quoting Mww
It has nothing to do with pure or impure. It is a priori synthetic proposition.
Quoting Mww
Not sure if pure / impure has much to do with experience. If it does, it would be minor context.
Quoting Mww
But please bear in mind that Kant thought some knowledge is both a priori and also a posteriori e.g. Physics.
Exactly, the object perceived in the mind is not of necessity the same object in the world causing the perception. Knowledge of the phenomena does not of necessity give us knowledge of the noumena, as the Direct Realist insists it does.
For over 300,000 years, humans did not know that the cause of their perception of the colour red was the wavelength of 700nm. Only in the last 200 years have humans discovered that the colour red they perceived in the mind doesn't actually exist in the world. Perhaps coincidentally, about 200 years ago, Kant wrote CPR.
….yet he states, clear as the nose on your face…..impure. How can it have nothing to do with exactly what he’s saying?
Quoting Corvus
“…. By the term “knowledge à priori,” therefore, we shall in the sequel understand, not such as is independent of this or that kind of experience, but such as is absolutely so of all experience….”
“…. Necessity and strict universality, therefore, are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge….”, and, empirical already distinguished as having to do with experience.
Quoting Corvus
“…. the acquisition of real, substantive knowledge is to be sought only in the sciences, properly so called, that is, in the objective sciences….
Real, substantive knowledge, if it should be acquired, is a posteriori, that is, having sources in experience.
“….. Mathematics and physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to determine their objects à priori. The former is purely à priori, the latter is partially so, but is also dependent on other sources of cognition….”
Partially so means impure; other sources means from out in the world, or, experience.
Knowledge given from the objective sciences is empirical, it informs as to experiences of the world; it is the way in which the knowledge is acquired, the systemic methodology for the development of principles and judgements, better known as logic, the intellect uses to acquire it, that is pure a priori.
Math is purely a priori because it constructs its own objects; physics is a posteriori because its objects are or can be given to it from an external source, re: the world.
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Quoting RussellA
(Sigh) Once again….red is not a thing. Wavelength is a thing, but is not an sensation.
This apples and oranges shit is wearing me out.
Of course, sensations in the mind are caused by things in the world. Au revoir.
This is where Kant seems to be showing his inconsistency in CPR. If you think about it, you only observe the objects and the changed objects in empirical reality through time via your sense. There is no such a thing as "change" in the empirical reality. The concept 'change' comes from your mind via a priori intuition. It is nothing to do with the way reason works, but it is how we acquire a priori synthetic knowledge in TI.
Quoting Mww
Some physics knowledge is definitely both a priori and a posteriori, hence synthetic a priori.
" Mathematics and Physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to determine their objects a priori, the later is partially so, but is also dependent on other sources of cognition." - Preface 2nd Edition CPR, Meiklejohn.
We were quoting the same verse. I am not sure "impure" would be the right term. He has given out the official term for it i.e. "synthetic a priori" knowledge.
Kant thought that just empirical knowledge for the objective sciences were not enough to be the source of infallible knowledge. The A priori elements are needed for the science to be able to have grounds for the rigorous system of knowledge.
Yes. All empirical knowledge is contingent and derived from inductive inference.
Quoting Corvus
Agreed. The elements are a priori. The elements are the content of inductive inferences, which suffices for the rigor of the system, but it is still contingent, insofar as the content may change over time, but the form of the inference remains the same over all time.
———-
Quoting Corvus
It is the right term, for what it’s concern with. Synthetic is a relation of conceptions in a proposition or judgement, and is opposed to analytic. And it makes no difference what the proposition or judgement says. Propositions and or judgements of knowledge, must say something definitive in itself, or it isn’t knowledge.
There are synthetic propositions a posteriori, those in which the conceptions in both subject and predicate are derived from experience but are not contained in each other. Those synthetic propositions in which the conceptions in subject and predicate are not contained in the other, but do not arise from experience, are a priori.
Math is a pure a priori science, in that it constructs its own objects, and the principles of which are synthetic and purely a priori.
Physics is an impure science, in that it does not construct its own objects, yet the principles of which are also synthetic and purely a priori.
"In more recent times, it has seemed as if an end might be put to all these controversies and the claims of metaphysics receive final judgement, through certain physiology of the human understanding - that of celebrated Locke." - CPR A.ix
What pitfalls must i avoid in reading this section?
You are well ahead of me. I have gone back to the very beginning and starting over from the Preface.
Don't assume i understand more than 10% :P
"All I know is I know nothing." - Socrates
That is my 1st philosophical principle. :nerd:
I would say that the biggest pitfall is reading it in isolation of secondary sources, which might include:
IEP - Immanuel Kant: Logic
He insists that formal logic should abstract from all content of knowledge and deal only with our faculty of understanding (intellect, Verstand) and our forms of thought.
SEP - Kant’s Transcendental Arguments
Among Immanuel Kant’s (1724–1804) most influential contributions to philosophy is his development of the transcendental argument. In Kant’s conception, an argument of this kind begins with a compelling premise about our thought, experience, or knowledge, and then reasons to a conclusion that is a substantive and unobvious presupposition and necessary condition of this premise.
The Generality of Kant’s Transcendental Logic - Clinton Tolley - University of California
Unlike the traditional logic, which focuses only on the form of thinking and judging, Kant intends his new transcendental logic to focus on the content of thinking and judging, albeit in a very abstract manner.
Generation Online - Transcendental Logic
Kant defines transcendental logic, on the other hand, as a subdivision of general logic, and distinguishes it from general logic in so far as transcendental logic does not abstract from all the contents of knowledge, but takes from transcendental aesthetics the forms of pure intuition of space and time into consideration, thus abstracting from empirical contents, whilst still accounting for pure intuitions.
These secondary sources point at a distinction between the importance of the form of a logical statement in traditional logic and the importance of the content of a logical statement in transcendental logic
Perhaps this means that a logical stalemate is as much dependent on its content as its form.
Great point. :up:
In the past I have been stating this point to @Janus and @Mww in some previous threads. They sounded to have read somewhere about the traditional logic, and think that it is the only form of logic in existence. They have been opposing on the view that Logic can require contents for its operation. :roll: One can feel pointless trying to argue with the narrow perspectives.
The SEP article on Kant’s Transcendental Arguments, section 3, shows that Kant is still relevant today.
Kant-inspired transcendental arguments against scepticism about the external world were developed with vigor in the mid-twentieth century, notably by P. F. Strawson, most famously in his Kantian reflections in The Bounds of Sense (1966). These arguments are often reinterpretations of, or at least inspired by, Kant’s Transcendental Deduction and his Refutation of Idealism.
The article writes that Strawson’s most famous transcendental argument in 1966 is modelled on the Transcendental Deduction, where Strawson's target is sense-datum experience.
However, according to the Wikipedia article on Logic, logic only deals with the form of an argument and not the content of an argument:
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It studies how conclusions follow from premises due to the structure of arguments alone, independent of their topic and content.
However, the Wikipedia article assumes the possibility of the separation of form from content. But that cannot be the case, in that if all the content was removed, what form would be left. If all the metal was removed from the Eiffel Tower, what would remain?
I don't subscribe to the most of Wiki info. In the past any tom dick and harry used to go to Wiki and populate the contents with whatever contents they like. Not sure this is still the case.
From the traditional logic perspective, they insist that contents is not dealt by logic. Fair enough on that. But from all the other logic, content itself is important part of logic. If you read Bolzano's Theory of Science, you would agree.
Yep, he does, at least empirical content. If one wishes to insist the content of logic is its own laws or principles for its operation, he has misdirected it, insofar as the laws of logic apply to the operation of the understanding, such that the application of its own laws to itself, is absurd.
“…. Now, logic in its turn may be considered as twofold—namely, as logic of the general, or of the particular use of the understanding. The first contains the absolutely necessary laws of thought, without which no use whatsoever of the understanding is possible, and gives laws therefore to the understanding, without regard to the difference of objects on which it may be employed….
…. Pure general logic has to do, therefore, merely with pure à priori principles, and is a canon of understanding and reason, but only in respect of the formal part of their use, be the content what It may….. As general logic, it makes abstraction of all content of the cognition of the understanding, that is, of all relation of cognition to its object, and regards only the logical form in the relation of cognitions to each other, that is, the form of thought in general.…. Consequently, general logic treats of the form of the understanding only, which can be applied to representations, from whatever source they may have arisen….
…..in the expectation that there may perhaps be conceptions which relate à priori to objects, not as pure or sensuous intuitions, but merely as acts of pure thought (which are therefore conceptions, but neither of empirical nor æsthetical origin)—in this expectation, I say, we form to ourselves, by anticipation, the idea of a science of pure understanding and rational cognition, by means of which we may cogitate objects entirely à priori. A science of this kind, which should determine the origin, the extent, and the objective validity of such cognitions, must be called transcendental logic, because it has, not, like general logic, to do with the laws of understanding and reason in relation to empirical as well as pure rational cognitions without distinction, but concerns itself with these only in an à priori relation to objects…”
(Insert possibly irrelevant yet nonetheless moronic iconographic representation here)
But if we look at an example, any analytic concept such as a bachelor, it has definition and logic all in the concept i.e. a bachelor is an unmarried man. If you didn't have the concept as a content in a statement, logic won't work. Will it?
If you say, that you know a bachelor who has remarried recently, you know instantly you uttered a logical nonsense. Without the content "bachelor", how would you have come to the conclusion, the statement was illogical?
A mistake at the expense of, or in spite of, the quotations.
Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, must always be a logic of illusion, that is, be dialectical, for, as it teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, which do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects, any attempt to employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever. Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy….”
Was giving an example from general Logic point of view (not related to the quotes).
Kant had low opinion on Logic, and his view on Logic is abnormally and impractically narrow.
An aberration of the whole point. You’re giving an example from understanding’s point of view, which presupposes the logic. In response to the accusation I’m denying the content of logic in its operation, which is true, I can still affirm the necessity of content for its proofs. Examples merely suffice to demonstrate the validity of a logical condition, but do nothing to establish what that condition is.
Quoting Corvus
Or did he have a low opinion of the typical employment of it, in which manifests the “mere prating”?
Until one reads the statement with the analytic content in full, nothing is presupposed. The statement can be anything until it ends with ".".
Quoting Mww
Even after the clear example of the most basic operation of Logic from the content of a concept, if you still keep denying it, then it seems you are denying not knowing what you are denying.
Quoting Mww
It is a well known fact from the numerous commentaries on Kant.
Oh dear. The entire human intellectual system is presupposed. Do you have any idea at all, just how far it is in the procedural methodology, between reading the statement and the installation of the analytic content of it??????
Quoting Corvus
According to Kant, the most basic operation of logic “treats of the form of the understanding only”. How is your example anything like that?
Of logic that “gives laws therefore to the understanding, without regard to the difference of objects on which it may be employed”……where in your statement “Bachelors are unmarried” is a law which governs without regard to whichever statement you had decided to use?
Quoting Corvus
Ohfercrissakes. Each and every commentary is mere opinion, insofar as there is no original printing in which he himself states a low opinion of logic. Unless, of course, there is one, and I’m just not aware of it, in which case, I’d be wrong. But until presented with an exact replication of the opinion in fact, I’m perfectly happy with my reading of the text, which ironically enough, is itself merely opinion. But at least one I trust.
When he says stuff like, “further than this logic cannot go”, he’s just warning the po’ fools trying to misuse it, but not that the misuse is the fault of logic.
Nothing is presupposed in nature and human intellect. That is why we need observation, reasoning and logic in coming to knowledge. When you see the data or content, you record, reason and apply logic to come to judgements.
Quoting Mww
That is just one side of logic, which is the traditional logic. You have a sea of different school of Logic doing things differently for different subjects, which you seem to have no idea of. Even just after Kant, Bolzano has his own theories in Science and Logic, and many other Neo-Kantian and Anti-Kantian philosophers came up with their own views and systems on Logic.
Quoting Mww
Kant had very limited views and knowledge on Logic.
To record, reason and apply logic presupposes the capacity for it. To come to judgement presupposes there is that which is possible to come to.
Quoting Corvus
Undoubtedly, but irrelevant.
(Glances up at thread title)
Quoting Corvus
Compared to what….2023? Wonder what the views will be in 2123. Oh so easy to look backwards, innit?
Under that system, one would be very prone to fall into prejudice and illusions instead of knowledge.
Quoting Mww
There would be little point staring at the thread title all day long, if one cannot extend Kant's works into the present time of consciousness and reality.
Quoting Mww
Past is only significant in the perspective of NOW. Future is the same. We only have NOW. We can only look at anything from NOW. If you think you can be in 1781 in reality, then you are in deep illusion. :)
So? Same is it ever was. That it is done is given; the possibility for guarding against it is what the Critque offers.
Take it or leave it, but first, understand it.
There must be more than just one way to interpret Kant, because it is now 2023, not 1781. Tendency of denying the objectivity on the obvious points can induce the debilitating melancholy and misunderstanding. :nerd:
Of course. There should be as many interpretations as there are folks that bother with it. What he wanted the interpretation to be, should be singular, no matter how many folks bother. Which was the whole point of grounding the theory in logic, insofar as if these premises are the case, then that conclusion follows necessarily. One can, then, grant the conclusions given those premises on the one hand, yet refute the logic by denying those premises ever were the case on the other. In which case, Kant hasn’t been refuted, he’s been replaced.
As with most sources, whether Fox or CNN, whether the BBC or Talk TV, one has to make a personal judgement as to whether the source makes a logical and reasoned case.
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Quoting Corvus
What is a Transcendental argument
From the Wikipedia article on Transcendental arguments, which presumably uses transcendental logic, Kant used transcendental arguments to show that sensory experiences would not be possible if we did not impose their spatial and temporal forms on them
In the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) Kant developed one of philosophy's most famous transcendental arguments in 'The Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding'.[8] In the 'Transcendental Aesthetic', Kant used transcendental arguments to show that sensory experiences would not be possible if we did not impose their spatial and temporal forms on them, making space and time "conditions of the possibility of experience".
An example of a Transcendental argument is used by Kant in his refutation of idealism. Idealists believe that things have no existence independently of the mind. His Transcendental argument does not prove that things exist independently of the mind, only that the concept that things exist independently of the mind is legitimate.
Kant argues that:
1) since idealists acknowledge that we have an inner mental life, and
2) an inner life of self-awareness is bound up with the concepts of objects which are not inner, and which interact causally,
3) then we must have legitimate experience of outer objects which interact causally.
I can make a similar Transcendental argument:
1) A postbox emits a light having a wavelength of 700nm, and because I have the innate ability to perceive the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm, I perceive the colour red.
2) I perceive the postbox as red not because the postbox is red but because I perceive the postbox as red.
My argument doesn't prove that the postbox is not red, but only the possibility that the postbox is not of necessity red.
Is "bachelors are unmarried" an analytical statement
As regards the statement "bachelors are unmarried men", when thinking about what the words refer to, as both "bachelor" and "unmarried men" refer to the same thing, the statement is analytic. However, when thinking about the sense of the words, as the sense of "bachelor" is different to the sense of "unmarried men", they don't refer to the same thing, and so is not an analytic statement.
IE, the content or sense of the words must be taken into account , not just their form or reference.
I read the scientists conducting the remote experiments on time and space in different locations on the earth based on TI of CPR. It wouldn't be imaginable if one insisted to stay in 1781 and inside the fence of CPR word by word for interpreting and understanding Kant.
Any popular media based information will be flatly rejected as propaganda in all philosophical discussions unless proved and verified otherwise. :)
Quoting RussellA
When you say, we impose space and temporal forms on the sensory experiences, it does imply we can also choose not to impose as well. So what happens if we choose not to impose? How do we decide to impose or not to impose?
I am going to tackle your points one by one taking time (no rush) in order to avoid any confusions.
An experiment on time. I’ll bet it’s actually an experiment on something relative to time.
Space as well. It is called "Spatio-Temporal Transcendental Deduction".
Reference? Link?
Sorry cannot locate the link or ref. for now. Will look for it and update when time allows. :)
Wasn't Kant refuting the rationalists rather than idealism? If it were idealists, who were they?
Quoting RussellA
What is the proof of the legitimacy of the concept that things exist independently of the mind?
Quoting RussellA
Any relevant quotes for this argument from CPR?
Yes, every source is open to doubt, even the SEP, which is the premier reference work in philosophy.
We know it is the premier work in philosophy because the Stanford Department of Philosophy says so. They write: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) is the premier reference work in philosophy, and covers an enormous range of philosophical topics through in-depth entries.
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Quoting Corvus
No, because this imposition is a priori, and as priori is beyond choice. In the same way that when I see the wavelength of 700nm I have no choice as to what colour I perceive .
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Quoting Corvus
As the Wikipedia article on Transcendental arguments concludes: He has not established that outer objects exist, but only that the concept of them is legitimate, contrary to idealism
From the Britannica article on Rationalism: Rationalism, in Western philosophy, the view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge.
From Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy:Idealism is now usually understood in philosophy as the view that mind is the most basic reality and that the physical world exists only as an appearance to or expression of mind, or as somehow mental in its inner essence.
In B275, Kant mentions Berkeley as an example of a Dogmatic Idealist, someone who declares the existence of objects outside us to be either false or impossible
Kant is refuting Idealism as a belief rather than Rationalism as a method .
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Quoting Corvus
Speaking as an Indirect Realist, none. I believe that things exist independently of the mind, and can come up with reasons to justify my belief, but cannot prove it. Such is the nature of Indirect Realism.
This is a question for the Direct Realist, who does believe that they directly perceive things that exist independently of the mind.
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Quoting Corvus
In B275 is the section on The Refutation of Idealism
He includes the Theorem: The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me.
In B276 is the section Proof
I am conscious of my existence as determined in time. All time-determination presupposes something persistent in perception. This persistent thing, however, cannot be something in me, since my own existence in time can first be determined only through this persistent thing. Thus the perception of this persistent thing is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of a thing outside me. Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is possible only by means of the existence of actual things that I perceive outside myself. Now consciousness in time is necessarily combined with the consciousness of the possibility of this time-determination: Therefore it is also necessarily combined with the existence of the things outside me, as the condition of time-determination; i.e., the consciousness of my own existence is at the same time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things outside me.
In other words:
1) I am conscious of my existence in time
2) Therefore I am conscious of something persisting in time
3) But this something that persists in time cannot be inside me, as this something cannot be conscious of itself
4) Therefore as this something that persists cannot be a representation inside me, this something that persists must be outside me.
5) Concluding that there must be something outside me, refuting Idealism which believes there is nothing outside me.
A priori means that it is universally true under all circumstances. If you say that you see the WL700nm, and you perceive the colour red. You claim that you have no choice but perceive the colour under A priori condition.
But if that is the case, how do you explain that some other people perceive the colour differently, or no colour at all (in the case of colour blind people)? Surely that proves the point that colour perception is not A priori?
How / Why do you justify your belief in something that you cannot prove it exists?
This sounds a bit vague and needing some more discussion. OK, you perceive the colour by seeing the WL700nm, you claim. If that is the case, what is the relation between the colour you perceive (red), and the WL700nm? Are they same in nature, substance and composition? The WL700nm itself is not the colour you perceive itself, is it?
After seeing the red colour, you close your eyes, and you can visualise the colour you have just seen in your mind. It appears in your mind as red colour. Then what is that red colour? Is it the WL700nm? or something else?
How does he know for certain what he is conscious of is not an illusion?
Quoting RussellA
Does this mean, if something was conscious of itself, then it could be inside him? :chin:
The IEP article on A Priori and A Posteriori writes: An a priori concept is one that can be acquired independently of experience, which may – but need not – involve its being innate, while the acquisition of an a posteriori concept requires experience.
A Priori does not mean universally true for all people at all times. A priori means in a sense innate within a particular person. My private subjective experience of colour when seeing a wavelength of 700nm is innate to me.
How can you know that when you are look at a wavelength of 700nm, your private subjective experience of colour is the same as mine?
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Quoting Corvus
I cannot prove that electrons exist, yet I believe they exist. I justify my belief from the numerous scientific articles that I have read that say that electrons do exist.
Do you believe that the Andromeda Galaxy exists? Can you prove that it exists?
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Quoting Corvus
Totally mysterious. What do you think the relationship is?
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Quoting Corvus
Isn't this the argument against Direct Realism, in that if Direct Realism was true, the external world would be exactly as we perceive it. However, in the case of illusions, there is an obvious difference between our perception and reality. For example, when a pencil is placed in a glass of water, it can look crooked. But it isn't really crooked.
Kant was definitely not a Direct Realist.
How does the Direct Realist know when looking at something in the world, such as a tree, that what they think they are looking at is just an illusion?
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Quoting Corvus
Not everyone agrees with Kant's Transcendental Argument.
If I am conscious of the passing of time, then I must be conscious of two different moments in time. But how is this possible if I only exist at one moment in time?
Not sure what the IEP article was about, but it doesn't sound right. If A priori is just innate to you, and all different from person to person, then what is the point of A priori? Would it not better just as well call it as Relative concept rather than A priori? There must be some universality and necessity in truth on A priori, and that was what Kant was after in CPR.
Quoting RussellA
I can't know what your perception of WL700nm would be like, and that was the point. Your claim on "A priori imposition of colour Red for the perceived WL700nm" doesn't sound valid, does it? If it were A priori imposition as claimed, then we must all have the same colour of Red in the visual perception. But we don't. Therefore, it cannot be A priori imposition.
Those are the blind beliefs on the existence that have not been justified. For any beliefs if they were to be qualified as knowledge, then they need empirical or logical justifications with evidences.
Your beliefs on the things that cannot be verified or justified are groundless beliefs.
I know the Andromeda Galaxy exists, but I don't believe it exists. If I believed in its existence without justification or verification, then I would have a groundless belief on it too, and I don't want that.
I have knowledge of its existence which is from heard through the grapevine in nature, which is not a solid justified ground.
More to follow ...
Yes, but my question was how do you know it is real or illusion? How can you be sure?
What is the obvious difference between our perception and reality and also illusion?
I should have asked these questions to Kant, but he is not around unfortunately, hence you have been asked, because you decided to quote him.
Quoting RussellA
Definitely not.
Quoting RussellA
Not sure. I am not a DRist either. Maybe they perceive illusions as real too? Yes, real illusions? :)
I haven't been following this thread, but the CPR is a great read and I would highly recommend reading it. Kant's mode of analysis is brutally frigid and to-the-point, which I appreciate; and most of the work, if not all of it, is very thoroughly thought out.
Schopenhauer, who builds his own metaphysics from Kant's, is also a great read. On top of reading CPR, I would suggest reading Schopenhauer's critiques of it found in the appendix of the WWR: S's critiques can also help one understand what K is getting at.
For me, I can say that I owe to Kant a couple things:
1. He awoke me from my direct realist dogmatic slumber;
2. He introduced me to a priori knowledge;
3. He made me think way to deeply about what reasons I really have for thinking I have any sort of knowledge of the world as it is in-itself, lol; and
4. His metaphysics on time and space I largely endorse.
I don't think your depiction of a priori as subjective is correct. A priori facts don't need to be validated against experience, they are known to be so by dint of logic alone.
Quoting Corvus
:up:
Quoting RussellA
The problem with that view is that the manner in which electrons can be said to exist is not at all straightforward. As is well-known, electrons and other sub-atomic particles are said to manifest as waves in some contexts and as particles in others, depending on the nature of the experiment (although this is not the thread for that, there's some discussion of it in this thread.)
We have to get our head around the role of the mind-brain in constructing/creating what we perceive as reality. Kant and Schopenhauer both understood that, but it's rather a difficult thing to grasp. It requires something like a gestalt shift in perspective, more than just discursive reasoning.
Quoting Bob Ross
Indeed. Of all the great philosophers, he is the most clearly-spoken and incisive.
Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer are my favourite philosophers. But I see Kant as the most important philosopher of all time. Any topic we pick up this day, it is very likely that it had been already discussed and investigated by those philosophers already.
If everything perceived is an ‘illusion’ then the term has no meaning. Either there are perceptions that are illusions and perceptions that are not illusions or there are no perceptions.
Language is useful if adhered to.
The point of the a priori is that it distinguishes two very different approaches to the relationship between the mind and the world.
It distinguishes between Innatism, the philosophical belief that one is born with certain ideas and knowledge, and Locke's idea that the mind at birth is a blank sheet, a tabula rasa, devoid of all ideas or knowledge, where all our ideas and knowledge arrive from experience.
For Kant, the mind has a role in constructing what we perceive as reality:
A239 - We can only cognize objects that we can, in principle, intuit. Consequently, we can only cognize objects in space and time, appearances. We cannot cognize things in themselves.
I agree that there is the question as to the universality and necessity of such a priori ideas and knowledge :
Introduction - Kant also sought to defend against empiricists its underlying claim of the possibility of universal and necessary knowledge - what Kant called a priori knowledge, knowledge originating independently of experience, because no knowledge derived from any particular experience, or a posteriori knowledge, could justify a claim to universal and necessary validity.
As Hume showed, no a posteriori knowledge can justify a universal and necessary validity, in that a scientist can draw a conclusion from 1,000 measurements, yet that conclusion may be negated by the 1,001st measurement.
It is true that for me, my a priori ideas and knowledge, because they are a priori, ensure a universality and necessity to what I cognize. However, humans do not exist as a hive mind but as separate individuals.
My a priori ideas and knowledge ensure a universality and necessity to what I cognize, and your a priori ideas and knowledge ensure a universality and necessity to what you cognize. The question is, is there any reason to believe that your a priori ideas and knowledge are the same as my a priori ideas and knowledge. If not, even though there is a universality and necessity to our individual ideas and knowledge, our separate ideas and knowledge don't necessarily share a common universality and necessity.
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Quoting Corvus
I think that this should be the other way round: "I believe the Andromeda Galaxy exists, but I don't know it exists"
The SEP article on The Analysis of Knowledge discusses knowledge as justified true belief. First one has a belief, and then one tries to justify this belief, and if one's belief is true, then one has knowledge
IE, belief comes before knowledge.
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Quoting Corvus
The Merriam Webster Dictionary includes the meaning of "illusion" as
1a1 - a misleading image presented to the vision
1a2 - something that deceives or misleads intellectually
1b1 - perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature
If I perceive a tree, how do I know there is a real tree in the world or the tree only exists in my mind.
The Direct Realist would say that they perceive a tree, and the Indirect Realist would say that they perceive a representation of a tree.
For the Indirect Realist, if "illusion" means 1a2 or 1b1, then the tree is an illusion as the viewer is being misled in thinking that what they perceive of necessity actually exists in the world. If "illusion" means 1a1, then the tree is not an illusion, as the viewer is not being misled in thinking that their perception doesn't exist.
I agree that my innate ability to see the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm is not a subjective ability, although my seeing the colour red is a subjective experience .
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Quoting Wayfarer
Do electrons really exist?
It depends what you mean by "exist". The Merriam Webster Dictionary includes "exist" as "to have real being whether material or spiritual".
It depends what you mean by "real". The Merriam Webster Dictionary includes "real" as "having objective independent existence".
From my belief in Neutral Monism, I could ask the same question about apples: "Do apples really exist?"
My answer would be that yes, "apples" and "electrons" do exist, and they exist as concepts in the mind.
My answer would also be that "apples" and "electrons" are real in that they have an objective independent existence within language.
“…. The question now is as to a criterion, by which we may securely distinguish a pure from an empirical cognition. Experience no doubt teaches us that this or that object is constituted in such and such a manner, but not that it could not possibly exist otherwise. Now, in the first place, if we have a proposition which contains the idea of necessity in its very conception, it is priori. If, moreover, it is not derived from any other proposition, unless from one equally involving the idea of necessity, it is absolutely priori. Secondly, an empirical judgement never exhibits strict and absolute, but only assumed and comparative universality (by induction); therefore, the most we can say is—so far as we have hitherto observed, there is no exception to this or that rule. If, on the other hand, a judgement carries with it strict and absolute universality, that is, admits of no possible exception, it is not derived from experience, but is valid absolutely à priori. Empirical universality is, therefore, only an arbitrary extension of validity, from that which may be predicated of a proposition valid in most cases, to that which is asserted of a proposition which holds good in all (…). When, on the contrary, strict universality characterizes a judgement, it necessarily indicates another peculiar source of knowledge, namely, a faculty of cognition à priori. Necessity and strict universality, therefore, are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge, and are inseparably connected with each other.
“…. Besides, without seeking for such examples of principles existing à priori in cognition, we might easily show that such principles are the indispensable basis of the possibility of experience itself, and consequently prove their existence à priori. For whence could our experience itself acquire certainty, if all the rules on which it depends were themselves empirical, and consequently fortuitous? No one, therefore, can admit the validity of the use of such rules as first principles. But, for the present, we may content ourselves with having established the fact, that we do possess and exercise a faculty of pure à priori cognition; and, secondly, with having pointed out the proper tests of such cognition, namely, universality and necessity.…”
“…. Of far more importance than all that has been above said, is the consideration that certain of our cognitions rise completely above the sphere of all possible experience, and by means of conceptions, to which there exists in the whole extent of experience no corresponding object, seem to extend the range of our judgements beyond its bounds. And just in this transcendental or supersensible sphere, where experience affords us neither instruction nor guidance, lie the investigations of reason, which, on account of their importance, we consider far preferable to, and as having a far more elevated aim than, all that the understanding can achieve within the sphere of sensuous phenomena.….”
But that is an oxymoron (although I am totally sympathetic to your struggles in these deep and difficult matters).
It is a matter of contention whether the paradoxical attributes of the objects of quantum physics can be said to obtain to the objects of sensory perception. Werner Heisenberg, who aside from being one of the architects of quantum theory, also wrote on its philosophical implications, said that electrons 'do not exist in the same way that flowers or stones do' (in 'The Debate between Plato and Democritus').
[quote=Kripal, Jeffrey J.. The Flip: Who You Really Are and Why It Matters (p. 89). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. ]Some physicists would prefer to come back to the idea of an objective real world whose smallest parts exist objectively in the same sense as stones or trees exist independently of whether we observe them. That, however, is impossible. —WERNER HEISENBERG[/quote]
Second, with respect to the reality of the proverbial apple, I too am an empirical realist - there really are apples - but I also recognise the sense in which they exist for a subject. Another kind of being might not see them at all, or might see them in a completely different way. It doesn't mean that they don't exist, but that they don't have inherent existence - they are absent what Buddhist philosophy describes as 'own-being'.
If the concept of "apple" didn't exist, how could we be talking about the concept of "apple"?
If the word "apple" wasn't real, how could we be writing about the word "apple"?
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Quoting Wayfarer
Consider the mind and a mind-independent world.
As regards a mind-independent world, as flowers and stones are sets of elementary particles, flowers and stones must exist in the same way that elementary particles exist.
As regards the mind, as flowers, stones and elementary particles are concepts in the mind, elementary particles exist in the same way that flowers and stones do .
It is true that elementary particles, flowers and stones exist differently in the mind to how they exist in a mind-independent world.
As regards a mind-independent world, Plato's Forms are aspatial and atemporal, which is not the case for elementary particles.
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Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, for the Empirical Realist, the apple that is perceived is a mere representation, not something that is mind-independent.
When you say the apple exists, but doesn't have inherent existence, what do you mean?
This schematism of our understanding in regard to phenomena and their mere form, is an art, hidden in the depths of the human soul, whose true modes of action we shall only with difficulty discover and unveil. Thus much only can we say: “The image is a product of the empirical faculty of the productive imagination—the schema of sensuous conceptions (of figures in space, for example) is a product, and, as it were, a monogram of the pure imagination à priori, whereby and according to which images first become possible, which, however, can be connected with the conception only mediately by means of the schema which they indicate, and are in themselves never fully adequate to it.” On the other hand, the schema of a pure conception of the understanding is something that cannot be reduced into any image—it is nothing else than the pure synthesis expressed by the category, conformably, to a rule of unity according to conceptions. It is a transcendental product of the imagination, a product which concerns the determination of the internal sense, according to conditions of its form (time) in respect to all representations, in so far as these representations must be conjoined à priori in one conception, conformably to the unity of apperception.
Without entering upon a dry and tedious analysis of the essential requisites of transcendental schemata of the pure conceptions of the understanding, we shall rather proceed at once to give an explanation of them according to the order of the categories, and in connection therewith. For the external sense the pure image of all quantities (quantorum) is space; the pure image of all objects of sense in general, is time. But the pure schema of quantity, a conception of the understanding, is number, a representation which comprehends the successive addition of one to one (homogeneous quantities). Thus, number is nothing else than the unity of the synthesis of the manifold in a homogeneous intuition, by means of my generating time itself in my apprehension of the intuition….”
———-
Number does not exist in the mind as appearance or phenomena, unless it is created as such in a non-fallacious post hoc ergo propter hoc cognition following from a transcendental synthetic unity.
Every human, or every species with this particular intellectual method, including mathematicians and logicians, busboys and cab drivers, is a transcendental idealist and an empirical realist, or, more precisely, a dualist. A dualist fundamentally understood as that which has the ability to comprehend Nature under conditions which are not contained in it.
When you say "Innatism", it denotes psychological or biological nature rather than epistemic, conceptual nature, and it has nothing to do what Kant was meaning for A priori. A priori knowledge is for universally and necessarily true knowledge, and there is no room for difference in the truth value.
For example 2+2=4 is A priori knowledge, which is universally and necessarily true in the whole universe. There is no way, that it is 4.5 for you, and 4.1 for me, and 3.9 for a bloke in some other remote place on the earth.
Therefore you read about A priori knowledge or concept, but never A priori sensation or perception (absurd expression).
Quoting RussellA
Justified true belief has stronger ground than a knowledge via heard through the grapevine. I really don't believe the electrons, atoms and Andromeda galaxies exist, because I have never seen them, or been there. Without me personally justifying and verifying the facts, there is no ground for me in believing in them.
But I know they exist, because I read about them. Just because I know something doesn't mean that I must believe in it too.
Even if the contents were from SEP, if it sounds irrational and not making sense, you should think, reflect on it, and reject them, and be able to tell the difference between truth and false. That is what philosophy is all about. Thinking with your own reasoning is what matters most, rather than just reading the information from the well known institutions, and blindly accepting them.
More later~
For Kant there is a priori pure intuition of space and time and the a priori pure concepts of the understanding (the Categories)
These are necessary for the possibility of experience, and are priori to experience. They don't come from the mind but are part of the mind.
My question is, where did these pure intuitions and pure concepts come from?
From a perspective of today, I can explain them using the concept of Innatism, in that we were born with them as part of the structure of the brain as a consequence of 3.5 billion years of evolution.
If not from Innatism, where do you think our pure intuitions and pure concepts came from?
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Quoting Corvus
For Kant there is a priori pure intuition of space and time and the a priori pure concepts of the understanding (the Categories).
For example, the Categories include quantity, quality, relation and modality, and quantity includes such things as all, both, most and some.
This allows us when looking at a set of objects to make judgements such as "all the objects green", "both objects are blue", "most of the objects are orange" and "some of the objects are purple".
Then, given ten objects of which six are orange, some of these statements will be true and some will be false. For example, the statement "most of the objects are orange" will be true.
As no situation can be imagined whereby given ten objects of which six are orange, the statement "most of the objects are orange" will not be true, meaning that it is universally and necessarily true.
However, the Categories don't apply to unknown Things-in-Themselves, but only to known Appearances.
As this is the case, then what does universal and necessary refer to. They cannot refer to the world of Things-in-Themselves, as these are unknowable, but can only refer to the world of Appearance, as only this is knowable, and the world of Appearance only exists in the mind of the perceiver.
Therefore, it is true that a priori knowledge is universally and necessarily true in the whole universe, but this universe only exists in the mind of the perceiver, not in any world that exists outside the mind of the perceiver.
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Quoting Corvus
Knowledge is justified true belief, so knowledge has a stronger ground than belief.
If from the grapevine one hears the belief that atoms exist, and the grapevine justifies the claim, and in fact atoms do exist, then, and only then, is this knowledge.
Kant was saying that pure intuitions and concepts are the the properties of our minds which work with pure reason in CPR. He is not interested in where they came from as if, they have walked into a pub, or inherited down into your mind by your ancestors. No no. :)
Quoting RussellA
That sounds like extreme idealism. We are talking about the universally and necessarily true knowledge, and it exists. Again it is nothing to do with the physical universe. Knowledge exists in our understanding. Universally doesn't mean the physical universe. It means "under all conditions".
Quoting RussellA
You just committed a self-contradiction here. You shouldn't even be able to write about it, if above were true.
Quoting RussellA
I have demonstrated how even the most [t]rusted and accepted official definitions could be false, but you have gone back to the false official definition ignoring the real life demonstration and evidence.
Possibly, but his philosophy isn't complete without asking where these a priori pure intuitions and a priori Categories came from.
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Quoting Corvus
When you refer to "universe" do you mean a universe within the mind or a universe external to the mind?
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Quoting Corvus
From the Principle of Sufficient Reason, an appearance must have a cause, which may well be unknown. This unknown cause can be called "x", or even "Thing-in-Itself".
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Quoting Corvus
How can you know atoms exist, yet not believe in their existence?
Sure, but it is totally different thing asking about them to find out what Kant had meant by them, and asking about them to conclude their origin is innatism. The origin of A priori ideas in biological psychological sense would be in the interest of the evolutionary science rather than Philosophy.
Having said that, that is just my opinion. You could always refute that with your point and the original text. If you quote any other 2nd 3rd commentaries for the points, there is always room for doubt, and opposition saying yeah but that is just a commentator's view. Now even SEP info is proven to be not 100% reliable source of knowledge. It is just a container for some articles which they think high standard, but their standards can be not 100% objective.
Quoting RussellA
Universally to mean "under all conditions", not in the physical universe.
Quoting RussellA
To talk about the unknowns, it would only make sense in the possible world of unknown, as I have made clear in the other thread "Reason to believe in the existence of the world".
Quoting RussellA
To believe in atoms, I must see it with my own eyes, and even be able to touch them. I was never been able to do so in my whole life, hence I cannot believe in its existence.
I know atoms exist, because my physics teacher told us so in the high school class, and I read in the books. Hence it is a knowledge through the grapevine. Why should I trust it apart from the reason someone told me so? To trust and believe in them would be committing myself into naive vulgarity.
It proves that some knowledge has weaker ground than the beliefs justified and verified with the perceivers witnessing and real life evidence. Hence SEP info is not always correct.
What I was referring to as oxymoron, or self-contradictory, was
Quoting RussellA
'Objective and independent' stands in contradiction to 'within language'.
Quoting RussellA
We cannot consider a mind-independent world, because to consider anything is to make it the subject of thought. You refer to 'the mind dependent' and 'mind independent' as if these are two separate realities, but that is comparison that can't be made.
Quoting RussellA
That it does not exist independently of the mind.
@Mww - thanks for those excerpts and specific commentary. I'll bow out now unless I have something to add specific to the text.
Wrong...you know they are said to exist. And since there is no controversy regarding their existence among the experts, you have good grounds to believe they exist, You, curiously, have it all arse-about.
“….. In whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate to objects, it is at least quite clear that the only manner in which it immediately relates to them is by means of an intuition. To this as the indispensable groundwork, all thought points. But an intuition can take place only in so far as the object is given to us. This, again, is only possible, to man at least, on condition that the object affect the mind in a certain manner. The capacity for receiving representations (receptivity) through the mode in which we are affected by objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensibility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions. But all thought (of objects) must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us. The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition.
The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon. That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form. But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation. It is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us à posteriori; the form must lie ready à priori for them in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from all sensation.
Now, independently of sensibility, we cannot possibly have any intuition; consequently, the understanding is no faculty of intuition. But besides intuition there is no other mode of cognition, except through conceptions; consequently, the cognition of every, at least of every human, understanding is a cognition through conceptions—not intuitive, but discursive. All intuitions, as sensuous, depend on affections; conceptions, therefore, upon functions.
By the word function I understand the unity of the act of arranging diverse representations under one common representation. Conceptions, then, are based on the spontaneity of thought, as sensuous intuitions are on the receptivity of impressions. Now, the understanding cannot make any other use of these conceptions than to judge by means of them. As no representation, except an intuition, relates immediately to its object, a conception never relates immediately to an object, but only to some other representation thereof, be that an intuition or itself a conception. A judgement, therefore, is the mediate cognition of an object, consequently the representation of a representation of it….”
From “Contact”…..Small moves, Sparky. Small moves. Baby steps.
Hopefully not on my account.
If everyone was at your level, then they would still believe in flat earth. Experts worshipping syndrome does not prove anything.
Agreed. To perceive the proposition is to perceive representations of its empirical content. To perceive a representation in the form of a word is not to perceive that real object which is represented by the word.
Hell…if I told you I put a pot on the stove, even if you know what those are, you don’t know I have either of them, or that I did anything with them if I had them.
————
Quoting Wayfarer
Ahhh…if that’s your sentiment, so be it. I rather enjoy them myself.
By the way, it's not a matter of "worshipping experts" but of provisionally accepting that in their area of expertise their experience is more comprehensive and their judgements better informed than yours are. You go further than I do anyway in trusting their judgement, since you say you know Andromeda exists. And to say you know something, but do not believe it is incoherent.
Yep!
Isn't it admirable within philosophical language to be objective and have an independent point of view?
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Quoting Wayfarer
Yet we consider a mind-independent world every time we talk about the Universe before life began on Earth. For example, The Origins of the Universe by Michael Greshko
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Quoting Wayfarer
The question is, is a discussion about the terms "mind dependent" and "mind independent", which Kant didn't use, relevant to a text that does refer to "phenomena" and "noumena"?
Surely good philosophy needs to justify its premises.
If I said that aliens from Mars are running all governments, and made no attempt to justify my statement, I would get nowhere.
Similarly, if I based a philosophy on the premise of a priori pure intuitions and a priori pure concepts of the understanding without attempting to justify my premise, my philosophy has been based on a weak foundation and will thereby be unpersuasive to many.
Indeed it is, but neither objectivity or independence are absolute, but dependent. Persons may be, of course, more or less objective, or more and less independent, but that independence and objectivity still does not provide a window on a world 'as it is in itself'.
Quoting RussellA
Quoting Wayfarer
Although my position is from Indirect Realism, can it be true that the content of all the scientific literature about the Universe prior to life can be dismissed as meaningless and unintelligible?
After all, Kant was neither a Berkelian Idealist nor Phenomenalist.
Not at all. But it is meaningful and intelligible to an observer. It is empirically the case that the world existed prior to any observer, but there is still an implicit perspective in that understanding.
Quoting Janus
If you were wise enough to use proper language instead of the derogatory word in you post, you would have not lowered your level in public as you have done.
The way that you resort to the derogatory language on every post you wrote, gave impression you are not into philosophical discussions at all.
Quoting Janus
You seem to be confusing between knowledge and truth, and justified belief.
Sure.
Quoting RussellA
If you had strong enough evidences supporting your claims, then you might get somewhere.
Quoting RussellA
I am not sure if your justification using innate-ism were coherent for your premises or conclusions.
Kant doesn't justify his premise that we have a priori pure intuitions and a priori pure concepts of the understanding.
I suggest that his premise can be justified by the Principle of Innatism, a natural consequence of 3.5 billion years of evolution.
Is there a better justification for his premise?
It would only make sense to those folks believing in evolution. More than half the world population folks don't care about evolution. I mean if evolution were true, we would have had wings and fly around to the work instead commuting stuck in the traffic jam polluting and burning the toxic gasoline paying out fortune just for one example.
Nothing has been happening with the human bodies or minds since the history began to show any scientific proof that evolution is true. The prehistoric world is full of imagination and fantasies.
Therefore evolution based justifications has weak grounds in all logical arguments. But more importantly, in Kant's philosophy, it would be irrelevant.
“…. General logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstraction of all content of cognition, and expects to receive representations from some other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into conceptions. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it the manifold content of à priori sensibility, which transcendental æsthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure conceptions of the understanding, without which transcendental logic would have no content, and be therefore utterly void. Now space and time contain an infinite diversity of determinations of pure à priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind’s receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations of objects, and which, consequently, must always affect the conception of these objects. But the spontaneity of thought requires that this diversity be examined after a certain manner, received into the mind, and connected, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of it. This Process I call synthesis.
By the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I understand the process of joining different representations to each other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition. This synthesis is pure when the diversity is not given empirically but à priori (as that in space and time). Our representations must be given previously to any analysis of them; and no conceptions can arise regarding its content analytically. But the synthesis of a diversity (be it given à priori or empirically) is the first requisite for the production of a cognition, which in its beginning, indeed, may be crude and confused, and therefore in need of analysis—still, synthesis is that by which alone the elements of our cognitions are collected and united into a certain content, consequently it is the first thing on which we must fix our attention, if we wish to investigate the origin of our knowledge.
Synthesis, generally speaking, is, as we shall afterwards see, the mere operation of the imagination—a blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should have no cognition whatever, but of the working of which we are seldom even conscious. But to reduce this synthesis to conceptions is a function of the understanding….
….. Pure synthesis, represented generally, gives us the pure conception of the understanding. But by this pure synthesis, I mean that which rests upon a basis of à priori synthetical unity…..
….. By means of analysis different representations are brought under one conception—an operation of which general logic treats**. On the other hand, the duty of transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions, not representations, but the pure synthesis of representations***. The first thing which must be given to us for the sake of the à priori cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the understanding. The same function which gives unity to the different representation in a judgement, gives also unity to the mere synthesis of different representations in an intuition; and this unity we call the pure conception of the understanding.
Thus, the same understanding, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its representations****, on which account they are called pure conceptions of the understanding, and they apply à priori to objects, a result not within the power of general logic.….”
(**and here is where the undetermined object of intuition becomes “apple”)
(***whatever any undetermined object becomes, it does so in accordance with a rule)
(****the rule)
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On the justification for a priori pure intuitions:
“….. It must be admitted that the Leibnitz-Wolfian philosophy has assigned an entirely erroneous point of view to all investigations into the nature and origin of our cognitions, inasmuch as it regards the distinction between the sensuous and the intellectual as merely logical, whereas it is plainly transcendental, and concerns not merely the clearness or obscurity, but the content and origin of both. For the faculty of sensibility not only does not present us with an indistinct and confused cognition of objects as things in themselves, but, in fact, gives us no knowledge of these at all. On the contrary, so soon as we abstract in thought our own subjective nature, the object represented, with the properties ascribed to it by sensuous intuition, entirely disappears, because it was only this subjective nature that determined the form of the object as a phenomenon.
In phenomena, we commonly, indeed, distinguish that which essentially belongs to the intuition of them, and is valid for the sensuous faculty of every human being, from that which belongs to the same intuition accidentally, as valid not for the sensuous faculty in general, but for a particular state or organization of this or that sense. Accordingly, we are accustomed to say that the former is a cognition which represents the object itself, whilst the latter presents only a particular appearance or phenomenon thereof. This distinction, however, is only empirical. If we stop here (as is usual), and do not regard the empirical intuition as itself a mere phenomenon (as we ought to do), in which nothing that can appertain to a thing in itself is to be found, our transcendental distinction is lost, and we believe that we cognize objects as things in themselves, although in the whole range of the sensuous world, investigate the nature of its objects as profoundly as we may, we have to do with nothing but phenomena.
Suppose, then, that space and time are in themselves objective, and conditions of the possibility of objects as things in themselves. In the first place, it is evident that both present us, with very many apodeictic and synthetic propositions à priori, but especially space—and for this reason we shall prefer it for investigation at present. As the propositions of geometry are cognized synthetically à priori, and with apodeictic certainty, I inquire: Whence do you obtain propositions of this kind, and on what basis does the understanding rest, in order to arrive at such absolutely necessary and universally valid truths? There is no other way than through intuitions or conceptions, as such; and these are given either à priori or à posteriori. The latter, namely, empirical conceptions, together with the empirical intuition on which they are founded, cannot afford any synthetical proposition, except such as is itself also empirical, that is, a proposition of experience.
But an empirical proposition cannot possess the qualities of necessity and absolute universality, which, nevertheless, are the characteristics of all geometrical propositions. As to the first and only means to arrive at such cognitions, namely, through mere conceptions or intuitions à priori, it is quite clear that from mere conceptions no synthetical cognitions, but only analytical ones, can be obtained. Take, for example, the proposition: “Two straight lines cannot enclose a space, and with these alone no figure is possible,” and try to deduce it from the conception of a straight line and the number two; or take the proposition: “It is possible to construct a figure with three straight lines,” and endeavour, in like manner, to deduce it from the mere conception of a straight line and the number three. All your endeavours are in vain, and you find yourself forced to have recourse to intuition, as, in fact, geometry always does. You therefore give yourself an object in intuition. But of what kind is this intuition? Is it a pure à priori, or is it an empirical intuition? If the latter, then neither an universally valid, much less an apodeictic proposition can arise from it, for experience never can give us any such proposition. You must, therefore, give yourself an object à priori in intuition, and upon that ground your synthetical proposition.
Now if there did not exist within you a faculty of intuition à priori; if this subjective condition were not in respect to its form also the universal condition à priori under which alone the object of this external intuition is itself possible; if the object (that is, the triangle) were something in itself, without relation to you the subject; how could you affirm that that which lies necessarily in your subjective conditions in order to construct a triangle, must also necessarily belong to the triangle in itself? For to your conceptions of three lines, you could not add anything new (that is, the figure); which, therefore, must necessarily be found in the object, because the object is given before your cognition, and not by means of it.
If, therefore, space (and time also) were not a mere form of your intuition, which contains conditions à priori, under which alone things can become external objects for you, and without which subjective conditions the objects are in themselves nothing, you could not construct any synthetical proposition whatsoever regarding external objects. It is therefore not merely possible or probable, but indubitably certain, that space and time, as the necessary conditions of all our external and internal experience, are merely subjective conditions of all our intuitions, in relation to which all objects are therefore mere phenomena, and not things in themselves, presented to us in this particular manner. And for this reason, in respect to the form of phenomena, much may be said à priori, whilst of the thing in itself, which may lie at the foundation of these phenomena, it is impossible to say anything.…”
The claim, it follows, that these justifications were not given in the body of the text, is catastrophically false.
This has struck me, in CPR, as absolutely nonsensical (which may just be me, hence questions).
How could the concept of an apple indicate it's actual existence? You couldn't possibly have the concept without the phenomena, and the phenomena informing the concept is tautological. I haven't grasped this in the sense that, on multiple readings of several sections (I would need to pull out my copy to cite, so forgive.. tis a general comment anyway), it appears that I understand, and entirely reject the coherence of his position. Lil help? LOL.
Quoting Corvus
What? That's not at all a reasonable comment on evolution to my mind. I hope i've missed something.
It doesn’t. The thing to be known by a particular name already existed; we just didn’t know what it was, how to talk about it.
No object comes named; every object is named by a human, once upon a time. CPR is just one speculative method by which naming is possible by the human kind of intelligence, affectionately termed by some successor or another, as the “Copernican Revolution”. From which follows that every name, without exception, is a human invention, determined by some particular methodological system.
Think about it: there are even to this day, in spite of your formal education and experiences, those occasions where you don’t know the cause of something that you’ve sensed. A bug bite on your arm….you sense the bite but that doesn’t immediately tell you which animal it was. The tickle on the back of your neck….you sense the tickle but don’t know whether it’s an errant hair or a spider. The loud bang from around the corner….you hear the sound, but don’t know whether it’s a firecracker or the tailgate on a dump truck.
These days, though, it is usually the case where you’re given the object and the name of it at the same time, re: rote classroom instruction. In the beginning, you’re given a pencil and a piece of paper and told to trace out symbols, which you’re informed are letters and numbers…..and it’s off to the races for you.
It’s easy to overlook the fact that the very first guy that decided what a 2 should look like, used exactly the same mental machinations as you used in learning it. And that machination is the relation between the thing as it is sensed, to the thing as it is thought. Simple as that, but to be complete, it remains to be considered which part of the relation occurs first.
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Quoting AmadeusD
For practical experience, true enough. Phenomena always antecede the conception, but they certainly do inform the concept. And it is not tautological, insofar as….remember the bug bite? If such were the case, you’d know immediately which animal bit you merely from the sensation of the bite itself. But you don’t.
Nevertheless….remember the time relation? Which came first? In the case of, e.g., black holes, the concept, grounded in math and pure logic, antecedes the phenomenon.
That was a metaphor.
What about the concept of God? Which came first? The phenomenon or the concept?
Some concepts are innate prior to any phenomena
Suppose you touch sandpaper and feel a rough sensation and then touch silk and feel a smooth sensation. You have the concepts of rough and smooth and you have the phenomenal experiences of sandpaper and silk
Why is it when touching sandpaper you feel a rough sensation rather than a smooth sensation? Is it because i) within the phenomena there are already sensations that will be subsequently experienced or ii) the sensations pre-exist any experience of the phenomena ?
I would suggest that concepts such as rough and smooth are innate and pre-exist any phenomena subsequently experienced.
One assumes that if what Kant says is true in the CPR, then it must be understandable in ordinary terms, otherwise it isn't relevant.
Trying to understand Transcendental Idealism and Empirical Realism using the analogy of colour:
1) For Kant, there are the a priori pure intuitions of space and time and the a priori pure concepts of understanding, ie the Categories. Although both a priori, the pure intuitions of space and time precedes and provides the framework for the pure concepts of understanding, in that I can imagine space and time with no objects within it but I cannot imagine objects not in a space and time.
2) Space and time are intuitions because singular, and the Categories are concepts because general.
3) Of the four Categories, quantity, quality, relation and modality, colour is within the Category of quality.
4) Kant's Innatism, in the belief in a priori knowledge is a counter to Locke's Empiricism, in that the mind is a "Tabula Rasa" at birth.
5) I am born with the ability to see the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm
6) I am not born with any ability to see a colour when looking at a wavelength of 300nm
7) Necessary, because when looking at a particular wavelength, I always perceive the same colour, in that I cannot decide sometimes to see the colour green and other times to see the colour blue. Universal, because in whatever space and time I happen to be in, when looking at a particular wavelength, I always perceive the same colour.
8) It is a Sensible Intuition in the sense that I perceive the colour red when looking at the single wavelength of 700nm
9) It is a Concept in the sense that I perceive the colour red when looking at wavelengths from 620nm to 750nm
10) I am not born with the Concept of the colour red or a Sensible Intuition of the colour red, in that when not looking at a wavelength between 620nm and 750nm I cannot imagine the colour red. I am born with the ability to perceive colour only when looking at a particular wavelength of light.
11) Perceiving a colour requires neither Judgement nor Understanding.
12) When we perceive colour, we are perceiving something as an Appearance, a Phenomenon. We are not perceiving the cause of that Appearance, a Noumenon.
13) However, from our inherent belief in the Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Law of Causation, we believe that something must have caused the phenomena that we perceive, and we can name these unknown things noumena
14) Even though noumena are the cause of phenomena, this does not mean that a phenomenon is the same as the Noumenon that caused it. For example, even though I perceive the colour red, the colour red doesn't exist in the world, what exists in the world is a wavelength 700nm.
15) From my belief in the Principle of Sufficient Reason, my belief in a wavelength of 700nm as the cause of my seeing the colour red is a Non-Sensible Intuition.
It must be the case that if the CPR is true, no matter how complex it is as a book, its truth must be applicable to simple examples.
Which presupposes God is, or may be, a phenomenon. If a God is conceived as the unconditioned, then to be a phenomenon necessarily contradicts the conception, insofar as all phenomena are conditioned by something other than itself.
The concept comes first as a thought, the phenomenon corresponding to it is impossible, therefore does not come at all.
Doesn't it indicate that concepts has nothing to do with existence or phenomenon of objects?
“…. I call a conception problematical which contains in itself no contradiction, and which is connected with other cognitions as a limitation of given conceptions, but whose objective reality cannot be cognized in any manner. The conception of a noumenon, that is, of a thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but as a thing in itself (solely through the pure understanding), is not self-contradictory, for we are not entitled to maintain that sensibility is the only possible mode of intuition. Nay, further, this conception is necessary to restrain sensuous intuition within the bounds of phenomena, and thus to limit the objective validity of sensuous cognition; for things in themselves, which lie beyond its province, are called noumena for the very purpose of indicating that this cognition does not extend its application to all that the understanding thinks.
But, after all, the possibility of such noumena is quite incomprehensible, and beyond the sphere of phenomena, all is for us a mere void; that is to say, we possess an understanding whose province does problematically extend beyond this sphere, but we do not possess an intuition, indeed, not even the conception of a possible intuition, by means of which objects beyond the region of sensibility could be given us, and in reference to which the understanding might be employed assertorically. The conception of a noumenon is therefore merely a limitative conception and therefore only of negative use. But it is not an arbitrary or fictitious notion, but is connected with the limitation of sensibility, without, however, being capable of presenting us with any positive datum beyond this sphere.
The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and of the world into a mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis is therefore quite inadmissible in a positive sense, although conceptions do certainly admit of such a division; for the class of noumena have no determinate object corresponding to them, and cannot therefore possess objective validity. If we abandon the senses, how can it be made conceivable that the categories (which are the only conceptions that could serve as conceptions for noumena) have any sense or meaning at all, inasmuch as something more than the mere unity of thought, namely, a possible intuition, is requisite for their application to an object? The conception of a noumenon, considered as merely problematical, is, however, not only admissible, but, as a limitative conception of sensibility, absolutely necessary. But, in this case, a noumenon is not a particular intelligible object for our understanding; on the contrary, the kind of understanding to which it could belong is itself a problem, for we cannot form the most distant conception of the possibility of an understanding which should cognize an object, not discursively by means of categories, but intuitively in a non-sensuous intuition. Our understanding attains in this way a sort of negative extension. That is to say, it is not limited by, but rather limits, sensibility, by giving the name of noumena to things, not considered as phenomena, but as things in themselves. But it at the same time prescribes limits to itself, for it confesses itself unable to cognize these by means of the categories, and hence is compelled to cogitate them merely as an unknown something.
I find, however, in the writings of modern authors, an entirely different use of the expressions, mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis, which quite departs from the meaning of the ancients—an acceptation in which, indeed, there is to be found no difficulty, but which at the same time depends on mere verbal quibbling. According to this meaning, some have chosen to call the complex of phenomena, in so far as it is intuited, mundus sensibilis, but in so far as the connection thereof is cogitated according to general laws of thought, mundus intelligibilis. Astronomy, in so far as we mean by the word the mere observation of the starry heaven, may represent the former; a system of astronomy, such as the Copernican or Newtonian, the latter. But such twisting of words is a mere sophistical subterfuge, to avoid a difficult question, by modifying its meaning to suit our own convenience.
To be sure, understanding and reason are employed in the cognition of phenomena; but the question is, whether these can be applied when the object is not a phenomenon and in this sense we regard it if it is cogitated as given to the understanding alone, and not to the senses. The question therefore is whether, over and above the empirical use of the understanding, a transcendental use is possible, which applies to the noumenon as an object. This question we have answered in the negative.…”
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From which follows that….
…….it is true noumena and things-in-themselves are both representations understanding thinks on its own accord;
……the thing-in-itself obtains its objective validity from the thing which appears;
……no noumenal thing ever appears, therefore noumena have no objective validity;
……and the fatal flaw is lack of recognition that anything the conception of which is given from understanding alone, without conjunction with any faculty in human sensibility, can never be or cause an object of sense.
Concepts, in and of themselves with respect to their origin, re: understanding, and method of use, re: logic, no, they do not. Existence has to do with Nature; phenomena with sensibility, Nature being given.
Concepts alone, their origin and method of use being granted, in the domain of pure thought they do not, but consideration still must be given to possible existence and phenomenon.
Within the system as a whole, from appearance in the beginning to knowledge at the end, it is impossible concepts have nothing to do phenomena, but Nature is still presupposed as having to do with existence.
Existence, the category, does not grant existence to objects, but only makes necessary that an object exist for it to be an experience. Hence, the logic: if this then that; if maybe this then maybe that; if not this then absolutely not that.
Possible existence and phenomenon are not the actuality until they manifested, so should they not be irrelevant?
Quoting Mww
Here we are talking about Existence as the actual instantiation of objects rather than the category.
Quoting Mww
Yeah you could apply the concepts to the phenomena to get the understanding, but that is not the necessary connection is it? You can have a brand new phenomena with no concepts and no understanding presumed, attached or presupposed as just a sensibility. What is "Nature" here? What does it include?
A possible existence and its possible phenomenon may be irrelevant at a certain time, but time isn’t something to be ignored in general. Contingency in empirical knowledge mandates successions in time, so…..
Quoting Corvus
Absolutely. But that isn’t the system as a whole. It is human nature so want to know, and for that the whole system…..whatever it may be…..is a prerequisite.
Quoting Corvus
Reality is the totality of sensation dependent on the intellect that receives it.
Nature is the totality of all that is possible independent of whatever intellect receives it.
My opinion, of course.
Are irrelevant until (such time of) the manifestation. The proposition was emphasising the time factor.
Quoting Mww
Of course not, but it was to make the point that the alternative is not always the case.
Quoting Mww
How do you prove something is possible independent of whatever intellect received it?
As a pre-empt; shortly after making my comment, I was watching Lecture 2 in a series by Robert Paul Wolf on the CPR... Nearer the end another prof. from his department (Dr. Alan Nelson) asks a question which is somewhat answered there, and then further answered in the opening of Lecture 3.
The question he has is somewhat similar to mine, but posed in an infinitely more reasonable and i think clearer way: his question is Kant's use of hte word 'experience' with regard to delineating between 'understanding' and 'intuition'. He is asking why Kant thought he could get away with the premise that het two are necessarily distinct and why, with regard to Humean/Leibnizian alternatives, he thought it could not be argued against. Wolf's answer was basically that he thought he had already established the delineation in his inaugural dissertation (i've not read) and so didn't bother elucidating in the way Dr. Nelson was looking for. Ultimately, he concludes that it's not all that convincing (as best I can tell). I suppose that's where i am now.
Quoting RussellA
I guess this is what I have trouble with (noting for anyone else reading; I haven't attended the other replies to my recent comment re: concepts. Am working backward through notifications).
"apple" doesn't appear to me to be the same as "rough" - which, from what i understand of the world, is heuristic rather than a definite descriptor (but as usual, I could very well just be wrong). Apple can collapse into many other categories and concepts, but 'rough' is a sensation regardless of that which it inheres. I understand 'apple' to still be a concept - I'm not skirting that - But, 'apple' describes an arrangement of things in the world via their impression on the sum total of our sensible "inputs" ideally. 'roughness' only applies to one, in the context you've outlined and so appears far more apt to the distinction, where I can't get over into putting 'apple' there too. The 'concept' of apple is surely derived from an amalgamation of the totality of instances of 'apple' one has experienced brought under another concept - say, 'hand fruit', which itself has the same collapse pending into lesser-distinct concepts (food, flesh, juice etc..). But those sensations one could ascribe to an apple (colour, texture, smell, taste etc...) can be thought of in that a priori sense. One can cross-reference those aspects of an experience with other, disparate experiences, to form a working system of sensational categories.
Good lord I hope that's not just intensely confused muck :snicker:
On this account, are you illustrating the 'concept' of that (I guess, specific..) sound, without needing to invoke an object to understand the sensation? If so, yes, that's helpful. My response to Russell will be illustrative of why It's only helpful to understand the intent there, rather than my understanding of why that's the case..
Quoting Mww
Ah, this is clarifying, in terms of what i intuited(in the colloquial sense) was inarguable in the hypothesis. Thank you.
Quoting Mww
Is the suggestion here that without the concepts that allow phenomena to cohere in the understanding, we wouldn't actually intuit (in the Kantian sense) anything of any comprehendable nature?
Would you accept that even in that case, the objects exist, we just have no access to even their indication? (i realise this might be pedestrian to you and somewhat obvious - I'm new to this work).
In a Kantian sense, it is already the case we don’t intuit anything in any comprehendable nature. Intuition is that faculty of representation by which the matter of objects given a posteriori, is synthesized with certain forms, given a priori “in the mind”, the arrangement of that synthesis being termed phenomena. We are not aware of this arrangement, which is the purview of the productive imagination.
It is the case as well, that concepts belong to understanding, as you say, so what you said actually becomes….without concepts that allow phenomena to cohere in the understanding, we wouldn’t actually cognize anything at all, as made clear here:
“….Thoughts without content are void (empty); intuitions without conceptions, blind…”
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Quoting AmadeusD
Almost. In the case without concepts that allow phenomena to cohere in the understanding, we may still be quite aware of a existent object, merely from its sensation, but what we don’t have, is even the possibility of a representation of what that existent object actually is. What it is meaning nothing more than how it is to be judged, what judgement regarding that thing is permissible, such that object is or is not comprehensible. The arbiter here being simply the LNC, the domain of which is….pure reason her-very-own-damn-self.
Think of it as a tripartite system, in the form of a syllogism, in which the major is the understanding of the manifold of conceptions related to an object, the minor is the judgement regarding the compatibility of the synthesis of those conceptions to each other, and reason concludes the validity of that synthesis with respect to those already given, better known as the principle of non-contradiction. You know….like….square circles as an extreme example, but even such everyday cognitions such as driving on the wrong side of the road, going through a door without opening it. And my all-time favorite….swearing on a stack of bibles the stupid cup is still in the stupid cupboard, with the same certainty you had when you actually put it there. (Mumblesputtercuss-choke)
But I digress. So yes….the object does exist. If there is a phenomenon, there must have been a sensation. If a sensation, there must have been a perception. If a perception, there must have been an appearance. If an appearance, there must be that which appears. There must be a thing, an object, that appears.
You don’t. You reason to a justifiable conclusion on sufficient grounds.
Ok, nice. That feels like a slightly more adequate key to the lock im trying to pick, compared with my question. Thanks! Feeling a little less lost now.
Quoting Mww
Something i've wanted, for some time, is a plain-language expression of the passages that express this in the CPR. So, if you wouldn't mind commenting on, or correcting hte below, I would sincerely appreciate that(these numbers being the three parts I've inserted into your description above):
1. In which your mind retrieves a priori concepts under which the sensation can be brought in order to cognise the object;
2. In which your mind determines which concepts are 'correct' to apply to the object, with regard to their inter-conceptual coherence (i.e avoiding contradiction); and
3. In which your mind determines whether that coherent set of concepts, in fact, applies to the sensations you're 'judging'.
is that, or how far is that, a reasonable unadornment ?
It sounds absurd that you can reason on something which is independent of whatever your intellect received.
The difference between he intellect receiving from without, and creating from within. Logic, and by association, pure reason, still needs the guidance of experience for its empirical certainty.
Close enough. To reduce it all to the subtleties of transcendental philosophy might be a little different, but the gist is good enough for a general idea.
Ok, wonderful. Very much appreciate that. I'm getting somewhere heh.
Thanks for this exchange :)
Not quite sure what this means. Could you please elaborate?
No prob, but it goes without saying…..any comment on Kant is only an opinion at least, and a best guess at most. I mean, when you come across sentences half a page long, you’re bound to miss the mark sooner or later.
Hahaha, very true!
We should both step back, maybe. Your…
Quoting Corvus
….makes no sense to me, and my….
Quoting Mww
…..seems to have made no sense to you. I meant by the proposition that just because we are not receptive of a thing is not sufficient warrant for us to den its existence. Whereas, if we were to deny the existence of that which is a cause of our sensations, we contradict ourselves.
If something was independent of experience, then it would be A priori. But if something was independent of intelligence, then would it be also A priori? Well, then we wouldn't know what it would be. I wasn't sure on that. And your claim, that we don't prove, but reason on it sounded not making sense, because we don't know whether it were A priori or Thing-in-Itself, or some unknown empirical object.
Quoting Mww
I wasn't meaning to deny existence because we are not receptive of a thing, but rather was saying that having a concept of something doesn't warrant its existence of it.
Oh. That’s fine. I hope I didn’t give any indication I thought otherwise. Correlation not causation and all that.
:cool: :ok:
Nicely put. Which has non-philosophers like me wary of even trying to make sense of him (or any of the significantly complex thinkers, Heidegger, for instance). The chances of developing a useful reading without more formal instruction would seem negligible. And even then...
Are there readings of Kant by academics you consider to be wrong or misconceived? Are there schools of Kant?
A common lament to be sure, but, believe it or not, there are passages that make so much sense, it helps in drawing sense out of the rest, like this:
Forget everything you learned in school, and consider the ramifications: it is absolutely impossible to get to 12, when all you have is a 7 here and a 5 there. Upon grasping that in all its magnificent glory, it might occur, that there’s a whole boatload of stuff happening between the ears that has not a damn thing to do with your senses. Can I get an a-MEN, brutha????
Know what else? It is impossible to think a triangle in general, for every thought of one, is a certain triangle. But it is impossible from the conception of three straight lines alone, to form a certain triangle, but can only give the thought of a triangle in general. ARRRRGGGG!!!!
Hey…I embellish. But I’m old, retired and therefore entitled. (Grin)
————-
Quoting Tom Storm
Yikes. That presupposes I’m qualified to critique academics. I’d never be so presumptuous, but I’ve read a lot of a few, and some of a lot, so to answer your question, it would be Schopenhauer, without doubt. He’s hypocritical on the one hand, praising Kant to the high heavens as philosophy’s golden child, then rips him a new one on the other, by denying the validity of his version of the ultimate ground of transcendental philosophy.
In short, by claiming the will, as something the knowledge of which is not impossible, and making that the thing-in-itself, then the fact it is to not impossible to know this version of the thing-in-itself, absolutely destroys the version wherein the thing-in-itsef is impossible to know.
As for schools of Kant, there’s neo-Kantianism, proto-Kantianism, same as with any theory, where peer group successors modify or rearrange the original. Then there’s the analytic philosophers who are somewhat anti-Kantians, insofar they don’t do speculative metaphysics or theoretical methodologies, seemingly because how we talk is more relevant than how we think.
Hope that’s helpful.
He’s very harsh on Young Hegelians, calls them mushheads following a philosophical numbskull. Kant just says he disagrees with a guy without demeaning him.
Descartes refers to Everydayman as philosophically unsophisticated, Hume refers to him as vulgar, Kant just calls him common.
Guilty as charged. I tend to prefer the appellation ‘unremarkable’.
Robert Paul Wolff
Wolff said "the foundation of the distinction is that Kant thinks that through sensibility we are placed in direct relation with individual things, and through conception and understanding we are placed in indirect relation through general concepts to individual things. IE, we can look at a particular horse, but we need to bring it under the general concept of horse, the particular falls under the general. He doesn't think this can be reduced to the same thing but they are different things"
The difference between the particular and the general
There is a difference between a particular and the general. For example, we look at a field and see at one moment in time and one particular position in space a particular set of shapes and colours. We can then generalise, ie, conceptualise, a horse .
We can only come up with the general concept of a horse after seeing several particular example of a horse.
For Kant, an Intuition can be i) Sensible Intuition, ie, phenomena - ii) Non-sensible Intuition, ie, noumena - iii) Pure Intuition, ie space and time. What all these have in common that it is intuition of one particular thing, ie, a set of shapes and colours we see in the field at one moment in space and time
For Kant, our Principles of Understanding can be discovered from our Concepts of Understanding, ie the Categories, For example, such Principles of Understanding would include: i) the conservation of energy ii) qualities inhere in substances iii) things don't happen randomly. What all these have in common is that the concept is not about one particular thing, but is about a set of particular things under the umbrella of a single idea.
The question is, after seeing several particular sets of shapes and colours in a field through space and time, how do we understand that they are connected in some way under the single idea of a "horse".
The Empiricists Hume and Locke thought that we discover the concept of horse just from the experience of seeing several instantiations of a horse. Kant thought that we can only discover the concept of horse from a combination of a priori knowledge independent of experience together with empirical experience.
For Hume, we would infer the concept of horse from the constant conjunction of states of affairs in the world. For Kant, we would know the concept of horse because our experiences fulfilled an a priori understanding.
Does the colour red exist in the world or the mind
The question is how we establish general concepts from several particular example. For example, we see the colour red when looking at wavelengths between 620nm and 750nm.
Are the Empiricists correct when they propose that we have learnt the concept of red from looking at all the wavelengths from 620nm to 750nm and finding a similarity in them. Are the Innatists correct when they propose that we know the concept of red a priori, before even looking at wavelengths, and only need to look at a single wavelength, say 700nm, in order to recognize it as the colour red. (Accepting that it is disputed whether or not Kant endorsed concept innatism)
If the Empiricist are correct, the colour red exists in the world and we discover it. If the Innatists are correct the ability to perceive the colour red exists in the mind which we then recognize in the world.
Objects are sets of properties
An object such as a horse is a set of properties, such as colour, texture, smell, taste, etc. In fact, an object is only its set of properties, in that if all the object's properties were removed, then no object would remain.
If the Innatists are correct in that the ability to perceive the colour red exists in the mind prior to experiencing the world, a similar argument can be made for all the other properties. Butt as an object is no more than its set set of properties, then our understanding of what an object is, as illustrated by the CPR, is dependent not only what we experience but also on an a prior ability in being able to recognize what we experience.
(Kant's Categories - Daniel Bonevac)
(Leibniz on Innate Ideas and Kant on the Origin of the Categories)
Are things more than their parts?
Quoting Daniel Duffy
Good. I think i F'd up on this one - I got F. Max Müller's translation, which I take to be neither well-renowned or particularly good, because it was available and cheapish.
I take it that the Cambridge translation by Guyer and Wood is considered the best when considering a ratio between readability and accuracy to the original.
I had looked at that, but this close to Christmas I didn’t justify the spend.
I also bought a guidebook relating to it. From what I understand, grad students in America use those kinds of books to introduce the actual text and build some basic understanding…and I will certainly need all the help I can get!
https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/5/25851/files/2017/09/kant-first-critique-cambridge-1m89prv.pdf
Just a click away……
Thank you Mww. What a legend!
If all the metal was removed from the Eiffel Tower, what would be left. An idea of the Eiffel Tower would be left.
If by "thing" one means an idea in the mind as well as physical parts in the world, then, yes, things are more than their physical parts.
The Eiffel Tower is indeed an idea, which has been realized (made real) in iron. Without the idea, no such thing could have been wrought.
The resulting artefact is an ideal exemplar of the synthesis of matter and form.
For Kant, we know the form of the Eiffel Tower from its appearance as phenomena. However, we cannot know the matter of the Eiffel Tower from Sensible Intuition, as it is noumena.
A249 - Appearances, to the extent that as objects they are thought in accordance with the unity of the categories, are called phaenomena. If, however, I suppose there to be things that are merely objects of the understanding and that, nevertheless, can be given to an intuition, although not to sensible intuition (as coram intuiti intellectuali),then such things would be called noumena (intelligibilia).
So how were you able to talk about "the matter of the Eiffel Tower", if you couldn't know it? Is it possible to know what "the matter" means?
“….All our knowledge begins with sense, proceeds thence to understanding, and ends with reason, beyond which nothing higher can be discovered in the human mind for elaborating the matter of intuition and subjecting it to the highest unity of thought. At this stage of our inquiry it is my duty to give an explanation of this, the highest faculty of cognition, and I confess I find myself here in some difficulty. Of reason…there is a merely formal, that is, logical use, in which it makes abstraction of all content of cognition; but there is also a real use, inasmuch as it contains in itself the source of certain conceptions and principles, which it does not borrow either from the senses or the understanding. The (real use) has been long defined by logicians as the faculty of mediate conclusion in contradistinction to immediate conclusions (consequentiae immediatae); but the nature of the (formal use), which itself generates conceptions, is not to be understood from this definition…..
….In the former part of our transcendental logic, we defined the understanding to be the faculty of rules; reason may be distinguished from understanding as the faculty of principles.
….The term principle is ambiguous, and commonly signifies merely a cognition that may be employed as a principle, although it is not in itself, and as regards its proper origin, entitled to the distinction. Every general proposition, even if derived from experience by the process of induction, may serve as the major in a syllogism; but it is not for that reason a principle. Mathematical axioms (for example, there can be only one straight line between two points) are general à priori cognitions, and are therefore rightly denominated principles, relatively to the cases which can be subsumed under them. But I cannot for this reason say that I cognize this property of a straight line from principles—I cognize it only in pure intuition.
…..Cognition from principles, then, is that cognition in which I cognize the particular in the general by means of conceptions. Thus every syllogism is a form of the deduction of a cognition from a principle. For the major always gives a conception, through which everything that is subsumed under the condition thereof is cognized according to a principle. Now as every general cognition may serve as the major in a syllogism, and the understanding presents us with such general à priori propositions, they may be termed principles, in respect of their possible use.
…..But if we consider these principles of the pure understanding in relation to their origin, we shall find them to be anything rather than cognitions from conceptions. For they would not even be possible à priori, if we could not rely on the assistance of pure intuition (in mathematics), or on that of the conditions of a possible experience. That everything that happens has a cause, cannot be concluded from the general conception of that which happens; on the contrary the principle of causality instructs us as to the mode of obtaining from that which happens a determinate empirical conception….
…..Synthetical cognitions from conceptions the understanding cannot supply, and they alone are entitled to be called principles..
….. The understanding may be a faculty for the production of unity of phenomena by virtue of rules; the reason is a faculty for the production of unity of rules (of the understanding) under principles. Reason, therefore, never applies directly to experience, or to any sensuous object; its object is, on the contrary, the understanding, to the manifold cognition of which it gives a unity à priori by means of conceptions—a unity which may be called rational unity, and which is of a nature very different from that of the unity produced by the understanding….”
There are no principles of the understanding as such, pure or otherwise; there are only those under which the function of understanding is legitimized, the origin of which is the project of pure reason, and that from its transcendental nature alone.
“…. The critique of the pure understanding, accordingly, does not permit us to create for ourselves a new field of objects beyond those which are presented to us as phenomena, and to stray into intelligible worlds; nay, it does not even allow us to endeavour to form so much as a conception of them. The specious error which leads to this—and which is a perfectly excusable one—lies in the fact that the employment of the understanding, contrary to its proper purpose and destination, is made transcendental, and objects, that is, possible intuitions, are made to regulate themselves according to conceptions, instead of the conceptions arranging themselves according to the intuitions, on which alone their own objective validity rests.
…..Now the reason of this again is that apperception, and with it thought, antecedes all possible determinate arrangement of representations. Accordingly we think something in general and determine it on the one hand sensuously, but, on the other, distinguish the general and in abstracto represented object from this particular mode of intuiting it. In this case there remains a mode of determining the object by mere thought, which is really but a logical form without content, which, however, seems to us to be a mode of the existence of the object in itself (noumenon), without regard to intuition which is limited to our senses.
….Before ending this transcendental analytic, we must make an addition, which, although in itself of no particular importance, seems to be necessary to the completeness of the system. The highest conception, with which a transcendental philosophy commonly begins, is the division into possible and impossible. But as all division presupposes a divided conception, a still higher one must exist, and this is the conception of an object in general—problematically understood and without its being decided whether it is something or nothing. As the categories are the only conceptions which apply to objects in general, the distinguishing of an object, whether it is something or nothing, must proceed according to the order and direction of the categories.
….To the categories of quantity, that is, the conceptions of all, many, and one, the conception which annihilates all, that is, the conception of none, is opposed. And thus the object of a conception, to which no intuition can be found to correspond, is = nothing. That is, it is a conception without an object (ens rationis), like noumena, which cannot be considered possible in the sphere of reality, though they must not therefore be held to be impossible….”
————-
So it is that A249 is not to be considered as pertaining to existent objects. It is the error in transcendental illusory “appearance” that “I suppose there to be things that are merely objects of the understanding that, nevertheless, can be given to an intuition, although not to sensible intuition”, which presupposes the type of intuition not possessed by humans, from which follows there is nothing to which an object of mere thought to be given, insofar as human intuition is always and only sensible. There can be no appearance given to intuition from mere understanding, but from perception alone.
It follows that if the matter of objects were noumena, and noumena obtain their conceptual validity from mere understanding, and understanding gives to intuition its false “appearance”, then all matter of all objects are or can be already determinable by the understanding, which immediately eliminates intuition as the faculty of sensory representation, making experience itself impossible. From whence it is clear, that if the matter of the Eiffel Tower were noumena, there wouldn’t be a tower, a contradiction.
The secondary notion of illusory appearance, irrespective of the type of intuition humans possess, is justified long before the textual evidence of the proof of its occurrence, from the proposition “….understanding cannot intuit, and the sensuous faculty cannot think…” (hence these must work together while being distinct and separate faculties). If then, I suppose to give to even a sensible intuition a conception I merely think, the system is caused to work backwards, and from which no determinable warrant to expect a proper cognition is possible, which is to say, I will know nothing from this bass-acwards procedure, including the very possibility of having accomplished it.
Furthermore….as if the above wasn’t enough….herein the justification for two and only two types of systemic representation….
……one from intuition the object of which is phenomenal representation, the origin of which is the synthesis of matter a posteriori and form a priori.
……the other from understanding the object of which is conceptual representation, the origin of which is the spontaneity of pure thought.
Now it can be, that while faculties of intuition and understanding are distinct and separate, their objects must necessary conjoin to each other through a mediary faculty that is not either of them.
For Kant, matter existing in the world is noumena, and as noumena cannot be cognized, it cannot therefore be talked about
From the SEP article on Kant’s Critique of Metaphysics
Throughout the Analytic Kant elaborates on this general view, noting that the transcendental employment of the understanding, which aims towards knowledge of things independently of experience (and thus knowledge of “noumena”), is illicit (cf. A246/B303).
From the SEP article Kant’s Transcendental Idealism:
In the section “On the ground of the distinction of all objects into phenomena and noumena”, which he substantially revised for the B Edition, Kant reiterates his argument that we cannot cognize objects beyond the bounds of possible experience, and introduces a complex distinction between phenomena and noumena....................Clearly, we do not cognize any noumena, since to cognize an object for us requires intuition and our intuition is sensible, not intellectual.
As Kant wrote:
A249 - if, however, I suppose that there be things that are merely objects of the understanding and that, nevertheless, can be given to an intuition, although not to sensible intuition (as coram intuiti intellectuali), then such things would be called noumena (intelligibilia).
I can talk about "matter" as unknown causes are named after known appearances
I can talk about seeing a red postbox in the world, even though the colour red doesn't exist in the world, but only in the mind. The cause of an appearance is named after the appearance, in that if the appearance is red, the cause is named red.
As the SEP article on Kant’s Critique of Metaphysics writes:
Filling this out, Kant suggests that to take ourselves to have unmediated intellectual access to objects (to have “non-sensible” knowledge) correlates with the assumption that there are non-sensible objects that we can know. To assume this, however, is to conflate “phenomena” (or appearances) with “noumena” (or things in themselves). The failure to draw the distinction between appearances and things in themselves is the hallmark of all those pernicious systems of thought that stand under the title of “transcendental realism.”
In practice, unknown noumena are named after known phenomena. IE, if our perception is named red, the unknown cause of our perception is also named red. The word red then has two distinct meanings, first as the known perception in the mind and second as the unknown cause in the world. Problems arise when these two distinct meanings are conflated. IE, when I talk about seeing a red postbox in the world, what I am talking about is not an unknown something existing in the world but a known appearance existing in the mind.
It sounds gross self-contradictory to say "matter existing in the world is noumena", and then keeps going on "noumena cannot be cognized, it cannot therefore be talked about". You cannot say X exists in the world, if you don't know what X is, can you?
Quoting RussellA
How can "matter" be talked about as "unknown causes"? Do you mean they are the same? How so?
"Matter" and "red" are words in language and concepts in the mind. As I perceive a red postbox in the world, I can also perceive solid matter in the world.
I can talk about red postboxes in the world even though what is referred to as the colour red doesn't exist in the world. Similarly, I can talk about solid matter in the world even though what is referred to as matter doesn't exist in the world.
From an innate belief in the Law of Causation, the Principle of Sufficient Reason, an appearance has a prior cause. If a known appearance in the mind is named "red", the unknown cause in the world can be named "X". "X" does not refer to a known thing in the world but refers to an unknown prior cause of a known effect. This prior cause can have happened at any time and can have been of any kind. For convenience within language, "X" is re-named "red".
There seem to be some problems here.
1. You are talking about only the things in your mind. It will not give you any further knowledge on the external world itself. You say you are seeing the red postbox, but it is in your mind, and it doesn't exist in the world. So it is not an empirical knowledge, but it is your belief in your mind, which you admit that it doesn't exist in the world.
2. There is also high possibility of illusion and hallucination on the perception and also talking about, because you believe that they are not the reality in the empirical world, but they are caused by the reality of the empirical world. Is the reality always accurate? Are the causation always consistent and accurate without errors? Is the content of the perception accurate?
3. These are not what Kant thinks how perception works. He was seeking to establish a solid ground for infallible knowledge. He would be seriously worried to see someone looking at things not existing in the world, and keeps talking about them as if they do exist in the world, and at the same time saying they don't exist in the world.
As an Indirect Realist, from the Indirect part of Indirect Realism, the red postbox exists in my mind and not the world. From the Realism part of Indirect Realism, something exists in the world which may or may not be the same as what exists in my mind.
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Quoting Corvus
Yes, The Argument from Illusion against Direct Realism
The Argument from Illusion, found in Berkeley, Hume, Russell, and Ayer, begins from the familiar fact that things sometimes look other than they are (perceptual relativity, illusions, hallucinations) and concludes that we only directly (or immediately) perceive our own ideas (or sense data).
(Lecture II The Argument from Illusion - Penelope Maddy)
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Quoting Corvus
Where does Kant get his solid ground for infallible knowledge of noumena?
“… the real in space—that is, matter…..”
“…what we cognize in matter is nothing but relations…”
“….Matter is substantia phaenomenon. That in it which is internal I seek to discover in all parts of space which it occupies, and in all the functions and operations it performs, and which are indeed never anything but phenomena of the external sense. I cannot therefore find anything that is absolutely, but only what is comparatively internal, and which itself consists of external relations. The absolutely internal in matter, and as it should be according to the pure understanding, is a mere chimera, for matter is not an object for the pure understanding. But the transcendental object, which is the foundation of the phenomenon which we call matter, is a mere nescio quid (re: I know not what; fr: quelque chose je ne sais quoi), the nature of which we could not understand, even though someone were found able to tell us.
….For we can understand nothing that does not bring with it something in intuition corresponding to the expressions employed. If, by the complaint of being unable to perceive the internal nature of things, it is meant that we do not comprehend by the pure understanding what the things which appear to us may be in themselves, it is a silly and unreasonable complaint; for those who talk thus really desire that we should be able to cognize, consequently to intuite, things without senses, and therefore wish that we possessed a faculty of cognition perfectly different from the human faculty, not merely in degree, but even as regards intuition and the mode thereof, so that thus we should not be men, but belong to a class of beings, the possibility of whose existence, much less their nature and constitution, we have no means of cognizing.
….By observation and analysis of phenomena we penetrate into the interior of nature, and no one can say what progress this knowledge may make in time. But those transcendental questions which pass beyond the limits of nature, we could never answer, even although all nature were laid open to us, because we have not the power of observing our own mind with any other intuition than that of our internal sense. For herein lies the mystery of the origin and source of our faculty of sensibility. Its application to an object, and the transcendental ground of this unity of subjective and objective, lie too deeply concealed for us, who cognize ourselves only through the internal sense, consequently as phenomena, to be able to discover in our existence anything but phenomena, the non-sensuous cause of which we at the same time earnestly desire to penetrate to….”.
————
That human empirical knowledge is derivable from representation only, does not mean matter is not real, which it must be in order for there to be a representation of it.
That all we cognize in matter is its relations, and by which we “penetrate into the interior of nature”, re: Nature herself, is simply due to the type of cognizing capacities, having nothing whatsoever to do with matter itself, and from which it does not follow that matter of real objects must therefore be noumenal.
And the “someone found able to tell us” (of what to us is the chimera of the internal nature of matter) would, supposedly, not be human. Which reduces to…..no one is to be found to explain to us the internal nature of matter itself.
Solid ground for infallible knowledge is about the objects in the empirical world. Noumena is for the A priori perceptions which have no objects in the world of appearance. Noumena has nothing to do with the solid material existence in the empirical world.
E.g sure, the Eiffel tower consists of metals in various forms, probably some electrics and wooden aspects too. But it is the Eiffel tower - not a list of components. This is a bad example though, so turning to Wolfs 'Horse' example, the 'Horseness' doesn't consist in any properties of the horse, but the totality of those properties, under certain concepts. Take away the 'brownness' and it's still a horse. Take away 'horse-hairy-ness' and it's still a horse. Take away the mane, the hoofs etc.. In parts, and Horseness remains. it's only removing a critical mass of those properties that removes the horseness. I guess this is the ambiguity im attempting to explore. I have no answers.
It seemed fairly clear to me that Noumena is the placeholder for things in themselves, beyond sensible intuition - of whcih we can know nothing. Not that they aren't related... Just that we can't actually know anything of them. Or be certain they exist.. only infer. But as usual, im looking to be set straight, not offering an actual take.
I understood Noumena is the placeholder for Thing-in-itslef, and Thing-in-itself is for the abstract existences which appear in our minds without the matching objects in the empirical world such as God, Souls, Freedom etc.
It gets all strange, if you place the ordinary objects like cups or trees into Noumena, and say they are Thing-in-itself, which are unknowable and cannot be talked about.
Agreed. I do recall passages in which it's essentially said that by inference, we can't get away from accepting that there are things-in-themselves causing our impressions of them, but that our impressions are removed from the objects enough to make it impossible to access.
Yes, good point. :ok:
Looked at this point again, but cannot quite follow what it means. Could you please elaborate with the CPR passage (if possible)? Thanks.
My understanding of this point is that, while we must infer something "in-itself" causes our phenomenal impressions, which in turn create our perceptions, our perceptions are not those impressions and cannot, in any meaningful sense, access them or the object which causes them.
IN the preface to teh 2nd edition we get this :
"The estimate of our rational cognition à priori at which we arrive is that it has only to do with phenomena, and that things in themselves, while possessing a real existence, lie beyond its sphere. "
Among other passages, seems to indicate to me that Kant accepts that the thing-in-itself is necessary, but unknowable.
Then where does Kant get his solid ground for infallible knowledge of solid material existence in the empirical world?
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Quoting Corvus
For the Indirect Realist, the colour red exists in the mind but not the world, though there is something in the world that caused our perception of the colour red. When the Indirect Realist talks about the colour red, they are referring to two distinct things, the known colour red in the mind and the unknown something in the world that caused our perception of the colour red.
For the Direct Realist, the colour red exists both in the mind and the world, When the Direct Realist talks about the colour red, they are referring to one thing.
Do you believe that the colour red exists in the world?
In Transcendental Idealism there is a priori pure intuition of space and time and a priori pure concepts of the understanding, ie, the Categories
Therefore, Transcendental Idealism applies to appearance in the mind not objects in the world. ie Transcendental Idealism applies to phenomena not noumena (though whether the Category of cause can apply to noumena is debated).
Yes, as the unity of perception of a given object is about an object that appears in the mind not as it actually is in the world, Kant's unity of perception is about a whole rather than a disparate set of parts.
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Quoting AmadeusD
If there is something in the world which doesn't have the properties of brownness, horse-hairy-ness, mane and hoofs, would anyone looking at this something think that it was actually a horse?
I would have thought when we infer things, it is the internal operation in the mind, which doesn't involve the external objects. In that case, would it not just work of intuition itself involving the concepts? When you say phenomenal impressions, it reminds me of the Humean impression which is for the external sensical objects. I am not sure if Kant uses the term sense impression for the external objects. As far as I can recall, he doesn't use the Humean terms such as impressions and ideas.
Logically speaking if you are inferring something in your mind, you wouldn't need to think about the external object at all, because it would be with the contents in your mind and intuition works with them. Or if you are seeing objects in the empirical world, and inferring something, then it wouldn't be about the object itself, but it would be something else relating what-if scenarios or changes of the situation etc. The point here is that inferring something doesn't need reliance with Thing-in-itself or noumena.
Quoting AmadeusD
Could this be further explicated using real life examples of perception?
Kant just explains how our perception works with the existence in the empirical world. He is not concerned with them too much. It is our intuitions and concepts which interact immediately with the objects for producing experience - it sounds like he was a direct realist.
Nothing special in our perception of the empirical reality objects in the way that he doesn't try to make them sound as if they belong to in some mysterious unknown realm of psychic world, but he tries to identify A priori elements in perception i.e. the intuitions, concepts and principles which construct our experience. Furthermore, it is mathematics, geometry and synthetic a priori knowledge he was focusing on how they work.
What he is concerned is clarifying how metaphysical knowledge works and why it has solid ground as knowledge like Scientific knowledge. Metaphysics deals with God, Immortality, Souls and Freedom..etc. These are the real topics Kant was interested in demonstrating for their solid existence, not some cups, trees or postbox in the empirical world.
Reason can only deal with the objects appearing in our sensibility via experience, and that is the limit of pure reason. What is not appearing in our sensibility but can be thought of are in the world of noumena as thing-in-itself, and reason has no capability in dealing with them. They would be then, in the world of unknown, which need postulation of faith for access.
If Thing-in-itself exists in the empirical world, and thought to appear in phenomenon, then it would be contradiction. They must exist in the world of noumena, and you need faith or postulation to access them. This makes sense.
Quoting RussellA
I feel that when you say a postbox with red roof exists, then both the postbox and red colour patch must be in one object. It doesn't make sense to me, when you say, the postbox exist in the empirical world, but the red patch exists in your mind. They must be one entity, not separate. The postbox with red roof exists in the reality as one object. What you have in your mind is an image of it.
In Kant, this is wrong.
Quoting AmadeusD
This is correct. IFF one accepts that the thing that appears to our senses, is the thing of the thing-in-itself. It is the aim of the human intellectual system, that the thing-as-it-is-in-itself, and the thing-as-it-seems-to us, be as congruent as possible. That the properties assigned to the representation of the real thing of our knowledge, do not conflict with the relations observed with respect to the real thing of our perception.
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Quoting AmadeusD
The Principle of Complementarity, writ large. For that thing which appears to sensibility, there must be that same thing that does not appear, for otherwise, immediately upon being an effect on the senses, if the thing did not already exist in itself, our own perception is necessary objective causality for that thing. It follows that, tantamount to a contradiction bordering on absurdity, for every singe perception, for every effect of a thing on the senses, that thing was caused by the senses, or, which is the same thing, it would be damn near impossible to prove with apodeitic certainty, the senses are not causal.
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Quoting AmadeusD
And yet, there remains some idiotic insistence that noumena and thing-in-themselves are the same thing. Or the same kind of thing. Or can be treated as being the same kind of thing.
may offer support here, but it should be kept in mind, that in Kant’s day, Greek logic was still the rule, and Aristotle used the concepts phenomena/noumena in his way, so Kant had to, if not so much abide by the antecedent meanings, at least had to account for them, or no peer would take his philosophy seriously, insofar as the fundamental predication determining transcendental metaphysics, is purely logical.
Problem was, in the brand new metaphysics, there was no room for Aristotle’s concepts as such, on the one hand, and the brand new speculative machinations of human cognition couldn’t accommodate them both on the other.
But he had no choice but to accommodate Aristotle, somehow. Know how he did it? Cool as hell, if you ask me. He said, “….I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself…”. Now it is not self-contradictory to think noumena, from which arises a valid conception just as Aristotle professed, but there remains the need to abolish them in order they not interfere with the rest of the brand new speculative metaphysics, which would be where the contradiction of myself occurs, re: judgements in which the conception is contained relative to those judgements in which conception “phenomena” is contained.
Every notice….with all the talk of noumena, there is no talk of a noumenal object? Not one. Everyone talks of noumena but nobody wonders that there are no noumenal objects. And we can say there are none, even if it is only because we wouldn’t know of it as one if it reached out an bitch-slapped us.
If things-in-themselves give us things, shouldn’t noumena give us noumenal objects? Same thing, my ass. No where near the same, and moronic to consider them so.
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Quoting AmadeusD
They are not. There’s something amiss in your clarity, methinks.
This sounds like Berkeley's Subjective Idealism, which denies the existence of material substance in the world and contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are no more than ideas perceived by the mind, and as a result cannot exist without being perceived. IE, reason is limited by what we are able to perceive. (Wikipedia - George Berkeley)
However, Kant differentiated himself from Berkeley in not denying the real existence of objects distinct from our representation of them. From the Introduction to the CPR:
Specifically, he differentiated his position from Berkeleian idealism by arguing that he denied the real existence of space and time and the spatiotemporal properties of objects, but not the real existence of objects themselves distinct from our representations, and for this reason he proposed renaming his transcendental idealism with the more informative name of "formal" or "critical idealism," making it clear that his idealism concerned the form but not the existence of external objects.
Within the Refutation of Idealism is the argument that pure reason is not limited by experiences within our sensibilities, and whereas Idealism assumes that our only immediate experiences are inner experiences Kant shows that we also have immediate access to outer experiences.
B277 - Idealism assumed that the only immediate experience is inner experience, and that from that outer things could only be inferred, but, as in any case in which one infers from given effects to determinate causes, only unreliably, since the cause of the representations that we perhaps falsely ascribe to outer things can also lie in us. Yet here it is proved that outer experience is really immediate, * that only by means of it is possible not, to be sure, the consciousness of our own existence, but its determination in time, i.e., inner experience
As the Wikipedia article on Critique of Pure Reason writes:
In order to answer criticisms of the Critique of Pure Reason that Transcendental Idealism denied the reality of external objects, Kant added a section to the second edition (1787) titled "The Refutation of Idealism" which turns the "game" of idealism against itself by arguing that self-consciousness presupposes external objects.
Kant uses the idea of time to prove that external objects may be perceived directly enabling pure reason to transcend experiences within our sensibilities.
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Quoting Corvus
For the Direct Realist, the thing in itself in the world does appear in appearance as phenomena, ie, when we perceive the colour red there is a colour red existing in the world. This is why Kant is not a Direct Realist.
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Quoting Corvus
Perhaps because that's not something I said. As an Indirect Realist, as the colour red exists in the mind and the not the world, the postbox also exists in the mind and not the world.
For the Direct Realist, as the colour red exists both in the mind and the world, the postbox also exists in both the mind and the world.
That is nothing to do with Berkeley's idealism. Berkeley's idealism treats your perception identical to the existence. In Kant, you need the empirical object affecting your sensibility. He doesn't deny the existence of empirical reality. He says what appears in your sensibility can be dealt by reason, but what doesn't appear in your sensibility, but what you can think of, are Thing-in-itself.
Quoting RussellA
No, I change my mind. Kant can't be a direct realist. He really doesn't say much about what he is i.e. he doesn't care about isms. He just says there are objects in the world which appear in your sensibility, and the intuition and reason deal with them to produce judgements. That's all he says. If you really have to brand him what he was, he would more likely had been a transcendental realist.
Quoting RussellA
Now that is Berkeley's immaterial idealism, because you deny the existence in the world, but think they all exist in your mind.
That’s the whole problem: pure reason has no limit. The sole raison d’etre for the Critique of it, is what can be done about that problem.
What we can think, relative to what we can know…..THAT must have a limit.
All reason is pure in the sense that it is not a product of experience. Reason judges and analyses the content of experience. Knowing and thinking are psychological activities. Reason is a priori property of the mind.
I’m ok with that. I don’t like the notion of psychological activities particularly, but modern times finds value therein, somehow.
Just remember…reason does not apply directly to experience, so that part of your comment that says reason only deals with objects, etc, etc,. Isn’t the whole story.
Acts of knowing and thinking are topics of psychology. How and what can be known and thought, are the topics of Epistemology.
Quoting Mww
When reason sees the intuitions with no objects, it will resort to either scepticism or conclude unknowability. If it keeps asserting the existence without the objects in empirical reality, it would be a dogmatism.
It seems to me that in the section on Refutation of Idealism, Kant does argue that we can use reason to transcend our sensibilities.
[i]B275 - The proof that is demanded must therefore establish that we have experience and not merely imagination of outer things, which cannot be accomplished unless one can prove that even our inner experience, undoubted by Descartes, is possible only under the presupposition of outer experience.
B276 - Theorem - The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me.
B276 - Proof - I am conscious of my existence as determined in time. All time-determination presupposes something persistent in perception. This persistent thing, however, cannot be something in me, since my own existence in time can first be determined only through this persistent thing. Thus the perception of this persistent thing is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of a thing outside me. Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is possible only by means of the existence of actual things that I perceive outside myself. Now consciousness in time is necessarily combined with the consciousness of the possibility of this time-determination: Therefore it is also necessarily combined with the existence of the things outside me, as the condition of time-determination; i.e., the consciousness of my own existence is at the same time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things outside me.[/i]
He argues that we can prove using reason the existence of objects in space outside our sensibilities.
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Quoting Corvus
Kant was not a Transcendental Realist. From the SEP article Kant’s Transcendental Idealism
[i]One promising place to begin understanding transcendental idealism is to look at the other philosophical positions from which Kant distinguishes it. In the “Fourth Paralogism”, he distinguishes transcendental idealism from transcendental realism:
Transcendental realism, according to this passage, is the view that objects in space and time exist independently of our experience of them, while transcendental idealism denies this.
Transcendental realism is the common-sense pre-theoretic view that objects in space and time are “things in themselves”, which Kant, of course, denies.[/i]
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Quoting Corvus
As an Indirect Realist, I believe that a mind-independent world exists, which is the Realism part of Indirect Realism.
Yeah….one of the things he says I either didn’t bother with, or couldn’t wrap my head around, dunno which….is that he frowns on dogmatism, but grants pure reason is always dogmatic.
Clue is in the definitions, I guess. One’s a method, the other’s a doctrine, maybe. Dunno.
Reason's duty is to tell truth from falsity and warranting judgements. It doesn't get involved in trying to prove external objects as real existence. Our intuition and concepts perceive and know them in the sensibility with immediacy.
Quoting RussellA
Kant was a Transcendental Realist in a sense that he propounded that the transcendental objects such as God, Immortality, Soul, Freedom exist in Noumena. It has nothing to do with the physical objects in empirical reality, because they don't belong to Noumena.
Quoting RussellA
You say the postoffice exists in your mind and also in the world, so you have 2x postoffice when you see 1x postoffice. Is this not a contradiction?
Pure reason knows dogmatism, and usually discerns the antinomies. However, psychology of thinking might go wrong, overriding pure reason. Reason is a slave of passion. Hume woke up Kant from his slumber - remember? :)
Yep, from his dogmatic slumbers. So it depends on what he means by dogmatic, to figure out just what Hume woke him from. Was he slumbering and proper dogmatic criticisms heretofore escaped him, or, was he slumbering in a dogmatic fashion from which Hume disturbed him.
I think one needs a rather extensive understanding of Kant’s knowledge of Hume’s philosophy, and moreso, how Kant tackled what he thought was the very problem Hume took for granted as not being one, re: reason was merely a slave to the passions, and if habit and common sense couldn’t fix it, then there isn’t a fix to be had. Kant understood the problem before his critical period, around 1750 or so, but didn’t proceed to solve it until the first edition of CPR thirty years on.
Ehhhh….been there done that. Got the coke-bottle glasses.
Quoting Mww
What is your idea on this?
Quoting Mww
Has Kant succeeded in what he intended to achieve?
Ask and ye shall receive, or, be careful what you wish for.
The problem:
“….as the world has never been, and, no doubt, never will be without a system of metaphysics of one kind or another, it is the highest and weightiest concern of philosophy to render it powerless for harm, by closing up the sources of error….”
The solution:
“…. the Critique of Pure Reason (…) will render an important service (…), by substituting the certainty of scientific method for that random groping after results without the guidance of principles, which has hitherto characterized the pursuit of metaphysical studies….”
On the certainty of scientific method:
“….. strict demonstration from sure principles a priori….”
On the groping after results:
“…..dogmatism, that is, the presumption that it is possible to make any progress with a pure cognition (…) according to the principles which reason has long been in the habit of employing without first inquiring in what way and by what right reason has come into the possession of these principles….”
“….This critical science is not opposed to the dogmatic procedure of reason in pure cognition; for pure cognition must always be dogmatic, that is, rest on sure principles a priori. (….) Dogmatism is thus the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism of its own powers….”
So the slumber represents the status quo of dogmatism, in which for metaphysics the strict demonstration from sure principles was demonstrated, but the dogmatic slumber awakened from, indicates the absence in dogmatism of the criticism by which those principles used in philosophical procedures, obtain the authority for the demonstrations they perform. Or, which is the same thing, how it is that the demonstrations may or may not follow from the principles, depending on a critical assessment sufficient to justify their use.
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Quoting Corvus
He intended to write a theory of metaphysics complete and consistent in itself, and he certainly considered himself as having achieved that. I think the only relevant measure of success, would be his own.
I was asking exclusively about the part Kant had admitted having been indebted to Hume's awakening his dogmatic slumbers from i.e. exactly what part of Hume's ideas awakened Kant from his dogmatic slumbers?
Quoting Mww
They had Aristotle's Metaphysics for almost 2000 years. What were the problems or deficiencies of Aristotle's Metaphysics did Kant think need to be fixed? Or would it rather be the contemporary of Kant's Metaphysics polluted by Wolff, Leibniz and Spinoza crowds, which Kant wasn't happy with? What did Kant think of the problems of his previous or his contemporary metaphysics were?
Quoting Mww
What do you think "pure cognition" is in detail?
Didn’t sound that way to me. You didn’t ask about any exact thing. Wouldn’t matter anyway; there wasn’t any one exact thing. I gave what I thought explained the awakening in its most general sense, that being, Hume’s proclivity for philosophical demonstrations without sufficient criticism of the principles used to justify them.
Having advised me to read Hume in conjunction with Kant, I might ask if you’ve done the same. If so, then perhaps, as did I, you might have discerned the important aspect missing from Hume’s philosophy that leaves it at dogmatism, according to Kant, as opposed to his own, which is dogmatic.
My question was from your own points on Hume and Kant.
Recall this?
Quoting Corvus
Remember this?
Quoting Mww
Yes, I am reading Hume too. Hume is one of my favourite philosophers. I like his arguments in Treatise.
I addressed what Kant thought was the very problem Hume took for granted as not being one, that the critical examination of reason regarding its own powers for the originating and employment of principles, is a necessary prerequisite for philosophical demonstrations. Such was my idea on “this”.
Why Hume didn’t do this, and the ramifications for not doing it, resides in various Kant texts, specifically in CPR, wherein in A you’re supposed to dig it out, but in B Hume is mentioned more often in direct relation to the text, so the distinctions in the two philosophies more readily apparent.
Hume didn't take anything for granted. He had done his own critical examination regarding its own powers and its capacities and limits in Treatise 1.4.1. Of Scepticism Regard to Reason.
Quoting Mww
Hume had done it in his own way, and obviously Kant read it, and that was the part that he took from Hume to launch his own way to investigate and criticise on Pure reason, hence CPR. That is the part of Hume's idea which woke up Kant from his dogmatic slumbers which Kant himself admitted. This was my idea, and I was trying to confirm it was correct. But you seem to have different ideas saying Hume didn't do that, and Kant was trying to fix Hume's problems.
From your reference….
“…. There is no Algebraist nor Mathematician so expert in his science, as to place entire confidence in any truth immediately upon his discovery of it, or regard it as any thing, but a mere probability….”
….we see the problem writ large. Math is that science by which reliability and certainty is given, and thereby should hardly be considered a mere probability. Hume didn’t grasp how it is that the human mind can originate necessary truths on its own accord, without be subsidized by experience. So if one wishes to say Hume had his own critical examinations, which he did, some additional explanation is necessary for why such examinations were not sufficient for mathematical certainty.
Hume took for granted pure reason could not provide the principles necessary to make math more than mere probability. If you prefer, we could just say Hume was skeptical reason could so provide, but if so, we must also admit he was skeptical to the point of denying the possibility, which just is to take it for granted it could not. And, of course, in the next section, he carried this skepticism over to the existence of the body, and the continued/distinct dichotomy of the operation of the senses regarding the existence of any object.
Where is that quote from?
Quoting Mww
Hume divides Reason into two different types. One is for Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact.
The former deals with Geometry, Algebra, Arithmetic, and in short, every affirmation, which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain.
The 2nd type is Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing.
"ALL the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation, which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the square of the two sides, is a proposition, which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere opera-tion of thought, without dependence on what is any where existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths, demonstrated by EUCLID, would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.
Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible;t because it can never imply a con-tradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and dis-tinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more con-tradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, there-fore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind. " - Enquiries (4.1.20)
As I said….your reference: Treatise on Human Nature 1.4.1., Of Scepticism Regard to Reason, although it should read…scepticism with regard to reason.
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Now I see you’ve switched to E.C.H.U. And “demonstrably” certain is the very criteria of experience. So yes, Euclidean figures are demonstrably certain in their relations, but it does not follow from the demonstrations, that the relations themselves are given by them.
OK, I see it. I would interpret the quote "Quoting Mww in his science must be, the empirical science, not Mathematics or Geometry. He seems to be talking about the Mathematicians cannot have confidence in the empirical scientific observations and theories at first, but they feel what they discover are mere probability. It can't be Mathematics or Geometry knowledge Hume was talking about. Because Hume acknowledges Reasoning on Relations of Ideas are "which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain."
Quoting Mww
Yes, we must look at both Enquiries and Treatise at the same time when reading Hume.
Anyway, it shows you that Hume's reason is not just one sided all probability affairs. There wasn't anything that Kant could have fixed in CPR, was there?
“….Algebraist nor Mathematician so expert in his science…”
What science would a mathematician be an expert in, if not mathematical science?
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Quoting Corvus
Kant fixed….
Quoting Corvus
…..Hume’s reasoning on relations of ideas as empirical, indicated by “intuitive or demonstrable”, which indicates phenomena, to transcendental, which is merely logical, insofar as the relations of ideas is not at all phenomenal.
There’s a section in CPR where the meaning of idea is returned to the ancients, Plato in particular. So I guess Kant fixed….or at least changed…. Hume’s meaning of idea in order to change the reasoning on their relations.
Mathematics is its own subject. No one calls Mathematics Science. It would be like saying Poetry is Science. Science is for the natural science, which deals with the phenomenon and objects in the empirical world.
Quoting Mww
In that case, why would Kant had said that Hume woke him up from the dogmatic slumbers? Something doesn't sound quite right here.
According to Kant, because Hume used the word ideas, as an example, without proper criticism of the principle by which the conception connects to his use of it. As the lesser of the two “perceptions of the mind”, in Hume ideas are thoughts, which are hardly a lesser, and aren’t even perceptions at all.
He could have said ideas are objects of the mind, but he couldn’t intermingle the object of empiricism with object of the intellect. Kant did just that, by putting the concept “idea” back where the Greeks had it, turning it into an object of reason, which makes its relations transcendental, and not intuitive or demonstrable.
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To call math a science just means math follows the strictest of procedures, always consistently repeatable, always with the same result for each of its operations, and never false if properly followed.
My interpretation is because of the challenge Hume posed to the natural assumption that events are causally related. Hume cast doubt on that by saying that causal relationships are grounded in nothing more than repeated observations - that because we observe the relationship of A and B, we say that A causes B, when in reality we're simply observing a constant conjunction of occurences. We can't say we know that A causes B, because we can't actually observe the precise nature of such causation, and also because it's not an analytic relationship, that is to say that it is not true as a matter of logical necessity.
Kant's answer to Hume required rethinking the basis of human knowledge and understanding, which is the task of his critical philosophy. He argued that our minds play a fundamental role in shaping our experience of the world. According to Kant, certain concepts, like causation, are not derived from experience but are rather innate to the human mind (remember, Hume and the other empiricists denied innate capacities). These categories (adapted from Aristotle) provide the framework for the interpretation of experiences, making empirical knowledge and objective understanding possible.
In Kant's view, Hume was correct in asserting that knowledge of causation (and other concepts) cannot be derived from sensory experience alone. However, Kant argued that this kind of insight is instead a precondition of experience. For Kant, the mind actively organizes and synthesizes sensory data according to these categories, which include causality, time, and space. This synthesis allows us to perceive the world in a coherent, consistent manner. Kant thus showed that the empiricist idea of the mind as a 'blank slate' (tabula rasa) was self-contradictory - if it were truly thus, they would not be able to form coherent sentences! (That's me, not Kant :-) )
Thus, Kant's answer to Hume was to argue that while our knowledge is grounded against experience, the fundamental structure of knowledge relies on innate capacities of the mind.
This is debated. For example "Several scholars take Kant's statement at face value. They claim that Kant did not endorse concept innatism, that the categories are not innate concepts and that Kant's views on innateness are significantly different from Leibniz's."
(Alberto Vanzo - Leibniz on Innate Ideas and Kant on the Origin of the Categories)
From the SEP - The Historical Controversies Surrounding Innateness
I can understand the a priori as part of the innate structure of the brain, but I don't understand Kant's a priori as a product of careful reflection on the nature of experience.
And what would provide the basis for such ‘careful reflection’ in the absence of an innate grasp of the issue at hand?
It's a mystery to me, but that seems to be Kant's position.
That does not constitute an argument.
True. It's not intended to constitute an argument, more a statement of fact.
In the same way that your statement "Thus, Kant's answer to Hume was to argue that while our knowledge is grounded against experience, the fundamental structure of knowledge relies on innate capacities of the mind" does not constitute an argument, but is more a statement of fact.
Once the groundwork has been laid, then a discussion may begin.
Quoting Wayfarer
This is more like what the academic articles (e.g. Kant's debt to the British Empiricists, by Wayne Waxman 2010) saying on the issue (A Kant Dictionary by Howard Caygill 1994). Kant was not happy with the rationalist crowd such as Wolf Spinoza Mendelssohn who believed in the reason's power to perceive the existence of God, Freedom, Soul by deduction. To Kant, that was a dogmatism.
Kant read Hume, and realised that Hume's idea of reason was much narrower and limited version than the rationalists'. Kant got the idea to write CPR to criticise the power of reason, and also set the limit of the reason for its power to the degree only able to deal with what is perceived via sensibility in empirical world.
What is not visible in the sensibility, but can be thought of such as God, Immortality and Soul are in Noumena and they are object of faith and postulation of pure reason. For Kant, that was the waking up call by Hume to the dogmatic slumbers of the rationalists.
Everybody knows the famous one-liners….understanding cannot intuit, intuition cannot think; thoughts without intuition are empty, intuitions without concepts, blind.
The two faculties must work together or we don’t have knowledge….yaddayaddayadda…..how they work together is given by the transcendental deduction of the categories, which…
“….is an exposition of the pure conceptions of the understanding (and with them of all theoretical à priori cognition), as principles of the possibility of experience (….), as the form of the understanding in relation to time and space as original forms of sensibility….” (B169)
So we get from the individual parts, to the unity of their working together, but the question remains as to how to arrive at the one, an internal condition, when the other is given to us, as an external condition. That which is given to us needs no explanation….it’s here, deal with it. But the origins of that which is not given to us, but arises within us, is susceptible to the possibility of having no explanatory power insofar as whatever is claimed for it, can be negated with equal justice.
In general, or, without getting too particular about it, we have knowledge of things from the union of sense and category. Cool. But the human animal can think real objects without them being sensed, re: possible knowledge of possible things. Here’s where the real question comes in….even if no object is given to the senses, but we can think it, does that mean the categories are necessary for those possible objects as equally as for directly sensed objects? The question takes the form….
“…. Now there are only two ways in which a necessary harmony of experience with the conceptions of its objects can be cogitated. Either experience makes these conceptions possible, or the conceptions make experience possible…”
…..so it seems as though the latter must be the case, insofar as the thought of possible objects, which we have, is sufficient for the possible experience of them, which we don’t. If the categories, the pure conceptions, were not necessary for the mere thought of possible objects equally with the thought of real sensed objects, we wouldn’t think them (synthesis of conceptions and all that behind the scenes stuff) and the experience of them, possible or otherwise, would be irrelevant.
So there are conceptions we have, not dependent on experience, but used for both experience and possible experience….but what can be said about them? If they are in us, the where in us can be said to be understanding, the what can be said to be that which makes cognition of objects possible, but what remains is that which states the origin of them. They’re here, they do this and that, but where do they come from?
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Now the fun part, where reader is left to his own devices, depending on the text he’s referencing, either original (“selbstgedachte”) or “self-thought first principles a priori”. All that being said, what is categorically denied, in addition to the empirical origin of the categories, is the validity of “subjective aptitudes” for this purpose, those being.….
“…. implanted in us contemporaneously with our existence, which were so ordered and disposed by our Creator, that their exercise perfectly harmonizes with the laws of nature which regulate experience…”
…..and even though that sure sounds an awful lot like the innate which may or may not be drawn out of the original German word, depending on the translator’s justifications, the denial of it is pretty cut and dried:
“…. with such an hypothesis it is impossible to say at what point we must stop in the employment of predetermined aptitudes, the fact that the categories would in this case entirely lose that character of necessity which is essentially involved in the very conception of them, is a conclusive objection to it….”
So it is that Kant grants no authority with respect to the origin of the categories to “subjective attitudes” and if one wishes to associate the innate with such attitudes, he is granted no authority as well.
Apparently, Kant wants it understood that the origin of the categories are reducible only as far as self-thought first principles a priori, and if that wasn’t vague enough, now arises the question as to tabula rasa, which seems on the one hand ill-fated insofar as there are self-thought first principles a priori residing in us, re: the mind does not come blank, but on the other it is reasonable insofar as these are not merely part of our subjective aptitude, re: the mind does come blank.
Time. When does “self-thought” begin”. When do subjective aptitudes develop? If these are not explainable, or are variable, they are not relevant. All that’s needed, for the sake of the consistency of the theory, is the logical function of pure conception within the tenets of a speculative paradigm.
“Shut up and calculate!!” held to the metaphysical fire.
If that were the case, mathematics would be impossible.
We don’t care as much for that to which pure reason deals, but moreso the mechanisms by which it functions, re: the construction of principles a priori.
Again…..
“… Pure reason, then, never applies directly to experience, or to any sensuous object; its object is, on the contrary, the understanding, to the manifold cognition of which it gives a unity à priori by means of conceptions—a unity which may be called rational unity, and which is of a nature very different from that of the unity produced by the understanding….”
(Sigh)
This sounds like you are misunderstanding Mathematics with some empirical or religious subjects. :chin: :roll:
Mathematics and Geometry are A priori subjects, which work in the minds anyway. Kant demonstrated how these subjects work in CPR, but he wasn't deeply concerned with them at all. What Kant was deeply concerned was perception of the transcendental objects, and possibility of the knowledge and experience.
Quoting Mww
Again, this is a minor point, which no one really cares. The main point is the details in my previous post.
Quoting Mww
Again still seems to be missing the point. The really relevant quotes are CPR A758 759 760 / B786 787 788.
Read on.
—————
Quoting Corvus
Hence, skepticism and dogmatism in those who don’t.
Dogmatism (of the rationalists = Spinoza, Wolf, Mendelssohn) was what Kant tried to fix.
You were incorrect in telling that Kant was trying to fix Hume's philosophy.
Mitigated academic scepticism is a natural human instinct and good for understanding the world better.
And yet, the question was…what caused Kant’s awakening from his dogmatic slumbers, which he allotted to Hume specifically.
Now you wish Kant to be fixing the dogmatism of the rationalists, but the entire reason d’etre of the Critique is aimed at the empiricists in general and Hume in particular, regarding the lack of critical examination of the capabilities and employment of pure reason herself.
Why not say Kant was just as dogmatic as Hume, up until he stopped to think about how that brand of philosophy wasn’t as fulfilling as it should be. So he woke up, from being a dogmatic thinker himself, something similar to the possibility I mentioned four days ago, around the top of pg 13.
So now it’s a matter of figuring out just what dogmatic thinking entails, and from there, why it’s unfulfilling, and lastly, the method by which it could be fixed.
Quoting Corvus
No it isn’t. It is forced upon us, by the criticism of pure reason, for without it we are apt to credit the world for that which does not belong naturally to it, can never be found naturally in it, therefore has no business being included in our empirical understanding.
It has been clearly pointed out in this post.
Quoting Mww
That is not my wish, but the officially accepted facts by the most contemporary academics, which turned out to be the same perspective of mine, so I accepted it.
Quoting Mww
I am not sure if this is true. It sounds unfamiliar, diffuse and groundless.
Quoting Mww
Why would anyone want to say that? I don't see a point, because it was not the case, and is irrelevant.
Quoting Mww
Dogmatic thinking is also the stubborn minds which refuse to change even after the clear conclusions demonstrated with all the facts, evidences and reasonable arguments.
Quoting Mww
We still will keep on wondering and doubting on the world. It you understand CPR, then of course, you are likely to have the mitigated one. If not, you might have an extreme one.
There’s a whole section on it.
“…. To avow an ability to solve all problems and to answer all questions would be a profession certain to convict any philosopher of extravagant boasting and self-conceit, and at once to destroy the confidence that might otherwise have been reposed in him. There are, however, sciences so constituted that every question arising within their sphere must necessarily be capable of receiving an answer from the knowledge already possessed, for the answer must be received from the same sources whence the question arose. In such sciences it is not allowable to excuse ourselves on the plea of necessary and unavoidable ignorance; a solution is absolutely requisite. The rule of right and wrong must help us to the knowledge of what is right or wrong in all possible cases; otherwise, the idea of obligation or duty would be utterly null, for we cannot have any obligation to that which we cannot know. On the other hand, in our investigations of the phenomena of nature, much must remain uncertain, and many questions continue insoluble; because what we know of nature is far from being sufficient to explain all the phenomena that are presented to our observation.
Now the question is: Whether there is in transcendental philosophy any question, relating to an object presented to pure reason, which is unanswerable by this reason; and whether we must regard the subject of the question as quite uncertain, so far as our knowledge extends, and must give it a place among those subjects, of which we have just so much conception as is sufficient to enable us to raise a question—faculty or materials failing us, however, when we attempt an answer.
Now I maintain that, among all speculative cognition, the peculiarity of transcendental philosophy is that there is no question, relating to an object presented to pure reason, which is insoluble by this reason; and that the profession of unavoidable ignorance—the problem being alleged to be beyond the reach of our faculties—cannot free us from the obligation to present a complete and satisfactory answer. For the very conception which enables us to raise the question must give us the power of answering it; inasmuch as the object, as in the case of right and wrong, is not to be discovered out of the conception...”
Could you please add pages or the section numbers (if NKS CPR), and the titles in your quotes? When the quotes are just pasted with the quotation marks only without any information where they came from, it is not clear where you got the quotes from, and many times it is unclear whether if you are just quoting, or saying things from your own mind or whether if you are mixing them up.
Quoting Mww
Quoting Mww
Quoting Mww
Could you please select 2 - 3 sentences from your quotes and repost them, which are your main points? There seem to be a number of paragraphs with many unclear sentences in the quotes, which make difficult to clarify in what they are actually trying to say in respect with our discussion.
It seems to be no mystery to me. We experience ourselves as causal agents and as being acted upon bodily. We can manipulate things, bend things, break things, variously crush them, smash them, cut them up, etc., etc. We also experience ourselves as acted upon; we can feel the heat of the sun, the wetness and temperature of the rain and the force of the wind on our bodies. We also feel the weighing of gravity, the impact of falls, and the caresses or blows of various objects, including animals and other people.
So, Hume was correct that we don't see the actual operations of causation, we don't see the forces at work, but when our bodies are involved, we can certainly feel them, I don't know if that was the point Kant was making in the quoted passage of course, but all it does take is reflection upon our felt experience to naturally form a notion of causation. I have no doubt animals also have an implicit sense of causation, but it seems most likely that language would be needed to formulate that sense.
What….use my reason to answer your reason’s questions, asked of itself?
Nahhh….I ain’t gonna do that. You’re smart enough, you got the books, use your own reason.
It shouldn’t matter that I don’t detail where the quotes come from, it being tacitly understood, from the thread title, they’re always from CPR. If a greater context, or specific pagination, is desired for a quote, do a search.
All quotes I post are in response to something you’ve said that Kant agrees with or not, as I understand both of you. If I misjudged, it’s on you to inform me as to my mistake.
The mystery is with Kant not Hume
There is no mystery to me with Hume's inductive approach to making sense of experiences, inferring from several particular instances a generalized conclusion. For example, in that if for one hundred consecutive days the sun rose in the east, one can comfortably infer that "the sun rises in the east".
As the IEP article on David Hume: Causation wrote:
I am sure that even animals have an inductive sense of causation.
Hume is not the problem. Kant is the problem.
@Mww is correct in saying "Now you wish Kant to be fixing the dogmatism of the rationalists, but the entire reason d’etre of the Critique is aimed at the empiricists in general and Hume in particular, regarding the lack of critical examination of the capabilities and employment of pure reason herself."
Within the Critique of Pure Reason, the concept of the synthetic a priori is central.
How does Kant explain the origin of the a priori? How does Kant explain the origin of the Categories, the pure concepts of the understanding?
I can understand them as being innate within the human as a consequence of life's 3.5 billion years of evolving in synergy with the world. However, this is definitely not Kant's position.
For Kant, we have no innate knowledge:
One empirical possibility is we discoverer the Categories from our experiences of the world. Another rational possibility is that we invented the Categories from pure thought independent of any particular experiences of the world. But, Kant categorically denies that they are innate, as if they were implanted in us prior to birth by a Creator.
A priori knowledge is knowledge before experience, but this does not entail innate knowledge. All innate knowledge is a priori, but not all a priori knowledge is innate. For example, all knowledge of mathematical propositions is a priori, yet this knowledge is not innate. Kant also did not equate a priori knowledge with innate knowledge.
Whereas Hume's notion of knowledge by induction gives a very weak notion of necessity, Kant's aim in the CPR was to argue for the possibility of a type of knowledge that was both universal and necessary, what Kant called a priori knowledge.
Where for Kant is the origin of the a priori
Kant does not believe there are any innate principles or ideas to be found in us, but come from a careful reflection on the nature of our experiences.
From the SEP article on The Historical Controversies Surrounding Innateness
In understanding how Kant treats knowledge as a priori but not innate, a section from the SEP article of A Priorism in Moral Epistemology may be useful, in that, for Kant, a priori knowledge can be discovered as a result of careful reasoning, both transcendental and deductive.
The problem with causation
Any explanation of the origin of necessary and universal a priori knowledge about a world the other side of appearances as phenomena will hit the massive obstacle as pointed out by Aenesidemus. According to Kant, the Categories, including the Category of Causality, only applies to objects of experience, not Things in Themselves as the cause of such appearances. A seemingly unsurmountable problem, reinforced by Schopenhauer, who, although agreeing with Kant that behind every phenomenon is a being-in-itself, said that Kant made the mistake of trying to derive the Thing in Itself from a given representation by laws known a priori, but because a priori cannot lead to anything independent of the phenomena or representation.
How does Kant justify the possibility of the a priori
The SEP article wrote:
How does Kant justify the possibility of an a priori knowledge that is both universal and necessary, if:
i) it is not innate, as if implanted in us prior to birth by our Creator
ii) it has come from a careful reflection on the nature of experience
iii) yet does not suffer from the very weak notion of necessity and universality given by Hume's inductive inferences about the world?
iv) and the Categories, including the Category of Causation, only apply to objects of experience
You seem to be missing the point. It is not a matter of intelligence, but matter of a courtesy to add the source information of your quotes. It wouldn't be just you and me using the forum, and reading your posts. There would be many others from all over the world reading your posts. Some would be the students and beginners of Philosophy who would appreciate the added information of the source from the original works of Philosophy for the quotes for their studies and readings.
I am sure also the moderators and members of this forum would like any posters to add the source information of their quotes in their quotes from all published works, be it the originals, commentaries or articles as one of their forum operating policies.
It would be also a courtesy for the late Immanuel Kant, the author of CPR to be acknowledged on the source of his writings whenever you quote them.
Of course it is:
“….our criticism is the necessary preparation for a thoroughly scientific system of metaphysics which must perform its task entirely à priori, to the complete satisfaction of speculative reason, and must, therefore, be treated, not popularly, but scholastically….”
And my limit on courtesy is nothing more than respect for one and his opinions.
I’ve already respected your intelligence, by surmising you have the capacity to research what you don’t know, or do know but find disagreeable. And if we stick with Kantian metaphysics in its practical sense, me doing your work for you….or any of the members of the audience, however scant their number….is disrespecting myself.
————
Quoting Corvus
I’m the one that missed the point? Really?
Using one’s own reason is what everyone has no choice but to do, all else being given.
It is not for me or for my understanding. I did read your posts, and also have referred to various academic publications on the topic, and already have accepted their point of view on the topic.
It was about the other people who might be reading your posts. There were a few times when I was not sure where the quotes were from, or whether you were saying something about some other things or whether you were mixing the quotes with your own writings.
I am now used to it, but the other readers might be unsure on what you are quoting and writing about with no indication where the quotes came from, and what they are about. It was just a suggestion. :)
By presupposing it given some general observations, then constructing a theory that supports the presuppositions without contradicting the observations.
“….. it is quite possible (the presupposition) that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions (the observation), and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself (the theory), an addition which we cannot distinguish from the original element given by sense, till long practice has made us attentive to, and skilful in separating it (the LNC).
Still, regarding long practice and attentive skill….
“…. when we get beyond the bounds of experience, we are of course safe from opposition in that quarter; and the charm of widening the range of our knowledge is so great that, unless we are brought to a standstill by some evident contradiction, we hurry on undoubtingly in our course. This, however, may be avoided, if we are sufficiently cautious in the construction of our fictions, which are not the less fictions on that account….”
….leaves metaphysics a nonetheless purely speculative theory. Even if all the predicates of transcendental philosophy are internally consistent with each other, and coherent as a whole in itself, there is nothing given from it that makes those predicates actually the case, at the expense of other relevant philosophies.
All well and good; just don’t confuse the nature of experience, with the experience itself.
This sounds like Hume's position, in that we look at the world, see a particular sunrise on 100 consecutive days and theorise that in general the sun rises in the east. This then becomes an axiom (a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true) that we henceforth live by. It may be that one day the sun doesn't rise in the east, in which case we come up with a different theory and a new axiom. An approach that is only loosely necessary and universal, but in practice, works.
Though it seems to me that Kant is saying something different to Hume, in that we can know certain axioms existent in the world of necessity and universally. The question is, how exactly?
Kant and Hume
You are saying that we come up with a theory that we use as long as it corresponds with our experiences and is coherent with the other theories we have.
But this sounds more like Hume than Kant. For Hume, we look at the world, see a particular sunrise on 100 consecutive days and theorise that in general the sun rises in the east. This then becomes an axiom (a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true) that we henceforth live by. It may be that one day the sun doesn't rise in the east, in which case we come up with a different theory and a new axiom. An approach that is only loosely necessary and universal, but in practice, works.
Kant is saying something different to Hume, in that we can know certain axioms existent in the world of necessity and universally. The question is, how exactly?
Quotations
I agree with @Corvus that you should be giving attaching paragraph numbers to your quotes. As I am using a different translation to yours, sometimes it can take me 15 minutes to find the source of your quote.
I am using the Cambridge Edition translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W Wood.
I know that the elite heads of universities are allowed to plagiarise, but I don't think us common people are given the same leeway.
So Darwin explains Kant?
Darwin explains the a priori, not Kant.
:fire: :100: :up:
Regardless whoever they are, quoting the published original works, books, commentaries or articles, without clearly marking or adding the information of the source could be regarded as an act of plagiarism.
Yes. If animals were born with minds empty of any built-in mental content, and had to learn the private subjective feeling of pain from their subsequent experiences, by the time they had learnt to avoid anything painful that threatened their survival, they would already have died out.
From the Wikipedia article on Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa is the idea of individuals being born empty of any built-in mental content, so that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences. This idea is the central view posited in the theory of knowledge known as empiricism. Empiricists disagree with the doctrines of innatism or rationalism, which hold that the mind is born already in possession of certain knowledge or rational capacity.
IE, if an animal species were Empiricists, they would quickly die out.
Ooooo….15 whole minutes!!! Time well spent, then, huh?
Quoting RussellA
Hard to call passages bracketed by quotation marks as plagiarized, innit? I think that’s why they’re called “quotation marks”.
As the topic is front page news at the moment, it may be worth a post or two.
True, the passage is in quotation marks and we know it is somewhere within an 800 page book, but to locate it requires quite a lot of reading.
From the little I know, it is a complex and subtle subject, complicated by the fact that there is weak plagiarism and strong plagiarism, although both are officially plagiarism
I am sure that I am often guilty of breaking the letter of the law, although try not the break the spirit of the law, in that I have not made it clear which translation of the CPR I am using.
The topic is also complicated by the fact that ten different sources end up giving ten different viewpoints.
However, the site Good academic practice and avoiding plagiarism advises to give the page number of the original, and gives the example:
"Never use the passive, when you can use the active." (Orwell, 1946, p.169)
I shall consider myself vindicated.
Quoting RussellA
So on the one hand you’re offput cuz you gotta do some reading, and on the other you’re missing the point that the quote is usually meant to indicate a relation to only that to which it is a response. You don’t need to look it up, if it is understood to be either a correction to or an elaboration on that to which it relates in the discourse.
In the case where a quote is an initial submission for discourse, as opposed to a response in a continuing discourse, there’s no need to look it up at all. Work with what’s given, simple as that, and the burden is on the initiator to append the submission as the discourse requires.
Dunno about yours, but my online Guyer/Wood is not searchable. If yours isn’t either, I’d seriously recommend obtaining a translation that is. And if you already have one…..wtf is the problem???
All that being said, I’m not changing half a century’s worth of writing habits because it’s thought I’m not doing it right. Deal with it or ignore me; I don’t care which.
I think we can only know what experience, and reflection on the nature of experience tells us. We can also elaborate and extrapolate from formal rule-based systems like logic, mathematics, chess, Go etc.
I wasn't referring specifically to Darwin—he certainly has no patent on the idea of evolution. It seems plausible to me that over the course of human history, ("history" here taken to include so-called "prehistory") humans have progressively reflected on their experiences and exercised their imaginations, constrained by logic (itself the child of such reflections) which has culminated in the last few thousand years in the evolution of the dialectical process we refer to as "the philosophical tradition". A major part of this has consisted in generalized characterizations of the necessary nature of human experience, which is what constitutes the categories relating to phenomena such as Aristotle and Kant, for example, have explained them.
A similar, but less radically evolutionary, because more traditionally constrained, process also happened in the East. This difference between East and West is also reflected in the arts. music and literature and of course the evolution of science in the West.
In chess, the rule that the Bishop can only move diagonally is arbitrary, in that the rule could equally have been that it moves vertically or horizontally. Therefore, what happens in the world, the Bishop moving diagonally, is necessary and universal once the rule has been made, even though the rule itself is neither necessary not universal.
For Hume, no knowledge about the world, discovered by a constant conjunction of events within experiences, can be either necessary nor universal, in that, even though the sun has risen in the east for 1,000 days, there is no guarantee that on the 1,001st day it doesn't rise in the west.
However, Kant wanted to show that it is possible to discover knowledge about the world that is both necessary and universal from experiences of the world using a transcendental argument. From a careful reasoning about one's experiences, it is possible to discover pure concepts of understanding, ie, the Categories, that are necessary and universal, which can then be used to make sense of these experiences.
Introduction to CPR - page 2 - Kant also sought to defend against empiricists its underlying claim of the possibility of universal and necessary knowledge - what Kant called a priori knowledge, knowledge originating independently of experience, because no knowledge derived from any particular experience, or a posteriori knowledge, could justify a claim to universal and necessary validity.
A pictorial representation of the Transcendental Argument:
For Hume, the rules of chess, even though necessary and universal, cannot be discovered from experiences of the world, but are invented by the human intellect. For Kant, using the Transcendental Argument, the rules of chess as necessary and universal can be discovered from experiences of the world.
Meanwhile, with respect to these conceptions, as with respect to all our cognition, we certainly may discover in experience, if not the principle of their possibility, yet the occasioning causes of their production. It will be found that the impressions of sense give the first occasion for bringing into action the whole faculty of cognition, and for the production of experience, which contains two very dissimilar elements, namely, a matter for cognition, given by the senses, and a certain form for the arrangement of this matter, arising out of the inner fountain of pure intuition and thought; and these, on occasion given by sensuous impressions, are called into exercise and produce conceptions. Such an investigation into the first efforts of our faculty of cognition to mount from particular perceptions to general conceptions is undoubtedly of great utility; and we have to thank the celebrated Locke for having first opened the way for this inquiry.
But a deduction of the pure à priori conceptions of course never can be made in this way, seeing that, in regard to their future employment, which must be entirely independent of experience, they must have a far different certificate of birth to show from that of a descent from experience. This attempted physiological derivation, which cannot properly be called deduction, because it relates merely to a quaestio facti, I shall entitle an explanation of the possession of a pure cognition. It is therefore manifest that there can only be a transcendental deduction of these conceptions and by no means an empirical one; also, that….
….all attempts at an empirical deduction, in regard to pure à priori conceptions, are vain, and can only be made by one who does not understand the altogether peculiar nature of these cognitions…”
(My emphasis)
The question remains, how does Kant justify the possibility of a "transcendental deduction?
Justifying possibility makes no sense.
The chess rules could be changed, just as we might think the laws of nature that determine that the Sun rises in the east could change. In fact it is far easier to see how the rules of chess might be changed.
Quoting RussellA
I think we already use the categories to make sense of experiences. It is on the basis of reflection upon how experiences must be for us in order that we can make sense of them that the synthetic a priori is generated, as I understand it.
Quoting Janus
I reckon that's about right. Thomas Nagel says in his book The Last Word that there are thoughts or principles that one cannot "get outside of," meaning they are so basic to our understanding and reasoning that we cannot meaningfully doubt or reject them from a position outside of them.
Nagel's argument is focused on the nature of reason itself and how certain principles, like those of logic and mathematics, are not just human constructs but are instead intrinsic to any rational thought. The idea is that to even argue against these principles, one would have to use them, thus demonstrating their inescapable nature. (This is also the basis of his rejection of accouting for reason in terms of evolutionary adaption - to appeal to successful adaptation as the grounds for reason, attempts to provide a grounding outside of reason itself, thereby undercutting the sovereignity of reason.)
Kant distinguishes transcendental deduction from empirical deduction
A85 - I therefore call the explanation of the way in which concepts can relate to objects a priori their transcendental deduction, and distinguish this from the empirical deduction, which shows how a concept is acquired through experience and reflection on it, and therefore concerns not the lawfulness but the fact from which the possession has arisen.
Many are not convinced that transcendental deduction is possible.
How does Kant justify that transcendental deduction is possible?
Yes, this fits in with Hume.
The problem is with Kant. How can he discover what is necessary and universal just from experiences using transcendental deduction?
Quoting Janus
Yes, we use the Categories to make sense of experiences.
However, Kant's transcendental deduction derives the Categories from these very same experiences.
How is this not circular?
“….if a deduction of these conceptions is necessary….”
“….an explanation of the possession of a pure cognition….”
He doesn’t. There’s no need, no reason a justification be required. It may not even be possible to deduce the categories without eventually running into contradictions; maybe it’s just simpler to grant the possession of something which satisfies a specific requirement.
If the categories, or whatever serves the purpose of them, seem to have a justifiable purpose, then it is the requirement of reason to discover them, and determine the domain of their employment from a purely logical ground or precondition, in order to support a speculative metaphysical theory of human knowledge.
“…. Transcendental philosophy has the advantage, and moreover the duty, of searching for its conceptions according to a principle; because these conceptions spring pure and unmixed out of the understanding as an absolute unity, and therefore must be connected with each other according to one conception or idea. A connection of this kind, however, furnishes us with a ready prepared rule, by which its proper place may be assigned to every pure conception of the understanding, and the completeness of the system of all be determined à priori—both which would otherwise have been dependent on mere choice or chance.…”
Kant is merely calling the discovery of the categories a transcendental deduction of them.
“…. General logic (…) expects to receive representations from some other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into conceptions….
….. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it the manifold content of à priori sensibility….
…. Now space and time contain an infinite diversity of determinations of pure à priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind’s receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations of objects, and which, consequently, must always affect the conception of these objects. But the spontaneity of thought requires that this diversity be examined after a certain manner, received into the mind, and connected, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of it. This process I call synthesis….
…..By the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I understand the process of joining different representations to each other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition….
….the duty of transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions, not representations, but the pure synthesis of representations….
…..The first thing which must be given to us for the sake of the à priori cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the understanding….”
————-
Thus, the explanation for possession as given, rather than a logical deduction from antecedents, of the categories, re: “those conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis”, as merely a constituent in a methodological procedure, all in accordance with a very specific, albeit entirely theoretical, system.
————
————
Quoting RussellA
No, we don’t. Not technically, and not with respect to CPR, which is what concerns this discussion overall. The categories make empirical cognition possible from which experience follows, regardless of whether or not such experience makes sense.
Quoting Wayfarer
Kant doesn't believe that we have innate principles or ideas, but discover them from careful reflection on experience.
From the SEP article on The Historical Controversies Surrounding Innateness
This seems similar to Nagel's position that it is not because of evolution that humans are able to reason.
For Kant, the source of pure reason is reason itself.
Intro to CPR
If reason itself is the transcendental source of being able to to reason, and not a consequence of evolutionary adaptation, why isn't it the case that other reasoning animals, such as cats, don't have the same ability of reasoning as humans?
“…. This attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the procedure of metaphysics, after the example of the geometricians and natural philosophers, constitutes the aim of the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason. It is a treatise on the method to be followed, not a system of the science itself. But, at the same time, it marks out and defines both the external boundaries and the internal structure of this science. For pure speculative reason has this peculiarity, that, in choosing the various objects of thought, it is able to define the limits of its own faculties, and even to give a complete enumeration of the possible modes of proposing problems to itself, and thus to sketch out the entire system of metaphysics. For, on the one hand, in cognition à priori, nothing must be attributed to the objects but what the thinking subject derives from itself; and, on the other hand, reason is, in regard to the principles of cognition, a perfectly distinct, independent unity, in which, as in an organized body, every member exists for the sake of the others, and all for the sake of each, so that no principle can be viewed, with safety, in one relationship, unless it is, at the same time, viewed in relation to the total use of pure reason…”
“…. Reason is present and the same in all human actions and at all times; but it does not itself exist in time, and therefore does not enter upon any state in which it did not formerly exist. It is, relatively to new states or conditions, determining, but not determinable….
……Hence we cannot ask: “Why did not reason determine itself in a different manner?” The question ought to be thus stated: “Why did not reason employ its power of causality to determine certain phenomena in a different manner?”….
……But this is a question which admits of no answer. For a different intelligible character would have exhibited a different empirical character; and, when we say that, in spite of the course which his whole former life has taken, the offender could have refrained from uttering the falsehood, this means merely that the act was subject to the power and authority—permissive or prohibitive—of reason…..
……Now, reason is not subject in its causality to any conditions of phenomena or of time; and a difference in time may produce a difference in the relation of phenomena to each other—for these are not things and therefore not causes in themselves—but it cannot produce any difference in the relation in which the action stands to the faculty of reason…..
……Thus, then, in our investigation into free actions and the causal power which produced them, we arrive at an intelligible cause, beyond which, however, we cannot go; although we can recognize that it is free, that is, independent of all sensuous conditions, and that, in this way, it may be the sensuously unconditioned condition of phenomena. But for what reason the intelligible character generates such and such phenomena and exhibits such and such an empirical character under certain circumstances, it is beyond the power of our reason to decide. The question is as much above the power and the sphere of reason as the following would be: “Why does the transcendental object of our external sensuous intuition allow of no other form than that of intuition in space?” But the problem, which we were called upon to solve, does not require us to entertain any such questions….”
Sometimes, it’s more foolish to ask the question, then to expect a satisfactory answer.
Why should they have? Why would you expect that? Aristotle called humans ‘rational animals’, the implication being that while we’re animals in some respects due to the power of reason we’re distinct. (Aristotle did not hold to any kind of ‘divine creation’.) I think even a naturalist ought to be able to accept that idea. I think one of the lamentable consequences of evolutionary biology in popular discourse is that by regarding ourselves as just another species, we loose sight of what makes us human (again, see Anything But Human.)
Regarding the innate capacities of the mind - ‘capacities’ or ‘categories’ are not the same as ‘innate ideas’. We have, for instance, the innate capacity to learn language, which human infants generally do by age three, and which no other animal does (this is the subject of Noam Chomsky’s studies of ‘universal grammar’). Same with a range of other capacities, such as music and mathematics - which again, no animal possesses. Reason and language open up horizons of being which are not perceptible to animals. This is both a responsibility and also a burden - a burden which in my view a great deal of what goes by the name of ‘philosophy’ in modern culture doesn’t wish to accept.
We can reflect on the general nature of experience or perception and derive the ineliminable attributes. For example, perception of objects is unimaginable without space, time, form and differentiation.
These categories seem to be Kant's attempt to pinpoint what is essential to the ways we understand things. Do you not think we can reflect on our experience and thinking in order to discover the essential elements?
Quoting Wayfarer
When we identify the characteristics that are essential to reason, that is to human reasoning, and formulate them as principles that is a different thing than conjecturing about how our capacity to reason may have evolved. Kant's categories show us how we can think about quantity, quality. relation and modality. Someone might come up with some other categories that Kant didn't think of. For example, it occurs to me that 'nullity' might have been included in the 'quantity' list of categories.
It seems reasonable to think that the categories reflect the nature, not just of our thinking, but also of the things we think about. Reason could not have evolved, and cannot exist, in a "vacuum", it must have something "outside itself" to work with. How do I know what I said in the last sentence is true? By reflection on the nature of reasoning; it's a phenomenological insight, not something that can be empirically demonstrated perhaps. It's akin to Kant's:
Quoting Wayfarer
If human reason cannot be explained in terms of evolutionary adaption, how did it originate?
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Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, I believe that humans are born with "knowledge how" rather than "knowledge that", using Gilbert Ryle's terminology.
Though the same question, if human "knowledge how" cannot be explained in terms of evolutionary adaption, how did it originate?
Have you considered the meaning of the term 'irreducible'? It means can't be explained in other terms.
If you were to 'explain reason', and considering that explanation is one of the principle functions of reason, then do you think that it would be feasible to explain the faculty which we use to seek explanations? There seems a problem of recursion to me.
The idea of origination in empirical philosophy might be something very different to origination as it was understood in classical philosophy. Scientific naturalism seeks explanations in terms of antecedent causes - what combination of factors give rise to what effects. It is far removed from the meaning of causation in classical philosophy, although to really explain that would take a long essay (and one which I may not be equipped to produce!)
Suffice to say that in evolutionary theory, the supervening reason for the existence of any faculty is that it facilitates propagation of the species. Reason becomes subordinated to survival, to what is useful or practical. But that again sells reason short, in that it undercuts the sovereignty of reason. (There's an interesting book on this topic, The Eclipse of Reason, by Max Horkheimer, which we've discussed here over the years, see this gloss.)
And, Happy New Year. :party:
Yes, we couldn't perceive objects without the footing of space, time, form and differentiation.
But suppose we never had this footing in the first place. Where did this footing come from?
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Quoting Janus
Yes, we can look at swans in the world and know that all the swans are white. One question is, where did this ability come from. Who is right, the Rationalist's innatism or Kant's Transcendental Deduction?
Happy New Year :grin:
Yes, I agree that the Old Year did not cause the New Year, it was just an antecedent. However, without the Old Year there would be no New Year.
Thanks for your wishes, and looking forward to what the New Year brings. :grin:
How does Kant justify that transcendental deduction is possible?
Kant justifies that humans have this ability in giving an example of a Transcendental Deduction in the Refutation of Idealism in B274
However, in assuming that the Categories derive from careful reflection about experiences, rather than the innatism of the Rationalists, he is basing his theory on what is probably an incorrect premise.
The deeper problem remains that he doesn't justify his premise that the Categories derive from careful reflection about experiences rather than the innatism of the Rationalists.
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Quoting Mww
Kant's belief is that the Categories are not innate although they are a prior to experience, and are discovered from a careful reflection about experiences, "the product of careful reflection on the nature of experience" (SEP - The Historical Controversies Surrounding Innateness)
For example, within the the experience of looking at a phenomena, the category of the concept of a circle presents itself within the phenomena as being so necessary and universal that transcendentally conforms the existence of the category itself .
It is not so much that we need to reason in order to discover the categories, but the categories present themselves as being so necessary and universal within our experiences that we have no choice but to accept them.
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Quoting Mww
Though Kant does distinguish between general logic and transcendental logic.
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What is transcendental Deduction
Any object must have Categories as its characteristics if it is to be an object of experience. For example, from the Category of quantity, there is unity in that all swans are white, plurality in that some swans are white and totality, in that Cygmund is white (SEP - Categories).
I see shapes, appearance, phenomena. Where does my concept of all, some and one come from. The Rationalists defend innatism, the Empiricist believes from experience and Kant by using a transcendental deduction on experience.
However, neither the Empiricists nor Kant can explain how when we see a wavelength of 700nm we perceive the colour red, as the colour red is not in the wavelength 700nm. Only innatism can explain that we have the innate ability to perceive the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm
What is a transcendental deduction. If flying over a desert island I see a set of stones on a beach having the same arrangement as the word SOS, it is possible that they could have rolled into that shape by the wind, but the likelihood is remote. Using transcendental deduction, I deduce that on the island must be or has been human life. A Transcendental deduction deduces from an observation something that cannot be seen in the observation yet is essential to the existence of the observation.
In B276 within the section on The Refutation of Idealism Kant gives an example of a Transcendental Deduction
Have an enjoyable New Year, and wishing you all the best. :grin:
The possibility is given by showing how an empirical deduction doesn’t work. The justification is given by the demonstration of their place and purpose in a method, and that they are in no way self-contradictory.
In logic generally, deduction is top-down, re: from the general to the particular. Transcendental logic, then, is nothing but the kind of deduction it is, or, which is the same thing, nothing but the conditions under which the deduction is accomplished.
Transcendental, in Kantian philosophy, is that by which pure a priori is the determining condition.
Also in Kantian philosophy, a priori is meant to indicate the absence of any and all empirical conditions, hence, the denomination “pure”.
A deduction in Kantian philosophy follows the general rule of logic, in which a minor premise is subsumed under a major, for which a conclusion exhibits the relation of them to each other.
From all that, it follows that a transcendental deduction, first, must be purely a priori therefore can have no empirical predication whatsoever, insofar as it is transcendental, and second, it must exhibit reduction from the general to the particular, insofar as it is that certain type of logical operation.
Now, with respect to a transcendental deduction of the categories, which is in fact the title of a subsection dedicated to just that, this kind of argument cannot have to do with representations of objects, because, being purely a priori, there are no phenomena hence no representations of objects, but still must be a reduction from the general to the particular in order to qualify as a deduction. It follows that without representations of objects, but requiring the general as a major premise, it must be a conception relating to the representation of any object, or, which is the same thing all objects.
So, first, that which makes cognition of all objects possible, is the “diversity in pure intuition”, which serves as the major in a deductive syllogism. But the major subsumes under itself the minor, which is said to be the synthesis of the diversity, which has already been termed the synthesis of matter of objects to their form, from which arise phenomena, a conception which represents all objects in general, or, which is the same thing, phenomena are that which are subsumed under the diversity in pure intuitions a priori.
All that being the case, with respect to the pure conceptions of the understanding, re: the categories, it is quite clear there is no experience, and no examination of the nature of experience, insofar as experience, being defined as….
“…. an empirical cognition; that is to say, a cognition which determines an object by means of perceptions. It is therefore a synthesis of perceptions, a synthesis which is not itself contained in perception, but which contains the synthetical unity of the manifold of perception.…”
…..and given only a diversity in general, and a synthesis of it, there is as yet no determination of a particular object, hence no cognition of an object at all, and by which experience is impossible, which immediately removes experience from any consideration regarding the origin and purpose of the categories.
“….. The first thing which must be given to us for the sake of the à priori cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the understanding….”
(A79/B104)
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Now…..why is this the case. Hmmmm, let’s find out, shall we?
1.) If Kant deduces the categories in accordance with logical syllogisms having empirical content, he loses the capacity to enounce the conditions for pure thought of possible objects. All cognitions must be of appearances alone, and no object that is not an appearance can ever be thought;
2.) It is in this way that noumena are impossible for this kind of intelligence, in that, while noumena are indeed objects of pure thought, they are not and cannot be appearances to which alone the categories apply, and therefore by which noumena are termed “the limitation on sensibility”;
3.) There is no transcendental conditions that are determinable by sensibility. All conceptions as representation, whether empirical or a priori, belong to understanding alone, but confining the categories, which are pure conceptions a prior only, having no representation belonging to them**, and the expositions related to them, to understanding and reason respectively, Kant removes the possibility of cognizing objects from the mere affect they have on the senses. In so doing, he justifies the ding an sich as that which is real but for which experience is impossible, along with noumena which isn’t even real, insofar as they are never to meet the criteria of being phenomena.
(**the schema of the categories are not representations; they are merely conceptions subsumed under and modifying the conception of the category itself of which they are members)
4.) If Kant deduces the categories in strict accordance with logical method, even a priori, he must limit himself to form only, pure logic being devoid of content by definition. Any conception devoid of content is empty, any empty conception cannot be ground for determining the cognition of objects. If this is the case, the third requisite remains missing, and the transcendental predication falls apart. But it doesn’t, in that there is the cognition of objects, and because that is the case the methodology stands, the third requisite must be present. All that’s left, having already denied innateness given by mere birth, and failing the non-contradiction of a pure deduction on transcendental ground, Kant’s position is simply to grant the validity of the categories as “given by the understanding”, which he then calls the exposition of the possession of them, rather than the syllogistic conclusion making them absolutely true.
5.) In which is found the subtelty behind the mention, “ so long as we are careful in the construction of our fictions, which are no less fictions on that account…”
6.) A transcendental deduction can never follow from an observation, by definition. B276 is rife with pure a priori conceptions, hardly to be amendable to empirical conditions. “My existence in time” is a presupposition, not an observation.
Bet none of that is in your secondary literature!!!!!!
WOOHOO!!!
That deduction is for necessity and universality, rather than that which is either or both. The application of these is to experience, but not the derivation of them from it.
The key: transcendental is not cognition by conceptions, which arise spontaneously in understanding and condition experience, but cognition by means of the construction of conceptions, which arise through reason and find their proofs through experience.
I'm afraid @Shawn was last heard of 11 months ago.
I have never taken part in a Reading group, but I guess this thread is as close to a reading group as there is on the Forum. I know there is a section on the Forum titled Reading Groups, but even those threads are quite loosely organised. A Reading group sounds structured, which Threads on the Forum tend not to be.
Being on the Forum, you don't need an invitation as such to participate in any thread, apart from just diving in. :grin:
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To my understanding, these comments seem to ignore the importance of the empirical in the nature of Kant's Transcendental Deductions.
My position is along the lines of the SEP article on The Historical Controversies Surrounding Innateness
As regards the principles and ideas that we need to make sense of experiences, Kant does not agree with the Rationalist's innatism, does not agree with Locke that we can abstract such principles and ideas just from empirical experience but does believe that such principles and ideas may be discovered from careful reflection on empirical experiences using transcendental deduction.
However, I suggest that the term "Transcendental deduction" should be treated as a figure of speech rather than literally, as transcendental requires both induction and deduction, both from the general to the particular and from the particular to the general.
From the SEP article Kant's Transcendental Arguments, a Transcendental Argument begins with a strong premise, and then reasons to a conclusion that is a necessary condition for the premise.
As I see it, the transcendental deduction of either a priori pure intuitions of space and time, a priori empirical intuitions of things such as circles or a priori pure concepts of understanding (the Categories), is not possible in the absence of an empirical experience.
I am reasonably sure that Kant's position is that it is not possible to abstract these ideas and principles just from empirical experiences, but rather, transcendentally deduce them from empirical experiences.
They in fact do ignore, because there is none. Might you be confusing, or co-mingling, the nature of, which can ignore the empirical, with the application to, which cannot?
He says, in clear print, for the categories there isn’t technically a deduction, but an explanation for the possession of them. An explanation for, under certain conditions, merely serves the same purpose as, does the same job as, obtains the same results as, and in effect, just is, a transcendental deduction.
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Quoting RussellA
….and mine is along the lines of reading CPR. I wouldn’t begrudge you your position, but I wouldn’t allow that it be at the same time a Kantian position.
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Quoting RussellA
These are not transcendental deductions.
“…. Section 1 Of Space;
#3 Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Space.
By a transcendental exposition, I mean the explanation of a conception, as a principle, whence can be discerned the possibility of other synthetical à priori cognitions….”
I’ve been over this. To treat as a deduction properly is to relate premises in a syllogism. The content of the judgments which are the premises in a syllogism regarding space and time would necessarily be conditioned by the infinite, and any conclusion derived from relations conditioned by the infinite is useless for human knowledge. Hence the reduction from the general impossible to know, re: space in its infinite capacity, to the particular, re: the space of only that capacity which limits the extension or shape of a possible appearance, which is thereby possible knowledge.
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Quoting RussellA
In Kant, the appearance of a thing does not give us that it is, e.g., a circle, but only that such thing has a certain shape. Circle, is a quality of the shape of the space into which that appearance extends, the quantity of the shape of the space is its extension. Both of these are preconditions for representing the given appearance under a certain set of empirical conceptions, and from which knowledge of it follows. These preconditions reside in pure understanding, technically they are explained as belonging to pure understanding, therefore are antecedent to any experience hence cannot be derived from them.
Guy’s wife has looked the same for so long, he just takes the relation of this appearance and that experience as apodeitically affirmed. He doesn’t need the recognition, the methodological understanding, that his intellectual system works exactly the same way for the first instance as each and every subsequent instance, for the effect this single thing he knows as “wife” has on his senses.
If the very first time you saw the moon it appeared as an illuminated circle, but some other time you saw some object in the sky that didn’t appear as an illuminated circle but merely as some partially illuminated shape….. how would you ever justify calling it the moon?
Don’t make a big deal out of it; all you have here is two perceptions, two appearances, and nothing else. These demonstrate the conclusion that the appearance to the senses alone of a thing, does not contain the means for judging what it is. And furthermore, that the successive appearances of the same thing under different conditions does not in itself justify remembering what it is. Your wife, regarding congruent experiences, and the moon, regarding non-congruent experiences, both sustain the proposition that experience itself cannot be a condition by which experience occurs.
Quoting Mww
I am unsure this is true, or makes sense given immediately prior you quoted the same thing and then just it was wrong, in Kant.
Kant tells us that there are real, material objects 'out there' of which we can know nothing things in themselves. But that these objects cause our intuitions... which are not, as far as we care capable of knowing, anything like hte thing-in-itself..
"On the contrary, the transcendental conception of phenomena in space is a critical admonition, that, in general, nothing which is intuited in space is a thing in itself, and that space is not a form which belongs as a property to things; but that objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made."
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"They do not, however, reflect that both, without question of their reality as representations, belong only to the genus phenomenon, which has always two aspects, the one, the object considered as a thing in itself, without regard to the mode of intuiting it, and the nature of which remains for this very reason problematical, the other, the form of our intuition of the object, which must be sought not in the object as a thing in itself, but in the subject to which it appears—which form of intuition nevertheless belongs really and necessarily to the phenomenal object."
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"On the other hand, the representation in intuition of a body contains nothing which could belong to an object considered as a thing in itself, but merely the phenomenon or appearance of something, and the mode in which we are affected by that appearance; and this receptivity of our faculty of cognition is called sensibility, and remains toto caelo different from the cognition of an object in itself, even though we should examine the content of the phenomenon to the very bottom."
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"And for this reason, in respect to the form of phenomena, much may be said à priori, whilst of the thing in itself, which may lie at the foundation of these phenomena, it is impossible to say anything."
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"..this is by no means equivalent to asserting that these objects are mere illusory appearances. For when we speak of things as phenomena, the objects, nay, even the properties which we ascribe to them, are looked upon as really given; only that, in so far as this or that property depends upon the mode of intuition of the subject, in the relation of the given object to the subject, the object as phenomenon is to be distinguished from the object as a thing in itself. Thus I do not say that bodies seem or appear to be external to me, or that my soul seems merely to be given in my self-consciousness, although I maintain that the properties of space and time, in conformity to which I set both, as the condition of their existence, abide in my mode of intuition, and not in the objects in themselves. It would be my own fault, if out of that which I should reckon as phenomenon, I made mere illusory appearance."
These seem cautious admissions that the only inference is that things-in-themselves cause us to receive empirical intuitions of them, which are unable to be classed as anything about the thing-in-itself because of hte removal that occurs between the TII causing representation to our cognition.
"I find that the house is not a thing in itself, but only a phenomenon, that is, a representation, the transcendental object of which remains utterly unknown."
The transcendental object, i cannot find as distinguished from the thing-in-itself. If that's the case, then Kant seems to be fairly obviously connecting the two in a causal relationship - albeit, one with entirely unknowable properties.
Quoting Mww
I was absolutely wrong on this, and misunderstood Noumena entirely.
Quoting Mww
My current understanding is that this is an incomprehensible hypothetical :P
Noumena cannot appear to us, as we have no non-sensuous intuition. But this just goes to how wrong i wass earlier... So thank you for that.
Going to leave this here, though, as it directly contradicts what I've come to think is what Kant meant:
"The conception of a noumenon, that is, of a thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but as a thing in itself (solely through the pure understanding), is not self-contradictory, for we are not entitled to maintain that sensibility is the only possible mode of intuition. Nay, further, this conception is necessary to restrain sensuous intuition within the bounds of phenomena, and thus to limit the objective validity of sensuous cognition; for things in themselves, which lie beyond its province, are called noumena"
and then this, which just seems a cop out
"If, therefore, we wish to apply the categories to objects which cannot be regarded as phenomena, we must have an intuition different from the sensuous, and in this case the objects would be a noumena in the positive sense of the word. Now, as such an intuition, that is, an intellectual intuition, is no part of our faculty of cognition, it is absolutely impossible for the categories to possess any application beyond the limits of experience. It may be true that there are intelligible existences to which our faculty of sensuous intuition has no relation, and cannot be applied, but our conceptions of the understanding, as mere forms of thought for our sensuous intuition, do not extend to these. What, therefore, we call noumenon must be understood by us as such in a negative sense."
This seems to restrict noumena to merely things-in-themselves, as perceived by something other than sensuous intuition. Curious, and unhelpful lol
Where @Mww and you were discussing:
Quoting AmadeusD
I take issue with the "idiotic insistence" suggestion, as if the equation of the noumena and thing in itself is such an unsustainable suggestion that it is to be ridiculed.
For example, from Wiki:
[i]"Noumenon and the thing-in-itself
Many accounts of Kant's philosophy treat "noumenon" and "thing-in-itself" as synonymous, and there is textual evidence for this relationship.[15] However, Stephen Palmquist holds that "noumenon" and "thing-in-itself" are only loosely synonymous, inasmuch as they represent the same concept viewed from two different perspectives,[16][17] and other scholars also argue that they are not identical.[18] Schopenhauer criticised Kant for changing the meaning of "noumenon". However, this opinion is far from unanimous.[19] Kant's writings show points of difference between noumena and things-in-themselves. For instance, he regards things-in-themselves as existing:
...though we cannot know these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in a position at least to think them as things in themselves; otherwise we should be landed in the absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that appears.[20]
He is much more doubtful about noumena:
"But in that case a noumenon is not for our understanding a special [kind of] object, namely, an intelligible object; the [sort of] understanding to which it might belong is itself a problem. For we cannot in the least represent to ourselves the possibility of an understanding which should know its object, not discursively through categories, but intuitively in a non-sensible intuition.[21]
A crucial difference between the noumenon and the thing-in-itself is that to call something a noumenon is to claim a kind of knowledge, whereas Kant insisted that the thing-in-itself is unknowable. Interpreters have debated whether the latter claim makes sense: it seems to imply that we know at least one thing about the thing-in-itself (i.e., that it is unknowable). But Stephen Palmquist explains that this is part of Kant's definition of the term, to the extent that anyone who claims to have found a way of making the thing-in-itself knowable must be adopting a non-Kantian position.[22]"[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon#:~:text=However%2C%20Stephen%20Palmquist%20holds%20that,that%20they%20are%20not%20identical.
This is just to say that the equation of noumena and the thing in itself is not idiotic, but is a point of debate among scholars.
The last paragraph of what I quoted makes the most sense to me, assuming I followed it, and that is I take it the distinction being drawn is that "noumena" is a reference to an epistimilogical statement that says "X cannot be known," where "cannot be known" is what it means to be noumenal. So X is noumenal. However, "the thing in itself" is a reference to the ontological object and is that actual thing that cannot be known. It is X. We therefore say "the thing in itself is noumenal," meaning all we know of X is that it is unknowable.
All of this is to say:
X = "the thing in itself"
Y = "that which cannot be known"
"That which cannot be know" = "noumenal"
All Xs are Y
Only Xs are Y
So. X is Y is a correct statement.
The error, I assume that is drawing this debate is where X is Y is reinterpreted to X = Y? That is the idiotic insistence of equality?
We then can debate why X is Y is a different statement than X = Y, which is probably true, but I'm not sure how that changes any part of our analysis, but I can see what some would say "is" and "is the same as" are not importantly different.
I found this helpful: https://epochemagazine.org/07/the-thing-in-itself-a-problem-child/
The primary part of your post relates to this:Quoting AmadeusD
This seems a contradiction from the above. We now know two things about the thing in itself: (1) it is unknowable and (2) it causes intuituitions. #1 appears definitionally true, but #2 an empirical statement. If X (the thing in itself) causes me to see a flower, I can say something pretty substantive of X, specifically that it elicits a particular intuition, but I don't think I can say that because it's noumenal. I can only say there are Xs out there and intuituions in here, but I can't say any particular X is consistently responsible for any particular intuition.
That is why I have a problem with the causative suggestion of X eliciting certain intutitions. That tells us too much about X. It tells us there is this fuzzy, unclear sort of energetic impulse out there that makes us experience and presents us with an extreme sort of representationalism, which I personally would lean toward, but I'm not sure Kant comes out and says that.
Anyway, I'm open to reconsidering. With Kant, I'm never sure if I'm just not following it or whether it's just not followable.
Quoting Mww
I left off the part of your post which parted ways with CPR. Our impressions cannot be of the things in themselves, else they wouldn’t be in themselves. The very meaning, as Kant intended it, for “-in-itself”, is merely…..not in us. What is in us are representations, so if not in us means representations not in us, and from that, as you said…impressions of them is exactly what is not in us.
But those representations in us must have a cause. That which makes an impression on the senses, an appearance, from which follows a sensation, is sufficient cause. But, as already proved, it cannot be the thing-in-itself that causes the impression on the senses, which leaves only the thing of the thing-in-itself.
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Quoting AmadeusD
We can’t know they are alike, because our knowledge is of representations of things, but not the things-in-themselves. But we have given to us the appearance of things, what Kant calls the matter of those representations, which gives us something to go on, when we subject the thing we perceive, to the system that informs of us of how we should know it.
So it isn’t the thing-in-itself that causes our intuitions. The matter of things we perceive, is all we get from the thing “out there”, via the sensation we get from it, hence the cause of our intuitions is much more than the mere sensation of a perceived thing. It is here that two of the necessary predicates of transcendental philosophy enter the speculative metaphysical fray, re: synthesis, and imagination.
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Quoting AmadeusD
I think it rather a warning, that the only inference allowed to us, is that things-in-themselves are the cause of things we perceive. If he doesn’t cover that base, and stifle that logical inconsistency, it remains that the human cognitive system is both sufficient and necessary causality, as he says here….
“….out of that which I should reckon as phenomenon, I made mere illusory appearance….”
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Quoting AmadeusD
Just break down the statement itself: conception…of a thing….cogitated…as a thing in itself.
Switch from 18th century Enlightenment Prussian to modern English and you get: However a thing-in-itself is thought, that is how a noumenon is thought.
Ok, so…solely through the pure understanding. Because understanding has already been said to stand for the faculty of thought, and cognition….being cogitated, in old Prussian…..is the synthesis of conceptions, we have….noumena is nothing but conceptions understanding synthesizes into a cognition, all by itself, for no particular reason. Maybe it was just bored, has nothing better to do. Maybe it follows from an earlier aphorism….
“…..I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself….”
The text itself, however, just says understanding, because it’s been entitled to think whatever it wants, has no limits on its capacities. Nevertheless, the entire Critique is an exposition on limiting various functions of the human intelligence, so if he doesn’t nip this unlimited stuff in the bud, his system won’t work.
So it is, then, both noumena and things-in-themselves are nothing but conceptions, that which understanding takes upon itself to cognize, and, of course, no empirical knowledge is at all possible from a mere conception alone.
This is where Kant confuses the average reader, by connecting noumena to things-in-themselves. All he means when he does that, is that understanding thinks them in the same way, and NEVER EVER that they are the same thing.
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Quoting AmadeusD
That is impossible, for us anyway, insofar as things-in-themselves are real existences, of which the representations are known by us, whereas noumena are nothing but conceptions, having no phenomenal representations at all, hence cannot even be known to exist.
Quoting AmadeusD
Sorta right, except we can’t say anything about a non-sensuous intuition. We can say, if noumena are perceivable by a non-sensuous intuition, for that kind of intuition then, noumena could be like the thing-in-itself is for us.
Another thing, for background, maybe. The argument has been that Kant painted himself into a corner, by positing the understanding can think whatever it wants, which he had to do on the one hand, because it is clear imagination is nothing if not pure thought and ever single otherwise rational human bing ever, images stuff at one time or another. But on the other hand, part of the overall Kantian transcendental system resides in the condition that reason is the caretaker of understanding, in that reason is what prevents understanding’s imaginings from running away with themselves and causing all kindsa harm to our knowledge.
So if phenomena are the representations given from human sensibility, noumena cannot be either the representations, or the means for the possibility of them. Otherwise, we have exactly what the aforementioned aphorism says…..something is thought that is self-contradictory.
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Quoting AmadeusD
Yeah, most unhelpful. I can see why he brought those stupid noumena thingys into the fold, but when it comes right down to comprehending the overall system, they are very unhelpful. We want to know what we can do, what our system allows us to do, not so much what we can’t, because it doesn’t.
Anyway….hope that helps.
Yeah, my bad. I get a little carried away sometimes. Nevertheless, and despite Kant’s apparent textual contradictions, there are entries where the equation(s) is (are) clear-cut, thus making the conceptions quite distinguishable.
I understand it’s hard, when a simple, maybe even a one-line statement gets lost in the massive amount of information, to bear in mind the system as a whole. Thing is, those one-liners are in there, in black and white. And if that wasn’t enough, it should be apparent the two of those things have no business being connected to each other, when it is the case they are each individually connected to understanding alone. The whole empirical side of transcendental philosophy depends on it.
Or….I got it all wrong. There is that, of course, so……
You better not.
If so I am doomed. And will say that Kant considers monads to be negative noumena available to introspection!
You have been warned. :grimace:
HA!!! I consider myself warned.
Quoting Manuel
Yes, regarding monads. “…. And so would it really be, if the pure understanding were capable of an immediate application to objects, and if space and time were determinations of things in themselves…”
He respected Leibnitz but held this against him:
“…. This philosopher’s celebrated doctrine of space and time, in which he intellectualized these forms of sensibility, originated in the same delusion of transcendental reflection.
The great utility of this critique of conclusions arrived at by the processes of mere reflection consists in its clear demonstration of the nullity of all conclusions respecting objects which are compared with each other in the understanding alone, while it at the same time confirms what we particularly insisted on, namely, that, although phenomena are not included as things in themselves among the objects of the pure understanding, they are nevertheless the only things by which our cognition can possess objective reality, that is to say, which give us intuitions to correspond with our conceptions…..”
The delusion of transcendental reflection is the attribution of objective validity to objects by the understanding alone. If that is the case, such that understanding does that and it is not a delusion but is a valid methodology, the proposition…..
“…. Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind….”
….is meaningless, and Kantian metaphysics falls apart.
As with most philosophies, one can pick and choose which he favors. The professionals, though, they who construct the philosophies the rest of us choose from, invariably reject others in favor of his own. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
I am sure that not only is it the case that for each paragraph making a substantive point, another paragraph may be found making a contradictory point but also that for each academic’s interpretation of a particular paragraphs, another academic may be found with an opposing viewpoint.
For me, the CPR becomes worthwhile when the individual paragraphs are used in support of a sensible whole rather than trying to take each of them literally, ie, for the CPR to be read in the spirit of the text rather than in the letter of the text.
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Quoting Hanover
It seems right to distinguish between two seemingly different aspects of objects as they appear in our sensibilities regardless of what they are named, whether as an abstracted generality or concrete particular, whether epistemological or ontological or whether noumena or Thing in Itself.
For me, there is a similarity between the concepts abstracted generality, epistemological and noumena and there is a similarity between the concepts concrete particular, ontological and Thing in Itself.
The analogy of the colour red
Using an analogy, we perceive the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm.
The object that appears in our sensibilities, the colour red, has been caused by the wavelength of 700nm. Although the colour red and wavelength of 700nm are of two very different kinds, they are two aspects of the same event.
We can think of the colour red and the wavelength of 700nm as "the same concept viewed from two different perspectives" (Wikipedia – Noumenon)
The colour red as an object as it appears in our sensibilities can be thought of as an abstracted generality that has been determined by a concrete particular wavelength of 700nm.
The colour red as an object as it appears in our sensibilities gives us epistemological knowledge about an ontologically existing wavelength of 700nm.
For me, the colour red as an object as it appears in our sensibilities may be described as a (Negative) Noumena, and the wavelength of 700nm may be described as a Thing in Itself.
The (Negative) Noumenon and Thing in Itself are two aspects of our thoughts about objects as they appear in our sensibilities.
I agree that Kant in the CPR never discussed wavelengths of 700nm, but this does not take away the power of an analogy to explain a complex topic.
That's in the Amphiboly if I don't misremember. Allais breaks down that section impeccably, and says pretty much what you say.
The question is, what do we make of it? Me feeling is that Kant was right, though we do not know how Leibniz would have replied. I have not read the Monadology, opting for his New Essays instead.
The issue with Descartes and Leibniz, as I see it, is that they were way too ambitious and too confident in the reach of reason, which Locke and Hume clearly saw as being a total mistake, correctly.
Yet, even after Kant wrote his Critique, we continue with "metaphysics", in manners he may not have approved of. The distinction between what counts and does not count as the bounds of legitimate speculation is not so clear to me.
Him arguing that metaphysics is essentially the topic of God freedom and immortality sounds off to modern ears. Freedom is still relevant.
But I suspect there may be other speculations which are near the borders "beyond all possible experience".
It's tough.
Yes, an altogether fascinating appendix to The Analytic of Principles. It solidifies what some consider the gibberish of that preceding book. Kinda funny, too, in that it makes explicit, in relatively plain speech, the errors in thinking that no one really even knew they were doing anyway.
I mean, c’mon, man. When was the last time either of us stopped to think….opps, can’t do that, can’t substitute a transcendental conception in that for which an empirical one is expressly required. Shame on us, I must say, for attempting such an illusory cognition!!!
(Grin)
Having not yet replied to Mww, maybe he's said something relevant, so apologies if i've not seen that yet..
I do not see the issue. We can understand (in Kant, anyway) that intuitions arise from things-in-themselves, of which we know nothing as an empirical deduction. We know for certain that our perceptions are necessarily askance from whatever causes them. So, the need to say 'it's unknowable' arises - but this isn't the noumenal. The noumenal is that which arises in a perception other than sensory perception and so is theoretically knowable, but unattainable for humans. The 'thing-in-itself' as for itself is not available to any intuition, is how i read this. Therefore, we can infer its existence, despite knowing nothing of it, other than it may be hte basis for our intuitions.
I am also shit at Kant, so this is probably way off.
I'm not sure i understand this (or, possibly, just understand it to be the case). The impressions must be caused - and things-in-themselves are said to be at the bottom of that causal chain, so to speak. Obvious our impressions are not of the thing, for the reason you state, but cause by our interacting with it, via sense organs, doesn't seem to create any issues and seems to comport with the admittedly insanely hard-to-parse passages about it in CPR. Even if we can never have an impression proper of the thing, we must be actually engaging it somehow to get the impression we do get.
From this idea the the thing-in-itself isnt causal in this chain, I can only be left with things that have no effect on sense, and impressions that come from nowhere/nothing. But i suppose, that is transcendental idealism in some regard.
Quoting Mww
My understanding is that Noumena are perceptions not found in sensory intuition, so yes, entirely unavailable to us - but not conceptions as such. I suppose though, you might be referring to our ability to conceive them in the understanding, as totally unrelated to what they actually are - which, yes. Fair enough. We can always imagine, as you note.
Quoting Mww
Agreed. But, I did admit I was entirely misunderstanding Noumena, and this comports with my updated understanding, in terms of relation to 'us'. They're just not there, even if they 'exist' some'where'Quoting Mww
They seem to be entirely irrelevant to the system, other than to posit something medial.
And, thank you, so much, for continuing to engage. I did my best to go away for a while before responding so i really hope its not tedious and you turn into 180 Proof on me :P
Our impressions are not of the things-in-themselves; they must be of things, otherwise we couldn’t say where such impressions come from. Like here:
“…. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears—which would be absurd.…”
Quoting AmadeusD
There is that which has no effect on the senses, re: things-in-themselves, but impressions cannot come from nowhere/nothing, for if such was the case there would be no sensations, no phenomenal representations given from them, hence nothing to experience. And it is obvious we have experiences, which presupposes the things we have experiences of.
Don’t worry too much about the things we perceive, at least as far as CPR is concerned. They are, after all, nothing but…
“…. The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon.…”
….so the thing we perceive? We don’t know anything about it anyway, at the point of its perception. All we know is that it is something with sufficient affect on our senses, a mere appearance. That’s it. Philosophers since Plato (knowledge of vs knowledge that), and lately, in Russell (knowledge by acquaintance vs knowledge by description), figured this out, setting the stage….or making a stronger case…..for the intrinsic duality of the human cognitive system, from which follows the subjective/objective dichotomy the postmoderns detest but cannot figure out how to escape.
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Quoting AmadeusD
Nahhhh. I’ll play the game as long as it’s interesting. Truth be told, most people just sorta disappear, give it up, so to speak. Either found it too difficult to understand, or, understood it well enough to consider it a thoroughly stupid way to do things.
Nice. Despite probably unfortunately saying something else, this strikes me as the same my understanding but in clearer words.
I suppose the thing remaining is that thing between the two -
1. Thing-in-itself appears to us as an unknowable entity;
2. ????;
3. Something is presented to our sensuous organs;
4. We receive that something, undetermined as sensory perceptions;
5. Off to the races with understanding/reason/judgement.
Sigh. Goddamn Kant.
The 'thing in itself' is not anything, by definition. In order for it to be Something, it would have to appear.
ding-an-sich serves as a placeholder in Kant, to remind us that knowledge is limited to what appears to us, and the judgement we make ot it. We can't know what it really is, as it is in itself. But that doesn't make the thing in itself an unknowable something. Seeing it like that misreads or misunderstands why the term was used in the first place.
1. The "thing in itself" is not anything, by definition: the "thing in itself" is not an object of human knowledge or experience. Kant posited that human cognition is limited to what appears to us through our sensory perception and understanding. The "thing in itself" exists beyond the realm of human knowledge and experience.
2. In order for it to be Something, it would have to appear: it must be capable of appearing or being apprehended in some way. Kant argued that our knowledge is rooted in sensory experience and conceptual understanding, so the "thing in itself" cannot be known because it does not appear in this manner.
3. Ding-an-sich serves as a placeholder: Kant used the term "Ding-an-sich" as a placeholder or conceptual tool to emphasize the limits of human knowledge. It reminds us that our knowledge is contingent upon what appears to us and the judgments we can make about those appearances.
4. The thing in itself is not an unknowable something: while the "thing in itself" is unknowable in the sense that we cannot directly access it through human cognition, it should not be regarded as an entirely mysterious or unknowable entity. This view aligns with Kant's intent in using the concept to highlight the boundaries of human knowledge rather than making it completely unknowable.
The problem that Capital R realists have, is that they can't abide the notion that there's something about the proverbial Apple or Chair (='any object') which we don't see or understand. So they feel this burning urge to 'peek behind the curtain' and see what 'it really is'. That innate realism is a kind of barrier to understanding transcendental idealism in my view. The thing they need to learn is a kind of circumspection - rather Socratic in orientation, really.
He did more than that.
In Bxxxix he writes:
From B275 onwards is Kant's Refutation of Idealism, where he states that our inner experience is only possible on the presupposition of outer experience.
He starts with the Theorem:
From B276 onwards is his proof of the existence of objects outside our sensory perception and understanding.
Quoting Wayfarer
For Kant, it was more than a belief that objects exist outside us, as from B276 onwards he goes on to propose a proof that objects do exist outside us.
On the assumption that Things in Themselves are objects outside us, then if they were beyond the realm of human knowledge, then it would not be possible to prove that they exist.
I agree that Kant may not know what Things in Themselves really are, but he does know that they do exist beyond our sensibilities.
IE, Kant proposes a proof in the Refutation of Idealism that we do have knowledge beyond our experiences.
What type of knowledge would it be?
The knowledge as set out in his Theorem in B276 that objects exist in space outside us.
I recall this part of CPR. It was about Refutation of Idealism.
What was Kan't intention for the proof?
Did he succeed in the Refutation?
All good, except….
1. The thing-in-itself is not that which appears. As I said, it is “-in-itself”. In German, it is ding an sich, which some translators make into “thing as it is in itself”, in order to separate it from “thing as it is in us”, which is, of course, mere representations of things. Copies, if you will. Constructions. Manufactured look-alikes. Whatever. As long as the thing out there is not the same in kind as the thing in here, while at the same time at least corresponding to it, call it anything you like.
5. Off to the races indeed, and has all the right constituency, but not quite in the proper sequence. Called the “higher powers” to distinguish them from sensibility and phenomena, they are understanding/judgement/reason. Kant treats the higher powers as a standard Aristotelian tripartite logical syllogism in form, where understanding is the major, re: a conception, judgement is the minor, re: a unity of conceptions into a proper cognition, and reason determines the relation between them or between that immediate conclusion and those antecedent in consciousness a priori or experience a posteriori.
As our only access to a possible outside us is through our senses, how can we prove that there is a world on the other side of these senses when we only know of this possible world through our senses?
Not everyone believes that Kant succeeded. For example, George Dicker in his article Kant's Refutation of Idealism wrote: "I analyse Kant's Refutation of Idealism as he presents it in the Critique of Pure Reason and show that it is a failure".
His "proof" in B276 may be summarised as:
1) I am conscious of my existence though time
2) I can only be conscious of one moment in time
3) Therefore, there must be something outside me enabling my consciousness that I exist through time
However, assuming 2) to be correct, rather than being conscious of my existence through time, I could be conscious of memories at this one moment in time, thereby negating the proof.
I may be able to find justifications that there are objects outside me, but I doubt that a proof is possible. For example, if there are no objects outside me, if there is no world outside me, then I wrote "Anna Karenina", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Great Gatsby", "One Hundred Years of Solitude", "A Passage to India" and the "Invisible Man", which, although possible, I find highly unlikely.
Surely we perceive the world via our senses doesn't necessarily mean that the world doesn't exist?
If it is due to limits and faults of human senses, then why does he have to doubt the existence of the world? Wouldn't it rather be fair to say our senses are imperfect, than trying to prove the objects exist outside us?
Quoting RussellA
What is the reasons for George Dicker to claim that Kant's Refutation of Idealism has failed? Does it mean that Idealism prevails in CPR?
Yes, if we perceive the world through our senses, then, of necessity, the world exists.
We perceive things in our senses, including touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing.
However, how do you know that these sensations are caused by a world that exists outside your mind rather than by a world that exists inside your mind?
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Quoting Corvus
George Dicker argues that the main difficulty with Kant's argument in B276 is the part "All time-determination presupposes something persistent in perception".
The problem is, how can we step outside of time in order to see ourselves existing in time
This doesn't mean that Idealism prevails in CPR, but rather, that Kant should have come up with a better argument to justify his belief that objects exist in space outside us.
Possible worlds, and worlds in your imagination and memories exist in your mind, but they don't cause your perception for the external world.
Quoting RussellA
Kant's first premise in the refutation is that he is conscious in time. Some might ask to prove how does he know he is conscious in time? What if he was dreaming, or hallucinating?
Quoting RussellA
How can you step outside of your concept or intuition?
If it wasn't clear (because I'm shit at philosophical exposition) this was what I was trying to point out.
It is inductively true that there must be actual objects, but we are precluded from any knowledge of them. I'm unsure that your wording means anything different rather htan more precise, than mine. In any case, it strikes me as commensurate with what I was trying to get across, having finally worked out separating the thing-in-itself from the noumenon (lets say, of it).
Quoting Mww
Well, it doesn't appear in intuition, but for the system to make any sense it must appear to our sense organs to impart an impression outside of our ability to perceive that process. Otherwise, again, we're left with impressions from absolutely nothing, instead of something for which we have no concept or knowledge. I don't see any reason we can't grasp this idea.. The 'thing in itself' cannot be 'nothing'. Only nothing in intuition.
Beyond that, yes, i'm describing the same process so neat-o.
Actually, it doesn’t. Looks like you’ll need some sort of self-generated epiphanic episode to catch the philosophical drift. But, as I said, most folks just give up.
But I get it. When a mosquito bites, it’s really hard to think it isn’t the mosquito itself that bit you.
Not at all. I just think you're clearly wrong. Something must be presented to our sense organs to even perceive that something has happened (viz a viz being bitten by a mosquito). It need not be anything we ahve any knowledge of - in fact, cannot be. But it is presented to the sense organs.
RussellA seems to have 'caught the philosophical drift' i'm on.
Again, denying this is to deny that impressions come from anywhere but ourselves. Either, you think impressions arise from nowhere and no-thing, or you understand that some object must be presented to the sense organs to facilitate any intuition whatsoever.
This isn't even a problem for Kant, it's a problem for you.
Quoting Corvus
But that is what Kant is saying in the CPR, that the a priori intuitions of space and time and a priori pure concepts of the Understanding, ie the Categories, are conditions for the possibility of experience. Kant is saying that we cannot "step outside of your concept or intuition".
We perceive a world through our senses. You are assuming that there is one world in your mind and a different word that is external to your mind.
How do you know that the world you perceive in your senses has been caused by the world external to your mind rather than the world internal to your mind?
For example, when you perceive in your senses the colour red in the world, how do you know that the colour red exists in a world external to your mind rather than in the world internal to your mind?
Can you justify, for example, that the colour red exists in a world independent of any mind?
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Quoting Corvus
I would agree with "I am conscious of my existence". The problem is, am I conscious of my existence at this one moment in time, or am I conscious of my existence through time.
If the latter, then I must be existing at two moments in time in order to be conscious of the passage of time. But such a possibility is beyond my powers of comprehension.
I don't think Kant's proof in the Refutation of Idealism is the best.
How do you know you have a world internal to your mind? Is it a real world? How do you know it is the real world or just a imagination?
How can I be “clearly wrong” when we agree? That, however, is different from your…..
Quoting AmadeusD
….and therein the discord with CPR which is my objection.
When you look at a world containing a street with cars and buildings, if this world was not internal to your mind, how would you be able to think about it?
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Quoting Corvus
Pain is real yet only exists in the mind, so why cannot your thought of a street with cars and buildings be real even though the thought only exists in your mind?
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Quoting Corvus
Exactly, how do you know whether the street with cars and building only exists as a thought in your mind or exists outside the mind, when you only know about it through the senses?
They are external. You can think about it, because you have the concepts in your mind.
Quoting RussellA
How do you know your pain is real? What if it were just itchy skin, and you might have mistaken the itch sensation for pain?
Quoting RussellA
It is dead simple. Close your both eyes totally and decidedly for 10 minutes, you will see nothing, but a total darkness. You are no longer perceiving the external world outside you. Therefore you have no perception of the external world. What you have at that moment is just total darkness. That is not a world. It is an empty mental space. It follows there is no such a thing as a world internal to yourself.
I’m sorry for not presenting an argument sufficient enough to prevent being so badly misunderstood.
“…. In order to prevent any misunderstanding, it will be requisite, in the first place, to recapitulate, as clearly as possible, what our opinion is with respect to the fundamental nature of our sensuous cognition in general. We have intended, then, to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of phenomena; that the things which we intuite, are not in themselves the same as our representations of them in intuition, nor are their relations in themselves so constituted as they appear to us; and that if we take away the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time, but even space and time themselves disappear; and that these, as phenomena, cannot exist in themselves, but only in us.
What may be the nature of objects considered as things in themselves and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us. We know nothing more than our mode of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us, and which, though not of necessity pertaining to every animated being, is so to the whole human race. With this alone we have to do. Space and time are the pure forms thereof; sensation the matter. The former alone can we cognize à priori, that is, antecedent to all actual perception; and for this reason such cognition is called pure intuition. The latter is that in our cognition which is called cognition à posteriori, that is, empirical intuition. The former appertain absolutely and necessarily to our sensibility, of whatsoever kind our sensations may be; the latter may be of very diversified character.
Supposing that we should carry our empirical intuition even to the very highest degree of clearness, we should not thereby advance one step nearer to a knowledge of the constitution of objects as things in themselves. For we could only, at best, arrive at a complete cognition of our own mode of intuition, that is of our sensibility, and this always under the conditions originally attaching to the subject, namely, the conditions of space and time; while the question: “What are objects considered as things in themselves?” remains unanswerable even after the most thorough examination of the phenomenal world.
To say, then, that all our sensibility is nothing but the confused representation of things containing exclusively that which belongs to them as things in themselves, and this under an accumulation of characteristic marks and partial representations which we cannot distinguish in consciousness, is a falsification of the conception of sensibility and phenomenization, which renders our whole doctrine thereof empty and useless…”
Yes, this is what Kant is saying, that the pure concepts of understanding is a prior condition for experience.
IE, without these pure concepts of understanding I wouldn't be able to have the experience at all. For example, humans don't have a concept for the colour infrared as they don't have the innate ability to see infrared in the first place.
The street we see in our senses cannot be external to our senses, because the empirical concept of street is no more than the combination of pure concepts that are prior to any experience, and it is these pure concepts that determine the empirical concept of street, rather than anything external to the senses.
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Quoting Corvus
True, I may have misnamed my private sensation.
However, assuming I have correctly named my private sensation, my private sensation is real, even though it only exists in my mind.
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Quoting Corvus
I agree that there must be something the other side of our senses, something that causes the sensations in our senses, because as you say, otherwise "we would see nothing".
I agree that we have the concept of street in our minds, because as you say "You can think about it, because you have the concepts in your mind."
The question is, what exactly is on the other side of our senses.
The Neutral Monist argues that on the other side of our senses there are no streets but only fundamental particles and fundamental forces in space and time.
The Direct Realist argues that on the other side of our senses are streets, cars and buildings.
What reasons are there to believe that the Direct Realist is right and the Neutral Monist wrong?
Just because you have a concept of something in your senses does not mean that the something you have a concept of exists on the other side of your senses. For example, when you see a stick bent in water, are you saying that on the other side of your senses there must be a bent stick in water?
You are still seeing an object external to you when you see the bend stick in the water jug.
There is no internal world. You have a mental space which is total darkness without your visual perception, as explained previously.
In the case of the bent stick, it is again a simple story. The light reflected from the stick in the water, passes through the water with the refraction, so it looks like double or bent in the water of the jug.
To reiterate, you are seeing the straight light from the stick in the water of the jug, and also the light refracted in the water of the jug. So it looks like a double or bent to your perception, but you were seeing the 2x different lights coming from 1x stick in the water of the jug - 1x straight reflected light from the stick, and 1x refracted light in the water from the same stick.
Clear water in a transparent glass jug has a character bending lights (refraction) and reflect into different angle from the object(s) inside it.
Quoting Corvus
For Kant, the pure intuition of space and time and the pure concepts of the understanding provide the possibility of experience, they don't provide the experience. As you say "You have a mental space which is total darkness without your visual perception".
For example, I may have the innate ability to perceive the colour red, but I cannot imagine the colour red in the absence of any faculty of sensibility, ie, the faculty of getting information through our senses about the world outside us.
You are correct to say that the stick that looks bent does not exist in any world outside me, but as I see a bent stick as clear as day, this means that if the bent stick doesn't exist in any world outside me, it must exist as a representation of a world that only exists inside me.
I agree that I cannot imagine any internal world in the absence of any faculty of sensibility, but because I do have the faculty of sensibility and do get information through my senses about the world outside me, the world I perceive is not directly of any world outside me but is a representation of any world outside me.
As the world I perceive is only a representation of any world outside me, the world I perceive is an internal world that is not necessarily the same as any world outside me.
I agree we cannot imagine a world in the absence of our faculty of sensibility. However, when we do perceive a world because of our faculty of sensibility, as it can only be a representation of any world outside us, the world we perceive cannot be directly of any world outside us, but can only be an internal world that is a representation of any world outside us.
If X doesn't exist outside of RussellA, then X must exist inside of RussellA.
This sounds logically unsound. Groundless premise, and unsound conclusion.
If X doesn't exist outside of RA? Under what ground do you claim that premise?
What do you mean by "X exist"?
I find this difficult to follow. It is like saying that you used your camera, and took a photo of the mountain across the field in your town, and then the camera thinks that it has a mountain in its memory card, because it cannot understand why the mountain is out there outside the camera.
The camera concludes the mountain must exist in its memory card inside the camera, but not outside of the camera, because when you switch it on, and view the photo in the memory card inside the camera, it displays the image of the mountain it took. It is very similar story as your claim above. I am not sure if that is a sound argument or thinking.
By virtue of drawing meaningful correlations between different things, some of which are not "internal to your mind".
True. There is no reason to think that if something doesn't exist outside me then it must exist inside me.
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Quoting Corvus
An expression starting with "if" is not a premise. The expressions "X does exist outside me" or "X doesn't exist outside me" have the form of a premise.
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Quoting Corvus
I see a bent stick. Seeing a bent stick is not proof that bent sticks exist in the world. The bent stick exists as an object in appearance whether or not a bent stick exists as an object in the world.
Similarly, I may see two things. Seeing two things is not proof that there are two things existing in the world.
Similarly, I may see a statue. Seeing a statue is not proof that there is a statue existing in the world.
Kant proposed that we have pure concepts of understanding prior to any possible experience. It would follow that it is the a priori Categories acting on the sensibilities that determine what we experience rather than our sensibilities alone determining what we experience.
For Kant, the experience of seeing a bent stick, the number two or a statue has been determined by the a priori categories acting on the sensibilities rather than by the sensibilities alone.
A mountain could weigh a billion tonnes, so it is hardly surprising that the camera doesn't think it has a mountain in its memory card.
Even people only have a representation of a mountain in the minds, not the real thing. That really would be a load on their mind.
There is a world outside the mind, and there is a world inside the mind, of streets with cars and building. The same word "world" is being used to refer to two very different things. The world inside the mind can only be a representation of the world outside the mind.
Kant in his Realism believed that there is a world outside the senses, and information from this world can only get into the mind through the senses, meaning that our only knowledge about an outside world comes through our senses.
The problem is, how can we correlate our thoughts about an outside world with the outside world, when we only know about an outside world by what has been given to us by our senses.
Our knowledge of an outside world stops at our senses. We may perceive the colour red through our senses, but it doesn't necessarily follow that the colour red actually exists in an outside world.
Kant makes it clear here that we are free to infer, with some certainty, that objects in themselves exist and exert some 'causal lineage' with out phenomena insofar as, as in themselves, they cause something to undergo appearing to our senses.
Kant wouldn't have said that. What Kant would have said is, that even if your sensibility sees a bent stick in the water jug, your category of concepts and understanding (followed by reading the scientific explanation on why the stick looks bent), would come to a proper reasoning on the experience, and judge the stick is straight in actuality, even if it looks bent.
Your claim that the external world is caused by your internal world is wrong then. You don't have an internal world which weighs a few trillion tons. What you have been calling as your internal world is nothing more than a figment of representation of the world in your mind via your sensibility from the external world.
Why is it not? What else do you need for proof that bent sticks exist in the world?
I think the point, and I completely missed this with Mww, is that what you are capable or conceiving, is a result of your perceptions in aggregate. Therefore, you are actually entirely unable to access anything about hte 'external' world at all - so all conceptions of it are in fact, internal representations. Maybe that's not the case - but this solves the issue for me.
For Kant, a stick in the world outside us is a Thing-in-Itself and therefore unknowable. Being unknowable, it is impossible to judge whether bent or straight.
From the Wikipedia article on Thing-in-Itself.
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Quoting Corvus
:100:
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Quoting Corvus
First it has to be proved that sticks exist in the world.
There is the world inside the mind and there is the world outside the mind. The word "world" refers to two very different things
We know "sticks" exist in the mind as concepts, as we are discussing them
The question is, do "sticks" exist outside the mind and independently of any mind
Humans can judge when something is a stick and when something is no longer a stick, but in the absence of humans, in the absence of any definition of stick, in the absence of anyone to judge when something is a stick or no longer a stick, what determines when something in the world outside us is a stick or no longer a stick. A god or nature itself?
How can you prove that "sticks" exist in the absence of human thought without using human thought?
It would be better if you could define "capable of conceiving" and "to access anything about the external world". What do you mean by these expressions and ideas? What is it for you to conceive something and access the external world?
For you to suggest that we are unable to access anything in the external world, there must be reason for that, and it seems your definition of "conceiving" and "accessing" might be something different from the ordinary definition of them.
I understand Kant's Thing-in-itself, is not everything outside us in the world. If that was the case, Kant would be an extreme sceptic, who professes everything outside us is unknowable. That would render all our knowledge of external world impossible. In that case, Kant would have been rejected for being an extreme scpetic, and nobody would take him as a serious epistemologist or philosopher. To even suggest that would be a gross misunderstanding of Kant and his philosophy.
Quoting RussellA
Isn't your perception of the sticks enough evidence they exist? Do you not trust your own visual perception?
When absence of human thought, the concept of proof cannot be an agenda. The fact that you have been mentioning about the word "proof" proves that you have been thinking about it, and also the object of your thought. The case that "even if no humans exist" also an idea in your mind, which proves that your thought was engaging in the thought.
Even when no humans exist, all the material things must exist as they have been, and we can say this quite assuredly because we still can think on the case that no humans exist, and all the material things must exist as they do. Because there is no reason why the things and the world stop existing. That is all there is our thought can think of.
The brute fact is that, you know that you exist, think and perceive the objects outside of you. You must trust what you perceive, or you commit yourself to an extreme sceptic and contradiction.
Where humans don't exist, of course, there is no perception, no thoughts. But we can still make logical inference (from the human world), that things keep exist as they have done.
Even in Science, there are cases, when the direct observation and experiments are impossible due to the astronomical distance, impossibility of the physical access (such as the core of the earth) etc. In these circumstances, Scientists can still make their conclusions and theories via logical inferences from the available data and evidence.
A193 doesn’t relate to the paragraph title you gave, which is found at A538. And I couldn’t come up with a reasonable connection between A193, A538 and your hesitations for accepting the differences in things-in-themselves and the empirical representations which regulate human knowledge.
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Quoting AmadeusD
He states for the record that things-in-themselves exist and from that we can infer the necessity of a causal lineage from such external existence, to appearance, through perception, sensation, intuition, ending in internal phenomenal representation. As such, for the entire range of faculties having to do with sensibility.
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Quoting AmadeusD
The claim that the external world is caused by the internal world is wrong, but that has nothing to do with the capacity for conception. The aggregate of perception, technically**, is how we come by objects of sensation, which just is the totality of intuition, not conception. The capacity of conception is unlimited, or, more correctly, is limited by productive imagination, which is itself unlimited. Remember “…..I can think whatever I wish…..”.
If you like, you could with justice say what you are capable of knowing is the result of your perceptions in aggregate, insofar as any and all empirical knowledge is of things perceived.
(** Kant didn’t need to know about the operational physiology of the human sensory devices, but he did know Newtonian conservation of matter. He knew whatever was outside us had to be converted to something inside us, so he just called it aggregates of perception to show the principle of cause and effect relative to time, such that the thing of appearance and its phenomenal representation related to each other necessarily. In that way, there is no reasonable conclusion which allows us to merely imagine we are being affected by the appearance of things to our senses on the one hand, and forbids, through temporal sequence, the causality of appearances from any internal constructions on the other. The nuance behind this way of reckoning, is that would be impossible to obtain an apodeictic logical conclusion, re: every experience is certain, if we started out with that by which its support is questionable.)
On the one hand, Kant held that we can never know about Things in Themselves, we can never have knowledge of Things in Themselves. Things in Themselves include everything outside us in the world, meaning that there are not some Things in Themselves that we do have knowledge of whilst there are other Things in Themselves that we cannot have knowledge of.
In philosophy, scepticism is the theory that certain knowledge is impossible.
On the other hand, I agree that Kant was not a sceptic.
To explain why Kant was not a sceptic is the subject of many articles
As a start, the fact that we cannot have knowledge about Things in Themselves does not presuppose that we cannot have knowledge about the world.
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Quoting Corvus
Yes, my perception of a stick is evidence that it exists – evidence that it exists in my mind.
In the same way, my perception of pain is evidence that it exists – in my mind.
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Quoting Corvus
My belief is in Neutral Monism, in that what exists in the absence of humans are fundamental particles and fundamental forces in space and time.
If the fundamental particles are thought of as "material things", then I agree that "material things" exist in the absence of humans.
However, I don't agree that "sticks" if thought of as a material thing exists in the absence of humans. I agree that a human can judge whether or not something is a "stick", but in the absence of humans, who or what judges that something is or is not a "stick"?
And if something cannot be judged to be either a stick or a branch, then how is it possible to be either a stick or a branch?
Agreed. It sounds like an extreme subjectivism or solipsism.
Quoting Mww
As long as one's sensibility and understanding works with concept, categories and intuition, one must be perceiving the external world, and making sense of the them acquiring knowledge of the world.
There are various types and levels of knowledge. One can claim to know anything in fact until challenged and clarified what level of knowledge it was, and whether it was true or false knowledge.
There are different interpretations on this point.
Quoting RussellA
This part seems totally wrong interpretation. Things-in-themselves are for the objects we have concepts, but not the matching physical objects in the empirical world. We can think about it via concepts, but we don't see them in the phenomena. They belong to Thing-in-itself.
Quoting RussellA
If you believe in the existence of invisible particles and forces in space and time, then why do you deny the existence of the physical objects such as the bent stick in the empirical world?
I am not sure what the fundamental particles actually means in the empirical world objects. It is another big issue for debating whether particles and atoms must be regarded as existence in Metaphysics, or are they just bunch of nonsense terms invented by the SciFi people.
If you had a single particle of the bent stick, would you say that is a part of the bent stick, and it is a stick?
Quoting RussellA
In the absence of humans, sounds a condition that you must clarify before progressing further. Is it the case of humans never existed in history? Or are you talking about the case where humans existed, but one day they have all vanished and disappeared into non-existence? Depending on which case you are talking about, the arguments would go different ways. Which case did you mean?
Where does "if something cannot be judged" come from? It cannot only be judged because you have brought a highly unlikely, suspicious and groundless condition "in the absence of humans", which you must clarify as to what exact the condition means, and your motive for brining the condition into your conclusion.
It’s actually impossible, no matter what -ism is assigned to the idea. While it may be the case we alter the state of affairs in Nature with highrise buildings and forest destructions and whatnot, we just don’t have the capacity, nor should we, for creating natural things.
We strip the seas of fish, but can’t create roe. Although, I recall an article on 60 Minutes awhile ago, where we’ve eliminated almost every variety of banana, for purely economical reasons. It follows logically, that given enough time and a certain purpose, science will inevitably screw up our place in the world, compared to the philosopher who merely thinks about what might be.
But you’re right; those who would think it so, exhibit extreme subjectivism or solipsism.
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Quoting Corvus
That’s fine, with the caveat that knowledge is contingent on the sense derived from perceiving the world. We know now lightning is not the wrath of angry gods, and spacecraft don’t fall apart when they get far away, which indicates mathematical propositions are indeed universal.
Quoting Corvus
Various levels, yes, depending on each individual’s experience, but I’d draw the line at only two types, myself, re: a priori or a posteriori. So, I guess, yes, various, but very many of the one and very few of the other.
Kant wrote that we cannot have knowledge of a Thing in Itself. From Wikipedia Thing-in-itself
Do you have a reference that says that Kant believes that it is possible to have knowledge of Things in Themselves?
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Quoting Corvus
You are referring to (negative) noumena, not Things in Themselves.
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Quoting Corvus
The discussion goes back to the question of whether, when we perceive a stick in our sensibilities, are we also perceiving the same object external to us in the world. This is something that the Direct Realist would argue is the case. Kant's position is not that of the Direct Realist.
Quoting Corvus
Do objects such as "sticks" exist in the empirical world?
In the empirical world are simples.
In the presence of humans, humans may name one particular set of simples "stick". This creates the object "stick", meaning that objects such as "sticks" do exist in the empirical world, but they only begin to exist after being named.
In the absence of humans, as naming is not possible, objects such as "sticks" cannot be created, meaning that objects such as "sticks" cannot exist.
Things-in-itself is something that you can think of, not knowable. There is a difference, and you seem to think they are the same. No one was claiming Kant said the Thing-in-itself, something that is knowable.
Quoting RussellA
Due to the above misunderstanding, the misunderstandings just keep going and extending to this. Kant never denies the existence of physical objects in the empirical world. The objects must cause / stimulate our sensibility for experience to begin, he said. That is not denying the objects in the empirical world.
I don't think this is a case, and to my mind, on a re-reading i did delineate out what i'm talking about.
In the most simple terms: Sensory perception is not access to the 'real' world. It is data mediated by the sense organs, and relayed to the brain/mind further mediating our access to it. We can only access our sensory data, via sensory perception. Therefore, we do not have any access to the external world. The 'thing-in-itself' is entirely, and necessarily inaccessible to human sensibility, and therefore, the human mind. My contention with Mww was around whether the thing-in-itself stimulates sensory perception, as an unavoidable inference - and i think this is correct, and your recent comments above this one outline that well imo.
In terms of my comment on 'conceiving', as we have literally no empirical indication of the thing-in-itself we can't conceive it. Where would you even start, to conceive of something you have literally no knowledge, and cannot have any knowledge? Assuming that that, per the above, is the case.
Thing-in-itself is something that you can think about. You can have concepts on the objects that comes up in your mind as the contents of your intuition such as God, souls etc. But you cannot see them in the empirical world. Therefore you cannot know them, but you can think about them.
In contrast to that, you can clearly know the daily objects such as cups and trees and books. You have the concepts, as well as the matching objects in the empirical world.
Saying that Kant said that you cannot know thing-in-itself, therefore you cannot know all the objects in the empirical world such as cups, trees and books, the bent sticks (claimed by RussellA) sounds not making sense.
When I see the book in front of me, I know the book. I know it is in blue colured cover, it is a paperback book, the title of the book is "CPR" by Kant. I cannot be wrong on that. It is the truths I know about the book in front of me. I don't need to worry anything about Thing-in-itself book of CPR. There is no such thing as Thing-in-itself CPR book, but there is a CPR book in front of me.
But God or Soul is different. I know in my intuition via their concepts. But they never appear in my visual perception, or I have never heard them saying or making any noise in real life. Therefore they must be belong to in Noumena and they must be Thing-in-Itself. I can think about God and Souls via the concepts, but I can never know them. This is what Kant meant, I understand.
I am reading the Muller translation of the A version (which was a rookie's mistake) and that's the page it's on... My mistake.
You've got the right section, though, for sure.
Quoting Mww
Unsure how you have figured this, but I am actually insisting on the opposite. They are clearly different and the only thing I am insisting on is that the thing-in-itself causes appearance (hence my dealing with an incorrect use of 'appear'. We can actually speak about hte thing-in-itself, despite Kant's insistence we can't by virtue of its necessity to phenomena.
https://ia800706.us.archive.org/13/items/immanuelkantscri032379mbp/immanuelkantscri032379mbp.pdf This (Kemp Smith) version has a very, very similarly-worded section to the Muller translation at the same place. A relevant passage, for full clarity:
"Now this acting subject would not, in its intelligible character, stand under any conditions of time; time is only a condition of appearances, not of things in themselves. In this subject no action would begin or cease, and it would not, therefore have to conform to the law of the determination of all that is alterable in time, namely, that everything which happens must have its cause in the appearances which precede it. In a word, its causality, so far as it is intelligible, would not have a place in the series of those empirical conditions through which the event is rendered necessary in the world of sense. This intelligible character can never, indeed, be immediately known, for nothing can be perceived except in so far as it appears. It would have to be thought in accordance with the empirical character just as we are constrained to think a transcendental object as underlying appearances, though we know nothing of what it is in itself."
And shortly after at A545...
"In this way the acting subject, as causal phenomenon would be bound up with nature through the indissoluble dependence of all its actions, and only as we ascend from the empirical object to the transcendental should we find that this subject, together with all its causality in the [field of] appearance, has in its noumenon certain conditions which must be regarded as purely intelligible."
Quoting Mww
This has been my insistence. It confirms my position rather than is 'for the record', to my mind.
Quoting Mww
I'm not convinced. We cannot conceive of things entirely askance from any empirical intuition. They must be derivative, in some sense, best i can tell. I cannot think of something other than as derived from empirical intuition thought under concepts, which, in themselves, are nothing.
No one, in any of these comments, has suggested this.
Quoting Corvus
What are you thinking about when you do this?
Seems entirely incoherent to me.
Did you not say that you cannot conceive or access the empirical world because they are Thing-in-itself?
Quoting AmadeusD
Your post below was clearly saying it. I read it again. Was it not?
Quoting AmadeusD
No, not at all. The empirical object is not the thing-in-itself. Not sure where that came from. The 'empirical' world is the world of phenomenal sense perception. The thing-in-itself is beyond this, and entirely unknowable.
TII(unknowable)->Noumenon(merely conceivable)->Phenomenon (actual, as it were)
Quoting AmadeusD
This comports exactly with the above specifically noting that the thing-in-itself is outside the empirical purview. Nowhere in your quote do i indicate a conflation of the empirical and 'thing in itself'.
Maybe from your previous quoted below, you were denying any knowledge of the external world due to the fact the perception happens via perceptual aggregates?
Quoting AmadeusD
But then I thought you accepted that is not the case.
Quoting AmadeusD
I thought you were saying the empirical world is unknowable, because it is all Thing-in-itself. But that was maybe the claim of @RussellA. I must have been confused between you and @RussellA.
I'm not able to read that into the passage quoted - but then, I wrote it with my intention so that makes sense :nerd:
Quoting Corvus
Ah okay, fair enough. It's also a fairly easy misreading of that passage. But i certainly meant to exclude them from each other, basically.
Does the Empirical World exist within Appearances or does it exist the other side of these Appearances, whatever is causing these Appearances?
There are different "Worlds". One exists within the mind and the other exists outside the mind, independent of the mind.
There are two meanings of the word "empirical", i) a person's subjective experience and ii) exterior, objective data (Psychology Today – Gregg Henriques)
"Empirical Realism" is a term coined by Kant in the CPR. On the one hand "Empirical" because it gives the mind an active role in the cognition of empirical objects, an aspect of epistemology in establishing a subjective empirical reality. On the other hand, "Realism", endorsing the view that there is a world that exists outside and independent of the human mind. (Paul Abela Empirical Realism).
In his Theorem for the Refutation of Idealism in B276, Kant argues that objects exist in space outside the mind
The IEP article Immanuel Kant: Metaphysics differentiates between an "Empirical World" in the mind and a "Mind-independent World" outside the mind
In summary, there is an "Empirical World" inside the mind, within Phenomena, within Appearances, within the Sensibilities and within the Senses and there is also a "Mind-independent World" outside the mind.
Quoting AmadeusD
Then, from pg. 16, in which I disagreed with #1:
Quoting AmadeusD
Now, because the second effectively repeats the errors in the first, re: the thing-in-itself appearing, I didn’t consider “the thing remaining”, the “????” you were apparently trying to account for, in this:
Quoting AmadeusD
Then, from reference in A538, “Possibility of Causality…..”, which is an exposition on the dual nature of an object of the senses from the domain of pure reason alone, I wonder……what do you think all that really says, and, what exactly does it have to do with the fact things-in-themselves are not that which appears?
I’m just not sure what you’re trying to convey, as a way to fill in the “????” in #2 in your list. And, why there needs to even be a #2 anyway.
Help a brutha out, wodja?
While we cannot conceive of things entirely askance from any empirical intuition, these are merely representations belonging to the internal human system, hence have no concern with external causal conditions, which belong to Nature itself.
You know, like….round pegs/round holes; square pegs/square holes. Neither fits in the other.
Quoting Corvus
All this is true, in that you see the book in your Empirical World, the world that exists as Appearance in your Sensibilities. The world as Phenomena.
However, what you are not seeing is any world outside these Phenomena.
In a world outside these Phenomena are Things in Themselves, which are unknowable, and as unknowable, cannot even be thought about.
Even if books existed in a Mind-Independent world, as Things in Themselves they would be unknowable, and being unknowable, we couldn't even know whether they existed or not.
In Kant's Refutation of Idealism, he proposes the Theorem in B276: "The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me."
Yes, Kant as a believer in Realism does believe that a Mind-Independent World exists outside us, and within this Mind-Independent World are objects in space, but we only know that there are objects as a generality, we don't know what these objects are in particular
We may know in general that Things in Themselves exist in a Mind-Independent World, otherwise we couldn't be discussing them, but that does not mean we can know individual Things in Themselves.
We may know the book in front of me in my Empirical Word, but we cannot know if there is a Book in a Mind-Independent World, as that would be a Thing in Itself.
But what is the point even bringing up a concept that you cannot even think about? Kant's point is that Thing-in-itself is not in the category of sensibility, so it cannot be known. But because of the fact that we have A priori concepts in the categories, we can think about it.
Quoting RussellA
Where is a Mind-independent world? Again what is the point even talking about something which is unknowable? If it was unknowable, then how did you know it was unknowable?
Been the bone of contention since 1781, hasn’t it? Why have something necessary for this one thing, but about which nothing can be known? If nothing can be known about it, why conceive it in the first place? Why think about that of which our empirical knowledge isn’t even about?
Problem is…the answers for the plethora of why’s don’t help much, mostly because the line of reasoning for what they really imply is so long and convoluted, it’s just easier to pretend they don’t stand as the original intention for them demanded. Every decent thinker from Schopenhauer right on through Quinne took exception to that intent.
The proof for the conceptual validity of things-in-themselves manifests in the reality of the human type of cognitive system being representational. The long line of reasoning, then, merely outlines why and how the human cognitive system is in fact representational, and that, of course, in keeping with the general critical thesis from a transcendental prospectus.
Pretty simple, really. If one doesn’t hold with transcendental philosophy, he has no need for things-in-themselves as such. By the same token, though, one can’t hold with some principles of CPR while rejecting others, and at the same time deny the notion of things-in-themselves.
All around us. It existed before us and will exist after us.
===============================================================================Quoting Corvus
To show that Berkelian Idealism is incorrect.
In fact, for the day to day survival of humans, there is no necessity to know more than what is perceived in our Empirical World of Phenomena. Any transcendental thought about a Mind-Independent World is out of philosophical interest only.
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Quoting Corvus
Kant wrote that Appearances are based on Things in Themselves, even though Things in Themselves are unknown.
[quote=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing-in-itself]And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something. —?Prolegomena, § 32[/quote]
Kant uses a Transcendental Argument in the Refutation of Idealism to prove his Theorem that Things in Themselves exist, even though what they are is unknown.
No one was denying the concept of Thing-in-themselves. But the point was that thing-in-itself is unknowable but thinkable. It is not both unknowable and unthinkable object. Claiming it is both unknowable and unthinkable comes from possible misunderstanding of CPR.
I don't see it anywhere. Even with binoculars, telescope and magnifying glasses and microscopes, there is no such a thing as a Mind-independent world. There is just the empirical world with the daily objects I see, and interact with. That is the only world I see around me. Nothing else.
If you can see it, can you take a photo of a Mind-independent world, and upload here? :)
Even if I uploaded a photo of a Mind-Independent World, the Solipsist wouldn't believe it.
Seeing is believing. Upload it first. Will see it, and tell you what world you were looking at. :D
Not here, no, but there are objections, which was what I actually implied. And it is true, if one doesn’t hold with transcendental philosophy and all its conditions, he has no need of things-in-themselves.
Transcendental philosophy is the core of CPR. Without it, CPR has little meaning. But the point is that, Kant used Thing-in-itself to posit the existence of God, Soul, Freedom and Immortality. Thing-in-itself has nothing to do with the physical objects in the empirical world.
This thread is for reading Kant's CPR. Why try to show Berkeley's Idealism is incorrect?
Quoting RussellA
I am not sure if a philosophical topic which is totally severed from the Empirical world has a meaning. Are you?
I have not seen you disagree with this, really. You've helped me see where I was misusing words and concepts because I don't understand what I'm doing all that well (which i am extremely appreciative of. This isn't easy LOL) but I can't see that you've disagreed that Kant gives us an unavoidable causal relationship between thing-in-itself and our sensible intuitions. It appears your most recent response (prior to this) laid it out in explicit terms - that you agree with it?
Quoting AmadeusD
The "?????" I think, is the Noumenon of whatever object. At the time, I had entirely misunderstood what the Noumenon is meant to represent, and where it fits in the relationships of thing-in-itself, conception, and intuition. I am now under the impression that 1. The thing-in-itself, somehow, in some unknowable fashion, instigates appearance - but that the Noumenon is that which, in some sense, exists between the two in a sort of semi-focus, as compared to the total blank of the thing-in-itself.
Quoting Mww
Well, I don't think anyone really knows - but its relevance here, is that Kant appears to very directly note that the thing-in-itself is in a causal relationship with our sensible intuitions. There is thing-in-itself, and the phenomenal appearance in intuition - and that there is, unavoidably, a causal relationship between the two - Otherwise, as noted, we are left with intuitions of nothing. Its just unsatisfying because we can never have any knowledge of that which 'causes' the appearance of any object of intuition.
The over-all thesis of that section, i'm yet to parse.
I'm about 90% of the way through this book, and i'd say i grok the overall thesis in a pale reflection, and about 15% of the actual content. Doing my best.
Quoting Mww
I agree - but this goes to the previous thing we're trying to come to terms on.
That causal relationship is necessary, if unknowable and unconcerning to us in general. But if we have never been caused to undergo the experience of a phenomenon, we can't conceptualise it, i think.
Edited in later, so apologies if missed: It seems really, really clear that most thinkers consider the thing-in-itself noumenal. Can you help me understand how this is the case, with Noumena/on being different from the thing-in-itself? It is just Kant being annoying and confusing"?
Those existences….more accurately termed transcendental conceptions…..are listed under something very much other than the thing-in-itself. To be fair, I have an inkling of how you got here, but I’d be willing to bet, with closer examination, you might retract the statement. A CPR reference substantiating your claim would be nice, to determine if we’re on the same page.
Quoting Corvus
While the thing-in-itself may have nothing to do with our knowledge of representations of physical objects in the empirical world, they very much have to do with those objects. Unless, once again, you have a CPR reference substantiating your claim.
Then why not let Nature be the causes the thing that appears. That way, we can get away with saying the appearance is caused by the thing. We don’t know, at the time of appearance, what the thing is anyway, so what does it really matter what causes it? As well, we can let there be a causal relation between the thing and the thing-in-itself without contradicting either Nature or ourselves, insofar as the the former we can only possibly know and the latter we never can.
We end up with a causal relation between the thing and the thing-in-itself, a relation between the thing and us, without the need of a relation between the thing-in-itself and us. Everybody goes home happy.
This is what is expressly unsatisfying to me. But, I do think this is what the CPR is meant to be indicating. That we can't reason to satisfying explanations of our phenomena, despite the previous two millennia attempting it... that we are destined to be frustrated by efforts to understand what's really going on.
Having made some headway in sorting out how to think about these things, this seems to be the 'cosmic joke' at the base of attempts to "get into" Kant.
There's a helpful Wikipedia entry on Noumenon (Philosophy). It discusses whether and in what sense the noumenal is synonymous with ding-an-sich (general view is that it's not synonmous, but that Kant was rather inconsistent with his usage).
But an important point concerns the etymology of the term, which I copy here:
However, I think the 'rough equivalent' overlooks the subtlety of the fact that the term is derived from 'nous'. Nous is one of those seminal philosophical terms, associated with Aristotle but found throughout Greek philosophy, which is nowadays often translated as 'intellect' but means something much more like 'that which discerns what truly is'. Recall that in Platonic epistemology, only intelligible objects - the forms or Ideas - were actually real, and that empirical objects were a shadow or instantiation of the Forms of things.
In some form or another, this was preserved all the way up until Scholastic philosophy as matter-form dualism (hylomorphism). So in that context, 'the object of nous' was explicitly not a sensible object, but the Idea, Form, or Principle of an object (that which makes the particular what it is).
Now Kant changed the meaning of the term somewhat. Notice the remark taken from Schopenhauer in that article:
(This has been discussed before here, and others have opined that Schopenhauer was wrong in his assessment, but I can certainly see the sense in it.)
I didn't mean this entry to be so long, but what it gets at is that 'the noumenal' actually has quite a pedigree, prior to Kant, but that Kant appropriated the term, as Schopenhauer says, for his own purposes. But in the earlier philosophies, what was 'an object of thought' was not some unknown thing, but an Idea or Form which could only be grasped intellectually (or 'noetically') but which didn't exist on the plane of sensible (or sense-able) objects.
Consider all this a footnote.
That is satisfying.
Quoting Wayfarer
Certainly helps clarify the lineage Kant was working from - and why he just redefined it.
Quoting Wayfarer
Does this rely on that Platonic conception of the 'real' though? If so, I can see why Schop is considered wrong there, given that particular version of things doesn't really work for anything beyond Platonic discussion specifically (i.e Platonic forms tend to only be used as an exemplar or metaphor, rather than an example of anything actually being discussed - in my experience./reading).
Understanding 'the ideas' is a very subtle and difficult thing. Not that I'm by any means an expert but I think I have an intuitive grasp. My heuristic is that 'the ideas' and the 'noumena' do not exist in the way that tables, chairs and apples exist. They are real on an altogether different level - which is the meaning of transcendent (again, a term which was adapted and somewhat modified by Kant).
Before the advent of modernity, this seemed to have been understood, because of the 'scala naturae', the Great Chain of Being, which stretched from matter (at bottom) to the Divine Intellect (at top) with humans being in a kind of intermediate level. So due to Reason, which was the spark of the divine intellect in humans (that which enables them to see what truly is), the Philosopher could 'ascend' to the 'realm of forms' (this was a kind of intellectual conversion or transformation). Of course, nobody believes this any more, it fell out of favour many centuries ago. I've found a few sources that articulate it, notably the SEP entry on early medieval scholastic John Scotus Eriugena - ' a particular level (of being) may be affirmed to be real by those on a lower or on the same level, but the one above it is thought not to be real in the same way. If humans are thought to exist in a certain way, then angels do not exist in that way.' But due to the 'flattening' of ontology in the transition to modernity, and the belief that only the physical is real, this is, of course, completely unintelligible to most.
Anyway this is all a major digression, for which I apologise, but it's a part of my personal philosophical quest.
Ya know….everything from the output of our sensory devices, to the input to the brain, and even through some of the regions of the brain itself…..we haven’t a clue as to what is actually happening, real-time? We are not the least conscious of all that transverse the nervous system proper, just as in speculative metaphysics, we are not conscious of any of our intuitive representations and precious little of the machinations of our understanding.
As I mentioned way back at the beginning, sometimes it doesn’t pay to ask too many questions. And in fact, the overall thesis of CPR is to relegate pure reason to experience alone, letting the transcendental side be merely of some relative interest, as in God, freedom and immortality and such, but not much else.
Quoting Mww
Having just got through (i.e between our earlier interaction today (my time, anyway) and now) Kant's breakdown of the three arguments for God (A583-ish, i think through A630-ish) have me in this sort of mindset, now. Though, It is still just as unsatisfying to me.
CPR B xx, A30 / b45, B xxvi, B 325, B327
Quoting Mww
It just sounds meaningless to say Thing-in-itself is a concept, but it is totally unknowable, and even unthinkable. It just exists outside of mind, but no one knows what it is, and it covers all the physical objects outside the mind. Therefore for example, we don't know what the books in front of us are like. Even if we see the books in front for us, but we don't know what they are??? That just sounds like a needless scepticism.
Thing-in-itselft must be the existences for us to think about, but not knowable. The concepts such as God, Souls, Freedom and Immortality fit in there, We can think about them, but we have no physical objects matching the concepts. That sounds more reasonable to me.
There is only one world called the empirical world, and it is outside the mind. Appearance is from the empirical world, and it is only in visual form i.e. the lights which are reflected from the objects in the empirical world.
So, we can see the books, trees and mountains, roads, houses, cars and hills. They are only the lights when we say appearance or phenomena.
But some appearances and phenomena are only images such as the objects you see in your dreams, imaginations and illusions. They are not in the form of lights in structure, hence the image quality are dim and less vivid than the images coming in the lights from the appearance and phenomena of the objects in the empirical world.
When I see a book in front of me, it is via the appearance or phenomenon from the object (the book) in the empirical world (outside of the mind). But when I pick up the book, open it, and read it, it is in the empirical world. The objects in the empirical world allow me to not just perceive, but also interact, such as picking it up, opening it, and reading it. The physical objects in the empirical world also continue to exist through time. The book I read yesterday, is still here to be read today, and will be there tomorrow to be read again even after years. The book you saw in your dream or imagination cannot be read, and you cannot interact with it in real life. It doesn't exist through extended time either. You might have seen it last night, but today it is very likely you cannot see it again.
The book you see in the bookcase is presented to you as an appearance or phenomenon until you walk into it, pick it out and read it. If you are in the empirical world, you can do this. If you are not in the empirical world, you cannot do that.
There is no such thing as an internal world. In your mind, there are only perceptions. You seem to confuse with the perceptions thinking them as an internal world. There is only one world, and it is outside of the mind as the empirical world. What we see are appearance and phenomena which are the lights reflected from the objects in the empirical world.
In summary how did you manage to cram in the whole universe into inside your mind? :chin:
Meaningless is one way to put it. Concepts are representations of the understanding, arising spontaneously from pure thought. To say, then, the thing-in-itself, a valid concept, is unthinkable, is contradictory.
Quoting Corvus
Agreed, as long as we’re still talking about the thing-in-itself as a concept. And more specifically, perhaps, misunderstanding the cognitive procedure proposed in transcendental philosophy.
Quoting Corvus
But this exchanges the concept for an object. Now it is the case the thing-in-itself can neither be thought as an real object, for to do so presupposes the possibility of its phenomenal representation, nor knowable as a real object, for to do so presupposes a judgement on the relations by which it becomes a particular cognition. But it still can be thought as having a real existence.
Concepts arise in understanding. Understanding is the faculty of logic. The conception of the thing-in-itself fills a logical gap, re: justification for that which appears to sensibility. That’s all it was ever meant to do.
————-
Quoting Corvus
Agreed. But this is very far from your claim here….
Quoting Corvus
….which just is not the case.
————
Quoting Corvus
Agreed, but with the caveat the object in front of us, is already known in a particular way, which is true because it carries the conception represented by the word “book”. One must agree, that until he learns an object, he cannot represent it with a name. If that is the case, everything ever learned, by any human person ever, at one time, had no name.
A better question, and one of the tenets of CPR is….how did a mere undetermined thing out there, be its mere appearance to our senses, get its name?
According to Kant, it requires your faith, not reasoning.
Quoting Mww
Your reason for the claim is? (preferably with the CPR source)
See A333-338/B390-396, plus the footnote in B.
As a Mind-Independent World can only be known by transcendental reason, and as a single photograph can only show the form of reason and not its content, a single photograph can never show a Mind-independent World.
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Quoting Corvus
Kant refers to Berkelian Idealism in B275, which is part of his purpose in the Refutation of Idealism.
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Quoting Corvus
Because a "mountain" as a representation in the Empirical World within the mind is different in kind to a "mountain" weighing one billion tonnes in a Mind-Independent World outside the mind.
The Empirical World is the world of Phenomena, and the Mind-Independent World is the world of Things in Themselves.
I am sure that the Mind-Independent World is of philosophical interest.
Whether Kant intended the (negative) noumena as part of the Empirical world or the Mind-Independent World is ambiguous. Sometimes he treats the noumenon as a part of the Empirical World, and sometimes he treats the noumenon as part of the Mind-Independent World. In classical philosophy, Plato etc, the noumenon is part of the Empirical World.
From Wikipedia Noumenon
As regards tables and chairs, we perceive them in our Sensibilities as Phenomena. If they exist as Things in Themselves in a Mind Independent Word then they are unknowable, meaning that we can never know whether they do or do not exist. But we do know about tables and chairs, meaning that our knowledge about them must have come from our Empirical World, as Ideas or Forms, ie as Noumena.
We can only know about Things in Themselves in general in a Mind Independent World using transcendental reasoning, in the same way as used by Kant in his Refutation of Idealism in B275.
I wrote that there are different "Worlds". One exists within the mind, an "Empirical World", and the other exists outside the mind, a "Mind Independent World"
From the Merriam Webster Dictionary, "empirical" means i) originating in or based on observation or experience, ii) relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory.
"Empiricism" means i) the practice of relying on observation and experiment especially in the natural sciences ii) a tenet arrived at empirically.
So far, the word "empirical" refers to what exists in the mind rather than what exists outside the mind, inferring that an "Empirical World" also refers to what exists in the mind rather than what exists outside the mind,
The SEP article on Rationalism vs Empiricism also distinguishes between an external world and an internal world
You say that there is only "one world", and in this "one world" physical objects continue to exist through time. IE, whether one million years ago or one million years into the future. But we know that one million years ago there were no humans, meaning that in this "one world" you are referring to, humans are not a necessary part.
So how can this "one world" be an "empirical world" if humans are not necessarily there to observe it?
Could you please specify and explain which sentences in the CPR pages warrant or relate to your claim? Thanks.
A photograph is to show visual image, not the form of reason. It is nonsense to say that a photo can only show the form of reason. It doesn't make sense.
In that case, would it be the case that you have been mistaken Kant's refutation of Idealism as Kant's TI?
Quoting RussellA
In that case, should it not be a representation of the empirical world in your mind, rather than an internal world inside you? It sounds too far-fetched for you to carry an internal world weighing one billion tonnes in your head.
More later~
Nope, not gonna do that. You asked for a reference, you got it, do with it as you will.
I have read the pages in CPR, but couldn't find any part which back your claim that my proposition (regarding to Thing-in-itself and the concepts i.e. God, Souls and Freedom) is not the case. Therefore I can only conclude that your claim was groundless and unfounded.
I didn't just asked for the reference. I asked for your reasons for your claims (preferably with the reference). You only forwarded the reference, which appear to be unrelated, and you refuse to clarify on the relation of the reference and your claims. Your postings seem to be lacking consistency and truths from the facts. :chin: :wink:
Suit yourself. Hell, you might even be correct.
The Mind-Independent world can only be known using transcendental reason.
Reasoning is a logical connection between several strands of an argument, for example, the syllogism. A syllogism has the same form, in which a conclusion is drawn from two premises, regardless of its content.
For example, i) all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore, Socrates is mortal ii) all dogs are animals, all animals have four legs, therefore all dogs have four legs.
As a syllogism can only have content when its form is complete, reason can only have content when its logical form is complete.
A single photograph as a single premise is only one part of a logical sequence within a reasoned argument, and as its logical form is incomplete, it cannot be said to have content.
This is why a single photograph cannot show a Mind-Independent World, as knowledge about a Mind-Independent World requires Transcendental Reason, and reason in order to have content requires a complete logical form. A single photograph as a single premise cannot have the necessary content for a Transcendental Reason as it is an incomplete logical form.
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Quoting Corvus
No.
From the Wikipedia article Transcendental Idealism
In his Refutation of Idealism is his Theorem "The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me" B276.
These are not contradictory positions.
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Quoting Corvus
Of course, that's why in our internal world is a representation of the external world.
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As an aside, the Thing in Itself has nothing to do with God, the soul or freedom.
For your claim to be correct, you need the argument and valid conclusion backed by the original source. But you failed to produce that, and when re-asked for it, you refused to do so. Hence the conclusion. :wink:
1. You didn't need to take a photo of the whole MI World. Just a part of it would have done. No one can take a photo of the whole world in a single shot anyway.
2. You seem to think a world is some logically reasoned object. A world is a totality of the domain in which you specify all the attributes about it. But since you haven't done so, I was assuming that you were meaning the world in which we live in.
I’m not making a claim; I’m merely citing a source-specific refutation of yours.
I was meaning, your claim " ….which just is not the case.
— Mww"
Why is it not the case?
My statement that your claim is not the case is proved in the reference. The only thing that has to do with me, is I know where to look for the refutation of your claim.
I was asking which part of the reference backs up your claim, but you refused to provide the evidence.
The Empirical World inside us we know through our sensibilities. The Mind-Independent World outside us we know through Transcendental Reasoning about the Empirical World inside us.
You cannot prove the existence of the objects in space outside of you by simply saying you are conscious of your own existence. You could be conscious of your existence in your dream or hallucination. Does that prove any existence of the objects in space outside of you?
Quoting RussellA
Not contradictory, but not making sense either.
Do you have the CPR reference for backing that points up? No Wiki or SEP, but CPR.
If you actually read the reference, you’d know. Which begs an obvious question…..why are you asking?
I actually did read the reference, but couldn't find the part backing your claim, hence asked you which part and also your argument for your point.
Dunno what to tell ya, bud. If you can’t find the connection, or you think there isn’t one, that’s all on you. But I’m not doing your thinking for you.
I never asked you do thinking for me. I was trying to find out how on earth you came to the claim. The reference you provided didn't have the obvious, evident parts or information related to Thing-in-itself and God, Souls and Freedom, and the relation between them.
Pretty much what I thought as well. There is no relation. The reference shows what god, freedom and immortality are, and from that, it is clear the thing-in-itself doesn’t relate to them. That’s the connection you missed. Which is sufficient refutation that the thing-in-itself was never used, as you claimed, “to posit the existence of God, Soul, Freedom and Immortality”.
The thing-in-itself is a logically conditioned conception; the three others are transcendental ideas of pure reason which signify the unconditioned. They arise in different faculties, they preside over different domains, in short, they have nothing to do with each other.
It is a serious breach of comprehension, that an empirical existence derived from understanding using general logic, can be the ground for an idea derived from pure reason using transcendental logic. Obviously, there is an existent object for any thing-in-itself; there is never, and never was meant to be, an existent object belonging to freedom, morality or gods.
What I meant was your CPR reference had no relevance backing up your claims.
If you think about it, what is thing-in-itself, and God, Soul and Freedom in Kant? They are all transcendental objects.
My guess was Kant wouldn't have been simple and naive enough to introduce Thing-in-itself to bung all your daily physical objects into it, and tell the world, you don't know anything about your books, cups and trees ... etc.
Kant's main interest in writing CPR was building a logical path and residence for the transcendental objects viz. God, Souls and Freedom, and it was named "Thing-in-itself".
But I must. If I don't get something much more solid this time, I suppose Kant himself, isn't for me, but his successors and predecessors are.
Bring it on. :cool:
"In Kant's philosophy, the term "ding-an-sich" refers to the thing-in-itself or the noumenon - an entity that exists independently of human perception and understanding. Kant argues that the human mind can only know and comprehend phenomena, or the way things appear to us through our senses, but we can never truly apprehend the noumenal realm.
When it comes to God, Kant did not make explicit references to this concept in relation to the divine. Instead, he primarily addressed the limitations of human reason and our ability to know and understand God through theoretical knowledge. Kant maintained that the existence of God could not be proven or disproven by reason alone.
(irrelevant paragraph removed)
While Kant did not directly link the concept of ding-an-sich to God, one could argue that in the noumenal realm, where things exist independently of human perception, a transcendent being like God could potentially reside. However, it is important to note that this interpretation goes beyond Kant's direct writings and is subject to individual interpretation."
source is DeepAI
Why do I have to repeat that I didn’t make a claim?
Quoting Corvus
No, they are not. One is so-called, the others are merely transcendental ideas, the conception of an object adequate for representing them, is impossible.
Quoting Corvus
He did that, it was significant, but hardly his main interest.
No one claimed anything about Kant's view on God and his Theology in this thread as far as I am aware.
Aren't they all transcendentally deduced objects? Please elaborate.
Quoting Mww
My point was from a German Kant commentator, and I agreed with his point.
Bro, WHAT?
Quoting Corvus
Quoting AmadeusD
Quoting Corvus
Just a word "God" doesn't mean that we are discussing Kant's Theology.
1. Yet you just claimed this was not what you're talking about? Dude... ;
2. Mww's quoted passage, and my response from DeepAI show that your claim is exactly not true;
3. No idea why you're being so intensely defensive and personal.
You're wrong in your claim. That's not a bad thing. You can now update. What the heck is going on here...
You? Just butt in, and tell people they are wrong, and demand to accept whatever you say? Who do you think you are?
Your claim has been shown to be wrong, and since then you've only prevaricated. Take care mate
SEP has a good summation of whether Kant posited the existence of God as an entity "in" the noumenon. It does not seem he did so in any straightforward manner - look at the discussion about positing god as an Ideal. But your disagreement is also complicated by something the AI you cited wasn't aware of. There's both a positive and negative sense to the noumenon.
The positive sense of the noumenon would be an entity grasped by the intellect alone without mediation by the categories of experience. Prosaically, "unfiltered". The negative sense of the noumenon would be to construe the noumenon as a limitation on the sensibility, that all phenomena are conditioned by the categories.
The former is impossible for Kant. The latter doesn't allow you to posit the existence of any hypothetical "thing in itself" somehow beyond, or external to, our capabilities of judgement - but not because such things don't exist, but because the move to posit such an entity is unjustifiable.
Source GJ Mattery's (Kant scholar)'s Kant Lexicon.
I would suggest looking up a reputable source when trying to do exegesis.
The majority of my posts are seeking correction, and accepting correction. So the patent falseness of your ad hominem is just not a good way to comport yourself.
Quoting fdrake
Yes. I specifically said that for Kant, his position means God is possible in the noumenal realm but that he does not posit his existence - whcih seems to be exactly what you're getting at here.
Corvus' claim was that Kant posits God's existence. Quoting Corvus
As shown here.
[XXXquote= "Corvus;873461"]But the point is that, Kant used Thing-in-itself to posit the existence of God, Soul, Freedom and Immortality.[XX /quote]
I mean something a little different. What I'm saying is that the question of whether God exists might resemble: "Does wishmalawia amble the anglomogritive?", it looks like a question but in fact isn't. And on that basis it's not sensible to posit their existence, or inexistence, as an entity. Because the question's fundamentally "wrong" somehow, if it's related to God as an entity. (I'm treating this as Kant's position)
Especially if that God is somehow "in" a noumenon - which is conflating a noumenon with an "external" world, and also the positive and negative senses of the term. (This is my commentary on the current state of discussion with @Corvus).
Then what is to be made of those dogmatic slumbers, and the awakening therefrom? The Dude Himself says he’s writing to justify synthetic a priori cognitions, and all that follows from them, by treating the established metaphysics of the day as a science.
That there is a place for transcendental objects….a synthetic a priori cognition if there ever was one…..is merely a happy consequence.
You sounded blatantly irrational just demanding me to accept I am wrong. You had no arguments for your points, and also appeared to be not knowing exactly what has been discussed as well. God was only mentioned to add clarification to Thing-in-Itself.
Kant's Theology is a huge area itself, and it is another topic of its own. It would only possible to discuss a concept or two out of Kant's theology in CPR thread as a passing point in conjunction with some other main CPR topics, which was the case here.
But you claimed that Kant's view on God is unknowable ...etc went on with God blah blah, and accused me of being wrong. I thought that is not a proper way to oppose someone philosophically.
I felt that your point of telling me wrong was based solely on your blind trust of the other people (authority, or someone you respect etc) or source of the info (the internet), rather than the arguments or the truth itself, and for some reason having strong emotional urge to put my points down for no particular reason. Not fair was it?
Palmquist. Guyer. (?)
I don't know. Anyone with papers published in Kant, or the SEP article. Or Kant.
I understand this. And i understand it to be an emotive defense of a patently incorrect assertion, based on an irrational response to a perceived slight, which did not transpire at all how you interpreted it.
Which is why I am not amenable to taking it too seriously.
In a thread, I would never say someone is wrong blatantly (without having gone through much mutual arguments exchanges), because the arguments and logic will speak for themselves. I would only say something similar or same level of tones, it if the other party said first. If it were the case then the philosophical discussion would be derailing into an ordinary discussion from that point.
It was nothing serious event for me. Just explaining the situation and the logic that operates. :)
I'm not entirely sure I understand the part about the conversation devolving from philosophical to ordinary, but hey... I don't understand a lot of things.
I sincerely appreciate you pulling back from the rather personal nature of hte last few comments. We've had some good interactions here and I wouldn't want a silly blow up like this to ruin that.
In B276, Kant starts his proof with "I am conscious of my existence as determined in time."
He doesn't start his proof with "I am conscious of my existence".
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Quoting Corvus
Kant's Transcendental Idealism and Refutation of Idealism B276 make sense to an Indirect Realist but perhaps not to a Direct Realist.
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Quoting Corvus
For posts on the Forum, the SEP as source information is more than adequate.
[quote=https://plato.stanford.edu/about.html]Welcome to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), which as of Summer 2023, has nearly 1800 entries online. From its inception, the SEP was designed so that each entry is maintained and kept up-to-date by an expert or group of experts in the field. All entries and substantive updates are refereed by the members of a distinguished Editorial Board before they are made public. Consequently, our dynamic reference work maintains academic standards while evolving and adapting in response to new research.[/quote]
"as determined in time" sounds like it needs awareness of time, which can only be achieved by the outer sense perception such as perceiving the movement of the sun around the earth. How does one know one's own existence "determined in time" without yet being sure of the external world?
Quoting RussellA
Should the indirect realist not check the argument of the Refutation for the Idealism for any logical obscurity before accepting it?
Quoting RussellA
It would be likely to be a biased opinion. It is better to look at the original work first, and then various other commentaries rather than just relying on one 3rd party commentary source.
I assume you know your own existence within time, yet you don't seem to believe in an external world.
As you wrote:
Quoting Corvus
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Quoting Corvus
I'm sure they do. I know I have.
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Quoting Corvus
As Kant's philosophy is extremely complex and notoriously difficult to understand, I think the sensible approach is first to read various commentaries and then look at the original material.
Please don't misunderstand again. I do believe in only one world i.e. the physical world. I was asking about the external world in the Refutation for the Idealist you quoted.
Quoting RussellA
It didn't appear to be quite the case.
Quoting RussellA
CPR is not a bible. You don't accept the whole lot in CPR as if it is some religious text like some other folks do. One thing for sure is, it is a great classic with lots of great ideas in it, but also there are some contentious, inconsistent parts and contradictions too.
You must try to clarify the contentious or obscure parts before accepting them. As I said, just relying on only one commentary source, and believing in all it says is not helpful and even might be futile. But also the most important part is your own interpretations on it backed by the logical argument, the original work and the various academic commentaries.
Interpretation based solely on one's own mind sounds more obscure than Kant, and the points based on mainly the popular media sounds too obvious. Mix them all up, and come up with the best points you think correct seems the best way to go for it.
In B276 Kant refers to objects existing outside any human observer: "The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me."
You say that you see only one world, it is empirical, it is physical, it is external, it is not internal and it is not Mind-Dependent.
Are you:
An Indirect Realist who believes that the objects they see are only a representation of different objects that exist outside the observer in a non-mental world?
A Direct Realist who believes that the objects they see are the same objects that exist outside the observer in a non-mental world?
A Berkelian Idealist who believes that the objects they see are the same objects that exist outside the observer in a mind?
A Solipsist who believes that the objects they see only exist inside their own mind?
There seems to be some logical flaws in the refutation, but it is good to know that Kant believes in the existence of the external world outside him.
Now the question goes back to Thing-in-itself. Is the Thing-in-itself something in the mind or does it exist outside of the mind? If outside, then would it be in the external world, or some other world totally separate from the external world?
If inside of the mind, then in which part of mind does it exist? Or is it just an abstract concept or idea in the mind?
Quoting RussellA
I don't know what ism I am following. None actually. As you pointed out very well this time, I believe in one empirical (physical) world outside of me. I am not sure if it is a mind dependent or mind independent world. My perception says that without my mind, the world doesn't exist, but my inference says, without my mind, the world will keep existing. :(
It depends what you mean by "external world". There is the external world that I perceive as Appearance, and there is the external world outside me that I cannot perceive that is causing these Appearances.
Kant wrote in B276:
Kant wrote in Prolegomena section 32:
To my understanding of Kant, Appearances are affected by unknowable Things in Themselves that exist outside me.
However, as we can also think in general terms about Things in Themselves using Transcendental Reasoning on Appearances, thoughts about Things in Themselves exist in the mind.
How many external worlds do you have, and which one is the real world? Why do you need more than one world?
Quoting RussellA
What is the unknowable Things in themselves that exist outside you exactly mean? What are they?
Quoting RussellA
So Things-in-themselves exist outside you, but it also exists in your mind? Are they the same Things-in-themselves? Or are they different entities? Are they visible or audible to you? Can you touch them? If they are not perceptible, then how do you know they actually even exist?
You would agree that human visual perception is restricted to certain frequencies, and auditory perception restricted to certain wavelengths, would you not? Does this mean that frequencies and wavelengths that fall outside these limits are ‘mysterious’? Isn't it fairly simple that our perceptual abilities, and also our intellectual abilities, are limited in some ways, so that what the world is outside of those bounds can't be known by us? I can't quite see why this is such a difficult thing to come to terms with.
There are many uses for the word "world". There is the world of dance, the world of science, the world of literature, the world inside our minds, the world outside our minds, etc.
One word having several uses is in the nature of language.
What is real? Is the thought of a mountain any less real than the mountain itself?
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Quoting Corvus
Kant wrote in Prolegomena section 32:
We perceive appearances, phenomena, in our senses. We may see the colour red, feel a sharp pain, taste something sweet, smell something acrid or hear a grating noise.
We have the fundamental belief that something caused these phenomena. But we don't perceive what caused these phenomena, we only perceive the phenomena.
The cause of the phenomena is irrelevant in our experience of the phenomena, in that whether the sharp pain was caused by a bee sting, a sewing needle or a thistle plays no part in the nature of our experience of a sharp pain.
The cause of the sharp pain can be called a Thing in Itself, and even if unknowable, has no bearing on the nature of the actual experience of a sharp pain. Even if we knew what the cause was, this would not change the phenomena that we had perceived.
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Quoting Corvus
My belief is that Things in Themselves have an ontological existence outside us even if a particular Thing in Itself is unknowable.
Kant uses Transcendental Reasoning on what we do know, appearances, to conclude that Things in Themselves must exist outside us.
Therefore, "Things in Themselves" have an ontological existence outside us, and they exist as thoughts inside us.
There are many things outside us that are not directly perceptible through the senses yet we reason exist. For example, gravity.
Exactly. This is the point that Kant is making in the CPR, and as an Indirect Realist, something I totally agree with.
However, I don't think that the Direct Realist would agree with you.
Not necessarily. Just because I cannot see a unicorn doesn't mean that I think unicorns are real.
From Wikipedia Direct and Indirect Realism
I see the colour red, yet the colour red doesn't exist outside my perception of it. I do have, however, the fundamental belief that there is something in the world that caused me to perceive the colour red.
My seeing the colour red is a real experience, and I believe that there is also a real something in the world that caused my seeing the colour red.
For example, you may feel a sharp pain in your hand caused by a bee sting. I don't think anyone would argue that the pain and the bee sting are the same thing and thereby interchangeable. Both are real, yet different things. One is the effect and the other is the cause.
I am not going to say you are wrong, because you can interpret Kant as you think right for you. But some arguments are more valid or invalid, more plausible or less plausible from the objective perspective.
In Kant, the world is one of the antinomy of pure reason, if you read CPR. Kant says, the world is a totality of all the objects and events in the universe, hence it cannot be conceived.
But he is not denying the outside empirical world where you see all the daily objects and interact with them. One point to bear in mind with CPR is that it is a Treatise for building a transcendental system for Metaphysics. What Kant is mainly interested in is how to build a metaphysical foundation for the transcendental objects such as God, Souls and Freedom. CPR is not a theory of perception or epistemology, but it is a treatise for metaphysical foundation of transcendental objects.
For that, he was trying to demonstrate how it all happens in transcendental way, not empirical way.
He was not interested in Direct Realist or Indirect Realist or Idealist.
Here is a clue. Why did Kant have two concepts on space and time? In CPR, he mostly talks about space and time as internal A priori condition for experience. But he also talks about space as a physical existence in empirical world. Can you think of the explanation for that?
The other points later~
This is a completely different interpretation from what I think, and I am afraid to say that it doesn't make sense. In Kant, our daily perception is via appearance and phenomena from the empirical world. And we know the contents in phenomena very well. The whole science is based on the appearance from the empirical world. Denying that would be denying the whole scientific knowledge, then you are degrading yourself to the Pyrrhonian scepticism, and must stop all your judgement on the world.
But obviously there are objects which we can think of, but don't have the matching physical objects in the empirical world such as God, Souls and Freedom. They must exist somewhere, otherwise we are just dreaming or fantasising about them. Kant didn't want that. They are the important metaphysical objects. Where do they belong? They belong to Thing-in-themselves = Noumena.
If you think about daily physical objects in transcendental idealistic way, then of course, you wouldn't know about them. Because you are not using your sensibility then. You would be just thinking about them. You are thinking about books that you have never read, trees that you have never seen ...etc, then of course you don't know what books and trees you are talking about. This makes sense. You can only know what you have experienced. But you can still think about them in concept without knowing.
With all your arguments and points so far which sound totally off the main ideas of CPR, I am wondering if you have been actually reading CPR, or just been reading the run-of-the-mill Wiki and SEP articles trying to jigsaw puzzle the Kant with some unfounded perceptual theories.
There are several things in your posts that I don't agree with, but as I am off on holiday, I won't be able to tackle them.
However, I think you are misusing the term "Empirical World".
The IEP article Immanuel Kant: Metaphysics differentiates between an "empirical world" in the mind and a "mind-independent world" outside the mind
IE, the "Empirical World" is the world as perceived via the senses. That we may perceive tables and chairs in this "Empirical World" does not of necessity mean that tables and chairs exist in a "Mind-Independent World".
What do you mean by "mind-independent world"? Did Kant say anything about it?
What significance does "mind-independent world" have with CPR?
IEP seems another site with the run-of-the-mill infos. It is handy at times for getting quick info about simple terms, but not sure if they are accurate enough and offering you the depth in knowledge.
I don't quite agree with the Online info mostly (because for one, any Tom Dick and Harry on the street can go into the online add and edit the contents - why should anyone trust the accuracy of the info???), and also don't see the point of word searching in CPR, and giving out the obscure interpretations making the original text in question more confusing either.
The point of reading CPR is to interpret the original text in logical way, but also in clear and meaningful way, so it is easy to understand for everyone. If any CPR commentary appears sounding more obscure than CPR itself, then it should be committed to flames. :D
With your comment on my misusage of "empirical world", please prove why my usage was a misusage. From my point of view, "empirical world" was not even a main concept Kant delves into deep in CPR. He mentions a few times here and there to denote the external world we live in and interact with.
And please explain what is your "mind-independent world" is, and where is it coming from.
Quoting RussellA
You are free to disagree as long as you back up with your arguments and evidence for your disagreement. At the end of the day, no one is wrong or right in philosophical discussions, but the points they are making could be.
Enjoy your holiday. Take time. No rush.
To adjoin to an object of thought that there can be no possible matching object in the empirical world, is to deny to that object the condition of the categories (whatever it is, it does not have phenomenal representation thus cannot be determinable as an existence, hence cannot be determinable as real).
In order to alleviate the absurdity of methodological contradiction, it must be the case, then, that the object of thought as such, is not a real physical object, hence the categories are not necessary conditions, and, consequently the object of thought belongs to understanding alone, insofar as the understanding is given as the faculty of thought, and therefore the existence of that object is not necessary and the contradiction disappears.
By thesis-specific definition, thought is cognition by means of the synthesis of conceptions, which reduces the faculty of understanding to the faculty by which conceptions arise. In turn, conceptions are representations of that which understanding thinks, as are phenomena representations of that which the faculty of sensibility intuits.
Because thought is cognition by means of the synthesis of conceptions, it follows necessarily there must be a plurality of conceptions in order for there to be a synthesis of them. On the other hand, for that object understanding thinks, it does not follow necessarily that object contains a plurality of conceptions, and if it does not, no synthesis of conceptions and thereby no cognition with respect to that object, is possible. By the containing of a plurality of conceptions is meant the schema of the lesser conceptions under the general, by which synthesis itself is even possible.
Under the condition that no faculty has contained in its method that which serves no purpose for its systemic employment, it must be that no singular, uncognizable conception belongs to understanding alone, but rather, belongs to a higher order faculty, and is called an idea, and is properly a transcendental conception of pure reason. The categories are of course, exempt from this criteria, insofar as, while they are themselves singular conceptions albeit not of objects understanding thinks, they have schema, the lesser conceptions, subsumed under them, they serve a systemic purpose within the faculty to which they belong, hence are not mere ideas.
To plumb the subtleties of transcendental philosophy is to grant to reason its proclivity for stepping out on its own, re: the whole raison d’etre of CPR, juxtapositioned to lesser faculties that always operate in conjunction with each other, or with Nature, regarding existences and knowledge.
“…. Now, although we must say of the transcendental conceptions of reason, “they are only ideas,” we must not, on this account, look upon them as superfluous and nugatory. For, although no object can be determined by them, they can be of great utility, unobserved and at the basis of the edifice of the understanding, as the canon for its extended and self-consistent exercise—a canon which, indeed, does not enable it to cognize more in an object than it would cognize by the help of its own conceptions, but which guides it more securely in its cognition. Not to mention that they perhaps render possible a transition from our conceptions of nature and the non-ego to the practical conceptions, and thus produce for even ethical ideas keeping, so to speak, and connection with the speculative cognitions of reason….”
Now, it’s time for important stuff. Like…..football.