charles ferraro

There are two different meanings that can be given to the phrase "outside the mind" when used in the context of Kant's CPR. Let me try to explain. The...

[reply="Gregory;566 I beg to disagree. Also, in this regard, read Schopenhauer's Criticism of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Focus especially on Scho...

Cause, or Cause and Effect, is one of Kant's Categories of the Understanding. Kant asserted there were twelve such categories.

Stage I Phenomenal objects, by their very definition, i.e., as phenomenal, must first be experienced in a spatio-temporal context contributed to them ...

Space and Time, the Forms of Sensible Intuition, and the Categories of the Understanding.

Is this another way of rendering what you are saying, or claiming? God can be defined as a necessary personal being. A personal being can be defined a...

I think you mean transcendent.

For example, the Idea or Form of an Elm Tree or of a Tiger has nothing absolutely necessary or strictly universal about it. As species, their existenc...

The human mind only encounters phenomenal objects and, retroactively, it ASSUMES that it contributes to them those characteristics which are necessary...

By the way, are Plato's Forms/Ideas transcendental or empirical?

Then why didn't you say so??

The human mind does not bestow all upon the noumena because it is impossible for the human mind to step outside of itself to see itself doing this.

If a characteristic of phenomenal objects exhibits ABSOLUTE NECESSITY and STRICT UNIVERSALITY, then that characteristic is transcendental. A transcend...

I always create an existential relation between myself and the "I" of the Cartesian "I think, I exist" whenever, and while, I am performing the though...

Descartes wasn't concerned with undermining arithmetic truth. He was, in fact, a pioneering mathematician who extended the nature and scope of such tr...

Prior to the advent of non-Euclidean geometries, couldn't it have been claimed, with all sincerity, that there was no possible world wherein, or no co...

How do you distinguish a possible from an impossible world?

Yes, true! The ending of the self or ego is a synonym for the attainment of oblivion in any culture. Just another case of those culturally biased Euro...

Schopenhauer subscribed to the Judeo-Christian value system because it promoted the DENIAL, rather than the AFFIRMATION, of the WILL-to-LIVE. The high...

What's really inconsistent to me is how Schopenhauer can vehemently reject the existence of the Judeo-Christian God, the source of the Judeo-Christian...

Actually, I had Sartre in mind when I asked this question. Specifically, his explanation of how Being-for-Itself constantly issues from Being-in-Itsel...

You wrote: "Thoughts are, let's just say, immortal ... ", didn't you??? You are, in fact, equating, or confusing, the non-physicality of thoughts/idea...

Empirical verification of a mortal's ability to experience the existence of immortal ideas would require prior empirical verification of that mortal's...

Where's the logic in this? It's more like asserting that there is reason to believe the donut hole survives even after the donut has been eaten.

The meaning of the terms "unreflective knowledge" and "reflective knowledge" also remind me of Sartre's concepts of the "Pre-Reflective Consciousness"...

Excellent explanation! Yes, I think someone else already thought of this, Renee Descartes. Although his terminology differs from yours, through applic...

Descartes wrote, as follows, in Meditation I: “I shall now suppose … that some malignant genius exceedingly powerful and cunning has devoted all his p...

Descartes was highly successful in the field of mathematics. He is considered the founder of analytical geometry. The investigations you refer to cont...

The thinking and existing of the dreamed person have their originating source in the imagination of the person who is dreaming. The dreamed person is ...

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. So be it!

I Descartes deliberately searched for and argued for something he considered to be indubitably certain, i.e., true beyond all reasonable and hyperboli...

How, exactly, would you tailor your explanation? The question, as I see it, is simply whether, or not, the Cogito Sum argument has an inherent integri...

Perhaps one's motivation is to get at the truth.

Yes, I could claim to be something other than just my thinking (the Cogito). But then I would be obligated to specify precisely how I, and any other h...

No! But let me clarify something I think I should have clarified previously in greater detail. By a dreamed person, I mean someone completely fictitio...

Has anyone ever been able to converse with a dreamed person outside of the dream? Once I'm able to do this, I'll let you know.

By definition, a dreamed person can neither think, nor exist independent of the dreamer. The dreamer simply makes believe the dreamed does both. We kn...

Does not every object of experience I encounter in the world that surrounds me, from the most simple to the most complex, have something inherently "m...

Does it matter that the very existence of the "artificially occurring" object of experience you chose to make your point, i.e., a printed word, alread...

I have already given my definition of consciousness (see response to Daemon). Essentially, I agree with Sartre's characterization of Being-for-Itself ...

Nice exposition of the possible relationship between the subjective and the objective. It is amazing how many variations and modifications there are o...

Neither am I using the term self-consciousness in the sense of being preoccupied with how I appear to others. I am using it in the sense of being able...

What's your definition of consciousness?

No problem with the scientific/biological process you are describing to account for the evolution of consciousness. Questions: But at what crucial poi...

Then I assume you are indicating that personal consciousness can also exist, in the first person present tense mode, but with an orientation to the pa...

Descartes' Evil genius scenario postulated hyperbolic conditions under which the necessary a priori truths of logic and mathematics (his clear and dis...

[reply="Amalac;506998" I think it would be more measured to say that I use the term "experience" in a way you choose not use it. I do think your use o...

I'm not trying to PROVE the existence of anything! You are! All I'm saying is that the occurrence of NECESSARY thinking and existing cannot be EXPERIE...