Hello Joshs,

We wouldn’t be able to distinguish truth from error in the first place if we didn’t have a pre-existing system of criteria ( theory) on the basis of which to make such determinations. Theory is a manifestation of a metaphysical viewpoint

I think we are just using the term ‘metaphysics’ differently: I have no problem with coming up with models (i.e., theories), such as theories of truth, to help us determine other theories (such as scientific ones).

By ‘metaphysics’, I am targeting actual ontologies of the world in-itself. E.g., physicalism, idealism, substance dualism, etc.--basically anything that claims knowledge of the absolute: the world in-itself beyond the possibility of all experience.

The profoundly creative work of science consists not in exposing errors in reasoning but in changing the subject, turning the frame on its head, redefining the criteria of truth and error, not just checking our answers to old questions but asking different questions

Science isn’t metaphysics (in any sense of the term): it doesn’t determine what truth is. Theories of truth are philosophical, and I would imagine (going with your use of the term) metaphysical.

Hello SimplyG,

Yes I agree with you, metaphysics in its nature is not always concerned with producing knowledge but it’s more of a method of thinking and reasoning . You can leave that to science which employs metaphysical methods and theories to yield knowledge such as testable theories that behave as expected in the real world so it’s a fore runner to the scientific method.

I get what you mean, and do agree that we often do this; but, taking the side of the pragmatists, I don’t see why we need metaphysics to do this. We can come up with models pertinent to the possibility of experience, and thusly use science, without making unwarranted assumptions about what may lie beyond that experience.

Take this tautology: All bachelors are unmarried men. Now you don’t need to go around and check if this is true as this is self evident and knowledge of its truth is produced in the sentence itself.

‘All bachelors are unmarries men’, just like ‘a = a’, is only valid within the possibility of experience; and it could be true that the world in-itself behaves in an irrational manner—such that sometimes a != a. Who knows?

Metaphysics is a purely speculative and knowledge is a by product of its enquiry rather than its ultimate aim as it makes no claims of knowledge therefore it remains purely theoretical and abstract.

Metaphysics absolutely claims knowledge about the world in-itself: ask any idealist, physicalist, or substance dualist.

I think it was Einstein who said “imagination is more important than knowledge” and it seems to me quantum theory is ripe for metaphysical speculations of how things at the subatomic scale don’t behave as expected according to ordinary experience.

I don’t see how Einstein’s quote ties back to your point, as I agree that the imagination is important to determining models pertaining to that which is within the bounds of the possibility of experience.

I made a thread specifically related to this question with posters positing that math precedes the physical empirical universe but that there are correlation between the two either by accident or design:

For this discussion, it just depends on if you are claiming this as a useful model of experience or whether it is actually true of the world in-itself.

Hello Mww,

Metaphysics is a discipline; imagination is a faculty.

Even if one chooses to deny to imagination the denomination of faculty, metaphysics is still a discipline, and in which case, the distinction remains that imagination is not.

Couple things that I would like to note:

1. The imagination can be constrained by procedures which make it a discipline, in the sense that you are talking about.

2. Imagination, and pure reason devoid of empirical content, is indistinguishable from mere human conceivability—irregardless of whether it is done is a highly structured way (i.e., as a discipline).

Hello 180 Proof

This is neither a charitable nor close reading of what I actually wrote, Bob

I apologize: I must have misunderstood what you wrote.

Translation: Physics (Aristotle et al), not metaphysics, "is a useful model of experience" (i.e. physical reality, or publicly intelligible aspect of the real, aka "nature"). Metaphysics consists in categorical criteria for making hypothetical, or "useful models..."

Maybe that's clearer?

This makes a bit more sense to me. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like you are saying ‘metaphysics’ is the over-arching means of determining ‘physics’ (since the former is ‘categorical criteria for useful models’ and the latter is ‘a useful model’): is that correct?

Presently, science is trying to explain consciousness with the ontological assumption that materialism/physicalism is the case. If, in ten thousand years, that scientific project still has not given a definitive answer to the hard problem/mind-body problem, wouldn't that be strong evidence that materialism/physicalism is not true?

If you consider pure speculation that is indistinguishable from human imagination valid forms of inquiring about that which is beyond the possible forms of one's experience, then, yes, I would say that counts in disfavor of physicalism and possibly in favor of idealism.

Metaphysics also exposes the error in our thinking. So, while that does not count as "knowledge", it makes us examine, or even discover, how we think ordinarily about reality, or the carelessness of how we think, or what we take for granted as true.

In the sense that I defined it in the OP, I don't think we need metaphysics to expose errors in our reasoning: we can do so without making ontological claims.

metaphysics explains only concepts abstracted from, and therefore useful for categorizing, (experience of(?)) 'how things are', and does not explain any facts of the matter. Metaphysics is not theoretical.

I have no problem with this, since it isn't metaphysics in the more traditional sense (I would say at least). You are basically saying, and correct me if I am wrong, that metaphysics doesn't actually get at ontology (like Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, etc. thought): instead, it just is a useful model for experience. To me, that just isn't metaphysics anymore, it's just pragmatic models; which I have no problem with: the actual claim about transcendent reality is missing therefrom.

People have lots of ideas about what "metaphysics" is. Our discussions of the subject are always tangled up in disagreements about the meaning of the word. Your definition is certainly not what I mean when I talk about metaphysics. More importantly, I don't think it's consistent with what most other people think it is either.

What do you mean by it then?

I am using the traditional term going back to leibniz, Kant, etc.

Hello SimpleG,

There’s more to metaphysics than just imagination it also includes reasoning not based upon experience but using deduction thereof such as found in math

1. Reasoning based upon experience to make claims about something beyond experience, as opposed to merely creating a predictive model for experience, is indistinguishable from human imagination; because that claim is not grounded in experience. It is all fine and well to claim that I should expect things within experience to behave like X, but to posit that about things beyond experience is completely devoid of empirical content.

2. Math and logic are grounded in empirical arguments. We can introspectively analyze how we reason to construct them both, and, in the case of math, test to see how well they relate to the world outside of us.

You might like this quote by Kant as to what metaphysics is from his Critique of Pure reason preface.

Kant is a major motivator of my thinking on metaphysics: especially his prolegomena.

Hello jorndoe,

A nonsequitur is [...] — Bob Ross
... negation of "follow". (¬(p ⇒ q))

I am failing to understand what you are contending with here: it seems you just re-stated what I told you. My point was that those arguments were not deductions, and a non-sequitur is not a deductive argument.

Whether supposed to or not, it can't, hence mentioned gap (+ admission). (Aquinas, notes)

If a conclusion is outside of the scope of the intended consequences of an argument, then it is not a gap.

You find "supernatural magic" a fine explanation...? :confused:

No I don’t.

Hello Mww,

I apologize: I thought I responded to you, but I must have forgotten.

I’m saying we have to grant that the things in the world are caused. Even if we don’t know what causes things, if there’s some thing right in front of my face, I’m further along accepting something else caused it to be there, than I would be if I denied it

I don’t have any issue with that as a model of experience, but I don’t think it works for the metaphysical claims Kant was making. However, I think we’ve discussed my complaints pertaining thereto sufficiently (and don’t want to beat a dead horse here).

The brain is just another thing, right? I’m just saying there’s some degree of correspondence between scientific and metaphysical knowledge claims. Or, lack of them.

Yes, this only works if you grant that we can know the things-in-themselves, to some degree, by investigating the appearances (i.e., science)--only then to turn around and conclude we can’t. It’s a nice Kantian paradox he puts himself into.

I wouldn’t word it that way. I’d say everything in the world appears related to something else.

That’s fair.

I’m ok with that. And because you and I will agree on many more things than not, it is more than probable our cognitive systems are congruent in their respective matter, but merely similar in their respective operational parameters.

True.

Hello Mww,

Properly spoken, it should have been, there is awareness of it, rather than I am aware of it.

Yes, I am saying it ‘affects’ you insofar as your senses are aware of it.

and it is true there is a blind spot between the senses and the brain,

So this is where I haven’t fully quite captured your metaphysical theory: are you saying that the world-in-itself (1) has causality and (2) that our representations of it are (for the most part) accurate? Otherwise, I don’t know why you would appeal to scientific investigations of the brain, since they are also representations and not things-in-themselves (unless there is a somewhat accurate bridge between representation and thing-in-itself).

Let it be resolved that to be affected is to grant the necessity of real external objects effecting the senses.

Yes, I agree. But doesn’t this now negate the idea that we cannot know anything about the things-in-themselves if we are allowed to use our representations to determine that there are such real external objects effecting us?

For me to know the causality of Nature, I’d have to be affected by causality, intuit causality and represent it as a phenomenon, understand causality and represent it as a conception, synthesize each representation into a cognition of causality

The more I speak to you, the more I think you have developed (or adhere to) a model of reality, which is extracted from the trusting of one’s experiences, whereof we represent the world to ourselves and our representations are somewhat accurate of the things-in-themselves.

Right off the bat it is impossible to represent causality as a phenomenon because causality is not conditioned by space and time. Causality does not have extension in space; things do. So given the interrupted chain of mental events, I cannot KNOW causality, but I can still think it as a conception.

Interesting, so would you say you believe that the world-in-itself has relations, which are not meaningfully called physical causality?

So it is in thinking alone, that logically Nature must be causal, because it is absurd, and eventually contradictory, to suppose it is me….or you or Bob or Julie or Sir Charles……that is necessary cause of the things both by which all of us are affected, and at the same time, the things only some of us and possibly none of us, are.

This makes sense if we assume that are representations are accurate enough to tell us there are other conscious beings; but, yeah, that makes sense.

:heart:

Hello Philosophim,

Thank you for waiting Bob, the weeks have recently been filled so I have not been able to respond quickly to you

Absolutely no worries my friend! Take all the time you need: I always appreciate your substantive responses.

Now you can see why truth as a subjective concurrence with reality doesn't work for me. What is true about the thing-in-itself is something which is beyond my ability to know.

Demonstrating that we cannot know the truth about things-in-themselves does not demonstrate that ‘truth’, as a concept, should be deployed as equivalent to ‘reality’. I have no problem, under my theory of truth, also claiming that we cannot know the truth about the things-in-themselves. So I don’t think this is a valid reason for why you would, as noted in your first sentence above, use truth as non-subjective.

It is true that the thing-in-itself exists.

To you, this would be an inconcise sentence, since ‘it is true’ and it ‘exists’ are both expresses the same thing.

For me, ‘it is true’ denotes the accuracy of the claim, which is that ‘the thing-in-itself exists’.

My concurrence of belief or representation is irrelevant.

I think we may be using the term ‘non-subjective’ differently as well; because I have no problem noting that the truth of the matter is independent of my beliefs and perceptions—but not independent of my thought, because I cannot express anything is ‘true’ other than a thought corresponding to reality.

But I can also use truth within my subject, which I agree with you on. My major point is that your use of truth either disregards are eliminates the colloquial understanding of "truth outside of our subject". If you wish to delineate the two, I would add some adjective to truth to mark the difference,

My definition does not eliminate the fact that truth is independent of the content of our thoughts, of our beliefs, and our perceptions: it just notes that the thought is required for there to be truth at all, since what is true is a claim that corresponds to reality. You seem to be eliminating the correspondence aspect of claims, and noting that truth is just what is.

Good discussion Bob! I will try to get back soon on replies going forward.

You too! I look forward to any future discussions we have!

Oh, that's what I thought you were saying, since you replied "exactly" to my response saying how do you know you have thoughts if only accept public knowledge.

Whether a thought is more than what we can introspectively access does not negate the fact that we can know certain things from private knowledge, such as that we have thoughts.

Hello Leontiskos,

I did not give a definition, and what I said is, "the existence of moral facts would presuppose the existence of fundamental obligations." I did not say—as you incorrectly claim—that "an obligation would presuppose the existence of a moral fact."

I apologize: I must have misunderstood what you were saying. The claim that “the existence of moral facts would presuppose the existence of fundamental obligations” simply does not follow by the definition of ‘obligation’ that I gave. There can be no such subjective obligation while moral facts still exist. Again, and correct me if I am wrong, I am interpreting you to be using the term ‘obligation’ to refer to an prescriptive statement that is objective, which is the only way I can fathom that one would think moral facts presuppose the existence of obligations—let alone fundamental ones.

How could a judgment exist independent of minds? Judgments are judgments of minds.

That is the whole point of moral realism: that the moral judgment is objective, which is to say that it exists mind-independently (i.e., independent of any subject: mind: person: thinking being). E.g., biological functions (for physicalists and potentially substance dualists), a priori knowledge (for Kantians), a platonic form (for platonists), a law of nature (for naturalists), etc.

These deploy a moral judgment as categorical, which is to say it exists independent of whatever a given mind produces or generates.

Hello Mww,

How do you figure I’m affected by the very thing I didn’t notice? I concede a thing happens, an effect on me, but from that I don’t have to concede I am aware that it happens, an affect in me. The food I eat has an effect on me, but I’m not aware of it.

Oh I see: I was not intending by “affected” that you were aware of it (as the ego).

It is absolutely impossible for me to justify, given only the account determinable from my frame of reference, that I simply didn’t age as fast as you. It is the case, therefore, there is no way to explain the relativity of inertial frames from a purely metaphysical Kantian point of view.

But if it isn’t accounted for within Kant’s view, then doesn’t it pertain to the things-in-themselves; which Kant say we cannot know? I have no problem with the idea that you don’t perceive the time dilation, but the fact that there is such a thing is either accounted for (1) in Kant’s metaphysics or (2) it pertains to the things-in-themselves.

Backwards from best guess, that which we’ve already done, gets us to representation. To say we start from representation when in reverse, contradicts the method by which we arrived at the best guess

I didn’t quite follow this part. But I agree that:

The chain of mental events ends with knowledge, so in reversing, THAT is the star

So I cannot say we start with representations but, rather, experiences; and reverse engineer that.

Even if there is a limit on our knowledge of what they are, there is no uncertainty in the fact that they are. If we deny or even doubt the appearance of objects because Nature is not itself causal, we destroy the very notion of an internal cognitive system, relying on pure subjective idealism

It sounds like you are claiming to know something about the world-in-itself: that it has causality. Am I correct in that? If so, then that does get around the worry I invoked but introduces a new one: if space and time are the possible forms of experience, then how is positing a ‘world-in-itself’ space and time not transcendent metaphysics (of which Kant adamantly is against)?

the representations in us presuppose corresponding things external to us, and, Nature is causal in itself, but that doesn’t mean we have to know anything about either of those two things

To me, the second reason here is purely transcendent metaphysics; and the first I have a hard time justifying, since all we know is conditioned by are possible forms of experience.

The two forms by which experience is possible do not condition or shape how we understand our-SELVES, but only how we understand real objects external to us. Our-SELF is a subject, and no subject can at the same time be an object, therefore our-SELF, as mere subject of which can only be thought as conception, has no need of phenomenal representation, hence is not conditioned by that which makes them possible. And this, among others, we cognize a priori, or technically, transcendentally.

That makes a lot more sense! Building off of this, then what do you think of our self’s actions being also represented in our outer sense? Doesn’t that prove we know at least some things-in-themselves (or thing-in-itself)?

What’s the brain for, if “mosquito” is given immediately from a sensation? I know you don’t think that’s how it works, so….where did “mosquito” come from in your view?

I am not saying that we don’t represent the world (viz., that we just know from direct sensations), so I should have been more careful with my terms: I mean that the mosquito is made up of the representations, the experiences, we have of—it is constructed of purely qualities and, thusly, to remove those qualitative properties (of which we experience) is to remove completely that thing which we called a mosquito; and I am uncertain as to what it could be in-itself nor as this ‘thing’ that you mentioned.

Hypothetical imperatives cannot ground obligation, which is why the existence of moral facts would presuppose the existence of fundamental obligations.

By ‘obligation’, I mean something which one ought to do—that’s it.

However, if by ‘obligation’ you tie it, in definition, to moral facticity; then, yes, an obligation would presuppose the existence of a moral fact. Nevertheless, this is would incorrect to use your definition in parsing my OP (since I did not use it that way): I mean a fundamental normative statement.

Under your definition, you are just noting that there are fundamental normative facts within moral facts (i.e., there’s a hierarchy to moral facts) which are necessary not one’s “fundamental obligations” in the sense that meant it, since there are more fundamentally some taste which is committing you to the moral facts in the first place.

Positing the existence of moral facts without the existence of fundamental obligations makes no sense at all

There can exists a fundamental moral judgment which is subjective that is fundamental to one’s moral system, and there can equally exist moral facts.

In reality what you call a "moral fact" is a hypothetical imperative, and what you call a "fundamental obligation" is a moral fact.

No. By moral fact I mean a moral judgment which exists mind-independently, and I do not mean that they are themselves hypothetical imperatives (for those are moral non-facts: tastes). Likewise, I think I already clarified above what I mean by ‘fundamental obligation’.

But objective idealism doesn't reduce ontology to epistemology.

My position is that it's (more) reasonable to be "confident" only in those experiences and facts which we do not have compelling (more-than-subjective) grounds to question or doubt

So, if I am understanding you correctly, you think that you do have compelling grounds to question that your have thoughts?

My point is that people should be most confident in their private, mental life existing then anything else; which you are implying they should be confident in the abstractions of 'physical' and public knowledge and you are going so far as to say you don't know if have the mental inner life. That's backwards to me.

Hello Leontiskos,

The OP grants moral facts with its right hand and takes them away with its left. "You can have moral facts but you cannot have fundamental obligations," is the same as saying, "You can have moral facts but you cannot have moral facts." A fundamental obligation is one kind of moral fact, and if there are no fundamental obligations then there are no moral facts.

The fact that no fundamental obligation is a moral fact does not negate the existence of moral facts. The point is that the moral facts are not doing any of the work in a rational moral system: its the hypothetical imperative(s) which is(are) the fundamental obligation(s).

On another note, as argued in the OP, a moral fact cannot be a fundamental obligation, as that would be circular logic.

Hello Jorndoe,

non sequiturs [...] follow [...] therefore — Bob Ross

... are examples of deduction

A nonsequitur is not itself a deduction: the former is a hypothetical that has a false implication, and the latter is an argument wherein its premises necessitate its conclusion.

Not exactly, no. We're talking what the Pope, priests, gurus, imams, pujas, etc promote (be it simple complex sophisticated renditions), the Avestan Ahura Mazda, the Vedic Shiva, the Biblical Yahweh, the Quranic Allah, etc, the currently prevalent, elaborate religious faiths, often mutually incompatible (as mentioned), what people out there actually believe and sometimes practise:

Ah, I see. However, there are plenty of sophisticated theological arguments (which are formal) for these religions, such as Christianity; of which many of its mainstream followers are unaware of. I just think this “idealized” vs. “elaborate” distinction doesn’t really hold very well.

Maybe. I'd call them definitions, e.g. G is defined as a supposed 1st cause (like Aquinas did), or "super-designer", or ... As to the mentioned gap, the kalam/cosmological argument, for example, does not derive the Biblical Yahweh, cannot particularly differentiate those "historicized" deities or "the unknown" for that matter (incidentally admitted by one of the foremost promoters of that argument).

But they aren’t definitions, they are arguments. Aquinas defines and argues for God being a first-cause, and, thusly, his argument for that property of God is distinct from God’s definition.

The kalam cosmological argument is not supposed to prove the Christian God as existing, it simply proves (or attempts to prove) that there is a necessary being by positing the universe as contingent itself.

There's been realism versus idealism threads before. Maybe it's time for another. Hit it, if you have something good, it's one of those things the forum is about. Roughly 4/5 contemporary philosophers go with realism. 2009, 2020 A topic in its own right, all the way back to Plato ... (Descartes) ... Berkeley ...

If one holds that the representations they have are of mentality and that alive beings are immaterial minds; then the only manner of maintaining an ‘objective’ reality, which has many explanatory benefits, is to posit a universal mind, of which can be labelled as ‘God’. Thusly, God and reality become one. I find this compelling only insofar as I find objective idealism compelling, which, in turn, is predicated off of philosophy of mind (and, more specifically, giving an account of conscious experience).

I guess your take is more or less at odds with the entire elaborate category above? If my bare guess holds up, you'd have something in common with a few atheists:
I'm guessing atheism primarily is concerned with the former (elaborate), and agnosticism more found in the context of the latter (idealized) — both of which could be held by one person, and thus need clarification.

I am at odds, of course, with mainstream, ill-thought out, religious views; but I wouldn’t say that atheism itself is only or primarily concerned with those kinds of views: they don’t focus on the bad arguments for the God’s existence. Graham Oppy, for example, which you quoted before, certainly is not concerned with mainstream religious views and bad arguments: he concerned with rebutting his theist colleagues and defending his naturalism against them.

Those mentioned above aren't arguments, just poor explanations. Some reasons were listed.

Oh, got it. Well, I just didn’t find them convincing for the reasons already stated.

Hello Mww,

As I said before, it is true there would have been a ~12 x 10-8sec (dunno how to type exponents, sorry) discrepancy in elapsed time in my age upon flying to Rome, and yours, if you didn’t. Not that either of us would have noticed…..

But this concedes that it does affect you! I get that relative to your inertial frame nothing affected you, but the whole the point is that it is relative to other inertial frames; and if it affects you, then it must be explained (or accounted for) in Kantianism: I believe you saying, and correct me if I am wrong, that space and time themselves are not behaving differently (depending on where one is) but, rather, the description of space ‘curving’ and ‘time’ dilating are just shorthands of explanations of the behaviors of the content of one’s pure forms of experience (such as speed and gravitational displacement).

If your asterisk holds, mine should read, thing > sensation > intuition > understanding > representation, which would then be right if, in addition, representation is exchanged for knowledge. It’s a methodological sequence, start here, end there. In either case, the production of knowledge doesn’t belong here, re: the proposition, “reverse engineering of what was sensed produces knowledge of the mere thing”, is false.

I have a hard time with this, because there is no ‘thing’ and this denotes the thing-in-itself as completely irrelevant to what we are representing: so, in your view, the ‘things’ becomes effectively what the ‘things-in-themselves’ were supposed to be. Now the ‘things-in-themselves’ are just imaginative, unprovably existent, “objects” of the world.

If in the series as you’ve given it, starting at representation and working backwards is inconclusive, in that which of the two kinds of representation, phenomenon or conception, is not determined.

Exactly, which I would say that this entails that we do not reverse engineer, ever, the things-in-themselves but, rather, only the best guess based off of the limitations of our senses and understanding; for we cannot start anywhere else but the representation in “front” of us.

If the start is knowledge, on the other hand, working backwards arrives at understanding represented by conception, then intuition represented by phenomenon, then sensation, then the appearance of the thing, and the sequence is upheld.

What do you mean by “start with knowledge”? You cannot start with anything but the representations that you have (of the inner and outer senses) and reverse engineer, at best, what is necessary for the possibility of it. Anything else is pure imagination.

which is the mere appearance of some undetermined thing, hence the fallacy of knowledge production.

Exactly, why think, if Kant is right, that there are things-in-themselves? I think the root of the problem, as I noted before, is that Kant is presupposes a causal kind of relationship when transcendentally determining our a priori faculties and then using them to say that causality is only valid within those representations: kind of self-undermining.

Now reverse engineering isn’t engineering, but reversing time, which gives, say, in the case of the mosquito bite, that time before the mosquito bite. It should be clear we cannot say, after the sensation of being bitten, we were not bitten, but only that there was a time before being bitten.

Then it seems as though reverse engineering the process of producing a representation (e.g., sensibility, receptivity, intuition, cognition, etc.) since it requires time, which was supposed to be a pure form, and nothing else, of the faculty of intuition in the first place!

So….switching to science, surround yourself with all sorts of test equipment.

I don’t think science helps us with this dilemma one bit, since we are contrained to the two pure forms of our experience; and so it seems impossible to know, even transcendentally, that they are produced (themselves) by our intuition.

So….switching to science, surround yourself with all sorts of test equipment. The experiment is restricted to the reversal of sensation, again, say, of the mosquito bite, which focuses the equipment right down to the pores and little tiny hairs on the skin, at the epidermal level and the nerves at the posterior epidermal level. The sensation empirically manifests as an object having penetrated the skin and affecting the nerve endings, so reverse engineering that, is backing that object out of the skin, removing the affect on nerves, insofar as the non-penetration of the skin is exactly the same physical condition as not even having the particular sensation the experiment is meant to depose.

By reverse engineering, I am not saying to remove all the senses, for then we have nothing sensible left (as Berkeley rightly pointed out): instead, I mean that the object within our representations is the sensations (e.g., the sense of site of it, the sense of touch of it, etc.). What was sensed is only reverse engineered insofar as we converge our representations of it. I think it is very flawed to think that one can look at a mosquito, separate the sense of the feeling of the bite, and hold that the mosquito exists tangibly as (close to) what one saw of it but sans the sensations of touch that one had; for the sense of site is equally a sense, and thusly just as dependent on the subject as the sense of touch.

Hence, you don’t have knowledge of the thing to which the object of the sensation belongs, repeating the fallacy of knowledge production

This just circles back to the major problem that Kant demonstrates, but adamantly tried to dogmatically refute: that we cannot know a priori that we sense, intuit, nor cognize: we are stuck with being conditioned, ultimately, by the two pure forms of experience and they shape how we understand ourselves after that.

And you think we’re done here? Oh HELL no, we’re not!!! Expand the test equipment focus to include the immediate surrounding space. Now you got proof of the initial cause, now you perceive the thing to which the reverse-engineered, skin-penetrating, sensation-giving object belongs. Ask yourself whether, right here, right now, it can be said what that thing is.

No. Because this test is still dependent on your sense of site (at a minimum); take that away, and the mosquito returns back to a giant question mark: something insensible.

Hello Count,

Moral realism is irrelevant because there are no objective facts about morality. But isn't that the very question at hand?

I think you may have misunderstood the OP (which is totally fine): it is not that moral realism is insignificant because there are no facts but, rather, that if it were true it would be irrelevant. I am questioning the value of moral realism, and not its truth (or falsity).

In many conceptions of moral realism, as I will discuss further below, facts about good and evil are facts in the same sense the fact of who won the 1986 World Series is a fact

This is fine, and it should be. To me, a moral fact is an obligation which exists mind-independently.

It might be useful to differentiate here between propositions, statements about the world that are true or false, and states of affairs, descriptions of reality that either obtain or fail to obtain.
…
A proposition cannot be good or evil.

The content of a proposition can be evaluated to being good or evil, which I think has your idea of ‘states of affairs’ subsumed under it. Irregardless, I am not entirely following why this distinction needs to be made. If you claim that state of affair A is morally evil, then you are stating a proposition such that state of affair A is morally evil.

In terms of what you quoted from @Alkis Piskas, if I remember correctly, I differ with them fundamentally on what a proposition is (and thusly what a fact is). They seems to be claiming it is a proposal about the future, moral judgments are about the future, facts are about the past, and thusly (as the argument goes) moral judgments can never be facts. I find many things wrong with this.

First, the classic "God is the arbiter of what is good and evil." Here, we have a creator of the universe. We can ignore the Euthyphro question about whether God loves what is good because God is good or if what is good is good because it is beloved by the God(s)

Although, as an example, I totally understand what you are saying (although I don’t think it really pertains to the OP, as noted above); but I don’t think one can, if we were to discuss whether moral realism is compatible with God’s existence (which, again, is not anything related, at least directly, to the OP) then I would say that God and moral realism is incompatible; for either (1) God is the arbiter of moral judgments (and it is subjective) or (2) God’s nature (or something else) conditions God’s will such that it furnishes God with the moral goodness (like a platonic form) (and thusly is objective, but now God doesn’t exist because there is something greater than God, which defies God’s very basic definition of being that which no being is greater).

That is very interesting, as I am more sure that I have thoughts then that the world exists, and it seems kind of backwards to me to think otherwise.

Hello Mww,

Not in my inertial frame it doesn’t, hence, it is not an effect on me, hence I am not affected by it.

Yes and no: you are right that it doesn’t affect you insofar as you experience one continual stream of temporal processes, but it does affect you in the sense that your time is ‘sped up’ or ‘slowed down’ relative to another person. So the laws which Einstein describes are affecting your forms of experience, as opposed to the content thereof.

For what you said, I said “Nope”, which makes explicit we said very different things.

I know you think we are saying different things, but hear me out…

I am saying:

‘thing-in-itself’ > sensations > intuitions > understanding > representation

You seem to be saying the same thing, but noting:

‘thing-in-itself’ > sensations* > intuitions > understanding > representation

* The reverse engineering of what was sensed does not produce knowledge of the thing-in-itself but, rather, the mere ‘thing’.

Is that a fair assessment? Let me know where I go wrong if not.

With your mosquito analogy, I would say that the mosquito-in-itself is whatever affecting your senses, but the reverse engineering of the in-itself from the for-us only results in a ‘thing’: the site of it, the feeling of it, etc. comprise the mosquito-for-us, and we try to extrapolate what it is in-itself from that (but really only get the ‘thing’). I am not saying that our sensations of the thing-in-itself affects it, just that, rather, the thing-in-itself is what causes what we experience of it and our extrapolation of its ‘pure essence’ is the thing (and not the thing-in-itself).

Think of the science. For every bee sting or sweet taste there is a difference between what the senses do and what the brain does. But the brain can do stuff even if the senses don’t, and, the senses can do stuff the brain doesn’t recognize.

But how can you appeal to science to furnish you with evidence of those two separate faculties, when it is conditioned by the forms of human understanding (i.e., experience) in the first place?

We just love to say we KNOW the car is in the garage for no other reason than that’s where we left it. But it is an illegitimate claim, lacking any empirical warrant whatsoever. And THAT, my friend, is NOT speculative.

Speculations based off of empirical evidence is not pure speculation. Thusly, I don’t think it is purely speculative that the pure forms of our experience is space and time, but I do find it purely speculative that we have a faculty of intuition that is separate from a faculty of understanding. By ‘pure’, I mean it is indistinguishable from human imagination (or conceivability).

From my personal, well-worn armchair, this makes no sense at all…..

Very interesting, I don’t see how will would be a cognition but I do see how the actualizations of its intentions are. Why would Kant think will is a cognition? Why think that when one has clear introspective knowledge that what they will appears in the representations (of the outer world)?

Simplest explanation which says it all….if one likes K he won’t like S and if he likes S he won’t like K

Apparently so (:

Throw enough metaphysical reductionism at “memory” you arrive at “consciousness”, right?

I think you arrive at the imagination, which is a part of conscious experience for sure, but not equivalent to our (outer world) representative knowledge (nor experience).

Surely, you agree that there is some legitimate evidence which is not public (e.g., introspective knowledge, self-reflective knowledge, etc.)? Otherwise, I don't know why you think you have evidence that you have thoughts or emotions then, or any qualitative experience whatsoever since, of course, they are private knowledge.

Hello Jorndoe,

I didn't read those as deductive, but as evidence in support of the case. Though, I could of course have misread Christina.

I am not saying they are deductive arguments: even if they are inductive arguments they are still non sequiturs (viz., if the argument’s premises are accepted as true, the conclusion does not clearly follow at all from them, no different than me saying “I’ve seen a banana before, therefore unicorns don’t exist”).

That being said, these observations (evidence) can draw attention to the point in the opening post regarding elaborate versus idealized.

By “idealized”, it seems to me that you are referring to formal theological arguments for God, is that correct?

By “elaborate”, it seems (from your OP) that you are referring to laymen’s beliefs about God.

This is a fine generic and imprecise distinction (for not all laymen beliefs are distinct from formal arguments) for practical purposes, but I would say that your distinction just turns into the “elaborate” being the bad, vague arguments for God and the “idealized” being the good, clear arguments for God—so I think “elaborate” probably not a good term to express the former (nor “idealized”, as formal arguments are not in the business [necessarily] of idealism nor arguing for ideals).

I would say that when I refer to good arguments I have heard (although I am not convinced of them), I am referring to your “idealized” category (if I am understanding you correctly)--i.e., cosmological, ontological, teleological, etc. The best arguments for God that I find appealing are the one’s predicated off of idealism.

It becomes difficult to see the point of a proof of God's existence when it is construed as a proof of an individual's existence. Does one use arguments to become acquainted with an individual? Either that individual exists or it doesn't, and experience alone can tell us which. The project of a proof of God's existence thus ironically comes to appear meaningless to contemporary philosophers of religion.

I love Graham Oppy, and I haven’t read the whole article, but he/they are personifying God, which obviously makes no sense. A theist should not be arguing for the existence of a being when one could immediately experience, as God is posited in order to explain the underlying structure of reality itself. Secondly, yes, people use arguments to “become acquainted with” other people. I may not have met my cousin, rose, but I have ample evidence to support that she does, indeed exist: so a theist would say they can provide evidence of God’s existence without directly experiencing God.

I find "supernatural magic" and "G did it" to be non-explanations
…
They could (literally) be raised to explain anything, and therefore explain nothing.

Sort of. Bad arguments for God, or simply ill-thought out metaphysical explanations of the world, can fall prey to this sort of ‘God-of-the-gaps’ sort of explanation; but contemporary theists in theology do not do this at all.

Also, I can parody this argument with naturalism: someone could ‘explain’ a phenomena by presupposing it as ‘natural’ without actually explaining anything. So what? This just reflects a particularly bad argument, and not that all naturalism is bad argumentation.

When did such an explanation ever do away with ignorance/errors?

When we practice metaphysics correctly, it provides a useful theory of what we think reality is, and, of course, metaphysics is always speculative (so there is always, just like anything else, a degree of possible error).

But, hey, if you don’t like metaphysics, then that’s fine; but just remember you can’t coherently nor consistently hold naturalism, physicalism, etc. as well: it goes both ways.

Not themselves explicable, cannot readily be exemplified (verified), do not derive anything differentiable in particular, ...

There are plenty of ways to verify or illegitimize arguments for God: they just aren’t scientific.

I forgot to respond to the fence analogy: sorry!

Even if it’s the same fence, your experience of it is different, which reduces to the fact all your experience is ever going to be, regarding that fence, is predicated on your perception of it, no matter who does what to it.

This doesn't make sense to me: for the reason that you perceived it differently is exactly because someone did something to it.

So….say the fence is a different color but you don’t drive by. How you gonna get an impression from the fence you didn’t drive by? Now it is that the condition of the fence changed but your experience of it didn’t.

You didn't have a new experience of it that was different than your previous experience because you haven't experienced it again. Once you do, then it will have a different color. Are you talking about memories?

Hello Mww,

With respect to Einstein vs. Kant, it appears as though, to me, that you are accepting Einstein’s equations but through the lens that they describe merely the a priori structure of our representative faculties, is that correct?

I’m not directly affected by, therefore care very little for, e.g., gravitational lensing and assorted SR/GR relations

But you are: time dilates even at the scale of our normal lives.

For any object, your experience of it, how it is known/what it is know as by you, is predicated on your intelligence alone, the state or condition of the thing itself be as it may.

But doesn’t the thing-in-itself have to ‘appear’ to you in order to perform those logical operations on the sensations of it?

(Nope. The thing impacts us)

I appreciate the elaboration, but it seems like, to me, we are saying the same thing. You seem to be calling the aftermath of the thing-in-itself ‘appearing’ to us as a ‘thing’, and the sensations are what comprise the ‘thing’; whereas I am saying that the sensations are what comprise our limited knowledge of the thing-in-itself. Aren’t we saying the same thing?

The “impact” trigger our receptivity and sensibility to receive and produce raw input of, within the limits of what it is capable of, the thing-in-itself.

This sounds like the same thing I said, but why postulate a ‘thing’ then (on top of a thing-in-itself)? The ‘raw input’ is of the thing-in-itself, which isn’t necessarily a 1:1 raw input of the it.

3. The intuition and the understanding both process the raw input.
(Nope. Intuition processes the raw input, understanding processes the representations of the raw input. Intuition informs of the raw material of the thing; understanding informs that intuitions can or cannot have conceptions related to them.)

I don’t understand how this isn’t pure speculation: what exact about one’s experience implies that the intuition processes the raw input and the understanding processes those representations? How do you even know there are two different faculties doing it?

Yep, him. Although, upon closer inspection, it turns out $9.8M was the asking price, not the sale price. It was for “A Walk in the Woods”, 1971, currently held by a museum gallery, purchased from a legitimate former owner for….(gasp) $1000.

Niceee.

Another question for you: I find schopenhauer’s argument compelling that we know the ‘thing-in-itself’ insofar as we can introspectively access that our will is what is getting represented in our outer representations, such that the outer representations are not completely cut off from our knowledge. I would presume that a Kantian would think that the immaterial events (such as thoughts) which one has is somehow still conditioned by their faculty of understanding (but not intuition): how do you go about explaining that?

Hello Jorndoe,

Although I am not familiar with that book, I would like to just share some brief comments on the 10 reasons you expounded for not believing in God.

consistent replacement of supernatural explanations of the world with natural ones

I find that these terms are regularly deployed in vague and superficial manners, where either can be used to consistently and coherently explain reality: it just depends on how loose or precise the definitions are of them.

inconsistency of world religions

This just simply doesn’t entail that God doesn’t exist: it entails, if granted as true, that ‘world religions’ are false. Seems like a non sequitur to me.

weakness of religious arguments, explanations, and apologetics

If we are talking about mainstream apologetics, arguments, etc., then I agree; but so do most theists I talk too! If you are claiming that arguments for theism are all weak, then I don’t buy that. I have heard sophisticated and rational arguments for and against God’s existence.

increasing diminishment of god

Based off of the ‘rawstory’ article you linked, I believe you are referring to humanity being able to explain what was once called ‘supernatural’ with ‘natural’ events. Although this may prima facie count in favor of a physicalistic metaphysical theory, I think there are plenty of theistic arguments that hold weight as well.

Likewise, some people (like myself) would place God in nature as nature: so I find it to be a false dilemma to say that either (1) God exists and there are supernatural events or (2) we can explain everything naturally.

fact that religion runs in families

Again, this doesn’t entail God doesn’t exist. If someone were to argue that God exists because they were taught that traditionally by their family, then that is a bad argument for God’s existence.

physical causes of everything we think of as the soul

One can believe in souls without being a theist, and theists can believe that we don’t have souls (albeit less mainstream and stereotypical).

Also, as a neo-schopenhauerian, I reject the notion that our representations of the world exhaust it, and metaphysically the other side is mind: so I quite literally accept that from the side of the ‘physical’ (which is our representations of the world) we should find no evidence of a soul, but that, from introspection, we realize that the representations are of the soul (of mental events). So kind of a false dilemma again for me.

complete failure of any sort of supernatural phenomenon to stand up to rigorous testing

It’s a metaphysical claim, so one should never expect to study it empirically within our representations: it is (usually) meant to give the best account of the mind-body problem in philosophy of mind.

slipperiness of religious and spiritual beliefs

Sure. But why does this convince one that God doesn’t exist, as opposed to people believing false things?

failure of religion to improve or clarify over time

I get the feeling that the title should have been ‘why I am not religious in any mainstream way’ and not ‘why I don’t believe in God’. Religion, as a mainstream institution, is not a science nor is necessarily a means of refining our knowledge of God (if God exists).

complete lack of solid evidence for god's existence

This is entirely dependent on what one constitutes as “solid evidence”. If they are expecting to scientifically observe God, then I think I have more of a problem with their criteria for knowledge.

Hello Philosophim,

Let me take your second post as an example.
…

And yet we've already established that what is real does not depend upon a subject. As I noted earlier, this argument that truth requires a subject is just the nature of a subject using language to describe objects. That's just grammar.

The problem is that you are saying your definition fits the colloquial settings better (which you strongly advocate that we stick to the colloquial definitions), which I broke down, in my second post, why it is not. Secondly, you are still conflating a sentence being contingent on a subject and a sentence referencing something which is contingent on a subject, which you insist is a mere ‘grammatical issue’.

So, how do you go about reconciling your definition with its alleged incompatibility with a sentence such as “its real that the universe would exist without me”? I don’t think you adequately responded to that part.

Bob, very simply does the thing that we reference still exist despite us not seeing it?

It depends on what you are referencing. If I reference another thought with a thought, then no. If I reference a ‘tree-in-itself’ with a thought, then yes.

Here is a breakdown of the normative idea of truth under JTB from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Everything in that paragraph and section in the standard encyclopedia is compatible with every major theory of truth (e.g., pragmatic, correspondence, coherentist, etc.): it simply noted that (1) truth is independent of our opinions, (2) truth is independent of our justification for it being true, (3) truth is is independent of our knowledge, and (4) truth, within the context of JTB, is being deployed in a metaphysical as opposed to epistemological sense (viz., it is about how things are, as opposed to how we come to know them).

Which part of that did you find incompatible with my theory? And where did you think it referenced your theory?

Then I have no idea and see no value in defining truth as you do. Why are you defining it this way Bob?

I think I have already stated my reasons, but here they are again:

1. Captures better what people mean by truth (e.g., the truth of the matter is always, within a claim, a referencing of a thought corresponding to reality).

2. Something that simply exists, simply exists: it is redundant to say ‘it is true’ and incoherent (since one is referencing a claim with ‘it’ while simultaneously claiming ‘true’ signifies nothing about thought). Asking what it means for ‘something to be true’ presupposes that something as a proposition, which is a thought (in the form of a truth-apt sentence).

If I observe or have an opinion that I believe is true, yet you tell me that it is false, then you are telling me truth does not care about my opinion or observation.

Truth is independent of opinion. But this doesn’t entail specifically your theory of truth.

It is true that something exists which you observed to be an orange ball. There is the truth of your observation "seeing orange" and the truth of the light which entered into your eyes.

Yes, but this response is missing the mark: you were asking if ‘that’ existed independently of observation, which you are now agreeing it doesn’t (completely).

I am trying to give you all the benefit I can in this, but I do not see any other claim when you state:
(Me)A tree is a combination of matter and energy.

(Bob) A tree, as a tangible object, is the representation; and not the thing-in-itself

What you quoted here does not in any way entail any sort of argument of semantic dependency on subjects: I am not following why you think that: could you elaborate? Things-in-themselves vs. representations is a metaphysical distinction, not semantic.

Also, metaphysically, I don't think trees are a combination of matter and energy. Scientifically, that is the model we have of reality, but I don't think science is capable of penetrating reality far enough to give us metaphysical insight.

when I am pointing out the thing-in-itself in the context of the conversation.
…
I am not referring to the "tree" as a representation of the thing in itself.

Ahh, I see. So I am using ‘things-in-themselves’ in the traditional way: they are whatever exist as themselves and are never directly perceived by us. The tree-for-you is a representation of the tree-in-itself, and they don’t necessarily match 1:1 (e.g., the tree-in-itself does not have green leaves, but the tree-for-you does).

The truth of that thing in itself's existence does not depend upon myself as a subject.

The thing-in-itself, as opposed to the thing of which you experience, does not depend on yourself as a subject, but object within your experience of it (which is a representation of it and the only candidate that you could ‘single out’ as a ‘that’) is.

Hello Mww,

Sorry the for belated response, but it took some time for me to give your response the proper thought it deserves.

Firstly, if you think that Einstein and Kant’s “views are incompatible”, then how do you accept general/special relativity as a Kantian? Are you saying that you accept the empirical aspects but reshape them, so to speak, under a Kantian metaphysical outlook? It just seems like, on the one hand, you are saying the Einstein’s math is sound, but then turning around and saying Einstein’s views are incompatible with your own.

Secondly, I desperately need a refresher on the process that is taken by our representative faculties under Kantianism (under your interpretation of it), all the way from the thing-in-itself to the representation. You said the things-in-themselves are “NOT a thing of which we have a sensation”; but, as far as I understood, the sensations (the raw input) are a approximate of the thing-in-itself.

My exposition of Kantianism with regards to this representational process would be as follows:

1. The thing-in-itself “impacts” us.
2. The “impact” trigger our receptivity and sensibility to receive and produce raw input of, within the limits of what it is capable of, the thing-in-itself.
3. The intuition and the understanding both process the raw input.
4. A representation is the aftermath of the aforesaid process.

How would you explain it?

I’m ok with Nature being restricted to the possibility of experience.

Ok, then that’s fine. I was interpreting it as capital N nature.

Your namesake. The one I asked about awhile ago? One of his pieces just sold…….$9.8M.

Are you referring to a Bob Ross painting?

@Philosophim

I just thought of a clearer way of expressing the implicit use of correspondence theory of truth in colloquial speech, and just wanted to briefly share (and hear your thoughts).

Let's take your statement "Its true that the universe would exist without me.", which is, from your point of view, an expression of truth which is not contingent on thought. There are two aspects of my interpretation of that sentence that I think are worth elucidating to you:

1. "Its" is referencing a thought (i.e., a claim); and
2. "true" is signifying the reality of what is referenced as "its".

I think this is important to our conversation because I think, for your theory to be compatible with this colloquial sentence, one of the above must be false (i.e., either "its" does not reference a thought or "true" is not signifying the reality of whatever is referenced by "its"). Of course, this is presupposing that one is trying to fit their theory of truth into common language, which I believe you are definitely a proponent of that (based off of what you have said).

By my lights, if both of the above are true, then 'true' is signifying the reality of what is referenced in a thought which, in turn, directs the person interpreting the sentence to examine the thought and take its claim about reality to agree with reality: thusly, it entails that truth is not merely 'what is' but signifies the process of correspondence of a thought with reality.

I don't see it very plausible that either of the above are false, let alone one of them; so if, for you, one is (by your lights) false then it would help understand your view better if you elaborated on it. If I am just completely missing the mark, then perhaps elaborating on that would help me better orientate towards whatever you are thinking.

Are you saying that you disagree with basic embryonic devlopment?

No, I agree with it; but it does not make any claims metaphysically about whether one is an immaterial mind or a mind-independent organism. By my lights, most forms of idealism are compatible with "basic embryonic development" (such as mine).

My question pertains to what you mean, semantically, by 'cognition': I can assure you that I am not intending to tie you up in sophistries or semantics here, nor is this a trick question. If you say "just the standard one from webster, which is <...>", then that's fine. If it is a more robust definition (like the 'understanding' and 'reason' for Kant or the physicalist typical usage, for example), then that is fine too. I just want to get clarification on it so I make sure I am understanding your position.

Hello Chiknsld,

Yes it is. The reason I am asking for clarification is because there are two major ways the term 'cognition' is used, and I have no means of determining (without guessing) which one you mean: thinking (cognition) as an active participator in the construction of one's representations (e.g., Kantianism, Hegelianism, etc.) or a passive after-the-math self-reflective thinking about the representations & internal activity (e.g., the more modern, physicalistic sense of the term). I am presuming, if I had to guess, that you mean it in the latter sense, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

For me, as an objective idealist, I am not certain that my existence precedes my thinking (cognition); but if you mean it in that latter sense then that's fine and there's no need to dive deeper into this (for all intents and purposes) as I can go with that definition.

I appreciate your clarification!

I see that you removed in #1 the clarification I had in parenthesis: was that incorrect? Do you mean something else by 'intrinsic'?

Likewise, I see you changed #2 to 'cognition': was I misunderstanding your use of that term with 'self-reflective knowledge'? If so, then what do you mean by 'cognition'? Prior to brain functionality? Prior to the ability to reason? Prior to the understanding? Etc.

Hello Chiknsld,

ChatGPT (;

I appreciate your response, but I think we may need to take this a bit slower. I propose that we just try and tackle our discussion about 'natural rights' first and then we can move on to 'ethics' vs. 'morality'. Is that alright with you?

With respect to 'natural rights', upon reading your response in full, I am understanding a 'natural right', under your view, as having the properties of:

1. Being intrinsic (to the nature or perhaps existence of the possessor).
2. Being prior to moral judgments.
3. Being prior to self-reflective knowledge (which is what I am understanding you to be meaning by 'cognition'); and
4. Being prior to ethics.

Before I comment on any of this, I would like to pause here and see if this is an accurate representation of your position. If not, then please let me know what properties I missed, which properties are wrong (or need refurbishment), or/and if there is anything I am missing in general.

I look forward to your response,
Bob

As an idealist, I would say that so long as a human being is alive they are conscious: so it becomes, for me, a question of whether I consider the fertilized egg to be alive itself (as a human being); which I am, as mentioned before, unsure of, but advocate that it is prudent to treat it as though it is.

Hello Chiknsld,

Hi Bob, this is merely basic ethics that one learns in college.
…
Try to remember that it would be “unethical” to turn morals into laws. It is not a judgement of morality but rather ethicality.

Again, even if you heard of it in college, it is a self-undermining argument (for reasons I already stated), and is only used to attempt to illegitimize other people’s morals that one doesn’t agree with.

There’s nothing wrong with voting or trying to advocate for passing laws which agree with one’s morals.

Morals are individual whereas ethics are based on the morals we agree upon. Ethics are consensus based (this is why laws are only based upon ethics).

That we, in a republic, use consensus based law making does not negate the fact that we make our voting decisions based off of our morals. Nothing I said excludes the possibility of having such a republic system.

Turning your own personal morals into law would be tyrannical (which is why unanimous consensus is required).

Not in the sense of a government tyranny; but we do, always, invoke our morals when determining what to vote for.

Bob, If you study basic embryonic development you will know that the heart of the body is the first to develop.

An example: you have the natural right to live.

Yes, but just because you have a heart, it does not immediately follow that one has any rights. What about them having a heart or being alive gives them an intrinsic right as opposed to one granted by other human beings?

You are born with natural given rights.

Well, I am no further, unfortunately, in understanding what your argument is for them; and as far as I can tell we don’t have any. Nature doesn’t give us rights: he give them to each other.