”…..if you know a thing, you’ve experienced it.”
-Mww

I said: (…) if you are saying that possible knowledge is that which one experiences….
If by “if you know a thing, you’ve experienced it”, you just mean that you’ve experienced something…..

The question up for debate here is whether you have justification for claiming there are things-in-themselves that are being represented in that experience—not that having an experience is having an experience. — Bob Ross

Do you see that neither of your follow-up’s relate to what I said?
……Possible knowledge, knowledge not in residence, cannot be from experience that is.
……To experience is not necessarily to know, but to know is necessarily to experience.

Justification for claiming things-in-themselves are being represented in experience, should never be a question up for debate, and if it does arise as such, it can only be from a different conception of it. To represent a thing-in-itself in its original iteration, is self-contradictory, insofar as the thing-in-itself is exactly what is NOT developed in the human intuitive faculty for representing sensible things.
———-

Our understanding of the world is dictated by our representational faculties, but that doesn’t mean we can’t give cogent accounts of beyond that…. — Bob Ross

Then why isn’t such cogent account given by the understanding that’s already dictated our understanding of the world? If it can, then it hasn’t dictated as much as merely proposed, and if it can’t then its dictation is all it is capable of doing, which releases anything beyond it from being an object of it, which in turn means there won’t be a further cogent account.

But I get it. Reason can always influence understanding by enabling thoughts or chain of thinking beyond that which is dictated by the representational faculties. The old, “what if…..” scenario, which only reason can initiate, and in so doing requests that understanding bend its own rules. Which is fine, obviously, in that empirical science advances in no other way, except for sheer accident. Thing is, though, empirical science is checked by either Nature or experience, whereas pure mental exercise has no such check, but relies on self-correction in the form of logical juxtaposition to synthetic a priori principles, like..…. “no, son, you cannot enclose a space with two straight lines. Don’t even go there.”

So it turns out, not only does reason ask understanding to bend its own rules, but justifies the request because it has already bent its own principles. If that happens, there are no checks and balances left at all, and there manifests an intellectual free-for-all where anything goes, an “…embarrassment to the dignity of proper philosophy….”, so those old-time actual professional philosophers would have us know.

It sounds like you are saying there are minds which are of a mental substance — Bob Ross

I only said what my mind is not. I’ve said before I don’t hold that minds are anything beyond an object of reason, which negates that I may be what’s referred to as a substance dualist.

But, traditionally, a mind is a conscious intelligence—a thinking subject which has qualia. — Bob Ross

Oh. A new tradition, then. The old one didn’t need qualia for conscious intelligence. Got along rather well without them, actually. A pair of shoes with a pretty shine, is still just a pair of shoes.

I agree that the body is not a thing-in-itself, but the mind (or something else) must be. — Bob Ross

Ok. Why must it be? For a mind, or something else which serves the same purpose, to be a thing-in-itself makes necessary it is first and foremost, a thing. Says so right there in the name.

Even if the mind is not a ‘thing’ in the sense of being of a physical substance, it is a ‘thing-in-itself’ of a mental substance. — Bob Ross

This looks like a way to force acknowledgement for the existence of a mind. The thing-in-itself is a physical reality, so if the mind is a thing-in-itself in a mental reality, then that’s sufficient reason to justify its existence? Which still requires an exposition for mental substance such that mind can emerge from it. Are you using Descartes for that exposition? It’s in Principia Philosophiae 1, 51-53, 1644, if you want to see how yours and his compare.

It just seems to me like an incredibly unparsimonious account of reality. — Bob Ross

I am not accounting for reality; I’m accounting, by means of a logical methodology, reality’s relation to me.

You’re correct, in that I don’t know any of those things you listed, in the same manner as I know the things of my experience. But I know with apodeictic certainty the conditions under which the relations logic obtains, and from which my experiences follow, do not contradict Nature, which is all I need to know. ‘Course, I might someday trust that logic so far that it kills me, but it hasn’t yet, so I must be doing something right. Or at least not wrong enough to sustain permanent damage.

You want me to go further in my accounting, but I don’t see any need for it.

”I don’t think there’s sufficient warrant to claim there are other minds in any case, but it is nonetheless reasonable to suppose there are.”
-Mww

Why would it be reasonable if you cannot know anything about the things-in-themselves, which would include other minds? — Bob Ross

Things-in-themselves concerns things. Minds are not things. Things-in-themselves do not include minds.

But there are things about you as a mind you cannot prove of others without venturing into metaphysical claims about the things-in-themselves. — Bob Ross

I am not a mind; I am a conscious intelligence, a thinking subject, which is certainly a metaphysical claim. Notice the conspicuous lack of mention for the thing-in-itself. My body is never absent from my representational faculties, insofar as they are contained in it, thus is always a thing and never a thing-in-itself.

It just seems like an evasion (inadvertently) of the real issue I am trying to address here to say that ‘mind’ is merely ‘reasoning’. — Bob Ross

I didn’t say mind was merely reasoning. Such idea makes no sense to me. As well, I’m responding in kind to your verbatim comments, so if I’m evading it’s because I am not aware of what you’re trying to address.

Likewise, you can’t prove, even if that is the case that we all reason, that ‘we’ are the ‘ones reasoning’. Do you agree with me on that? — Bob Ross

Sure. It is not impossible what I consider as thinking really isn’t, but is in fact merely the material complexity of my brain manifesting as the seeming of thought. So, what…..you’re trying to say that because it is not impossible for thinking to be other than it seems, the door is thereby left open for my thinking to be a manifestation of something even outside my own brain? Perhaps that’s no more than the exchange of not impossible regarding brains, for vanishingly improbable for external universal entity.
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Time and space aren’t properties of objects per se, but you are, under transcendental idealism, producing them under space and time. — Bob Ross

No. I am not producing objects. I am producing representations of them, and those under, or conditioned by, space and time.

Saying that the objects only exist in your perception is just to say that there no corresponding object beyond those forms of space and time — Bob Ross

Sure, but no one has sufficient justification for saying objects only exist in perception, which makes the rest irrelevant.

”In order to know a thing in the strictest sense, it must manifest as an experience.”
-Mww

It can agree with this, as a matter of semantics, if you are saying that possible knowledge is that which one experiences…… — Bob Ross

Semantics, huh? Why don’t we just agree that if you know a thing, you’ve experienced it.

……but then this just pushes the question back: why can’t we say that possible knowledge goes beyond our experiences? — Bob Ross

Why wouldn’t that be true? The truth of that doesn’t affect the premise that if a thing is known it must have been an experience, and doesn’t affect possible experience.

Also, as a side note, wouldn’t it be impossible to know that, for example, your mind uses pure conceptions of the understanding to produce the world if we are defining possible knowledge as only that which we experience? Because we definitely don’t experience that. — Bob Ross

Of course. The categories are nothing but theoretical constructs. It is merely a logically consistent speculation that understanding relates pure conceptions to cognition of things. Pretty hard to experience a theory, right?
————-

Because we can tell that our perception of the world is dictated by our representative faculties. — Bob Ross

Now, for me, this is exactly backwards. I mean…what comes first, the appearance of a thing, or the representation of it? Our understanding of the world is dictated by our representational faculties.

Metaphysics is about understanding that which is beyond all possibility of experience, and that includes transcendental philosophy. — Bob Ross

Ehhhhh…..we just have different ideas of what entails metaphysics. While it may be fine to say it is understood for something to be beyond the possibility of all experience, it remains the case that understanding is not authorized to say what that something is, but only that the criteria for experience has not been met.

Understanding cannot inform what things are not conditioned by the categories, but only informs regarding those that are. Without the categorical criteria, understanding can still conceive on its own, but mere conception is by no means sufficient causality, from which follows that understanding cannot determine the ground of experience on its own accord. Something else must intervene, in order for subsequent understanding to grant the invalidity of its conceptions….the error in its judgement……with respect to possible experience because of them.

“…. By exposition, I mean the clear, though not detailed, representation of that which belongs to a conception; and an exposition is metaphysical when it contains that which represents the conception as given à priori.…”

Yours wants the content of a conception as metaphysical, which is an exposition of it; mine wants that there are conceptions, including their content, not thought spontaneously as in understanding in conjunction with a synthesis of relations, but given complete in themselves from a pure a priori source. Reason is the only human faculty with the power to forward conceptions complete in themselves, which are called objects of reason, or, transcendental objects, and are not at all objects of experience.

So, yes, it is understood there are things beyond experience, but metaphysics in relation to understanding is not how they are given.

Things-in-themselves are beyond the possibility of all experience. — Bob Ross

And of course, the thing-in-itself is no more that a full-fledged, self-contained conception arising from…..that’s right……pure reason. A metaphysical conception understood within an empirical domain, but not given from it.
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Analytic Idealism, I would say, is just pure ontolotical idealism; whereas transcendental idealism is really only epistemic idealism — Bob Ross

That sounds reasonable to me, and also serves as a barrier for the compatibility of our respective philosophies. Which is fine, I don’t mind, but we’ll run out of things to discuss sooner rather than later.

Are you agreeing with me then that:
— Bob Ross

For example, under transcendental idealism I don’t think you can claim: there are other minds; that you have a mind; that you have representative faculties; that objects persist in their existences even when you are not perceiving them, etc[/quote][/quote]

I don’t think there’s sufficient warrant to claim there are other minds in any case, but it is nonetheless reasonable to suppose there are.

I recognize the ubiquity of the conventional use of the word, but I personally don’t hold with minds as something a human being has. I consider it justified to substitute reason for mind anywhere in a dialectic without detriment to it, given the fact it is impossible to deny, all else being equal, that every human is a thinking subject. On the other hand, I am perfectly aware I am a thinking subject, which authorizes me to claim reason for myself, and that beyond all doubt.

I don’t claim representational faculties, but affirm the predicates of a speculative philosophy that presupposes them. They are explanatory devices in a discipline where the empirical support of experience is absent.

That objects do not persist in the absence of perception leads to irreconcilable contradictions, which suggests the claim as to whether or not they do, is an irrational inquiry. The logical consistency inherent in human intelligence demands only that which can be said about the relation a perceived object has with me, as opposed to the relation an unperceived object has with me, in either case the object’s existence is presupposed, from which follows the ontology of the object should never be in question.

The absurdity resides in the notion that if non-perception implies non-existence, then my perception is necessary existential causality itself. But it is absolutely impossible for me to cause the existence of whatever I wish to perceive, as well as to not perceive that of which I have no wish whatsoever, which makes explicit the only existences I could possibly be the causality of, is that which was already caused otherwise, which is all my perceptions could ever tell me anyway.

Then there is time. If I am the cause of an object’s existence merely from my perception of it, then the time of my perception is identical to the time of the object’s existence, which is the same as my having attributed to that object the property of time. But time, as well as space, can never be assigned as a property, therefore the time or space of the object’s existence cannot be an attribution of mine, which makes explicit the time and space of an unperceived object is a duration of a time in general and a position in a space in general, which for me is the same as any time and space in general, which is not necessarily the particular time and space of the object of my perception.
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Yes, I think we can know that there are minds that represent the world around to themselves: what is impossible (in terms of knowledge) about that? — Bob Ross

In order to know a thing in the strictest sense, it must manifest as an experience. What is impossible (in terms of knowledge) about that, is that minds of any form are never going to manifest as an experience. You alternative is to not conceive minds that represent the world, as things, or, to characterize knowledge as something other than that which manifests as experience.

Complicated further but the annexation of “to themselves”. If it is the case minds that represent are not met with the criteria for knowledge, then a mind that represents to itself is unintelligible.

So the question remains…..how would such knowledge be possible? How is it that you think that which the judgement represents, can be known?
—————

I thought you were claiming that we cannot perform valid metaphysics beyond transcendental philosophy—as we cannot know the things-in-themselves. Is that incorrect? — Bob Ross

That we cannot know the thing-in-itself has nothing to do with metaphysics. Metaphysics proper concerns itself with solutions to the problems pure reason brings upon itself, of which the thing-in-itself is not one. In fact, the thing-in-itself shouldn’t be a problem in any case, under the purview of the theory from which it originates, re: transcendental philosophy. There are those that make a problem out of it merely by altering judgement of its original conception and its subsequent derivatives, which just culminates in the installation of a different philosophy.

You mentioned good vs bad metaphysics a few pages ago. I didn’t think that a worthy distinction then, and I don’t think valid/invalid metaphysics to be any better now. Good vs bad logic in conjunction with experience or possible experience, for whatever metaphysics, has better service.
————

It is originally called ‘analytic’ idealism because it is formulated under the Analytic school of philosophy — Bob Ross

Ahhhh…that’s it? Transcendental idealism shifted the entire idealistic paradigm, so I figured that which attempts to shift it again, would shift from that. There is a short missive in CPR which sets the ground for its doctrine, which says metaphysics is predicated necessarily on the possibility of synthetic a priori cognitions, then goes about proving there are such things which validates the ground initially set as a premise. That to which synthetic cognitions are juxtaposed, are analytic, so….I just figured the new style of idealism wanted to be grounded in pure analytic cognitions, which are mere tautologies necessarily true in themselves, which, of course, a universal mind would have to be, re: self-evident. I mean….what would there be to synthesize to a universal, which makes synthetic cognitions with respect to that concept, impossible, which means that condition must itself be, well…..analytic.

But now….never mind. Just flew into my head, in keeping with what some philosophers historically do with themselves: take what one said, change this and that a little bit, present it as something new and different.

”yours concerns what is thought about, mine with thought itself.”
-Mww

I can agree with this to a certain extent; but I also hold that our minds are representative faculties—however, I don’t think it is cogent to claim that we can only go that far. — Bob Ross

One of the subtleties of metaphysics in general, is the recognition that only through reason can reason be examined, from which follows that all that is reasoned about is predicated on what is reason is. This is, of course, the epitome of circularity, and because it is inevitable, it best be kept to a minimum. No one has admitted to having sufficient explanation for how we arrive at representations, even while many philosophize concerning what they do in a speculative theory, justifying their inclusions in it. So saying, to posit an additional representational faculty, doing what it does and we not being able to say how it does what it does, stretches circularity beyond what couldn’t be explained beforehand.
—————

What do you mean by “it doesn’t work by claims”? — Bob Ross

I mean you are correct, in that there are things, such as those you listed, that I have no warrant to claim, either as fact objectively, or as irreducible truth subjectively, which is exactly the conditions under which transcendental philosophy is to be understood.
—————

”…..only demonstrates another form of impossible knowledge.”
-Mww

What is the other form of impossible knowledge that my theory conceives? — Bob Ross

You hold that knowledge of the nature of the thing-in-itself is knowable, which is knowledge I hold as impossible, yet you hold with the mind as a representational faculty, which is something impossible to know without the antecedent knowledge there is a mind, and, the nature of it is such that it has representational capabilities.
—————

…..under my view, it is actually and metaphysically possible for the ball at the top of the hill to fall to the ground because I belief the world has to offer such things that could actualize it. — Bob Ross

That the world offers (or withholds) is just another way of saying there’s a set of relations between the world and its objects, one set of relations and this happens, another set of relations and that happens which is the same as this doesn’t happen, all from the perspective of an intelligence capable of characterizing relations.
—————

But not all conceivable things are metaphysically possible. — Bob Ross

If conception is itself a metaphysical function, and if possibility is a metaphysical condition, then whatever is conceivable must be metaphysically possible.
—————

….you can’t turn around and claim, like a Kantian would (which was my whole point originally with Mww), that we can’t do metaphysics beyond transcendental philosophy. — Bob Ross

No matter what was turned around from, or by whom, I never said nor hinted there is no metaphysics beyond transcendental philosophy, or that all metaphysics is necessarily predicated on transcendental philosophy’s critical method.

“…. (That for) which, with all its preliminaries, has for its especial object the solution of these problems (of pre reason) is named metaphysics….”

One can attempt to solves pure reason’s problems, including the one of singular importance, any way he wishes, depending on the preliminaries he uses.

Perhaps you might be so kind as to reiterate what your whole point originally was, with respect to what you said there.

Do you have an idea as to why your system is called analytic idealism, insofar as it is a metaphysical doctrine?

I thought the origin of the proofs themselves, being in the understanding, would be a priori….. — Bob Ross

The a priori/a posteriori distinction is determined by the what, not by the where. While understanding creates it own objects, re: numbers, a priori, proofs by means of them would be impossible if they were not made into real objects in the world.

You can think all day long it takes three lines to enclose a space, but you’re not going to prove it with apodeitic mathematical certainty, unless you physically draw three real lines in a relation to each other corresponding to the image representing your thinking.

….we cannot know a priori the mathematical relations of objects a priori — Bob Ross

Correct. Relations of objects makes explicit experience, which is always and only determinable a posteriori.

……math is not a priori in the sense of being a part of our construction, via the understanding, of the world around us. — Bob Ross

Agreed, not part of our construction of the world, which begins with phenomena, whereas mathematics ends with them. In the former objects are given to us, in the latter objects are given by us.

It isn’t that the possible worlds exist but, rather, that under one’s metaphysical commitments there is an existence with the potency to actualize the thing, and as such the thing is considered metaphysically possible. — Bob Ross

Sure, but so what? For me, a thing I have yet to experience is already metaphysically possible, simply because it is conceivable as a thing, or a manifold of things, such as a world of things. You’re saying a thing is metaphysically possible insofar as some existence with the potency to actualization some possible thing hasn’t done it yet, which is tantamount to a non-natural causality.

Now, I accept the transcendental conception of a non-natural causality, but not with respect to the actualization of metaphysically possible things.
————

(Paraphrased for simplicity)

For example, under transcendental idealism I don’t think you can claim: there are other minds; that you have a mind; that you have representative faculties; that objects persist in their existences even when you are not perceiving them, etc…… — Bob Ross

Transcendental philosophy is a speculative methodology. It doesn’t work by claims, which imply possible truths, but by internal logical consistency in the unity of abstract conceptions, same as yours.

On the benefit of analytic idealism:

I think a more plausible explanation and account of reality. — Bob Ross

Perhaps, but not more knowledge. So we have between us, one philosophy which demonstrates that some knowledge is impossible given this set of conditions, and another philosophy which demonstrates that the former impossible knowledge really isn’t, given a different set of conditions, which in effect, only demonstrates another form of impossible knowledge.

Idealism, in whichever denomination, is always predicated on a subject that cognizes in accordance with a system contained in the form of his intellect. I rather think your idealism has to do with the cognitions, whereas my idealism has to do with the system proper; yours concerns what is thought about, mine with thought itself. Yours is limitless, mine self-limiting.

When considering the pros and cons of each, parsimony should be the rule.

the true origin of our proofs in pure math is a priori in the sense of our faculty of reason — Bob Ross

The true origin of the possibility of our proofs, is in reason and is a priori.
The origin of the proofs themselves, is in understanding, and is a posteriori.

our proofs (…) of the useful application of math is a priori in the sense of our faculty of reason’s ability to construct the phenomenal world according to principles. — Bob Ross

Useful application…..is empirical, for which the phenomenal is constructed, but by understanding, according to conceptions. Understanding is incompetent to construct synthetic principles a priori, but only to construct the conceptions and the synthesis of them to each other, representing the content of those principles. Transcendental application, is neither useful nor empirical, the form of which is merely syllogistic and thus having no empirical content.

“…. The understanding may be a faculty for the production of unity of phenomena by virtue of rules; 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, and which is of a nature very different from that of the unity produced by the understanding….”
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And because logic is a metaphysical practice, and the conception is already a methodological requirement, then it could be said that they are metaphysically necessary.
-Mww

Metaphysical necessity is essentially that it is true in all possible worlds — Bob Ross

Jeeezz, I hate that expression. Like…..what other world is there? That other worlds are not impossible says not a gawddamn thing about the one we’re in. And we’re not in a possible world; we’re in a necessary world.

Metaphysically necessary merely indicates a condition in a thinking subject. End of story.
—————

A cautionary tale, relevant to the thread topic:

“…. The success which attends the efforts of reason in the sphere of mathematics naturally fosters the expectation that the same good fortune will be its lot, if it applies the mathematical method in other regions of mental endeavour besides that of quantities. Its success is thus great, because it can support all its conceptions by à priori intuitions and, in this way, make itself a master, as it were, over nature; while pure philosophy, with its à priori discursive conceptions, bungles about in the world of nature, and cannot accredit or show any à priori evidence of the reality of these conceptions.

As we have taken upon us the task of determining, clearly and certainly, the limits of pure reason in the sphere of transcendentalism, and as the efforts of reason in this direction are persisted in, even after the plainest and most expressive warnings, hope still beckoning us past the limits of experience into the splendours of the intellectual world—it becomes necessary to cut away the last anchor of this fallacious and fantastic hope. We shall, accordingly, show that the mathematical method is unattended in the sphere of philosophy by the least advantage—except, perhaps, that it more plainly exhibits its own inadequacy—that geometry and philosophy are two quite different things, although they go hand in hand in the field of natural science, and, consequently, that the procedure of the one can never be imitated by the other.…”

This just says, while mathematics is that which exhibits absolute certainty, and we are ourselves the author of mathematical procedures, then it is true absolute certainty is possible for us. The cautions lay in thinking that insofar as absolute certainty is possible, we are thus authorized to pursue the experience of some object representing it. But that just won’t work, because the objects being pursued are not those we construct of ourselves, but are thought to exist in their own right. And they might, but there are no mathematically derived principles given from pure reason, and by association there can be no absolute certainty contained therein, that can support the reality of that object.

The certainty of mathematics can not be imitated in philosophy.

Question: Is a universal mind an absolute certainty deduced from mathematical principles? If not, the object, represented as a universal mind in our understanding, is a mere philosophical possibility. If all our representations are derived from ideas contained in that which is not itself a certainty, why should we trust that our representations arise from it?

I dunno, man. If I can grasp that all my representations belong to me, and never doubt or question that they do, why would I shadow that certainty with that which has decidedly less so, by thinking to myself that my representations are merely offshoots of something else?

While you are correct in saying it is possible, what’s missing is why I should even consider the possibility that analytic idealism holds more persuasions than the transcendental idealism I currently endorse?

So…..what do I gain by granting my representations have their irreducible origin somewhere other than in me?

You seem to be claiming that simply because we start out with an empirical proof that the rest that is abstractly reasoned about them is thereby empirical: is that correct? — Bob Ross

Kindasorta, I guess. The whole possibility of mathematical processes is predicated on the principle reason provides a priori, which itself is derived from a category, regardless of the quantities involved. It is so much easier to empirically prove the small number operations, but the large number operations follow the same principle, so, they are just as possible to empirically prove, but rather much more time consuming. As long as there are people willing to do it, or any sufficiently correlating method, all the sands on one beach could be added to all the sands on another beach….no problem. Not much point in it, except to prove it can be done.
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But I am necessarily extrapolating it from phenomena.
-Mww

I could equally claim that it is ‘necessary’ that your mind is a thing-in-itself. In both cases, it isn’t logically nor actually necessary but rather (debatably) metaphysically necessary. — Bob Ross

Hmmmm. I’ll go with…it isn’t actually necessary, in that there may not even be any such thing as a phenomenon (mind). Still, if phenomena/mind are valid metaphysical conceptions, and if they arise logically in a methodology which requires them, then they are logically necessary. And because logic is a metaphysical practice, and the conception is already a methodological requirement, then it could be said that they are metaphysically necessary.

All things which phenomena tell me about, are already outside my representational faculties.
-Mww

As of yet, I think this is an assumption you are making if you aren’t extrapolating it from the phenomena. — Bob Ross

But I am necessarily extrapolating it from phenomena. It would be impossible to be informed of whatever phenomena does tell me, if there weren’t any. All I have to do to say what phenomena tell me about, is extrapolate within the method by which phenomena arise, to the source of them. If the phenomena is necessarily given according to methodological procedure, the source cannot be contingently assumed. The cause must be as necessary as the effect it produces, for otherwise the theory is without sufficient ground.

Caveat: there is as yet no knowledge of what the phenomena represents, but only that it represents something. Sensibility is a representational faculty, not a cognitive one.
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On large numbers:

I think it can be proven, just not empirically. Are you disagreeing? We prove it with reason, not empirical tests (e.g., not with counting our fingers). It is a priori. — Bob Ross

I disagree large quantity summations cannot be empirically proven, and I disagree reason a priori is itself the proof. The latter is the source of synthetic principles a priori, which make the form of mathematical operations possible, the content be what it may. All empirical proofs require content, which reason alone does not provide, in accordance with the principles, which it does.

Furthermore, reason can only prove within its own constructs, which we call logic. So it is true it is logically provable that some quantity adjoined to another in serial accumulation produces a quantity greater than either of two adjoined, but such is not a proof for particular numbers added together, insofar as to prove that, and thereby sustain the logic, the content for which the principle is the condition, would have to actually manifest, which just IS the empirical proof. In the case at hand, it follows that the great magnitude of the quantities to be adjoined, and the adjoining of them in a mathematical operation, do nothing to violate the principle.

your description here is an attempt at reverse engineering what is outside of your representative faculty by means of what is presented to you by your representative faculty — Bob Ross

That would be the case if the reversal went further than authorized by the normal Kantian method.

……the post-modern sense: the acquisition of knowledge purely from the phenomena, of which says nothing of the things-in-themselves. — Bob Ross

Same as transcendental philosophy, except the latter says that things-in-themselves exist while saying nothing about such existence.

…..that would require that phenomena do tell you about the things which reside outside of your representative faculty…. — Bob Ross

All things which phenomena tell me about, are already outside my representational faculties.
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Things are things in themselves until they are met with human sensibility.
-Mww

But isn’t all evidence of “human sensibility” phenomenal? Isn’t it a metaphysical claim? — Bob Ross

Mine references a time before, yours references a time after. They don’t connect to each other, and each is true on its own.

the idea that we can never know the world beyond what is capable to conform to ourselves entails that reality becomes hyperreality. The map and territory, for practical purposes, blend together. — Bob Ross

For all practical purposes, yes. Reality conforms to us each time a high-rise goes up, or some
numbnuts burns down a forest. Metaphysically, on the other hand, the map/territory divide rests assured.
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You can’t empirically prove that 8888888888888888 + 2 = 8888888888888890. — Bob Ross

An individual may not have enough time to prove it, but it certainly can be proven. The measure is degree of difficulty, not its possibility.

So is my idea of ‘7’ different to yours? — Wayfarer

Often is the case….like, almost always…..that the origin of an idea, and the use of that conception subsumed under it, are treated without regard for the necessary distinctions between them.

Use of the object representing an idea, presupposes it. If more than one understanding represents the idea with the same conception, and they understand each other in the mutual use of it, the idea presupposed in the one must be identical with the presupposed idea in the other.

So, no, your idea of seven, or any singular idea susceptible to representation, and mine, are not different, all else being given. But you already knew that.

If one takes Kant very seriously, by my lights, then there is no knowledge of things-in-themselves, and, consequently, they have to develop a post-modern pragmatist approach (such as using difference to gather knowledge)--like the American Pragmatist Pierce.

I am just curious how you get around this issue? Or is it even an issue to you? — Bob Ross

Isn’t relation the manifestation of a difference? The very conception of a synthetic a priori cognition, the backbone of transcendental philosophy, specifies a difference in the relation between the conceptions contained in the subject and the conceptions contained in the predicate of a syllogistic proposition. VOILA!!! Using difference to make the gathering of knowledge possible.

I think Piece was a closet Kantian anyway, wasn’t he? Early on he called himself a “pure Kantist ”, The Monist, 1905. Also in The Monist, he states pretty much the Kantian doctrine regarding the ding as sich, and the importance of the categories. He abdicated the Kantian pedestal only later, becoming a Hegelian absolute idealist…..for some reason or another. But I get your point.

Kant isn’t doing anything differently here other than trying to keep his metaphysical research as close to ‘home’ as possible. — Bob Ross

Agreed, iff “home” is the human thinking subject.

To me, you just pointing out that if our representative faculty lost its two pure forms of intuition that we would not longer perceive the objects--but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. — Bob Ross

It does not follow from the loss of intuitions that we would lose perception. We would lose the ability to arrange the matter of the object into a form for a phenomenon, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any appearing objects. Appearance means presence; because we don’t lose perception, we don’t lose appearance so the object isn’t lost to us. Completely and utterly useless appearance, insofar as we couldn’t decipher the sensation the appearance provides, but provide it does.

If you’d said we could no longer cognize the object, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, I’d have just said….yep.

It does not presuppose there existence as things-in-themselves. — Bob Ross

Things are things in themselves until they are met with human sensibility, re: Pierce….since you brought him up:

“….I show just how far Kant was right, even when right twisted up on formalism. It is perfectly true that we can never attain knowledge of things as they are. We can only know their human aspect. But that is all the universe is for us….”

Yes, by why do you think there is a horse-in-itself and a fence-in-itself? — Bob Ross

I don’t need to think it; I can represent to myself differences in arrangements of matter. Horse are not comprised of wood and fences don’t have hooves. Different phenomena, different things, different things-in-themselves from which the things appear.

I have no problem with this. — Bob Ross

Makes me wonder why you would ask why I maintain a thing-in-itself for each thing that appears.

To be honest, although he was very smart, he says these kinds of contradictory things so much in the CPR that I think he didn’t have the view fully fleshed out. — Bob Ross

I’ve heard that argument repeatedly, and maybe he didn’t. Takes one more scholarly that I to show it, though.

Some things are a priori true, and that means they do not require sense data. — Bob Ross

Man, after reading that, it appears you’re more familiar with this stuff than you let on when talking to me. Which makes much of what I say pretty much superfluous.

We are NOT amused!!!! (Grin)

”….not all things are alike, therefore not all things-in-themselves are alike, insofar as for any thing there is that thing-in-itself.”
-Mww

I agree and think this is true if we were speaking about what you can empirically know…. — Bob Ross

Yes, exactly. Knowledge or possible knowledge a posteriori.

…..but how do you know metaphysically there are things-in-themselves and not a thing-in-itself? — Bob Ross

To know metaphysically is knowledge a priori, as opposed to empirical knowledge. Knowledge a priori as it applies to external reality, in Kant, is impure a priori, insofar as it has empirical conditions contained in the syllogism, and is thereby an inductive inference, a logical function, hence, at least for convenience, is metaphysical knowledge. Which is all the thing-in-itself was ever meant to indicate.

So we don’t know all things are appearances given from one thing-in-itself, or as many things-in-themselves as there are things that appear. Nevertheless, humans are capable of more than one sensation at a time, either from a single object or from a multiplicity of them. For single objects there’s no conflict, but for more than one sensation from more than one object, and knowledge of things-in-themselves is impossible anyway, we gain nothing by the one-for-all over the each-in-itself, which makes the all-for-one superfluous.

By your own concession, we aren’t supposed to know reality fundamentally is…. — Bob Ross

Not that we’re not supposed to, but that we are not equipped.

By my lights, you cannot be certain that there are things-in-themselves just as much as I can’t be certain that there is a Universal Mind. — Bob Ross

Maybe not, but the alternative is that I am necessary causality for the entire manifold of all that I perceive. Let the contradictions rampant in that scenario simmer awhile.

….if you want to go the truly skeptical route that we are barred from metaphysics (or at least ontology) then to be consistent I think you would have to also rebuke transcendental philosophy — Bob Ross

Absolutely**, but then, I don’t hold with being barred from metaphysical expositions. I just find ontology unnecessary as a discipline in transcendental philosophy, because the existence of things is never in question as is the manifestation of them in experience.

**”…. Thus, the critique of reason leads at last, naturally and necessarily, to science; and, on the other hand, the dogmatical use of reason without criticism leads to groundless assertions, against which others equally specious can always be set, thus ending unavoidably in scepticism….”

This is no different than inferring that the best explanation of what reality fundamentally is is a Universal Mind—there’s no certainty in that either. — Bob Ross

Such is the bane of all speculative metaphysics: there’s no empirical proofs, but only internal logical consistency and strict adherence to the LNC, the only form of certainty we have to guide our contemplations.
————

First off, appearances are not representations, they are affects on the senses.
-Mww

Appearances are perceptions, which are representations that your mind generated of the sensations. — Bob Ross

Break it down: Appearance = the input to the sensory device; perception = the activity of the sensory device; sensation = the output of the sensory device. The sensory device generates the sensation, which is the matter of the object that appears. Not yet a representation, for the mere matter of sensation has not been arranged into a determinable form. There are representations generated by the mind from sensation, but these are phenomena, in which the matter is arranged into a form by the reproductive imagination.
(Easier to comprehend if it be granted a perception is the reception of the whole object, all at once, which makes descriptive analysis of it impossible, and if the system can’t describe it, can’t analyze it, it won’t be able to cognize it, making knowledge of it impossible)
————

are you saying that the “appearance” is just the impression of the thing-in-itself on you and the representation is the formulation of it according to your mind’s abilities? — Bob Ross

Nope. Impression of the thing.

You are noting that there is an impression, an intuition, and then an understanding of the thing-in-itself…. — Bob Ross

Nope. Impression, intuition, understanding of the thing.

So Kant can’t say stuff like:

“….We have intended, then, to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of phenomena; that the things we intuite, are not in themselves the same as our representations of them in intuition….” — Bob Ross

Hey, give him a break. He’s a seriously-genius Enlightenment Prussian. He’s just reminding the readers, maybe half a dozen of whom are his intellectual peers, that the things of intuition are not things-in-themselves. And things-in-themselves, if they contain or are constituted by relations, such must be relations-in-themselves. Continuing with the passage…..

“…..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….”

The subjective constitution of our senses in general, which is to say regardless of whatever appears to us, is imagination and the two pure intuitions. Take away imagination the synthesis of matter to form and therefore the phenomenon is impossible; take away the pure intuitions and objects that should have appeared won’t, insofar as there is nothing for object to extend into, therefore they have no shape, and if they have no shape the can contain no matter, and if they contain no matter, they are not objects at all, and if they are not objects at all, there wouldn’t be anything to appear, a blatantly inexcusable contradiction.

If the relations between the phenomena tell us nothing about the things-in-themselves, since they are just the “subjective constitution” of our senses…. — Bob Ross

Phenomena are not what is meant by subjective constitution of our senses in general. Subjective constitution is that within us which makes the transition from sensation, determined by the physiological constitution of the sensory apparatus, to phenomena, possible

The follow-up says it all:

“….. 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…..”

Sensibility is that part of the human cognitive system that has to do with perception, covering the range from appearance to phenomena, technically, “….. The capacity for receiving representations through the mode in which we are affected by objects, is called sensibility….”. The mode in which we are affected means just which one or more of the five sense organs creates its sensation.

Notice, too, that the nature of objects considered as thing-in-themselves, presupposes their existence. I mean….how could the nature of a thing be considered, even if the thing is considered as having the nature of a thing-in-itself, if it didn’t exist? But I think you’ve acceded that point, if I remember right.
—————-

Because this is an extroplation of the relations of phenomena: you are saying that this phenomena relates to another in a manner that suggests they are representations of different things. Kant is barring this (as seen in the above quote). — Bob Ross

I don’t see where in the above quote anything is being barred. If you perceive a horse jumping over a fence as a whole appearance, the phenomenon of the horse is separate from but nonetheless related to the phenomenon of the fence. And this, by the way, is a good example of the intricacies of the system, insofar as motion, having neither matter not form, and therefore not a phenomenon, is provided a priori as rules by the understanding, re: succession of times in conjunction with a plurality of spaces in a singular intuition.

If you think about it, you can see the validity in it. You may have experience with horses, and with fences, and with things that move, but you’ve never seen a horse jump a fence. But you an still connect a horse to jumping a fence even though you’ve never seen it happen, thus have no experience of it. In short, you can easily conceptually image the motion, a certain indication it must be possible without contradicting the natural order, which is a purely logical deduction, which only understanding can provide, exemplifying the prime dualism in human cognition:

“….. Understanding cannot intuite, and the sensuous faculty cannot think…..”
————-

I think that is what metaphysics is about—giving the best general account of reality. — Bob Ross

Yep, no dispute there at all.

You may choose to phrase it more carefully than I will,…. — Srap Tasmaner

That’s why I said I agreed, in principle. You said we say something about x, and we do, but not at the time of x. We say determinate things about x after the system has already subjected x to process, in which neither the system as a whole nor the processing of x, say anything. And the processing of appearances has no other purpose than to give to the system some x, whatever x is. There is no predication here, no logic, only transition from the external natural state of being of x to an altogether very different internal state which represents it. We couldn’t predicate in this time frame because we’re not conscious of it, which makes explicit there’s no way to philosophize on the one hand metaphysically, or empirically theorize scientifically on the other, about how that transition occurs. But….it does, we know the ends, but not the means. Given all that, it remains that all that can be said about x, at the time of its appearance, is that x exists.
————-

…..the overall shape of that Kantian position is that something is revealed to us but something at the same time is concealed, namely how the thing is in itself rather than for us. — Srap Tasmaner

True enough, but not at the same time, which just distinguishes the thing from the thing-in-itself. At one point in time it is a thing-in-itself, and some other point in time the thing-in-itself is a thing for us, the changeover being if and when there is an appearance.

Again with the finer points, a euphemism for one man’s reductionism is another man’s quibble….

……nothing is revealed to us, it is given to us.
……if a thing is sufficiently concealed it is not necessarily an existence, but a thing-in-itself is a necessary existence, insofar as without it, the thing which appears is impossible, a contradiction.

….in saying that there are somethings that appear to us (…) we are saying something about those things….. — Srap Tasmaner

Agreed, in principle; we say they exist, and that necessarily.

….that they have this character of revealing or being revealed, and showing themselves to us is a potential or capacity of such things. — Srap Tasmaner

But if we can say they exist necessarily, there’s nothing added by saying they have a character of this kind or that, which could only be attributed to that which exists anyway.
————-

But what of the object that is revealed to us, at least partially? — Srap Tasmaner

Then we cognize the part we perceive. How would we know the thing is only partially revealed? Reason might guess is there more than meets the eye, but perception does not.

Sorry, I’m not up on the science, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise by reading wiki for 2 or 3 minutes.

But, yeah, I see what appears to be colored things, but I don’t know if they are colored or I color them. And I really don’t care, insofar as it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to me if I should be informed with apodeictic certainty one or the other is the case.

Still, I will maintain that humans are very limited creatures, and leave it at that.

I made a mistake. The line should have said…. Things-in-themselves can be inferred AS the possibility of sensations in general a priori.

Kant had the idea that we can treat the objects of perception and knowledge as conforming to us, rather than us conforming our minds to them….. — Srap Tasmaner

Yep. The so-called “Copernican Revolution”, which of course, he didn’t call it.

…..but it also means that those objects must cooperate, must be capable of cooperating, of appearing to us, of revealing themselves to us or being revealed to us. — Srap Tasmaner

Perhaps, but parsimony suggests objects are either there or they are not there. You’re hinting at a limitation regarding the object (it doesn’t cooperate hence doesn’t appear) but I would rather think the limitation is in us, in that our physiology limits what can appear to us, re: only a specific range of wavelengths of light for visual appearances, etc., and also limits the effect that which can appear, has.

Look at what is posited. It is not the empty place-holder it was supposed to be, but is rich with its own structure of revealing and concealing — Srap Tasmaner

If this is the case, the notion that objects conform to our intellect falls apart. Things are rich with the structure we understand it to have that doesn’t contradict the sensation the object provides, for otherwise we couldn’t know it as that thing and not another. We must grant a thing has a composition, but without its being subjected to an intellectual system, the composition cannot relate to a structure in which the composition is arranged. A most dramatic instance being….a sound may indeed affect the nose, but thereby no phenomenon is at all possible.

So the thing that appears isn’t so much an empty placeholder ontologically, but moreso an undetermined constituent of reality. But either way….

without which the formal description of knowledge hangs in the air. — Srap Tasmaner

…..is nonetheless the case.

how is it inferred therefrom that there are multiple things-in-themselves and not a thing-in-itself? — Bob Ross

Working backwards: our representations are not all alike, therefore our sensations are not all alike, therefore the effects things have on sensibility are not all alike, therefore not all things are alike, therefore not all things-in-themselves are alike, insofar as for any thing there is that thing-in-itself.

how can you infer that it is impossible that appearances aren’t of nothing? Is that simply absurd to you? — Bob Ross

Because appearances are necessarily of something? I’m kinda struggling with the triple negative. At any rate, appearances aren’t inferred, they’re given. Perception is, after all, a function of physics, not logic implied by inference.

I infer that the appearances are representations by comparison of other appearances (e.g., they inject me with a hallucinogen drug and my representations becomes significantly different than when I am sober, etc.). — Bob Ross

First off, appearances are not representations, they are affects on the senses. Not yet mentioned, is the speculative condition that appearance denotes only the matter of the thing as a whole, which leaves out the form in which the matter is arranged, the purview of productive imagination, from which arises the first representation as such of the thing, called phenomenon, residing in intuition.

We are not conscious of the instantiation of representations as phenomena, so the alteration of the cognitive process has no effect on that of which we had no awareness in the first place. The changes in representations that occur due to disregard of the rules by unnatural external influence, is in understanding, the representations of which are not intuitions from appearances, but conceptions. The appearance is the same, insofar as it is the same thing being sensed; what the cognitive process subsequently does with such appearance differs, which we commonly refers to as a misunderstanding, but is properly reflected in judgement.

But if representations tell us nothing about things-in-themselves then it is odd to me that it can even be inferred that there is a dynamic of representations vs. things-in-themselves in the first place. — Bob Ross

Odd to me as well; there is no dynamic of representations vs. thing-in-themselves, they have nothing to do with each other. Empirically, the dynamic resides in the relation between things and the intuition of them. Logically, and empirically, the dynamic resides in the relation between things and the conceptions of them. There is another dynamic, residing in pure reason a priori, in which resides the relation between conceptions to each other, where experience of the conceived thing is impossible, re: eternal/universal Mind and the like.

I am a substance monist….. — Bob Ross

You’d pretty much have to be, holding with a Universal Mind, right?

……so I am unsure by what you mean by “substance is never singular”: could you elaborate? — Bob Ross

It’s the reduction from there is no such thing as an object comprised of a single property, which reduces to nothing can be cognized by a single conception. Human thought, being a logical system, always requires a relation.

But in all fairness, -ism’s are a dime a dozen, which makes this idea easily refutable.

So would it be fair to say that you think we are barred from metaphysics (other than transcendental inquiries)? — Bob Ross

Nahhhh……metaphysics is an unavoidable pursuit, when reason seeks resolution to questions experience cannot provide. Transcendental philosophy merely points out the conditions under which such resolutions are even possible on the one hand, and the circumstances by which the resolutions may actually conflict with experience on the other. The mind is, as my ol’ buddy Golum likes to say, tricksie.
—————

The universal mind is not an idea, it is mind that has ideas and those ideas are the Platonic, eternal forms which are expressed within space and time, which are conditions of our minds. — Bob Ross

Ok, not an idea. If not an idea, and not a thing, for a human then, what is it? What does it mean to say it is mind, rather than it is a mind? This is what is meant by the impossibility of cognizing from a single conception. One can say it is mind, but that effectively says nothing. To say it is mind that has ideas makes it no different than my own mind. To call it eternal mind adds a conception, but by which is invoked that which is itself inconceivable, re: mind that has all ideas, or, is infinitely timeless.

Still, as long as universal mind theory doesn’t contradict itself, it stands. If it contradicts other theories, then it’s a matter of the relative degree of explanatory power philosophically, or merely personal preference conventionally. There is the notion that reason always seeks the unconditioned, that abut which nothing more needs be said, which certainly fits here. It used to be a theocratic symbol having no relation to us, but it’s since graduated to an extension of us. Not sure one is any better than the other.

I see what you mean, but I would ask, and referencing Russell, doesn’t the plethora of white things simultaneous with our naming practices and awareness of each of them as such over time, antecede the “whiteness” of which all white things partake? What if there was only a single instance of a thing with whatever quality, what universal can be attributed as the being of which a single thing partakes?

If that works, then it is possible for the particular and the universal to be identical, and if the particular is subject to human cognition as an object, then so is the universal, a metaphysical/logical contradiction.

I agree universals proper are not within the purview of human cognition as propositional predicate in a judgement (all white x’s possess whiteness), rather merely designating a relation, but I might hesitate to put them before the particular, re: your, existing in their entirety prior to (…).

Or not…..

Sure, why not? Denominator indicates a underlying standardization, common denominator indicates an underlying standardization for all to which it conditions, and all to which it conditions indicates its universality, which would then be a mere idea. I guess it depends on how far, and on what, one wishes to extend the denomination.

Common denominator for footwear is that which separates the foot from the ground, but that separator in itself is hardly a universal idea. But that a foot should be separated from the ground is a universal idea insofar as far as the construction of all footwear whatsoever is conditioned by it.

Nothing you contribute here is easy, is it?

Either that, or you post stuff just to see how much of a mess folks will make of it. (Grin)

Well done.

Could it be that Universal Mind "adhering to strict laws" is merely the wrong choice of words? — Tom Storm

Maybe, but more likely my misunderstanding of what the words I read are supposed to represent.

You know…..guy spends most of his philosophical life in one mindset, pretty hard to shake him loose.

Things-in-themselves aren’t what appear, never become a sensation, so, yes, those are what we don’t know.
-Mww

If it never becomes a sensation, then it sounds like you are saying we never come in contact, even indirectly, with the things-in-themselves, is that correct? If so, then how do you know they even exist? — Bob Ross

Things-in-themselves can be inferred the possibility of sensations in general a priori. The thing as it appears, and from which sensation is given, makes the non-existence of that particular thing-in-itself impossible, re:

“…. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears—which would be absurd….”

Transcendental analysis of the conditions for human knowledge doesn’t care about ontology; all that is represented exists necessarily, all we will ever know empirically is given from representations, therefore all empirical knowledge presupposes extant things.

If the representational system isn’t getting, as input, sensations of the things-in-themselves, it sounds like, to me, the former is completely accounted for without positing the latter. — Bob Ross

This is correct, within the confines of this particular knowledge theory. The intuitive representational process itself, the only one determined by sensation, doesn’t care about anything except what is given to it by perception.

The only reason for positing the thing-in-itself, is to grant that even if things are not perceived, they are not thereby non-existent. It is meant to qualify the semi-established dogmatic Berkeley-ian purely subjective idealist principle esse est percipi, by stipulating that it isn’t necessary that that which isn’t perceived doesn’t exist, but only for that which is not perceived, empirical knowledge of it is impossible. It just says existence is not conditioned by perception, but knowledge most certainly is.

There’s also the confused impression/fact dichotomy inspired by Hume that needs examination, but that’s beyond the realm here, I think.

I didn’t follow this part: what is a “thing of the thing-in-itself”? — Bob Ross

Oh, that’s easy: once this thing, whatever it is, appears to perception, that thing-in-itself, whatever it was, disappears, that thing no longer “in-itself”, as far as the system is concerned.

Is that the substance of (or in) which the thing-in-itself is of? — Bob Ross

Can’t be substance, insofar as substance is never singular, which implies a succession, which implies time, which is a condition for knowledge, and by which the imposition makes the impossibility of knowledge contradictory.

Permanence is that by which the thing-in-itself, is of. Which makes the notion that if I’m not looking at the thing it isn’t there, rather foolish.

If we aren’t exposed to it as sensations (….), then how are we exposed to it? — Bob Ross

“It” taken to indicate the thing-in-itself…..we aren’t exposed to it; such is, qualified by definition, “in-itself”.

how you could know that if you can’t know anything about the things-in-themselves—i.e., the real world. I still don’t understand, as of yet, how you resolve that. — Bob Ross

That’s the epistemological issue, innit? We don’t know the real world as it is in itself, but only as it appears to us. Another kind of intellect will probably understand whatever world is common to both differently than we understand it, but it doesn’t matter one bit. We can only work with what we have to work with, and the uselessness of that tautology should tell us something. Like….stay in your own lane!!!!

The real world for us, is just how we understand what we are given. The world is only as real as our intellect provides. Whatever the world really is, we are not equipped to know, and if it really is as we understand it, so much the better, but without something to compare our understands to, we won’t know that either.
———-

If ontology is the study of what is, and what is implies what exists, and to exist is to be conditioned by space and time…
-Mww

If what exists is what is conditioned by space and time, then space and time do not exist. — Bob Ross

Correct, they do not exist in the same manner as that of which they are the conditions. They are objectively valid as presuppositions logically, but not objectively real as existences physically. They are the conditions for things, re: intuitions, but not the conditions of things, re: properties.

Are you saying that the logical part of our representational system (for each and every one of us) only is conditioned by time? So it exists within the temporal world but non-spatially? — Bob Ross

Pretty much, yep. First one must grant that in humans, all thoughts are singular and successive, from which arises the very notion of time in and of itself. It follows that it is more the case that logic, which is merely the assemblage of thoughts according to rules, makes the world temporal, than that logic exists in a temporal world.

With respect to ontology, logic is not a thing.
-Mww

But it has to exist in a thing: what thing are you saying it exists in? — Bob Ross

If it’s not a thing, why does it have to exist in a thing? That which exists in a thing is a property thereof, and logic is not a property. All I’m going to say about it, is that logic resides in human intelligence, and attempts to pin it down in concreto ultimately ends as illusory cognitions at least, or irrational judgements at worst.
————

….reality (which is fundamentally a Universal Mind) — Bob Ross

The reductionism required to get from reality to Mind must be truly intense!!! Even if I accept the human mind as a mere abstract placeholder to terminate infinite regress in intellectual cause/effect, I can still say that mind belongs to me. Which begs the most obvious of questions……

But that’s ok, you’ve circumvented the problem by relieving Mind from meta-cognitive deliberations, so it doesn’t need to belong. But in so doing, you’ve attributed to it a different form of intellectual cause/effect, re: will, which I must say, as I conceive it, also belongs to me.

As far as I can tell, the Universal Mind adheres to strict laws. — Bob Ross

There’s no legitimate reason to think that, insofar as it contradicts the notion that the universal mind does no meta-cognitive deliberations, which it would have to do in order to determine what laws are, and the conditions under which they legislate what it can do, which determines what it is.

In human cognition, strict law is subsumed under the principles of universality and absolute necessity. The idea of a Universal Mind covers the former, but the latter must be merely granted without justification, in that the Universal Mind does not imbue the necessity of existence itself. In other words, the Universal Mind, if it doesn’t exist, cannot be legislated by law, which means if it is legislated by law it must exist. Which means it cannot be merely an idea.

But all universals are ideas……AAAARRRRGGGGG!!!!!!

Thanks. ‘Preciate it.

This sounds like maybe you don’t hold that we cannot know the things-in-themselves that appear to us, is that correct? — Bob Ross

Things-in-themselves aren’t what appear, never become a sensation, so, yes, those are what we don’t know. If the thing-in-itself appeared to me it wouldn’t be as-it-is-in-itself, it would be as-it-is-in-me, as phenomenon. Remember: the thing and the thing of the thing-in-itself are identical. The only difference is the exposure to human systemic knowledge/experience criteria, which reduces to time. I call it the occasion, but, same-o, same-o.

We can’t know the thing-in-itself because it doesn’t appear in us. If that specific box….the only one that appeared to your senses…..had stayed at the post office, you’d never know anything of it, even while inferring the real possibility of boxes in general, iff you already know post offices contain boxes.
————-

…..what ontological status does the logical part of the representational system have it is not a thing-in-itself nor an appearance. I get it is a logical system, but ontologically what is it? — Bob Ross

I guess I can’t say why a logical part needs an ontological status. If ontology is the study of what is, and what is implies what exists, and to exist is to be conditioned by space and time, it follows that if logic is not conditioned by space and time but only time, thereby out of compliance with the criteria for existence, then the study of its ontological predicates from which its ontological status can be determined, is a waste of effort.

“…. Transcendental analytic has accordingly this important result, to wit, that the understanding is competent to effect nothing à priori, except the anticipation of the form of a possible experience in general, and that, as that which is not phenomenon cannot be an object of experience, it can never overstep the limits of sensibility, within which alone objects are presented to us. Its principles are merely principles of the exposition of phenomena, and the proud name of ontology, which professes to present synthetical cognitions à priori of things in general in a systematic doctrine, must give place to the modest title of analytic of the pure understanding….”

Keyword: things. With respect to ontology, logic is not a thing. If a label is required for some reason, I’d just call it a condition, or maybe a axiom or fundamental principle of a theory. Heck, maybe just a merely necessary presupposition, in order to ground all that follows from it. All of which lend themselves quite readily to analysis. This is metaphysics after all, immune to proof from experience, so there are some permissible procedural liberties, so maybe logic is just that which prohibits such liberties from running amuck.

Besides, it is possible that the human intellect is itself naturally predisposed to what we eventually derive as logical conditions, so maybe we put so much trust in the power of pure logic for no other reason than we just are logical intelligences. Maybe we just can’t be not logically inclined.
———-

I want to get back to something you said the other day, something like….the universal mind change the world to fit out knowledge, to which I thought it better that our knowledge changed to fit the constant world. If I got that right, I might have a thought up a decent counter-argument or two I’d like you to shoot down, in accordance with your thesis.

Way back when, and in the interest of the most general of terminology, that which contacted the bottom of human feet has never changed, even though through the ages more and more knowledge has been obtained about it.

Long ago, some humans knew the moon as some lighted disk in the sky. They also knew of periodically changing ocean levels, but had no comprehension of tidal effects caused by the moon and even less comprehension of effects a mere disk can have. Nowadays the relation between the tides and the moon are the same as they ever were, but there is resident knowledge of that relation derived from principles.

What say you?

quote="Bob Ross;813236"]if the logical part of the system is not a part of the thing-in-itself and is not phenomena, then what is it? To me, it either exists as a part of the things-in-themselves (i.e., reality) or it is an appearance from our representational faculty—there’s no third option.[/quote]

That which assembles the parts of the representation of a perception in order, is intuition. That which assembles intuitions in order for successive perceptions of the same thing, is logic. In this way, it is not necessary to learn what thing is at each perception, but only understanding that either it’s already been learned, and subsequent perceptions conform to it, or they do not. Already been learned taken as a euphemism for experience.

In the tripartite human logical sub-system in syllogistic form of synthetic conjunction, understanding is the faculty of rules, by which phenomena provided a posteriori are taken as the major premise, conceptions provided a priori by understanding according to rules, serves as the minor premise or series of minors, the logical relation of one to the other is represented in a judgement, which serves as the conclusion.

Thing is, we don’t notice or care about any of that, until, e.g., you perceive a thing that doesn’t match anything else you’ve ever seen. Or, you’ve satisfied yourself with some judgement regarding a thing, then someone comes along and shows you, at least, how different your judgement could have been had you synthesized the same conceptions in a different order (you can’t call that thing a dog because no dog is that big) or, worst case, how wrong you were insofar as the conceptions you did use in that synthesis were not properly related to what you perceived (you can’t call that thing a dog because no dog has horns).

Usually humans learn by being taught by other humans. But show a relative youngster a picture of a dog, instill in him the relation between the picture and perception of the real thing, and he still might see a cow, relate it to the picture, judge it as being close enough, hence blurt out DOG!!!! Dutiful adults of good humor correct the tyke, everybody’s happy. An adult has the exact same operating system, hence is liable to the same mistakes in judgement. The difference is the number of conceptions incorporated in the minor premises, which relates to the accumulation of experiences, such that the major is more precisely described, and the conclusion, the judgement, is thereby more consistent with reality.

Oh man. And we haven’t even started on the aspect of human cognition that is completely logical, which just means there’s no dogs or kids or sensations of any kind, and nobody to tell you how wrong you are. You know this is the case, because you’ve conceived the notion of a universal mind as a completely valid and no one can tell you you’re wrong, that the conception is invalid, but only that the synthesis of the manifold of conceptions conjoined to the major, used by each, don’t relate in the same way, or do not relate at all, which only invalidates the one judgement relative to the other.

That third option…..for what it’s worth.

if the phenomena don’t provide knowledge about things-in-themselves, then how can you claim that we have a representational system which is the translation of the stuff that travels along the nerves to the main processing center? — Bob Ross

There’s a box on the shelf at the post office….
(a.k.a., a thing-in-itself)
Guy brings you the box….
(a.k.a, your perception of a thing)
….hands it to you….
(a.k.a., square, solid, heavy, your intuition of a thing)
You open the box….
(a.k.a., the content of your intuition, packaging material, something in a plastic bag, is a phenomenon)
Phenomenon gets passed on to the cognitive part for object determination.

You still don’t know what the content of the box is, only that the box has something in it, and you never would have had the opportunity to find out if it had stayed on the shelf at the post office. You could have lived your entire life without knowledge of the content of that box even while knowing full well post offices contain a manifold of all sorts of boxes; you can only know the contents of boxes handed to you. And, at this point, the last thing to cross your mind is how the box got to the post office in the first place, a.k.a., its ontological necessity.

Analogies really suck, when it comes right down to it, there’s never a perfect one. But we still try by means of them to explain what simply needs to be intuitively understood, like a jigsaw puzzle.
—————

….to me, Kant’s flaw is that he then claims that, given that representational system, we shouldn’t expect phenomena to tell us anything about things-in-themselves: but that’s what he used (i.e., phenomena) to come to understand that he is fundamentally a representational system — Bob Ross

Phenomena are only one of three general classes of representation, the other two are conceptions and judgement, which is technically the representation of a representation.

It is an empirically proven fact humans sometimes get what they perceive wrong.
-Mww

True, but this doesn’t matter for Kant, because, to him, sorting out the non-illusory from the illusory is just more phenomena: which says nothing about things-in-themselves. — Bob Ross

If you spend 12 years developing a theory on knowledge, wouldn’t the accounting for how human get things wrong matter to you? Rhetorical question; of course you would. Your peers wouldn’t give your theory a second review if you claimed a system is flawed, then don’t show the means to rectify it, or, if such flaw can’t be rectified at all, insofar as it is intrinsic to the nature of the system itself, then to show the means to guard against it.

Sorting out the illusory has nothing to do with phenomena. Reason, the faculty that subjects judgement to principles to determine the logical relation of cognitions to each other, separates the illusory from the rational. Humans can confuse/delude themselves in their thinking, without the possibility of experience correcting them, hence phenomena are irrelevant.
—————

I think that if one endeavors to give an account (of reality), idealism is the best choice. — Bob Ross

Absolutely. No science is ever done that isn’t first thought.

That time of year, me ‘n’ the Better Half pack up, temporarily donate the furry grandkids to a sitter, and hit the road. Maybe there’s a message herein: last time we came here a “never-happens-here” hurricane had just blown the place into the sea, this time “never-happens-here” wildfires burnt the place to the ground. (Sigh)

My point is that under Kantianism, we don’t get knowledge of the world: we just get phenomenon; and, so, how can you claim that the world itself doesn’t change in its time as much as our knowledge does? Are you inferring from phenomena something about the things-in-themselves? — Bob Ross

Under Kantianism…yes, correct, with respect to the world, just phenomena. If folks of a certain time generally agree on much, and always agree on some, then the phenomena developed in each must be generally congruent or specifically congruent respectively, which shows the same world relative to them. If people in some other time repeat the process, with the same result, the same conclusion is given. If it happens that the folks of the later time agree with the record of the folks of a earlier time, then it is non-contradictory to posit that the world to which the agreement applies, remained constant.

No, nothing to do with the things-in-themselves. Again, that thing to which the system-in-itself is applied, cannot be the thing-in-itself to which it is not.

But, under Kantianism, I don’t see how you can claim that those observed regularties are anything but phenomena: they don’t tell you anything about the world beyond that. Would you agree with that? — Bob Ross

Observed regularities implies knowledge, which is not in phenomena themselves. Phenomena don’t tell you about the world, which implies description, but they are to inform that there is a world, which presupposes the reality of it, and thereby, the possibility of describing it.
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Can you elaborate on what you mean by things-in-themselves vs. phenomena? — Bob Ross

Try this on for size. Thing-in-itself is out there, just waiting around, doing what things-in-themselves do, minding their own business. Human gets himself exposed to it, perceives it, it affects him somehow, it gets translated it into this stuff that travels along its nerves to its main processing center. That stuff on the nerves represents what the perception was, but the owner of the nerves isn’t the slightest bit aware of any of that nerve stuff. That stuff is phenomenon stuff.

With respect to this particular form of dualism, the thing and the representation of the thing, the why is more interesting than the what. It is an empirically proven fact humans sometimes get what they perceive wrong, insofar as that by which they are affected (the thing) doesn’t match what the system they use tells them about it (the representation of the thing). In order to reduce the source of error, some part of the whole system must be eliminated as being a possible source of any error at all, which leaves the other part as the sole guilty party. Pretty easy to see why speculative metaphysics, in its descriptive cognitive methodology, needs to make necessary only one possible source of error, otherwise it would be monumentally difficult to place blame hence alleviate it.

Keyword: cognitive metaphysical methodology. If that by which things are represented as phenomena are not themselves part of the system that cognizes, they cannot be blamed for cognitive errors. And, again, humans are not conscious of the generation of their phenomena, so to relegate them to the non-cognitive part of the system as a whole, is not self-contradictory.
————

Would you say that the logical part of the system is a thing-in-itself or a phenomenon (or neither)? — Bob Ross

Oh, neither, absolutely. Those conceptions are already methodologically assigned; to use them again in a way not connected to the original, is mere obfuscation. The logical part is just that, a part, operating in its own way, doing its own job, not infringing where it doesn’t belong. Why have a theory on, say, energy, then qualify it by attributing, say, cauliflower, to it as a condition?
————-

”Which gets us back to why propose such a thing in the first place.”
-Mww

To give the most parsimonious metaphysical account of reality. Under your view, it seems like you may be committed to ontological agnosticism: is that correct? — Bob Ross

Ehhhh….I don’t need an account of reality. All I need is an account of how I might best understand the parts of it that might affect me, be it what it may. Ontological agnosticism sounds close enough to “I don’t really care”, so yeah, I guess.

As to the relation of this agnosticism to a universal mind, yeah, there might be such a thing, but even if there is, nothing changes for me. If I think the moon is just this kinda thing because the universal mind’s idea is what gives it to me, it is still just a moon-thing to me. It’s just like our own brain, operating under the laws developed to describe it, but we don’t use our brain under those lawful conditions. Because of those conditions, sure, by not by those conditions. We don’t think in terms of electron spin or quantum number. We never even consider ion potential….it is never given to us to consider…..when answering a question the traffic cop asks about why we were speeding.

Universal mind is just as empty a conception with respect to human cognition, as is lawful brain mechanics. As a foray into the sublime it’s wonderful; as a logical possibility its ok; as a methodological necessity, not so much. I mean, if it’s OUR intelligence, OUR knowledge, OUR reason, why examine any of it from some perspective that isn’t OURS? You and I talking here aren’t invoking any universal mind in just the doing of it, and even if such a thing is operating in the background we’re not conscious of it as such, so…..

how can you know that the world itself doesn’t change in its time as much as our knowledge of it does? — Bob Ross

Are you implying the difference in knowledge from the human olden days to the human current days, is a reflection of a changing world? If so, sure, why not. That lightning came from angry gods reflected the ontological status of the old world, lightning as electrostatic discharge reflects the ontological status of the current world. It is impossible to prove or disprove the world changed on the whim of a universal mind.

How do we know? We don’t, but we raise more questions by supposing our changing knowledge reflects a changing world, then we do if we suppose the world stays constant and it is our knowledge that changes.

We got the whole passel of folks, all through the ages, experiencing a certain thing, in exactly the same way, when they push the very same kind of round something down a hill. Basic mathematics hasn’t changed since the invention of numbers.
————

I don’t see how you can know that there are other people with minds that have the same kind of a priori understanding (in Kant’s terms) that produces representations…..

Again, we don’t, in the strictest sense of knowledge. It is just abysmally counterproductive and quite irrational, to posit that they don’t. Logical inference a priori grants all human have minds; experience grants a posteriori only that they act like they do.

…..that requires a metaphysical jump into the things-in-themselves. — Bob Ross

Only if the thing-in-itself is conceptually maligned, usually by invoking a theory that defines it differently or finds no need of such a thing, than the theory in which it was originally contained. I swear, I am sorely puzzled by how much trouble people have grasping this rather simple dichotomy.
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”Technically, conscious experience shows us we know something. Theoretically, knowledge of things presupposes the representation of them necessarily, given the kind of system by which humans know things.
-Mww

Your first sentence here suggests you agree that phenomena give us access to things-in-themselves to some degree — Bob Ross

Nope. You said conscious experience is the representation of something. It isn’t representation, its knowledge. Conscious experience is knowledge of something, whether a determined something or just a plain ol’ something, depends on whether or not the tripartite logical part of the system, the proper cognitive part, comprised of understanding, judgement, and reason (but not intuition or consciousness, or the mere subjective condition) can all get their respective functional eggs in the same basket, re: the synthesis of representations conforms to the effect the object causes on perception.

Phenomena just give the functionaries something empirical to work on, having nothing to do with the thing-in-itself. The methodology by which we can say we know what an object is, mandates the necessity of representing them, by whichever means one thinks fit to employ.

….how does the subject determine which idea/representation belong to the universal mind and which are his own?
-Mww

We are within the ‘objective’ world of the mind-at-large and, as such, we come to know that the reality in which we reside is superordinate; and this is distinguished by our intuitive distinctions between what is a part of our will vs. a port of another’s will vs. a part of a will greater than ours. — Bob Ross

I’m fine with distinguishing my will from yours, given the similarities or differences in our behaviors. But how I’m going to distinguish my will from a mind that wills the universe, is inconceivable.

I understand what you mean, but there’s no way I personally can conclude to its rational feasibility. Of course, by the same token, I can’t rationally deny the possibility either.

Which gets us back to why propose such a thing in the first place.

Would say that Kant thought we could gather knowledge of the world (…) or he thought that we could never acquire such knowledge (…)? — Bob Ross

Technically, it is only knowledge of representations, hence not of the world per se. The amendments to our representations over time corresponds to the relative correctness of our knowledge, which we call experience. The world itself doesn’t change in its time as much as our knowledge of it does in our own, so it is obvious there is a major distinction between the two.

To me, Kant goes dangerously close to (if not actually argues for cryptically for) epistemic solipsism. — Bob Ross

If it is to say epistemic solipsism is the notion that the only absolutely certain knowledge is that which belongs to the subject capable of it, then the proposition is an analytical truth, a mere tautology, carrying the implication there’s no need to argue for it, insofar as it is a given. Put another way, its negation is impossible. Kant is arguing, not for the certainty of our knowledge but the warrant for it, the illusory nature of its origins a priori, and thereby its limits. A critique of the given, not a proof for it.
————

How does Kant even know, if he cannot know anything about things-in-themselves, that his mind is representing objects — Bob Ross

Sensations. The thing of sensation is the same thing as the thing of the ding an sich. The thing of sensation is as yet undetermined, and only possibly determinable. Plato’s “knowledge that”, Russell’s “knowledge of acquaintance”. Sensation is just of an undetermined something, called an object mostly I suppose, because it is opposed to, distinct from, yet an affect upon, a subject.

Why not “the unknown which may not be an object at all”? — Bob Ross

It is an object for the sake of communication, for talking about it. As far as the system is concerned, in and of itself as a system, it isn’t an object, it is an effect by that which is external to it, sometimes called an appearance. Sometimes called that which awakens internal awareness.
————-

….we only come to realize that our minds are the best explanation for the production of the conscious experiences we have which, in turn, show us that we are representing something…. — Bob Ross

Technically, conscious experience shows us we know something. Theoretically, knowledge of things presupposes the representation of them necessarily, given the kind of system by which humans know things.

…..but this doesn’t work if one is positing that all of it is mere phenomenon that cannot furnish them with knowledge of things-in-themselves — Bob Ross

All of it, re: conscious experience, is not phenomenon, and experience, as a methodological terminus, is not itself a mere representation. In Kant, the last rendition of a representation is in judgement, an aspect of understanding, which, in the form of a logical syllogism, is way back at the point of the manifold of minor premises, whereas experience stands as the conclusion.
————-

one can’t even argue that their mind is representing anything but rather that there’s just given conscious experiences. — Bob Ross

Which is fine, but reason will always ask….experience of what, exactly? Convention allows that all we need, under the most general of conditions, to grant is conscious experience; it is, after all, what is most readily apparent to us; the philosopher wants to make the clear exposition of just what is involved with such convention, in order to sustain, or falsify, it, once and for all. Or, bluntly, to…..

“…. raise a loud cry of danger to the public over the destruction of cobwebs, of which the public has never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it can never feel.…”
————-

The only thing I will say now is that the universal mind, under Analytic Idealism, doesn’t will them completely into our representations: there are “objective” ideas that our faculty tries represent (and depending on how well that faculty is, it may not be represented all that accurately) — Bob Ross

With respect to accuracy….agreed. Judgement requires exercise, exercise amends experience.

With respect to representations, on the other hand, how does the subject determine which idea/representation belong to the universal mind and which are his own?

the world one is fundamentally representing is will (i.e., ideas in a universal mind) as opposed to something unknown — Bob Ross

So…..mid-Enightenment, in the schools, Aristotle and God were still in charge. K comes along, paradigm-shifts cognitive metaphysics away from God, maintains Aristotle. If you’re S, a professional philosopher, whacha gonna do when the guy just before you upset the established applecart so completely, all that’s left is to find a loophole in what he said, because it’s just too powerful to cancel. So you concentrate of the one thing you find questionable, and that is the prescription on the limits of knowledge, which you go about finding a way to exceed.

So the deal is, in K-speak, in a human representational system, that which is represented by the system, is not what is is entailed in human knowledge, which is the same as saying that for which the representation stands, is unknown by the system, which just is the human himself. That which is represented in humans is the world, so first and foremost the world itself is that which is unknown by humans.

The fix for that, is to say, in S-speak, even if the world is not known by humans, it is surely known by something not human, whatever it may be. If it happens to be a universal mind, and if Aristotle is still in force, then that universal mind will necessarily know everything about everything, which makes explicit it will know all about the very things humans do not, which the most important would be the world itself.

Long story short, the universal mind has ideas, wills them into worldly object manifestations, complete in themselves, subsequently representable in humans just as completely as the willed idea prescribes in its manifestations. This, of course, logically, makes human knowledge of the ding an sich not only possible, but given. If the universal mind has the idea of it, wills it, then the human system can represent it in himself, and K’s human knowledge limit is exceeded. Which was, given the time and place, the whole raison d’etre for S’s world as will and representation (idea) in the first place.

Close enough? Not even wrong, as my ol’ buddy Wolfgang might say? Whatever objections I might raise are irrelevant, if I got the synopsis wrong, or, not right enough. If close enough, however, it remains to be posited what is gained by such a program, and why it should not be dismissed as a bridge too far.

I bet there is a lot you will want to respond to in my post (; If not, then there’s plenty Kantian questions I have for you. — Bob Ross

There may be a lot to respond to, depending on how well I’ve understood it so far. I suspect, perhaps somewhat egocentrically for which I somewhat apologize, faults in the universal mind theory must be addressed from a Kantian perspective, insofar as the one is almost directly connected to the other, thus if I can refute it, if the universal mind theory cannot withstand refutation, your questions would be answered thereby.

Your turn.

Firstly, under every metaphysical theory, there must be something posited (…) as metaphysical necessary — Bob Ross

Agreed; I’ll go with the three logical laws of thought.

Secondly, the idea is that what is expressed in space (and time) is the representation of immaterial ideas (from a previous time): the physical is just an expression of the mental. — Bob Ross

Is it just the same to say representation of immaterial ideas are what’s expressed in space and time? And is it representation of immaterial ideas that is expressed by the mental? So the physical is just mental representation of immaterial ideas.

If my relocation of nomenclature doesn’t change any of your propositional truth value, I wouldn’t push an argument. The way I’d say it is quite different, but it’s possible we’d end up in the same place, iff it is my mind, my ideas, my representations.

Thirdly, it is not necessary that reality must be a universal mind but, rather, that the universal mind is being posited as metaphysically necessary as a part of what would be claimed as the most parsimonious account of reality. — Bob Ross

What are the other parts of the account of reality. I consider reality to be that which corresponds to a sensation in general, that, consequently, the conception of which indicates a being. It follows that there isn’t need for a further account of reality, but there would certainly need to be an account for sensation. Sensation is how we are awakened to reality, which, of course, thereby presupposes it, be it what it may. No need to account for it. Sorta like your metaphysical necessity?
————-

”The representation is never the physical stuff, and the mental is sometimes what is represented.”
-Mww

The representation within the physical world is the representation of an immaterial idea. From the side of the physical, it appears as a seemingly potential infinite chain of physical causes; from the side of the mental, it was the expression of will (i.e., of immaterial ideas). — Bob Ross

Hmmm. This looks like it puts representation in the external world, when I want it to be in my head. I’d be ok with something like…representations of the physical world are (mentally generated) immaterial ideas. Then we’d have to discuss whether conceptions are immaterial ideas, insofar as I wouldn’t have any problem calling conceptions mental. Immaterial, sure, but I’m not too sure I’d leave conceptions as mere ideas. Both conceptions and ideas are representations, an idea is a conception, but a conception is not necessarily an idea.

But the real problem is expressions of will, which for me belong in moral philosophy alone, which makes this metaphysical nonsense…..

“….. indeed the answer to the riddle is given to the subject of knowledge who appears as an individual, and the answer is will. This and this alone gives him the key to his own existence, reveals to him the significance, shows him the inner mechanism of his being, of his action, of his movements. Every true act of his will is also at once and without exception a movement of his body. The act of will and the movement of the body are not two different things objectively known, which the bond of causality unites; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect; they are one and the same….”
(WWR, 2. 1. 18, 1844, in Haldane, Kemp, 1909)

….for he who would attribute to will no more than autonomous volition predicated on subjective principles.

Which brings out one of S’s gripes with K….causality, cause and effect. S rejected K’s invocation of freedom as a causality, so without it, for him, will does not stand the relation to cause and effect.

What’s next?

Analytic Idealism posits that one can come to know the world from two sides: the representations (which is the physical stuff) and the mental events which are being represented. — Bob Ross

I’m having trouble here. The representation is never the physical stuff, and the mental is sometimes what is represented. How is yours not backwards? Actually, it is backwards, so the real question becomes….how do you justify the backwardness, without merely saying it isn’t?

Why is it not that coming to know the world from two sides isn’t two kinds of knowledge? I agree there are two kinds of knowledge, re: a priori as representations of mental events, and a posteriori as representation of physical stuff, but only the latter is coming to know the world.

I’d be happier if it was the case coming to know the world from two conditions, which would be physical stuff and mental events, but not so much that each is a kind of knowledge all by itself without influence from the other. Two sides just seems to invoke excessive separation.

For Kastrup, the thing-in-itself, like Schopenhauer, is the universal mind. — Bob Ross

For S it is the will, I thought, but either way…same-o, same-o. Only way this theory works at all, to assign to a concept that which didn’t formally belong to it, is to redefine it. Which effectively makes it a different philosophy.

We, as ‘minds’, are disassociated alters of that universal mind, such that we are ‘cut off’ from experiencing everything at once. — Bob Ross

Right. I mentioned not too long ago that, in us, thoughts are singular and successive, presupposing the condition of time, so it is reasonable we do not experience everything at once.

The ‘physical’, in the colloquial sense of the term (viz., tangible, solid objects within conscious experience), is an extrinsic representation of the mental — Bob Ross

So physical with respect to the conscious experience…..of humans.
Physical for humans is representation of the mental…..of the universal mind?
So for humans a representation of a representation?
The representation of the physical as conscious experience belongs to us as humans, but does the representation the universal mind gives to us as the physical, imply a conscious experience for that to which the universal mind belongs?
In conjunction with the above, wherein reality….our reality….is the brute fact of the universal mind, implies our reality just is the manifold of representations of universal mind without regard for the conscious experience of that to which such universal mind belongs.

Fine, I guess. We prescribe representations to ourselves without knowing how they come about, so no difference in kind prescribing them to something else we couldn’t know anything about. I suppose, from a Kantian perspective, which is what you’re asking for, we have no warrant whatsoever, to speculate metaphysically on that which is not completely within ourselves.

reality is a mind-at-large (i.e., a universal mind) and that is the brute fact (metaphysically necessary) of reality — Bob Ross

You’re on record as admitting a Schopenhauer-ian bent. He was the champion of the PSR, yet brute facts negate the PSR. It must be that being “metaphysically necessary” is sufficient reason, or the PSR doesn’t apply here. But why should it be necessary that reality be a universal mind, or manifest from such a thing?

I would much appreciate it if we kept discussing it, as I am interested in your take from a Kantian perspective. — Bob Ross

Cool. Socratic dialectics? Robert’s Rules? Jousting?

Cards on the table kinda thing, I must say, if we’re discussing analytic idealism from a Kantian perspective, I’m not sufficiently versed in the one to juxtaposition to the other. So maybe you should start with a brief synopsis of what analytic idealism is. Or, just start anywhere you like.
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Kantian idealism has almost no following on this forum….. — Wayfarer

What’s that ol’ adage? If it was easy everybody’d be doing it?

Before getting into all that, you’re promoting analytic idealism, which is interesting in itself. The problem is that attempting to understanding Kantian idealism may very well negate your promotion. We get into this deep enough, you may find your idealism was Kantian all along, or, if it most certainly was not, then why query a form of idealism which is, for present intents and purposes, irrelevant. And even if questions regarding Kantian idealism are merely a matter of your own personal interest, satisfying that interest isn’t necessarily to support your thesis. In short, it’s possible you’re wasting your own time.

Your thread, your call.

I thought perspective came from inside us. — Tom Storm

Where in the data….is perspective. Inside us, outside the data.

”So no, the mind does not produce space and time, it conceives apodeitic conditions as explanatory devices. Mww

But under Kantianism the mind is producing space and time (being synthetic a priori), is it not? Perhaps you have a neo-kantian view, but I am talking about Kant’s original argument. — Bob Ross

I’m saying it doesn’t, taken from Kant’s original text. Apparently we’re at odds over interpretations, which is certainly nothing new. Be that as it may, the second edition introduction states a priori cognitions are contained in the intellect, of even the philosophically unsophisticated. Now for the mind to produce them in order to be contained in the intellect, is for you to say but not Kant himself.

But nevertheless, benefit of the doubt: where does the notion that space and time are synthetic a priori come from? Synthetic a priori does not stand alone, insofar as they indicate the kind and source of cognitions or judgements, which space and time are not. Synthetic/analytic has to do with logic, hence subsumed under reason, but space and time have to do with empirical objects hence subsumed under intuition. While all experience is synthetic, space and time are not experiences. And while space and time are representations a priori, they are not synthetic. I guess I don’t see how you’ve come up with the notion, is all.

He says that there are two pure forms of sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge à priori, namely, space and time. Now this stipulates that there are synthetic a priori principles of knowledge, but that is not to say space and time are themselves synthetic a priori. Which, pardon me for saying, doesn’t make sense for its incompleteness. Synthetic a priori…..what?
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Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like Kant is arguing that there is an external world that is impressed onto our senses but that is not the thing-in-itself. But, then, I ask: doesn’t that concede that the mind’s synthetic a priori pure forms of intuition isn’t the only origin of space and time — Bob Ross

Not wrong; he is arguing that. Whatever other origins there are for space and time are irrelevant to any system that conceives its own. Human intelligence originates them this way, its the only intelligence we know about so that kind of origin is all we need. Could our intelligence originate space and time in a different way? Maybe, dunno. Has anyone tried? At any rate, we’d best not get bogged down by mere names. Whatever best answers our questions, right?
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If we are admitting that the world is external to our mind and that it operates likewise in space and time, then space and time are not purely synthetic. What you say to that? — Bob Ross

I say I don’t agree the mind operates likewise to the external world. The mind operates conditioned by time, but not space.

I say I understand the pure ideality of space and time, but don’t understand what you mean by qualifying them with synthetic.
————

To me, when I read CPR, it sounded like he was claiming anything beyond the two pure forms of intuition is the noumena (i.e., the things-in-themselves — Bob Ross

Noumena are not things-in-themselves. The latter are real spatial-temporal existences, the existence of the former is only possible for an intelligence unlike our own.

If by beyond the two pure forms of intuition you mean not conditioned by them, then it is the case noumena are beyond them. Still, anything not conditioned by space and time is utterly unintelligible to us, therefore we are not authorized to say that which is beyond them, are noumena.

if the phenomenal world around me is just a representation under space and time that are synthetic of my mind, then I cannot know anything about an external world beyond my mind because it lies outside of space and time — Bob Ross

Again with your vocabulary, the mind is not outside time, is conditioned by it. We can validate this iff it is the case all thoughts are singular and successive, which presupposes a temporal conditioning.

As for knowing anything about the world beyond the mind…..how can anything at all be known beyond the mind, if the mind is absolutely necessary and sufficient for all knowledge. Phenomena are of course necessary, but not sufficient, in that mere perception and representation in phenomena does not give any knowledge at all.
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I don’t think my view requires two actualized infinite spaces and time — Bob Ross

You said the mind produces, and in common vernacular to produce is to actualize, I should think.

I think within Kant’s view space and time are not a representation of anything — Bob Ross

It’s stated as representing an infinite given quantity. Space does not represent any property of objects as things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their relations to each other; in other words, space does not represent to us any determination of objects such as attaches to the objects themselves. Time, on the other hand, represents coexistences or successions.

Great talk; I’m liking it, so….thanks.