• "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    an open question (which we can investigate the truth of).Andrew M

    Gotta love a 3500yo tradition, huh?
  • Do the past and future exist?
    To say "This rock exists" is saying something about the rock. Can this same something be said of the rock of yesterday or tomorrow?hypericin

    Obviously not.

    To say a thing exists, logically references a given, present, temporal domain. The minutia of immediate past or future time being irrelevant, insofar as “present” specifically denotes the time of the saying, and only by association, the thing as subject of it.

    Assuming “this rock” and “the rock” are in all ways identical.....

    ......yesterday I could have said this rock exists, but in the given temporal domain, I can only say this rock exist-ed yesterday, because I can prove that it did, which says something about this rock but does not say the same thing, and.....

    .......it follows, under the same conditions, that I can only say this rock may exist tomorrow, because I cannot prove it does or does not, which is also saying something, but not the same something, about this rock.

    Easy-peasey.

    But says not a damn thing about whether past and future exist. The thread title and the OP have no relation to each other.
  • Space-Time and Reality


    No, I didn’t. As I said, doesn’t interest me.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    I can only put 'hidden states' as a place holder in my meta-model of how models are made.Isaac

    ....and I can only put noumena as a placeholder in a meta-theory of how other intelligences function.

    Risky business, indeed.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    What do you think....is there a definition other than the nominal, that defines what truth is?
    — Mww

    I don't think so. Regarding your question, what do you think?
    Andrew M

    I think I’m going to backtrack, unapologetically I might add. While you did get me to think above and beyond my cognitive prejudices, I found support for my original claim, truth is that in which a cognition conforms to its object (A58/B82), here.....

    “...But although these rules of the understanding are not only à priori true, but the very source of all truth, that is, of the accordance of our cognition with objects...”

    ......found at A237/B296, quite obviously further along in the methodological thesis, so shouldn’t it be taken for granted he means an answer to “what is truth?”, which must be a definition of it, to be just that? To repeat what he doesn’t mean would be disastrous.

    On the other hand, perhaps one could reject that “truth is.....”, is technically sufficient as a definition, but is rather merely an exposition of the conditions which make all truths possible. But the rejoinder to that would be that’s precisely what a definition does, serves as the criterion for the validity of any conception.

    Personal choice, then?
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    he says that if there are representations, then there must be something that is represented.......Janus

    Yes. The text is rife with affirmations.
    “....I cannot rest in the mere intuitions, but—if they are to become cognitions—must refer them, as representations, to something, as object, and must determine the latter by means of the former...”

    .......I had interpreted this as being seen by Kant as a logical entailment. You seem to be saying it is an ontological entailment, so I'm wondering if there is a difference.Janus

    Again, no interpretive harm done, even if there is a great contextual and methodological difference. I would still hesitate to agree Kant sees it that way, for the very first paragraph of the text.....

    “.....For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations...”

    .....indicates an ontological necessity, while the logical entailment, re: the possibility of awakening, resides in the system itself. But we see the awakening of the system constantly, and its negation is impossible, both entirely logical entailments, but irrelevant to its theoretical operation.
    —————

    I took noumena to signify what is unknowable, beyond even being thought of as thing or things.Janus

    Noumena do represent what is unknowable, but for different reason than the ding an sich is unknowable. The latter merely from lack of immediate access by us, its objective reality being given, the former from the impossibility of its objective reality being given, to which the access is then moot.

    Regarding beyond even being thought of as things....

    “....The understanding, when it terms an object in a certain relation phenomenon, at the same time forms out of this relation a representation or notion of an object in itself, and hence believes that it can form also conceptions of such objects....”

    ....it is clear noumena are thought as things, insofar as thought is the origin of conceptions of things. Briefly, understanding treats phenomena, which are mere representations of objects, as objects themselves, which it has no warrant to do, for the arrangement of the matter of objects into a form is the purview of intuition alone.

    Another thing: representation formed out of relation, is not the same as representation formed out of sensation. In effect, when understanding thinks a representation as object in itself, the entire sensory apparatus is bypassed, which means the faculty of sensuous intuition, the kind we actually possess, is idle. For us, then, this has two consequences negating the possibility of experience itself. First, going forward in the methodology, if cognition of objects requires sensuous intuition, and it is idle, no empirical cognition is at all possible. Hence, noumena as un-sensible objects in themselves, are necessarily uncognizable, which is the same as unknowable. And second, when going backward in the methodology, if sensuous intuition is idle, and it is the case that the awakening of our cognitive system depends exclusively on the appearance in sensation of real objects, the objective reality of such non-sensuous objects in themselves can never be given, which is also the same as such objects being unknowable.

    “....But I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself...”, and we can see, thinking noumena is not contradictory, but to attribute substance, reality or even adjoin concepts to them, is a contradiction of the systemic methodology itself.

    what are the implications of Kant's ideas, what we might think is implicit in themJanus

    Personally, my opinion is, first and foremost, that a priori conditions are not only possible, but necessary, and second, given from the first, that the human intellectual system has a natural, intrinsic, thus inescapable, duality.

    I am no Kant scholar, merely someone who has read some of his CPR and secondary sources about it....Janus

    Same here. Anything anybody says, even the relation of textual citations, with respect to Kantian metaphysics is no more than his own opinion.
  • Space-Time and Reality
    My post on origin of the universe explains why I think space is immaterial.val p miranda

    I think space is immaterial and I don’t give a damn for the origin of the universe.

    Carry on.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    I believe there is a Kantian distinction between the "thing in itself" and noumena.....Janus

    Absolutely.

    the former is a purely formal or logical requirement to the effect that if there is something as perceived there must be a corresponding thing as it is in itself......Janus

    Ok. I would rather think the ding an sich as merely an ontological necessity; if there is an affect on us by a thing, the thing-in-itself is given immediately by it. The only difference between a thing and a thing-in-itself.....is us. So your notion of formal and logical requirement is too strong, methinks.

    .....Noumena I take to signify the general hidden or invisible nature of what is affecting us pre-cognitively such as to manifest as perceptual phenomena.Janus

    It doesn’t hurt anything to think noumena as you say, but that wouldn’t the Kantian distinction. Simply put, phenomena arise legitimately according to rules. Noumena arise illegitimately by overstepping the rules. Noumena are possible iff what we consider as rules by which our intelligence works, are themselves unfounded, which is of course, quite impossible to prove. Which leaves them as entirely possible to another kind of intelligence altogether. Who knows....maybe that stupid lion thinks in terms of non-sensuous intuition, such that for his kind noumena are the standard. Too bad we can’t just ask him, huh?

    Noumena are not complicated; assembling and comprehending the antecedents against them, are.
  • Space-Time and Reality


    That’s certainly an improvement over metaphysical idea.

    Space meets the Kantian requirements as a transcendental because it is absolute, necessary and universal.val p miranda

    Ok, so we have...space meets the Kantian requirement of a transcendental idea, because space is absolute, necessary and universal?

    “....If (something) carries with it strict and absolute universality and necessity, that is, admits of no possible exception, it is not derived from experience, but is valid absolutely à priori....”

    This shows that space is a valid something purely a priori, which is admitted already, but does not show space is a transcendental idea.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    I take nominal to mean that the definition can't be employed to establish which statements are trueAndrew M

    Ahhhh....now I see how you related classical to nominal. My go-to reference doesn’t use nominal to qualify the definition, so thanks for that.

    Actually, we end up with...the nominal definition, the one used by classical logicians including Aristotle, ad recounted in Kant, re: truth is that cognition which conforms to its object, can’t be employed to establish which statements are true. But “what is truth?” isn’t asking about statements, it is asking after the conditio sine qua non with respect to the truth of our empirical cognitions in general, and insofar as the nominal definition involves a circularity, according to Kant and as stated in last part of the pg 45 comment...there isn’t any by means of the use of it.

    Hence, the implication of what definitions are supposed to do, re: “...the criterion of the possibility of a conception is the definition of it...”, and because truth is a valid conception, hence its possibility is given, it must meet the criterion of being defined. Which is what the “...assumed as granted and thereby presupposed” is meant to indicate. What do you think....is there a definition other than the nominal, that defines what truth is?
  • Space-Time and Reality
    Good that Kant is your favorite philosopher.

    Space meets the Kantian requirements as a transcendental....val p miranda

    Transcendental.....what?Mww

    A pure concept that is not empirical.val p miranda

    Thing is....the pure conceptions belong to understanding and are called categories, of which space is not one.

    “...Consequently, the original representation of space is an intuition a priori, and not a conception....”

    “...Space is no discursive, or as we say, general conception of the relations of things, but a pure intuition....”

    “....Hence it follows that an à priori intuition (which is not empirical) lies at the root of all our conceptions of space....”

    But all that doesn’t answer, “transcendental....what?”
  • Space-Time and Reality
    Space meets the Kantian requirements as a transcendental.....val p miranda

    Interesting statement.

    Transcendental.....what?
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    Philosophy is fun!Srap Tasmaner

    Ahhhh....the sheer joy of it!!! I’m about to indulge, so....here goes.

    The sensibility of these scenarios proves the distinction between truth and judgement.Michael

    Is this to say common sense is sufficient criterion for proof?
    ———-

    There is no judgement.Michael
    If two men disagree on whether or not something is the case....Michael

    That one agrees or disagrees with another is nothing more than one’s judgement relative to the other’s. That a third party invokes the logical laws to justify the differences between the first two, is no less a judgment.
    ———

    we determine the meaning.....Michael
    Our language use determines the meaning....Michael

    .....which reduces to we are our language use, which presupposes we of particular abilities. Better to understand what we are, such that our abilities are then possible, before making claims about things we do with them. If, given sufficient examination, it is discovered every initial thought or consequential speech-act, by each and every individual otherwise rationally adept human, is a determined judgement, then it follows necessarily that truth is a judgement, a judgement of relative certainty. Relative with respect to the conditions for its ground, certain in accordance with experience.

    Thing about having fun with philosophy, is that it just might be at someone else’s expense, for which I offer a sort of apology.

    Sorry, Micheal, if my fun costs your dismay, but I couldn’t let this go by transcendentally unmolested. Feel free to.....you know.....judge the comprehensibility of my comment, or not, as you wish. But just by reading it, haven’t you already?
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    Which to me implies that Kant isn't intending to differ from the classical account.Andrew M

    I’ll have to leave that alone; I don’t see how classical can be derived from nominal, but that’s ok. Also....once again.....translator’s preference. The SEP quote is right, but mine on pg 45 herein, is also right, and different. In addition, the SEP quote, after “is assumed as granted”, leaves out “...and is presupposed”, which offers a clue as to what exactly definitions are supposed to do.

    Nevertheless, there is rather apparently an intended difference between Kant and Aristotle, insofar as the former’s definition contains cognition, while the latter’s does not. They would have been much less different if Aristotle had said, “to think that what is is......”.
    ———

    the word is not defined within its own definitionAndrew M

    Granted, on a technicality.

    “....This will be plain if we first define truth and falsehood. To say that what is is not, or that what is not is, is false; but to say that what is is, and what is not is not, is true....”

    Still, it appears he writes that truth as such shall be defined, but really only exemplifies what form a true statement would have.

    Anyway.....good enough for me. Thanks.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    This one's a lot like Kant's distinction between phenomenon and noumenonfdrake

    Effectively we're arguing about whether semantic content relates to appearance or phenomenon!fdrake

    Semantic content: having to do with meaning of linguistic or logic symbols.
    A.) neither phenomena nor noumena, as such, have to do with symbols of any kind, with the acknowledgement that representation is itself not a symbol, but an integral member of a particular intelligence system, and......
    B.) phenomena arise from sensibility as the faculty of intuition, but noumena arise from understanding as the faculty of thought, and while for human cognition they must work in conjunction with each other, they are entirely different faculties, and in and of themselves, do not relate to each other.

    Regarding the kettle is boiling statement, the kettle is a phenomenon, insofar as there is a general, undetermined object of perception susceptible to being represented by a particular conception, or a manifold of related conceptions. (Kettles are metal of a shape, but also this metal or that metal of a shape). So it’s hard to see anything in the present discussion having to do with the distinction between phenomena and noumena. Perfect example of this, in relation to Kant anyway, is that there are a veritable plethora of representations of phenomena, the kettle being one of course, but not a single one, ever, anywhere, representing a noumenon. We can think noumenon, but we can never represent to ourselves, a noumenon. If we cannot represent to ourselves a noumenon, we cannot affirm semantic content for it.

    If it be acknowledged that words represent conceptions, and conceptions arise from the faculty of understanding alone, then semantic content has nothing to do with phenomena nor appearance, insofar as those arise from sensibility. Semantic content, then, relates to what we think about phenomena, but does not relate to phenomena themselves. And what we think about phenomena, manifests in the conceptions attached to them. (Correctly....synthesized with them via imagination, but I suspect eyebrows reaching for the heavens here, so.....never mind)
    ————-

    Hell...I’ve come this far, might as well continue, right?

    Earlier, in the “Aesthetic”, Kant had defined appearance as: “the undetermined object of an empirical intuition” (A34/B20).

    In Kemp Smith 1929 and Guyer/Wood 1989 this is correct, but in Meiklejohn 1856-7 it reads “...The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon...”. Why does this matter, you ask, and I know you are. Well, taking the standard pagination as gospel, in conjunction with the index of terminology, phenomena isn’t even mentioned, except in Meiklejohn, clean up to A249/B306. If phenomena are a condition of sensibility, why did he wait so long to present an exposition as to what they are, and when he did, it was in the section devoted to the faculty of understanding. An explanation for this can be found in the text, but sorta requires a certain interpretive inclination.

    Ahhhh....now the nifty stuff, in which has made a great point: appearance with respect to sensibility is presence, the presence of an undetermined object of sensation, the schema of our intuitions; appearance with respect to understanding is image, the schema of our conceptions. We are not conscious of our phenomena, but we are conscious of our images. Kant was an admitted dualist, so does not contradict himself in using appearance in two senses, and the reader must satisfy himself as to the separation logically mandated by their respective use.

    When appearance is in the sense of image, it must have been given a semantic content, re: a logical composition, re: a synthesis of related conceptions. Otherwise, there would be nothing comprehensible on which to form a rational judgement, and therefore knowledge of that object we initially sensed, would be false at best hence possibly correctable, or altogether impossible at worst, hence not correctable at all.

    Kinda like....the image we construct is what the presence is judged to look like. I mean...we can really envision an object we know, without it being present.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    So what's happening here is not really to do with the semantic content of each word, or the order we put them in. It's to do with another person sharing my model, my expectations.Isaac

    D’accord. This notion holds even for rote instruction, such that those youngsters in their first years of schooling, by merely perceiving the objects of instruction, still have to relate those objects to an self-contained, internal, system of their own, consistently, with whichever arbitrary source they come from.

    Taking the notion a step further, while it is your expectation, it is another’s anticipation. You expect me to understand; I anticipate I will. And vice versa.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    Is Kant's definition of truth, "the accordance of the cognition with its object”, much different to Aristotle's definition "To say of what is that it is ... is true"?Andrew M

    Regarding Aristotle, for those interested, and for context, see Metaphysics, 4, 1011b.

    I think much different, yes. “...This will be plain if we first define truth and falsehood....”, which immediately precedes the passage in question, so it appears by defining both, he is merely pointing out what he calls “contraries”, and subsequently, to eliminate what he calls “intermediaries”. In effect, whatever is said about anything at all, that is to say, anything that exists....his words...., must be either entirely true or false, not both under the same conditions, and not part of one and part of the other under the same conditions. So we have statements concerning that which is true or false, but....again....not what true or false is.

    As well, it is logically inconsistent to contain the word being defined within its own definition, which Aristotle does, but Kant does not. From that alone, it may be said Aristotle is not defining what truth is, but simply relating truth to that which is not false.

    To relate Aristotle’s passage to Kant, it is probably better to use Kant’s, “the mark of truth is that for which the negation is a contradiction”. Not to be confused with, “ the mark of necessity is that for which the negation is impossible”.

    Besides, a cognition qua procedural mental event, is far antecedent to its representation in language form in the saying of it. To say a thing is true presupposes, albeit perhaps only metaphysically, the cognition from which the language representing that truth, is assembled in the form of a particular judgement.

    Yes? No? Maybe?
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    from the perspective that patterns of association in language mirror patterns of association in environmentsfdrake

    Understood, and agreed, in principle. My language would be......errrr, shall I say, older?.....different, but the idea behind it would be congruent. My reluctant quibble would be, then, from whence comes the mirror, and what form does the mirror require in order for the associations to work.
    ————-

    the initial metaphysical question cannot be answered with empirical examples.
    — Mww

    This is a thing.
    Srap Tasmaner

    ....and from this well-worn and exceedingly comfortable armchair, a very big thing it is. The solution seems to have become the disregard of metaphysical questions, or at the very least turn them into anthropological/psychological questions. Which is, I must say, “...beneath the dignity of philosophy...”.

    Nothing I've posted so far has gone anywhere.Srap Tasmaner

    HA!!! My post on pg 45 didn’t even get a response, even though it contained a distinct and irreducible answer to the question. Might not be correct, and is certainly open to disagreement, but at least it was there.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."


    First: utmost respect; interesting and informative dialectic.
    Second: how, in the answer to “what is truth”, should that general dialectic by conditioned by at least an unstated presupposition, or at most, a particular falsehood?
    Case in point: the conclusion you can never boil the same kettle twice is justified, but only insofar as to state a kettle boils even once, while not impossible, is nonetheless contrary to experience and diminishes the power of the affirmation for what truth is. Kettles don’t boil, even though that is the linguistic and therefore logical construct presented in the dialectic, which necessitates the unstated presupposition in order to validate the argument. In effect, what is true is being conditioned by a mere presupposition, such that an example of what is a truth, but absolutely nothing is accomplished by it, with respect to what truth is.

    As states, in an apparently Hume-ian fashion, re: “constant conjunction”, if you say the kettle is boiling, you expect bubbles, which would be the case, for this is at root an analytic judgement. But the tacit understanding the bubbles expected are given by the content of the kettle and not the boiling kettle, immediately makes the statement itself no longer analytic, and thus becomes the source of an illogical inference, and....as we all know....needs awaken one from his “dogmatic slumber”.

    Now I’ll rejoin that rather minuscule human demographic of the overly-critical, or, if preferred, the more general group of those hopelessly under-informed, but perhaps you’d agree with me that the initial metaphysical question cannot be answered with empirical examples.
  • What do these questions have in common?
    I'm not expecting an academic answer.....Skalidris

    By stipulating “philosophical research” sufficient to answer the questions, isn’t an academic answer implied?

    to me they all lead to the same problem once they're debated....Skalidris

    What problem? Sans debate, the problem doesn’t arise?

    Those “a little bit interested” can offer opinion. Is that enough?
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    It should be emphasized that neither the expression (T) (....) nor any particular instance of the form (T) can be regarded as a definition of truth.Andrew M

    In seeking an answer to the question, “what is truth”, that passage says, in a modernized, which is to say, seriously overblown, manner, nothing effectively superior to the entry on pg 45.

    Anthropology/psychology (satisfaction) to metaphysics (truth), is limestone/gypsum to a biscuit recipe.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    There's more to an explanation than a kind of sub-level of more foundational grounds.Isaac

    Usually, conventionally, yes, but does not remain that case, in which an explanation serves as a proof? Granted, a highly restricted explanatory domain, to be sure, but can’t it be said that proofs are explanations given from the most foundational ground relative to that which is explained?

    more foundational grounds doesn't exhaust the sort of thing an 'explanation' might be. "It just feels that way" is such an answer, for example.Isaac

    .....to which I would argue that “it just feels that way”, while indeed a foundational ground and may be an answer, it is difficult to suppose as an explanation. Here I would agree that there is more to an explanation than this kind of foundational ground.

    We can leave it here, if you like. You’ve got a lot of answering to do otherwise, so...thanks for taking the time.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    explaining a couple of the presuppositionsIsaac

    Ooooo....you sneaky devil, you. I see what you did right there. Everyone has his own presuppositions, and your chosen field of expertise aims to reduce them all to something by which they are all explained.

    Even if you’re right, and all presuppositions can be explained, we’re still left with the “horse....water” conundrum. Which is fine, we’re already in one anyway, presented by reason itself.

    Same as it ever was.....
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    My point is all about bringing logic back into the real world by showing how it is in fact grounded in the brute reality of a pragmatic modelling relation.apokrisis

    We were warned, not to extend logic so far it needs bringing back:

    “....Because, however, the mere form of a cognition, accurately as it may accord with logical laws, is insufficient to supply us with material (objective) truth, no one, by means of logic alone, can venture to predicate anything of or decide concerning objects, unless he has obtained, independently of logic, well-grounded information about them, in order afterwards to examine, according to logical laws, into the use and connection, in a cohering whole, of that information, or, what is still better, merely to test it by them.

    Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, (...) teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, (conditions) which do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects; any attempt to employ it as an instrument in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever....” (CPR A61,2/B85,6)
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    I'm interested in any "finessing" you may care to offer.Janus

    How do I know the world is not my experience? It is self-evident.Janus

    .....just like that. Such knowledge is given immediately from that which constitutes experience, pursuant to a epistemological theory that proves what experience is and thereby the constituency of it.

    Claiming self-evidence is dangerous, though, for, with respect to human cognition, that which is irreducibly self-evident concerns itself with logical form a priori without regard to objects, whereas “world” is an empirical conception a posteriori representing a manifold of all possible objects. In effect, that which is known or knowable, re: a multiplicity/plurality of synthetically derived particulars, is put in conflict with that which is merely thought or conceivable, re: an analytically derived universal.

    On the other hand, however, that knowledge, and consequently, experience, of a manifold of infinite possibilities is itself impossible is categorically presupposed, from which it follows that knowledge of the world cannot be experience is necessarily self-evident to pure reason, which is metaphysically transcendental, but not necessarily to judgement, which is cognitively relational.

    Make no mistake about it: the notion of “conceptual schema” cannot be divorced from empirical states of affairs. Not for us as humans, operating under the auspices of an intellect that absolutely requires it. And from that necessity, the assertion, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”, taken at face value, is catastrophically false, in that language makes no appearance whatsoever in mere representations of conceptual schema, which in and of themselves alone, are limits of a world. I am limited by what I can think, and that, at least sufficiently, by the laws of rational thought, not by what I can express by symbolic device.

    Yeahyeahyeah.....I know: one guy’s finessing is another guy’s nonsense. But, hey.....you asked for it, so, there ya go.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    Our perceptions and conceptions evolve out of experience, individually and collectively. We know that we experience images, we never perceive whole things, and we never perceive the world at all, but just images of the objects we understand to constitute it. We have conceptual purchase on the world just because it is our idea, we certainly don't have experiential purchase on any such totality.Janus

    Well said. The subtleties can be finessed.....but generally, well said.
  • Analogy of Idea to World
    the exact relational nature of the world has to be uncovered through thoughtintrobert

    THAT’S what’s next.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    It's a wide open invitation.Sam26

    I do so love being invited. It’s only later I sometimes regret it.

    “...The old question with which people sought to push logicians into a corner, so that they must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms or confess their ignorance, and consequently the vanity of their whole art, is this: “What is truth?” The definition of the word truth, to wit, “the accordance of the cognition with its object,” is presupposed in the question; but we desire to be told, in the answer to it, what is the universal and secure criterion of the truth of every cognition....”

    After all the analytical hoopla....there isn’t one.
  • What Does it Mean, Philosophically, to Argue that God Does or Does Not Exist?
    Philosophically, it means that if sound reasoning supports the negation of a proposition under one set of conditions, and an affirmation of the very same proposition under a different set of conditions.....there’s something much more fundamental going on than whatever’s contained in the proposition.
  • Analogy of Idea to World
    If idea is only representation and analogy only implies relationship then the ideas/ perceptions of the world serve as a representation that gives the perceiver some relationship to the world.introbert

    While that may be necessary, it isn’t sufficient, insofar as no account is given for what the relationship is, or how it manifests, and consequently, what is to be done with it.

    Good start. What’s next?
  • How exactly does Schopenhauer come to the conclusion that the noumenal world is Will?
    not even a second rater, in your view?Janus

    Ehhhh.....his philosophy is, in my view. And as a regular guy, I think he’s way too harsh on his peers, almost disrespectful. Combining the two subjective judgements, one could relegate S to the second tier. On the other hand of course, if there has already been one chosen to be at the top, all the others are second-rate, or less.
  • How exactly does Schopenhauer come to the conclusion that the noumenal world is Will?
    Kant’s use of noumenal vs thing-in-itself is notoriously convoluted.schopenhauer1

    The relevant texts sustain the fact he doesn’t convolute one with the other; they are entirely different conceptions. It is those who followed that are guilty of it. His interchanging of the terminology is understood, and forgiven, in context.

    A difference that makes a difference? I think not, insofar as our knowledge extends to neither of them.
    ————

    the demonstration was the use of one’s own internal willing nature and he took the leap to apply it to all phenomena where there are forces, and animals with a striving force etc.schopenhauer1

    Yeah, I see the demonstration, but don’t quite accept the justification. I mean, he’s authorized to speculate as he wishes, as are philosophers in general, but he still needs to give empirical evidence in support of it. To equate “force of nature” with “unity of will” just seems a bridge too far.
  • How exactly does Schopenhauer come to the conclusion that the noumenal world is Will?
    are you looking for the specific term "nominal" in his writings?schopenhauer1

    No. I’m questioning the OP, in which is stated, “Schop says that the narrow door to the truth is that our bodies appears to us as both external physical objects (as representation) and as something we can experience such as touch hunger and desire I.e as will. And because our bodies appears to us as both will and as representation-the noumenal world is entirely constituted out of will.[/quote]

    I can’t find any justification for S relating the dual nature of our understanding of ourselves, to the noumenal world. Maybe there isn’t any, in that S never did actually relate one to the other, instead, invoking the thing-in-itself, which the post-Kantians, and meager philosophers in general, illegitimately seized upon as noumena.

    I guess I was hoping someone could transfer the notion of will with respect to the empirical world, to the noumenal world.
  • How exactly does Schopenhauer come to the conclusion that the noumenal world is Will?
    Perhaps someone can help me with S’s speaking of the noumenal world....or anything noumenal....cuz I can’t find it, at least in WWR, or FPSR.

    All that aside, S pats Kant on the back, then criticizes his foremost “error”, by committing the exact same kind:

    “....That the will which we find within us does not proceed, as philosophy has hitherto assumed, first from knowledge, and indeed is a mere modification of it, thus something secondary, derived, and, like knowledge itself, conditioned by the brain; but that it is the prius of knowledge, the kernel of our nature, and that original force itself which forms and sustains the animal body, in that it carries out both its unconscious and its conscious functions;—this is the first step in the fundamental knowledge of my metaphysics.....
    (WW & I, 3, XXIII, 1844, in Haldane/Kemp, 1889)


    .....That, further, it is that same will which in the plant forms the bud in order to develop the leaf and the flower out of it; nay, that the regular form of the crystal is only the trace which its momentary effort has left behind, and that in general, as the true and only αυτοματον, in the proper sense of the word, it lies at the foundation of all the forces of unorganised nature, plays, acts, in all their multifarious phenomena, imparts power to their laws, and even in the crudest mass manifests itself as gravity;—this insight is the second step in that fundamental knowledge, and is brought about by further reflection....
    (Ibid)

    ....For it is the tracing back of that which is quite inaccessible to our immediate knowledge, and therefore in its essence foreign and unknown to us, which we denote by the words force of nature, to that which is known to us most accurately and intimately, but which is yet only accessible to us in our own being and directly, and must therefore be carried over from this to other phenomena. It is the insight that what is inward and original in all the changes and movements of bodies, however various they may be, is in its nature identical; that yet we have only one opportunity of getting to know it more closely and directly, and that is in the movements of our own body. In consequence of this knowledge we must call it will. It is the insight that that which acts and strives in nature, and exhibits itself in ever more perfect phenomena, when it has worked itself up so far that the light of knowledge falls directly upon it, i.e., when it has attained to the state of self-consciousness—exists as that will, which is what is most intimately known to us, and therefore cannot be further explained by anything else, but rather affords the explanation of all other things. It is accordingly the thing in itself so far as this can ever be reached by knowledge. Consequently it is that which must express itself in some way in everything in the world, for it is the inner nature of the world and the kernel of all phenomena....
    (Ibid)

    .....The unity of that will, here referred to, which lies beyond the phenomenon, and in which we have recognised the inner nature of the phenomenal world, is a metaphysical unity, and consequently transcends the knowledge of it, i.e., does not depend upon the functions of our intellect, and therefore can not really be comprehended by it. Hence it arises that it opens to the consideration an abyss so profound that it admits of no thoroughly clear and systematically connected insight, but grants us only isolated glances, which enable us to recognise this unity in this and that relation of things, now in the subjective, now in the objective sphere, whereby, however, new problems are again raised, all of which I will not engage to solve, but rather appeal here to the words est quadam prodire tenus**, more concerned to set up nothing false or arbitrarily invented than to give a thorough account of all;—at the risk of giving here only a fragmentary exposition.
    ** “it is something to proceed thus far, if it be not permitted to go farther” (Horace)
    (ibid XXV)

    So....Kant says there is that knowledge unavailable to us simply because our particular intelligence is not equipped for it, to which S says he merely didn’t examine properly why such should be the case. S then goes about substituting “force of nature”, or, “unity of will”, or simply “will”, which is the most known to us of all things, for the ding an sich. But, alas....even that “unity of will”, which is a facile euphemism for “will-in-itself”, is that of which human knowledge has no immediate access, but at the same time, “will” is that of which each otherwise rational human intellect, has full and complete access, albeit on an individual basis. Just as things are that which are known as opposed to things-in themselves which are not, so too is will that which is accessible, but will as force of nature, is not. All that really happened here is effectively reducible to a “recourse to pitiful sophisms” (CPR, A58).

    There may be a force of nature by which “...the plant forms the bud in order to develop the leaf and the flower out of it...”, but by what warrant should that force be derived from the conception....as transcendental as it must be....of the human will?

    S comments that K’s thesis is a form of negative knowledge, in that K grounds his theory on what knowledge is not, or, on how knowledge illegitimately acquired is no knowledge at all. S then stipulates that his own metaphysics, taken as an improvement on K’s insofar as the thing-in-itself can be immediately known to us when conceived as “will”....but ultimately declines to forward a positive knowledge with respect to it, by invoking Horace.

    Over the years, I’ve come to favor the notion that if S hadn’t begun by heaping praise on Kant by the bucketful, thereby putting himself in the limelight of a paradigm shift, hadn’t deemed himself a proper German transcendental idealist, thereby conforming to the philosophical standard of his time and place, and at the same time hadn’t ridiculed his peers mercilessly....especially Hegel and somewhat less-so Fitche.....his metaphysics wouldn’t have however much traction subsequently attributed to it. It seems rather obvious that if WWR preceded CPR, or, which is the same thing, if proper human intellect had been attributed necessarily to an external ontological domain rather than an internal epistemological one.....it may not have even got off the scholastic ground.

    Thus it is, contra S is not so much a second-rate philosopher as a coattail rider, and, in affirmation with , a poor critic of Kant.

    All that, without ever asking...... how in the HELL is it possible to “trace back” from the unknowable, re: a necessary force of nature, to the most known, re: freedom as ground of the human will? How S accomplished that, is even more suspect than the exchange of the Kantian unknowable thing-in-itself (an altogether empirical something), to a Schopenhauer-ian knowable metaphysical condition (an altogether transcendental something). This isn’t just apples and oranges; it’s more like apples and dump trucks.

    Now...back to the noumenal world: what about it?
  • Philosophical term for deliberate ejection of a proof
    I don't like your proof because it proves me wrong, and I simply reject it possibly with some baseless argument or foolish comment. (....) How would you call my rejection of proof, in philosophical manner?SpaceDweller

    You’d think a philosopher would respond in a philosophical manner, right? At least one does, here:

    “....General logic contains no directions or precepts for the faculty of judgement, nor can it contain any such. For as it makes abstraction of all content of cognition, no duty is left for it, except that of exposing analytically the mere form of cognition in conceptions, judgements, and conclusions, and of thereby establishing formal rules for all exercise of the understanding. Now if this logic wished to give some general direction how we should subsume under these rules, that is, how we should distinguish whether this or that did or did not stand under them, this again could not be done otherwise than by means of a rule. But this rule, precisely because it is a rule, requires for itself direction from the faculty of judgement. Thus, it is evident that the understanding is capable of being instructed by rules, but that the judgement is a peculiar talent, which does not, and cannot require tuition, but only exercise. This faculty is therefore the specific quality, the want of which no scholastic discipline can compensate. For although education may furnish, and, as it were, engraft upon a limited understanding rules borrowed from other minds, yet the power of employing these rules correctly must belong to the pupil himself; and no rule which we can prescribe to him with this purpose is, in the absence or deficiency of this gift of nature, secure from misuse.[26]

    [26] Deficiency in judgement is properly that which is called stupidity; and for such a failing we know no remedy. A dull or narrow-minded person, to whom nothing is wanting but a proper degree of understanding, may be improved by tuition, even so far as to deserve the epithet of learned. But as such persons frequently labour under a deficiency in the faculty of judgement, it is not uncommon to find men extremely learned who in the application of their science betray a lamentable degree this irremediable want....”

    That’s how I would call your rejection, given baseless argument or foolish comment. Kindly, deficiency in judgement, or harshly....stupidity.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    In the example, "p" is what is said to be true, so "p" represents a judgement which is judged as a true judgement.Metaphysician Undercover

    Understood, and here is an assertorial judgement, insofar as “p is true” affords none other than an affirmation.

    I won’t agree “p” represents a judgement, but even without that, “p is true”, does, so the feature of truth residing in judgement, holds.
  • "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer."
    "true" and "false" are attributed to judgements. Ignoring this simple feature of truth leads to endless discussion getting nowhere.Metaphysician Undercover

    Simple feature...agreed. What would you say if “truth” and “false” weren’t so much attributed to judgements, but ARE themselves judgements?
  • Our Minimal Epistemic Commitment (Fixing Descartes' Cogito)
    C'mon, give me something to disagree with...Janus

    HA!!!

    Sorry... I messed up. Posted a minor point I disagreed with, but that wasn’t what you asked for. I’ll have to think about it.
  • Our Minimal Epistemic Commitment (Fixing Descartes' Cogito)
    I said that my thoughts ,feelings and bodily sensations are what is most immediately present to me....,Janus

    Agreed, in principle. Just depends on which act of the play......which step in the method..... is under consideration.

    ”Descartes famously emphasized that subjective reality is better known than objective reality....”

    I don't agree with Descartes as this represents him.
    Janus

    Agreed, this time wholeheartedly. Meditations II, where all this originates, is titled OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND; AND THAT IT IS MORE EASILY KNOWN THAN THE BODY, so are we then to accept that the nature of the human mind is subjective reality. I don’t.

    All the rest is just folks figuring that’s what he really meant, and would really have said, if only he thought like us.

    We know our own existence as body, not as some "non-physical" self.Janus

    Yeah, pretty much. I as representation is logically superior to I as existence. You know.....no category can be a predicate in a logical proposition, so it is said. Biggest deal is, even so, the I qua conceptual representation, is never present in thought as such. When I say, “I think.....”, the thinking has already been done.

    Anyway....carry on.