Right? — flannel jesus

Sure. Everydayman won’t have a problem with that, but the philosopher might.

While it is necessarily the case, e.g., “Neytiri”, is subjected to the exact same cognitive system as, e.g., a basketball, hence manifests as an experience in exactly the same way, the philosopher understands the object initially subjected to the system is already nothing more than a representation, while the “vulgar understanding” treats that same object, not as a representation but as a first-order real existence.

All that being given, I’d say it is by reason one distinguishes between the real and the seemingly real, not conceptually.

That opinion , while apodeitically certain
— Mww

Only in a relational sense, and the opinion wasn't worded as a relation, so I very much question it. — noAxioms

The opinion in question is relational, re: what I see is what exits, and it is apodeitically true, from the LNC. But that is not to say what I see is only what exits. Or, is all that exists. And it isn’t that what I don’t see doesn’t exist.

How is the apple not having objective existence contradictory? — noAxioms

If an apple didn't have objective existence it wouldn’t be an apple. Without descending into abysmal nonsense, we must grant that for a thing to be give a name presupposes at least that there is a thing, or at the very least a possible thing, to which a name can be given.

To say 'what I see exists' is fine, but to say 'only what I see exists' is another story. Which is why I ask where the line is drawn between existing things and not. — noAxioms

Another story indeed, in that I am not authorized to say what I don’t see doesn’t exist, while it being perfectly legitimate to say what I don’t see I don’t experience.

Perhaps experience is the line to be drawn, then. For any subject, any experience is necessarily of an existence, and for that subject, without experience is the same as without its object. Still, this is epistemological, that of which a subject knows as existing or not, rather than ontological, that of which the subject merely infers as possibly existing or not.

All that being said, it must be the case that whatever the line is, it relates exclusively to, and is derivable only from, the subject inquiring about its establishment. Me, I opine it doesn’t much matter what doesn't exist, that being nothing but an exception to the rule for what does. And…..YEA!!!!…..again, for me, the establishment for the rule for what does exist is already given by the LNC.

Easy-peasy.

….which justifies the claim there is no language in pure thought.
— Mww

No language in pure thought? But what is Kant "talking" about? — Astrophel

Are we mistaking the description of a system, for its operation?

Kant is “talking” about his own idea of what’s happening when the human animal uses his intellect.

What’s the problem with talking about pure thought using language, and exercising pure thought without it? Please don’t tell me you talk to yourself, prescribe in words or logic symbols the individual actions required to tie your shoes. Odd that you can tie your shoes faster than you can prescribe each act required in order to tie your shoes, innit?

When you’re reading something particularly engaging….ever notice the words merely represent a certain assemblage of conceptions you already have, and the author is only trying to make you mentally image what’s he’s already done for himself. And it’s only in the case where you don’t have for yourself this certain assemblage, that you have to stop and read again, or look up to the sky and….you know, think….about what the author wants you to imagine.

I have no problem whatsoever asserting that’s the way my system works, and I’m almost as certain that’s the way your system works, too. That language must take precedence, is “….beneath the dignity of philosophy….”**, yet at the same time perfectly authorized to ground “…..philosophizing in an orderly manner….”***
(**1787; ***1644)

Clearly, one has to "talk" to conceive of pure thought at all, — Astrophel

Nope. One has to think to conceive of pure thought, which may then be talked about. One doesn’t talk about that of which he has no conception.

Can one meaningfully talk about something that stands outside of talk?…. — Astrophel

You’re asking about justifying a contradiction? Of course one cannot talk about what stands outside of talk. You must realize we invent the objects used to represent our thinking, the words. For whatever is used for thinking, a word can be invented to represent it. Whatever is thought about, a word can be invented to represent it.

There are no words possible to represent, we cannot meaningfully talk about, only that which cannot be thought, on the one hand, and, we never invent a word then think a conception belonging to it, on the other.

….and it is Kant's own transcendental Dialectic that weighs down on this. In the end, he is just as bad as Descartes. — Astrophel

Given the subject matter of the Dialectic, I gather that somehow you’re saying Manny’s exposè demonstrating the illegitimacy ol’ Renè’s cogito principle, is just as bad as the principle itself.

Interesting, but I’d have to think awful hard nonetheless about how sophistical arguments and paralogisms are just as bad as that which guards against them.
————-

It is IN tthe rules for speaking that logic is discovered in the first place. — Astrophel

Ya know….Kant used mathematics to prove the very possibility of synthetic a priori cognitions. Once their possibility is proved, he then goes about finding them in cognitions other than mathematical. So if it is proven there are rules for understanding, it is perfectly reasonable to suppose there are rules for speaking. On the other hand, while it is perfectly reasonable that to misuse the rules of understanding results in incorrect thinking, it is absurd to suppose the misuse of the rules for speaking results in incorrect speech, or language in general.

And if I don’t agree logic is discovered, then it follows that the discovery of logic in the rules for speech is beyond the agreement pale.
————-

The categories have no use. They are theoretical postulates. — Astrophel

Maybe they are, but why can’t a postulate have a use in keeping with the theory to which it belongs. Sorta like Newton’s g: no such thing but a necessary component in the law of universal gravitation.

No one can ever "see" such a thing, nor use it. — Astrophel

It isn’t a thing to see, and one doesn’t use it like a tool or a device of some kind. It is….they are…..merely explanatory devices used by the intellect, in accordance with a particular theory. Avoided or dismissed by a different theory of course, but no less a component of the theory to which they belong.

The evidential basis for any discussion about it lies in exclusively in language…. — Astrophel

Yes, but the evidential basis for their use lies exclusively in some speculative idea of a system. One who thinks a metaphysical system comes to be on account of the speaking of it, still has to explain where the speaking came from. Not only that, but how to explain, in one example of a veritable plethora thereof, how Joyce and Gell-Mann related the same word for entirely different chains of thought.

…..if such exist, cannot indeed contain anything empirical; yet, none the less, they can serve solely as a priori conditions of a possible experience. Upon this ground alone can their objective reality rest…. — Astrophel

A proper understanding of the theory in its entirety leads to the recognition that “exist” is not meant in its categorical sense. One is supposed to connect the conceptions in conjunction with the context of their appearance, rather than strict accordance with some classification which forces a contradiction.

It is nonsense like that, for which the supposed remedies were to be found in “language games” and “intentionality”. Which reduces to….paraphrasing his words…..don’t bother with the rationality of theoretical speculations, but instead, waste effort on faulting its presentation.
————-

The issue was whether or not the understanding attends spontaneous events like hearing a loud bang. I said it did, for hearing at all, for us, is a structured affair, that is, when we "experience" anything at all, there is the implicit understanding thta this fits into a familiar course of events, and is not alien or threatening. — Astrophel

It doesn’t. Cognitive faculties attend mediately to first-order events, immediately to second-order events that are representations thereof; sensibility attends immediately.

Hearing is indeed a structured affair, a physiologically structured affair predicated on physical attributes.

For any experience, yes, there is an implicit course of events, pursuant to the method by which experience is even possible. What those events are, and the course they take, depends on the theory in which they are the constituents.

And yes, threats may themselves be experiences. And technically, any experience having no antecedent consciousness relating to it, is alien. Foreign. Previously unaware.

Kant had it right in that metaphysics had to go…. — Astrophel

He was quite explicit in declaring that there will always be some form of metaphysics in any human who “…rises to the height of speculation….”.

Metaphysics had to go iff it was intended as, or attempted to be made into, a science. So don’t; no problem.

First was…..

Kant's is an extrapolation from what is the case, to what has to be the case to explain this. — Astrophel

Nope. Extrapolation from what is the case for us, to how the case is to be known by us. — Mww

….second was….

Extrapolation is the move from what IS the case to what must be the case to account for this. — Astrophel

Except Kant’s is a speculative metaphysic, in which the transcendental philosophy constructed to account for it, may not properly account for what is the case. Thus, your notion of extrapolation can only refer to the move from what is the case, not to what must be the case to account for it, but only to a possible accounting. Regardless of how exact and internally consistent his system may be, it may not be what’s actually happening between our ears. He’s very specific in saying, if this way is sufficient then it is so only if it is done right. Hence, if pure reason is the way, then to critique it leads to doing it right.

What must be the case is determinable by the physical sciences alone, and he makes it quite clear that metaphysics is not a proper science, nor can it be, from which it follows that metaphysics alone cannot necessarily be the case that accounts for what is.

Knowing metaphysics is not necessarily right in accounting for what is, all that’s left to us is to make it less wrong.
————-

What is the case is is judgment. — Astrophel

Technically, what is irrevocably the case, is Nature. What must be the case to account for Nature, is guesswork originated by our intellect, and that conditioned by time and circumstance. Thus, what must be the case, is in fact quite contingent, the more parsimonious way to account for our intellectual errors.

If the perspective is limited to the human himself, Nature being given, what is irrevocably the case is nothing more than sensation, insofar as that is the point at which the internal mechanisms of human intellect….of whatever form that may be….become first apparent.

If you’re referring to aesthetic judgement as what is the case, as opposed to discursive judgement of the understanding, then we’re talking of two different conditions. But in relation to what is, aesthetic judgement respects only how we feel about it, rather than how we account for it.

What must be the case given the way judgment is structured is pure reason, loosely put. — Astrophel

Gettin’ pretty far into the weeds here, so “loosely put” is quite apropos. Those judgements structured by pure reason are principles, therefore called apodeitic or necessary, which serve as rules for the function of understanding in its empirical employment. The structure of judgements in general, called either problematic or assertorical, merely represents the unity between the conceptions in the subject to the predicate of any cognition, a function belonging to understanding alone. Whether or not this conception belongs to that conception, hence the truth or falsity of the cognition relative to those empirical conditions from which they arise, re: phenomena, THAT is the purview of reason.

When I think, and my thoughts succeed each other without conflict, my judgements are rational and/or logical. If I think, and then I have to think again or think otherwise, in which case there is a conflict in my judgements, it is reason’s judging that informs of the conflict, either regarding my understanding with itself, or my understanding with experience. Not what such conflict is, how it has manifested itself, but that there is one. Hence the transcendental nature of those judgements structured by pure reason as principles, that by which those discursive judgements is informed of its errors.

But all things are first evidenced in the "world" and and here is where judgments appear — Astrophel

If it is the case all things are first evidenced by their effect on the senses, where does judgement appear? Do we really need to judge whether or not our senses have been affected? That they are or that they are not, to be considered as judgements as such? If such is the criteria for the structure of judgements in general, on order for them to appear, what is to be done with the relation between a phenomenon and the conceptions by which it is cognized? And if such is the case, what does pure reason have to do with it?

It is the case, however, that judgement does appear by the cognition that the “world” is that in which all possible things are first evidenced, but that merely treats “world” as a general condition for things for which evidence is possible. In other words, “world” is the predicate of a principle given a priori in transcendental logic. There remains the need for the intuition of that space in which a thing is first evidenced, and a time by which that thing relates to a perception of it, in neither of which does a judgement manifest itself.
(Sidebar: here, “world”, in Kant, is “reality”) For whatever that’s worth…..

No manifestation in phenomena, then no ground for apriori argument. — Astrophel

No manifestation of discursive judgement in phenomena, but there is imagination, every bit as facilitating as judgement, for a priori argument. As I mentioned above, aesthetic judgement is manifest in the subject as his underlying condition, or, which is the same thing, how he feels about what he perceives. But that relates more to what he feels ought to be, rather than what is.
—————-

Nope. What he means by “first” here, is merely that occassion given to a theoretical systemic procedure.
— Mww

I wrote this: ""So when Kant says something like, "What must first be given with a view to the a priori knowledge of all objects is the manifold of pure intuition," this sentential construction is itself bound to the categories."

Obviously this is true since all sentential constructions are so bound. "First" here refers to what is logically first, or presupposed, as when reading this sentence there is a logical structure presupposed in the understanding of its meaning. Logical presupposedness is what the Critique is all about, this digging deep into what must be the case IN the presuppositional underpinning of everyday speaking. — Astrophel

This part of the conversation originated in….

….when one asks basic questions about the world…. — Astrophel

…and my “Nope” referred to my contention Kant wouldn’t have constructed that sentence. But I guess that wasn’t the point, in that whatever the sentence being constructed by anybody, it must first accord with some logical or presupposed condition by which the subject doing the sentential constructing understands himself.

Now, I’m summarily rejecting that idea, because I contend he who constructs a sentence already understands himself, the constructed sentence merely an expression of that understanding. I’d further stipulate that he wouldn’t construct a sentence at all if he didn’t understand himself, or, if he did stab at in in hopes of expressing himself accurately, he wouldn’t have a clue whether or not he actually did.

So when I, e.g., tell you about the time I fell out of a tree, there would certainly be a logical structure presupposed in the construction of the sentence by which I relay my experience, but if we both look a little closer, we find that all I’ve done is replicate the very logical structure and presuppositions which gave me the experience to tell you about. And here, the categories would fill the bill as logical structural predicates and necessary presuppositions.

But if I tell you about, e.g., the merely qualitative effect imposed on me by the observation of Starlink…..breathtaking, by the way, jaw-dropping in its unexpectedness. I mean…WTF was THAT??? I had to look it up. Didn’t know there was such a thing. Too far removed from my acid days, so I wasn’t afraid I’d lost it. Anyway….point being, categories required for the observation, but not for the qualitative effect of it on me.

So, while I might agree logical presupposedness is what the Critique is all about, I’d maintain it is the logical presupposedness of thought and reason, and thought, in its turn, is the presupposedness of language.

And ya know what….logical structure presupposed in understanding a sentence’s meaning, might be restricted to the form of logic, yet the sentence itself by which it is expressed, necessarily concerns the content of that logic. I mean…you can’t really presuppose content, can you? It being as varied and indiscriminate as circumstance permits.

I am just looking for an opinion of mind-independent existence (….) other than "what I see is what exists". — noAxioms

That opinion, while apodeitically certain, again, insofar as its negation is a contradiction, re: what I see is not what exists, or, what I see does not exist, has to do with that which exists without regard for whether such existent is mind-independent. To satisfy that condition, “what I see” must be isolated from the mind in order to be independent of it, from which follows the necessity for proving the mind absolutely cannot itself be sufficient existential causality for what I see.

And that’s pretty easy…..just close my eyes and I see nothing, so if the mind is itself sufficient causality for what I see, I cannot explain why it is I no longer see anything when my eyes are closed while there remains no indication whatsoever my mind is not still fully functional. Which it must be the case because I am quite aware I’m no longer seeing anything and that directly and immediately related to the closing of my eyes. The other senses are, of course, somewhat more difficult to exemplify, but the principle holds throughout.

All of which kinda begs the question…..why seek an opinion regarding mind-independence of existents in general, that isn’t covered by the opinion that human perception alone, by which the existence of anything at all is already provable by the LNC, is itself mind-independent?

And if the question concerns mind-independence of existence, in and of itself, as a stand-alone pure conception in general, then the notion of what I see becomes immediately irrelevant. I see things that exist; I can say I see existences, but I never see existence itself. From which follows, a valid opinion would be that existence itself cannot be mind-independent iff it is the case the mind requires it as a condition by which things are given to my senses.

But anyway, the thread title asks about the mind-independence of reality, which presupposes the existence of what I see, that being the initial condition I supported.

I have no problem at least holding to a mind-independent view or notion or idea, of reality…..
— Mww

Cannot parse this. — noAxioms

You asked for a defense of a strictly metaphysical condition, re: the mind-independence of reality, which cannot be justified without sufficient criteria for the relation of the conceptions involved to each other.

By stipulating the kind of intelligence involved….you know, in this case, the human kind….and iff it is the case logic is the necessary determining condition for it, the relations determinable by that condition suffice as ground for the presuppositions upon which such intelligence operates and from which all else follows.

On the one hand, then, by saying I hold with a mind-independent view of reality, the only relation I need is apprehending the distinction between me and not me, which in itself doesn’t need any defense, insofar as the negation of it, is impossible.

Publicly defending the judgement (yes, reality is mind-independent), on the other hand, which is not the same as the constructing of it, which is merely my private thinking, requires I define the conceptions involved in order to validate their relation to each other, which I’m not inclined to do, for the simple reason no one is obliged to agree with them, in which case, and absent such agreement, my defense must fail.

Is anyone willing to defend a mind-independent view? — noAxioms

I have no problem at least holding to a mind-independent view or notion or idea, of reality, given a particular set of presuppositions, those in turn given from the kind of intelligence supposed as immediately in play.

Perhaps the key to the inevitable circularity of human reason, is not to get spun out by it.

It expands the ontology slightly, to be sure, but Maxwell did the same thing.

As did Penrose/Hameroff , “Orch OR”, 1994.

Rebutted, or not depending on who’s commenting, in Tegmark, 2000;
Also by Churchill, the female edition, 1996; supported by a whole bunch of analytic types, so…..

Minor contribution, of no particular import. Theories do abound, though, don’t they.

Page two:

The pure conceptions of the understanding are transcendental deductions of reason. Understanding uses them, but they are not given from understanding itself.
— Mww

You mean they are deduced, not that they are deductions. Understanding doesn't "use" them. They are of the structure of the understanding itself. I don't know what you're talking about here. — Astrophel

Po-TA-toe, po-TAH-toe. Anything deduced is a deduction. They are deduced transcendentally by pure reason; they are transcendental deductions of pure reason.

“…. Thus, the same understanding, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its representations, on which account they are called pure conceptions of the understanding, and they apply à priori to objects….”
(A79/B105. So the categories, the pure conceptions of the understanding, are used by it. Used by still is not origin of, worth keeping in mind)

As to the structure of the understanding itself….that is a very tall order. I submit that all the understanding does, all the constituents of its function, reduce to what can be called the transcendental unity of self-consciousness.
(Nobody said this was gonna be easy. Or, necessarily the case. But logically coherent nonetheless, hence at least theoretically reasonable)

Understanding is not about explicit analysis. — Astrophel

That’s in fact all understanding is about. It is the analysis of all that contained in the primitive representation “I think”.

“…. And thus the synthetical unity of apperception is the highest point with which we must connect every operation of the understanding, even the whole of logic, and after it our transcendental philosophy; indeed, this faculty is the understanding itself.…”

Thus it is that the function of understanding is distinct from that to which it directs itself when it thinks, or, when the subject exercises his innate capacity for thinking. To understand, on the other hand, presupposes the completion of that analysis, the affirmation or negation of constructed judgements relative to empirical conditions, not yet verified by experience.

All without a single solitary word, either expressed, or merely thought.
————-

If a newly born were to hear the loud noise, she would clearly react, register the event, but it would not be a loud noise. It would not BE anything. — Astrophel

This is in part contradictory. To react, to register an event, makes explicit something being sufficient causality for such reaction to even obtain. It may not register as a loud noise, insofar as this describes a judgement of relative quality conjoined with a specific mode of intuition, which an infant would not possess the rational ability to construct, but it would still be something for him.

Aren’t babies given hearing tests, to discover whether their ears work, rather than the brain? Be funny as hell….give a baby a hearing test, then ask him what he thinks he heard.
————-

Note how I have here and there criticized the thinking in the Critique for conceiving the world in a vacuum of meaningless form…. — Astrophel

And I reject that criticism, in that the thinking in CPR resolves the illusion of conceiving the world in any way except as the form of all that is relatable to it, hence hardly meaningless. We perceive things in a world; we don’t perceive worlds. From which follows world is conceivable only as the form of that in which all things are contained, but is not itself contained by it.

…..I do this because the true philosophical ground for the ansalysis of what and who we are lies in this dimension of our transcendence, which he mostly ignores. — Astrophel

He ignores it in CPR because the analysis of who or what we are is properly the concern of his moral philosophy, which is not transcendental.
————-

Even if you speak of a "pure phenomenon" this never occurs to us outside of, if you will, the purity of the language that grasps it — Astrophel

The name given to it presupposes the grasp of the conception to which the name relates. It’s occurence in thought, its conceivability, is explicitly the very purity by which the language describing it, is even possible. Language doesn’t grasp, it merely represents what’s already been grasped.

The purity of language is in thought; the purity of thought is in logic; the purity of logic is in pure reason; the purity of pure reason is the irreducible human condition.

…..realizes where Kant's ontology takes one…. — Astrophel

CPR doesn’t treat of empirical ontology; it is a purely epistemological thesis, from a metaphysical perspective.

Kant's greatness lies in attention to ordinary judgment in common experience (…). But his conclusion are literally vacuous. — Astrophel

What…..not a fan of freedom as sufficient cause?

If you and I were principally agencies of logic, synthesizing and analyzing the data afforded by the senses, then Kant would have nailed the human condition. — Astrophel

91 pages on sensibility, just under 400 pages on logic, all integral to the human condition. Fine if you wish to deny we are agents of logic, but I’m happily convinced human agency is necessarily predicated on it.
————-

Kant's is an extrapolation from what is the case, to what has to be the case to explain this. — Astrophel

Nope. Extrapolation from what is the case for us, to how the case is to be known by us. We understand the world; we explain the understanding. Language for the second, not for the first.
—————-

what must first be given is the object itself, insofar as it appears to sensibility. That which is representation must first be perception.
— Mww

What he means by "first" is presupposed by the possibility of aprioity. — Astrophel

Nope. What he means by “first” here, is merely that occassion given to a theoretical systemic procedure. There happens to be a particular theoretical system which presupposes a priori conditions, turning sensation into representation according to pure intuitions and productive imagination.
————-

The categories are ALWAYS involved. As I write and think. (…) When you awaken, notice a world around you, you are already "in" Kantian categories as the logic of affirmations seize upon intuitions. — Astrophel

When I write and think, about my notice of the world. While it may that the categories are always involved when I write, it being a phenomenal exercise, it is not the case for when I think, for it is possible that I think in pure a priori terms, that is, non-empirical, for which the categories are not involved. The logic of my a priori judgements still requires affirmation, at least to be productive, but there is no occassion to seize upon intuition.
—————-

What is IN phenomenological possibility? I don’t recognize phenomenological possibility, and I certainly have no idea what is IN possibilities. Nothing is IN a possibility, it is never schema but has schemata under it….
— Mww

No, possiblility here refers to what is necessary for something to be possible at all. — Astrophel

I need not go beyond relations in time, to discover what is necessary for something to be possible, as I already mentioned. For something to be possible at all its representation must be determinable in any time. Necessity: determinable in all time; existence: determinable in a time.

Categories "themselves" are transcendental, and cannot be spoken….. — Astrophel

Agreed, which justifies the claim there is no language in pure thought.

…..so when they are spoken "about", the speaking is subject to their own manifest rules. — Astrophel

Correct, from which follows the rules for speaking are very far from the rules for transcendental deduction.

"If, therefore, we seek to discover how pure concepts of understanding are possible, we must enquire what are the a priori conditions upon which the possibility of experience rests" — Astrophel

Wait…..so all you’re talking about is justifying the origin of the categories, while I’m talking about justifying the use of them? What is necessary for the possibility of things makes little sense to me, but what is the ground for the possibility of transcendental deduction of the categories, is a whole ‘nuther ball of wax.

Dunno where your quote comes from, but in A88/B120 in Kemp Smith is shown that is precisely how the deduction is NOT served.

“…. they make affirmations concerning objects not by means of the predicates of intuition and sensibility, but of pure thought à priori….”.

Your a priori conditions upon which the possibility of experience rests”, are precisely those very intuitions my quote denotes as “not by means of”.

This is the nature of an apriori argument. The whole argument of the deduction in an extrapolation. — Astrophel

Nope. This is the nature of a transcendental argument, which is a priori. But not all a priori arguments are transcendental, re: those of understanding in its categorical judgements. Transcendental arguments originate in, and are the exclusive purview of, pure reason alone.

Page one.

…..this exhausts the understanding. — Astrophel

That phenomena must meet the criteria of the categories doesn’t exhaust understanding, it enables the manifold of conceptions understanding possesses to be synthesized in the construction of a judgement on the one hand, or, enables an appeal to experience in the case of repetitive perception on the other.

In order for the affect of the thing on the senses, and the representation of that thing as it is understood, be sufficiently congruent to be knowledge of the thing, there must be rules by which one relates to the other, and, that by which the conceptions annexed to the phenomenon relate to each other. Something must have already prohibited the conception “round” from being imagined as belonging to the conception “tall”, when the thing perceived ended up being cognized initially, or remembered as post hoc experience, as a dinner plate.
—————-

….whatever is said at all must be found to exhibit this categorical adherence….. — Astrophel

Whatever is said of gods and tooth fairies is possible without reference to phenomena representing an object cognized as belonging to those conceptions, such object being all that requires exhibition of categorical adherence.

The pure conceptions of the understanding are transcendental deductions of reason. Understanding uses them, but they are not given from understanding itself. These in opposition to conceptions arising spontaneously within understanding itself, in response to the influx of intuited representations. Pure conceptions condition sensibility, empirical conceptions condition thinking.
—————-

So when Kant says something like, "What must first be given with a view to the a priori knowledge of all objects is the manifold of pure intuition," this sentential construction is itself bound to the categories. — Astrophel

Kant wouldn’t say something like that, for knowledge of all objects is always empirical, and what must first be given is the object itself, insofar as it appears to sensibility. That which is representation must first be perception.

You more than likely meant to say, what must be given with a view of knowledge of all objects is the manifold of pure intuition a priori. Or even, what must be given a priori with a view to knowledge of all objects, is the manifold of pure intuition.

As for the sentential construction being bound to the categories, considering this proposition is a tenet in speculative metaphysics, for which there is no empirical proofs for its objects derived from experience, the categories are not involved, from which follows the construct is not bound by them. Every object of theoretical speculation is transcendental; there are no faculties of human intelligence in concreto.
————-

The "pure" categories (…) cannot be warranted because they can only be derivative of what is IN phenomenological possibilities. — Astrophel

What is IN phenomenological possibility? I don’t recognize phenomenological possibility, and I certainly have no idea what is IN possibilities. Nothing is IN a possibility, it is never schema but has schemata under it, re: the schema of possibility is determination of a representation in any time. Common-speak being…that thing that doesn’t appear to me is no possible experience for me.

In things that are possible is not the same as what is in possibilities. I mean….what sense does it make to ask if a thing has possibility, when all we want to know is if the thing is possible. The former presupposes the thing being asked about, which proves it must be a possible thing.

Which reduces the whole mess to the notion that categories can never be predicates, but only subjects, in logical propositional constructs, and as such, derivatives of what is IN possibilities becomes unintelligible.
—————-

Phenomenology, of which Kant is the, well, grandfather…. — Astrophel

If that’s the case, his successors treat it as the proverbial red-headed stepchild, to which Kant would have vehemently objected. Ripped the concept of phenomena right outta its old-fashioned sandbox, consigned it to a post-modern tarpit.

Something does not appear unless it is understood. — Astrophel

So that which is not understood never appears? Guy’s walking down the street, hears a loud bang from around the corner. An appearance to his ears, manifesting as a sensation of sound is immediately given, without him immediately understanding the cause of it.

Something does not appear iff there is no effect on the senses. If there is an effect, if the senses are affected, there is necessarily an appearance. Full stop. There is no cognitive power in mere perception, therefore any cognitive function is irrelevant with respect to it. On the other hand, something does not become cognized until it is understood.
————-

what is you opinion on the presence of, or the validity in conditioning the human cognitive system on, imagery?
— Mww

Those thoughts I had about Kranky's OP didn't register, eh? — Astrophel

You mean this?

So thought and the senses can all be doubted. The trick for philosophy is to discover something that can affirmed that stands outside of language, but this discovery can only be "discovered" in language, a thesis, a proposition. — Astrophel

Fine. Doubt abounds. What’s that got to do with imagery?

What you specify as a “trick” of philosophy, is nothing but some arbitrary, indiscriminate iteration of human intelligence bringing itself to the fore. Different human, different iteration, different form of the same intelligence. Another one might say the duty of philosophy is to discover apodeitically that by which such intelligence manifests, but for which language has no relevance except for expressions of such discoveries.

And the beat goes on……..

But pure apriori cognition is only conceived in thought. This is the point. The prison. — Astrophel

Conceived in thought. I don’t know what that means. There are so many forms of pure a priori cognitions, or so many dissimilar applications of them, I wouldn’t be so ready to call out their conditions. But generally, pure a priori cognitions belongs to reason, which eliminates them from the spontaneity of conceptions, hence “conceived in thought”, which belong to understanding.
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phenomena are representations, (…), long before understanding exercises its logical function.
— Mww

There is no representation long before the exercise of the understanding's logical function. That is impossible. — Astrophel

Actually it isn’t, given the tenets of this particular metaphysic. Conceptions alone constitute the representations of understanding, from which it thinks, and of course, as we all know….or should know….understanding cannot intuit and intuition cannot think.

Phenomenon is the undetermined object of intuition**, which makes explicit no conception is as yet thought as belonging to it. It is merely the matter of sensation given a posteriori, synthesized with the some relevant form residing a priori in the subject himself. To say it is blind is merely a euphemism indicating nothing can be done with representations in this condition, until understanding gets its grubby paws on it and does its rule-bound logical thing. It thinking thing, donchaknow, by which conceptions are connected to that phenomenon, the condition for a possible objective, that is, empirical, cognition.
(**depending on translator; some call it appearance. Either way, the salient point is, undetermined)
————

There is no interest here in the difference between talking, thinking, writing. In all of these we find the evidential basis for postulating underlying structure. — Astrophel

The underlaying structure determines how the differences manifest. It is absurd to suppose, given the biological structural congruency of all humans in general, that there resides manifestly different underlying intellectual structure, simply given the invention of different words representing common things.

Your interest may lay anywhere you like, but mine is centered exclusively on the structure of thinking, from which all else follows in accordance with its structure, including the names by which I represent to myself its collective entities and functions.

Which leads me to this: what is you opinion on the presence of, or the validity in conditioning the human cognitive system on, imagery?

But what are the categories if not the essential structure of ALL that thought can think? — Astrophel

Not all thought; thought determined from sensibility only, related to appearances. The categories do not have anything to do with pure a priori cognitions.

so what is representation? It is essentially defined by what the understanding can say, speak, judge. — Astrophel

Nahhh….phenomena are representations, defined by the synthesis of matter and form, long before understanding exercises its logical function. We are not cognizant of phenomena, which is what you mean by saying they are blind, so…..

It is the very nature of speaking at all I refer to. — Astrophel

Ahhhh…..speaking. One can construct his thoughts without speaking, but he cannot speak without constructing his thoughts.

Why are we continuing this conversation, when you can’t seem to find anything good about it?

Just out of curiosity, what is your answer to the thread title?

"Inside/outside" is relative to whichever point of view we adopt. — J

Isn’t there only one point of view, when examining, scientifically?

I might be missing the deeper point here. — J

If there was one, it’s that the subject, having always been first and foremost, isn’t anymore.

….when they are examined from the outside, scientifically….
— J

Surely you realize the contradiction. To do anything scientifically is merely to do something in a certain way, but no matter what way it is done, it is still only a human that does it.
— Mww

This would only be a contradiction if we accept a very stringent definition of "objective" as meaning something like "untouched by human perception and thought." — J

I meant the contradiction to refer to examining from outside. No examination by a human is ever done from the outside, but always and only from the inside, re: himself. We examine the outside; we do not examine from the outside. Hence the contradiction.

"Doing something in a certain way" is, sorry, not nearly enough of a description — J

Agreed. The point being, it is we that does whatever it is that’s being done.
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There's no required way to reduce either the mental or the neural to each other. — J

True, but the problem….problem here indicating reason’s aptitude for putting itself between a rock and a hard place….being there is, as yet, no possible way to reduce either to each other.

Imagine, if you will (in best Rod Serling impersonation)….the guy’s Nobel acceptance speech, after proving mental events are reducible to brain states in universal one-to-one correspondence (you know, scientifically speaking), concluding with the fact that for all recorded history of human thought….there never was exactly any such thing.
(Sigh)

So the concepts involved in some matter or other are not found in the scope of Kantian critique.
— Astrophel

Concepts involved in some manner or other are found in every aspect of Kantian critique. — Mww

No, the meaning here is that Kant is talking about a specific critique, not some matter or other that is merely incidental. — Astrophel

Oh. My bad. I took your “some matter” as a misprint, changed it to “some manner”. Concepts involved in some matter is rather ambiguous, wherein lay my justification for taking it upon myself to change it. Doesn’t make much difference, though, really. The concepts involved in some matter or other are still found in the scope of Kant’s critique, as the a posteriori side of the synthesis of phenomenal representations in general. Concepts involved in matter being distinct from concepts contained in matter.
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Not all thinking for anybody is synthetic, re: principles.
— Mww

No. All thinking is synthetic. A thought at all is the application of a universal. — Astrophel

The analytic/synthetic dichotomy only refers to the relations of subject/predicate conceptual content. Any thought, that is, any cognition by means of conceptions, is analytic if the conceptions in the subject relate in a certain way to the conceptions in the predicate, but synthetic if they do not.

A thought at all is the application of a universal. 'Tree' is a universal — Astrophel

Tree is a particular thing, of all possible things; thought of things in general is possible only under a universal conception, a category. Thought is not always of things, but may be of ideas or mere notions, for which no thing is cognizable as relating to it, in which case understanding has no need of the categories, and the idea is itself the universal, re: justice, beauty and the like. The categories belong to understanding and apply only to phenomena; the universals belong to pure reason alone and never apply to phenomena.

Even when one is talking about things in a most particular way, zeroing in on the uniqueness, one is making a synthetic judgment. — Astrophel

Thinking in a most particular way #1: A = A. Analytic judgement, a priori through identity;
Thinking in a most particular way #2: 1 + 1 = 2. Synthetic judgement, a priori through contradiction.

In talking of things in a most particular way describes experience, which is always grounded in synthetic judgements, yes.
————-

Transcendental thinking is just a higher level of plain ol’ thinking.
— Mww

No, it does not refer to a certain mode of cognition. It refers to the structure of thought itself. — Astrophel

Ehhhh, so it might seem. But the words in the text say otherwise; see A12/B26. Cognition generally belongs to understanding, of which we are conscious; transcendental cognitions belong to pure reason, and of those we are not. Hence the higher level.

Not that thought doesn’t have a structure. But one must decide as to whether the structure is represented by the subject/predicate propositional construct, which is the synthesis by productive imagination, or, the relation of units contained in those propositions to each other according to rules, which is logical inference, or, the origin of that which unites and regulates propositions within certain limits, which are principles as such.

But thought, in and of itself alone, in its empirical nature, is the act of referring a given intuition to an object by means of a conception. It is absurd to suppose we cannot have any such thought, nonetheless in and of itself alone, as doesn’t have an intuition given from an object of the senses.

What of that thought represented by a single concept? We can certainly think “round” without that to which round is intuited. While it is true such singular concept is empty, insofar as it has no accompanying phenomenon, it is still a valid thought, hence can be legitimate content of a priori cognitions.

I might be inclined to accede to the idea that transcendental refers to the structure of thought of a certain mode, but less so as reference to the structure of thought in general. In general, transcendental refers to the structure of experience, in that by it certain kinds are either impossible, or merely illusory.
————-

Calling all phenomena not what things really are in themselves, puts human knowledge in a place where thought cannot escape TO the things themselves. — Astrophel

True enough. What’s the problem? That we’re trapped in our own heads? Like….wishing we weren’t is enough to negate all the philosophy predicated on the necessity that we are? It makes much more sense, and is very far more productive, to organize the mechanisms we’re stuck with into an error-correcting method, than to pretend we can withdraw from them.
————-

Interesting perspective you got on this subject. We may not agree, but that doesn’t make it less interesting.

So the concepts involved in some matter or other are not found in the scope of Kantian critique. — Astrophel

Concepts involved in some manner or other are found in every aspect of Kantian critique.

Thinking for Kant is synthetic, and to think about how this is so, or what its nature is, must be done in the very medium that is under analysis. — Astrophel

Not all thinking for anybody is synthetic, re: principles. But I agree all analysis of the nature of thinking must be done from within the medium being analyzed.

Thinking for Kant is synthetic… — Astrophel

Not all his thinking is transcendental? Well, it's all analytic. — Astrophel

It’s all both?

Transcendental refers to a certain mode of cognition, so, no, not all his thinking is in that mode, even if he made a name for himself by rebutting Hume in the proving the possibility of it and validity of its use.

Transcendental this or transcendental that merely describes the origin of, and the limitations for, the conceptions in use. There is empirical thinking, rational thinking….hell, there’s magical thinking. Transcendental thinking is just a higher level of plain ol’ thinking.

Michel Henry calls "the lost desert of the Dialectic" where subectivity and everything else goes to die, because nothing escapes prison of representational status — Astrophel

A ultra-modern phenomenologist chastising an Enlightenment continental philosopher. Where’s the news…or indeed the value….in that?

What he got wrong is that noumenon is supposed to be an all encompassing metaphysics entirely outside of possible understanding. — Astrophel

Supposed to be? Who says? How can anything entirely outside possible understanding be supposed at all, much less supposed as an all-encompassing metaphysic? Noumena is nothing but a conception, for which there is no possible representation, which, incidentally, falsifies the claim that all subjectivity is imprisoned by them.

Doubt is something that comes into play in a setting where things that are not doubted have some reasonable status. — Astrophel

If there is a thing having reasonable status by my understanding of it, which implies a non-contradictory judgement, why would I invite doubt to come into play? Doubt arises when the status of a thing is understood as something less than reasonable, meaning, in short, the concepts under which the representation of the thing is subsumed, do not belong to each other with sufficient justice.
—————-

This is why his thinking is called transcendental: reality is not seen, doubted, affirmed, denied, and the rest. Reality is entirely "other". — Astrophel

Reality is entirely other, by definition, re: that which corresponds to sensation in general. How he came up with that definition is an example of his transcendental thinking, but it is not a proper indication of why his thinking is called transcendental. Given his definition of what thinking is, it is clear not all his thinking, nor anyone’s for that matter, is transcendental, but is only so from the relation of conceptions, or the origin of the ideas, contained in it.
—————-

Kant's fatal flaw was in not seeing that this radical other cannot be other than that which is called representation, for nothing can stand outside of this other. — Astrophel

This other….the aforementioned “other”, as in, reality? That which corresponds to sensation in general can never be representation, so you’re saying Kant was mistaken in not realizing it actually is? So he got his entire paradigm-shifting, drop-your socks, OMG metaphysical do-over….wrong????

Nahhhh, he didn’t get it wrong; other folks just think they got it more right, when all they really got, was different.

….when they are examined from the outside, scientifically…. — J

Just a quick fly-by here:

Surely you realize the contradiction. To do anything scientifically is merely to do something in a certain way, but no matter what way it is done, it is still only a human that does it.

If the human never within himself attends to the natural laws he has already mandated as legislating his relation to all material substance, and he is scientifically investigating the machinations of a particular kind of material substance…..how is he ever going to relate what he claims to know, with what is never within his conscious attention?
—————-

Why is the "seeming" of a mental process less actual than the "reality" of a neural process? — J

It isn’t. Each is actual in its own domain; it is the interaction between those domains, that seems to be a problem. Hell…why not just say the problem seems to be that there are two domains.

Let’s not sugar-coat it: the brain is at bottom what allows the intellect to discover natural laws by which it understands its world, and, at the same time, it is the brain that prohibits the application of the very same natural laws, by the intellect attempting to understand how the brain allows the discovery of laws.

Hence AI. We can’t fix the irreconcilable problem of our own intelligence, so we just create a different one, which in fact doesn't fix anything at all, but instead, merely reverses the problem.

Objects of perception are not to be denied empirically…. — Astrophel

That’s all I meant to say, in negating the claim the senses can be doubted.

…..philosophically, doubt is a mild word for what he thinks. — Astrophel

Which would be a more appropriate word, do you think? And, to what would that word be applicable?

What he thinks….covers a lot of ground. Got something in particular in mind, relative to his doubting?

Given that substance dualism immediately supposes Descartes’ “First Principles…for philosophizing in an orderly way”, 1644, is found the definitions by which such dualism is meant to be understood, re: 1, 7-9; 1, 51-54.

“…. Some philosophers don’t see this, but that’s because they haven’t done their philosophizing in an orderly way, and haven’t carefully enough distinguished the mind from the body. They may have been more certain of their own existence than of the existence of anything else, but they haven’t seen that this certainty required that ‘they’ were minds. Instead of that, they thought that ‘they’ were only bodies—the bodies that they saw with their eyes and touched with their hands, the bodies that they wrongly credited with the power of sense-perception. That’s what prevented them from perceiving the nature of the mind….”
(P. P., 1, 12)

Hence the partial qualifier** for the Kantian classification of “problematical idealism” attributed to him, insofar as if he’d only thought to make it clear, that ‘they” were not only bodies (objects) but also subjects, rather than also minds, then his definition of substance itself would have been far easier to argue, that is to say, far easier left to itself as a mere category, while the idea of dualism would have been unaffected.
—————-

(**)…another being….

“… At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this is what in me is properly called perceiving (sentire), which is nothing else than thinking….”
(Meditations, 2, 9, 1641)

…the conclusion, of course, being disastrously false according to subsequent versions of idealism which retain their respective ground in a universal and necessary dualism.
—————-

Me, here and now, I think he infused into the notion of substance more, or other, than I would grant, but if I was a 1644 philosophy peer, I might not disagree so much. Terminology aside, in principle, logically, he wasn’t that wrong.

….."perceive" as in "correctly identify an object of the senses." — J

Even if that were the case, isn’t it necessarily presupposed there is an object to identify, correctly or otherwise? If so, then deny that very same necessary object as a content of perception, is contradictory, from which it follows…..barring absurdity….that object itself cannot be doubted.

Our senses can be doubted. But if I 'experience' a thought, then it is certain that that exact thought is happening. — Kranky

So if you perceive something, it is not certain you perceived it? Some thing….don’t matter what it is….gets right in front of your eyes, but you doubt that thing made the trip from the front to the back of your eye? Why wouldn’t it? What’s to prevent it? All necessary presuppositions being given, of course, re: awake and aware, intellectually/physiologically functional.

How does your eye know how to deceive you? How….indeed, why….would your fingertips, when sensing roughness (of sandpaper), pass on to your brain the sensation of smoothness (of the fridge door handle)? Why is it always that the odor of bacon is never sensed by the ear?

In the same way it is certain for any thought that exact thought is happening, it is just as certain for any perception that exact perception is happening. By the same token, that the content of thought is impossible to deny, so too is the content of perception impossible to deny.

Nobody said, nor is anyone justified in saying, the mere reality of empirical content of sense, nor the mere rational content of thought, means knowledge of what either one is, and, with respect to the original question, the difference between our thought and our senses cannot be determined by whether or not their respective content is susceptible to doubt.

Since at least Plato…knowledge that is not the same as knowledge of, more recently, in Russell 1912, knowledge by acquaintance vs knowledge by description.

he couldn't have had been overly and unfairly critical to Kant. — Corvus

I dunno, man. He spent 184 pages rippin’ Kant a new one. Right after page one, where he says Kant’s the greatest philosopher ever ….until he came along to show how he could have been even better.

Peculiar for us, maybe? Wonder what the peer-group at the time thought. Truth be told, I don’t know S’s relation to H as well as I know his relation to K, other than in the former he is not gentle in his derision.

Julian Young's book on Schopenhauer says Schopenhauer's Will was Kant's Thing-in-Itself (…) and he was wrong. — Corvus

“….The thing in itself I have neither introduced surreptitiously nor inferred according to laws which exclude it, because they really belong to its phenomenal appearance; nor, in general, have I arrived at it by roundabout ways. On the contrary, I have shown it directly, there where it lies immediately, in the will, which reveals itself to every one directly as the in-itself of his own phenomenal being….”
(Schopenhauer, WWR, Vol 2, App., pg 85, 1818, in Haldane/Kemp 1909)
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Funny to have S brought into a thread on H….oil and water:

“….It became the fitting starting-point for the still grosser nonsense of the clumsy and stupid Hegel…”
(Ibid, pg 8)

“It” being K’s lacksidaisical invention of the ding an sich, re: being the lesser nonsense. Schopenhauer had less than even precious little respect for Hegel, berating the “young Hegelians” as well, for wasting their time at his lectures, much less cracking one of his books.

FYI.

Doesn't Kant acknowledge that Metaphysics is not the same type of Science as the other Sciences? — Corvus

Sort of, yes. He calls it “…a vain dialectical art….”, but because his version of metaphysics does incorporate synthetic a priori principles for its cognitions, they are to be treated scientifically under some conditions. The point being, that to treat metaphysical cognitions scientifically doesn’t mean metaphysics is a science.

But, yes, if it was a science it would be a different kind, that of a pure speculative nature, insofar as it is “…. more useful in preventing error than in the extension of knowledge…”.

Prolegomena, huh? What does that essay tell you, such that your argument for metaphysics as a science is shown by it?
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Metaphysics can, and that is what Kant laid out in CPR as the principle of Metaphysics as Science. — Corvus

I got to thinking about that, and I think you’ve come pretty close. What Kant laid out in CPR, are changes in the ways in which philosophers thought about metaphysics, and those changes were, not so much what would make metaphysics a proper science, but rather, why it hadn’t ever been taken as such. It does come down to principles, but it turns out that principles are not enough. They elevate metaphysics beyond the established doctrine of the time, insofar as it acts as sufficient ground for all other sciences, it is still left wanting as a science in itself.

The simplified objection for denominating metaphysics as a science in itself is in Prolegomena, sure, but the reason why not, remains in CPR, as well as the proper name under which a scientific version of metaphysics must be known.

We don’t care that metaphysics works as a science just fine with respect to possible experience; we’d be in trouble if it didn’t.
— Mww

It is not so much of our issue at this time of history whether metaphysics works as science or not. — Corvus

Agreed; it is the issue in Kant’s time. By “we” is meant humans in general, regardless of time. My fault for thinking this was the accepted implication meant by “we”.

Kant thought he could make metaphysics a legitimate science as physics or chemistry, by establishing its boundaries and domains where our reasoning can be applied like the other sciences, hence he wrote CPR. — Corvus

I think Kant wondered why it wasn’t, rather than thinking he could make it so. Before making it so, before he could make metaphysics a legitimate science, he had to think up an experiment along the same lines as that which establishes other domains as legitimate sciences. When he performed that experiment, he discovered he could not make metaphysics a science in the same manner as the established sciences, even while accommodating it under some conditions.

So….what are those boundaries? Therein lay the key.

Hey….

Once again, thanks for the nod, but I abstain from conversations having free will as the topic, insofar as the very notion of “free will”, as far as I’m concerned, has already confused the issue. That being said….

Kant's transcendental freedom (….) which claims that our reasoning is governed by rational principles unrestrained by one's natural instincts. — Bob Ross

…is only the case under very restricted conditions, re: pure practical reasoning, in which the subject himself is necessary and sufficient causality for all that which is governed by those principles, sometimes even to the utter subordination of natural instincts, re: the trolley problem.

Possible experience is what Kant regards as the domain of efficacy in our reasoning, where metaphysics is possible as a science. — Corvus

We don’t care that metaphysics works as a science just fine with respect to possible experience; we’d be in trouble if it didn’t. We want to know if it works as a science for everything it is possible to think, insofar as the human being in general thinks ever more, and to a greater depth, than even his possible experiences. And it is just in these more common and deeper exercises of intelligence, that metaphysics, as the science of pure reason, that arena the objects of which transcend even possible experience, is found to be no help at all.
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As usual Janus posts are filled with anger and hatred towards others…. — Corvus

Ehhhhh…..that’s a subjective judgement, better known as mere opinion, to which of course you are entitled. I don’t see it, but then, even if it was my opinion, by recognizing the subjective natural of it, I’d keep it to myself.

‘Tis most suspicious, to say the inventor of a paradigm-shifting epic, a magnum opus in form and function bequeathed to posterity in its completed form, had no interest in it.

O course, claiming an author wasn’t really interested could be simply a novel and daring approach to a not-so-simple work. But I doubt it’ll catch on.

Isn't the whole content of CPR about experience, its objects, and how reasoning and judgements and concepts are related to them? — Corvus

The title says something very different. A critique of pure reason won’t have much to do with experience or its objects, and as a matter of contextual fact, makes serious effort to distance itself from them.

The origin, and relation to experience, of judgements and concepts, among other factors, such as understanding, intuition, consciousness, are metaphysical studies, I’ll grant that.

Didn't Kant say that Metaphysics is possible as Science as long as it deals with the objects in our experience? — Corvus

Not that I’m aware. Metaphysics in Kant does not, in itself, deal with experience or its objects. It deals with how it is possible to know about them, which means, it deals with us and the proper use of our intelligence.

As well, ideas, logic and reasoning are not themselves objects of experience, so could be said to come under the metaphysical explanatory umbrella.

If you find otherwise, I’d be interested.
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Or it may be that an argument strong enough to convince you may not work on me—or vice versa. — Janus

D’accord.

It seems Kant wanted to disprove metaphysics as a science with Newtonian materialism. What do you think? — Gregory

I think he wasn’t trying to prove yea or nay, regarding metaphysics as a science, which presupposes it is one. He wanted to find out if it was possible for it to be a science in the first place, where such presupposition is lacking. Given a set of criteria for what science is, whether or not metaphysics exhibits those same criteria will determine whether metaphysics can be a science. Then all that’s left, is to figure out what kind of science it would be should the criteria be met, and dismissing it as a science if it cannot.

Turns out, metaphysics cannot be a proper science given the empirical criteria of Newtonian materialism, nor can it be a science given the Kantian rational criteria of pure synthetic a priori principles, insofar as, first, Newtonian materialism already refers to the science of physics thus to attribute to it metaphysics at the same time is self-contradictory, and second, those principles belong to reason alone, and science cannot be justified by any domain the only objects for which are transcendental ideas.

Metaphysics is then relegated to a natural disposition of the human intellect, merely that to which we as humans are generally and inevitably inclined toward, but for which no satisfactory justifications are afforded beyond pure transcendental logic. Which is an altogether crappy way to do science, right?

“…. Respecting these sciences**, as they do certainly exist, it may with propriety be asked, how they are possible?—for that they must be possible is shown by the fact of their really existing. But as to metaphysics, the miserable progress it has hitherto made, and the fact that of no one system yet brought forward, far as regards its true aim, can it be said that this science really exists, leaves any one at liberty to doubt with reason the very possibility of its existence….”
(**physics and mathematics)
(B21)

But never fear: just because metaphysics as a science lacks justifications, doesn’t negate the validity of a form of knowledge determined metaphysically, that is, in accordance with the pure a priori principles resident in and determined by nowhere else than in reason.

Besides…”miserable progress” implies that just because metaphysics wasn’t justifiable as a science in 1787 doesn’t mean it can’t be later. But then, there’s still those sets of criteria, which one would suppose would also have to become different. Good luck, I say.

And, also, I may be lost in the noise. — Moliere

There are (nudgenudgewinkwink) maybe 300 pages of CPR I’ve read 1000 times, and with which I can’t for the life of me agree or disagree. Bottomless pit of noise that, I must say.
————-

Yes, one world, for which the empiricists are right.
Yes, the representations of whatever the constituency of that one world, which is all we are ever going to possibly know anything about, for which the idealists are right.
Let the dualist games begin.

Neither the matter nor the noumena establish something for dualism? — Gregory

You asserted your idea of what made his philosophy dualistic, but this question only relates conceptions to each other, both of them….matter and noumena….implied as being real things, hence not establishing anything for dualism per se. Matter being necessarily real stuff we can experience, noumena being not-impossibly real stuff we cannot.
————-

….he only riffs on Kantian ideas to do his own thing. — Moliere

Only those on top of the heap are worth the trouble of removing; posterity says whether and how much the trouble was worth.

But whether or not Kant was a dualist I think is still a matter up for debate because it sounds like the question of whether or not Kant was a one-world or two-world theorist. — Moliere

I’d be surprised if you were not with the familiar 1783 passage regarding “dogmatic slumbers”. THAT….is the root of Kantian dualism, the unity of rational vs empirical doctrines prevalent in his time. The two-world or two-aspect-of-one world confabulation was the illegitimate, red-headed stepchild of a veritable PLETHORA of successors, except Schopenhauer, methinks to be the foremost immediate peer that actually understood wtf the noise was all about.

Noise. Including, but not limited to….whether or not that which can be treated as a science, actually is one.

I don't think your quotes from Kant on matter fully establish dualism. — Gregory

They weren't supposed to. They serve only to affirm, that because he favored transcendental idealism, by implication he considered himself a dualist. He does explain what he means by being a dualist, which would establish at least what he means by dualism itself.

Noumena have nothing whatsoever to do with his philosophic dualism; as a general conception, it is merely an inevitable consequence of a faculty professed to be legitimately capable of thinking whatever it wants, which just means any of us is capable of thinking whatever he wants.

That is just my view which might not be 100% correct. — Corvus

Same with any of us, I should think.

It does seem daft that Kant said there were two worlds, although he did say there is no purely logical condition under which a noumenal world is impossible. But saying such a thing is not impossible is not tacit affirmation of its reality.

….try to come to my own interpretation from my own reasoning…. — Corvus

As do I, and everyone else. One person’s lack of comprehension is not necessarily another’s ambiguity or lack of clarity.

There were miriad of Kant commentators who were making unfounded interpretations. — Corvus

If you say so.

I read the books, not the commentary on them. Skip the middle-man, donchaknow. Translators being subject to peer-review critique, so out of my cognitive jurisdiction.

Are they direct claims of Kant? — Corvus

Of course not. He’s dead.