The Axiom of Identity is utterly proven, a priori, by the conception of all Objects. — Michael Sol

Categorical error. The axiom of Identity is derived a priori. That which is analytic, such as the axiom of identity in the form A = A, is a self-evident truth, a tautology, which informs of nothing but itself. No conception can be connected to another without a mediating condition, and since A = A incorporates only a singular conception, no synthesis with conceptions of objects is at all possible.

Synthetic principles, on the other hand, in which one conception is connected with another, can only sustain the extant truth of axioms. It is quite absurd to render a proof for that which is already apodeitically certain.

With respect to consciousness, an entirely irreducible metaphysical conception, and certainly having no necessary empirical antecedents, is an axiom of Identity insofar as consciousness can never identify with anything but itself, but it is, as well, an a priori synthetic principle derived from pure reason alone, insofar as consciousness as a priori conception, has schema subsumed under it, or, which is the same thing, has conceptions contained in it.
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You cannot even conceive of Matter that is not governed by Causality — Michael Sol

True enough. Now all that’s required is to prove consciousness is conceived as matter, in order for causality to govern it. Here met with an aberration, in that causality itself is an entirely metaphysical conception. Ever gone to Home Depot to perused the shelves for some quantity of causality?

Disagree as you wish, but metaphysical entities cannot be empirically proven. Only other metaphysical entities can validate metaphysical entities, and not a single one of them can ever be proved in the same manner as falling trees can be proven to wreck your house.

I don't know any of the specifics..... — Michael Sol

Yet you insist the specifics are necessary. In any case, if you don’t know the specifics, you cannot say with any authority, or prove with any certainty, what the specifics actually do. You can draw logical inferences til Doomsday, and be either right or wrong with equal opportunity.

the physical conditions (...), are all implicit in the image — Michael Sol

Exactly. And, of course, implicit in, is very far from proof of. Same for consciousness, insofar as consciousness ne’er was any kind of being except a conceived being, as opposed to a material being.

But I grant that without evolution the human species would not have advanced enough to conceive such an abstract being as consciousness. At the same time, however, such grant must be given, because that’s apparently what happened. But that does not, in itself, immediately eliminate every other means by which consciousness could have been conceived.

In a way, evolution defeats itself, in that our intellectual advancement by means of it, has also enabled us to consider the possibility that our abstract consciousness was given to us by some external something-or-other. It’s just simple logic, man. If we don’t know the specifics that cause a thing, we are at liberty to allow something else as cause for that same thing. Been that way since mud huts and fig leafs.

In Kant, transcendental realism only means space and time, while still the forms of objects, resides in them as intrinsic properties. By transferring space and time to intuition as pure representations, they are removed as properties of, by making them merely the necessary conditions for, objects of perception. Sheer genius......space and time are both incontestably infinite, and no empirical knowledge is at all possible of objects with infinite properties, so investigating the possibility of empirical knowledge necessarily begins by removing that which prevents it.

Are space an time pure intuitions? Dunno...maybe not. But if they can be, and in conjunction with the rest of the speculative system predicated on logic alone, at least it works out well enough for its intended purpose.
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when we think about the transcendental from our point of view it is ideal ( because it is whatever is beyond what can be accessed via the senses, and thus can only be (more or less) thought about, imagined. — Janus

Correct. In Kant, transcendental merely indicates that which is given from a priori pure reason alone, having many conceptions subsumed under it.

it still is a material phenomenon of the Subject's brain and other physiological systems. — Michael Sol

How many neurotransmitters does it take for a ‘57 DeSoto? Which particular pathway are they on? What’s the maximum permissible distance of the channel? How would one ever find out? Why would he care, if the image is given without ever knowing any of those material conditions?

Maybe it’s like the sum over histories...we don’t know how many or which way, and any attempt to find out disrupts exactly what we’re trying to discover, so it is logical that it is ever neurotransmitter going in every possible way. Which, of course, teaches us not a damn thing about how neurotransmitters give us mental objects.

Give it up: what you see is what you get.... — Michael Sol

Excellent advice.

(Sigh)

surely it must be said that things in themselves are necessary for the appearance of phenomena, no? — Janus

Actually, the ding an sich is necessary for perception, the passive impression on the sensory apparatus. Post-impression, it is the active faculties of representation that intuits the sensation, which gives phenomenon. You know the drill.....“arranges the matter of the object according to rules”.

Epistemological juxtaposition: the thing we represent to ourselves, the ding an sich is the thing we don’t. Not to be thought of from an ontological perspective at all; the ding an sich certainly exists....as whatever it is. The whatever it is we know as something.....is the thing.
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The other point is that to "eliminate" the thing in itself is to posit an alternate necessary condition for the appearance of phenomena. — Janus

Except there is no need to posit an alternative, when the one posited is both necessary and sufficient in its own right. Technically whatever the necessary condition would be, would have to be applicable only to things as they are intuited by us, under the assumption the human cognitive system is in fact representational. So, if anything, the thing in itself would be posited as that to which the intuitions could not apply. Eliminated, if you will, from being conditioned by space and time.

As I’ve understood the theory anyway. That, and a buck/50......

Be that as it may, it is nothing but a commentary on the intellect that does philosophy, rather than the philosophy being done by it. In any case, either the intellect thinks that which is a condition for its antecedents, in which case it is already unconditioned and serves as the means, or, thinks that which is conditioned by its antecedents, in which case it becomes the unconditioned and serves as the ends. No big deal; just logic writ large.
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Yeah....I guess I’m too literal. When presented with a proposition worth thinking about (Berkeley and Fichte seemed to have successfully eliminated Kant's Thing-in-Itself as a material cause), I limit myself to what the propositions says, not some possible hidden conjecture it may or may not imply. Regarding the parenthetical herein, Kant’s thing in itself never was a material cause, which tends to make the claim for its successful elimination as exactly that.....incoherent.

The Berkeley quote was meant to show the basis of at least part of his epistemology to have no concern for the thing in itself in the first place, whether or not it ever was supposed to possess material causality.

Fichte, on the other hand, writing contemporaneously with Kant, at first accepted Kant’s thing in itself as Kant intended, but then suffered a serious change of mind, mostly in his revamped theory of science, 1795-6, thereby rejecting it. Whether or not he ever conceived the thing in itself as material causality, thereby setting the ground for denying it as such, I have no idea.

That’s all I’m saying.

Yes, I think that's exactly right. — Janus

It is confused, therefore hardly exactly right. In Berkeley, Kant’s thing-in-itself wasn’t eliminated; it was never considered in the first place, hence whether a material cause, is moot.

From Berkeley, speaking as Philonous contra Hylas......

“....I am of a vulgar cast, simple enough to believe my senses, and leave things as I find them. To be plain, it is my opinion that the real things are those very things I see and feel. These I know, and finding they answer all the necessities and purposes of life, have no reason to be solicitous of any other unknown beings...”

....it is clear Berkeley’s and Kant’s foundational epistemology is well-aligned, in that the source of empirical knowledge is entirely predicated on real things met with the senses. Furthermore, Berkeley’s “unknown beings” are very far from Kant’s unknowable things.

It is only upon the consideration of a representational cognitive system, which Berkeley as Philonous of “vulgar cast” doesn’t invoke, does the thing-in-itself obtain any meaning, and then, only in such case, can the thing-in-itself be eliminated as a material cause, that is, of sensation.

Just sayin’.....can’t eliminate that which was never the case.

Or did I miss something?

But the concept of noumena is not a fiction. — Astrophel

No, it isn’t.

But they can always be charged with going beyond possible experience, and that's not so easy to refute. — Manuel

I suppose not. Theory and all.

it's not clear to me that phenomenology is metaphysics of the transcendental kind. — Manuel

Yeah, I was being somewhat melodramatic. I trust your sense of clarity in this regard, insofar as my prejudices are too embedded.

Still, it shouldn’t be denied that Kantian transcendental idealism establishes sufficient ground for the validity of subsequent speculative philosophy, and if phenomenology is speculative philosophy, then.....you know.....walks like a duck, squawks like a duck.......
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But if you say "things in themselves" are meaningless, or don't exist or are empty signifier, then you're borrowing a name which has little to do with the actual thought proposed. — Manuel

Absolutely. That and that stupid farging noumena. Christ-on-a-crutch, how people can convolute that damn thing....like Savery’s ca.1620 dodo bird painting representing something the guy never once laid eyes on.

So what else is new?

Decent article here:
https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/husserls-legacy-phenomenology-metaphysics-and-transcendental-philosophy/#:~:text=Husserl%27s%20transcendental%20idealism%2C%20according%20to%20Zahavi%2C%20then%20accounts,objects%20within%20the%20world%2C%20can%20appear%20to%20us.

Parts of Husserl and Heidegger are good..... — Manuel

Sure, those guys and the rest are good, each in is own way, if only for examples of philosophical progress.

You mentioned the Prolegomena, in which the introductions states.....

“....Making plans is often the occupation of an opulent and boastful mind, which thus obtains the reputation of a creative genius, by demanding what it cannot itself supply; by censuring, what it cannot improve; and by proposing, what it knows not where to find....”

....and if making plans is overburdening an extant speculative metaphysics, than phenomenology perfectly exemplifies unconvincing and unpersuasive philosophical progress.

And to hide it behind Transcendental Idealism??? Robbery, I say. Sheer, abominable ROBBERY!!!
(Laughing maniacally)

there's something to that in some phenomenology. — Manuel

How so?

Whether Husserl goes "beyond" Kant, is a matter of taste. — Manuel

Check out the new Lexus. Part of the warning system is....push this button, bells and whistles indicate oncoming complications to opening your door. So rather than tell yourself to just look in something so plain and simple as a mirror, you now have to tell yourself to push something so plain and simple as a button, that overcomplicates the human-kind of looking in mirrors, yet tells you exactly what you would have seen had you simply looked in the mirror.

Taste resides in which simple thing one wishes to indulge. Indulgence itself, then, must be the residence of complication. If Husserl went beyond Kant, who’s to say he didn’t accomplish anything for us as human rational intellects, that didn’t merely overcomplicate the simple.

I found this.... — Janus

That was interesting. Thanks.

Ok. Thanks.

Mathematical intuition is something analogous to a kind of sense perception.
— Rebecca Goldstein

Which is something that I don't think Kant seems to have seen, and I'm baffled as to why not. — Wayfarer

On “a kind of sense perception”:

Empirical intuitions of sense perceptions is the arrangement of the matter of objects according to forms contained a priori in the sensuous faculty of representation. For objects of thought, which are conceptions and not sense perceptions, the matter becomes the conceptions, and the arrangement of the concepts follows according to the same rules as objects of sense, such that both kinds of objects can be phenomena, hence objects of cognition, hence, experience.

“....or take the proposition: "It is possible to construct a figure with three straight lines," and endeavour, in like manner, to deduce it from the mere conception of a straight line and the number three. All your endeavours are in vain, and you find yourself forced to have recourse to intuition, as, in fact, geometry always does. You therefore give yourself an object in intuition...” (***)

Now, the proposition brought forward by its being thought, stands in stead of the object perceived, the concepts in the proposition, re: line, three straight, represent what would be the matter of the object, the arrangement of those concepts of the proposition, becomes a non-sensuous phenomenon, subsequently conceived as “triangle”.

Now the notion of a kind of intuition that is purely mathematical is granted, but only from the notion of intuitions themselves. As to whether it is as well a kind of sensuous perception remains, insofar as sensuous perceptions do in fact give empirical intuitions but do not give mathematical intuitions, which makes explicit a form of perception not sensory is required, in order to give a kind of phenomenon that is not empirical. It suffices nicely, that to give yourself an intuition is to give yourself something, which can be called an image, and that without self-contradiction. So it follows that the arrangement of the matter of the proposition, according to the rules contained in it, that is, a figure must be possible, is imagining them into a construct that conforms to the predicates the proposition seeks to verify, an enclosed space. Hence, no incursion of mere trial and error, or common sense, or Hume-ian nonsense of consigning stuff to the flames without knowing what’s being burned, from which is given the apodeictic certainty of all mathematical principles.

TA-DAAAAA!!!!!
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On the “unreasonable certainty of mathematics”:

“....This transcendental principle of the mathematics of phenomena** greatly enlarges our a priori cognition. For it is by this principle alone that pure mathematics is rendered applicable in all its precision to objects of experience, and without it the validity of this application would not be so self-evident...”

** The principle being, “...Empirical intuition is possible only through pure intuition (of space and time); consequently, what geometry affirms of the latter, is indisputably valid of the former....”
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(***) This exposition serves to deny noumena on the one hand, and to exemplify them as “the limitations of sensibility” on the other. You cannot give yourself an object in intuition (the limit) based on the schema of a conception understanding thinks, when that conception has none. There is, then, nothing in the conception of noumena to be arranged in intuition, hence can never be cognized (the denial), which makes experience of them impossible. For us.

when I am aware of thoughts, thinking is inferred. — Possibility

Hmmm...but mustn’t I think, in order for there to be thoughts to be aware of? Can’t infer that which has happened.

Thoughts emerge from correlations and connections..... — Possibility

True enough, and transposing, we have.....I am aware of the emergence of correlations and connections. But that which correlates and connects is still required.

This awareness is practical in the sense that it’s temporally located, whereas awareness of thought need not be. — Possibility

Are you aware of having more than one thought at a time? I submit you are not, because thought is singular and successive, which makes them temporally located, if only in respect to each other.

We recognise thoughts as a form of connected ideas with our capacity for understanding beyond cognition — Possibility

This is the ground for moral, as opposed to epistemological, philosophy. Freedom, will, duty, interests, pleasure/pain, imperatives, and so on, are still conceived by understanding, and cognitions related to them are used in discussions about moral philosophy, but the doing of it, the determining of the moral worth of actions, and the moral worthiness of individuals because of them, do not.

Kant barely touches on this capacity in CofJ - but in backing away from it reveals his own affect: a personal preference for pure reason over the good. — Possibility

The CofJ does not address moral philosophy itself; only the kind of judgement, that is, aesthetic, whereby the determinations of the will relieve their subjective approval. THE good, good in and of itself, is found in “The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals”, 1785.

Kant doesn’t say much about good in itself, except to say there is only one of its kind, that being the will. Tough pill to swallow for some, who mistake the goodness of a thing to represent the good in itself. In which case, the will has absolutely no power whatsoever, and consequently, deontological moral philosophy disappears. Those that mistake are the same that joyously wave bye-bye, I’m sure.

In fact, moral philosophy in Kant has more power than the epistemology of pure reason, so he doesn’t prefer pure reason over the good.

“...The superior position occupied by moral philosophy, above all other spheres for the operations of reason. (...) Now moral philosophy alone contains a code of laws—for the regulation of our actions—which are deduced from principles entirely a priori....” (A840/B868)

Much more to this of course; I’m just making a point in refutation.
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Kant’s event horizon.... — Possibility

....I think, would be psychology. Even in its infancy back then, he foresaw both its impending growth, and metaphysical uselessness, all the same.

It is our duty (that issues from pure reason) to do good whether we love others or not — Astrophel

Our duty to do good, which is predicated on practical reason, is not the same as duty itself, which has nothing to do with reason.
“....Duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the law....”
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The point of this goes to my claim that Kantian noumena need to be delivered from the dark reaches of the impossible — Astrophel

“....a conception without an object (ens rationis), like noumena, which cannot be considered possible in the sphere of reality, they must not therefore be held to be impossible...”

True enough, insofar as noumena are objects of understanding alone, and understanding being the faculty of thought, and...

“....I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself...”

Noumena has no limits. — Astrophel

Yes they do: noumena I think that cause me to contradict myself.

Language is noumenal. — Astrophel

Language is limitless so therefore language is noumenal? But noumena are limited, so language is limited. We already knew that; language is limited by the conceptions they represent, and conceptions are limited to that which the understanding can think. Coincidentally enough, returning us right back where we started. Worse, actually. If noumena are conceptions without an object, and the object belonging to a conception is its name, what name can a conception have that has no object?

We can think noumena as a conception of a discursive understanding and named as such, in juxtaposition to phenomena; we cannot think a noumenon representing that conception. Kant never uses the noumenal adjective as a descriptor. There is nothing to describe.

The real "behind the real" is not a remote noumena, but an immanent one. — Astrophel

The real behind the real. We don’t even know the extent of the real, so we should complicate matters by trying to find out what’s behind what we don't know? Those who wish that, are those that wish Kant, et. al. had never spoken to the irrationality of it.
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I don't know what an image of pure thought could even be. — Astrophel

And yet, the human brain gives them to us constantly, always noticeably in dreams, generally unnoticed in the repetitive conscious state, usually noticed on the occasion of newly experienced conscious states, but always present nonetheless. The irreducible ground of subjectivity, the transition from neurological physical predicates to the appearance of images. The images are the fundamental ground that allows us to talk about what the brain does.
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Kant would like to divide the world, and I do not abide by divisions. — Astrophel

No, he would not. The world is, period, undivided. It is we, who are divided. Don’t abide the divisions in the world, but you must the divisions of us. The perfectly natural human dualism demands it.

By practical (transcendental) self-awareness I’m referring to meditative practices or deep philosophical self-reflection, beyond conceptualisation. — Possibility

A division abided. One half of the natural dualism.
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At the point where we start circling round and round, (...) we have to say uncle and admit that the error lies in our interpretative pov. The way out is to drop a pov. — Astrophel

Why not adopt a pov that recognizes the roundy-roundy for what it is, and shows how to not go there?
Can’t prevent it from happening, as it is the wont of reason by its own nature. We will always ask ourselves questions we can’t answer, but recognizing and turning away from it, is the next best thing.
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This grand struggle we are thrown into is nothing so utterly and stupidly trivial as a Kantian philosophy suggests. (Kant, so against metaphysics, yet draws up in his antimetaphysics a sterilization of our humanness.) — Astrophel

I had to read around a bit to make sure I gave Kant his due. — Astrophel

And with that little self-contradictory tidbit, I find my interest waning.

Not that it hasn’t been fun......

First...a concession: Reason, the passive noun, in granting it as an intrinsic subjective condition of being human, merely as an exemplar for the given distinction from other animals, is empty, as is the other, to wit: feeling. Reason, active as a higher faculty of cognition relating judgement to knowledge, is proved to be not empty.
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Kant is a rationalist for a good reason: he doesn't understand the value foundation of being human. — Astrophel

Rationalist for good reason, because the conditions intrinsic to a pure subjectivity, are the only possible ground from which representations for value foundations for being human are to be found, which are, the moral feeling, conscience and respect. See “The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics”, XII, A., 1780, in Thomas Kingsmill Abbot, at Gutenberg.

To say he didn’t understand a thing because it doesn’t conform to a different criteria is mere disagreement. To say he didn’t understand a thing at all, when the exposition in which it is given is unknown to the claimant, is acceptable. To say he didn't understand a thing, in disregard of the exposition of it by the claimant, is dishonest.
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it is very important to understand that when analyze experience as experience, we are not going to generate anything that is what experience is. — Astrophel

As my ol’ friend Phoebe would say.....well, DUH!!!!. To take apart a house doesn’t give you a house. When experience, or anything else conditioned by something, is analyzed, all that’s determinable is that which makes those things possible. How important can it be to understand such a proposition, when the act of it is its own apodeictic proof?

The actuality itself is not this. — Astrophel

Which supports the notion that, neurobiology/physics aside, human mental machinations adhere to a representational theoretic. Representations presuppose that which is represented, which makes this......

just taking up something AS a particle of language. — Astrophel

.....a perfect example of it, in that words merely represent the something taken up. Humans cannot communicate with that which makes communication possible, just as you say, the actuality itself (communication) is not this (communicating).

An aside: consider that the only reason there are words, is because it is impossible to communicate in the images of pure thought.
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So value, reason, pragmatics, all terms that are abstractions of an original whole whcih is not reducible to anything. — Astrophel

Given the concession above, let it be that reason fulfills the initial condition antecedent to all that reduces to it, but the reducibility of which is itself unintelligible. It is clear, in this sense, that to analyze reason the faculty gives the antecedents which makes the faculty possible, but to analyze reason the condition, gives nothing, insofar as there are no antecedents for it.

Of course, those who reject uncaused causes, while still unable to prove a sufficient cause, find themselves in an awkward position indeed. Maybe best to just stick a finger in the dike, and accept that even if the cause, in this case reason itself, was actually known, it wouldn’t make any difference.
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I think any undertaking one can take on, the value question is always begged — Astrophel

Not if the value question has its answer in the very domain from which it is asked. Every otherwise rational, cognizant human, values, which makes every value question, answerable.

The question that haunts metaphysics is, why thrown into a world with this powerful dimension of affectivity? — Astrophel

This in incoherent. There’s something missing. What haunts metaphysics is the impossibility of its empirical proofs, but the rest....dunno.
————

So.....your turn. Where does powerful dimension of affectivity fit in all the above?

Quite devastating, really. — Astrophel

Intriguing declaration, that. Care to enlighten?
———

That’s fine; it isn’t reason’s job to give meaning.
— Mww

Then Kant is not the place to look for it. — Astrophel

That just implies Kant talks of nothing but reason, and doesn’t talk about where meaning might be given. As big a deal as philosophy was in his day, it boggles to think he didn’t address it in some fashion. If it can be said meaning is synonymous with, or reducible to, value, there’s a veritable plethora of Kantian references for these. And of course, meaning in its common sense of mere relation, is covered extensively in his epistemology.

But this.....

The term meaning can go two ways. One is the dictionary definition, the other is the aesthetic or valuative. the former is what Kant has in mind. The latter is what I have in mind. — Astrophel

....makes explicit you consider meaning is in fact reducible to value, which is fine by me. Then it becomes a question of whether value itself is reducible, to what, and in what sense. And more importantly, with respect to this thread anyway, is whether the sense of meaning reduced to the sense of value is found in Kant, and the form in which it is found. But from your point of view, the significance would reside in the possibility that the sense of value found in Kant is also found in existentialism.

Those questions, I think, in accordance with proper dialectic decorum, would mandate their own separate discussion.

The reason you can't talk in good faith about the metaphysics of god, the soul and freedom is because these lack the sensory intuitions that is essential for making sense. — Astrophel

Actually, in good faith is the only way these things can be talked about. We just can’t know anything empirically about them, because they are never accompanied by sensory intuitions, hence can never be phenomena. Intuitions are not necessary for making sense in a purely logical domain. You know.....“abolish knowledge to make room for belief...”.

“.....Of far more importance than all that has been above said, is the consideration that certain of our cognitions rise completely above the sphere of all possible experience, and by means of conceptions, to which there exists in the whole extent of experience no corresponding object, seem to extend the range of our judgements beyond its bounds. And just in this transcendental sphere, where experience affords us neither instruction nor guidance, lie the investigations of reason, which, on account of their importance, we consider far preferable to, and as having a far more elevated aim than, all that the understanding can achieve within the sphere of sensuous phenomena....”

We can, after all, talk about the metaphysics of justice sensibly. After that, we can be directed to its intuitive examples.
————

I am looking at what gives meaning to our world, and it isn't reason. — Astrophel

That’s fine; it isn’t reason’s job to give meaning.

What does this is affectivity. Caring, despising, adoring, taking pleasure in, and so on. — Astrophel

That’s fine, too. Not sure what a theory constructed to demonstrate it would look like, but then....I don’t have to. Affectivity may very well be the ground for modernizing extant theories, which in general happens all the time, but I’d be very surprised to see a metaphysical paradigm shift because of it.

If “a thinker is not his thoughts” is a conclusion derived from your own thoughts.....
— Mww

It isn’t derived from thoughts, but from practical self-awareness - when we can recognise thoughts as they emerge then we understand the ‘I’ that thinks is not identical to the ‘I’ that is aware of thought - but it isn’t true to assert that they are distinct conceptions, only that they are not identical. — Possibility

What would a thought emerge from, and with what do we recognize it as such?

Can I ever think, and be unaware that I think? If not, then when I think I am necessarily, and simultaneously, aware of it. Even granting that as practical self-awareness, it remains that it is only the singular “I” that thinks and is at the same time the very same “I” that is aware of thoughts.

But you are correct in one regard, insofar as the passive consciousness of thought in general is not the same as actively thinking about things, in such case awareness moves to the objects thought, and not the thinker of them. So in regard to this difference, let it be that conscious self-awareness is a different conception than the “I” that thinks objects and is aware of objects thought. A conception which fits the former is represented by “ego”.....technically transcendental ego.....and the latter conception is represented by “I”.

Now it is possible to relegate “I think” to a particular cognitive faculty, that is, understanding, while the ego that is self-aware of thought in general remains merely a representation of a conception of pure reason itself, simply labeled “consciousness”. Doing so answers the question from where do thoughts emerge, and they are recognized as such merely from that emergence. An added bonus, because thought is a manifold of occurrences, bundling them all together in one representation eliminates multiple iterations of “I”, each one thinking its own particular object. This way, the “I” that thinks a thing is the same “I” that thinks all things.
————

I am conscious of my lack of academic rigour in this discussion — Possibility

And I admit that everything I write that is not a quote, is nothing but opinion. I ain’t no scholar myself.

....we do not describe.... — Mww

We know our descriptions.... — Janus

....we know we construct.... — Mww

Crap. My bad. I went from describing to constructing, without due diligence. Let’s just go back to the point where we agreed, and let it go at that, or, continue on but talk about one thing at a time.
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If 'reason' is considered synonymous with 'logic', then reason would be empty, in the sense that it has no inherent content, but is merely a set of rules governing form — Janus

Reason isn’t the set of rules, rules being the purview of the understanding, the only purely logical faculty in this particular speculative metaphysical system.

Logic in and of itself, being the form of thought, is empty of determined content, but still contains the rules for determining experience itself, which is the overall endgame of the cognitive system as a whole, that is, an explanation for the acquisition of knowledge from a transcendental point of view.

Reason isn’t synonymous with logic, but stands as the terminus of an established, albeit philosophical, logical system:

“....reason (is) the whole higher faculty of cognition, the rational being placed in contradistinction to the empirical....”

“....In every syllogism I first cogitate a rule (the major) by means of the understanding. In the next place I subsume a cognition under the condition of the rule (and this is the minor) by means of judgement. And finally I determine my cognition by means of the predicate of the rule (this is the conclusio), consequently, I determine it a priori by means of reason....”

.....in other words, for any object of experience, this is a description of how the process is represented when we talk about it. Gotta think it without all the silly words; we think, we feel, we know, we guess.....all those are innate in us, so how they arise as conditionals, and how they condition each of us as individuals, can be demonstrated in a theory. Simple as that.

A posteriori:
First, the aesthetic representation:
Perception of an object;
Synthesis of sensation with intuition, giving a phenomenon;

Second, the analytic of the aesthetic representation:
Synthesis of a phenomenon with a category (the rule), giving one or more conceptions (the conditions of the rule), represented by “I think”;
Subsume the given synthesis under the various schema of the conceptions, giving a cognition, represented by “I’m thinking (of, or, that);
Judge the cognition by the relation of its content, represented by “the of, or, that I’m thinking, is....” ;
Determine a priori whether or not the object perceived and the object cognized conform to each other according to the rules, represented by “the of, or, that I cognize, I know as.....”.
Which reduces the whole process to....that which I first perceived has become an experience.

So it is clear...reason is never empty. If it is, experience is impossible, an absurd contradiction. Nevertheless, just because reason can never be empty with respect to this philosophy, does not eliminate reason from being empty with respect to some other philosophy. And that other philosophy would necessarily define reason as befits it, which immediately makes that reason different from this one. Hence, the question about what reason is, such that it could be empty, for which there was no satisfactory answer.
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Needless to say, metaphysics is not susceptible to empirical proof. None of the above, being 250 years old, may be even close to the case, in fact. Yeah.....and??????

A question for non-Kantians.

Kant says concepts without intuitions are empty. Actually, void, but, not quibble-worthy.
— Mww

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. That is a quote. This is really the basis of the transcendental dialectic. — Astrophel

OK...couple things here of relative importance. First, and least important, insofar as yours is equally a direct quote, this to support my “concepts without intuitions” remark:

“....extension of conceptions beyond the range of our intuition is of no advantage; for they are then mere empty conceptions...” (B149, S23 in Guyer /Wood and Kemp Smith, S19 in Meiklejohn)

Second, your quote is found in the intro to Transcendental Logic, A51/B75 the claim that it is the basis of the Transcendental Dialectic, is doubly confounding. You see my reference to empty concepts is found clear up at B149, which is at the Transcendental Deduction but still in the Analytic. Dialectic doesn’t even begin until A293/B350. There’s a veritable bucketful of information between those three points.

Third, and most important, this part arose because you said reason is empty. Not knowing how such a claim could stand, I moved empty to concepts, because that is something Kant actually said. I can’t find a reference for reason being empty, and without a citation, I have nothing by which to judge your assertion, mostly because I don’t think Kant said anything of the sort. If he did, it would probably be in the Dialectic, I’ll give ya that much.

What do you mean by empty, and what do you think reason is, such that it could be empty?
— Mww

This would be a challenge to the idea that all you need is sensory intuitions and concepts and therefore you have meaning. — Astrophel

Ok, so if you’re saying reason is empty of meaning, I’d go along with that. Judgement gives meaning, at least to objects, in subsuming cognitions under a rule. Reason then, merely concludes the cognition and the rule conform to each other, from which is given knowledge. Understanding is the lawyer, judgement is the jury, reason is on the bench overseeing the whole process.

This business of operating from different philosophies is hard work.

A thinker is not identical to his thoughts.... — Possibility

In which case, “I think” is an anomaly? A genuine falsehood? If it is not “I” that thinks, or, if it is not thinking that the conception “I” represents, then how is it possible to arrive at conclusions which demand such an unimpeachable origin? If “a thinker is not his thoughts” is a conclusion derived from your own thoughts, in keeping with the truth of the assertion, you are then left with the necessary implication that you are not a thinker. I wonder.....what degree of self-awareness am I missing, such that I do not recognize that this seemingly inescapable subterfuge, is of my own making?
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a description that does not arise from a describer, is impossible....
— Mww

A description does not arise wholly from a describer, but consists of the relation between describer and schema. — Possibility

The content is the synthesis of related schema, but it is the describer that synthesizes. Because it is absurd to suggest schema relate themselves, a rational consciousness in the form of a describer....for lack of a better word.....is absolutely necessary, otherwise the synthesis, the relation of schema to each other, thereby the description itself, never happens. A description is, after all, and for all intents and purposes, merely an empirical cognition.
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I’m not suggesting that describer, description or even schema exist without the other two. Reality is triadic - that’s my point. — Possibility

While the first is true enough, the second implies the general tripartite human cognitive system is part and parcel of reality. I think this an altogether too loose rendition of the established definitions, myself. I think the empirically real holds with a different qualification than the logically real. If logically valid is substituted for the logically real, the dichotomy becomes false and immediately disappears, and reality indicates merely the naturally real. From which it follows necessarily, that the tripartite human cognitive system, being a metaphysical paradigm, is never found in natural reality. Which leaves the question, how is reality triadic, unanswered.
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describer is pure affect and schema is pure relation. — Possibility

To be honest, I can see where this comes from. At the same time, however, it is reminiscent of the dreaded Cartesian theater, an abomination to pure speculative metaphysics. I mean....how would it be proved, that describer, and by extension, the subject itself, is affect? And affect on what? Pure in what way?
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What he (Kant) didn’t appear to realise was that it was never a matter of the subject in a dyadic relation to object. — Possibility

Of course he did, and yes, it certainly is. The realization that the subject views objects a priori as possible objects he can think, and also views objects a posteriori as given objects he can perceive, is the very ground of transcendental philosophy, regardless of whose name it is used under.

Anyway....ever onward.

Reason is empty. Necessary for dividing the world up into things and their properties, but without intuitions, empty, as Kant said. — Astrophel

Hmmm. I won’t attempt to argue your assertion; you are quite welcome to it, and may even be able to justify it. But the qualified assertion is wrong. Kant says concepts without intuitions are empty. Actually, void, but, not quibble-worthy.

Add sensory intuitions and it is still empty. — Astrophel

Momentarily granting the assertion, reason being empty with or without intuitions merely makes explicit the alleged emptiness of reason is unaffected by intuitions, which is correct, insofar as reason is unaffected by intuitions whether or not it is empty.

What do you mean by empty, and what do you think reason is, such that it could be empty?
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Dewey had it right: our experiences are all "consummatory", that is, inherently aesthetic as well as pragmatic/rational. — Astrophel

Kant also accounts for that duality. So if Dewey got it right, but Kant got it right first.....

We know our descriptions are logically constructed, but we don't know whether what we describe, prior to our descriptions of it, is logically constructed. — Janus

No, we don’t, but there comes from the possibility, that damnable, cursed transcendental illusion, in that we know we construct logically predicated on our intelligence, then it follows that if reality is logically constructed, reality is its own form of intelligence. And then we are forced into that aforementioned kettle of unknowable fish we want to stay a country mile away from.

But wait!!! That reality may be constructed logically does not necessarily imply reality is its own intelligence, when it could just as possibly be that reality is constructed logically by an intelligence that so constructs in its own right. Now we’re up to two country miles.

And an additional mile for each and every instance of infinite regress which follows.....errr.....logically.

Of course, (....) what does it matter, what could it matter? — Janus

Bingo.

Far, far more interesting and important is the non rational nature what is in the world. The extraordinary affectivity is where we find the substance of our existence. — Astrophel

Why should that be? Why care what the non-ration nature of the world includes, if it must still be met with our particular, human, method of understanding it? Even if we can say we find the substance, or, that there is substance found, by its affectivity on us, it remains a condition of human nature to determine both what it is, and how it relates to other substances.

That non-rational nature is indispensable is given, but it isn’t all there is.

Can we say from this that Kant's idealism is a form of naturalism? — Tom Storm

In Kant’s day, naturalism was indicative of the sciences, from which he says....

“....Whether the treatment of that portion of our knowledge which lies within the province of pure reason advances with that undeviating certainty which characterizes the progress of science, we shall be at no loss to determine....”

....which implies the impending transcendental philosophy, in order to gain the respect of the sciences, must adhere to the same theoretical conditions. But it cannot be said Kant’s idealism is by that claim alone, a form of naturalism. Furthermore.....

“....Mathematics and physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to determine their objects a priori. The former is purely a priori, the latter is partially so, but is also dependent on other sources of cognition....”

.....from which it should be clear, that while Kant’s idealism adheres to the same general principles for its exposition as the natural sciences, re: cause and effect, space and time, etc., it is very far from being a form of it. In fact, it is proved that the sciences themselves are predicated on the conceptions advanced by the metaphysics of pure reason, which reduces to.....no science is ever done without first being thought.

All that from the very beginning, and from the ending, is the conclusion that metaphysics proper is not and cannot be, a science in a domain of naturalism.

yet the thinker, even as the immediate describer of reality, is to an extent other than their description. — Possibility

Which is to say, consciousness is other than its content. I think this an unnecessary reduction. A describer that does not describe is a contradiction, and a description that does not arise from a describer, is impossible. Parsimony, and good philosophy, suggests the thinker and his thoughts are, if not identical, than at least indistinguishable.
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....when we describe a logical reality.... — Possibility

How would a logical reality even be recognized as such, if the system that views it isn’t itself logical? It would appear then, we do not describe a logical reality, but rather, we describe a reality logically. This method permits reality to be whatever it is, and grounds all descriptions on a relation between it, and the cognitive system that thinks about it.
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the key to his (Kant’s) philosophy (in light of the TTC) is to recognise that when we describe a logical reality, we do so from an affected position, using a relative schema. — Possibility

A key to the empirical part of his philosophy, yes, and even if we describe reality logically, we do so from an affected position, yes. But I’m not sure what is meant by relative schema, in light of the TTC. And I for sure don’t wish to get into the whole Kantian schematism transcendental morass.
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To the extent that we claim a logical position ourselves as describer, our resulting description is also relative, affected. — Possibility

Which I take to be tacit admission we in fact do cognize logically. I’m guessing you mean to say our descriptions are nevertheless relative to the logic, which seems rather tautological, doesn’t it? Overlooking that, I don’t see where “affected” comes into play. Not sure how a resulting description can be affected, other than to say a result is affected by its antecedents. But that’s just a lame appeal to logical conditions, as it doesn’t tell us anything the syllogism......reality/affected position/resulting description......didn’t already inform.

But, as I said, I’m not familiar with what appears to be your philosophy-of-choice, so you’ll have to cut me some interpretive slack.

Such are the ‘logical’ constraints of language, which positions the reader/observer always outside any description of reality — Possibility

This is true, but Kantian metaphysics has nothing to do with the logical restraints of language, per se. It is not concerned with the reader/observer, but of the thinker. The logical restraints of reason, now, which has no need of language, is itself sufficient causality for the thinking subject to be the immediate describer of reality, or, in fact, anything at all, hence cannot be outside such descriptions.

The TTC, as it’s called, is all well and good, but I think of a different paradigm. I don’t really know anything about it, so I shouldn’t even think that far.

We never can properly say how objects in the world are tied together....
— Mww

Physics does that, though. — Wayfarer

Hmmm.....I see I’ve unintentionally inflicted an ambiguity. Yes, we can properly say, in accordance with the proper test methods and practices we invent, contingent on the temporal currency of our knowledge. Which accounts for our mistakes in our relatively proper sayings.

But, still, if we are not allowed knowledge of things in the world as they are in themselves, how can we be allowed to know how the things in the world are properly tied together? Which is the term “properly” being used irreducibly, in its strictest sense.

the laws which explain that relationships are not given by the observation alone.
— Mww

They're deductive. Synthetic a priori, yes? — Wayfarer

Yes. The ubiquitous analogy......just from seeing five rocks here, and seeing four rocks there, it is impossible to cognize a certain totality of rocks from just those two observations alone. As well, the sensation on the back of your neck, an effect, allows you a cause via Hume-ian inference, but the sensation alone does not tell you what the cause is.
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....for our experience, and therefore our minds, to be as they are, the way that our experience is tied together must reflect the way that, according to physics, says objects in the world must be tied together.....

Sorry to take so long, but I have trouble unpacking that comment. It seems so backwards to me. I mean...for our experiences and therefore our minds. Experience is determined by the mind, experience presupposes mind (or, more accurately, reason), mind is always antecedent to experience, so it should be, our minds, and therefore our experiences.

To be as they are....
We cannot say how they are, but only how this relates to that, iff they each work a certain way, according to a theory. Maybe...to be as they seem?

The way our experience is tied together....
Experience isn’t tied together. This and that are tied together in order for there to be an experience. Maybe...the way our experiences are tied to each other?

Must reflect the way that says how objects in the world are tied together....
From this armchair, that’s just wrong on transcendental accounts, even if it apparently holds in phenomenological accounts. We never can properly say how objects in the world are tied together, but only how reason ties the representations of them together in accordance with observations. It is my understanding that phenomenology regards objects in themselves as that of which experience concerns itself, the finer theoretical tenets of such a metaphysic being unfamiliar to me. From that point of view, I suppose it is reasonable to say, the way our experiences are tied together says how objects in the world must be tied together. Still, where is the room for pure a priori cognitions, therefore where mathematical reasoning, in a paradigm where objects in themselves are the objects of experience? Hume’s Dilemma in spades, methinks.

Anyway.....probably much ado about nothing, that is, my misunderstanding the comment, yet still spending time talking about it.

That conception of the transcendental seems to be based on the assumption that empirical intuitions are not always already conceptually mediated, even prior to conceptions becoming explicit. — Janus

THAT conception? Not sure what conception you mean. If you mean my exposition of non-empirical intuitions, that is not a conception of the transcendental. The categories on which mathematical quantities are based are conceptions deduced transcendentally, but employed immanently, with respect to possible knowledge.

Empirical intuitions are not always conceptually mediated. All intuitions, as sensuous representations, depend on affections, which is the same as saying empirical intuitions are mediated by sensation. But yes, prior to conceptions becoming explicit, which occurs in the synthesis by imagination of phenomena to thought. We are not aware of the synthesis of matter and form that become phenomena; we only become aware of objects as particular empirical entities when they are thought under the explicit conceptions understanding thinks as belonging to them.
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On that alternate view..... — Janus

By alternative view you mean Plato, Spinoza and Hegel?

......the conceptual dimension of the empirical is not given transcendentally...... — Janus

Nor is it in Kant. The empirical is conditioned by the transcendental, by the categories, but the conceptual dimension is given from the spontaneous representations arising under the unity of apperception. Thinking. There is thinking transcendentally, but thinking is not itself transcendental.

.....but immanently. — Janus

Yes, even in Kant, immanently taken to indicate having to do with possible experience.
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The transcendental view seems to rely on the existence of something otherworldly or divine — Janus

Sometimes, maybe, but not in Kant, who is quite adamant that the transcendental is not to be confused with the transcendent, which properly is otherworldly or divine.
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in its '"ordinary" sense, as something not empirically observable 'transcendental' retains its coherence — Janus

Dunno about ordinary, but in Kant-speak, transcendental basically refers to the possibility of pure a priori principles, judgements and/or cognitions. So rather than “not empirically observable”, which is a partially correct, it would actually be not empirically possible. Technically, transcendental is the term applicable to the kind of reason which gives only a priori objects. Of all the terminology in Kant, that one warrants the most care.

Kant argues that mathematical reasoning cannot be employed outside the domain of mathematics proper

Doesn't that negate applied mathematics, which is so fundamental to science? — Wayfarer

In short, applied mathematics is demonstration of mathematical reasoning. Doing the math which grounds the physical sciences presupposes the axioms and definitions from which those sciences are even possible, and which can only develop a priori. You are well aware, it goes without saying, that while we observe relationships in Nature, the laws which explain that relationships are not given by the observation alone.

Do you think we learn to see things as things via being taught to as well as possessing evolved constitutional aptitudes? — Janus

Nowadays, it seems being taught is all we consider in the acquisition of knowledge, which is the same as “how we see things”, I’m guessing. Which is precisely why both Kant and Schopenhauer had such a hard-on for the schools, because any formal, rote instruction, including parental, neglects the means for the sake of the ends. But teach yourself something completely devoid of extant experience, or learn what no one else knows, by invention or accident, it becomes clear mere instruction is self-limiting, in that it turns reason into a mere passive skill rather than an active faculty.

The U.S used to rank first in the world for high school mathematical comprehension. Now we are 15th.
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That constructed schema is a “non-empirical intuition”
— Mww

It is certainly arguable though that it could be an abstraction derivative of empirical intuitions. — Janus

Perhaps, but not in keeping with transcendental philosophy, in which is said, “intuition cannot think, and understanding cannot intuit”. If intuition is predicated on synthesis of empirical conditions, re: matter and form, given from sensibility, than intuition cannot think its representation, thinking is the properly the synthesis only of conceptions. It follows that if understanding cannot intuit, it cannot employ empirical conditions to abstract from.

So the question then becomes...why can’t understanding abstract from phenomena, which are the result of sensible empirical conditions. If this were the case, then we wouldn’t need to think the schema of the categories, because they would already be given as objects of perception. And even if there are numbers in the world, it is only because we put them there, which makes explicit their primal origin is in pure reason.

So Kant apparently rejects intellectual intuition — Janus

Truth....
As he must, at least in humans, in keeping with his admitted metaphysical dualism. When he states that intuitions are sensible representations given from matter, and conceptions are intellectual representations given from thought, then intuitions cannot be intellectual without negating the very dualism on which his speculative metaphysics is constructed.
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....or Dare:
Intellectual intuition is merely a euphemisn for some possible phenomenon the understanding thinks a priori, in order to justify the construction of a conception it also thinks.

We wish to know about Nature;
Nature is composed of objects;
No object, hence Nature, can be known without being subjected to the categories;
One of the categories is quantity;
We know quantity relates to objects but we know quantity is not itself an object;
We construct objects a priori representing quantity, called schema, such that the relation can be determinable;
One schema of quantity is number, another is any general geometric figure, which are universal representations of a particular which is also a possible phenomenon;
That constructed schema is a “non-empirical intuition” ** by its a priori form alone, residing in imagination, having nothing whatsoever to do with sensibility, and the conception synthesized with it in understanding becomes a constructed conception, as opposed to a spontaneously generated concept arising from apperception;
As soon as the schematic object we imagine becomes an object in the world, it is no longer a “non-empirical intuition”, thus not subject to the categories alone but also to sensibility, and becomes a phenomenon;
Construction of conceptions in this way are synthetic a priori cognitions, and makes the science of mathematics, and the physical sciences grounded on it, possible.
** A714/B742

The mental image of a line as non-empirical intuition represents the line as a conception; the mental image of a number as a non-empirical intuition represents a unit of quantity as a conception, insofar as the certainty is given that the drawings on a piece of paper conforms exactly to both the images in imagination and the conceptions in understanding.

This is mathematical reasoning writ large, itself possible only from the category of quantity, from which its apodeitic certainty arises. There is no contradiction at all possible, from conceptions constructed from only a single category, just as there is no possible contradiction of identity, when matter is reduced to a single substance, the category in this case being quality. In Kant, these two are termed mathematical regarding their respective certainty, the other two are dynamic, regarding their respective contingency.

Can we call “non-empirical intuitions” intellectual intuitions? Sure...why not. While so doing removes the connection from Kant, it doesn’t do any real damage, as long as one is aware of the difference.

reliance on the ‘object’ in his third critique.
— Possibility

What ‘object’?
— Mww

Nature, art, etc. — Possibility

Cool. Objects in general. Not the particular object. The hint was there; just making sure I understood it.
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The base structure of Kant’s schema is the subject-object relation, with the subject bracketing out sensation, or affect/desire, as if it is irrelevant. — Possibility

With respect to the “....speculative metaphysics of Nature...” ** in the acquisition of “....theoretical knowledge of all things....” **, yes, absolutely. The judgements here are discursive, concepts relate to intuition, the imagination is “...reproductive...”, pure reason being the logical arbiter.
(**A841/B869)
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The TTC, on the other hand, acknowledges affect/desire as the directional flow of energy through the entire schema, and advocates the disciplined practice of aligning this aspect of ourselves with that of nature — Possibility

In Kant, “directional flow of energy” aside, this affect/desire is separable, as affects on the subject, and desires of the subject, differences in principles, origins and manifestations being rather obvious, I should think. The judgements here are aesthetic, concepts relate to each other, the imagination is “...productive...”, practical reason being the logical arbiter.

Aligning ourselves with Nature arises from....

“....If pleasure is bound up with the mere apprehension of the form of an object of intuition, without reference to a concept for a definite cognition, then the representation is thereby not referred to the object, but simply to the subject; and the pleasure can express nothing else than its harmony with the cognitive faculties which come into play in the reflective Judgement, and so far as they are in play; and hence can only express a subjective formal purposiveness of the object...”
(CJ, Intro, VII)

.....which just say Nature has an affect on our subjective condition as well as our cognitive system.

The subjective desires, on the other hand, arise from a different causality that Nature, such that its manifestations are not merely affects on the subjective condition, but outright determinations of it. As such this is the domain of the Kantian metaphysics of morals, under the purview of principles derived from pure practical reason, as opposed to the affects of Nature on us, which is the domain of the metaphysics of Nature, which is under the purview of principles derived from pure speculative reason.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave......when we really can’t prove a damn thing.

One of my favorite quotable passages. Seems pretty easy to decipher, but there’s more to it than the words, especially considering the footnote that accompanies it.

reliance on the ‘object’ in his third critique. — Possibility

What ‘object’?