Advaita "nondualism" is a mystical exercise..... — 180 Proof

My lack of experience causes me to ask....what is being exercised, and that exercised mystically?

My experience, on the other hand, mandates that if this is mystically exercised, than necessarily, that is not, creating a dualism of its own.

Do you agree with the validity of a unique metaphysical doctrine of non-dualism?

unique metaphysical doctrine that is non-dualism. — FrancisRay

So it must be possible that the intrinsic human complementary system......isn’t?

Which is to say, it must be possible that for every single thought, ever, by a human, its immediate negation does not necessarily follow?

There very well may be a metaphysical doctrine that is non-dualism, but I rather suspect it cannot arise from rejecting ALL dualisms. Or, on the other hand I suppose, there very well could be a metaphysical doctrine of non-dualism that rejects ALL dualisms, but such doctrine cannot stand in conjunction with the rational agency calling itself human.

Dunno.....maybe there are humans that conceive up but not down, good but not bad, yes but not no. Bet it would be pretty hard to talk to somebody like that, even so.

we can imagine the concept of empty space, but we cannot imagine the concept of there being no space. — RussellA

I have a clear idea of what dimensions are; and I understand what zero-dimensional space would be. like. Saying I can't imagine it - so what? — Banno

“...We never can imagine or make a representation to ourselves of the non-existence of space, though we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it. It must, therefore, be considered as the condition of the possibility of phenomena, and by no means as a determination dependent on them, and is a representation a priori, which necessarily supplies the basis for external phenomena....” (A24/B39)

Why bring up dimensions or zero-dimensional space, when those are mere euphemisms for the terms given in the text? Do you see that thinking objects in space (from the text) does not give you a coordinate system, which makes dimensions (from your statement) irrelevant? And space is itself zero-dimensional anyway, so amending space with that qualifier adds nothing whatsoever to the significance of the term.

Do you see there’s no congruency between your “I understand what zero-dimensional space would be like”, and, “we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it”? You will say they amount to the same thing, they have the same truth-value or some such nonsense, because you’re submerged in language games, but I shall nonetheless point out you’ve treated space as the subject in your statement, but space is in the predicate of the statement you’ve claimed, for all intents and purposes, to not understand. But that just sets the ground. In effect, you’ve merely stated you understand what space would be like, which is altogether quite impossible, while I...and even yourself...can imagine holding our hands out with no object resting in their respective palms. I mean....what is space like, really? Compared to.....what?

Finally, that which you can’t imagine, re: Russell’s “concept of there being no space”, is not the same as what the text says can’t be imagined, re: “the representation to ourselves of the non-existence of space”. But, herein in your defense, because I acknowledge your tacit rejection of Kantian epistemology as being left behind by those finding precious little value in anything a few years older than themselves, I grant you won’t accept the theoretical subtleties which sustain the difference.

Oh. And your “so what?”? It is answered, if I may poach from the illustrious Paul Harvey.....in the rrEESSSTTT of the story!!

Cheers(?)

Oh. Sorry. Good luck, then.

There is so much questioning around questions and answers. — Jack Cummins

True enough, but there doesn’t need to be, necessarily. Historical precedent makes explicit the human cognitive system is generally self-correcting, so if one was to restrict himself to that system in the investigation of his questions, odds favor him arriving at an answer consistent with it, iff he can so arrive at all.

Epistemically, to know presupposes that which is knowable, and ontologically, for something to be is for something to be possibly known about.

Classic metaphysics proper is the doctrine that attempts to unite them, Enlightenment metaphysics subsumes the latter under the former, and in post-Enlightenment metaphysics, of course, is found the reverse.

I believe the root of metaphysical investigations is the human capacity to punch above their weight. — BrianW

Pretty much, yep. It’s what we do, doncha know. Here’s what you just said, in super-fancy speechifyin’, which would have been great for getting university students of the time to get ready for a rough road, except his works were never classroom texts or even actually taught in his time:

“....Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic....”

Yes, and that’s the root of metaphysical investigations: the determination of our part in life, which is always and only, a judgement we make in response to it.

It isn’t the questions, it’s how they are asked and answered.

So, I am left asking how do we interpret him in the context of our time? — Jack Cummins

Simple. Ask yourself.....how much has a human qua individual rational agent, changed in 300 years? Not his environment, not his knowledge base, not his personal curriculum.....he himself with respect to himself alone.

If you concur a human hasn’t changed at all in so short an elapsed time, because natural evolution won’t allow it, then it is reasonable to suppose Kant’s writing regarding speculative epistemology, would still apply.

If matter itself (consciousness) has an atomic structure..... — 3017amen

Shirley you don’t intend that consciousness equate to matter. Perhaps you meant consciousness can be conceptualized as composed of parts, as matter is conceptualized as composed of its parts, understood as atomic structure, and those ultimately reducible to mathematical elements.

Even if mathematical elements are synthetic a priori constructs, they can still be represented empirically. To say consciousness equates to matter with respect to its ultimate reduction to mathematical elements, implies consciousness can be represented empirically, just as numbers represent mathematical elements.

Good example of why people these days turn their noses up at metaphysics, when all it can say about consciousness....because it knows better than to say anything else.....is that it is nothing more than a transcendental object of pure reason. A logical explanatory stop-gap.

does knowledge/understanding have a point other than what we can make happen in our lives? — BrianW

Fair story, except there are occasions we didn’t make happen, but are rather foisted upon us. The weather, flat tires, your mother-in-law’s special dinner that tastes like the inside of an old shoe.....

It's not a contest. Philosophy, science, metaphysics, mysticism, etc, etc, are just attempts to delineate life/reality. — BrianW

This says more accurately the case, although you could have stopped with just philosophy and science, for metaphysics is philosophy and mysticism is merely some esoteric metaphysics.

Still, you’ve hinted here the ground of the continental Enlightenment shift in general philosophy, initiated 400–odd years ago, insofar as philosophy and science each derived from understanding and knowledge respectively, have no meaning outside the human life.

Are you suggesting, say in science, that there are forbidden questions one should never ask? — 3017amen

Not at all. There are never forbidden questions, only those that don’t have rational answers. Rational answers are those that do not contradict possible experience or the laws of logic.
————-

What is intriguing (in philosophy) is your "whatever we think of it". Right? — 3017amen

Dunno about intriguing, but it seems to have become neglected. Dismissed. Supervened by the Almighty Test Equipment.

Ya know......just because we can ask a question, doesn’t mean we should.

“....To know what questions we may reasonably propose is in itself a strong evidence of sagacity and intelligence. For if a question be in itself absurd and unsusceptible of a rational answer, it is attended with the danger—not to mention the shame that falls upon the person who proposes it—of seducing the unguarded listener into making absurd answers...”

That being said, and admitting your questions aren’t exactly absurd, I don’t have any good answers for them. And why does everything have to have a “nature”? Nature of this, nature of that.....why can’t it be just whatever we think of it? Which is, when it comes right down to it, exactly what it is anyway.

Explain what it means to like something? — 3017amen

What it means: Find favor. Alleviates ill-will.

Technically, the inclination to an idea and the judgement made on that inclination, do not conflict with each other.

Good. Perhaps, as he says, the power of metaphysics rests in nothing more than.......”I like it”.

A noble attitude, for which I salute you.

A thesis cannot be true and false simultaneously was my response when I was reminded that the antinomies were a logical response — val p miranda

True enough, but that isn’t “a different point of view, not a logical one”. What you say here is still a logical point of view.

I suppose I didn't like Kant's reform and correction of metaphysics. — val p miranda

As is your prerogative.

I’d be interested in how you regard the antinomies from other than a logical point of view. Not sure I’d understand, but I’d at least gain familiarity.

Proof of a contention and then proof of the opposite — val p miranda

An antinomy isn’t a proof; it’s a logical argument, a “...dialectical proposition or theorem of pure reason...”

“....This method of watching, or rather of originating, a conflict of assertions, not for the purpose of finally deciding in favour of either side, but to discover whether the object of the struggle is not a mere illusion, which each strives in vain to reach, but which would be no gain even when reached....”

Indeed. I don’t give a damn WHY there is a universe. That there is something I think of as it, is good enough.

if this innate sense of reason provides for an abstract objective reality, what is the nature of [this] our reality? — 3017amen

Why...or rather, how....would there be any difference between them, our reality or objective reality? Doesn’t matter what there is under any conditions whatsoever, reason is the one and only way a human is ever going to find out about it. Even accident or pure reflex as mere occasion for experience, still needs its possible understanding, which reverts right back to reason.

But what is mathematics itself? — 3017amen

Simply put, I guess, mathematics is the science developed by reason out of the category of “quantity”, in response to observations in the world. If the categories are part of our innate rational constitution, as transcendental philosophy stipulates, then the ground of mathematical structures resides in us naturally.

But if mathematical structures describe the nature of the universe — 3017amen

We don’t know that they do; we only know they describe the universe in such a way the universe becomes comprehensible to us, strictly given the kind of intelligence we are.

for additional fodder:..... — 3017amen

.....all good.

is the concept of Noumenon (....) something that exists a priori like mathematical structures? — 3017amen

The concept of noumena....maybe, yes. Noumena themselves, iff there were such things.....not a chance. Mathematical structures, while a priori for their construction, lend themselves intuitively to phenomenal representation for their reality. Noumena, on the other hand, as products of the understanding, hence are only discursive constructs which eliminates them from intuition, hence can never be phenomena, hence can never be represented in the human world of objects.

Kant has already explained why the antinomies are faulty — val p miranda

Actually, no, he did not, for they are not faulty in the least. An antinomy perfectly exemplifies a case in which pure speculative reason inevitably conflicts with itself with respect to transcendental ideas.

“....If we employ our reason not merely in the application of the principles of the understanding to objects of experience, but venture with it beyond these boundaries, there arise certain sophistical propositions or theorems. These assertions have the following peculiarities: They can find neither confirmation nor confutation in experience; and each is in itself not only self-consistent, but possesses conditions of its necessity in the very nature of reason—only that, unluckily, there exist just as valid and necessary grounds for maintaining the contrary proposition. The questions which naturally arise in the consideration of this dialectic of pure reason, are therefore: 1st. In what propositions is pure reason unavoidably subject to an antinomy? 2nd. What are the causes of this antinomy? 3rd. Whether and in what way can reason free itself from this self-contradiction? A dialectical proposition or theorem of pure reason must, according to what has been said, be distinguishable from all sophistical propositions, by the fact that it is not an answer to an arbitrary question, which may be raised at the mere pleasure of any person, but to one which human reason must necessarily encounter in its progress. In the second place, a dialectical proposition, with its opposite, does not carry the appearance of a merely artificial illusion, which disappears as soon as it is investigated, but a natural and unavoidable illusion, which, even when we are no longer deceived by it, continues to mock us and, although rendered harmless, can never be completely removed....”
(CPR A421/B449)

The world of time and space do not allow us to do whatever we want, so the LNC applies to it in a sense. — Gregory

Not sure what to say about that. If you care to elaborate....that’d be nice.
——————

As Fitche pointed out, there is a sense in which we bind ourselves to morality — Gregory

In Kant, morality is a human condition, and as such, there is no need to bind ourselves to it, for it is exactly half of our intrinsic nature, the other half being pure speculative reason. No need to bind to that which is inescapable anyway.

What we do bind ourselves is to duty, insofar as there are certain duties, re: “perfect” duties, sufficient to oblige our compliance to our c.i.

Kant/Fitche/Schopenhauer. What a mass of intellect, right there. The latter two picked on the Master, but, really....what else could they do. Kant’s a hard act to follow, and everybody knew it.

The trouble with the Critique is that it got time and space wrong. — val p miranda

And to make it right is to.....what?
————-

Man created time and space is a real immaterial existence. — val p miranda

Man created, sure. Real, immaterial, ok. But existence? That which exists can be phenomena; can time or space be phenomena?
—————

Fundamental concepts are still valid and useful such as the law of non-contradiction..... — val p miranda

The Kantian system holds better if the LNC is considered a principle, not a fundamental concept, or, which is the same thing, a category.
—————

The Antinomies seem faulty because time is a part of them. — val p miranda

Not part of the second. Nevertheless, why does time make the antinomies faulty?

It's hard to say "what out to happen" from the principle of duty alone understood as the categorical imperative. — Gregory

Actually, what ought to happen is that which the transcendental conception of freedom grants. So it is easy to say what ought to happen, because we tell ourselves what that is, but it is not from duty that we are told. It is from the autonomy of the will.

While it may be easy to say what ought to happen, it is not always so easy to actually cause to happen that which we have told ourselves, should. If it does, we consider ourselves moral; if we do not we cannot consider ourselves moral, for we have defied our own will.

I do not understand the principle of duty as the categorical imperative. If you do, I won’t argue about it.

As for the golden rule, I needn't remind you it is a rule by definition, therefore cannot carry the authority of an imperative, which has the force of law. Just as a rule is distinct from a law, so too is the golden rule distinct....not part of....the c.i.

is there such thing as a transcendental truth? — 3017amen

Not sure Kant used those terms together, but I guess a truth derived under transcendental conditions would be a transcendental truth. All that needs be, are transcendental conditions. What they can’t be, is empirical, for if every truth was derived from empirical conditions, there would be no need for pure reason in the first place, hence no imagination of supersensible, transcendent, possibilities. In other words....we would cease to wonder. Or, rather, we wouldn’t have an understanding that thinks of things the reality of which it cannot obtain.

By transferring space from the external world to the internal system of reason, Kant removed the need for explaining a real medium for the existence of objects, which Newton couldn’t provide.

I find it useful, that is, to maintain the bookkeeping on what exactly is being spoken of. — tim wood

As do I, and the bookkeeping reduces to.....us. Humans.....

his an account of how the mind assembles the world, which assembly is necessarily prior to any attempt to account for it. — tim wood

.....just like that. Assembly presupposes being, which is sufficient reason for why Kant doesn’t pay much attention to it. Doesn’t matter what is, if we cannot fathom how it is possible to know the manner in which we are affected by it.

But the hazard seems always to slip, slide, and fall into supposing that Kant speaks of the world itself when it's the mind's apperception's workings he's analyzing — tim wood

Hence the fundamental principle for transcendental philosophy, to maintain reason where it belongs, where it can do the least harm, by “...closing up its sources of error...”. To speak of the world is nothing but to speak of the human’s understanding of the world.

Because it's my "take" that what Kant takes away in his analysis of pure knowledge, he gives back (as possibility) in practical knowledge. — tim wood

Not sure about pure knowledge, but what he takes away in pure speculative reason (causality belongs to Nature alone, and not one whit belongs to man), he gives back in pure practical reason (causality belongs to man and not one whit belongs to Nature).

“...All rational knowledge is either material or formal: the former considers some object, the latter is concerned only with the form of the understanding and of the reason itself, and with the universal laws of thought in general without distinction of its objects. Formal philosophy is called logic. Material philosophy, however, has to do with determinate objects and the laws to which they are subject, is again twofold; for these laws are either laws of nature or of freedom. The science of the former is physics, that of the latter, ethics; they are also called natural philosophy and moral philosophy respectively. Logic cannot have any empirical part; that is, a part in which the universal and necessary laws of thought should rest on grounds taken from experience; otherwise it would not be logic, i.e., a canon for the understanding or the reason, valid for all thought, and capable of demonstration. Natural and moral philosophy, on the contrary, can each have their empirical part, since the former has to determine the laws of nature as an object of experience; the latter the laws of the human will, so far as it is affected by nature: the former, however, being laws according to which everything does happen; the latter, laws according to which everything ought to happen. Ethics, however, must also consider the conditions under which what ought to happen frequently does not.....”
(F.P.M.M., 1785, in T. K. Abbott, 1895)

Paragraph granted!!!!!

It's hard to overemphasis this revolution — Gregory

And hidden in that, is the paradigm shift from ontology to epistemology.

It is a truth, insofar as its negation is a contradiction.
— Mww

Can you speak to that quote in a bit more detail? It seems very intriguing to me. — 3017amen

You said....

what is a priori, is this judgement that we believe all events must have a cause. — 3017amen

....to which I responded by saying that to believe events MUST have causes precludes the notion from being a mere belief. If it was a belief, it would have to be stated as events might, or events should, have causes. If, on the other hand, the very concept of “event” immediately invokes an ordering of time, insofar as any perceived event follows from some antecedent event related to it, then the a priori synthetical principle of cause and effect, relative to any perception, is established as universally necessary, hence true because its negation contradicts experience, re: it is impossible to perceive the same thing for all time, therefore every perception is conditioned by successions in time, that condition being an antecedent event that is necessarily its cause.

It is good to bear in mind we don’t care about events unknowable, but only events present or possibly present to our perception. We don’t care at this point what the event is, nor do we care what the cause is, but only that anything given to sensibility has that relation, and that relation must be conceivable, hence understood, by us, otherwise experience itself is impossible.

Even if it is the case that you meant “this judgement that we believe” we still have a problem, in that, because belief is itself a judgement of relative certainty, we have subjected a judgement to a judgement, which jeopardizes the possibility of a cognition developing from it. Infinite regress, or stalemate, both of which are anathema to knowledge.

Is this too abstract in a Kantian discussion — Gregory

Yeah, it’s a long ways past where our knowledge of things needs to be. All we need is cause and effect as the bottom line, without regard to the subtleties of either one by itself. The exception is, from a Kantian point of view, that the conception of freedom can be used as an uncaused cause, in which case we can have one without the other. Kant recognizes the inherent contradiction, so he just says we only need to think of freedom as an uncaused cause, not that we have to prove that it actually is one. Which is pretty abstract, when you stop and think about it.

Yeah....I used quantifies only because the thread title showed a plurality of single instances.

I agree any single law is qualified by whichever principle reason assigns as its ground. And just as reason covers all principles, universality and necessity, as principles, cover all laws.

Once a moral principle is employed in making a law it makes it a law. — James Riley

Now we’re getting somewhere. Once a moral principle is employed in making a law it makes it a MORAL law. Once a logical principle is employed in making a law it makes it a LOGICAL law. Once a civic principle is employed in making a law it makes it a CIVIL law. Pick a domain, find a principle, make a law grounded by it.

All laws of kind have principles from which they are made laws of that kind. It follows there must be at least one principle that makes any law a law, or that makes any law, lawful. Which succinctly quantifies the thread title...a law is a law is a law.

See page 1.

All events must have a cause = a synthetic a priori proposition. — 3017amen

Agreed, as long as it’s being expressed, “a priori” and “synthetic” confine the expression to certain conditions.

what is a priori, is this judgement that we believe all events must have a cause. — 3017amen

And if a judgement, for which no expression is necessary, “a priori” and “synthetic” confine the judgement to certain relations, and such judgement can never be a mere belief. It is a truth, insofar as its negation is a contradiction.

The synthetic a priori judgement is, first, a product of pure reason because its ground is a category (relation, schema: causality/dependence), and second, it is transcendental because it relates to concepts in general and from which other a priori cognitions become possible.

In other words, in consciousness, how are synthetic a priori judgments possible (?). Kant's argument is that it's not learned. — 3017amen

In consciousness, they are not; it is reason alone from which such judgements arise. We are conscious of that to which the principle applies, but not of the principle itself, unless or until we wish to examine how experience is possible and we find everything reduces to this fundamental logical necessity. From this, it follows such judgements are not learned; they are given. What we might learn, is how to exchange the subjectivity of our reason for the objectivity of our expression.

“....V. In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason, Synthetical Judgements "a priori" are contained as Principles....” (CPR, B15)

I respect your interpretations of the Good Professor, even if I might disagree with some of them. Hell....it might be me that’s barking at the moon, dunno.

The proposition all events must have a cause is not formulated from pure reason. — 3017amen

Ok...the proposition does not derive from pure reason, any proposition being merely an expression derived from antecedent cognitions. That all events have a cause is a principle of pure reason, nonetheless. Can we say that much is true?

If we were not able to ask that question/said proposition, virtually no scientific discoveries would be made. — 3017amen

There are accidental scientific discoveries, right? Not many, to be sure, but enough to prove it is not necessary to ask that question in order to have such discoveries. I guess it’s probably true enough, that, while not absolutely necessary, they are conditionally necessary if one doesn’t wish to wait around for accidents.

What Kant is trying to say in his Prussian Enlightenment way is that the world is as it appears...... — Gregory

We can only know the world as it appears to us, yes. That doesn’t mean the world is as it appears, but only that we have no other way to judge how it is, other than as it appears to us.

Kant didn’t mind Aristotle’s forms; he just didn’t like where they were located: Aristotle::world; Kant::mind.