But there’s a serious question here: what does it mean for a philosophical point to depend on a matter of fact? One answer (...) is that you must be doing science not philosophy because philosophy is a priori. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree with the answer, with the caveat that even the a priori has no business conflicting with, or leading to conflicts with, Mother Nature Herself. It is the case that the scientific method, and most decent philosophical theories, are all grounded in observations of the world, which guides us in determining how She wishes to be known.

With respect to the question, simply put, philosophical points depend on matters of fact for their empirical proofs, but not in the least does philosophy depend on facts for its constructions. Such constructed points depend on logic grounded in rules, not facts, those coming into play in the proofs themselves, re: whether or not the constructions contradict observation.
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a priori. Some of us may not really want to say the last part out loud, but it’s there nonetheless. — Srap Tasmaner

I think it’s there, too, despite the attempts to prove there’s no such thing.

Philosophy has to begin not at the beginning but in the middle. — Srap Tasmaner

Absolutely. Philosophy seeks the unconditioned, the irreducible, the beginning, so it cannot start there.

We know that we will begin from something given to us, whatever that is — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, empirically, we are given objects in the world. Rationally, we are given the capacity to think....

Above all what’s given, as we begin doing philosophy, is that we will start somewhere and go on from there. — Srap Tasmaner

....just like that.

That’s my pitch for what I understand to be Heidegger’s pitch for phenomenological ontology. — Srap Tasmaner

Hmmm....is it correct to say, then, that Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology is a priori?

Good stuff, overall.

I also think that to think the something else is a kind of psychology misses the point entirely! — Srap Tasmaner

Philosopher: I’ll tell you how I think, do with it as you will.
Psychologist: I’ll tell you how you think, do with it as you should.

Stereotypical opinionated mischaracterization, perhaps, but exemplifies the point I think is missed.

To say that everything has being is a bit like saying everything is. OK. — Manuel

“...a miserable tautology...”; “....a lame appeal to logical argument....”; “.....recourse to pitiful sophisms....”.

Back in the day, intellectuals chastised each other for reaching too far, as exemplified by the quotes above, and the common folk didn’t even know about it. These days, scientists glorify themselves in reaching as far as they can, but this time, the common folk don’t care. Either way, it boils down to the common man, which is fitting in that there are a hellava lot more of us then them, so it just seems the greater theoretical speculations ought to center on us than anything else.

A cruel circumstance indeed, methinks, that the very thing which ought to be the center of investigation, is the very thing Nature has made virtually impossible for science to arrive at empirical proofs for them.

So we end up in a situation where science is stymied empirically, which leaves us asking stupid questions of each other, like.....is Mt. Mordor a thing that is? Does Popeye exist? Where does “red” come from? Answered by.....yep, you guessed it.....miserable tautology, lame appeals, and pitiful sophisms, aaannnnndddddd.....we’re right back where we started.

(Dismounts transcendental soapbox, exists stage right)

It still looks like Mww can grant whatever you want on the affective side, since goals and preferences get updated too, but he can also stick with the conceptual side and it alone being cognitive. — Srap Tasmaner

Bullseye!!!

Feelings about an object are possible without the affect on the senses of it; cognition of an object is possible without the affect on the senses of it. Experience of an object is possible without the affect of it on emotions, but is impossible without its affect on the senses.

Feelings and cognitions are irrefutably separable, not because of affects they have, but that upon which the affects are directed.

Every object I see either fulfills or fails to confirm my prior expectations in some measure. — Joshs

Every object I perceive, not just see. Prior expectation is a euphemism for intuition. Fulfills exceptions implies understanding, in which case intuition conforms to the object; fails to fulfill expectations implies either a misunderstanding, in which case the intuition does not conform to the object, or no understanding at all, in which case there wasn’t any intuition to which the object could conform.

This validation or invalidation is felt, and the feeling doesn’t follow the perception , it is simultaneous with it. — Joshs

This validation is understood, and it is not simultaneous. It takes time for information to get rom sensory apparatus to dedicated areas of the brain responsible or interpreting it. It seems simultaneous to the conscious system, merely because the transit time is not part of that human consciousness/cognitive system, just as neural connections are not.

Interacting with our world isnt simply a subject staring at objects. It is a constructive activity in which we anticipate forward into the world and objects reveal themselves
to us as responses to the way we reach out to them via our expectations. — Joshs

Yes, and from one perspective, bears the post-Enlightenment name, the “Copernicus Revolution”, given from an Enlightenment philosophy that never used the name. Although, not by extending our expectations, but enforcing our constructive activity as a system, onto those objects in the world we perceive empirically, or possibly perceive a priori.

This is as true of experiences of things we have never seen before as it is of familiar things. — Joshs

Absolutely. The system works the same with either the familiar for the unfamiliar.

But the affects are the mortar that builds the very things we take as affect-less. — Joshs

Agreed, but there is no irreducible reason why we should implicate emotion as that affect. If affect is the purely physical impression on physical sensory apparatus, there are no affect-less things, but there are things to which we pay little conscious attention. If the same system is in play for the familiar as the unfamiliar, wouldn’t the more pertinent question be....how is it that we are permitted to not pay attention to the familiar, then how it is that we are affected by them both? The value in that question, is that it eliminates the affect itself, because it is always given empirically (there are no affect-less things), in favor of a more descriptive theory on the method by which we pay attention.
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. Any word conveys a conceptual content, insofar as words are nothing but representations of concepts, to begin with.....
— Mww

Words don’t just represent content , they enact it. — Joshs

Ok fine. A word represents a conceptual content, and strings of words logically assembled also represents the relation of conceptual contents to each other. “Tree” is a word for a conceptual content relating to a manifold of objects of a certain kind; “A tree with broad leaves and funny lookin’ seeds” as a string of logically assembled representations, relates particular conceptions to each other in order, first, to conceive a particular object of that kind (an unfamiliar experience), or second, to judge a extant conception as non-contradictory (a familiar experience). The first manifests as, “Ahhh, so that’s an oak tree, huh?”. The second manifests as, “That tree is an oak, not an elm”.
————

We dont simply choose what we think or say. What occurs to us to say is already shaped and conditioned by the context. — Joshs

Shaped and conditioned by experience empirically, or by logic a priori.
(To-may-toe/to-mah-toe; speculative metaphysics/ordinary language)

It is ‘affected’ by the always fresh way in which it is used. — Joshs

Which presupposes there is always a fresh way to use a word. But some words, the representation of some conceptions, have a single use, re: any number, or the representation of any mathematical operator. The categories. I grant there is a shaped context for “twelve”, but I reject the premise that we don’t simply choose “twelve”, when in fact we must, “twelve” being the only conception we could choose, that doesn’t lead to contradictions for any of its contexts.

We are always slightly surprised by what we thought we had simply ‘chosen’ to say. — Joshs

Simply chosen to say. You mean, simply chosen without a reason? Dunno how we can choose anything without a reason. If we have to have a reason for choosing, we don’t simply choose. Yeah, I suppose we would be surprised to find we didn’t simply choose after all.

I don’t object to your thesis in general. It is a well-thought modernization, predicated on scientific stuff subject to empirical verification.

Thus emotions and feelings serve to constrain and focus our attention, so that we only consider from a pre-structured set of options. — Joshs

If the human cognitive system is inherently logical, then it follows that the pre-structured set of options abide by logical predicates, our attention being necessarily constrained by them. While emotions do indeed serve a purpose, it isn’t in service to our conscious attention. Emotions serve our aesthetic judgements, having to do only with the condition of the thinking subject, whether a thing feels right/wrong or feels good/bad, whether or not it is right or good or not, but not that to which the subject attends, the thing that must be either right/wrong or good/bad.

Feelings/cognitions are nothing but another inescapable duality intrinsic to the human condition. Even if humans operate under the influence of both, that is not to say they are inseparable from each other.

there are cases where emotional impairment is reliably coupled with a catastrophic failure of practical reasoning. — Joshs

No doubt. See it in the ‘papers all the time, in one form or another. At the community level, guy beats the crap out of his wife because he thought she was being a naughty girl. At the individual level, seller raises the price of something, not because its value increased, but merely because the buyer looks rich.
————

This mattering and relevance is the affective or ‘feeling’ aspect of thought. — Joshs

Yes, these have been called aesthetic judgements. But in such case, the judgement presupposes the thought, hence is not as much an aspect of it as a consequence. Otherwise, judgements with respect to conceptual relevance, are either called discursive.

Looking out the window, you see a car go by.....the car, in its passing alone, incites no emotion in you. Seen one car go by, seen ‘em all. No big deal. Only when some particular cognition about some particular car, or in some extraordinary happenstance involving that particular range of perceptions in general, does emotion arise. Can’t get all excited about a Ferrari Testorosa, without there first being one, right? Even the emotion of hoping to see one presupposes you’ve already cognized which object to hope for.

Every word you wrote above was chosen for a purpose , for its relevance in the context of the argument you are trying to advance. So each word is two things at once. It conveys a conceptual content , a ‘what’, and it conveys a relevance, a significance , the ‘how’ of the way it matters to you in the context of the larger argument. — Joshs

Two things at once, I think not. Any word conveys a conceptual content, insofar as words are nothing but representations of concepts, to begin with. It follows that my understanding of the context of the argument should determine the words I chose in response to it, such that the one maintains consistency with the other. So yes, I choose words for a purpose.....dialectical consistency given from understanding.....but the “how” of the way it matters, is already explicit in the choice. Without the consistencies, there are logical fallacies, which are exceptions to the rule and not the rule itself.

The argument herein, concerns itself with the separability of, not the integral compatibility between, feelings and thoughts.
————

I’m familiar with Damasio, but he’s not dead, so I haven’t studied him. He is certainly highly credentialed, gotta credit him for that, but he’s also a psychologist, so....take points away for that. And.......“Neural Correlates in Gratitude”? Really? When was the last time you consulted your neurons? For anything?
————-

I think any major philosophical model implies a psychology. — Joshs

Late-modern models, perhaps. Some early-modern philosophical models disregard psychology as a discipline, and deny it altogether as a science**. It’s easy to look back and say a philosopher had psychological underpinnings even if he didn’t know it. But that’s like saying Newton might have developed Special Relativity if only he had access to faster transportation than the horse.

** “....There does not then exist any rational psychology as a doctrine furnishing any addition to our knowledge of ourselves. (...) From all this it is evident that rational psychology has its origin in a mere misunderstanding....”
(CPR B421, 422)

Anyway....couple cents for the collection plate.

thinking and feelings are shown to be inseparable aspects of the same process. — Joshs

Aspects of the same process, perhaps, dunno. Depends on what the process is. I doubt the process is reason, however. But nonetheless, they are separable, insofar as one cannot cognize a feeling, and one cannot feel pain or pleasure over a mere thought. A feeling is a condition of the self, a thought is a condition of the content of the self. Feelings may or may not have objects that define the condition of the self, thinking always has objects given to it, or constructed by it, that define the content of self.

And the kicker....feelings do not permit, allow, facilitate, or make account of, knowledge. Thinking alone is responsible for all our knowledge.
————

Is it always a slightly different self that comes back to itself moment to moment? — Joshs

How does a self come back to itself? Where did it go, how did it separate, such that coming back is intelligible?

That I realize I have different content in consciousness now than before doesn’t mean I am not myself because of it. The self necessarily changes pursuant to experience, but all experiences belong to a single self. It is never a consideration which “I” thinks or feels this and which other “I” thinks or feels that. And by the same token, it is never a consideration that one “I” thinks this yet another “I” feels this.
————

“ “...affect binds us to things, making them relevant and ‘lighting up' aspects of the world.... — Joshs

What affect is implied here? I grant an affect that binds us to things, but I suspect of a different nature.

The self is not autonomous for either of them. — Joshs

No, the self is not autonomous; it being susceptible to a plethora of inclinations. Still, “an autonomous causality contained by the self” does not make the self autonomous.
—————

I cannot be ahead of myself if I and my self are identical.
— Mww

They are not identical. The self is an action, a relation , a transition. — Joshs

That is only from a second-party speculation. The first-person subject acts without thinking himself an actor, relates without being the relation. Even if qualitatively or quantitatively transitioned to a modified self over time, the self as a whole retains its own identity.
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....getting rid of the word ‘moral’ when talking about the psychological or philosophical structures of motivation, willand desire is an improvement. I agree with Nietzsche and Heidegger that it is. Why do you think it’s necessary? — Joshs

The word “moral”, or some representation synonymous with it, is necessary in order to talk about the intrinsic duality of human nature. It cannot be an improvement, to negate that which represents an absolute necessity. To do so would require logical conclusions given by a theory in which humans are not intrinsically moral agents. And if that were the case, the fact that humans both think and feel would be refuted, or, be shown to be the same thing. The former being impossible, the latter being absurd, I should say.

intentional structure of motivated attending to as a letting oneself be affected, being-ahead-of-oneself — Joshs

Yes, I get that. “Intentional structure of motivated attending to” represents “to will”; “letting oneself be affected” presupposes an autonomous causality contained in that self that wills.

The desire for this conversation..... — Joshs

Conversation? Where or what are the conversants? Is letting oneself be affected a conversation?

This is the motive, the "for the sake of which" — Joshs

Yes, it’s been called a moral constitution.

The determining factor is not an urge or a drive, driving and urging me from behind, but something standing before me, a task I am involved in, something I am charged with. — Joshs

Yes, it’s been called a moral obligation.

this relation to something I am charged with—is possible only if I am "ahead" [vorweg] of myself.” — Joshs

Ehhhh....I cannot be ahead of myself if I and my self are identical. Nevertheless, any relation to something I am charged with, some moral obligation, is possible only if I am imbued with something that is not an obligation, otherwise there isn’t a relation. It would seem the relation, having already incorporated something I am charged with, needs to incorporate that by which I am charged, “for the sake of which” the relation itself is possible.

Your guy is alright; he’s just plowing up a field that already has a good crop on it. Progress, I suppose, but not necessarily an improvement.

“If willing is to be possible ontologically.....”

So what on earth does this mean? — Joshs

Nothing, if willing isn’t possible ontologically. What does it even mean for the ontological possibility for willing anyway?

Where’s the profit in classifying that which is merely a metaphysically determinable doing, under the auspices of a discipline concerning itself with that which is a being? If it is true humans will, the necessity of its means are given immediately, the matter of it being quite irrelevant.

Or.....how to make a mess of it, by overburdening what we do, which is determinable, with that which we do it with, which isn’t.

You may understand Special Relativity correctly, but just can’t get it into English quite right.

Look for the contradiction in your comment, as it was written.

Without natural cycles, life might be somewhat more dreamlike, chaotic, and it could mean time would also be experienced quite differently. — Srap Tasmaner

I think....speculate....that without us, there are no natural cycles; there are only natural events, occasions. With us, or because of us, natural events are susceptible to being ordered according to rules, which reside a priori in such a rational agency as ours.

But then, what’s to say natural events weren’t already naturally ordered and we just perceived them as such. There are argument both ways, same as it ever was.

wont you agree, because time we can think, not around ? — Nothing

Hmmm. I’m guessing you’re asking if I agree we think about time and can’t get around it. If that’s what you’re asking, then, yes, we think about time as a conception, which is represented in us as change. I don’t agree we think time, but only the co-existent or successive relation of something to its parts.

western people think to much of a thought - it gives all luxuries we have, but how to get deeper ? — Nothing

I’m one of the western people, and I hold that we can’t get any deeper than thought.

dont think to much of yourself-i ment me also, — Nothing

Yup. But don’t think too little, either.

think one time you consider cycles and another time you say there is no cycles. — Nothing

That is only the time of my thinking. This now I think cycles, that next now I don’t. Doesn’t mean the cycles are dependent on what I think.

If it is only now, tomorow never comes, past doesnt exist — Nothing

Logically correct, insoar as when what is now tomorrow arrives, it is no longer then tomorrow, ad ininitum . Past time doesn’t exist if time itself doesn’t exist, also logically correct.

time exist because cycle exist — Nothing

Cycles merely represent determinable repetitive change. But change presupposes a necessary condition for it, and for us, as humans, that condition is time. So technically, cycles exist because of time, not the other way around.

Just to show you’re being read......

I can’t show you a time that is not right now. I can’t show you a time at all.

I can show you something that is in time now, and was in its own time before and probably will be later.

Sorry.

Ok. Thanks.

Sense impressions being given, and from them, comparatively speaking.......

So what is an example of intuition operating in this way?
— Tom Storm

The simplest sense impressions; color , sound ,touch sensation, are examples of basic intuitions for Husserl prior to their being synthetically connected into higher order objects. — Joshs

....what is it that connects?
....connected synthetically, with what?
....connected into what higher order object?
....where does the higher order object reside?
....what is the function of such object?

Quick little one-word answers, or short phrases, would be fine.

I'M not the one who believes in the unknowable, lurking beyond us, forever a mystery. — Ciceronianus

Yeah, me too. I am quite certain I cannot think the unthinkable, and the unknowable suffices as that to which there is nothing to direct my thinking, for to do so is to immediately contradict myself. To believe in the unknowable is to form at least a minor judgement with respect to it, but without any possible object to which the judgement applies. Also self-contradictory.

But back down here on Mother Earth, where regular folk most often find themselves, here’s a little mind-game for ya: I will think something....any ol’ something....represent it in myself with a single concept, then transmit that to you, which you will receive as a single word, which you will apprehend and judge in accordance with your own standing abilities. At that time, with respect to that particular occasion, would you be one who believes in the unknowable?

The point being, of course, is that to believe in the unknowable is possible iff in relation to that which is already known. In this case, I know what you do not, and never will. Having established the validity of the unknowable, even though only as a condition of things in general under certain conditions, rather than a class of all things as themselves, it remains whether the unknowable is just as reasonable under other conditions.

Cool what you did with the title.

Cool. Just making sure it is perception that establishes, not the world. The world establishing being how I read what I commented on initially.

Perhaps the most commonly referenced one ever.

But our interaction with the rest of the world establishes that our perception of it is valid enough for there to be no concern, except perhaps for those who are naive enough to think otherwise. — Ciceronianus

Would I be naive, in thinking there is no concern, at least generally speaking, because our perceptions are valid enough to establish our interactions with the rest of the world?

I didn't know of the debate...... — RussellA

It’s all the Good Professor’s fault. He took care to say exactly why and how he wanted noumena to be understood (A249/B306), in accordance with a brand new approach to metaphysics in general, then proceeded to make it seem like not that. So people fall back on, “See? Toljaso!! He said ‘the thing-in-itself (noumena)’, right there!!!” (B315).

As to the debate, the whole thing boils down to.....understanding did something, while not contradictory, yet for which it had no proper authority. The text subsequently makes clear that noumena have no legitimacy in the metaphysical nature of human cognition, the debate itself grounded in noticing the former and disregarding the latter.
————

perhaps I should have written "In Kantian philosophy, a noumenon is a thing on its own". — RussellA

According to the text, the best to be done along those lines is, noumenon is that which understanding thinks on its own.

In Kantian philosophy, a noumenon is a thing as it is in itself..... — RussellA

There are nineteen uses of the concept “noumenon” or its derivatives in CPR. None of them equate noumena with the ding an sich.

I have no argument for how you personally wish to think of noumena; the idea has been tossed helter-shelter for centuries. I’m merely calling attention....rhetorically at that.....to a conflict with the stated reference.

What Kant fails to do is to take away his notion of space
as and idealized abstract geometry in order to reveal how it is produced by primordial acts of synthesis. — Joshs

Yeah, the common counterargument. Acts of synthesis are phenomena given by imagination, as far as the notion of space is concerned. Failing to show how space is produced by imagination prevents it from having to be phenomena, hence alleviates the possibility of space being represented in us as an object of perception, and from that, experience. Pretty hard to justify space as an phenomenal experience, methinks.

Besides, to say “primordial” acts of synthesis requires faculties correspondingly primordial, more so than those to which such acts are already accountable. That, or, the present faculties would be required to accomplish acts of synthesis, the primodality of which is beyond their respective capacity. Can’t synthesis something not given, or something not within the capacity of that to which it is given. Both of which may be speculated, but iff authorized by a theory with sufficiently different initial conditions.

Idealized abstract geometry is the science of quantifiable spaces on a priori grounds, which allows there to be a notion of space in general, as idealized intuition, that isn’t itself a science.

I was just showing one analogy pre-dated by one just like it, that’s all.

When we strip off as layers of convention all differences among ways of describing it, what is left? The onion is peeled down to its empty core.”(Nelson Goodman) — Joshs

“...Not only in judgements, however, but even in conceptions, is an a priori origin manifest. For example, if we take away by degrees from our conceptions of a body all that can be referred to mere sensuous experience—colour, hardness or softness, weight, even impenetrability—the body will then vanish; but the space which it occupied still remains, and this it is utterly impossible to annihilate in thought. Again, if we take away, in like manner, from our empirical conception of any object, corporeal or incorporeal, all properties which mere experience has taught us to connect with it, still we cannot think away those through which we cogitate it as substance, or adhering to substance, although our conception of substance is more determined than that of an object. Compelled, therefore, by that necessity with which the conception of substance forces itself upon us, we must confess that it has its seat in our faculty of cognition a priori....”
(CPR B6)

Maybe interesting......Goodman makes this analogy on pg 118 of his 1978 text, to which it may be considered as conclusion, whereas Kant states the similar analogy as a 1787 introductory major premise upon which an entire thesis is built.

.....maybe not.
—————-

'First there is a field....... — Wayfarer

Keyword: first. The subtlety being ghostly or explosive.

Oh oh. Now you went and done it. You hinted he may have made a mistake. To which, of course, invites the response that you, rather, may have not understood.

I just don’t get how a thesis of a lousy couple hundred words, that’s been around in its various iterations for millennia, and argued to death, can be misunderstood, but apparently half of us, have.

Guess we weren’t as smart as we thought we were.

The principles themselves don’t really exist either.
— Mww

Of course they exist. We're talking about them right now. — Philosophim

Whatever we can talk about, exists? Something like this, you mean:

If I can logically conclude that it must exist, then it must. — Philosophim

Yikes.

That an old system such as Kant’s has never been proven wrong doesn’t make it correct, just continuously useful, if only against which new systems are judged.
— Mww
It doesn't seem right to use Kant's system as standard to judge other systems merely on the bases that Kant's system hasn't been disproved. — Wheatley

Not a standard in juxtaposition to its falsification, but to its explanatory novelty.

: That science makes breakthrough challenging extant intuitions, is sufficient presupposition for them,
— Mww
How so? — Wheatley

Can’t challenge something that comes after the challenge, right? Seems like any challenge of anything implies a necessary temporal order.

The fact that Kant has never been refuted is just a testament to how hard it is to refute a philosophical position. — Wheatley

Generally speaking, yes. On the other hand, it could be a testament to how hard it is to refute a logical proof that grounds a philosophical position.

There are other senses of intuition than Kant’s. All I’m saying is that the link can be interpreted as conflicting with one of its referents.

If you're trying to say causality doesn't really exist..... — Philosophim

I considered this on pg 4. Really exist? Not like billiard balls and acorns, no, the concept abstracted from principles does not really exist. The principles themselves don’t really exist either. But post-post moderns these days like to recklessly pretend the term stands for a real thing, so.....ehhhh, I understand what they mean by it even while it grates on my supersensitive metaphysical nerves.

With respect to this dialectic, no, I’m not trying to say causality doesn’t exist.
————-

I don’t care about one X.
— Mww

Well, the argument does. — Philosophim

As a premise or condition, sure. The argument cares more about its conclusion, “that a causal chain will always lead to an Alpha, or first cause”, which presupposes all the X’s. They are necessarily given as links in a causal chain, so not much reason to care about one of them.
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The proof is in the fact that those words would not have appeared on the screen without some cause. Isn't that a perfectly reasonable thing to logically grant? — Philosophim

I considered this on pg 8. It is reasonable to logically grant, but it is an empty proof, in that the proof of empirical conditions is not served by merely logical conclusions. Such proofs begin with them, not end. Of course there’s some cause. Big deal. What is it?
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How many clues do you need, to see where this inevitably leads?
— Mww

I don't see where this inevitably leads at all....... — Philosophim

You wouldn’t. Your inferences are inductive, starting at the bottom with an effect (a word on a screen) and ending at the top with the 3c plausible: some alpha such that there is a time when there is nothing prior to the cause of the word. Somewhere in that chain the empirical mechanisms....physical causality.... necessarily become exhausted. THAT’S what you haven’t yet seen, apparently.

.......Please point out where this leads to, and also point out why this counters the OP. — Philosophim

Not counter. Satisfy. By finite regressive causality. Like I said. You claim a time and place for an alpha but not the when or the what; I can show an alpha plus the when and the what. But we both know you’re bound to reject my argumentum ad verecundiam, hence the aforementioned dead horse.

Demonstrate to me that your fingers were not one X in the chain that caused those words to appear on the screen, and then you'll have something to stand on. — Philosophim

I already have something to stand on, and I don’t care about one X. I want to determine a possible alpha. That said, fingers cause the keys to be struck, but do not on that account alone, cause the words. A damn axe can strike keys, as can a feather.

How many clues do you need, to see where this inevitably leads?

What caused the words — Philosophim

Yeah....about that. What caused the words? And PLLL—EEEEEZZZEEE...don’t say my fingers caused the words. Finite causal regression writ large.

And a logical iteration for your sacred alpha.

Thank me later.

I do not agree that you can know about cause and effect apart from experience. The idea boils down to whether there is a state prior to another that caused that secondary state to be. — Philosophim

It is true the cause of an effect cannot be known absent experience. Still, it remains that no singular object of perception, in and of itself, can inform as to its cause, nor that it even had one. That relation is what we think as appended to objects, which makes explicit the relation itself resides in reason, not in experience.

Our language that we use to describe cause and effect can only exist because the world exists with cause and effect independent of our realization of it. — Philosophim

If that is the case, you’ve created a false dichotomy. In its fullest extent, if independent of our realization, we wouldn’t have the language at all, and, in its simplest extent, if we merely realize it, whether it exists in the world becomes irrelevant.

Food for thought.....all respectful and friendly like.....of suspicious standing is he who brings billiard balls and acorns to a metaphysics arena.

Immediate edit:

HA!!! We both used false dichotomy almost at the same time. Scary!!!

A Y is merely a state that has the question of whether there is an X or not. — Philosophim

Not what you said. Y has a cause, even if the cause is unknown.

That which has an unknown cause is a Y. That which has no prior cause, is an alpha. — Philosophim

Therefore no alpha can be a Y, but you also said an alpha is a Y but a Y with no cause. But a Y has an cause. You’re making a valiant effort in having your cake and eat it too, and THAT’S what I ain’t buyin’.
—————

you haven't accurately ascribed what a priori knowledge is. — Philosophim

It is true left out the pure/impure subdivisions, but I didn’t need such accuracy to know what he meant, because the topic ultimately reduces to the principle of cause and effect, which in and of itself, because it is a only a mode of human cognition, has nothing to do with experience. Experience is certainly required for its objective validity, but not for its constructions a priori, re: Hume’s mistake.

Anyway....in passing.

Y: represents an existence that has an unknown prior causality.
X: represents an existent prior causality to Y.
Alpha: A Y existence that is identified as having no prior causality.

The only hard rule for an alpha, is that its initial existence for being has no X. — Philosophim

Something with unknown prior causality is that which has no existent prior causality, and for any causal chain, there is at least one of those things identified as such.

Nahhhh.......you couldn’t pay me enough to agree with that, if I’m being honest. The same thing cannot both have an unknown cause and no cause at all.
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I agree that the changes you observe all have causes, I just think that's apriori knowledge.
— frank

No, this is not knowledge at all. That is belief. — Philosophim

And with that little tidbit of philosophical wonderment.....I’m out. I recognize a dead horse when I see one. Sorry.

I agree that the changes you observe all have causes, I just think that's apriori knowledge. — frank

Oh absolutely. Good point. What the changes are, how they manifest, is knowledge a posteriori.

Plato Enlightened.

I don't think we learn through observation that every change has a cause. — frank

True enough, but not quite what I said. We don’t observe every change, but the changes we observe all have causes.

What I did was take cause up to its logical conclusion. — Philosophim

Yes, you did. That conclusion being there is a necessary first cause. Which is the same as, if a first cause is necessary, there absolutely must be one.

There are only two alternatives. If one is logically eliminated from actually being possible, only the other remains. — Philosophim

The two alternatives here being necessity and possibility? The logical necessity for a first cause automatically and immediately eliminates its possibility. Problem is, necessity and possibility are not proper complements, they are properly speaking, different and separate modalities. Necessity and contingency, on the other hand, are directly complementary. That which is necessary cannot be merely possible, but that which is possible is not therefore necessary. That which is necessary, on the other hand, can never be contingent, and that which is contingent can never be necessary.

This makes a difference because to say a thing is necessary automatically eliminates its possibility, but it is not equally true to say that which is necessary automatically eliminates its being contingent. To be a first cause presupposes it is not itself an effect, but presupposition doesn’t serve to eliminate it from being one. Experience validates that for ever effect a cause is necessary, and that cause itself always contingent on it being itself an effect of something antecedent to it. It follows that if the validation given by experience is continued in kind into the infinite range of effects contingent on causes, it is logically impossible for there to be a cause that is not itself an effect.

Your argument for first causes is negated, and your philosophy fails, insofar as one logical determination is offset by another with equal justice.

TA-DAAAAA!!!

Or not. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

But we can only conclude logic with what we know today correct? — Philosophim

We don’t know there is a first cause, yet we conclude logically there must be one. What we know today is that, in our experience, every change has a cause. So it is the case that what we know from limited experience contradicts what we logically conclude regardless of experience.

do I fail at philosophy here? — Philosophim

Define “fail”. There’s nothing patently new, no paradigm shift; there’s nothing supported by experience; there’s nothing to which a complementary negation doesn’t equally fit, so while there may be no logical failure, per se, there is just as little evidentiary success. If the only condition humans seek more than happiness is knowledge, and this purely logical exercise grants none, then yes, it fails.

Fortunate for us, methinks, that human reason by its own nature wanders hither and yon in epistemic wastelands, and at the same time by its own nature, curtails itself from becoming lost in them. It remains only a wish such rational camaraderie obtains in the same subject.

There are certain theories (...) showing certain things are impossible....
— Philosophim

If the bridge is washed out, my path across it is impossible — Mww

Yeah, well, you know. I want to know stuff. That first causes are logically necessary tells me not a damn thing about stuff. I’m aware of some theories that prove impossibilities, but whatever isn’t, doesn’t tell me what is. The bridge...an empirical circumstance the complete knowledge of which is immediately available to me....attempts to falsify your claim that demonstrations of impossibilities necessarily gives alternative knowledge, which the bridge-path impossibility apparently does not provide.

If the bridge is washed out, my path across it is impossible.
— Mww

That's not really the same thing as the OP's points. — Philosophim

No, it isn’t, you’re correct. The OP uses universals, re: X,Y,Z, Alpha....forms of things. Could be any damn thing. And if any thing, then all things. If there is one exception to the rule conditioned by universals, that rule fails. It follows that if there is no alternative knowledge given from a particular bridge wash-out, the demonstration of alternative knowledge from impossibilities in general, fails.

Thing is....there’s no possibility of demonstrating a failure in pure logic predicated on universals alone, all particulars in succession must be substituted to falsify the proposition/theory, which effectively reduces the logical necessity for first causes to a worthless tautology.

I think pointing out that there must be something in our universe that does not have a prior explanation for its existence is a pretty big thing to say. — Philosophim

And I say it isn’t. Well...ok, it is a pretty big thing to say, but it is just as empty as it is big. Be nice to prove the assertion, with the same justice as the bridge disproves alternative knowledge given from impossibilities.

“...Because, however, the mere form of a cognition, accurately as it may accord with logical laws, is insufficient to supply us with material (objective) truth, no one, by means of logic alone, can venture to predicate anything of or decide concerning objects, unless he has obtained, independently of logic, well-grounded information about them, in order afterwards to examine, according to logical laws, into the use and connection, in a cohering whole, of that information, or, what is still better, merely to test it by them. Notwithstanding, there lies so seductive a charm in the possession of a specious art like this (...) that general logic, which is merely a canon of judgement, has been employed as an organon for the actual production, or rather for the semblance of production, of objective assertions, and has thus been grossly misapplied....”

Hence, the bridge. Well-grounded information obtained independent of logic.
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If it turns out that all of causality is infinitely regressive, what caused it to be that way? — Philosophim

We do, of course. Turns out, we as the cause of this, is as big a thing to point out, as pointing out that our universe must have something that does not have a prior explanation. And just as empty.

“...Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, must always be a logic of illusion, that is, be dialectical, for, as it teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, which do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects, any attempt to employ it as an instrument in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever....”

With respect to this topic, formal conditions of the understanding means only that for any thing in existence, a cause of it is logically necessary, and in the continuation of that, we understand the logic of a first cause of that thing, and by association, all things.

With respect to logic itself, its illusion means only that whatever truth is taken from logic alone cannot be taken as proofs in the world of things.

But never fear: I am “prating” as much as the next guy, insofar as attempts at refutation of a claim is just as much an attempt to extend the range of knowledge, as the affirmation of it.
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If you introduce an X, or a prior explanation, then its not really infinitely regressive right? If we continue for an infinity of infinities, we still can only come to the conclusion, "it simply is, because that is how reality exists". — Philosophim

Right.

The nonsense of “an infinity of infinities” aside, if we continue the series of causes without concluding to a first cause, whether infinitely or merely indefinitely, all we’ve done is determined a series of causes. We are not justified in saying “that is just how reality is” because there may very well be exceptions to the rule we have not reached, in which case, we really didn’t know just how reality is at all. Remember the logic of illusion? There it is, right there. Eliminate the illusion by saying that is how we are, rather than that is how reality is.

Actually, parsimony suggests, and experience makes explicit, the indefinite extension of causes a posteriori is highly unlikely, and the infinite extension of causes a posteriori is impossible, which makes affirmative empirical judgements with respect to things contained by such causal extensions, categorically false.
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I'm just trying to steer it back tot he original point. — Philosophim

I never wandered from it. I support the logical necessity of first causes; followed by a great big fat gigantic....so what? Even if true, we can do nothing with it, it makes no difference in The Grand Scheme of Things, and as an intellectual exercise, ended as soon as it began. Anyone with a modicum of metaphysical prowess already knew all about it, and no one else cares.

Still fun to play with, though, so...thanks for that.