Construe' is the same root as 'construct' but pertains to language and meaning, in particular. — Wayfarer

Agreed, in principle. But the originating assertion is operating under the auspices of transcendental idealism, as stipulated by its author herein. As such, to construe carries the implication of understanding, as you say, but understanding presupposes that which is to be understood, which is an antecedent construction, in the Kantian sense, called synthesis, and that is the purview of the faculty of imagination alone, having nothing whatsoever to do with perception in and of itself.

Hopefully we agree that perception does not construct anything at all. Or, if it does, that I may be shown how such should be the case.

Excellent bad things do happen, — Pfhorrest

Ya know......when we were growing up, one of the constant admonitions of our teachers was, “CHECK YOUR SPELLING!!”. Nowadays, given all these aids that effectively dumb us down, we would be well-advised to check our spellchecker. Which just goes to show....the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The contention is “constructs” not “construes”.

Agreed on understanding/judgement, but perception is the source of that which is empirically knowable, but it is not the source of empirical knowledge. It is possible to perceive a thing and not know what it is.

“...Our knowledge springs from two main sources in the mind, first of which is the faculty or power of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions); the second is the power of cognizing by means of these representations (spontaneity in the production of conceptions)....”
(CPR A50/B74)

This grants the strict passivity of human perception. We are affected by objects, which is called sensation, is supplied by specific physical apparatus, but at that point, no cognitive faculties are employed in the pursuit of knowledge. Nowadays, of course, that theory is......diminished.

Never mind. Sorry I asked. First, even.

Sometimes see three or four of ‘em, all lined up one after the other, same things being said by the same people, as if repetition makes the case.

Maybe some of them are right....dunno.

Sorry, but the burden isn’t on me. The assertion is yours, and I’m interested in how you arrived at it.

Ok. Just wondering from whom this philosophy originated, for it certainly isn’t Kantian, in which perception does not construct anything at all. And you mentioned the CPR, so.....just connecting possible dots here.

To perceive is not a passive process, but constructive one. — Constance

What does perception construct?

Ehhhhh.....I don’t do advice. But I can tell you, without experience, you’re usually gonna lose.

Books. And more books. Always books.

Free will is not a thing, hence cannot meet the criteria regarding knowledge of its reality. Best I can say is, there is free will if one needs there to be. It may be nothing more than an explanatory conception, the reality of it being irrelevant.

Errrrr....no it isn’t. It does not follow from the fact that not everything is known, that everything is possible. I mean....it’s not possible to know everything, so knowing everything is possible, is itself impossible.

People can choose who they want to be all day long. Choosing and attaining are two completely different things, though, right?

Can I choose to want to be a physicist? Sure, I can. Will I ever be one? Not impossible, from a practical point of view. But I can also choose to want to be an inhabitant of Mars, which is impossible for me practically, even if not impossible logically.

If this is what you meant by identity being limited by understanding, than I will agree, but only with respect to limitation in choice to a particular type of human I might choose to be, predicated on the means for attainment of that identity. However, as for the identity of being human in general, I don’t agree.

And not letting beliefs restrain you falls into the realm of practical possibility, rather than human identity predicated on a limiting understanding alone.

Nahhh. Using a chainsaw is a skill. If a human is a member of a certain class of carbon-based intelligence, then the being of human, is a condition of that class. Skills are learned, conditions are given, in this case, given naturally.

In matters of skill, I agree. But you asked about knowledge of being human, which is more than a skill.

Why isn’t it the case that I must be human in order to even ask what a human is?

Not asking. Listening.

Your initial statement, your follow-up exposition.

Interesting. Care to say more?

I hold no reverence for the human race in general, even if I’ve been acquainted with some fine individual members of it.

I’m going with predication solely on my own continuance, I must say.

Are we not committed to affirming the transcendental ego? — Constance

There is not a transcendental ego, per se. If it is affirmed that there is a conception under which all my representations are united, and it is called “ego”, the representation of which is “I”, then the deduction of its possibility, is transcendental.

Parsimony and speculative consistency suggests, then, that the question become, are we committed to affirming the ego transcendentally, to which the proper response would be.....yes, but iff one wishes to affirm the conception of ego at all.

But still....this is metaphysics, so if one doesn’t satisfy, pick another.

it only proved what Kant had already implicitly claimed: the synthetic and axiomatically independent character of the first principles of geometry.

What do you suppose the character is independent of? What does axiomatically independent really say?

Just agreeing with you. However we each come to our conclusions doesn't matter all that much.

If you could fate the human race to its cessation, in instantaneity, would you? — Aryamoy Mitra

Smacks of suicide, and I ain’t done yet, so......no.

Kant's antinomy still holds, "That the universe has a beginning in time is impossible; that it has no beginning in time is also impossible." — Joe0082

That’s exactly the opposite of what the first antinomy says.

FIRST CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
THESIS. The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited in regard to space.
ANTITHESIS. The world has no beginning, and no limits in space, but is, in relation both to, time and space, infinite.

The conflict proves the universe has a beginning, and it proves it does not. That’s what makes the conflict an antinomy of reason in the first place. Possibility, and its negation, is not a consideration, under the conditions stipulated in the text.

For accuracy, not antagonism, doncha know.

The truth of that will be overshadowed by the effort required to direct anybody to it.

I’m good. You stipulated material universe, so.....hard to miss.

So how do things which are clearly and obviously not possible, given a material universe, happen anyway? — Joe0082

Either it is possible, or, it didn’t happen. There are mysteries of which physicists are aware, but that ain’t one of ‘em.

I am obligated only not to be the cause of suffering. It is not my duty to reduce suffering, although I may or may not be inclined towards it.

I live in the West, and I maintain that I am as free in the pursuit of my inclinations as my conditions permit, so.....yes.

So what....I played fast and loose with “same principle”. I still see no evidence that you grasped the intention of the paragraph, but rather, misdirected it where it was never meant to go.

Anyway....old news. Once missed, twice gone.

sensation of the representation.....is backwards.
— Mww

Backwards? How so? — Isaac

Sensation of the representation implies representation comes before the sensation, which is backwards.

Sensation is a physical event; representation of it is a subconscious event which necessarily follows from the physical event, and is called phenomenon. From your point of view, perhaps, that which happens along nerves between the incident and registration in the brain. Subconscious physical information transfer for you, metaphysical subconscious ground of empirical knowledge for me.

With the more general functions you list, it's much more difficult, but it can be done to a degree. — Isaac

To a degree, yes, limited by technology and natural law. Metaphysics is limited only by logic, so as long as the logic holds, what metaphysics does, can be complete. On the other hand, Whatever degree science attains necessarily conforms to states-of affairs, while metaphysics can only conform to possible states of affairs. Six of one, half dozen of the other.
—————

One does not think the pain he is in, one does not report anything whatsoever to himself
— Mww

Exactly. There is no 'your pain' for me to know in that sense - unless we use the term technically (which I reserve the necessary right to do). — Isaac

Cool. You use the term technically, I’ll use it conceptually. We’ll end up in the same place.
————-

Everydayman will the more readily accept that he thinks by means and ends of reason, than he will accept mathematical algorithms and natural law as necessary for how he thinks.
— Mww

So I'm finding... — Isaac

But not admitting to being included? What are you when you close your reference manuals and take off your lab coat? I admit that sometimes I flash on which network path might be energized for whatever I’m doing at the time, but when it comes down to reading the expiration date on that primo, over-priced Italian mozzarella......Campania, not Florence, I’ll have you know......nary a single neurotransmitter nor any differential equation, enters my attention.
—————

I think there is a language game in which pain is a thing, it's a technical game between doctors, or research scientists where pain is necessarily treated as the sum of certain activity in a particular region of the central nervous system. One might, in this game, say "I have a pain in my body" and mean exactly the same thing as "I have an iPhone in my hand". — Isaac

This implies doctors or research scientists play the technical language game in treating pain as a thing. No proper metaphysician, while agreeing with the antecedent (the sum of certain activity), would make the mistake implied by the consequent (the one means the same as the other).

The problem we find here is that some want to take that technical definition to show that 'pain' is inherently private (happens inside a closed physiological system), — Isaac

If doctors treat pain as a thing, in that it is the sum of certain activity in (...) the central nervous system, and the central nervous system is a closed physiological system, and a closed physiological systems implies containment in a single environment......then how is it a problem that some (presumably not doctors), want to call pain inherently private, while rejecting the notion that pain is a thing?

I’m not sure you’re actually claiming doctors treat pain as a thing. I rather think doctors want me to treat pain as a thing, when one asks me to grade it on a scale of one-to-ten. I reallyreallyreally detest such language games as these, and by association, the attempted philosophy that is manufactured in conjunction with them.

Just between you and me, I would never trust a doctor that asks me to scale my pain from 1-10, over a doctor that asks me to describe what my pain feels like and where it feels like it is located.

Moon-object-public; sensation of -representation-not public. — Mww
Fixed it.
— Isaac
I'm going to have to declare victory here. :party: — frank

Victory....over what?

Moon-object-public; sensation of the moon-representation-not public.
— Mww

Fixed it. — Isaac

Neither sensation of the-representation-not public, nor, sensation of the representation-not public, is a fix.

Sensation of the....is empty; sensation of the representation.....is backwards.

Ah, so is it a deed or title that establishes ownership of your sensations? — Banno

Wow. None but the most daring intellectual acuity could excavate that from what I wrote.

YOu seem to be thinking of privacy in terms of ownership — Banno

Yep. Ownership of the car, possession of the sensation. Same principle.

You continue in the belief that there is a meaning for each word, to be found in one's private subconscious. — Banno

Not believe. Logically speculate.
Not in subconscious. In understanding.
Not meaning of each word. Meaning of each representation, expressible by a word.

My objection is not that each person does not have a sensation of the moon; it is that this sensation is private. — Banno

Each person. Ownership/possession. ‘Nuff said.

In so far as it is of the moon, it is public. — Banno

Moon-object-public; sensation of the moon-representation-not public.

In so far as it is private, it is not a sensation of anything. — Banno

It is a sensation of a yet undetermined something.

The Kantian analysis is outdated. — Banno

Yet the paradigm shift in human thought that it was, has not itself been shifted.

but the judge wasn't going to look at the pictures. — Banno

Little bit of that kinda judge in all of us, ne c’est pas?

Sensation itself does not prompt reaction. Reason itself does not prompt conclusions. We infer and react. — simeonz

“....For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience?...”
(CPR, B1)

We can say sensation does in fact prompt reaction, and reason does in fact prompt conclusions. At least, theoretically. And, of a sort.
————

But sensibility and reason are a variety of persuasion. Are you not persuaded to trust them? — simeonz

Such queries suggest a metaphysical reductionism gone too far. We exist in a epistemological contingency, and rationalize under the auspices of the principle of complementarity, in that every thought has its negation, but despite all that, there is no profit in pretending we have no certainties. So, no, I’m not so much persuaded to trust as I am convinced I have no choice but to trust, and make the best of the circumstances.

I think that it would be mistake to assume that people should treat all of their persuasions the same. — simeonz

I disagree, in principle, in that because they are all persuasions they should be treated as such. It is thus still allowed to attribute different values to each persuasion. It is that one of which we are persuaded, that is not necessarily treated the same as another.

We trust our senses, we trust our reason, and we trust even our instinct in general. We don't use our senses, reason, and general instinct in the same way. We relate them to each other, and they complement each other. The end product, however, is still a persuasion. — simeonz

In the strictest sense, this is true enough. In keeping with what I said above, this is still a reduction too far. It is anathema to pure reason to maintain that mathematical or logical laws are persuasions, at the expensive of knowledge, even while recognizing the tentative nature of it. In conjunction with a specific definition of persuasion, such that varieties in subjective conditions are distinguishable, to limit reason to persuasion is to limit humans to lower-classed intelligences. A rat runs from snakes from instinct alone, but cannot ever reason to the conviction of possible destruction if he doesn’t. We have to account for, not only why we humans can, but also why we do.
———-

an opinion is never merely held. It is held by someone having personal investment in it. Reason is a personal investment. Sensory experience is a personal investment. — simeonz

OK, so all that means is that there are different kinds or qualities attributable to personal investment. This is mere aesthetics, included necessarily in the human condition. We still need to relate the activity of personal investment to the plethora of states of affairs. Just as in any investment, it needs be determined how to arrive at it and thereby quantify its value, which is not itself mere aesthetics, but.....technically speaking....purposivity. Goal-orientation. And the ultimate goal for humans, is truth.

I appreciate your arguments. They’re well-formed and interesting. Don’t take anything I say as some serious effort to refute them, which really can’t be done anyway, just.....point/counterpoint, nothing more.

And the upshot of that is that it is improper to talk of representing our own pains and pleasures. "I have a pain in my hand" is not like "I have an iPhone in my hand"; it is more like "Ouch!" — Banno

Language games? A phone cannot be in your hand, it can only be held by your hand. The cause of pain can be in your hand (arthritis) but can also be held by your hand. Whether contained in or held by, these are both sensations, hence necessarily will be representations to downstream cognitive faculties, because they arise from physical conditions. As sensations, either can illicit a feeling of pain or pleasure, but do not represent pain or pleasure.

Then he asks of our use of "the language which describes my inner experience" (§256), — Banno

#256 begins with.....
“.....Now, what about the language which describes my inner experiences and which only I myself can understand? How do I use words to stand for my sensations?—As we ordinarily do? Then are my words for sensations tied up with my natural expressions of sensation?.....

First, notice Witt goes from experience to sensation. One should be aware of this time-specific differential; a whole bunch of stuff is happening internally between sensation and experience.
Second, I use words to stand for my sensations just like I always do, And words are always tied up with my natural expression......otherwise they wouldn’t be words......but that does not imply the necessity for expression itself.

I can manufacture a word for the expression of a sensation, then never express it. “Ouch”, of course, is a both a word and a general expression of a kind of sensation, but empty of determinable information by a listener. Time becomes important here, for, in the strictest sense, sensations are not named. They are, technically mere phenomena, until understanding thinks a conception belonging to it. That tickle between your shoulder blades....is it a bug or a hair? If a bug...mosquito or ant? That blind taste test....is it Coke or Pepsi?

Continuiing with #256:

“.....In that case my language is not a 'private' one. Someone else might understand it as well as I...”

My car is privately owned. If I give you a ride in it, is it any less privately owned? Accordingly, if I speak to you in a private language, the fact of your hearing does not affect its privacy. Plus, Witt has already stipulated a language “...only I can understand...”, so it is given that there is not someone else that might understand. Hence, even expressed, my language remains a private language. Useless for being understood, highly likely, but still private.

Witt is guilty of a categorical error, insofar as the “private” implication for the internal construction of the language by one subject, is very far from the “not-private” receptivity of the expression of it by another subject.
————-

If one were to treat of a private, subjective world, it seems one may not be able to name items therein. — Banno

Usually, yes, words are perceptions, but that does not account for the fact that every single word ever, is itself a private word at the time of its inception, hence not a perception in itself at all, and only henceforth understood by like-minded beings for what it was originally meant to represent, which is exactly the terminus of what Hume meant by “constant conjunction”. You say a word to me and what it means, and if I never heard that word before, I immediately grant whatever you’ve told me. I don’t bother asking you where you got that word from. From now on, I’ll use that word, under the same conditions, out of mere habit.

The items of a subjective world are representations alone, of which words are a species. There are no words in Nature; they are each and every one a construction of a rational being capable of relating a conception to a expression for it. The objects named by words are not private to a subjective world, but that by which each individual human knows them, most certainly is. And language is nothing but an intelligible assemblage of words, so.....there ya go.

But I will continue to reject any primacy that might be given to supposedly private sensations, such that they form the basis for inter-subjectivity. Such an account is arse-about; we start with what is public, not with what might be private. — Banno

Sensation is defined as an affect on sensibility; sensibility is defined as the capacity for receptivity of impressions. Sensation then reduces to the affect of impressions. Even if all humans are capable of receptivity of impressions, it is not given from that, that the affect is perfectly matched to the impression. To whit: even if it is the case that a multiplicity of humans perceive the moon, it is not given that the moon makes the same impression on each human that perceives it. To claim such a thing as a non-private sensation, is a categorical error, from which follows the reconciliation of the error necessitates that all sensations, as such, are private affectations of general impressions. Therefore, rejection of the primacy of private sensations, is unreasonable, and the ground of inter-subjectivity, is mediately given. (Not a typo, not immediately given. If you’re still with me, that is)
————

Such an account is arse-about; we start with what is public, not with what might be private. — Banno

Trust me....I dig where you’re coming from. These days, in this small world, there are very few new experiences, hardly anything not common to just about everybody else. It is easy to say we start with what is public because it sure seems that way. And nine times out of ten, it is that way. But not always, which makes explicit it is possible to start with what is not public, and account for that must be made. That accountability results in the conclusion that no matter what is started with, the private part has all the power. The public part just is, the private part says what it is.

quod erat demonstrandum

Or, in Grey-Haired Ponytail parlance..... the story (in) twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is.....

Here is where Witt’s #246 plays (......)
— Mww

That is true, when you think about it. But is that how you feel about it? — simeonz

Simply put....there are no feelings intrinsic to a purely empirical statement, in the same way I do not have a feeling about the water I may or may not put to some use. #246 is an empirical statement, for, on the one hand it has to do with the perceptions of someone else and the knowledge possible from them, and on the other, it has to do with the sensations that belong to me alone, from which follows the possibility of my own knowledge. In such case, I don’t feel the former is impossible and the latter nonsense, but rather, I can only justify the truth of it to myself. In language, this manifests as me merely saying I agree with the statement. You hinted at it yourself: truth is in what you think, then to ask of a feeling about the same thing, implies the truth is not in that.

Isn't knowledge ultimately a feeling of conviction that you don't need to fight, but to refine, until it becomes as good as possible under preconceived criteria, a set of virtues conveyed without need for justification. — simeonz

Post-modern convention says that may be the case. I agree, speaking from my well-worn armchair, that knowledge, and here we’re talking empirical knowledge, the kind with which #246 concerns itself, is a relative conviction, but not a feeling of being convinced. That condition reduces to mere persuasion, and we not persuaded to knowledge, but convinced upon arriving at it. But with respect to what you’re asking here, I would deny that empirical knowledge follows from virtue, which makes conveyance sans justification moot. A set of virtues conveyed without need of justification, is called interest. At the same time, I would affirm that knowledge is by definition already as good as possible iff knowledge is taken to mean certainty under the preconceived criteria from which it arises. But not necessarily so, insofar as there may be no preconceived criteria, re: experience, in the event of new knowledge.
————-

I should irrationally believe my convictions until a stronger, more convincing instinct makes itself available from experience. — simeonz

Your comment is commendable, anthropology aside that is, but epistemically I’d take issue with....

.....one doesn’t irrationally believe a conviction, but rather, a persuasion, which reduces to merely holding with an opinion;
.....instinct doesn’t make itself available from experience, but from lack of it, manifest in sheer accident or pure reflex, or congruent circumstances wherein reason is otherwise supervened.

But again, I’m not so good with this post-modern stuff, so.......

If a model of brain function identifies a region as associated with some function, and the association is suitably strong in all cases thus far, then when we look at that component in our alternative model running 'in conjunction with it' we should find it correlates. — Isaac

Yes, that’s standard modus operandi for theoretical science. At the same time, it is the cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy in theoretical philosophy, which you’re probably more familiar with as the “correlation does not imply causation” principle. In this case, it seems your argument is the stronger, insofar as the brain is ultimately responsible for everything human, including philosophy, from which follows as a matter of course that if a certain brain region repeatedly illuminates from a corresponding human function, the former is deemed sufficiently responsible for the latter, in a general sense.

On the other hand, there is no actual occasion to “look at that component in our alternate model”, because it isn’t there. I think you must.....err, subconsciously....realize this important fact, by switching from “function” in the one model, to “component” in the other. The old speculative model does not distinguish regions of the brain as relating to specific components of reason. Conversely, it is impossible for science to distinguish the functions of reason with respect to components of the brain. That is to say, imagination is not to be found in the region containing this component, understanding in that region, moral constitution thataway, aesthetics over yonder. Cognition....aisle three right; opinion....level ten left.

If it doesn't (correlate) then either there's something wrong with one of the models or they are no longer 'in conjunction'. — Isaac

I think we’re both of the mind that they do correlate, and that’s there nothing intrinsically wrong with either model, even if you consider mine chimerical/superficial and I consider yours useless. Dunno....can two things be correlated but incompatible? Oil and water? GR and QM?

But to be fair in acknowledging my lack of scientific exposure....does the exact same region of my brain respond to my understanding of race riots, as it does to my understanding of internal combustion engines? I would suppose not, which sustains my claim that speculative methodological theories are domain-specific, and one does not mix at all with the other.
—————

I wonder how much of Kant would be scoffed at by firefighters. — Isaac

I’m guessing most of it. He admits “....the present work is not intended for popular use...”. In one respect our models are on the same ground, insofar as they both relate to a certain human condition. Yours concerns the physical mechanics that make the condition real, mine concerns the metaphysical methods which make the condition possible. Nevertheless, Everydayman will the more readily accept that he thinks by means and ends of reason, than he will accept mathematical algorithms and natural law as necessary for how he thinks.
—————

On the one hand they're some immutable private thing embedded in your body (and so inaccessible to others), but on the other they're whatever you currently think they are, which seems easily communicated. — Isaac

The old system easily explains this apparent entrapment in a contradiction for an unwary thinker, in that feelings are not things and they are not thoughts. We don’t think pain or pleasure, we think things by which one or the other of those, and the various schemata subsumed under them, is represented. Here is where Witt’s #246 plays, insofar as it is false for you to claim knowledge of my pain, or sensations in general, and it is nonsense for me to claim knowledge of my pain or sensations in general. The former is false because all you can know is what I report to you, the latter is nonsense because sensation is not thought and thinking is the only possible means for knowledge, “....as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?)....”. One does not think the pain he is in, one does not report anything whatsoever to himself; either there is an empirical condition as sufficient causality representing the feeling of pain/pleasure, necessarily sensed and subsequently thought by one but only possibly reported as such post hoc to another....or there is not.

I understand we can do this for days on end. We don’t have to, so without something new and different to talk about.....

Guess we’ll never know. Sworn to secrecy and all.

why not just say we simply reason to the prevention of cause?
— Mww

You could, but 'reason' has typically been reserved for conscious processing, and much of the modelling that brain regions have been shown to do is subconscious. It 'acts like' reason. — Isaac

Does this not contradict itself? If reason is reserved for conscious processing, which is granted, and if much of the modeling is unconscious, how can such modeling be said to be acting like reason?

What is the special attention you give to “reason” and “acts like” meant to indicate? What would you use to substitute for those, for which no special attention is necessary?
—————-

this science is itself speculative (....), substituted an older speculative system for a newer one (...),
— Mww

Yes, indeed. A common objection it seems. I remain unconvinced by this idea that since the science is only 'modelling' models it's somehow open season and anything goes. Models can be more or less coherent with each other, more or less useful, more or less parsimonious. — Isaac

Absolutely; permitting open season and anything goes permits all sorts of irrationalities. And models can be coherent with each other, but only within their respective domains and iff the conditions for them are given from the domain in which the model resides. If may indeed be the case that brain mechanics adhere to physical law, and follow mathematical algorithms, but that modeling is utterly irrelevant to a separate system that models itself absent all those terms in its purpose, even while operating in conjunction with it.

We've replaced the older speculative system for the newer one, not on a whim, but because it works better. — Isaac

Who’s we? The teeny-tiny fraction of intellectually specialized humanity that even considers the new system a better explanatory device? So, technically, you’ve replaced nothing, but only attacked a common opponent.....ignorance.....from a different direction, and with a much smaller hence potentially less effective force, using experimental weapons.

And works better than what? Whatever system model that can’t present itself to being measured? So quality is determined by measure? I’m wondering if you see that any experiment intending to demonstrate a result via any kind of measurement, is entirely predicated on the very speculative system the new speculative system is attempting to replace.
—————-

humans can reason to prevention, then proceed to ignore it.
— Mww

I don't believe they can. — Isaac

I suspect there to be many senior firefighters, soldiers, and these days, nurses’ aides,
boldly scoffing at that. A few of ‘em.....the more senior.....rolling on the ground, even. The most insulted, the most senior, would look at you with that, “what....you wouldn’t do your damn job???” expression, and immediately proceed to ignore, if not regret, your very existence.

'Reason' is usually a post hoc construction to rationalise a decision that has been made anyway further back in the subconscious. — Isaac

That’s actually a pretty decent rendering, except the “further back in the subconscious” part, insofar as no decision of reason is ever made in the subconscious domain. Some preliminary conditions for reason are subconscious, but these are not decisions.