I don't see how a rule is an identity. It might be a principle that a person would use in an effort to identify something, but that does not make the rule itself an identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Point. Worded backwards: identity is the rule, or, as you say, a standing principle by which the determination of the correspondence of properties to an object, or the correspondence of objects to each other, is possible.
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Do you really believe that when a child is learning to call a dog a dog, it goes through a synthesis/reduction process of possible properties — Metaphysician Undercover

I don’t care. From a metaphysical point of view, that is, as opposed to mere anthropology or rational psychology, reason is presupposed as developed sufficiently to be the ground of learning, which has more to do with some arbitrarily sufficient measure of extant experience. In other words, in the philosophical examination of how knowledge is acquired, something must already known.

Besides, given that a young dog is the same kind of thing as an old dog, it is logically consistent that a young brain is the same kind of thing as an old brain. No matter how an old brain learns or knows things, it must be the case the young brain learns or knows things in the same way, or, at least can learn or know. Otherwise, it becomes possible, e.g., that a child is taught of a thing, yet learns of some other thing, which can never explain how that other thing came to be. Rather, it is always the case that a child simply does or does not learn the one thing, rather than learns some other thing instead, and it is here that, by whatever means any human learns anything, the explanation is given, because the knowledge system is common to all humans.

And the quantity of brain, said to condition the quality of it......the bigger the brain is the finer the knowable is....is irrelevant, insofar as the question concerns the how of its operation, and not the extent of its content.

So....do I think? If the child is thinking on his own accord, yes. If he is being instructed, no. Remember learning your letters? Tracing the little dotted resemblances of the shape representing them? Tell me you were mentally actively thinking....cognizing by means of concepts..... and not merely motivating your hand to follow the dots. And afterwards, henceforth forever, was it the hand motion you remember for the letter you want to write, or the rule that the shape identifies the name of the letter you want to write?
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You neglected the influence of social relevance. — Metaphysician Undercover

HA!!!! I offer Col. Jessup: “YOU DAMN RIGHT I DID!!!!”

‘Nuff said.
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One cannot make a valid deductive argument which relies on premises which are not stated, or "behind the scenes". — Metaphysician Undercover

(Sigh) Illustrative purposes. The path is enough, but you still gotta move your own feet.

So there is no "cognitive system" happening all the time — Antony Nickles

Yeah.....and there is no fire alarm system until the horn sounds?

I stand ready to help in understanding if that is of any interest. — Antony Nickles

Sorta asked for help, or at least showed interest, by inquiring as to method. You’ve been adamant in maintaining OLP is best understood by its examples, which suggests there isn’t a method, per se, or OLP isn’t really a philosophy, per se. But it could be just me, in as much as I am not familiar with any philosophy not grounded by its own conditionals, by which something is explained.

And I’ve already admitted to those damnable cognitive prejudices, so...there is that. In addition, my personal philosophical domain is far anterior to language anyway, so a claimed philosophy with language in its name, isn’t going to tell me what I wish to know.

Pain as such, pain simplciter (...) is not a contingent "bad" but an absolute. — Constance

Agreed. It is a feeling, alongside its complement, pleasure, these both absolute, or, irreducible, in themselves. The other basic part of the overall human condition.

I defend a rather impossible thesis: within the self there is the oddest thing imaginable, which is value. — Constance

Sure, we’re all imbued with a sense of value to be assigned. But value assigned is itself contingent on the object to which it is assigned.

I think I’d have gone with virtue over value, but....ehh....it’s your thesis, not mine, so, have at it.

the synthesis of a plurality of phenomena under a general rule is called inductive reasoning, it's not identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Inductive, yes, henceforth from the establishment of the rule. The rule is the identity, the reasoning is either deductive in the establishment of the rule by which a thing becomes known, or inductively, by which subsequent perceptions are identified as possessing sufficient correspondence to the original.

My “synthesis of the plurality of phenomena” indicates the establishment of the rule, phenomena herein, not the number of objects perceived, but rather, the variety of properties the matter of some particular object exhibits, and the synthesis being the reduction from all possible properties held in intuition, against only those exhibited by the object, which is deductive and leads to the rule from which the representation follows as its conception, in turn represented by its name. The rule thus established by which all following instances of sufficient similarity are identified, those all represented as schema of the original conception. Family, genus, species, member. Simple as that.

Your principle of induction arises when members meeting the criteria of the particular conception, are thought in general a priori, or perceived as a group empirically, re: a kennel or off-leash park. This way, reason doesn’t waste itself with unnecessary effort, instead only noticing possible breaks in a pattern. The proverbial.....seen one dog, seen ‘em all kinda thing.
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What is at issue is how does he know that they are the same kind of thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Easy. When sufficient properties exhibited by the subsequent perception correspond to the properties of the original. Neuroscience posits feedback loops called memory, speculative epistemology posits the faculty of intuition, in which are held conceptions given from extant cognitions.
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I don't see how the principle of non-contradiction is relevant, because he can see that the two things, have contradictory properties (different colour, or different size, for example), yet he still calls them by the same name, "dog". — Metaphysician Undercover

My Mustang is gold in color, m’lady’s car is some oddball green, or some damn thing....I really don’t know what to call it. Is either vehicle less a car because they’re different colors? Differing manifestations of the same general property do not rise to the level of contradiction. A guy calls the black dog “George”, but calls the white dog “Mutt”. No contradictions in evidence.

We also have a truck. There is some property of a truck sufficient to contradict calling it a car. The insurance company does indeed charge different rates for the car as opposed to the truck, but the distinctions must be sufficient, and color is not one of them.

Cars and trucks are both motorized vehicles. Motorized vehicle with a trunk is called a car, vehicle with a bed is called a truck. Calling a vehicle with a bed a car is a contradiction. (Hybrids superfluous to the argument). Guy with two dogs calls them both dogs because there is no sufficient proprietary contradiction.
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In Aristotelian logic these are accidental properties. — Metaphysician Undercover

Be that as it may, we are.....I am.....concerned here with the categorical syllogism method of Aristotelian logic. The classes of ideas or notions and their relation to each other. The major given in the yet undetermined observables (perception, the possibility of conceptual criteria), the minor given in the intuition derivable from the synthesis of the observables (phenomenon, the conceptual criteria), and the conclusion given in a determined correspondence (understanding, the conception itself).

The premises are behind the scenes, the conclusion is present to conscious thought.
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What is going on behind the scenes remains as unknown, and that's why we have so much difficulty agreeing on metaphysical principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh absolutely. It’s all speculative theory, and could be all catastrophically wrongheaded. But as in all theory, all it has to do is be internally consistent and not in conflict with observation. In which case, one theory is no better or worse than any other; none of them being susceptible to empirical proofs, even if they stand as logically coherent.

And the game continues.......

And it seems strange to me you would reserve reason to humans. — tim wood

Actually, I’m only reserving reason we can know about, to humans. I did say animals may have their own kind of reason, but even if they did, we couldn’t do anything with it.

Do you say that dogs, e.g., are incapable of reason or capable of reason (near as you can tell)? — tim wood

Incapable of reason as it is understood by humans.

Are you prepared to say we're the only beings in the universe able to reason? — tim wood

Oh hell no!!! But of all the creatures we know about, and in consideration of what we know about them, we are the only ones with the capacity to consciously create both the means and the ends of our behaviors, as opposed to mere reaction to instinct or training.
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given gross circularity, that which is derived from it cannot be any more certain then the circularity itself permits.
— Mww
Consider what you consider certain. That certainty must be subject to the same critique, Does that suddenly make you feel less certain? — tim wood

What I consider certain is the impossibility of it being otherwise. From there, the only things I consider certain are the three laws of logical thought. I don’t think the laws are subject to the same critique as that to which the laws apply, but they are subject to the same circularity. Reason tells us what the laws are, then uses the laws to tells us what reason does. Do I now feel less certain? No, I can’t allow myself that, because if I do, I have no ground whatsoever on which to justify anything at all.

You know....The Esteemed Professor himself says, just because we think the world a certain way doesn’t mean it couldn’t be any other way.

It follows that the question is necessarily predicated on a misunderstanding.
— Mww

the question is, why isn't noumena dismissible as dialectic overreach, as delusion, with "the mere
dream of an extension of the pure understanding"? — Constance

This, for all intents and purposes, is a different question altogether. To this, I would say noumena can be dismissed as dialectical overreach, for those not academically disposed. I wouldn't grant dialectical overreach between, say, Kant and Schopenhauer. Those two guys would hash this stuff out forever, and I bet neither would give an inch even with similar metaphysical predication.

the "it" so readily referred to — Constance

Actually, how often are noumena readily referred to? I know Kant confuses the issue somewhat by referring to them here and there, and it does take some concerted effort to recognize the conceptual or speculative consistency in doing so. But all in all, with respect to the overall knowledge treatise, they can be ignored.
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One way to say this is to yield to delimitation of the understanding, but in doing so admit there is an incompleteness, in metaethics, and in a full disclosure of world ontology — Constance

One possibility or the other: either we claim to know everything given from full disclosure, or we claim that not everything is knowable given from the limitations imposed by our cognitive system. Nothing wrong with admitting incompleteness or loss of full disclosure. Ful disclosure just might be too much for us to handle.

As an aside, it should be remembered that Kant isn’t restricting the understanding with noumena, in fact, he’s letting it run wild.....letting it think what it wants. He’s limiting sensibility, by making it inoperative except for objects to which space and time can be intuited. This now, may indeed prevent a full disclosure of world ontology. But then, transcendental philosophy wouldn’t work, and you’d need a different explanatory methodology.

The person would only be using the principle of identity if the two different dogs were seen as the same dog. — Metaphysician Undercover

True enough, if we were concerned with the notion of identity given by Parmenides, which has to do with one thing in relation to itself. We are, on the other hand, only concerned with the conceptual notion of identity, which has to do with the synthesis of a plurality of phenomena under a general rule.
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And since the person knows that the two different thing which are called by the name "dog" are not the same thing, the principle of non-contradiction is not even relevant. The two different dogs might have contradicting properties. — Metaphysician Undercover

First... he knows they are not the same thing while knowing they are different instances of the same kind of thing; he knows all this because the synthesis of contradictory predicates is held in abeyance. Or, the principle of non-contradiction inheres in the cognition.
Second..... two different dogs can have different properties, but those properties cannot contradict the general conception under which they are all subsumed. One dog can have four legs another have only three without being thought as different concepts.
Third....two different dogs cannot have contradicting properties and still both be conceived as dogs. One dog having four legs and the other dog having wings is an irrational cognition translated from general conceptions that contradict themselves. A dog with wings is not a dog and a bird with four legs is not a bird.
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My position is that there is no reason to assume that what is going on behind the scenes is a matter of applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

No one should fault you for that. So what....there isn’t any behind the scenes going on, or there is but it doesn’t manifest in applying criteria? There must be a behind the scenes or the notion of being conscious is meaningless. So it reduces to.....what is going on behind the scenes if not the application of criteria?

I think not,
— Mww
And might well you think, but why (exactly) not? ("There are more things....") — tim wood

Horatio here, and all I’m sayin’ is, given gross circularity, that which is derived from it cannot be any more certain then the circularity itself permits. It is still the case that reason tells us what reason is, which is the gross part of the circularity. Poor choice of adjective, maybe.
(years ago, a guy initiated me on the geometry of asymtotic lines. I had thought reason to be circular, but what if it was generally circular but at the same time asymtotic, which gives a spiral? It would seem from this that reason could be the cause of itself but still progress be means of itself. Then I got lost in the complexities and didn’t follow through on it. Anyway.....)
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Do we or does anything we know of do anything other than relate to other things? — tim wood

Relation is a cognitive term, so relation only means anything when thought is involved. To ask whether things relate when we don’t think abut them doesn’t make any sense. Best we can do is profess ignorance.
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Logic is not the master. — tim wood

It is the master of our kind of thinking. Theoretically anyway. Can there be a method for human thinking that has no logical base?
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Is there another kind of reason in other kinds of animals? Could be, but....so what? We can’t do anything with it,
— Mww
Care to reconsider this? — tim wood

In what way? Where would I start? Help me out?

if Kant was so sure noumena was not an intelligible idea, then why bring it up at all? — Constance

If it wasn’t intelligible, he couldn’t have brought it up. He did, so it is. And he said so. He actually said, under certain conditions, the conception of noumena are necessary. That which is unintelligible cannot at the same time be necessary. In Kant, an idea is a concept of reason formed of notions by the understanding itself (A320/B377), and noumena are concepts thought by the understanding (B306). It follows that the question is necessarily predicated on a misunderstanding.

That is, what is the ground in the world that makes bringing it up not pure nonsense? — Constance

The ground for bringing it up is not in the world; if it were it would be incomprehensible anyway, which is the same as nonsense.

An excellent question, I think. — Constance

No, it isn’t, given these two basic transcendental premises:

“...But I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself...” (Bxxvii fn)
“...understanding may be represented (...) according to what has been said above, as a faculty of thought...” (B94)

It is clear, that if understanding is that which thinks, then understanding can think whatever it wants for it is I to whom understanding belongs. Therefore, it is at least non-contradictory and at most entirely admissible, for understanding to think noumena if it wants. And it does want to, in metaphysical parlance, in assuming the possibility of non-sensuous determinable schema subsumed under the categories, which Kant terms objects-in-themselves.

Now it can be surmised why he had to bring it up: he’d already proven the categories only apply upon being presented with sensuous objects as phenomena, that is to say, under entirely empirical conditions and by that the means to cognize them, so it would have been catastrophic to allow a category to present objects to itself that can never be phenomena, after having allowed such objects to be legitimately thought, albeit under entirely pure a priori conditions yet maintaining validity in the cognition of them nonetheless.

At bottom, with no further reduction necessary, this is exactly how I do not contradict myself.

Easy-peasy.

The premise with OLP is that we regularly do not know what the criteria for a concept are (they work behind the scenes as it were),
— Antony Nickles

Oh come on, this is nonsense. — Metaphysician Undercover

Just a quick butt-insky here, if you don’t mind. I think it is the case that the average person doesn’t know how it is he knows things. Regularly, a guy accepts his knowledge as being merely given from personal experience or instruction by rote. If this be granted, it follows that not only does the average joe not know what a concept per se is, he also won’t have any idea what it means for a concept to have its criteria. To him, a dog is just some particular thing; the ways and means between the thing and knowing it as a particular thing are (regularly) undisclosed to him. It is only when he wants to know its kind, its degree of danger, etc., must he then determine supplemental conceptions to add to the conception of dog in general, such

From here, it is easier to see that there are only two criterion for any conception....the principle of identity for those conceptions relating to conceptions in general, and the principle of non-contradiction for those conceptions supplementing given general conceptions.....both principles operating entirely behind the scenes.

People act out of habit when they talk. And acting out of habit is not applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

Or, it is applying criteria behind the scenes, without ever being conscious of it. Makes sense actually; regularly-learned folk don’t need to consciously examine the validity of a thing’s verbal description when the habitually communicated description has always sufficed. Nevertheless, theoretically-learned folk will maintain that the cognitive system as a whole must still be in play, otherwise, we are presented with the necessity for waking it up when needed, and then the determination of method for waking, and then the necessity of determination of need, ad infinitum......and nothing rationally conditioned is ever successesfully accomplished.

So....my thinking is that OLP as I understand it, is at least superfluous and at most utter nonsense, but that the criteria for our conceptions, operating “behind the scenes”, and therefore not “regularly” known as belonging to our knowledge structure, is not.

tell me that no reason is manifested there — tim wood

Reason by what standard? If ours, then surely not; we don’t know how our own reason works, assuming there is such a thing that isn’t merely a premise in a metaphysical theory. That something is happening between our ears there can be no doubt, but whatever is happening is at the same time the very thing that tells us what is happening, so we have a thing representing itself. In other words, we’re telling ourselves what ourselves are telling us. So we’re going to gain something, are we, by using that gross circularity to tell us about the exact same thing but in a different situation under different conditions? I think not, mon ami.
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You appear to have extended this to reason. — tim wood

There is no use whatsoever for inventing concepts like understanding, consciousness, synthesis, experience, knowledge.....reason itself, except as means for US, as humans, to relate to other things. So presumptuous of us, on the one hand, and absolutely necessary on the other, if you ask me, to use concepts relating to humans for their own purpose, in observing the operation of animals nothing like us except for being of alive and taking up space.

It would be impossible to talk about experiences in other animals, if we hadn’t already determined what the concept entails, and we can only determine what the concept entails, when we relate it to ourselves. We invented it....what else could it be applied to, sufficient to justify its invention?

Is there another kind of reason in other kinds of animals? Could be, but....so what? We can’t do anything with it, we can only make inferences pursuant to observation, from which we know nothing of its reasoning, that isn’t in fact contingent on our own. As you say...cat for cat, dog for dog, and so forth.

Now, the common rejoinder is, because all biological entities are composed of the same elemental chemistry, they must obey the same physical laws. It follows that because all brains operate under the same physical conditions, it must be the case that the manifestations of their operations must have an intrinsic congruence. But logic informs us that a condition being necessary is not the same as being sufficient, which means if we can find a situation of disparity for similar possibilities, it may simply be a case of insufficiency. Now it becomes a matter of lesser animals meeting the condition of necessity, but lacking the condition of sufficiency, and BOO-YA!!!....animals in fact might reason, just of a different kind than, and therefore unavailable to fundamental examination by, humans.

But I ramble. Old people do that a lot, I’m here to tell ya.

Oh.......did you see the fireworks in DC last night? Man, that was the most intense display I’ve ever seen. Most impressive, I must say. ‘Course...I don’t get out much, so there is that.

of animals that appear to have mental capacities (very much to be clarified), it seems to me not that they are different in kind, but in degree. — tim wood

Sneakers and loafers are both shoes, but they are different kinds of shoes. A size 3 shoe is different in degree than a size 11 shoe of the same kind, but neither of them fit a size 9 foot.

Report that a car just hit a mailbox, first thing you’ll be asked is....what kind of car was it? If degree was more important, you would have been asked....how hard was the mailbox hit?

Doesn’t matter the degree of a brain; it matters what it is capable of, and kinds of brains have different kinds of capabilities. Degree would matter regarding the same kind of brain, it’s general capabilities being developmentally predicated on evolution, long term, or merely common experience, short term. A hummingbird brain is never going to evolve enough, nor experience the requisite preliminaries, to do calculus.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Complexity is just another word for degree. Did you know and elephant has more neural connections than a human, and he can’t even write his own name. An orangutan has only slightly fewer neural connections in a brain roughly the same size as a human, but he picks his nose in public, fercrissakes!!!!

Territorial animals will kill interlopers of their own kind, and matriarch lionesses apparently torture an interloping female lion before allowing the rest of the pride to kill it. Does that grant a human the warrant to suppose such animals have a moral disposition, when, as far as he knows, it is only himself that supposes moral dispositions per se?

A whale dives hundreds of feet for squid. Does that grant a human warrant to suppose a whale knows a priori, to hold his breath, when a human knows a priori, not that he must hold his breath underwater, that being merely instinct, but rather, what will happen if he doesn’t? Odd, isn’t it, that young whales don’t attempt to dive with the adults, but does that give a human the warrant to suppose the youngster thereby knows a priori he is at the mercy of orcas?
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because I have seen with my own eyes.... — tim wood

....and whatever you’ve seen, and therefore anything derived from it, is bound by your own cognitive system. You have not the means to judge by any other system whatsoever. So......what exactly have you seen? Nothing but that which is within the bounds of your system to report, which can tell you nothing about any other reporting system unlike yours. Which is what we’re talking about here, at bottom: @possibility and his a priori information synthesizing capabilities.
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Nagel 1974: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf

reluctance of philosophers to venture into the domain of psychology. — Possibility

One informs the intellect, the other insults it? Opinion only, of course.
Philosopher: I can tell you how I think.
Psychologist: I can tell you how you think.

Kant would never concede a relation between empirical neurological research and pure reason. At the same time, if he had any knowledge of empirical neurological research, it is unlikely he would have spent 12 years developing transcendental philosophy. Still, that particular bell can never be unrung.
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I’m afraid there’s a lot to unpack here, though. — Possibility

True enough, and starting with the recognition of anthropomorphism. The bane of good philosophy, but conveniently overlooked in the other sciences. What warrant have we to classify the mental capacities of lesser animals, ref. Nagel, 1974. No matter what we think about how lesser animals process information, such thinking is only possible from the way we think about anything at all. It looks to us as if dolphins enjoy surfing, and it looks to us like eagles play catch with their catch. Might be nothing but another kind of observer problem.

You ask what if we let go of the assumption only higher intelligence animals synthesize information a priori; I say the strictly human criteria by which lesser animals synthesize information a priori, can never be met.

Still fun to talk about, though. As long as nobody claims to have all the answers.

Kant argues that a priori knowledge (what we appear to ‘just know’) can be synthetic......

A priori knowledge can be synthetic...yes. A priori knowledge can also be analytic.

.....and demonstrates this synthesis by converting qualitative variability in phenomenal experience into a rational structure.....

Is there another way to say: demonstrates this synthesis by converting qualitative variability in phenomenal experience into a rational structure? This would be good to know, in order for me to understand why such synthesis allows all a priori knowledge to be synthetic. Sure, you could use qualitative phenomenal experience to justify “to fall up contradicts gravity”, but why would you? And what about a priori knowledge by which no phenomenal experience is at all possible, re: all parts of space are themselves each a space”, yet still has a rational or logical structure?

.....In my own constructionist view this allows for all a priori knowledge to be understood as synthetic - but there is no allowance for this in Kant’s anthropocentric perspective of knowledge. — Possibility

Which is fine, depending on what you mean by constructionist, given that the concept exemplifies the difference between some speculative epistemology in metaphysics based on reason, and some psychology of learning in the physical world based on experience alone. Although, it might be hard to disseminate how all a priori knowledge is the kind of knowledge susceptible to being learned, as opposed to being merely thought. Might be what Kant had in mind with:

“....For it would be absurd to think of grounding an analytical judgement on experience....”

So does your constructionist perspective deny analytic a priori knowledge?

Yes, we learn from a young age by means of qualitative relation, and I suppose psychology has more to say about it than philosophy.

Kant's... criteria......
— Mww

This the philosopher's dream of power. — Antony Nickles

I suppose, yeah. He does admit his intention to:

“....bequeath a legacy to posterity, in the shape of a system of metaphysics constructed in accordance with the Critique of Pure Reason, still the value of such a bequest is not to be depreciated....”

Still, I doubt if he sat around indulging in vainglorious rumination, “I’m gonna be remembered long after Baumgartner, Schelling, Mendelssohn, et al are merely faded wannabes”. Dunno....I wasn’t there.

Fine line between rampant ego and manifest genius.
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OLP was (initially) directed at traditional analytical philosophy and the metaphysics, representationalism, positivism, and descriptive falacy, etc., of philosophical theories or statements that, among other things: communication/rationality works in one universal or specific way, or towards a particular standard, that it is dependent more on individuals, and that we have more control in how it works. — Antony Nickles

This implies a distinction between traditional analytic philosophy, and philosophical theories regarding metaphysics, representationalism, etc. Is that right? Is there a distinction? Or are you meaning to say, directed at analytic philosophy and those philosophical theories and statements contained in it?

Doesn't matter, really. All philosophy is human rational construction, therefore is itself confined to the species, it is dependent on individuals and they do have control in how it works. It’s a simple as, objects and ideas control my intelligence, the ends by which I philosophize, but I and only I control my intellect, the means by which my philosophy is developed.
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What it (OLP) is trying to do is put the human, say, voice, back into the philosophical discussion by bringing up the contexts in which our concepts live. — Antony Nickles

If OLP doesn’t have its own method sufficient to justify its tenets, hypotheses or claims, it is nothing but a compendium of illustrative examples and not a philosophy at all. Such method may explain how bringing up the contexts in which our concepts live, puts the human “voice” back into philosophical discussions. It might begin by showing how there can even be a philosophical discussion that doesn’t have a human “voice” participating in the discussion, and making the discussion possible in the first place. But, I suppose, as in “ordinary”, there might be a different......grammar.......for “discussion” in regards to OLP as opposed to conventional discourse.

Do I recall you positing that the ordinary in OLP doesn’t mean conventional use of words? Hopefully, because we both know concepts don’t “live” in the conventional sense.
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It's (OLP’s) necessity is to breath new life into a tradition which has removed us from its considerations. — Antony Nickles

I agree analytic philosophy tends to remove us....us being thinking subjects as such.....from its considerations. Still doesn’t tell me how OLP puts us back, which wouldn’t at the same time make it just another form of speculative or theoretical metaphysic, imitating the ones we already have.

The current policy is driven by the notion that all human life has intrinsic value and that our response to covid is all about preserving those valuable human lives... — dazed

Where is the remnants of theism in that, necessarily? How is it that such policy would be impossible if not for theism? It isn’t, of course, for such policy is altogether possible if there never were any such thing as theism, which makes explicit the policy never was necessarily grounded in any degree of theism in the first place. Innate human values are, after all, products of pure reason, and thereby do not require anything transcendent for their logical validity.

Apparently, the thread title and the opening text contradict each other. Or at least, the text does not support the title unconditionally.

I don’t think he believed humans were as constrained by discursive understanding as CPR suggested with regard to noumena. — Possibility

Hmmm....yeah, I can see that. Understanding itself is not constrained with respect to noumena; it is allowed that understanding thinks objects belonging to the categories, and those objects would be called noumena. On the other hand, if the categories can only apply to phenomena, and phenomena are the only possible objects of experience, and objects of understanding called noumena are themselves not phenomena, then it follows noumena cannot be cognized as objects of experience.

“....But, in this case, a noumenon is not a particular intelligible object for our understanding; on the contrary, the kind of understanding to which it could belong is itself a problem, for we cannot form the most distant conception of the possibility of an understanding which should cognize an object, not discursively by means of categories, but intuitively in a non-sensuous intuition....”

So we are constrained by discursive understanding with respect to cognitions, but understanding itself is not constrained with respect to noumena as general conceptions.
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Kant structured this aspect of human perception in an additional dimension of affect or feeling. — Possibility

Yes, he did. But at the same time, he had precious little respect for the burgeoning science of psychology, which makes me wonder why he felt the need to examine purely subjective conditions with which this aspect of human perception concerns itself, albeit outside moral considerations. Transcendental moral philosophy is necessarily predicated on subjective conditions, sure, but knowledge of calculus and dump trucks? Or, our feeling of the beautiful/sublime inspired by them? Ehhh.....not so sure about that. Seems all he did was take the transcendental doctrine of a faculty of judgement with respect to empirical cognitions, and transplanted it into an a priori ground for something beyond itself.

Still, in the preface to the A critique, he made it a point to have “.....the intention of erecting a complete and solid edifice of metaphysical science...”, elaborated in the B preface, “.....attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the procedure of metaphysics, after the example of the geometricians and natural philosophers....”.

So I suppose all that in the CofJ is how such completion is attained.

I have argued from OLP in my post about Wittgenstein’s lion quote (@Mmw) — Antony Nickles

Yeah, I got some enlightenment from that; just not enough to rearrange my metaphysical prejudices. This thread is interesting as well, but doesn’t really cover new ground, does it? Like....method?

the point of OLP is that words "embody" the unconscious, unexamined ordinary criteria (not made-up, or philosophically-important criteria)--all of the richness that is buried in them of all the different ways we live. — Antony Nickles

And from this is raised the question...how can the hidden, unexamined, unconscious criteria be called ordinary? If some embodiment is unavailable for examination, how can it be said to be ordinary? And if ordinary just stands for “not made up”, how is that not self-contradictory, if words are exactly that....made up in order to properly represent the objects to which they are meant to relate?

I accept there is a certain unconscious part of the system from which words arise, but I reject the words themselves can arise from unconscious criteria, or that they necessarily embody such unconscious criteria. Case in point....phenomena have no names, but subsequently cognized objects derived from them, do.

Kant was well aware of this (hey, you mentioned him three times already, so......), thus ensuring his method allowed words to merely represent the concepts used by the understanding in its relation to objects of experience. As such, they do embody certain criteria, but such criteria is by no means hidden or unexamined, insofar as both concepts and the words which represent them in objective manifestation, arising from perceptions or from pure thought, are entirely present to conscious mental activity**. From here, it is nothing but the domain of general employment given by common experiences, which sustains the notion of “ordinary”, and somehow or another this became sufficient causality for language philosophers to simply assign a different connotation to “ordinary”, but with insufficient explanatory methodology for doing so.

So we arrive at: to whom is OLP actually directed, and why does to whomever it is directed, need it?

Here’s my version of OLP: I speak, you listen; you speak, I listen. If we communicate successfully, fine. If we don’t...start over. Wash, rinse, repeat. Don’t need any analytic philosophy for that.

**Not quite, but elaboration is beyond the scope, methinks. Not for you so much as the subject matter.

Is it always wrong to interfere with autonomy or can it be right under certain conditions? — Tom1352

First, one would need to stipulate where, and in what form, autonomy resides. For instance, in deontological moral philosophy, autonomy can’t be interfered with at all, otherwise the concept is self-contradictory and the entire philosophy refutes itself.

Second, one would need to show interference is in fact an act upon autonomy, or merely an act upon the volitions that follow from it, or, nothing more than a hindrance with respect to personal happiness/well-being.

But to answer the question, from my point of view anyway.....interference with autonomy is impossible, so whether such interference is right or wrong, is unintelligible. Still, with a sufficiently broad notions of interference and autonomy, the possible connections between them become more apparent.

Copernicus’ revolution, for Kant, was more about the moveability of the spectator than its de-centralisation - even though arguably the most significant effect of that revolution was to de-centralise the limited human perception (empiricism) in relation to knowledge of reality. — Possibility

What Copernicus proposed was indeed about the movability....the motion....of observers relative to a stationary Universe, in opposition to the standing general consensus. And now I see what you meant by de-centralizing the limited human perception, insofar as the seed being sown that we ourselves are not The Big Picture, so to speak.
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Even so, with that moveability, which I understand, I am left with this seemingly unrelated moveability, which I do not......

So Kant synthesised human knowledge (...) and even rendered it moveable (by phenomena) in relation to possible knowledge of reality (noumena) — Possibility

......insofar as, according to Kant, there is no knowledge of noumenal reality possible for intelligences imbued with merely discursive understanding, such as is claimed for humans. Would I be correct in supposing you mean, that because of the speculative predication of phenomena, human knowledge is restricted to a sensory-determinant empirical domain, in effect removing it from any noumenal reality? That actually does make sense to me, in spite of the inconsistency explicit in the concept of “moveability”.
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His transcendental or synthetic a priori knowledge (imagination in relation to understanding and judgement) was an anthropocentric perspective of the conditions for knowledge of reality. — Possibility

Interesting take on a fairly well-hidden gem in Kantian metaphysics. Other than appreciating your familiarity, I might say your proposition only works when the proper imagination is tacitly implied. I say that because, while productive imagination is the relation between intuition and understanding/judgement, and can be thought as an anthropocentric perspective of the conditions of empirical knowledge, it is not itself a priori knowledge, which requires an object consciously known as such. This is relevant because if it is true Kant realized......

the structure of metaphysics was more dependent upon ‘feeling’ than he had anticipated. — Possibility

.....and it had already been proven feelings are not to be considered the same way as are cognitions, and because it had already been proven judgements are absolutely necessary constituents of the entire human rational system, there must be another kind of imagination, iff some form of synthesis is required in order to facilitate judgement based on feelings alone, and iff imagination is still necessarily responsible making these kinds of judgements both possible and authoritative.

I don’t think Kant realized that metaphysics depended more on feelings than he anticipated, which implies the CofJ was a stop-gap treatise, when in fact he already had in mind a tripartite doctrine to cover all aspects of the human cognitive system, from the very beginning. To say otherwise says Kant denied human feelings, which of course he couldn’t do and still call himself a proper philosopher.

Long story short, the affect on the pure subjective condition by objects of sense, which is what we call feelings, or, how we are internally affected by something of perception, which is different than how we think about the object as it is, implies a judgement. But the faculty of judgement, the connection/conjunction between understanding and reason with respect to cognition of objects leading to possible knowledge of them, is consequentially very far from the methodological chronology of merely being subjectively affected by them. Therefore, there must be a kind of judgement intrinsic to the system which serves to connect such pure affect on us as subjects with feelings from the empirical affect on us as subjects with cognitions, with respect to one and the same object. From there, its off to Never-Never Land!!!
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It’s more that no knowledge is at all possible without ‘feeling’. — Possibility

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said so far, as much as I disagree with that.

At any rate, thanks for helping me out with that de-centralizing, moveability thing.

For Kant’s shift to take effect......

Presupposes it didn’t, because:

......Kant was missing a step.....

And that missing step takes the propositional form:

.....de-centring our perspective of temporal reality by rejecting the assumption that the existence of humans (and their rationality) was the plan or purpose of eternity — Possibility

First, if it is we seeking an investigative domain, I don’t see how it could be otherwise than it is we who are central to it. De-centralizing our perspective, whether of temporal reality or anything else, would seem to immediately negate the validity of our investigations, the correctness of them being as it may.


Second, is “Kant’s shift” the same as your so-called “Copernican turn” of a day or so ago, and if so, wherein, as laid out in CPR Bxvii, and from subsequent speculative justifications in relation to it, is the implication that the “plan or purpose of eternity” is precisely that humans should exist because of it? I submit there is no such implication, which then suggests “Kant’s shift”, the one that hasn’t taken effect, lays in some other conceptual scheme, in which may be found the assumption “the existence of humans was the purpose of eternity”, that should have been rejected, such that that shift would take effect. So...if that was Darwin’s position, how could it have been used by Kant? What Kantian “shift” possibly would have occurred had Kant only theorized as Darwin did?

Does academia nowadays consider Darwin an Enlightenment transcendental philosopher? If not, why would anyone think his empirical anthropology theories would find standing in Kantian speculative epistemology?

I’m following the ongoing dialectic with respect to the Critique of Judgement, which I appreciate, insofar as hardly anyone does that. Guess I got confused as to how the CPR, having to do with the possibility of a priori knowledge, could have any relation to the CJ, which has to do merely with “feeling” in a certain sense only, and from which no knowledge is at all possible.

Anyway.....just wondering.

Well done.

The questions and answers never were more important than that which makes them possible.

Asking questions about the questions merely proves it.

And there is a rationalized justification for an act that most would consider genocidal. Lovely frame work. Thanks Kant. — Book273

There you have it, folks. Perhaps the greatest thinker since Aristotle, personally responsible for the last real paradigm shift in modern philosophy, develops a moral theory with so many holes in it a ten-year-old can blow it up with a single existential possibility.

Schopenhauer is probably wondering why he never thought of it; Hegel first, then Quine, both want to be remembered as having thought it already.

“....[f]or non-Kantian philosophers, there are no persistent problems — save perhaps the existence of Kantians....”
(Rorty, 1982)

On the vulgar understanding’s forays into the academic:

“.....a sophistical art for giving ignorance, nay, even intentional sophistries, the colouring of truth, in which the thoroughness of procedure which logic requires was imitated, and their topic employed to cloak the empty pretensions.....”
(CPR A61/B86)

Still....one remains free to think whatever he likes. (Sigh)

Nor do I find in this any ground whatsoever that relativism might survive in. — tim wood

Agreed, here is no room for relativism with respect to freedom as a necessary intellectual conception. It is worth remembering “intellectual” just indicates a conception having nothing to do with sensibility, the conceptions of which are always empirical, which in turn means there are physical objects subsumed under them. Freedom has no physical object, obviously; it is nonetheless an object of pure practical reason.

The relativism resides in the will of the subject, of which freedom is merely the ground of the will’s capacity to author moral laws to which that subject obligates himself.

I think that when one reaches for that, one finds not ground but bootstrap — tim wood

Hmmm....perhaps. I wonder if Kant knew the word. He certainly maintained the necessity, hence the validity, of causality. The prime intellectual conception of causality being, of course, freedom. And just as no unconditioned causality in Nature can be discovered, so too is it impossible to prove the reality of freedom as a purely intellectual causality. A form of bootstrapping, indeed, but perhaps logically permissible. Perhaps? If not that, then what?

“....Now I affirm that we must attribute to every rational being which has a will that it has also the idea of freedom and acts entirely under this idea. For in such a being we conceive a reason that is practical, that is, has causality in reference to its objects. Now we cannot possibly conceive a reason consciously receiving a bias from any other quarter with respect to its judgements, for then the subject would ascribe the determination of its judgement not to its own reason, but to an impulse. It must regard itself as the author of its principles independent of foreign influences. Consequently as practical reason or as the will of a rational being it must regard itself as free, that is to say, the will of such a being cannot be a will of its own except under the idea of freedom. This idea must therefore in a practical point of view be ascribed to every rational being. I adopt this method of assuming freedom merely as an idea which rational beings suppose in their actions, in order to avoid the necessity of proving it in its theoretical aspect also. The former is sufficient for my purpose; for even though the speculative proof should not be made out, yet a being that cannot act except with the idea of freedom is bound by the same laws that would oblige a being who was actually free. Thus we can escape here from the onus which presses on the theory...”

Gotta start somewhere, right?

what does not constitute the principle of morality. — tim wood

Does that a lot, doesn't he? It’s not this, it’s not that, get rid of enough of the stuff a thing isn’t, what it is arises as all the more legitimate.

Be great to arrive at that which is impossible to be rid of.......

“....That metaphysical science has hitherto remained in so vacillating a state of uncertainty and contradiction, is only to be attributed to the fact that this great problem, and perhaps even the difference between analytical and synthetical judgements, did not sooner suggest itself to philosophers. Upon the solution of this problem, or upon sufficient proof of the impossibility of synthetical knowledge a priori, depends the existence or downfall of the science of metaphysics. Among philosophers, David Hume came the nearest of all to this problem; yet it never acquired in his mind sufficient precision, nor did he regard the question in its universality. On the contrary, he stopped short at the synthetical proposition of the connection of an effect with its cause (principium causalitatis), insisting that such proposition a priori was impossible. According to his conclusions, then, all that we term metaphysical science is a mere delusion, arising from the fancied insight of reason into that which is in truth borrowed from experience, and to which habit has given the appearance of necessity. Against this assertion, destructive to all pure philosophy, he would have been guarded, had he had our problem before his eyes in its universality. For he would then have perceived that, according to his own argument, there likewise could not be any pure mathematical science, which assuredly cannot exist without synthetical propositions a priori—an absurdity from which his good understanding must have saved him....”

And there you have it: abstract ideas depend exclusively on a priori cognitions of pure reason, which Berkeley never even considered, and Hume rejected outright.
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Every triangle that I imagine is a particular triangle. — L'Unico

Correct, but knowing the construction of a triangle in general, according to rules, is the ground of any particular triangle of imagination. These rules arise in thought, but still require experience for their reality.

“...In truth, it is not images of objects, but schemata, which lie at the foundation of our pure sensuous conceptions. No image could ever be adequate to our conception of a triangle in general. For the generalness of the conception it never could attain to, as this includes under itself all triangles, whether right-angled, acute-angled, etc., whilst the image would always be limited to a single part of this sphere. The schema of the triangle can exist nowhere else than in thought, and it indicates a rule of the synthesis of the imagination in regard to pure figures in space. Still less is an object of experience, or an image of the object, ever to the empirical conception. On the contrary, the conception always relates immediately to the schema of the imagination, as a rule for the determination of our intuition, in conformity with a certain general conception...”

A brief touch of conflicting philosophies, acceptance of them be what it may.

Oh. Ok, then......

There can be no such freedom to either cause or unreasonably risk such harm. — tim wood

Absolutely, at least with respect to freedom as a moral condition, for such is gross disrespect for humanity in general regarding cause, and himself as a member of it, regarding risk.

On definitions: fascinating that the third section of part two of “Lectures.....” is mostly definitions, part two establishing the background to which the definitions subsequently apply. Just about anything you can think relative to morality or ethics is covered, and would be advisable in following Kant.

You know.......like the OP says.

Symbolic translation is inherent in the concept. These symbols have no inherent connection with their corresponding signals in reality. — hypericin

Symbolic translation is inherent in the conception, but then, how is the brain/mind informed as to which perception is in play, if the symbol has no connection with the signal?

Does freedom really have a more secure metaphysical status than causality? — Garth

What if it wasn’t a question of more secure, but rather, as secure?

The regret being evidence. — tim wood

With measurably greater Prussian intellectual verbosity of course, that is Kant’s exact closing stipulation in Groundwork.
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That's some word! — tim wood

Context helps, maybe:
“....In one word, Leibnitz intellectualized phenomena, just as Locke, in his system of noogony (if I may be allowed to make use of such expression), sensualized the conceptions of the understanding, that is to say, declared them to be nothing more than empirical or abstract conceptions of reflection...”
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Nevertheless, no argument is offered for the supposed conclusion of the OP. — Banno

I already know the argument, so whether or not one is missing here doesn’t affect me much. Tim can handle it alright.

Following Kant (...) freedom is..... — tim wood

Lock's version (of) freedom.... — Banno

This is no different than re-defining terms to refute an argument, rather than using the terms given by the argument and showing some conclusion of that argument doesn’t follow from them.

Locke’s liberty can never stand anywhere near Kant's freedom. It is dialectically absurd to use Locke to refute Kant, when they have entirely different domains supporting their respective philosophies. Locke, and by association, you and your raising arm, are concerned with empirical actions of the will for general purposes, while Kant is concerned with the pure a priori conditions under which the will acts, and then only those conditions and acts pursuant to a very specific, altogether singular, purpose.

Here’s your Word of the Day: Noogony. Don’t fall for it.

Cheers (?)

Not so much asked on this forum, but one I’ve pondered, and the one I’ve chosen, although admittedly it was originally asked and answered in 1787:

“.....How is pure mathematical science possible? How is pure natural science possible? Respecting these sciences, as they do certainly exist, it may with propriety be asked, how they are possible?—for that they must be possible is shown by the fact of their really existing. But as to metaphysics, the miserable progress it has hitherto made, and the fact that of no one system yet brought forward, far as regards its true aim, can it be said that this science really exists, leaves any one at liberty to doubt with reason the very possibility of its existence. Yet, in a certain sense, this kind of knowledge must unquestionably be looked upon as given; in other words, metaphysics must be considered as really existing, if not as a science, nevertheless as a natural disposition of the human mind. For human reason, without any instigations imputable to the mere vanity of great knowledge, unceasingly progresses, urged on by its own feeling of need, towards such questions as cannot be answered by any empirical application of reason, or principles derived therefrom; and so there has ever really existed in every man some system of metaphysics. It will always exist, so soon as reason awakes to the exercise of its power of speculation. And now the question arises: "How is metaphysics, as a natural disposition, possible?" In other words, how, from the nature of universal human reason, do those questions arise which pure reason proposes to itself, and which it is impelled by its own feeling of need to answer as well as it can?....”

we should be careful not to allow our interest in keeping it a mystery prevent us from solving the problem. — Harry Hindu

To keep some mysteries a secret is the same as pervasive skepticism over the possibility of relieving ourselves of ignorance of their objects. So, yes, good philosophy’s interest should not contain an over-abundance of dogmatic skepticism.

Long past the age, actually, and, finally. No need for further investigation.

Indulgence. Ehhhh....granting the authority of a particular moral philosophy doesn’t mean actually living by it. I’m pretty sure I haven't always lived up to the obligations necessarily integrated into mine.

Never mind. In trying to relate what you wrote to what I wrote, I see I misquoted you.

Sorry.

the argument here is that freedom is exactly freedom to do one's duty, and nothing else. — tim wood

At the finest reduction, this is correct. Just takes a lot of reducing to get there.

Nor is freedom being able to do whatever you like, that being just license or raw capability. — tim wood

And from that, everything else follows.

Theoretically.......