OK.

I'm unaware of anyone saying that spacetime contains reference frames. — Kenosha Kid

If I wish to state coordinates, I can only do so with respect to frames. — Kenosha Kid

All I’m saying is some “unambiguous immaterial substances” seem to be quite justified. Unambiguous and immaterial being uncontested, substance being not so lucky.

Kant believed that the only possible logic for our understanding was Aristotelic. — David Mo

Just as it is not given from our intellectual system that there can be no other kind, so too is it not given that the Aristotelian logic our understanding uses, in accordance with the Kantian theoretical exposition, that there can be no other kind.

The common misunderstanding is from the fact he said, “...is apparent from the fact that, since Aristotle, it (logic) has been unable to advance a step and, thus, to all appearance has reached its completion....”, but without considering he might have not have said that, or at least might have re-phrased it, given the kinds of logic in use today. Modern formal logic doesn’t contradict him any more than Einstein didn’t contradict Newton......you know that story.
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The inconceivable is not the impossible. — David Mo

Under what conditions would this not be true?

I don't interpret relativity as saying that reference frames have any ontological value. — Kenosha Kid

But your criteria says spacetime, being affected by material objects, is under the purview of the material world, and, if inertial frames are only contained by or in spacetime, it would appear such frames are every bit as affected by material objects, thus also under the purview of the material world, suggesting an ontological value.

But a reference frame cannot in itself be detected, and isn’t even a valid concept with respect to any single spacetime object anyway, but only in relation to another one separated from it, so it must be an “unambiguously immaterial substance” for which the belief “is unjustified, because they makes no impression on us and we can’t talk about them.” But they do, and we can, so......

But I agree: reference frames are unambiguously immaterial fields; I agree they do not exist as material objects exist, hence have no dedicated ontology; I don’t agree they have no ontological value.

I understand the limitive “contemporary criteria”. I don’t think a productive dialectic is possible using it alone. But interesting notion, nonetheless.

The point was, is demonstration that it should exist sufficient to justify belief in it, even though we cannot demonstrate it itself. — Kenosha Kid

Reference, or inertial, frames? They are immaterial, but they make perfect sense, and without them, SR is mighty hard to explain.

What era does your realidealism come from?

What would be your primary referential text?

To what end does your realidealism point?

I need something to study in order to figure out where you come up with this stuff, because my understandings and my reference materials are apparently not up to the task.

Never a bad idea, given enough interest. I’d listen, if you come up with something.

the possibilities & impossibilities of the sensible world aren’t determined by abstracts/concepts; for if they were, then they could be altered by them, like the features of the artificial creations of one’s abstracts/concepts — aRealidealist

C’mon, man. Possibility/impossibility is absolutely meaningless without relation to the agency to which they apply. Which means that which is possible/impossible, from the empirical and rational world alike, is determined by that agency, for that agency. For us to have any idea whatsoever about possibility/impossibility of anything at all, we must relate some occassion for its revelation, to something else already determined as being one or the other.

That there are possibilities/impossibilities contained by the sensible world may be a valid logical premise. Nevertheless, we don’t give a crap THAT there are; we are only interested in WHAT they are, and for the determination of that, reason along with its constituent faculties, is absolutely indispensable, and then, only from deductive principles a priori.

I refer you to the categories, for which you should have already taken account. The categories determine for us, not the possibilities/impossibilities the sensible world contains, but rather the possibility or impossibility of us cognizing what they are. And....guess what? The categories are themselves conceptions.

In addition, I offer James, 1909: “....Abstraction, functioning in this way, becomes a means of arrest far more than a means of advance in thought.....”
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materials that are used to create aren’t themselves what are created — aRealidealist

Reason itself IS THE LAW by which objects or percepts act lawfully. — aRealidealist

How do these propositions not contradict each other?
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reason isn’t determined by abstracts/concepts. — aRealidealist

Correct, iff reason is a fundamental human condition, a metaphysical notion used in an attempt to logically thwart infinite regress. Reason the cognitive faculty, on the other hand, the bridge between judgement and cognition, in the description of its normal operation, can only be promulgated and understood from the use of conceptions contained in the subject and predicate of explanatory propositions. Wherein lay the intrinsic circularity of the human rational system: we can only talk about reason using the very thing we’re talking about, and the very purpose of speculative epistemological philosophy is to not make it catastrophically fubar.

Let’s work on that, shall we?

A “principle” is to be understood as one understands the word “law.” — aRealidealist

Not from where I sit. A law, to distinguish itself from a rule or a directive, adheres to the principle of necessity and universality. In that case, law presupposes the principle, whereas rules presuppose only the contingencies which justify them. It is absurd to think mathematics, and logic in general, is governed by mere rules.
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law of reason — in other words, that by which it governs or determines either the identity or formation of objects or percepts. — aRealidealist

If that is the case, we are at a loss as to how we can be mistaken in identifying an object, or, which is the same thing, not being able to identify some object at all. We are also at a loss to explain how it is we can be irrational, if reason adheres to the universality and absolute necessity of law.

Object and precepts are determined by reason in accordance with a law, but reason is not itself lawful.

But I understand what you’re trying to say, in that reason, to be any real use to us, must act lawfully, must be trustworthy, otherwise....what Can we depend on for our knowledge? Which leads us to the kicker: if reason doesn’t act lawfully, what have we to use to correct it, except reason?
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it should then be able to create ones which contradict each other; for as it has no foundation in itself, there shouldn’t be a SINGLE principle which holds true in all of its constructs. Yet, since it can’t do such a thing — aRealidealist

Oh, but it can, and it does. It is the ground of all the differences in human thought: I think the Mona Lisa is an ugly broad because of the principles by which I judge beauty, you think the Mona Lisa is angelic because of....obviously....a different set of principles by which you judge beauty.

reason itself must have a form by which it can possibly give principles — aRealidealist

Ok, fine. What form does reason have, that isn’t assigned to it by reason? How would reason attain its form? If reason has a form just because it inheres in human subjects, then it is no different than being a condition by which the reality of the human qua human rationality, is possible. Which is exactly what it is. A condition being that which makes what follows from it possible.
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abstracts/concepts can’t of themselves purely intuit shapes (this admission is enough to satisfy my point) — aRealidealist

No argument there:

“....Understanding cannot intuit; intuition cannot think...”
“....Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind....”

abstracts/concepts can only alter what they’ve created (like being able to alter the features of a pegasus or a unicorn); & if they can’t alter something, it’s precisely because they didn’t create it — aRealidealist

Fine. How? How does a concept alter, regardless of the actual reality of that to which they are applied? Bearing in mind a concept represents a thing or a possible thing. An impossible thing is, of course, inconceivable, that is, has no concepts belonging to it at all. The concept of “dog” (“unicorn”) presupposes the object (possible object) dog (unicorn), otherwise, to what does the concept relate? If the thing is presupposed, how in the hell can a concept create it? Now, a thing can be altered, certainly. A dog with a bushy tail is one thing, a dog with a non-bushy tail in not that thing, merely from the different constituent concepts of “tail”. Obviously, if this is true, but if it is true because concepts themselves are the causality for the altering, then we must admit concepts think. Say wha?!?!?!?

Concepts don’t create, they facilitate and that which is facilitated, is understanding. So if you want to say concepts create understanding, I’ll let that slide, to wit: I can cognize what a unicorn would be, whether or not there is one, merely from the concepts my understanding says it must have in order to even be a unicorn. Understanding being nothing but a part of my reason, in the case of unicorns a priori; in the case of dogs, a posteriori.

As for the rest.....you think idealistically, so kudos for that.

Why can't I justify my claim to understand what a triangle is by drawing one? — jkg20

You can, but the question remains....what informed you as to what to draw?
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how do you see this:
"images are the schemata of our representations."
tallying with this, emphasis added:
"In truth, it is not images of objects, but schemata, which lie at the foundation of our pure sensuous conceptions"? — jkg20

What he means is, objects are not the source of our mental imagery. Without going through all the yaddayaddayadda, objects belong to sensibility, conceptions belong to understanding, therefore, if images are the foundation of conceptions, they cannot have anything to do with objects. In short, the imagery of conceptions is how objects are understood, not how objects are perceived.

Part of the problem lays in common sense, which wants us to think objects are just as we perceive them to be, but common sense takes no account of the methodology for arriving there, which is the mistake Hume made. The power of common sense boils down to nothing but time, in that it takes no noticeable, appreciable, time for us to go from perceiving an object, and knowing or not knowing what it is, which is certainly the case. But it does take time, and common sense makes no claim as to how the time is being used.

Another part of the problem lays in the unavailability of a suitable explanation for how images, or schemata, come about. Speculative metaphysics promotes spontaneity in order to alleviate infinite regress, which is entirely sufficient if not entirely satisfying, and science doesn’t have a clue so rejects them as unscientific, which is proper given the predicates of its doctrine.

OK? Make any sense at all?

Even thoughts take up space some where... — BrendanCount

(Anticipating @tim wood...hope he doesn’t mind)

Depends on your definitions. Historical precedent for those definitions will certainly falsify your assertions. But then.....maybe you’re right and the precedents are not.

There is a metaphysical tenet that says images are the schemata of our representations.....

Is there an argument for this tenet? — jkg20

Maybe not so much an argument as a given condition in keeping with a particular epistemological theory. Mental imagery has been in the game from at least Aristotle, through Anscombe (1965), both as a necessary subjective reality or merely as overly zealous philosobabble. Descartes and Locke called images of perception ideas, Hume called them sentiments or passions. Kant changed the extant predominance of ideas into conceptions present in intuition as representations, changing images of perception into phenomena, relegating those kinds of images to memory. “Been there, done that” sorta thing, such that we know what a kitchen sink is without having one having to stand in front of one.

But that left conceptions without forms of their own (where is it you’ve been, what was it you did) so if somebody says “triangle”, and you need to bring up something that relates to it, and all you have is memory, which includes every triangle you’ve ever experienced...which one do you settle on to relate with? Because his experience of triangles will be different than yours, if you bring up a triangle of your experience, it is impossible to know your two meanings will correspond. And such correspondence is absolutely necessary, in order for the two of you to understand each other. Much simpler to just bring up the general notion “triangle”, any three sided figure enclosing a space, without having to bother with particular ones from memory. These become the form of conceptions, as mental images of the general form of a particular conception, and are the schema of that conception.

The a priori rationality behind all this hoop-la arises form the differences in kinds of perception. A triangle drawn on a piece of paper is as much a phenomenon as hearing the word representing “triangle”, but the triangle drawn has its sides arranged so must be intuited accordingly, but the triangle spoken qua triangle does not, its sides can be arranged in thought in accordance with the principle “a minimum of three intersecting lines is necessary to enclose a space”. Now the fundamental conception must be thought in common to both phenomena, drawn and spoken, but when conditional conceptions are missing, by which a general triangle becomes intuited as a specific triangle, the form of triangle itself, must lay in the conception and not the intuition.

As soon as you say, “I understand what a triangle is”, you’ve already brought up a mental image of one, otherwise you would have no means to justify such a claim. What you don’t do, is bring up the image Mrs. Grady put up on the fifth grade blackboard, because then all you’ve understood is THAT triangle, not any and all other triangles in general.

As for an supporting argument, I use this one (CPR B180, 181), one of the more significant antagonisms belonging to Wittgenstein, 1953, reinforced by Fodor, 1975, both of which took Kantian imagery into a place it was never supposed to be, because they related it to language, hence intentionality, whereas Kant intended it for nothing but the necessary means for the possibility of cognition alone.

“...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. The conception of a dog indicates a rule, according to which my imagination can delineate the figure of a four-footed animal in general, without being limited to any particular individual form which experience presents to me, or indeed to any possible image that I can represent to myself in concreto. This schematism of our understanding in regard to phenomena and their mere form, is an art, hidden in the depths of the human soul, whose true modes of action we shall only with difficulty discover and unveil. Thus much only can we say: "The image is a product of the empirical faculty of the productive imagination—the schema of sensuous conceptions (of figures in space, for example) is a product, and, as it were, a monogram of the pure imagination a priori, whereby and according to which images first become possible, which, however, can be connected with the conception only mediately by means of the schema which they indicate, and are in themselves never fully adequate to it."...”

Anyway.....food for thought as much as ridicule.

In principle, it would seem. Everything happens in the brain, the brain is matter, ergo.......

I’m holding out for the discovery that no matter how hard we try, how far the technology specializes, we’re not going to be able to probe the mass of concentrated neurons looking for the one, or the interconnected plurality, that tells me why I crashed the car.

why did you crash the car?" would have a scientific answer, not that it's a question for scientists per se, although on a thread about Materialism and Consciousness, I had mental phenomena more in mind. — Kenosha Kid

Why did you crash the car can only be answered empirically when posed as, “why did the car crash?”. But these are different questions, each with its own proprietary meaningfulness.

So we both should slap Wayfarer on the wrists, but that might stop him typing which would be no fun. — Kenosha Kid

Nahhh....let’s just tie ‘em together, be fun to watch over a coupla beers.
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There does exist a common language to discuss meaningful but not necessarily scientific questions — Kenosha Kid

Sure; non-domain specific general language for, say, is the glass half empty or half full?
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My gun-to-my-head answer would be: there are no meaningful non-scientific questions. — Kenosha Kid

In other words, there are no meaningful questions that don’t have scientific answers? Yeah, well, when I was 12, my dad sure wanted to know why I wrecked the car. And he was quite adamant about obtaining an answer.

It may be the case there are no meaningful questions for science that don’t have scientific answers, but Everydayman isn’t the scientist, and non-scientific answers for him belong legitimately to meaningful questions he himself generates with respect to his own interests.

We both messed up; the original from wayfarer was “specialization”, which you transposed into “speculation”, and from which my C & P took its cue.

Specialization lends much more credence to “knowing more and more about less and less”, which you wouldn’t have found unreasonable, eliminating the reason for my comment.

Slap yourself on the wrist for leading me astray, and I’ll slap myself on the wrist for failing due diligence.

Otherwise, I’m finding the dialogue interesting.

but overall the story in science is ever-increasing speculation - ‘knowing more and more about less and less’, one saying has it.
— Wayfarer

I don't think that's a reasonable point. — Kenosha Kid

If more and more scientific theory is predicated on mathematical proofs, but fails in the empirical proofs that justify the mathematics.......isn’t that ever-increasing speculation? On the other hand, are we not speculating on the hope that the universality of mathematical proofs is always at the same time, necessary? To be totally screwed if they do not hold, is hardly sufficient reason for depending on their certainty, especially when the prime directive of science is that experimental results conform to observation.

Why should more be read into the adage, then knowing more and more about less and less implies nothing more serious than the more we know, the less there is to know about. That doesn’t seem all that disingenuous, does it?

Still, being so obvious implies there might be more to it I haven’t thought about.

what is the (....) philosophical argument, that every time anyone sees anything that there is mental imagery going on? — jkg20

There is a metaphysical tenet that says images are the schemata of our representations, the real as things given to us, or merely thought, as things might appear to us if they were real. This is clear, when we consider, e.g., the tickle between the shoulder blades. First is the sensation of a presence, then the image of something from experience which the tickle might represent (a bug, a hair) or from mere thought (a ghost, your friend playing a trick on you).

Ever talk to yourself when tying your shoe? I bet not, but I bet you see yourself doing it. If you didn’t do either one of those things, then the conditions under which you know how your shoe got tied, is missing, and while that’s not very important with respect to tying shoes, the principle holds where the conditions might be quite important indeed.

Mental images are ever-present, but their very ubiquitousness is the causality for them being overlooked. They may not have much impact on the usual life, but you can’t get rid of them, so you have to account for them if you wanna speculate about what goes on between your ears.

How can reason be the ground if you re not conscious of your reason — Pop

In the same way one can see a thing, without ever being conscious of all the information in that system. In the same way your feet are always on the ground without you ever being conscious of gravity.

Beware mistaking what reason is, with what it is to reason. Reason is a cognitive system according to rules, to reason is the construction and use of the rules. I am not conscious of my system as a whole, but I am conscious of my system at its work.
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Consciousness = experience + emotion. — Mww

Consciousness is equivalent to experience. I assume this is what you meant. — Pop

Why would you assume I meant something different from what I said, unless you think, apparently without proper warrant, I mean emotion to be merely a kind of experience. I reject that notion immediately; feelings are not cognitions and are a general condition in themselves, but experience is derived solely from cognitions and is always a particular condition in itself.
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The input is information, and the output is integrated information. please consider. — Pop

This is fine for what happens, and may even be developed into a logical theory. As stated, however, nothing about how it happens is given, and, more importantly, what form such information takes. If I don’t know the how of a thing, and the explicit accountability for its parts, it holds no interest for me. The only consideration it’s worth so far, is.....ok, if you say so.

Sebastian Rodl, look him up. He’d be of interest to you, I suspect. — Wayfarer

“...Aristotle and Kant are the heros of this book...”. (Rodl, 2012)

What’s not to like, huh?? Thanks.

I do not think we can understand reason until we have a reliable model of consciousness, since it is a function of consciousness. — Pop

Nope, not buyin’ that. Reason is the ground of everything mental in a rational agent with respect to what is or may be, including the exposition and subjective validity of consciousness.

Consciousness = experience + emotion. Consciousness is the state of my being conscious, the unity of that of which I am conscious. I am not conscious of my reason, but only the manifestations that represent it.
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A belief that is not subject to doubt is a certainty. — Pop

Ehhhh.....all judgements arising from certainty is knowledge, so was never a mere belief to begin with, so yes, a worthy illustration of how unreasonable reason can be.

I fail to see how reason can “construct” a principle without already presupposing one by which it proceeds in construction — aRealidealist

Correct. Enter the Aristotelian Three Logical Laws of Thought, from which all principles follow.
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IF the principle of reason was a construction, THEN the cognition of a square circle would only be impossible within the domain that it itself has created or supplied — aRealidealist

Still not sure what a principle of reason is; ALL principles are given from reason, so saying “principle of reason” is redundant on the one hand, and leads to the notion that reason needs a principle to justify itself on the other, which is quite absurd. Reason needs to justify the bounds of its proper employment, but has no need or want to justify its subjective reality.

Anyway.....Mere observation is probably responsible for the creation of the domain of geometry, re: the shape of a bunch of sticks laying on the ground; the way moon looks closer earlier and further away later; the appearance of a spherical rock that from a certain perspective has no third dimension. But from the sticks, the principle “no two straight lines enclose a space” is derived completely a priori; from the moon rising, “perceptual magnitude is inversely proportional to distance”; from the rock, the principle “a sphere is an infinite number of immediately adjacent circles”.

A square meets these principles, a circle meets those principles, all constructed by reason a priori, which is sufficient for squared circle to be impossible, within the domain reason created: synthetic a priori cognitions.
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it should be able to create or supply another domain in which a square circle wouldn’t be impossible to cognize. — aRealidealist

“It” being reason? So you suggest reason could create two mutually contradictory domains? Yeah...no. Not in its pursuit of knowledge as we understand it, and certainly not in the speculative epistemology I favor.

Contingent constructions of reason is possibility. It is irrational to suppose domains using principles for its rules, should operate on possibility, at the exclusion of necessity.

neither a square nor a circle was an effect of or derived from abstracts/concepts but sensations — aRealidealist

Yikes. I don’t know how to respond to that. Just let me say that the proposition is true, if taken from the current empirical state of affairs, insofar as nowadays everybody was initiated into geometric figures by means of sensation....your teacher drew one on the blackboard and told you what name to know it by. Same with all other abstractions used on phenomenal enterprise, from justice to numbers, ideals to universals, and a myriad of other such things.

But there are no natural squares or circles, in the same way bodies are extended in space. If they don’t occur naturally other than an artificial creation specific to a particular instance, one wonders about the first instance of them, and if he wonders long enough, he finds them to be nothing but derived from concepts, or, more accurately, the principles concepts validate. These can arise in no other way than from the intelligence that thinks them, by means of what has come to be known as pure reason.
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abstraction/conception, in general, can’t occur without the very principle of reason — aRealidealist

Agreed.....sort of. Can’t occur at all without functional human reason. Reason here meaning some systematic rational procedure, not the faculty itself.

Not sure what you mean by a principle of reason. Reason in and of itself doesn’t have a principle, but rather, constructs them on its own accord, in conjunction with the domain under which they are employed. Which is why we can’t even think squared circle, much less cognize its objective validity, because such cognition violates the principles reason already supplied. In effect, a square circle is merely a euphemism for an impossible cognition, allowing us to see how irrational we can be.
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in my view, the problem of the materialist per se isn’t explaining reason arising from abstracts/concepts, but, in the first place, the latter on a purely physical basis. — aRealidealist

That is the very problem I mentioned, if you mean the materialist has great trial and tribulation explaining abstracts/concepts from a purely physical domain. But when push comes to shove, everything that happens from a human perspective, is the purview of the brain, which science tells us operates on strictly natural deterministic rules, because it is, after all, just matter. But I don’t care about all that; my brain works, cogito........done deal.

we're employing reasoning based on abstraction. — Wayfarer

Absolutely.

I’m not trying to define ‘reason’ in a general sense. — Wayfarer

Understood. Although I would say reason has been defined in a general sense. A cursory search of “reason is” in CPR B alone, gives 99 returns. Even with sufficient exposition of the distinctions in all those returns, still leaves plenty of room to confound one with another, which, as precedent shows, entices arguments concerning reason to traipse off into various metaphysical Never-Lands.

I don’t agree that logic or reason is an abstraction — aRealidealist

Isn’t that exactly part of the overall problem? The materialists will...must...insist reason, tacitly granting there is such a thing, is an abstraction of the cause/effect processes of physical matter. Enter epiphenomenalism and such. Oh...and pineal glands. Don’t forget those mysterious little doo-dads. Point being of course, folks been trying to source reason for many a minute.

Even if reason cannot be an abstraction of the human cognitive process of which it is the founding member, it still doesn’t just appear without causality, without contradicting natural occasions. And to say reason is merely one of two necessary human conditions doesn’t shed any light on its fundamental origin.

Reason the faculty that connects judgement to cognition giving rise to knowledge is not an abstraction; reason the unity of human intellectual apparatus, is.

cannot have, the slightest reason for believing them to be actual. Does that sound right to you? — jkg20

Not quite; we can have reasons to believe whatever we like, and apparently, some even believe noumena to be actual, which presupposes they have reasons justifying such beliefs. Or, if not actual, at least functional, in some way. For instance, that noumena ground appearances, which in itself may even be the case, but not from Kantian transcendental epistemology, because the ground for appearances is already stipulated as sensation.

What we don’t have, and cannot have, is the cognitive system under which noumena are included.as an operational predicate. All Kant was doing by even mentioning noumena, is admitting the cognitive system we do have, as he describes it, does not imply there can be no other kinds.

As a sidebar, perhaps, is that Kant, as well versed in Greek philosophy as he was, felt he had to account for noumena because the Greeks did. I mean, he predicated his entire system on logic, which is the epitome of Greek thought, so if he left noumena out, his system wouldn’t be as complete as logic required. But noumena confuse and confound his system, again, highly illogical, so he did account for it by saying it has no account outside the mere thought of it. For which he has been thoroughly chastised by non-Kantians and neo-Kantians alike.

“...On the other hand, the representation in intuition of a body contains nothing which could belong to an object considered as a thing in itself, but merely the phenomenon or appearance of something...”

“....The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition. That undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon....”

“... The conception of a noumenon is therefore not the conception of an object, but merely a problematical conception inseparably connected with the limitation of our sensibility. That is to say, this conception contains the answer to the question: "Are there objects quite unconnected with, and independent of, our intuition?"—a question to which only an indeterminate answer can be given. That answer is: "Inasmuch as sensuous intuition does not apply to all things without distinction, there remains room for other and different objects." The existence of these problematical objects is therefore not absolutely denied, in the absence of a determinate conception of them, but, as no category is valid in respect of them, neither must they be admitted as objects for our understanding....”

Taken together, it is very non-Kantian to say noumena are the ground of appearances, in the human cognitive system, the only one of which we have any empirical knowledge or a priori suppositions at all.

Phenomena are appearances; appearances are given from sensation, which is an entirely empirical condition, hence appearances cannot be given or grounded in either a transcendental object or idea, nor a conception of a strictly discursive faculty such as human understanding, which requires an object for its conceptions.

Inseparably connected to the limits of our sensibility does not imply a limit in procedure, to which noumena can never be connected, but a limitation in kind, the possible differences of which make noumena at least possible.

Certainly you can measure and infer what these data mean, but that act of inference is the very thing you’re purporting to explain with reference to the data. There’s a vicious circularity in that which I don’t think can be overcome even in principle. — Wayfarer

It might help to assert what reason is, or failing that, what reason is supposed to do, before declaring impossibilities or absurdities to it. And while reason can be considered a thing because it is necessarily predicated on brain mechanisms in accordance with deterministic natural law, nothing whatsoever is accomplished by such consideration, because nothing is given by its necessity towards its employment as a faculty. Which, ironically enough, is precisely how those deterministic natural laws came about in the first place.

Even so, I’m in complete agreement on the circularity thesis, it being an intrinsic quality of reason itself and by association, the human condition under which it is necessarily employed. Nevertheless, within the auspices of a logical speculative metaphysics, reason’s intrinsic circularity, manifest in its most fundamental aspect by using reason the faculty to draw conclusions about the very faculty under examination, can be at least recognized and thus alleviated, even if not eliminated entirely. Best way to do that, is stop trying to prove what can only be presupposed.

Kant was trying to deny the resurrection as surely as he was angry with Hume. — Gregory

Reference?

How do you figure that?
— Mww

In the way I just explained before the bit you quoted. — Pfhorrest

Ok. Under that condition, I shall remain satisfied with what I know, rather than anticipate something I might learn.

By observing phenomena we are directly learning about the noumena — Pfhorrest

How do you figure that?

Absolutely. My fault for starting but not finishing: it stands to reason he knew of parabolics, but didn’t connect it to the possibility of relative simultaneity.

Good catch.

saying that reality must have cause is very western, thomistic, Kantian,.and wrong. — Gregory

Kant said every effect must have a cause. I don’t imagine he said reality had a cause.

In Kantian epistemology, reality, in and of itself, without modifiers or qualifications, is a category, a “pure concept of the understanding”, and accordingly, has no object of its own by which it is empirically known. Instead, they have schemata, by which they are thought. As such, no category, and by association, reality, can be either a cause or an effect. And if every effect must have a cause, and reality is not an effect, it follows reality does not necessarily have a cause.

That reality must have a cause may very well be western, thomistic, and wrong.....but it isn’t Kantian.

Kant claimed that mathematics is synthetic, or 'synthetic a priori' judgment. This is a controversial point, and much of the controversy is about understanding what it even means. — Dan Langlois

What he means by it is given in a few short sections of the introduction and is relatively easy to understand. The problem since, isn’t the understanding of it, but whether or not it is the case. And because it is contained in a theoretical domain, transcendental philosophy, it must be completely legitimate within that domain, but may not stand outside it. Quine, I think, being the most vocal antagonist, Frege and Carnap being favorable towards it.

More important than all that, was why Kant developed that thesis to begin with, what it was the groundwork for, the whole intent of this entirely novel metaphysics. That mathematics is synthetic is beside the point of whether a priori cognitions are possible, and if so, whether they are necessary. And THAT is the alleged “dogmatic slumber”.
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what Kant might have made of Einstein's non-Euclidean geometry, — Dan Langlois

In Kant’s time, a good horse dictated one’s top speed. Trains were in their infancy, their import and longevity yet to be established. If he’d made it just another few years, he might have been the one to notice tossing an object out the window of his railcar didn’t appear anywhere near the same to him as it did to his manservant watching him ride away. The guy was a peer-reviewed scientist after all, even if his legacy is philosophy.
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I am a fan of Kant...... — Dan Langlois

....which is always a good thing, but do yourself a favor and forget those damned cursed noumena; they have no place in Kantian epistemology except as a placeholder for that which isn’t. And when you read his texts, and find the one or two instances where he actually calls noumena a thing-in-itself, it is most important to take it in context, for he explicitly states elsewhere, noumena are nothing whatsoever for us as humans.

OK. I’m more interested in whether or not I supposed the correct question, its answer being what it may.

My interest is in asking why we do all this. — Snakes Alive

By this, I suppose you to ask why do we do metaphysics?
(Hoping you’re not asking something so mundane as to why we incessantly argue our personal inclinations against each other)

Dunno about “we”, but I have long since found this quite apropos to the ask:

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

Hellava way to start a double-down, 800-page treatise on a subject so sublime, I would say.

Nothing against Lazerowitz and his metaphilosophy, of course. It’s just that a theory about theories doesn’t help me much.

Again, from mere personal preference, I favor sapience as the capacity for wisdom much more than sapience as the capacity for reason, in as much as the categorical error is remediated.

At any rate......carry on.

I wrote something up, saw yours......dumped mine.

What defines thinking, is itself.

None of them have a coherent meaningful notion of thought and belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms and/or progression.
— creativesoul

There’s a blatantly obvious reason for that.
— Mww

Which is? — creativesoul

Evolutionary terms: nomenclature related to the theory of evolution;
Meaningful notion of thought: a theory or relevant consideration of the human cognitive system;
No philosopher has a theory of the human cognitive system promulgated in the nomenclature related to the theory of evolution.....because there is no direct correspondence between increases in cranial capacity and neuron count due to evolution of the species, and cognitive abilities of that species.

No point in philosophizing with respect to human thought, when the condition of the thought being examined is unknowable.

First, as a matter of mere personal preference, I find myself rejecting your re-arrangement of sapience from wisdom to reflexivity, because by doing so, salience then belongs in a different category, from a quality (schema: limitation) to a modality (schema: community).

Second, left as it was, sapience remains that by means of which a rational agent and the quality of his wisdom are related, thus relieving it of anything to do with the capacity for reason, already imbued in him by his own nature. Reason then becomes the method by which wisdom is obtained or enlarged.

Taken together, I might grant that sapience consists of self-control, as a possible derivative of wisdom, I hesitate to ascribe to it self-awareness, that being the purview of the transcendental ego representing the manifold of consciousness united under a singular rational agency.

But it’s your creation, this exchange of sapience with reflexivity, so.......run with it.