I reject radical privacy, but not mind-related terminology. — Andrew M

Understood. One can’t reject mind-related terminology yet still talk about mind-like things. Still, because minds, in and of themselves, would seem to be irrefutably private, it seems odd...or self-contradictory....to reject radical privacy in the mental sense, which is what we’re discussing here.
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On “Thinking and Saying”:

I understand you to be countering the predicates my continental transcendentalism with it, but I’m not seeing how that gets accomplished. Rather than dissect it ad nauseam, I’ll just bring forth one item I noticed, abruptly, so to speak, and that comes from.....

“.....This notion of thinking is that of pondering or trying to solve a problem, not that of believing or feeling sure, which unfortunately goes by the same English name of "Thinking." I am interested in cogitation, not credence; in perplexity, not unperplexity. Our specimen thinker is going to be the stilI baffled Penseur, not the man who, having reached conviction, has stopped struggling to reach it....”

.....which is found in the first paragraph after the topic break on p5. The “man who, having reached conviction...” has cognized that which he was beforehand thinking. To say interest in cogitation, not credence: is self-defeating, for credence IS cogitation, as opposed to arriving at cogitation, by means of “pondering or trying to solve a problem”, which is, of course, what le penseur is actually doing when he thinks.

“.....To think an object and to cognize an object are by no means the same thing. In cognition there are two elements: firstly, the conception, whereby an object is thought (the category); and, secondly, the intuition, whereby the object is given. For supposing that to the conception a corresponding intuition could not be given, it would still be a thought as regards its form, but without any object, and no cognition of anything would be possible by means of it, inasmuch as, so far as I knew, there existed and could exist nothing to which my thought could be applied....”
(B147)

Now, one may perhaps interject that Ryles is not talking about cognition when he uses the term cogitation. If that is the case.....I give up. Anybody can say whatever they want if they also invent the terms to justify it. Just going to be mighty difficult to find common ground, though.

“....What is the point of the under-breath muttering which the thinker really is very often doing when thinking? What is the heuristic use of soliloquizing? There is no one-strand answer.....

(Of course there is: understanding)

......The still baffled Pythagoras, in again and again muttering a geometrical phrase to himself, may be intending, by way of rehearsal, to fix it in his memory; or in discontent with its slack phrasing, he may be intending, if he can, to stiffen it; or he may be meaning to re-savour the thrill of a recent discovery...”

....all possible, yet all reducible to........go ahead, take a guess.

Now, about these under-breath mutterings. Ever read a book that thoroughly enthralled you? I mean...took you away and put you right where the author wanted you to be. For me, it was Stephen King, and I’m here to tell ya I never saw the words he wrote, and I never muttered a damn thing. All that says, is that it is entirely possible to have mental activity without the slightest internal muttering, which makes explicit there are certain mental activities in which language has no play. If there are some mental activities in which language has no play, yet mental activities are completely comprehensible, the whole intentionality thing is rather worthless, at least from a radical private perspective.

Anyway, thanks for the reference showing me the ground of your arguments so far. Rest assured I don’t necessarily disagree with them entirely, even if I find such grounding both insufficient for theoretical completeness, and misguided in theoretical derivation.

Ok, fine. Two items. Pg7:

“...Our Reductionist had begun by assailing Cartesian and Platonic extravagances on the basis of what can be, in an ordinary way, observed. But now he reduces, in its turn, observation itself to Nothing But some oddly stingy minimum. However, this stinginess of the empiricist must not soften us towards the lavishness of the transcendentalist. For though he properly acknowledges the differences between kicking and scoring, or between just presenting arms and obeying the order to present arms, yet he goes on to make these differences occult ones. For since they are not to be the earthly or muscular differences demanded in vain by the empiricist, they will have instead to be unearthly, nonmuscular differences that transcend the referee's and the sergeant's powers of perception...”

In the immortal words of Herr Pauli......That is not only not right, it is not even wrong! One has no business qualifying the transcendental with the transcendent, and neither are necessarily occult in nature. Ryles may have been nodding toward Steiner, re: “The Outline of Occult Science”, 1909, but Steiner was no proper transcendentalist, but rather a mere mystic, or spiritualist, a la Swedenborg.
——————

On my model, when Alice looks at the tree, she is not looking at a photograph of the territory (since there is no photograph), she is looking at the territory which has a specific form in relation to her. Her beliefs about the territory are her map (e.g., that the tree has green leaves).

Whereas on your (Kantian) model, Alice is looking at a photograph (the territory in sense) of the territory-in-itself. Her beliefs about the photograph are her map (e.g., that the tree has green leaves). Whereas the territory-in-itself remains unknowable.

Does that capture your model, on your view? — Andrew M

My model: as you put it, is pretty much the case, yes. I balk at “her beliefs”, however, because if she knows the object as a tree, she has no need to merely believe in the properties that cause it to be a tree in the first place. This is a reflection on my thesis that we attribute properties to objects, as opposed to your thesis that objects are necessarily in possession of intrinsic properties belonging to them irrespective of the perception of them.
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You asked about how the first person bootstraps their knowledge on my model. The answer is that they try something and, if that doesn't work out, they try something else (assuming they survive long enough to do so). And language builds up around those experiences. — Andrew M

Ok, fine. I shall take that as saying we still agree language always presupposes experience.

Later he happens to pull the stick out and realizes it is straight. He makes a mental note of the implications of this discovery for future reference. And so knowledge and language accrete in tandem with practical experience. — Andrew M

Robbie can certainly pull and realize simultaneously. Or, if he happens to be on a tide flat and perceives the exposure of rocks, he can realize without any pulling. But mental note-taking is precisely the other part of the dualism being discussed. And in no case is it possible for Robbie to realize something before his experience of it. He can think it, but thinking is not realizing.

That is, he did not "physically" pull the stick out and, as a separate action, "mentally" realize that it was straight. Instead his realization that it was straight was part-and-parcel of pulling the stick out - a single action (which we can then go on to separate in an abstract sense for analysis). — Andrew M

Even if it be granted the action of pulling and the action of realizing are part-and-parcel of each other, simply from their simultaneity, they are still parts. Besides, realization can be considered really nothing other than a change in subjective condition, and all change takes time, so......

I know what you’re trying to say, and at first glimpse there is force to the argument. But the argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, because no explanation sufficient to facilitate it has as much power as an explanation that refutes it. The only reasonable recourse such argument has going for it, is to deny the theoretical reality of what Ryles calls “....any catalogue of simple qualities and simple relations, whether rude or refined...”. Which is tantamount to denying reason itself, because reason is exactly that catalogue.
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The model says that on the condition that Alice has identified a tree, she has acquired knowledge.
— Andrew M

Not my model. My model says on the condition that Alice has knowledge, she has thereby acquired the means to identify an object in the world. Whether or not the object is a tree depends on something else.
— Mww

Do you mean that if she has knowledge of the appearance (the photo in my illustration), she can then go on to identify an object such as a tree? Also, what does "whether or not the object is a tree" depend on? — Andrew M

No. Forget appearances, they are subconscious, theory-specific hypotheticals. Technically, they are means to an end, but a relatively minor one. I meant by my model, re: on the condition that Alice has knowledge, that given a series of mental activities, pursuant to a perception of sense, knowledge of what that perception entails, is given.

Whether or not the perception entails the conception of a particular object, depends exclusively on extant experience. After learning the identity of some particular object....

(Dad, what is this thing? Son, that’s what we call a fork. Oh. Ok)

.......every subsequent perception of a similar object will, all else being equal, be identified as that kind of object....

(SON!! Use your fork, not your fingers!! Oh. Ok.)

Before learning the identity of a particular kind of object, a perception will entail an unknown something in general, which is thereby left open to any non-contradictory judgement the perceiver’s naming method permits.

(What the hell is THAT?? Damned if I know...call it a ______ )

We understand this, because the very first instance of naming anything, is never conditioned by what the object is, but only as how we wish to know it.

(electrostatic discharges of black-body radiation are not fire arrows of the gods; the fundamental constituency of hadrons are not colored)

Til next time......

making every mind of uncertain existence — TheMadFool

Actually, every mind is sure to exist, insofar as every mind thinks its own certainty.

Community of individuals.

It is irrational to doubt the fact of thought, and that thoughts have exact content; there is no such thing as a thought never had nor a thought had that is empty.

It is impossible for a human to prove that thought is predicated exclusively on the existence of the body, for to do so he must prove thought is impossible without a body, and he must also prove every possible body thinks.

Two cents.

There's no dispute that Alice is acting intelligently here (...). The issue is over whether this is characterized in a naturally observable way or in a radically private way (...). — Andrew M

Ok. Keeping context in the fore.....

You: By intentional, I mean directing one's focus towards something;
Me: The thing being acted upon presupposes an actor, doesn’t it?;
You: there is no dispute that Alice is acting intelligently here.

.....it seems established that Alice, the actor, is directing her focus intelligently towards something, the object of her focus. To be pointing to a tree, as precedent has it herein, would certainly appear to be naturally observable, by anyone physiologically equipped to observe as does Alice herself. But I’m worried about the meaning of pointing to with respect to focus towards. Pointing to, in its strictest sense, would seem to be undeniably naturally observable, but focusing on seems just as undeniably radically private. Doing anything intelligently implies a source of intelligence, which implies radically private, but does not necessarily imply the naturally observable act of pointing.

So saying, when I point to, I mean to physically indicate. Therefore, I do not point with that which is radically private. My focusing on is not naturally observable, because focusing on, that is to say, the instantiation of a rational methodology, is an act of the intelligence, hence radically private. Thus, to resolve the issue as stated, I submit that all acts of the intelligence are characterized as radically private, all intelligent acts are naturally observable, and in general, the human does both.
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....what could Alice possibly be pointing at, if not an object that impresses her senses?
— Mww

It's of course true that she wouldn't be pointing at the tree if she hadn't sensed it. What I'm distinguishing here is the object itself (which she has a representation of) and the representation itself (as a kind of reified object).......

(Ok. Understood.)

........An analogy would be with a photograph of Alice's son Bob. When Alice shows the photo to a friend and says that this is her son Bob, she doesn't mean that the photograph she is pointing at is her son, she means that the person that the photo represents is her son. (....) That's what I'm indicating with (hyphenated) object-of-sense there. — Andrew M

Looks a lot like the ol’ map/territory paradox. Alice shows her friend the map of what she sees as the territory. ‘Course, the photo is a map to Alice as well; it’s just that she knows the territory better than the map depicts. Actually, she knows the territory so well, the map is quite useless to her. So she has both a first-hand, useful representation of her son, and a second-hand perfectly useless representation of the exact same thing in the photo of her son.

I, on the other hand, as Alice’s friend to whom she shows the photo, has a representation of the territory given from the map. The map, however, by telling me merely what the territory looks like, gives me no experience of the territory, so the map is useless to me as well.
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....does not tell us anything about how she arrived at the correspondence required (...) such that the pointing and the understanding don’t contradict each other.
— Mww

So on my model, "correspondence" is not the right term here, which implies a matching up between what she is doing physically and what she is doing mentally (...). But she is not performing two activities, she is performing one activity which is simply pointing at the tree. It's an identification (i.e., that this thing that Alice is pointing at is what she means by tree), so isn't subject to dualism's intractable interaction problems. — Andrew M

Ok, understood. But your model presupposes knowledge. Alice points to a thing she already understands as being identifiable as a tree. In such case, it is more parsimonious to attest she is performing a single task, but in doing so, reason is cast aside, which begs the monstrous question.....how can reason be so readily cast aside. Kant asked Hume this very question, because Hume agrees with you, insofar as, in effect, Alice identifies what she means for no other apparent reason than that’s what she always does. It’s called constant conjunction. And it’s empirically justified, but rationally, it sheer hogwash.

Constant conjunction...better known as mere habit....says what is done in the performance of one activity, but never how what is done comes about. Now you can bring in your language dudes, because they will inform you that language tells Alice what to do. Somebody told those dudes what to do, and somebody told those somebodies what to tell the dude to tell Alice....and eventually we end up asking the very same question Kant asked: how does the first guy find out what to tell everybody else? And if that is so patently obvious a problem for all people in general, it absolutely must be the exact same problem for any single member of that general population. Which gets us right back into where your model wants to get us out of...the dual aspect of physically doing, and mentally understanding what to do, so the two don’t contradict each other. Or, if you wish, so Alice is enabled to perform her single act.
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This raises the issue of how she can be certain she has successfully pointed at the tree (perhaps it is an illusion). The short answer is that she can't be certain. — Andrew M

True, she can’t. Her rationality relies on the law of non-contradiction, even if she’s not aware of it. She will become aware as soon as she makes a mistake in her pointing. Wonder what she’ll do when she has to learn something all on her own, where no kind of experience can help her. When all she has to go on is how it feels.

Think of this as a formal model for how language terms operate. It proceeds from knowledge of the thing, not knowledge of the appearance. — Andrew M

No doubt, no argument. Proceeding from knowledge says nothing about knowledge itself, but I’m all happy we’ve agreed knowledge comes first.
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The model says that on the condition that Alice has identified a tree, she has acquired knowledge. — Andrew M

Not my model. My model says on the condition that Alice has knowledge, she has thereby acquired the means to identify an object in the world. Whether or not the object is a tree depends on something else.

In saying this, you're assuming the reality of the object outside your judgement of it.
— Wayfarer

Yes, but Kant also assumes this in positing the thing-in-itself. What I'm saying is that the object itself is what my judgement is about, not a Kantian appearance. — Andrew M

As most are apt to say. But when saying that, all that happens without conscious attention, is neglected. You have no awareness of appearances, intuitions, conceptions, so you base judgements on the object as it is perceived. Nature has done you a favor. Appearances and all those esoteric entities only have meaning in a theoretical sense.

Kant also assumes the reality of objects but does not posit things-in-themselves on that assumption. He admits that things-in-themselves are just as real as the objects of judgement, and that there is no real difference between them. The difference lays in us, not the things.

If you can find no reason whatsoever to claim with certainty that the thing on which we base our judgements and the thing as it is without being judged by us, are not identical, you are justified, by the principle of deduction, in claiming the latter as not having any meaning or purpose. But that is only half the story, in as much you must also have every reason whatsoever to claim the thing of our judgement is without failure to be identical to the thing as it is in itself without our judgements, by the principle of induction.

As long as you see that it is absolutely impossible to know everything there is to know about anything a posteriori, which the principle of induction demands, then you must see it is possible for there to be a reason why the two instances of an object are not identical. And possibility is its own justification; we don’t need to know what the difference is, only that a difference is possible. This is why the thing-in-itself is a knowledge claim, not a reality claim. Reality does not depend on us, but our knowledge of reality sure as hell does.

By intentional, I mean directing one's focus towards something (i.e., the thing she is intentionally talking about or acting on). — Andrew M

The very epitome of a dualistic nature: focus towards immediately presupposes focus from. The thing being acted upon presupposes an actor, doesn’t it?
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When Alice points at a tree, she is not pointing at an object-of-sense or a representation, she is pointing at the thing itself which, by convention, has the name "tree". — Andrew M

If you had said.....when Alice points to a tree, she is pointing at the thing itself which, by convention, has the name “tree”.....I would have only slightly less inclined to find fault, for even that modified assertion still asks....where did the name “tree” come from, or, what form does convention take, such that “tree” falls out of it as a direct, and apparently necessary, correspondence between pointer and....er...the pointee?

Nevertheless, the minor objection is still the question....what could Alice possibly be pointing at, if not an object that impresses her senses? Perhaps the hyphenation has some meaning, but I don’t see any difference between object-of-sense and object of sense. There is no contention in saying she is pointing to the object itself, which must be something she senses. Otherwise.....why bother with the act of pointing, or indeed the act of speaking, at all? There is just as little contention in saying she is NOT pointing at a representation, because all representations, are internal to the human cognitive system, no matter which system one uses to explain himself.

At any rate, usually Alice pointing to tree is chalked up to experience, insofar as Alice already knows the thing she’s pointing at is conventionally named as “tree”. The major objection then becomes, just because we are told why she points the way she does, because of something she knows, does not tell us anything about how she arrived at the correspondence required between the pointing, or talking, she does physically, and the understanding she does mentally, such that the pointing and the understanding don’t contradict each other. What is being asked here is, and what convention of naming things reduces to, is, what happens to Alice between being told “this is a tree”, and her comprehension of what she’s being told?
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Alice has a specific cognitive system such that the tree has a specific form for Alice (which is how she is able to identify and represent the tree). — Andrew M

Ok, so this is the attempt to answer the question of conventional naming.

.......Alice has a specific cognitive system, certainly;
.......such that the tree has a specific form for Alice, maybe;
......which is how she is able to identify and represent the tree, incomplete.

Form as in what objects look like, or form as in general characteristic of a class or group of objects. If a tree has a specific form for Alice, how does Alice tell one kind of tree from another? If Alice can tell one tree from another, it cannot be merely from the form “tree” that facilitates such separation, but would seem to require a form for each and every single aspect of difference. The interconnectedness of the root system of aspens absolutely cannot be derived from the mere form “tree”.

The maybe arises in particular in the fact that things Alice can intentionally point to or talk about may not have a form as does the tree. Alice can certainly point to examples of injustice, and talk about beautiful things, but she is only talking about things under certain conditions. Alice can talk about time, but she’s gonna have a hellava lot of trouble pointing to it.

And the incompleteness arises from the very simple question.....where does the form reside? How is it possible to determine with apodeitic certainty, that forms reside in the objects, or that form resides in the cognitive system from which identity and representation of objects is given?

I wouldn’t be so bold as to make a positive claim in that regard.
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Even she herself has a specific form for Alice. Thus she can also observe herself pointing at the tree. She is in the scene that she is representing conceptually. — Andrew M

I grant Alice has a form for herself, which has been called, among other things, the transcendental object, or transcendental ego, the “I” of subjective activity. But the “I” is never used in pure thought, and only becomes manifest in communication as an explanatory placeholder.

I don’t dispute your rationality, one can think whatever he wants, but I nevertheless categorically reject the notion that Alice observes herself, or that she is in the scene. Way too much Cartesian theater for me.

And Alice isn’t in the scene as much as she IS the scene.
————————

This is a non-dualist model - there is no internal/external distinction here. There is just an object that exhibits a specific form in relation to another object that it interacts with (or, in the case of self-reference, observes to be itself). — Andrew M

This may be the case, for a third party observer. I can see that Alice and the tree she points to are both objects. There is no internal/external distinction because they both are external to me. But they are still objects from the perspective of me as a subject in the form of a third party observer. It is still me (subject) seeing or thinking them (objects). This does nothing whatsoever to prove the non-duality of Alice with respect to her tree.
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On Gilbert Ryles:

He is correct in saying Descartes attributed the mind/body problem to the category of substance, when he should have attributed it to the category of relation, such being promulgated long before Ryles. But that does nothing to extinguish the problem, but simply relocates it to a theoretically more sustainable realm. Nowadays, we have the knowledge that justifies “mind” as being just a seeming.....what it seems like to the normal average joe.....rather than what the brain is actually doing, the knowledge to which folks back in the day didn’t in the least have access.

Be that as it may, those same average joes don’t give a crap what their brain is doing, when it comes to wondering why things are the way they seem. As long as that happens, there is going to be a mind/body, subject/object dualism. WHAT it is may be argued, you or anybody from the analytic domain and me or anybody from the continental, from now til doomsday, but THAT it is, is indisputable.

On Wittgenstein:

Who????

What Kant means.....

Existence is a category, which are the pure conceptions of the understanding and serve as the necessary conditions for experience. Just as the definition of a word cannot contain the word, so too cannot a conception of a thing be determined by the merely logical conditions for it.

Adding existence as a real predicate to spheroid, inflatable, leather, in order to cognize basketball adds nothing whatsoever to the cognition, for it is possible to cognize a thing without experiencing the existence of it.

The first was posited to refute Locke’s common sense realism, the second posited to refute Hume’s constant conjunction empiricism.

Bring your own salt.

However the Earth itself is curved in spacetime due to its mass. So there is no Euclidean straight line from NYC to Hong-Kong through the Earth. — Andrew M

Hmmm.....curved in spacetime, or curves spacetime? Cured in space, sure....it’s a spheroid. Curves spacetime, sure..... it has mass in a gravitational field. If Earth is curved in spacetime, that’s more information than I have any practical use for, so I’ll take your word for it. Nevertheless, if I have a transparent globe and shine a laser pointer between two points through the globe, it will be a shorter measure than if I pin a string at the same origin on the globe and measure to the same terminus on the surface of the globe. That’s all I’m sayin’.

both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry would be synthetic a priori for Kant. — Andrew M

Synthetic a priori propositions, yes, according to Kant. Synthetic because each and every single unit, and similarly each and every operator, of any kind of mathematical system is absolutely useless in and of itself, but must be combined with some other unit of some relative domain, and a priori because, simply put, there are no numbers in Nature. Drawing or merely thinking a line, or a 2, can do nothing whatsoever by itself. Even if the most basic use for a line is to connect two points still presupposes the thought of two points, and the thought of some reason they should be connected.
——————-

Then it is an entirely separate question of how to mathematically represent the universe, which is a question for physics (and involves experience). — Andrew M

Actually, such has become somewhat of a problem, for both reason and mathematics. It follows that in order to maintain logical consistency and in order to prevent empirical absurdities, if the most basic mathematical functions are synthetic a priori, then so too are the more complex. In fact, the more complex the formulas, the less apt they are for immediate empirical demonstration, which makes them all the more a priori. We have progressed in the astronomically very large and the microscopically very small long past direct experience, so we have become adept at inventing mathematical structures to predict that which we cannot directly observe. As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, then we must invent the instruments with the expressed intent of indirectly observing exactly what the math predicts.

It should never be contentious that the Universe in general is mathematically represented, merely because of our own limited observational capacities, and our understanding has never been outside the exclusive preview of physics, but the involvement of experience, in its common sense, is necessarily limited to the math and the experimental results of it. We’ll get to Mars eventually, sure, and with it we’ll have experience. But it might just turn out to be quite impossible for us to get to Andromeda.
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In my view, the ordinary object we point to (the intentional object) is not a representation or an object of sense. — Andrew M

That’s fine, no problem. No matter how one goes about labeling his mental machinations, he is still obliged to demonstrate how such machinations become knowledge, and indeed, common knowledge, such that any congruent rationality understands him. If you claim something about some ordinary object, you then have to explain how it gets its very particular name, and also explain it such that it is possible for me to give it the same name.

I think I understand you to mean by “...(the intentional object)...” to indicate something like Brentano’s “immanent objectivity”, which is a kind of presupposition about a thing because there are certain inherences in it which avail themselves to a certain kind of rational system, and post hoc ergo propter hoc as knowledge. I grant there is general reliability between the thesis whereby things possess properties we perceive and know them by, and the thesis whereby we give things the properties that make them the objects they are known as.

On the other hand, if by “the ordinary object we point to” is just some physical reality I can direct my finger toward to indicate a certain existence, then that is not a Kantian representation, so in that you are correct, but it is nonetheless an object of sense, insofar as an affect on the senses is given by it, else I must admit to pointing at nothing. It follows that “an ordinary object we point to”, re: Kant, and “...(intentional object)...”, re: Brentano, are mutually exclusive, for the former is known as something and the latter is not, in the same stages of cognition for each under the auspices of their respective theoretical speculations.

All that being said, it remains indisputable that whatever is external to the brain absolutely cannot be the same as whatever is internal to it, which makes explicit some form of representational system for human knowledge of objective reality is indisputably the case. Such must be the ground of any epistemological/cognitive theory.

we've subsequently discovered, per Relativity, that the geometry of space and time is non-Euclidean. Which means that Kant's (synthetic a priori) judgments about space and time have been falsified by experience. — Andrew M

First, Kant didn’t attribute any geometry to space, but rather, to objects in space. Kant was a “magister” in math and tutored university-level mathematics, so it is highly unlikely he wasn’t aware of non-Euclidean axioms, such that triangles on the surface of a sphere do not have angle summation of 180 degrees. But that fact does not negate the Euclid’s “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line”, which remains true even if one cannot get from A to B in a straight line. The truth that one cannot cut through the Earth to get from NYC to Hong Kong does not falsify the fact that cutting through the Earth is the shortest way.

Second, in order for experience to falsify “...Kant’s (synthetic a priori) judgements about space and time...”, one would have to show, 1.) he made any such statements, 2.) that if he did, how experience would falsify them, and most importantly, 3.) what synthetic a priori judgement actually is.

“....Judgements of experience, as such, are always synthetical....”
“....Mathematical judgements are always synthetical....”
“....mathematical propositions are always judgements a priori, and not empirical, because they carry along with them the conception of necessity, which cannot be given by experience....”

It is clear Kantian synthetic a priori judgements require necessity, which experience cannot deliver. Therefore experience cannot falsify them.

Consider, even though time dilation and length contraction have been shown to be the case, as regards relativity, all that began with pure mathematics, which are.......wait for it......all synthetic a priori propositions. Einstein had to think all this stuff before he ever wrote anything down, and had to wait years for technology to catch up enough to demonstrate the the truth in the math.

Also consider, no matter what relativity says, a guy doing geometric functions anywhere in the Universe can still use Euclid’s axioms. He’s still human and so was Euclid, so......

It’s always helpful to keep in mind just what relativity means.
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Did Kant think that our existing language that we use to represent the world and acquire knowledge somehow fails us?[/quote]

Could very well be, seeing as how he invented some for himself. Or at least reformed some extant meanings to suit himself. But generally I wouldn’t say he thought language fails us. That we use the same language doesn’t guarantee understanding, but does guarantee understanding is possible. And because the language of mathematics is the same for every human, understanding math is given, depending on experience with its use, of course.
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The stick example shows that one can be mistaken about what they think they've perceived. So the language term "appear" is introduced to represent that situation (e.g., the straight stick appeared to be bent). The problem it solves is to give us language for describing a naturally-occurring situation. Things aren't always as they appear to be. — Andrew M

That things aren’t always as they appear is certainly true, but it isn’t why Kant introduced the term “appearance”. Even if that which appears is not a false representation of the real state of affairs, it is no less an appearance than that which appears that is a false representation. Because the Kantian cognitive system is representational, there must be representations for each step in the procedure, so appearance is simply the first representation in the transition from external real physical to internal speculative theory. This is why I said “appearance” for Kant is like making the scene, being presented, and not meant to tell us what a thing looks like. Appearance serves the Kantian system equally to all five senses, which tends to eliminate what a thing looks like, when the thing being perceived doesn’t even have a look, but has instead a feel or an odor.

The stick appears bent is in the sense of what it looks like but really isn’t; the Kantian appearance of the bent stick is exactly that.....for all representational intents and purposes, the damn stick is bent!!! All the way through the cognitive system the stick retains the appearance of a bent stick, and it will be judged to be bent.....which is exactly what we see. It doesn’t matter to the system that light is being refracted, it doesn’t matter to the cognitive system that air density and water density are not the same, or even have anything to do with the perception of a stick in a peculiar condition.

Experience tells us the stick, appearing bent, really isn’t. The system only tells us what it has the capacity to tell us. If the laws of physics operate such that a stick looks to be bent, then the stick will appear bent. All the bent stick proves is that perception is passive, insofar as it makes no mistakes, but rather all errors in cognition are from judgement alone. We know the truth of this little tidbit, because the stick appears just as bent after we learn it isn’t, then before we learn it isn’t. And a crawly thing between your shoulder blades makes its sensational appearance without having a “looks like” appearance.
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But that shifts the question to be about his system as a whole. What problem is it solving? — Andrew M

Depends on what his system is thought to be. Actually, it is a speculative cognitive system, meant to show a possible method for the human intellect to arrive at an understanding of himself and his environment. Keyword...speculative. The theory was never meant to establish a truth about anything at all, except itself as such. Hence, the theory doesn’t solve any problems, except those the theory explores, and then only if one grants the tenets of it. The bent stick is a pretty lousy example of false knowledge, though, because somebody somewhere figure out real fast the illusion behind it. But no one in the normal living of normal life is ever going to have direct experience of time dilation, and the guy on the platform only makes his judgements based on his watch, not the watch the guy on the train uses.

We speak of things that happen IN time but it would be more exact to say that we measured things with time. Time without events and observers would vanished. — David Mo

Yes, things happen in time is a general statement, or a general condition of all measurable things. Still, when we say we are measuring things with time, we are merely denoting the amount of time IN which a thing happens.
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So, is invisibility a metaphysical idea? — David Mo

Depends on the metaphysical theory in play. According to Kant it is, because invisibility has no object of its own, so would be a concept of reason, hence, transcendental, which is itself in the metaphysical paradigm. Things may indeed be invisible and still present a sensation to the process of cognition, hence are subject to the categories, but the concept of invisibility, in and of itself, is not so subject. It is the thing by which we are affected, not the invisibility of it.

Thus,.......consider the geocentrists whose a priori view was that Earth was the center of the universe, might better be said.....whose prior view.
— Mww

Cool. So my suggestion is that this should similarly apply to absolute space/time and relativistic spacetime. — Andrew M

Yes, I see what you mean. Newtonian absolute space/time was the view prior to relativistic spacetime.

That is, through experience, Einstein's Relativity has replaced Newtonian Physics. Doesn't that contradict the Kantian view? — Andrew M

I’m not understanding what in Einstein would contradict Kant. Where did Einstein prove Kant wrong, in as much as they each operated from two distinct technological and scientific domains? Kant had no significant velocities other than a horse, and there were no trains, which together negate even the very notion of time differential reference frames, so there wouldn’t appear to be any reason for Kant to notice measurable discrepancies in rest/motion velocities.
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So it seems to me that Kant's notion of appearance is artificial. What problem does it solve that we haven't already solved with the natural distinction above. — Andrew M

What problem is there, that the natural distinction above solves? Appearance in Kantian terminology can’t be artificial in any sense, because it is a representation of sensation. If there is a sensation, there will be an appearance, period. And it is necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between sensation and appearance, otherwise there is no ground for the subsequent cognitive procedures, which falsifies the entire system. Appearance in Kant is like making the scene, as in “...that which appears...”, not what a thing looks like, because the advent of appearance in the system is long before cognition, which means there is nothing known whatsoever about the appearance except that one has occurred, been presented, to the system. Thus, it shouldn’t be said that that which is unknown at a certain time is thereby artificial.

I’m open to clarification on either of these, if you wish to provide it.

intuitions are not templates (a priori), they are the content of our ideas. Space and time are the templates of sensible intuition. — David Mo

Philosophy advances by the appropriation of terms, no doubt. Appropriation of terms into subsequent domains still should be legitimatized.

Intuition...content of ideas.
Space and time.....templates of sensible intuitions
Ergo....space and time are the templates of sensible content of ideas.

Could be, but....what is the sensible content of an idea? “Invisibility” is an idea, but hardly has sensible content. An object certainly has sensible content, but should such object then be merely an idea?
——————-

The metaphysical error is to use space and time templates without sensible material. — David Mo

Certainly an empirical error, I’ll give you that. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a metaphysical error to use time without sensible material, though, even while space would suit the case. All human thought is successive, a condition of time without material content. In fact, any first principle of relation necessarily implies time as an a priori template, re: cause and effect. Or, A cannot simultaneously be not-A.

Actually, it might be a metaphysical error to use the templates of space and time WITH sensible material, because metaphysically, space and time don’t have any sensible material conceived as belonging to them.

Don’t mind me.....just thinking out loud.

the (contingently) prior background — Andrew M

...is categorically opposed to the Kantian a priori meaning, for any contingently prior background is merely another way to say “experience”.

“....By the term "knowledge a priori," therefore, we shall in the sequel understand, not such as is independent of this or that kind of experience, but such as is absolutely so of all experience. Opposed to this is empirical knowledge, or that which is possible only a posteriori, that is, through experience...”

Thus,.......consider the geocentrists whose a priori view was that Earth was the center of the universe, might better be said.....whose prior view.
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An implication of the Kantian view is that two events that are simultaneous for one observer are simultaneous for all observers. — Andrew M

Two events for a guy and guy standing right beside him, will be simultaneous to both, yes. The difference between the observations will be immeasurable.

I’m thoroughly familiar with Einstein, 1920 (English)
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On sticks in water....

“.....It is not at present our business to treat of empirical illusory appearance (for example, optical illusion), which occurs in the empirical application of otherwise correct rules of the understanding, and in which the judgement is misled by the influence of imagination...”

Other "templates" are more particular and a posteriori. — David Mo

Yep.

Intuitions.

Man, that’s a lot of templates. If there are an immeasurably large number of possible experiences, each one with its own template......where’d they all come from?

Now if there were a certain number of templates to which every single possible experience must abide, that might be something to consider. Sorta like a mind saying......hey, screw this. If that which is presented to me doesn’t meet certain necessary conditions, I ain’t even going to bother trying to make something of it.

‘Course, still have to explain where a few necessary conditions come from, just as much as a veritable infinite number of templates. Down in the metaphysical weeds are things like innate ideas, forms, pure conceptions....all kinds weird stuff.

Consider the geocentrists whose a priori view was that Earth was the center of the universe and that the Sun moved across the sky. The heliocentrists replaced that with their own a priori view that it was the Earth that moved around the Sun. — Andrew M

What is it about those views that make them a priori?
——————

Kant's a priori view was Euclidean. But Einstein replaced that with spacetime relativity. — Andrew M

Even in Einstein, the observer in his own reference frame is in the Kantian view of Euclidean space and time.

Oh. Ok....never mind.

Kant tries to think logical and mathematical thought operations themselves and not just apply them to the world as a natural and true way to access things. — waarala

Well done!!! Pure reason writ large, yes?

Just as logic is predicated on the synthesis of major/minor/conclusion, so too is the theory of human knowledge, in this case transcendental idealism, predicated the synthesis of intuition/conception/judgement.

And, just as mathematics is predicated on law, which invokes the principles of universality and necessity, so too is reason, “....in obedience to the laws of its own nature...” speculated in such manner as to produce those laws.

Makes sense he would construct a logically, lawfully consistent theory based on the two domains in human experience that operate exclusively on those principles.

Per Kant, there's a real world but it's completely unknowable. — Andrew M

If taken from the principle of induction, this would be correct, but might should read....unknowable completely.

The world-in-itself is completely unknowable, taken as the totality of all possible thing-in-themselves, is the logically consistent proposition, wherein completely unknowable means not knowable at all. In that sense, the knowability depends solely on the human cognitive system, without any regard to empirical principles.

Kant's idea, which I assume, is that the a priori is something like a template that we apply to the world. — David Mo

Common interpretation, that. A template impressed on the world to which it must conform. I would rather think a priori reason is the mold into which the world is poured. The only difference, which is more semantic than necessary perhaps, is that template implies projection of the mind onto the world, and mold implies receptivity of the world into the mind. Just depends on one’s choice in understanding of the relationship between mind and world.
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An open question is whether we should assume some structural order in the world. — David Mo

What would the world look like if we didn’t? I’m not sure what you mean by a structure. Is it that we assume, e.g., atomic structure, because experiments support it?

In context, I am the non-academic, therefore it is I whose criticism is quite toothless.

That is not to say I don’t read, and appreciate the intelligibility of, non-academics; philosophy forums are full of ‘em, after all.
————

he had read the best verses of his life in mediocre poets. I'm in. Why not you? — David Mo

Pure cognitive prejudice: he who has not the remaining time or eyesight left for luck, should limit himself to interest.

That was a great introduction. Although I couldn’t find when it was written; apparently, Pogson-Smith wasn’t famous enough for a wiki page of his own.

I am always fascinated by historical contexts, the influences of the time of the writing, as opposed to looking back from its future. I mean....who cares about the Papal Bull of 1570, but its effect on Hobbes was quite apparent. Descartes was talked about a lot differently then than now, as well.

Interesting.

children do not construct the concept of cause or substance by adding sensations, but by giving them an order. — David Mo

Children do not construct those concepts by adding sensation....agreed, absolutely

But if it is meant that the child does construct those concepts by giving them an order....I don’t know how that would work.
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We perceive something from a unique perspective and we don't know why it has to be that way. — David Mo

Dunno why not, we own that unique perspective, so we know why it has to be that way. Couldn’t be any other way.

If you mean we don’t know why the something we perceive, given our unique perspective, has to be the way we perceive it, then that is exactly right. Our unique perspective is not an authority on the way of something, but only how we think of it.

Reasoning tells us why it has to be this way and not otherwise, its necessity. — David Mo

Yes, but only from our unique perspective. We cannot project our sense of necessity if it arises from our own reason. If that were the case, we’d be effectively telling the Universe how it must be, rather than us merely trying to understand how it is. Besides, whatever necessities the Universe holds in itself, can only be given to us depending on how we ask about them. Except for sheer accident, of course.

“...Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose...”

The Universe says, “I’ll tell you puny, know-nothing humans whatever you want to know. All you gotta do is figure out how to ask me the proper questions”

In a certain sense, child psychology has proved Kant right: children do not construct the concept of cause or substance by adding sensations — David Mo

Yes, and raises a very subtle point of Kantian metaphysics: it isn’t what we know, but how we know it. OK, so as the theory goes, there exist a priori principles in the mind, and an example is a geometric figure, Well, after a certain age, it is highly unlikely a person doesn’t already have a great experience with geometric figures, which makes it very hard to claim a priori principles. Ok, fine. Divide a priori into pure and impure, in order to save the one because of an apparent contradiction with the other, and reflect back to a time of very first experience. Problem is, no one can remember what was going on in their heads at some very first experience, that isn’t conditioned by something they already know. Which makes the Hume-ian argument against a priori knowledge so powerful.

But if we consider a child, who has absolutely minimal experience with everything to begin with, hence isn’t affected by memory, it becomes easier to see the necessary rational groundwork for reason in general and a priori reason in particular. Because a child does learn, and learns without conditioning experience, some kind of a priori principles or pure conditions must exist in the human system. But if a child, and therefore anyone, has some form of pure a priori conditions, they couldn’t be constructed, for there would be nothing to construct them from, that aren’t themselves the same kind of thing, or from experience, which he doesn’t yet have.

This is why Kant specifically, and many others somewhat less but still inclusively, claim for the faculty of understanding the ability to think, for it would appear, however magically it must seem, that these necessary conditions, like, as you say, cause, substance, existence, possibility, necessity, etc., must arise from the intellect itself.

Of course, no one has been able to explain how understanding can think pure a priori and thereby necessary conditions....the categories.....but if it does, then all else falls into place neat as the proverbial pin. The second major objection: metaphysical theories cannot be falsified.

The issue with subject/object dualism is that it affects (or infects, depending on one's perspective) the way people look at everything such that it is difficult to conceive of any alternative. — Andrew M

Yes, I suppose. We talk usually in the form, “We think....”, “You know...”, “I am....”, and so on, which makes explicit a subject/object dualism in general intersubjective communications. But I wouldn’t call that an issue as much as I’d call it linguistic convention. Nature of the beast, so to speak, and definitely makes it difficult to conceive an alternative.

Ooooo but my oh my how they try: universal consciousness, utilitarianism, being one with my fellow man.....(sigh)

If there is a real issue, I would attribute it to science, which is trying its damnedest to eliminate the subjective nature of the intellect.

I guess I'd like to hear what you have to say about the transcendental pretense (the assumption that we all have the same rational system.) — mask

My understanding of the alleged transcendental pretense is that fundamental subjectivity is a license for arrogance, or, that because there is a common rational system amongst humans, a common great and wonderful behavior should be constructed from it. And because Kant is the prime champion for the power of the person as subject, he is accused as the culprit for the rise of such pretense.

What a load!!!! Kant’s time was the Enlightenment, the cultural, political and religious upheaval of which contributed much more to Everydayman’s new-found dominance than the Kantian (1784) sapere aude ever did.
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Or in general what you think Kant had to take for granted in order to write CPR. — mask

Superficially: reality of the external world combined with the power of natural science to explain it; the inevitability of metaphysics combined with the failure of natural science to explain it.
Fundamentally: it is possible to discover, and rein reason to within, a proper boundary.
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....what did he not see? — mask

The intrinsic circularity of human reason itself, re: the evolution of a theory on reason, using reason to evolve it. It is hard to say he didn’t see it, but rather merely ignored it, seeing as how there is no choice in the matter.
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Do you have any criticisms of Kant? — mask

Nahhhhh. After 250 years, there’s not much left to be critical of, that hasn’t been beat to death by others. Besides, any criticisms a non-academic would have really is quite toothless.

A worth endeavor perhaps, but the nature of human subjectivity seems to prohibit, or at least seriously impair, its possibility.

The world is not a set of objects but the 'stage' or 'background' on which or against which all things exist. — mask

Yes, seems that way to me as well. A jar of jellybeans is not the jar.

There is another part that is outdated: mathematics is universal. — David Mo

I submit Kant means by universal, anywhere there is a human employing those principles in the same conditions under which they were imposed a priori. No matter where we go in the Universe, they must apply, and now that Voyager 2 has exited the solar system, the universality of mathematics seems to be confirmed. It still exists just as we built it.

A sheet of paper will be a plane anywhere a human is in the same plane. Mathematics as human know them will not hold in a black hole, but then.....neither will a human. 1 +1 = 2 no matter what planet we occupy. There may be different mathematics in the Universe, dependent on the rationality that forges them, but those rationalities wouldn’t be the same as ours.

If the language that the individual thinks in is forged socially, then Heidegger has a point with his being-in-the-world and being-with-others as a deeper layer than the epistemological theory of the individual mind processing sensation with an innate set of concepts. — mask

That may all well be, but it bears keeping in mind that peope don’t think qua think, in language; people think, meaning the private subjective rational activity, in images. Language only arises in discussions of thought, which is to say, the meaning of those images.

I think we do have the same rational system, more or less, but believing this seems to depend on experience — mask

The system is complete in itself; the content of the system is predicated on experience, yes. And it really doesn’t matter what name a theory subsumes the system under, as long as they all agree we as humans all have the same faculties.

Cool. Thanks. I admit to not thumbing far enough, or thumbing right over it. I lost my place in answering your question. Are you ok with the responses you got, or is there anything you’re still unsatisfied with?

Kant’s things in themselves, which correspond to Locke’s things themselves, affect our senses and in this sense they certainly bear a quasi-causal character. — Tomida

YEA!!! (Does the Happy Dance, a-la Snoopy.....feet just a-blur)

I appreciate your familiarity with the subject matter, and your arguments.

Things in themselves are not perceived, only thought. — David Mo

That things in themselves are only thought is correct, but everything a human perceives is also thought. On the other hand, to say a thing in itself is ONLY thought implies its existence is not necessary. If its existence is not necessary, it can have no necessary use. Isn’t its regulation of our knowledge a necessary use, insofar as at least instance of an unknownable, is informed by it?

But I take your intent with the proposition. The solution is to allow the determinations of the nature of the “-in-itself” to be different than the determination of the nature of the “thing” connected necessarily with it. See SS9-1.
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Your mistake was here. — David Mo

I won’t say I haven’t made one, except that if I did, it would have nothing to do with the ideality of space or transcendental appearances. I haven’t thought of things or things in themselves in that way. Nor have I involved subjective conditions as properties.

I do grant anything to which my empirical intuitions cannot apply a transcendental existence, which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with me in considering things met in perception alone. The transcendentalism only disappears iff something progresses into the faculty that represents it as an appearance, which perception is never tasked to do.

I understand what you’re trying to say, by saying the thing-in-itself is not perceived. Things perceived do not vacate their space simply because they are impressed upon us, the thing remains even while we are thinking about it. Nevertheless, the thing thought about merely represents the thing that remains in its space, and THAT is the thing-in-itself.

When the face in the toast is the focus of attention, the toast itself fades to background)
— Mww

I'm afraid I don't understand the example of the toast. This raises a question about your conception of the thing in itself (noumenon). The face on the toast is just a phenomenal illusion. — David Mo

Agreed. The point being, the manner it which it became an illusion.

I categorical reject the symbolism implicating the thing-in-itself should equate to noumenon.
I find it telling that it is so difficult to fathom, that the discursive faculty of understanding is the sole originator of any kind of likeness between them, and then only because they are misunderstood. They are utterly and completely different in form and matter, they are differently logically and they are different conceptually. The only commonality shared between them is knowledge and the lack thereof.
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Things in themselves refer to objects such as substance, God, cause, soul, etc. that have no appearance. — David Mo

Yes, things in themselves and all those “such as” are the same as far as the faculty of sensibility is concerned, because none of them appear to us, but they all can still be thought by us. That does not mean the thing in itself refers to them, or, that those “such as” are even objects, in the manner in which a thing in itself is an object.

Does Kant really think there are basketballs out there? — mask

Linguistic convention says there are basketballs out there; transcendental idealism says there are objects out there only called basketballs because the human represents the object to himself as such.
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.....ordinary reality is a kind of intersubjective representation.... — mask

Correct. Given that all humans incorporate the same rational system, all reality in general should be consistent among them. A basketball is such for me as it is such for you. Even if I have no experience of them, if you tell me about one, I should understand what you’re talking about and form a representation of it a priori for myself. This is for the most part because of the categories, which permits conception of an object in general without all the the necessary intuitions given from perception.
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A small point. Can geometry really be saved this way? — mask

My doctrine of the ideality of space and of time..... — Kant

I can’t find this passage. To tell the truth, I don’t even recognize it, my keyword searches don’t lead me to it, and because I’m too lazy to peruse all my literature even after thumbing through some of it, would you please refer me to its source? I’m not sure what geometry is having to be saved from, unless you meant illusory appearance. That has an affirmative answer, but I’m going to withhold it because I don’t want to confuse the contexts.
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The truths of Euclid seem to depend on shared practices. Trying to ground science on an individual mind seems iffy. — mask

Synthetic propositions of geometry indeed require practice to prove their truth, consistent with their specific objects. Analytic propositions of logic, on the other hand, do as well, but require only objects in general be given to them.

The science of relativity is grounded in Galileo’s mind alone, isn’t it? Einstein may or may not have thought SR and GR on his own, even if there never was a Galileo, but he didn’t.

Representations of our sensibility is an affect on our senses. An affect on our senses is a perception. A perception requires what we call an outward object. Outward objects are outward things. Outward objects in themselves are things-in-themselves. Outward objects in themselves are perceived. things-in-themselves are perceived. That which is merely perceived is unknown to us. Things-in-themselves are unknown to us.
— Mww

Your argument is wrong. To think that an undetermined "something" has caused A is not the same as knowing the cause of A. Moreover, Kant says countless times that we cannot perceive things in themselves. This is the main point of CPR. — David Mo

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“...objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility...”
(B45)

Simple substitution, object in itself for thing in itself. It is done by the author repeatedly. Please show how my argument is wrong.
— Mww

In this paragraph Kant is criticizing the "ordinary" representation of things in themselves, purely empirical. His criticism begins from "But if we consider..." The idea is that the in thing itself cannot be reached through the generalization of the senses. — David Mo

——————

I still don’t see how my argument, that paragraph ending in things-in-themselves are unknown to us, is wrong. Your “But if we consider....” is in B63, which has to do with transcendental objects. B45 isn’t treating objects of perception as transcendental objects.

I understand “objects are quite unknown to us in themselves” (B45), but I don’t think that is meant to imply objects unknown to us in themselves, are not the objects of perception. If such should be the case, we must have two distinct and locally separate objects...the one we perceive, and the exact same singular entity left behind because it is unknown to us. That would be like.....if we don’t know what they are, we can’t see them, which is logically absurd. Or, which is just as silly.....we can’t see them because we don’t know what they are.

I would appreciate a reference for your “...Kant says countless times that we cannot perceive things in themselves. This is the main point of CPR....”. I would agree we cannot perceive any transcendental object, and if the thing-in-itself is considered as one, we wouldn’t be able to perceive it with our representational system. But that does not say spacetime objects are only considered transcendentally.

True enough, actually. But, man......those paragraph-long sentences.....I have to start over by the time I get to the end of some of them, I swear.

But you are right, all in all. He lays a very basic set of pre-conditions, in the introductions, to be sure.

YES!!! I mean....the guy’s tough, sure. Sometimes confusing, absolutely. But it’s all in the book, if a guy wants to dig it out bad enough.

Read Kant in full. — I like sushi

YES!!! And get several translations. Sometimes comparing them helps with one’s comprehension.

Anyway, Kant only say in these sentences that noumena cannot be explained by sensibility because they point to an impossible-pure knowledge of metaphysical entities. — David Mo

Understood, and all well and good. Some groundwork, if I may:

Thought. A thought. Full stop. No ways and means, no object, no terminology. Just a split-second instance of what a human does as a private rational agency. A form of something as yet without content. Then, consider its spontaneity. The proverbial, “it just popped into my head” kinda thing. Granting this actual occasion is sufficient reason for Kant to speculate this, as the second theoretical tenet:

“....Our knowledge springs from two main sources, the first (receptivity for impressions); the second is the (spontaneity in the production of conceptions). Through the first an object is given to us; through the second, it is thought....”

And because of that tenet, these consequences are justified as following from it:

“....we call the faculty of spontaneously producing representations, understanding.....”
“.....Conceptions, then, are based on the spontaneity of thought...”

Thus is given that concepts are representations, and as such, arise spontaneously from the faculty of understanding, which makes explicit understanding is the faculty of thought itself. In other words, it is meant to justify that understanding thinks. From that, and with various support found within the theory, thought is cognition by means of conceptions.
———————-

Now, that being what the understanding is, it remains to be said what the understanding does.

“.....But the conjunction of a manifold in intuition never can be given us by the senses, for it is a spontaneous act of the faculty of representation. And as we must, to distinguish it from sensibility, entitle this faculty understanding; so all conjunction (...) is an act of the understanding. To this act we shall give the general appellation of synthesis, thereby to indicate, at the same time, that we cannot represent anything as conjoined in the object without having previously conjoined it ourselves....”

Thus is given that understanding is the faculty that thinks, and in empirical thought, thinks a synthesis of conjoining representations of its own spontaneous creation to the representations of a manifold in intuition. Or, conceptions to intuitions, hence the adage, “...Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind....”

Sidebar: This......we cannot represent anything as conjoined in the object without having previously conjoined it ourselves......is the oft-abused, but fundamentally critical “Copernican Revolution”.
———————

The onset of the noumenal problem arises here:

“....understanding which is occupied merely with empirical exercise, and does not reflect on the sources of its own cognition, may exercise its functions very well and very successfully, but is quite unable to do one thing, and that of very great importance, to determine, namely, the bounds that limit its employment, and to know what lies within or without its own sphere....”

The entire foray into noumena is justified by this one thing:

one may see a piece of toast, but one may also see a piece of toast with a face in it.

All this is, is the faculty of understanding turning itself into the faculty of imagination, insofar as there is created a phenomenon from that which no such phenomenon should be contained.

And the problem is caused by the understanding itself:

“......The understanding, when it terms an object in a certain relation phenomenon, at the same time forms out of this relation a representation or notion of an object in itself, and hence believes that it can form also conceptions of such objects....” (B306)

Without the direct references, it shall be given that the conceptions understanding thinks as belonging to a mere notion of an object in itself already established as a phenomenon from the faculty of sensibility, it calls a noumenon, thus nothing but an intelligible concoction dreamed up by understanding simply because it has voluntarily exceeded its empirical mandate in the employment of its spontaneity.

In effect, understanding represents to itself, on its own accord, the notion of a thing, terms it noumenon, but stops right there, without also thinking schema that would then be synthesized to it in order for such notion to have reality.

Understanding here thinking to or within itself, not with respect to sensibility thus without empirical content, therefore it is the pure understanding. The only conceptions belonging to pure understanding are the categories. The categories can only apply in empirical thought having to do with objects of sensibility, and the notion of an object in itself understanding thinks for itself, is no such thing. The only concepts with which pure understanding has to synthesize......which is its job after all.....are the categories, but synthesis of pure conceptions with mere notions cannot give a cognition. Therefore, noumena are nothing but logically possible, pure thoughts of the understanding, and most certainly not a thing in itself.

It now should be clear that.....

“.....giving the name of noumena to things, not considered as phenomena, but as things in themselves, hence is compelled to cogitate them merely as an unknown something....” (B310, 1985)
“....the concept of noumena, not to be thought as objects of the senses, but as a thing-in-itself, solely through a pure understanding....” (B310, 1929)

.......is simply an elaboration of B306, in which the original thought of the pure understanding as “object in itself”, is thoroughly interchangeable with the thing in itself of B310, and only is meant to advocate noumena have no possibility of ever being a cognized empirically just as the actual, real physical ding an sich outside us has no possibility, and not that they should ever be thought as being the same thing. The difference in consideration as to why they cannot, lays in the consequences of noumena being the off-shoot of a mere notion, but the ding an sich stands as an unknowable, albeit a real, physical object. The former is objectively valid as a thought, the latter is objectively real as an object.
——————

In the case where it is said noumena are the limit on appearance, or sensibility, derives from the following:

Phenomena are the result of the synthesis of appearance to intuition by the imagination. Understanding synthesizes phenomena with conception. Pure understanding attempts to synthesize a notion of an object in itself already given as phenomenon, which already has an appearance as its predicate. The notion of an object in itself deletes phenomenon proper......

(When the face in the toast is the focus of attention, the toast itself fades to background)

.......thus the appearance used in the synthesis of them, is likewise deleted. Keeping in mind understanding unites intuition with conception, it follows the deletion must be appearance, because if understanding thinks to delete intuition, it doesn’t work at all, a contradiction. The limit on sensibility is then, that upon the thought of noumena, the faculty of sensibility ceases to function as the source of empirical knowledge. It is the toast that is real, not the face.

The devil for some, and the nonsense for others, is in the details.