….God must exist. — Gregory

Yes, insofar as substance is that which requires nothing for its existence (F. P., #51), of which there is but one, re: God, hence all substance to humans then being that which depends on nothing for its existence in us, but still nonetheless requires dependence on God in order to even be in us in the first place.

But we cannot know of substance merely from its existential dependence, which I take you to mean by your “archetypes would be empty”, but only from an irreducible attribute by which at least the presence of a substance is known. He goes on to say “thought” is the irreducible attribute by which “mind” substance is known, extension the irreducible attribute that makes “thing” substance known (ibid, #53).

I favor this argument, or at least the ideas it provokes, insofar as it serves as the fundamental ground of subsequent transcendental idealist methodology, by which mind/body dualism in general became the established standard for epistemological metaphysics, and the ontology relative to existential dependence of substances being God, is logically negated within that standard, without contradicting its establishment.
(“Logically negated” here indicating not that it is impossible for God to be a causal condition of substance, but only that such causality is not necessarily the case. From here is developed the notion of pure practical reason, which in Kant is conditioned by freedom, and from THERE, is developed Fichte’s notion of freedom attributable over a much wider scale than mere thought, or substance of mind. And that development, finds no favor in me.)

Oh. Its Passions of the Soul, 1649. Maybe a liberty taken by a translator, that labels it as passions of the mind?

Have it your way.
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Are you saying the self is a substance or not? — Gregory

Not. The schema of substance is the permanence of the real in time, and it is only by it that the succession and/or coexistence of phenomena can be determined. On the other hand, while it is possible to think “self”, it is not and can never be phenomenon, and merely represents the permanence of the unchangeable in all our conceptions, rather than the relation in time of those, to each other, which is called cognition.

Descartes went to relatively great lengths to describe what kind of substance “mind” was, initial premise being, matter is definitely substance so if mind is very different from the matter of the body, it must be that mind a very different substance**. Those who came later made it clear that if substance is this it cannot be that, and while ol’ Rene was close enough in what “mind” does, he never quite let it be known how it does what it does, which, obviously, relates precisely to what it is, or at the very least, to what it is conceived as being.
(** F.P., 1., #51- 64, 1644)

It seems to me consciousness is not a quality — AmadeusD

Never said it was; qualitative measure belongs to or describes the state of the subject, and represents not that he is conscious of uniting all his representations under one conception, but that the unity is possible in him. In effect, in Kant, consciousness is the precursor to the synthesis of conceptions in a judgement; in order for that synthesis to be possible, there must be that by which synthesis itself is possible, and that resides in the self, as opposed to judgement which belongs to understanding, as unity between the self and all representations of which the self is conscious. And it is quality not quantity, because the number of representations is irrelevant with respect to the “conjunction” of any one of them with any other, hence the self’s consciousness of it, which just is the quality of his state.

Or not. Take your pick.

However, if you think Kant coukd have refuted Fichte, it would be interesting to see how. — Gregory

I didn’t say anything about refutation; I said I could argue one against the other, which is easy because they go in different directions from a common transcendental origin.

I’m not a fan of emergent consciousness. It is enough, that consciousness is nothing more than the qualitative state of the human subject. Parsimony: be as simple as possible without being so simple further explanation invites self-contradiction.

Here is my commentary….. — Gregory

….and quite well done, I must say. I don’t feel it is my place to argue your position, even while I wouldn’t have any problem at all arguing Kant against Fichte. Which isn’t that big a deal; each successor wants more from his own philosophy than on whomever’s it is based, and a third-party arbiter can pick out the differences.

He wanted to establish a very fact upon which all philosophy could be based. Was this just the cogito? — Gregory

Kant, positing the “I” that thinks as a transcendental idea, contradicts himself by attempting to make the cogito a fact; thus, it must remain a mere logically necessary condition in a speculative metaphysical philosophy.

Do you think Fichte was successful in making the cogito a fact?

….the metaphysical foundations of science has him constructing nature from intelligence…. — Gregory

He constructs an understanding of Nature in accordance with a specific kind of intelligence. I don’t understand that project as “constructing” intelligibility, when such must already be given in order for an intelligence of any kind to fathom anything at all from that to which it is directed.

There has to be something "out there" that wasn't phenomenal or spiritual from which intelligence can bounce its intuitions off of. — Gregory

Agree, and from that arises the notion that, no matter what that something out there happens to be, its intelligibility must given in order for a judgement to be determinable with respect to it. If a thing is intelligible in us as this or that thing, its intelligibility as becoming this or that must already inhere in the thing as a condition of it. That it is a thing is conditioned by its extension in space; that it is this or that thing is conditioned by its intelligibility.

The "I" posits itself. Why? For the reason that it can. It's a strange loop. — Gregory

Yeah, I suppose. “Strange loop” a euphemism for the intrinsic circularity of pure reason herself, insofar as it is necessarily the clandestine use of reason by which reason becomes comprehensible enough to express as a speculative intellectual system. That there is that which thinks, is itself a thought.

Thanks for bringing up Fichte in juxtaposition to Kant, but I still don’t see the constructing of intelligibility in either of them. Not that there it isn’t there, just that I’m not familiar with it as such.

The other problem is that of the "construction" of intelligibility…. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, I suppose that’s my problem here: the idea of “constructing” intelligibility, that intelligibility is something constructed. I find nothing to suggest Kant’s philosophy, or, indeed anyone else’s, is about that, and in particular following from it, this notion of constructing the intelligibility of things.

What's to say all minds don't construct radically different worlds? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Nothing at all; sometimes a mind does create….determine….a radically different world. Subsequently, if enough other minds come to the same judgement, that radically different world comes to be. Like….stop using leeches in medicine; let’s wipe out indigenous cultures in order to satisfy some conceived greater need.

But we are supposedly constructing all that understanding? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Understanding is a merely speculative faculty of human intelligence, which is itself that which constructs. The use of personal pronouns helps to facilitate whatever conversations arise from intelligence, but intelligence in and of itself, in its natural activity, has no use for them.

….what is contained in the construction cannot be said to be present in what it is constructed from. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Correct. From a philosophical point of view, human intelligence is a speculative procedural system, in that the end (that which is contained in the construction, re: experience/knowledge) is not present in the means, or, that which the ends are constructed from (phenomenal and conceptual representations).
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The problem comes up only when it is assumed that it is impossible to see the world as it "really is," because such knowledge would require "knowing the world without a mind." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, such an assumption would be more than a problem; it would be an irrational venture into absurdity. Thankfully, no one of sufficient reason has ever been guilty of it.

It remains conclusive, that is impossible to see….sense, intuit, comprehend, cognize, judge, experience….the world as it really is, but not because of the absence of a mind, but merely because that which does all that stuff, re: theoretical reason, is not part of what that stuff is done to, re: existential Nature.
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how exactly do you check that experience corresponds to what is outside experience? — Count Timothy von Icarus

That isn’t how it works. The checking, which is not the construction but presupposes it necessarily, is done by the congruency of one experience with another antecedent to it.

Fun stuff, donchathink?

The idea of "constructing" seems unobjectionable if it is kept in mind that the intelligibility of things is not being constructed out of the unintelligible, but of course the exact opposite is true for Kant's usage. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So the idea of construction in Kant’s usage becomes objectionable because the intelligibility of things is constructed out of the unintelligible?

Is it your intention that your readers should understand you to mean Kantian speculative metaphysics in general, and transcendental idealism in particular, is unintelligible, thereby making his idea of “constructing” objectionable, insofar as Kant’s idea of constructing is predicated on both of those philosophies?

Can possibilities really be reduced to zero?
— Mww

I take it what it means is that prior to measurement there is the superposition described in terms of the wave function but the moment a measurement is registered then all possibilities other than the one describing that specific outcome are now zero. — Wayfarer

Ahhh…yes, got it. (Kinda figured that’s what you meant): All OTHER possibilities reduce to zero. If all possibilities reduce to zero there is no outcome, hence nothing to describe, which is a contradiction to the act of measurement.
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It's clearly descended from Kantian philosophy. — Wayfarer

Agreed, clearly. But still, just as I favor probability over possibility, so too I favor determined over created. To say we create, especially with respect to that which is regulated by empirical principles, suggests more power in us than we possess.

I think the implications take the theory a satisfying distance away from Kantianism. — Bodhy

(2017)
“….Implications: Our results contribute to an understanding of the world in which neither objects nor spacetime are observer-independent….”

(1787)
“….It is therefore from the human point of view only that we can speak of space, extended objects, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition, under which alone we can obtain external intuition, or, in other words, by means of which we are affected by objects, the representation of space has no meaning whatsoever.…”


“…. in general, (…) space is not a form which belongs as a property to things; but that objects in space are quite unknown to us, and what we call outward objects**, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made.…”
(**re: immediately aforementioned objects in space)
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Now, granting that cherry-picking in general is beneath the dignity of proper philosophy, a valid counterargument is still possible for any given stated position. So it is that a “satisfying distance” proposed by one, can be judged as no meaningful distance at all, judged by another.

If you’d said the means by which Hoffman, et al arrives at the conclusions supporting their theory is a satisfying distance from Kantianism, you’d have been quite right.

Just sayin’, and of no particular import.

Yep. Even if the permanent substance of an object remains, the experience of it, which for us is the same as knowledge about it, in separate times and conditions, is merely possible.

Simply put, the permanence of substance can never justify the permanence of knowledge. From which follows as a matter of logical necessity…..that I put some thing someplace at a time is not in itself sufficient for my knowledge of it at any other time.
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Added later…..cuz I’m old and sometimes forget what I meant to do:

Can possibilities really be reduced to zero? Seems like that would be the same as there being zero possibilities, which kinda makes experimental results rather suspicious.

It is the observation that reduces all the possibilities to zero…. — Wayfarer

To….one?

Philosophy 101 — Wayfarer

Indeed. If that were not the case, it might actually be impossible to explain how we make mistakes, insofar as given that we did in fact all see…..sense, understand, cognize, experience, and whatnot…..the external world as it really is, there shouldn’t even be any.

……most idealists would say there is an objective world. — Tom Storm

Dunno about most, but the ones that write books I own just say there are objects, the rest is either given through inference, or superfluous.

Isn't the key issue what is the nature of the world we have access to and think we know? — Tom Storm

KEY issue? I don’t think the nature of the world is key; it is the nature of particular things, that is, insofar as they are the constituency of our empirical knowledge. And I should hope no one thinks he knows the world, it being just some general concept used to denote the containment of all things, the nature of which, other than the schemata subsumed under it, is irrelevant to us.

If you meant that consciousness is an 'unifying' activity, in a sense yes, I agree. — boundless

I didn’t mean that; I said consciousness is a capacity, understood, in accordance with a particular methodological system, as a necessary condition of intelligent agency. That being given, it can be deduced consciousness doesn’t unify; it is that under which unity occurs.

Not claiming a truth here, only a logic validated in a theoretical procedure.

….it is notoriously difficult to define what is most immediate to us — boundless

Odd, innit. That with which we are most familiar….our own inner workings, whatever they may be…. is the very thing we know the least about.

With respect to specificity, I rather think, assuming an interest in such matters despite the absence of sufficient empirical facts from the scientific method proper, little remains but to fall back on logical constructions, the certainty, hence the explanatory value, of which is our own responsibility.

I would not say that 'consciousness' is a capacity, but an activity. — boundless

….are conscious or can be conscious. — boundless

To be conscious is to unite conceptions in thought, an activity with a vast plurality of representations; consciousness is that by which conceptions can be so united, all under one singular, irreducible representation.

The first represents the activity “I think”, the second represents the capacity of the “I” that thinks.

Or not…..speculative metaphysics and all that.

Dunno quite where you want to go with this, but I wonder if positing “rational” consciousness implies a variety, but on the other hand, you’re trying for a bare-bones definition, which shouldn’t allow any.

Still, I grant the notion of rational consciousness, insofar as I hold there to be no other kind. Consciousness of empirical conditions, which is exemplified by your definition predicated on experience, is still a rational construct.

We’re paddling in the same philosophical canoe here, whatever our respective particulars be.

Consciousness is the capacity for experience — Wayfarer

I think it deeper than that: consciousness is the unity of all my representations.

….mind-created world thread. — Wayfarer

Link?

(Never mind; found it)

…..everyone freaks out. — Wayfarer

Ehhhhh…..not my problem. No one will ever find space by the bucketful, and if you ask a guy for a minute of his time, that is exactly what you won’t get.

Because, what can space be without scale? and time without duration? Both of these entail perspective, and perspective is what the observer brings. (I think this is also consistent with Kant’s analysis.) — Wayfarer

“…. if we take away the subject or even the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time, but even space and time themselves disappear.…” (A42/B59)

I'll take a look. — T Clark

I only brought it up, cuz I flashed on that being us, if your, “After all, objects of cognition are also objects of nature.”, happened to occassion an argument, because…..a-HEM, obvious to the most casual observer…..they are not.

All in the good spirit of my ol’ buddy Rene’s method for “rightly conducting reason and seeking truth in the sciences”, donchaknow.

Or did I misunderstand what you wrote? — T Clark

Or, I misunderstood what you wrote. I took…..

it is reasonable to call into question the mind-independence of the objects of cognition. — T Clark

…..as characterizing objects of cognition as already being mind-independent, which is possible if objects of cognition and objects of Nature are treated alike. If one thinks they cannot be treated alike, then questioning the mind-independence of objects of cognition is perfectly reasonable, insofar as it is impossible they are, while the questioning the mind-independence of objects of Nature, is not reasonable insofar as it is impossible they are not.
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After all, objects of cognition are also objects of nature. — T Clark

There’s a movie, 2011, “The Sunset Limited”, where the entire cast consisting of only these two rather excellent actors Jones and Jackson, engage in a pure Socratic dialectic, involving all sorts of one-idea/proposition-leads-to another kinda stuff, attempts by the one to get the other to concede a point, using premises without mutually granted relevance.

Surely you see where I’m going with this.

Anyway….hopefully the original confusion is cleared.

Yet between a pair of colours….there is a third…. — jkop

Hume, E.C.H.U., 2. 2. 16, 1748.

…..no way to systematise colours with their looks. — jkop

R.O.Y. G. B.I.V, from a prism?

In passing; just me, thinking out loud is all.

I also believe it is reasonable to call into question the mind-independence of the objects of cognition. — T Clark

To question the mind-independence of a thing, is to suppose the possibility of that thing without a mind.

To even state an affirmative belief presupposes the validity of each and every conception, and their non-contradictory relation to each other, which constitutes the judgement such belief represents.

If the major function of a mind is pure thought, and the major contribution of pure thought is cognition, and the product of any cognition is an object, albeit of a particular kind, how can it be reasonable to believe objects of cognition may be possible without a mind?
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Perhaps the stated belief is intended to indicate an affirmative questioning of mind-independence in general, of which objects of cognition are merely a part. But there is nothing in that form of belief that is sufficient to suggest contingently on the one hand, or prove necessarily on the other, that the belief is not itself a mind-dependent object of cognition.
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It is reasonable to question mind-independence in any degree, with respect to any supposed mind-related function, iff it is possible to question mind itself outside and apart from the glaring self-contradiction of having to use mind in order to deny the very possibility of whatever functionality is supposed as belonging to it.

In the interest of fair play, I can still ask how it is that you think it reasonable to question the mind-independence of objects of cognition, given the mutually agreeable presupposition that objects of Nature are not what is meant by objects of cognition.

Ok. Thanks for your time.

….the common-sense observation that a person is the subject of experience — Wayfarer

What if the person is me? Does common sense then say I am the subject of experience, or does it just say, I experience?

….’til tomorrow….

I can't understand the distinction you're trying to make here. — Wayfarer

And I can’t understand the distinction that has been made for me.

Color of ball…
Size of box…
Meaning of phrase…
Intent of speaker….

…in all of those, there is a condition assigned to a representation. Doesn’t matter what the condition is, only the relation it has to that which is represented by it. Color, among other conditions, belongs to the representation of ball; size belongs to box, meaning belongs to phrase, intent belongs to speaker, ad infinitum…..

…..but subject DOES NOT belong to experience, but is presupposed by it. A ball is never presupposed by its color, or any condition which represents it, as opposed to that condition by which it was even possible in the first place.

Minutia: that which Everydayman ignores but with which the critical thinker amuses himself.

The centrality of 'the subject' is fundamental to phenomenology…. — Wayfarer

I never would question the centrality of the subject, irrespective of the discipline used to describe it.

My contention is the relation of subject to experience, in which “subject of experience” makes no sense, under the assumption that “subject” here was meant to indicate a rational intelligence.

It is the subject to whom all this occurs or appears. The ‘unknown knower’. — Wayfarer

mind is not ‘a thing among other things’. — Wayfarer

That humans and other sentient beings are subjects of experience is both obvious and central — Wayfarer

The first two are logically obvious and metaphysically central, yes. That being said, there are various ways to affirm the conceptions of subject and experience, but I for one, am having trouble affirming the conjunction of them with each other:

……superficially, iff it is the case there is only and ever objects of experience, from which there must be as many experiences as there are objects, it is self-contradictory for there to be subjects of experience, for the “I” which represents the cognition of self or subject, must always be singular;

……while notoriously forbidding….a euphemism for the likely-ness for mistaking its intent…..the Kantian exposition detailing the cognition of the self as subject, re: B407, “Paralogisms….”, prohibits self from being thereafter cognized as extant object, it does not follow, at least from such exposition, that self is subject of experience, and self, being already denied as object of experience, leaves an apparent transcendental paralogism;

……taken at face value, “subject of experience” is a synthetic proposition, insofar as the conception of subject or self cannot be found merely in the conception of experience itself, but on the other hand, the proposition is an a priori judgement, insofar as the concern is the synthesis of abstract conceptions. Synthetic a priori propositions are first and foremost principles regulating understanding by the use of the categories in relation to appearances. But the self or subject is never an appearance, hence cannot have empirical conceptions subsumed under it as schemata, hence cannot be regulated by the categories, from which follows the impossibility of it being a judgement with respect to experience, for which the categories are the necessary ground.
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All that being said, I admit your reasoning for “humans (minds, selves, subjects) are subjects of experience” is probably justified from the mere historical scarcity of your making of unjustified claims, if only I were to understand how such reasoning comes about, my personal cognitive prejudices notwithstanding.

We do not arrive at knowledge except through a temporal, inferential process. — Leontiskos

All that, and it is absurd to then insist arriving at knowledge is something we do, as some post-moderns would have for us. The temporal, inferential process is the doing, the process merely belongs to us as a species-specific kind of ratiocination.

The world is what is the case. — Banno

To say the world is what is, presupposes “world”, yet still leaves “what” unanswered as to its case.

The world is what is the case is the analytical tautological truth we end up with, but says nothing about how we got there.

The world is all and any of that of which being the case, is determinable a posteriori.

Ok. Thanks.

I must have missed something, somewhere down the line. Just wondering why one would doubt something despite its various successes. Must be some subtleties involved I haven’t accessed.

…..every philosophy carries the seeds of its own destruction just by being philosophy. — Moliere

That may very well be, but as far as I’m aware, only one of any real significance puts the very ground of its own destruction in writing.

Gotta appreciate the forthrightness of the author of a philosophy, that says that even if one finds the supporting theory sufficiently justifies one’s own a-HA!!! moments, he’s still more than likely to ignore its lessons in toto.

I'd say the Enlightenment is over. — Moliere

I must agree, but with a touch of irony, if it be granted the single most influential textual representation contained an offer of benefit to posterity, and at the same time, the cause of its demise.
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….outside both of them….. — Wayfarer

Sorry to intrude, but to say outside both is to invite that pathologically stupid homunculus nonsense, and to some lesser degree, Ryle’s Regress and a Cartesian theater, for which there never was any admission.

All for which sufficient account had already been given….ironically enough…..in that self-same Enlightenment textual representation, which one should hope isn’t so much dead as neglected.

And that ain’t the height of irony, oh nosir-ee, bub!!! Simultaneity….misunderstood if not outright denied in its time as a justifiable albeit purely a priori condition in Enlightenment metaphysics, but subsequently given gasps of epiphanic revelation in post-Enlightenment/pre-proven therefore abstract, physical theory.

But I can dig it, donchaknow. We love our models, don’t we. Model for this, model for that. Model for every-damn-thing. All of which fails miserably, when we try to model the modeling, in which case we usually invoke the principle of sheer parsimony, insofar as the validity of our models is their non-contradictory relation to some empirical condition, re: its use, or what is done with it, when the fact remains any model, empirically validated or otherwise, is only non-contradictory, hence its very validity is even possible, iff its construction is in accordance with a set of rules.

So I now assume Rodin’s posture, and ask however rhetorically…..does it work to combine rule simultaneity with model construction? At worst, such feasibility removes the notion of “outside of” insofar as models and the rules to which all of them must conform are inseparable with respect to time (insert A/B reference as proof here), and from there, at best, it is not contradictory to posit that models and their intellectual constructions are exactly the same.

Kinda cool, though, in the end, when the original question regards fairness and justice, which are, you know…..always in accordance with somebody’s rules.

You are probably aware already of my disregard for the Kantian notion of the thing in itself. I can't see how to make sense of it in a way that enables it to be useful. — Banno

There is no reason to regard the Kantian ding an sich as anything other than a metaphysical construct a priori, the only usefulness of it being a representation of the limit of human experience.

Given the major premise, from a speculative metaphysical point of view, that human experience begins with the effect of things on sensibility, it does not follow that things that do not have an effect on sensibility therefore do not exist, for otherwise we must be sufficient causality for the existence of such things in Nature that are perceived, which is catastrophically absurd, but it does, on the other hand, follow without self-contradiction that things that do not have an effect on sensibility cannot be an experience.

So we cause nothing perceived, but experience only the perceived. Reason inserts…..er, manufactures….the thing-in-itself to reconcile the former with the latter, nothing more or less than that. Which does sorta make the concept, technically the transcendental idea, practically useless but nonetheless logically necessary, in order to invalidate any conclusion that affirms human perception is simultaneously causal.

So is the OP an attempt to provide a foundation for morality which somehow manages to quantify or capture freedom as something more than a contingent set of relations? — Tom Storm

I’m not really sure. It is described as a “…theory (…) (that) has advantages over other moral theories…” so it attempts to construct a moral foundation, yes, albeit predicated on consequentialism.

As for freedom arising as something more than a contingent set of relations, I’d agree with that. As I mentioned, I think freedom is that by which relations of a certain kind are even possible, which removes it from being a member of all such relations, which in turn makes it more than any set of them, contingent or otherwise. I just don’t know if that’s what the OP, as you say, manages to capture.

If the problem is….

…..how to weigh freedom over different things within the normative theory of freedom consequentialism. — Dan

….my view is there isn’t a problem, or at least there isn’t this problem, insofar as I do not treat freedom as weigh-able or relatively differentiated. It is merely an altogether fundamental, hence necessary condition, by which certain types of relations are possible, and these relations pursuant to aesthetic judgements alone.

On the other hand, even if I’m entitled to a personal view, I’m fully aware that not having any letters after my name sorta limits my scholastic value.

I think, these days, the professionals are less inclined to accept mere transcendental ideas as sufficient explanatory devices, and those of common understanding never heard of them anyway, so…..