“....I apply the term transcendental to all knowledge which is not so much occupied with objects as with the mode of our cognition of these objects, so far as this mode of cognition is possible a priori....”
“....(Is there) a knowledge altogether independent of experience, and even of all sensuous impressions? Knowledge of this kind is called a priori....”
“...But the expression, "a priori," is not as yet definite enough...”
“...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. Knowledge a priori is either pure or impure. Pure knowledge a priori is that with which no empirical element is mixed up....”
“...The Human Intellect, even in an Unphilosophical State, is in Possession of Certain Cognitions "a priori"....”
A.) “...if we have a (judgement) which contains the idea of necessity in its very conception, moreover, it is not derived from any other proposition, unless from one equally involving the idea of necessity, it is absolutely priori....”
B.) “...an empirical judgement never exhibits strict and absolute, but only assumed and comparative universality (by induction); therefore, the most we can say is—so far as we have hitherto observed, there is no exception to this or that rule....”
C.) “...If, on the other hand, a cognition carries with it strict and absolute universality, that is, admits of no possible exception, it is not derived from experience, but is valid absolutely a priori....”
“....When strict universality characterizes a judgement, it necessarily indicates another peculiar source of knowledge, namely, a faculty of cognition a priori. Necessity and strict universality, therefore, are infallible tests for distinguishing pure (that is, a priori) from empirical knowledge, and are inseparably connected with each other....”
—————————————-

It doesn’t matter the objects in general we know about when considering knowledge itself, because such things are already given, or at least possibly given, by perception as appearances, but rather the theoretical, or indeed speculative, methodology under which human knowledge is possible. The old...knowledge *of* vs knowledge *that* dichotomy, so to speak, insofar as the judgements “gold is a yellow metal” and “water is a clear fluid” are understood empirically as immediate yet incomplete knowledge *of* gold and *of* water respectively. Reason wants it known under what conditions are we authorized to signify or designate gold and water.....and every other damn thing in the world....the way we do, such that knowledge *that* gold is a yellow metal and knowledge *that* water is a clear fluid, are derived from valid, that is, non-contradictory, cognitions.

Reason doesn’t want to know if any other immediate empirical intuition can be given to gold, but only that the intuition of, e.g., “yellow”, “metal”, actually does belong to it, not because perception, from which the empirical appearance comes, says so, but because understanding, from which such necessary justification alone comes, says so. But understanding does not intuit, it has no say in assigning “yellow” to “gold”, that having already been accomplished under the auspices of the faculty of intuition, which gives appearance to phenomena by means of imagination, and which then becomes rationally authorized as representation.

But we already know from experience what the intuitions of yellow and metal may represent, other than gold. We also know from experience the intuitions of clear and fluid may represent other than water. Therefore, we can say that the assignment of certain predicates to gold is an empirical cognition when gold is directly perceived, and, more importantly, we can thereafter cognize a priori, that gold is a yellow metal when no appearance of gold is given at all, because such appearance has already been represented and hence judged as non-contradictory. This is, of course, impure a priori knowledge, having it base in experience, no matter how remote. It is perhaps more easily considered as indirect, as opposed to direct, knowledge, although this qualification is not suggested as intrinsic to the transcendental philosophy of continental Enlightenment era epistemological theory.

Now of pure a priori knowledge, it must be admitted that whatever conditions, and therefore the principles which legislate those conditions, already explicit in impure and empirical knowledge cannot apply, for such is entirely circular and of no use whatsoever. That condition and principle being the logical law of non-contradiction, it follows that whatever legislation reason requires for pure a priori knowledge as its ends must have for its means some other fundamental ground. While it may be easy to dismiss the conditions given from experience, which the very idea of pure a priori requires, it is very far from easy to dismiss the cognitive operational procedure of human rationality. Therefore, a line must be drawn as to where and how we think objects, without there being objects to think about. If the line be drawn at the point where empirical influence stops, but the remainder of the cognitive system continues, such should be sufficient ground to establish the possibility of pure a priori knowledge. From the quotes above, they being taken in their respective order of print, it is clear knowledge works backwards, from itself, through cognition, through judgement, through understanding, through representation, through intuition. But all intuition is given from perception, which is always empirical, thus the line must be drawn before intuition when proceeding backwards, or that of which is a consequence of it. But if intuition is dismissed as a faculty for representation given to understanding, there must be some other source from which understanding may draw, in order to make its judgement, from which a cognition may follow and from that knowledge may follow.

This source resides in the understanding itself, they are the pure conceptions of the understanding, called noumena, and are, in effect, nothing more than the names of the properties or attributes a merely possible object, or, which is the same thing, an object as it will be represented upon the experience of it, must be given before any judgement whatsoever is possible of it. Because there are only these two sources of possible relations for the understanding to employ in its judgements, that is, intuitions and conceptions, and because intuitions, which have non-contradiction as their principle, have been dismissed in the determinations of pure a priori knowledge, the principle of necessity for the existence and the employment of the conceptions of the understanding, and furthermore the absolute universality of their application, serves as sufficient ground of pure a priori knowledge.
(Universality herein means only insofar as reason is investigating the realm of possibility; the pure conceptions of the understanding have no standing in what is called “transcendent”)

Does it matter if the pure conceptions of the understanding really exist? Does it matter they were incorporated post hoc ergo propter hoc as a means to inhibit infinite regress? No, not really, because we do not doubt we are in fact in possession of pure a priori knowledge, which makes explicit we must have pure a priori cognitions, which in its turn makes explicit we must have made pure a priori judgements, which in IT’S turn makes explicit we must have something purely a priori in our faculty of understanding. This is why it is said we do not and cannot know noumena as real objects of conception, even though we are permitted to name them because we think them as necessary, and if that is so, they are so much confused with the “thing-in-itself”, which we also know absolutely nothing about. Noumena, along with imagination and schemata, should be considered as a facilitators in the rational procedure of faculties, but not in themselves cognitive faculties.

All that remains, in the consideration of empirical, a priori and pure a priori understanding, judgement, cognition and knowledge, is whether or not the claim for the reality of pure a priori knowledge has something applicable to it. What can we know a priori? Simply put, anything we know that has no empirical content whatsoever is known a priori. Upon reduction of anything empirical or possibly empirical out from thought in general, all that remains is nothing but thought itself, the thought of something, and is purely a priori; that which exists as nothing more than a thought of something, is a proposition where the subject and predicate are connected by the pure conceptions of the understanding, whereby the predicate follows universally and necessarily from the subject. “Plurality is succession in time”, “No sum is less than its constituents”, “No cognition of three lines will ever allow cognition of a triangle” serve as examples of pure a priori knowledge. It should be noted, that because pure a priori knowledge has no empirical content, no truth value can be assigned to any pure a priori proposition, such truth coming from experience alone. These propositions serve only as the form this kind of knowledge must have.

These are the conditions for deriving the grounds of analytic and synthetic propositions, and the knowledge which follows from each of those kinds, and these from a particular epistemological theory. There is no reason to suppose this theory is better or worse than any other, even if it is logically consistent.

You seem the type to instruct the uninitiated, so......

The problem is that consciousness is not at all emergent in the sense in which viscosity and surface tension are. — Dfpolis

No, but if viscosity and surface tension prove emergence itself is possible, and with the admitted lack of complete understanding of neurophysiology, neuroplasticity, must the possibility of consciousness emerging from mere neural complexity, in principle, be granted?

.......so-called "a priori" truths. — Dfpolis

Interesting. Why would you qualify some truths as so-called “a priori”? Are you thinking the term is mis-used? It’s value mis-applied? The whole schema doubtful?

What do you mean by transcendental principle, and what is an example of one?

I think that there is a great deal more information packed into our experience of being than you seem to. — Dfpolis

What is meant by “our experience of being”, and what additional/supplemental information could be packed into my own personal experience of being, that isn’t already there?

Just trying to get a different perspective.

There are two questions here. — Dfpolis

I’m OK with both your (1) and (2). Abstraction from experience is adequate for a priori knowledge, but doesn’t address whether any other methodology is possible. I also affirm there are no restrictions on the application on transcendental principles, and dealing with countable or measureable realities by means of mathematical principles. But similarly, such affirmations have nothing to say about the originality of those principles, which is what metaphysics is all about.

And I’m OK with your “in many cases how we think about things does not matter”. Very seldom if ever, do we examine our reason....the verb, not the noun.....as to its legitimate use. Whether that matters or not depends on what we intend to do about how far astray we find ourselves in thinking about the world of things.

It's his ideas as laid out by him we should attend to — tim wood

Absolutely. Kinda difficult sometimes, but still fun. One guy bases his argument on something from Chapter 2, say, and his dialectic adversary bases his counter argument on that same something from Chapter 8.....and they end up in a veritable intellectual fistfight, because the Good Doctor treats the same thing in different ways.

Ever notice that pre-Kantian philosophers of some note classify folks like us as “of the vulgar understanding”, but Kant was gracious enough to call us “of the common understanding”? Gotta appreciate that, I must say.

As to how you might want to label the processes of the discovery that water is h2o, that's a different topic. — tim wood

Ever get some bug in yer ear, keeps you up at night......rather than argue from point A, let’s rather see how it may be that point B has legitimacy.......

H2O is water is a proposition. As such, if you know what water is, then, per Kant, the law of non-contradiction applies — tim wood

The thesis:
Put these two together, I submit that you are correct. The proposition “water is H2O” is an analytic a priori statement, insofar as it adheres to the conditions of universality and necessity, which Kant teaches such statements require.

The proof:
From the Prolegomena, “.....I require no experience *beyond* my conception....”, which presupposes an experience, and it is *from* this experience that “gold” becomes an empirical intuition to start with, to which understanding assigns the conceptions of yellow and metal to it necessarily. Thus, henceforth, “Gold is a yellow metal” is analytic, insofar as the conception of gold must have the conceptions of yellow and metal conjoined with it.

It is clear, now, that the proposition “water is H2O” is analytic in the same regard as “Gold is a yellow metal”, and your “...label the process of discovery...” comes into play. It is merely a matter of what the experience is: for gold it is much simpler, yellow and metal, both of which are already empirical intuitions themselves, re: we already know what they are. H2O, on the other hand, has no intuition of its own, other than as a conjunctive term. The issue then becomes, the requirement for another kind of experience in order to distill “hydrogen” and “oxygen”, which are intuitions themselves, but do not belong together universally or necessarily, or in any particular combination thereof, out of the conception of “water”. At some arbitrary point, experience will inform the understanding that “water”, in its original conception, will have these two additional conceptions conjoined with it, re: my mention of Vion, 1869. Again, henceforth, “water is H2O” will be an analytic statement.

Now, “water is H2O” being established as an analytic statement, does nothing whatsoever to disestablish the synthetic empirical statement that water is a translucent, non-compressible fluid. It subsequently appears that water, if it remains a translucent non-compressible fluid but is not H2O, then the predicate H2O does not belong to water necessarily, whereas the former two conditions absolutely must so belong. If a thing is compressible it is not water, but if a thing is D2O, the conditions of non-compressibility and translucence are still met and the substance is still “water”.

Piece ‘a’ cake, I tell ya!!! Unless I’m wrong; then cake becomes egg.

“.....For this very reason all analytical judgments are a priori even when the concepts are empirical, as, for example, Gold is a yellow metal....”
Preamble, Sec2b,

This I grant willingly; gold is an elemental substance to which the law of contradiction would necessarily hold. Water, a compound substance, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be H2O necessarily.

Just staying in my lane, doncha know. Kant said *ALL* mathematical expressions, particularly geometric formulations, are synthetic a priori propositions. He had to, of course, because he was looking for laws based on principles, which cannot have exceptions. Curved space was something he hadn’t envisioned, so he was wrong about *ALL* expressions, for some predicates of Euclidean geometry do not hold under Riemann configurations. For us guys with no use for Riemann configurations, we don’t care that much; I never fly far enough for minimal geodesics to make any difference I would notice, and event horizons are not in my immediate future. Well....unless something bad happens at CERN.

And that region of epistemology he did claim? He claimed it well and truly.

implies that what is verified by observation/experience, is with respect to the quality of the verification, the same as what is "verified" by logic. — tim wood

Not sure I understand this properly, but assuming the quality of the verification to mean the strength or weakness of its agreement, then it seems to me there’s no conflict. Observation is supposed to qualify a logical proposition.

The empirical "judgement" that water is h2o, were that final, would imply there is water that is not h20, or that water might not be water. — tim wood

It isn’t final, it’s contingent, as are all judgements based on experience. And it does imply it is possible there is water that isn’t H20, re: heavy water. As long as we conceive water as the chemical bond between hydrogen and oxygen, we can allow certain different combinations of them without contradicting the physical substance called “water”. Can’t we?

And by the way........ — tim wood

A tip of the pointy hat from the back of the room.

Supposed the nebula theory for galaxy creation, actually. Along with tidal forces making the moon’s orbit decrease, the prediction that stars were uncountable, the abolishment of Newtonian absolute time, the requirement for a constant velocity related to the motion of matter. Course, it was all metaphysical theory with no math or experiment, and Newton ruled the scientific roost, so.......

Then along comes GR, and the synthetic a priori judgement of all geometric properties goes right square.....well, you know the rest of the story.

The cultural invariant is the concept <five>, not what is counted — Dfpolis

Agreed. Which merely begs the question......from where did sure cultural invariant arise? It must be a condition of all similarly constituted rationalities, n’est pas? All that is counted, and the labels assigned to each unit of substance in the series of counting are immediately dismissed. What is left, both necessarily and sufficiently enabling a thoroughly mental exercise? It is nothing but the pure, a priori concepts, thought by the understanding alone, rising from the constitution of the mind**, the categories of quantity (plurality), quality (reality), relation (causality) and modality (existence). Without these, in conjunction with phenomena in general, no understanding is possible at all, which means.......no counting.
** Hey....this is a philosophy forum. Cognitive neuroscience is down the hall on the right, just past the fake rubber tree.

f we had no experience of cars, it would be difficult to understand the concept of a car crash. — Dfpolis

While such is agreeable superficially, it is also irrelevant, within the context of the topic. Because not all cars are involved in crashes, the concept of car alone is insufficient to justify the truth of the consequent (a guy will die). The synthetic requirement for an outstanding force is also necessary.

once we have such transcendental principles we know they apply to all reality, they may be thought of as a priori — Dfpolis

That’s what I’m talking about!!!!!! Odd though, you acknowledge that which we know applies to all reality, yet balk at the realization they are the ground of all empirical exercise. Like counting.

Nonetheless, I would say, they (transcendental principles) are thought a priori, rather than “they may be thought of as a priori”.

A belief that can be bought is a persuasion, and does not stand as determining a conviction. Receiving a thousand dollars to say something, is insufficient ground to stipulate the conviction being influenced has altered accordingly. One can easily say whatever contributes to his wants, regardless of what he actually believes.

Belief is, after all, nothing but a single person’s judgement made on a given set of conditions objectively sufficient for him. Therefore, the only way to change his belief is with a set of conditions with objectively certain for him, which is called knowledge, or, suspension of one subjectively valid conviction for another.

have to be more than a little careful in matching Kant against certain modern discoveries. — tim wood

Wouldn’t Herr Kant freak if he was around about the time they broke water down into its constituent parts? (Vion, 1869) Actually, no, probably not. Being an astrophysicist and a professor of math and physical science, he’d hardy be amazed. Hell, he probably could have done it himself.

Kripke or no, modern science or no, because water is a real object “All water is H2O” is an empirical judgement, hence synthetic, and from the proposition, the predicates of hydrogen and of oxygen absolutely cannot be derived from merely the subject “water”, hence, still synthetic.

“....But now I extend my knowledge, and looking back on experience from which I had derived this conception of body (water), I find weight (H2O) at all times connected with the above characteristics, and therefore I synthetically add to my conceptions this as a predicate, and say, "All bodies (water) are (is) heavy (H20)”. Thus it is experience upon which rests the possibility of the synthesis of the predicate of weight (H20) with the conception of body (water), because both conceptions, although the one is not contained in the other, still belong to one another, only contingently**, however, as parts of a whole, namely, of experience, which is itself a synthesis of intuitions....”
**contingently, re: heavy water. The concept of water in and of itself is not altered by the additional mass of a neutron in the nucleus of one atom.

Parentheses are mine, obviously, because I didn’t want to delete or subvert what ws actually said in the quote, but to show the particulars are pretty much identical.

How should I consider Berkeley with respect to the Kantian noumena of the OP?

I don’t know what that means.

With respect to knowledge and experience I prefer what Kant has to say, I guess I am driving towards it. Or him, as you say. Subjectivity reigns supreme is my mantra, which makes explicit all knowledge, (“....whereby a conception conforms to its object...”) and experience (“....convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience...”) is given by reason, which obviously belongs to individual subjects.

I may well declare that subjectivity reigns supreme, but that doesn’t mean there is no objective world. Simply put, if there was no objective world, it would be impossible to explain myself as a body in space and time. It is abundantly clear I can explain how it is I occupy a particular space and time, therefore an objective world is necessary.

The sum of subjective experiences can paint a general picture of empirical reality, but if all but one rational agents vanish, the world remains as far as the lone survivor is concerned. And if he should follow his kind into oblivion, there would be no subject left to experience the world, no subject left to know anything.

Hunter orange relates to perception, and the determinations that follow necesarily from the differences in them. In this case, the world is the same even if seen two ways, but Kant claims the world may be very different for different kinds of rational agents. The point being, just because a thing is seen one way doesn’t mean it cannot be seen some other way. Hence, the thing in itself on the one hand, and the implications for the meaning of phenomena on the other.

Yeah, I used first person architecture for that very reason: any knowledge and experience belongs to subjects individually. Because it was stated as my claim, perhaps I should have said *my* knowledge along with my possible experience. Is that what you mean?

And yeah, it would take time and trouble to define terms, but it would be both worthwhile and necessary should some question about them arise. I’d do my best if anyone has some issue.

We learn by abstraction from experience. — Dfpolis

Hmmmm, yes. I see. I see you’re talking about learning, I’m talking about understanding.

I understand the abstraction of numbers. Like a concrete number without its denominant. Such being so, how do you suppose culturally differentiated systems find a commonality in their respective analysis? What is the same for a child here and now arriving at “5”, and a medieval Roman child arriving at “V”?

My question would be, if we had a priori "knowledge," what reason would we have to believe that it applied to the world of experience? — Dfpolis

One reason to believe would be, the world of experience satisfies some prerogatives that belong to a priori truths, re: one doesn’t need the experience of a severe car crash to know a severe car crash can kill him. But general a priori truths have nothing whatsoever to do with experience (hence the standing definition), but are sustained by the principles of universality and necessity, for which experience can never suffice, re: two parallel lines can never enclose a space. I think it’s more significant, not that we do know some truths a priori, but that we can.

So what exactly do you mean? — tim wood

I meant that the entire “This presupposition appears to me to be unjustified” from the OP, is indeed unjustified, because 1.) Kant never presupposed any such thing, as far as I know, and 2.) such presupposition, as stated, is certainly self-contradictory, which would toss all 600 pages right square in the crapper, and anything so susceptible for crapperization is hardly likely to be talked about scholastically 250-odd years later.

I take the blame if I wrote something that made it appear I thought there could be no world independent of my knowledge. Even so, I wouldn’t hesitate at all to claim there is no knowledge whatsoever of a world independent of my possible experience.

Do you have a favorite go-to translator for CPR?

Subject as “office”......I like it!!! Quite apropos, actually.

When you say Kant was anti-philosopher in the first critique and philosopher in the second, I take you to mean by the second, practical reason. As opposed to two versions of the first, that is. Yes? No?

how would you phrase it otherwise into more ordinary language — Wallows

The philosophical self deals with itself only as subject in itself, the empirical world merely incidental; the psychological self deals with itself as object in the world, the transcendental self merely incidental.

Philosophy the doctrine belongs to metaphysics the science, psychology the doctrine belongs to anthropology the science.

It seems to me that Kant presupposes that there exists a world which, by virtue of its being independent of our experience, is unknowable, yet nevertheless is the cause of our experience. This presupposition seems to me unjustified. How does Kant know that such a world exists? — philosophy

This presupposition is indeed unjustified, insofar as a world independent of our knowledge cannot be the cause of our experience. It follows necessarily that Kant generated a complete paradigm-shifting epistemological theory on a self-contradiction, or, he never presupposed the existence of an unknowable world independent of our experience in the first place. That a thing is proven to be necessary under one set of conditions does not thereby presuppose an existence under some other possible conditions.

Do you happen to know why deer hunters wear orange clothing of some kind? If so, do you see how that relates to what Kant has shown?

You must have spent a lot of time re-evaluating yesterday’s OP, to dump it and start over. Freaked me out when I came back to find everything missing.

CPR is a theory of knowledge, and as such, positing the existence of noumena is of course justified, because it conforms to the tenets of the theory. Positing the existence of the noumenal world is not justified because there is no such thing, Kant never suggested a “noumenal world” as such, and while there is some conflict in his use of thing-in-itself, one must remain very aware of the two distinct contexts within which he uses the term interchangeably.

In short, a proper understanding of phenomena is absolutely required before an understanding of noumena is possible, and both from a strictly transcendental philosophy point of view, as it was intended, and this juxtaposition of relation is the crux of matter between Hume and Kant.

Hey kids, god here. I don’t do this very often, but I’m reminded of one of my more astute creations.....well, according to some of you anyway, to others he was just some old dude with funny hair......which pretty much illustrates just what’s going on right now. Now I know y’all are really challenging yourselves and not me exactly with this stone thing, but really....c’mon man. Far be it from me to get in the way, you’re free.....get it? Free?.....to talk about this however you like as long as you like, but just be aware of what you’re actually doing.

“....To know what questions we may reasonably propose is in itself a strong evidence of sagacity and intelligence. For if a question be in itself absurd and unsusceptible of a rational answer, it is attended with the danger—not to mention the shame that falls upon the person who proposes it—of seducing the unguarded listener into making absurd answers, and we are presented with the ridiculous spectacle of one (as the ancients said) "milking the he-goat, and the other holding a sieve”.....

......Different as are the significations in which the ancients used this term for a science or an art, we may safely infer, from their actual employment of it, that with them it was nothing else than a logic of illusion—a sophistical art for giving ignorance, nay, even intentional sophistries, the colouring of truth, in which the thoroughness of procedure which logic requires was imitated, and their topic employed to cloak the empty pretensions. Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, must always be a logic of illusion, (...), for, as it teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions (...) any attempt to employ it as an instrument in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever. Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy....”

Peace.

Everything I know starts with "I" and then "I AM" — BrianW

If I had said something like that, which I have before because I think it’s true, I would have used a few dozen more words, which wouldn’t have made it any better.

I have much in there I wish I could excise. — Not

Fear not!!!! Some neurobiologists insist unused or seldom used neural pathways degenerate to an un-actuated condition eventually. Bad news is, other neurobiologists insist every one of our experiences we’ve ever had maintain their respective pathways forever. On the other hand, philosophical moralists and fundamental religionists both tell us we should pay more heed to which experiences we should have in order to not be in conflict with consciousness.

Funny, isn’t it? Woulda, coulda shoulda on this side, The Serenity Prayer on the other. Find your Happy Place somewhere in the middle and keep on chooglin’’!!!

Logical operations (...) don't stand independently (.....) outside of a logical system. — MindForged

Understood. An epistemological theory grounded in rules should adhere to that system of rules sufficient to regulate it.

Because intuitionistic logic alone has existed for nearly a century now — MindForged

First I heard about it. Call me old-fashion that way, I guess. Can you tell me why a plain ol’ guy on the street like me would need anything but plain ol’ propositional logic?

The three laws of thought, as put forth by Aristotle, are analytic propositions, not because of their content, but because they are true necessarily, which just means their negation is impossible. From a Kantian point of view, the laws of thought are analytical propositions because the predicate contains no conceptions that are not explicit in the subject. He would call the use of these pure transcendental logic because they serve as the form of a proposition and will therefore be true no matter what particulars are used as subject.

All that being said, why do we need synthetic a priori propositions anyway?

Since we have to teach children to count by counting specific kinds of things, I see no reason to think that there is any a priori component to counting. — Dfpolis

What mechanism is the child using to relate a word he hears to an object he sees, in a system of quantitative analysis, that doesn’t have an a priori component? How does he understand exactly what he’s doing, as opposed to simple learning by rote? What do I say to my child, if after saying, “count this as one, these as two.....”, he asks, “what’s a two?”

It appears you’re not much of a fan of a priori stuff, I must say. Maybe we just call It by different names, dunno.

I am starting to believe that consciousness is not Mind. — Not

That’s good, because consciousness is not mind.

If redness is the condition of being red, thickness the condition of being thick, why can’t consciousness be the condition of being conscious? Just as some object must be represented as possessing redness so must some object be represented as possessing consciousness, and, just as the being of red is one of the properties of some thing so the being of conscious one of the properties of some thing. The thinking subject, known as the “I”, is the thing and the total of all objects of experience is the condition of the “I”’s being conscious. All the objects of consciousness is the condition of being conscious and is that which permits “I am” to have it’s objects necessary to define it, re: I am tall (short); black (white); European (Australian); Protestant (Shia); Hegelian (Cartesian)....and so on.

Mind, on the other hand, is what makes all the above possible, being nothing more than the name given to the capacity for rational thought. Consciousness doesn’t think: mind doesn’t define.

My philosophical Jello of the Day......whether it sticks or not, we’ll see.

A few quotes — aletheist

Yes, interesting. Thanks.

Sorry. I hit post before I was done. S“....There is no Cartesian subjectivism in St. Thomas which groups the whole of Being around the thinking self, no principium reddendae rationis which refuses to grant permission to be unless the being can present its credentials before the jurisdiction of reason (Leibniz), no Hegelian absolutizing of rational categories. In St. Thomas, reason is subordinate to faith, to mysticism, and, in the end, to the eschatological consummation of intelligence in the beatific vision....” (Caputo, 1982, p. 250)

First, because counting is an intellectual operation, while seeing is a physical operation, — Dfpolis

I suppose counting could be construed as an intellectual operation, in as much as I am connecting an a priori representation of quantity to spatially distinguishable objects. On the other hand, I don’t agree that seeing is a physical operation, in as much as an object impressed on a bunch of optic nerves can be called seeing. Is it merely convention that the intellect is required to call up an internal object to correspond to the impression, in order to say I am in fact seeing?

For Aristotle, the categories are different ways in which something can be said to "be." — Dfpolis

Yeah, I know. Less Kant dammit!!!! I post this only to justify my claim.

“.....and consequently, the objective validity of the categories, as a priori conceptions, will rest upon this, that experience (....) is possible only by their means. For in that case they apply necessarily and a priori to objects of experience, because only through them can an object of experience be thought....”

i think all thought has an inherently binary and 'subject-object' nature. — Janus

I can dig it!! Although, if one holds with the representational system of human cognition, he is met with a logical dilemma, insofar as the subject that thinks (half your binary nature) is at the same time the object to which the thoughts belong (the other half).

Agreed, reality isn’t dualistic, in and of itself. It just appears that way from the perfectly obvious reason that there are no basketballs in my head but I’d know a basketball if I saw one.

that takes the form of a conversation between different voices. — Janus

OK, if that’s how it seems to you.

I know it seems like quibbling, but you started by saying “internal dialogue” which to me means at least two conversants, otherwise it would be an internal monologue. I don’t have an issue with a thinking subject pitting itself against a variety of ideas, but it really doesn’t suit me to permit ideas to take the form of cultural voices. There are ideas which are bereft of any cultural bias, after all.

I think experience falsifies this claim. We all make errors in reasoning. Logic enables us to discover those errors. — Dfpolis

Experience falsifies the claim if I’d said “reason’s sole domain is to *force* thinking correctly”. A set of logical rules doesn’t come with the promise of their use, only that we’re better off if we do.

counting does not depend on what is counted — Dfpolis

Why isn’t this just like “seeing does not depend on what is seen”? Seeing or counting is an actual physical act, and mandates that the objects consistent with the act be present. Now, “the ability to see or to count does not depend on what is seen or counted” seems to be true, for I do not lose my visual receptivity simply because my eyes are closed. Otherwise, I would be forced into the absurdity of having to learn each and every object presented to sensibility after each and every interruption of it.
Are you saying counting and the ability to count are the same thing?

The categories are the same for Kant as they were for Aristotle. My mistake if I got the impression you were a fan of Aristotle, hence I didn’t feel the need to define them.

What is Cosmogenesis and who is the authority for it? What is ideogenesis and who is te authority for that? Thanks.

it would hopefully be the most rational one. — Janus

Which begs a MAJOR question......how is most rational decided?

Really, when the lights go out, when the outside noise has gone away.....are there really two (more than one) of you up there, between your ears?

You know, I can easily bring up a representation of any person I choose, have a discussion with him, even picture him is the attire and accoutrements of his day. But I have never ever had the occassion of us communicating simultaneously.

Why not a conversation with oneself; an "internal dialogue"? — Janus

In the event of a conflict, which member of the dialogue would be the decision maker?

I suppose, though, an internal dialogue is no worse for intelligibility that the classic dichotomy of “I” the thinking subject vs the “I” that is the object to which thoughts belong.

Humans. The only known animals that intentionally confuse themselves.

Kant's assumption that we have a priori knowledge is inadequate grounds for calling Hume's position an error — Dfpolis

Yes, it is, because a priori knowledge derives from universality and necessity, which Hume’s empirical grounds, with respect to cause and effect, do not and can not possibly afford.

But, Kant wants more than the principle of causality to be known a priori......
(Correct, he would wish all principles whatsoever be known a priori)
.......... He wants it to be imposed by the mind so that its contrary is literally unthinkable. — Dfpolis

(No, not literally unthinkable, for reason has no power to not think. Reason’s sole domain is to enable thinking correctly, which means understanding does not confuse itself with contradictions.)

Pure reason is reason without data........
(The data of pure reason are categories, without which reason and indeed all thought, is impossible)
.........Lacking grist, it can conclude nothing, not even transcendental principles. — Dfpolis

(Reason does not conclude, that being the sole domain of judgement. While judgement is a part of the total faculty of reason, it is improper to attribute to the whole that which properly belongs to the particular function of one of its parts. In this much I grant: without categories reason has no means to, and therefore cannot, derive transcendental principles.)

So, causality, space and time are not forms imposed on reality by the mind, but empirically derived concepts. — Dfpolis

Correct. Causality, space and time are pure forms imposed on the mind by reality.

In other words, Hume did not agree with Kant's assumptions. — Dfpolis

Hume died 20 years before Kant put his assumptions to print. At least, the ones we’re talking about.

consistent because it is grounded in the experience of counting. — Dfpolis

Arithmetic is consistent by means of its use *because* the principles from which it arose have nothing whatsoever to do with counting. The numeral “5”, or any series of objects representing the numeral, denotes a quantity, but “quantity” cannot be derived from anything arithmetic alone.

If mathematics were known a priori, there would be no reason to question it. — Dfpolis

Mathematics the science is never questioned. Mathematics the discipline may be.

I did not say that the subject and predicate contained the same information, but that they had the identical object as their referent. — Dfpolis

And I say that if they have the same referent they have the same information. But I’m. Probably misunderstanding some word usage or something.

Something may be true transcendentally (true of all existents)........
(This is not what transcendentally means to me)
........, but it is not a priori unless we know it without the experience of an existent informing us. — Dfpolis

(True. I know the principle “all bodies are extended” is true without the experience of a body informing me, otherwise I would only be entitled to say “this body is extended”. I know all bodies are extended not because of *this* body I perceive, but rather because the concept of empirical bodies in general must have the pure concept of “extension” belonging to it, in order to be intuited as “body” at all. “Extension” is hardly empirical, so any knowledge of principles connected with it must be a priori.

Your turn.

Coming to think philosophically at all can be understood to be a dialectical process. — Janus

Agreed, this kind of dialectic would be an internal process of understanding. But still, not a conversation, more like a private theater.