Recall this?

…..how Kant tackled what he thought was the very problem Hume took for granted as not being one,
— Mww

What is your idea on this? — Corvus

I addressed what Kant thought was the very problem Hume took for granted as not being one, that the critical examination of reason regarding its own powers for the originating and employment of principles, is a necessary prerequisite for philosophical demonstrations. Such was my idea on “this”.

Why Hume didn’t do this, and the ramifications for not doing it, resides in various Kant texts, specifically in CPR, wherein in A you’re supposed to dig it out, but in B Hume is mentioned more often in direct relation to the text, so the distinctions in the two philosophies more readily apparent.

I was asking exclusively about (….) exactly what part of Hume's ideas awakened Kant — Corvus

Didn’t sound that way to me. You didn’t ask about any exact thing. Wouldn’t matter anyway; there wasn’t any one exact thing. I gave what I thought explained the awakening in its most general sense, that being, Hume’s proclivity for philosophical demonstrations without sufficient criticism of the principles used to justify them.

Having advised me to read Hume in conjunction with Kant, I might ask if you’ve done the same. If so, then perhaps, as did I, you might have discerned the important aspect missing from Hume’s philosophy that leaves it at dogmatism, according to Kant, as opposed to his own, which is dogmatic.

What is your idea on this? — Corvus

Ask and ye shall receive, or, be careful what you wish for.

The problem:
“….as the world has never been, and, no doubt, never will be without a system of metaphysics of one kind or another, it is the highest and weightiest concern of philosophy to render it powerless for harm, by closing up the sources of error….”

The solution:
“…. the Critique of Pure Reason (…) will render an important service (…), by substituting the certainty of scientific method for that random groping after results without the guidance of principles, which has hitherto characterized the pursuit of metaphysical studies….”

On the certainty of scientific method:
“….. strict demonstration from sure principles a priori….”

On the groping after results:
“…..dogmatism, that is, the presumption that it is possible to make any progress with a pure cognition (…) according to the principles which reason has long been in the habit of employing without first inquiring in what way and by what right reason has come into the possession of these principles….”

“….This critical science is not opposed to the dogmatic procedure of reason in pure cognition; for pure cognition must always be dogmatic, that is, rest on sure principles a priori. (….) Dogmatism is thus the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism of its own powers….”

So the slumber represents the status quo of dogmatism, in which for metaphysics the strict demonstration from sure principles was demonstrated, but the dogmatic slumber awakened from, indicates the absence in dogmatism of the criticism by which those principles used in philosophical procedures, obtain the authority for the demonstrations they perform. Or, which is the same thing, how it is that the demonstrations may or may not follow from the principles, depending on a critical assessment sufficient to justify their use.
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Has Kant succeeded in what he intended to achieve? — Corvus

He intended to write a theory of metaphysics complete and consistent in itself, and he certainly considered himself as having achieved that. I think the only relevant measure of success, would be his own.

Ehhhh….been there done that. Got the coke-bottle glasses.

Yep, from his dogmatic slumbers. So it depends on what he means by dogmatic, to figure out just what Hume woke him from. Was he slumbering and proper dogmatic criticisms heretofore escaped him, or, was he slumbering in a dogmatic fashion from which Hume disturbed him.

I think one needs a rather extensive understanding of Kant’s knowledge of Hume’s philosophy, and moreso, how Kant tackled what he thought was the very problem Hume took for granted as not being one, re: reason was merely a slave to the passions, and if habit and common sense couldn’t fix it, then there isn’t a fix to be had. Kant understood the problem before his critical period, around 1750 or so, but didn’t proceed to solve it until the first edition of CPR thirty years on.

If it keeps asserting the existence without the objects in empirical reality, it would be a dogmatism. — Corvus

Yeah….one of the things he says I either didn’t bother with, or couldn’t wrap my head around, dunno which….is that he frowns on dogmatism, but grants pure reason is always dogmatic.

Clue is in the definitions, I guess. One’s a method, the other’s a doctrine, maybe. Dunno.

I’m ok with that. I don’t like the notion of psychological activities particularly, but modern times finds value therein, somehow.

Just remember…reason does not apply directly to experience, so that part of your comment that says reason only deals with objects, etc, etc,. Isn’t the whole story.

Reason can only deal with the objects appearing in our sensibility via experience, and that is the limit of pure reason. — Corvus

That’s the whole problem: pure reason has no limit. The sole raison d’etre for the Critique of it, is what can be done about that problem.

What we can think, relative to what we can know…..THAT must have a limit.

we can't get away from accepting that there are things-in-themselves causing our impressions of them — AmadeusD

In Kant, this is wrong.

we can't get away from accepting that there are things-in-themselves causing our impressions — AmadeusD

This is correct. IFF one accepts that the thing that appears to our senses, is the thing of the thing-in-itself. It is the aim of the human intellectual system, that the thing-as-it-is-in-itself, and the thing-as-it-seems-to us, be as congruent as possible. That the properties assigned to the representation of the real thing of our knowledge, do not conflict with the relations observed with respect to the real thing of our perception.
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…we must infer something "in-itself"… — AmadeusD

The Principle of Complementarity, writ large. For that thing which appears to sensibility, there must be that same thing that does not appear, for otherwise, immediately upon being an effect on the senses, if the thing did not already exist in itself, our own perception is necessary objective causality for that thing. It follows that, tantamount to a contradiction bordering on absurdity, for every singe perception, for every effect of a thing on the senses, that thing was caused by the senses, or, which is the same thing, it would be damn near impossible to prove with apodeitic certainty, the senses are not causal.
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things in themselves, while possessing a real existence — AmadeusD

And yet, there remains some idiotic insistence that noumena and thing-in-themselves are the same thing. Or the same kind of thing. Or can be treated as being the same kind of thing.

may offer support here, but it should be kept in mind, that in Kant’s day, Greek logic was still the rule, and Aristotle used the concepts phenomena/noumena in his way, so Kant had to, if not so much abide by the antecedent meanings, at least had to account for them, or no peer would take his philosophy seriously, insofar as the fundamental predication determining transcendental metaphysics, is purely logical.

Problem was, in the brand new metaphysics, there was no room for Aristotle’s concepts as such, on the one hand, and the brand new speculative machinations of human cognition couldn’t accommodate them both on the other.

But he had no choice but to accommodate Aristotle, somehow. Know how he did it? Cool as hell, if you ask me. He said, “….I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself…”. Now it is not self-contradictory to think noumena, from which arises a valid conception just as Aristotle professed, but there remains the need to abolish them in order they not interfere with the rest of the brand new speculative metaphysics, which would be where the contradiction of myself occurs, re: judgements in which the conception is contained relative to those judgements in which conception “phenomena” is contained.

Every notice….with all the talk of noumena, there is no talk of a noumenal object? Not one. Everyone talks of noumena but nobody wonders that there are no noumenal objects. And we can say there are none, even if it is only because we wouldn’t know of it as one if it reached out an bitch-slapped us.

If things-in-themselves give us things, shouldn’t noumena give us noumenal objects? Same thing, my ass. No where near the same, and moronic to consider them so.
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It seemed fairly clear to me that Noumena is the placeholder for things in themselves — AmadeusD

They are not. There’s something amiss in your clarity, methinks.

On matter, from a Kantian point of view:

“… the real in space—that is, matter…..”

“…what we cognize in matter is nothing but relations…”

“….Matter is substantia phaenomenon. That in it which is internal I seek to discover in all parts of space which it occupies, and in all the functions and operations it performs, and which are indeed never anything but phenomena of the external sense. I cannot therefore find anything that is absolutely, but only what is comparatively internal, and which itself consists of external relations. The absolutely internal in matter, and as it should be according to the pure understanding, is a mere chimera, for matter is not an object for the pure understanding. But the transcendental object, which is the foundation of the phenomenon which we call matter, is a mere nescio quid (re: I know not what; fr: quelque chose je ne sais quoi), the nature of which we could not understand, even though someone were found able to tell us.

….For we can understand nothing that does not bring with it something in intuition corresponding to the expressions employed. If, by the complaint of being unable to perceive the internal nature of things, it is meant that we do not comprehend by the pure understanding what the things which appear to us may be in themselves, it is a silly and unreasonable complaint; for those who talk thus really desire that we should be able to cognize, consequently to intuite, things without senses, and therefore wish that we possessed a faculty of cognition perfectly different from the human faculty, not merely in degree, but even as regards intuition and the mode thereof, so that thus we should not be men, but belong to a class of beings, the possibility of whose existence, much less their nature and constitution, we have no means of cognizing.

….By observation and analysis of phenomena we penetrate into the interior of nature, and no one can say what progress this knowledge may make in time. But those transcendental questions which pass beyond the limits of nature, we could never answer, even although all nature were laid open to us, because we have not the power of observing our own mind with any other intuition than that of our internal sense. For herein lies the mystery of the origin and source of our faculty of sensibility. Its application to an object, and the transcendental ground of this unity of subjective and objective, lie too deeply concealed for us, who cognize ourselves only through the internal sense, consequently as phenomena, to be able to discover in our existence anything but phenomena, the non-sensuous cause of which we at the same time earnestly desire to penetrate to….”.
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That human empirical knowledge is derivable from representation only, does not mean matter is not real, which it must be in order for there to be a representation of it.

That all we cognize in matter is its relations, and by which we “penetrate into the interior of nature”, re: Nature herself, is simply due to the type of cognizing capacities, having nothing whatsoever to do with matter itself, and from which it does not follow that matter of real objects must therefore be noumenal.

And the “someone found able to tell us” (of what to us is the chimera of the internal nature of matter) would, supposedly, not be human. Which reduces to…..no one is to be found to explain to us the internal nature of matter itself.

On the continued fallacious attribution to noumena, from a Kantian point of view:

“…. The critique of the pure understanding, accordingly, does not permit us to create for ourselves a new field of objects beyond those which are presented to us as phenomena, and to stray into intelligible worlds; nay, it does not even allow us to endeavour to form so much as a conception of them. The specious error which leads to this—and which is a perfectly excusable one—lies in the fact that the employment of the understanding, contrary to its proper purpose and destination, is made transcendental, and objects, that is, possible intuitions, are made to regulate themselves according to conceptions, instead of the conceptions arranging themselves according to the intuitions, on which alone their own objective validity rests.

…..Now the reason of this again is that apperception, and with it thought, antecedes all possible determinate arrangement of representations. Accordingly we think something in general and determine it on the one hand sensuously, but, on the other, distinguish the general and in abstracto represented object from this particular mode of intuiting it. In this case there remains a mode of determining the object by mere thought, which is really but a logical form without content, which, however, seems to us to be a mode of the existence of the object in itself (noumenon), without regard to intuition which is limited to our senses.

….Before ending this transcendental analytic, we must make an addition, which, although in itself of no particular importance, seems to be necessary to the completeness of the system. The highest conception, with which a transcendental philosophy commonly begins, is the division into possible and impossible. But as all division presupposes a divided conception, a still higher one must exist, and this is the conception of an object in general—problematically understood and without its being decided whether it is something or nothing. As the categories are the only conceptions which apply to objects in general, the distinguishing of an object, whether it is something or nothing, must proceed according to the order and direction of the categories.

….To the categories of quantity, that is, the conceptions of all, many, and one, the conception which annihilates all, that is, the conception of none, is opposed. And thus the object of a conception, to which no intuition can be found to correspond, is = nothing. That is, it is a conception without an object (ens rationis), like noumena, which cannot be considered possible in the sphere of reality, though they must not therefore be held to be impossible….”
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So it is that A249 is not to be considered as pertaining to existent objects. It is the error in transcendental illusory “appearance” that “I suppose there to be things that are merely objects of the understanding that, nevertheless, can be given to an intuition, although not to sensible intuition”, which presupposes the type of intuition not possessed by humans, from which follows there is nothing to which an object of mere thought to be given, insofar as human intuition is always and only sensible. There can be no appearance given to intuition from mere understanding, but from perception alone.

It follows that if the matter of objects were noumena, and noumena obtain their conceptual validity from mere understanding, and understanding gives to intuition its false “appearance”, then all matter of all objects are or can be already determinable by the understanding, which immediately eliminates intuition as the faculty of sensory representation, making experience itself impossible. From whence it is clear, that if the matter of the Eiffel Tower were noumena, there wouldn’t be a tower, a contradiction.

The secondary notion of illusory appearance, irrespective of the type of intuition humans possess, is justified long before the textual evidence of the proof of its occurrence, from the proposition “….understanding cannot intuit, and the sensuous faculty cannot think…” (hence these must work together while being distinct and separate faculties). If then, I suppose to give to even a sensible intuition a conception I merely think, the system is caused to work backwards, and from which no determinable warrant to expect a proper cognition is possible, which is to say, I will know nothing from this bass-acwards procedure, including the very possibility of having accomplished it.

Furthermore….as if the above wasn’t enough….herein the justification for two and only two types of systemic representation….
……one from intuition the object of which is phenomenal representation, the origin of which is the synthesis of matter a posteriori and form a priori.
……the other from understanding the object of which is conceptual representation, the origin of which is the spontaneity of pure thought.

Now it can be, that while faculties of intuition and understanding are distinct and separate, their objects must necessary conjoin to each other through a mediary faculty that is not either of them.

On the fallacious attribution of principles to the understanding, from a Kantian point of view:

“….All our knowledge begins with sense, proceeds thence to understanding, and ends with reason, beyond which nothing higher can be discovered in the human mind for elaborating the matter of intuition and subjecting it to the highest unity of thought. At this stage of our inquiry it is my duty to give an explanation of this, the highest faculty of cognition, and I confess I find myself here in some difficulty. Of reason…there is a merely formal, that is, logical use, in which it makes abstraction of all content of cognition; but there is also a real use, inasmuch as it contains in itself the source of certain conceptions and principles, which it does not borrow either from the senses or the understanding. The (real use) has been long defined by logicians as the faculty of mediate conclusion in contradistinction to immediate conclusions (consequentiae immediatae); but the nature of the (formal use), which itself generates conceptions, is not to be understood from this definition…..

….In the former part of our transcendental logic, we defined the understanding to be the faculty of rules; reason may be distinguished from understanding as the faculty of principles.

….The term principle is ambiguous, and commonly signifies merely a cognition that may be employed as a principle, although it is not in itself, and as regards its proper origin, entitled to the distinction. Every general proposition, even if derived from experience by the process of induction, may serve as the major in a syllogism; but it is not for that reason a principle. Mathematical axioms (for example, there can be only one straight line between two points) are general à priori cognitions, and are therefore rightly denominated principles, relatively to the cases which can be subsumed under them. But I cannot for this reason say that I cognize this property of a straight line from principles—I cognize it only in pure intuition.

…..Cognition from principles, then, is that cognition in which I cognize the particular in the general by means of conceptions. Thus every syllogism is a form of the deduction of a cognition from a principle. For the major always gives a conception, through which everything that is subsumed under the condition thereof is cognized according to a principle. Now as every general cognition may serve as the major in a syllogism, and the understanding presents us with such general à priori propositions, they may be termed principles, in respect of their possible use.

…..But if we consider these principles of the pure understanding in relation to their origin, we shall find them to be anything rather than cognitions from conceptions. For they would not even be possible à priori, if we could not rely on the assistance of pure intuition (in mathematics), or on that of the conditions of a possible experience. That everything that happens has a cause, cannot be concluded from the general conception of that which happens; on the contrary the principle of causality instructs us as to the mode of obtaining from that which happens a determinate empirical conception….

…..Synthetical cognitions from conceptions the understanding cannot supply, and they alone are entitled to be called principles..

….. The understanding may be a faculty for the production of unity of phenomena by virtue of rules; the reason is a faculty for the production of unity of rules (of the understanding) under principles. Reason, therefore, never applies directly to experience, or to any sensuous object; its object is, on the contrary, the understanding, to the manifold cognition of which it gives a unity à priori by means of conceptions—a unity which may be called rational unity, and which is of a nature very different from that of the unity produced by the understanding….”

There are no principles of the understanding as such, pure or otherwise; there are only those under which the function of understanding is legitimized, the origin of which is the project of pure reason, and that from its transcendental nature alone.

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/5/25851/files/2017/09/kant-first-critique-cambridge-1m89prv.pdf

Just a click away……

Schop's reading. — Tom Storm

He’s very harsh on Young Hegelians, calls them mushheads following a philosophical numbskull. Kant just says he disagrees with a guy without demeaning him.

Descartes refers to Everydayman as philosophically unsophisticated, Hume refers to him as vulgar, Kant just calls him common.

Which has non-philosophers like me wary of even trying to make sense of him….. — Tom Storm

A common lament to be sure, but, believe it or not, there are passages that make so much sense, it helps in drawing sense out of the rest, like this:

Forget everything you learned in school, and consider the ramifications: it is absolutely impossible to get to 12, when all you have is a 7 here and a 5 there. Upon grasping that in all its magnificent glory, it might occur, that there’s a whole boatload of stuff happening between the ears that has not a damn thing to do with your senses. Can I get an a-MEN, brutha????

Know what else? It is impossible to think a triangle in general, for every thought of one, is a certain triangle. But it is impossible from the conception of three straight lines alone, to form a certain triangle, but can only give the thought of a triangle in general. ARRRRGGGG!!!!

Hey…I embellish. But I’m old, retired and therefore entitled. (Grin)
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Are there readings of Kant by academics you consider to be wrong or misconceived? Are there schools of Kant? — Tom Storm

Yikes. That presupposes I’m qualified to critique academics. I’d never be so presumptuous, but I’ve read a lot of a few, and some of a lot, so to answer your question, it would be Schopenhauer, without doubt. He’s hypocritical on the one hand, praising Kant to the high heavens as philosophy’s golden child, then rips him a new one on the other, by denying the validity of his version of the ultimate ground of transcendental philosophy.

In short, by claiming the will, as something the knowledge of which is not impossible, and making that the thing-in-itself, then the fact it is to not impossible to know this version of the thing-in-itself, absolutely destroys the version wherein the thing-in-itsef is impossible to know.

As for schools of Kant, there’s neo-Kantianism, proto-Kantianism, same as with any theory, where peer group successors modify or rearrange the original. Then there’s the analytic philosophers who are somewhat anti-Kantians, insofar they don’t do speculative metaphysics or theoretical methodologies, seemingly because how we talk is more relevant than how we think.

Hope that’s helpful.

Delete duplicate

I wasn't meaning to deny existence because we are not receptive of a thing, but rather was saying that having a concept of something doesn't warrant its existence of it. — Corvus

Oh. That’s fine. I hope I didn’t give any indication I thought otherwise. Correlation not causation and all that.

Could you please elaborate? — Corvus

We should both step back, maybe. Your…

How do you prove something is possible independent of whatever intellect received it? — Corvus

….makes no sense to me, and my….

Nature is the totality of all that is possible independent of whatever intellect receives it. — Mww

…..seems to have made no sense to you. I meant by the proposition that just because we are not receptive of a thing is not sufficient warrant for us to den its existence. Whereas, if we were to deny the existence of that which is a cause of our sensations, we contradict ourselves.

Thanks for this exchange — AmadeusD

No prob, but it goes without saying…..any comment on Kant is only an opinion at least, and a best guess at most. I mean, when you come across sentences half a page long, you’re bound to miss the mark sooner or later.

is that, or how far is that, a reasonable unadornment ? — AmadeusD

Close enough. To reduce it all to the subtleties of transcendental philosophy might be a little different, but the gist is good enough for a general idea.

It sounds absurd that you can reason on something which is independent of whatever your intellect received. — Corvus

The difference between he intellect receiving from without, and creating from within. Logic, and by association, pure reason, still needs the guidance of experience for its empirical certainty.

How do you prove something is possible independent of whatever intellect received it? — Corvus

You don’t. You reason to a justifiable conclusion on sufficient grounds.

Is the suggestion here that without the concepts that allow phenomena to cohere in the understanding, we wouldn't actually intuit (in the Kantian sense) anything of any comprehendable nature? — AmadeusD

In a Kantian sense, it is already the case we don’t intuit anything in any comprehendable nature. Intuition is that faculty of representation by which the matter of objects given a posteriori, is synthesized with certain forms, given a priori “in the mind”, the arrangement of that synthesis being termed phenomena. We are not aware of this arrangement, which is the purview of the productive imagination.

It is the case as well, that concepts belong to understanding, as you say, so what you said actually becomes….without concepts that allow phenomena to cohere in the understanding, we wouldn’t actually cognize anything at all, as made clear here:

“….Thoughts without content are void (empty); intuitions without conceptions, blind…”
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Would you accept that even in that case, the objects exist, we just have no access to even their indication? — AmadeusD

Almost. In the case without concepts that allow phenomena to cohere in the understanding, we may still be quite aware of a existent object, merely from its sensation, but what we don’t have, is even the possibility of a representation of what that existent object actually is. What it is meaning nothing more than how it is to be judged, what judgement regarding that thing is permissible, such that object is or is not comprehensible. The arbiter here being simply the LNC, the domain of which is….pure reason her-very-own-damn-self.

Think of it as a tripartite system, in the form of a syllogism, in which the major is the understanding of the manifold of conceptions related to an object, the minor is the judgement regarding the compatibility of the synthesis of those conceptions to each other, and reason concludes the validity of that synthesis with respect to those already given, better known as the principle of non-contradiction. You know….like….square circles as an extreme example, but even such everyday cognitions such as driving on the wrong side of the road, going through a door without opening it. And my all-time favorite….swearing on a stack of bibles the stupid cup is still in the stupid cupboard, with the same certainty you had when you actually put it there. (Mumblesputtercuss-choke)

But I digress. So yes….the object does exist. If there is a phenomenon, there must have been a sensation. If a sensation, there must have been a perception. If a perception, there must have been an appearance. If an appearance, there must be that which appears. There must be a thing, an object, that appears.

Possible existence and phenomenon are not the actuality until they manifested, so should they not be irrelevant? — Corvus

A possible existence and its possible phenomenon may be irrelevant at a certain time, but time isn’t something to be ignored in general. Contingency in empirical knowledge mandates successions in time, so…..

You can have a brand new phenomena with no concepts and no understanding presumed, attached or presupposed as just a sensibility. — Corvus

Absolutely. But that isn’t the system as a whole. It is human nature so want to know, and for that the whole system…..whatever it may be…..is a prerequisite.

What is "Nature" here? — Corvus

Reality is the totality of sensation dependent on the intellect that receives it.
Nature is the totality of all that is possible independent of whatever intellect receives it.
My opinion, of course.

….concepts has nothing to do with existence or phenomenon of objects? — Corvus

Concepts, in and of themselves with respect to their origin, re: understanding, and method of use, re: logic, no, they do not. Existence has to do with Nature; phenomena with sensibility, Nature being given.

Concepts alone, their origin and method of use being granted, in the domain of pure thought they do not, but consideration still must be given to possible existence and phenomenon.

Within the system as a whole, from appearance in the beginning to knowledge at the end, it is impossible concepts have nothing to do phenomena, but Nature is still presupposed as having to do with existence.

Existence, the category, does not grant existence to objects, but only makes necessary that an object exist for it to be an experience. Hence, the logic: if this then that; if maybe this then maybe that; if not this then absolutely not that.

On the fatal flaw in common misunderstanding of noumena, from a Kantian point of view:

“…. I call a conception problematical which contains in itself no contradiction, and which is connected with other cognitions as a limitation of given conceptions, but whose objective reality cannot be cognized in any manner. The conception of a noumenon, that is, of a thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but as a thing in itself (solely through the pure understanding), is not self-contradictory, for we are not entitled to maintain that sensibility is the only possible mode of intuition. Nay, further, this conception is necessary to restrain sensuous intuition within the bounds of phenomena, and thus to limit the objective validity of sensuous cognition; for things in themselves, which lie beyond its province, are called noumena for the very purpose of indicating that this cognition does not extend its application to all that the understanding thinks.

But, after all, the possibility of such noumena is quite incomprehensible, and beyond the sphere of phenomena, all is for us a mere void; that is to say, we possess an understanding whose province does problematically extend beyond this sphere, but we do not possess an intuition, indeed, not even the conception of a possible intuition, by means of which objects beyond the region of sensibility could be given us, and in reference to which the understanding might be employed assertorically. The conception of a noumenon is therefore merely a limitative conception and therefore only of negative use. But it is not an arbitrary or fictitious notion, but is connected with the limitation of sensibility, without, however, being capable of presenting us with any positive datum beyond this sphere.

The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and of the world into a mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis is therefore quite inadmissible in a positive sense, although conceptions do certainly admit of such a division; for the class of noumena have no determinate object corresponding to them, and cannot therefore possess objective validity. If we abandon the senses, how can it be made conceivable that the categories (which are the only conceptions that could serve as conceptions for noumena) have any sense or meaning at all, inasmuch as something more than the mere unity of thought, namely, a possible intuition, is requisite for their application to an object? The conception of a noumenon, considered as merely problematical, is, however, not only admissible, but, as a limitative conception of sensibility, absolutely necessary. But, in this case, a noumenon is not a particular intelligible object for our understanding; on the contrary, the kind of understanding to which it could belong is itself a problem, for we cannot form the most distant conception of the possibility of an understanding which should cognize an object, not discursively by means of categories, but intuitively in a non-sensuous intuition. Our understanding attains in this way a sort of negative extension. That is to say, it is not limited by, but rather limits, sensibility, by giving the name of noumena to things, not considered as phenomena, but as things in themselves. But it at the same time prescribes limits to itself, for it confesses itself unable to cognize these by means of the categories, and hence is compelled to cogitate them merely as an unknown something.

I find, however, in the writings of modern authors, an entirely different use of the expressions, mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis, which quite departs from the meaning of the ancients—an acceptation in which, indeed, there is to be found no difficulty, but which at the same time depends on mere verbal quibbling. According to this meaning, some have chosen to call the complex of phenomena, in so far as it is intuited, mundus sensibilis, but in so far as the connection thereof is cogitated according to general laws of thought, mundus intelligibilis. Astronomy, in so far as we mean by the word the mere observation of the starry heaven, may represent the former; a system of astronomy, such as the Copernican or Newtonian, the latter. But such twisting of words is a mere sophistical subterfuge, to avoid a difficult question, by modifying its meaning to suit our own convenience.

To be sure, understanding and reason are employed in the cognition of phenomena; but the question is, whether these can be applied when the object is not a phenomenon and in this sense we regard it if it is cogitated as given to the understanding alone, and not to the senses. The question therefore is whether, over and above the empirical use of the understanding, a transcendental use is possible, which applies to the noumenon as an object. This question we have answered in the negative.…”
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From which follows that….
…….it is true noumena and things-in-themselves are both representations understanding thinks on its own accord;
……the thing-in-itself obtains its objective validity from the thing which appears;
……no noumenal thing ever appears, therefore noumena have no objective validity;
……and the fatal flaw is lack of recognition that anything the conception of which is given from understanding alone, without conjunction with any faculty in human sensibility, can never be or cause an object of sense.

What about the concept of God? Which came first? The phenomenon or the concept? — Corvus

Which presupposes God is, or may be, a phenomenon. If a God is conceived as the unconditioned, then to be a phenomenon necessarily contradicts the conception, insofar as all phenomena are conditioned by something other than itself.

The concept comes first as a thought, the phenomenon corresponding to it is impossible, therefore does not come at all.

what would something metaphysically impossible but logically possible be? — Lionino

Hmmm…..metaphysically impossible. If metaphysics is the doctrine of thought, the metaphysically impossible indicates a impossible thought. Any thought that occurs must be possible, but those thoughts that do not occur are not thereby impossible. Maybe they just haven’t happened yet.

If logic is the method of thought within the doctrine, then logically impossible just indicates an error in the method.

My guess: anything metaphysically impossible is logically impossible, but anything logically impossible must be metaphysically possible.

No apple, as such, ever existed independently of that by which it is conceived, and, thereby, is represented by that name. The object represented by the concept, however, does.
— Mww

This has struck me, in CPR, as absolutely nonsensical (which may just be me, hence questions).

How could the concept of an apple indicate it's actual existence? — AmadeusD

It doesn’t. The thing to be known by a particular name already existed; we just didn’t know what it was, how to talk about it.

No object comes named; every object is named by a human, once upon a time. CPR is just one speculative method by which naming is possible by the human kind of intelligence, affectionately termed by some successor or another, as the “Copernican Revolution”. From which follows that every name, without exception, is a human invention, determined by some particular methodological system.

Think about it: there are even to this day, in spite of your formal education and experiences, those occasions where you don’t know the cause of something that you’ve sensed. A bug bite on your arm….you sense the bite but that doesn’t immediately tell you which animal it was. The tickle on the back of your neck….you sense the tickle but don’t know whether it’s an errant hair or a spider. The loud bang from around the corner….you hear the sound, but don’t know whether it’s a firecracker or the tailgate on a dump truck.

These days, though, it is usually the case where you’re given the object and the name of it at the same time, re: rote classroom instruction. In the beginning, you’re given a pencil and a piece of paper and told to trace out symbols, which you’re informed are letters and numbers…..and it’s off to the races for you.

It’s easy to overlook the fact that the very first guy that decided what a 2 should look like, used exactly the same mental machinations as you used in learning it. And that machination is the relation between the thing as it is sensed, to the thing as it is thought. Simple as that, but to be complete, it remains to be considered which part of the relation occurs first.
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You couldn't possibly have the concept without the phenomena, and the phenomena informing the concept is tautological. — AmadeusD

For practical experience, true enough. Phenomena always antecede the conception, but they certainly do inform the concept. And it is not tautological, insofar as….remember the bug bite? If such were the case, you’d know immediately which animal bit you merely from the sensation of the bite itself. But you don’t.

Nevertheless….remember the time relation? Which came first? In the case of, e.g., black holes, the concept, grounded in math and pure logic, antecedes the phenomenon.

On the justification for, but not the deduction of, the pure a priori conceptions of the understanding:

“…. General logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstraction of all content of cognition, and expects to receive representations from some other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into conceptions. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it the manifold content of à priori sensibility, which transcendental æsthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure conceptions of the understanding, without which transcendental logic would have no content, and be therefore utterly void. Now space and time contain an infinite diversity of determinations of pure à priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind’s receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations of objects, and which, consequently, must always affect the conception of these objects. But the spontaneity of thought requires that this diversity be examined after a certain manner, received into the mind, and connected, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of it. This Process I call synthesis.

By the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I understand the process of joining different representations to each other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition. This synthesis is pure when the diversity is not given empirically but à priori (as that in space and time). Our representations must be given previously to any analysis of them; and no conceptions can arise regarding its content analytically. But the synthesis of a diversity (be it given à priori or empirically) is the first requisite for the production of a cognition, which in its beginning, indeed, may be crude and confused, and therefore in need of analysis—still, synthesis is that by which alone the elements of our cognitions are collected and united into a certain content, consequently it is the first thing on which we must fix our attention, if we wish to investigate the origin of our knowledge.

Synthesis, generally speaking, is, as we shall afterwards see, the mere operation of the imagination—a blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should have no cognition whatever, but of the working of which we are seldom even conscious. But to reduce this synthesis to conceptions is a function of the understanding….

….. Pure synthesis, represented generally, gives us the pure conception of the understanding. But by this pure synthesis, I mean that which rests upon a basis of à priori synthetical unity…..

….. By means of analysis different representations are brought under one conception—an operation of which general logic treats**. On the other hand, the duty of transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions, not representations, but the pure synthesis of representations***. The first thing which must be given to us for the sake of the à priori cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the understanding. The same function which gives unity to the different representation in a judgement, gives also unity to the mere synthesis of different representations in an intuition; and this unity we call the pure conception of the understanding.

Thus, the same understanding, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its representations****, on which account they are called pure conceptions of the understanding, and they apply à priori to objects, a result not within the power of general logic.….”
(**and here is where the undetermined object of intuition becomes “apple”)
(***whatever any undetermined object becomes, it does so in accordance with a rule)
(****the rule)
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On the justification for a priori pure intuitions:

“….. It must be admitted that the Leibnitz-Wolfian philosophy has assigned an entirely erroneous point of view to all investigations into the nature and origin of our cognitions, inasmuch as it regards the distinction between the sensuous and the intellectual as merely logical, whereas it is plainly transcendental, and concerns not merely the clearness or obscurity, but the content and origin of both. For the faculty of sensibility not only does not present us with an indistinct and confused cognition of objects as things in themselves, but, in fact, gives us no knowledge of these at all. On the contrary, so soon as we abstract in thought our own subjective nature, the object represented, with the properties ascribed to it by sensuous intuition, entirely disappears, because it was only this subjective nature that determined the form of the object as a phenomenon.

In phenomena, we commonly, indeed, distinguish that which essentially belongs to the intuition of them, and is valid for the sensuous faculty of every human being, from that which belongs to the same intuition accidentally, as valid not for the sensuous faculty in general, but for a particular state or organization of this or that sense. Accordingly, we are accustomed to say that the former is a cognition which represents the object itself, whilst the latter presents only a particular appearance or phenomenon thereof. This distinction, however, is only empirical. If we stop here (as is usual), and do not regard the empirical intuition as itself a mere phenomenon (as we ought to do), in which nothing that can appertain to a thing in itself is to be found, our transcendental distinction is lost, and we believe that we cognize objects as things in themselves, although in the whole range of the sensuous world, investigate the nature of its objects as profoundly as we may, we have to do with nothing but phenomena.

Suppose, then, that space and time are in themselves objective, and conditions of the possibility of objects as things in themselves. In the first place, it is evident that both present us, with very many apodeictic and synthetic propositions à priori, but especially space—and for this reason we shall prefer it for investigation at present. As the propositions of geometry are cognized synthetically à priori, and with apodeictic certainty, I inquire: Whence do you obtain propositions of this kind, and on what basis does the understanding rest, in order to arrive at such absolutely necessary and universally valid truths? There is no other way than through intuitions or conceptions, as such; and these are given either à priori or à posteriori. The latter, namely, empirical conceptions, together with the empirical intuition on which they are founded, cannot afford any synthetical proposition, except such as is itself also empirical, that is, a proposition of experience.

But an empirical proposition cannot possess the qualities of necessity and absolute universality, which, nevertheless, are the characteristics of all geometrical propositions. As to the first and only means to arrive at such cognitions, namely, through mere conceptions or intuitions à priori, it is quite clear that from mere conceptions no synthetical cognitions, but only analytical ones, can be obtained. Take, for example, the proposition: “Two straight lines cannot enclose a space, and with these alone no figure is possible,” and try to deduce it from the conception of a straight line and the number two; or take the proposition: “It is possible to construct a figure with three straight lines,” and endeavour, in like manner, to deduce it from the mere conception of a straight line and the number three. All your endeavours are in vain, and you find yourself forced to have recourse to intuition, as, in fact, geometry always does. You therefore give yourself an object in intuition. But of what kind is this intuition? Is it a pure à priori, or is it an empirical intuition? If the latter, then neither an universally valid, much less an apodeictic proposition can arise from it, for experience never can give us any such proposition. You must, therefore, give yourself an object à priori in intuition, and upon that ground your synthetical proposition.

Now if there did not exist within you a faculty of intuition à priori; if this subjective condition were not in respect to its form also the universal condition à priori under which alone the object of this external intuition is itself possible; if the object (that is, the triangle) were something in itself, without relation to you the subject; how could you affirm that that which lies necessarily in your subjective conditions in order to construct a triangle, must also necessarily belong to the triangle in itself? For to your conceptions of three lines, you could not add anything new (that is, the figure); which, therefore, must necessarily be found in the object, because the object is given before your cognition, and not by means of it.

If, therefore, space (and time also) were not a mere form of your intuition, which contains conditions à priori, under which alone things can become external objects for you, and without which subjective conditions the objects are in themselves nothing, you could not construct any synthetical proposition whatsoever regarding external objects. It is therefore not merely possible or probable, but indubitably certain, that space and time, as the necessary conditions of all our external and internal experience, are merely subjective conditions of all our intuitions, in relation to which all objects are therefore mere phenomena, and not things in themselves, presented to us in this particular manner. And for this reason, in respect to the form of phenomena, much may be said à priori, whilst of the thing in itself, which may lie at the foundation of these phenomena, it is impossible to say anything.…”

The claim, it follows, that these justifications were not given in the body of the text, is catastrophically false.

you know they are said to exist. — Janus

Agreed. To perceive the proposition is to perceive representations of its empirical content. To perceive a representation in the form of a word is not to perceive that real object which is represented by the word.

Hell…if I told you I put a pot on the stove, even if you know what those are, you don’t know I have either of them, or that I did anything with them if I had them.
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I feel my side-comments are derailing the thread. — Wayfarer

Ahhh…if that’s your sentiment, so be it. I rather enjoy them myself.

I'll bow out now…. — Wayfarer

Hopefully not on my account.

No apple, as such, ever existed independently of that by which it is conceived, and, thereby, is represented by that name. The object represented by the concept, however, does.

“….. In whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate to objects, it is at least quite clear that the only manner in which it immediately relates to them is by means of an intuition. To this as the indispensable groundwork, all thought points. But an intuition can take place only in so far as the object is given to us. This, again, is only possible, to man at least, on condition that the object affect the mind in a certain manner. The capacity for receiving representations (receptivity) through the mode in which we are affected by objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensibility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions. But all thought (of objects) must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us. The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition.

The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon. That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form. But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation. It is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us à posteriori; the form must lie ready à priori for them in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from all sensation.

Now, independently of sensibility, we cannot possibly have any intuition; consequently, the understanding is no faculty of intuition. But besides intuition there is no other mode of cognition, except through conceptions; consequently, the cognition of every, at least of every human, understanding is a cognition through conceptions—not intuitive, but discursive. All intuitions, as sensuous, depend on affections; conceptions, therefore, upon functions.

By the word function I understand the unity of the act of arranging diverse representations under one common representation. Conceptions, then, are based on the spontaneity of thought, as sensuous intuitions are on the receptivity of impressions. Now, the understanding cannot make any other use of these conceptions than to judge by means of them. As no representation, except an intuition, relates immediately to its object, a conception never relates immediately to an object, but only to some other representation thereof, be that an intuition or itself a conception. A judgement, therefore, is the mediate cognition of an object, consequently the representation of a representation of it….”

From “Contact”…..Small moves, Sparky. Small moves. Baby steps.

“…. In truth, it is not images of objects, but schemata, which lie at the foundation of our pure sensuous conceptions. No image could ever be adequate to our conception of a triangle in general. For the generalness of the conception it never could attain to, as this includes under itself all triangles, whether right-angled, acute-angled, etc., whilst the image would always be limited to a single part of this sphere. The schema of the triangle can exist nowhere else than in thought, and it indicates a rule of the synthesis of the imagination in regard to pure figures in space. Still less is an object of experience, or an image of the object, ever to the empirical conception. On the contrary, the conception always relates immediately to the schema of the imagination, as a rule for the determination of our intuition, in conformity with a certain general conception. The conception of a dog indicates a rule, according to which my imagination can delineate the figure of a four-footed animal in general, without being limited to any particular individual form which experience presents to me, or indeed to any possible image that I can represent to myself in concreto.

This schematism of our understanding in regard to phenomena and their mere form, is an art, hidden in the depths of the human soul, whose true modes of action we shall only with difficulty discover and unveil. Thus much only can we say: “The image is a product of the empirical faculty of the productive imagination—the schema of sensuous conceptions (of figures in space, for example) is a product, and, as it were, a monogram of the pure imagination à priori, whereby and according to which images first become possible, which, however, can be connected with the conception only mediately by means of the schema which they indicate, and are in themselves never fully adequate to it.” On the other hand, the schema of a pure conception of the understanding is something that cannot be reduced into any image—it is nothing else than the pure synthesis expressed by the category, conformably, to a rule of unity according to conceptions. It is a transcendental product of the imagination, a product which concerns the determination of the internal sense, according to conditions of its form (time) in respect to all representations, in so far as these representations must be conjoined à priori in one conception, conformably to the unity of apperception.

Without entering upon a dry and tedious analysis of the essential requisites of transcendental schemata of the pure conceptions of the understanding, we shall rather proceed at once to give an explanation of them according to the order of the categories, and in connection therewith. For the external sense the pure image of all quantities (quantorum) is space; the pure image of all objects of sense in general, is time. But the pure schema of quantity, a conception of the understanding, is number, a representation which comprehends the successive addition of one to one (homogeneous quantities). Thus, number is nothing else than the unity of the synthesis of the manifold in a homogeneous intuition, by means of my generating time itself in my apprehension of the intuition….”
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Number does not exist in the mind as appearance or phenomena, unless it is created as such in a non-fallacious post hoc ergo propter hoc cognition following from a transcendental synthetic unity.

Every human, or every species with this particular intellectual method, including mathematicians and logicians, busboys and cab drivers, is a transcendental idealist and an empirical realist, or, more precisely, a dualist. A dualist fundamentally understood as that which has the ability to comprehend Nature under conditions which are not contained in it.

Or would you just say you agree with only Kant's metaphysics that are not about ethics? — Bob Ross

Metaphysics is general, although Kant’s ethics, more inclined toward what he called empirical anthropology and the moderns call cultural or the stronger even more modern sociocultural, has some quite repulsive stuff regarding women, other races, etc., which was not so out-of-tune for his day. But on the other hand, human aesthetics, the ground of purely subjective moral dispositions, hasn’t changed since his time, insofar as that requires the lapsed time of natural evolution.

Still, the crowd influences the individual; it does but it shouldn’t and it wouldn’t if the individual would just grow a pair. It is the growing which is the same for us these days as Kant’s moral philosophy espoused. It is the fact we in general are too weak to grow a pair, and that alone reduces practical moral subjectivist philosophy to junk.

Oh, I been in the back of the room, keeping my head down, taking notes.

A Kantian with respect to moral subjectivism I’ll admit. Ethics is more than that, I think.

Objective moral principle is like world peace. One can wish for it, visualize it, even figure out how to do it, but understands even if he does it, there’s precious little reason to expect anybody else to follow suit.

I always kinda figured you’d end up here.

The very point of a priori mental machinations never was the mind, re: human intellectual system, in relation to the world, but the relation of the human intellectual system to itself. Such system does not come pre-equipped with principles but with the faculty of reason, experience the condition of the development of them by means of that faculty. How else to escape constant conjunction, then to cognize the very possibility of exceptions to it?

“…. The question now is as to a criterion, by which we may securely distinguish a pure from an empirical cognition. Experience no doubt teaches us that this or that object is constituted in such and such a manner, but not that it could not possibly exist otherwise. Now, in the first place, if we have a proposition which contains the idea of necessity in its very conception, it is priori. If, moreover, it is not derived from any other proposition, unless from one equally involving the idea of necessity, it is absolutely priori. Secondly, 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. If, on the other hand, a judgement carries with it strict and absolute universality, that is, admits of no possible exception, it is not derived from experience, but is valid absolutely à priori. Empirical universality is, therefore, only an arbitrary extension of validity, from that which may be predicated of a proposition valid in most cases, to that which is asserted of a proposition which holds good in all (…). When, on the contrary, strict universality characterizes a judgement, it necessarily indicates another peculiar source of knowledge, namely, a faculty of cognition à priori. Necessity and strict universality, therefore, are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge, and are inseparably connected with each other.

“…. Besides, without seeking for such examples of principles existing à priori in cognition, we might easily show that such principles are the indispensable basis of the possibility of experience itself, and consequently prove their existence à priori. For whence could our experience itself acquire certainty, if all the rules on which it depends were themselves empirical, and consequently fortuitous? No one, therefore, can admit the validity of the use of such rules as first principles. But, for the present, we may content ourselves with having established the fact, that we do possess and exercise a faculty of pure à priori cognition; and, secondly, with having pointed out the proper tests of such cognition, namely, universality and necessity.…”

“…. Of far more importance than all that has been above said, is the consideration that certain of our cognitions rise completely above the sphere of all possible experience, and by means of conceptions, to which there exists in the whole extent of experience no corresponding object, seem to extend the range of our judgements beyond its bounds. And just in this transcendental or supersensible sphere, where experience affords us neither instruction nor guidance, lie the investigations of reason, which, on account of their importance, we consider far preferable to, and as having a far more elevated aim than, all that the understanding can achieve within the sphere of sensuous phenomena.….”

Reference? Link?

experiments on time and space — Corvus

An experiment on time. I’ll bet it’s actually an experiment on something relative to time.