Its easy enough to confuse the means for the ends when the means posit their own ends.

And that's all I care about. — Xtrix

What you care or do not care about is irrelevant and beneath discussion. Far more relevant is the fact that Kant not get turned into a full blown idealist where the limit to thought is nothing but a posit of thought itself - as the noumenon is, and the thing-in-itself is not.

Exactly correct. So you're right, why bicker about whether noumenon means the same thing or something else -- it doesn't negate the above, which is all I'm really concerned with in this thread. — Xtrix

Because it makes a difference as to what kind of thing the transcendental subject is. Collapsing the noumenon into the thing-in-itself idealizes the thing-in-itself in a way that makes Kant... Fichte. It makes all the difference in the world.

Yeah, one of the most enduring legacies of phenomenology is - or should be - it's usurpation of the subject/object dichotomy as a primary point of investigation. Heidegger was entirely right to inject time into any analysis of things, even though he tethered that injection to (a certain conception of) death in a way I find problematic.

In a way, the introduction of the distinction (b/t subject and object) into philosophy ought to be seen as a kind of abberation, a wrong turn taken that we've had to devote entire generations of philosophy in order to get over. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

The thing is that Kant isn't even that tough. His hardness to read is way overrated. Once you get the general idea of his project, everything he says falls into place really nicely. The vocabulary is a little foreign when you first come across it but that's it.

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

This really ought to be the end of the conversation. The noumenal is of the order of the intelligible and thus belongs to the understanding. Anyone who similarly thinks that the thing-in-itself is also intelligible and is a posit of the understanding simply ought to give up reading Kant forever.

https://www.amazon.com/Kants-Theory-Normativity-Exploring-Reason/dp/1107127807

This is what you want, if you can afford it!

Well the noumenal belongs to the (faculty of the) understanding, which is the faculty that deals with the intelligible, so the choice of word makes rather perfect sense.

"It is implied in this distinction [between noumena and phenomena] ... possible things, which are not objects of our senses but are thought as objects merely through the understanding, in opposition to the former, and that in so doing we entitle them intelligible entities (noumena)." (B306).

"The Transcendental Aesthetic, already of itself establishes the objective reality of noumena and justifies the division of objects into phaenomena and noumena, and so of the world into a world of the senses and a world of the understanding (mundus sensibilis et intelligibilis)" (A249)

And of course, the understanding is what furnishes us with the concepts necessary for the cognition of objects. Kant is very much drawing on a modified classical vocabulary and grammar in his use of these terms.

In lieu of agreeing on this whole noumenon/TIT stuff, it's perhaps worth drawing attention to one thing that often gets lost in modern appropriations of Kant's vocabulary: for Kant, the very form of the 'object' (the 'object-form') is itself supplied or imputed by the subject (or the faculty of understanding more specifically) onto the world (the-thing-in-itself). That is, the-thing-itself is so inaccessable to knowledge that we can't even say of it that it is an object, or that it has the form of an object. The world is not composed of objects! Instead, objects are strictly 'epistemological' posits, the form under which the world is grasped, which is itself provided by the transcendental subject. Another way to put this is that the object-form is ideal, and is nothing but a correlate of the subject.

I've always found this to be a far more interesting take on the subject/object dichotomy than the usual reading which substantializes the object (or ontologizes it) as something 'out there' and for which it is the role of the 'subject' to grasp or engage with.

I need to sleep but since both of you mentioned this:

The quote does not demonstrate this at all. In fact it does not MENTION noumena, it mentions things in themselves as apart from our (limited) understanding. — Xtrix

Your first quotation says nothing of distinction noumenon — David Mo

A quick response - anyone familiar with the subject would know immediately that the limitation set by the understanding is the noumenon, as is made clear by the preceding passage:

"The concept of the noumenon is, therefore, not the concept of an object, but is a problem unavoidably bound up with the limitation of our sensibility ... Understanding accordingly limits sensibility" (my bolding). This is obvious for anyone who understands that understanding = intelligibility = that to which the noumenal belongs = non-sensible intuition. As I already spelt out previously. Hence the 'accordingly' which refers to nothing else but the noumenon.

Edit:

Your comment has no sense: "limitations of understanding" — David Mo

This is easy enough to deal with too: the 'of' in 'limitations of understanding' is an objective, not subjective genitive: as in, the limitations set by understanding for the sensibility, i.e. noumena. Not 'limitations on the understanding'. You made the grammatical mistake, not me.

Edit2: actually why not the whole thing:

Whether it is a mistake or not, what this sentence does is to equate the thing that exists in itself with the noumenon — David Mo

It does - in order to dispel this equation as exactly the wrong thing to do.

Can you quote Kant to demonstrate that distinction? — David Mo

I already did!: "Understanding accordingly limits sensibility, but does not thereby extend its own sphere. In the process of warning the latter that it must not presume to claim applicability to things-in-themselves but only to appearances". (A288)

That is: the limitation set by the understanding on sensibility does not apply to things-in-themselves. Noumena are 'appearence-relative', and only appearence-relative. Things-in-themselves are not.

Further down: "If we want to call this object a noumenon because the representation of it is nothing sensible, we are free to do so. But since we cannot apply any of our concepts of the understanding to it, this representation still remains empty for us, and serves for nothing but to designate the boundaries of our sensible cognition" (B346, my emphasis)

It should be noted to that your partial quote (B346), in context, comes at the end of a discussion in which the idea that limitations of understanding extends beyond sensibility, is a mistake. So the start of Kant's sentence, which you conveniently cut off, reads:

"We therefore think something in general, and on the one side determine it sensibly, only we also distinguish the object represented in general and in abstracto from this way of intuiting it; thus there remains to us a way of determining it merely through thinking that is, to be sure, a merely logical form without content, but that nevertheless seems to us to be a way in which the object exists in itself (noumenon), without regard to the intuition to which our sensibility is limited".

But this 'seems' is precisely, a mistake. To regard the noumenon as that 'without regard to which the intuition to which our sensibility is limited' is an error: the whole section is a 'critique of pure understanding': a critique which posits that to think noumena as abstracted from sensibility is a total mistake. What you quote in defence of your position is for Kant paradigmatic of a transcendental exercise of the understanding which must be avoided at all costs!

but you ignore them. — David Mo

Not at all. I've repeatedly acknowledged that noumena can be understood as things-in-themselves. Only that the converse does not hold in all cases. There is an asymmetry.

You keep confusing the concept of noumenon or thing in itself with the existence of things. — David Mo

You keep stringing the two together without argument.

If the sensitivity disappears, the concept of the thing itself also disappears — David Mo

This makes of Kant an idealist in the Berkeleyian sense, which he militates against throughout the CoPR. As I said, noumena are indeed things-in-themselves, but the converse does not hold.

Either way you need to make up your mind: either the noumena are defined only in relation to the understanding, or they are not. You can't have it both ways.

It's not true that numena are "only defined" by their relationship to knowledge. — David Mo

Incorrect. Here is Kant: "The concept of a noumenon is thus a merely limiting concept, the function of which is to curb the pretensions of sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment. At the same time it is no arbitrary invention; it is bound up with the limitation of sensibility, though it cannot affirm anything positive beyond the field of sensibility." (B311) No sensibility, no noumena. The two are inextricable concepts.

As for the thing-in-itself, it has a relation with our capacity for knowledge, but is not defined by it, unlike the noumenon. I may be a brother to my sister, but my sister is not nothing other than a sibling to me. The noumenon, however, is nothing other than the insensible - non-sensible intuition (intelligible entity). Difference between not-X and not X. Again.

If both are unknowable, how can we differentiate? — Xtrix

By their respective relation to the subject! I keep repeating this - in fact it was the first thing I said here: noumena are the limit of sensibility. They are only defined in relation to our capacity for knowledge. Things-in-themselves, by contrast, are defined by having no relation to our capacity for knowledge. The difference between not-X and not X.

@fdrake made the same point in a different way: "The noumenon marks the limit of the sensible; the sensibility being a human faculty ... The thing-in-itself is the name for being insofar as it is not conditioned by our faculties; it is that which exceeds the limitations of our faculties."

I've run out of ways of saying the same thing.

But Kant does not say that the thing in itself is a limiting concept. Really, find me a passage. You won't be able to. Which follows from that fact that the thing-in-itself, as I keep saying, is not defined by it's relation to the subject, as the noumenon is.

Your argument in general is somewhat odd: it's true that both share a certain 'quality' (that of not being subject to space and time), but this alone cannot say anything as to their idenity. Two apples may be green, but that does not make them the same apple.

Are noumena part of space and time or not? If not, and they differ from things in themselves, then what are they (is it)? Saying noumena "mark the limit" just isn't clear to me. — Xtrix

Insofar as noumena as quite literally defined by their being non-sensible intuitions, no, they are not subject to the forms of space and time. And if the fact that noumena mark the limit of the sensible is unclear, perhaps your beef is with with Kant:

"The concept of a noumenon is thus a merely limiting concept, the function of which is to curb the pretensions of sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment. At the same time it is no arbitrary invention; it is bound up with the limitation of sensibility, though it cannot affirm anything positive beyond the field of sensibility." (B311)

What exactly is "gotten rid of" when the subject goes away? In that case, why not just say the thing in itself goes away too? Who's to say? — Xtrix

The transcendental constitution of reality goes away - at least, in its human form (Kant leaves it an open as to whether there are other forms of (non-human?) intuition: "our kind of intuition does not extend to all things, but only to objects of our senses, that consequently its objective validity is limited, and that a place therefore remains open for some other kind of intuition, and so for things as its objects" (B342)). As for who's to say - Kant's to say:

"Understanding accordingly limits sensibility [via the noumenon - SX], but does not thereby extend its own sphere. In the process of warning the latter that it must not presume to claim applicability to things-in-themselves but only to appearances" (A288, my bolding). There could hardly be a clearer distinction between the remit of noumena and the thing-in-itself than in this passage.

Maybe I'm just hopeless, but I'm still not understanding exactly where noumena are supposed to fit in your (and others') readings. — Xtrix

I'm not sure how else to explain it that hasn't already: noumena mark a limit of sensibility.

Perhaps one source of confusion is the asymmetry between noumena and the things-in-themselves: it's true that noumena are thing-in-themselves, but the converse does not hold. One might say: noumena are things-in-themselves under the aspect of the transcendental subject. However, get rid of the transcendental subject, and one similarly 'gets rid' of noumena - but not things-in-themselves, which are subject-independant.

The importance of the distinction as I understand it lies in Kant's desire to remain a certain kind of realist (an 'empirical realist', as he famously calls himself). As is well known, Kant is keen to distinguish himself from idealism of Berkeley, and does so precisely by positing the thing-in-itself which gives rise to appearance. The importance of the fact that the TII is not relative to us (or to our transcendental constitution) means that in some way, the universe exists 'out there' regardless of whether we are there to cognize it or not.

If, on the other hand, the TII were merely 'for us' in the way that noumena are (noumena are 'faculty-relative' - not-X, rather than not X), then Kant cannot in good conscience call himself a realist. It would simply be the limit of a faculty (which already belongs to the transcendental subject), that would itself make the subject finite, and not the universe 'out there' which outruns any conditions of possibility of knowledge. The distinction has bearing on the status of the transcendental subject: it tells us something about its (our) place in the cosmos, as it were. @fdrake's explanation is, I believe, pretty much along the same lines.

I don't understand "belongs to the order of the intelligible." — Xtrix

I mean exactly what Kant says:

"Appearances, insofar as they are thought as objects according to the unity of the categories, are called phenomena. But if I assume things that are objects merely of the understanding and that, as such, can nonetheless be given to an intuition--even if not to sensible intuition - then such things would be called noumena (intelligibilia)" (A249)

"If, on the other hand, by merely intelligible objects we mean merely objects of a nonsensible intuition-objects for which, to be sure, our categories do not hold and of which therefore we can never have any cognition at all (neither intuition nor concept) - then noumena in this merely negative signification must indeed be admitted". (A286/B343)

Noumena are intelligible objects: they belong to intelligibility (as distinct from sensibility), and thus to the understanding. More specifically, noumena are intelligible objects that are not sensible, hence why the mark the limit of the sensible, and hence why so-called 'positive noumena' would be the same as objects of intellectual intuition.

--

One way I like to think of it is as the difference between not-X (noumena) and not X (thing-in-itself). Not-X is determinate: if you draw a Venn diagram of X and not-X, not-X is everything X is not. They are mutually exhaustive. This is the case with phenomena and noumena. All that is phenomena is not noumena and vice versa. On the other hand, not X (thing-in-itself) is simply something else: Not X is not defined by it's relation to X: the only thing you know of it is that it isn't X. The TII is like this: it is not defined in relation to the phenomenal.

In simple language, if I ask you what you are looking for and you tell me 'not that' (and point to something), it could be anything ("whatever it is, it isn't that"). But if you tell me 'not-that', you mean something quite specific: you mean every other thing that isn't that thing you just pointed to. tTII and noumena relate negatively to the transcendental in just these ways, respectively.

Remove intuition and there is nothing to say, yet to refer to some item, any item - be it of thought or knowledge - must necessarily mean there is an attachment to sensibility and intuition (space and time). — I like sushi

Again, this is simply not true. Thought and knowledge are not the same for Kant. If there were, there could not be a critique of pure reason. There could not be transcendental illusions, and the whole point of the critique would be lost.

The issue seems to be if we’re to only apply the term ‘noumenon’ in a negative sense — I like sushi

Which is exactly what Kant says must happen:

"That, therefore, which we entitle 'noumenon' must be understood as being such only in a negative sense ... The concept of a noumenon is thus a merely limiting concept, the function of which is to curb the pretensions of sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment ... It is bound up with the limitation of sensibility, though it cannot affirm anything positive beyond the field of sensibility". (B309/B311)

It's really quite simple:

The noumenon marks the limit of the sensible (it belongs to the order of the intelligible).

The thing in itself marks the limit of the conditions of possibility of knowledge.

The conditions of possibility of knowledge are not exhausted by sensibility ("intuitions without concepts are blind"!).

The noumenon =/= the thing in itself.

You said phenomenon in your initial post. I corrected you, which you acceded to.

And in any case, the quote you provided in this post says nothing about the in itself.

Noumena =/= phenomena.

If he literally refers to a thing in itself being noumenon (on more than one occasion) I’m happy to assume he meant it. — I like sushi

Both the quotes you provided didn't, but sure, perhaps somewhere so far unstated he did.

Ridiculous or not, phenomenon and thing in-itself are synonymous in Kant. — David Mo

Lmao they are opposites.

He must, necessarily, use sensibility to talk of any proposition. — I like sushi

Again, this is not true. Kant famously says that we can "think" the in itself, even as we cannot experience it - that is, even it if has no relation to the sensible: "Thus it does indeed follow that all possible speculative knowledge of reason is limited to mere objects of experience. But our further contention must also be duly borne in mind, namely, that though we cannot know these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in position at least to think them as things in themselves".

In a footnote to this he further notes that sensibility does not act as a constraint on thought - only conceptual consistency does: "I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself, that is, provided my concept is a possible thought. This suffices for the possibility of the concept, even though I may not be able to answer for there being, in the sum of all possibilities, an object corresponding to it."(B xvii).

This all follows from that fact that the thing in itself is not an object of knowledge; hence, not defined in relation to sensibility; hence distinct from noumena. Not all thought is speculative - that is, knowledge oriented - in nature. Hence the critique of 'pure' reason.

The point of using ‘thing in itself’ alongside ‘noumenon’ is to show they are one and the same. — I like sushi

Not at all. the point of using them alongside each other is to show how they stand with respect to each other. Your quote is exemplary:

Our understanding thus acquires a kind of negative extension, that is, it is not limited by sensibility, but on the contrary, it limits sensibility, by calling thing in themselves (not considered as appearances) noumena.

Things in themselves are 'called' noumena by the understanding. But a nomination is not an equivalence. And insofar as noumena mark the limit of the sensible, it is as I said: that which is defined in relation to our capacity for knowledge. The thing in itself, however, is not defined by its relation to sensibility. It's rather defined by it's total non-relation to it: it is indifferent to sensibility. Is it not the obverse of the sensible, the recto to its verso, as it were, as the noumenon is. It simply has nothing to do with it.

As for the second quote, the transcendental object is not the thing in itself, so the paragraph lends nothing to your interpretation. As Kant says, "This transcendental object cannot be separated from the sense data, for nothing is then left through which it might be thought. Consequently it is not in itself an object of knowledge, but only the representation of appearances under the concept of an object in general ... The sensibility (and its field, that of the appearances) is itself limited by the understanding in such fashion that it does not have to do with things in themselves but only with the mode in which, owing to our subjective constitution, they appear." (A251-252).

Recall that the 'object in general' is itself a conceptual form supplied by the understanding: "I conceive of the understanding as a special faculty and ascribe to it the concept of an object in general (a concept that even the clearest consciousness of our intutition would not at all disclose)." So it's no good confusing the thing-in-itself with the transcendental object.

--

It's worth connecting this to the overall theme of the thread: for Kant, subject and object are indeed correlates of each other, and one cannot think the one without the other. However, the very object-form or the form that is 'the object' is itself supplied by the subject, so 'objects' cannot be understood to mean 'things out there'. It is true that if there were no subjects, there would be no objects. But attests less to any kind of idealism ("it's all in my head") than to the fact the the world does not come pre-packed as objects to begin with. Hence the incredibly limited role that should be afforded to both by anyone who is not a Kantian.

Mww is right to distinguish between the thing in itself and noumena. The thing-in-itself are things apart from the conditions under which we can know anything about them. Noumena, by contrast, mark the limit of the sensibility. In other words, things-in-themselves are defined by having no relation to our capacity for knowledge, whereas noumena are defined only in relation to our capacity for knowledge ("The concept of a noumenon is thus a merely limiting concept, the function of which is to curb the pretensions of sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment." (A255/B311)). Noumena are "for-us", while things-in-themselves are indifferent to sensibility. The distinction is slight and subtle, but it exists and is important to insist upon.

one book at a time — Wheatley

This is the most important thing! Makes all the difference.

CR (one after the other, of course...):

Judith Butler - Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence
Judith Butler - Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?
Isabell Lorey - State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious

So I acknowledge that buildings and office furniture ARE beings after all - and that to distinguish them, ontologically speaking, as ‘objects’ instead fails to recognise their relative temporal existence in the universe. — Possibility

One of the reasons that thinking in terms of 'subjects' and 'objects' is so warped is that it is an utterly anachronistic way of speaking: almost no one before Kant spoke of being in terms of either objects or subjects; this was a later distinction that came nearly 1700 years after philosophers had spoke of 'being' for multiple centuries in entirely other terms, only after which it was grafted on, like a badly transplanted organ, onto talk about being by those who knew no better and had no understanding of history. You won't find it in Parmenides, you won't find it in Aristotle, you won't find it in Aquinas, you won't find it in Spinoza. At all. The essential distinctions at work in talk of being were far more likely to be between the One and the Multiple, the Accidental and the Essential, or Form and Matter, than there would be anything to do with 'subject and object'. No one pre-Kant speaks of being in terms of a subject/object distinction. Not a single soul.

(So to those who say that it's hard or impossible to think in terms other than subject and object, well, we did it for millennia, and we can not do it quite easily once again).

The debate isn't whether or not being is really 'objective' or 'subjective'. That's not even the right question; it's like asking if colourless green sheep snore or not. But because Wayfarer, who is a hack, knows nothing other, he can only try to secure the rights of the 'subjective' over the 'objective' by falsifying history and making basic, intentional mistakes that any undergraduate would be embarrassed to submit to scrutiny. Anyone who thinks that questions of being turn upon subjects or objects ought to go back to philosophy 101 or simply give up on pretending to know anything whatsoever on the subject.

Well, that’s just not so. Maybe you’re not a native English speaker? — Wayfarer

Maybe you're utterly ignorant about anything to do with philosophy because no one but you equates being with the living, and is nothing but the idiosyncratic fabrication of a hack and a fraud?

So I am arguing is that the very element or aspect of reality which both these passages are referring to as 'what it is like' or 'the point of view of the subject' is actually 'being', and that attribute is why living creatures are called 'beings'. — Wayfarer

What you are arguing is irrelevant because no one but you uses the term in this way. Stop pretending that anyone does. This is terrible, bad philosophy. Stop being a bad philosopher and stop lying about things.

Go away troll and stop miseducating people.

You and I are designated 'beings', and buildings are not. It's simple English. — Wayfarer

You're like the Trump of philosophy. Ignoring all available evidence to shore up your terrible understanding of it.

is that like lap-dancing? — god must be atheist

Haha, no, it's a multi-course meal. From the Latin word gustus meaning taste. The same root word from which dis-gusting comes from.

Ha, I was just talking about something similar with a mate today - we figured the worst torture would be taking something you enjoyed and turning it against you. Like an infinite forced degustation sitting; or being forced to only listen to your favourite album for all eternity.

the term 'ontology' applies to the 'discipline of the study of Being' in a manner that includes, or at least implies, the first person perspective. And I think that is crucial to understanding what 'ontology' really is about. — Wayfarer

This isn't up for debate. Amateur etymology is no substitute for 2000 years of philosophical tradition because you want to push a moonshine philosophy that no one, no where holds. Stop lying to people.

"The question which was raised long ago, is still and always will be, and which always baffles us—"What is Being?"—is in other words "What is substance?"... Substance is thought to be present most obviously in bodies. Hence we call animals and plants and their parts substances, and also natural bodies, such as fire, water, earth, etc., and all things which are parts of these or composed of these, either of parts or them or of their totality; e.g. the visible universe and its parts, the stars and moon and sun" (Aristotle, Metaphysics VII).

"A few examples should help. Over there, on the other side of the street, stands a highschool building. A being. We can scour every side of the building from yhe outside, roam through the inside from basement to attic, and not everything that can be found there: hallways, stairs, classrooms and their furnishings. Everywhere we find beings... Moreover Being does not consist of our observing beings. The high school stands there even if we do not observe it". (Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics).

Kindly take your made-up, non-philosophical pseudo history and put it in the bin where it belongs. I will continue to call you out on this rubbish everytime you post it.