The pure concepts of understanding are synthesized with the sensible intuitions. They are not projected onto nature, but have a structure such that there's continuity between the subject and object. We can consider them neither as subjective, nor objective, as they are rightfully called transcendental — the conditions of possibility for either as such. It then follows that we do have knoweldge of the world, simply through certain conceptual and intutional categories (always in pairs), just not things-in-themselves.

Furthermore, the noumenon isn't known positively. That is, we can't consider it as a positive, existing entity, but we can consider it negatively:

If by 'noumenon' we mean a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensible intuition, and so abstract from our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the term.

But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensible intuition, we thereby presuppose a special mode of intuition, namely, the intellectual, which is not that which we possess, and of which we cannot comprehend even the possibility. This would be 'noumenon' in the positive sense of the term.

When Kant says we can't know the noumenon he means we do not have the capacity of an intellectual intuition. Which is a type of non-conceptual, non-sensory intuition of the world as it is that God would supposedly have.

As for texts, the best defense of Kant is Henry Allison's Kant's Transcendental Idealism.

Your reading of Kant seems wrong.

Kant didn’t say we “impose” form to the world.
Kant didn’t say we can’t know the noumenon — we can know it negatively.
Kant didn’t decouple mind and reality, nor make knowledge impossible.

The question amounts to something like:

Is our knoweldge to us, in all ways, transparent? Why would we say we hold a belief that is a justified true belief, if we haven't reflected on it? With unconscious "beliefs", would we be better off with calling them casual dispositions instead of justified beliefs?

The fact that people would deny any of that is criminal now.

But then the sound isn't distinct from meaning, but has a coextensive conceptual meaning. Unless its just a mere sound, in which case would go to the problem I mentioned earlier.

The point of the article was that "words" are actually physical sounds.

Say if this was the case, if words were like sign-posts that had no meaning associated with them. Then it would require an infinite regress of interpretations. That is, if you postulate a symbol or sign, that needs to be interpreted by inner-meaning, interpretation requires a interpreter. A interpreter's interpretation itself is subject to this issue of connection. This much is in Wittgenstein.

I don't mind externalism w.r.t value properties. I'm an externalist all the way through.

I'm merely commenting on the notion that if we're defining empiricism in an old fashion sense then no such values appear to us in daily observation such that they are provided by external content. Values become a projection of our own mental capacities if we view the external world as being mere physical extended images. But such a view is untenable.

I'm really boggled by the proposition that values are nonconceptual and nonempirical. I'm wondering if Agustino is using some Humean version of empiricism. Because surely values are not something that is "seen" like we might see a chair, but I'm not sure the rest of this follows.

It seems to me that values are something that can stand in the logical space of reason. That is, we can reasonably change our values in lieu of new evidence, if we have reasons given to us. They seem to be intelligible, structured most of the time, and not just an emotional sensation - whatever that would mean.

They are descriptions of the content of our experience which is fundamentally conceptual. That content is just a part of the world. So phrases like the ones you mentioned do have a use-value, of course, and language is learned and normative, but unless it has some correspodence with the worldly content then it'd be interpretation all the way down w.r.t what utterances mean. Which is to say, going to lead to an infinite regress. As well, if there was content which was nonconceptual, then we'd just fall for the myth of the given.

Representionalism in the sense of having a word which means something and an object it refers to is just a primitive form of both conceptualism and representionalism. That's isn't a sufficent characterization of that type of concept.

I think Wittgenstein proved quite definitely that the idea of an isomorphism between language and reality, or that language can act as a picture for reality is nonsensical, and one of the prime sources for metaphysical confusion. There always is some non-discursive element of practice to the use of language.

I'm not sure why this is the case? I'm not sure what our language is doing other than, at least in some sense, accurately depicting the world around us. It might be the case that there are certain expressions in language that are not just mere ostensive definitions, but the fact that language has meaning, seems to indicate to me its meaningful in virute of something about our experiences -- and these experiences are given content by the world (considering they are not in a vacuum).

Everything that concerns life and the living is neither empirical nor conceptual.

I'm perplexed by an idea that takes there to be anything outside of the "empirical, conceptual"
(which I take to be taken together: experience.)

I know today it is often used to refer to a middle ground between atheism and theism, but that isn't the true meaning of the term.

Exactly what, outside of social agreement, is the "true meaning" of the term agnosticism? Does something being really old make it truer?

Also relevant.

As I recall, there was a difference between the Huxleyan Agnostic who strictly denies in principle we can ever know that God exists, and an agnostic whom just doesn't have the evidence to form a belief cogently.

I find the debate whether Spinoza was a panentheist or a pantheist to be difficult. Mostly because I'm not sure if the whole substance had intentionality, or any proper attributes of God. There is a sense of where God was an infinite set of attributes -- ie: more than just the mental and physical, for sure. But in what sense the mental attribute functions in God is perplexing. That's why I think its debated. Same goes for Hegel and Schelling: hard to prove whether their naturalistic God was not just intelligible and telic nature.

How would you distinguish Pantheism, e.g. Spinoza or Hegel, from Panpsychism?

Less sure about Spinoza, but I believe for Hegel (or Schelling) it depends on what the panpsychism entails. If it entails that anything has consciousness, then we'd missing the point of Schelling and Hegel when they say there just are certain things that are inorganic and mechanical, and have no consciousness. If we mean the Absolute has consciousness (which we all participate in), as a irreducible and organic whole, then sure, it can be a form of panpsychism. However, the world of Hegel and Schelling is notably a type of organicism more than panpsychism. Generally consciousness is viewed for them as the highest potency of matter.

It presupposes, in short, the ancient Platonic theme that all knowledge participates in divine self-knowledge, or that when I know something God knows it through me. Schelling did not shirk from putting forward just this doctrine: “Not I know, but the all knows in me, if the knowledge that I call mine is an actual and true knowledge” (§1; VI, 140). The ‘I am’ and the ‘I think’ have been the basic mistake of all philosophy, he wrote, because thought is not my thought and being is not my being but they are the thought and being of the absolute or the universe itself. — Frederick Beiser

The allegorical form of this explanation is that “God creates the world in order to portray himself” (39). This means that the infinite is a kind of divine artist, creating the entire world for its self-knowledge. The infinite is therefore to be conceived as a kind of intelligence, what Schlegel, anticipating Hegel, calls “spirit” (Geist) (39). — Frederick Beiser

No. You missed the point.

Moral judgments are reasoned towards and elected, not elicited.They are a part of the values seen in experiences that call to us. Not something imposed onto them.

Saying something is "subjective" doesn't mean anything; its to under describe the situation. Everything has a subjective element - values, desires, intentions, and beliefs. But that doesn't mean we don't have reasons to elect any of these, and the reasons are provided by external content that is universal in nature. You could say something like "ethical values aren't external in nature", but this is particularly to appeal and presuppose a type of materialism w.r.t to what can be external in nature.

I'm mostly working this in my head recently:

Considering that one does not have immediate access to all their memories at once, in virute of what is there this distance between our memories and awareness (self-consciousness)? But such a distance seems to require mediation. So we obviously don't have direct access to all of our minds.

As well: what would "immediate" realization even look like? Do we mean intuitions without concepts, or with concepts? If the prior, what are intuitions without conceptions? If the later, it seems as though this require mediation. But this seems to evoke distance.



I'm not sure why I could not be wrong in principle. No logical contradiction there. It is at least not logically necessarily.

If there were privileged access to our own minds, it'd only be in the case of: A person's R's belief that p at the time t is incorrigible if and only if there is no accepted procedure whose outcome would render it rational to believe in ~p at t. Meaning, they are the authority on the matter. So this seems to move from minds to current awareness.

So it is perhaps authority and not infallibility that is the hallmark of the mental? But could there not be some procedure in which allows us to have a higher authority with respect to someone's mental states?

And could it not be possible, that while we're experiencing something, we can only retroactively assign whether something is true or not about our mental states. That is, after the fact that I, say, went to a party, I knew it was unenjoyable, even if I experienced something enjoyable at the time. Or is it that I just know the party is enjoyable at that time?

Lastly, I'm skeptical of what seems to be purely mental states that are not intentionally related to the world, in such a way, where we wouldn't even say any experience is purely mental. If one held a disjunctive view, then only hallucinations and such are purely mental?

Why have a flat ontology?

Do you see a utility in emergentism? What work is it suppose to do?

The brain, which produces data streams, is also a data stream itself. Ah,excellent. The experience of a brain produces itself.

Looks as if Charleton finally took on the picture of a causa sui being possible.

Of course there are, and I don't think they work. I didn't actually mean that I don't think people attempt to do the project. Most scientists probably don't think its a thing.

But what I was saying is that I don't think saying, "modern science got rid of teleology" is really a fair representation of philosophy or science.



As I recall reading, and this was actually mentioned in Edward Feser's Scholastic Metaphysics, powers are just formal-final causes under a different name. As for counterfactual dependence, I'm not sure what it means to say “If A had not occurred, C would not have occurred” without wondering why that claim is the case. In virute of what?

No, I think teleological accounts are distinct from efficient causation insofar as they are describing two different causes; however, I do think the efficient causation is dependent on the form of any organism.

And yes, I'm aware that the enlightenment sciences attempted to remove teleology, but that was mostly because of the a-priori assumptions of those type of sciences, and the dualism created between the mind and body, such that, they wanted to place directionality in place of only something the mind can do. This isn't true of all modern sciences, though.There's plenty of scientists, whom I just mentioned, that still use teleological accounts. Not to mention the enlightenment could not sustain its reduction of the world to merely material or efficient causes. Even with the advent of Newton's gravity, the project of rendering everything as being explicable to only two causes was highly questionable, particularly at the dawn of the chemical-electrical revolutions where we saw mechanical motion just wasn't fit to describe all physical processes, particularly biology.

Also, I don't believe Hume or Kant's account of causation work. Hume because causation is most certainly not a habit, certainly not two events that are clear and distinction - which I took to be a skeptical interpretation of Hume. Or Kant because I don't think teleology is a regulative function of the mind. The entire point of late German Idealism was to overcome Kant's idea that teleology was merely a regulative feature. There were great pains to overcome this idea that we're merely projecting these type of experiences into the world, and I feel like this is a problem created by the noumenal-phenomenal distinction Kant had, and regulating experience to be just "in the mind".

But even Kant had problems, which became obvious during the end of his career. His late Philosophy of Nature already anticipated the system of Naturphilosophie, and the organicism implicit in it. Organicism, imho, was a fair account of nature that was inbetween vitalism and mechanism.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the bivalent forms of logic, because generally when you reject the affirmation of a statement, you think its inverse is true.

So, the process of homeostasis attempts to not do things, works indeterminately, in order to not maintain the internal regulation of its temperature and fluid balance. And this seems like a scientific explanation for you?

My answer to that is that the process does not describe anything, it just does things.

I am content to simply describe the processes that occur within the body.

:-|

And what? I didn't say the processes occur outside the body. The process is immanent in the body.

And the process itself is functioning to do things, yes? The process doesn't work indeterminately, right? Homeostasis occurs because the body needs to work out an internal regulation of its temperatures and fluid balance, right? That is teleology.

What are you talking about? Of course it does. You just described it earlier.

All I'm asking is how does your previous sentence escape teleology. Because it seems to me the body is being used as a type of organism that functions for-the-sake-of - at least in part - homeostasis.

A non-teleological description of homeostasis is 'the body has processes that regulate its internal environment'.

That's not non-teleological. Because you have the means of which are in the body (in the case of homeostasis), for the end of regulating its internal environment. Otherwise, what is the process describing? You've just presupposed a totum, form, etc - and smuggled in Aristotlean concepts without thinking about it.

Body's processes = form
Regulation of internal environment = telos

At least one of it's teleological behaviors, any way.

That some form of teleology is real (even if most do not realize that teleology extends beyond intelligent-design babble)

Yeah. I have no idea what what a nonteleological account of causation is without making your nature Humean. Does Andrew just deny a form of immanent causation in an organism? Does he think that blood pumps in a body by the heart for no reason? Or does the blood pump blood in virute of the preservation of oxygen and nutrients. If it's the latter than you have end-directed activity (telos). Surely the heart isn't self-preserving and merely mechanical, but has an intended use outside itself for-the-sake-of-which of pumping blood.

If it pumps for no reason, then I do not see how you're just not saying the same thing as the organ is working indeterminately. But that just seems to me to say it has no function. If determinately, then it works for a reason.

Or like, I'm not even sure how you can talk about processes like homeostasis without then referring to, "the attempt to regulate an internal environment."

I'm not sure what work the concept/idea is doing here (when the mind is investigating) other than to determine the immanent process of any biological object we experience.

Even a practising scientist is not in a position to make such a statement, unless they have worked in every scientific field.

(teleology) relies on acceptance of an axiom of teleology rather than being presented as a proof that any reasonable person should accept.

These two things seem to be in conflict.

Also: I mean, practicing scientists have made this claim. Many of them.

Being “endowed with a purpose or project is essential to the very definition of living beings.” — Jacques Monod

“It would make no sense to talk of the purpose of adaptation of stars, mountains, or the laws of physics,” but “adaptedness of living beings is too obvious to be overlooked.... Living beings have an internal, or natural, teleology.” — Theodosius Dobzhansky

E.S.Russell, Colin Pittendrigh, Ernst Mayr, Paul Weiss, Robert Arp, Hans Jonas, Francisco J. Ayala, J. B. S. Haldane, etc.

Yeah, anybody that thinks telos is necessary doesn't think it is optional. I know a lot of people think that it is optional, but I'm not sure what it means to say that things aren't directed, or dont have a means-end framework.

Not to mention the philosophers Hegel, Schelling,

The evidence does not support such a belief. Surveys have shown that large proportions of scientists are not theists, or part of any religion (eg here), and hence one would not expect them to believe teleological accounts. Yet they manage to continue to produce inspiring, useful science.

I'm not sure what that's suppose to mean. Teleology is a metaphysical question, so I wouldn't expect scientists to know much about it, understand how it works, or even be aware that they use it all the time.

Not to mention, you don't have to be a theist in order to believe in teleology.

I actually would like physics departments to include Aristotlean concepts, at least minimally be familiar with them before rejection. I think all sciences have an a-priori metaphysical assumptions about them that guides how they are done -- particularly the idea that the world operates like a mechanism and has no direction. Its about the same as I feel about how important philosophy of science ought to be to a physicist.

Fairly important.

Well, the point for me would be in virute of what makes one a assembly machine instead of a self-organizing development? Presumably the concept in an assembly machine is fixed, the gears only act in accordance with someone else's intent. But I mean, there are certain computers which run evolution simulations, or create patterns that's might resemble an organism. I'm not necessarily talking about an advanced AI pre'se.

I'm rather curious, apokrsis. With respect to distinction you make between artifacts and organism, I find myself worry about the distinction when it comes to computers that might be able to "self-organise or grow, develop and replicate." Where there would be a holistic account for how the computer operates, and that in a sense goes outside the concept that created it. Do you think this is possible, and at that point blurs the distinction between things like organisms and machines?

It seems like I'm in agreement with most of what you said, however.

That's extremely unfortunate. I really don't think any form of science can be done without telos, or what you called "acquainted" Aristotelianism. Considering there's a lot of philosophers today that think the same, and the reintroduction of powers in analytic philosophy. Not to mention people who try to tackle the issue of Goethean science that's very similar to the concepts use in Aristotle.

Seems like just dismissal to me with how huge Aristotle was for the development of Philosophy.

The trouble is that this requires yet another Aristotelian leap of faith, to believe that the word totum means something exact and objective that can be used for reasoning. I wonder whether Aristotle would call a coral, which is a symbiosis between two different organisms, a totum. Or a hive of bees.

It is odd that you have no problem differentiating the hive of bees as being consist of many organisms, each with their own particular totum, and a coral, each with different totums working in a symbiosis. It's true, however, that you can go and see larger wholes. That's why I'm a fan of top-down causation.

I don't know how Feser would, but the way in an artifact differs from a totum is that the artifact's whole is determined by the concept - it's logocentric. We will create an electronic eye when we conceive of such a product, and put it into action according to the principles we wish.

However, organisms aren't imparting just a concept when they are producing something. Either to their offspring or immanently when the organism is going through a process of division, expansion, or some sort of immanent function. (This is a work of physis) The offspring receives the prior organism in such a way that it will act in accordance to its parents genes - though no completely. Unlike the concept which is external to it.

Because if we experience discrete units of time, then we'd have to know in what respect it has continuity to a whole (an event, for example). But this then presupposes there's an in-between the discrete units of time, in which they blend into each other as a continuous flow. Or another thing to ask: in virute of what is this "now moment" related to another time moment? A relation that ulimately presupposes the category of the transitionary.

(Y)

Well, this would be my guess: there's some problems there. When Aristotle speaks about organisms he'll basically appeal to them as acting as totums, as opposed to composites or artifacts. The totum, as opposed to a composite is basically an organism that is self-organizing, self-determining, and functions according to its whole which determine its parts. When we insert such an eye it isn't a part of that process, and it seems completely fair to me for the sciences to attempt to find what is intrinsic to a blind man. What is the immanent causation that occurs within such an organism.

When that function is lost the body generally has said to lose the potency as a whole. However, if we replace it with electronic eyes, there begins to be a sense where the capability of its function is said to be externally gotten instead of it being immanent to the organism itself. The organism would never produce an electronic eye.

I've felt this discussion is lacking a Thomist to defend, or at least elaborate on, the argument. Perhaps you are such a Thomist? If so, you will be providing a useful service, as Thomists that have contributed to discussions in the past are absent here.

My question for the Thomist - be it you or somebody else - about the above sentence, is

"what does the sentence mean, beyond the everyday notion that 'I would not be surprised if this acorn became a tree', and if it does mean something more, can that thing be explained in a non-circular manner, ie without using synonyms for 'potential' like 'can', 'possible', 'may', 'might'. — andrewk

Sorry, I am not a Thomist, really. But I'm not really sure you would have to be in order to believe in concepts like potency and act which I find to originate in Aristotle, and again to be revitalized in the organicism of the Romantic philosophers.

I'll also add that it doesn't seem to be clearly the same thing as possibility, as I've said earlier but, more of a "constrained possibility" contained immanently within organisms. There are also two types of potencies within Aristotle I think that are good at making sense of the world. The first at rest, and the rest in action.

Just a classic stock example by Sachs: Take a blind man. It would be the case that a blind man does not have the potency to see anymore, while a man with his eyes closed does have the capacity to see, and in fact a capacity that is furthermore at rest. When the non-blind man opens his eyes, his potential to see is not removed, but is in an active process (Aristotle's word for entelecheia or being-at-work-staying-itself ). In this sense, what we are not talking about something that surprises us or not but something intrinsic to the blind man.

Entelecheia seems to be a phenomenological observation that is indicative of all organisms in the world. Each organism strives towards certain ends, from certain means. To use Schelling's terms again, a unity of both product and productivity which are both needed in the world.

Yes, doing philosophy without biases! We are androids after all - that sort of thing is possible.

Why? Aristotle's metaphysics assumed all common sense notions that it could. It's the basis of his metaphysics. We look around nature and see what is there: change, rest, one being becoming another through the first, forms, telos, etc.