It does not follow from the fact all sciences of reason contain synthetic a priori judgements as principles, that instances of particular relations of particular conceptions, are all principles in themselves................................If you wish to stipulate that Kant’s synthetic a priori is the principle that….that’s fine, but I doubt it’s what Kant intended for it. — Mww
B356 The term "a principle" is ambiguous, and commonly signifies only a cognition that can be used as a principle even if in itself and as to its own origin it is not a principle.
B358 Thus the understanding cannot yield synthetic cognitions from concepts at all, and it is properly these that I call principles absolutely; nevertheless, all universal propositions in general can be called principles comparatively.
page 13 - At this point in the Critique Kant has completed the largest part of his constructive project, showing how synthetic a priori principles of theoretical cognition are the necessary conditions of the application of the categories to sensible data structured by the pure forms of intuition.
page 85 - Synthetic a priori judgments are contained as principles' in all theoretical sciences of reason.
Synthetic a priori is not itself a principle; it is the condition of principles, unities, conceptions and anything else to which it applies, in which representations relate to each other in a certain manner, re: synthetically, and, representations are of a certain origin, re: a priori................If you want to say certain forms of representations adhere to the synthetic a priori principle, you haven’t in the least said anything about those forms, other than give them a name, without anything about what it means to be so. — Mww
The "Transcendental Analytic" has prepared the way for this critique of traditional metaphysics and its foundations by its argument that synthetic a priori principles can be established only within the limited domain of sensible experience.
.synthetic a priori isn’t a principle, it’s a relation of the content of certain kinds of conceptions to each other — Mww
You said synthetic a priori is a principle; Kant says synthetic a priori judgements are principles. — Mww
The "Transcendental Analytic" has prepared the way for this critique of traditional metaphysics and its foundations by its argument that synthetic a priori principles can be established only within the limited domain of sensible experience.
At this point in the Critique Kant has completed the largest part of his constructive project, showing how synthetic a priori principles of theoretical cognition are the necessary conditions of the application of the categories to sensible data structured by the pure forms of intuition.
synthetic a priori isn’t a principle, it’s a relation of the content of certain kinds of conceptions to each other; — Mww
"Synthetic a priori judgments are contained as principles in all theoretical sciences of reason."
Over the course of seven days, you’ve included B276 in every single one of seven consecutive responses to my posts to you, but never say any more than the text itself. — Mww
One must not overlook the significance embedded in propositions such as, consciousness of determinations of existence in time. — Mww
While that is the case, it is merely beside the point. It needs be shown why external objects as considered by the established idealisms of the day were conceived without proper regard for what came to be posited as transcendental conditions, the foremost being, of course, time. — Mww
Kant isn’t proving the existence of things as much as he’s proving the material idealist’s denial or doubt of things, is improperly justified. — Mww
But naturalism then presumes that the mind which knows it, is the product of that process it only knows metaphorically. — Wayfarer
Certainly we can imagine the early universe, devoid of organic life, but that imagined universe still contains a perspective and a sense of scale provided by the observing mind. — Wayfarer
Nothing will ever lead me to understand what a nebula, which could not be seen by anyone, might be. Maurice Merleau-Ponty — Wayfarer
We cannot step outside the life-world, because we carry it with us wherever we go. — The Blind Spot - Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, Evan Thompson
Whereas, I think you're taking what you understand as the scientific picture of the world as being real independently of any observer, attributing with a kind of absolute or taken-for-granted reality. But then you can't see where 'mind' fits in, because that picture is purportedly 'mind-independent'! — Wayfarer
Also see How Time Began with the First Eye Opening — Wayfarer
Those who like mythological interpretations may take the birth of Kronos, the youngest of the Titans, as a symbol of the moment here referred to at which time appears, though, indeed it has no beginning; for with him, since he ate his father, the crude productions of heaven and earth cease, and the races of gods and men appear upon the scene - Schopenhauer
The quoted section is only a synthetic judgement based on a pure a priori intuition. — Mww
CPR B276
Theorem = The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me.
Proof = I am conscious of my existence as determined in time.
All time-determination presupposes something persistent in perception.
This persistent thing, however, cannot be something in me, since my own existence in time can first be determined only through this persistent thing.
Thus the perception of this persistent thing is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of a thing outside me.
Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is possible only by means of the existenceb of actual things that I perceive outside myself.
Now consciousness in time is necessarily combined with the consciousness of the possibility of this time-determination:
Therefore it is also necessarily combined with the existence of the things outside me, as the condition of time-determination;
i.e., the consciousness of my own existence is at the same time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things outside me.
The quoted part is a pretty good definition of sensation. The assertion as a whole is false, insofar as experience is not of things perceived, but representations of them. — Mww
Maybe YOUR a priori pure intuitions according to your transcendental argument, but if Kant with his means for humanity in general the only two are space and time, and they are the necessary conditions for possible experience, it is the other way around from yours. — Mww
What things do we not know through their effects/acts? How could we know anything immanent if not through its effects/acts? — Count Timothy von Icarus
The dividing line is at the eye because the mind/brain is assumed to be the dividing line between the world and the observer. Yet one could make the same sort of case for any dividing line one wants to defend. — Count Timothy von Icarus
How unknown is it if you know what it causes and that it is red? — Count Timothy von Icarus
This seems to be equivocating between different sorts of mind-independence. — Count Timothy von Icarus
That appearances are the necessary antecedent occasions for their employment, it does not follow they are derived from them, and in accordance with the theory, they are indeed, not, nor can they be. — Mww
I'd rather say the relationship between some red object and someone seeing that object as red is essentially of the same sort that exists between two meteors colliding in interstellar space — Count Timothy von Icarus
Yet causation, information, energy, etc. seem to flow across the boundaries of animal bodies as if there was no boundary at all, so I see no reason to presuppose such a dividing line. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Well, presumably the number 700 doesn't exist outside minds either, right? — Count Timothy von Icarus
How do we reconcile this seeming multiplicity (the Many) with the equally apparent unity of being (the One)? — Count Timothy von Icarus
But thought is obviously something with being. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I don't think solipsism is good philosophy.....................My take would be that we experience the things we do for reasons, due to causes, etc. and such reasons do not bottom out in the inaccessible and unintelligible as soon as we leave the confines of our own discrete phenomenological horizon. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think you're wrestling with a real conundrum inherent in modern culture and philosophy. — Wayfarer
Kant maintains that the structures of cognition, like time and space, are necessary preconditions that shape any experience we might have; and that they are not derived from or contingent upon empirical experiences. — Wayfarer
Where in the pertinent text might I find support for such an assertion? — Mww
Enactivism, by contrast, is focused on dissolving the strong subject-object dualism that is presupposed by the division of thought from being. — Count Timothy von Icarus
If all the contents of experience cannot be said to "exist in the world" in virtue of "only existing in the mind," I don't see how that isn't denigrating the relationships that exist between things and thinking beings as in a way "less than fully real." — Count Timothy von Icarus
If we're allowing the world to be unintelligible and unknowable why not simply allow that Y (the mind) generates itself as a brute fact? — Count Timothy von Icarus
It's this relationship between mathematical logic (DME) and contingent causation that is central to the argument. — Wayfarer
@Wayfarer: Mathematics doesn’t require numbers to exist as physical objects.
Numbers, therefore, need not exist in the world to guide explanations of physical forces, provided they symbolically represent the appropriate values.
I think the 'practical problem' you're referring to, is how numbers can be real if they don't exist in a physical sense.
@Wayfarer: The fact that mathematical reasoning often anticipates empirical phenomena (such as Dirac’s prediction of anti-matter) suggests a deep correspondence between mathematical structures and causal relations in the world.
@Wayfarer: Whatever mathematical system we invent must, by necessity, align with these constraints to be applicable.
@Wayfarer: You can't get around it by declaring that mathematics is purely arbitrary, because it ain't.
@J: whether “the facts under question arise from a degree of mathematical necessity considered stronger than that of contingent causal laws.”
Well, enactivism is generally presented as a counter to indirect realism and representationalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus
It seems to me that the way we get into trouble here is by positing knowledge of things "in-themselves" as the gold standard of knowledge — Count Timothy von Icarus
I suppose another related issue lies in correspondence theories of truth. One can never "step outside experience," in order to confirm that one's experiences "map" to reality. But this to me simply seems to suggest something defective in the correspondence theory of truth. — Count Timothy von Icarus
One of the claims that is often made by the representationalist position that Sokolowski critiques is that many of the properties of objects that we are aware of do not exist "in-themselves," and are thus less than fully real
Arithmetic and mathematical reasoning exemplify this because they allow us to grasp necessary truths that, although not sensory, still inform our understanding of the world — Wayfarer
I'm simply drawing an analogy to show how there are forms of knowledge, like mathematical deduction, that function beyond sensory input and can help us conceive of Kant’s transcendental structures. Modern mathematical physics is full of examples where mathematical reasoning anticipates empirical confirmation — Wayfarer
Well, a question here is what it means to be "independent from observers. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I would say the weight of virtually all empirical evidence is that an apple being an apple doesn't depend on us specifically for its existence. When we leave a room, the apples don't vanish. — Count Timothy von Icarus
We can ‘see’ things through deductive inference that are not empirically knowable. There’s a sense in which even arithmetic is transcendental in that it reveals aspects of nature which sense could not otherwise discern. — Wayfarer
So we shouldn't limit a robust correspondence theory to "facts about the world" — J
That is, how can being be in one sense "one," i.e. everything interacts with everything else, there are no truly isolated systems — Count Timothy von Icarus
1) So, the neo-logos philosophies might say something like, "If nature has patterns, and our language has patterns, and we are derived from nature, it may be the case that our language is a necessary outcome of a more foundational logic". Thus, the logic would not be transcendental, but (for lack of a better term) "immanent" in nature, not some outside observing entity that is detached from it.
2) Kant never explains why our minds would compose such a world, but evolution does.
3) Wouldn't evolution put a connection between the efficacy of the mind and the world?
4) But what is the world outside of an observer?
5) Otherwise it's just "I have believe" without an explanation, which though is valid in terms of asserting an idea, is not necessarily valid as an fully informed reason for why you think that way. — schopenhauer1
This is Jha et al’s argument, more or less. Math only appears to be causal when we state the problem in terms that remove, or demote to “background conditions,” the physical constraints that actually provide the explanation. — J
So what I think needs to be questioned is why we think a hard and fast separation can be made between mind and world in the first place. — Wayfarer
I think the sentiment against this relationship goes back to the same basically nominalist and empiricist attitude that animates most analytical philosophy, which is unwilling to admit that ideas - mathematical ideas, logical principles - might possess any kind of intrinsic reality which can't be reduced to 'contingent causal laws'. — Wayfarer
That's a very creative image. But I don't see TS and Madonna in it at all. — Corvus
If a correspondence theory of truth demands that we do so, I'd argue that it represents a reductio ad absurdum and should be rejected on that ground. — J
What would be the point of limiting ourselves in this way? — J
So, without observers, nothing is related to anything whatever. That is the thrust of the OP — Wayfarer
As per above, this question can be asked not only of patterns, but of phenomena generally..........................There are patterns that appear in inorganic nature, in crystals, snowflakes, larva formations etc. — Wayfarer
The book’s argument begins with the British empiricists who raised our awareness of the fact that we have no direct contact with physical reality, but it is the mind that constructs the form and features of objects. It is shown that modern cognitive science brings this insight a step further by suggesting that shape and structure are not internal to objects, but arise in the observer.
Is this meant to be Tarski's view? Surely he didn't talk about what was the case in the world -- only about the correct relations between language and metalanguage. If one language has to be "about the world," then we wouldn't have any logical or mathematical truths at all, or at least that seems to be the necessary consequence. I don't think Tarski intended this. Unless I'm mistaken, he included these kinds of truths in his schema. — J
But, all organic life displays just the kind of functional unity that a painting does, spontaneously. Those patterns most definitely inhere in the organic world. DNA, for instance. — Wayfarer
I understand. Do you think there are mathematical truths that are independent of what is the case in the world? Plain old theorems, in other words? — J
So I assumed you regarded d=0.5∗g∗t2 as a mathematical truth. — J
Who do you get if you amalgamate images of Elon Musk with Bill Gates.................................Why would you do that? — Corvus
"Are the equations being imposed or simply reflected in the mathematics?" — schopenhauer1
Some neo-Logos philosophies might say the mind cannot but help seeing the very patterns that shape itself. — schopenhauer1
I can imagine a type of pattern whereby the mind works (X), and a pattern whereby the world works Y, and X may be caused by Y, but X is not the same as Y. — schopenhauer1
Is our language contingently relating with the world or necessarily relating to the world. — schopenhauer1
I can see a sort of holistic beauty in the aesthetic of the language reflecting the world because it is derived from (the patterns) of the world. — schopenhauer1
I can see a sort of nihilistic "contingency" in the aesthetic of language never really derived from, but only loosely reflecting the world. — schopenhauer1
Are you sure we should call something like d=0.5∗g∗t2 a mathematical truth? I thought it was only true on some interpretation; as it stands, it has no meaning. — J
@RussellA: Eventually, after many attempts, we invent the equation , discover that it works, and keep it.................We know it works, but we don't know if it is a necessary truth.
Gravity, electromagnetism, chemical interactions, biological interactions, etc. work ways that impose on us their workings, not the other way around........................Kant, for example, seemed to conflate the two as part of the same "transcendental" constraints that our minds impose on "the thing-itself". — schopenhauer1