I’m not going to spend much time on this, but taken in context, re: “given the two basic kinds....I await...” is a declaration of intention, not an “ask”.

Can’t be reading stuff into what wasn’t there, doncha know.

....I shall await your exposition as to how the one might be grounded in the other. — Mww

I'm using an axe; you use a scalpel. In as much as I'm chopping wood, I think I have the more useful tool.

"It seems to me." Please be good enough to understand this phrase where it might be supposed appropriate to insert it, else we both subject to its tedium, me typing and you of reading it.

I accept your correction from "scientific thinking" to "thinking scientifically" as movement from intent, which is granted, to execution. And the qualities of the latter entirely subject to definitions, foundations, and grounds and how those things in turn are understood - Kant supposing his resolutions of these questions final and conclusive. (Collingwood arguing that with a broader view of the history of science, Kant's account would inevitably itself have ben much broader.) In either case Kant says that if you take care - enough care - with thinking then you may be assured of your conclusions being universally and necessarily so, his a priori, the warrants being logic and reason. Kant wrote a book titled in English as Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone; He also wrote a book about knowledge within the limits of reason alone, but in three parts, each titled Critique of.....

I see a tree, or I have an idea of a triangle. Your remark caught my eye, especially the part italicized

but with its form from intuition, which we already have. — Mww

With the "which we already have," I am looking at my seeing a tree or having an idea of a triangle as products of a process that for present purpose is just a black box process - I buy Kant's explication of the inner workings of the black box.

But at the same time I think the original and only contents of the box are abstract capability/capacity/faculty. All else learned, in as much as it can be and is learned. It may seem, with some thought, that the "learning" must be just the application of the a priori principles. That having been shown the front door, they've returned through the back. But experience is the teacher. All things universal and necessary but seeming so and accepted as such even with the proofs that attend them. The tree and the triangle being originally nothing at all to me, my not having them, but that I learned (of) them and within my system of knowledge they seem to work universally and necessarily.

(The problems with universality and necessity being that we never have more than contingent and apparent demonstrations of them.)

Pure Reason, then, but with respect to those things, aspects, and standards that allow it to be called pure in the first place. But what is the ultimate measuring stick? Experience.

And it may be that experience, or more accurately a limitation of experience, is what makes reason possible, in that experience in itself (an sicht selbst) might not permit the possibility of reason except in limitation.

And so practical reason grounds, ultimately, pure reason.

But experience is the teacher. — tim wood

Doesn’t this presuppose that which we wish to know? If experience is the teacher, from whence comes the teacher? Or, better yet....from what does the teacher learn?

But what is the ultimate measuring stick? Experience. — tim wood

Hume would clap for Scottish joy, that a modern intellectual finds his empiricist philosophy in good standing. Kant would exhibit typical Prussian indignation, that a modern intellectual neglects the implicit continuity, insofar as that which measures presupposes the ability, yet no account of it is offered.

There’s also a minor categorical error here, for we are talking about different applications of reason, but experience is the ultimate measuring stick of knowledge.

What are we to do with “exist together in independence of and without interference from each other”?

And no mention of the classifications of these kinds of reason. Practical reason can be pure, just as speculative reason can be impure.

Not to say that wasn’t some splendid axe-work. Far better than the general butchering running rampant hereabouts.

Isn't the CPR partly about to demonstrate how the a priori can yield knowledge of the independently real (Kant's letter to Herz 1772, cf. NKS) thus proving how transcendental metaphysical knowledge is possible?

"The primary problem to be solved is not how we advance by means of a priori ideas to the independently real, but how we are able to advance beyond a subject term to a predicate which it does not contain." - Commentary to Kant's CPR, NKS pp.26 1923

Does Kant define what is transcendental metaphysics in the CPR?

Hume would clap for Scottish joy, that a modern intellectual finds his empiricist philosophy in good standing. Kant would exhibit typical Prussian indignation, that a modern intellectual neglects the implicit continuity, insofar as that which measures presupposes the ability, yet no account of it is offered. — Mww

No Humean here. But ask Kant yourself, "Where, Mr. (Herr) Kant, these particular specific things you say are a priori, listed by @darthbarracuda above, did they come from?

Forms of judgement:

Quantity of judgements:
- Universal
- Particular
- Singular
Quality:
- Affirmative
- Negative
- Infinite
Relation:
- Categorical
- Hypothetical
- Disjunctive
Modality:
- Problematical
- Assertorical
- Apodeictical

Pure concepts of the understanding:

Of Quantity:
- Unity
- Plurality
- Totality
Of Quality:
- Reality
- Negation
- Limitation
Of Relation:
- Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens)
- Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)
- Of Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient)
Of Modality:
- Possibility - Impossibility
- Existence - Non-existence
- Necessity - Contingence — darthbarracuda

"We agree that's how it works - but where did they come from?"

And how would he answer? Imho he answers that nature-in-itself teaches, and mind learns as best it can. And we might add, not knowing whether he would have or not, that the learning occurs at and varies across levels of species and individuals. And the learning establishing reason and its tools. And if not nature, then what? And why? And how?

So I follow Kant - it's still nature through and via mind - but in the question of "what was always there," I'm hard pressed to think of anything more substantial than potential and possibility through capacity - but that all in itself nothing.

As corollary, I'm compelled to believe that the challenge for education is to figure out how to make the most esoteric and difficult of scientific pursuits that which children can address. General relativity by the fourth grade, & etc. That, or it's all pretty much downhill and wishful thinking from here.

And how would he answer? — tim wood

“....I confine myself to the examination of reason alone and its pure thought; and I do not need to seek far for the sum-total of its cognition, because it has its seat in my own mind....”

“...the mere natural disposition of the human mind to metaphysics...”

“...For we have not here to do with the nature of outward objects, which is infinite, but solely with the mind, which judges of the nature of objects, and, again, with the mind only in respect of its cognition a priori....”

“....the form must lie ready a priori for them in the mind....”

As unsatisfactory as that may be, that the mind is the catch-all for that which can’t be explained....but there it is. Besides, if Nature teaches, why would the notion of Copernicus’ transitional thesis even be mentioned as a preliminary inspiration for the entire transcendental philosophy? I submit that we teach ourselves, Nature being nothing but the availability of occasions.

“....Transcendental philosophy is the idea of a science, for which the Critique of Pure Reason must sketch the whole plan architectonically, that is, from principles, with a full guarantee for the validity and stability of all the parts which enter into the building. It is the system of all the principles of pure reason. If this Critique itself does not assume the title of transcendental philosophy, it is only because, to be a complete system, it ought to contain a full analysis of all human knowledge a priori. Our critique must, indeed, lay before us a complete enumeration of all the radical conceptions which constitute the said pure knowledge. But from the complete analysis of these conceptions themselves, as also from a complete investigation of those derived from them, it abstains, partly because it would be deviating from the end in view to occupy itself with this analysis, since this process is not attended with the difficulty and insecurity to be found in the synthesis, to which our critique is entirely devoted, and partly because it would be inconsistent with the unity of our plan to burden this essay with the vindication of the completeness of such an analysis and deduction, with which, after all, we have at present nothing to do. This completeness of the analysis of these radical conceptions, as well as of the deduction from the conceptions a priori which may be given by the analysis, we can, however, easily attain, provided only that we are in possession of all these radical conceptions, which are to serve as principles of the synthesis, and that in respect of this main purpose nothing is wanting....”

Cop-out? Or maybe merely the lazy way of saying....hell, damned if I know where these come from, but trust me, my system needs them so they must be there? Kantian metaphysics suffers these explanatory-gap slings and arrows yet, perhaps even for good reasons.

But still, “all the parts that enter into the building” seems to say the mind isn’t part of the building, but is just where, or is merely a euphemism for where, the building happens to be done.
————

I'm compelled to believe that the challenge for education is to figure out how to make the most esoteric and difficult of scientific pursuits that which children can address. — tim wood

“We don’t need no education.
We don’t need no thought control.
No dark sarcasms in the classroom.
Teacher!! Leave us kids alone!!”

“....it would be more consistent to favour a criticism of this kind, by which alone the labours of reason can be established on a firm basis, than to support the ridiculous despotism of the schools, which raise a loud cry of danger to the public over the destruction of cobwebs, of which the public has never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it can never feel....”

All that to say this: you know of Ron White, right? Guy that made “you can’t fix stupid” into a whole Las Vegas comedy show. Tours, HBO special, an album, the whole shootin’ match. Anyway....the public being those under the influence of the schools, and the schools being that which is challenged in a particular domain, Kant metaphorically says, “you can’t teach critical thinking”, for thinking of the pure a priori kind, that “...which rises to the level of speculation...”, is a fundamental human attribute, and one must teach himself to do it properly, with the least error.

It seems to me......

Does Kant define what is transcendental metaphysics in the CPR? — Corvus

Not that I know of. Defines metaphysics as such, defines transcendental this or that pursuant to context, but doesn’t explicitly combine them. But he does so combine transcendental and philosophy, so one could make the leap if he wanted to badly enough.

Not that I know of. Defines metaphysics as such, defines transcendental this or that pursuant to context, but doesn’t explicitly combine them. But he does so combine transcendental and philosophy, so one could make the leap if he wanted to badly enough. — Mww

Sure, thanks for your confirmation. :up:

I have forked off a thread for Kant's Critique here, as to avoid getting the two books tangled up in one thread.

I have forked off a thread for Kant's Critique here, as to avoid getting the two books tangled up in one thread. — darthbarracuda

A great idea. :up: