Uh huh — frank

My apologies if I offended you by my straight talking. Do you want to say that philosophical pragmatists acknowledge unknowable things in themselves or not?

How do you interpret Kant's notion of the 'thing in itself'; is it. for him, unknowable or merely not exhaustively knowable?

The world we find ourselves in, is intelligible. — Srap Tasmaner

Most of the time, yes.

Take a look at Level 1 and Level 2 as set out at Theories of Experience. Is that roughly what you have in mind? — Banno

Not really. In my reading Level 1 and Level 2 both treat what I call Experiential Seeing. They ask, what is it? And how does it arise?

I am distinguishing between seeing as a process, and seeing as an experience. The word 'see' may refer to either.

Seeing as a process is just a way objects interact, via reflected light. We do it, microbes do it, robots do it. Experience may be a part of the process, or it may not. Even in humans it may not: "He saw the oncoming blow without being aware of it, and dodged purely by instinct" is a sensible sentence.

Seeing as an experience refers to the experiential component of the seeing process.

The point is, I maintain that you can consistently affirm that you see reality in the process sense, which requires the right kind of causal link between observer and observed. While denying that you see reality in the experiential sense, which requires that the experiential component of seeing coincides with the reality of what is seen.

The footprint and the flower are Hume, not Kant at all. See “constant conjunction”. — Mww

I've acknowledged that my claim the noumenal causes the phenomenonal was a departure from Kant. Kant wouldn't allow any claims be made of the noumenal.

Not sure who here you're claiming is Humean, but I've not implicated him because Hume denies causation entirely, a view I reject. I accept the idea that causation is synthetic a priori, without which an understanding of the phenomenal would be impossible.

I'd agree, though, that Kant says nothing about causation within the noumenal realm, but that's because that realm is beyond analysis. However, to the extent we wish to depart Kant and speculate upon the noumenal, we'd be required to impose causation upon it because that's what synthetic a priori truths do - they force a particular view on the world.

I'll also defer to others on this because it's also a precondition for any comment about Kant that someone explain how you've misunderstood him.

See https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/627569 — Banno

This is entirely non-responsive to my post.

Your claim was that if we spoke only of the phenomenal, we could not meaningfully speak because we would be speaking of different things. I would be speaking of the X in my head and you of the X in your head, so why even refer to both as X would be your claim.

I pointed out that we can and do speak of different things as if they are the same, regardless of whether we're talking about cups or just experiences of cups.

For example, let's talk about this:



It's the famous red solo cup.

Are we taking about the cup on your computer or mine?

It's an image of the "famous solo cup". not the famous solo cup itself (if such a thing exists apart from images). One image on your computer and one image on mine, and they are presumably pretty much the same image as to colour (red), shape and proportion, if not size. If there are discrepancies between the two images we could discover them by each of us describing what we see on our computer.

This is entirely non-responsive to my post. — Hanover

If the name "Janus" for me can only refer to Banno's-peception-of-Janus, but for you "Janus" refers only to Hanover's-perception-of-Janus, then when we each talk about Janus, we are talking abut different things.

That's about as strong a reductio as one might find. No mucking around with images of red cups will change that.

Tha answer is blindingly simple: Both Banno's-peception-of-Janus and Hanover's-perception-of-Janus are of Janus; Janus exists independently of those perceptions, and it is Janus to whom "Janus" refers.

Despite having read this several times, I can't see what your point is here.

While denying that you see reality in the experiential sense, which requires that the experiential component of seeing coincides with the reality of what is seen. — hypericin

I've no idea what that might mean. I gather you want to do something a bit qualia-ish, but not what that might be. As if you can look at a sunset but not experience it...?

As if you can look at a sunset but not experience it...? — Banno

Depending on how closely you are attending to something else, you can see the sunset, and experience it fully, only somewhat, or not at all. The bandwidth of experiencing is more narrow than seeing.

Despite having read this several times, I can't see what your point is here. — Banno

Apologies. Communication is hard!

Is my distinction between the two uses of the word "see" clear? One refers to the process of seeing, the other to the experience of it, the qualia.

Then, if you ask, "do you really see the flower?", the answer depends on the usage of the word 'see'.

Process See: yes. The flower exists, light really did reflect off of it, your eyes receive it and function normally, as does your brain. The correct causal link is established, and the conditions of Process See are fulfilled. You really see the flower.

Experiential See: no. When speaking of the subjective experience of seeing the flower, this is not the flower. It is qualia, a mental construct. It is what seeing a flower is like, for you. But as you point out, there is no "what seeing the flower is really like". Therefore, what you see experientially is not what the flower is really like. You do not really see the flower.

Much of the confusion of this discussion comes from conflating these two usages of 'see'.

Experiential See: no. When speaking of the subjective experience of seeing the flower, this is not the flower. It is qualia, a mental construct. It is what seeing a flower is like, for you. But as you point out, there is no "what seeing the flower is really like". Therefore, what you see experientially is not what the flower is really like. You do not really see the flower. — hypericin

Yep, following the meaning here, but I'll leave you to it, since qualia have long struck me as pretty unhelpful.

See Nothing to do with Dennett's if you are interested in my take. Did you participate in that thread? I don't recall.

If there are discrepancies between the two images we could discover them by each of us describing what we see on our computer. — Janus

Exactly, which would enable us to similarly distinguish how our phenomenal states varied.

Tha answer is blindingly simple: Both Banno's-peception-of-Janus and Hanover's-perception-of-Janus are of Janus; Janus exists independently of those perceptions, and it is Janus to whom "Janus" refers. — Banno

You're not following.

If we can discuss the differences between the two different cups we each see without the other seeing the other's respective cup, we are speaking only of our respective phenomenal state without access to the other's cup.

Kant's notion of the 'thing in itself'; is it. for him, unknowable — Janus

In humans, knowledge is not of things but of representations of things. I think obviously. And furthermore, predicated solely on incident physiology. It does not follow, and it is vacuous to suppose, that from the singular nature of the human intellect, the sole and necessarily preemptive methodology by which things are known to us, that things could not be otherwise. They could not be otherwise within us, but they could be otherwise without us. We cannot empirically know they are not, therefore it is logically possible they are. Anything not known or knowable by us, in accordance with the knowledge system intrinsic to us, be it whatever it may, if it is at all, is as it is all by itself.

In Kant, then, the ding an sich is given as an ontological condition, and yes, it remains an impossible epistemological one. On the other hand, if the human knowledge system is in fact not representational, this particular speculative metaphysics is immediately falsified, and the ding an sich disappears.

Shirley you of all people understand that we must use the knowledge system we have, to tell us about the knowledge system we have. Hence, the intrinsic circularity in human reason. As soon as we recognize it, at least one attempt to circumvent the inevitable contradictions incurred because of it, is to restrict exactly what we are allowed to claim as knowledge. So, given a certain methodology for knowing things, that which is necessarily external to that system cannot be included in its purely internal functions, instead serving merely as occasions for its empirical use. There are no physical objects in the system, therefore it is not of physical objects themselves the system knows. But there are physical objects that it is possible to know about, so there must be things as they are in themselves.

Q.E.gawddamnedD!!!!!

Or not.......

But there are physical objects that it is possible to know about, so there must be things as they are in themselves. — Mww

This is a hinge proposition?

If they were talking about their perceptions, then since your perception-of-Dell is distinct from their perception-of-Dell, you would never be able to talk about the same thing. — Banno

Is this not a violation of the beetle in the box thought experiment:

"That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation', the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant."

That is, we can talk about the thing without concern for what the thing is, which I took to be the punchline of what W was saying in regards to the irrelevancy of metaphysical analysis, but here you argue that it's critical we know that we have the same beetle in the box if we wish to speak of beetles.

If the name "Janus" for me can only refer to Banno's-peception-of-Janus, but for you "Janus" refers only to Hanover's-perception-of-Janus, then when we each talk about Janus, we are talking abut different things. — Banno

That depends on what you mean by "perception". Perceptions are about the things being perceived. If not then your perception of others perceptions is one of your own making and there is no "external" world that is perceived. There would actually be no perceptions, just solipsistic imaginations.

to the extent we wish to depart Kant and speculate upon the noumenal, we'd be required to impose causation upon it because that's what synthetic a priori truths do - they force a particular view on the world. — Hanover

True enough, but causality is given, insofar as it resides in the categories as a concept, but speculation on the noumenal, in departing from Kant, requires a faculty of intuition not belonging to us as humans. So technically, we need to impose a faculty we don’t have, rather than a causality we do.

Actually, because noumena are conceived, they already are subsumed under causality anyway. Kant says the conception of noumena is merely understanding overstepping its proper domain by thinking an object as schema of a category to which a proper schema, as an intuition, cannot be synthesized.....because there isn’t one. Herein is the transcendental use of a category, when it is restricted to the empirical use, by the theory under which understanding operates. A spectacular and catastrophic no-no. Metaphysically speaking.

“....Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind. Hence, it is as necessary for the mind to make its conceptions sensuous (that is, to join to them the object in intuition), as to make its intuitions intelligible (that is, to bring them under conceptions). Neither of these faculties can exchange its proper function. Understanding cannot intuite, and the sensuous faculty cannot think. In no other way than from the united operation of both, can knowledge arise....”

This is entirely non-responsive to my post. — Hanover

Unresponsive $\rightarrow$ Coma. :lol:

But there are physical objects that it is possible to know about, so there must be things as they are in themselves.
— Mww

This is a hinge proposition? — frank

As in Wittgenstein? I’m not sure, and he may not have been either. But under the assumption that a hinge proposition is a proposition immune from skeptical doubt, hence necessarily true or false, Kant would just call it an analytic tautology. I mean.....if there is a thing we know about, a thing as it is in itself is logically given, hence free from our skeptical doubt of it, at least ontologically.

There's a flower. We interact with it the way humans do. The bee interacts with it the way bees do. There's no reason to think it becomes something different depending on whether a human or bee is involved in the interaction. There's no reason to think it is something different than what we interact with and what a bee interacts with. There's not one flower for us, another for the bee. — Ciceronianus

Is this an epistemological or a metaphysical/ideological/ethical consideration?
(Or do you believe that there cannot be one without the other?)

We began to insert (as it were) something between us and the "external world" some centuries ago, for reasons I find difficult to understand. — Ciceronianus

I think what happened is that there developed a belief that epistemology and metaphysics/ideology/ethics could be and should be separate fields of endeavor.

It seems that in the past, the what are now two (or more), used to be one and the same, indistinguishable.


A good example for this is the etymological meaning of the word "believe", which originally meant 'to hold dear' and only later began to refer to something abstractly cognitive.

believe (v.)
Old English belyfan "to have faith or confidence" (in a person), earlier geleafa (Mercian), gelefa (Northumbrian), gelyfan (West Saxon), from Proto-Germanic *ga-laubjan "to believe," perhaps literally "hold dear (or valuable, or satisfactory), to love" (source also of Old Saxon gilobian "believe," Dutch geloven, Old High German gilouben, German glauben), ultimately a compound based on PIE root *leubh- "to care, desire, love" (see belief).

Meaning "be persuaded of the truth of" (a doctrine, system, religion, etc.) is from mid-13c.; meaning "credit upon the grounds of authority or testimony without complete demonstration, accept as true" is from early 14c. General sense "be of the opinion, think" is from c. 1300. Related: Believed (formerly occasionally beleft); believing.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/believe

But it isn't necessarily true that there are physical objects. It could all be per the holographic universe theory.

We do not spend hours arguing about how many centimetres are in a metre or which city is the capital of Russia
— Banno

These are conventions, not facts of the world. Truths because they are defined to be so. About these certainty is possible. — hypericin

I think the OP is working on the premise that "facts of the world" are also such conventions (but the OP can't say that, because that would require a metalevel description that would be incoherent in his view).

I think the question in this thread is how we know what the external world is (which was the part of the survey I referred to) and to a lesser extent as to whether there is an external world to begin with (which is the part of the survey you referred to). — Hanover

Because we are accultured to believing that there is an external world, the overwhelming agreement that there is an external world being an indication for that.

We don't discover that there is an external world. Other people present to us something that they present as an "external world", and we internalize this. And all this happens from early on in life, so that our cognitive abilities are shaped by it and we generally become unable to think in any other way.
Thus we live in a conflation of metaphysics and natural science, unable to tell them apart (other than by imposing new conflations suggesting what the difference between the two are).

(Yes, I am painfully aware of the reflexive nature of what I just said.)


Back to the Two Dogmas of Empiricism:

Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.
/.../
The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a manmade fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections -- the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.

Because I don't accept that our "minds" are separate from us, and think we're not separate from the rest of the world. I don't think it can be doubted on any reasonable basis that all we do is the result of our interaction as living organisms with the rest of the world.

How do you explain mental illness?
— baker

As a particular kind of illness, or disorder, we suffer from.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, though. — Ciceronianus

If you hold that everything and everyone is part of this world and belongs in it, then how do you explain what are considered aberrations and evil (such as mental illness)? And how do you justify morality, a sense of right and wrong?

If you accept aberrations and evil as somehow normal, as part of this world, then on the grounds of what can they be called "aberrations", "evil" to begin with?

What possible stake could anyone have in something completely unknowable? — Janus

For example, religious peple have been arguing about who has the right idea of God or The Truth. They even went to war with eachother for precisely this reason (such as the 30 year war). They have killed "heretics", maimed children, tortured women, burned towns and villages, and so on.

And all this on account of their belief as to what the right properties are of an entity that is ultimately unknowable. Clearly, these people have something at stake here.

The gullible? — Banno

Sure, but mostly those who want to rule, condemn. Also, those looking for salvation (one believes one will be saved by some entity that one doesn't really know and ultimately cannot know, but the belief is based on the belief that said entity has the property of being willing and able to save one).

Psycho-socially, it's very important to have the right beliefs about things that are simultaneously believed to be ultimately uknowable. Sure, we don't know God, but we believe that God is such that he is on our side and not on the side of our enemies.

think the OP is working on the premise that "facts of the world" are also such conventions — baker

Why would the OP, writing in defense of Naive Realism. believe this?

But it isn't necessarily true that there are physical objects. — frank

Given a certain set of initial conditions it is. Different conditions, different theory, different predictions/conclusions/possibilities, right?

See Nothing to do with Dennett's if you are interested in my take. Did you participate in that thread? — Banno

No, I don't actually post here that often. The article is good, iconoclastic and well written, right up my alley.

But it isn't necessarily true that there are physical objects.
— frank

Given a certain set of initial conditions it is. Different conditions, different theory, different predictions/conclusions/possibilities, right? — Mww

Yes, but I think that's another way of saying that physical objects are possible, but not necessary.

But it isn't necessarily true that there are physical objects.
— frank

Given a certain set of initial conditions it is. Different conditions, different theory, different theory, different predictions/conclusions/possibilities .....
— Mww

Yes, but I think that's another way of saying that physical objects are possible, but not necessary. — frank

Maybe, but I for one won’t be stepping off the curb in front of a sufficiently massive fast-mover to test a mere possibility.