As you say we theorize that there is something, some configuration of particles or energy or whatever, more or less invariant which gives rise to human perceptions of a particular tree. — Janus
The tree as it is in itself as opposed to the tree as it appears to us is a voherent logical distinction — Janus
this is just a diferent way of thinking and talking about it than your preferred way, but neither way is priveleged in the sense of presenting any matter of fact; they are simply two different ways of thinking. — Janus
But it would be an error to conclude that therefore we are, or may be, always deceived. — Banno
Being deceived is already participating in a language game - and so being deceived is participating in a world, and involves other people. — Banno
I pointed out the error in the one case, where the initial condition was an idea but you forced in a proposition, supposing something of the one would apply to the other, re: negation. — Mww
I do not understand what this is about. — Banno
...in an ugly sentence with a half-dozen sub-clauses.An idea is a “problematic conception”, a singular representation of the understanding, for which the intuition of an object belonging to it is impossible, or, the representation of an object inferred as belonging to it, does not relate, re: the idea is unintelligible. — Mww
It seems your thoughts are to remain inexpressible. Then we have no grounds for supposing that you even have thoughts.As soon as one realizes no words are ever spoken that are not first thought, all language philosophy loses its stranglehold on our intelligence. — Mww
No. That's not what I'm saying at all. It's a common misinterpretation of all predictive coding models, they're models of how information is processed, nothing to do with the physics of the universe. They're not making any ontological claims. — Isaac
For the 'tree-as-it-is-in-itself' to be anything it must already be inferred (no less than the 'tree' was in the first place). It's existence is no less a product of our perception. — Isaac
Can one assume that the above 'way of thinking' is, by your own theory, no more privileged than the one you espoused from which it is derived, by negation? Just a different way of thinking, yes? Equally valid. — Isaac
Absolutely. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the nature of language is such that we cannot possibly be always deceived - against what truth would we measure that deceit? — Isaac
More of a politician than a philosopher. — Janus
Alternatively, I could consider the new evidence as constituting a new referent of my present judgements , in which case I consider my earlier beliefs to be obsoleted by the new evidence, rather than being falsified by the new evidence. — sime
I just lose my patience sometimes — Janus
I am not a Kant scholar, and I had never heard of his list of Antinomies (logical contradictions) until I read the article quoted in the OP. So, Kant's authority is not a concern of mine. The list was just a convenient outline for an open-ended philosophical discussion on the inherently meta-physical topics of "Transcendence & Cosmology". The browsing questions are inviting considered opinions, not final answers*1. I doubt that we will ever "deduce" any full-stop ultimate conclusions about "Transcendence" or "Metaphysics". But we may refine our personal worldviews with such abstractions, sifted through fine-grained philosophical argumentation.↪Gnomon
, prior to Kant there were various approaches to philosophy that tried to derive metaphysical, and even physical, facts from first principles by mere deduction. Kant's Antinomies might best be seen as a nascent version of the realisation that logic, on it's own, does not lead to any conclusions. — Banno
Yes. hasty generalizations are to be avoided in rational argumentation. Ironically, such leaps do occasionally occur, even on a philosophy forum. But, how can you know when the "arguments are finished"? In formal Logic, conclusions are supposed to necessarily follow from the indubitable premises presented. But on this amateur forum, such mathematical logic is rarely presented.It's just the ever-present temptation to jump to a conclusion, to believe one has the answer before the arguments are finished, that is to be avoided. — Banno
It's just the ever-present temptation to jump to a conclusion, to believe one has the answer before the arguments are finished, that is to be avoided. — Banno
Kant's Antinomies might best be seen as a nascent version of the realisation that logic, on it's own, does not lead to any conclusions. — Banno
Kant’s constructivist foundation for scientific knowledge restricts science to the realm of appearances and implies that transcendent metaphysics – i.e., a priori knowledge of things in themselves that transcend possible human experience – is impossible. In the Critique Kant thus rejects the insight into an intelligible world that he defended in the Inaugural Dissertation, and he now claims that rejecting knowledge about things in themselves is necessary for reconciling science with traditional morality and religion. This is because he claims that belief in God, freedom, and immortality have a strictly moral basis, and yet adopting these beliefs on moral grounds would be unjustified if we could know that they were false. “Thus,” Kant says, “I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith” (Bxxx). Restricting knowledge to appearances and relegating God and the soul to an unknowable realm of things in themselves guarantees that it is impossible to disprove claims about God and the freedom or immortality of the soul, which moral arguments may therefore justify us in believing. — SEP
If you take Kant seriously about all of this, then his perspective has some very important implications. One is this: whatever scientists discover, through whatever methodologies they employ, will never be an understanding of reality itself. At best, science will be the project of describing in painstaking detail the world of appearances (what Kant called the empirical world) and constructing helpful conceptual models for engaging with it in ways that, we might say, decrease the frequency with which we are surprised. — Eric Reitan
Both (Schleiermacher and Hegel) thought that Kant had missed something important—namely, that the self which experiences the world is also a part of the world it is experiencing. Rather than there being this sharp divide between the experiencing subject and things-in-themselves, with phenomena emerging at the point of interface, the experiencing subject is a thing-in-itself. It is one of the noumena—or, put another way, the self that experiences the world is part of the ultimate reality that lies behind experience.
So: the self that has experiences is a noumenal reality. Both Schleiermacher and Hegel believed that this fact could be made use of, so that somehow the self could serve as a wedge to pry open a doorway through the wall of mystery, into an understanding of reality as it is in itself. — Eric Reitan
Transcendence & Metaphysics are inherently doubtful, and must be supported by reasoning instead of experimentation. — Gnomon
how else would you derive "metaphysical facts" apart from "mere deduction"? — Gnomon
Limits of thought, therefore. One cannot think outside the box of spacetime. One has to invent 'another space' — Riemann space or Hilbert space, or some such. — unenlightened
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