The hand that cannot grasp itself’ — Wayfarer

To me, phenomenology inevitably becomes a mysticism. I mean you end up with a transcendental mystery about your own existence, others, too, but indirectly. The Buddhist is the quintessential phenomenologist.

But his Deduction is analogized to a quid juris legal affair, which has "no clear legal title, sufficient to justify their* employment, being obtainable either from experience or from reason." — Astrophel

The lament, “no clear legal title sufficient to justify their employment, being obtainable from experience or reason”, was a slam on Hume, who posited mere “constant conjunction” of sense to experience on the one hand, and his rejection of pure a priori conceptions of reason entirely, on the other.

It is that the categories are analogized to a quid juris deduction, or, which is the same thing, it is that a sufficient warrant, a clear right, that the categories are the necessary conditions, not for experience, but for the invocation for synthesis in understanding of the sense of a thing to the cognition of it, and THAT being the logical necessity for experience.

It seems to me by your words, you’re saying the categories have no clear right to do what Kant intended for them, re:, his deduction of them is suspect, or downright illegitimate, therefore they have no sufficient warrant for their employment.

…..it is the case that this stone cannot move itself. It must be moved by something else, and this holds true by necessity, so how can I know this apodicticity that is IN the stone when the stone stands outside of the logic produced in my mental affairs?…. — Astrophel

The certainty isn’t in the stone, it’s in the truth of the necessity, which is not outside the logic of my mental affairs.

…..It MUST be that the stone is not simply out there in a world that is independent of my mental affairs. — Astrophel

The stone is not; that which is represented by the word stone, very much is simply out there, independent of my mental affairs. Stone is from those very affairs.

Rather, there must be a relation that binds the two. — Astrophel

There is a relation, but not between the thing out there and my mental affairs with respect to it. The relation binds, through synthesis, the phenomena of intuition in sensibility to the logic of cognition in understanding. The ground for that function of synthesis, is imagination, the rules by which all synthesis abides regarding empirical content, are the categories.

….he misses the need for a transcendental deduction of the totality of experience. — Astrophel

If he thought there was a need for it, wouldn’t he have included it in what he’d already said was a completed metaphysical system? Besides, the pertinent fundamental transcendental deduction concerns the possibility of experience, the totality of each being no more than just itself, and of course, the totality of experience in general, is unintelligible.

Totality of experience is not a thing to which transcendental deductions can apply, but rather, represents an aggregate of individual things, to each of which such deductions would apply. In the thought of them. Experience is merely an end, given from a certain methodological means, hence, being an end, or, object of, is not itself subjected to, the means.

Why is there a need, and what form would restitution for that need take?

I mean, it took him ten years and 700-odd pages to construct what he thought he needed, so it seems pretty ungracious to suggest later that he forgot something. I know I’m barely smart enough to understand what he did, but I’m certainly not smart enough to question what he should have done.
————-

But his Deduction is analogized to a quid juris legal affair, which has "no clear legal title, sufficient to justify their* employment, being obtainable either from experience or from reason." — Astrophel

So all you’re saying is that he didn’t really deduce anything, when he states for the record that transcendental deductions are “…. an examination of the manner in which conceptions can apply à priori to objects…”, which appears to presuppose the conceptions being applied.

If appearance tells me a thing exists, logic tells me its existence is necessary. I have no need to deduce any of those pure conceptions justifying my logic, beyond the authority they impose on my thinking. This is what his successors meant by telling us all about what we couldn’t talk about. It isn’t and never was what we can’t; it’s because there no need.

The term 'exist' itself is concept; what isn't? and thus it gives us a principle of subsumption for particulars. — Astrophel

The term “exist” is a conception, yes, which can be predicated of things. Existence gives the principle of subsumption for particular things as a condition for them, yet can never be itself a predicate. It follows that the criteria for a pure conception, is that it is always the subject of a proposition and from which is given a principle in relation to time, and cannot be a predicate in the cognition of things. Existence is, therefore, not just a conception, but a pure conception.

In much the same way is “space” a conception. But insofar as space is the condition of the sensing of things rather than the thinking of them, it is not a pure conception, but instead, a pure intuition, holding to the same transcendental manner of applying a priori to objects but not contained in them.
————-

when you are not thinking of a pot and you see and know what it is you are not actualizing the empirical concept 'pot' but ignoring it, at least until, someone says, hand me that pot! and you explicitly hear the word. — Astrophel

Ok, so if I see a thing and know what it is, that’s called experience and makes explicit the thing I see has run the full gamut of cognition. It follows that if I’m seeing a pot, I must be thinking the concept in order to know what I’m seeing this time conforms to the thing I saw at some antecedent time and by which I first knew that thing as a pot. If I see and know a thing I must have actualized the concept.

On the other hand, what do I care about not actualizing a concept when I’m not thinking about some thing? I can almost guarantee I’m NOT thinking about a hellava lot more things than I am.

When I’m looking at and knowing a pot, and the guy says frying pan….why is it that I don’t hand him the pot? I didn’t hand him the pot only because what I heard him say doesn’t sound like the name of what I see? Wouldn’t I have to actualize both concepts, think the thing belonging to this sound and think the thing belonging to that sound, in order to judge whether or not the sound I heard properly represents the thing I see?

If I have to actualize concepts for the relations of different sounds, why wouldn’t I have to actualize concepts in the relations of what I know?

Is it that once there was no word for anything? — Astrophel

That’s my opinion.
————-

Kant looks at experience and "observes" Aristotle's logical structures. So he identifies logical structures and ask about their genesis---but why is the palpable world not given the same due? Logic is just "there" and we call it apriori because of the necessity of it. — Astrophel

The world is not given the same logical structure because we don’t know enough about it. Still, what we do know about it can be said to demonstrate logical structure in its relations to us, the simplest being near or far.

The genesis of logical structure is in us, and it is impossible that we do not know that very structure which we construct for ourselves, the simplest of that being A = A.

The world is just there, and we determine for ourselves how it is to be understood. Just because we say roses are red doesn’t indicate the impossibility that they be anything else, but only that they are that for us. By the same token, if the rose is red regardless of what we say, it is red necessarily. Our intelligence is not equipped to say which is the case.

The Buddhist is the quintessential phenomenologist. — Astrophel

Edmund Husserl, the founder of Phenomenology, wrote that "I could not tear myself away" while reading the Buddhist Sutta Pitaka in the German translation of Karl Eugen Neumann.[35][36] Husserl held that the Buddha's method as he understood it was very similar to his own. Eugen Fink, who was Husserl's chief assistant and whom Husserl considered to be his most trusted interpreter said that: "the various phases of Buddhistic self-discipline were essentially phases of phenomenological reduction." — Wikipedia

What Henry IS going to say is that Kant's is a thorough reduction to representation — Astrophel

Kant did not believe that everything must be reduced to representation.

In his Refutation of Idealism CPR B275, he concludes that both time determination and determination of the self in time requires us to posit the existence of a thing outside us.

This is in opposition to both Berkeley, who denies the possibility of spatial objects, and Descartes, in that we can only know the mind.
===============================================================================

There is no such thing as a disembodied thought, and it is not, "I think, therefore I am," but, "I am in a world, therefore I am." — Astrophel

From SEP - Notes to Seventeenth-Century Theories of Consciousness

Descartes said that there were no thoughts about which we are unconscious. In addition, he said that whilst the object of perception may be doubted, the perception itself cannot be doubted.

However, there is an academic dispute whether Descartes believed that a thought can be non-intentional.

Kant did not believe that everything must be reduced to representation. — RussellA

Yes he did.

Descartes said that there were no thoughts about which we are unconscious. In addition, he said that whilst the object of perception may be doubted, the perception itself cannot be doubted. — RussellA

This is an issue. If I think, then the thought has content. It is never stand alone thinking, and if one is thinking about some object---a stone, a cloud, another thought, a feeling, whatever, then that object is an inherent part of the apodictic affirmation. Descartes cogito is an inherent affirmation of the world's "objects", physical or otherwise.

However, there is an academic dispute whether Descartes believed that a thought can be non-intentional. — RussellA

The proof would be in the Meditations. But he did, after all, have to bring in impossibility of God to deceive to affirm everything else. I am saying (following my current crush, Michel Henry) that the cogito, "I think" is an abstraction from the object/consciousness unity.

It seems to me by your words, you’re saying the categories have no clear right to do what Kant intended for them, re:, his deduction of them is suspect, or downright illegitimate, therefore they have no sufficient warrant for their employment. — Mww

Right. That is what it amounts to. Kant knew full well that there are no categories. They're noumenal.

The certainty isn’t in the stone, it’s in the truth of the necessity, which is not outside the logic of my mental affairs. — Mww

Of course it is. What is the stone? It IS sensate intuitions and concepts. And so the stone IS whatever the concept is, and the concept IS its apriori structure. You look out at the horizon of things in your back yard and what do you "see" that is not this? The stone is an intuitive/conceptual construct, and if you remove all perceptual presence, the stone is no longer there. Tree falling in the forest? If no one is there: no tree, no noise, no falling, no forest.

The stone is not; that which is represented by the word stone, very much is simply out there, independent of my mental affairs. Stone is from those very affairs. — Mww

Well, you may think this, but Kant doesn't. Being "simply out there" is, where, in space? But read the transcendental aesthetic: Space is an apriori for of intuition.

There is a relation, but not between the thing out there and my mental affairs with respect to it. The relation binds, through synthesis, the phenomena of intuition in sensibility to the logic of cognition in understanding. The ground for that function of synthesis, is imagination, the rules by which all synthesis abides regarding empirical content, are the categories. — Mww

The thing out there IS your mental affairs. Imagination refers to time. See the deduction, which is a time analysis, and time is the foundation for mental affairs. There is no thing "out there" for out there is an apriori form of intuition.

If he thought there was a need for it, wouldn’t he have included it in what he’d already said was a completed metaphysical system? Besides, the pertinent fundamental transcendental deduction concerns the possibility of experience, the totality of each being no more than just itself, and of course, the totality of experience in general, is unintelligible.

Totality of experience is not a thing to which transcendental deductions can apply, but rather, represents an aggregate of individual things, to each of which such deductions would apply. In the thought of them. Experience is merely an end, given from a certain methodological means, hence, being an end, or, object of, is not itself subjected to, the means.

Why is there a need, and what form would restitution for that need take?

I mean, it took him ten years and 700-odd pages to construct what he thought he needed, so it seems pretty ungracious to suggest later that he forgot something. I know I’m barely smart enough to understand what he did, but I’m certainly not smart enough to question what he should have done. — Mww

Really? It is ungracious to critique the Critique?? Can I talk about Plato? Kant' critiqued Hume, who awoke him from his dogmatic slumber.....but that was wrong??

He did not think about a critique of being-in-the-world because he didn't think of it. Heidegger did, leaning on Kant. That is the way it works. Kant's was a critique, if you will, of Aristotle, Leibniz, Locke, Hume and the rest

You think my critical comments are MINE? I read phenomenology, Hegel through the post-post Heideggerians, which is essentially a response to Kant, or better, a moving forth with and from Kant into new horizons. For the next month I will be reading Jean Luc Marion on Givenness. He follows Levinas et al, who follows Husserl, criticizes Heidegger, and is inspired by Kierkegaard who criticizes Hegel, and so on. Marion is fascinating, but one will not understand a word if they haven't read Heidegger or Husserl.

It all builds into body of inquiry and thought, and for the phenomenologists, it takes one to that terminal point where language meets itself in the world. See Blanchot. You might want to read his Thomas the Obscure, and his Space of Literature and The Infinite Conversation. Insane at first, but keep at it, and you finally see what they (Beckett and others) are doing, and it is Kant's work that makes this all possible, because his rationalism is so brilliant and well conceived, he opened a new door to philosophy: the door to critiquing Kant!

And saying you are not smart enough is like you are begging to be told what to think. I certainly don't understand the entire Critique, few do. Only Kant scholars, and they are mostly just, well, scholarly, meaning they have good memories, and perhaps are analytically and synthetically able, but that doesn't mean they have deep insight.

Kant didn't understand Kant perfectly well because he at once denied metaphysics and did this in a grand metaphysical thesis. Put philosophy in the hands of a logician, and you will get a thesis about logic and meaning will be treated accordingly. But the attempt to discuss the nature of logic IN a logically structured language setting is blatant question begging, that is, it assumes what needs to be shown.

So all you’re saying is that he didn’t really deduce anything, when he states for the record that transcendental deductions are “…. an examination of the manner in which conceptions can apply à priori to objects…”, which appears to presuppose the conceptions being applied.

If appearance tells me a thing exists, logic tells me its existence is necessary. I have no need to deduce any of those pure conceptions justifying my logic, beyond the authority they impose on my thinking. This is what his successors meant by telling us all about what we couldn’t talk about. It isn’t and never was what we can’t; it’s because there no need. — Mww

But it IS that you can't, simply because to do so would require the very categorical functions in need of explaining. But the need for doing this is that it takes philosophy to a threshold: a place where language and its logic confront language and its logic. Language has been very useful in dealing with the world, but metaphysics has been an awful matter to clear up, what with Platonism, Christian theology, rationalism, empiricism, and a lot of just bad metaphysics in ethics, epistemology/ontology, and so on. Kant takes the very structure of reason itself and declares a speed limit, a point where logic cannot go, and this is beyond its own representational delimitations.

But then, metaphysics still beckons! The categories are this: that which cannot be though in itself, but thought nevertheless IN representational possibilities. It has to be understood that whenever one says anything, the categories are presupposed, and so the "saying" cannot be about these. They belong to metaphysics, but you could say "good" metaphysics, because...consider this passage from the Dialectic:

It is therefore correct to
say that the senses do not err not
because they always judge rightly but because they do not
judge at all. Truth and error, therefore, and consequently also
illusion as leading to error, are only to be found in the judgment,
i.e. only in the relation of the object to our understanding.
In any knowledge which completely accords with the laws
of understanding there is no error.In a representation of the A 294
senses as containing no judgment whatsoever there is also
no error. No natural force can of itself deviate from its own
laws. Thus neither the understanding by itself (uninfluenced
by another cause), nor the senses by themselves, would fall
into error.

Do you notice something a bit fishy here? If the senses do not err because they do not judge at all, then isn't this an admission that the sense qua sense is of the same ontological status is noumena? That is, an absolute? He is right, sensory intuitions are not mistakenly acknowledged, but just because they are acknowledged in the understanding leaves open the question, how is it that they are acknowledged at all AS SUCH? You can say this can only be in the understanding and so to speak at all of sensory intuitions one is thus bound categorically, but this is not what he is saying, or is it? What I am saying above here, is that the pure concepts are "good metaphysics" because it is not a lot of dogmatic foolishness, but is grounded on the way language itself offers its own structure up to itself for review. What you get is a "representational" view of what it is for things to be representations, and it can never get beyond this because it will always be thought begetting thought. And this just has to be accepted....

UNLESS, of course, we take Kant at his word, and the sensory intuitions do not err. And the same must be said about the pathos, or the emotions, or the affectivity (which I choose). There is a fascinating piece of reasoning here. I can only apprehend such things, which cannot be in error, IN the understanding (and hence the categorical form); however, when I do this, I am faced with something that lies outside this categorical condition, even though it is beheld IN it, the sight, the smell, the music, the love, the suffering, and so on. Kant wants to say that no matter what, the content is conditioned apriori, and we can accept this, say, but this does not alter the nature of the content as what it is; it merely says that it must have this formal structure that apprehends it. The affective dimension of our existence remains what it is, and this presence is unerringly before us.

By Cartesian standards, this makes the sensory intuitions as well as anything at all that "appears" before us, a headache, a heartbreak, a delicious desire, and so on, an apodictic foundation for ontology. Not the categories, but the content are "pure" in their being there, failing to be acknowledged for what they truly are because judgment about them is clouded by daily life entanglements and sciences presumptions.

Note that this apodicticity, that of the affectivity, the kind of thing Kant explicitly wants to be excluded from the essence of our existence, is the palpable real's essence, not the essence of vacuous reason.

The term “exist” is a conception, yes, which can be predicated of things. Existence gives the principle of subsumption for particular things as a condition for them, yet can never be itself a predicate. It follows that the criteria for a pure conception, is that it is always the subject of a proposition and from which is given a principle in relation to time, and cannot be a predicate in the cognition of things. Existence is, therefore, not just a conception, but a pure conception.

In much the same way is “space” a conception. But insofar as space is the condition of the sensing of things rather than the thinking of them, it is not a pure conception, but instead, a pure intuition, holding to the same transcendental manner of applying a priori to objects but not contained in them. — Mww

If you want to think like Kant, okay. But really? Existence is just a principle on the impossible side of phenomena? This makes existence something OTHER than the physical imposition of that tree in my perceptual encounter. IF this exhausts what existence IS, then you should not wonder why Kant' is so assailable. Not that the apprehension of a tree contains no logicality in the judgment about it, but that existence is (putting Heidegger aside) blunt confrontation with the world like a baseball bat coming hard down on one's knees, or the delicate and nuanced feel of silk to the touch, or the agony of love lost, or..... Existence is what issues from the presence of the world as it is present, as it IS, and certainly not from some distant noumenal category of pure reason.

No Kant never thought of this. He was too busy reducing the world to thought qua thought. Again, not that he was wrong at all. But that the rationalism that dominates his thesis is wrong if it is meant to be exhaustive in its determination as to what it is to be human.

Ok, so if I see a thing and know what it is, that’s called experience and makes explicit the thing I see has run the full gamut of cognition. It follows that if I’m seeing a pot, I must be thinking the concept in order to know what I’m seeing this time conforms to the thing I saw at some antecedent time and by which I first knew that thing as a pot. If I see and know a thing I must have actualized the concept.

On the other hand, what do I care about not actualizing a concept when I’m not thinking about some thing? I can almost guarantee I’m NOT thinking about a hellava lot more things than I am.

When I’m looking at and knowing a pot, and the guy says frying pan….why is it that I don’t hand him the pot? I didn’t hand him the pot only because what I heard him say doesn’t sound like the name of what I see? Wouldn’t I have to actualize both concepts, think the thing belonging to this sound and think the thing belonging to that sound, in order to judge whether or not the sound I heard properly represents the thing I see?

If I have to actualize concepts for the relations of different sounds, why wouldn’t I have to actualize concepts in the relations of what I know? — Mww

I'll follow this bit by bit:

The first paragraph: but when you see an object, you generally are not "thinking the concept" but rather, the recognition is spontaneous. But yes, your concepts are temporal in nature, and it is the past informing the present. Husserl calls this predelineation: you walk into an environment like a kitchen or a classroom, whatever, and you already know everything, and can instantly produce language that is contextualized in ways that agree with everyone else. It only becomes explicit if it is called upon to be so, as when someone asks you where you bought that pot. But the familiarity hovers, like a halo, speaking phenomenologically, or an aura, such that when your glance turns to a spatula, and a new set of languages possibilities come into play implicitly, and things are ready to hand to deal with. Actualized, as you say.

When you are not thinking about a spatula, you have not entered into this region of possible thought, and at that time, you don't occurrently care. You do, however, predispositionally care, such that when such an environment comes into play, things are there and ready to hand. True, at any given moment, what you are not regionally taking up is vastly more than what you are. Heidegger calls this general body of possibilities das man, "the they".

So why is it problematic that you would have more than one concept in play at once? Actualizing a concept can be a mere glance as you write a letter, check the time, and shoo a fly away. The fly is familiar and its presence temporally predelineated, hence the spontaneous shooing, and if one comes up to you and inquires about the fly, the language is there, ready to hand. This is Heidegger's "space". Very different from things physically near and far. Things are near when their relevance hovers close by, as when you think of your good friend and not the glasses on your nose: the friend is much "closer" than your glasses. You see his point: it is rare that you are not engaged in-the-world, and this engagement is YOU, your dasein, your being there. Language is what discloses the world to you, so environments are not spatial in the Kantian sense at all, for your existence is not this kind of spatiality. Your "space" is on of meanings, as you slip in and out of regional contexts. Here I am, sitting here, a stray thought occurs, the relief I finished my taxes, then I think about how little I made this year, and so on. These are "spatial" movements for Heidegger, and this movement into some context he calls deseverance.

Of course, you do actualize relations between sound as well as between concepts. I must be missing something.

That’s my opinion. — Mww

I am sure there was a time when there was no language. But the quote by Barnet Newman tries to show that language is truly primordial, found in the squawks and shrill cries of animals. The way this ws taken up was in a conversation about the depths of subjectivity and language. You might want to read this short piece, The Sublime Is Now.

The world is not given the same logical structure because we don’t know enough about it. Still, what we do know about it can be said to demonstrate logical structure in its relations to us, the simplest being near or far.

The genesis of logical structure is in us, and it is impossible that we do not know that very structure which we construct for ourselves, the simplest of that being A = A.

The world is just there, and we determine for ourselves how it is to be understood. Just because we say roses are red doesn’t indicate the impossibility that they be anything else, but only that they are that for us. By the same token, if the rose is red regardless of what we say, it is red necessarily. Our intelligence is not equipped to say which is the case. — Mww

This I'll have to address later, when I return from my trip abroad.

Yes he did. — Astrophel

Kant may be a Representationalist, but not everything can be reduced to a representation. Is his space and time a representation? Are his Categories representations?

In the CPR B275 he writes that his perception of time is only possible because of it is not being represented.

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.

As regards the Categories, for example, in the quantity of unity, there is one blue object. In the quantity of plurality, some objects are blue. In the quantity of totality, all the objects are blue. A Category is needed for us to cognize that within a phenomena there is one blue object. Within the phenomena of shapes and colours is a representation of one blue object. The Category can synthesise a manifold of experiences that represent one blue object, but the Category itself cannot be a representation, otherwise there would be no solid ground for our cognitions. If the Category was a representation, what is it representing?

As Wittgenstein needs certain hinge propositions, Kant also needs a ground. In order to represent, representation needs a ground that is itself not a representation, and for Kant this ground is space, time and the Categories.

This is an issue. If I think, then the thought has content. It is never stand alone thinking, and if one is thinking about some object---a stone, a cloud, another thought, a feeling, whatever, then that object is an inherent part of the apodictic affirmation. Descartes cogito is an inherent affirmation of the world's "objects", physical or otherwise. — Astrophel

The SEP article Notes to Seventeenth-Century Theories of Consciousness writes that there is some dispute whether Descartes believed that there were non-intentional thoughts.

5.As noted above (see note 3), there is some dispute over whether Descartes believed that there were non-intentional thoughts.

For example, it is conceivable that consciousness of a thought is prior to the thought's intentionality.

One problem about the idea that thoughts must be of something, such as I think of the pain of a wasp sting, I think of a tree, I think of tomorrow or I think of my relatives, is that these thoughts are contingent on what is being thought about, thereby losing any necessary independent identity of the self. A self independent of whatever thoughts it may have.

For example, it is conceivable that consciousness of a thought is prior to the thought's intentionality. — RussellA

Perhaps enlightenment is brought to this considering that when certainty is upon one, in some experience or other, it is not the logicality that is insisting, but the world. It is not logic that determines meaningful apriority; it is the existential grounding of the pathos, the affectivity, the value dimension of engagement, that makes this radical affirmation. This is something Kant clearly did not understand. Being in the world is inherently moral/aesthetic, and you find this in Dewey (ARt as Experience, and elsewhere), though Dewey was no metaphysician, Scheler, Von Hildebrandt; and it is in this that the world is self affirming, self evidencing apiori.

To say consciousnss of a thought is prior to thought's intentionality means that IN the intentional structure there is an inherent self consciousness. Husserl argued like this and that famous essay Sartre wrote, the Transcendence of the Ego, argued against it, because it impeded freedom. I'd have to read about this again to remind me of how this goes.

Thought must be OF something: Is a sprained ankle intentional? I like hagen dasz, but the noesis of this, the liking regard for it, this can be isolated from noema. How about just being happy? Sitting and doing nothing like a Buddhist, altogether absent of "something"? This is one complaint. Another is that it violates the simplicity of encountering objects in the absolute simplicity of the pure phenomenological. This is Michel Henry, and I think he is right. When the epoche of Husserl is done down to the wire, so to speak, and the conscious encounter is absent of all interpretative impositions, the world looms large in it bare presence of Being.

Of course, this gets rather technical and alien to common sense. Then again, this is what happens when inquiry goes down that rabbit hole.

Kant may be a Representationalist, but not everything can be reduced to a representation. Is his space and time a representation? Are his Categories representations?

In the CPR B275 he writes that his perception of time is only possible because of it is not being represented. — RussellA

But one has to step back from it all. There is no concept that is not representational, and thus, all talk about what is non representational is always already represntational. Kant knew this. One cannot speak of the apriori intuition of space and be free the hold the categories have on experience and meaning. One "understands" the Transcendental Aesthetic, but what is it to understand? This is inherently bound to the synthetic function of the concept of 'space' when it is deployed in discussion. This is the upshot of Kantian thinking: There is NOTHING non representational available to human understanding. We stand only in appearance, and the noumenal reality is impossibe to even conceive (though the MUST be something?? Can this even be said? Witt said no).

As regards the Categories, for example, in the quantity of unity, there is one blue object. In the quantity of plurality, some objects are blue. In the quantity of totality, all the objects are blue. A Category is needed for us to cognize that within a phenomena there is one blue object. Within the phenomena of shapes and colours is a representation of one blue object. The Category can synthesise a manifold of experiences that represent one blue object, but the Category itself cannot be a representation, otherwise there would be no solid ground for our cognitions. If the Category was a representation, what is it representing? — RussellA

I guess the above is saying that a 'category', in our delimited world, is a representation of a representation, or a representation of what representations are, an appearing thesis of the appearing of phenomena all tightly bound within appearances. To speak AT ALL about anything, this can never penetrate beyond what is merely given, and you can see why Kant is considered the destroyer of religion: Just reducible to an extravagance ofo thought whereby ideas are constructed out of the thin air of concepts without intuitions.

As Wittgenstein needs certain hinge propositions, Kant also needs a ground. In order to represent, representation needs a ground that is itself not a representation, and for Kant this ground is space, time and the Categories. — RussellA

Of course. But how does one speak of such a ground in the very structure of ground itself?; that which is in need of being grounded cannot be offered as the essential ground itself, and this is what you get when you write the Critique of Pure Reason.

Appreciate your replies, but I have run out of time.

Being in the world is inherently moral/aesthetic — Astrophel

The world is not inherently moral/aesthetic, so why should being in the world be inherently moral/aesthetic.

Husserl argued like this and that famous essay Sartre wrote, the Transcendence of the Ego, argued against it, because it impeded freedom — Astrophel

Yes, it is not immediately obvious who is right.

How about just being happy? — Astrophel

It is possible just to be happy without being happy about something, so why is it not possible to have a thought without having a thought about something?

There is no concept that is not representational, and thus, all talk about what is non representational is always already represntational. — Astrophel

This cannot be the case, as this would lead into an infinite regression, which we know is not the case.

Just reducible to an extravagance ofo thought whereby ideas are constructed out of the thin air of concepts without intuitions. — Astrophel

That is why it is transcendental.

But how does one speak of such a ground in the very structure of ground itself? — Astrophel

But we do! So it must be possible.

….it is the case that this stone cannot move itself. It must be moved by something else, and this holds true by necessity, so how can I know this apodicticity that is IN the stone when the stone stands outside of the logic produced in my mental affairs? — Astrophel

The certainty isn’t in the stone…. — Mww

Of course it is. What is the stone? It IS sensate intuitions and concepts. And so the stone IS whatever the concept is, and the concept IS its apriori structure. — Astrophel

In the first, I am to suppose there is a movable object. In the second I am to suppose the said movable object is sensate intuition and concepts. Which leaves me to wonder….how are sensate intuitions and concepts movable?

Having exposed the, dare I say, grotesque!!!, categorical error, it follows from the fact that all knowledge, and antecedently all a priori principles by which empirical knowledge is possible, resides in me, the certainty an object of whatever name cannot move itself but must be moved by something else, which is a representation of one such a priori principle, must also reside in me, and not in that object to which the principle merely applies.

The stone is an intuitive/conceptual construct, and if you remove all perceptual presence, the stone is no longer there. — Astrophel

Precisely the categorical error. Without perceptual presence of things, and forthcoming experience, it can only be a priori that I still know with certainty nothing in space moves itself.

The stone is not; that which is represented by the word stone, very much is simply out there, independent of my mental affairs. Stone is from those very affairs.
— Mww

Well, you may think this, but Kant doesn't. Being "simply out there" is, where, in space? But read the transcendental aesthetic: Space is an apriori for of intuition. — Astrophel

Oh, I’m pretty sure he thinks, and is trying desperately to impress upon the rest of us, “simply out there” indicates “simply not in here”. I didn’t mention space, only referring to that which must be “….something external to me, to which I must look upon myself as being related…”, and that by means of the logic intrinsic to my mental affairs.

The thing out there IS your mental affairs. — Astrophel

Oh dear. The thing out there is nothing but the appearance to, the effect on, the occassion for, my mental affairs, but is not them, “….for, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears—which would be absurd.…”
————-

It is ungracious to critique the Critique?? — Astrophel

…..ungracious to suggest later that he forgot something. — Mww

Since when is ungracious to suggest the same as ungracious to critique? As long as we’ve been here we’ve both been critiquing the Critique, but only one of us suggests a flaw in the memory of its author. Without knowing the totality of what he knew, what could possibly be said about what he forgot?
————-

….when you see an object, you generally are not "thinking the concept"…. — Astrophel

Correct. “…Intuition cannot think, understanding cannot intuit…”

….but rather, the recognition is spontaneous. — Astrophel

When I see, or perceive by any sense, the affect on my senses is immediate. So I would only say the recognition my senses have of been affected, re: sensation, is simultaneous with such appearance. The spontaneity of concepts takes place in understanding, and so has nothing to do with when I see an object.

If it is me that is thinking the concept, does it make any difference to then say it is me recognizing the spontaneity by which the concept is thought?
————-

Have a good trip.

The world is not inherently moral/aesthetic, so why should being in the world be inherently moral/aesthetic. — RussellA

Well, that is a big issue. I hold that the world is most emphatically inherently moral. Where Kant argued from the world to pure reason's transcendental nature, I argue from value to pure value's transcedental nature. Trouble with Kant is that the formal exposition of judgment is entirely empty of content, a reductive analysis to nothing at all, for what is form qua form? What is, say, modus ponens sans the p's and q's that make for its demonstration? Nothing.

But the same metaphysical provocation exists for ethics, that is, the question as to its ground, and the reductive attempt to isolate this ground. What is ethics? leads inquiry to metaethical arguments, where Kant's were metalogical. Metaethical questions ask about the nature or essence of ethics, and here we discover value, or, the bonum and the malum, and here were not abstractly penetrating abstractions in logic, but existential actualities that constitute the meaning of our existence.

Note how Kant moves to rationality to explain duty, a good will, and the infamous categorical imperative. How he could do this rests solely with, in terms of motivation, an absence of affectivity in his own hyper rational mentality. He was a sociopath, but the good kind.

Yes, it is not immediately obvious who is right. — RussellA

If you are interested, you might find Michel Henry's phenomenology interesting. See this cup on the table. In the immediacy of the apprehension, there is no intentionality that intrudes into the interface. There is no interface, only the phenomenological unity, which is a transcendental primordiality. Phenomenology leads to one place, existential transcendence, and the most salient feature here is the meta ethical and the meta aesthetic, evidenced in the value dimension of everydayness, the briuses and abrasions, the tragedies and the ecstasies. A place Kant simply did not have the experiential constitution to acknowledge.

As to who is right, the question then goes to agency, and this, as Wayfarer pointed out, cannot be observed. One can, however, do as Heidegger did, which practice gelassenheit, a kind of meditative thinking in which one yields as one thinks, rather than imposing on the world what one already thinks. A kind of meditation that allows the world to "speak".

It is possible just to be happy without being happy about something, so why is it not possible to have a thought without having a thought about something? — RussellA

Being happy is a state, but a thought is always the world taken AS something. The word 'happy' is a reference, while being happy is not.

This cannot be the case, as this would lead into an infinite regression, which we know is not the case. — RussellA

You mean if talk about Kant's categories is just representational talk about representations, then that, too, is representational talk, and so forth. But it is a fabricated regression, willfully produced. Like saying one can think a thought, then think a thought about that thought, etc; or a chicken comes from an egg which comes form a chicken, etc.; and there is certainly regression here, but it is harmless. If to think about the categories is itself an application of the categories (which it is. Kant, of course, was well aware) simply because to think at all is categorical (which is the point) then the universal quantification, "all thought is categorical" (that is, is transcendentally structured apriori) is the end to the regression.

That is why it is transcendental. — RussellA

That is why God, the soul and freedom are dialectical errors. Kant's doesn't think his deduction is an error, but that it has a necessary noumenal correlate.

I do get confused by Kant's position on this, though. I would have to spend time with the Critique to work through this. But presently, I don't see how there is a way out if this. The pure categories are just as in error as those taboo metaphysical ideas of the Transcendental Dialectic.

But we do! So it must be possible. — RussellA

It certainly is possible, but it is possible only within the very language possiblities that presuppose the categories. This is the matter. It is assuming in the conclusion something that has to be demonstrated. Kant's conclusion is that there is a transcendental ground for all logic but what is this transcendental ground? It is transcendental, so it cannot stand for anything that is inferentially derived from what is not transcendental.

Language cannot stand as its own metalanguage.

Have a good trip. — Mww

Thanks! It was very good, putting aside the covid I had for a week. I don't think when I die I would like to cough myself to death, as so many of those that came before us did. Hard to imagine the tonnage of suffering history holds, and hard to fathom why this is given such little attention in philosophy; this, THE most salient feature of our existence. Just perverse, if you ask me, which is why I have qualified high regard for Kant; I don't think he at all understood ethics in its nature. Deontology begs the question of the final ground for prima facie moral obligation in ethics, this question: why bother at all?

Having exposed the, dare I say, grotesque!!!, categorical error, it follows from the fact that all knowledge, and antecedently all a priori principles by which empirical knowledge is possible, resides in me, the certainty an object of whatever name cannot move itself but must be moved by something else, which is a representation of one such a priori principle, must also reside in me, and not in that object to which the principle merely applies. — Mww

That object is the sensory intuitions and concept unity. You can't speak of the object that is outside of this unity. The time/space of the object is what "resides in you" and this is ALL a representation. There is no object in the normal way science and everydayness says there is. So when you say "and not in the object to which the principle merely applies" I am sure this is not what Kant's "idealism" is about. The object IS sensory intuition conjoined with a concept in the apriori intuitions of space and time.

Oh, I’m pretty sure he thinks, and is trying desperately to impress upon the rest of us, “simply out there” indicates “simply not in here”. I didn’t mention space, only referring to that which must be “….something external to me, to which I must look upon myself as being related…”, and that by means of the logic intrinsic to my mental affairs.

The thing out there IS your mental affairs.
— Astrophel

Oh dear. The thing out there is nothing but the appearance to, the effect on, the occassion for, my mental affairs, but is not them, “….for, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears—which would be absurd.…” — Mww

No, no. First, this "must be" is only because he wants separate phenomena from that which it represents, not from any analytic necessity. But you seem to think Kant is allowing something like "nature" which you referred to earlier, some objective substratum, but this is not how it is. It is entirely a negative concept as he is referring to a transcendental object, which is just

the concept of a noumenon. It is not
indeed in any way positive, and is not a determinate knowledge of anything, but signifies only the thought of something in general, in which I abstract from everything that belongs to
the form of sensible intuition.

In other words, he is not talking about a thing in any way determined by some even vaguely physical standards. It is entirely determined transcendentally. Read on and see the way he qualifies this "object" (and it is very obvious that his thinking is highly suspect right at the outset, for, after all, what is an 'object' by Kant's own system? It is a concept that is a synthesis, and can ONLY apply, vis a vis a world of things, to empirical objects). He says,

it is still an open question whether the notion of
a noumenon be not a mere form of a
concept, and whether, A 253
when this separation has been made, any object whatsoever
is left."

You see, the whole idea is a fiction.Something has to be there to make for the unity of the sensible object before one, but maybe not. The noumenal is only a concept. Further:

The object to which I relate appearance in general is
the transcendental object, that is, the completely indeterminate
thought of something in general. This cannot be entitled the noumenon
for I know nothing of what it is in
itself, and have no concept of it save as merely the object of
a sensible intuition in general, and so as being one and the
same for all appearances..I cannot think it through any category ;
for a category is valid [only] for empirical intuition, as
bringing it under a concept of object in general. A pure use of
the category is indeed possible [logically], that is, without contradiction;
but it has no objective validity, since the category
is not then being applied to any intuition so as to impart to it
the unity of an object. For the category is a mere function
of thought, through which no object is given to me, and by
which I merely think that which may be given in intuition.

Cannot think it through any category?? But what is the term 'object'? It is a categorically structured concept. You see how deep in the woods he is. Where do you find thinking like this, thinking that annihilates concepts? You find it in the Dialectic under Transcendental Illusion. The question is, why is the concept of noumena allowed to survive at all? Why is it not dismissed in a paralogism?

Since when is ungracious to suggest the same as ungracious to critique? As long as we’ve been here we’ve both been critiquing the Critique, but only one of us suggests a flaw in the memory of its author. Without knowing the totality of what he knew, what could possibly be said about what he forgot? — Mww

A flaw? I think it depends. He doesn't seem to realize that the transcendental use of the categories is impossible even as he says they are impossible. He wants to say it is possible and the door is open, but you can tell in the way he goes on page after page in Noumena and Phenomena that he only grudgingly talks about it. I mean, take a good look at these disclaimers, one after the other; the only thing he does not admit is that since logic cannot be an analytic means of access into its own nature, therefore all this talk about noumena is just nonsense. The analytic of noumena IS, after all, a construction of thought, and his whole point is that there are RULES to thoughtful meaning making, and very rigorous ones.

That is the flaw. He must affirm more than he is willing to do, for the Dialectic goes through great pains to nullify groundless metaphysics, and this should render noumena nonsense, which is he says it is, only in terms that leave a door open that should be closed. BUT: in my thinking, this by no means closes the door on transcendental thinking; it only redefines it, even redeems it. This notion of thing in itself is not nonsense at all, but must be determined, for its meaning, in a deeper analytic of what is given in "appearance" for noumena in is, in his language, discovered in "representations," obviously, since there are no "discoveries" of noumena; it just a general concept entirely negative in nature--what is noumenal is not of sensible intuitions, nor is it analytically determined. It is JUST an empty concept.

He doesn't see, in other words, that what is noumenal is truly discovered in phenomena, and there is only one conclusion to this: they are same. The phenomenon is noumenal and the noumenon is phenomenal. The tree IS over there and it IS both accessible and not accessible, that is, transcendental. This term 'transcendental' refers to the openness of the conceptual delimitations of the world's concepts, that is, ALL concepts are open. We call it a tree, but this calling, this taking that over there "as" the particle of language 'tree' does not exhaust the meaning possiblities of what stands before me. Kant's noumenal talk puts the transcendence of the tree-out-of-meaning, again, due to Kant's insistence about the limits of meaning making, which is the real "flaw" of his thinking (what you get when a radical rationalist takes up philosophy).

People like Kant are intuitively limited. Logically brilliant, capable of extraordinary control of thought, but they just don't get things they cannot "get".

The object IS sensory intuition conjoined with a concept in the apriori intuitions of space and time. — Astrophel

If the object IS the intuition, what use would pure a priori intuitions themselves, have?

The object is not the sensory intuition, but only the occassion by which it is possible.

Conjoined concepts in the a priori intuitions of space and time, is form. The synthesis of this form, with the matter given a posteriori as sensation, gives phenomena, that which represents objects perceived by the senses.

The phenomenon IS sensory intuition.

There is no object in the normal way science and everydayness says there is. — Astrophel

Agreed, but still, there IS an object….

So when you say "and not in the object to which the principle merely applies" I am sure this is not what Kant's "idealism" is about. — Astrophel

….and insofar as the normal way of science and everydayness demands it should be so, I think that’s the epitome of Kantian idealism, re: the supremacy of the subject, in that he gives to…bestows upon….objects that which is commonly thought as belonging to them.

That object is the sensory intuitions and concept unity. You can't speak of the object that is outside of this unity. — Astrophel

Agreed, the object cannot be spoken of outside the construct of its representation, but the object is not that construct. One minor exception might be that the object can be spoken of as existing, for that is the singular necessary condition for all that follows. Re: Plato’s “knowledge that”, or Russell’s “knowledge by acquaintance”.
————-

….only referring to that which must be “….something external to me, to which I must look upon myself as being related…”….
— Mww

No, no. First, this "must be" is only because he wants separate phenomena from that which it represents, not from any analytic necessity. — Astrophel

How can it not be analytically necessary, when that object which is outside of me most certainly is not in the same space as the object which is my body? The “must” of the quote, and the “must be” of my comment relates only me and objects that affect my senses, as yet having nothing to do with phenomena.

Furthermore, it isn’t so much that he wants to separate phenomena from that which it represents, but rather, it is a mandate of his transcendental doctrine that human knowledge is of representations of things and not of things as they are in themselves.

But you seem to think Kant is allowing something like "nature" which you referred to earlier, some objective substratum, but this is not how it is. — Astrophel

Yeah, I do think Kant’s metaphysical program, in all its various iterations, requires something like Nature, in order to have that which stands on one end of his intrinsic dualism: everything from objective moral behavior, to irreducible proofs for logical syllogisms, to rebutting Newton.
————-

I agree with a lot of your interpretations here, but not so much with your conclusions. That being said…

….the concept of a noumenon. It is not
indeed in any way positive, and is not a determinate knowledge of anything, but signifies only the thought of something in general…. — Astrophel

Signifies thought of something. In general. Where there is thought alone, the inputs from the faculties of sensibility are vacant, representations being borrowed from consciousness for those antecedent experiences, from understanding itself for those merely possible experiences. All this time we’ve been talking of objects in general, for which the immediate input from sensibility is absolutely required.

Why the switch? What’s this have to do with Nature?

In other words, he is not talking about a thing in any way determined by some even vaguely physical standards. — Astrophel

Agreed.

It is entirely determined transcendentally. — Astrophel

Noumena is entirely determined transcendentally? Noumena are not determined at all; ever notice there is never any noumenal thing? There is never any synthesis of representation into a cognition, which can then be represented by a definitive conception, which, empirically with respect to possible things, is entirely the purview of understanding.

Noumena, the concept, arises spontaneously from understanding, as do all concepts, in this case, simply because understanding is that by which “….I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself…”. Noumena, then, is exactly that contradictory thought, the concept without the requisite synthesis of representations, hence, without the possibility of cognizing an object subsumed under the concept.

“…. But there is one advantage in such transcendental inquiries which can be made comprehensible to the dullest and most reluctant learner—this, namely, that the understanding which is occupied merely with empirical exercise, and does not reflect on the sources of its own cognition, may exercise its functions very well and very successfully, but is quite unable to do one thing, and that of very great importance, to determine, namely, the bounds that limit its employment, and to know what lies within or without its own sphere.…”

The only transcendental going on here, is reason’s examination of the understanding’s stepping out of bounds in its attempts to cognize the impossible.
—————-

….it is very obvious that his thinking is highly suspect…. — Astrophel

It is HIS thinking that shows common understanding’s thinking, is suspect. Suspect insofar as it isn’t paying attention to its own rules. Those rules being…for cognition, synthesis of phenomena and the pure conceptions.

The noumenal is only a concept. — Astrophel

Agreed. So I guess I don’t understand the point you’re making. If you already knew that noumena are only concepts, and given understanding’s propensity to run away with itself, and reason’s obligation to correct the rampage….what more is there?

The question is, why is the concept of noumena allowed to survive at all? Why is it not dismissed in a paralogism? — Astrophel

Because he said understanding doesn’t recognize its own limitations. Thought is spontaneous, concepts arise unbidden, which we know for a fact is the case. We can think whatever we want. Usually, we just move on to the next thought, but if we stop and examine what we just did, we find there is nothing the thought contains that does anything positive for us. Which, is course, is why noumena are treated negatively, to show what we can’t do in relation to empirical knowledge as such.

Agreed. So I guess I don’t understand the point you’re making. If you already knew that noumena are only concepts, and given understanding’s propensity to run away with itself, and reason’s obligation to correct the rampage….what more is there? — Mww

The point here is that noumena is not merely an empty concept. Kant was wrong. The next stop is Kierkegaard, Hegel, Heidegger's What Is Metaphysics? There are no divisions between the given world and that which it represents. The world we see and acknowledge every day is not analytically reducible to representation. It IS the world and this represents nothing, but is a stand alone manifestation of what is "there". Any "transcendence" that arises issues from immanence.

This is where Husserl's epoche takes one, to the transcendence of the given. My issues with Kant are post Kantian. See, e.g., Max Scheler's Formalism and Nonformalism in Value (something like that) or Hildebrandt's Ethics. See the critical post Kantian literature. Soon I'll start on Fichte, though only because Michel Henry is forcing me to, because reading his Essence of Manifestation insists. Kant only can be understood in light of the substantial response to Kant.

Nice talking to you! :ok:

It pains me greatly to admit I no longer have the acuity, and perhaps not even the time, to absorb first order critical philosophy. It’s like….all I absorbed before is all I’m gonna get. And considering how long THAT took….(sigh).

That being said, it was indeed a pleasure talking to you. Have fun with M. Henry.