What is the limit of a representation? If a clock is a representation of time passing, is the conscious observer a representation of some symbolic modelling? That doesn't seem to jive though. A clock is a representation of time passing for an observer- it is instantiated in the observer. What then, does the observer of the clock instantiate in? Or is it self-instantiated? If so, what is that nature of the instantiating?

What I am suggesting is that the selection process is teleological in the very same sense in which the organism's physiological and behavioral activities are teleological (or structured by means/end relationships), and for the very same reason. An organism, for instance, engages in some sort of behavior in order to quench its thirst. If it tends to succeed, thanks to some heritable feature of its physiology or anatomy, then this feature tends to be positively selected. And the reason why descendants thereafter exhibit this feature, and have the ability to engage in the behavior that such structures enables, is precisely because they subserve the end that was being actively pursued by the ancestor: namely, quenching its thirst. I conclude that the process of evolution through natural selection does have a telos, but that telos isn't external to the life form of the evolving organism; it is rather internal to it. The main engine of evolution is the organism's already existing struggle to flourish and survive (in very specific ways) in its day to day existence. — Pierre-Normand

I think you get biological teleology wrong. The way you describe it, teleology arises from individual organisms' striving to achieve a goal, much like Lamarck thought that when a giraffe reaches for higher branches its neck grows progressively longer with each generation (he even hypothesized a causal mechanism for this: a "nervous fluid"). We know that this is not how evolution works (for the most part). Fitness does not increase as a direct response to organisms' strivings and desires. As you say, the internal teleology of evolution is in the process itself, not in some agent's mental attitude. The process of evolution by natural selection molds successive populations to better fit their environment, and that works just as well on a moth's passive mimicry as on a giraffe's active feeding. It works even on unconscious, inanimate things that are similarly subject to natural selection!

I think the key to the controversy over biological teleology is in what Bedau called "mentalism:" psychologizing teleology, thinking of teleology only as a pattern of thought. Proponents of the concept of biological teleology argue that there is a more general pattern that manifests itself in other, non-psychological domains, and that both evolutionary adaptation and organismal functions are valid examples of this pattern.

By not engaging, you confirm me in my position that we are discussing a faith position, not a rational conclusion. — Dfpolis

My point was that if you want to engage those whom you want to convince, you don't want to open the discussion by poisoning the well with such an obnoxious and unfair accusation. Unfair because, your famous biologist brother notwithstanding, you don't appear to be familiar with secular thought on this subject.

Your response is... to double down on the obnoxiousness. So yes, I would rather engage with Ruth Millican, or Mark Bedau, or Pierre-Normand for that matter.

What is the limit of a representation? If a clock is a representation of time passing, is the conscious observer a representation of some symbolic modelling? That doesn't seem to jive though. A clock is a representation of time passing for an observer- it is instantiated in the observer. What then, does the observer of the clock instantiate in? Or is it self-instantiated? If so, what is that nature of the instantiating? — schopenhauer1

If you speak of a conscious being as an observer, then the specified act which the being is involved in, observing, is an act of representation. That is the being's function, as identified, observing, and observing requires noting and representing. Therefore to speak of the conscious being as an observer is to imply that the being is doing some symbolic modeling.

A clock is artificial, made, produced, with the intent of representing time passing. As such, it does not need to be observed to be a representation, like the written word does not need to be observed to be a representation. That assumes a realist perspective with independent existence of a physical thing, and independent existence of "what" the thing is. The meaning, what is meant by the symbol is put into the physical symbol by the intent of the author, and exists there independently of being interpreted. So what the thing is, is put there by the intent of the author. But from another perspective one could argue that the symbol must be observed, and judged to be "a symbol", in order to actually be a symbol, if one declines the notion that the thing's meaning is put there by the intent of the author.

So to answer your question more directly, I would say that from the realist perspective the limit to a representation is the mind of the author. But if we deny realism and allow that interpretation produces the limit, then there is no real limit. It is the multiplicity of interpreting minds which produces the limitless, infinite nature of a representation, whereas the one mind of the author may act as a limit. That is why the realist has an escape from the infinite possibilities of meaning, information, by assuming that it is limited by the intent of the author. But in the context of the information (meaning) within natural existence it's only just an appeal to God. .

If you speak of a conscious being as an observer, then the specified act which the being is involved in, observing, is an act of representation. That is the being's function, as identified, observing, and observing requires noting and representing. Therefore to speak of the conscious being as an observer is to imply that the being is doing some symbolic modeling. — Metaphysician Undercover

But I am taking a step back to its ontology. WHAT is "doing some symbolic modeling" without being self-referential? What is this "symbolic modelling" in and of itself? It turns into just word-games on the concept of mind.

I think the thrust of this comment is not directed at Aristotelian realism, but at the then-emerging modern empiricists, for whom the 'mind-independence' of phenomena was (and remains) an axiom. — Wayfarer

That makes a lot of sense. I think there are strains of modern thought that reject this "axiom" -- such as the "collapse on awareness" interpretation of quantum theory.

Both relativity and quantum theory tell us that measure numbers depend jointly on the prior state of the system and the type of measurement being made. — Dfpolis

Why then did Einstein famously ask the question, 'doesn't the moon continue to exist when nobody's looking at it?' — Wayfarer

Because for something to be measurable, it must exist. There are no abstract potencies. Rather potencies are latent in actual beings. That is why Aristotle was able to avoid Parmenides' argument against change: The new aspect that emerges from change neither comes from nothing, nor is it fully formed before the change. It is potential in actual being.

I don't think that Platonic realism has much to do with that particular problem — Wayfarer

Yes, it does. Plato, following the Pythagorean tradition, believed that the world was made of mathematical objects -- actual numbers and/or regular polyhedrons. The importance of Aristotle's insight is that, because measure numbers only result from measurements, one must reflect on measuring operations to fully understand them.

what is being called into question by quantum physics is whether particles exist before they're observed, and these particles had been presumed to be the 'fundamental constituents of reality'. — Wayfarer

These are two important but different problems.

As a physicist, I see absolutely no evidence that there are any particles in the sense of point masses or something that can be reasonably modeled by a point mass. Just as Young's experiment falsified Newton's corpuscular theory of light, so the Davisson-Germer experiment, inspired by A. C Lunn's wave model of the hydrogen spectrum and independently confirmed by George Paget Thomson's thin metal diffraction experiment, falsified the particulate theory of electrons.

Following up on the idea that one must understand the measurement process if one is to understand the results, remember that all detectors are made of bulk matter, composed of aggregations of atoms. Atomic electrons are localized by the attraction of the nucleus. Detection events occur when an atomic electron makes a certain kind of transition -- typically an ionization event. Because the atoms are localized, so are ionization events. As a result, the detection of electrons is localized, and they appear to have particulate properties. They do not. They are, however, quantized by some unknown mechanism, perhaps involving Mobius-like topology.

The idea that there are "fundamental constituents of reality" goes back to the Greek atomists, and seems unsupported by evidence. Rather, as we increase the energy of our experiments, we encounter higher and higher energy resonances. Empirically, these resonances are entirely wave-like; nevertheless, they are conventionally called "particles." There are mathematical models, such as the Regge pole model, that suggest that there are an unbounded number of such resonances.

Kant introduced the concept of the “thing in itself” to refer to reality as it is independent of our experience of it and unstructured by our cognitive constitution. — Emrys Westacott

No, the idea of a reality prior to sensation was clearly spelled out by the Greeks, and definitively by Aristotle (especially in De Anima iii). What Kant did was to maintain the existence of noumenal reality while denying that it could be known -- thus staking a fundamentally irrational position.

As for a more sympathetic reading, Kant was born into a family that followed a mystical religious tradition. It is a common place in the mystical tradition that the object of mystical experience (God, Brahman, the Transcendent) is more real than the world of empirical experience. I have no problem with that view, but the greater reality of Ultimate Being does not mean that empirical reality is either illusory or obscured by our means of knowing -- as Kant proposed.

Don't forget though, Aristotle also said that in another sense, time is that which is measured. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't recall such a statement, which seems very unaristotelian. Do you have a reference?

I don't think it is appropriate to say that the thing which is measured is "time-like" because as the thing measured, it is the real thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, what is measured is some change, like the apparent motion of the heavens, the flow of sand, or atomic oscillations. If we stay in one place and measure only the time between two events, a different observer, moving with respect to us, will see the same two events as separated by space and by a different time interval. So, time is not a fixed thing, but depends on the relation between observers and events.

"Space-like" and "time-like" are terms of art in physics which characterize space-time intervals.

My point was that if you want to engage those whom you want to convince, you don't want to open the discussion by poisoning the well with such an obnoxious and unfair accusation. — SophistiCat

I am sorry for offending you. My remark was not personal. It was based on my experience of discussions with naturalists. Some have even rejected the foundations of science in order to maintain their faith positions.

you don't appear to be familiar with secular thought on this subject. — SophistiCat

I suppose time will tell. Have I made some specific error of biological fact, or ignored some obvious rejoinder? If so, I welcome your correction.

You may, of course, engage with whom you wish.

I am sorry for offending you. — Dfpolis

That's ok, I wasn't really offended, and looking back, my sharp tone was unnecessary.

It was based on my experience of discussions with naturalists. Some have even rejected the foundations of science in order to maintain their faith positions. — Dfpolis

Given that your ideas of what constitutes foundations of science are rather idiosyncratic, I suspect that what you interpret as patent irrationality in the service of "maintaining faith positions" is simply a case of disagreement over those matters.

Anyway, I am not surprised at the hostile reception from self-professed naturalists who engage with you in Youtube comments. Teleology, rightly or wrongly, is commonly associated with intelligent agency, making it a poor fit for anything that doesn't have to do with human psychology, except in the context of supernatural and theological explanations. I myself am not entirely sold, not so much on teleology, as on the importance of the controversy. Some of it is merely semantic. And some, like teleology vs. teleonomy, just doesn't present high enough stakes in my mind. But that is probably because I view the issue in the epistemological plane, more than in the ontological one, and in epistemology I favor pluralism. So it's no big deal for me to accept teleological-sounding modes of explanation where they make sense.

Have I made some specific error of biological fact, or ignored some obvious rejoinder? If so, I welcome your correction. — Dfpolis

Your mistake is to charge in like a culture warrior, thinking that naturalists would necessarily be on the opposite side of the barricades, whereas much of the conversation about teleology appears to be secular. Why would a naturalist have an issue with a complex systems analysis of teleology, for example?

Given that your ideas of what constitutes foundations of science are rather idiosyncratic, I suspect that what you interpret as patent irrationality in the service of "maintaining faith positions" is simply a case of disagreement over those matters — SophistiCat

The point in question was special pleading by naturalists on the principle of sufficient reason. My position, stated by Freud in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, is that if you allow any exception to the principle, you undermine the whole structure of science. For example, suppose that Becquerel announces his discovery of radioactivity at a conference, describing the observations that support his conclusion. Everyone is impressed, except for a naturalist who stands up in the back of the rooms and says, "My dear Professor Becquerel, that is all very impressive, but you forget that your observation may simply be a brute fact -- one of those phenomena requiring no explanation." What is Becquerel to say, but, "Every phenomenon has a sufficient cause"?

I am not surprised at the hostile reception from self-professed naturalists who engage with you in Youtube comments. — SophistiCat

Actually, the explicit renunciation was in the late 1990s on a discussion board sponsored by Victor J. Stenger. It occurred after no one could rebut my argument for the existence of God in a manner consistent with the foundations of science.

Teleology, rightly or wrongly, is commonly associated with intelligent agency, making it a poor fit for anything that doesn't have to do with human psychology, except in the context of supernatural and theological explanations. — SophistiCat

It depends on what you mean by "supernatural and theological explanations." If you mean faith-based explanations, they do not belong in philosophy, and I do not propose to put them there. If you mean to exclude "theology" in the sense used by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, I see no reason to exclude, a priori, any rational reflection on human experience. Do you?

It is clear from physics, chemistry and biology that many systems have a potential to a determinate end. That is all it means to have a telos. It is a separate question whether the existence of teloi implies the existence of an originating mind. Of course the safe, but intellectually dishonest, move is to deny the existence of teloi, so that one need never face the origin question.

If you're a naturalist, then you see no clear demarcation between rational beings and any other being. They are all simply points on a scale of increasing complexity. So, there is no rationale for allowing goals for humans while denying them to other natural systems.

in epistemology I favor pluralism — SophistiCat

I do as well with my Projection Paradigm, seeing all human knowledge as dimensionally diminished maps of reality. We each have a standpoint from which we experience and one or more conceptual spaces onto which we project our experience. We can enrich our model of reality by seeking diverse projections in an effort to overcome our cultural and historical limitations.

Why would a naturalist have an issue with a complex systems analysis of teleology, for example? — SophistiCat

It is a contingent fact of experience that they generally do. I strongly suspect it is because they see telloi as strong evidence of intelligence -- which they reject on a priori grounds.

What Kant did was to maintain the existence of noumenal reality while denying that it could be known -- thus staking a fundamentally irrational position. — Dfpolis

Not at all. What he denied was that it could be known scientifically. That is, whatever the axioms of knowledge of his time were - or call them presuppositions - they could not ground, in scientific terms, knowledge of reality. In practical terms, certainly he knew and allowed for knowledge - as practical knowledge. Failure to understand this distinction puts the question of how Kant could know that the chair he was about to sit on was really a chair, and really there, and puts the person to whom to the question is directed in the absurd position of having to answer it.

Whether or not Kant's physics is now entirely exploded is more than I know. I'm guessing that it has a Newtonian aspect, in that whatever precision it may have seemed to have then, is now at best approximation - as is Newtonian physics. But philosophy is not physics, is not science. In this, his philosophy, his thought is still potent and must be traversed if one is not to be considered a naive philosopher.

But I am taking a step back to its ontology. WHAT is "doing some symbolic modeling" without being self-referential? What is this "symbolic modelling" in and of itself? It turns into just word-games on the concept of mind. — schopenhauer1

I don't see the issue you're trying to point out, perhaps you could elaborate. Of course there must be some sort of "self", we're talking about intention, and intention is a property of something, it's not self-subsistent. But even "self-subsistent" implies self, intention would itself be a self..

I don't recall such a statement, which seems very unaristotelian. Do you have a reference? — Dfpolis

OK, I'm going to get you the reference, but we've been through this game before. Please do not dismiss my references as if they aren't really what Aristotle meant, just to support your crazy ideas about Aristotle, as you did the last time we played this game.

Read Physics Bk.4, Ch. 11, 219a:
"Time then is a kind of number (Number we must note is used in two senses--both of what is counted or the countable, and also of that with which we count. Time obviously is what is counted, not that with which we count: these are different kinds of things)"

Then read Ch.12, 220b, where it is clearly explained that time is what is counted, and we measure it with movement, while we also measure movement with time. This he says is natural, (not circular) because movement is over distance, and that (distance), is what is measured with time, while time itself is measured with movement. Movement has two aspects, distance and time. The distance aspect of movement is measured by time, while time itself is measured by movement.

So after describing how time is the thing which is counted, what is measured, but in another way it is also what measures, he then proceeds to describe how time is a measure of movement.

No, what is measured is some change, like the apparent motion of the heavens, the flow of sand, or atomic oscillations. — Dfpolis

You seem to be forgetting the fact that there is a process whereby the time which is future to us, becomes the time which is past to us. Tomorrow, in two days will be yesterday. So as I sit and write this, there is becoming more and more past, and less and less future. This process, whereby the future becomes the past, I call the passing of time, some call it the flow of time. That is what is being measured the passing of time. The measurement tool is the clock, what you call "the apparent motion of the heavens", "the flow of sand", "atomic oscillations". What these clocks are measuring is the passing of time.

What he denied was that it could be known scientifically. — tim wood

I do not pretend to be an expert on Kant. I read the Prolegomena, notThe Critique of Pure Reason, so I rely on secondary sources.

The contradictoriness of the Kantian doctrine of things in themselves is indubitable... — T. I. Oizerman, I. Kant's Doctrine of the 'Things in Themselves' and Noumena

Since the thing in itself (Ding an sich) would by definition be entirely independent of our experience of it, we are utterly ignorant of the noumenal realm. — The Philosophy Pages by Garth Kemerling

Though the noumenal holds the contents of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena and can never penetrate to the noumenon. Man, however, is not altogether excluded from the noumenal because practical reason—i.e., the capacity for acting as a moral agent—makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated in which freedom, God, and immortality abide. — The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

I note that what is merely postulated is not in any sense known. So, my question is, if noumena can't be know scientifically, how can they be known?

I'm not saying that Kant doubted the self-consistency of phenomenal reality -- upon which practical reason relies. I 'm saying that Kant invents noumena that necessarily stand behind appearances, while, contradictorily, are not what appears. The theory is utterly incoherent.

Whether or not Kant's physics is now entirely exploded is more than I know. I'm guessing that it has a Newtonian aspect, in that whatever precision it may have seemed to have then, is now at best approximation — tim wood

The question is not one of accuracy. It is one of substantial misunderstanding. Time is supposed to be a form imposed by the mind. Surely the time Kant thought so imposed was not something that could develop a spatial component. Yet, that is precisely what Special Relativity tells us happens when we change frames of reference. So, the form of time Kant believed to be imposed on experience is not really imposed on experience. Experience has shown us that time is at least partially convertable with space.

Read Physics Bk.4, Ch. 11, 219a:
"Time then is a kind of number (Number we must note is used in two senses--both of what is counted or the countable, and also of that with which we count. Time obviously is what is counted, not that with which we count: these are different kinds of things)" — Metaphysician Undercover

Thank you for the reference, but note that it is not the conclusion, only a step in a two chapter analysis of the nature of time. The conclusion at the end of ch, 11, is: "It is clear, then, that time is 'number of movement in respect of the before and after', and is continuous since it is an attribute of what is continuous." "Number of movement" is "measure of change" in other translations.

. What these clocks are measuring is the passing of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not quite. Since we cannot see time, we can't measure it. We can see change, so that is what we measure to determine the passage of time.

I note that what is merely postulated is not in any sense known. So, my question is, if noumena can't be know scientifically, how can they be known? — Dfpolis

Now there's a big statement. You're aware that Coppleson, in his chapter on modern philosophy, says that the attitude that 'all that can be known, can be known by means of science', is the essential meaning of positivism. When I first read that, forty years ago, it inspired me to enroll in philosophy to articulate what's wrong with it - I've been working on it ever since.

Certainly, there is an enormous range of things which we can know by means of science. But as you yourself say, science relies on a 'great abstraction' and also on quantification - the ability to divide, count, measure and so forth and so on. One doesn't have to deprecate that ability to say that there are intuitions and forms of understanding which it can't accommodate or explain. Even Einstein said that 'not everything that counts can be counted'.

In respect of the 'noumenal', the root of the word is 'nous' (the seminal Greek word for mind or intellect), and the etymology is as follows:

The Greek word νοούμενoν nooúmenon, plural νοούμενα nooúmena, is the neuter middle-passive present participle of νοεῖν noeîn "to think, to mean", which in turn originates from the word νοῦς noûs, an Attic contracted form of νόος nóos[a] "perception, understanding, mind." A rough equivalent in English would be "something that is thought", or "the object of an act of thought".

The problem is that Kant himself often equivocated about what exactly he meant by the term (something for which he was later criticized by Schopenhauer.) But the reading that I gave from Westacott is that, as he says, the idea is that we can't perceive any object as it is in itself, but only as it appears to us, as it is 'given to us in appearances'. But I don't think that it means that the world is populated by mysterious unknown objects. It seems to me, most people (even Schopenhauer) object to the implied sense of there being a mysterious domain, and want to look behind or through the appearance to see what it really is, to 'pull aside the curtain' so to speak. But the whole point is, we can't do that - knowledge is limited to appearances, given to us by the senses, judged according to the categories.*

Eric Rietan puts it like this:

when we passively experience the “external” world, what comes to us immediately is already merely an “appearance” rather than the thing in itself. But as human beings, we rarely just experience the world passively—and whenever we try to do something more (whenever we form beliefs about the world) we do so in terms of conceptual categories that are a part of our cognitive make-up rather than part of reality “in itself.” This means that the object of the understanding—the object as something we can have beliefs about, learn things about, etc.—is in a sense even further removed from the noumenon, the “thing as it is in itself,” than is the uncomprehended phenomenal object (what we might suppose is experienced by the newborn baby, [for whom of course experience is a chaos of unintegrated stimuli and wants]).

For these reasons Kant draws a line between the world of phenomenal objects that we can study and learn things about and the world of things-in-themselves (the noumenal world). In fact, Kant was convinced that our knowledge could never reach beyond the realm of phenomena. He thought we could confidently say there is a noumenal reality, a thing in itself, that isn’t identical with the phenomenal object we directly encounter in experience. While he’s convinced that “all theoretical knowledge of reason is limited to objects of experience,” that is, to phenomenal objects as presented by intuition and conceptualized by our cognition, he also thinks “that this leaves perfectly open to us to think the same objects as things in themselves, though we cannot know them. For otherwise we should arrive at the absurd conclusion that there is appearance without something that appears.”

So, in summary: we can know that there are things-in-themselves or noumena, we cannot know anything about them. The objects of perception are already shaped by the process of being perceived, and are further shaped by the conceptual categories we must make use of in order to even begin to formulate knowledge claims.

Even here, I take exception to 'the noumenal world' - I think it's a misleading expression, in that it connotes some place or domain. But it's not a place or domain, it is transcendent to time and space, not locatable in their terms.

And I don't see how anything that has been subsequently been discovered by physics or any form of science, can undermine that essential understanding. And I think this comes out in (for example) philosophy of science - Kuhn's 'paradigms', Polanyi's 'tacit knowledge', Pierre Duhem, and so on.

The world *is* mysterious. We can't forget that, ever. It doesn't mean wandering around in a state of bamboozlement or mystification - it is much nearer to the Socratic intuition of 'all I know is that I know nothing' - even though I apparently know a great deal.


_________________
*The second implication of 'noumenon' is that the 'noumenal' is an 'ideal object' - again, reminiscent of a Platonic form (although still compatible with the limitations placed on that by Aristotle's 'moderate realism'.) This is that the mind can know ideal forms, such as geometrical forms, and mathematical axioms, in a direct and unmediated way that is not possible for sensory objects. I don't think Kant intended to connote that, but there's an echo of it in the word itself.

Thank you for the reference, but note that it is not the conclusion, only a step in a two chapter analysis of the nature of time. The conclusion at the end of ch, 11, is: "It is clear, then, that time is 'number of movement in respect of the before and after', and is continuous since it is an attribute of what is continuous." "Number of movement" is "measure of change" in other translations. — Dfpolis

Quit playing games. Read the passage and change your opinion of what Aristotle wrote to reflect what he really wrote. It very clearly states: "number we must note is used in two senses". And, it states "time obviously is what is counted, not that with which we count". This is not an issue of translation. Furthermore, the following passages, culminating at Ch.12, 220b, clearly verify this through explanation. If you would simply read Bk.4, chapters 11&12, you would clearly see that there is no doubt as to what is meant. Your objection is nothing but a denial of what is written.

Not quite. Since we cannot see time, we can't measure it. We can see change, so that is what we measure to determine the passage of time. — Dfpolis

By what principle must something be seen to be measured? Do you see the air temperature in your room? The passing of time is real, and it is measured, but it is not seen. It is not a physical thing.

my question is, if noumena can't be know scientifically, how can they be known? — Dfpolis

Now there's a big statement. You're aware that Coppleson, in his chapter on modern philosophy, says that the attitude that 'all that can be known, can be known by means of science', is the essential meaning of positivism. When I first read that, forty years ago, it inspired me to enroll in philosophy to articulate what's wrong with it - I've been working on it ever since. — Wayfarer

It was a question, not a statement. I'm not a positivist. We can know some things with more certitude than the hypothetico-deductive method can ever provide. Yet, Kant denies the efficacy of any experience-based approach to noumena. So, again, how can they be known, not postulated?

we can't perceive any object as it is in itself, but only as it appears to us, as it is 'given to us in appearances'. — Wayfarer

I have no problem with this claim in isolation if it is taken to mean that we cannot know objects exhaustively, as God knows them. Aquinas is also quite firm on this point, saying that we do not know essences directly, but via accidents (forms of appearance). The problem is that, as I and many others read Kant, he is not only denying God-like knowledge in humans, but any true knowledge of things in themselves. Yet, if noumena stand behind phenomena, 'affecting' us (as Kant says), then we certainly know that they have the power to so affect is -- to induce our experience of their correlative phenomena. So, while I sympathize with much of what Kant seems to be struggling toward, I think he has it wrong -- and disastrously so.

knowledge is limited to appearances, given to us by the senses, judged according to the categories. — Wayfarer

This is where Locke got it wrong, saying we only know our ideas. As I have explained previously, this confuses formal and instrumental signs. We first know things via ideas, then, in a second movement of thought, realize that our means of knowing things are ideas. Ideas are thus formal signs -- existents that only do one thing: signify. Locke, and Kant after him, conceived of ideas as instrumental signs -- as things that must first must be discerned in themselves before they can signify -- just has we need to make out the form of letters before we can know what a word means.

So, it is not that phenomena/appearances/ideas stand between us and the ting in its self. Rather they are the means whereby we know the ding an sich.

when we passively experience the “external” world, what comes to us immediately is already merely an “appearance” rather than the thing in itself.

This is either-or thinking. We don't experience either the thing in itself, or the appearance. Rather, the appearance is the thing in itself as revealed to us. As I have also said previously, the sensible object's modification of my sensory system is identically my sensory representation of the object. Thus, the thing in itself existentially penetrates me -- the same neural content is both the object's action on me and my sensory image of the object.

this leaves perfectly open to us to think the same objects as things in themselves, though we cannot know them.

Yes, it does, but it gives us no more reason to believe in their reality than we have to believe in the reality of Harry Potter. On the other hand, Aristotle's insight that the object informing the subject is identically the subject being informed by the object eliminates the epistic gap that so troubled Locke and Kant.

I don't see how anything that has been subsequently been discovered by physics or any form of science, can undermine that essential understanding. — Wayfarer

It can't. But, it can confirm the analysis showing that it was ill-conceive ab initio. Appearances are not obstacles but means of knowing. Ideas do not stand in the way of knowing, they are the instruments of knowledge. There is no epistic gap, there is a partial identity of knower and known in the act of knowing.

While the world is mysterious, it also reveals itself to us -- often in surprising ways.

I don't see the issue you're trying to point out, perhaps you could elaborate. Of course there must be some sort of "self", we're talking about intention, and intention is a property of something, it's not self-subsistent. But even "self-subsistent" implies self, intention would itself be a self.. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is the mind instantiated in? Does calling it symbolic modeling somehow solve this self-arising of mind?

So, my question is, if noumena can't be know scientifically, how can they be known? — Dfpolis

Wrong way 'round. He doesn't start with noumena. he starts with, e.g, the chair. He know it's a chair. Then the question becomes three-fold: 1) what does it mean that it is a chair, 2) how does he know it is a chair, and 3) how - what - does he know about how he knows it's a chair. By the time you get through this, you know it's a chair, but in terms of the philosophy of science of the time, you can't ground that knowledge in the science.

And this even now is both a cognitive problem and a physical problem. In terms of what is in my mind in thinking about my chair, what is it, exactly, that is in my mind? It can't be the chair. Even my perceptions of the chair change moment by moment. And my perceptions such as they are, are not simple either. In terms of the thing that is the chair, what is that but a cloud of really small particles - actually so small with respect to the space the chair defines, that it, the chair, is mostly, or nearly entirely, nothing at all.

So "smart" people routinely mock Kant for his unknowable noumena, but in truth they merely exhibit both a failure and an unwillingness to understand Kant, and even the ordinary German word, Wissenschaft, science. When Kant talks about noumena, it is in terms of Wissenschaft.

Sorry, but I'm not accustomed to your use of "instantiated". Could you explain?

Thank you, but you still did not explain why there is anything other than the phenomenological chair. Why should there be a separate, unknowable, chair in itself and how do we know that there is?

Your question is, why there is anything other than the phenomenal chair? I do not think anyone claims that there is any thing other than the phenomenal chair. What separate chair would there be? The only chair is the phenomenal chair. But let's try a quick thought experiment. As it happens, the chair is red. But we turn out the lights. What color is the chair now? And we might as well ask, what makes it a chair? Is it a chair, in its own self?

Lewis White Beck, in a preface to one of his translations of one of Kant's Critiques makes an illuminating point. His (Kant's) more frequent phrase is not ding an sich, but rather ding an sich selbst, translated as "thing in itself as it is in itself." Distinguishing it from what our perception renders it to our consciousness.

So that's the challenge. Granted there's a chair. You perceive it all day long, if you like. Now try to say something, anything, about the chair that is not in any way conditioned and informed by (your) perception. I think Kant would argue that you can't. That is to say that science, which has in itself no perception, can say nothing about the chair. What do you say?

Sorry, but I'm not accustomed to your use of "instantiated". Could you explain? — Metaphysician Undercover

Representations are made by minds. What is the thing that is an emergent mind? What is the emerging itself?

The problem is that, as I and many others read Kant, he is not only denying God-like knowledge in humans, but any true knowledge of things in themselves. Yet, if noumena stand behind phenomena, 'affecting' us (as Kant says), then we certainly know that they have the power to so affect is -- to induce our experience of their correlative phenomena. So, while I sympathize with much of what Kant seems to be struggling toward, I think he has it wrong -- and disastrously so. — Dfpolis

Well, Kantian scholarship is notoriously difficult, and I'm certainly not claiming to be a Kant expert. But I still feel as though this is an erroneous interpretation; I'm in agreement with Tim Wood on this point.

'Things in themselves' are not some mysterious bogie-man lurking behind the curtains. As Emrys Westacott says, it is simply an observation about the conditional nature of knowledge - that all human knowledge is in some sense constructed and mediated - we're not 'all-knowing', even in respect of those things that we seem to know exactly. And that actually is quite in keeping with what you then go onto say about Aquinas. I think from the perspective of Christian philosophy, we only see 'through a glass darkly' - that this is an inevitable consequence of the human condition.

"when we passively experience the “external” world, what comes to us immediately is already merely an “appearance” rather than the thing in itself."

This is either-or thinking. We don't experience either the thing in itself, or the appearance. Rather, the appearance is the thing in itself as revealed to us. — Dfpolis

We can't deny that our knowledge comprises, in part, sensory impressions, and in part judgements and comparisons, right? When you perceive something - large, small, alive or inanimate, local or remote - there is a considerable amount of work involved in ‘creating’ it as an object from the raw material of perception. Your eyes receive the lightwaves reflected or emanated from it, your mind organises the image with regards to all of the other stimuli impacting your senses at that moment – either acknowledging it, or ignoring it, depending on how busy you are; your memory will then compare it to other objects you have seen, from whence you will (hopefully) recall its name, and perhaps know something about it.

And that is the understanding behind 'constructivism', and it's very different to representative realism. So in that respect, Kant is completely different to Locke - in fact, Locke was just the kind of empiricist he had in mind when he said 'percepts without concepts are blind'.

Why should there be a separate, unknowable, chair in itself and how do we know that there is? — Dfpolis

The original question of philosophy was something like 'how do we know what things really are?' and 'how do we know what is real?' The ancient philosophers were exercising real scepticism - not the armchair variety, but contemplating the possibility that what we take for granted as real, might be in some fundamental sense illusory - not just this or that aspect of it, but the whole box and dice.

So right from the outset a duality or even dichotomy was posed between 'reality and appearance'. That was the subject of the grand metaphysical texts of yesteryear. In the transition to modernity, the whole subject was divided along a different axis, revolving around what was measurable and the so-called 'primary qualities' of objects which were just those attributes measurable by Cartesian algebraic geometry.

But the older style of metaphysical analysis was concerned with understanding the real essence of things - what makes something what it is, how it can change and yet still retain its identity, how it can be related to other things of the same kind. That is the background to the question 'what is the real X' and the distinction between reality and appearance - a distinction which manifests in Kant as the difference between the noumenal and phenomenal domains.

(I know that these are all really big subjects and I'm making a lot of sweeping statements but then it's that kind of subject. And by the way, the web essay I keep harking back to on the continuing relevance of Kant is really worth a read. Westacott is a professor of philosophy and knows of what he writes.)

The point in question was special pleading by naturalists on the principle of sufficient reason. My position, stated by Freud in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, is that if you allow any exception to the principle, you undermine the whole structure of science. — Dfpolis

It occurred after no one could rebut my argument for the existence of God in a manner consistent with the foundations of science. — Dfpolis

That's just as I said: your ideas about science and the PSR are idiosyncratic, and I expect that you will find few allies, regardless of their position on naturalism. And when you add boasts like this, you, frankly, sound like a crank. If you want to make a persuasive case, you don't want to explicitly hinge it on extreme foundational positions that few are likely to accept as an unconditional ultimatum.

It depends on what you mean by "supernatural and theological explanations." — Dfpolis

I mean the kind of explanations that hinge on the existence of a powerful and largely inscrutable personal agent.

It is clear from physics, chemistry and biology that many systems have a potential to a determinate end. That is all it means to have a telos — Dfpolis

I strongly suspect it is because they see telloi as strong evidence of intelligence — Dfpolis

That is far too general to be of much use. Any system that exhibits any regularity has "telos" in this sense, but so what? Any connection to intelligence is far from obvious.

[Kant] does not say that it makes no sense to talk about there being things in themselves. He presupposes that there's a way in which things are in themselves. And then denies that we can know that. — Πετροκότσυφας

A denial which I have no problem with. Everything science has told us is compatible with the universe being a simulation. Heck, if you say it’s a computer simulation, then many a learned scientist will smile wryly. 'Maybe', they'll say. But say 'it’s the product of a higher intelligence' and, if you do get a smile, it will be one of a completely different character.

So am I arguing for belief in a higher intelligence? Actually I'm not, because I don't think that is the role of philosophy. I do agree with Polis that science doesn't explain the very laws that make science possible in the first place. But the step from that, to saying that 'therefore, there must be a Creator', is another matter; that is where I'm more inclined to being circumspect (or agnostic, which amounts to the same). I like to say that 'philosophy drops you at the border' - it shows you that a great deal of what you take for granted about 'what everyone knows' may actually be questioned. If it evokes that sense of the unknown into which we're gazing, then it's doing its job.

Representations are made by minds. What is the thing that is an emergent mind? What is the emerging itself? — schopenhauer1

What would you mean by "emergent", and is this an appropriate adjective for "mind"?

We can't deny that our knowledge comprises, in part, sensory impressions, and in part judgements and comparisons, right? When you perceive something - large, small, alive or inanimate, local or remote - there is a considerable amount of work involved in ‘creating’ it as an object from the raw material of perception. Your eyes receive the lightwaves reflected or emanated from it, your mind organises the image with regards to all of the other stimuli impacting your senses at that moment – either acknowledging it, or ignoring it, depending on how busy you are; your memory will then compare it to other objects you have seen, from whence you will (hopefully) recall its name, and perhaps know something about it.

And that is the understanding behind 'constructivism', and it's very different to representative realism. So in that respect, Kant is completely different to Locke - in fact, Locke was just the kind of empiricist he had in mind when he said 'percepts without concepts are blind'. — Wayfarer

I think this is very well expressed, and it is an issue which Dfpolis ought to take into consideration. Dfpolis consistently describes the sensory and neurological systems of beings as reacting to the environment, being caused by the environment to produce sensations, in a physicalist and representative way. Df does not seem to have respect for the possibility that the being is actively creating sensations, and is therefore the proper "cause" of sensations.

The problem is that DfPolis has also argued in this thread, that teleology, final cause, intent, is widespread throughout the biological realm. This appears as inconsistency in Df''s position. If we recognize final cause as a constructive element in the biological realm, we ought to also recognize its role in the construction of sensory experience.

So for an analogical example, we see that a house is built with final cause as the principal cause. It is not a case of the appropriate material, formal, and efficient causes coming together, by chance, to build a house. These other causes are directed by the agency of final cause. Likewise, if we recognize final cause as active throughout the biological realm, we ought to see the construction of sensory experience in a similar way. Sensation is not a case of the appropriate material, formal, and efficient causes coming together through some random chance, these are directed by final cause, such that sensation is a constructed experience.

What would you mean by "emergent", and is this an appropriate adjective for "mind"? — Metaphysician Undercover

I actually agree. What is emergent? I'm not sure its an appropriate adjective, because I don't really understand what/how this emerging process is, to create a whole new ontological category called "mind". Thus there are these word-games going on here with "information", "representation", and "emerging" being thrown around. All it is is tautological (i.e. mind = emerging properties of symbolic modelling, etc. etc.). It really doesn't say much about mind itself.

Your question is, why there is anything other than the phenomenal chair? I do not think anyone claims that there is any thing other than the phenomenal chair. What separate chair would there be? The only chair is the phenomenal chair. But let's try a quick thought experiment. As it happens, the chair is red. But we turn out the lights. What color is the chair now? And we might as well ask, what makes it a chair? Is it a chair, in its own self? — tim wood

As I read Kant, the noumenal chair cannot be the phenomenal chair because in knowing the phenomenal chair, we know nothing of the noumenal chair. If they were the same being, in knowing one, we would necessarily know the other. So, why add a noumenal chair, when, ex hypothesis, we have no way of knowing it?

As to your specific question: To say "the chair is red" means that the identical percept that evokes the concept <chair> evokes the concept <red>. It does not mean that every percept that evokes the concept <chair> will evoke the concept <red>. That is why Aristotle classed red is an accident, but chairs as substances.

We know, scientifically, that if we illuminate an object that appears red in normal light with pure green light, it will be black. Does this mean that our perception of color tells us nothing of the of the chair in itself? Of course not. It is just that what it tells us is a bit more complex than naive realists think. Both the red and black colors have the same foundation in reality: They are different manifestations of the chair's spectral response (what percentage of each wave length of light is absorbed and what percentage is scattered back). So our perception of color adds to our knowledge of the chair in itself, just not in the way we may have thought naively. The same applies to a number of the chairs other Aristotelian accidents. E.g. its dimensions and mass change with our frame of reference. This does not make them ill-defined in themselves, just more complex than we used to think.

Still, in all light conditions and frames of reference, the chair remains a chair. It is still a piece of furniture designed and built to be sat upon. That's because being a particular kind of substance does not depend on the conditions of observation. We know what kind of thing it is from experience, and so appearances can and do tell us about the substantial nature of things -- although not exhaustively.

Lewis White Beck, in a preface to one of his translations of one of Kant's Critiques makes an illuminating point. His (Kant's) more frequent phrase is not ding an sich, but rather ding an sich selbst, translated as "thing in itself as it is in itself." Distinguishing it from what our perception renders it to our consciousness. — tim wood

Distinguishing object coram intuiti intellectuali (before intellectual perception -- a phase Kant uses) and the object in the act of perception is hardly a Kantian innovation. Aristotle goes on at length on the distinction between sensibility, measurability and intelligibility one the one hand, and actual sensations, measure numbers and concepts on the other. These distinctions were well-known to Aquinas and continue to be used in the Aristotelian-Thomistic community today.

The difference is that the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition recognizes that when we actualize sensibility, measurability and intelligibility we are informed about reality, but the Kantian tradition misses this obvious point. So, how can it be that phenomena, which actualize sensibility, measurability and intelligibility, are incapable of informing us of the sensibility, measurability and intelligibility of reality?

Now try to say something, anything, about the chair that is not in any way conditioned and informed by (your) perception. I think Kant would argue that you can't. That is to say that science, which has in itself no perception, can say nothing about the chair. What do you say? — tim wood

There is no reason why I should avoid what is "conditioned and informed by ... perception." What your formulation abstracts away is that perception is relational. We never have abstract perceptions. our perceptions are always perceptions of ..., which is to say perceptions are relational. They relate subjects to their objects. So, my question back to you is what right to I have to speak of anything I have never encountered? As doing so is utterly ridiculous, so, your question is equally absurd.

Let me put it in a different way, perception, in actualizing the sensibility, measurability and intelligibility of objects, is our standard way of knowing reality. So, your question question seems to assume that we can know reality without employing the standard means of knowing reality. That is why my question, "How do we know noumena?" is critical -- because it must be some non-standard way of knowing, if it is knowing at all.

Finally, how can it be knowing at all unless it actualizes the intelligibility of the noumenon? For doesn't knowing require making what was merely intelligible actually known?

As Emrys Westacott says, it is simply an observation about the conditional nature of knowledge - that all human knowledge is in some sense constructed and mediated - we're not 'all-knowing', even in respect of those things that we seem to know exactly. And that actually is quite in keeping with what you then go onto say about Aquinas. I think from the perspective of Christian philosophy, we only see 'through a glass darkly' - that this is an inevitable consequence of the human condition. — Wayfarer

I have no problem with this as a view of reality. My problem lies with the claim that we have no knowledge of noumena -- and that is a widely held interpretation of Kant. (As illustrated by a number of quotations I posted yesterday.) As I also observed, this seems to reflect Locke's view that we only know our ideas -- and the concomitant failure to see that ideas are primarily the means, rather than the object, of knowledge. (I'm not saying that Kant follows Locke in other respects.)

When you perceive something - large, small, alive or inanimate, local or remote - there is a considerable amount of work involved in ‘creating’ it as an object from the raw material of perception — Wayfarer

Yes. In daily life, we take what is given and typically fill in a lot of gaps with constructs. If we're careful, we can sort data from constructs, but usually we don't.

... That is the background to the question 'what is the real X' and the distinction between reality and appearance - a distinction which manifests in Kant as the difference between the noumenal and phenomenal domains. — Wayfarer

I have no problem with your historical thumbnail. My problem is that Kant has put together an incoherent and even parochial system. I think I understand his goals and even his outlook, and obviously he has thought deeply, but he seems to have researched no further back than Descartes, Wolff and Locke. The abandonment of historical research in philosophy, of learning "the state of the question," began with Descartes and continues in Kant -- which is what I mean in saying they're parochial.

Thanks for the reference.