• Corvus
    3.2k
    Possibly, but his philosophy isn't complete without asking where these a priori pure intuitions and a priori Categories came from.RussellA
    Sure, but it is totally different thing asking about them to find out what Kant had meant by them, and asking about them to conclude their origin is innatism. The origin of A priori ideas in biological psychological sense would be in the interest of the evolutionary science rather than Philosophy.

    Having said that, that is just my opinion. You could always refute that with your point and the original text. If you quote any other 2nd 3rd commentaries for the points, there is always room for doubt, and opposition saying yeah but that is just a commentator's view. Now even SEP info is proven to be not 100% reliable source of knowledge. It is just a container for some articles which they think high standard, but their standards can be not 100% objective.

    When you refer to "universe" do you mean a universe within the mind or a universe external to the mind?RussellA
    Universally to mean "under all conditions", not in the physical universe.

    From the Principle of Sufficient Reason, an appearance must have a cause, which may well be unknown. This unknown cause can be called "x", or even "Thing-in-Itself".RussellA
    To talk about the unknowns, it would only make sense in the possible world of unknown, as I have made clear in the other thread "Reason to believe in the existence of the world".

    How can you know atoms exist, yet not believe in their existence?RussellA
    To believe in atoms, I must see it with my own eyes, and even be able to touch them. I was never been able to do so in my whole life, hence I cannot believe in its existence.

    I know atoms exist, because my physics teacher told us so in the high school class, and I read in the books. Hence it is a knowledge through the grapevine. Why should I trust it apart from the reason someone told me so? To trust and believe in them would be committing myself into naive vulgarity.

    It proves that some knowledge has weaker ground than the beliefs justified and verified with the perceivers witnessing and real life evidence. Hence SEP info is not always correct.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    If the concept of "apple" didn't exist, how could we be talking about the concept of "apple"?
    If the word "apple" wasn't real, how could we be writing about the word "apple"?
    RussellA

    What I was referring to as oxymoron, or self-contradictory, was

    "apples" and "electrons" are real in that they have an objective independent existence within language.RussellA

    'Objective and independent' stands in contradiction to 'within language'.

    Consider the mind and a mind-independent world.RussellA

    We cannot consider a mind-independent world, because to consider anything is to make it the subject of thought. You refer to 'the mind dependent' and 'mind independent' as if these are two separate realities, but that is comparison that can't be made.

    for the Empirical Realist, the apple that is perceived is a mere representation, not something that is mind-independent.

    When you say the apple exists, but doesn't have inherent existence, what do you mean?
    RussellA

    That it does not exist independently of the mind.


    @Mww - thanks for those excerpts and specific commentary. I'll bow out now unless I have something to add specific to the text.
  • Janus
    16.3k
    But I know they exist, because I read about them.Corvus

    Wrong...you know they are said to exist. And since there is no controversy regarding their existence among the experts, you have good grounds to believe they exist, You, curiously, have it all arse-about.
  • Mww
    4.9k
    No apple, as such, ever existed independently of that by which it is conceived, and, thereby, is represented by that name. The object represented by the concept, however, does.

    “….. In whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate to objects, it is at least quite clear that the only manner in which it immediately relates to them is by means of an intuition. To this as the indispensable groundwork, all thought points. But an intuition can take place only in so far as the object is given to us. This, again, is only possible, to man at least, on condition that the object affect the mind in a certain manner. The capacity for receiving representations (receptivity) through the mode in which we are affected by objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensibility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions. But all thought (of objects) must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us. The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition.

    The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon. That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form. But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation. It is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us à posteriori; the form must lie ready à priori for them in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from all sensation.

    Now, independently of sensibility, we cannot possibly have any intuition; consequently, the understanding is no faculty of intuition. But besides intuition there is no other mode of cognition, except through conceptions; consequently, the cognition of every, at least of every human, understanding is a cognition through conceptions—not intuitive, but discursive. All intuitions, as sensuous, depend on affections; conceptions, therefore, upon functions.

    By the word function I understand the unity of the act of arranging diverse representations under one common representation. Conceptions, then, are based on the spontaneity of thought, as sensuous intuitions are on the receptivity of impressions. Now, the understanding cannot make any other use of these conceptions than to judge by means of them. As no representation, except an intuition, relates immediately to its object, a conception never relates immediately to an object, but only to some other representation thereof, be that an intuition or itself a conception. A judgement, therefore, is the mediate cognition of an object, consequently the representation of a representation of it….”

    From “Contact”…..Small moves, Sparky. Small moves. Baby steps.
  • Mww
    4.9k
    I'll bow out now….Wayfarer

    Hopefully not on my account.
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    Wrong...you know they are said to exist. And since there is no controversy regarding their existence among the experts, you have good grounds to believe they exist, You, curiously, have it all arse-about.Janus
    If everyone was at your level, then they would still believe in flat earth. Experts worshipping syndrome does not prove anything.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    Not in the least, not the slightest. I feel my side-comments are derailing the thread.
  • Mww
    4.9k
    you know they are said to exist.Janus

    Agreed. To perceive the proposition is to perceive representations of its empirical content. To perceive a representation in the form of a word is not to perceive that real object which is represented by the word.

    Hell…if I told you I put a pot on the stove, even if you know what those are, you don’t know I have either of them, or that I did anything with them if I had them.
    ————

    I feel my side-comments are derailing the thread.Wayfarer

    Ahhh…if that’s your sentiment, so be it. I rather enjoy them myself.
  • Janus
    16.3k
    If you addressed the points I presented instead of making pointless claims about "my level" you might actually begin to do some philosophy. I don't believe in a flat earth by the way; do you? If not, on what basis do you not believe it?

    By the way, it's not a matter of "worshipping experts" but of provisionally accepting that in their area of expertise their experience is more comprehensive and their judgements better informed than yours are. You go further than I do anyway in trusting their judgement, since you say you know Andromeda exists. And to say you know something, but do not believe it is incoherent.

    Yep!
  • RussellA
    1.8k
    'Objective and independent' stands in contradiction to 'within language'.Wayfarer

    Isn't it admirable within philosophical language to be objective and have an independent point of view?
    ===============================================================================
    We cannot consider a mind-independent world, because to consider anything is to make it the subject of thought. You refer to 'the mind dependent' and 'mind independent' as if these are two separate realities, but that is comparison that can't be made.Wayfarer

    Yet we consider a mind-independent world every time we talk about the Universe before life began on Earth. For example, The Origins of the Universe by Michael Greshko
    ===============================================================================
    I'll bow out now unless I have something to add specific to the text.Wayfarer

    The question is, is a discussion about the terms "mind dependent" and "mind independent", which Kant didn't use, relevant to a text that does refer to "phenomena" and "noumena"?
  • RussellA
    1.8k
    The origin of A priori ideas in biological psychological sense would be in the interest of the evolutionary science rather than Philosophy.Corvus

    Surely good philosophy needs to justify its premises.

    If I said that aliens from Mars are running all governments, and made no attempt to justify my statement, I would get nowhere.

    Similarly, if I based a philosophy on the premise of a priori pure intuitions and a priori pure concepts of the understanding without attempting to justify my premise, my philosophy has been based on a weak foundation and will thereby be unpersuasive to many.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    Isn't it admirable within philosophical language to be objective and have an independent point of view?RussellA

    Indeed it is, but neither objectivity or independence are absolute, but dependent. Persons may be, of course, more or less objective, or more and less independent, but that independence and objectivity still does not provide a window on a world 'as it is in itself'.

    Yet we consider a mind-independent world every time we talk about the Universe before life began on Earth.RussellA

    whatever judgements are made about the world, the mind provides the framework within which such judgements are meaningful. So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle.Wayfarer
  • RussellA
    1.8k
    whatever judgements are made about the world, the mind provides the framework within which such judgements are meaningful. So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye- the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principleWayfarer

    Although my position is from Indirect Realism, can it be true that the content of all the scientific literature about the Universe prior to life can be dismissed as meaningless and unintelligible?

    After all, Kant was neither a Berkelian Idealist nor Phenomenalist.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    can it be true that the content of all the scientific literature about the Universe prior to life can be dismissed as meaningless and unintelligible?RussellA

    Not at all. But it is meaningful and intelligible to an observer. It is empirically the case that the world existed prior to any observer, but there is still an implicit perspective in that understanding.
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    Wrong...you know they are said to exist. And since there is no controversy regarding their existence among the experts, you have good grounds to believe they exist, You, curiously, have it all arse-about.Janus

    If you addressed the points I presented instead of making pointless claims about "my level" you might actually begin to do some philosophy. I don't believe in a flat earth by the way; do you? If not, on what basis do you not believe it?Janus
    If you were wise enough to use proper language instead of the derogatory word in you post, you would have not lowered your level in public as you have done.
    The way that you resort to the derogatory language on every post you wrote, gave impression you are not into philosophical discussions at all.

    By the way, it's not a matter of "worshipping experts" but of provisionally accepting that in their area of expertise their experience is more comprehensive and their judgements better informed than yours are. You go further than I do anyway in trusting their judgement, since you say you know Andromeda exists. And to say you know something, but do not believe it is incoherent.Janus
    You seem to be confusing between knowledge and truth, and justified belief.
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    Surely good philosophy needs to justify its premises.RussellA
    Sure.

    If I said that aliens from Mars are running all governments, and made no attempt to justify my statement, I would get nowhere.RussellA
    If you had strong enough evidences supporting your claims, then you might get somewhere.

    Similarly, if I based a philosophy on the premise of a priori pure intuitions and a priori pure concepts of the understanding without attempting to justify my premise, my philosophy has been based on a weak foundation and will thereby be unpersuasive to many.RussellA
    I am not sure if your justification using innate-ism were coherent for your premises or conclusions.
  • RussellA
    1.8k
    I am not sure if your justification using innate-ism were coherent for your premises or conclusions.Corvus

    Kant doesn't justify his premise that we have a priori pure intuitions and a priori pure concepts of the understanding.

    I suggest that his premise can be justified by the Principle of Innatism, a natural consequence of 3.5 billion years of evolution.

    Is there a better justification for his premise?
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    I suggest that his premise can be justified by the Principle of Innatism, a natural consequence of 3.5 billion years of evolution.

    Is there a better justification for his premise?
    RussellA

    It would only make sense to those folks believing in evolution. More than half the world population folks don't care about evolution. I mean if evolution were true, we would have had wings and fly around to the work instead commuting stuck in the traffic jam polluting and burning the toxic gasoline paying out fortune just for one example.

    Nothing has been happening with the human bodies or minds since the history began to show any scientific proof that evolution is true. The prehistoric world is full of imagination and fantasies.

    Therefore evolution based justifications has weak grounds in all logical arguments. But more importantly, in Kant's philosophy, it would be irrelevant.
  • Mww
    4.9k
    On the justification for, but not the deduction of, the pure a priori conceptions of the understanding:

    “…. General logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstraction of all content of cognition, and expects to receive representations from some other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into conceptions. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it the manifold content of à priori sensibility, which transcendental æsthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure conceptions of the understanding, without which transcendental logic would have no content, and be therefore utterly void. Now space and time contain an infinite diversity of determinations of pure à priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind’s receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations of objects, and which, consequently, must always affect the conception of these objects. But the spontaneity of thought requires that this diversity be examined after a certain manner, received into the mind, and connected, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of it. This Process I call synthesis.

    By the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I understand the process of joining different representations to each other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition. This synthesis is pure when the diversity is not given empirically but à priori (as that in space and time). Our representations must be given previously to any analysis of them; and no conceptions can arise regarding its content analytically. But the synthesis of a diversity (be it given à priori or empirically) is the first requisite for the production of a cognition, which in its beginning, indeed, may be crude and confused, and therefore in need of analysis—still, synthesis is that by which alone the elements of our cognitions are collected and united into a certain content, consequently it is the first thing on which we must fix our attention, if we wish to investigate the origin of our knowledge.

    Synthesis, generally speaking, is, as we shall afterwards see, the mere operation of the imagination—a blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should have no cognition whatever, but of the working of which we are seldom even conscious. But to reduce this synthesis to conceptions is a function of the understanding….

    ….. Pure synthesis, represented generally, gives us the pure conception of the understanding. But by this pure synthesis, I mean that which rests upon a basis of à priori synthetical unity…..

    ….. By means of analysis different representations are brought under one conception—an operation of which general logic treats**. On the other hand, the duty of transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions, not representations, but the pure synthesis of representations***. The first thing which must be given to us for the sake of the à priori cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the understanding. The same function which gives unity to the different representation in a judgement, gives also unity to the mere synthesis of different representations in an intuition; and this unity we call the pure conception of the understanding.

    Thus, the same understanding, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its representations****, on which account they are called pure conceptions of the understanding, and they apply à priori to objects, a result not within the power of general logic.….”
    (**and here is where the undetermined object of intuition becomes “apple”)
    (***whatever any undetermined object becomes, it does so in accordance with a rule)
    (****the rule)
    —————-

    On the justification for a priori pure intuitions:

    “….. It must be admitted that the Leibnitz-Wolfian philosophy has assigned an entirely erroneous point of view to all investigations into the nature and origin of our cognitions, inasmuch as it regards the distinction between the sensuous and the intellectual as merely logical, whereas it is plainly transcendental, and concerns not merely the clearness or obscurity, but the content and origin of both. For the faculty of sensibility not only does not present us with an indistinct and confused cognition of objects as things in themselves, but, in fact, gives us no knowledge of these at all. On the contrary, so soon as we abstract in thought our own subjective nature, the object represented, with the properties ascribed to it by sensuous intuition, entirely disappears, because it was only this subjective nature that determined the form of the object as a phenomenon.

    In phenomena, we commonly, indeed, distinguish that which essentially belongs to the intuition of them, and is valid for the sensuous faculty of every human being, from that which belongs to the same intuition accidentally, as valid not for the sensuous faculty in general, but for a particular state or organization of this or that sense. Accordingly, we are accustomed to say that the former is a cognition which represents the object itself, whilst the latter presents only a particular appearance or phenomenon thereof. This distinction, however, is only empirical. If we stop here (as is usual), and do not regard the empirical intuition as itself a mere phenomenon (as we ought to do), in which nothing that can appertain to a thing in itself is to be found, our transcendental distinction is lost, and we believe that we cognize objects as things in themselves, although in the whole range of the sensuous world, investigate the nature of its objects as profoundly as we may, we have to do with nothing but phenomena.

    Suppose, then, that space and time are in themselves objective, and conditions of the possibility of objects as things in themselves. In the first place, it is evident that both present us, with very many apodeictic and synthetic propositions à priori, but especially space—and for this reason we shall prefer it for investigation at present. As the propositions of geometry are cognized synthetically à priori, and with apodeictic certainty, I inquire: Whence do you obtain propositions of this kind, and on what basis does the understanding rest, in order to arrive at such absolutely necessary and universally valid truths? There is no other way than through intuitions or conceptions, as such; and these are given either à priori or à posteriori. The latter, namely, empirical conceptions, together with the empirical intuition on which they are founded, cannot afford any synthetical proposition, except such as is itself also empirical, that is, a proposition of experience.

    But an empirical proposition cannot possess the qualities of necessity and absolute universality, which, nevertheless, are the characteristics of all geometrical propositions. As to the first and only means to arrive at such cognitions, namely, through mere conceptions or intuitions à priori, it is quite clear that from mere conceptions no synthetical cognitions, but only analytical ones, can be obtained. Take, for example, the proposition: “Two straight lines cannot enclose a space, and with these alone no figure is possible,” and try to deduce it from the conception of a straight line and the number two; or take the proposition: “It is possible to construct a figure with three straight lines,” and endeavour, in like manner, to deduce it from the mere conception of a straight line and the number three. All your endeavours are in vain, and you find yourself forced to have recourse to intuition, as, in fact, geometry always does. You therefore give yourself an object in intuition. But of what kind is this intuition? Is it a pure à priori, or is it an empirical intuition? If the latter, then neither an universally valid, much less an apodeictic proposition can arise from it, for experience never can give us any such proposition. You must, therefore, give yourself an object à priori in intuition, and upon that ground your synthetical proposition.

    Now if there did not exist within you a faculty of intuition à priori; if this subjective condition were not in respect to its form also the universal condition à priori under which alone the object of this external intuition is itself possible; if the object (that is, the triangle) were something in itself, without relation to you the subject; how could you affirm that that which lies necessarily in your subjective conditions in order to construct a triangle, must also necessarily belong to the triangle in itself? For to your conceptions of three lines, you could not add anything new (that is, the figure); which, therefore, must necessarily be found in the object, because the object is given before your cognition, and not by means of it.

    If, therefore, space (and time also) were not a mere form of your intuition, which contains conditions à priori, under which alone things can become external objects for you, and without which subjective conditions the objects are in themselves nothing, you could not construct any synthetical proposition whatsoever regarding external objects. It is therefore not merely possible or probable, but indubitably certain, that space and time, as the necessary conditions of all our external and internal experience, are merely subjective conditions of all our intuitions, in relation to which all objects are therefore mere phenomena, and not things in themselves, presented to us in this particular manner. And for this reason, in respect to the form of phenomena, much may be said à priori, whilst of the thing in itself, which may lie at the foundation of these phenomena, it is impossible to say anything.…”

    The claim, it follows, that these justifications were not given in the body of the text, is catastrophically false.
  • AmadeusD
    2.6k
    No apple, as such, ever existed independently of that by which it is conceived, and, thereby, is represented by that name. The object represented by the concept, however, does.Mww

    This has struck me, in CPR, as absolutely nonsensical (which may just be me, hence questions).

    How could the concept of an apple indicate it's actual existence? You couldn't possibly have the concept without the phenomena, and the phenomena informing the concept is tautological. I haven't grasped this in the sense that, on multiple readings of several sections (I would need to pull out my copy to cite, so forgive.. tis a general comment anyway), it appears that I understand, and entirely reject the coherence of his position. Lil help? LOL.


    I mean if evolution were true, we would have had wings and fly around to the work instead commuting stuck in the traffic jam polluting and burning the toxic gasoline paying out fortune just for one example.Corvus

    What? That's not at all a reasonable comment on evolution to my mind. I hope i've missed something.
  • Mww
    4.9k
    No apple, as such, ever existed independently of that by which it is conceived, and, thereby, is represented by that name. The object represented by the concept, however, does.
    — Mww

    This has struck me, in CPR, as absolutely nonsensical (which may just be me, hence questions).

    How could the concept of an apple indicate it's actual existence?
    AmadeusD

    It doesn’t. The thing to be known by a particular name already existed; we just didn’t know what it was, how to talk about it.

    No object comes named; every object is named by a human, once upon a time. CPR is just one speculative method by which naming is possible by the human kind of intelligence, affectionately termed by some successor or another, as the “Copernican Revolution”. From which follows that every name, without exception, is a human invention, determined by some particular methodological system.

    Think about it: there are even to this day, in spite of your formal education and experiences, those occasions where you don’t know the cause of something that you’ve sensed. A bug bite on your arm….you sense the bite but that doesn’t immediately tell you which animal it was. The tickle on the back of your neck….you sense the tickle but don’t know whether it’s an errant hair or a spider. The loud bang from around the corner….you hear the sound, but don’t know whether it’s a firecracker or the tailgate on a dump truck.

    These days, though, it is usually the case where you’re given the object and the name of it at the same time, re: rote classroom instruction. In the beginning, you’re given a pencil and a piece of paper and told to trace out symbols, which you’re informed are letters and numbers…..and it’s off to the races for you.

    It’s easy to overlook the fact that the very first guy that decided what a 2 should look like, used exactly the same mental machinations as you used in learning it. And that machination is the relation between the thing as it is sensed, to the thing as it is thought. Simple as that, but to be complete, it remains to be considered which part of the relation occurs first.
    ————-

    You couldn't possibly have the concept without the phenomena, and the phenomena informing the concept is tautological.AmadeusD

    For practical experience, true enough. Phenomena always antecede the conception, but they certainly do inform the concept. And it is not tautological, insofar as….remember the bug bite? If such were the case, you’d know immediately which animal bit you merely from the sensation of the bite itself. But you don’t.

    Nevertheless….remember the time relation? Which came first? In the case of, e.g., black holes, the concept, grounded in math and pure logic, antecedes the phenomenon.
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    What? That's not at all a reasonable comment on evolution to my mind. I hope i've missed something.AmadeusD

    That was a metaphor.
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    Nevertheless….remember the time relation? Which came first? In the case of, e.g., black holes, the concept, grounded in math and pure logic, antecedes the phenomenon.Mww

    What about the concept of God? Which came first? The phenomenon or the concept?
  • RussellA
    1.8k
    You couldn't possibly have the concept without the phenomenaAmadeusD

    Some concepts are innate prior to any phenomena

    Suppose you touch sandpaper and feel a rough sensation and then touch silk and feel a smooth sensation. You have the concepts of rough and smooth and you have the phenomenal experiences of sandpaper and silk

    Why is it when touching sandpaper you feel a rough sensation rather than a smooth sensation? Is it because i) within the phenomena there are already sensations that will be subsequently experienced or ii) the sensations pre-exist any experience of the phenomena ?

    I would suggest that concepts such as rough and smooth are innate and pre-exist any phenomena subsequently experienced.

    One assumes that if what Kant says is true in the CPR, then it must be understandable in ordinary terms, otherwise it isn't relevant.

    Trying to understand Transcendental Idealism and Empirical Realism using the analogy of colour:

    1) For Kant, there are the a priori pure intuitions of space and time and the a priori pure concepts of understanding, ie the Categories. Although both a priori, the pure intuitions of space and time precedes and provides the framework for the pure concepts of understanding, in that I can imagine space and time with no objects within it but I cannot imagine objects not in a space and time.
    2) Space and time are intuitions because singular, and the Categories are concepts because general.
    3) Of the four Categories, quantity, quality, relation and modality, colour is within the Category of quality.
    4) Kant's Innatism, in the belief in a priori knowledge is a counter to Locke's Empiricism, in that the mind is a "Tabula Rasa" at birth.

    5) I am born with the ability to see the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm
    6) I am not born with any ability to see a colour when looking at a wavelength of 300nm
    7) Necessary, because when looking at a particular wavelength, I always perceive the same colour, in that I cannot decide sometimes to see the colour green and other times to see the colour blue. Universal, because in whatever space and time I happen to be in, when looking at a particular wavelength, I always perceive the same colour.

    8) It is a Sensible Intuition in the sense that I perceive the colour red when looking at the single wavelength of 700nm
    9) It is a Concept in the sense that I perceive the colour red when looking at wavelengths from 620nm to 750nm
    10) I am not born with the Concept of the colour red or a Sensible Intuition of the colour red, in that when not looking at a wavelength between 620nm and 750nm I cannot imagine the colour red. I am born with the ability to perceive colour only when looking at a particular wavelength of light.

    11) Perceiving a colour requires neither Judgement nor Understanding.

    12) When we perceive colour, we are perceiving something as an Appearance, a Phenomenon. We are not perceiving the cause of that Appearance, a Noumenon.
    13) However, from our inherent belief in the Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Law of Causation, we believe that something must have caused the phenomena that we perceive, and we can name these unknown things noumena
    14) Even though noumena are the cause of phenomena, this does not mean that a phenomenon is the same as the Noumenon that caused it. For example, even though I perceive the colour red, the colour red doesn't exist in the world, what exists in the world is a wavelength 700nm.
    15) From my belief in the Principle of Sufficient Reason, my belief in a wavelength of 700nm as the cause of my seeing the colour red is a Non-Sensible Intuition.

    It must be the case that if the CPR is true, no matter how complex it is as a book, its truth must be applicable to simple examples.
  • Mww
    4.9k
    What about the concept of God? Which came first? The phenomenon or the concept?Corvus

    Which presupposes God is, or may be, a phenomenon. If a God is conceived as the unconditioned, then to be a phenomenon necessarily contradicts the conception, insofar as all phenomena are conditioned by something other than itself.

    The concept comes first as a thought, the phenomenon corresponding to it is impossible, therefore does not come at all.
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    The concept comes first as a thought, the phenomenon corresponding to it is impossible, therefore does not come at all.Mww
    Doesn't it indicate that concepts has nothing to do with existence or phenomenon of objects?
  • Mww
    4.9k
    On the fatal flaw in common misunderstanding of noumena, from a Kantian point of view:

    “…. I call a conception problematical which contains in itself no contradiction, and which is connected with other cognitions as a limitation of given conceptions, but whose objective reality cannot be cognized in any manner. The conception of a noumenon, that is, of a thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but as a thing in itself (solely through the pure understanding), is not self-contradictory, for we are not entitled to maintain that sensibility is the only possible mode of intuition. Nay, further, this conception is necessary to restrain sensuous intuition within the bounds of phenomena, and thus to limit the objective validity of sensuous cognition; for things in themselves, which lie beyond its province, are called noumena for the very purpose of indicating that this cognition does not extend its application to all that the understanding thinks.

    But, after all, the possibility of such noumena is quite incomprehensible, and beyond the sphere of phenomena, all is for us a mere void; that is to say, we possess an understanding whose province does problematically extend beyond this sphere, but we do not possess an intuition, indeed, not even the conception of a possible intuition, by means of which objects beyond the region of sensibility could be given us, and in reference to which the understanding might be employed assertorically. The conception of a noumenon is therefore merely a limitative conception and therefore only of negative use. But it is not an arbitrary or fictitious notion, but is connected with the limitation of sensibility, without, however, being capable of presenting us with any positive datum beyond this sphere.

    The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and of the world into a mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis is therefore quite inadmissible in a positive sense, although conceptions do certainly admit of such a division; for the class of noumena have no determinate object corresponding to them, and cannot therefore possess objective validity. If we abandon the senses, how can it be made conceivable that the categories (which are the only conceptions that could serve as conceptions for noumena) have any sense or meaning at all, inasmuch as something more than the mere unity of thought, namely, a possible intuition, is requisite for their application to an object? The conception of a noumenon, considered as merely problematical, is, however, not only admissible, but, as a limitative conception of sensibility, absolutely necessary. But, in this case, a noumenon is not a particular intelligible object for our understanding; on the contrary, the kind of understanding to which it could belong is itself a problem, for we cannot form the most distant conception of the possibility of an understanding which should cognize an object, not discursively by means of categories, but intuitively in a non-sensuous intuition. Our understanding attains in this way a sort of negative extension. That is to say, it is not limited by, but rather limits, sensibility, by giving the name of noumena to things, not considered as phenomena, but as things in themselves. But it at the same time prescribes limits to itself, for it confesses itself unable to cognize these by means of the categories, and hence is compelled to cogitate them merely as an unknown something.

    I find, however, in the writings of modern authors, an entirely different use of the expressions, mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis, which quite departs from the meaning of the ancients—an acceptation in which, indeed, there is to be found no difficulty, but which at the same time depends on mere verbal quibbling. According to this meaning, some have chosen to call the complex of phenomena, in so far as it is intuited, mundus sensibilis, but in so far as the connection thereof is cogitated according to general laws of thought, mundus intelligibilis. Astronomy, in so far as we mean by the word the mere observation of the starry heaven, may represent the former; a system of astronomy, such as the Copernican or Newtonian, the latter. But such twisting of words is a mere sophistical subterfuge, to avoid a difficult question, by modifying its meaning to suit our own convenience.

    To be sure, understanding and reason are employed in the cognition of phenomena; but the question is, whether these can be applied when the object is not a phenomenon and in this sense we regard it if it is cogitated as given to the understanding alone, and not to the senses. The question therefore is whether, over and above the empirical use of the understanding, a transcendental use is possible, which applies to the noumenon as an object. This question we have answered in the negative.…”
    —————

    From which follows that….
    …….it is true noumena and things-in-themselves are both representations understanding thinks on its own accord;
    ……the thing-in-itself obtains its objective validity from the thing which appears;
    ……no noumenal thing ever appears, therefore noumena have no objective validity;
    ……and the fatal flaw is lack of recognition that anything the conception of which is given from understanding alone, without conjunction with any faculty in human sensibility, can never be or cause an object of sense.
  • Mww
    4.9k
    ….concepts has nothing to do with existence or phenomenon of objects?Corvus

    Concepts, in and of themselves with respect to their origin, re: understanding, and method of use, re: logic, no, they do not. Existence has to do with Nature; phenomena with sensibility, Nature being given.

    Concepts alone, their origin and method of use being granted, in the domain of pure thought they do not, but consideration still must be given to possible existence and phenomenon.

    Within the system as a whole, from appearance in the beginning to knowledge at the end, it is impossible concepts have nothing to do phenomena, but Nature is still presupposed as having to do with existence.

    Existence, the category, does not grant existence to objects, but only makes necessary that an object exist for it to be an experience. Hence, the logic: if this then that; if maybe this then maybe that; if not this then absolutely not that.
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    Concepts alone, their origin and method of use being granted, in the domain of pure thought they do not, but consideration still must be given to possible existence and phenomenon.Mww
    Possible existence and phenomenon are not the actuality until they manifested, so should they not be irrelevant?

    Existence, the category, does not grant existence to objects, but only makes necessary that an object exist for it to be an experience.Mww
    Here we are talking about Existence as the actual instantiation of objects rather than the category.

    Within the system as a whole, from appearance in the beginning to knowledge at the end, it is impossible concepts have nothing to do phenomena, but Nature is still presupposed as having to do with existenceMww
    Yeah you could apply the concepts to the phenomena to get the understanding, but that is not the necessary connection is it? You can have a brand new phenomena with no concepts and no understanding presumed, attached or presupposed as just a sensibility. What is "Nature" here? What does it include?
  • Mww
    4.9k
    Possible existence and phenomenon are not the actuality until they manifested, so should they not be irrelevant?Corvus

    A possible existence and its possible phenomenon may be irrelevant at a certain time, but time isn’t something to be ignored in general. Contingency in empirical knowledge mandates successions in time, so…..

    You can have a brand new phenomena with no concepts and no understanding presumed, attached or presupposed as just a sensibility.Corvus

    Absolutely. But that isn’t the system as a whole. It is human nature so want to know, and for that the whole system…..whatever it may be…..is a prerequisite.

    What is "Nature" here?Corvus

    Reality is the totality of sensation dependent on the intellect that receives it.
    Nature is the totality of all that is possible independent of whatever intellect receives it.
    My opinion, of course.
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