There are different interpretations on this point. — Corvus
And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something.— Prolegomena, § 32
Things-in-themselves are for the objects we have concepts, but not the matching physical objects in the empirical world. We can think about it via concepts, but we don't see them in the phenomena. They belong to Thing-in-itself. — Corvus
If you believe in the existence of invisible particles and forces in space and time, then why do you deny the existence of the physical objects such as the bent stick in the empirical world?
If you had a single particle of the bent stick, would you say that is a part of the bent stick, and it is a stick?
In the absence of humans, sounds a condition that you must clarify before progressing further.
Where does "if something cannot be judged" come from? — Corvus
You are still seeing an object external to you when you see the bend stick in the water jug. — Corvus
Things-in-itself is something that you can think of, not knowable. There is a difference, and you seem to think they are the same. No one was claiming Kant said the Thing-in-itself, something that is knowable.Do you have a reference that says that Kant believes that it is possible to have knowledge of Things in Themselves? — RussellA
Due to the above misunderstanding, the misunderstandings just keep going and extending to this. Kant never denies the existence of physical objects in the empirical world. The objects must cause / stimulate our sensibility for experience to begin, he said. That is not denying the objects in the empirical world.The discussion goes back to the question of whether, when we perceive a stick in our sensibilities, are we also perceiving the same object external to us in the world. This is something that the Direct Realist would argue is the case. Kant's position is not that of the Direct Realist.
You are still seeing an object external to you when you see the bend stick in the water jug.
— Corvus
Do objects such as "sticks" exist in the empirical world? — RussellA
For you to suggest that we are unable to access anything in the external world, there must be reason for that, and it seems your definition of "conceiving" and "accessing" might be something different from the ordinary definition of them. — Corvus
Thing-in-itself is something that you can think about. You can have concepts on the objects that comes up in your mind as the contents of your intuition such as God, souls etc. But you cannot see them in the empirical world. Therefore you cannot know them, but you can think about them.In terms of my comment on 'conceiving', as we have literally no empirical indication of the thing-in-itself we can't conceive it. Where would you even start, to conceive of something you have literally no knowledge, and cannot have any knowledge? Assuming that that, per the above, is the case. — AmadeusD
A193 doesn’t relate to the paragraph title you gave, which is found at A538. And I couldn’t come up with a reasonable connection between A193, A538 and your hesitations for accepting the differences in things-in-themselves and the empirical representations which regulate human knowledge. — Mww
hesitations for accepting the differences in things-in-themselves and the empirical representations which regulate human knowledge. — Mww
things-in-themselves exist and from that we can infer the necessity of a causal lineage from such external existence, to appearance, through perception, sensation, intuition, ending in internal phenomenal representation. — Mww
The claim that the external world is caused by the internal world is wrong, but that has nothing to do with the capacity for conception. — Mww
Saying that Kant said that you cannot know thing-in-itself, therefore you cannot know all the objects in the empirical world such as cups, trees and books, the bent sticks (claimed by RussellA) sounds not making sense. — Corvus
Thing-in-itself is something that you can think about. — Corvus
Did you not say that you cannot conceive or access the empirical world because they are Thing-in-itself?No one, in any of these comments, has suggested this. — AmadeusD
What are you thinking about when you do this?
Seems entirely incoherent to me. — AmadeusD
I don't think this is a case, and to my mind, on a re-reading i did delineate out what i'm talking about.
In the most simple terms: Sensory perception is not access to the 'real' world. It is data mediated by the sense organs, and relayed to the brain/mind further mediating our access to it. We can only access our sensory data, via sensory perception. Therefore, we do not have any access to the external world. The 'thing-in-itself' is entirely, and necessarily inaccessible to human sensibility, and therefore, the human mind. My contention with Mww was around whether the thing-in-itself stimulates sensory perception, as an unavoidable inference - and i think this is correct, and your recent comments above this one outline that well imo.
In terms of my comment on 'conceiving', as we have literally no empirical indication of the thing-in-itself we can't conceive it. Where would you even start, to conceive of something you have literally no knowledge, and cannot have any knowledge? Assuming that that, per the above, is the case. — AmadeusD
Did you not say that you cannot conceive or access the empirical world because they are Thing-in-itself? — Corvus
as we have literally no empirical indication of the thing-in-itself we can't conceive it — AmadeusD
Maybe from your previous quoted below, you were denying any knowledge of the external world due to the fact the perception happens via perceptual aggregates?No, not at all. The empirical object is not the thing-in-itself. Not sure where that came from. The 'empirical' world is the world of phenomenal sense perception. The thing-in-itself is beyond this, and entirely unknowable. — AmadeusD
But then I thought you accepted that is not the case.I don't think this is a case, and to my mind, on a re-reading i did delineate out what i'm talking about.
In the most simple terms: Sensory perception is not access to the 'real' world. It is data mediated by the sense organs, and relayed to the brain/mind further mediating our access to it. We can only access our sensory data, via sensory perception. Therefore, we do not have any access to the external world. The 'thing-in-itself' is entirely, and necessarily inaccessible to human sensibility, and therefore, the human mind. My contention with Mww was around whether the thing-in-itself stimulates sensory perception, as an unavoidable inference - and i think this is correct, and your recent comments above this one outline that well imo.
In terms of my comment on 'conceiving', as we have literally no empirical indication of the thing-in-itself we can't conceive it. Where would you even start, to conceive of something you have literally no knowledge, and cannot have any knowledge? Assuming that that, per the above, is the case. — AmadeusD
I thought you were saying the empirical world is unknowable, because it is all Thing-in-itself. But that was maybe the claim of @RussellA. I must have been confused between you and @RussellA.TII(unknowable)->Noumenon(merely conceivable)->Phenomenon (actual, as it were)
as we have literally no empirical indication of the thing-in-itself we can't conceive it
— AmadeusD
This comports exactly with the above specifically noting that the thing-in-itself is outside the empirical purview. Nowhere in your quote do i indicate a conflation of the empirical and 'thing in itself'. — AmadeusD
Maybe from your previous quoted below, you were denying any knowledge of the external world due to the fact the perception happens via perceptual aggregates? — Corvus
I thought you were saying the empirical world is unknowable, because it is all Thing-in-itself. But that was maybe the claim of RussellA. I must have been confused between you and @RussellA. — Corvus
The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me.
Kant responded to his predecessors by arguing against the Empiricists that the mind is not a blank slate that is written upon by the empirical world, and by rejecting the Rationalists’ notion that pure, a priori knowledge of a mind-independent world was possible. Reason itself is structured with forms of experience and categories that give a phenomenal and logical structure to any possible object of empirical experience. These categories cannot be circumvented to get at a mind-independent world, but they are necessary for experience of spatio-temporal objects with their causal behaviour and logical properties. These two theses constitute Kant’s famous transcendental idealism and empirical realism.
I do recall passages in which it's essentially said that by inference, we can't get away from accepting that there are things-in-themselves causing our impressions of them — AmadeusD
All we know is that it is something with sufficient affect on our senses, a mere appearance.
— Mww
(…) I suppose the thing remaining is that thing between the two -
1. Thing-in-itself appears to us as an unknowable entity;
2. ????;
3. Something is presented to our sensuous organs; — AmadeusD
The transcendental object, i cannot find as distinguished from the thing-in-itself. If that's the case, then Kant seems to be fairly obviously connecting the two in a causal relationship - albeit, one with entirely unknowable properties. — AmadeusD
The claim that the external world is caused by the internal world is wrong…..
— Mww
I'm not convinced. We cannot conceive of things entirely askance from any empirical intuition. — AmadeusD
No one was claiming Kant said the Thing-in-itself, something that is knowable. — Corvus
When I see the book in front of me, I know the book. I know it is in blue colured cover, it is a paperback book, the title of the book is "CPR" by Kant. I cannot be wrong on that. It is the truths I know about the book in front of me. I don't need to worry anything about Thing-in-itself book of CPR. There is no such thing as Thing-in-itself CPR book, but there is a CPR book in front of me. — Corvus
B279 – Here it had to be proved only that inner experience in general is possible only through outer experience in general.
But what is the point even bringing up a concept that you cannot even think about? Kant's point is that Thing-in-itself is not in the category of sensibility, so it cannot be known. But because of the fact that we have A priori concepts in the categories, we can think about it.In a world outside these Phenomena are Things in Themselves, which are unknowable, and as unknowable, cannot even be thought about. — RussellA
Where is a Mind-independent world? Again what is the point even talking about something which is unknowable? If it was unknowable, then how did you know it was unknowable?Even if books existed in a Mind-Independent world, as Things in Themselves they would be unknowable, and being unknowable, we couldn't even know whether they existed or not. — RussellA
But what is the point even bringing up a concept that you cannot even think about? (…) If it was unknowable, then how did you know it was unknowable? — Corvus
Where is a Mind-independent world? — Corvus
Again what is the point even talking about something which is unknowable? — Corvus
If it was unknowable, then how did you know it was unknowable? — Corvus
And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something. — Prolegomena, § 32 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing-in-itself
"The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me." B276
No one was denying the concept of Thing-in-themselves. But the point was that thing-in-itself is unknowable but thinkable. It is not both unknowable and unthinkable object. Claiming it is both unknowable and unthinkable comes from possible misunderstanding of CPR.Pretty simple, really. If one doesn’t hold with transcendental philosophy, he has no need for things-in-themselves as such. By the same token, though, one can’t hold with some principles of CPR while rejecting others, and at the same time deny the notion of things-in-themselves. — Mww
I don't see it anywhere. Even with binoculars, telescope and magnifying glasses and microscopes, there is no such a thing as a Mind-independent world. There is just the empirical world with the daily objects I see, and interact with. That is the only world I see around me. Nothing else.Where is a Mind-independent world?
— Corvus
All around us. It existed before us and will exist after us. — RussellA
Even with a binoculars, telescope and magnifying glasses and microscopes, there is no such a thing as a Mind-independent world.............If you can see it, can you take a photo of a Mind-independent world, and upload here? — Corvus
Transcendental philosophy is the core of CPR. Without it, CPR has little meaning. But the point is that, Kant used Thing-in-itself to posit the existence of God, Soul, Freedom and Immortality. Thing-in-itself has nothing to do with the physical objects in the empirical world.Not here, no, but there are objections, which was what I actually implied. And it is true, if one doesn’t hold with transcendental philosophy and all its conditions, he has no need of things-in-themselves. — Mww
This thread is for reading Kant's CPR. Why try to show Berkeley's Idealism is incorrect?Again what is the point even talking about something which is unknowable?
— Corvus
To show that Berkelian Idealism is incorrect. — RussellA
I am not sure if a philosophical topic which is totally severed from the Empirical world has a meaning. Are you?In fact, for the day to day survival of humans, there is no necessity to know more than what is perceived in our Empirical World of Phenomena. Any transcendental thought about a Mind-Independent World is out of philosophical interest only. — RussellA
The root of our discussion is here, from pg 12, with which I disagree: — Mww
1. Thing-in-itself appears to us as an unknowable entity;
2. ????;
3. Something is presented to our sensuous organs; — AmadeusD
what do you think all that really says, — Mww
While we cannot conceive of things entirely askance from any empirical intuition, these are merely representations belonging to the internal human system, hence have no concern with external causal conditions, which belong to Nature itself. — Mww
Kant used Thing-in-itself to posit the existence of God, Soul, Freedom and Immortality. — Corvus
Thing-in-itself has nothing to do with the physical objects in the empirical world. — Corvus
Its just unsatisfying because we can never have any knowledge of that which 'causes' the appearance of any object of intuition. — AmadeusD
We end up with a causal relation between the thing and the thing-in-itself, a relation between the thing and us, without the need of a relation between the thing-in-itself and us. Everybody goes home happy. — Mww
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