You seem to be doing it again where you’re interpreting the act of eating under a materialist ontology, and so I assume accusing idealism of entailing that we swallow and digest experiences with our mind-independent physical bodies.

Of course the problem here is you trying to mix materialism and idealism together. So stop doing that as it’s ridiculous. There’s just the experience of eating an orange, and like with a painting or a dream we can separate it out and say “this part is the orange and that part is my mouth”. — Michael

What's funny is that you think that I'm doing this, and you're coming up with an elaborate explanation, overthinking it as philosophy-types are wont to do, when in reality, all I'm doing is speaking like an ordinary person, and using logic. People ordinarily talk in this way, and you seem to be having problems with that and blaming it on what you take to be my realist assumptions. It is perfectly normal to eat an orange, and to say that a minute ago, I ate an orange. It is perfectly normal to ask you what an orange is. And that will have logical implications, whether you like it or not. If an orange is a fruit, then I ate a fruit. If an orange is an object, then I ate an object. And if an orange is a part of my experience, then I ate a part of my experience.

What's ridiculous is your tacit suggestion that I accept the illogic you're responding with, and that I stop speaking like a normal person. These are faults with idealism. I'm not just going to lap it up.

Meaning is merely a product of reason and in no way is a property of that which reason examines. — Mww

Ok. But once meaning is "produced" can't it exist separate from the producer?

The problem with this for S's view is that S claims that meaning would exist if no people existed. — Terrapin Station

Most things that are created or "produced" continue to exist even if the producer suddenly vanishes.

If meaning is not discovered, but instead it is assigned by rational agents; once assigned the meaning can persist absent the agent.

Fear just is the experience and an orange just is the experience. — Michael

So there is no such thing as anything. Just the experience of all these "things" that don't exist? How is that helpful, useful, predictive, testable, etc? And if this is a mis-use of reducto absurdo (I still haven't looked up the correct latin for that one), please show me why (I expect to be wrong, but don't get it).

Ignoring it then leaves one with rationality in general and humanity in particular irreducible to a non-contradictory fundamental condition, because the only other possible methodology, empirical science, cannot provide one. — Mww

Would you mind expanding on this? It seems important, but I don't get it (surprise, surprise). If I have never heard of idealism, how is humanity (or rationality) reduced to a contradictory fundamental condition? Doesn't idealism (I expect to be wrong) reduce to "it's all in your head" or at least "it wouldn't exist without your head"? And the common understanding (whether anti-idealist or just agnostic to idealism) would be, "it all exists separate from me"....how is one non-contradictory and one contradictory? Sorry if it feels like teaching a 101 class.

When I use "people" or "person" I'm actually thinking "creature, or just simply entity, with a mind." So not necessarily a human. Not necessarily something on Earth, etc. — Terrapin Station

Sorry, I actually did get that. I was being intentionally obfuscatory, because that is how I feel when I read many idealist responses.

Kant also acknowledges the theory is quite incomprehensible to those who do not wish to understand it. — Mww

Is that a predictive ad-hom by Kant? I also think that everyone who does NOT agree with me is just not trying hard enough or maybe they just decided ahead of time that they don't like me.

Or maybe Kant's statement is a meaningless "truth" like "those who do not want to run are less likely to run"?

It seems like a lot of people, read a lot of Kant, and disagree. So they (all) spend all that time just so they can confirm that Kant is wrong? I will agree that some do, probably even most, but surely not all.

@Janus @Theorem

I have enjoyed your debate. I look forward to you 2 disagreeing (slightly) on future threads :smile:

People ordinarily talk in this way, and you seem to be having problems with that and blaming it on what you take to be my realist assumptions. It is perfectly normal to eat an orange, and to say that a minute ago, I ate an orange. It is perfectly normal to ask you what an orange is. And that will have logical implications, whether you like it or not. If an orange is a fruit, then I ate a fruit. If an orange is an object, then I ate an object. And if an orange is a part of my experience, then I ate a part of my experience. — S

If idealism is true and an orange is just part of one's experience then eating is also just part of one's experience. You can talk normally and describe this as eating an orange, or you can be more explicit of the ontology and describe it as the experience of eating an orange, but to describe it as eating an experience is just a misleading use of language which, as I keep saying, tacitly assumes a materialist understanding of eating, which is why it sounds absurd.

The orange that you dream of is just a dream, but when you dream of eating an orange you're not eating a dream. The orange that you experience is just an experience, but when you experience eating an orange you're not eating an experience. This isn't some "elaborate" attempt to make sense of idealism. It's pretty straightforward.

So there is no such thing as anything. Just the experience of all these "things" that don't exist? — ZhouBoTong

My happiness exists. My tiredness exists. The smörgåsbord of shapes and colours and tastes and smells that are my experience of eating an orange exists. So I don't know why you would suggest that idealism entails that things don't exist.

OK, but doesn't the same as what you say here apply to speaking of 'things in themselves'? — Janus

Yes, it does. This doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about things-in-themselves. It means that we shouldn't talk about them in the way that Kant does (e.g. unknowable), because it's incoherent. Kant draws a line in the sand and tells us it's impossible to cross because he's seen the other side!

Hegel pointed out the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon is itself a distinction of the understanding (otherwise it would be unthinkable) and, as such, the noumenon must logically be "inside the box", along with everything else that is thinkable. But this means everything is inside the box, which basically makes the distinction (as Kant understood it) meaningless. As Hegel writes in the Phenomenology of Spirit:

the difference between the in-itself and the for-itself is already present in the very fact that consciousness knows an object at all. Something is to it the in-itself, but the knowledge or the being of the object for consciousness is to it still another moment. — Hegel PoS

The distinction between what things are in themselves and what they are for consciousness must itself be something to consciousness. I don't subscribe to Hegel's metaphysics, but I think he nailed Kant pretty well on this particular topic.

I can excuse Kant for this because it seems natural to think that anything that appears to us must also exist "in itself" in some unknowable way. — Janus

I don't think it's really that natural. It's certainly not how most ordinary people seem to think about it. Ancient and medieval philosophers didn't either (with a very few exceptions), nor did many who came after Kant.

:up:

Reductionism 101:
All you gotta grasp is, any attempt to think up conditions without thinking beings, is doomed to failure. It is impossible to think of situations without thinkers because of the absolute necessity of the incidence of the one thinking it up. And the one thinking it up carries the burden of all his consciousness with him. Because he cannot understand the complete absence of meaning nor the complete possibility of eventualities in the world he inhabits, he is not going to properly conceive any world without inhabitants at all. He can’t, because he’s part of in the world he’s thinking as empty of thinkers.

So of course he’s going to insist there’s meaning between the initial producer of it, and the eventual recipient of it. He’s right there during all that in between, because he’s thinking it!!!! So he IS the recipient, just not the one he imagines to be the eventual one. He cannot detach himself from conscious activity in the empty world he thought up, insofar as he pictures, say, Sagan’s brainchild floating aimlessly through space, complete with all it’s contained information, and he absolutely cannot detach himself from his own reason which tells him of its meaning.
——————————

Is that a predictive ad-hom by Kant? — ZhouBoTong

Dunno. You tell me.
“....Dogmatism is thus the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism of its own powers, and in opposing this procedure, we must not be supposed to lend any countenance to that loquacious shallowness which arrogates to itself the name of popularity, nor yet to scepticism, which makes short work with the whole science of metaphysics. (...).... and must, therefore, be treated, not popularly, but scholastically....”

“....raise a loud cry of danger to the public over the destruction of cobwebs, of which the public has never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it can never feel....”

“....A philosophical system cannot come forward armed at all points like a mathematical treatise, and hence it may be quite possible to take objection to particular passages, while the organic structure of the system, considered as a unity, has no danger to apprehend. But few possess the ability, and still fewer the inclination, to take a comprehensive view of a new system. By confining the view to particular passages, taking these out of their connection and comparing them with one another, it is easy to pick out apparent contradictions, especially in a work written with any freedom of style. These contradictions place the work in an unfavourable light in the eyes of those who rely on the judgement of others, but are easily reconciled by those who have mastered the idea of the whole....”

“Easily reconciled” is rather subjective, to be sure. People have been judged as “experts” on the theory, but only relative to each other, and never relative to Kant himself. While it may be reasonable to master the idea of the whole, it is a ‘nuther story to master the whole itself. Which is odd, seeing as how every human ever used or uses reason his whole life, and none of us understand what it really is.
—————————

Doesn't idealism (...) reduce to "it's all in your head" or at least "it wouldn't exist without your head"? — ZhouBoTong

No, not these days, anyway.

“....Nay, rather I must earnestly warn against such accounts, especially the more recent ones; and indeed in the years just past I have met with expositions of the Kantian philosophy in the writings of the Hegelians which actually reach the incredible. How should the minds that in the freshness of youth have been strained and ruined by the nonsense of Hegelism, be still capable of following Kant's profound investigations? They are early accustomed to take the hollowest jingle of words for philosophical thoughts, the most miserable sophisms for acuteness, and silly conceits for dialectic, and their minds are disorganised through the admission of mad combinations of words to which the mind torments and exhausts itself in vain to attach some thought....”
(Schopenhauer, WWR-1, 1819)

Kant draws a line in the sand and tells us it's impossible to cross because he's seen the other side! — Theorem

That's not how I interpret it. "Kant draws a line in the sand and tells us it's impossible to cross because" it's impossible in principle to see the other side.

Hegel pointed out the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon is itself a distinction of the understanding (otherwise it would be unthinkable) and, as such, the noumenon must logically be "inside the box", along with everything else that is thinkable. — Theorem

Again, I see this differently. Of course the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon is "inside the box"; along with everything else that is thinkable, and that is Kant's very point. The only difference with Hegel is that he doesn't want anything to be outside the box ( "The Rational is the Real"), and that is why he is referred to as an "Absolute Idealist".

I don't think it's really that natural. It's certainly not how most ordinary people seem to think about it. Ancient and medieval philosophers didn't either (with a very few exceptions), nor did many who came after Kant. — Theorem

Once again, I disagree with your interpretation. The human mind in all cultures has grappled with the question of what the ultimate or absolute nature of things is. This can be seen in the case of the Pre-Socratics, and also in Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese philosophy. Kant seems to have been among the first in the Western tradition to realize that this is something that cannot be known (at least by means of rational thought, and I don't think Kant understood faith to be a form of knowing).

In the East it had been long acknowledged that the absolute cannot be known by means of rational thought. (What it could mean to "know" it is some other way than rationally is another seemingly intractable question again!). Hegel on the other hand, the arch rationalist, wants to simply rule out anything which cannot be known rationally; and that is why Schopenhauer, who followed the Eastern traditions somewhat and wanted to claim that we know the noumenal directly via our experience of Will, so despised Hegel.

Now of course the story about Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer is more nuanced than I have quickly painted it, but it seems to me that how I have outlined it is broadly correct, although of course I am open to evidence to the contrary.

@Theorem Responding to you late, but here goes.

It's been almost a decade since I read Kant's Critiques, so I don't have the textual references handy, only a memory of the broadstrokes.

I understand the historical context to be something like [the below]. I imagine I won't get this quite right, because I haven't studied all these figures in depth. Let me know what you think.

Descartes, through radical doubt, severs the connection between our experience and the world 'out there' He reinstates that connection through God (via our awareness of infinity). A perfect God will ensure that our clear and distinct ideas correspond to reality. [tangential, but I think this is more interesting an idea than people make it out to be. There's a lot to chew on w/ the infinity stuff- it's not blind faith as some make it out me. ]

The rationalists - Spinoza & Leibniz - jump in, taking Descartes' lead, and make a lot of use of our innate ideas, the PSR etc.

The empiricists react to the rationalists and, in doing so, hearken back to the Cartesian wedge (between our minds and the world). They see the rationalists as dogmatically making claims about the world, without having any real means of showing that what they're doing applies to the world itself. So - we have Locke and and emphasis on what we actually know of the world through experience.

And then we have Hume - trying to show that Locke isn't really attending carefully to his experience. He's so caught up in inherited ways of thinking, that he has trouble differentiating between what's actually given to us in experience and received conceptual prejudices. He's smuggling in the old rationalist ideas, clouding his own vision.

So then Kant -
The point of the 'transcendental argument' is to show that these ways of thinking, these categories, are necessary if coherent experience is to be possible. Regardless of the relationship between experience and reality, experience must be structured the way it is, lest we have nothing but kaleidoscopic sensory chaos. If we don't have recourse to God, etc (like Augustine, and other of the medievals you hinted at) the only option is to make this coherence - through categories - a product of the transcendental subject.

All of which is to say - I think you need to go back even farther than Locke, if you want to attack Kant at this level. You have to go to Descartes. Either to attack radical doubt, or to resalvage the argument for God.

Another way to put this is that the 'transparent' signs you've mentioned aren't just one of two options (transparent, opaque) and Kant & Locke blindly chose one of them. The cartesian attack is what brings this transparency into question. Locke comes after.

If idealism is true and an orange is just part of one's experience then eating is also just part of one's experience. You can talk normally and describe this as eating an orange... — Michael

And that would be deceptive. So, you can talk normally, so long as you're deceptive and don't really mean what you say. And this isn't a problem for idealism?

And no, you can't even talk normally! As I just demonstrated multiple times! Normally, when I ask what an orange is, we can insert your answer into the sentence, "I am eating [an orange]", only replacing the bracketed part with your answer.

Michael, you are in irrational denial here.

The orange that you experience is just an experience... — Michael

That's like calling my pointing at the moon "the moon". The moon that I'm pointing at is just my pointing. It's like saying that what I see is my vision. It's ridiculous and makes no sense. It's a problem obvious to most people, except of course some philosophy-types who try in vein to make it go away.

This isn't some "elaborate" attempt to make sense of idealism. It's pretty straightforward. — Michael

Whether it's elaborate or straightforward, it's still a failure.

So there is no such thing as anything. Just the experience of all these "things" that don't exist?
— ZhouBoTong

My happiness exists. My tiredness exists. The smörgåsbord of shapes and colours and tastes and smells that are my experience of eating an orange exists. So I don't know why you would suggest that idealism entails that things don't exist. — Michael

:roll:

See my discussion about people talking past each other.

He even made it easy for you by using scare quotes. You know, like those "horses" that purr and sit on your lap.

All you gotta grasp is, any attempt to think up conditions without thinking beings, is doomed to failure. — Mww

So all we've got to "grasp" is a demonstrable falsehood. Got it.

It is impossible to think of situations without thinkers because of the absolute necessity of the incidence of the one thinking it up. — Mww

This is a very old and very deceptive argument which has long since been refuted. I think it stems from Berkeley, one of the worst philosophers of all time. It's more sophism than philosophy. I dealt with it when you brought it up in my other discussion. The question is, why are you repeating it?

Thanks for that. It was interesting.

Of course, the philosophers after all of that, around the time of the linguistic turn, also had relevant points to make: G. E. Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein.

That's not how I interpret it. "Kant draws a line in the sand and tells us it's impossible to cross because" it's impossible in principle to see the other side. — Janus

And yet Kant crosses it by conceptualizing and talking about noumena and setting them into causal relation with phenomena.

Again, I see this differently. Of course the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon is "inside the box"; along with everything else that is thinkable, and that is Kant's very point. The only difference with Hegel is that he doesn't want anything to be outside the box ( "The Rational is the Real"), and that is why he is referred to as an "Absolute Idealist". — Janus

Suppose I draw a line down the middle of a page and mark one side as "knowable" and the other as "unknowable". Then I start drawing things on both sides of the divide. If you're smart, you're going to question the legitimacy of my drawing anything over on the "unknowable" side of the paper. After all, if that whole side represents the unknowable, shouldn't we leave it blank?

What I am arguing is that Kant's claims about the noumena - namely, that they exist and that they are the cause of phenomena - is analogous to drawing on the unknowable side of the page. In fact, his entire theory of transcendental subjectivity falls onto that side of the page, since none of it can be derived from the content of sense intuition. The only response that Kant can make at this point (by his own lights) is that he must posit these things due to the regulative demands of reason. But this is a very weak reply given the pains he takes to critique these very types of claims.

In other words, Kant's own theory of transcendental subjectivity implies that his theory of transcendental subjectivity is unknowable. The transcendental subject is itself a noumenon. But then his entire theory of knowledge does not count as knowledge, which also implies that he doesn't know (and can't know) that noumena are unknowable, which is exactly what he does claim to know.

Thus, Kant contradicts himself.

The human mind in all cultures has grappled with the question of what the ultimate or absolute nature of things is. — Janus

I don't deny this.

In the East it had been long acknowledged that the absolute cannot be known by means of rational thought. — Janus

Yes, I'll grant that mysticism has a long pedigree in both the eastern and western traditions. I'm not opposed to mysticism per se, but I am opposed to the particular way in which Kant draws the line between knowledge and belief. I think it is self-defeating for the reasons given above. Likewise, I'm not convinced that the Kantian approach is a "natural" representative for this tradition, though I'm willing to grant that mysticism more generally is a "natural" aspect of human thought and expression.

at least by means of rational thought, and I don't think Kant understood faith to be a form of knowing). — Janus

He sorta did, kindasorta, in as much as one may arrive at a “false” knowledge, which he also calls “unjustified true belief”, the rational procedure for which he calls the transcendental illusion. He thinks this accomplished by the subject permitting his reason to “exceed the bounds of its proper use” and while it is perfectly legitimate to think the supersensible because reason always seeks the unconditioned, such thinking is not thereby given warrant to assign possibility to its reality, re: the oft-argued yet immeasurably important conclusion: “existence is not a predicate”.

Some interpretations (Guyer 1999) reads “....I must abolish knowledge to make room for belief...”, where Kemp-Smith (1929) reads, “...I must abolish knowledge to make room for faith...”. While not actually considered knowledge per se, whether a priori or empirical, Kant recognizes the “common understanding” as desiring some solid ground for his metaphysical necessities, which he will think as something known to him as being true.

Even thought it is true Kant destroyed the arguments of the day for the existence of supersensible entities, he did not argue for proof of their impossibility, but merely showed the legitimacy of a logical negation. As such, he acknowledged faith, but consolidated the rational derivations of it and restricted its applicability to outside the empirical domain.

“....We have noted that a church dispenses with the most important mark of truth, namely, a rightful claim to universality, when it bases itself upon a revealed faith. For such a faith, being historical (even though it be far more widely disseminated and more completely secured for remotest posterity through the agency of scripture) can never be universally communicated so as to produce conviction. Yet, because of the natural need and desire of all men for something sensibly tenable, and for a confirmation of some sort from experience of the highest concepts and grounds of reason (a need which really must be taken into account when the universal dissemination of a faith is contemplated), some historical ecclesiastical faith or other, usually to be found at hand, must be utilized....”
(Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone”, 1792)

For what it’s worth.......

Kant-Schmant.

Anyway, the moral of this story is to stop bloody conflating two distinct things, because - surprise, surprise - doing so causes problems.

Now I've made that point, you can all go back to ignoring my good advice and doing this anyway. Philosophy is doomed so long as ways of thinking like this are dominant.

I think I accidentally replied to both you and Janus in my previous post. Sorry about that. Here are my thoughts on your thoughts...

I can agree with you that Kant's skepticism is ultimately more appropriately rooted in Cartesian skepticism. I agree that Locke's epistemology was, in part, a response to Cartesian epistemology and an attempt to re-establish the primacy of sense perception in the provenance of human knowledge. Basically, Locke tries to play Aristotle to Descartes' Plato, but his efforts go awry, yielding Berkeley and Hume. Kant wanted to save the new science from the skepticism of Hume, while putting the metaphysics of Wolff in it's proper place. He was willing to sacrifice metaphysics in order to save science, but sacrificed both in the process.

I do maintain that Kant uncritically appropriated an opaque conception of representation from his predecessors. At the same time, I can agree that the genealogy of Kant's thought is more complicated than my initial, overly-simplistic analysis allowed for and am willing to acknowledge that entirety of the Kantian corpus does not stand or fall simply on that one point, though I do think it was an avoidable mistake that compromises his system at the foundations. Not compromising it in the sense of introducing an inconsistency, but in ensuring that certain avenues were never open to him, thus forcing him down his tortured path.

What I am arguing is that Kant's claims about the noumena - namely, that they exist and that they are the cause of phenomena - is analogous to drawing on the unknowable side of the page. — Theorem

Obviously, I don't agree with your interpretation of Kant, but there is no point wasting time and energy repeating myself.

And yet Kant crosses it by conceptualizing and talking about noumena and setting them into causal relation with phenomena. — Theorem

Again, I don't agree that Kant is doing that and I have explained why. So, rather than continue repeating myself, I'll leave it here.

In other words, Kant's own theory of transcendental subjectivity implies that his theory of transcendental subjectivity is unknowable. The transcendental subject is itself a noumenon. — Theorem

This seems to be the one point on which we agree. Kant's analysis of the transcendental subject is unjustifiable, and in it's own way, repeats Descartes' error.

The human mind in all cultures has grappled with the question of what the ultimate or absolute nature of things is. — Janus


I don't deny this.

In the East it had been long acknowledged that the absolute cannot be known by means of rational thought. — Janus


Yes, I'll grant that mysticism has a long pedigree in both the eastern and western traditions. — Theorem

The point was that philosophers have always tried to determine the absolute nature of things, and I wasn't talking about this predominately from the perspective or in the context of mysticism, but regarding the idea that began with the Ancient Greeks that the truth could be known rationally, via intellectual intuition. Spinoza, Leibniz and following them, Wolff were significant modern proponents of this idea of intellectual intuition yielding metaphysical insight; and it was these thinkers that Kant was reacting against. Interestingly, to reverse Kant's move, Hegel (and Schelling) revived intellectual intuitionism, specifically Spinozism. So I think mysticism is not really the point at issue.

Glad to be of service S(weetheart). :smile: :cool: :love: :halo: :yum: :starstruck: :joke:

Thanks for that, @Mww. I'm not much of a fan of Kant's Practical philosophy. I don't see faith as a form of knowledge in any 'pure' (propositional) sense of the term, but it could certainly be thought of as knowledge in a practical (pragmatic) sense, as a kind of transformative familiarity.

“....transformative familiarity....” I like it!!!

Kant intended his practical philosophy to govern morality, for the most part. Easier to comprehend than CPR, but nonetheless contentious for a book half the size.

In passing, I also hold disagreements with respect to the elucidations of noumena stated above.

In passing, I also hold disagreements with respect to the elucidations of noumena stated above. — Mww

It's not entirely clear to me which elucidations you are referring to here, Mww, but I presume that you were referring to the ones presented by @Theorem?

Obviously, I don't agree with your interpretation of Kant, but there is no point wasting time and energy repeating myself. — Janus

Ok. I mean, I've tried to back up my interpretation with textual evidence and reasoned argument. I'd be happy to discuss it further with you, but if we've reached in impasse then I'll let it go.

Yes, those. Sorry.

I didn't mean to be dismissive of your arguments Theorem, but apart from Kant's analysis of the Transcendental Subject, which I agree that he says more about than is justifiable, I just can't see that he says anything about the noumenal except in the apophatic mode of denying that the properties: space and time and the twelve categories, that are rightly applicable to the phenomenal, could be applicable in any positive, intelligible way to the noumenal.

Considering the unresolved, and perhaps unresolvable, controversies among Kant scholars around whether Kant intended the distinction to be a "dual worlds' thesis or a "dual aspects" thesis, I think there would be better ways to spend our time than to try to resolve the question here. :smile:

Thanks. :cool:

Of course, the philosophers after all of that, around the time of the linguistic turn, also had relevant points to make: G. E. Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein. — S

Oh, for sure. esp. Wittgenstein.