So is it the case that whenever this perspective is proposed, it invariably originated from a study of Eastern religious ideas? — Punshhh
it seems we could never be certain about the ultimate or most basic constitution of physical things. — Janus
You’re both looking down different ends of the telescope. That’s why it looks different. — Punshhh
The noumena aren't necessarily esoteric, just as if they are in a room we can't access, so its not as 'mysterious' as one might think. But we can at least securely infer that they are there, or we'd not perceive anything. — AmadeusD
Better to know we don’t know, than to think we know something we don’t. — Wayfarer
That said. I do think the materialism/ idealism dichotomy is ultimately wrongheaded, but there is a deeply entrenched distinction between the ideas of things and the things the ideas are about. — Janus
And I wonder whether that isn't a "figment" generated by the dualistic nature of language―a reification or hypostatization. As I like to say "choose your poison" and it seems that people usually do, especially on philosophy forums. — Janus
I do think the materialism/ idealism dichotomy is ultimately wrongheaded, — Janus
If I propose that the things are ideas, then I must imagine an unseen, unknowable entity―a "mind at large" to quote Kastrup, and that seems to bring in the inevitable ontological dualism involved in thinking there is a transcendent realm or reality over and above the one we know. — Janus
The topic of things-in-themselves is just brutal. When I go down the rabbit hole, it's just total blindness. — Manuel
As I've quoted a number of times already, "a more sympathetic reading is to see the concept of the “thing in itself” as a sort of placeholder in Kant's system; it both marks the limits of what we can know and expresses a sense of mystery that cannot be dissolved, the sense of mystery that underlies our unanswerable questions. Through both of these functions it serves to keep us humble." — Wayfarer
The question is if things - objects - have a nature independent of our (a way of being or existence). I think they do, but if they do, the way they exist must be completely incomprehensible to us. — Manuel
It was a joke, about people looking at the same thing from different perspectives.You’re both looking down different ends of the telescope. That’s why it looks different.
— Punshhh
I thought this comment referred to a conversation we were having in the other 'idealism' thread. I'm not so sure what it refers to in this thread.
If by a noumenon we understand a thing insofar as it is not an object of our sensible intuition, because we abstract from the manner of our intuition of then this is a noumenon in the negative sense. But if we understand by that an object of a non-sensible intuition then we assume a special kind of intuition, namely intellectual intuition, which, however, is not our own, and the possibility of which we cannot understand, and this would be the noumenon in a positive sense. (B307)
Noumena in a positive sense are simply noumena as Kant originally defined that notion in the A edition: objects of an intellectual (non-sensible) intuition. The negative concept of noumena, however, is simply the concept of objects that are not spatiotemporal (not objects of our sensible intuition, namely space and time). But then it follows that things in themselves are noumena in the negative sense, retrospectively clarifying the passage from the A edition quoted immediately above, where Kant seems to draw from the “Transcendental Aesthetic” the conclusion that there are noumena: the concept of appearance requires that something appears, and this must be a negative noumena.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental-idealism/Another way to appreciate this distinction is to consider the difference in why these notions of object (noumena, transcendental object) are unknowable by us. We cannot cognize things in themselves because cognition requires intuition, and our intuition only ever presents appearances, not things in themselves. We cannot cognize the transcendental object because the transcendental object is a purely schematic, general idea of empirical objectivity. Whenever we cognize a determinate empirical object we are cognitively deploying the transcendental concept of an object in general, but we are not coming to know anything about the object of that concept as such.
This is Kant’s point in “phenomena and noumena” when he writes:
This transcendental object cannot even be separated from the sensible data, for then nothing would remain through which it would be thought. It is therefore no object of cognition in itself, but only the representation of appearances under the concept of an object in general, which is determinable through the manifold of those appearances. (A250–1)
Being intellectual they are entirely abstract and an invention of the human thinking mind. So we cannot say anything about what they are, or aren’t. But they are inferred because if we experience appearances, then they must be appearances of something. Something which is inaccessible to us, because if they were accessible to us, they would be appearances. — Punshhh
There's a lot of confusion caused by the question 'what is the "in itself"' - as if it is a mysterious thing…. — Wayfarer
The question is, why do you assume that absent the effects of sensation, there are "objects", plural. Division into distinct objects is a part of sense perception. — Metaphysician Undercover
A double whammy, not only can’t we say anything about noumena, but we are confined within a world of appearances, so can’t say anything about anything else (apart from appearances), either. — Punshhh
On the impossibility of a skeptical satisfaction of pure reason that is divided against itself.
The consciousness of my ignorance (if this is not at the same time
known to be necessary) should not end my inquiries, but is rather the
proper cause to arouse them. All ignorance is either that of things or of
the determination and boundaries of my cognition. Now if the ignor
ance is contingent, then in the first case it must drive me to investigate
the things (objects) dogmatically, in the second case to investigate
the boundaries of my possible cognition critically. But that my ignorance
is absolutely necessary and hence absolves me from all further investi
gation can never be made out empirically, from observation, but only
critically, by getting to the bottom of the primary sources of our cog
nition. Thus the determination of the boundaries of our reason can
only take place in accordance with a priori grounds; its limitation, how
ever, which is a merely indeterminate cognition of an ignorance that is
never completely to be lifted, can also be cognized a posteriori, through
that which always remains to be known even with all of our knowledge.
The former cognition of ignorance, which is possible only by means of
the critique of reason itself, is thus science, the latter is nothing but
perception, about which one cannot say how far the inference from it
might reach. If I represent the surface of the earth (in accordance with
sensible appearance as a plate, I cannot know how far it extends. But
experience teaches me this: that wherever I go, I always see a space
around me in which I could proceed farther; thus I cognize the limits of
my actual knowledge of the earth at any time, but not the boundaries
of all possible description of the earth. But if I have gotten as far as
knowing that the earth is a sphere and its surface the surface of a sphere,
then from a small part of the latter, e.g., from the magnitude of one de-
gree, I can cognize its diameter and, by means of this, the complete
boundary, i.e., surface of the earth, determinately and in accordance
with a priori principles;' and although I am ignorant in regard to the ob-
jects that this surface might contain, I am not ignorant in regard to the
magnitude and limits of the domain that contains them.
The sum total of all possible objects for our cognition seems to us to
be a flat surface, which has its apparent horizon, namely that which
comprehends its entire domain and which is called by us the rational
concept of unconditioned totality. It is impossible to attain this empir
ically, and all attempts to determine it a priori in accordance with a cer-
tain principle have been in vain. Yet all questions of our pure reason
pertain to that which might lie outside this horizon or in any case at
least on its borderline.
The famous David Hume was one of these geographers of human
reason, who took himself to have satisfactorily disposed of these ques
tions by having expelled them outside the horizon of human reason,
which however he could not determine. He dwelt primarily on the prin
ciple of causality, and quite rightly remarked about that that one could
not base its truth (indeed not even the objective validity of the concept
of an efficient cause in general) on any insight at all, i.e., a priori cogni
tion, and thus that the authority of this law is not constituted in the least
by its necessity, but only by its merely general usefulness in the course
of experience and a subjective necessity arising therefrom, which he
called custom. Now from the incapacity of our reason to make a use
of this principle that goes beyond all experience, he inferred the nullity
of all pretensions of reason in general to go beyond the empirical.
One can call a procedure of this sort, subjecting the facta of reason to
examination and when necessary to blame, the censorship of reason. It
is beyond doubt that this censorship inevitably leads to doubt about all
transcendent use of principles. But this is only the second step, which is
far from completing the work. The first step in matters of pure reason,
which characterizes its childhood, is dogmatic. The just mentioned
second step is skeptical, and gives evidence of the caution of the power
of judgment sharpened by experience. Now, however, a third step is still
necessary, which pertains only to the mature and adult power of judg
ment, which has at its basis firm maxims of proven universality, that,
namely, which subjects to evaluation not the facta of reason but reason
itself, as concerns its entire capacity and suitability for pure a priori
cognitions; this is not the censorship but the critique of pure reason,
whereby not merely limits but rather the determinate boundaries of
it - not merely ignorance in one part or another but ignorance in
regard to all possible questions of a certain sort - are not merely sus
pected but are proved from principles. Thus skepticism is a resting
place for human reason, which can reflect upon its dogmatic peregri
nation and make a survey of the region in which it finds itself in order
to be able to choose its path in the future with greater certainty, but it
is not a dwelling-place for permanent residence; for the latter can only
be found in a complete certainty, whether it be one of the cognition of
the objects themselves or of the boundaries within which all of our cog-
nition of objects is enclosed.
Our reason is not like an indeterminably extended plane, the limits of
which one can cognize only in general, but must rather be compared
with a sphere, the radius of which can be found out from the curvature
of an arc on its surface (from the nature of synthetic a priori proposi
tions), from which its content and its boundary can also be ascertained
with certainty. Outside this sphere (field of experience) nothing is an
object" for it; indeed even questions about such supposed objects con
cern only subjective principles of a thoroughgoing determination of
the relations that can obtain among the concepts of understanding in
side of this sphere. — CPR, A758 B786
Refutation of Idealism
Idealism (I mean material idealism) is the theory that declares the exis
tence of objects in space outside us to be either merely doubtful and in
-demonstrable, or else false and impossible; the former is the
problematic idealism of Descartes, who declares only one empirical as-
sertion (assertio), namely I am, to be indubitable; the latter is the dog-
matic idealism of Berkeley, who declares space, together with all the
things to which it is attached as an inseparable condition, to be some-
thing that is impossible in itself, and who therefore also declares things
in space to be merely imaginary. Dogmatic idealism is unavoidable if
one regards space as a property that is to pertain to the things in them-
selves; for then it, along with everything for which it serves as a condi-
tion, is a non-entity. The ground for this idealism, however, has been
undercut by us in the Transcendental Aesthetic. Problematic idealism,
which does not assert anything about this, but rather professes only our
incapacity for proving an existence outside us from our own by means of
immediate experience, is rational and appropriate for a thorough philo-
sophical manner of thought, allowing, namely, no decisive judgment
until a sufficient proof has been found. The proof that is demanded must
therefore establish that we have experience and not merely imagina-
tion of outer things, which cannot be accomplished unless one can prove
that even our inner experience, undoubted by Descartes, is possible
only under the presupposition of outer experience. — CPR, B274
Thus skepticism is a resting
place for human reason, which can reflect upon its dogmatic peregri-
nation and make a survey of the region in which it finds itself in order
to be able to choose its path in the future with greater certainty, but it
is not a dwelling-place for permanent residence; for the latter can only
be found in a complete certainty, whether it be one of the cognition of
the objects themselves or of the boundaries within which all of our cog-
nition of objects is enclosed. — CPR, A758 B786
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.