The proof: there is no such thing as a noumenal entity, for the human intelligence, which is to say Kant does not allow positing entities beyond intelligibility. To posit that which understanding cannot think, is impossible. — Mww

I think you’re right. If noumena aren’t phenomena, then they aren’t entities. In Taoism, the Tao, which cannot be spoken, is, as I understand it, not a thing at all. If it’s not a thing, then it doesn’t really exist at all. Taoists sometimes call it non-being. If it doesn’t exist, then it can’t be posited.

Of course, that leads to the irony that we’re here talking about what can’t be talked about. Eastern philosophies seem more comfortable accepting that than western philosophies do.

Notice that he starts with "I am conscious of my existence as determined in time." That is phenomenology. He's pointing out that he experiences himself as being in motion through time. If he's in motion, it has to be relative to something stationary. If all he is resides within this thing traveling through time, then there must be something other than himself that is a stationary object. — frank

No. He is clearly not referring to any presentable object outside of him. A stationary object involves the intuition of time & space, it is a presentable object.

Furthermore, the empirical unity of consciousness is just an appearance amongst appearances. It is a presentable object. To claim empirical sensible objects (stationary) exist in a separable or independent manner from it is to undo empirical realism, which Kant is defending here (inconsistently, but that's not my concern for now)

Whether I can be conscious empirically of the manifold as simultaneous or as sequential depends on circumstances or empirical conditions. Hence empirical unity of consciousness, through association of presentations, itself concerns an appearance and is entirely contingent — CPR,B140, Pluhar

Please read Kant for who he is, not who you want him to be. If you like phenomenology, fine, but don't project it onto Kant unnecessarily.

Kant did not propose that we have knowledge prior to our sensibilities, which we then apply to our sensibilities. Kant proposed in Transcendental Idealism that a priori knowledge is that knowledge derived from our sensibilities that is necessary to make sense of these very same sensibilities. — RussellA

I am certainly not a Kant scholar, but it’s my understanding that he did see a priori knowledge as coming before any sensory input. It’s part of our human nature. Konrad Lorenz claims that that knowledge results from biological and neurological Darwinian evolution. That makes a lot of sense to me.

It is obviously, clearly, not unintelligible to posit unintelligible objects. Its just pointless. It would be unintelligible (and its obviously, because this isn't possible - which is essentially what the term claims) to posit a specific unintelligible object. That is not what's being done in those sorts of theories. — AmadeusD

This is something I’ve struggled with, but I will say it is not obvious and clear.

I think you’re right. If noumena aren’t phenomena, then they aren’t entities. In Taoism, the Tao, which cannot be spoken, is, as I understand it, not a thing at all. If it’s not a thing, then it doesn’t really exist at all. Taoists sometimes call it non-being. If it doesn’t exist, then it can’t be posited. — T Clark

Noumena is in the plural. If it's just that which is unknown or beyond naming, then why does it have a singular & plural form which Kant uses (knowingly) throughout his book ?

The claim that the thing in itself is distinct from the noumenon is also very weak. Throughout CPR, Kant refers to things in themselves, not just thing in itself

I see this common misinterpretation of Kant a result of Schopenhauer's conscious reinterpretation of Kant gaining currency in the public imagination. Unfortunately, even this involves misunderstandings since Schopenhauer has no room for "thing in itself" in his philosophy

Noumena is in the plural. If it's just that which is unknown or beyond naming, then why does it have a singular & plural form which Kant uses (knowingly) throughout his book ?

The claim that the thing in itself is distinct from the noumenon is also very weak. Throughout CPR, Kant refers to things in themselves, not just thing in itself

I see this common misinterpretation of Kant a result of Schopenhauer's conscious reinterpretation of Kant gaining currency in the public imagination. Unfortunately, even this involves misunderstandings since Schopenhauer has no room for "thing in itself" in his philosophy — Sirius

Schopenhauer criticizes Kant for referring to things-in-themselves on the grounds that if, as Kant asserts, there is no space and time outside of perception, then there can be no diversity. So, if I recall correctly, Schopenhauer refers to the noumenon as Will and claims that we can know it as such. For me, this makes no sense either, since even willing would seem to presuppose diversity.

I think you may be mistaken when you say Schopenhauer has no room for the thing-in-itself in his philosophy as I seem to remember that he constantly refers to the Will as the thing-in-itself. I could be wrong about that though since it is long since I read the work, and also I read an English translation.

I think you may be mistaken when you say Schopenhauer has no room for the thing-in-itself in his philosophy as I seem to remember that he constantly refers to the Will as the thing-in-itself. I could be wrong about that though since it is long since I read the work, and also I read an English translation. — Janus

Sorry for the confusion. I should have added there's no room for Kantian "thing in itself" for Schopenhauer. In other words, that which is not an aspect of this world as representation or will but beyond it.

Here's the relevant quote & it's right in the beginning of his text

But in this first book it is necessary to consider separately that side of the world from which we start, namely the side of the knowable, and accordingly to consider without reserve all existing objects, nay even our own bodies (as we shall discuss more fully later on), merely as representation, to call them mere representation. That from which we abstract here is invariably only the will, as we hope will later on be clear to everyone. This will alone constitutes the other aspect of the world, for this world is, on the one side, entirely representation, just as, on the other, it is entirely will. But a reality that is neither of these two, but an object in itself (into which also Kant's thing-in-itself has unfortunately degenerated in his hands), is the phantom of a dream, and its acceptance is an ignis fatuus in philosophy. — The World as Will & Representation, $1

From this, it should be clear that Schopenhauer not only attributed the 2 world view to Kant, but sought to correct it. So in order to understand Kant himself, you can't rely on Schopenhauer. Unfortunately, a lot of people are still told to understand Kant through him & this has led to the popularization of 2 aspect reading of Kant.

Schopenhauer criticizes Kant for referring to things-in-themselves on the grounds that if, as Kant asserts, there is no space and time outside of perception, then there can be no diversity. So, if I recall correctly, Schopenhauer refers to the noumenon as Will and claims that we can know it as such. For me, this makes no sense either, since even willing would seem to presuppose diversity. — Janus

In my reading of both Kant & Schopenhauer, I believe the latter's criticism of the earlier USUALLY holds very little value. This is a testimony to the genius of Kant, to the radical proposal of his program.

First of all, this world being representation is a claim of Schopenhauer, not of Kant. In no place does Kant claim we have no understanding of the world outside of perception. We do. Our intuition of space & time & even matter (substance) falls under that. Their mode of existence is related to how we condition our experience.

Perception for Kant is void of any understanding. Our senses provide raw data that does not have any relation of space, time, substance or causality as given. The question whether raw data given to the senses is undifferentiated or not is from a Kantian POV, without any sense. We simply don't have a non sensible intuition of intelligibility & differentiation to judge this - which we do in the cognitive frameworks of traditional metaphysics.

No. He is clearly not referring to any presentable object outside of him. A stationary object involves the intuition of time & space, it is a presentable object. — Sirius

I agree. By stationary, I meant a stationary vantage point from which to watch a person passing through time, so a spot outside of time.

Please read Kant for who he is, not who you want him to be. If you like phenomenology, fine, but don't project it onto Kant unnecessarily. — Sirius

I'm just point out that any argument that starts with an examination of experience is phenomenology. I think I misunderstood what you were trying to do with Kant's argument. I thought you were presenting it as a proof of an external world. I don't think it works for that. As Hume said, you can't prove the existence of something with an entirely apriori argument.

Noumena is in the plural. If it's just that which is unknown or beyond naming, then why does it have a singular & plural form which Kant uses (knowingly) throughout his book ? — Sirius

As I mentioned in that post, the Taoist idea of the Tao is similar to Kant’s noumena, but there are differences. At the same time, I think they’re talking about the same unnameable… The Tao is not spoken of in the singular and plural. There is only the One.

I see this common misinterpretation of Kant a result of Schopenhauer's conscious reinterpretation of Kant gaining currency in the public imagination. Unfortunately, even this involves misunderstandings since Schopenhauer has no room for "thing in itself" in his philosophy — Sirius

The idea that reality is an unnamable One is not limited to Kant or Lao Tzu. It is common in many philosophies. There comes a point when you can’t count on what other people say and you have to just look for yourself.

Sorry for the confusion. I should have added there's no room for Kantian "thing in itself" for Schopenhauer. In other words, that which is not an aspect of this world as representation or will but beyond — Sirius

Thanks, that makes sense now.

From this, it should be clear that Schopenhauer not only attributed the 2 world view to Kant, but sought to correct it. So in order to understand Kant himself, you can't rely on Schopenhauer. Unfortunately, a lot of people are still told to understand Kant through him & this has led to the popularization of 2 aspect reading of Kant. — Sirius

It's a little unclear as to whether you are meaning to equate the two, but I had thought that the "2 world view" and the "2 aspect view" were competing interpretations in Kant scholarship.

First of all, this world being representation is a claim of Schopenhauer, not of Kant. In no place does Kant claim we have no understanding of the world outside of perception. We do. Our intuition of space & time & even matter (substance) falls under that. Their mode of existence is related to how we condition our experience. — Sirius

Right, though it does seem easy to read the Kantian idea that all we perceive are appearances as equivalent to "all we perceive are representations". That said, I don't doubt there are nuanced differences, but it is long since I studied Kant's work, and I never studied it intensively or extensively.

Kant's a priori categories of judgement and pure forms of intuition (space and time) although said to be prior to experience, have always seemed to me to be derived by post-experiential phenomenological reflection on perceptual experience and judgement, and to thus be "prior" only in the sense that once these forms and categories are established perceptions can be universally characterized in terms of them without continually checking them anew.

Is it any wonder you're so missing the picture with Nietzsche...

To comprehend this collective discharge of all the symbolic powers, a man must have already attained that height of self-abnegation, which wills to express itself symbolically through these powers: the Dithyrambic votary of Dionysus is therefore understood only by those like himself! With what astonishment must the Apollonian Greek have beheld him! With an astonishment, which was all the greater the more it was mingled with the shuddering suspicion that all this was in reality not so very foreign to him, yea, that, like unto a veil, his Apollonian consciousness only hid this Dionysian world from his view.

The idea that reality is an unnamable One is not limited to Kant or Lao Tzu. It is common in many philosophies. There comes a point when you can’t count on what other people say and you have to just look for yourself. — T Clark

I don't buy this mystical woo woo interpretation of most ancient philosophers. It amounts to cognitive & spiritual nihilism if taken seriously.

This is why we must restore paganism in philosophy, echoing Heidegger. There is no the One that can't be named. Rather, there are Gods (proper sense of beyond being) who have fashioned the world with intelligible forms. We do have names for them & we worship them. We worship their presence in this world.

These Gods are present with us in ways monotheists with their hatred of idolatry (metaphysics really) can never imagine. We seek less navel gazing, more pagan festivals.

I don't buy this mystical woo woo interpretation of most ancient philosophers. It amounts to cognitive & spiritual nihilism if taken seriously. — Sirius

Then we probably don’t have much to talk about.

It's a little unclear as to whether you are meaning to equate the two, but I had thought that the "2 world view" and the "2 aspect view" were competing interpretations in Kant scholarship. — Janus

No. I don't mean to equate the two & they are indeed competing interpretations of Kant. My simple claim is Kant held to the 2 world view & Schopenhauer also read him like that, to his dismay, since in the latter's philosophy, there is only one word with 2 aspects.

The most radical difference between Kant & Schopenhauer has to do with their methodology. Kant accepts transcendental deductions. Schopenhauer rejects them in favor of abstractionist analysis, which falls under his categorization of reason. Ofc, this is nothing new, David Hume himself regarded ideas as being derivative of impressions, but Schopenhauer's unique twist is he adds understanding (immediate & beyond analysis in contrast to reason) to perception itself.

Kantian idea that all we perceive are appearances — Janus

If by appearance you mean some kind of a picture or moving pictures (images) etc, then that's out of question. The representation only comes about when your sensible intuitions + understanding + affections of senses work together. In other words, you need a schema of imagination.

I will just quote Kant here so that you can see this for yourself.

We saw, moreover, that the only way in which objects can be given to us is by modification of our sensibility and, finally, that pure a priori concepts, besides containing the function of understanding implicit in the category, must also a priori contain [enthalten] formal conditions of sensibility (of inner sense, specifically), viz., conditions comprising the universal condition under which alone the category can be applied to any object [enthalten]. Let us call this formal and pure condition of sensibility, to which the concept of understanding is restricted in its use, the schema of this concept of understanding; and let us call the understanding's procedure with these schemata the schematism of pure understanding. A schema is, in itself, always only a product of the imagination [Einbildungskraft]. Yet, because here the imagination's synthesis aims not at an individual intuition but at unity in the determination of sensibility, a schema must be distinguished from an image [Bild]. — CPR, A140, B179-B180, Pluhar

Sirius Is it any wonder you're so missing the picture with Nietzsche...

"To comprehend this collective discharge of all the symbolic powers, a man must have already attained that height of self-abnegation, which wills to express itself symbolically through these powers: the Dithyrambic votary of Dionysus is therefore understood only by those like himself! With what astonishment must the Apollonian Greek have beheld him! With an astonishment, which was all the greater the more it was mingled with the shuddering suspicion that all this was in reality not so very foreign to him, yea, that, like unto a veil, his Apollonian consciousness only hid this Dionysian world from his view" — DifferentiatingEgg

Trust me, my Nietzsche, who holds the torch of Heraclitus, is the true follower of Dionysus & not the postmodernist, timid, scrupulous & "it's just conceptual schemes, bro" Nietzsche you want me to accept. Never.

All the Greeks of the tragic age you admire were supreme metaphysicians. I will not deny this privilege to Nietzsche.

What we need more than ever now is pagan metaphysics. The Gods must return.

He seems to think Kant held to the Permeinides thesis on the unity of being & intellect, that we must only posit intelligible entities — Sirius

I’m finding I should have led with this at the beginning of our dialectic: for you, what does it mean to posit?
——————-

I have shown this by citing Kant's refutation of idealism. — Sirius

What citation can be taken from the refutation that references unintelligible objects?
—————-

It is indeed far better to get Kant’s claims right, then to attribute to him mistakenly. Best way to do that is to keep in mind what’s said in the beginning, when examining what’s said towards at the end. CPR is intended as an exposition of a particular systemic rational method; it must be maintained in its entirety as such.

If noumena aren’t phenomena, then they aren’t entities. — T Clark

From that if/then, follows necessarily that because noumena are not phenomena, noumena cannot be entities, insofar as phenomena are necessarily representational entities, within that metaphysics demanding that status of them.
—————-

….that leads to the irony that we’re here talking about what can’t be talked about. — T Clark

In a sense, yes. But there isn’t talk of noumena other than the validity of it as a mere transcendental conception, having no prescriptive properties belonging to it. There is no possible talk whatsoever of any specific noumenal object, which relegates the general conception to representing a mere genus of those things the existence of which cannot be judged impossible but the appearance of which, to humans, is.

Why all this comes about, is more important within the metaphysical thesis overall, than the fact that it does.

….the empirical unity of consciousness is just an appearance amongst appearances. It is a presentable object. — Sirius

Subject/copula/predicate: consciousness/is/appearance; consciousness/is/(presentable)object.

Really?

The unity of consciousness is apperception; when that which is united, is determinable only by empirical conceptions synthesized with the intuition of an appearance. Conscious unity belongs to understanding, appearance belongs to sensibility.

Benefit of the doubt: what is the empirical unity of consciousness, and what is an appearance, such that the unity of consciousness is one?

…..it’s my understanding that he did see a priori knowledge as coming before any sensory input…. — T Clark

Mine as well, that knowledge a priori arises from pure reason itself, in the form of principles.

When I observe, e.g., an object falls to the ground when I let go of it, it is not given because of it that I know that every object I let go of will fall to the ground. I know it, but not because of any singular instance of its observation. It becomes, then, that the observation is proof of what I already knew, but didn’t know I knew. And maybe don’t even care that I knew. Hence….pure a priori cognitions, which in the end, is knowledge, and the prime mover, the raison d’etre of CPR, from the 1781 get-go.

I am certainly not a Kant scholar, but it’s my understanding that he did see a priori knowledge as coming before any sensory input. It’s part of our human nature. Konrad Lorenz claims that that knowledge results from biological and neurological Darwinian evolution. That makes a lot of sense to me. — T Clark

Today it makes sense to talk about innate knowledge in the brain built up through 3.5 to 4 billion years of evolution. However, Kant in the 18th C did not regard a priori pure intuitions of space and time and a priori concepts of the categories as innate as we would understand them today. Kant's a priori is part of his Transcendental Idealism.

Kant is not using the term “a priori” to indicate the passage of time, and is more in line with Aristotle’s efficient cause than Hume’s causation. In Latin, “a priori” means “from the former” and can be used in an atemporal sense about something that exists outside any considerations of time.

Therefore, the relationship between a priori pure intuitions of space and time and a priori pure concepts of the categories and the phenomenology of experiences, a person’s sensibilities, should be thought about without any regard to the passage of time.

As I wrote before: “Kant did not propose that we have knowledge prior to our sensibilities, which we then apply to our sensibilities. Kant proposed in Transcendental Idealism that a priori knowledge is that knowledge derived from our sensibilities that is necessary to make sense of these very same sensibilities.”

As an analogy, suppose you fly over an island about which you have no previous knowledge. You observe stones on the beach in the form of the letters SOS. You may have the thought that these stones rolled into that position accidentally through the forces of nature, whether the wind or waves, but find such a thought almost impossible to believe. The only sensible explanation for your observation would be the existence of a human agency, even if you have no direct knowledge of such human agency.

Your belief in the existence of a human agency doesn’t transcend your observation, but is transcendental to your observation.

Your phenomenological experience is not proof of the existence of a human agency external to your observation, but neither is Kant’s Refutation of Idealism proof of his two world view. However, it clearly shows his belief in a two world view and his determined attempt to prove two realms of existence, the phenomenal and the noumenal.

Neither the desert island analogy nor Kant's Refutation of Idealism prove the two world view, but both are strong justifications for the two world view.

As I see it, as regards Kant, the intuitions of space and time and the concepts of the categories that are needed to make sense of phenomenological experiences are determined a priori (atemporally) by the very same phenomenological experiences that they need to make sense of.

I had thought that the "2 world view" and the "2 aspect view" were competing interpretations in Kant scholarship. — Janus

They are, but should they be? I recommend the section which is commonly, but without proper warrant, called the Copernican revolution, the major premise being….

“…. We here propose to do just what Copernicus did in attempting to explain the celestial movements. When he found that he could make no progress by assuming that all the heavenly bodies revolved round the spectator, he reversed the process, and tried the experiment of assuming that the spectator revolved, while the stars remained at rest….”

…all that follows from this at Bxvi through the footnote at Bxx is an exposé for the prelude to the speculative metaphysics of pure reason, which just is the world as it is, compared to the world as it is for us. Or, perhaps better known philosophically as the world as it is given and the world as it is thought. After 700-odd pages we find the world as it is and the world as it is thought are nowhere near the same thing but that is very far from meaning there are two worlds.

Pretty easy to see the 2-aspect condition of one world, n’est ce pas?

What is a fiction in a world where appearance is perhaps more important than "truth?"

As I wrote before: “Kant did not propose that we have knowledge prior to our sensibilities, which we then apply to our sensibilities. Kant proposed in Transcendental Idealism that a priori knowledge is that knowledge derived from our sensibilities that is necessary to make sense of these very same sensibilities.” — RussellA

Yes, this is the quote I responded to. Unless I’ve misunderstood you, this is not how I understand what Kant was saying.

As an analogy, suppose you fly over an island about which you have no previous knowledge. You observe stones on the beach in the form of the letters SOS. You may have the thought that these stones rolled into that position accidentally through the forces of nature, whether the wind or waves, but find such a thought almost impossible to believe. The only sensible explanation for your observation would be the existence of a human agency, even if you have no direct knowledge of such human agency. — RussellA

Again, this is not my understanding of what a priori means. As I wrote previously, I see it as knowledge we have as part of our human nature. It’s built into us.

I had thought that the "2 world view" and the "2 aspect view" were competing interpretations in Kant scholarship. — Janus

No doubt derivations from Descartes and Spinoza, respectively. I read Kant as contra the latter (re: "pure reason") and yet inconsistently far more the former (along with Plato's "Allegory of the Cave").

From that if/then, follows necessarily that because noumena are not phenomena, noumena cannot be entities, insofar as phenomena are necessarily representational entities, within that metaphysics demanding that status of them. — Mww

Agreed.

But there isn’t talk of noumena other than the validity of it as a mere transcendental conception, having no prescriptive properties belonging to it. There is no possible talk whatsoever of any specific noumenal object, which relegates the general conception to representing a mere genus of those things the existence of which cannot be judged impossible but the appearance of which, to humans, is. — Mww

In the context of Taoism, I think of speaking the unspeakable as something of a joke, or at least a self-aware irony. Hey… What else are you gonna do?

From this quote, it's clear the ground of our representations, all of phenomena, can't be an object of phenomena. It must be an object in the realm of noumena & it must exist in order for empirical realism to be true. — Sirius

That remark overlooks the role of the transcendental object in Kant's argument. Here it is how it is presented in A:

Further, we are now also able to determine our concepts of an object in general more correctly. All representations, as representations, have their object, and can themselves be objects of other representations in turn. Appearances are the only objects that can be given to us immediately, and that in them which is immediately related to the object is called intuition. However, these appearances are not things in themselves, but themselves only representations, which in turn have their object, which therefore cannot be further intuited by us, and that may therefore be called the non-empirical, i.e., transcendental object = X.
The pure concept of this transcendental object (which in all of our cognitions is really always one and the same = X) is that which in all of our empirical concepts in general can provide relation to an object, i.e., objective reality. Now this concept cannot contain any determinate intuition at all, and therefore concerns nothing but that unity which must be encountered in a manifold of cognition insofar as it stands in relation to an object. This relation, however, is nothing other than the necessary unity of consciousness, thus also of the synthesis of the manifold through a common function of the mind for combining it in one representation. — Critique of Pure Reason, A109

The same formulation is used in B, now with the role of categories having been established:

All our representations are in fact related to some object through the understanding, and, since appearances are nothing but representations, the understanding thus relates them to a something, as the object of sensible intuition: but this something a is to that extent only the transcendental object. This signifies, however a something = X, of which we know nothing at all nor can know anything in general (in accordance with the current constitution of our understanding), but is rather something that can serve only as a correlate of the unity of apperception for the unity of the manifold in sensible intuition, by means of which the understanding unifies that in the concept of an object. 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, Just for this reason, then, the categories do not represent any special object given to the understanding alone, but rather serve only to determine the transcendental object (the concept of something in general) through that which is given in sensibility, in order thereby to cognize appearances empirically under concepts of objects. — ibid. A250/B305

Further in the same section, Kant makes a distinction that is missing your account:

The object to which I relate appearance in general is the transcendental object, i.e., the entirely undetermined thought of something in general. This cannot be called the noumenon, for I do not know anything about what it is in itself, and have no concept of it except merely that of the object of a sensible intuition in general, which is therefore the same for all appearances. I cannot think it through any categories; for these hold of empirical intuition, in order to bring it under a concept of the object in general. To be sure, a pure use of the category is possible/ i.e., without contradiction, but it has no objective validity, since it pertains to no intuition that would thereby acquire unity of the object for the category is a mere function of thinking, through which no object is given to me, but rather only that through which what may be given in intuition is thought. — ibid. A253/B308