purpose of 'existence — Jack Cummins

How do you know existence has "purpose"? What is that "purpose"?

a person's construction of 'reality

If "a person" is real, then s/he belongs to "reality", therefore s/he cannot "construct reality".

'beyond' the physical

By "beyond" you mean like math or poetry?

The existence of noumena has not been asserted or denied anywhere in the work. To call it a realm is to ignore:

The concept of a noumenon is therefore merely a boundary concept, in order to limit the pretension of sensibility, and therefore only of negative use. But it is nevertheless not invented arbitrarily, but is rather connected with the limitation of sensibility, yet without being able to posit anything positive outside of the domain of the latter.
— ibid. A255/B311

I am not aware of any place in the Critique where Kant argued differently from this. — Paine

I have already told you I believe CPR is inconsistent. So I'm not surprised Kant makes contradictory claims. The best we can do is give his intended & inconsistent reading.

Going back to a very old objection. For Kant, the transcendental object is the CAUSE of all appearances & clearly not an appearance. The obvious problem here is there is no sense in attributing a causal or grounding role to that which you don't even know if it exists or not. The agnosticism must apply to its causal & grounding role as well.

You may retort that the transcendental object is more like a rule or procedure but this makes no sense. It does not belong to any category of Kant, nor do the categories have anything to do with it, except maybe for causation (in contradiction)

But the understanding thinks it only as transcendental object. This object is the cause of appearance (hence is not itself appearance) and can be thought neither as magnitude nor as reality nor as substance, etc. (because these concepts always require sensible forms wherein they determine an object). Hence concerning this object we are completely ignorant as to whether it is to be found in us--or, for that matter, outside us; and whether it would be annulled simultaneously with sensibility, or would still remain if we removed sensibility. If we want to call this object noumenon, because the presentation of it is not sensible, then we are free to do so. — CPR, A288,B344,Pluhar

Another clear contradiction here to those with eyes is elsewhere Kant claims ALL presentations are appearances & here he has a presentation which isn't an appearance :lol:

So yes. CPR is irredeemable. It's full of contradictions. Kant to me is simply a dumber version of Sextus Empiricus, who was smart enough to use noumena & phenomena as dispensable distinctions, ready to be thrown out in the manner of Wittgenstein's (who was also a Pyrrhonist) ladder once the job has been accomplished.

Going back to a very old objection. For Kant, the transcendental object is the CAUSE of all appearances & clearly not an appearance. — Sirius

All of the text I quoted clearly rules out the transcendental object being an appearance.

Where, in the text, do you see the transcendental object being a cause in itself? It seems more like a concept that gives us permission to propose causes even though we know very little.

So yes. CPR is irredeemable. It's full of contradictions. Kant to me is simply a dumber version of Sextus Empiricus, who was smart enough to use noumena & phenomena as dispensable distinctions, ready to be thrown out in the manner of Wittgenstein's (who was also a Pyrrhonist) ladder once the job has been accomplished. — Sirius

Do you have any idea what "noumena" is? I've been reading this Kant quotes in my thread, and I'm having issues making sense of them...

Where, in the text, do you see the transcendental object being a cause in itself? It seems more like a concept that gives us permission to propose causes even though we know very little. — Paine

Assuming you haven't ignored the quote of Kant I presented, the noumenon (transcendental object here) is the cause of appearance, phenomenon.

I don't know what you mean by "cause in itself". Do you mean uncaused ? Well, it is uncaused in the sense that all phenomena has a cause which can't be attributed to noumena

"Seems more like a concept" - it can seem anything to you but you can't attribute it to Kant for that reason.

Remember the Kantian slogan "Thoughts without content are empty" - the content of thought is provided by sensible intuition, which is totally lacking in the case of transcendental objects

An empty thought is no thought (concept) at all...

Assuming you haven't ignored the quote of Kant I presented, the noumenon (transcendental object here) is the cause of appearance, phenomenon. — Sirius

Then all my efforts to distinguish the two in the text have been for naught.

B344-5 in Guyer/Wood, is understanding warning sensibility not to exceed its purpose, which it would be doing if it treated the object understanding thinks of its own accord, a noumenon or a transcendental object, as the cause of what sensibility takes as an appearance. The warning because such object, the one merely thought, can never be an appearance.

Reference ibid Bxxvii.

Do you have any idea what "noumena" is? I've been reading this Kant quotes in my thread, and I'm having issues making sense of them... — ProtagoranSocratist

To be fair, there's no clear answer to this. But there are 3 main interpretations, all of which have problems

1. Noumena is the class of transcendental objects that act as a cause or ground of all phenomena, appearances or presentations. This causing or grounding is ontological. I prefer this.

2. Noumena is a rule or procedure which allows us to have a nexus of intuition & concept (understanding) come together under affections of senses. In this sense it's not much different from the schema of imagination.

3. Noumena is the boundary or limit of appearances. Like the frame of a picture which isn't the picture but enables you to see the picture. (The obvious problem here is if appearances have a limit, we will have to know the limit on the other side as well, irl, we do see the frame too & what's beyond it lol)