From the movie “Wargames”, in my best WOPR computer voice, “would you like to play a game?”.

Your last is a transcendental illusion, a paralogism of pure reason, what CPR is all about. This time, it isn’t yours; it’s mine. It is reason’s proclivity for treating a given in two dialectically opposed ways, without recognizing an error in the method.

Here it is: from my perspective, by saying “Exactly”, you’ve eliminated the very plurality in views you’ve asked me to imagine.

I don't agree. Measurement is not comparison. Measurement is finding the numeric value of the measured objects or movements. — Corvus

How would you determine the numeric value of anything without comparison to a scale? That's what the instrument does, it applies the scale to the item and makes a comparison. Think of the tape measure example, a thermometer, a clock, any sort of instrument of measure.

Yes, I know, but the thing’s identity as itself, the first law of rational thought, is not what the transcendental idea “in-itself” is about. — Mww

Why would you say this? I think it clearly is. Aristotle placed the identity of a thing, in itself. The supposed independent thing is affirmed to have an identity as the thing which it is, independent of anything we might say about the thing. What Kant shows is that this proposed "identity", as a thing, is actually unjustified. The "thing", or "object", is what appears to us as phenomenon, but this appearance is the result of the a priori intuitions of space and time. Therefore, we cannot assume as Aristotle did, that the proposed "thing" has any identity as a thing, independent from what is produced by those intuitions.

This effectively deconstructed the foundation of how we relate to the supposed independent. No longer can we utilize the Aristotelian system of material objects each with a unique form, identity, even that assumption is unjustifiable. We cannot even assume that the independent consists of things. Hegel goes even further to discredit the law of identity. But this completely undermines the notion of "truth". By Kant, we really can't have any knowledge about the independent, so truth by correspondence becomes irrelevant. Further, without independent objects with identity, the law of noncontradiction and the law of excluded middle are left as inapplicable.

But there’s no change in the “in-itself”, so any measure in units of time, are impossible. — Mww

You cannot make that conclusion. Kant leaves us incapable of making any judgements of truth or falsity concerning "the in itself". If we make a primary assumption of change, like process philosophy does, then the "in itself" is nothing but activity. We might start with that assumption, but then we'd be left with the question of why do the intuitions of space and time make the "in itself" appear to consist of persistent objects. That is the issue which Whitehead ran into. Ultimately, I think a form of dualism is required, to account for the appearance of both persistence and change.

You have requested a distinction between a "transcendental" understanding, and a "causal" understanding. Can you explain this difference better, for me? "Nature herself" you say, is not the source of empirical things. So nature is not causal in this respect. And, you describe "the conditions" for empirical appearance, as the a priori intuitions. What could be the cause of those empirical appearances then? As empirical appearances they ought to be understandable, and this implies that we ought to be able to speak of causation. If the human mind itself is not taken to be the cause, then they end up as causeless eternal objects, like Platonic objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is Kant’s conditions of possibility that run the risk of looking like ‘causeless eternal Platonic objects”, but not empirical Nature. The forms of intuition are not empirical objects, events, or states; they are conditions of possibility for there being empirical objects and events at all. Appearances are neither caused by the mind nor independent entities floating free of all conditions. They are constituted through the joint operation of receptivity and spontaneity: sensibility provides intuition under the forms of space and time, and the understanding supplies the rules under which what is given can count as an object of experience.

Constitution here is not a causal relation. Appearances are not freely invented by us, there is something independent of our spontaneity involved in experience. But Kant denies us any right to describe that involvement in causal terms. Within experience, every appearance stands under causal laws. What Kant denies is that we can step outside that framework and demand a further causal story about why the framework itself exists.

Why would you say this? I think it clearly is. — Metaphysician Undercover

I suspect you’d clearly see it isn’t, when you understand we’re talking about two completely different domains of discourse, given from two distinctly different conditions of human intelligence, providing altogether distinct functionality.

Most, if not everything you say, is pretty much accepted. It’s just not what I’m talking about, and can never be connected to it.

You’re describing the operation of a system; I’m relating the theorized prescriptions of a single part of it.

You’re talking about things; I’m talking about an idea in general, for which there never is a thing.
—————-

Or, you’ve successfully integrated one with the other, the ways and means of that, and indeed the very reason for doing so, completely escaping me.

The transcendental subject, being nothing but the consciousness of every thought, A346/B404, cannot be subject or predicate in a composed logical proposition. — Mww

Is the 'consciousness of every thought' the consciousness of a given individual sentient/rational being? If so, this means that the transcendental subject is identified with a particular being.

I think Joshs previous comment (above your reply to me) holds, I hope that what I've been arguing so far conforms with it. — Wayfarer

I somehow missed @Joshs' post. However, I am not sure how even that reply really addresses my points.

Here, you are treating the transcendental subject as if it were an entity that could itself be viewed from an external standpoint and compared with a “world without it.” But the whole point of the transcendental analysis is that there is no such standpoint. The subject here is not a being in the world, but the condition under which anything can appear as world. So asking how the world would be “without reference to it,” or how it “comes into existence,” already presupposes what the analysis rules out. — Wayfarer

I get that. However, the perspective of each transcendental subject becomes inconsistent (not sure about the world?) IMO. On the one hand, in transcendental idealist views, it seems that the transcendental subject is seen as the precondition in which, as you say, anything can appear as a world. On the other hand, however, if the transcendental subject is identified with a mind of any sentient (or rational) being which existence is contingent.

So the pre-condition of any 'world' is itself contingent. If, however this is valid of any perspective (i.e. any possible 'transcendental subject') you have to assert that there is an explanation of the existence of those perspectives which in turn presupposes that there is 'something that is transcendent of any given perspective'.

Note that if, instead, you say that the transcendental subject is a 'pragmatic model' used to 'make sense' of the world without asserting that it is 'real', then you imply a non-dualist view (i.e. the very distinction of 'subject-object' is provisional). In these kinds of view, there is no need to explain how the subject came into existence. It is, after all, an useful 'map' at best.

And what world would that be? Presumably, the earth prior to the evolution of h.sapiens . But then, you're conflating the empirical and transcendental again. Notice that even to name or consider 'the world without any sentient/rational being' already introduces the very perspective that you are at the same time presuming is absent. — Wayfarer

No, I wasn't implying that the 'world without any sentient/rational being' must coincide with the world as depicted by the perspective of a given sentient/rational being. On the contrary, I am merely pointing to the weirdness of the picture advanced from the 'transcendental idealists/phenomenologists' in which the very precondition of, as you say, of any 'world' is also contingent. But if it is contingent, there is an explanation for its existence. So, this puts us beyond that perspective.

Constitution here is not a causal relation. Appearances are not freely invented by us, there is something independent of our spontaneity involved in experience. But Kant denies us any right to describe that involvement in causal terms. Within experience, every appearance stands under causal laws. What Kant denies is that we can step outside that framework and demand a further causal story about why the framework itself exists. — Joshs

Is the framework's existence contingent or necessary? If it is contingent, it seems to me that this implies that it is possible, in principle, to explain its existence. If it is necessary, such an explanation doesn't exist. However, this framework would be, in fact, a metaphysical absolute. Given that all sentient beings in this world don't seem to exists necessarily, the framework seems contingent.

Or, perhaps, you might say that the framework is neither contingent nor necessary.

@Wayfarer, @Joshs and @Mww,

The 'main reason' why I think that Kant's 'transcendental idealism' and those 'transcendental approaches' advanced by some phenomenologists are mistaken because they are positing that the 'framework' in which it makes sense to speak of an intelligible world is contingent.
Am I wrong about this?

Is the transcendental subject (or an analogous concept in those views that are similar to Kant's but not exactly the same) contingent? Do you think that asking if it is contingent doesn't make sense? If so, why?

How would you determine the numeric value of anything without comparison to a scale? That's what the instrument does, it applies the scale to the item and makes a comparison. Think of the tape measure example, a thermometer, a clock, any sort of instrument of measure. — Metaphysician Undercover

Comparison to what? Do instruments know what to compare with? The instruments read what they are designed to read, and display the figures in numeric value, which are read by humans or intelligent devices for further actions.

If you recall the point of our discussion here, my point was the read figures must be objective value. If they are not objective, then measurement will be useless for practical purpose.

Is the 'consciousness of every thought' the consciousness of a given individual sentient/rational being? — boundless

Understanding, the faculty of thought, the objects of which are representations, cannot think the object that is a subject, a subject that thinks and understands, thus cannot represent itself to itself. It is reason that allows to understanding that which represents the thinking subject itself, a.k.a. “I”, which is the subject represented transcendentally.

So it is, not consciousness, but pure speculative reason in its transcendental use, from which the subject in its transcendental meaning originates, and that is a faculty of individual rational beings in general.

I guess you could say the transcendental subject is that by which a rational being identifies himself as such. Represents is better than identifies, insofar as identifies implies the imposition of qualities, which such a simple concept as “I” cannot possess or be assigned.
—————-

I think that Kant's 'transcendental idealism' (…) mistaken because (…) the 'framework' in which it makes sense to speak of an intelligible world is contingent.
Am I wrong about this? — boundless

No. The framework is speculative, hence all its conclusions are contingent on the premises from which the conclusions are inferred.

All this rightfully belongs in the lecture hall with an honest-ta-gawd philosopher in attendance, not so much amongst we mere philosophizers on an anonymous forum.

The 'main reason' why I think that Kant's 'transcendental idealism' and those 'transcendental approaches' advanced by some phenomenologists are mistaken because they are positing that the 'framework' in which it makes sense to speak of an intelligible world is contingent.
Am I wrong about this?

Is the transcendental subject (or an analogous concept in those views that are similar to Kant's but not exactly the same) contingent? Do you think that asking if it is contingent doesn't make sense? If so, why? — boundless

Kant argued that the transcendental conditions for the possibility of the intelligiblity of time, space and empirical causality are not contingent but a priori. Hegel argued instead that these conditions are contingent, and the phenomenologists followed his lead. But according to Hegel and phenomenology , subjective consciousness is not contingent. This may sound confusing, but it’s a matter of of the difference between thinking about subjectivity in terms of a fixed set of conditions of possibility (Kant) vs as a site of interaction with the world in which schemes of intelligibility undergo historical change (Hegel) .

Note that if, instead, you say that the transcendental subject is a 'pragmatic model' used to 'make sense' of the world without asserting that it is 'real', then you imply a non-dualist view (i.e. the very distinction of 'subject-object' is provisional). In these kinds of view, there is no need to explain how the subject came into existence. It is, after all, an useful 'map' at best. — boundless

Kant never refers to the transcendental subject or transcendental ego. That comes with later philosophers. But also, notice that in singling out the subject as an individual being, you're already treating this as an object of thought. That is what I mean by taking an "outside view".

What seems to be driving the worry you keep returning to is not so much a disagreement about Kant but a discomfort with contingency itself — the idea that the conditions under which a world appears are not grounded in something further, necessary, or metaphysically self-explaining or self-existent.

What you keep coming back to is

1. The transcendental subject is a condition of intelligibility.
2. But if it is contingent, it must have an explanation.
3. If it has an explanation, there must be something beyond it.
4. Therefore transcendental idealism is incomplete or unstable.

This is, precisely something like 'the Cartesian anxiety'. And perhaps, now, the 'useful map' analogy is a good one. In presenting this OP, I didn't set out to offer a 'theory of everything'. Really the point is to call out the naturalistic tendency to treat the human as just another object — a phenomenon among phenomena — fully explicable in scientific terms. This looses sight of the way that the mind grounds the scientific perspective, and then forgets or denies that it has (which is the 'blind spot of science' in a nutshell).

The point is not to replace scientific realism with something else, but to recall that the very intelligibility of scientific realism already presupposes what it cannot itself objectify: the standpoint of the embodied mind. So I'm not presenting it as 'the answer' but as a kind of open-ness or aporia.

Here it is: from my perspective, by saying “Exactly”, you’ve eliminated the very plurality in views you’ve asked me to imagine. — Mww

Yes, as if making sense for somebody is not ever attempting to make him (or her) believe...

Notice that I do agree with Kant that the 'empirical world' arises also from the cognitive faculties of the subject. However, I believe Kant overreaches in saying that we can't know absolutely nothing about the noumenon.

Kant is saying we can’t know anything about the noumenon with rational thought. Basically it is veiled from us. This does not negate our knowing it by other means. Kant is only talking about reason, rational thought. We are acquainted with the noumenon through our presence in the world.

Isn't the measurement (of time) objective? — Corvus


It is. If you read the OP as saying it isn’t, then you’re not reading it right. — Wayfarer

My point was measurements of time has to be objective to be meaningful for science or practical life. But time itself doesn't exist in the world. Only thing we see is the duration of the movements, changes and successions of objects.

Kant said time is intuition, and precondition of perception. That sounds like time is subjective and internal in the mind, which is innate.

If it is true, then what would be the content of the intuition? What is the nature of the precondition? I am still not seeing time as something that I can understand what it is.

We see objects changing - sun rising and setting, birds flying, cars passing, people walking, but where is time itself? I recall what happened yesterday, and it is today. But where is actual time itself?

If time is intuition, I should be able to know what time it is without looking at the clock, but I can't. I must rely on watching the clock for telling time. If it is precondition of perception, then why I can perceive the cup in front me, but not time itself?

We are acquainted with the noumenon through our presence in the world. — Punshhh

This just says we can think noumenon simply because we exist.

With respect to the real world in general, why would anyone care that he is acquainted, if he cannot know from possible experience what he is acquainted with?

This does not negate our knowing it by other means. Kant is only talking about reason, rational thought. We are acquainted with the noumenon through our presence in the world. — Punshhh

That is debatable, and it is really the issue I raised already about the difference between Plato and Kant. Plato allows the human mind direct access to the intelligible, without sense mediation. What you call "our presence in the world" is most likely equivalent with Kant's intuition of time. Time he described as the internal intuition, space the external.

The internal a priori intuition is present to us as "time". The external a priori intuition is present to us as space. The two combined form the conditions of sensibility, providing for the appearance of phenomena. Now to support what you claim, we'd have to be able to separate our knowledge of the internal intuition from our knowledge of the external intuition. This would allow us pure unmediated access to the internal aspect of the human subject, as an "in itself" object, without any influence from the external intuition of space, and the consequent phenomenal appearances.

Kant does not take this route though, as his categories all follow from the combined space and time intuitions. Therefore he proceeds from those two a priori intuitions into the empirical realm and the a posteriori. He does not look toward a further analysis of the a priori and does not adequately separate those two intuitions. I would say that perhaps he leaves this route open, as a possibility though. And, I believe that this is generally the way of phenomenology. A person might look at oneself, a human subject, as purely noumenal, but only by looking exclusively at the temporal intuition, and filtering out any influence from the external (spatial) intuition, if this is possible.

This just says we can think noumenon simply because we exist.

My cat knows the noumenon just like I do. Although he wouldn’t think about it like me.

With respect to the real world in general, why would anyone care that he is acquainted if he cannot know from possible experience what he is acquainted with?

He can know it through experiences, just not through thinking. He doesn’t know what he knows, or that he knows it necessarily.
He might be told that he is acquainted with the noumenon, through his being, rather than through the intellect. So he may then meditate and contemplate on it and sense it’s presence through communion.

I’ll have to give that more thought, you’ve made it quite complicated there.

Ok. Thanks.

So it is, not consciousness, but pure speculative reason in its transcendental use, from which the subject in its transcendental meaning originates, and that is a faculty of individual rational beings in general. — Mww

Ok. But it is instantiated in individual rational beings? I don't think that Kant would say that it can be found elsewhere. So, if individual rational beings are contingent so is pure speculative reason.

No. The framework is speculative, hence all its conclusions are contingent on the premises from which the conclusions are inferred. — Mww

Not sure what you mean by 'speculative' here. Yes, I can see how the conclusions are contingent on the framework. However, if I am right in what I said above, it also seems that the framework is speculative.

Kant argued that the transcendental conditions for the possibility of the intelligiblity of time, space and empirical causality are not contingent but a priori. Hegel argued instead that these conditions are contingent, and the phenomenologists followed his lead. But according to Hegel and phenomenology , subjective consciousness is not contingent. This may sound confusing, but it’s a matter of of the difference between thinking about subjectivity in terms of a fixed set of conditions of possibility (Kant) vs as a site of interaction with the world in which schemes of intelligibility undergo historical change (Hegel) . — Joshs

Interesting. I would class Hegel among those who redefine the 'transcendental subject' as a singular non-contingent subject. Indeed, Hegel was a panentheist of sorts. I think that this is indeed a possible way to 'solve' the antinomy but I am surprised to see the phenomenologists grouped with Hegel here.

Kant is saying we can’t know anything about the noumenon with rational thought. Basically it is veiled from us. This does not negate our knowing it by other means. Kant is only talking about reason, rational thought. We are acquainted with the noumenon through our presence in the world. — Punshhh

Yes, but note that his own philosophy leads to the inevitability of admitting the existence of the noumenon. By his account, the transcendental subject cannot be a 'creator' (I believe that Kant would say that it has not an 'intellectual intuition'). So, the empirical world must originate from something outside the subject.

So, indeed, it seems that reason, according to Kant, can say something about the noumenon: there is 'something beyond' the subject and this 'beyond' is also related to the 'empirical world' (i.e. the world of appearances ordered by the cognitive faculties). That's why I think that there is an unresolved tension in Kant's model.

Kant never refers to the transcendental subject or transcendental ego. That comes with later philosophers. But also, notice that in singling out the subject as an individual being, you're already treating this as an object of thought. That is what I mean by taking an "outside view". — Wayfarer

I am merely stating an hypothetical: "if I am a transcendental subject and my existence is contingent, there must be an explanation of my own existence. Being contingent, my existence is explainable, in principle, in terms of something other than me."
If the above phrase is coherent - as it seems to me - this implies that the 'perspective' assumes that there is something beyond it, which is also necessary to explain the existence of the 'perspective' itself. I can't make sense of saying that 'we can't say that there is anything beyond' if it is accepted that the subject's existence is contingent, unless it is said that the subject is also an 'useful map', i.e. that the subject is ultimately an useful abstraction rather than a real entity (which would then leave us to a non-dualism of some form).

his is, precisely something like 'the Cartesian anxiety' — Wayfarer

Perhaps, yes. But the point of my argument is that these transcendental models seem to be naturally incomplete. Good as starting points and good to avoid dogmatisms but they can't structurally be 'the last word'. They seem to point to some conclusion and just stop before asserting it. In other words, these approaches seem to point beyond themselves naturally.

And perhaps, now, the 'useful map' analogy is a good one. In presenting this OP, I didn't set out to offer a 'theory of everything'. Really the point is to call out the naturalistic tendency to treat the human as just another object — a phenomenon among phenomena — fully explicable in scientific terms. This looses sight of the way that the mind grounds the scientific perspective, and then forgets or denies that it has (which is the 'blind spot of science' in a nutshell). — Wayfarer

Ok. I was just stating, however, that it is reasonable to go beyond it.

The point is not to replace scientific realism with something else, but to recall that the very intelligibility of scientific realism already presupposes what it cannot itself objectify: the standpoint of the embodied mind. So I'm not presenting it as 'the answer' but as a kind of open-ness or aporia. — Wayfarer

Ok, I see.

BTW, I'll probably stop posting for a while. I'll have surgery the day after tomorrow (a low-risk operation). Anyway, thanks for the discussion to all.

Good as starting points and good to avoid dogmatisms but they can't structurally be 'the last world'. They seem to point to some conclusion and just stop before asserting it. In other words, these approaches seem to point beyond themselves naturally. — boundless

I think you meant ‘last word’ (although it’s an interesting slip). But I agree - they’re not ‘the last word’ in the sense of conveying the absolute truth. They’re a starting point, not a conclusion.

Hope all goes well, I too will be taking a few days out.

But according to Hegel and phenomenology , subjective consciousness is not contingent. This may sound confusing, but it’s a matter of of the difference between thinking about subjectivity in terms of a fixed set of conditions of possibility (Kant) vs as a site of interaction with the world in which schemes of intelligibility undergo historical change (Hegel) . — Joshs

As far as I can understand this I would be sympathetic to Hegel, a less essentialist perspective. Was this view a refinement built upon Kant?

Kant never refers to the transcendental subject or transcendental ego — Wayfarer

He does refer to it, albeit in as a source of misunderstanding:

Now to these concepts four paralogisms of a transcendental doctrine of the soul are related, which are falsely held to be a science of pure re son about the nature of our thinking being. At the ground of this doctrine we can place nothing but the simple and in content for itself wholly empty representation I, of which one cannot even say that it is a concept, but a mere consciousness that accompanies every concept. Through this I, or He, or It (the thing), which thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts = x, which is recognized only through the thoughts that are its predicates, and about which, in abstraction, we can never have even the least concept; because of which we therefore turn in a constant circle, since we must always already avail ourselves of the representation of it at all times in order to judge anything about it; we cannot separate ourselves from this inconvenience, because the consciousness in itself is not even a representation distinguishing a particular object but rather a form of representation in general, insofar as it is to be called a cognition; for of it alone can I say that through it I think anything.
— Critique of Pure Reason

From this it follows that the first syllogism of transcendental psychology imposes on us an only allegedly new insight when it passes off the constant logical subject of thinking as the cognition of a real subject of inherence, with which we do not and cannot have the least acquaintance, because consciousness is the one single thing that makes all representations into thoughts, and in which, therefore, as in the transcendental subject, our perceptions must be encountered; and apart from this logical significance of the I, we have no acquaintance with the subject in itself that grounds this I as a substratum, just as it grounds all thoughts. Meanwhile, one can quite well allow the proposition The soul is substance to be valid, if only one admits that this concept of ours leads no further, that it cannot teach us any of the usual conclusions of the rationalistic doctrine of the soul, such as, e.g., the everlasting duration of the
soul through all alterations, even the human being's death, thus that it signifies a substance only in the idea but not in reality. — ibid A350

More at A355, B427, and B441. To the matter of objects, this footnote ties it to the limits of a transcendental object:

* To the question, "What kind of constitution does a transcendental object have?" one cannot indeed give an answer saying what it is, but one can answer that the question itself is nothing, because no object for the question is given. Hence all questions of the transcendental doctrine of the soul are answerable and actually answered; for they have to do with the transcendental subject of all inner appearances, which is not itself an appearance and hence is not given as an object, and regarding which none of the categories (at which the question is really being aimed) encounter conditions of their application. Thus here is a case where the common saying holds, that no answer is an answer, namely that a question about the constitution of this something, which cannot be thought through any determinate predicate because it is posited entirely outside the sphere of objects that can be given to us, is entirely nugatory and empty. — ibid. B506

This suggests to me that the problem is not so much about treating people as objects but one of framing the difference between objectivity and subjectivity incorrectly.

Yeah, it was an interesting typo lol. I'll fix it now.

Hope all goes well, I too will be taking a few days out. — Wayfarer

Thank you very much!