I think learning to accept and live with the elusive nature of the self/subject/'I' is a fundamental life lesson. — Wayfarer

That's a bit pf a tantalising idea. Are there 2 or 3 aspects of this particularly you can dot point?

Very roughly, for me it shows up as (1) less compulsion to define or secure a fixed identity, (2) more tolerance for uncertainty and contingency, and (3) a slightly quieter self-preoccupation in everyday experience. Hard to argue for — more something noticed over time.

Nice. Thanks.

Well, I brought in the relationship with a "transcendental object" to express Kant's vision of himself as walking between two extreme views. Getting the sense for what 'empirical realism' means for Kant is not a wholesale rejection of Descartes. I will try and come back with a report.

Getting the sense for what 'empirical realism' means for Kant is not a wholesale rejection of Descartes. — Paine

I agree. It's not a wholesale rejection, but a correction.

I've also noticed that Edmund Husserl similarly commented on the mistake Descartes makes in respect of 'res cogitans'. He sees the cogito and the turn to first-person evidence as the genuine origin of transcendental philosophy (including his own). His criticism is internal: Descartes discovers transcendental subjectivity but then reinterprets it in the old metaphysical grammar of substances, turning it into something quasi-objective. Then follows all of the confused questions about what 'it' is etc.

I think Kant is campaigning for an understanding of objectivity that differs from your narrative. I need to think about how to put that forward.

The "history of philosophy" approach is a problem for all who use it, Kant included.

More than happy to debate it.

By his account, the transcendental subject cannot be a 'creator' (I believe that Kant would say that it has not an 'intellectual intuition').

I would say he is saying that the transcendental subject (ts) can’t be a creator of the noumenon. He’s not saying that it can’t create within the interaction between the ts and the noumenon, that the interaction is altered in some way by the ts.

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.

I don’t see an unresolved tension, only perhaps an incomplete model. Yes the intellect can say something about the noumenon, namely that it is necessary and that we can say nought about it.
Likewise he is saying something about the ts, that it is necessary and that we can say nought about it.

This makes perfect sense to me that we* are at the meeting point between the two things the ts and the noumenon. That they are orthogonal, so in a sense cross each other’s path and where they cross the product of this interaction can be found, namely man. Man is to be found on the cross and has a cross to bare. I would introduce the trinity at this point;

Father = transcendental subject
Mother = noumenon
Son = humanity.

*I apply this rationale to the whole biosphere not just humanity.

Also, bear in mind that Kant has more to say about his religious philosophy, in his Critique of Practical Reason (and also, I think, his Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason), which I haven't studied, and only have a superficial acquaintance with.

I asked claude.ai to provide a synopsis of my posts on the Forum, which it did in about 3.1 seconds. It pointed out that:

3. Platonism & Mathematical Realism
You're interested in Platonic forms, mathematical platonism, and the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics." You argue that formal concepts exist independently of individual minds and reflect an intelligible order in the cosmos.

So I have to take ownership of this, as I've so often argued it and I do believe it.

pure speculative reason in its transcendental use (…) is a faculty of individual rational beings in general.
— Mww

Ok. But it is instantiated in individual rational beings? — boundless

Individual rational beings in general implies every individual rational being, yes.

So, if individual rational beings are contingent so is pure speculative reason. — boundless

Yes, only insofar as individual rational beings are contingent, and every rational being possesses pure speculative reason, than pure speculative reason is contingent on the existence of rational beings, same as toenails and bellybutton lint. Piss-poor philosophy, that.
—————-

The framework is speculative ..…
— Mww

Not sure what you mean by 'speculative' here. — boundless

Simply put, speculation is just metaphysics, the disposition of humans for thinking outside the box of empirical knowledge, disregarding the set limits on how big the box can be. Pure speculative reason, then, just gets him out but can’t help him once he’s there because there’s no limit on the dumb shit he can dream up for himself.

if I am right in what I said above, it also seems that the framework is speculative. — boundless

Already stated as speculative.

What’s the point again?

Although Kant claims "a sufficient reply" in that passage, I don't think he provides that at all. The problem he says arises from an assumed "difference on kind" between the intuition of space as an object, and the intuition of time as an object. Then he says that if we consider that there is no such difference between looking inward, and looking outward, the difficulty may disappear. I assume that the point is that this becomes two different directions, within the same medium, "intuition" in this case. They are relative, "one of them appears outwardly to the other",

However, I believe Kant's conclusion, which follows, proves that the above premise is false.
He says:

...and the only difficulty remaining is that concerning how a community of substances is possible at all, the resolution of which lies entirely outside the field of psychology, and, as the reader can easily judge from what was said in the Analytic about fundamental powers and faculties, this without any doubt also lies outside the field of all human cognition. — "Critique

The issue is that he now refers to "a community of substances", and questions how this is possible. He concludes that resolution of this "lies outside the field of all human cognition". But the only reason why the resolution to this problem lies outside the capacity of human cognition is that he has incorrectly reduced space and time to two dimensions of the same thing. Assuming this one medium, "intuition", which is apprehended by looking inward (temporally), restricts his capacity to determine a multitude of substances, which requires the spatial intuition for separation.

When we look inward, guided by the intuition of time, as Kant did, to reduce space and time to two distinct directions within a single medium (intuition), we do not apprehend the spatial separation required for a plurality of "substances". This is because by looking inward to uncover the intuitions, we are already within the domain of time. And when we turn around and look outward from this perspective, the spatial separation required for a multitude of "substances" cannot be supported if space and time are of the same kind. We are within the domain of time, the intuition of time governs, and we are actually just looking in a different direction in time.

Contrary to Kant's conclusion, that the separation of distinct substances is "outside the field of all human cognition", we ought to simply conclude that Kant's primary premise is incorrect. The intuitions of space and time are not simply a matter of looking two different directions in the same medium. This is easily supported by our understanding of time, which already gives us two opposing directions, past and future. Since these two are properly understood as "opposite", it is impossible to unite them to produce one direction, which space would be opposed to, as described by Kant. Therefore we can conclude that Kant's premise is unsound, and so is his conclusion.

The problem he says arises from an assumed "difference on kind" between the intuition of space as an object, and the intuition of time as an object. — Metaphysician Undercover

“….The difficulty presented by this problem consists, as is well known, in the presumed difference in kind between the object of inner sense (the soul) and the object of outer sense…” (B427)

Time and space are both intuitions, hence there is no difference in kind between them;
Space and time never were and cannot be treated as objects, hence the assumption of a difference in kind in their treatment is not the problem being addressed in the text.

A grasp of what the problem actually is, rather than misrepresenting what it arises from, might be helpful.
————-

…the only reason why the resolution to this problem lies outside the capacity of human cognition is that he has incorrectly reduced space and time to two dimensions of the same thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

What was “said in the Analytic about fundamental powers and faculties” that proves “(the resolution of) the difficulty (…) concerning how a community of substances is possible at all (…) lies outside the field of all human cognition…”, is very different from space and time incorrectly reduced to two dimensions of the same thing, thus isn’t rightly the only reason, and isn’t the proposed reason at all.
—————-

IV. Of the Division of Transcendental Logic into Transcendental Analytic and Dialectic.

“… The part of transcendental logic, therefore, that expounds the elements of the pure cognition of the understanding and the principles without which no object can be thought at all, is the transcendental analytic, and at the same time a logic of truth. For no cognition can contradict it without at the same time losing all content, i.e., all relation to any object, hence all truth. But because it is very enticing and seductive to make use of these pure cognitions of the understanding and principles by themselves,
and even beyond all bounds of experience, which however itself alone can give us the matter (objects) to which those pure concepts of the understanding can be applied, the understanding falls into the danger of making a material use of the merely formal principles of pure understanding through empty sophistries, and of judging without distinction about objects that are not given to us, which perhaps indeed could not be given to us in any way. Since it should properly be only a canon for the assessment of empirical use, it is misused if one lets it count as the organon of a general and unrestricted use, and dares to synthetically judge, assert, and decide about objects in general with the
pure understanding alone.

The second part of our transcendental logic must therefore be a critique of dialectical illusion, and this critique we shall term transcendental dialectic—not meaning it as an art of producing dogmatically such illusion (an art which is unfortunately too current among the practitioners of metaphysical juggling) but rather as a critique of the understanding and reason in regard to their hyperphysical use, in order to uncover the false illusion of their groundless pretensions….”
(A63,4/B87,8)

Now all you need are the pure cognitions and principles of the understanding, and why and how these are different in kind and preside over that which is outside the field of all human cognition.

Perhaps I erred by pulling in a quote relatively late in the Critique. The arguments have already been made about what is given through intuition and thought through reason. The quote is from the section headed by "Conclusion of the solution of the psychological paralogism." The paragraph preceding my quote is part of Kant's attempt to view all the "classical" problems of metaphysics through the lens of what can be said if one accepts his arguments:

The dialectical illusion in rational psychology rests on the confusion of an idea of reason (of a pure intelligence) with the concept, in every way indeterminate, of a thinking being in general. I think of myself, in behalf of a possible experience, by abstracting from all actual experience, and from this conclude that I could become conscious of my existence even outside experience and of its empirical conditions. Consequently I confuse the possible abstraction from my empirically determined existence with the supposed consciousness of a separate possible existence of my thinking Self, and believe that I cognize what is substantial in me as a transcendental subject, since I have in thought merely the unity of consciousness that grounds everything determinate as the mere form of cognition. — ibid. B426

I cannot parse your comment about intuition. From your previous remarks, I understood you to not being satisfied with Kant saying in the Preface to the second edition that representations can be "real." I do understand that argument.

I think of myself, in behalf of a possible experience, by abstracting from all actual experience, and from this conclude that I could become conscious of my existence even outside experience and of its empirical conditions. Consequently I confuse the possible abstraction from my empirically determined existence with the supposed consciousness of a separate possible existence of my thinking Self, and believe that I cognize what is substantial in me as a transcendental subject, since I have in thought merely the unity of consciousness that grounds everything determinate as the mere form of cognition. — ibid. B426

Again, a very useful passage, in terms of understanding Kant's view of the matter, and thanks for it.

The repeated use of “mere” and “merely” in that sentence really caught my eye — they’re doing a lot of work.

Kant isn’t just describing the unity of consciousness, he’s also putting a fence around how we’re allowed to think about it. What he’s warning against is a very natural slide: we abstract in thought from all particular experiences, and then quietly slip into thinking that the “I” could exist on its own, as a separate kind of entity altogether outside experience.

So when he says that what we really have is “merely the unity of consciousness” and “the mere form of cognition,” the point isn’t that it’s trivial or unimportant. It’s that it isn’t substantia — a thing or an entity in its own right. It’s a formal condition: the structural unity that makes determinate experience and judgement possible at all. The “mere” is there to stop us reifying it into a metaphysical self or soul.

At the same time, though, this “mere form of cognition” is doing incredibly deep work. Literally pivotal. It’s what makes any experience hang together as experience in the first place. Without it, nothing could count as an object for a subject, and nothing could really be judged or known. So the language feels a bit defensive. In the effort to avoid dogmatic metaphysics, he risks slipping into dogma of another kind.

Which leaves an interesting tension. On the one hand, he insists it’s only formal. On the other hand, it’s the most basic enabling condition of intelligibility that we ever encounter. You can’t help wondering whether it’s really “mere” in any innocent sense — or whether Kant is deliberately bracketing off a deeper way of understanding it in order to avoid drifting back into old-style metaphysics. I think in this vital respect he is leaning too far towards empiricism.

It's also the very point which his later critics (even his friendly critics) used to pry open the 'door to the noumenal' (see this blog post.)

@boundless - I think this might echo some of your concerns.

A grasp of what the problem actually is, rather than misrepresenting what it arises from, might be helpful. — Mww

I think that the problem is that I stated a specific problem. Then Paine produced a quote from Kant, which appeared like it sort of addressed the problem I raised, but really addressed a slightly different problem. Therefore we are actually conflating two different problems. So the assumption of "the problem" is somewhat misleading because I raised one problem, and the quote from Kant addressed a different problem, and i treated it as if it was supposed to address the problem I raised. The problem I raised wasn't ever really addressed.

I am 100% with you here. Parfit looms large.

:pray: Someone I'm meaning to study. I've only ever read his obituary.

Time and space are both intuitions, hence there is no difference in kind between them;
Space and time never were and cannot be treated as objects, hence the assumption of a difference in kind in their treatment is not the problem being addressed in the text. — Mww

Space and time are both intuitions. This statement needs some clarification.
Time changes every moment. If time is intuition, then what changes in intuition? If time is not object, then what do we perceive, when we notice the time passing?

Time doesn’t change at all; one moment is exactly the same as every other.
The changes in intuitions is from changes in perception.
We perceive things, objects, whatever causes sensation.
It isn’t the passage of time we notice; it is change in relations.

Or so the story goes….

Time doesn’t change at all; one moment is exactly the same as every other. — Mww

If time doesn't change at all, then how do humans perceive it? What is it that humans perceive as time passing e.g. from this morning to midday?

It isn’t the passage of time we notice; it is change in relations. — Mww

If time is intuition, then intuition is change in relation?

If time is intuition, then it is internal to our mind. Correct? Then why does it need perception of change in relation to know time?

Time is not a cause of sensation, thus is not a perception.
What is typically referred to as the passage of time, is one of the common ways of speaking about how Nature is comprehensible.
Intuition is a mental activity, time is not a mental activity therefore not an intuition, but derived nonetheless from mental activity.
The mind requires time to qualify relations as simultaneous or sequential, and to quantify durations.
Time is not known or knowable, so there’s no need of perception of change for that reason.

Time is not known or knowable, so there’s no need of perception of change for that reason. — Mww

But if nothing changed at all in the world, would anyone perceive time? The fact of the matter is, things change (e.g. Sun rises every morning), hence people notice time passing.

Intuition is a mental activity, time is not a mental activity therefore not an intuition, but derived nonetheless from mental activity. — Mww

Does it mean that you disagree with what Kant wrote? i.e. Time is intuition?

That nothing in the world changes is impossible; things in relation to the impossible are unintelligible.

The sun doesn't rise.

I don’t agree Kant said time is intuition.

Space and time are both intuitions. This statement needs some clarification. — Corvus

Yes, it does. Thanks for pointing it out, and sorry I was inattentive with my statements in the first place.

Hegel, as discussed by Reitan in your linked article, did say, in a number of places, that Kant wanted to figure out the limits of reason before using it discover those limits. From my reading of Hegel, this is directed more at the limits of "rational psychology" than searching beyond the limits of experience.as described by Kant.

I recognize that Kant is the headwaters of many different views of psychology. One interesting element of Kant's efforts to dispel "transcendental illusion" is how many of the opposed arguments fall apart on the basis of logic rather than an arbitrary restriction.

In any case, is there a passage from Hegel that shows him reaching for what Kant did not?

The passage from Eric Reitan that I had in mind was this:

(Hegel) thought that Kant had missed something important—namely, that the self which experiences the world is also a part of the world it is experiencing. Rather than there being this sharp divide between the experiencing subject and things-in-themselves, with phenomena emerging at the point of interface, the experiencing subject is a thing-in-itself. It is one of the noumena—or, put another way, the self that experiences the world is part of the ultimate reality that lies behind experience.

So: the self that has experiences is a noumenal reality. ...Hegel believed that this fact could be made use of, so that somehow the self could serve as a wedge to pry open a doorway through the wall of mystery, into an understanding of reality as it is in itself.

But this understanding couldn’t be achieved by simply turning our attention on ourselves. As soon as we do that we’ve made ourselves into an object of experience, and this object is just as likely to be the product of our own cognitive reconstructions as any other object. In other words, what we are presented with when we investigate ourselves introspectively is the phenomenal self, not the noumenal self. The self as it appears to itself may be radically unlike the self as it is in itself. ... — Eric Reitan

The point I'm trying to bring out, is the elusive nature of the self (or subject). I often return to the idea found in Indian philosophy (and hardly elsewhere) that 'the eye can see another, but not itself'. This conveys the idea that the knower or subject cannot know itself, paradoxical though that might seem. Kant's insistence on the 'mere' acts of cognition makes a similar point, although expressed differently. But he is arguing that we can't make out the knower or subject as any kind of knowable entity or object, even though it invariably accompanies every act of thought.

The point which Reitan goes on to make is that both Hegel and Schleirmacher say that though we can't know the self as such, because we are the self, so this fact of our identity as the self could 'serve as a wedge to pry open a doorway'. But then, considering the great complexity (not to say prolixity) of Hegel's philosophy, this is not simple or straightforward.

But if nothing changed at all in the world, would anyone perceive time? The fact of the matter is, things change (e.g. Sun rises every morning), hence people notice time passing. — Corvus

What Kant means by pure intuition is likely not what you think it means. Pure intuition is the a priori (already existing) form of sensibility (sensory cognition) through which anything can appear to us at all, independent of any particular sensory content (i.e. irrespective of what it is.)

But here, 'form' is also not what you might take it to be. It does not mean a kind of internal template or mental container that sensations enter into. Kant is referring to the necessary condition of appearance — the way anything must be given in order to be experienced at all. Things must appear in space and time if they are to appear at all. And space and time are not objects we perceive, nor features abstracted from experience, but the already-existing field within which perception occurs.

If you find that hard to understand, you’re not alone. These are among the foundational moves in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which while a great work, is also acknowledged by everyone, a very difficult book to read and interpret.

The way I put it — and this is my gloss on Kant — is that while time is objectively measurable (which Kant does not dispute), it is grounded in the faculty of knowledge itself rather than in the objective domain as such. So your remarks about time being objective are broadly correct, but its objectivity is not really the point at issue. The deeper question is: in what sense would time exist absent any awareness of it? The difficulty is that as soon as you begin to think about that question, you are already bringing time into awareness, or rather, bringing your mind to bear on the question. So time is always already part of the consideration.

Have another look at the original post, particular the section 'what is not at issue'. You will see that it is not the intention to deny the objective reality of time. Rather it is the constituents of objectivity that are in question.

The point which Reitan goes on to make is that both Hegel and Schleirmacher say that though we can't know the self as such, because we are the self, so this fact of our identity as the self could 'serve as a wedge to pry open a doorway'. But then, considering the great complexity (not to say prolixity) of Hegel's philosophy, this is not simple or straightforward.

Within the Indian traditions the self can be known. I don’t want to diminish the gravity of the idea that, 'the eye can see another, but not itself', rather to point out that there is another route by which the seer sees him/herself. Which might be what is being referenced by Reitan. We are the self, so access the self through being ourselves.
Not only that, but by awakening the crown chakra, one steps (metaphorically) into a transcendent world, in which one becomes both transpersonal and identifies with one’s self, simultaneously. So in a sense, the eye begins to see both ways. Which is represented in religious iconography by the deity standing within a lotus flower, which represents the thousand petalled lotus of the crown chakra.

Within the Indian traditions the self can be known. — Punshhh

Capital ‘S’ Self. Which is the entire aim of the path. There’s nothing really corresponding with that in Western culture save as a kind of import from Indian sources. Which is not to imply disrespect but mindfulness of context.

So your remarks about time being objective are broadly correct, but its objectivity is not really the point at issue — Wayfarer

You seem to have misunderstood my point in my previous posts to Metap. I was not saying time is objective, but measurements of time is objective. Because all measurements tend to be objective to be practical, useful and meaningful.

I am not saying Kant's idea on time is wrong, or difficult to understand. My position is more into the direction that we could try to analyse what Kant and other philosophers meant when they wrote about time. Because time is a very interesting topic.

If you say, well it is very hard to understand, so just keep reading what others said about it, then it is not good methodology of philosophy. The answer could vary on these topics depending on what direction you are coming from.

What could be a better approach is keep asking questions on unclear parts, and keep discussing until the ideas get clearer. This is not analytical issue where the answers are black and white right or wrong. This is a metaphysical issue, where the conclusions could be drawn after much analysis, questions and discussions, readings and contemplation have been made on the issue. If you have some type of prejudice on this approach, and conclude that the issue is difficult to understand, and keep suggesting the only way forward is go back and keep reading the OP, then it is not a constructive methodology or right way to approach the issue at discussion.

Before I used to believe time does not exist in the material world. Time could be illusion. But now I feel that it might not be simple as that. There are more to explore on the topic. And going back to the historical philosophers writings on Time might be a good idea, and keep thinking and discussing and asking about what they had meant, and could help us coming to better understanding of time, if not enlightening conclusion.

For Kant, it is tricky to say one way or another on his positions in Space and Time in CPR. If you are aware, he wrote and published more than 1 version of CPR, and also many other publications on Natural Science and Metaphysics. His wordings and ideas are known to be different on all these publications. And there are many Kant scholars who have different opinions, understandings and interpretations on Kant's ideas on the topic.

Hence, I feel that we shouldn't be too eager or quick to prejudge on the topic and Kant's ideas, but keep discussing, asking questions, and just concentrate on answering to the questions if you have any ideas or your own answers to the questions rather than suggest reading OP again, or insist that the topic is too hard to understand.

Yes, it does. Thanks for pointing it out, and sorry I was inattentive with my statements in the first place. — Mww

No problem. I was just curious on the statement that Time is intuition, said by Kant. I was trying to analyse and delve into what it meant in deeper angle. How could time be intuition. At this time, I am not in position for agreement or disagreement on the statement. I am trying to figure out what it could mean, and trying to make up some argument on it.

I feel it is not the conclusion or answers which is more important, but good logical argument on the point is more interesting on these metaphysical issues.