If trees are indeed publicly available, as they certainly seem to be, then, sure they are " publicly available prior to our being able to talk like that". Unless I am mistaken, I haven't anywhere claimed otherwise. If I have seemed to claim otherwise then it must have been due to poor expression. — Janus
What "underwrites everything (I) have said here" is the idea of a publicly available entity; the tree. — Janus
My central concern has only been to point out that the public availability of objects is not directly given to me in experience. It is on that basis that I draw the distinction between the tree as experienced in living perception and the tree conceived as an independently existent. publicly available entity. — Janus
But there are two senses of the word 'tree' in play here. One denotes the living appearance which we all may experience. The other presents the logical conception of the one tree that we are all seeing. The first is "inner" to each individual's lived experience, and the second is an externalized formal principle of commonality. What other sense of 'tree' do you think there is? — Janus
The public availability of objects is a necessary requirement for experience. — creativesoul
The public availability of objects is a necessary requirement for experience.
— creativesoul
Why do you say that? Do not solitary animals experience? — Janus
We must imagine that there is something that provides the conditions for collectively established attributes to be possible. — creativesoul
We must imagine that there is something that provides the conditions for collectively established attributes to be possible. — Janus
I would say the tree as lived experience is (or at least may be) a pure intuition. Now, Kant posited that intuitions without concepts are "blind" and concepts without intuitions are "empty". But then animals seem to be able to recognize things, so either animals have pre-linguistic conceptual abilities, or intuitions are not blind without concepts. — Janus
The tree as publicly available is obviously conceptual, not experiential; as I keep pointing out we do not directly experience the public availability of the tree, as we do its availability to us. — Janus
Of course it is also a concept of something real that actually exists (we think) independently of our experience and concepts; but we can never experience that independent existence for obvious reasons.
Yes, I already said that and I quote it below (to allow for what seems to be the extremely unlikely case that you hadn't noticed and it was pure chance that you repeated word for word what I had already written). — Janus
In order to know what we're talking about when we say that X is not equal to Y, we must know what both consist in/of. Let X be Noumena and Y be phenomena. You see the problem? — creativesoul
In order to know what we're talking about when we say that X is not equal to Y, we must know what both consist in/of. Let X be Noumena and Y be phenomena. You see the problem?
— creativesoul
Well, sure, but we can honestly acknowledge that we can't see how they are equal, or could be equal, as in the case with noumena and phenomena. I mean, we can conceive of the thing as it is experienced; and we can conceive of it as in itself (although we can't conceive how it is in itself). We can conceive that there may be things outside of current experience or even beyond experience altogether; we do that all the time. — Janus
What we can't imagine is how something outside of experience could be the same as something within it, in anything more than the purely logical sense to do with identity that I have already mentioned. — Janus
The perception of the world of objects and events is a collaboration between the world and ourselves, our senses and minds, it is a living process... How could the world of objects without us be the same as the world of our perception of objects? We cannot imagine what it would be like without us. It even seems incoherent to think that it could be like anything without any percipients at all involved. — Janus
Anyway it's not an easy thing to talk about without getting tied up in knots of apparent incoherence, inconsistency and even outright paradoxical contradiction. I've enjoyed the conversation nonetheless. :) — Janus
Now, Kant posited that intuitions without concepts are "blind" and concepts without intuitions are "empty" — Janus
So would you analyse Game of Thrones in terms of pixels? Yet it is a sequence of computer images. Words are complex, letters simple. And so on and so forth. — Banno
That's a tree. How much more precise can it get? Which part misses the mark? — creativesoul
The more you say about the tree the more likely you are to say something about it that isn't true. — creativesoul
We must imagine that there is something that provides the conditions for collectively established attributes to be possible. — Janus
You say "sure" but then go on to say something that doesn't indicate shared understanding. — creativesoul
We cannot perform a comparative analysis upon two things unless we know what those two things consist in/of. The Noumena limits all other thought/belief about it. We, according to Kant, do not have access to Noumena. Thus, we cannot know anything at all about it other than it is unknown, and/or unknowable. The distinction itself is untenable, a name empty of all content, according to Kant's own conception. — creativesoul
"We must imagine that there is something that provides the conditions for collectively established attributes to be possible."
A tree, perhaps?
Folks tend to get hung up on notions of proof and evidence: don't believe it without some justification. The opposite can also be true; there are things that one ought not doubt without proof or evidence.
That the thing before you is a tree is perhaps one. The reasons for doubt are lame. — Banno
How can it be a misquote if it isn't a quote? It was in my own words, and I understand "concepts without intuitions" to mean the same as "thoughts without content", so I don't think I have departed from Kant's intention, which, if true, means it would not be a misreading either. — Janus
No worries, I don't take anything on here personally.
I think you are failing to make a distinctiin between thoughts and thinking. The way I understand it a thought consists in concepts but thinking obviously does not.
So I would say that animals think but they do not entertain thoughts, which would require concepts and hence symbolic language.
As another example a painter thinks visually but that thinking does not consist in discrete thoughts which could be formulated. — Janus
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