I don’t know what you are talking about then. Fill in the variables so I know what you are talking about, please.

If we are talking about idealism vs materialism again, then I don’t agree with direct apprehension of external phenomena.

In the case at hand, the phenomena only occur as thought. That only applies to all phenomena if we restrict our context to thinking about things. — Terrapin Station

Our context is always restricted to thinking about things. What could possibly occur to us except as thought?

Phenomena may very well exist regardless of thought, but they will never occur to us without it.

Ah. Perhaps you were speaking of me talking about objective referents? When we speak about them, we are really speaking about our thoughts about external stimuli indirectly apprehended through our sense organs.

Where did you go?

I don’t agree with direct apprehension of external phenomena. — Noah Te Stroete

Nor do I. Direct perception, sure. No apprehension of external things is direct. The external thing has to become a representation. Plus a whole bunch of other stuff. Scientifically or metaphysically, doesn’t matter.

So we got into a tangent about so-called "rigid designators." I said I don't believe the distinction holds any water, because of the subjectivity of representation, reference, etc. Then Mww wound up saying, "There is no source other than ourselves for anything whatsoever," which I don't at all agree with, but then added, "That we’re conscious of, anyway," which I read as saying "In terms of consciousness qua consciousness."

I'm not at all an idealist or representationalist. I don't think that either idealism or representationalism are at all empirically supportable.

(neither)idealism or representationalism are at all empirically supportable. — Terrapin Station

They can’t be, they are purely speculative. Nothing about either of those is subject to the scientific method. But they can still be logical.

“...The capacity of experiencing Pleasure or Pain on the occasion of a mental representation, is called ‘Feeling,’ because Pleasure and Pain contain only what is subjective in the relations of our mental activity. They do not involve any relation to an object that could possibly furnish a knowledge of it as such; they cannot even give us a knowledge of our own mental state. For even Sensations, considered apart from the qualities which attach to them on account of the modifications of the Subject, as, for instance, in reference to Red, Sweet, and such like, are referred as constituent elements of knowledge to Objects, whereas Pleasure or Pain felt in connection with what is red or sweet, express absolutely nothing that is in the Object, but merely a relation to the Subject. And for the reason just stated, Pleasure and Pain considered in themselves cannot be more precisely defined. All that can be further done with regard to them is merely to point out what consequences they may have in certain relations, in order to make the knowledge of them available practically...”

Available practically. The practical and the pure are very different. Pure reason has nothing to do with emotion, for emotion, reducible to none other than feelings of pain and pleasure, can provide us with no knowledgeable object, but merely a subjective condition. The separation of emotion from pure reason is very clear. — Mww

Kant clearly claims that there is a distinction between emotion and thinking about thought/belief. His conceptions support this idea. He defined all his different notions accordingly. I've granted his coherency.

He was still quite wrong.

Is mental correlation adequate? Is it both, necessary and sufficient, such that all predication counts as being thought/belief? I can't imagine a good argument against it.
— creativesoul

Such that predication counts as thought belief? It does not follow necessarily from mental correlation being both necessary and sufficient, that such counts as thought/belief. Mental correlation *IS* predication itself, and could count as pure reason with as much validity as counting as thought/belief. — Mww

Not quite.

All predication is mental correlation. Not all mental correlation is predication. I completely agree that Kant's notion of pure reason consists entirely of mental correlations. It consists of the all the different rational connections/relations he drew between different things, nearly or mostly all of which are existentially dependent upon language to begin with. That's the bulk of the problem.

It does not follow from the fact that emotion - alone - cannot furnish us with knowledge about objects that pure reason does not include and/or consist of emotion - at least in part.

Consider this for a moment.

If all thinking about thought/belief is existentially dependent upon pre-existing thought/belief, and all pre-existing thought/belief is existentially dependent upon emotion, then it only follows that all thinking about thought/belief is existentially dependent upon emotion.

If all thinking about thought/belief is existentially dependent upon pre-existing thought/belief, and all pre-existing thought/belief has emotion as an elementary constituent therein, then it only follows that all thinking about thought/belief has emotion as an elementary constituent therein.

If thinking about thought/belief does not include thinking about the emotional aspects of thought/belief, then such considerations are not taking proper account of that which existed in it's entirety prior to the account.

They can’t be, they are purely speculative. Nothing about either of those is subject to the scientific method. But they can still be logical. — Mww

I don't do ontology by speculation or purely by logic.

I invoked "rigid designator" as the best means I know of for avoiding misinterpretations regarding my use of the term "morality". In addition, it avoids equivocating. I think that that is prevalent in this forum.

Salva veritate is quite the helpful tool around these parts...

I don't do ontology by speculation or purely by logic. — Terrapin Station

Cool. You can do ontology without using language? That would be fun to watch.

Cool. You can do ontology without using language? — creativesoul

Sure. It's a bit harder to communicate it without language, though--at least to communicate it very precisely.

Physiological sensory perception doesn't need turned on. That happens autonomously.
— creativesoul

Physiological sensory apparatus doesn’t need turned on; it is available for perceiving autonomously, all else being given. Sensory perception requires an affectation, therefore is not autonomous. — Mww

On Kant's view, perhaps. Not on mine. I see no reason whatsoever to conclude that physiological sensory perception does not happen autonomously simply because there needs to be 'something' perceived.

Happening autonomously simply means that it is not the result of an intentional, deliberate, and/or purposeful conscious effort.

Contentment need not be turned on. That is the simplest of mind states along with it's counterpart... discontentment.
— creativesoul

Contentment = pleasure; discontentment = pain. — Mww

All pleasure may qualify as contentment on your view, and all pain may qualify as discontentment as well. I would not disagree with that. There is no equivalence however. Not all contentment is pleasure. Not all discontentment is pain.

Add in the conditions of the day, his empiricist bent, gives us what we see as simple-minded thinking. Still, it only took 50 years for his moral theory to be shown incomplete and thus sufficiently refuted. — Mww

Yes, I agree; it would be anachronistic to say that Hume was simpleminded just because his views seem simpleminded today.

I think his biggest detriment to moral philosophy was....plain and simple....he worked backwards, insofar as he tried to synthesize modern empirical thought to ancient virtue ethics. Which just doesn’t work. You can’t get Greek virtue utilitarianism to inform British Enlightenment sentimentalist plurality. — Mww

I'm not sure what you mean by "he tried to synthesize modern empirical thought to ancient virtue ethics.". Would you mind elaborating on that? Also I don't see virtue ethics as any form of utilitarianism, so that is puzzling as well!

Kinda funny, if you ask me. People are so much more apt to think themselves as sentimental entities, than to think themselves rational entities. — Mww

For me, in the ethical, moral and practical spheres (at least!) rationality and sentiment (I prefer 'feeling' because of the connotations of 'sentiment') are inseparable. So, I would say that morality is not reducible to feeling, but that feeling is an inextricable element of morality (as is rationality). I would go on to say that because rationality is ineluctably inter-subjective, then so is morality. So, morality is not a mere matter of individual feelings and responses (although it is obviously and truistically also that). Moral dispositions are syntheses of thought and feeling which cannot occur in the "vacuum" of the mere lone individual; to think that is to indulge a romantic fantasy which ironically ("ironically" because it is such an unromantic notion) originates in the idea of the atomistic separation of the individual.

He was still quite wrong. — creativesoul

You mean your philosophy is more right, right? A theory predicated on logic, internally consistent, and non-contradictory....can be wrong?
——————

It does not follow from the fact that emotion - alone - cannot furnish us with knowledge about objects that pure reason does not include and/or consist of emotion - at least in part. — creativesoul

No, it doesn’t. Emotion cannot furnish knowledge at all, we allow ourselves as having knowledge, therefore, with respect to knowledge, emotion and pure reason are mutually exclusive. If one wishes to claim reason has an emotional component, he’s welcome to enunciate and sustain it somehow.
——————-

Consider this for a moment. (...) If thinking about thought/belief does not include thinking about the emotional aspects, then such considerations are not taking proper account of that which existed in it's entirety prior to the account. — creativesoul

If I’m considering what color to paint the bedroom, if I fail to think about the starving children in Somalia, then it follows I’ll never decide what color to paint the bedroom because of it? Even if I’m a naturally emotional kinda guy, I don’t need to think an emotional aspect if what I’m thinking about has no emotional content.

Another good post. You’re fun to read...makes me critique both of us.

I don't do ontology by speculation or purely by logic. — Terrapin Station

If ontology isn’t presupposed or irrelevant, I don’t care what it is.

Kant, an the other hand, granting Humian cause and effect in the physical world as given, thus recognizing the need for consistency of the principle with respect to the authority of the will in a possible metaphysical context wherein your “universal fact of human responsibility” is an effect and presupposes a necessary cause. But he was still at the mercy of infinite regress, for to suppose freedom as a cause necessitates it be at the same time an effect. What Hume didn’t consider is this:

“....I adopt this method of assuming freedom merely as an idea which rational beings suppose in their actions, in order to avoid the necessity of proving it in its theoretical aspect also. The former is sufficient for my purpose; for even though the speculative proof should not be made out, yet a being that cannot act except with the idea of freedom is bound by the same laws that would oblige a being who was actually free. Thus we can escape here from the onus which presses on the theory. We have finally reduced the definite conception of morality to the idea of freedom. This latter, however, we could not prove to be actually a property of ourselves or of human nature; only we saw that it must be presupposed if we would conceive a being as rational and conscious of its causality in respect of its actions, i.e., as endowed with a will; and so we find that on just the same grounds we must ascribe to every being endowed with reason and will this attribute of determining itself to action under the idea of its freedom...”

In short, Hume couldn’t prove a cause, Kant showed no proof was necessary. We couldn’t tell the difference between a rational being with freedom theoretically proven as cause for the authority of the will, from a rational being with merely the presupposed idea of freedom as the means for the authority of the will. — Mww

This is a nice analysis, and a very apt quote from Kant. I have also long thought that we think freedom of the will because that is what our experience of action and responsibility, and most specifically moral responsibility, seems to show us. The question 'But do we REALLY have free will?' is at best unanswerable, and at worst inapt and even incoherent. The idea that it is a coherent question seems to be a chimera created, again, by outmoded and unfortunate atomistic, mechanistic thinking.

A theory predicated on logic, internally consistent, and non-contradictory....can be wrong? — Mww

Of course it can be. Coherency is insufficient for truth. This is particularly the case regarding accounts of and/or when one is reporting upon that which existed in it's entirety prior to the account/report.

They can’t be, they are purely speculative. Nothing about either of those is subject to the scientific method. But they can still be logical. — Mww

That's right, and the same goes for materialism and physicalism, despite what any methodological assumptions that are made in the practice of science might seem to indicate.

A theory predicated on logic, internally consistent, and non-contradictory....can be wrong? — Mww

No, and I think this is where many people become confused. It is well accepted in philosophy of science that theories cannot be verified to be right or wrong. A theory is provisionally accepted as long as it seems to be, regarding what is observed, the most explanatory one available and as long as any predicted conditions and events that it entails are consistently observed to obtain.

If ontology isn’t presupposed or irrelevant, I don’t care what it is. — Mww

Haha (or were you not joking?)

So “morality” must always refer to acceptable/unacceptable behavior is a necessary truth. — Noah Te Stroete

Twaddle. That's just one common definition, and it doesn't even account for intentions, character, or consequences, which are three very important aspects of ethics.

They can’t be, they are purely speculative. Nothing about either of those is subject to the scientific method. But they can still be logical.

Someone seems to have changed their tune. When I gave a logical argument against idealism, it was all empiricism, empiricism, empiricism.

Does anyone else find it cringey when someone tries to twist what Kant says to fit their own crackpot ramblings? Or to claim that some famed intellectual utterly failed and got things wrong in light of said crackpot ramblings?

Einstein was wrong about the atom, because he utterly failed to distinguish between atoms and thinking about thought/belief. He failed to realise that atoms are existentially dependent on that which is prior to thought/belief.

The question 'But do we REALLY have free will?' is at best unanswerable, and at worst inapt and even incoherent. The idea that it is a coherent question seems to be a chimera created, again, by outmoded and unfortunate atomistic, mechanistic thinking. — Janus

The final words on Dr. Hook’s “Cover of the Rolling Stone”, the way it was said....fits that comment to a gold-plated tee: ahhh, that’s just beautiful.

It is well accepted in philosophy of science that theories cannot be verified to be right or wrong. A theory is provisionally accepted as long as it seems to be, regarding what is observed, the most explanatory one available and as long as any predicted conditions and events that it entails are consistently observed to obtain. — Janus

Yep. Not to mention, coherence is not a condition of a valid theory. Just because it doesn’t make sense to someone, or even a group of someone’s, doesn’t mean it is senseless.

A theory predicated on logic, internally consistent, and non-contradictory....can be wrong?
— Mww

Of course it can be. Coherency is insufficient for truth. — creativesoul

True enough, but it doesn’t have to be; that’s logic’s job.

If ontology isn’t presupposed or irrelevant, I don’t care what it is.
— Mww

Haha (or were you not joking?) — Terrapin Station

Nope, not joking. Being or becoming is already present in transcendental reductive epistemology. Working with what is, beats working with how something becomes what it is.

But you care about ontology only if it's irrelevant?