—————-Representations of our sensibility is an affect on our senses. An affect on our senses is a perception. A perception requires what we call an outward object. Outward objects are outward things. Outward objects in themselves are things-in-themselves. Outward objects in themselves are perceived. things-in-themselves are perceived. That which is merely perceived is unknown to us. Things-in-themselves are unknown to us.
— Mww
Your argument is wrong. To think that an undetermined "something" has caused A is not the same as knowing the cause of A. Moreover, Kant says countless times that we cannot perceive things in themselves. This is the main point of CPR. — David Mo
——————“...objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility...”
(B45)
Simple substitution, object in itself for thing in itself. It is done by the author repeatedly. Please show how my argument is wrong.
— Mww
In this paragraph Kant is criticizing the "ordinary" representation of things in themselves, purely empirical. His criticism begins from "But if we consider..." The idea is that the in thing itself cannot be reached through the generalization of the senses. — David Mo
Yes. But in quantum mechanics (not philosophy) the subjective means the problem of measurement, that is to say, the fact that some objects cannot be known -or even exist- independently of the fact to be measured. May be "intersubjective" would be more accurate, but usually they are called "subjective". In any case not "objective". — David Mo
Because it asserts that a wave function becomes 'real' only when the system is observed, the term 'subjective' is sometimes proposed for the Copenhagen interpretation. This term is rejected by many Copenhagenists[24] because the process of observation is mechanical and does not depend on the individuality of the observer. — Copenhagen interpretation - Metaphysics of the wave function
What it seems important as principle in Kant is the regulative use of the reason. That is to say: physics principles are a priori because they come from a priori conditions of our knowledge, not being things in themselves. This links with Kuhnian concept of paradigm and with quantum paradoxes of measurement, relativity, etc. We live a world mediated by the categories of our way of thinking. — David Mo
That is, the-thing-itself is so inaccessable to knowledge that we can't even say of it that it is an object, or that it has the form of an object. — StreetlightX
is anyone very familiar with Heidegger's take on the subject/object distinction? I myself have read a great deal and am not in the camp that he's a deliberately obfuscating charlatan, as many of my friends claim.
Nevertheless, if anyone has bothered I'd like their interpretation. — Xtrix
Idealism consists in the assertion, that there are none but thinking beings, all other things, which we think are perceived in intuition, being nothing but representations in the thinking beings, to which no object external to them corresponds in fact. Whereas I say, that things as objects of our senses existing outside us are given, but we know nothing of what they may be in themselves, knowing only their appearances, i.e., the representations which they cause in us by affecting our senses. Consequently I grant by all means that there are bodies without us, that is, things which, though quite unknown to us as to what they are in themselves, we yet know by the representations which their influence on our sensibility procures us, and which we call bodies, a term signifying merely the appearance of the thing which is unknown to us, but not therefore less actual. Can this be termed idealism? It is the very contrary.
Long before Locke's time, but assuredly since him, it has been generally assumed and granted without detriment to the actual existence of external things, that many of their predicates may be said to belong not to the things in themselves, but to their appearances, and to have no proper existence outside our representation. Heat, color, and taste, for instance, are of this kind. Now, if I go farther, and for weighty reasons rank as mere appearances the remaining qualities of bodies also, which are called primary, such as extension, place, and in general space, with all that which belongs to it (impenetrability or materiality, space, etc.)—no one in the least can adduce the reason of its being inadmissible. As little as the man who admits colors not to be properties of the object in itself, but only as modifications of the sense of sight, should on that account be called an idealist, so little can my system be named idealistic, merely because I find that more, nay,
All the properties which constitute the intuition of a body belong merely to its appearance.
The existence of the thing that appears is thereby not destroyed, as in genuine idealism, but it is only shown, that we cannot possibly know it by the senses as it is in itself. — Kant
There are basketballs out there, there are no basketballs in my head. Therefore it is absolutely impossible that the basketball I know, in whatever way, shape or form I know it, can be the basketball out there. — Mww
In the same way, if I consider all the representations of the senses, together with their form, space and time, to be nothing but appearances, and space and time to be a mere form of the sensibility, which is not to be met with in objects out of it, and if I make use of these representations in reference to possible experience only, there is nothing in my regarding them as appearances that can lead astray or cause illusion. For all that they can correctly cohere according to rules of truth in experience. Thus all the propositions of geometry hold good of space as well as of all the objects of the senses, consequently of all possible experience, whether I consider space as a mere form of the sensibility, or as something cleaving to the things themselves. In the former case however I comprehend how I can know a priori these propositions concerning all the objects of external intuition. Otherwise, everything else as regards all possible experience remains just as if I had not departed from the vulgar view.
...
My doctrine of the ideality of space and of time, therefore, far from reducing the whole sensible world to mere illusion, is the only means of securing the application of one of the most important cognitions (that which mathematics propounds a priori) to actual objects, and of preventing its being regarded as mere illusion. For without this observation it would be quite impossible to make out whether the intuitions of space and time, which we borrow from no experience, and which yet lie in our representation a priori, are not mere phantasms of our brain, to which objects do not correspond, at least not adequately, and consequently, whether we have been able to show its unquestionable validity with regard to all the objects of the sensible world just because they are mere appearances. — Kant
I like Heidegger, especially the lectures that made him famous among students well before Being and Time. Have you read any of the early stuff or perhaps The Young Heidegger by Van Buren? Having looked at the early stuff, it's clear to me that Blattner's Heidegger's Temporal Idealism gets 'death' wrong. It's nothing so complicated. It's just the possibility of our own death, certain but indeterminate. Memento mori! — mask
Theory's subject-object device is part of an epistemological project that neglects our primary, non-theoretical kind of existence --the same experience of sharing a world of tools and words that makes such a theory possible in the first place. — mask
I’m mostly in that camp with your friends. He does well to make clear some of Husserl’s ideas, but overall he narrows the phenomenological interest to language alone. — I like sushi
In phenomenological terms the whole subject/object issue isn’t much of an issue at all. — I like sushi
Yes I've read his lectures on Aristotle and Hegel. I didn't find Blattner's book all that convincing. I haven't heard of "The Young Heidegger." — Xtrix
Although Heidegger is aware of Rudolf Otto’s analysis of religion as centred on the idea of the “holy” or the “numinous”, in fact, for Heidegger, the key to an understanding of religion in general and the Christian religion in particular is not so much the numinous as what he calls “the historical” (das Historsiche) (GA60: 323). The “core phenomeon” (Kernphänomen) (GA60: 31) or “founding sense-element” (GA60: 323) of religion is “the historical” (GA60: 31) : “Factical life 13 emerges out of a genesis and becomes in an entirely special way historical (enacted)” (GA60: 141). The religious way of being in the world is as a kind of historical consciousness. Unfortunately, in his 1920-21 Phenomenology of Religious Life course, Heidegger is not particularly forthcoming about what precisely he means by “the historical”. For Heidegger, history is not something that can simply be made an object of study. Rather, we are cast in history, we live it: “History hits us, and we are history itself” (Die Geschichte trifft uns, und wir sind sie selbst) (GA60: 173). Factical life and the experience of the historical add up to being the same thing; the manner human beings are concerned, worried or preoccupied by time and by the temporal aspects of their lives. In later lecture courses Heidegger will be more explicit about the manner that Dasein occupies history and is highly critical of inauthentic ways of understanding the process of history. — link
Interesting. It does seem he's getting at that when speaking of "de-worlding." But yes, that the subject-object dichotomy is just a "founded" mode of seeing the world I get out of him as well. And I have to say that prior to reading Heidegger, I never had quite considered things in this way, despite reading Freud and Schopenhauer and all our contemporary talk of automaticity. — Xtrix
Exactly correct. So you're right, why bicker about whether noumenon means the same thing or something else -- it doesn't negate the above, which is all I'm really concerned with in this thread. — Xtrix
When the face in the toast is the focus of attention, the toast itself fades to background) — Mww
Obviously not an easy subject, so many distinctions to keep in mind. — waarala
In a way, the introduction of the distinction (b/t subject and object) into philosophy ought to be seen as a kind of abberation, a wrong turn taken that we've had to devote entire generations of philosophy in order to get over. Hopefully sooner rather than later. — StreetlightX
Heidegger was entirely right to inject time into any analysis of things, even though he tethered that injection to (a certain conception of) death in a way I find problematic. — StreetlightX
Outward objects in themselves are perceived. — Mww
Does Kant really think there are basketballs out there? — mask
The truths of Euclid seem to depend on shared practices. Trying to ground science on an individual mind seems iffy. What does Kant assume without realizing it? — mask
In my opinion what makes Kant attractive is that he stands between subjective idealism and dogmatic realism. The world of phenomena is somewhere between pure subjectivity and pure reality. It exists outside the mind, but it does not exist apart from the mind. — David Mo
There is a part of Kant's theory of mathematics that is fully valid: mathematics are constructions that are imposed a priori and then justified by experience. — David Mo
I would like the debate to shift to Heidegger. I tried to read Being and Time and found it too cumbersome, so I stopped. I only know about him through third parties too involved in controversies against or in favour of him. — David Mo
The world of phenomena is somewhere between pure subjectivity and pure reality. It exists outside the mind, but it does not exist apart from the mind. — David Mo
Although Heidegger is aware of Rudolf Otto’s analysis of religion as centred on the idea of the “holy” or the “numinous”, in fact, for Heidegger, the key to an understanding of religion in general and the Christian religion in particular is not so much the numinous as what he calls “the historical” (das Historsiche) (GA60: 323). — link
To give a stock example, the Earth orbited the Sun long before humans came on the scene to construct a theory of heliocentrism. It seems that we can talk about that in ordinary language (introducing scientific or mathematical language where relevant). What does Kant's system, or subject/object dualism generally, contribute here? — Andrew M
transcendental realism...regards space and time as something given in themselves (independent of our sensiblity). The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding.
(Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271)The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers. Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time loses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe. So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'.
Does Kant really think there are basketballs out there? — mask
.....ordinary reality is a kind of intersubjective representation.... — mask
A small point. Can geometry really be saved this way? — mask
My doctrine of the ideality of space and of time..... — Kant
The truths of Euclid seem to depend on shared practices. Trying to ground science on an individual mind seems iffy. — mask
A small point. Can geometry really be saved this way? Does Kant not need to assume that we all intuit space the same way? And how can he see anyone's beetle in their box? The truths of Euclid seem to depend on shared practices. Trying to ground science on an individual mind seems iffy. What does Kant assume without realizing it? I still think Kant is great. — mask
When the face in the toast is the focus of attention, the toast itself fades to background)
— Mww
I'm afraid I don't understand the example of the toast. This raises a question about your conception of the thing in itself (noumenon). The face on the toast is just a phenomenal illusion. — David Mo
Things in themselves refer to objects such as substance, God, cause, soul, etc. that have no appearance. — David Mo
Because it makes a difference as to what kind of thing the transcendental subject is. Collapsing the noumenon into the thing-in-itself idealizes the thing-in-itself in a way that makes Kant... Fichte. It makes all the difference in the world. — StreetlightX
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