The stick example shows that one can be mistaken about what they think they've perceived. — Andrew M

As I mentioned, Bishop Berkeley already addresses this question in his Dialogues:

Hylas: What do you say to this? Since, according to you, men judge the reality of things by their senses, how can a man be mistaken in thinking that the moon is a plain shining surface, about a foot in diameter; or that a square tower seen at a distance is round; or that an oar with one end in the water is crooked?

Philonous: He is mistaken not with regard to the ideas he actually perceives, but in what he infers from his present perceptions. Thus in the case of the oar, what he immediately perceives by sight is certainly crooked; and to that extent he is right. But if he infers from this that when he takes the oar out of the water he will see the same crookedness, or that it will affect his sense of touch as crooked things usually do, in that he is mistaken. Likewise, if from what he perceives in one place he infers that if he moves closer to the moon or tower he will still experience similar ideas, he is mistaken. But his mistake lies not in what he perceives immediately and at present (for it is a manifest contradiction to suppose he could err about that), but in the wrong judgment he makes concerning the ideas he thinks to be connected with the ones he immediately perceives; or concerning the ideas that—judging by what he perceives at present—he thinks would be perceived in other circumstances.

Third Dialogue, edition from https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/berkeley1713.pdf

When Critique of Pure Reason, First Edition, was published, many reviewers said that Kant was basically repeating Berkeley, which caused Kant to include in the second edition a 'refutation of material idealism' to distinguish his doctrine from Berkeley's.

I don't *think* you're really getting Kant's 'critique' but I'm hardly able to try and set you straight on it, as I'm not well read in Kant. The single point of Kant's philosophy that I appeal to, is his 'copernican revolution in philosophy', that being the constitutive role that the mind plays in our construal of nature. The world is not something that simply exists irrespective of our cognitive capabilities, there for us to discover; all of our knowledge of it is the product of the synthesis of perceptions and judgements which constitutes reality for us.

With reference to the OP, do you see the world in some other way? What other way would there be to see the world? — tim wood

Subject, object and [new '-ject' word] concerning subject/object qualia.

I see the world as an ongoing union of many forces and elements.

Object, subject and then deeper, I think is sensible.

Alice(subject), see's Bob(object) - but what is Alice and Bob without the deeper understanding of people?

But I'm suggesting that seeing knowledge as evolving is seeing its timeless essence as evolution and change. — jjAmEs

Now you've gotten into the type of contradiction I warned about. Change requires time, it cannot be timeless. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think you're understanding me. 'Knowledge is unstable' is posited as something stable about knowledge. 'It's the nature or essence of knowledge to adapt.' Or, more generally, 'everything changes except change itself.' So flux itself (in the abstract) is made the static being that can be glimpsed lurking behind a becoming that is itself recast as a succession of pseudo-beings and their associated pseudo-knowledges. As one person suggested, Nietzsche is Plato turned upside down. But inversion is a simple transformation.

Do you not see the problem with your representation? If someone states "truth is impossible", then it's very clear that they are not presenting this as a truth. To represent this as if the person were stating what is believed to be a "truth", is an obvious a misinterpretation. It's a classic straw man. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that a charitable interpretation should take such a statement as a kind of exaggeration. At best they are hinting toward an attitude that I find congenial. 'Nothing is true!' It seems bold at first, but it's a bluff. It's a safe sophomoric slop, while admittedly showing a certain flexible worldly wisdom at the same time.

There's a difference between claiming that there is no such thing as truth, and claiming that we do not have direct access to truth. If Truth requires God, then claiming that we have no direct access to Truth still admits to a belief in God, because it is implied that there is a Truth (therefore God) which we do not have access to. Atheism implies that there is no such thing as Truth, when Truth requires God. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree. I had this kind of thing in mind:

HOW THE "TRUE WORLD" ULTIMATELY BECAME A FABLE
THE HISTORY OF AN ERROR
1. The true world, attainable to the sage, the pious man and the man of virtue,—he lives in it, he is it.

(The most ancient form of the idea was relatively clever, simple, convincing. It was a paraphrase of the proposition "I, Plato, am the truth.")

2. The true world which is unattainable for the moment, is promised to the sage, to the pious man and to the man of virtue ("to the sinner who repents").

(Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, more insidious, more evasive,—It becomes a woman, it becomes Christian.)

3. The true world is unattainable, it cannot be proved, it cannot promise anything; but even as a thought, alone, it is a comfort, an obligation, a command.

(At bottom this is still the old sun; but seen through mist and scepticism: the idea has become sublime, pale, northern, Königsbergian.)[1]

4. The true world—is it unattainable? At all events it is unattained. And as unattained it is also unknown. Consequently it no longer comforts, nor saves, nor constrains: what could something unknown constrain us to?

(The grey of dawn. Reason stretches itself and yawns for the first time. The cock-crow of positivism.)

5. The "true world"—an idea that no longer serves any purpose, that no longer constrains one to anything,—a useless idea that has become quite superfluous, consequently an exploded idea: let us abolish it!

(Bright daylight; breakfast; the return of common sense and of cheerfulness; Plato blushes for shame and all free-spirits kick up a shindy.)

6. We have suppressed the true world: what world survives? the apparent world perhaps?... Certainly not! In abolishing the true world we have also abolished the world of appearance!

(Noon; the moment of the shortest shadows; the end of the longest error; mankind's zenith; Incipit Zarathustra.)
— Nietzsche

While I can't join Nietzsche in his high noon ecstasy, he's good for seeing the roleplay from the outside .

'I, Plato am the Truth' becomes a half-skeptical religion of truth-at-a-distance. Personally I'd think of identifying (1) and (6) to get a circle. Nietzsche surely felt that he was the truth in his ecstatic moments.

Once while resident at Ojai, Krishnamurti went on a picnic with Charlie Chaplin, Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley, Greta Garbo, and Christopher Isherwood. They were evicted from the picnic grounds by a sheriff who refused to believe them when they told them who they were.

This I disagree with. As philosophers we might seek that eternal truth, but when all we find is the deficiencies of human knowledge we are deprived of that pleasure. Philosophy doesn't offer us that pleasure, it dispels the illusion that we might obtain it. — Metaphysician Undercover

The question ignored here is: why philosophy? If philosophy only breaks our hearts, then why is it preserved ? Why do we spread the heartbreaking virus and scorn an unexamined life as not worth living? Is this not a return of the crucified hero, who also is stapled to a T?

Why dispel illusions? And if no eternal truth can be obtained in the first place, is an illusion still an illusion? If so, with respect to what? When ordinary notions of illusion and reality get inflated to metaphysical entities, the utility of the distinction shrivels.

My position is that philosophy matters. Bacon defends it in these terms. The eyes, the feet, the hands and other organs in direct contact with the world resented having to carry the stomach around, not realizing that they all derived their might from the stomach. Similarly philosophy feeds all the more immediately practical discourses. Or (alternatively) is a general who helps the troops from behind the lines.

if no eternal truth can be obtained in the first place, is an illusion still an illusion? If so, with respect to what? — jjAmEs

Philosophy used to be understood as the pursuit of the eternal truth or at least something beyond the transitory affairs of life. Of course the word 'eternal' itself has become a cliche, emblazoned on ancient pillars standing in ruined temples, museum pieces, the kind of thing that post-modernism ridicules. But the eternal can take many forms, even manifesting in the guise of ephemeral and the transient. There was an artist who used to write 'Eternity' on the sidewalks of Sydney in beautiful copperplate script, in chalk.

You asked the question above, what is it about 'contingency'? Put another way, the contingent is the conditioned, the dependent, that which is made, fabricated, compound, transitory, subject to decay. So the question is, is there anything which is not made, not fabricated, nor born, not subject to decay? That is a very Buddhist expression, but a similar sentiment is found in many sources.

Nagel, in his essay Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament, says that:

Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly.

The problem is, this way of thinking is now so associated with religious philosophies that we've been innoculated against it. It 'sounds religious' so we shy away from it, often reflexively; whatever we're seeking, it can't be that, must be found in another direction. Hence the notion of 'secular philosophy', which, if applied to anything more than making the trains run on time and managing the Commons, is really an oxymoron.

The Western mind has defined these subjects in certain ways, all the encoded meanings have particular ramifications and connotations. Nietzsche of course blew all of that up, but what does he replace it with? A commentator said of him that 'he was simultaneously the opponent, proponent and victim of the nihilism he foresaw.' That's why it's important to be able to consider perspectives outside the Western. Otherwise you suffer from Westernitis, which is a very nasty condition. ;-)

Fair enough, but note the metaphor of light/darkness. — jjAmEs

I'm not against metaphors. They impact and can suggest orientation for practice or knowledge. But they do not explain, define or clarify. They can be a hypothetical starting point for knowledge, never an end in themselves.

Not Eliade, please.

So our ideology involves the notion of being lifted up above the superstitions that kept us in a gape-mouthed, childlike state. So runs the myth, perhaps. — jjAmEs

What are superstitions if not myths? Myths about Jesus Christ, myths about the Aryan race, myths about the Nation, the Spirits... and so on. Myths are tales. They don't reason, they narrate and proclaim. If you refuse to analyze stories with reason, if you allow a story to be the fundamental source of thought and action, your story becomes a superstition.

I think we're talking empty. Perhaps if you propose a myth that can replace reason we can discuss the issue more specifically.

Not Eliade, please. — David Mo

I’m impressed you know the name, :up:

Philosophy used to be understood as the pursuit of the eternal truth or at least something beyond the transitory affairs of life. — Wayfarer

As I've argued within this thread, it still is. As is science and math. This isn't to deny a change in mood and the move toward professionalization. Let's consider phrases like 'make history,' 'leave a mark.'
[quote="Wayfarer;373039"]Of course the word 'eternal' itself has become a cliche, emblazoned on ancient pillars standing in ruined temples, museum pieces, the kind of thing that post-modernism ridicules.[/quote]

I don't think 'eternal' has become a bad word. What is science after if not the eternal laws of the physical? Could Pythagoras ask for more than a TOE that would fit on a T-shirt? I'm wary of the term 'post-modernism.' It's too vague.

Put another way, the contingent is the conditioned, the dependent, that which is made, fabricated, compound, transitory, subject to decay. So the question is, is there anything which is not made, not fabricated, nor born, not subject to decay? — Wayfarer

Indeed. This is the dream of gods, forms, the transcendental subject, and so on. We can also consider how the stars must have affected early thinkers. A seemingly eternal pattern was hung above them in one sky over every human being. Mathematics also suggested something deathlessly reliable. And then the nature of man himself could be viewed as a being behind the becoming and perishing of generations. I've argued that knowledge is intrinsically the conquest of the transitory. Why do we bother?

This is an efficient sketch of the situation.

Anxiety for the future time, disposeth men to enquire into the causes of things: because the knowledge of them, maketh men the better able to order the present to their best advantage. — Hobbes

Of course these days it's also a career, and one is rewarded in various ways for producing knowledge.

Nagel, in his essay Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament, says that: — Wayfarer

It's also my impression that Plato is a religious figure. Socrates was obviously compelled by some sense of a spiritual mission. He was even a conspiracy theorist who couldn't resist arguing with experts and 'proving' that they didn't know anything, because they couldn't jump through his verbal hoops to his satisfaction. It be nice to read how some of them would have recorded or re-imagined the conversation.

The problem is, this way of thinking is now so associated with religious philosophies that we've been innoculated against it. It 'sounds religious' so we shy away from it, often reflexively; whatever we're seeking, it can't be that, must be found in another direction. — Wayfarer

Who is the target audience for this? The use of 'we' seems disingenuous here. Intellectual types who reject ordinary religion presumably do so because they'd rather go without certain comforts and cling to their epistemological standards. Note that I've already defended reinterpretations of religious myth, and I repeat that reincarnation strikes me as metaphorically true. To me the demand for a personal afterlife (the preservation of face, name, memories) even seems shallow in some sense, since the most important stuff is repeated in the next generation, with new names and faces. All high culture is 'religious,' I suggest, even as cultural-intellectual fashions involve a renaming of the same old human feelings and projects.

Nietzsche of course blew all of that up, but what does he replace it with? — Wayfarer

I don't think Nietzsche blew it all up. We can blame Galileo, Newton, etc. Nietzsche is a relatively late figure. In philosophy Bacon was already the beginning of the end. Once technology took off, the old religions no longer fit a no longer static world. Democritus had his revenge. (If I remember correctly, he was Bacon's favorite Greek philosopher.) In practical terms it was better to view nature as a machine without and indifferent to human motives. But then we have the romantic reaction to the disenchantment. We have nature versus spirit. We get Hegel, Fichte, Nietzsche, and other thinkers who embraced the permanent revolution in various ways. Nietzsche was in his best moments one of the great philosophers. In other moments he was terrible. Personally I identity more with Bacon or Hobbes, both of whom lived very much in the real world.

That's why it's important to be able to consider perspectives outside the Western. Otherwise you suffer from Westernitis, which is a very nasty condition. — Wayfarer

I'm not so sure that a Westerner can so easily escape being a Westerner. I've dabbled like many Westerners in wisdom from the East, but I suspect my dabbling has always been through a Western lens. Imported religion was popular with Kerouac & Ginsberg and that gang, to name just one. Were they the real thing? Or some kind of fusion? Why shouldn't Western religious traditions be just as rich and perhaps even more fitting? The cynical part of me thinks the imports have a certain appeal simply as exotic. 'This is not your grandpa's religion.' Yet when I actually met a Buddhist monk once, he reminded me of a Catholic priest.

And is Westernitis a nasty condition? Or are we just as delighted as we are anxious? 'Only a god can save us,' quoth Heidegger. Do we need saving? Of course we'll usually take more of what's good....

I'm not against metaphors. They impact and can suggest orientation for practice or knowledge. But they do not explain, define or clarify. They can be a hypothetical starting point for knowledge, never an end in themselves. — David Mo

Could you make a case for that assertion? Some thinkers have argued that analogy is the core of cognition.

One should not think of analogy-making as a special variety of reasoning (as in the dull and uninspiring phrase “analogical reasoning and problem-solving,” a long-standing cliché in the cognitive-science world), for that is to do analogy a terrible disservice. After all, reasoning and problem-solving have (at least I dearly hope!) been at long last recognized as lying far indeed from the core of human thought. If analogy were merely a special variety of something that in itself lies way out on the peripheries, then it would be but an itty-bitty blip in the broad blue sky of cognition. To me, however, analogy is anything but a bitty blip — rather, it’s the very blue that fills the whole sky of cognition — analogy is everything, or very nearly so, in my view. — Hofstadter

What we call common sense—the body of widely accepted truths—is, just as Heidegger and Nabokov thought, a collection of dead metaphor. Truths are the skeletons which remain after the capacity to arouse the senses—to cause tingles—has been rubbed off by familiarity and long usage. After the scales are rubbed off a butterfly’s wing, you have transparency, but not beauty—formal structure without sensuous content. Once the freshness wears off the metaphor, you have plain, literal, transparent language—the sort of language which is ascribed not to any particular person but to ‘common sense’ or ‘reason’ or ‘intuition’ — Rorty

Philosophy has been largely based on an unnoticed ocular metaphor.

Since it is based on the visual metaphor, Kant's epistemology is not the antirepresentationalism proposed by Rorty. For Kant there is a mediation between the object out there and the mental eye, what is rejected by Rorty. He thinks, that we do not need mediation, since we are unmediately in (touch with) the world. As he says, "Pragmatists reply to ... arguments about the veil of appearances by saying that we need not model knowledge on vision. So there is no need to think of the sense organs or the mind as intervening between a mental eye and its object. Instead, pragmatists say, we can think of both as tools for manipulating the object. They reply to arguments about the distorting effect of language by saying that language is not a medium of representation. Rather, it is an exchange of marks and noises, carried out in order to achieve specific purposes. It cannot fail to represent accurately, for it never represented at all."

Sense organs, mind and language are for Rorty not representational instances, but only tools for coping with the reality. — link

https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoBoro.htm

Not Eliade, please. — David Mo

I looked him up. He's not my cup of tea. I have no cure for mankind to sell. As an individual, I became confident enough in my atheism to eventually go back and enjoy religious myth as literature. I still relate more to young fiery atheists than thinkers like Eliade or the later Heidegger. I do like Campbell, Jung, Hesse, Schopenhauer, Nobby Brown, others.

What are superstitions but not myths? Myths about Jesus Christ, myths about the Aryan race, myths about the Nation, the Spirits... and so on. Myths are tales. They don't reason, they narrate and proclaim. If you refuse to analyze stories with reason, if you allow a story to be the fundamental source of thought and action, your story becomes a superstition.

I think we're talking empty. Perhaps if you propose a myth that can replace reason we can discuss the issue more specifically. — David Mo

Well myths do narrate at least, don't they? I'm hardly suggesting that myths alone will get us through life. This is a high tech society. We need organized, disciplined, technical knowledge...of course. We need longwinded prosy arguments in many situations.

I agree that taking a myth literally is superstition, almost by definition. I do wonder whether some people project a certain reading of myths on others. Was Euler a fool? How about J. S. Bach? Christianity has all kinds of more or less sophisticated interpretations. Wal-Mart fundamentalism is out there, of course, but so is negative theology.

Also myths don't replace reason. They are part of reason. We have lots of stories about heroes and villains, not all of them religious in the traditional sense. Plato's forms are a metaphor that caught on. His famous cave appears again in The Matrix. The appearance-reality distinction is taken for common sense, though in its extreme form it's a particular creation, a piece of oral and written culture.

I’m impressed you know the name, — Wayfarer

I did a project on him when I was a student. At first I found it fascinating. Until I realized it was pseudo-science and mysticism in camuflage. Anyway, he continues to be stimulating.

Eliade was actually very fashionable in the postmodern wave. Now he's fallen into oblivion. More or less.

I don't think you're understanding me. 'Knowledge is unstable' is posited as something stable about knowledge. — jjAmEs

It's you who is not understanding; "knowledge is unstable" is very clearly not posited as something stable, because that would imply contradiction. The person proposing "knowledge is unstable" is very clearly not proposing it as an eternal unchanging truth, because that would be a contradiction of terms. You are simply interpreting it this way, because it is your belief that knowledge consist of such eternal unchanging truths. You have not properly interpreted what the person who says "knowledge is unstable" means. Therefore it is very clear that you have misunderstood.

Or, more generally, 'everything changes except change itself.' — jjAmEs

"Change" is just a word, and what that word means, what you call the "abstraction" also changes. So it's false to say that change itself does not change. The "abstraction" changes.

The question ignored here is: why philosophy? If philosophy only breaks our hearts, then why is it preserved ? Why do we spread the heartbreaking virus and scorn an unexamined life as not worth living? Is this not a return of the crucified hero, who also is stapled to a T? — jjAmEs

But why would you say philosophy breaks our hearts? If it is removed from the category of pleasure and pain, as I suggested, it's not itself a heartbreak, which is the description of a pain.

Why dispel illusions? And if no eternal truth can be obtained in the first place, is an illusion still an illusion? If so, with respect to what? When ordinary notions of illusion and reality get inflated to metaphysical entities, the utility of the distinction shrivels. — jjAmEs

You seem to be mixing temporal perspectives. "What is" refers to the present in time, and that is changing. So to convert "what is" into an eternal truth is a perversion. That actually is the nature of the illusion, that the changing nature of "what is" can be converted into an eternal truth. The illusion ought to be dispelled because it induces pain and suffering through mistaken certitude. The relief or release from pain and suffering is itself a pleasure, but the thing which brings us that pleasure, knowledge, is not itself the pleasure. But when knowledge is categorized like this, it can bring either pleasure or pain, and pain is produced by mistaken knowledge. Philosophy is the means by which we discern between the two. Yes it may still break the heart but it lessens the probability.

The Unmoved Mover is actually quite distinct from God. Aristotle demonstrated that anything eternal must be actual. In this way he separated the concept of "eternal" from "infinite". "Infinite" was demonstrated as necessarily potential. He then posited the Unmoved Mover to account for the eternal actuality, that actuality which is necessarily prior to the potential for material existence. However, he described the eternal actuality as a circular motion, which is a description of a material thing, with infinite time duration. So his Unmoved Mover is a faulty concept which falls back into the category of an infinite material existence, which he had demonstrated was impossible. The Unmoved Mover is inconsistent with his logical demonstrations. — Metaphysician Undercover

For Aristotle, it's the celestial spheres that move in a circular motion (as moved by the Unmoved Mover). The Unmoved Mover, per its name, doesn't move.

So the Neo-Platonists and Christian theologians understand "eternal" in a different way, meaning outside of time. And this is how God is understood, as outside of time, not as Aristotle's Unmoved Mover. This is very important, because "eternal" in this context does not mean an infinite duration of time (what Aristotle demonstrated as impossible, then turned around and proposed as Unmoved Mover), it means outside time. — Metaphysician Undercover

For Aristotle, time is the measure of change. The Unmoved Mover does not change, so time is not applicable for it.

The very idea of failure of language per se seems incoherent to me. The point for me is that certain ideas may lead "naturally" to unreflective reification. — Janus

Yes, in the context of this thread, the idea of mind comes to mind.

One example of faith consists in believing that there is any natural knowledge of God's existence. — Janus

Yes, though I would note that Aristotle didn't seem to be motivated by faith.

The Wiki page on Eliade is fascinating.

From the perspective of religious thought, Eliade argues, hierophanies give structure and orientation to the world, establishing a sacred order. The "profane" space of nonreligious experience can only be divided up geometrically: it has no "qualitative differentiation and, hence, no orientation [is] given by virtue of its inherent structure".[88] Thus, profane space gives man no pattern for his behavior. In contrast to profane space, the site of a hierophany has a sacred structure to which religious man conforms himself.
...
From the standpoint of religious thought, the world has an objective purpose established by mythical events, to which man should conform himself: "Myth teaches [religious man] the primordial 'stories' that have constituted him existentially."[166] From the standpoint of secular thought, any purpose must be invented and imposed on the world by man. Because of this new "existential situation", Eliade argues, the Sacred becomes the primary obstacle to nonreligious man's "freedom". In viewing himself as the proper maker of history, nonreligious man resists all notions of an externally (for instance, divinely) imposed order or model he must obey: modern man "makes himself, and he only makes himself completely in proportion as he desacralizes himself and the world. [...] He will not truly be free until he has killed the last god".

Eliade says that secular man cannot escape his bondage to religious thought. By its very nature, secularism depends on religion for its sense of identity: by resisting sacred models, by insisting that man make history on his own, secular man identifies himself only through opposition to religious thought: "He [secular man] recognizes himself in proportion as he 'frees' and 'purifies' himself from the 'superstitions' of his ancestors." — link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade

I agree with the last point. The secular identity depends on the traditional identity which it negates. This 'secular' identity has freedom or autonomy as its ideal --as that which must be incarnated, repeated, brought to completion in perfected deicide.

It seems hard indeed to avoid some kind of 'spiritual' role-play, which may obviously take the form of anti-superstitious flame-throwing in the name of the fire god.

The belief in a external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world of 'physical reality' indirectIy, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means" (Albert Einstein: "Clerk Maxwell's Influence on the Evolution of the Idea of Physical Reality" (1931), The World as I see lt ).

Note though, that the term "external world" does not (necessarily) refer to a world beyond human experience, but to an inter-subjectively shared world which is external inasmuch as it does not depend on any particular human percipient for its existence.

How could anyone coherently think that science deals with a world beyond human experience? The most that one could plausibly suggest in this connection is that human experience is a part of the natural world as it is "in itself" and so is naturally "isomorphic" with, or "reflective of" it.

First, Kant didn’t attribute any geometry to space, but rather, to objects in space. Kant was a “magister” in math and tutored university-level mathematics, so it is highly unlikely he wasn’t aware of non-Euclidean axioms, such that triangles on the surface of a sphere do not have angle summation of 180 degrees. But that fact does not negate the Euclid’s “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line”, which remains true even if one cannot get from A to B in a straight line. The truth that one cannot cut through the Earth to get from NYC to Hong Kong does not falsify the fact that cutting through the Earth is the shortest way. — Mww

However the Earth itself is curved in spacetime due to its mass. So there is no Euclidean straight line from NYC to Hong-Kong through the Earth. (Unless one projects the line "outside" the universe.)

It is clear Kantian synthetic a priori judgements require necessity, which experience cannot deliver. Therefore experience cannot falsify them.

Consider, even though time dilation and length contraction have been shown to be the case, as regards relativity, all that began with pure mathematics, which are.......wait for it......all synthetic a priori propositions. Einstein had to think all this stuff before he ever wrote anything down, and had to wait years for technology to catch up enough to demonstrate the the truth in the math.

Also consider, no matter what relativity says, a guy doing geometric functions anywhere in the Universe can still use Euclid’s axioms. He’s still human and so was Euclid, so......

It’s always helpful to keep in mind just what relativity means. — Mww

OK, so it seems you're saying that both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry would be synthetic a priori for Kant.

Then it is an entirely separate question of how to mathematically represent the universe, which is a question for physics (and involves experience).

Because the Kantian cognitive system is representational, there must be representations for each step in the procedure, so appearance is simply the first representation in the transition from external real physical to internal speculative theory.

...

Depends on what his system is thought to be. Actually, it is a speculative cognitive system, meant to show a possible method for the human intellect to arrive at an understanding of himself and his environment. Keyword...speculative. The theory was never meant to establish a truth about anything at all, except itself as such. Hence, the theory doesn’t solve any problems, except those the theory explores, and then only if one grants the tenets of it. — Mww

Thanks, that makes sense. So it's the tenet of representationalism where I part company. In my view, the ordinary object we point to (the intentional object) is not a representation or an object of sense. That precludes the Kantian thing-in-itself/appearance distinction.

Subject and object are valid ways of think certain relations of reality. But not all relations in reality can be defined by this two categories. The master and slave categories can not, for example. In the same way the marital relationship.

The categories of subject and object are scientifical categories, but not the only categories of scientific methodology.

When Critique of Pure Reason, First Edition, was published, many reviewers said that Kant was basically repeating Berkeley, which caused Kant to include in the second edition a 'refutation of material idealism' to distinguish his doctrine from Berkeley's. — Wayfarer

So I agree with Kant's conclusion here as against Berkeley:

In Berkeley’s position, a subject’s perception of an oar in the water as crooked is not a misperception, for “what he immediately perceives by sight is not in error, and so far he is in the right,” and it is misleading only because it is apt to give rise to mistaken inferences (Berkeley 1713: Third Dialogue); while for Kant this perception is in error. — The Refutation of Idealism - SEP

I don't *think* you're really getting Kant's 'critique' but I'm hardly able to try and set you straight on it, as I'm not well read in Kant. The single point of Kant's philosophy that I appeal to, is his 'copernican revolution in philosophy', that being the constitutive role that the mind plays in our construal of nature. The world is not something that simply exists irrespective of our cognitive capabilities, there for us to discover; all of our knowledge of it is the product of the synthesis of perceptions and judgements which constitutes reality for us. — Wayfarer

Where I disagree with Kant is his idea that an object that we point to, such as a tree or a person, is a representation (i.e., a sense-data object, or appearance). The mind is constitutive in the sense that we are intentional about what we are pointing to (and thus a perspective is implied). But it is not constitutive in the sense of coming between an object and our judgment of it (as is implied by Kant's thing-in-itself/appearance distinction).

So it's the tenet of representationalism where I part company. In my view, the ordinary object we point to (the intentional object) is not a representation or an object of sense. That precludes the Kantian thing-in-itself/appearance distinction. — Andrew M

Kant would not claim that 'an object is a representation of something unknown'. That is much more like representative realism which is the idea that our perceptions are caused by the intrinsic qualities of objects, and based on these perceptions we can infer things about them.

The distinction between phenomena and noumena is not a distinction between two kinds of object. He's not saying, here is the phenomenal appearance, and there the object as it really is. We only ever know phenomena, how things appear to us, but that doesn't mean that they're simply ideas (qua Berkeley) but that the act of knowing is a synthesis of ideas, sensations, and judgements.

I think you're still operating from within the 'innate naturalism' that Magee talks about in his book on Schopenhauer - the conviction of the innate reality of the sensory domain. It's a very difficult thing to question.

Could you make a case for that assertion? Some thinkers have argued that analogy is the core of cognition. — jjAmEs

I agree that taking a myth literally is superstition, almost by definition. I do wonder whether some people project a certain reading of myths on others. Was Euler a fool? How about J. S. Bach? — jjAmEs

There are two things that confuse me in your comment:

Analogy and metaphor are not synonym. Metaphor is a special kind of analogy. Therefore what kind of analogy need to be precised. If analogy means a relationship of identity or likeness between two different objects, I agree. It is a mental procedure that is in the basis of many kinds of knowledge: commonsense, philosophy or science. It is induction. But this process must be complemented with other logic and inductive methods if it want to be rigorous. Analogy in itself can be correct or fallacious. You can find if it is one thing or other only by means of a subsequent elaboration.

Rorty is obsessed with updating the language. He reduces the philosophical value to novelty or antiquity. He thinks that what matters is to be fashionable. No wonder he talks about living and stale metaphors. Anyway, he's right about that. Stale metaphors become commonplace. Therefore, living metaphors have a power of provocation while stale metaphors lead to conformity. This does not mean that one is objective and the other is not. It is just that one sets thought in motion and the other is scholastic.

I'm crazy about Bach. If the Holy Trinity exists, Bach is in the upper corner. I'm sure he is. But I don't think music is a good example for myths. It's too abstract compared to narrative myths. And I don't believe in the causal relationship between the form and content of music. If we want to discuss a myth, it would be better to choose a true myth: Prometheus, Mary's virginity or the creation of the world according to the Mayas.

Stale metaphors become commonplace. — David Mo

I think there are also rogue metaphors. Selfish Gene is a classic.

So it's the tenet of representationalism where I part company. In my view, the ordinary object we point to (the intentional object) is not a representation or an object of sense. That precludes the Kantian thing-in-itself/appearance distinction.
— Andrew M

Kant would not claim that 'an object is a representation of something unknown'. That is much more like representative realism which is the idea that our perceptions are caused by the intrinsic qualities of objects, and based on these perceptions we can infer things about them. — Wayfarer

That's essentially what it is for Kant, except that the "intrinsic qualities of objects" (Lockean primary qualities) are also part of the appearance/representation. Thus nothing can be inferred about the thing-in-itself, which is unknowable.

See below (bold mine).

REMARK II.

Whatever is given us as object, must be given us in intuition. All our intuition however takes place by means of the senses only; the understanding intuits nothing, but only reflects. And as we have just shown that the senses never and in no manner enable us to know things in themselves, but only their appearances, which are mere representations of the sensibility, we conclude that "all bodies, together with the space in which they are, must be considered nothing but mere representations in us, and exist nowhere but in our thoughts." Now, is not this manifest idealism?

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.

I should be glad to know what my assertions must be in order to avoid all idealism. Undoubtedly, I should say, that the representation of space is not only perfectly conformable to the relation which our sensibility has to objects---that I have said--- but that it is quite similar to the object,---an assertion in which I can find as little meaning as if I said that the sensation of red has a similarity to the property of vermilion, which excites this sensation in me. — Prolegomena Part I §13, Remark II

For Aristotle, it's the celestial spheres that move in a circular motion (as moved by the Unmoved Mover). The Unmoved Mover, per its name, doesn't move. — Andrew M

Well, the so-called "Unmoved Mover" is better translated as "Unmovable", or "Immovable", according to what is explained in BK12 of Aristotle's Metaphysics.

It is described like this. It is necessary to assume an eternal unchangeable actuality to account for the fact that no change can be prior to time. So there is necessarily something which is moved by the immovable actuality, and this must be the "first motion", which is the eternal continuity of circular motion. The cause of the eternal circular motion, the "immovable" cause, must be a final cause, as the object of desire, or object of thought, which moves without itself being moved. Therefore the so-called "Unmoved Mover" moves without itself being moved, because it is necessarily "immovable".

The problem, as I said, is that it is a faulty concept. Eternal circular motions of the planets, or of anything else for that matter, are not real. Therefore if there is something which is necessarily "immovable", because it is prior to time, it cannot be described as the cause of eternal circular motion, because eternal circular motion is not real. Where Aristotle goes astray is at Ch.6, Bk12, where he assumes that it is impossible for movement to come into existence. He assumes this because he cannot conceive of anything as prior to time. This is the false premise which leads him to the falsity of the eternal circular motion.

For Aristotle, time is the measure of change. The Unmoved Mover does not change, so time is not applicable for it. — Andrew M

Aristotle clearly distinguishes two senses of "time" in his Physics, one as the thing which measures, and the other as the thing measured. When he speaks of "time" in his Metaphysics he his referring to the latter, the thing being measured. The problem is that he cannot conceive of time as having come into existence, because this would imply an actuality which is prior to time, and "before time" appears to be contradictory. This is why he settles on time having always existed, and explains this with eternal circular motion, which is how that time which always existed, would be measured. But "eternal circular motion" is a faulty concept.

However the Earth itself is curved in spacetime due to its mass. So there is no Euclidean straight line from NYC to Hong-Kong through the Earth. — Andrew M

Hmmm.....curved in spacetime, or curves spacetime? Cured in space, sure....it’s a spheroid. Curves spacetime, sure..... it has mass in a gravitational field. If Earth is curved in spacetime, that’s more information than I have any practical use for, so I’ll take your word for it. Nevertheless, if I have a transparent globe and shine a laser pointer between two points through the globe, it will be a shorter measure than if I pin a string at the same origin on the globe and measure to the same terminus on the surface of the globe. That’s all I’m sayin’.

both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry would be synthetic a priori for Kant. — Andrew M

Synthetic a priori propositions, yes, according to Kant. Synthetic because each and every single unit, and similarly each and every operator, of any kind of mathematical system is absolutely useless in and of itself, but must be combined with some other unit of some relative domain, and a priori because, simply put, there are no numbers in Nature. Drawing or merely thinking a line, or a 2, can do nothing whatsoever by itself. Even if the most basic use for a line is to connect two points still presupposes the thought of two points, and the thought of some reason they should be connected.
——————-

Then it is an entirely separate question of how to mathematically represent the universe, which is a question for physics (and involves experience). — Andrew M

Actually, such has become somewhat of a problem, for both reason and mathematics. It follows that in order to maintain logical consistency and in order to prevent empirical absurdities, if the most basic mathematical functions are synthetic a priori, then so too are the more complex. In fact, the more complex the formulas, the less apt they are for immediate empirical demonstration, which makes them all the more a priori. We have progressed in the astronomically very large and the microscopically very small long past direct experience, so we have become adept at inventing mathematical structures to predict that which we cannot directly observe. As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, then we must invent the instruments with the expressed intent of indirectly observing exactly what the math predicts.

It should never be contentious that the Universe in general is mathematically represented, merely because of our own limited observational capacities, and our understanding has never been outside the exclusive preview of physics, but the involvement of experience, in its common sense, is necessarily limited to the math and the experimental results of it. We’ll get to Mars eventually, sure, and with it we’ll have experience. But it might just turn out to be quite impossible for us to get to Andromeda.
———————-

In my view, the ordinary object we point to (the intentional object) is not a representation or an object of sense. — Andrew M

That’s fine, no problem. No matter how one goes about labeling his mental machinations, he is still obliged to demonstrate how such machinations become knowledge, and indeed, common knowledge, such that any congruent rationality understands him. If you claim something about some ordinary object, you then have to explain how it gets its very particular name, and also explain it such that it is possible for me to give it the same name.

I think I understand you to mean by “...(the intentional object)...” to indicate something like Brentano’s “immanent objectivity”, which is a kind of presupposition about a thing because there are certain inherences in it which avail themselves to a certain kind of rational system, and post hoc ergo propter hoc as knowledge. I grant there is general reliability between the thesis whereby things possess properties we perceive and know them by, and the thesis whereby we give things the properties that make them the objects they are known as.

On the other hand, if by “the ordinary object we point to” is just some physical reality I can direct my finger toward to indicate a certain existence, then that is not a Kantian representation, so in that you are correct, but it is nonetheless an object of sense, insofar as an affect on the senses is given by it, else I must admit to pointing at nothing. It follows that “an ordinary object we point to”, re: Kant, and “...(intentional object)...”, re: Brentano, are mutually exclusive, for the former is known as something and the latter is not, in the same stages of cognition for each under the auspices of their respective theoretical speculations.

All that being said, it remains indisputable that whatever is external to the brain absolutely cannot be the same as whatever is internal to it, which makes explicit some form of representational system for human knowledge of objective reality is indisputably the case. Such must be the ground of any epistemological/cognitive theory.

Terrible. This whole discussion, just like the opening question, is without any significant point, awfully vague and undirected, it is impossible to say what are you even talking about or why.


The only interesting, pragmatic and meaningful context to talk under the theme of subject/object, is the mind-body problem and basically two questions:

a.) epistemological question whether can objective science ever explain subjective phenomena of perception and understanding

b.) ontological question whether inability of objective science to explain subjective phenomena automatically means we need to postulate either substance or property dualism in order to explain the qualities of the mental realm

The only interesting, pragmatic and meaningful context to talk under the theme of subject/object, is the mind-body problem — Zelebg

Oh, OK. Glad your towering intellect is here to set us straight.

epistemological question whether can objective science ever explain subjective phenomena of perception and understanding

With reference to the OP, do you see the world in some other way? What other way would there be to see the world?
— tim wood

Subject, object and [new '-ject' word] concerning subject/object qualia.

I see the world as an ongoing union of many forces and elements.

Object, subject and then deeper, I think is sensible.

Alice(subject), see's Bob(object) - but what is Alice and Bob without the deeper understanding of people?
— Qwex

I made this post earlier.

I described the Earth as I sensed it, partially scientific, partially creative. Can I sense, purely, the experience, or must I conduct science?

I might not be able to define a star 100,000 light years away, but it is visible.

Are we over inflating our science, above mind and simulation? Mind and simulation allows us to conduct science.

But the passage you have quoted does not support your criticism:

The mind is constitutive in the sense that we are intentional about what we are pointing to (and thus a perspective is implied). But it is not constitutive in the sense of coming between an object and our judgment of it (as is implied by Kant's thing-in-itself/appearance distinction). — Andrew M

In saying this, you're assuming the reality of the object outside your judgement of it. This is what makes your approach more like Locke's. And that is understandable, as Locke's is very much a kind of common-sense realism.

Rorty is obsessed with updating the language. He reduces the philosophical value to novelty or antiquity. He thinks that what matters is to be fashionable. — David Mo

For me the way to put this is that groups of humans use marks and noise as part of surviving and prospering in the world. The marks and noises they use to do this change in the long run. Rorty is clear that he is not saying that language is just marks and noises understood at tools. Instead this perspective is presented as one metaphor among others, good for this or that. In this case, the metaphor is language is a tool. An opposed metaphor is language is a lens. If we think of our talk or thinking as a lens through which we see the world, then we can worry about distortion in the lens. You mentioned correctness in your post, which leans on the lens or eye metaphor. From a pragmatic language-as-tool metaphorical grounding, we worry more about success or failure relative to this or that purpose (including the purpose of obtaining consensus about our other purposes.)

I'm crazy about Bach. If the Holy Trinity exists, Bach is in the upper corner. I'm sure he is. But I don't think music is a good example for myths. — David Mo

I wasn't suggesting that music be understood as myth. My point was that great souls like Bach were Christians in some sense. Individuals can take myths literally or symbolically (to oversimplify).

My broader point is that superstition need not involve the supernatural. I expect that we'll agree on this point. But here's an example:

The pseudo-scientific ideas of Lysenkoism assumed the heritability of acquired characteristics (Lamarckism).[1] Lysenko's theory rejected Mendelian inheritance and the concept of the "gene"; it departed from Darwinian evolutionary theory by rejecting natural selection.[2] Proponents falsely claimed to have discovered, among many other things, that rye could transform into wheat and wheat into barley, that weeds could spontaneously transmute into food grains, and that "natural cooperation" was observed in nature as opposed to "natural selection".[2] Lysenkoism promised extraordinary advances in breeding and in agriculture that never came about.

Joseph Stalin supported the campaign. More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were fired or even sent to prison,[3] and numerous scientists were executed as part of a campaign instigated by Lysenko to suppress his scientific opponents.[4][5][6][7] The president of the Agriculture Academy, Nikolai Vavilov, was sent to prison and died there, while Soviet genetics research was effectively destroyed until the death of Stalin in 1953.[2] Research and teaching in the fields of neurophysiology, cell biology, and many other biological disciplines was also negatively affected or banned.[8] — Wiki

Another example is nazi racist biologism.

'Magical thinking' is not eradicated with the 'supernatural,' though I do understand that desire for cognitive purity. At the same time the quest for cognitive purity (rigor, accuracy, etc.) looks like a repetition of a myth structure. I'm skeptical about the idea of some complete break from our mythological roots. Such a complete break is itself the repetition of creation from nothing.