Hi, I didnt yet read the other posts, but to answer your first:

Suppose you put some water in a kettle on the stove and turn its burner on. Now according to common thought, we know the water is going to boil.

In fact, we only predict the water is going to boil from the model of the apparent observable world that we construct in our mind as part of our learned experience of it. We think we know the water will boil because in most cases it does. However, we dont know it until after it does boil, before which, for example, the gas mains or some other unlikely event could cause it not to. In a similar way, all experience leads us to believe we have 'knowledge' of a posteriori events, but the knowledge is really assumed prediction from prior experience, and not certain knowledge.

What Kant tried to do was to define knowledge that could be known independent of observed 'a posteriori' events, which he called 'a priori' knowledge. That distinction is still valid, but some reasonably doubt whether it is truly knowledge that can exist independent of thought.

The noumenal world is not part of a priori knowledge, although partly constructed upon it, it is the representation of the apparent observable world in our minds. This has been a difficult topic in philosophy as it has not been possible to construct empirical tests which distinguish between different possible versions of such a noumenal world, and some challenge whether it exists at all. While one can refine different alternative views, they are still opinions, which some adopt religiously, and others deny religiously. And there are views that only language exists, for example, in Wittgensteinian metaphysics, in which case the whole debate is only a language game.

At Oxford I was taught to consider many of these views, and my tutor spoke of their relative 'merit.' The merit of a view is not only derives from its logical coherency and usefulness in explanation, but also from its teleological nature, that is, what benefits it provides to science, law, ethics, and other modern fields which still rely on philosophy as their foundation. Many philosophers will of course scoff at that, especially existential cynics, but Oxford does not have a great deal of respect for existential cynics as contributing much to the quality of life, so the feeling is mutual.

So then you may ask, what is a 'reasonable doubt' of a priori knowledge? A reasonable doubt has to provide an equally cogent explanation for what the epistemological status of logic and mathematics actually is, and there hasn't been many of those. There are those who simply scoff or deny, and their philosophical position is of little merit.

Part of the reason I haven't looked in detail at the thread here is that existential cynics, especially nihilists, have staged rather a takeover of this forum for some extended periods of time in the past, and I dont really have the spiritual presence of mind to maintain a pleasant face to them in many cases. But I am glad to see you at least started this thread with a very good issue )

One can dispense with the idea of the world as representation by accepting that the experiencing mind is part of the reality it experiences, and must necessarily do so accurately - to allow for the survival of the organism - evolving in relation to causality.

The distinction between phenomenal and noumenal then becomes a psychological difference between experience - as causal reaction to stimuli, and conscious understanding of experience.

It remains that:

it is logically possible that any given statement about the world is false. — philosophy

...but the falsity is not between the mind and reality per se; the falsehood arises from the mind's conscious experience of itself.

One can dispense with the idea of the world as representation by accepting that the experiencing mind is part of the reality it experiences, — counterpunch

That's not actually true. Just because a biological mechanism exists to produce the representation does not mean that the abstractions are 'part of reality.' It means that the abstractions do exist, and therefore, higher functions of the mind must be supported by mechanical apparati which typically don't do a very good job at ensuring all members of the species are actually capable of handling higher-level abstractions without making fundamental errors. Some even dispute the process of reason is actually an advantage, calling it 'intellectual elitism' or some such, and they've had alot of success, so it's not even clear the ability to reason is a competitive advantage in the first place. False representations of reality go a long way these days.

That's not actually true. Just because a biological mechanism exists to produce the representation does not mean that the abstractions are 'part of reality.' It means that the abstractions do exist, and therefore, higher functions of the mind must be supported by mechanical apparati which typically don't do a very good job at ensuring all members of the species are actually capable of handling higher-level abstractions without making fundamental errors. Some even dispute the process of reason is actually an advantage, calling it 'intellectual elitism' or some such, and they've had alot of success, so it's not even clear the ability to reason is a competitive advantage in the first place. False representations of reality go a long way these days. — ernest meyer

I agree there's a prevalence of false representations, but would add that there's a relationship between the validity of the knowledge bases of action and the consequences of such action within a causal reality. This explains why our current mode of existence is not sustainable. We'll die out if we are not correct to reality. It's for that same reason, sensory perception is necessarily accurate to reality.

Our ape ancestors swinging through the trees - looking out for ripe red fruit, seeing the next branch nearer or further away than it actually is, would plummet to their death, and we wouldn't be here. Understanding of sensory perception is where the disparity between experience and reality sets in. We may not understand what we experience, but what we experience is accurate to reality.

Kant understandably locates the problem between phenom and noumon - between subject and object, but that's wrong. The difference is between subconscious physical process and conscious understanding; a psychological problem.

We'll die out if we are not correct to reality. — counterpunch

That is a logician's assumption. For lower-order concepts, there is obviously a need to distinguish between what is food and not food. Above basic, first-order concepts on the needs of life, it's not actually clear that the abstractions logicians consider necessary truth actually are either necessary or true. From a logician's point of view they are. From Schopenhauer's or Nietzsche's point of view, that's even naive. Human beings do not control themselves based on a logician's view of 'reality' and from what behavior ive observed in the USA during the Trump administration, human beings dont care how many people it kills either, as long as those with power are having their desires satisfied.

That is a logician's assumption. For lower-order concepts there is obviously a need to distinguish between what is food and not food. Above basic, first-order concepts on the needs of life, it's not actually clear that the abstractions loigicians consider necessary truth actually are either necessary or true. From a logician's point of view they are. From Schopenhauer or Nietzsche's point of view, that's even naive. Human beings do not control themselves based on a logician's view of 'reality' and from what behavior ive observed in the USA during the Trump administration, doesn't care how many people it kills either, as long as those with power are having their desires satisifed. — ernest meyer

I don't know what you mean by saying "that's a logician's assumption." Thanks, I guess! I don't think you get my meaning either. From the structure of DNA, to the physiology of organisms, to the behaviours of animals, unto the knowledge bases of human actions - we have to be correct to a causal reality to survive. What's wrong is rendered extinct.

Nietzsche had a very poor understanding of evolution. He believed man to be an amoral brute - but he couldn't have been. He raised young, generation after generation, he shared food and looked after the tribe. Man is imbued with a moral sense - who then suffered the occurrence of intellectual intelligence, and sought to articulate that which he innately understood.

That's where the opportunity for error arises - not from man's sensory equipment - tested from the DNA upward by the function or die algorithm of evolution over millions of years, but from conscious intellectual understanding of his sensory experience. So Kant's got his distinction in the wrong place.

lol, I have no idea what is happening in the mind of Trump, or his supporters, but whatever illogical process it is that enables them to decide what is true, and whatever 'representation of reality' they have if any at all, its beyond me, but they are winning

Chief Justice Thomas said last week he'd be 'open to hearing' arguments that Twitter violated rights to free speech by banning Trump. As its now a GOP majority in the supreme court, that means, without question, more Trump tweets by 2024. Fait accomplis. One could wonder how long ago Trump knew that would happen i guess, but its here now. More Trump tweets.

There's no rational explanation for this or any 'representation of reality' it fits in lol. Its insane. Sorry I have to go to bed. Good night )

lol, I have no idea what is happening in the mind of Trump, or his supporters, but whatever illogical process it is that enables them to decide what is true, and whatever 'representation of reality' they have if any at all, its beyond me, but they are winning

Chief Justice Thomas said last week he'd be 'open to hearing' arguments that Twitter violated rights to free speech by banning Trump. As its now a GOP majority in the supreme court, that means, without question, more Trump tweets by 2024. Fait accomplis. One could wonder how long ago Trump knew that would happen i guess, but its here now. More Trump tweets.

There's no rational explanation for this or any 'representation of reality' it fits in lol. Its insane. Sorry I have to go to bed. Good night ) — ernest meyer

I'm in the UK, so reluctant as I am to weigh into the midst of your politics, I have to say, the left worries me more than the right. Biden's about to spend $2 trillion on the wrong technology and the wrong approach to climate change - and by the time everyone knows he's wrong, it'll be too late. We need massively more energy, not less. Wind and solar cannot meet current energy demand, less yet - extract carbon, desalinate and irrigate, produce hydrogen fuel, recycle - all of which we need to do to secure the future. And like I said previous - if you're wrong, you're gone! Sweet dreams!!

Oh I was just checking my tickets to move to Europe, lol, I agree with you on Biden too, but I better not get into it. Sweet dreams to you too )

Yes if he is referring to the standard model of quantum mechanics.

"Unless, therefore, we are to move constantly in a circle, the word appearance must be recognized as already indicating a relation to something, the immediate representation of which is, indeed, sensible, but which, even apart from the constitution of our sensibility (upon which the form of our intuition is grounded), must be something in itself, that is, an object independent of sensibility. There thus
results the concept of a noumenon. It is not of anything, but signifies only the thought of something in general, in which I abstract from everything that belongs to the form of sensible intuition." Kant

That is a great quote. I like this thread. Kant is dear to me

He sure is justified. But I'd like to note that he may be the first to explicitly postulate the noumenon, he was not the first one to express our inability to know "things in themselves". This essay by Arthur Lovejoy is suggestive, but it should be taken with a grain of salt.

He was apparently very Anti-German, why this is so, is not clear. The most interesting pages are these ones, to me anyway:

https://archive.org/details/essaysphilosoph00unknuoft/page/272/mode/2up

I very much belong to a roughly Kantian-Schopenhaurian line of thinking, but Cudworth should be noted too.

I hope you’re aware that the A249-A254 section from which that quote is taken, was re-written by the author, in the B edition. While it is true he said all that stuff, it is just as true he thought better of it six years later, thereby making this quote obsolete, as far as the overall treatise is concerned.

Doesn’t really matter all that much, with respect to the thread title. Kant never did posit a noumenal “world”, hence whether or not he was justified in positing its existence, is moot.

Just sayin’......

1. Is it true that, for Kant, the assertion of the existence of things-in-themselves is made according to a purely analytic judgment?
2. Do, for Kant, appearances and things-in-themselves constitute two separate kinds/levels of existence? In other words, is it true that an object must exist as appearance along with things-in-themselves, or, rather, an object-as-appearance can exist only as the thing-in-itself? — Sentience

One distinction I think worth noting, is that things-in-themselves is tantamount to the nature of our existence, the true nature of a thing or things observed, an (any) object perceived by our senses.

There was an admitted irony to Kant's uncovering of how humans go about analyzing things from our senses, and whether our a posteriori abilities in using experience in makeing judgements about things, are the only means/methods of obtaining understanding/knowledge about our world and the stuff in it, including our own cognition.

The irony rears its head when we somehow, someway, are curious (about a thing or things) yet this same sense of wonderment a priori/a posteriori, doesn't reveal any answers to the thing-in-itself (the nature of its existence). The metaphysical statement 'all events must have a cause' is at the root of this notion that things we see and experience in the world, have an existence that cannot be explained using ordinary logic. Hence things-in-themselves being tantamount to the nature of existence, which in turn is beyond human understanding.

So we have this so-called 5th dimension or sixth sense that seems intrinsic to our way of Being, (an exciting desire of curiosity about causation), yet in itself, doesn't really explain anything at all. The thing-in-itself/nature of existence remains enigmatic. That's the a priori aspect of the phenomenon.

In contrast, if we knew how to make something out of nothing, then arguably we would not encounter this problem...

There is a lot of secondary lit. on Kant, some of it made short and simple, and some of that not too bad. Here, for a few dollars.

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30802463982&searchurl=kn%3DKarl%2BJaspers%252C%2Bkant%26sortby%3D17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title2

That way you can begin to know something about what you're writing about. A good and useful thing on a philosophy site.

some of that not too bad — tim wood

Lucy Allais' Manifest Reality is so, so, so good. :starstruck:

An appearance is not what appears; a representation is a word for appearance. What appears is the thing-in-self, but our sensibility detects macro reality.

An appearance is not what appears; a representation is a word for appearance. — val p miranda

Substituting, it should be congruent that a representation is not what appears.

What appears is the thing-in-self.... — val p miranda

Substituting again, it should be congruent that representation is not what appears, but rather, the thing-in-itself is what appears, from which follows that it should be congruent that the thing-in-itself is not a representation nor an appearance.

......but our sensibility detects macro reality. — val p miranda

It can only be assumed now, rather than substituted, that because the thing-in-itself is not representation, and our sensibility only detects macro reality, then the thing-in-itself is what our sensibility detects such that it then appears to us, making the thing-in-itself contained in or by macro reality.

But the assertion reads, “the thing-in-itself is what appears, but our sensibility detects macro reality”, which implies the thing-in-itself is not what our sensibility detects thus is not contained in macro reality. Or, put another way, the thing-in-itself is what appears, but the thing-in-itself is not what is detected, which reduces to, what appears is not what is detected.

Or it could be that the thing-in-itself appears by some other means than its detection by our sensibility, which carries the implication that there is a multiplicity of methods for the manifestation of what appears, that at the same time must not be a representation, given from the first substitution.
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As a matter of curiosity alone, did you derive your entry from this little tidbit......

“...At the same time, it must be carefully borne in mind that, while we surrender the power of cognizing, we still reserve the power of thinking objects, as things in themselves. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears, which is absurd...” (CPR Bxxvii)

.......and if not, wherefrom, may I ask?

Kant did not believe the thing in itself causes appearances. Phenomenology is like a union of the ideas of Parmenides and Heraclitus. And iis not easy to put into words

No, not from the tidbit. I have read Kant and he is my favorite philosopher. Not being a naive realist, I think that science is indirectly working on totally uncovering the thing-in-itself with the Standard Model as a good beginning. Formerly, I liked ontological materialism until I believed that an immaterial first existent initiated the universe. Except for his idealism to protect religion, I was aware of no philosopher that I liked more.

science is indirectly working on totally uncovering the thing-in-itself with the Standard Model as a good beginning. — val p miranda

You know, from a Kantian point of view, science only tells of a thing, what a human asks. If we don’t know a thing as it is in itself, but only as our sensibility presents it to us, what could we direct science toward, other than the representations sensibility gives us? In effect, we are asking science to justify our interpretation of the world, rather than inform us with direct evidence of the world as it is in itself.

You know, from a Kantian point of view, science only tells of a thing, what a human asks. If we don’t know a thing as it is in itself, but only as our sensibility presents it to us, what could we direct science toward, other than the representations sensibility gives us? In effect, we are asking science to justify our interpretation of the world, rather than inform us with direct evidence of the world as it is in itself. — Mww

Yep! :up:

In that same light, though Kant, through logic, felt like all metaphysical inquiries were fruitless, he at least did acknowledge that humans have that same (metaphysical) intuition that causes us to wonder in the first place...which is intrinsic a priori to the intellect.

Kant, through logic, felt like all metaphysical inquiries were fruitless — 3017amen

I wouldn’t agree with that, as much as I would agree Kant thought metaphysical pursuits....wondering, if you will.....culminating in the certainty of a science, is fruitless. While it is necessary to treat metaphysics as if it were a science, in order to gain as much certainty as possible, and that using the purity of logical form, as long as experience is required to prove what metaphysics proposes by means of that logic, just as experience is required to prove the sciences proper, we are at a loss.

Not to argue without cause, but there is at least one condition under which metaphysical pursuits are fruit-FUL, and that is to restrict pure reason to its proper bounds. But that’s the very philosophy of which Everydayman has no recognition of needing despite being endlessly guilty of violating.

he at least did acknowledge that humans have that (....) wonder...which is intrinsic a priori to the intellect. — 3017amen

Absolutely. The opening paragraph of the A edition says almost exactly that, albeit in Prussian academic Enlightenment prose, setting the stage for the next 700 pages. He does walk it back slightly in the B edition, by saying all that, but it only applies if one “rises to the height of speculation”. I guess he had to account for the folks that didn’t care about wondering, blessed with a mere “common understanding”. Which is still a lot kinder than Hume, who says of Everydayman “a man of vulgar understanding”. (Grin)

In effect, we are asking science to justify our interpretation of the world, rather than inform us with direct evidence of the world as it is in itself. — Mww

(Correction of what follows welcome). Hmm. Defining science as the asking of well-crafted and answerable questions, which in the course of experiment are in fact answered (some way or other), with respect to, say, that tree over there, is it the Kantian position that we can know nothing about it (-in-itself-as-it-is-in-itself)? Or something?

Kant always a difficult read, but in my own incomplete experience of reading Kant, I find when I trouble to get out pickax and shovel that I am rewarded for my work of digging by arrival at a stratum that is mighty damn hard and tough simply in virtue of the sense it makes.

It (my understanding) amounts to this - and those seeking better expression are referred back to the original - that in making sense of, grounding, science, he was lead by his analysis to noumena, the inaccessible ding-an-sicht selbst, the thing in itself as it is in itself. And anyone who gives thought to how sight works can easily see this must be correct. We never see the tree in the tree's now, but only in its then, and we never see the tree itself, but only the reflected light from the tree, itself then assembled into our own image of it - our image removed in time and substance and by successive media from anything the tree itself might be.

But let's see if we can at least determine where the tree is. We can do that. And whether it is or isn't. We can do that too. And we can build up quite bit of knowledge about the tree, if even only by negation (e.g., by what it isn't and where it isn't, etc.). And none of this news to Kant, because he had already laid out grounds for practical knowledge (a separate subject not even a little bit as simple as its name suggests).

The substance being not that science cannot know, but that statements about that knowledge carry a caveat, usually not made explicitly, that whatever science says requires appropriate sensitivity to what exactly the saying is about. The tree is green, its bark rough, is fifty feet tall, and is over there - no doubt. But at the same time, and with the same grammar, how often do we say that so-and-so is a nice person, that raspberries taste good, and that's a beautiful blue? Kant simply (well, maybe not so simply) carried his lantern into the darkness and discovered an approachable but uncrossable adamantine boundary, the essence of which captured here:

“...At the same time, it must be carefully borne in mind that, while we surrender the power of cognizing, we still reserve the power of thinking objects, as things in themselves. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears, which is absurd...” (CPR Bxxvii) — Mww

That is, we can know all day long. We just have to know what we know, and by that what we don't and can't.

Kant, in CPR and the Metaphysical Foundations book of the same decade, was in essence responding to Aristotle. Aristotle thought he proved the existence of forms, simple souls, and a Deity. Kant says we can't know the thing in itself but the thing in itself is Aristotle's forms, which Kant doesn't believe in. What Kant is trying to say in his Prussian Enlightenment way is that the world is as it appears and that speculation about forms, simple souls, and Deities is fruitless. He was for putting aside ancient metaphysics, not modern science

we never see the tree itself, but only the reflected light from the tree, itself then assembled into our own image of it - our image removed in time and substance and by successive media from anything the tree itself might be. — tim wood

There’s a perfect little nutshell if there ever was one, right there. Especially the successive media part, which even the rabid physicalists cannot deny, without making themselves foolish. The brain doesn’t sense stuff; it only registers that other body parts have sensed stuff. As long as a one-to-one correspondence between those is physically impossible, any epistemological theory centered around the thing-in-itself can never be refuted.
————-

Defining science as the asking of well-crafted and answerable questions, which in the course of experiment are in fact answered (some way or other), with respect to, say, that tree over there, is it the Kantian position that we can know nothing about it (-in-itself-as-it-is-in-itself)? — tim wood

Correct, according to his theory of human knowledge, keeping in mind this is with respect to our perception of things, meaning our basic sensory apparatus in juxtaposition to real spacetime objects. When using devices of experiment, on the other hand, we have merely relinquished the sensing of the object, from which we get our representations, and replaced it with the sensing of the equipment, which is still a representation to us, but a representation that represents what is being tested.
————

And we can build up quite bit of knowledge about the tree, if even only by negation (e.g., by what it isn't and where it isn't, etc.). — tim wood

Yeah, but, Abboooottttt!!!! We don’t care about what a tree isn’t. All the conceptions judged not belonging to the intuition of a thing, does nothing to tell us what it is. Instead, we end up with a perpetually undetermined phenomenon. So, yes, we can build up quite a bit of knowledge, by synthesizing conceptions understanding thinks as belonging to an intuition. How do you think it is, that we got so farging many kinds of nails!!!
—————-

The substance being not that science cannot know.... — tim wood

Yep. It isn’t that science cannot know, meaning it isn’t that science cannot tell us, but rather, it is us that sometimes may not know what to ask science to tell us and, possibly, it is us that doesn’t accept what science has to say.

but rather, it is us that sometimes may not know what to ask science to tell us and, possibly, it is us that doesn’t accept what science has to say. — Mww

That is the distinction of not only, do we not know the nature of the thing-in-itself, but just as important (if not more important), is the distinction between asking metaphysical questions (all events must have a cause?).

The proposition all events must have a cause is not formulated from pure reason. Yet science, using reason, asks that same question to discover a something about a something.

So, in CPR, he discovered/uncovered that distinction where we have other forms of intellect (intuition, etc.) which is metaphysical/self-awareness (not instinctual), and does not consist of the usual standard reasoning/formal logic (a priori/a posteriori) as found in normal reasoning/the intellect. In a nutshell, that's basically Kant's metaphysics.

If we were not able to ask that question/said proposition, virtually no scientific discoveries would be made. In that case, theoretically, we would not care. We would have no self-awareness.

What Kant is trying to say in his Prussian Enlightenment way is that the world is as it appears...... — Gregory

We can only know the world as it appears to us, yes. That doesn’t mean the world is as it appears, but only that we have no other way to judge how it is, other than as it appears to us.

Kant didn’t mind Aristotle’s forms; he just didn’t like where they were located: Aristotle::world; Kant::mind.

The proposition all events must have a cause is not formulated from pure reason. — 3017amen

Ok...the proposition does not derive from pure reason, any proposition being merely an expression derived from antecedent cognitions. That all events have a cause is a principle of pure reason, nonetheless. Can we say that much is true?

If we were not able to ask that question/said proposition, virtually no scientific discoveries would be made. — 3017amen

There are accidental scientific discoveries, right? Not many, to be sure, but enough to prove it is not necessary to ask that question in order to have such discoveries. I guess it’s probably true enough, that, while not absolutely necessary, they are conditionally necessary if one doesn’t wish to wait around for accidents.

Ok...the proposition does not derive from pure reason, any proposition being merely an expression derived from antecedent cognitions. That all events have a cause is a principle of pure reason, nonetheless. Can we say that much is true? — Mww

Mww!

Well, not really. And here's why I'm drawing the distinction:

All events must have a cause = a synthetic a priori proposition.

As a reference: physical theories always involve synthetic propositions because they make statements about the facts of nature that can be tested - Paul Davies.

In that context, what is a priori, is this judgement that we believe all events must have a cause. Meaning, it is intrinsic or innate, from human consciousness and self-awareness. I think of it more like an existential component of human nature. We can't escape this need to wonder, to be curious, in many ways to listen to our innate forms of intuition telling us there is something more.

In other words, in consciousness, how are synthetic a priori judgments possible (?). Kant's argument is that it's not learned. And I agree. And of course if it is some sort of instinct, what biological advantages are there to asking such questions (?). I submit that there are none.

To me, this is one of his claims to fame...