All events must have a cause = a synthetic a priori proposition. — 3017amen

Agreed, as long as it’s being expressed, “a priori” and “synthetic” confine the expression to certain conditions.

what is a priori, is this judgement that we believe all events must have a cause. — 3017amen

And if a judgement, for which no expression is necessary, “a priori” and “synthetic” confine the judgement to certain relations, and such judgement can never be a mere belief. It is a truth, insofar as its negation is a contradiction.

The synthetic a priori judgement is, first, a product of pure reason because its ground is a category (relation, schema: causality/dependence), and second, it is transcendental because it relates to concepts in general and from which other a priori cognitions become possible.

In other words, in consciousness, how are synthetic a priori judgments possible (?). Kant's argument is that it's not learned. — 3017amen

In consciousness, they are not; it is reason alone from which such judgements arise. We are conscious of that to which the principle applies, but not of the principle itself, unless or until we wish to examine how experience is possible and we find everything reduces to this fundamental logical necessity. From this, it follows such judgements are not learned; they are given. What we might learn, is how to exchange the subjectivity of our reason for the objectivity of our expression.

“....V. In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason, Synthetical Judgements "a priori" are contained as Principles....” (CPR, B15)

I respect your interpretations of the Good Professor, even if I might disagree with some of them. Hell....it might be me that’s barking at the moon, dunno.

"Cause has the aspect of independence and of a determination that preserves itself from the effect; but in the necessity of its movement what makes the cause 'itself' is the passing into the effect. The cause sublates itself into the effect in that no content is in the effect that is not in the cause."

"Rain is the cause of wetness, the effect. The cause and effect are one and the same existing water. With regard to the form, the cause is rain, which is lost in the effect (wetness). But in that the effect is nothing without the cause, the effect as effect is lost. All that remains is undifferentiated wetness." Hegel's lesser Logic

Is this too abstract in a Kantian discussion or does this gel with some of you?

Is this too abstract in a Kantian discussion — Gregory

Yeah, it’s a long ways past where our knowledge of things needs to be. All we need is cause and effect as the bottom line, without regard to the subtleties of either one by itself. The exception is, from a Kantian point of view, that the conception of freedom can be used as an uncaused cause, in which case we can have one without the other. Kant recognizes the inherent contradiction, so he just says we only need to think of freedom as an uncaused cause, not that we have to prove that it actually is one. Which is pretty abstract, when you stop and think about it.

It is a truth, insofar as its negation is a contradiction. — Mww

Mww!

Can you speak to that quote in a bit more detail? It seems very intriguing to me. The sixth sense, intuition, innate or intrinsic sense, that there is some sort of causational agent is important. We wonder about causation but we don't understand why (or how) we wonder about it.

category (relation, schema: causality/dependence), and second, it is transcendental because it relates to concepts in general and from which other a priori cognitions become possible. — Mww

I agree to the extent that it is a synthesis of logical concepts from sensory experiences, but the transcendental part relates to the a priori conditions supplied by the mind. It just is. We seemingly were born with this need. This need to know (in this case about causation and/or causational forces). That is a seque to your other quote:

consciousness, they are not; it is reason alone from which such judgements arise. — Mww

You would have to explain, using logic, why we use synthetic propositions to discover novel things... . You could attack it several ways you could explain how the Will creates this need... .

From this, it follows such judgements are not learned; they are given — Mww

Agreed.

But in that the effect is nothing without the cause, the effect as effect is lost. All that remains is undifferentiated wetness — Gregory

Gregory!

In a kind of lighthearted way, that reminds me of the differences between science and engineering. Meaning, medical science/the human mind, body and spirit, as well as trying to forecast the weather, is not like engineering. In engineering of course you apply the appropriate formula to the problem and the problem is solved.

Yes, physics is the science of understanding how different matters work. Metaphysics is understanding how any substance would react to any other, and I think Kant himself gives an interesting take on this in Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, published a few years after CPR. If anyone wants to dig further into this after reading the Critique, that is the work to go to. I'm reading Michael Friedman's commentary on it right now

I'm on page 52 of Friedman's book, and he mentions "Kant's principle of the relativity of motion" and that Kant "denies the existence of absolutely hard bodies". Of course I need to be careful to understand this in relation to the physics of the time, but I've noticed before that Einstein's theories seem to have already implicitly stated in the works of German idealists, without of course the mathematical rigor

What i think we all need to process more fully in this discussion is that Kant said that time and space are mental (in "our "intuitions). Asserting that time is in the mind might sound like Aristotle, but saying space is mental is light years from the Greeks and puts the question of time in a whole different relation to us. Spinoza said all was a part of God but could be understood with Cartesian physics. Leibniz thought that Cartesian physics was incomplete and must take account of the "living force" of God which fulgarations of his nature gave rise to. Modern physics interpret Leibniz's physics in the sense that the living force is energy, but it was Kant who first make a dint in pre-modern physics by his philosophy of intuitions. It's hard to overemphasis this revolution

The trouble with the Critique is that it got time and space wrong. Man created time and space is a real immaterial existence. If the Aesthetic is an error in the beginning, it should throw doubt on what follows. In my view Idealism is dead, but not everything transcendental. Fundamental concepts are still valid and useful such as the law of non-contradiction, from nothing comes nothing, no entinty can create itself, etc. We cannot dispense with transcendental reason and human imagination and replace them entirely with mathematics and physics. In my view the search for refinement of the Standard Model is a "negative transcendental" not yet completed.

Law of noncontradiction? Objects exist and don't exist at the same time. That is Kant's point. The law only applies in our psychology, as the Antinomies show

The Antinomies seem faulty because time is a part of them. Kant showed, as I recall, when that law is valid. No time--a statement is true or not true. I am typing or not typing. If time exist, it is a real immaterial, but I say it is a convenience necessary for us.

It is a truth, insofar as its negation is a contradiction.
— Mww

Can you speak to that quote in a bit more detail? It seems very intriguing to me. — 3017amen

You said....

what is a priori, is this judgement that we believe all events must have a cause. — 3017amen

....to which I responded by saying that to believe events MUST have causes precludes the notion from being a mere belief. If it was a belief, it would have to be stated as events might, or events should, have causes. If, on the other hand, the very concept of “event” immediately invokes an ordering of time, insofar as any perceived event follows from some antecedent event related to it, then the a priori synthetical principle of cause and effect, relative to any perception, is established as universally necessary, hence true because its negation contradicts experience, re: it is impossible to perceive the same thing for all time, therefore every perception is conditioned by successions in time, that condition being an antecedent event that is necessarily its cause.

It is good to bear in mind we don’t care about events unknowable, but only events present or possibly present to our perception. We don’t care at this point what the event is, nor do we care what the cause is, but only that anything given to sensibility has that relation, and that relation must be conceivable, hence understood, by us, otherwise experience itself is impossible.

Even if it is the case that you meant “this judgement that we believe” we still have a problem, in that, because belief is itself a judgement of relative certainty, we have subjected a judgement to a judgement, which jeopardizes the possibility of a cognition developing from it. Infinite regress, or stalemate, both of which are anathema to knowledge.

the very concept of “event” immediately invokes an ordering of time, insofar as any perceived event follows from some antecedent event related to it, then the a priori synthetical principle of cause and effect, relative to any perception, is established as universally necessary, hence true because its negation contradicts experience, re: it is impossible to perceive the same thing for all time, therefore every perception is conditioned by successions in time, that condition being an antecedent event that is necessarily its cause. — Mww

Mww!

Thank you for expanding on that thought. Much like I must have a brain to have feelings, it must be then, that a synthetic a priori judgement must be necessary for any thought experiment to move forward. In turn, it still leaves us with the question (one of many) as to why we should have this sense of wonderment about causation.

But getting back to the nature of a thing, or things-in-themselves, I believe Kant thought it "Transcendental” for both the limit of all knowledge of objects, and the universal properties that all objects must have. Using a somewhat novel term, is there such thing as a transcendental truth?

(Is consciousness, self-awareness, reason, and life in general, considered a good, objective existence?)

Which still leaves open the question of the if and how of "cause and effect" in the world itself. Open, that is, and unresolved not least because not even addressable as cause-and-effect-in-itself. I find it useful, that is, to maintain the bookkeeping on what exactly is being spoken of.

Gregory's reference to Hegel, above, seems relevant, here. It calls into question exactly what a cause is, answering that, "what makes the cause 'itself' is the passing into the effect." Which comes very close to the modern scientific view that takes the next step and dismisses as inadequate the concept of cause in physics, substituting instead "fields." Some of the difficulties with cause becoming evident when trying to figure out just what exactly "causes" a stick of dynamite to explode.

Which (as I understand it) in no way contravenes Kant; his an account of how the mind assembles the world, which assembly is necessarily prior to any attempt to account for it. And it may seem tempting to regard Kant, then, as a kind of psychologist, but which I think must be wrong, psych. being observational and quantitative, Kant analytical and qualitative.

But the hazard seems always to slip, slide, and fall into supposing that Kant speaks of the world itself when it's the mind's apperception's workings he's analyzing. But if @Mww will favor us, he will give us a sharp paragraph or two on the relation of Kant's pure to his practical knowledge. Because it's my "take" that what Kant takes away in his analysis of pure knowledge, he gives back (as possibility) in practical knowledge.

It's hard to overemphasis this revolution — Gregory

And hidden in that, is the paradigm shift from ontology to epistemology.

Kant's relativity of motion apparently says that motion of a body in a space at rest is indistinguishable from motion of space itself in the opposite direction with equal speed. The only thing Kant thought was completely absolute was duty, and I would say in a sense he is right but his general laws on the subject of morality are open to too many loopholes. We have an instinct that life is worth it in the end but we can only believe this with a hybrid of faith and reason and hope for the best

I find it useful, that is, to maintain the bookkeeping on what exactly is being spoken of. — tim wood

As do I, and the bookkeeping reduces to.....us. Humans.....

his an account of how the mind assembles the world, which assembly is necessarily prior to any attempt to account for it. — tim wood

.....just like that. Assembly presupposes being, which is sufficient reason for why Kant doesn’t pay much attention to it. Doesn’t matter what is, if we cannot fathom how it is possible to know the manner in which we are affected by it.

But the hazard seems always to slip, slide, and fall into supposing that Kant speaks of the world itself when it's the mind's apperception's workings he's analyzing — tim wood

Hence the fundamental principle for transcendental philosophy, to maintain reason where it belongs, where it can do the least harm, by “...closing up its sources of error...”. To speak of the world is nothing but to speak of the human’s understanding of the world.

Because it's my "take" that what Kant takes away in his analysis of pure knowledge, he gives back (as possibility) in practical knowledge. — tim wood

Not sure about pure knowledge, but what he takes away in pure speculative reason (causality belongs to Nature alone, and not one whit belongs to man), he gives back in pure practical reason (causality belongs to man and not one whit belongs to Nature).

“...All rational knowledge is either material or formal: the former considers some object, the latter is concerned only with the form of the understanding and of the reason itself, and with the universal laws of thought in general without distinction of its objects. Formal philosophy is called logic. Material philosophy, however, has to do with determinate objects and the laws to which they are subject, is again twofold; for these laws are either laws of nature or of freedom. The science of the former is physics, that of the latter, ethics; they are also called natural philosophy and moral philosophy respectively. Logic cannot have any empirical part; that is, a part in which the universal and necessary laws of thought should rest on grounds taken from experience; otherwise it would not be logic, i.e., a canon for the understanding or the reason, valid for all thought, and capable of demonstration. Natural and moral philosophy, on the contrary, can each have their empirical part, since the former has to determine the laws of nature as an object of experience; the latter the laws of the human will, so far as it is affected by nature: the former, however, being laws according to which everything does happen; the latter, laws according to which everything ought to happen. Ethics, however, must also consider the conditions under which what ought to happen frequently does not.....”
(F.P.M.M., 1785, in T. K. Abbott, 1895)

Paragraph granted!!!!!

By transferring space from the external world to the internal system of reason, Kant removed the need for explaining a real medium for the existence of objects, which Newton couldn’t provide.

It's hard to say "what out to happen" from the principle of duty alone understood as the categorical imperative. If everyone steals we have a problem, but if millions are starving and nobody steals there is a problem. Kant seems to say what is most practical is the more universal and ontological in regard to morality, and his book is even call "practical reason". But Kant has a point that we have to understand morality in some general sense, otherwise we are lost in the realm of personal opinion

When the world becomes true but relative, questions of conscience can become more prominent. It's all very subtle and we are not all in the same place mentally. So the Golden Rule comes into play then, which is a part of the categorical imperative

is there such thing as a transcendental truth? — 3017amen

Not sure Kant used those terms together, but I guess a truth derived under transcendental conditions would be a transcendental truth. All that needs be, are transcendental conditions. What they can’t be, is empirical, for if every truth was derived from empirical conditions, there would be no need for pure reason in the first place, hence no imagination of supersensible, transcendent, possibilities. In other words....we would cease to wonder. Or, rather, we wouldn’t have an understanding that thinks of things the reality of which it cannot obtain.

It's hard to say "what out to happen" from the principle of duty alone understood as the categorical imperative. — Gregory

Actually, what ought to happen is that which the transcendental conception of freedom grants. So it is easy to say what ought to happen, because we tell ourselves what that is, but it is not from duty that we are told. It is from the autonomy of the will.

While it may be easy to say what ought to happen, it is not always so easy to actually cause to happen that which we have told ourselves, should. If it does, we consider ourselves moral; if we do not we cannot consider ourselves moral, for we have defied our own will.

I do not understand the principle of duty as the categorical imperative. If you do, I won’t argue about it.

As for the golden rule, I needn't remind you it is a rule by definition, therefore cannot carry the authority of an imperative, which has the force of law. Just as a rule is distinct from a law, so too is the golden rule distinct....not part of....the c.i.

The trouble with the Critique is that it got time and space wrong. — val p miranda

And to make it right is to.....what?
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Man created time and space is a real immaterial existence. — val p miranda

Man created, sure. Real, immaterial, ok. But existence? That which exists can be phenomena; can time or space be phenomena?
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Fundamental concepts are still valid and useful such as the law of non-contradiction..... — val p miranda

The Kantian system holds better if the LNC is considered a principle, not a fundamental concept, or, which is the same thing, a category.
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The Antinomies seem faulty because time is a part of them. — val p miranda

Not part of the second. Nevertheless, why does time make the antinomies faulty?

If the categorical imperative is binding, than the Golden rule is for the reason that the later follows from the former. As Fitche pointed out, there is a sense in which we bind ourselves to morality and don't all follow a complete will to power. Perhaps we fool ourselves, but when we conceptualize morality we need to think of a universal law that works because it's universal, we need to believe the Golden rule is one of those rules, and we need to believe they are binding beyond our mere fiat. This is what happens when we conceptualize

The world of time and space do not allow us to do whatever we want, so the LNC applies to it in a sense. But not as Aristotle thought since the antinomies throw out what Aristotle thought he settled: soul and free will, Zeno's paradox, and Deity

The world of time and space do not allow us to do whatever we want, so the LNC applies to it in a sense. — Gregory

Not sure what to say about that. If you care to elaborate....that’d be nice.
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As Fitche pointed out, there is a sense in which we bind ourselves to morality — Gregory

In Kant, morality is a human condition, and as such, there is no need to bind ourselves to it, for it is exactly half of our intrinsic nature, the other half being pure speculative reason. No need to bind to that which is inescapable anyway.

What we do bind ourselves is to duty, insofar as there are certain duties, re: “perfect” duties, sufficient to oblige our compliance to our c.i.

Kant/Fitche/Schopenhauer. What a mass of intellect, right there. The latter two picked on the Master, but, really....what else could they do. Kant’s a hard act to follow, and everybody knew it.

If everyone was perfect, every door would open for each desire. But we are imperfect and we don't know why, religious explanations not being satisfying. So we are bound by rules, laws of matter and rules of the mind

"...life consists before all in this: that a living creature is at each moment itself, and yet something else. Life is therefore a contradiction, present in process, continually accruing and solving itself. And as soon as the contradiction ceases, life ceases and death steps in." Engels

Since there is no time, an important element of the proof does not exist.

Proof for what

Phenomena, I think, should be limited to the emperical. Since space is never perceived and time does not exist, phenomena should not be applied to them.