For Kant, no doubt. Not for Spinoza. His point is to say the it-in-itself is "not for us" is mistaken. The argument is Kant's defintion is mistaken. I'm not equivocating "for us" with the conception of it being "not for us." The argument is "not for us" is mistaken in the first instance-- a failure to recognise that the it-in-itself is its own thing and knowledge, a mistake akin to saying because we know something is not an apple, we can't know anything else about it.

This is what I meant about you "playing dumb." You can't even concieve others are using a different definition to you. Everytime you discuss metaphysics, you talk like everyone is using your own definitions. Rather than address people's argument as it is given (even if that ends in disagreement), you morph into a sycophant of Kant, as if the only possible terms anyone could use in a metaphysical discusion were Kant's.

But it can't turn up that we don't perceive mediated by space/time/causality. That is certain. — Agustino

I depends on what you mean; to say that we perceive mediated by space, time and causality is not necessarily the same as to say that we perceive spatially, temporally and causally. The latter is perfectly obvious and absolutely unarguable.

Come on this is just dumb. The in itself cannot be for us because it is defined as not being for us. Otherwise it would not be the in itself at all, but would be the for us. You can say there is no such thing as the in itself if you like, but that would be to say something different. Even Spinoza speaks about the infinite attributes of God of which we can know only two: extensa and cogitans. Spinoza does not claim that we know all that God knows or is, so even for Spinoza there is, logically, an in itself. If substance is defined as that which is conceived in itself, then since we cannot conceive anything in itself we cannot know substance. These are the kinds of inconsistencies in Spinoza that lead me to refer to his philosophy as "naive". These inconsistencies also render any attribution of his philosophy as a philosophy of pure immanence incoherent.

That's why it not dumb. The split between our knowledge and the it-in-itself is rejected. Under Spinoza, the problem you assert isn't present because the it-in-itself is not defined by being beyond our knowledge. Kant's definition has been rejected. We can conceive the it-in-itself. No doubt it says something different to Kant, but the point is still about the it-in-itself. The inconsistency you are reading comes from you inserting Kant's definitions rather than using Spinoza's.

We do not need to know all that God knows to be aware of the it-in-itself. The it-in-itself is but one truth of many. Knowing it doesn't tell you about anything else. Like any instance of knowledge, understanding the it-in-itself is limited, only one of the many truths.

Here you are equivocating knowledge of the it-in-itself with having knowledge of everything ( both logical, emprical and anything else). That's not required to understand the it-in-itself. Indeed, it's an outright contradiction. The it-in-itself is no other truth.To content we must no everything (including all emprical states) to understand the it-in-itself is to entirely miss what it is about.

Why change the term to "it in itself"? The 'in itself' is just the logical idea of what cannot be known even in principle due to our finitude, or more correctly, the finitude of our modes of discursive knowing. We are not ourselves finite at all, I would say. So, Spinoza's infinite modes of God are unknowable to us and thus qualify as the in itself.

Typically, you haven't addressed any of the points I have made that present difficulties for your position. You prefer to change the subject instead it seems.

To make a point about Spinoza's Substance in relation to Kant's philosophy, how you misunderstanding Spinoza's philosophy because of the Kantian defintions you are smuggling in when reading Spinoza.

That's the exact equivocatiion I was talking about in my last post. Spinoza's infinite modes of God is about the nature of our knowledge as finite states. We can never know everything because, as our knowledge experiences are finite, any one only picks out a small part of what is knowable.Whatever we might know, there is always more to know.

Rather than saying we can't know the infinite, it's pointing out our knowledge cannot be infinite. Not even when we know an infinite (e.g 2+2=4, Substance, the definition of a form, etc. ), do we have infinite knowledge.

Our experience might capture an infinite, but that's as far as it goes. In that moment, we do not experience the knowledge of countless other finite and infinte truths. Spinoza is pointing out our knowledge is never infinite, not saying we cannot understand infinites.

None of this has anything to do with what I have been saying. You are just playing with words; conflating 'infinite' in terms of quantity with in-finite in the sense of 'not finite'. Sure there is always more to know in the sense of what we could in principle come to know. But what lies outside our possible discursive understanding, for example Spinoza's 'infinite attributes of God', is obviously not part of that 'more' that we could in principle come to know.

Yeah, it's all about human beings... :s This is just anthropomorphism at its best, at least you should recognise that... — Agustino

Exactly; I think you miss the point of Berdyaev's mysticism here. It is all about human beings.

Berdyaev's point, as i interpret it, is that being shows itself at all only when there is subject. It is obvious that, understood analytically, being reveals itself only as object, as beings. I doubt Berdyaev, or any thinking person, could disagree with this. — John

Okay, but when I judge things I tend to judge by what the philosopher has written, not by what I could get him to agree on. Undoubtedly Berdyaev has a lot of insights, especially in ethical and political matters that I've found valuable. His metaphysics though doesn't appeal to me much, but maybe I don't know it well enough yet. There's still a lot to be read by Berdyaev.

Truth and reality are conceived only by spiritual beings like us. If other animals have the linguistic, conceptual and spiritual capacity to conceive of truth and reality, then there would be truth and reality for them too. Are you denying this is so? — John

Well animals may not have concepts, but they perceive reality as well. Dogs, cats, etc. can be surprisingly intelligent, compassionate, and so forth. It seems to me that they have a spiritual life as well, although it clearly isn't conceptual/discursive, the way our human spiritual life can be.

Being appears in it fullness with human experience ('human experience' taken here to mean the experience of a rational, conceptualizing language using being). — John

Ok, I don't disagree with this - we have whatever faculties animals have and reason in addition. Although there are some animals having faculties of perception that we don't have - bats for example.

The sentence you cited makes no claim that meaning is present only to humans. It is obvious that natural signs would have meaning for animals, but they cannot posit that meaning if they are not capable of conceptual language. — John

But they can understand the meaning, that much is obvious. To understand the meaning of something does not necessarily require to put it into concepts. But because animals don't have concepts, they don't have access to meta-cognition. That's what reason is - a form of meta-cognition, seeing yourself from the outside as it were.

Spinoza's definition says literally nothing, because nothing can be "conceived through itself" — John

What about Existence? What do you conceive existence through, if not through itself? What about God? Is God to be conceived through another?

Even God or substance must, at the very least, be conceived apophatically, through what it is not. — John

How so? You can conceive God or substance apophatically - by analogy - but Spinoza would say this isn't the highest kind of knowledge.

Do you know what it means for something "to exist in itself"? Of course you don't, you only know what it means for things to exist for you. — John

I think I do. Something exists in itself if it doesn't need something else to exist. I don't exist in myself, because I need a lot of other things to exist.

So, sure, as a negation of what it means to exist for us, we can conceive the merely logical idea of something existing in itself; but it cannot, discursively at least as opposed to poetically,intuitively or mystically, be 'something more" than a merely logical formulation. — John

But what more would you expect it to be discursively? This is what puzzles me. You obviously expect it to be something more. Why?

IT would be illogical to say that there is an appearance and yet that there is nothing that appears. — John

What if there was no distinction between appearance and reality?

I depends on what you mean; to say that we perceive mediated by space, time and causality is not necessarily the same as to say that we perceive spatially, temporally and causally. The latter is perfectly obvious and absolutely unarguable. — John

Well, for me it is the same :P lol

Of course conceptual and linguistic difficulties will inevitably arise when we try to talk about the in itself. — John

This - this is the core of your disagreement. The point is your position, transcendence + immanentism is incoherent. It just is contradictory, you cannot uphold both. God cannot be both transcendent and immanent, that is nonsense. So in order to argue for yourself you have to explore antinomies - what are antinomies, and how are they different than paradoxes? You can prove your position apophatically only if you can prove with equal rational validity both immanence and transcendence. Then you can claim that me and Willow and everyone who adheres to only one position is being dogmatic and refusing to see the other half. Then you'll have to drop both transcendence and immanence as ultimately meaningless (on a rational level at least) - the slumber of reason - reason's inability at moving beyond this point.

I agree this is the core of it, so there's no point going over all the other point by point responses, you have made until we clear this up first. So, to begin, and just to clear up any misconception, I am not claiming that God is both exhaustively immanent and exhaustively transcendent; that would indeed be a ridiculous contradiction. I am saying that God is, from one perspective, immanent and from another perspective transcendent, and that neither of those perspectives are the ultimate truth, and also that neither of those perspectives is privileged over the other; they simply represent two aspects, so to speak.

To draw an analogy from your beloved Spinoza, according to him there are only two known attributes of God; extensa and cogitans, but God has infinitely many attributes which are unknown and presumably unknowable, since we are not capable of knowing anything which does not fall into one of the two categories; extensa and cogitans. Following this to its logical conclusion extensa and cogitans could be considered as immanent aspects of God, because they are intelligible to us, but the infinitely many unknowable attributes must be considered as transcendental, because they are beyond any possibility of human experience and understanding; we just know, according to Spinoza at least, that they are real attributes, but we cannot know what they are. So, if God can have just two attributes knowable to humans, and infinitely many unknowable, then tell me why you still think God cannot be rightly considered to be both immanent and transcendent.

To draw an analogy from your beloved Spinoza, according to him there are only two known attributes of God; extensa and cogitans, but God has infinitely many attributes which are unknown and presumably unknowable, since we are not capable of knowing anything which does not fall into one of the two categories; extensa and cogitans. Following this to its logical conclusion extensa and cogitans could be considered as immanent aspects of God, because they are intelligible to us, but the infinitely many unknowable attributes must be considered as transcendental, because they are beyond any possibility of human experience and understanding; we just know, according to Spinoza at least, that they are real attributes, but we cannot know what they are. So, if God can have just two attributes knowable to humans, and infinitely many unknowable, then tell me why you still think God cannot be rightly considered to be both immanent and transcendent. — John

This could have been the case - however - all attributes are necessarily parallel to each other. This is similar to the performance of music and the musical score - they are parallel to each other - the same thing seen from two different perspectives. More attributes would just mean more perspectives, but they'd be perspectives over the same fundamental thing - much more, they'd be parallel perspectives.

That God has in it more perspectives than humans have access to is no doubt - God is infinite. But this does not mean that God is transcendent - since those are still perspectives over the same thing as thought and extension are. They aren't perspectives corresponding to a different Substance at all. They cannot reveal an unknown about Substance. All that they could reveal is what we already know from thought and extension - or better put what we COULD already know from thought and extension (as being finite we never know everything there is to know)

I don't think we can understand even how extensa and cogitans can be "perspectives over the same thing". I think that they are is just assumed to be so because they are the only two categories that define everything we experience and think. We don't really understand at all how they ultimately 'fit together' (Mind/Body Problem). How much less could we understand how the infinitely many other attributes of God could fit with our experience when we cannot experience them.

For me this means they count as transcendental to our experience, not immanent to it. But if you are using 'transcendent' and 'immanent' in some different way than I am, then we could, for sure, just be talking past one another. That's language games for you! Either way the fact remains that there is much (an infinite amount according to Spinoza), which will always remain not only unknown, but unknowable, to us. And this, to return to the OP (somewhat) is what I would refer to as the 'in itself', that which also counts as 'transcendent' or 'transcendental' (I don't think there is a cogent distinction between the tow terms, as some folk do).

I don't think we can understand even how extensa and cogitans can be "perspectives over the same thing". — John

We do know, that's why we established the reality of the One Substance. The attributes cannot but be two parallel perspectives, since underlying them is One Substance. The attribute parallelism is derived by Spinoza from the One Substance metaphysics. To use the example from the video - serotonin in the brain just is a feeling of happiness. One doesn't cause the other, rather they are always correlated with each other, because they are simply two different perspectives on the same underlying reality.

We don't really understand at all how they ultimately 'fit together' (Mind/Body Problem). How much less could we understand how the infinitely many other attributes of God could fit with our experience when we cannot experience them. — John

I think Spinoza would say we clearly do understand this, as there is no mind/body problem at all. The mind is the body seen under the attribute of extension, and the body is the mind seen under the attribute of thought.

But if you are using 'transcendent' and 'immanent' in some different way than I am, then we could, for sure, just be talking past one another. — John

Well to me, One Substance means immanence.

Either way the fact remains that there is much (an infinite amount according to Spinoza), which will always remain not only unknown, but unknowable, to us. — John

Nothing is unknowable according to Spinoza, only unknown. Unknown simply because we can never know every empirical thing that is possible for God.

I think Spinoza would say we clearly do understand this, as there is no mind/body problem at all. The mind is the body seen under the attribute of extension, and the body is the mind seen under the attribute of thought. — Agustino

I have no idea what this means. It seems like empty word play to me. Can you explain it to me?

Nothing is unknowable according to Spinoza, only unknown. Unknown simply because we can never know every empirical thing that is possible for God. — Agustino

How can we know anything from perspectives that are not possible for us?

In substance dualist terms, half of what they call "mind" is of extension. Our existing experiences are states of the world, are "material," part of a unified "body"-- when we talk about these, we are speaking about our bodily states (e.g. fingers, brain, experiences). Our bodily states in terms of extension.

On the other side, the states of the body we recognise are of mind (e.g. the meaning of fingers, brain, experiences). It's us recognising the meaning of our bodies, the significance of our bodies in meaning and logic, in terms of the attribute of thought.

Thus, there is no mind-body conflict. The presence of consciousness and body is self-explanatory. They are parallel truths. When a body exists (e.g. fingers, brain, experiences), it necessarily comes with meaning (e.g. significance in consciousness experience, in logic, in thought).

How can we know anything from a perspective that are not possible for us? — John

That statement doesn't make sense. A perspective isn't an instance of knowledge. It's being or viewpoint.

Spinoza is not claiming we can know something from a perspective that's not possible for us. Rather, he is saying that some perspectives (God) have knowledge we do not, and that we cannot ever access that amount of knowledge because we only have a finite viewpoint. He's not saying that something is unknowable, rather just that many things are unknown to us when compared to God.

Rather, he is saying that some perspectives (God) have knowledge we do not, and that we cannot ever access that amount of knowledge because we only have a finite viewpoint. — TheWillowOfDarkness

If God has perspectives that consist in knowledge we do not, then we do not know what those perspectives consist in. They are unknowable perspectives to us and we are not justified in saying anything about them, even that they exist, and certainly not that they are parallel with the perspectives known to us, as Agustino suggests. To say this would be to commit a "fallacy of misplaced concreteness". So, the in itself is really just an epistemological notion that defines the category of what we cannot know.

There is a mind/body problem only insofar as we can never know what the ultimate connection between mind and matter is or even what they really are: whether one or the other is primary or they are equi-primordial, whether they are just parallel perspectives on 'one' thing, the nature of which is both or neither, and so on. That's why these questions don't go away, because many philosophers do not settle for glib answers. On the other hand I would say there is no mind/body problem if you think that there must be a definitive answer; that is, because I believe there can be no possible definitive solution to the question. Extensa (the space of measurement and causes) is incommensurable with cogitans,(the space of measuring and reasons). We can say they are two incompatible parallel perspectives ("incompatible" because parallels are defined as never meeting) on one thing; but that cannot be more than just empty word games as we don't really know what it means because the space of reasons and the space of causes are two different word games and we can't see the purported "one thing" they are supposed to be parallel perspectives on.

In addition to that we do not know where extensa and cogitans come from. We can posit God, but we don't know what God is. Thus some consider Him as a freely acting trinity and others consider it as a necessitously acting unity. There are many, many conceptions of God and substance. They are all manifestations of limited human understanding; although I do believe that some are more apposite than others.

All your talk just seems like tossing word salad to me, unfortunately; I see no wisdom or understanding in it all; just continual glib denials of our limitations. Somebody recently said on another thread that Wittgenstein showed philosophical systems to be just parkour games with words, and I think, although not without certain reservations, that is right.

I have no idea what this means. It seems like empty word play to me. Can you explain it to me? — John

I think Spinoza would say we clearly do understand this, as there is no mind/body problem at all. The mind is the body seen under the attribute of extension, and the body is the mind seen under the attribute of thought. — Agustino

You could take a million examples. Feeling happy is serotonin released in the brain seen under the attribute of thought. Serotonin released in the brain is feeling happy seen under the attribute of extension.

How can we know anything from perspectives that are not possible for us? — John

You don't know anything more by knowing the feeling of happiness than you do by knowing serotonin is released in the brain and so and so organism behaves in so and so a way after that. You know the same thing from two different perspectives. Another perspective on top of that would add nothing to your knowledge - it would just be another perspective on what you already know. Sure you don't know that perspective - but that's only an empirical matter, because metaphysically you do know the substance underlying it, since it's just the same substance that underlies what you already know through thought and extension.

I think enough has been said on this issue already. I don't think we are going to agree. For me, the identity of seratonin in the brain with happiness is a non sequitur. If they are two perspective on one thing, then what is the one thing?That the two are often correlated is what we know. That happiness just is seratonin in the brain is merely an inference.

We know what happiness is intuitively by feeling it, Deep truths are deeply felt; if you deny this then you deny the reality of the non-discursive truths inherent in poetry. music, in aesthetic, ethical and religious experience. If you want to deny the importance of feeling truth, then that is not something we can really argue over; it comes down to personal taste. As Wittgenstein said the most important things lie outside the world, they consist in that of which we cannot speak and must remain silent. I take him to mean that we cannot speak of these 'things' and must remain silent about them only in the discursive or propositional sense of 'speaking', he is not referring to poetry and the other arts.

We know what happiness is intuitively by feeling it, Deep truths are deeply felt; if you deny this then you deny the reality of the non-discursive truths inherent in poetry. music, in aesthetic, ethical and religious experience. If you want to deny the importance of feeling truth, then that is not something we can really argue over; it comes down to personal taste. As Wittgenstein said the most important things lie outside the world, they consist in that of which we cannot speak and must remain silent. I take him to mean that we cannot speak of these 'things' and must remain silent about them only in the discursive or propositional sense of 'speaking', he is not referring to poetry and the other arts. — John

So then, what are you doing around here trying to speak of them?

That the two are often correlated is what we know. That happiness just is seratonin in the brain is merely an inference. — John

Why are they correlated?

So then, what are you doing around here trying to speak of them? — Agustino

What do you mean? I'm here speaking about my own take on these matters. I don't see your point.

Why are they correlated? — Agustino

Again, what do you mean? I don't understand what you are asking.

Again, what do you mean? I don't understand what you are asking. — John

What is your explanation for the correlation between serotonin in the brain and happiness. Why are they correlated?

What do you mean? I'm here speaking about my own take on these matters. I don't see your point. — John

Well it seems to me that you want to talk about precisely what Wittgenstein says cannot be spoken of.

What is your explanation for the correlation between serotonin in the brain and happiness. Why are they correlated? — Agustino

I don't have an explanation for it. I don't believe any one does. Do you have an explanation for it?

Well it seems to me that you want to talk about precisely what Wittgenstein says cannot be spoken of. — Agustino

I am not trying to make determinate claims about transcendent truths. I am talking about our situation vis a vis transcendent truths. I am saying these truths can be felt, and expressed via the arts, and I am saying that they cannot be expressed propositionally. It's the wrong language game if you want to put it in Wittgensteinian terms. So, for example, I consider the spiritual truth of the Trinity to be infinitely greater than the purportedly rational truth of neutral monism, they are of entirely different, incommensurable kinds.

I don't have an explanation for it. I don't believe any one does. Do you have an explanation for it? — John

Yes - they are two perspectives of the same thing, so they are necessarily correlated. They couldn't be two perspectives of the same thing if they weren't correlated. That's why the perspectives are parallel - you cannot have element X from one without having element Y from the other.

As I see it you are just playing with words; you haven't explained anything. What is the the "same thing" they are two perspectives on?

As I see it you are just playing with words; you haven't explained anything. What is the the "same thing" they are two perspectives on? — John

Substance. Substance being a metaphysical category cannot be an empirical one - thus you cannot ask what is it, the way you ask what a chair is....

Perhaps you do, or think you do, but I don't have any idea what that means. If the two were merely perspectives on one thing as Spinoza claims, then happiness could not cause release of serotonin, and release of seratonin could not cause happiness. But we don't know that. Release of seratonin may cause feelings of happiness as, for example, when you take certain drugs or feeling happy may cause release of seratonin, as, for example, when you are in love. It may a two way causal street. I think very little is known about all this.

then happiness could not cause release of serotonin, and release of seratonin could not cause happiness. — John

And indeed they don't cause it - that's precisely the point!! Thought cannot affect extension.

Release of seratonin may cause feelings of happiness as, for example, when you take certain drugs or feeling happy may cause release of seratonin, as, for example, when you are in love. — John

No there is no causation, just the pure correlation. Why do you move from the obvious truth that they are always correlated to the falsity of a cause? Their correlation has to be explained, nothing else.

And indeed they don't cause it - that's precisely the point!! Thought cannot affect extension. — Agustino

That is just an opinion; you have no way of knowing that.

No there is no causation, just the pure correlation. Why do you move from the obvious truth that they are always correlated to the falsity of a cause? Their correlation has to be explained, nothing else. — Agustino

That they are always correlated is not "an obvious truth at all". Have you ever seen them being correlated? And even if you had that would just be one case or some number of cases; you are not entitled to infer from that to "always". You misunderstand the nature and truth status of scientific hypotheses apparently. And even if they are always correlated, you haven't explained the correlation at all; you've just defined it as "two perspectives on one substance" which is just playing with words and doesn't tell us anything at all.

That is just an opinion; you have no way of knowing that. — John

Can a thought kick a stone? No. If the two realms interacted causally, we would see a lot more expanded causation between the two.