Ok. Thanks.

Yes. I'm currently reading Descartes now and I have to say, most of the criticism hurled at him is extremely unfair. He was eminently reasonable, clear and persuasive, he was doing the best he could with what he had.

And to his credit, he treats "ordinary people" with much respect and even admiration, which is contrary to what a lot of the other figures did.

Whether Husserl goes "beyond" Kant, is a matter of taste. Fair or not, we haven't really moved beyond the framework made popular by Kant. We have to modify some of his ideas, such as "spacetime" instead of space and time and most of us would say that his categorical imperative is impossible to live up to.

But had he been a better writer, I think it would have been better for everyone. At least his Prolegomena is pretty accessible, all considered.

An accurate understanding of pleasure/pain, for instance, must take into account the relativity of reason — Possibility

This one I find curious. Is reason relative? Judgments are, but not in their form, rather in their content.

Whether Husserl goes "beyond" Kant, is a matter of taste. Fair or not, we haven't really moved beyond the framework made popular by Kant. We have to modify some of his ideas, such as "spacetime" instead of space and time and most of us would say that his categorical imperative is impossible to live up to. — Manuel

That IS a loaded paragraph. For one, "spacetime" is an empirical concept. That is, its justification is traced back measurements of physical events, their quantities, relations and so on. Kant's thinking is strictly apriori: in order to even think about space and time at all, one has to have certain conditions in mind. It is the "presuppositions" of space and time, not how they are theorized about in science.

That's right.

But Kant's a-priori presuppositions are, strictly speaking, false. We may individuate space and time as being different things, but they're not. We can't envision space without time, and maybe even time without space.

It's crucial to remember that Kant was a Newtonian, he took Newton's concepts of space and time to be a-priori, but these were empirical postulates made by Newton.

This doesn't mean that there's nothing a-priori, on the contrary, likely most things are, in some sense. But they're not obviously evident to discover, I don't think.

But Kant's a-priori presuppositions are, strictly speaking, false. We may individuate space and time as being different things, but they're not. We can't envision space without time, and maybe even time without space.

It's crucial to remember that Kant was a Newtonian, he took Newton's concepts of space and time to be a-priori, but these were empirical postulates made by Newton.

This doesn't mean that there's nothing a-priori, on the contrary, likely most things are, in some sense. But they're not obviously evident to discover, I don't think. — Manuel

But then, he wasn't talking about what is "really" there. His was an analysis, and he would be the first to say that such analyses are not true noumenally. They are true in analysis, and this of course is a conceptual matter about the intuitive structure of (representational) experience. Spacetime, on the other hand, is meant to be an a theoretical construct of physics.

Ask Einstein (who read Kant early on, I know) about the essential intuitions of time and space that are presupposed in putting together his theories and he will tell you this is apples and oranges.

I would say the phenomenologist is not concerned with noumena. Remember Husserl's injunction to "return to the things themselves". The cat is the thing itself. The cat looks the way it looks to anybody that looks at it (either tabby, ginger, tortoise-shell, male or female, relatively large or small, and so on), so the way it looks cannot be constructed by my mind, even though it is mediated by the kind of mind and sensory setup I have.

I don't understand why you have gone from talking about cats to talking about brains. How do we know anything about brains if we don't know anything about the world? How can we say anything about brains if we can't say anything about the world?

I stand by what I wrote - but I can see why the argument was made. Phenomenology acknowledges its affected position. Energy = affect when understood from beyond affect. — Possibility

Doesn't affect feel like energy to us though? Something moves us, and we know from our embodied experience that all movement requires effort (energy); we feel the energy of that movement. What is emotion if not e-motion?

The cat looks the way it looks to anybody that looks at it (either tabby, ginger, tortoise-shell, male or female, relatively large or small, and so on), so the way it looks cannot be constructed by my mind, even though it is mediated by the kind of mind and sensory setup I have. — Janus

Fair enough. So for a phenomenologist Kant's metaphysics and idealism in general is of no particular value?

Fair enough. So for a phenomenologist Kant's metaphysics and idealism in general is of no particular value? — Tom Storm

I don't know enough to give an adequate answer to that. I have often read that Husserl's phenomenology owes a lot to Kant (as does just about every movement in modern philosophy in one way or another I guess). I think Husserl rejects the coherency of the notion of things in themselves, but I'll need to look into that more closely.

I found this, which seems relevant to your question, Tom:

Husserl rejected Kant's distinction between appearances and things in themselves and wanted “to radically deracinate the false transcendence that still plays its part in Kant's 'thing-in-itself' doctrine and to create a world concept that is purely phenomenological” (Husserl, 2008, p. xxxix, my translation). Thus, for him, a physical thing is not an appearance of an incomprehensible thing in itself. Instead, Husserl (1983, p. 92, see also 2003, p. 67, 2004, p. 129) saw it as “fundamentally erroneous to believe that perception […] does not reach the physical thing itself.”

Second, Husserl rejected Kant's route of access to knowledge about a priori structures. Kant (1999, A 35/B 52) stated that “no object can ever be given to us in experience that would not belong under the condition of time.” If, however, all intuitions and experiences we can have are already temporal, we cannot intuitively study how temporality and sense intuition become interwoven in the first place. As a result, Kant's access to the processes preceding our experience is speculative. Kant's (1999, A 91-92/B 123–124) was well aware of this, as he clearly rejected establishing causality's necessity based on experience (a posteriori). He pointed out that his entire system is ultimately a thought experiment that aims to achieve verification by means of being thinkable without contradiction (see Kant, 1999, B xviii–xix).

Husserl (1970, p. 115) took issue with these speculations about intuitively inaccessible processes allegedly shaping our actual experience. He complained that Kant resorted to a “mythical concept formation. He forbids his readers to transpose the results of his regressive procedure into intuitive concepts […]. His transcendental concepts are thus unclear in a quite peculiar way.” Husserl consequently sought to intuitively explore the conscious processes shaping experience as we know it.

One important feature that Husserl (1960, p. 144, 1970, p. 199) did accept was Kant's so called “Copernican turn.” In order to explain how we, as subjects, can have knowledge about objects, Kant (1999, B xvi-xvii) suggested that we conceive of the object's appearance based on forms that we find in ourselves as experiencing subjects. In line with this, Husserl (1960, p. 114) postulated an“‘innate' Apriori, without which an ego as such is unthinkable.” This explains why he (see Husserl, 1968, pp. 250, 300, 328, 344) assumed our world experience is relative to an absolute, transcendental subjectivity that constitutes it.

Husserl likewise accepted Kant's (1999, A 51/B 75) claim: “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.” Adopting this means that one always needs to look out for the proper correlation between any given intuition and concept, as only together can they be meaningful. Kant (1999, A 240/B 299) elucidates further: “t is also a requisite for one to make an abstract concept sensible, i.e., to display the object that corresponds to it in intuition, since without this the concept would remain (as one says) without sense.” As the categories are concepts, this transfers to them as well. Thus, in a similar vein, Husserl (2001b, p. 306) wrote:“It lies in the nature of the case that everything categorial ultimately rests upon sensuous intuition, that […] an intellectual insight […] without any foundation of sense, is a piece of nonsense.” Husserl always asked for a sensory foundation when a priori (eidetic) structures are to be explored phenomenologically.

Bolded parts are quoted from Husserl.

From here:

Thanks for this. It's not quite what I expected, but I guess I'm not sure what I did expect. :wink:

I found this.... — Janus

That was interesting. Thanks.

Cheers.

The cat looks the way it looks to anybody that looks at it (either tabby, ginger, tortoise-shell, male or female, relatively large or small, and so on), so the way it looks cannot be constructed by my mind, even though it is mediated by the kind of mind and sensory setup I have. — Janus

From a phenomenological standpoint, the cat looks the way it does as a function of a subjective constituting process that also involves an intersubjective aspect. To say it is constituted does not mean ‘invented’ out of whole cloth by a subjectivity. Rather, there is an indissociable interaction between subjective and objective poles of the perception.

Whether Husserl goes "beyond" Kant, is a matter of taste. Fair or not, we haven't really moved beyond the framework made popular by Kant. — Manuel

It depends on how general you mean this statement to be. In a very general sense, Kant didn’t really move beyond the framework make popular by Descartes. I would argue that Husserl moved at least as far from Kant as Kant did from Descartes, especially regarding his concept of time.

From a phenomenological standpoint, the cat looks the way it does as a function of a subjective constituting process that also involves an intersubjective aspect. To say it is constituted does not mean ‘invented’ out of whole cloth by a subjectivity. Rather, there is an indissociable interaction between subjective and objective poles of the perception. — Joshs

The involvement of an inter-subjective aspect would only be possible on account of agreement. If the cat were not a certain way: tabby, ginger, male, female, etc,. there would be no possibility of inter-subjective agreement.

By saying "there is an indissociable interaction between subjective and objective poles of the perception" I take it that you mean that subjectively "seeing as" is dependent on inter-subjectively evolved categories of being? I would agree with this, but would add that what is seen as whatever it is must have its own contribution to make.

An accurate understanding of pleasure/pain, for instance, must take into account the relativity of reason
— Possibility

This one I find curious. Is reason relative? Judgments are, but not in their form, rather in their content. — Astrophel

Kant’s understanding of reason is logic relative to human experience. From our perspective, there’s no reason to consider logic beyond reason, and no real capacity to talk about it. But I would argue that an accurately practical understanding of reality is inclusive of unreasonable logic. It’s a further Copernican turn away from Kant.

I stand by what I wrote - but I can see why the argument was made. Phenomenology acknowledges its affected position. Energy = affect when understood from beyond affect.
— Possibility

Doesn't affect feel like energy to us though? Something moves us, and we know from our embodied experience that all movement requires effort (energy); we feel the energy of that movement. What is emotion if not e-motion? — Janus

It’s more than just feeling energy, though. You’re referring to affect as positive energy, but affect is also inclusive of what holds us back, what renders us ignorant or non-responsive - and even this language inaccurately implies a force acting on us, when that isn’t the case. Not just energy, not just emotion, but also the lack thereof; Sometimes movement consists of more than just where effort is directed, but where it isn’t, or where it’s redirected from. Same with attention.

Consider change as a localised 3D relation of energy, effort as a localised 4D relation of energy, and affect as localised 5D relation of energy. It’s a matter of perspective.

Hey Joshs :cool: There's no wavey icon here, so that'll do instead.

Eh, it becomes tricky. I think this depends on how one thinks about rationalism actually, and how much Descartes to Hume could be said to be aware of "things-in-themselves".

Of course, though "synthesizing" rationalism and empiricism, one would have to say that, on the whole, Kant is very much in the rationalist camp in so far as he attributes to our mental powers so much more than Locke and Hume.

Though proceeded by others - clearly - the phenomena - things-in-themselves distinction is crucial here, as is the reigning in of speculative metaphysics. These arguments cause lots of arguments in favor and against.

Then you have, roughly, Humean, "empiricists", of a (to me) poorer quality than Hume's.

Descartes, generally, is not much praised these days, with few outliers, like Husserl and Chomsky.

The important thing to me and what I think makes Kant such an important figures, is that up to Kant, almost everyone agrees who the great philosophers were. Beyond him, there is no agreement, with the possible exception of the major American Pragmatists.

Marx, Nietzsche, Russell, Husserl, Heidegger, Quine, Carnap, Whitehead and others are extremely polarizing.

It’s more than just feeling energy, though. You’re referring to affect as positive energy, but affect is also inclusive of what holds us back, what renders us ignorant or non-responsive - and even this language inaccurately implies a force acting on us, when that isn’t the case. — Possibility

Right, affect can be considered to be something acting upon us, primordially speaking, even unconsciously. It can also be considered to be a felt impulse or emotion. In the cases where what holds us back is not a negative affect it would seem to be a lack of affect. I would also say that there is a sense in which lack of affect amounts to a force restraining us; think about depression, for example.

The involvement of an inter-subjective aspect would only be possible on account of agreement. If the cat were not a certain way: tabby, ginger, male, female, etc,. there would be no possibility of inter-subjective agreement. — Janus

But the cat is a certain way for me differently that it is for others. Each has their own perspectives on a changing experience. For me to expereince this changing flow of senses as ‘this cat’ is already for me to form an abstraction, an idealization, a single unitary ‘this’ out of what is only ever experienced as this changing flow. My own experience of this flow as a unified object is an idealization, since my actual experience of the ‘thing’ never completely fulfills this identity.

Then for me to take into account the similar but distinct perspectives on the ‘same’( it isnt actually the identical but only the similar phenomenon for them as it is for me) cat that other experience is to form an empirical
object out of it. It is empirical when we form a richer , intersubjectivitely shared idealization and claim that it is an empirical object that is the same for all of us, which we are simply seeing different aspects of.

“ Each individual, as a subject of possible experiences, has his experiences, his aspects, his perceptual interconnections, his alteration of validity, his corrections, etc.; and each particular social group has its communal aspects, etc. Here again, properly speaking, each individual has his experienced things, that is, if we understand by this what in particular is valid for him, what is seen by him and, through the seeing, is experienced as straightforwardly existing and being-such. But each individual "knows" himself to be living within the horizon of his fellow human beings, with whom he can enter into sometimes actual, sometimes potential contact, as they also can do (as he likewise knows) in actual and potential living together. He knows that he and his fellows, in their actual contact, are related to the same experienced things in such a way that each individual has different aspects, different sides, perspectives, etc., of them but that in each case these are taken from the same total system of multiplicities of which each individual is constantly conscious (in the actual experience of the same thing) as the horizon of possible experience of this thing.

If one attends to the distinction between things as "originally one's own" and as "empathized" from others, in respect to the how of the manners of appearance, and if one attends to the possibility of discrepancies between one's own and empathized views, then what one actually experiences originaliter as a perceptual thing is transformed, for each of us, into a mere "representation of" ["Vorstellung von"], "appearance of/' the one objectively existing thing. From the synthesis these have taken on precisely the new sense "appearance of," and as such they are henceforth valid. 'The" thing itself is actually that which no one experiences as really seen, since it is always in motion, always, and for everyone, a unity for consciousness of the openly endless multiplicity of changing experiences and experienced things, one's own and those of others.” (Husserl, Crisis Of European Sciences)

But the cat is a certain way for me differently that it is for others. Each has their own perspectives on a changing experience. For me to expereince this changing flow of senses as ‘this cat’ is already for me to form an abstraction, an idealization, a single unitary ‘this’ out of what is only ever experienced as this changing flow. My own experience of this flow as a unified object is an idealization, since my actual experience of the ‘thing’ never completely fulfills this identity. — Joshs

I agree that identity is an idealization; the thing in front of us is a cat, not an identity. And of course there are differences in the ways the cat will be for each of us. But there also recognizable commonalities like colour, sex and so on, which, even though they too may be different for each of, the fact of their existence is arguably independent of any subjective act of constitution.

What is to be explained is that we all see the ginger male cat as a ginger male cat. This cannot be explained wholly by the role of subjective or inter-subjective constitution, even though such constitutions play a role on our perceptions. How would you explain, for example, that a dog also sees a cat there, judging from its behavior?

Sometimes movement consists of more than just where effort is directed, but where it isn’t, or where it’s redirected from. Same with attention.

Consider change as a localised 3D relation of energy, effort as a localised 4D relation of energy, and affect as localised 5D relation of energy. It’s a matter of perspective. — Possibility

For Husserl affect is directed both from the subject side of an intentional experience and from the object side. The object exerts an attractive pull on the subject and the subject turns toward the object. We notice the object when it stands out from a field, and draws our attention. From the side of the subject there is an affective pull also, a drive or striving to know the object better, that is , to anticipate its future appearances.

From both the objective and subjective sides, what is key for Husserl is that the affective meaningfulness of an experience is linked to how similar we can perceive it to be with respect to previous experience. So affect isnt simply a neutral or mechanical
energy, it is inextricably linked with the relevance of objects for a subject. Fundamentally, the way that I am affected by the world is a function of its relevance to me, and it’s relevance is a function of my ability to assimilate it on some basis of similarity and recognizability.

But there also recognizable commonalities like colour, sex and so on, which, even though they too may be different for each of, the fact of their existence is arguably independent of any subjective act of constitution. — Janus

These features that you mention are all considered by Husserl to be relative and contingent. They could be otherwise than they are, so it makes no sense to claim their reality as existing somewhere apart from their appearance in the way they appear to a subject. .And most fundamentally, they appear only once in time as what they to the subject, never to be captured identically again.

“Certainly the world that is in being for me, the world about which I have always had ideas and spoken about meaningfully, has meaning and is accepted as valid by me because of my own apperceptive performances because of these experiences that run their course and are combined precisely in those performances—as well as other functions of consciousness, such as thinking.
But is it not a piece of foolishness to suppose that world has being because of some performance of mine? Clearly, I must make my formulation more precise. In my Ego there is formed, from out of the proper sources of transcendental passivity and activity, my “representation of the world, ” my “picture of the world, ” whereas outside of me, naturally enough, there is the world itself.

But is this really a good way of putting it? Does this talk about outer and inner, if it makes any sense at all, receive its meaning from anywhere else than from my formation and my preservation of meaning? Should I forget that the totality of everything that I can ever think of as in being resides within the universal realm of consciousness, within my realm, that of the Ego, and indeed within what is for me real or possible?” (Phenomenology and Anthropology)

“The attempt to conceive the universe of true being as
something lying outside the universe of possible consciousness, possible knowledge, possible evidence, the two being related to one another merely externally by a rigid law, is nonsensical. If transcendental subjectivity is the universe of possible sense, then an outside is precisely nonsense.”

Right, affect can be considered to be something acting upon us, primordially speaking, even unconsciously. It can also be considered to be a felt impulse or emotion. In the cases where what holds us back is not a negative affect it would seem to be a lack of affect. I would also say that there is a sense in which lack of affect amounts to a force restraining us; think about depression, for example. — Janus

I can see how it would seem that way. But I would argue that ‘affect’ considered as something acting upon us is inaccurate. Affect is part of us, part of our awareness, connection and collaboration with the world. It refers to an ongoing distribution of attention and effort. When what we experience appears to be a ‘lack of affect’, it translates to insufficient attention and/or effort directed towards a particular aspect of experience, rather than a generalised lack. Depression can appear to be a force restraining us, but it, too, may be more accurately described as an ineffective distribution of attention and effort.

This is the problem with affect=energy that I think Astrophel was pointing out. Perhaps take a look at Lisa Feldman Barrett’s How Emotions Are Made.

I don't understand why you have gone from talking about cats to talking about brains. How do we know anything about brains if we don't know anything about the world? How can we say anything about brains if we can't say anything about the world? — Janus

What is the world? We certainly know it, but what is it that we can know it?

Affect is part of us, part of our awareness, connection and collaboration with the world. It refers to an ongoing distribution of attention and effort. When what we experience appears to be a ‘lack of affect’, it translates to insufficient attention and/or effort directed towards a particular aspect of experience, rather than a generalised lack. — Possibility

I suggest affect isnt an inner response to an outer world. Words like attention and effort split off the subject’s ‘inner’ workings from the world, but affective meaning, relevance and mattering are the direct way that world affects us.

What makes attention possible? Husserl argues that it isn’t just the effort of shining a spotlight on something already there, it is a creative act, the making of something.

“Attention is one of the chief themes of modern psychology. Nowhere does the predominantly sensualistic [empiricist] character of modern psychology show itself more strikingly than in the treatment of this theme, for not even the essential connection between attention and intentionality--this fundamental fact: that attention of every sort is nothing else than a fundamental species of intentive modifications-- has ever, to my knowledge, been emphasized before.” “Dazed by the confusion between object and mental content, one forgets that the objects of which we are ‘conscious', are not simply in consciousness as in a box, so that they can merely be found in it and snatched at in it; but that they are first constituted as being what they are for us, and as what they count as for us, in varying forms of objective intention...One forgets that.... an intending, or reference is present, that aims at an object, a consciousness is present that is the consciousness of this object. The mere existence of a content in the psychic interplay is, however, not at all this being-meant or being-referred-to. This first arises when this content is ‘noticed', such notice being a look directed towards it, a presentation of it. To define the presentation of a content as the mere fact of its being experienced, and in consequence to give the name ‘presentations' to all experienced contents, is one of the worst conceptual distortions known to philosophy.”

Depression can appear to be a force restraining us, but it, too, may be more accurately described as an ineffective distribution of attention and effort. — Possibility

Or perhaps it is better understood as a way in which the world appears relevant to us in our darkness. In other words, not some
inner constraint on engagement with the world , but a way of being situated in the world that is neither simply due to inner nor outer causes.

For Husserl affect is directed both from the subject side of an intentional experience and from the object side. The object exerts an attractive pull on the subject and the subject turns toward the object. We notice the object when it stands out from a field, and draws our attention. From the side of the subject there is an affective pull also, a drive or striving to know the object better, that is , to anticipate its future appearances.

From both the objective and subjective sides, what is key for Husserl is that the affective meaningfulness of an experience is linked to how similar we can perceive it to be with respect to previous experience. So affect isnt simply a neutral or mechanical
energy, it is inextricably linked with the relevance of objects for a subject — Joshs

Thanks Josh. An interesting spotlight on Husserl. This is what I mean by the complication of a subject-object dichotomy in language use, and the relativity of affect. I don’t consider affect to be mechanical - for me that’s effort. If we dispense with this subject-object dichotomy for a moment, then energy has a neutral possibility only in the context of infinite interconnectedness. Affect is not that, either.

What I think Husserl shows here is that affect is a relative aspect of both subject and object - suggesting that there is more to affect than we can understand by assuming either of these two cognitive positions.

Yes, but what makes attention possible? Husserl argues that after it isn’t just shining a spotlight on something already there, it is a creative act, the making of something. — Joshs

Affect is relative to human experiences of logic and quality. Quantum mechanics makes the most sense to us when effort is logically quantitative and attention is qualitatively practical - but few physicists work across both areas. Rather, they focus on one and take the other as given. Attention, then, is often thought of as the qualitative, intentional aspect of affect - and confined to the domain of psychology. In quantum physics, it is attention that complicates our logically quantitative descriptions of reality with qualitative evidence of entanglement, spin direction and indeterminacy.

I like the idea of attention as a creative impetus - the qualitative value of any perceived relation. What makes it possible, I think, is this idea of qualitative interconnectedness: the mere possibility of a ‘oneness’ to the relational structure of reality.