we experience the empirical world (the software) through a "meta-empirical" world (the hardware). Our a posteriori knowledge (the software) is transcended by our a priori knowledge (the hardware). — RussellA

Software? Hardware? Pre-existing in the brain? Why are these, with their modern scientific predicates, contained in a treatise under the title of Kantian Transcendental Idealism? If the deterministic brain is fully involved at the expense of logical metaphysics, it isn’t idealism, and if some knowledge is pre-existing in the brain, it isn’t necessarily a priori in strictly Kantian terms, which makes explicit it isn’t transcendental.

Can’t critique the philosophy not given to us, using conditions not known to the author of the one that was.
————-

Kant was not able to benefit from Darwin's insights. — RussellA

Evolution being such a slow process, he would probably not even considered it with respect to human knowledge, insofar his speculative methodology for our being conscious of it, wouldn’t have changed, in general, noticeably for millennia. He would have readily admitted that knowledge about things changes all the time; the way knowledge occurs in humans, does not.

Can’t critique the philosophy not given to us, using conditions not known to the author of the one that was. — Mww

I'm not trying to critique Kant's Transcendental Idealism, rather, I'm trying to interpret it in today's terms.

A modern interpretation of Kant's Transcendental Idealism

To date
I am using the analogy that our a priori knowledge is the hardware of the brain, and our a posteriori knowledge is the software of the brain. The hardware of the brain has evolved over more than 4.5 billion years of evolution in synergy with the world enabling us to conceptualise time and space. The software of the brain enables us to observe apples falling off tables.

My belief is that the world can be described within the matter and forces of Physicalism rather than any supernatural intervention.

It follows that we should aim to discover knowledge empirically rather than metaphysically. However, there is a limit to human intelligence, and for knowledge beyond the limits of human intelligence we have no alternative but to use speculative conjecture. We have no alternative but to resort to metaphysical explanations (one could also say, metaphorical explanations)

All empirical theory is suspended, following Kant — Constance

Not true, it seems to me. For Kant, knowledge needs both empirical observation and rationalism. Kant is not saying that we don't observe the world, but he is saying that what we think we observe is determined by the innate nature of our brain. Innate are the pure intuitions of time and space, a prioiri knowledge that we know independent of experience. He wrote in Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics 1783 - "And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something." Kant postulated that the mind intuits sensory experience, which it then processes in the faculty of the understanding to produce an ordered predictable world.

IE, Kant believed intuition of objects in the external world is the primary source for our understanding.

Apriority is transcendental. a presupposition to all empirical thinking — Constance

In understanding the external world, we try to make sense of empirical observations using innate, a priori knowledge. Our understanding of necessity transcends the reality the of the things as they are in themselves. As Kant wrote in the Fourth Paralogism: " I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not as things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves.

My reading of transcendental is not that of the supernatural, but rather that that there are many aspects of the world that we cannot explain using current scientific knowledge, such as the mind-body problem. This is not to say that such problems cannot be explained by future empirical science.

The transcendental paradox of self-awareness
1) As "I" subjectively know the colour red, "I" subjectively know time and space.
2) But the "I" is no more nor less than the physical structure of the brain, where the brain may be considered to be neurons in a particular arrangement.
3) Given an identity between 1) and 2), then the physical structure of the brain knows time and space.
4) But time and space are expressed within the physical structure of the brain
5) Given an identity between 3) and 4), the physical structure of the brain knows the physical structure of the brain, ie self-awareness.

IE, the paradoxical consequence of a priori knowledge is the brain's self-awareness.

Summary
IE, For Kant, knowledge requires both empirical observation and metaphysical interpretation. As a believer in the metaphysics of god and morality, it is not that he considered the metaphysical of more primary importance than the empirical, rather he strived to put the metaphysical on a more scientific basis, which must remain an ongoing process.

I'm trying to interpret it in today's terms. — RussellA

Oh. Well, alrighty then. Carry on, by all means.

Not true, it seems to me. For Kant, knowledge needs both empirical observation and rationalism. Kant is not saying that we don't observe the world, but he is saying that what we think we observe is determined by the innate nature of our brain. Innate are the pure intuitions of time and space, a prioiri knowledge that we know independent of experience. He wrote in Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics 1783 - "And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something." Kant postulated that the mind intuits sensory experience, which it then processes in the faculty of the understanding to produce an ordered predictable world.

IE, Kant believed intuition of objects in the external world is the primary source for our understanding. — RussellA

Just no, to any association to the brain and "what we observe". The brain is an empirical concept, it is preanalytical, and empirically we certainly do observe it. But he is not saying "what we think we observe is determined by the innate nature of our brain." You may be saying this, and like I said, this is not unreasonable, but it is a break away from Kant.
I haven't read that Kant uses the term "mind" (geist) but his transcendental unity of apperception does not align with modern thinking about minds and their objects, thoughts, feelings. Maybe you have something where he talks like this, though. But sensory intuitions are not postulated, but are directly witnessed in his CPR. Noumena are postulated.
And where I said all empirical theory is suspended, following Kant, I was talking in the context of his critical analysis. He does, of course, and this is taken up very seriously later on, say that empirical theory is really the only wheel that rolls. But his CPR is an apriori thesis, not an empirical one. One arrives at the proposition that only what is said empirically and analytically can make sense via his apriori arguments.

My reading of transcendental is not that of the supernatural, but rather that that there are many aspects of the world that we cannot explain using current scientific knowledge, such as the mind-body problem. This is not to say that such problems cannot be explained by future empirical science. — RussellA

It depends, are you saying your reading is Kant's? Because Kant is essentially saying no to this "future empirical science," unless you can show how to epistemically bridge phenomena and noumena, I mean, show how noumena can be at all known. The only way one can conceive to this is to leave Kant entirely in the attempt to make what is noumenally postulated, manifestly apparent. THAT would be mysticism.

Heidegger opens that door a crack (see his brief reference to Buddhism in the Spielburg interview, der spiegel interview; see also his What IS Metaphysics. He is no mystic, but then, there is the post Heideggerians like Michel Henry and Jean Luc Marion who follow through.

One arrives at the proposition that only what is said empirically and analytically can make sense via his apriori arguments. — Constance

Kant's a priori pure intuitions

I agree with you that Kant in Critique of Pure Reason argued that we can only understand the truth of the noumena in the world by applying a priori pure intuition to the phenomena we receive from these noumena.

Kant wrote: "Space and time are its pure forms, sensation in general its matter. We can cognize only the former a priori, i.e., prior to all actual perception, and they are therefore called pure intuition; the latter, however, is that in our cognition that is responsible for it being called a posteriori cognition, i.e., empirical intuition." (B60)

He also wrote: I call all representations pure (in the transcendental sense) in which nothing is to be encountered that belongs to sensation. Accordingly the pure form of sensible intuitions in general is to be encountered in the mind a priori, wherein all of the manifold of appearances is intuited in certain relations. This pure form of sensibility itself is also called pure intuition. (B35)

However, Kant does not explain the source of these a priori pure intuitions. He does not explain how we are able have these a priori pure intuitions.

Indirect and Direct Realism

Today, there are those who believe in Indirect Realism and those who believe in Direct Realism.

Direct Realism is the common sense view within the philosophy of mind which states that objects are as they appear to be. All objects are made of matter and that our perceptions are entirely correct, in which case noumena correspond with phenomena.

Indirect Realism is the view that there is an external world that exists independently of the mind, but we can only perceive that world indirectly through sense data. Sense data can only represent the mind-independent world, meaning that we can only ever know a representation of the external world, in which case phenomena can never allow us to know noumena directly.

I personally believe in Indirect Realism. I understand Kant's position as also being similar to that of the Indirect Realist, even though he did not use this terminology

What is the source of a priori pure intuitions

Where do our a priori pure intuitions come from? Some would say from a metaphysical god, others would say that there is a physical explanation.

It follows from my belief in Physicalism, where everything in the world is physical, a world of matter and forces, and my belief that we are not born as "blank slates", in that all our behaviour is learned, that we are in fact born with innate a priori pure intuitions. These innate a priori pure intuitions are part of the structure of the brain, part of the hardware of the brain, part of the physical arrangement of neurons within the brain.

It seems clear that the brain has the physical structure it has as a consequence of an evolutionary process lasting over 4 billion years. A process where organisms change and evolve over time, along the lines of the natural selection as set out in Darwin's On The Origin of Species.

IE, our a priori pure intuitions are a direct consequence of a physical evolutionary process.

A future question

Kant assumed that our a priori pure intuitions are true to the reality of the world. However, would this be the case if as a result of a physical evolutionary process?

I agree with you that Kant in Critique of Pure Reason argued that we can only understand the truth of the noumena in the world by applying a priori pure intuition to the phenomena we receive from these noumena.

Kant wrote: "Space and time are its pure forms, sensation in general its matter. We can cognize only the former a priori, i.e., prior to all actual perception, and they are therefore called pure intuition; the latter, however, is that in our cognition that is responsible for it being called a posteriori cognition, i.e., empirical intuition." (B60)

He also wrote: I call all representations pure (in the transcendental sense) in which nothing is to be encountered that belongs to sensation. Accordingly the pure form of sensible intuitions in general is to be encountered in the mind a priori, wherein all of the manifold of appearances is intuited in certain relations. This pure form of sensibility itself is also called pure intuition. (B35)

However, Kant does not explain the source of these a priori pure intuitions. He does not explain how we are able have these a priori pure intuitions. — RussellA

Those pure intuitions are transcendental and cannot be explained. It would be like explaining how the absence of space and time is possible.

And when you say, "truth of the noumena in the world by applying a priori pure intuition to the phenomena we receive from these noumena" Kant would not go along. Noumena are not received at all. It is entirely outside of "receiving". Noumena are posited because representations have to be of something.

Having said this, though, I think, not Kant, but me, that in order for noumena to make any sense at all, there must be something IN the comprehensive analysis of phenomena that reveals this. It is not like some heuristic that is posited because helps further another line of thinking. It is an existential claim about something other than sensory intuition that is intimated, an "intuition" of Being itself, if you will, that comes, not from outside as if empirical theory could generate it out of something empirically discovered, but within the world of ones "interiority" (Kant's TUA.....is YOU in the most intimate sense of the term). This is why I talk about mysticism. If you are going to take seriously some impossible interface with noumena, it is not going to happen through a discursive reasoning process of what is "out there" because what is out there will always be conditioned evidence and noumena are not conditioned. Talk about a brain? There are no brains that can be conceived that are not routed through the phenomenal construction: A brain is a phenomenon! As are my couch and plate tectonics and evolution and on and on. So a noumenal encounter would have to be revelatory, not discursive.

Direct Realism is the common sense view within the philosophy of mind which states that objects are as they appear to be. All objects are made of matter and that our perceptions are entirely correct, in which case noumena correspond with phenomena.

Indirect Realism is the view that there is an external world that exists independently of the mind, but we can only perceive that world indirectly through sense data. Sense data can only represent the mind-independent world, meaning that we can only ever know a representation of the external world, in which case phenomena can never allow us to know noumena directly.

I personally believe in Indirect Realism. I understand Kant's position as also being similar to that of the Indirect Realist, even though he did not use this terminology — RussellA

But that is not Kant. We do not become aware of noumena indirectly. We do not become aware of this at all. This is the trouble with analytic philosophy and the attempt to tall about Kant and transcendental idealism.It does not have any thematic development for this. And I will say this with emphasis: If you are looking for some way to make sense out of Kant's idealism, and to build on this, elaborate on what Kant laid out there, then talk about direct and indirect realism is not a viable alternative as it insists that empirical observation, somewhere in the discoveries through microscopes and telescopes, is going to be relevant. This ignores Wittgenstein as well as Kant. Rather, one has to follow Kant as Kant was indeed "followed": through Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Neitzsche, then Husserl, Heidegger, and so on, then Saussure, Levi Strauss, Derrida; look, it's not that I am such a master of all this, but I have read a lot of it and this is the really the only way to develop with Kant. One simply has to start taking phenomenology seriously; Kant started it.

Where do our a priori pure intuitions come from? Some would say from a metaphysical god, others would say that there is a physical explanation.

It follows from my belief in Physicalism, where everything in the world is physical, a world of matter and forces, and my belief that we are not born as "blank slates", in that all our behaviour is learned, that we are in fact born with innate a priori pure intuitions. These innate a priori pure intuitions are part of the structure of the brain, part of the hardware of the brain, part of the physical arrangement of neurons within the brain.

It seems clear that the brain has the physical structure it has as a consequence of an evolutionary process lasting over 4 billion years. A process where organisms change and evolve over time, along the lines of the natural selection as set out in Darwin's On The Origin of Species.

IE, our a priori pure intuitions are a direct consequence of a physical evolutionary process. — RussellA

Yes, I see you believe this. Physicalism? It is just a term used by those who want science to rule our thinking on philosophical matters. It is a scientist's term (as well as an everyday term) that attempts to reduce questions about the world to ones science addresses. The term itself is entirely without meaning. It is like Kant talking about noumena, utterly transcendental:

The purely transcendental use of categories therefore is in reality of no use at all, and has no definite or
even, with regard to its form only, definable object. Hence
it follows that a pure category is not fit for any [-p. 248]
synthetical a priori principle, and that the principles of
the pure understanding admit of empirical only, never of
transcendental application, nay, that no synthetical principles a pm'ori are possible beyond the field of possible
experience.

Kant gave you the idea of the structure of thought, you think this structure can be talked about in the context of empirical thinking, and you are right about this. But if you think this boat is going to sail straight into some kind of consummation of Kantian idealism, you are entirely wrong.

Best read Husserl.

Kant assumed that our a priori pure intuitions are true to the reality of the world. However, would this be the case if as a result of a physical evolutionary process? — RussellA

SInce evolution is an empirical concept, then you are apples and oranges in this. Kant's phenomenology is logically prior to a concept like evolution. It is about the grounding of experience that is presupposed to any and all empirical theory. A term like "physical": This is a concept, no? A subsumption of particulars under a general; and synthetic act of a structured psyche. This is why hermeneutics is so important, for it sees this and therefore puts interpretation first, and it is not physicality that takes priority, but meaning, and this goes to language and logic.

But that is not Kant. We do not become aware of noumena indirectly. We do not become aware of this at all. This is the trouble with analytic philosophy and the attempt to tall about Kant and transcendental idealism.It does not have any thematic development for this. And I will say this with emphasis: If you are looking for some way to make sense out of Kant's idealism, and to build on this, elaborate on what Kant laid out there, then talk about direct and indirect realism is not a viable alternative as it insists that empirical observation, somewhere in the discoveries through microscopes and telescopes, is going to be relevant. — Constance

A question
Kant said that a priori knowledge is "knowledge that is absolutely independent of all experience". I propose that such priori knowledge is innate within the brain, a product of over 4 billion years of evolution and is part of the physical "hardware" of the brain.

I am curious as to your belief as to the source of this a priori knowledge, this pure intuition of time and space intrinsic in our minds?

What are "noumena"

Kant wrote in Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics 1783: "And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something."

Kant included causation within the category of pure understanding, an a priori pure intuition, where an effect requires a cause. Given causation as an a priori pure intuition, it follows that the observer must know without doubt that there has been a cause to the phenomenon, and this cause may be called a "noumenon".

In my terms, a belief in causation is a Kantian a priori pure intuition because it has been wired into the brain through evolutionary processes,

The problem remains that although such an a priori belief may be pragmatically useful, there is no guarantee that it corresponds with the reality of the external world.

IE, I am not aware of any justification by Kant as to why a priori pure intuitions should of necessity correspond with the reality of the external world. This is the same problem found in Indirect Realism, in discovering the reality of the external world through internal representations.

Concepts

There must be a distinction between the whole and its parts. When we observe something, we are observing a whole made up from a relationship between parts. As relations don't ontologically exist in the external world, as illustrated by FH Bradley, and relations do ontologically exist in the mind, as illustrated by the Binding problem, we can say that the parts of the object do exist in the external world, but the whole object, as a relation between its parts, can only exist in the mind as a concept.

The parts we observe are assembled in the mind into concepts - a table is a table top plus table legs, a house is a roof plus walls plus windows, etc. But many mereological permutations are possible of the parts we observe within the external world - a table top plus table legs, my pen and the Eiffel Tower, etc. We sensibly choose and name those particular combinations that are beneficial to our evolutionary well-being and survival.

It follows that if we think of noumena as objects in the external world consisting of a relationship between a set of parts, then it is true that noumena don't ontologically exist in the world, as relations don't ontologically exist in the external world, but only in the mind of the observer as a concept.

You wrote "If you are going to take seriously some impossible interface with noumena, it is not going to happen through a discursive reasoning process of what is "out there" because what is out there will always be conditioned evidence and noumena are not conditioned"

IE, in my terms, it follows that our understanding of noumena as defined as objects in the external world must be transcendental in that objects in the external world don't ontologically exist.

Meaning

Meaning in language is in the relationship between parts. "Apple" has no meaning in itself. "The apple is green" has meaning because of the relationship between its parts, "apple" and "green". As relations have no ontological existence in the external world, but only in the mind, and as meaning is a relationship between parts, meaning cannot exist in the external world, but only in the mind

You wrote: "This is why hermeneutics is so important, for it sees this and therefore puts interpretation first, and it is not physicality that takes priority, but meaning, and this goes to language and logic."

IE, in my terms, any meaning discovered in the external world must be transcendental, as meaning has no ontological existence in the external world but only in the mind.

Kant said that a priori knowledge is "knowledge that is absolutely independent of all experience". I propose that such priori knowledge is innate within the brain, a product of over 4 billion years of evolution and is part of the physical "hardware" of the brain.

I am curious as to your belief as to the source of this a priori knowledge, this pure intuition of time and space intrinsic in our minds? — RussellA

Apriori knowledge at its source, is transcendental. Hence, transcendental idealism. We can observe it in its USE. But "purely transcendental use of categories therefore is in reality of no use at all, and has no definite or even, with regard to its form only, definable object."

Kant included causation within the category of pure understanding, an a priori pure intuition, where an effect requires a cause. Given causation as an a priori pure intuition, it follows that the observer must know without doubt that there has been a cause to the phenomenon, and this cause may be called a "noumenon". — RussellA

Not this. As an intuition, causality only applies to phenomenona. What causality IS in some noumenal sense, is unknown. One cannot speak as though noumena "causes" phenomena. It could be, he speculates, a preestablished harmony, or some other (as I recall. Haven't read CPR in a while). If you find he talks like this, it is because 'cause' is the only term he can think of that might describe the relationship?? But clearly, he does not mean we have in causality an understanding of anything noumenal. Such knowledge is impossible.

IE, I am not aware of any justification by Kant as to why a priori pure intuitions should of necessity correspond with the reality of the external world. This is the same problem found in Indirect Realism, in discovering the reality of the external world through internal representations. — RussellA

But one does not "discover" this reality if by reality you are talking about noumena. It is undiscoverable. Noumena is just an empty but necessary concept. You can read why he talks about it in the Transcendental Analytic.

There must be a distinction between the whole and its parts. When we observe something, we are observing a whole made up from a relationship between parts. As relations don't ontologically exist in the external world, as illustrated by FH Bradley, and relations do ontologically exist in the mind, as illustrated by the Binding problem, we can say that the parts of the object do exist in the external world, but the whole object, as a relation between its parts, can only exist in the mind as a concept. — RussellA

Yes, but the whole is the problem. A whole is only conceivable in relation to a part, just as up is only conceivable relative to down. Meanings are generated in opposition. Noumena are not "the whole". They are not a "they", which is just a manner of speaking. Impossible to imagine, since to think at all is to divide, relate, play against, etc.

I look at noumena very differently for Kant or you. I hold that the noumenal necessarily subsumes the phenomenon such that what I behold AS a phenomenon, like my cat on the couch, is, tail to ears, noumenal. There is no finitude, and the divisions are what they are, and they too are noumenal. Nothing at all can escape the what we see as eternal, noumenal, infinite. Take a single index of identity: time: how "old" is this hand? Given that ex nihilo nihil fit. Space and time, when pressed for basic meanings, are apodictically eternal. Take a given phenomenon, and it can be demonstrated that what you observe is reducible to eternity, that is, all the terms used in the totality of lexical possibilities, yield a foundational indeterminacy.

The parts we observe are assembled in the mind into concepts - a table is a table top plus table legs, a house is a roof plus walls plus windows, etc. But many mereological permutations are possible of the parts we observe within the external world - a table top plus table legs, my pen and the Eiffel Tower, etc. We sensibly choose and name those particular combinations that are beneficial to our evolutionary well-being and survival. — RussellA

I don't doubt that language is good for survival and reproduction.

It follows that if we think of noumena as objects in the external world consisting of a relationship between a set of parts, then it is true that noumena don't ontologically exist in the world, as relations don't ontologically exist in the external world, but only in the mind of the observer as a concept. — RussellA

I don't think of noumena as objects at all. I think of noumena as the indeterminacy inherent in all that is. And I think, to understand what this means takes a withdrawal from the thought itself.

IE, in my terms, it follows that our understanding of noumena as defined as objects in the external world must be transcendental in that objects in the external world don't ontologically exist. — RussellA

"Don't ontologically exist" is an odd phrase.

I wonder how amenable you would be to the following. A bit wordy I'm afraid:

I am far less interested in objects than I am in the self. After all, I am, in the recesses of my "interiority" a noumenal being. This transcendental ego is my self, and this has its analysis found in the examination of the generational ground of experience, right there, where the thought rises up and becomes manifest. You see, where a scientific approach would try to reconcile the brain and its observable features like the analysis of its biochemistry, the structure is neuronal systems, and the whole rest of this empirical field of study, phenomenological approach takes Kant more seriously: All that can be known is phenomena, and the brain is a phenomenon, a densely processed phenomenon . It is not as if there is no connection between the brain and experience; this is not denied or refuted. It is rather that THIS too, this connection, is a phenomenon, making the true generative source of experience still noumenal. We want very much to say brains produce consciousness, but this connection remains entirely alien to our grasp: We simply cannot infer from our phenomenological grasp of brain chemistry and so on, that this grasp IS the way things ARE "in themselves". That remains with metaphysics.

On the other hand, there we are observing the world and it is intuitively powerful, this presence of things and our engagement. It is not possible that I am not experiencing "reality" for what is real can only be a measure of the way reality is presented. I mean, this IS where we get the term 'reality' in the first place. We do not get reality out of an abstract analysis, or from a concept like material substance. It issues from the eating and the breathing and the full sense of existing in the world.

I ask myself this: how is it possible that I can experience the world as a world and not just the locality within a cranium? By any measure one can imagine, I should not be able to experience the (noumenal) world. One has to be very careful with this, because it is most tempting to see the apparatus in place, the lens of the eye, the light reflected and absorbed by the object, the tactile feel corresponding and it all fitting so neatly together, etc., and conclude: I am surely receiving the (noumenal) world indirectly. But one can never get around, in an empirical way, that the thick membrane of brain tissue simply has no epistemic access to the "outside". The lens of the eye quickly turns into clunky brain matter. Even the lens is, on analysis, this.

Only one impossible answer: we do in fact experience the (noumenal) world; and our experience is not localized to this grey physical mass. Consciousness is, after all, noumena. Nothing escapes this. Certainly not phenomena.

Only one impossible answer: we do in fact experience the (noumenal) world; and our experience is not localized to this grey physical mass. Consciousness is, after all, noumena. Nothing escapes this. Certainly not phenomena. — Constance

Interpreting what you wrote in my own terms.

You wrote: I am far less interested in objects than I am in the self.

We begin with the self, the "I" that is conscious, the "I" that has thoughts. The "I" has thoughts about things external to the thoughts themselves, things that change with time, and these things are called phenomena. All the "I" knows for certain are phenomena - the colour red, a sharp pain, an acrid smell, a sour taste, a crackling noise. The "I" has thoughts about these individual phenomena, but more than that, the "I" combines these individual phenomena in various ways. The "I's" thoughts are about phenomena and various combinations of phenomena.

A whole is only conceivable in relation to a part, just as up is only conceivable relative to down. Meanings are generated in opposition.

The nature of relations is critical. My belief is that relations do ontologically exist in the mind (the Binding Problem). We call these combinations of phenomena "noumena". We think about particular combinations of phenomena and sometimes we give them a name. The combination of phenomena, the colour red, an acrid smell, a crackling noise we can name "fire", and this "fire" is a noumena. We can say that combinations of phenomena exist in a logical reality, in that noumena exist in a logical reality. A logical reality that exists in the mind.

I don't think of noumena as objects at all. I think of noumena as the indeterminacy inherent in all that is.

Noumena are combinations of phenomena. But a combination is a relation. As relations only ontological exist in the mind, noumena only ontologically exist in the mind. We can think about the noumena occupying a space, but such a space is only a logical space, nothing more than that. When thinking about space, as we are thinking about the relation between phenomena, we are thinking about a logical space.

On the other hand, there we are observing the world and it is intuitively powerful, this presence of things and our engagement. It is not possible that I am not experiencing "reality" for what is real can only be a measure of the way reality is presented.

Our thoughts about these combinations of phenomena, these noumena, are intuitively powerful because they ontologically exist within our mind, within a logical space and a logical reality.

Nothing at all can escape the what we see as eternal, noumenal, infinite.

There is almost no limit to the number of possible combinations of phenomena, in a mereological sense, meaning that there is almost no limit to the potential number of noumena existing in a logical reality

Space and time, when pressed for basic meanings, are apodictically eternal.

In experiencing phenomena, I have freedom to combine them in an almost unlimited number of spatial and temporal ways, a logical space and time unbounded and eternal.

I am surely receiving the (noumenal) world indirectly. But one can never get around, in an empirical way, that the thick membrane of brain tissue simply has no epistemic access to the "outside"

The mind needs no epistemic access to the external world in order to perceive noumena. The mind perceives the noumena directly as combinations of phenomena in a logical space existing within the mind.

Only one impossible answer: we do in fact experience the (noumenal) world; and our experience is not localized to this grey physical mass. Consciousness is, after all, noumena. Nothing escapes this. Certainly not phenomena.

Our consciousness is of phenomena and combinations of phenomena , both having an ontological existence within the mind. These combinations of phenomena, which we know as noumena, exist in a logical world that exists within the mind.

Kant's a priori pure intuition

Kant's a priori pure intuitions of time and space may be explained as being a logical time and space created by ontological relationships between phenomena, ie, noumena, within the mind.

Logic and the world

a perverse belief in a logically structured world can generate a false sense of paradox

Relations are an ontological part of the logical world we perceive in our minds. The world we imagine outside of the phenomena we perceive is a world that we cannot imagine to have relations (FH Bradley's Regress argument). It is inevitable that the application of relational logic onto a world without relational logic will inevitable lead to paradox.

We begin with the self, the "I" that is conscious, the "I" that has thoughts. The "I" has thoughts about things external to the thoughts themselves, things that change with time, and these things are called phenomena. All the "I" knows for certain are phenomena - the colour red, a sharp pain, an acrid smell, a sour taste, a crackling noise. The "I" has thoughts about these individual phenomena, but more than that, the "I" combines these individual phenomena in various ways. The "I's" thoughts are about phenomena and various combinations of phenomena. — RussellA

Okay

The nature of relations is critical. My belief is that relations do ontologically exist in the mind (the Binding Problem). We call these combinations of phenomena "noumena". We think about particular combinations of phenomena and sometimes we give them a name. The combination of phenomena, the colour red, an acrid smell, a crackling noise we can name "fire", and this "fire" is a noumena. We can say that combinations of phenomena exist in a logical reality, in that noumena exist in a logical reality. A logical reality that exists in the mind. — RussellA

But this is confused; I mean, you cannot say, "We call these combinations of phenomena "noumena." What you say here about noumena really has to be more closely looked at. What do you mean "this fire is a noumenon"? When we say "fire" it is EXACTLY what noumena is not, for Kant is very explicit about this. If you disagree with Kant then say so. I know I do.

Noumena are combinations of phenomena. But a combination is a relation. As relations only ontological exist in the mind, noumena only ontologically exist in the mind. We can think about the noumena occupying a space, but such a space is only a logical space, nothing more than that. When thinking about space, as we are thinking about the relation between phenomena, we are thinking about a logical space. — RussellA

Logical space? Wittgenstein? You know, there is in Heidegger's B and T a kind of space that is utterly distinct: What is "close" is what is brought to mind. My glasses may be physically close, but as I ignore them to think about Chinese bar tenders in Beijing, the latter are much closer. Proximity by extended space is only ONE way to think about this, and only when it comes to mind, is this relevant. But in terms of your actual affairs, Kant's space is certainly NOT primordial.

But when you say things like noumena being combinations of phenomena, you have to explain yourself. Clearly you've stepped out of Kant, which is fine with me, but then you use his language and it sounds all wrong. What, in this idea, is a phenomenon? You will talk about combinations, but Kant's idea of a combination is the synthetic function of a concept. Without this there is no thought at all, and what lies before you is unspeakable, or, if you follow someone like Dennett (and Husserl and Heidegger and Derrida; all of them), what is there before you IS in its being there at all, conceptual. You cannot separate these. They are the essence of being an object.

One has to first admit this. Then one can go on to what Kierkegaard says about the collision between concepts and actualities: IN and through this conceptual apparatus, is disclosed the world's eternity. Both IN and OUT of time, for to think at all is to be in time, yet time is quantifying the world: the world is immediately grasped, in our daily living, in a kind of spatialized way. Not a continuity, but divided. Remove the divisions (a debatable concept) and eternity stands before you, subsuming all, of you will: the eternal present. Wittgenstein talked like this, a big fan of Kierkegaard, as was Heidegger.

Our finitude is created by time, the events that divide things. Dewey called this "consummatory". His Art as Experience is a very good read. He was a pragmatist, and he and Rorty made me a qualified pragmatist. Heidegger's Being and Time has pragmatism as a principle feature. It is through thinkers like this that one continues on with Kant, even as much as they depart from him. They are all, in one way or another, phenomenologists.

You sound like someone who who could think in this vein.

(FH Bradley's Regress argument). — RussellA

Phenomenology does not separate the relation from the "related". To do so leads one to affirming a thing apart from the relation, and that isolates the object beyond apprehension. THIS is Kant's noumena. Entirely metaphysical, in the bad sense of this word. This kind of thing is what gave rise to analytic philosophy's positivistic

The REAL question is, what is there in the world and its analysis as a world. The "beyondness" is there. This about separation is, however, very important: In the bond of relations we have the power to critique, second guess, put distance between us and the institutions that would claim us, so we don't simply go along, allowing our lives to be lived, if you will, in the third person. But this interposition of consciousness into the cycle of events that move forward so automatically, is MOST interesting. It is not simply a matter of declaring oneself independent, as with a political opposition, say; it is a partial termination of the institutions that flow through you, that define the meaning of our lives in culture and language. Here, we are thrust into something else entirely, not just an adjustment of thinking.

It comes to point, for many, that the foundational philosophical problem we face requires something revelatory for its resolution.