The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum.(A370)
Most people are by instinct 'transcendental realists', whereas I tend towards dualism. — Wayfarer
Before wading fully into the murky swamps of metaphysics, just recall what the discussion was about in the first place: that the sensory impressions we receive from the proverbial tree, constantly change and shift as we change our position relative to it. But there is a faculty in the mind which integrates all of those momentary impressions into a unified whole, and also makes judgements about the tree in terms of kind, and what the tree might mean (if anything) in the context in which it's being viewed. Whatever that faculty is, is described under the heading 'the subjective unity of perception', i.e. there is an innate ability to see 'holistically', which requires integration of many kinds of data and input into a whole. — Wayfarer
All our experience tells us that we do see stable objects and that others see the same objects. — John
If this is right... — John
That looks like realism about universals, not a position on the subjective/objective distinction.
Maybe I'm missing something? — Marchesk
I don't take any of this stuff personally; and I don't expect others to either. — John
The tree is the same but your perspective has changed, and in that changed perspective you can learn more from the tree thus giving it a different perception and understanding. — DebateTheBait
I did say "more or less invariant". — John
I had thought you were well aware that I am adequately familiar with Kant's conceptions of Transcendental Idealism and Empirical Realism. — John
A bee and a human will not perceive a flower in the same way. But we have every reason to think they both perceive the same "object", don't we? — John
how would you perceive the flower independently of how a human perceives it? — Wayfarer
So, tell me in what other way it is not true that we see the same objects (apart from the obvious one that objects are always imperceptibly changing). — John
That was what was described as 'nonsensical' and 'not addressing the point'.
In this brief exchange, what the phrase 'the same "object"' means, is precisely what the thing must be 'in itself' - independently of who or what is perceiving it. — Wayfarer
That a bee and a human see the same object (albeit probably in very different ways) does not require that I or any other human must be able to perform the self-contradictory act you suggested. — John
So the object itself must contribute something to our perception of it; — John
Things must be transcendentally real in some way or another; as I said before, either as ideas in God's mind, material actualities, ideas in a collective mind, aggregations due to collective karma or something else. — John
When I was a young physics student I once asked a professor: ‘What’s an electron?’ His answer stunned me. ‘An electron,’ he said, ‘is that to which we attribute the properties of the electron.’
The point about something being transcendentally real is not to say exactly what it is (that is its empirical reality) but to say that it is not dependent on being perceived by anyone. — John
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