The difference between abstract and intuitive cognition, which Kant entirely overlooks, was the very one that ancient philosophers indicated as φαινόμενα [phainomena] and νοούμενα [nooumena]; the opposition and incommensurability between these terms proved very productive in the philosophemes of the Eleatics, in Plato's doctrine of Ideas, in the dialectic of the Megarics, and later in the scholastics, in the conflict between nominalism and realism. This latter conflict was the late development of a seed already present in the opposed tendencies of Plato and Aristotle. But Kant, who completely and irresponsibly neglected the issue for which the terms φαινομένα and νοούμενα were already in use, then took possession of the terms as if they were stray and ownerless, and used them as designations of things in themselves and their appearances.
Platonic Ideas and Forms are noumenal, and phenomena are things displaying themselves to the senses... This dichotomy is the most characteristic feature of Plato's dualism; that noumena and the noumenal world are objects of the highest knowledge, truths, and values is Plato's principal legacy to philosophy.
Consider that when you think about triangularity, as you might when proving a geometrical theorem, it is necessarily perfect triangularity that you are contemplating, not some mere approximation of it. Triangularity as your intellect grasps it is entirely determinate or exact; for example, what you grasp is the notion of a closed plane figure with three perfectly straight sides, rather than that of something which may or may not have straight sides or which may or may not be closed. Of course, your mental image of a triangle might not be exact, but rather indeterminate and fuzzy. But to grasp something with the intellect is not the same as to form a mental image of it. For any mental image of a triangle is necessarily going to be of an isosceles triangle specifically, or of a scalene one, or an equilateral one; but the concept of triangularity that your intellect grasps applies to all triangles alike. Any mental image of a triangle is going to have certain features, such as a particular color, that are no part of the concept of triangularity in general. A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once. — Edward Feser
It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts. — The World of Universals
I'm still investigating what becomes of 'form and substance' in Kant — Wayfarer
That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them — Wayfarer
I'm not sure that addresses your questions about the problem of universals, and I'm not sure Kant comes down fully in either of the nominalist or realist camps. — Jamal
It's your view that they transcend human experience and are not somehow formed as a product of human experience, right? — Tom Storm
...we may be sorrrounded by objects, but even while cognizing them, reason is the origin of something that is neither reducible to, nor derives from them, in any sense. In other words, reason generates a cognition, and a cognition regarding nature is above nature. In a cognition, reason transcends nature in one of two ways: by rising above our natural cognition and making, for example, universal and necessarily claims in theoretical and practical matters not determined by nature, or by assuming an impersonal objective perspective that remains irreducible to the individual "I".' — The Powers of Pure Reason: Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy, Alfredo Ferrarin
Are there not more recent schools of thought (especially in postmodernism) that take apart reason and apriori logic and maths and ultimately argue these are just human frameworks that don't really operate as advertised as universal or absolutist truths (Imre Lakatos)? — Tom Storm
My interpretation is that the 'noumenal' refers to 'objects of intellect', i.e., facts that can be known directly by reason without appeal to the evidence of the senses. These were traditionally understood as a priori truths, arithmetical proofs, and the like - truths of reason, which could be known without recourse to empirical evidence, while 'phenomenal' refers to the domain of appearance. Hence the traditional philosophical distinction between reality and appearance which to all intents was declared obsolete by Russell and Moore's rejection of philosophical idealism. — Wayfarer
I hope Mww joins in. — Jamal
.didn’t S do the same thing with respect to Buddhist notions, as S accused Kant of doing with respect to the Greeks? — Mww
noumenon, plural noumena, in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich) as opposed to what Kant called the phenomenon—the thing as it appears to an observer. Though the noumenal holds the contents of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena and can never penetrate to the noumenon. Man, however, is not altogether excluded from the noumenal because practical reason—i.e., the capacity for acting as a moral agent—makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated in which freedom, God, and immortality abide.
So the entry in Britannica under Noumenon is wrong? — Wayfarer
So the entry in Britannica under Noumenon is wrong — Wayfarer
…..the capacity for acting as a moral agent—makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated in which freedom, God, and immortality abide.
Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena
My notes on this: 'abstract' and 'intuitive' seems a very odd translation. I would have thought the distinction was between 'sensible' and 'rational' cognition, but I can't find the passage in Schopenhauer (if anyone has a precise reference I'd appreciate it.) — Wayfarer
I won't deny that Kant has some very interesting theoretical observations, particularly concerning the relationship between things-in-themselves and experienced reality. — Manuel
Making my way (slowly) through the online editions — Wayfarer
…what I think the traditional meaning of 'noumenal' refers to- (…). (I'm still investigating what becomes of 'form and substance' in Kant.) — Wayfarer
Are you attempting to relate the traditional meanings to form/substance in Kant? Connect them somehow? See how an investigation of the one would get you to the other? — Mww
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