As I explained in the other discussion, I think Schopenhauer is wrong about this, for the simple reason that Kant explicitly contradicts him on more than one occasion. He takes noumena to be the purported objects of intellectual intuition, as opposed to the phenomenal objects of sensible intuition. The notion of things as they are in themselves is the unavoidable result of taking this noumenal access to reality seriously as a legitimate human faculty.

Having said that, as always with Kant, it's complicated. He varies his emphasis and sometimes seems to come close to contradicting himself, so there is some support in the Critique for taking noumena and things-in-themselves as simple synonyms. But this is by no means the dominant thrust of the concept.

But if you want to include a priori mathematical concepts and categories of the understanding under the term noumena, appealing to the ancient use of the term, then I'm not against that in principle, and I don't know enough about its use in Greek philosophy to argue about it.

Kant wouldn't go along with this. He would use noumena to describe, say, Plato's forms or Leibniz's monads (as well as suggestive of "things as they are in themselves"), which are purported objects in the world that are nevertheless apprehended intellectually. The a priori concepts and structures of the understanding wouldn't be lumped in with these.

So if you're right, then there is indeed a difference between the ancient and the Kantian notions of noumena, but Schopenhauer's accusation remains mistaken.

What about the idea of the 'form of the triangle'?

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

Similarly, Russell's discussion of Universals:

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've bolded the two congruent statements.)

These examples illustrate what I think the traditional meaning of 'noumenal' refers to - just as Schopenhauer says. (I'm still investigating what becomes of 'form and substance' in Kant.)

By the way, I can't remember the last time there was a Kant exegesis thread, so thanks! :up:

I can't promise I'll contribute much more though, as I don't have my copy of the Critique any more, and it's quite a commitment. I hope @Mww joins in.

No probs, I've been wanting to discuss this topic, more in respect of Universals than Kant specifically, but still...

Oh, and also one of my favourite references, Augustine on Intelligible Objects - further grist to the mill....

I'm still investigating what becomes of 'form and substance' in Kant — Wayfarer

As I recall, these would either both be elements of the understanding (judgements or categories) or else, in the case of form, either an imposition of the innate structure of the mind's faculty of intuition (space and time), or this as it is applied to the phenomenal and particular (according to the schemata?).

That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them — Wayfarer

The universal is listed in his table of judgements, so it's a pure concept of the understanding, seen as independent of the objects of experience and thus a priori. 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.

What exactly does intellectual intuition consist of? Is this how universals or archetypes are thought to be apprehended? Sorry if the following seems dim or off topic.

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)? I think @Joshs has written of this.

I'm not educated in these matters, but the ontological status of maths and reason do interest me. It's your view that they transcend human experience and are not somehow formed as a product of human experience, right? How could we know the answer to this, given all we apprehend, all knowledge is from a human standpoint - 'the view from human' - either deliberately created, or implicitly manufactured as part of our perceptual apparatus?

Doesn't Kant argue in COPR that space is a preconscious organising feature of the human mind, a scaffold upon which we’re able to understand the physical world of objects, extension and motion? I'm assuming there is a view that maths and geometry have a similar status? How could we determine if this is a preconscious organising feature and has origins outside of human consciousness?

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

SLX recommended a book to me a long time back, Kant's Theory of Normativity, Konstantin Pollok, which I think addresses this subject - how Kant 'sublated' Aristotle's theory into 'transcendental hylomorphism'. It's a heavyweight book, I have started it several times but bogged down - really must persist.

It's your view that they transcend human experience and are not somehow formed as a product of human experience, right? — Tom Storm

Not only my view:

...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

I see that as being quite in keeping with the mainstream of philosophy, but generally out of keeping with naturalism.

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

Sure. The idea of universals is highly unpopular in the academy, about the only people who still defend it are Thomists (mainly Catholic, I presume), but I find the logic compelling regardless. I'm interested by the idea in ancient and medieval philosophy that reason is the connection between the cosmic order, logos, and the individual intellect, even if it's unfashionable (see this paragraph).

Regarding Kant on space and time, that is in the first section of the Critique of Pure Reason. It's very hard to grasp the detail, but my gloss on it is that space and time have an irreducibly subjective component, in that they must require a perspective. Without perspective, how can anything be nearer or further, larger or smaller, or more or less recent in time? Kant believed that time is a pure intuition that is a necessary condition of our experience - not something that we perceive through our senses, but rather it is a fundamental aspect of the possibility of experience. But it's a notoriously difficult subject.

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 think you and I have approached this issue before, but we were incapable of progressing very far. So I'm going to state some principles here in very simple terms (oversimplified perhaps). But if you understand and accept them, that will lay some groundwork toward understanding this difference between Plato and Kant.

What came out of Aristotle's critique of Plato, and Pythagorean idealism in general, was a separation, a division, between the forms of human intelligence (universals, mathematical formulae, etc.), and the independent Forms of the divine realm (God, and the angels).

Aristotle showed that human ideas exist only as potential prior to being actualized by the human mind. Then with his so-called "cosmological argument" he showed that anything eternal must be actual. Simply put, eternal potential could not actualize itself. This excluded human ideas (as based in potential) from the realm of the eternal. But at the same time, the cosmological argument necessitates an actuality (Form) which is prior in time to all material existence, matter being potential.

A thorough reading of Thomas Aquinas will show that he goes through great lengths to explain and expound on this separation. The separation between the forms which are understood by the human mind, and the separate independent Forms, is a consequence of the human intellectual objects (forms) being dependent on the material body, and the senses which are a part of the body. That's why he says that man cannot adequately know God (as a separate independent Form) until his soul is separated from the body, after death. The prior condition, why the soul has been punished by being united to a body in the first place points back to mysticism and the original sin.

So you can see that while Plato allowed that the human intellect can apprehend the separate independent Forms directly, Kant imposes the medium of the human body and its sense apparatus as a divisor between the human intellect and the noumena. However, Kant leaves a large unexplained area, as a priori intuitions, and the pure intuitions of space and time which are deemed necessary for the human mind to receive sense impressions..

I hope Mww joins in. — Jamal

Yikes!!!

Understanding. Faculty of. Faculty of thought; faculty of judgement; faculty of synthesis of conceptions; faculty of pure a priori cognitions. All listed, as such, verbatim.

One division containing two books containing five chapters containing eight sections containing 179 pages. Oh….and an appendix. Depending on translation.

No wonder there’s mass confusion over just how this thing goes about its business. After 20 years of working on it, two somewhat differing renditions, copious margin jottings, a plethora of peer correspondence….hell, by the time he got done, he might have confused himself.
————

Kant does overlook the difference between S’s abstract and intuitive cognitions, but S overlooks Kant’s difference between discursive and intuitive cognitions. If it is discoverable that Kant’s discursive is not that different than S’s abstract…..S’s criticism is pretty weak.
————

There is a distinction between Kantian and ancient notions of noumena, following from a distinction between Kantian and ancient philosophy. Whether subversion or progress, it is the way of human intelligence generally: build on or tear down whatever some predecessor said.

…..didn’t S do the same thing with respect to Buddhist notions, as S accused Kant of doing with respect to the Greeks? You know….change meanings, relations and whatnot? I dunno myself, although I am aware he associated himself with Buddhist thought in some ways. Just asking.
————-

Kant defines noumena. He stipulates exactly how he intends the conception to be understood in relation to transcendental philosophy in general and the faculty of understanding in particular. Nowhere in the definition is there a clue, an implication, or even a vague hint, of a relation to the ding an sich. It’s in the text, black and white, done deal. Take it to the bank.

The misuse of the conception, in opposition to its definition…..that’s not on him.

That he elaborates on his intended use of the conception in such a way as to confuse the use with the definition….(sigh)…..that is on him, but only because he’s writing for academics, who are supposed to grasp the subtleties on their own, unlike me and those like me, who wouldn’t normally even know there is such a thing to begin with, much less a proper/improper use for it.
(Hume and S call us “vulgar”. At least Kant wasn’t so mean, only referring to us as “common”. Actually, they mean the vulgar or common capacity of our understanding, not us personally.)
————

Universal is listed in the table of judgements, it is an a priori conception, but it is not a pure conception of the understanding, so named in the text, which are the categories, in which universal is not listed. The conceptions in the table of judgements are thought, are put there….arrived at…..as a part of the process of reason; the conceptions in the table of categories are contained in understanding without being thought, insofar as they are “true pure, primitive”, “original”, they’re just there naturally, as integral to our kind of intelligence. Although, there is a bit about the introduction of “transcendental content”…..whatever that entails isn’t given much explanation.

Metaphysical reductionism covering ubiquitous Kantian dualism writ large, for better or worse.

Anyway…. I joined. Whether contributing anything beyond mere opinion, that’s another matter.

.didn’t S do the same thing with respect to Buddhist notions, as S accused Kant of doing with respect to the Greeks? — Mww

I don't think Schopenhauer's reading of Buddhism is that bad, especially considering he had no interactions with actual Buddhists, who he never could have encountered in his place and time. There's an essay in Magee's book on Schopenhauer on S and Eastern Philosophy.

So the entry in Britannica under Noumenon is wrong? (I'm not baiting you, it's quite possible it is wrong.)

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.

If it is a fair account, and that is how it is presented in many a text on Kant, then I think he can be accused of confusing noumenal and numinous - two words which appear superficially similar, but have very different roots and meanings. His use of the former really implies a meaning far nearer the latter.

So the entry in Britannica under Noumenon is wrong? — Wayfarer

Yes and no. They’re certainly not synonymous, as Britannica implies, but things as they are in themselves and noumena are closely related. Both are only thinkable, though some metaphysicians have also claimed that they can be actually apprehended directly, that is, through reason alone.

There’s no substitute for reading the thing, but there are also some good secondary texts.

I am using the online edition here https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4280/4280-h/4280-h.htm#chap04

:up:

So the entry in Britannica under Noumenon is wrong — Wayfarer

I’m hardly qualified to criticize the contributors to an encyclopedia. I can say, without equivocation, that entry doesn’t reflect any of my understandings.

…..the capacity for acting as a moral agent—makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated in which freedom, God, and immortality abide.

Those are the three fundamental problems of pure reason, boiled down to the conceptions of the unconditioned, which pure reason seeks as its own nature demands, and never attains. There’s no need of a noumena world in which they abide, insofar as they already abide, at least as conceptions, in this world of human reason.
———-

Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena

“…. For this result, then, we are indebted to a criticism which warns us of our unavoidable ignorance with regard to things in themselves, and establishes the necessary limitation of our theoretical cognition to mere phenomena.…”

“…. We come now to metaphysics, a purely speculative science, which occupies a completely isolated position and is entirely independent of the teachings of experience. It deals with mere conceptions—not, like mathematics, with conceptions applied to intuition—and in it, reason is the pupil of itself alone.…”

You be the judge.

I favor the B edition as well. I mean…spend a few years re-thinking something, best just go with that one. No sense in using what he thought better of, when talking about what he ended up thinking.

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

Dunno about precise, but this contains the beginning notations referring to the words in your notes:

“…. But thus Kant brings thinking into the perception, and lays the foundation for the inextricable confusion of intuitive and abstract knowledge which I am now engaged in condemning. He allows the perception, taken by itself, to be without understanding, purely sensuous, and thus quite passive, and only through thinking (category of the understanding) does he allow an object to be apprehended: thus he brings thought into the perception. But then, again, the object of thinking is an individual real object; and in this way thinking loses its essential character of universality and abstraction, and instead of general conceptions receives individual things as its object: thus again he brings perception into thinking. From this springs the inextricable confusion referred to, and the consequences of this first false step extend over his whole theory of knowledge….”
(WWR, 2, App., pg 35, 1844, in Haldane/Kemp, 1909)

:up: Making my way (slowly) through the online editions of both (but it's hard to stay motivated.)

Use them in so far as you find them interesting and/or, more importantly, useful.

In so far as Mww knows Kant in a way very few professionals do - despite his claims to the contrary - one need not go this far, unless you are so motivated, which you need not be. There is something to be said about writing clearly, which goes beyond mere aesthetic...

It would require, many, many years to become an expert at that level. But there is so much to read and learn, often people who are ignored of overlooked say interesting things too.

Having said that, it's a good thread, surely some will find plenty of value here.

Kant struggled with his more Platonic side but cast doubt on things of the world and not being intuitively in touch with what only the mind can know, he thought of noumena as beyond categories of thought. For Aristotle, reason was the answer instead of faith. In his thought form and matter consists of a unity of substance and accidents (is prior logically to them) and accidents represent something of the substance. Not so with kant, where the appearance-accident-phenomena says nothing of what is beyond. It's like Kant is always looking over his shoulder wondering what reality could be. So he parted with Spinoza too in affirming practical will and belief

Yes it's a kind of paradoxical feeling - on the one hand, having (I think) a genuine affinity for Kant, but on the other, the awareness of how great the task is of understanding him thoroughly, and the patient work involved in doing that, and also the sense that, even if one does, there is no external motivation for it.

I think your diagnosis is pretty accurate. I'm pondering the possibility that Kant's fundamental definition of what amounts to knowledge precludes the possibility of the transformative nature of spiritual insight (gnosis, jñāna). The French Thomistic philosopher, Jacques Maritain, said that Kant lacked what he described as 'the intuition of being' - I suspect he might be right in that.

It took me a good 4 to 5 months to read the Critique, and mind you, I've read a decent amount of secondary literature. I won't deny that Kant has some very interesting theoretical observations, particularly concerning the relationship between things-in-themselves and experienced reality.

But I got more from the secondary literature honestly. I will go at it again - this time only reading version B, or however it is called.

You might get more (I know I did, on the whole) reading his Prolegomena, which is considerably clearer than the Critique. But, ymmv.

I won't deny that Kant has some very interesting theoretical observations, particularly concerning the relationship between things-in-themselves and experienced reality. — Manuel

To me, the absolutely crucial thing about Kant is his recognition that 'things conform to thoughts' rather than vice versa. I still think very few people really get the significance of that. If you understand it, it completely undercuts 'scientism'.

I should add I was introduced to Kant through a book called The Central Philosophy of Buddhism by T R V Murti. Murti was an Oxford-trained Indian scholar and Sanskritist, whose book was on the centrality of Nāgārjuna's philosophy to Buddhism. This was when I was in my twenties or early thirties, in my 'spiritual phase'. Murti draws extensive comparisons between Nāgārjuna, Kant, Hegel, Bradley and other philosophers. Nowadays he is mostly deprecated as being too Euro-centric in outlook but this book was formative for me. Have a look at this brief excerpt.

Thanks, will do.

Yes, I should've added that that's what I found interesting in my reading of the Critique. But the point you mention is quite true and shouldn't require much by way of convincing, to think otherwise.

Making my way (slowly) through the online editions — Wayfarer

FYI….the online Guyer/Wood has a fabulous 90-odd page translator introduction, also has standard pagination, but…..sadly….isn’t searchable. If some secondary literature references a A/B number, you can scroll to it, but with 700 pages…that’s potentially a lot of scrolling.

But the intro is worth the time, I think, even if it is technically a second-party interpretation.

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/5/25851/files/2017/09/kant-first-critique-cambridge-1m89prv.pdf

Thanks! It is searchable if you download it and open it in Acrobat Pro. Properly bookmarked also. (I have the Penguin Classics edition in hard copy.)

Oh. Cool.

…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?

As you said….no entrapment. Just curious.

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

This book I have, Kant's Theory of Normativity, Exploring the Space of Reason, Konstantin Pollok, seems to be arguing that Kant adapted Aristotle's hylomorphism into his own 'transcendental hylomorphism'.

Yeah, I can see that. Change some terms here and there, but the basics would be pretty similar. Matter belongs to the object, form belongs to the subject, kinda thing, maybe?

…that seems to the general thrust

matter and form or not combinable. I think form is a result of the matter.