So is my idea of ‘7’ different to yours? (Better not be, else it might be hard to do business.) — Wayfarer
So is my idea of ‘7’ different to yours? — Wayfarer
Asking that question seems to suggest that a computer is conscious, does it not? — NotAristotle
So is my idea of ‘7’ different to yours? (Better not be, else it might be hard to do business.) — Wayfarer
Taking the visual as paradigmatic for the sake of simplicity, the environment is presented, or given, to us, meaning that our eyes, optic nerves and brains are affected by and respond to reflected light and our brains produce representations of environments consisting of objects that stand out as such from, but are of course never separate from, the environments. It is acknowledged that ideas condition to some degree what stands out for us, what is noticed. Would anything be seen if there was nothing to be seen?
If you had never encountered any sense data at all, there would be nothing to reason with and hence no a priori knowledge. Even Kant acknowledged this as far as I remember.
So, 'every change has a cause' is an inductive inference from experience which has eviolved into our consistent and coherent web of understanding of the empirical via science.
For a simple example, if I throw a brick at an ordinary 2.4 mm pane of glass the glass will almost certainly break. If I push something which is top heavy, and precariously balanced, it will fall. If I punch you hard in the face you will likely cry out in pain, and your face will probably bruise. If I hit a nail into soft wood with a hammer it will go in more easily that into hard wood (it may even bend when I try to hammer it into hard enough wood and I may have to pre-drill a hole). These are a few examples of countless other kinds of experiences that lead to the conclusion that all effects have causes, and yet apparently in the quantum realm, not all effects do have causes.
One plus one always equals two. I can prove this by placing two objects together, and I can see two objects there or I can focus on each object and see them individually as two examples of one object. The very fact that you say that you don't know "1+1=2" without counting your fingers supports the idea that the formulation is a generalized abstraction from sense experience. It is not reason, but imagination, that tells you that reason without sense data produces no knowledge, because you cannot imagine any knowledge, or anything at all, which is completely separate from the senses.
Isn’t relation the manifestation of a difference? The very conception of a synthetic a priori cognition, the backbone of transcendental philosophy, specifies a difference in the relation between the conceptions contained in the subject and the conceptions contained in the predicate of a syllogistic proposition. VOILA!!! Using difference to make the gathering of knowledge possible.
I think Piece was a closet Kantian anyway, wasn’t he? Early on he called himself a “pure Kantist ”, The Monist, 1905. Also in The Monist, he states pretty much the Kantian doctrine regarding the ding as sich, and the importance of the categories. He abdicated the Kantian pedestal only later, becoming a Hegelian absolute idealist…..for some reason or another. But I get your point.
Agreed, iff “home” is the human thinking subject.
If you’d said we could no longer cognize the object, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, I’d have just said….yep.
Things are things in themselves until they are met with human sensibility
I don’t need to think it; I can represent to myself differences in arrangements of matter. Horse are not comprised of wood and fences don’t have hooves. Different phenomena, different things, different things-in-themselves from which the things appear.
Makes me wonder why you would ask why I maintain a thing-in-itself for each thing that appears.
All of this is dependent on us granting that the phenomena are a valid method of inferring what metaphysically is there—e.g., you observe phenomenally that you are affected by what seems to you to be an environment which you are in, you find that it makes sense to explain other peoples’ difference observations as due to their faculties of representation (such as blind people), etc. However, under Kant’s view, I would argue, if we take him very seriously, then our own minds (or brains) are things-in-themselves (in order for him to claim we have representative faculties)--but, wait, he also says we can’t know anything about the things-in-themselves...so we shouldn’t even know we have minds or brains (in the sense of a mind-independent one). — Bob Ross
your description here is an attempt at reverse engineering what is outside of your representative faculty by means of what is presented to you by your representative faculty — Bob Ross
……the post-modern sense: the acquisition of knowledge purely from the phenomena, of which says nothing of the things-in-themselves. — Bob Ross
…..that would require that phenomena do tell you about the things which reside outside of your representative faculty…. — Bob Ross
Things are things in themselves until they are met with human sensibility.
-Mww
But isn’t all evidence of “human sensibility” phenomenal? Isn’t it a metaphysical claim? — Bob Ross
the idea that we can never know the world beyond what is capable to conform to ourselves entails that reality becomes hyperreality. The map and territory, for practical purposes, blend together. — Bob Ross
You can’t empirically prove that 8888888888888888 + 2 = 8888888888888890. — Bob Ross
I would have hoped that brief excerpt would be of use by itself, in respect of the question of the ‘knowledge of things in themselves’. (Knowledge of The Vedas not required!)
Another point is that Kant’s assertion that we can’t know things ‘as they are in themselves’ is simply an admission of the limits of human knowledge. It is a modest claim, not a sweeping assertion.
In any case, the fact remains that we cannot know. All we know is a human-shaped world, not a tiger-shaped world or an elephant-shaped world or a world without any particular shape; I don't see how that can be reasonably disputed.
So, if we are going to take a position on the question of what might be real independently of the human, then we are going to go with what seems most plausible, which is and must remain, a subjective matter.
I won't respond to the rest of your post, because it all seems to me based on the same misunderstanding that Kant and I are making purportedly human-independent metaphysical claims.
your description here is an attempt at reverse engineering what is outside of your representative faculty by means of what is presented to you by your representative faculty — Bob Ross
That would be the case if the reversal went further than authorized by the normal Kantian method.
Same as transcendental philosophy, except the latter says that things-in-themselves exist while saying nothing about such existence.
All things which phenomena tell me about, are already outside my representational faculties.
An individual may not have enough time to prove it, but it certainly can be proven. The measure is degree of difficulty, not its possibility.
Although I am not well versed therein, I don’t find it a feasible solution to say that the objective world is really empty—that is no different, in terms of parsimony, as saying it is all produced by my mind only (to me). — Bob Ross
That in turn can be traced back to The Embodied Mind. Published in 1991, it explores the idea that cognition is not solely a product of the brain but is grounded in the dynamic interaction between the body, the mind, and the environment. The book draws on insights from various disciplines, including cognitive science, phenomenology, and Buddhist philosophy, to propose a new understanding of the mind that emphasizes embodiment and action. — Wayfarer
But one striking thing I noticed in studying the early Buddhist texts, is the frequent recurrence of the compound term, ‘self and world’, in dialogues on the nature of the self. Buddhism would put it that self and world ‘co-arise’ - which is the perspective that enactivism draws on. — Wayfarer
All things which phenomena tell me about, are already outside my representational faculties.
-Mww
As of yet, I think this is an assumption you are making if you aren’t extrapolating it from the phenomena. — Bob Ross
I think it can be proven, just not empirically. Are you disagreeing? We prove it with reason, not empirical tests (e.g., not with counting our fingers). It is a priori. — Bob Ross
But I am necessarily extrapolating it from phenomena.
I disagree large quantity summations cannot be empirically proven, and I disagree reason a priori is itself the proof. The latter is the source of synthetic principles a priori, which make the form of mathematical operations possible, the content be what it may. All empirical proofs require content, which reason alone does not provide, in accordance with the principles, which it does.
Furthermore, reason can only prove within its own constructs, which we call logic. So it is true it is logically provable that some quantity adjoined to another in serial accumulation produces a quantity greater than either of two adjoined, but such is not a proof for particular numbers added together, insofar as to prove that, and thereby sustain the logic, the content for which the principle is the condition, would have to actually manifest, which just IS the empirical proof. In the case at hand, it follows that the great magnitude of the quantities to be adjoined, and the adjoining of them in a mathematical operation, do nothing to violate the principle
You seem to be claiming that simply because we start out with an empirical proof that the rest that is abstractly reasoned about them is thereby empirical: is that correct? — Bob Ross
But I am necessarily extrapolating it from phenomena.
-Mww
I could equally claim that it is ‘necessary’ that your mind is a thing-in-itself. In both cases, it isn’t logically nor actually necessary but rather (debatably) metaphysically necessary. — Bob Ross
Just because we see the world from our human perspective does not mean we cannot formulate accurate metaphysical claims. If that were the case, then you couldn’t infer, for example, object permanence because it is beyond the possibility of all experience. — Bob Ross
I think, for your argument to work, you would have to prove that our human representation of the world is completely inaccurate—otherwise, then we have no reason to believe that we cannot get validly at metaphysics. — Bob Ross
My point was that Kant’s transcendental claims undermine his claims about us not being capable of knowing the things-in-themselves. — Bob Ross
As long as there are people willing to do it, or any sufficiently correlating method, all the sands on one beach could be added to all the sands on another beach….no problem
Still, if phenomena/mind are valid metaphysical conceptions, and if they arise logically in a methodology which requires them, then they are logically necessary
And because logic is a metaphysical practice, and the conception is already a methodological requirement, then it could be said that they are metaphysically necessary.
Object permanence is inferred on account of the experienced invariance of objects. It is an inductive, that is fallible, inference, not a deductive, infallible inference.
If you are going to continue to distort what I've said like this, then I see little point in continuing. I have nowhere argued that our representations are inaccurate in a metaphysical context
I think, for your argument to work, you would have to prove that our human representation of the world is completely inaccurate—otherwise, then we have no reason to believe that we cannot get validly at metaphysics.
What could they possibly be inaccurate in relation to if the in-itself is unknowable?
They are only accurate or inaccurate within their own context, i.e. within the empirical context; it is only there that we can get things right or wrong.
This is a rubbish claim, Bob, and it has already been explained to you a few times as to why it is erroneous.
Kant's a priori claims are only about the nature of intuitions, i.e. that they are spatiotemporal, and regarding the categories of judgements about phenomenally experienced objects
The transcendental ego is the closest he gets to looking like making a metaphysical, in the traditional sense, claim, but it not;
So, I see the transcendental ego as a phenomenological, not a metaphysical, posit
You can’t claim even inductively that object have permanence in the real world, because the real world is human-nature independent. — Bob Ross
I said:
I think, for your argument to work, you would have to prove that our human representation of the world is completely inaccurate—otherwise, then we have no reason to believe that we cannot get validly at metaphysics.
I didn’t say you argued it. I said that is the only foreseeable argument to me for you view. — Bob Ross
For example, even we are describing that we have a priori, transcendental aspects of our minds, then aren’t those minds a part of the things-in-themselves and we are describing that mind-in-itself? For example, his twelve categories are aspects of a thing-in-itself called a mind. — Bob Ross
All of his claims are metaphysical. Transcendental philosophy is metaphysics.
So, I see the transcendental ego as a phenomenological, not a metaphysical, posit
My read of it was that he was arguing for soul. — Bob Ross
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