Would you agree that thinking space and time as the "pure forms of intuition" and discovering the categories of judgement do both entail reflection on experience? — Janus

Sure. Thinking about the doing, and setting the doing to theory, is one thing.The actual doing, in and of itself, as an intrinsic modus operandi, is quite another.

Nature is the boss, no doubt, and our experience is governed by it, which has never been contested. We still wish to understand what it is to experience, what may be the conditions by which it is possible for us, which puts us in somewhat of a jam, insofar as we ourselves determine those conditions, but whatever we come up with cannot be in contradiction with Nature.

Are there pure intuitions? Probably not, but experience informs us that objects have a relation to each other and to us. Are there pure conceptions of the understanding? Probably not, but experience informs us of quantities, of causes, of intensities, and so on. Or, does understanding inform experience of the specifics of all those because our intelligence is naturally disposed to recognize the universal form of each of them? It can only be one or the other and however we seek to explain all that makes no difference, as long as Nature remains uncontested.

“…..The understanding gives to experience, according to the subjective and formal conditions, of sensibility as well as of apperception, the rules which alone make this experience possible….”

There probably aren’t any of the metaphysical conceptions. No such thing as reason, judgement, knowledge and whatnot. They’re inventions, meant to explain in the absence of truth, but never intended to prove in the absence of fact. I’m sure you must see the problem, that historically takes so much care in exposing, in that it is we that propose to Nature the rules by which it operates, but in doing so, we should have prohibited ourselves from the capacity for proposing, re: the absolute determinism of natural law with respect to the brain, should not allow the indeterminate possibility of subjective inference.

We’re left with doing the best we can, in not making more of a shitstorm of things than we already have.

There probably aren’t any of the metaphysical conceptions. No such thing as reason, judgement, knowledge and whatnot. They’re inventions, meant to explain in the absence of truth, but never intended to prove in the absence of fact. I’m sure you must see the problem, that ↪Wayfarer historically takes so much care in exposing, in that it is we that propose to Nature the rules by which it operates, but in doing so, we should have prohibited ourselves from the capacity for proposing, re: the absolute determinism of natural law with respect to the brain, should not allow the indeterminate possibility of subjective inference.

We’re left with doing the best we can, in not making more of a shitstorm of things than we already have. — Mww

Are you essentially saying that we have constructed little conceptual 'prisons' for ourselves out of theory and intellectual models?

in that it is we that propose to Nature the rules by which it operates, but in doing so, we should have prohibited ourselves from the capacity for proposing, re: the absolute determinism of natural law with respect to the brain, should not allow the indeterminate possibility of subjective inference. — Mww

Can you clarify this by putting it slightly differently, I'm not entirely clear on this?

we have constructed little conceptual 'prisons' for ourselves — Tom Storm

I’d call it limitations. One hardly subjects himself to inescapable imprisonment, but one can willingly acknowledge his limitations.

In one respect I’d agree, though. Not to do with conceptual explanation, but with logical necessity are we imprisoned, insofar as we in ourselves cannot escape its legislative authority.
————

You and I are both human beings, with the same intellectual abilities in general, given the same natural operation of a brain we each possess as a physical organ. Yet you detest, e.g., Brussels sprouts but I find them delicious. You think you heard a firecracker but I know that sound as from a .38 stub-nose, probably pre-1954. That sensation is explicitly identical for both of us, yet we treat it differently. Natural law, by which both our brains work, should not allow such dissimilar treatments.

Cognitive neuroscience of course, has much to say about this, relying on massive brain complexity which it can demonstrate as sufficient reason for means, but cannot prove as necessarily the case as ends. Which, ironically enough, is precisely the limitations imposed on metaphysical speculation.

Quick question: I can see merit in this and have a modest interest in phenomenology, but could it not be argued that this account is just words used as a kind of magic spell? — Tom Storm

Yes, it could be argued, but I claim there would be a performative contradiction in such an argument.

'This account is just words' attempts to say something about this account in our world --- it reaches out beyond the ego of the speaker. It is offered as intelligible assertion in our language. It suggests that another claim, my lifeworld thesis, might go too far, be wrong, be a magic spell or illusion. In other words, it implies something like a ground truth. It also implies that the other claim is sufficiently meaningful to be recognized as a claim and challenged according to logical/epistemological norms.

I grant that I can't talk someone out of madness or solipsism. My point only has relevance for those wearing the philosopher hat --- who showed up for a conversation to assert themselves. I hold up a mirror and show them, in outline, what they always already assume when they try to tell me about the world.

We can choose to describe our reality any which way we want and hold these accounts as foundational axioms - dualism, monistic idealism - or your equiprimordial, phenomenological construct above. — Tom Storm

I agree that we have a big space to play around in. For most of us here, this talk is (whatever else it is) a kind of conceptual music. Or puppies wrestling. Discussion of the best Chess openings. The folding of paper swans. Behind the scenes/screens, we have to chew food, be nice, pay bills.


FWIW, I'd say that there is only a tiny core that can't be denied without performative contradiction : 'we are in a world and a language together'. The details are intentionally left unspecified, for that's what we debate, the nature of the world, never (without absurdity) its existence. The other phenomenological stuff is relatively tentative, but the ideal is not theory construction so much as a pointing-out what's already there and not being noticed (famously including my blind knowhow as I hammer or drive and the strange being-kind of tools-in-use.)

On this I am simply unable to tell what fits. I find both 'I think' and 'I am' problematic. Even Merleau-Ponty's account seems to require a kind of faith. — Tom Storm

I grant that one can't prove such (relatively internal) things. It's like proving that a love poem gets it right. I can say that such words sound about right to me and listen for input from others.

Thats useful, thanks.

FWIW, I'd say that there is only a tiny core that can't be denied without performative contradiction : 'we are in a world and a language together'. The details are intentionally left unspecified, for that's what we debate, the nature of the world, never (without absurdity) its existence. The other phenomenological stuff is relatively tentative, but the ideal is not theory construction so much as a pointing-out what's already there and not being noticed (famously including my blind knowhow as I hammer or drive and the strange being-kind of tools-in-use.) — plaque flag

Cool thanks. I'll continue to mull over this.

Cool. Bear in mind the examples were superficial. Taking it down closer to the bone, you know just as well you don’t like Brussels sprouts as you know two straight lines cannot enclose a space. Two different kinds of knowing, two different ways of knowing.

I'm not averse to discussing some of the complexities of sensation, but your denial that eyes are objects in the world is indulgent -- contrary to ordinary English. 'Wanting to examine them objectivity' is way too fancy here. Kant himself invokes the sense organs. That's the context.

An object is (first definition) something perceptible by one or more of the senses, especially by vision or touch; a material thing. I see others' eyes directly, my own in a mirror. I'm not being metaphorical.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=objects&atb=v379-1&ia=definition — plaque flag

A measured appreciation of what the subject contributes is maybe the essence of philosophy. But claiming there is only subject is as empty as claiming there is left without right. — plaque flag

Can you, plaque flag, explain to me, the principles by which you distinguish a subject from an object? For example, notice in the second quote above, that you draw this analogy, the subject/object relation is like the left/right relation. So we have principles to distinguish left from right, face north and right is east, left is west, or something like that.

Notice in the first quote, you say that an eye is an object. Is an eye a part of a subject? If so, are all objects parts of subjects?

I would not say that an eye in its natural state qualifies as an object. This is because I think that "object" implies a degree of independence from its environment. That independence is what allows objects to move, and be moved freely. Eyes do not have the independence required of "object", in my opinion. However, an eye can be removed from its natural place, and treated as an object, but this removal denies its function, so it is not a natural eye anymore after being removed from its proper place. Therefore, to treat an eye as an object is to make it something other than what it really is, and that is to deny its dependence on something else (as a part of something else), thereby giving it independence as an "object". That act of giving it independence, to make it an object, robs it of its function, which makes it no longer "an eye" when "eye" is defined by what it does.

I would say that both, subjects and objects have this in common, independence from their environment. This independence is what allows them to move and be moved freely. What principles would you refer to, to argue that there is a difference between an object and a subject, like the difference between left and right?

Since this OP originally concerned Kant, the principle I would reference to argue that there is a difference between object and subject is as follows:

Sensible and intellectual characteristics of the experienced object which exhibit necessity and strict universality have their originating source in the sensibility and understanding of the subject (they are transcendental and a priori in Kant's meaning of the term), while any sensible and intellectual characteristics of the experienced object which do not exhibit necessity and strict universality have their originating source in the object per se (they are empirical and a posteriori in Kant's meaning of the term).

Nature is the boss, no doubt, and our experience is governed by it, which has never been contested. We still wish to understand what it is to experience, what may be the conditions by which it is possible for us, which puts us in somewhat of a jam, insofar as we ourselves determine those conditions, but whatever we come up with cannot be in contradiction with Nature. — Mww

But are we not natural beings, with a natural capacity to reflect on experience and arrive at generalized ideas about the nature of that experience and the judgements we make about it?

For example, is there significant controversy over Kant's categories of judgement?

So Kant's categories are divided into four sets of three: (1) quantity: unity, plurality, totality;
(2) quality: reality, negation, limitation; (3) relation: substance- and- accident, cause- and- effect, reciprocity; (4) modality: possibility, existence, necessity.

Can we think of any other sets or extra members of the four sets, or can we argue that some do not belong?

..while any sensible and intellectual characteristics of the experienced object which do not exhibit necessity and strict universality have their originating source in the object per se... — charles ferraro

How could there be such a thing as a "sensible and intellectual characteristics of the experienced object which do not exhibit necessity and strict universality"? If it's a sensible and intellectual characteristic, isn't it necessarily universal?

‘ .'...we may be surrounded by objects, but even while cognizing them, reason is the origin of something that is neither reducible to them 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

That's one way of framing it, with its own set of basic presuppositions, but is it any more than that. Is there no other way it can be framed?

Plato's Ideas are both sensible and intellectual, yet they do not exhibit necessity and strict universality and, thus, are not transcendental conditions for the possibility of the entirety of human experience.

They necessarily apply to only some, but not to all the objects of human experience. For example, the Idea Elm Tree applies necessarily to only some trees, but not to all trees.

In fact, most of Plato's Ideas exhibit only a limited necessity and a restricted universality.

In Plato's dialogues the Forms or Ideas are not differentiated according to specific species or individual instances. Instead, they represent universal concepts that transcend particular instances or examples.

For example, in the context of the Form 'tree,' it would represent the ideal and perfect essence of what a tree is, encompassing all trees' fundamental characteristics. This Form 'tree' would not be limited to a particular type of tree like a pine tree or elm tree, but it would be the ultimate archetype that all trees in the physical world attempt to imitate or participate in to varying degrees of perfection.

It was Aristotle who later introduced the idea of species and many other refinements and elaborations which were to lay the groundwork for the science of classification (which reached its modern form under Linnaeus in the 16th c)

Can we think of any other sets or extra members of the four sets, or can we argue that some do not belong? — Janus

Sure it can be done, but then it isn’t the same philosophy. According to Kant, his is the definitive list, even moreso than Aristotle’s, but there are a veritable plethora of conceptions subsumed under them, which he calls schema, the majors for each category detailed in the text. I think the minors continue being filled in, as science goes on, which he says we are welcome to do on our own. For instance, under quantity is numbers, under numbers is fractions, etc., but nowadays, under numbers is also Hawking’s imaginary time, probability distributions….ooooo, and my all-time favorite…..Schrodinger’s negative entropy. And with all that, makes one wonder why folks still quibble over whether 1 + 1 = 2. (Gasp)

Biggest issue I suppose, is the fact he doesn’t show how the pure conceptions come about, other than to posit that they reside transcendentally….make of that as you will….. in understanding, to serve as rules for the reduction of the diversity of representations in intuition to that which ties them all together under a conception.
————-

But are we not natural beings, with a natural capacity to reflect on experience and arrive at generalized ideas about the nature of that experience and the judgements we make about it? — Janus

Absolutely we are. And there are as many ways to reflect and generalize as there are theories as to how we do it. While the categories are necessary for one theory, they may not be for another. Whether fact or fiction, Kant’s theory is nothing if not the most drudgingly complete of all. I mean….wannabe theories abound, but none have 800 pages of technical support. Hell, he even wrote a CPR for Dummies!!! Gave it a title no dummy would understand, and upon seeing it wouldn’t read the essay anyway, but still…..

I have no objection to what you said. In fact, I agree with most of what you said. But I think you missed my point. To use your example, the Form/Idea Tree may be a necessary and universal exemplar with respect to all species of tree, but the Form/Idea Tree is not a necessary and universal condition with respect to any other experienced entities in the sense of being, not their ideal exemplar, but a transcendental condition for the possibility of their existence which originates in the understanding.

Also, what precludes one from proposing an exemplary Form/Idea for Pine Trees and another exemplary Form/Idea for Elm Trees, etc.? Can't one argue that an exemplary form exists for any experienced entities that share a common set of characteristics?

Biggest issue I suppose, is the fact he doesn’t show how the pure conceptions come about, other than to posit that they reside transcendentally….make of that as you will….. in understanding, to serve as rules for the reduction of the diversity of representations in intuition to that which ties them all together under a conception. — Mww

Right, using the categories of understanding without making them explicit seems to obviously come before reflecting on our experience and judgement and recognizing and making explicit the categories we do use.

So, the question of the origin of the categories would be transcendental in the sense that it cannot be empirically established, but I don't see that it follows that the origin is transcendental in the sense of its coming from a transcendent "realm". I had always thought that is precisely the traditional kind of metaphysical thinking Kant is ruling out.

Also, what precludes one from proposing an exemplary Form/Idea for Pine Trees and another exemplary Form/Idea for Elm Trees, etc.? Can't one argue that an exemplary form exists for any experienced entities that share a common set of characteristics? — charles ferraro

Beats me. My study of Plato's forms is still (and will probably always remain) incomplete. I was just responding to your post above, which I think is dubious, for the reasons given. Although I will add that I think it's very easy to confuse 'form' with 'shape' - the original, 'morphe' doesn't mean exactly that. I think it's something nearer to a principle i.e. 'the principle of tree-ness', that which all trees have in common. But as soon as you start to go down the path of analysing that, difficulties multiply, so I won't press the point (and besides it's only tangentially relevant to the OP).

Plato's Ideas are both sensible and intellectual, yet they do not exhibit necessity and strict universality and, thus, are not transcendental conditions for the possibility of the entirety of human experience.

They necessarily apply to only some, but not to all the objects of human experience. For example, the Idea Elm Tree applies necessarily to only some trees, but not to all trees.

In fact, most of Plato's Ideas exhibit only a limited necessity and a restricted universality. — charles ferraro

I don't see your point. We always apply such restrictions in the case of any universals. "Elm" has its restrictions, "tree" has its restrictions, "plant" has its restrictions, "living" has its restrictions, "being" has its restrictions, etc.. If there was a universal which did not have any restrictions it couldn't have any real meaning, because the lack of restrictions would allow it to have any meaning whatsoever, therefore no specific meaning and incomprehensible.

So even when we apprehend "space" and "time" as universals, and propose these as the names of categories, they still have restrictions, as is the case with categories. These restrictions which characterize the category may be provided by definitions. Therefore the presence or non-presence of "restrictions" is not the distinguishing factor here as any such named categories must have restrictions.

I believe that the difference you are alluding to is to be found in the nature of the restrictions. Some definitions (restrictions) are produced from (empirical) descriptions, while others are produced from stipulations (like the axioms of pure mathematics). The former obviously cannot be "transcendental conditions for the possibility of the entirety of human experience". And the latter, since they are stipulated by human beings which are already engaged in experiencing, surely cannot be the transcendental conditions for human experience either.

Therefore, I think it is misdirected to try and categorize the "transcendental conditions for the possibility of the entirety of human experience" as some sort of universal idea. The transcendental conditions are not categories, conceptions, or universals. There doesn't seem to be any evidence for the existence of that sort of "idea", so we should not think of these conditions as ideas. Therefore, if "space" and "time" are proposed by Kant as "transcendental conditions for the possibility of the entirety of human experience", we need to understand these terms as referring to something other than universals, ideas, or conceptions. I think Kant calls them "intuitions".

….the origin of the categories would be transcendental….. — Janus

Remember Kant for the dualist he admitted to being. As such, empirically, we first sense then cognize then experience an object, but after that, rationally, we can still cognize that object without it having met with sensibility. We conventionally say we draw such objects from memory, whereas technically we cognize from the content of consciousness by means of “…the unity of apperception…” represented by “I think”. But never mind all that.

We sense objects from which experience follows, but we can also think an object, which alone affords no experience, yet later sense it and from that, experience follows. The question here is then….how is it that some object of sense, and the very same object of thought, contain enough of the same representations such that the judgement made on the one, which is always a posteriori, doesn’t conflict with the judgement made on the other, which is sometimes purely a priori, and from which the cognitions of identical representations is sustained, and the knowledge of that object stands in the one case or obtains on the other. In other words, what is it that conditions both the sensing of objects and the thinking of them, such that the contradiction of one by the other is either eliminated, or, demonstrated and then corrected, in accordance with rules. As it must be, otherwise the very notion of knowledge itself on the one hand, and possible knowledge on the other, becomes suspect, which, under certain circumstances, is altogether and utterly absurd. So it now becomes a matter of not so much what makes this or that possible, but rather, what is it that prohibits this and that from contradicting each other. The answer to that must be that there is that which conditions the human intellectual system in its entirety.

It isn’t really so much how do these contain the same conceptual representations, because they are put together…..synthesized…..under their respective happenstance by the same faculty, re: understanding. So what is it about understanding, by which representation of sensed objects in precise conformity to objects of mere thought, receives its consistency? Or, put another way….what are the rules? It is a fact objects can be conceived no one has ever experienced; they’re called inventions. But how does the one who didn’t invent understand the invented object as sufficiently proximate to the inventor himself? No other way than iff all humans have the same basic conceptual capacities, abide by the same cognitive rules. But having them isn’t enough; how did we get them, or even, what are they?

Well, we just don’t know, do we. We know the ends, insofar as there is cross-species agreement on some considerations, but haven’t a clue to the means in the same empirical manifestation as the end agreement. That which we don’t empirically know, which underlies what we do, which can only happen iff there is that which underpins the entire system, has been called transcendental. The transcendental has that which follows from it, re: all a priori representations and their respective offspring, and by which general speculation is logically validated, but it is fruitless to seek what comes before, insofar as continuous regressive speculation has no validation at all. With respect to the average smuck on the street….folks like me…..there is nothing gained with respect to knowledge of things, by asking about what comes before the transcendental ideality of space. And there is nothing gained from the necessary truth of the principle of cause/effect by asking about the time before relations.
—————

I don't see that it follows that the origin is transcendental in the sense of its coming from a transcendent "realm". — Janus

As you can see, it doesn’t follow. The origin of the transcendental is buried somewhere in a particular kind of intellect. The transcendent “realm” just represents what lies outside that intellect. So, e.g., transcendent principles, just means those that only work on things of transcendent origin, which we wouldn’t know anything about, so are useless to us.

Perhaps you see the evolution from Renaissance philosophy, in which the principles corresponding to our thought do originate in the transcendent realm of deities and such, graduating to the Enlightenment precept of limiting fundamental understanding to the subject himself rather than being force-fed by gods or the community, but still leaves the origin of the grounding conditions quite unknown, even if the place of them is credited as entirely internal to the subject. So the transcendent, which isn’t the origin, became the transcendental, which is. If the gods get dumped, gotta fill the void with something, right? And no one could use the term transcendent for that which resides internally in the subject, for then he would be considerable as are gods, which just might have been frown upon by organized religion, and all this philosophical evolution was happening during still-religious times, Galileo’s predicament still fresh in the minds of academia.

It might just be that Kant coined the term transcendental in order to grant the Church its notion of transcendent supremacy and thereby its raison d’etre in the exposition for it, but at the same time, he absolutely required the very same notion, a sort of unconditioned be-all-end-all explanatory device, albeit on a rather lesser scale, with respect to the critique of reason. He stipulates we can think anything we wish, which is decidedly god-like, so we need the conditions which permit it, but at the same time, we are not gods therefore cannot think whatever we wish and then expect to get what we want out of it. To think whatever we wish allows access to the transcendent realm; the limitations of transcendental reason remove the expectations, which makes such transcendent thought a waste of time, and THAT, is the critique in a nutshell.

Everybody wins: the Church gets to retain its version of absolute supremacy, Everydayman gets to see how he can let it go.

Anyway…..food for metaphysical indigestion.

An interesting post, and on first reading I find nothing to disagree with, which bodes not well for discussion. That said, I'm a bit time-restricted right now, so when I find time for subsequent readings, I may find something I missed to respond to.

Berkeley argued, quite forthrightly and successfully I think, that SUBSTANCE functioning as a substratum for anything is equivalent to it being a superfluous NOTHING.

In other words, Berkeley's detailed analysis showed that SUBSTANCE and NOTHING have the same meaning.

So, claiming that SUBSTANCE is a permanent substratum that supports time is the same as claiming that NOTHING is a permanent substratum that supports time.

Which is saying NOTHING!

Berkeley's detailed analysis showed that SUBSTANCE and NOTHING have the same meaning. — charles ferraro

Wouldn’t that be a necessary precondition for the claim that all knowledge is of ideas imprinted on the senses? So saying, he has no need to prove substance as the substratum that supports time, but only the permanence of the real of ideas, in time.

From there he goes to minds as the perceivers of those ideas, and it’s off to the rodeo…..

Yes, it would be a necessary pre-condition. And, yes, for Berkeley to be is to be perceived by a plethora of contingent, conscious frames-of-reference (minds) which, in turn, must be perceived by a necessary, all-encompassing, conscious frame-of-reference (MIND). It seems to me that Berkeley's ultimate "substance" is the latter; viz., the Ultimate Necessary Perceiver. A really unique argument for the existence of God, don't you think?

…..really unique argument….. — charles ferraro

Yeah, considering the starting premises. Just as in any argument, change the initial premises, or the relation of words to conceptions, and any unique argument falls apart.

The problem for some of his successors was his affirmation of real things, but denial of matter, or as he calls it, “unthinking substance”, as the ground of real things. Note the concession to Descartes, re: thinking substance.

Anyway, ol’ George had some good stuff to say, setting the stage for later and rather more involved idealisms.

Generally speaking, for Kant the temporal and spatial properties which we attribute to things are properties that we represent them as having, not properties that they have. The doctrine extends to every property. We human are equipped with the Forms that organize the objects in our experience/representation temporally and spatially.
However, it is controversial whether Kant treats space and time identically, concerning the property of representation itself. Kant explicits that space-order of representations is a property that the mind merely represents representations as having, not one that they actually have. However, representations appear to have temporal position and order themselves. Thus many reading of Kant has argued that Kant concedes to reality of the temporal property of representations — while temporal property of the objects in representations is given by human's mind, the representations/experience itself have metaphysically real temporal property.
The debate is reviewed by Andrew Brook in his Kant and Time-order Idealism. It's a good essay.

I do not believe that, as you assert, "the doctrine extends to every property." Does the subject's spatial and temporal organization of an entity extend to and encompass every property of the entity? Can't "what" the entity is, its nature, its meaning, be considered a non-spatial and non-temporal autochthonous objective property of the entity? Plato seemed to think so and so did Edmund Husserl.