I would have thought that saying there is something we can’t know would not be the same as saying there’s nothing.

I’d agree, but what was said that enabled that thought of yours?

@RussellA’s first response seems :up: to me. But I still say that understanding the meaning before Kant is helpful. I’m going to study it some more.

Here’s a good example from Descartes. If I tell you a chilliagon is a thousand-sided polygon you will be able to grasp the idea easily. But you could neither create an accurate mental image of one, nor visually identify an example of one, at least without counting the sides. The idea of a chilliagon is thus something which can be grasped by reason - an ‘object of mind’ - even though as a phenomenal object they may be extremely difficult to discern.

If, however, I suppose there to be things that are merely objects of the understanding and that, nevertheless, can be given to an intuition, although not to sensible intuition (as coram intuiti intellectuali),then such things would be called noumena (intelligibilia). — RussellA

The issue here is the type of "intuition" which could receive the noumena. Notice that Kant distinctly states that there is an intuition which these objects of understanding called "noumena" are given to. This implies that the noumena are not foreign, or unintelligible to the intellect, as they are received through a type of intuition. The problem though, is that if we cannot identify the type of intuition which receives the noumena, then we don't seem to have the capacity to understand them at all.

The intuitions which receive sense phenomena are named by Kant as space and time, and from this Kant produces the categories by which phenomena are understood. And I think it is implied by Kant that neither of these intuitions, space nor time, is the intuition which apprehends the noumena, otherwise we might produce an understanding of them through those same categories.

So the type of intuition which receives the noumena is left as undisclosed by Kant. Furthermore, the exact nature of "intuition" in general is left as unclear. Each named category represents a determined intuition by which its object is received, so there must be a distinct intuition for each category. Each determined intuition is a judgement made. The intuition through which noumena are received has not been determined by Kant, so that is left as a judgement not made by him.

Ahhh…gotcha. Thanks.

A noumena is an unknown something that causes an appearance. Therefore, the referent of a noumena is the unknown something that causes such an appearance.

Alternatively, the referent of the noumena is simply a thought structure of a person who buys into the idea that phenomena are caused by things we can know nothing about. That is, one solution to Kant's implicit dualism is to simply say that the person thinking of noumenal is simply referring to their own delusions. If the noumena's being or not being are always and forever coidentical for all, why bother positing it.

This turn is normally credited to Fichte but IIRC Jacobi gets there first by recognizing how Kant's Copernican Turn re: the noumena can lead to nihilism. I might be wrong about that, I am not an expert in German idealism. What I find interesting though is that a lot of Nietzsche and later 20th century existentialist critics is already in Jacobi, just from a more critical point of view.

IMO, I have never really gotten the point of mixing assertions of the existence of the noumenal with anti-realism ala Kant.

Kant — Quixodian

A couple of thoughts.

Concept vs intuition
As there is a distinction between phenomena and noumena, for Kant, there is also a distinction between concept and intuition. In the third and fourth arguments of the Transcendental Aesthetic of the CPR, he writes that our intuition of space is neither a concept of space nor a sensation of space. IE, as you write, we can have the concept of a chiiiagon without having an intuition of a chilliagon.

Categories
On the one hand he writes in B308 of CPR that the categories cannot be used to know the thing-in-itself:
"But the understanding at the same time comprehends that it cannot employ its categories for the consideration of things in themselves"

On the other hand he writes in Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics 1783 that the category of cause and effect can be applied to things-in-themselves.
"And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something."

IE, given an appearance, we can never know what in the world caused the appearance, though we can know that there is something in the world that caused the appearance.

Alternatively, the referent of the noumena is simply a thought structure of a person who buys into the idea that phenomena are caused by things we can know nothing about. That is, one solution to Kant's implicit dualism is to simply say that the person thinking of noumenal is simply referring to their own delusions — Count Timothy von Icarus

Kant is saved from nihilism by his categories of understanding, which includes that of cause and effect.

He wrote in Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics 1783 that the category of cause and effect can be applied to things-in-themselves.
"And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something."

As an Indirect Realist, having an innate belief in cause and effect, I may not know the cause of an appearance, but I know that there has been a cause.

The issue here is the type of "intuition" which could receive the noumena — Metaphysician Undercover

I can only Kant understand through an analogy.

We perceive the colour red, yet science tells us the cause of our perceiving the colour red is a wavelength of 700nm. Science tells us that what we perceive as the colour red doesn't exist outside the mind. What exists outside the mind is a wavelength of 700nm.

Our knowledge that the cause of our perceiving the colour red is the wavelength 700nm comes indirectly through science. It is impossible for us to directly see the wavelength of 700nm.

It is also a fact that we are not able to imagine the colour red in the absence of seeing it. Only by being presented with a wavelength of 700nm can we ever perceive the colour red. The brain has the innate ability to perceive the colour red, but only when presented with a wavelength of 700nm

However, we are able to think about the colour red in the absence of being presented with a wavelength of 700nm through the use of concepts. I know that when a traffic light turns red, vehicles are required by law to stop, some roses are red in colour and the colour red has a wavelength of 700nm.

On the one hand, the brain has the ability to perceive the colour red but only when presented with the wavelength of 700nm, and on the other hand the brain can imagine the concept of red other than when presented with the wavelength of 700nm.

Summarising:
i) I have an innate belief in cause and effect, and although I may never know what caused my perceiving the colour red, I know something in the world caused me to perceive the colour red. The category of cause and effect can be applied to things-in-themselves, and phenomena are caused by noumena..
ii) We can never directly know what a wavelength of 700nm looks like. We can never directly know what a noumena looks like
iii) What we perceive as the colour red doesn't exist in the world outside the mind. Similarly, what we perceive as space doesn't exist in the world outside the mind. What we perceive as a phenomenon doesn't exist in the world outside the mind
iv) We can have the concept of the colour red in the absence of being presented with a wavelength of 700nm. We have concepts.
v) We have the innate ability to perceive the colour red, but can only perceive the colour red when presented with a wavelength of 700nm. We have intuitions.

In short because we are not equipped with the means for the experience of them. — Mww

Good post. I think, although I'm not sure, that Lao Tzu would say you can experience the Tao. You just can't conceptualize it or speak about it. .

Here’s a good example from Descartes. If I tell you a chilliagon is a thousand-sided polygon you will be able to grasp the idea easily. But you could neither create an accurate mental image of one, nor visually identify an example of one, at least without counting the sides. The idea of a chilliagon is thus something which can be grasped by reason - an ‘object of mind’ - even though as a phenomenal object they may be extremely difficult to discern. — Quixodian

Is this intended to be an example of "something we can’t know" in the same sense noumena are? I don't think it's a good one. I can create a more or less accurate mental image of a chilliagon. Wait a second, I'll do it now... My mental images are never better than more or less accurate, even for something quotidian like a horse or my older brother's left thumb. Sorry, I've felt a need to use "quotidian" in a post for several days. In the same way, I could identify an example if you showed me one. What disqualifies my identification just because I have to count the sides to determine if it is a chilliagon or a chilliagon + 1?

Or have I misunderstood your point?

Lao Tzu would say you can experience the Tao. You just can't conceptualize it or speak about it. — T Clark

I’m no Taoist, that's for sure, but in western philosophy generally and Enlightenment German idealism in particular, anything experienced has already been conceptualized, and therefore can be spoken about.

Experience is an end, not happening without the orderly means.

I can create a more or less accurate mental image of a chilliagon — T Clark

A mental image of a chiliagon cannot be clearly distinguished from a mental image of a 1,002-sided figure, or even from a mental image of a circle.The concept of a chiliagon is clearly distinct from the concept of a 1,002-sided figure or the concept of a circle. Likewise I cannot clearly differentiate a mental image of a crowd of one million people from a mental image of a crowd of 900,000 people. But reason easily grasps the difference between the concept of a crowd of one million people and the concept of a crowd of 900,000 people (from Ed Feser).

Many critics have observed that Kant's equivocation of 'noumena' with 'things as they are in themselves' is confusing. That's why the example I gave above is more in line with the pre-Kantian idea of noumenon as 'objects of reason'.

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. — Schopenhauer

Thanks...that's a very good summary Mww. Of course, it leaves a lot unanswered, but seemingly at least not about what Kant himself thought.

Which is, it seems, that we can think whatever we like, but we do not know what the limits of understanding are, from which it follows that whatever thinking we like to do, we can have no idea about its soundness except it has empirical or logical justification.

We understand what a chiliagon is only because we understand what "a one-thousand-sided polygon" means. We know what "a thousand" means, and of course we know what "sides" are and what "polygon" means. It just comes down to language competency.

Taoism is metaphysics, not science. It's not true, it's a useful way of looking at things. — T Clark

Do you mean it is "useful" in the sense of being inspiring?

Alternatively, the referent of the noumena is simply a thought structure of a person who buys into the idea that phenomena are caused by things we can know nothing about. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As @Mww has pointed out, and if he is right, things in themselves are not noumena. We know things via the senses, but whatever they are beyond our cognitions of, and cogitations about, them seems to be obviously beyond the scope of our experience and understanding.

So, we do not know "nothing" about them, but we know them only as they appear to us. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.

The alternative to thinking there is something "behind" phenomena would be phenomenalism, and to me that cannot explain how it is that we share a common world.

Sounds right. Do you accept Kant's account of phenomena/noumena? Or something similar to this?

t just comes down to language competency. — Janus

and the ability to reason.

If noumena are not to be equated with things in themselves then I have no idea what noumena are, whereas I have some grasp of what it means to be a thing in itself as opposed to a thing perceived. Maybe the problem is we are pushing up against the limits of human understanding, and it's like the "Myth of Sysyphus": we roll the rock of understanding up to the top of the hill and it straightaway rolls down the other side.

Is abstract reasoning not all and only a matter of language use?

Kant named the noumena such because all we can do is think about it. It is never in our direct experience. His phenomena is the contingent, the negative, change.

:up:

Is abstract reasoning not all and only a matter of language use? — Janus

Why would it be?

Because abstract reasoning requires symbols, no? Note, I'm not saying all reasoning requires language.

Because abstract reasoning requires symbols, no? — Janus

Is that your argument?

They're plainly connected, in that abstraction is necessary in order to comprehend reference.

I've been consulting ChatGPT on Kant's conception of the phenomenal-noumenal distinction. Abstract follows:

Kant argues that dividing objects into phenomena and noumena and the world into sensibility and intelligibility in a positive sense is not permissible. This is because noumena lack a determinate object corresponding to them, and as a result, they cannot have objective validity. If we abandon sensory input altogether, the application of the categories (the fundamental concepts of understanding) to noumena becomes inconceivable. Categories, according to Kant, require a possible intuition to be applied to an object. As we lack any conceivable intuition beyond sensibility, the application of categories to noumena becomes problematic.

By postulating noumena, the understanding extends its reach in a negative sense. It does not encounter a limit imposed by sensibility but, instead, limits sensibility by recognizing things as noumena, not merely as phenomena. However, the understanding also acknowledges its own limitations in comprehending noumena, as it cannot cognize them through the categories and can only consider them as "unknown somethings."

Then:

So Kant's understanding of the phenomena-noumena distinction is very different from Aristotelian dualism, which maps 'phenomena' against 'sensible appearance' and 'noumena' against 'the form or idea' - would that be correct?


ChatGPT: Yes, you are correct. Kant's understanding of the phenomena-noumena distinction is indeed very different from the Aristotelian dualism that maps 'phenomena' against 'sensible appearance' and 'noumena' against 'the form or idea.'

In Aristotelian metaphysics, phenomena are associated with the sensory world, the empirical realm of our experience. Phenomena are the objects of perception and the material substances we encounter in the world. On the other hand, noumena (sometimes called "Forms" or "Ideas") are considered to be the abstract, intelligible essences or universal properties that ground and determine the characteristics of phenomena. They are the immutable, perfect forms that give things their identity and properties.

Aristotle's noumena are still linked to the realm of sensible appearances because they are seen as the essence or form behind the changing and imperfect phenomena. The phenomena we perceive are said to derive their existence and nature from these ideal forms, which exist independently of human cognition.

On the contrary, Kant's noumena are quite different in nature. For Kant, noumena are things-in-themselves that exist independently of human experience and cognition. They are not intelligible forms that underlie sensible appearances, but rather they are entirely beyond our capacity to experience or comprehend through the usual faculties of sensibility and understanding. Kant argues that while we can think about noumena conceptually as a necessary limitation of our sensibility, we cannot know anything positive about them, nor can we apply our categories (conceptual tools) to them without intuition.

The key distinction here is that Aristotelian noumena are still connected to the world of phenomena and provide an explanatory role for the properties of things, whereas Kantian noumena are unknowable things-in-themselves that are entirely beyond our experience and understanding. Kant's noumena do not serve as explanatory principles for phenomena but rather as a limitation on the scope of human cognition.

ref

They're plainly connected, in that abstraction is necessary in order to comprehend reference. — Quixodian

So, do you think abstract reasoning is possible without language?

So, do you think abstract reasoning is possible without language? — Janus

They seem very much of a piece don't they? That the evolution of language and reason would go hand in hand, would it not? That would not be a controversial claim would it?

I think this aspect of Kant's philosophy - his treatment of the noumenal - is a deficiency. I'm still working out why, but the outlines are becoming clearer.