Hello Corvus,

Can you trust all your empirical perception and observation? Are the data you gathered via your senses 100% error free?

No I cannot. The model which I have of experience is that I represent the world, and those representations are imperfect.

I doubt so called valid scientific knowledge in that nature would be much use.

I think all scientific knowledge, absent metaphysical claims, are perfectly compatible with my view. For example, I should expect that my body is made of cells (as this has been empirically verified plenty enough), but takeaway my possible forms of experience, and the possible forms of other people’s experience (which is similar to my own), and it is not clear at all that we have any reason to believe there are cells at all, let alone bodies, let alone space and time, etc.

The knowledge derived from the visual experience via telescope from millions of miles away from the astral objects without any kind of direct contact is nothing more than imaginary conjectures and inferences

I don’t think they just use pure imagination to determine stars, they use empirical evidence and hypothesized predictions.

Metaphysics can deal with any objects and methodology if they are related to their topics, and also as part of their investigations.

Could you please define what you mean by “metaphysics”?

The whole Marxist movement and running of the countries has been based on the Dialectic Logic. And All those logic listed above are used in many different sciences and technologies for applications to real life situations and device designs.

I didn’t follow the relevance of this part: could you please elaborate? My point was that logic pertains to the form of an argument (of reasoning): not the content. There is no such thing as a valid theory of logic that provides its own content as well as the form of that content.

Many of the concepts such as Time, Space, Substance are also studied by Physics, Chemistry and QM too. You are not just discarding metaphysics, but totally discarding also the general Science as well.

Scientifically studying time and space (and what not) is fine: but it is only valid for possible experience. Without that possible experience, we are over-extending the bounds of the empirical evidence we used to justify our belief in it in the first place.

How do you know something is beyond possibility of experience, if you had not experienced it at all?

Just because I have not experienced it it does not follow that it is beyond the possibility of all experience (for the most part). However, if it is a claim which transcends my forms of experience then I know for sure that it is beyond the possibility of any being which has the same forms of experience as me, and if a being doesn’t have those forms, well...I can’t comprehend their existence anyways.

If something is truly beyond possibility of experience, then you wouldn't even be able to mention it, because you have never experienced it, and your stance is that whatever beyond possibility of your experience is unknowable?

Correct. Whatever exists beyond the possibility of experience is a giant question mark, with no possibility of knowing it ever.

Therefore it couldn't possibly be your criteria for declaring it is metaphysics

Well, so we can imagine things which have never been experienced and never will be experienced. I can use my faculty of reason, for example, to totally make up conceptions of things; such as, for example, the existence of a square circle in the world in-itself; or a aspatiotemporal being beyond the possibility of experience. I can certainly say it, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve ever experienced it nor that anyone ever will. Reason and our imagination can overstep the bounds of empirical reality.

So metaphysics is the long history of people thinking about such things which go beyond empirical reality; and so I can easily define it that way without knowing anything (in truth) about that which is beyond experience.

I am not sure what you mean by experience too.  Does it mean visible and audible and touchable objects only?  Things that we talk about, fantasize, and even imagine, should they not also be mental experience in nature?

I would say ‘experience’ is that first-person immediate knowledge that one has, which includes their mental life, such as things which only are immediately apprehended in time (as opposed to space).

Hello Pantagruel,

The nature of experience is that it expands with knowledge. Compare the experience of the human, versus that of the single-celled creatures from which we sprang. Consider the experience of a symphony by a trained musician versus someone with no musical knowledge. Thomas Nagel stresses the point that our tools for comprehending reality are limited, but those limits are constantly evolving.

I agree...but, I would say that this claim is also conditioned by one’s experience; and whatever is beyond your experience could be completely different than what you actually experienced. How do we ‘know’ that biological organisms evolve (or even that there are such organisms)? From experiencing them. What about when you take away those possible forms by which you experienced them? What’s left? Nothing intelligible.

You say "modeling," I say "ontology."

That's fair. I distinguish the two to separate two mindsets: the former being just one who wants to be able to predict experience, and the other thinks they are actually getting at knowledge of the world in-itself.

Hello 180 Proof,

To "define ... that which is beyond" seems patent nonsense to me.

But this is clearly a straw man. I didn’t try to define that which is beyond the possibility of experience: I defined a term as whatever is beyond the possibility of experience. Surely, those are two completely separate actions.

Also, "the possibility of experience" amounts to an anthropic / subjectivity-bias (contra Copernicus' mediocity principle & Peirce's fallibilism). Typical idealism.

You cannot go beyond your experience, so I think its actually a humble epistemic position: I am not advocated for ontological idealism on these grounds, that would also be completely unattainable here.

IME, metaphysics has always been the reflective study of the most general prerequisites (i.e. ontology) for rationally making sense – interpreting the paradigm changes, research programs & provisional results – of physics (i.e. the counter-intuitive, defeasible study of nature (i.e. ontics)).

Perhaps we are merely semantically disagreeing; as I have no problem with trying to interpret physics for the sake of having a model of experience. It’s when one thinks they are actually gaining knowledge of the world in-itself (or what I call the absolute) that is completely unwarranted.

In other words, metaphysics describes what also must be the case and not be the case in order for 'whatever we think can or cannot be the case'

Let me ask you this: do you think reality in-itself could be existing in a state that we would all, limited by our human cognition, think is impossible? Because I do, and thusly find it useful to think of ‘metaphysics’ (ignoring our semantical differences for a second) in the way you mentioned, but it wouldn’t get at traditional ontology (in the sense of understanding the world in-itself).

Study nature; then reflect on 'what makes it possible to study nature' (not merely to have 'subjective experiences') – Aristotle surpasses his teacher Plato here – this is metaphysics, or where ("first") philosophizing begins ("in wonder").

Again, does this reflection give you knowledge of the world in-itself, or some sort of indirect window into it? I certainly don’t think so. We are stuck in the cave, science is the study of those shadows, and metaphysics the study of, at best, whatever we think is required for those shadows to behave that way and, at worst, the study of plato’s real world outside of the cave.

Thank you: I will look into it and get back to you.

The various branches of Logic has been used for the real life technology applications by adding the contents into the formulas for a long time. I suppose they are the knowledge for the specialists. — Corvus

The contents themselves are not the stuff of logic. but are merely set out in accordance with its strictures.

And again, regarding my saying that all synthetic philosophy is a creative exercise of the speculative imagination, that was not meant to apply exclusively to Kant, so asking for quotes from Kant is not appropriate.

Fine’s paper is an illustration of the divide between Analytic and contemporary Continental ways of thinking about metaphysics. — Joshs

I don’t think this is plausible, and largely because Fine’s construal of metaphysics is the classical construal, stretching back thousands of years. It predates the curious dichotomy between the analytic and continental schools.

By contrast, for contemporary Continentalists of various stripes, logic is not more general than metaphysics, it is the contingent product of a certain era of metaphysics. — Joshs

You seem to be defining logic differently than Fine does. You seem to have in mind particular logics or particular epochs in logic. Fine is thinking of logic as that which pertains to the structure of thought itself.

I should probably note that Heidegger is a fairly poor historian of philosophy, and a fairly poor exegete. His merit and his intention lies in creativity and originality, but to take his pronouncements on the history of philosophy at face value is to be led astray. Thus, when Heidegger talks about “metaphysics,” he is talking about something almost entirely different from what that word has historically been used to convey. Fine is at the very least being attentive to historical usage.

(I wanted to offer a response, even though I will probably be unable to sustain this conversation.)

Philosophical statements are not propositions about the world. Again, metaphysics is not theoretical. You unwarrantedly assume that such an inquiry attempts to determine 'how things are' and then criticize it for failing to do so. This (mis)conception of metaphysics is the actual problem you're having with metaphysics, Bob. And your 'antirealist' (mis)conception of science is inadequate as well insofar as natural sciences consist in models of phenomena, which are not remotely what you keep calling "models of experience" (e.g. Neo-kantian "symbolic forms").

That's fair. I distinguish the two to separate two mindsets: the former being just one who wants to be able to predict experience, and the other thinks they are actually getting at knowledge of the world in-itself. — Bob Ross

As I noted, these discussions of metaphysics generally fall apart on the question of what metaphysics is and what it isn't.

Let's leave it there.

Fine’s paper is an illustration of the divide between Analytic and contemporary Continental ways of thinking about metaphysics.
— Joshs

I don’t think this is plausible, and largely because Fine’s construal of metaphysics is the classical construal, stretching back thousands of years. It predates the curious dichotomy between the analytic and continental schools. — Leontiskos

I don’t doubt that Fine’s construal is the classical
construal, but that doesn’t change the fact that contemporary Continentals don’t understand metaphysics this way, for the same reason that they don’t understand the origin and function of logic in the classical way. I dont just have Heidegger in mind here , but the heirs of Husserl, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein.

You seem to be defining logic differently than Fine does. You seem to have in mind particular logics or particular epochs in logic. Fine is thinking of logic as that which pertains to the structure of thought itself — Leontiskos

If we define logic in the broadest possible terms, then it is simply the basis of the functioning of an economy or system of relations. Each metaphysical system brings with it its own logic. In his paper, Fine is not treating logic in this general sense, but presupposes a particular kind of systematics which he applies to his definition of metaphysics. All logic to him seems to be propositional in character, but this is not the case for the Continentals I mentioned.

I am not saying that philosophy is an illegitimate practice. — Bob Ross

What are you saying then?

Hiya Bob Ross

No I cannot. The model which I have of experience is that I represent the world, and those representations are imperfect. — Bob Ross

In that case, your models are not much different from imaginations either. Because you are rejecting metaphysics under the ground of the imperfect knowledge which is beyond your experiences, which you think as imagination.

I think all scientific knowledge, absent metaphysical claims, are perfectly compatible with my view. For example, I should expect that my body is made of cells (as this has been empirically verified plenty enough), but takeaway my possible forms of experience, and the possible forms of other people’s experience (which is similar to my own), and it is not clear at all that we have any reason to believe there are cells at all, let alone bodies, let alone space and time, etc. — Bob Ross

Your body is made of cells? I am not sure if it is a scientific knowledge. It is a commonsensical knowledge. Just because you have empirically verified knowledge doesn't mean it is scientific knowledge.

It is like saying "I know the wall is made of bricks.", "I know bread is made of flour." "I know cheese is made of milk." I bet you know that because you read it somewhere. But it seems clear that your limiting the scope of knowledge to what you can only observe and verify, and it narrows and limits the depth and amount of knowledge you could get. Because you would reject any more complicated and deeper knowledge under the excuse of not observable, non verifiable metaphysical knowledge.

I don’t think they just use pure imagination to determine stars, they use empirical evidence and hypothesized predictions. — Bob Ross

I never said they are pure imaginations. They are conjectures and imagination in nature.

Could you please define what you mean by “metaphysics”? — Bob Ross

My definition of Metaphysics is not far from the traditional definition. I would advise you to read the writings ``What is Metaphysics?" by Kit Fine. I will not go into the definition of Metaphysics because you can find them on the internet. But if I point out just one or two points, Metaphysics is about Ontology just like Fine said in his writing. It is conceptualised ontology. For instance, I can ask, discuss or investigate anything about any object as a metaphysical object without having to be concerned with the ins and outs of Biology or Physics or Ethics or a person .... because they are all Beings. In other words, they are Things. (Read Heidegger, What is a Thing?") When an object is viewed as a Being or a Thing, I can ask anything - the meanings, functions, origins, types... and why and how without having to use laboratory instruments. Metaphysics uses mental analytic and reasoning capability of the human mind. I will stop there, because it might get too long.

I didn’t follow the relevance of this part: could you please elaborate? My point was that logic pertains to the form of an argument (of reasoning): not the content. There is no such thing as a valid theory of logic that provides its own content as well as the form of that content. — Bob Ross

Your comments on Logic seem to be limited to the classic and symbolic logic. The formulas in different types of logic are replaced with the variables and contents for them to be the main operating logic in the microprocessor of devices or political movements. The details of this topic would be out of scope of this thread. You better create a new thread for this topic.

So metaphysics is the long history of people thinking about such things which go beyond empirical reality; and so I can easily define it that way without knowing anything (in truth) about that which is beyond experience. — Bob Ross

Again, I feel you are limiting and restricting on what metaphysics do in terms of going beyond the reality. The vast area of Philosophy of Mind, Language, Logic, Ethics are metaphysical in nature. It is the nature of questions they ask, and the methods it uses which is different from the other subjects, and it deals with all things existing in the universe.

I would say ‘experience’ is that first-person immediate knowledge that one has, which includes their mental life, such as things which only are immediately apprehended in time (as opposed to space). — Bob Ross

For you using the term, and accepting the fact that you have your own "mental life" proves you are using a Metaphysical concept. Because your mental life is an entity that is beyond possibility of experience by another person, from the rest of the population in the universe points of view it is a Metaphysical entity.

Without knowing that you are accepting and using it, while at the same time vehemently denying the legitimacy of metaphysical knowledge, is absurd.

such as things which only are immediately apprehended in time (as opposed to space). — Bob Ross

Another example of the metaphysical concepts, that you seem to accept as the reality is Time and Space. These are the entities which are shared topics in Science and also Metaphysics. You don't sound as if you are rejecting them as non-sense. You seem keep on using the metaphysical concepts while rejecting them.

The contents themselves are not the stuff of logic. but are merely set out in accordance with its strictures. — Janus

So what is the point of the comment? Logic has been used extensively in real life, science and technology and metaphysics. You add the contents to the logic and process, and get the result you want. Logic has no content, because you hadn't added any?

And again, regarding my saying that all synthetic philosophy is a creative exercise of the speculative imagination, that was not meant to apply exclusively to Kant, so asking for quotes from Kant is not appropriate. — Janus

I am sure your comment was with Kant's metaphysics, and it sounded unfounded, hence I asked for the original quotes supporting your points. It is a norm for asking the original quotes if the points you are making are unclear. Never not appropriate.

I just read Thomas Nagel's endorsement of Jaegwon Kim's view of the nature of metaphysics, with which I also "am very much in sympathy":

Metaphysics is the domain where different languages, theories, explanations, and conceptual systems come together and have their mutual ontological relationships sorted out and clarified.

In other words, metaphysics is a project whose aim is to study and elaborate the nature of the connections between apparently discrete domains. If you are a reductive materialist (is anyone anymore) then you consciously reject metaphysics. If you credibly believe that the universe exhibits mental as well as physical aspects, then you embrace metaphysics.

So I guess, if you believe that mental phenomena are imaginary, then you reject the validity of metaphysics. However, since your rejection of metaphysics would itself be a mental phenomenon, I don't where that would leave you.

I would say it is a model of experience--not necessarily reality. It is empirically ungrounded, I would say, to claim that our experience gives us any sort of accuracy into reality (unless by ‘reality’ you just mean the human conception of it). — Bob Ross

I think this depends on the field in question. Like, if you have ordinary manifest experience in mind, then you can say something like we have a model of human experience, which is tautological - 99% of the time there is no other experience we have in mind.

If you have science in mind, then I do think you have a model of reality, as close as we can get to it. Sure, it is the human conception, there being no other we can access, unless we do so indirectly. It seems we disagree on what science describes.

On what grounds can your models of reality (or, more accurately, of experience) be said to tell us about something beyond that experience (i.e., ‘absent of you’)? I cannot know that the world has the chair of which I am sitting on right now nor that it persists in that world when no one is experiencing it—but I can say that one should expect, all else being equal, to experience it in the same manner next time. — Bob Ross

Science doesn't aim at model of a chair. That's actually too complicated and becomes enmeshed in our folk-psychological conceptions. By definition, there is not chair absent us, a planet or an atom is a different thing, something we postulate which belongs in the external world.

I would say that the ‘world in-itself’ as whatever is strictly beyond our experience is the ‘absolute’ and the ‘world in-itself’ within the model that we represent the world is one which would have to have certain properties (presupposed by the model itself)(such as causality, they “impact” us in some way, etc.). — Bob Ross

I don't follow your argument here.

I am not intending to say that metaphysics is solely the study of things-in-themselves: I am merely noting that it is impossible to know them (other than what is presupposed by the model that we represent them) and that we know nothing of the absolute. — Bob Ross

Then this is quite different from the title of the OP, because you say you have in mind metaphysics in the sense of beyond all possible experience, perhaps that could be considered a sub-branch of the field. I would add then, that physics in this sense, is metaphysics, because it postulates things that, though discovered through experience, do not depend on experience for existence.

However, we have no clue if there are stars and planets, let alone our own bodies, let alone space and time, beyond what is conditioned by our experience. You know what I mean? — Bob Ross

I think I follow, but there is more evidence to consider than what reaches consciousness. What reaches experience is but a small portion of everything there is. We don't experience photons - in the sense in which we are aware of them working in us - nor do we experience electrons or plenty of hues in the electromagnetic spectrum and so on.

But we have evidence for them. Yes, they are revealed to us in consciousness, given quite intricate forms of expanding human senses, we had no way of getting evidence for these things for thousands of years.

Yes, I would agree that these things don't reach the "in itself", but I think this domain is mostly beyond our understanding.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like modeling our experience is a part of metaphysics for you; which just means we are semantically disagreeing (which is fine). — Bob Ross

I think so to. We seem to have different reference points when speaking about metaphysics. It seems as if you follow a certain strain of Kantianism, while I follow an earlier strain, connected with Locke and Hume, Cudworth and a few others.

Which as you say, is fine.

Exactly. So why think that when it does predict something within experience that it would ever verify something that is beyond it? Which I think you anticipated my response here with: — Bob Ross

The issue I have is that, given the title of the OP, you are saying or insinuating that metaphysics is an illegitimate source of knowledge, I disagree with that, because I think it covers much more than whatever is "beyond all possible experience."

Metaphysics seems inseparable from science to me. After all, aren't discussions about whether species really exist discussions about ontology, what exists? Isn't the question about whether heat is a thing, a substance, or a process, molecular movement, the same sort of thing metaphysics asks?

Metaphysics constantly makes reference to empirical facts and modern metaphysics often relies on findings in the sciences to make their case. Scientists advance metaphysical positions in their books all the time.

IMO the attempt to deflate and generalize metaphysics is a barrier to good metaphysics.

In that case, your models are not much different from imaginations either. Because you are rejecting metaphysics under the ground of the imperfect knowledge which is beyond your experiences, which you think as imagination. — Corvus

Yes. Well put.

Yes. Well put. — T Clark

Thanks :blush: :pray:

Hello 180 Proof,

Philosophical statements are not propositions about the world

Yes they absolutely are. Give an example of a ‘philosophical statement’ which is not a proposition which references the world in any manner.

You unwarrantedly assume that such an inquiry attempts to determine 'how things are' and then criticize it for failing to do so

Metaphysics is the attempt at determining ‘what things are’. No?

And your 'antirealist' (mis)conception of science is inadequate as well insofar as natural sciences consist in models of phenomena, which are not remotely what you keep calling "models of experience" (e.g. Neo-kantian "symbolic forms")

The only difference between ‘phenomena’ (in the neo-kantian sense) and my term ‘experience’ is that the latter isn’t necessary a representation.

Hello Corvus,

In that case, your models are not much different from imaginations either

They are impurely imaginative, like science, which is fine so long as the claims are constrained to the forms by which they are attained.

Because you are rejecting metaphysics under the ground of the imperfect knowledge which is beyond your experiences,

No, I am rejecting metaphysics on the grounds that it makes claims about that which is beyond the forms of the evidence supporting it; which means it is devoid completely of empirical content itself, irregardless if one uses it as empirical evidence of it, and this is why there are so many coherent and consistent metaphysical theories out there (of which are incompatible with each other): the world in-itself could be literally anything or nothing at all.

Your body is made of cells? I am not sure if it is a scientific knowledge

It is scientifically proven, via biology, that we have cells and that they compose our organs, skin, etc.

Just because you have empirically verified knowledge doesn't mean it is scientific knowledge.

True.

But it seems clear that your limiting the scope of knowledge to what you can only observe and verify, and it narrows and limits the depth and amount of knowledge you could ge

I would say that I am limiting my knowledge to what is possible within the forms (the overarching constraints) of my experience—and not letting myself jump into the abyss of pure imagination.

Because you would reject any more complicated and deeper knowledge under the excuse of not observable, non verifiable metaphysical knowledge

Perhaps it would be beneficial if you gave an example of such ‘metaphysical knowledge’? Then we could dive into that. As I don’t mind claiming knowledge about something which is within the possibility of experience but hasn’t been directly observed yet.

I never said they are pure imaginations. They are conjectures and imagination in nature.

But that is what I am talking about: claiming that the world really exists as something physical or mental, for example, is purely imaginative.

I will not go into the definition of Metaphysics because you can find them on the internet.

I would like to know your specific definition, so I know what to address.

Metaphysics is about Ontology just like Fine said in his writing. It is conceptualised ontology. For instance, I can ask, discuss or investigate anything about any object as a metaphysical object without having to be concerned with the ins and outs of Biology or Physics or Ethics or a person .... because they are all Beings. In other words, they are Things. (Read Heidegger, What is a Thing?") When an object is viewed as a Being or a Thing, I can ask anything - the meanings, functions, origins, types... and why and how without having to use laboratory instruments

But all of these ‘things’ are only valid as a possible experience—so would you agree that your ‘metaphysical’ inspection or derivation of them is invalid for whatever may exist beyond the forms of your experience?

Your comments on Logic seem to be limited to the classic and symbolic logic. The formulas in different types of logic are replaced with the variables and contents for them to be the main operating logic in the microprocessor of devices or political movements.

My comments pertain to all valid forms of logic. The contents of variables is not a part of the logic itself: it is what gets analyzed through the logic. For example, I could write:

if (x == y){ }

The logical aspect of the above code is purely the form: a conditional which checks if two variables equal each other. The contents of x and y are not a part of the logic, just like how in formal logic x <> y pertains solely to the form and not the content of x or y.

Again, I feel you are limiting and restricting on what metaphysics do in terms of going beyond the reality. The vast area of Philosophy of Mind, Language, Logic, Ethics are metaphysical in nature. It is the nature of questions they ask, and the methods it uses which is different from the other subjects, and it deals with all things existing in the universe.

I can only evaluate this once I understand what definition of metaphysics you are rolling with.

For you using the term, and accepting the fact that you have your own "mental life" proves you are using a Metaphysical concept. Because your mental life is an entity that is beyond possibility of experience by another person, from the rest of the population in the universe points of view it is a Metaphysical entity

Firstly, me knowing I have a mental life is not beyond the possibility of my experience—thusly not metaphysical.

For other people, if they were to derive that I have a mental life from pure imagination, then, yes, that would be metaphysical. However, I think one can ground other people having mental lives from empirical evidence and thusly it is not purely imaginative—but the arguments are only valid as possible experience. I would never say we have justification that my nor your mental life exists in the world as it is in-itself.

Another example of the metaphysical concepts, that you seem to accept as the reality is Time and Space.

I do not claim that reality in-itself has time nor space: only that our forms of experience are time and space.

Hello Manuel,

If you have science in mind, then I do think you have a model of reality, as close as we can get to it. Sure, it is the human conception, there being no other we can access, unless we do so indirectly. It seems we disagree on what science describes.

How do you know how accurate the knowledge humans can gain through the prism of their experience to reality? Why can’t reality be, for example, actually acausal, irrational, etc.?

By definition, there is not chair absent us, a planet or an atom is a different thing, something we postulate which belongs in the external world.

My point was that the chair does exist, if it there right now, independently of your observation of it; but that this is just a model of experience, and that is not to say that reality has chairs, atoms, nor planets like we perceive them.

I would say that the ‘world in-itself’ as whatever is strictly beyond our experience is the ‘absolute’ and the ‘world in-itself’ within the model that we represent the world is one which would have to have certain properties (presupposed by the model itself)(such as causality, they “impact” us in some way, etc.). — Bob Ross

I don't follow your argument here.

I think the single biggest problem for Kant is that he starts out with a model and not pure experience. We should always start epistemically with pure experience. We do not know immediately that our conscious experience is a representation, once we do take up that model then Kant’s arguments come into play.

For Kant, the phenomena vs. in-itself is a distinction founded within the paradigm (the model) that represent the world (thusly there’s a representation and whatever is actually there that was represented). But this knowledge, this model, is also only valid, under my view, for possible experience; since a close examination of the forms of one’s experience determines that all evidence of us representing the world is conditioned by them.

So, the phenomena vs. in-itself is an incomplete: the absolute is whatever exists beyond our possible forms of experience, and the in-themselves and phenomena are within the possibility of our experience.

Then this is quite different from the title of the OP, because you say you have in mind metaphysics in the sense of beyond all possible experience

The study of things-in-themselves is not solely (necessarily) metaphysics (in the sense of the study of that which is beyond the possibility of experience). There could be something else posited that isn’t a thing-in-itself.

I would add then, that physics in this sense, is metaphysics, because it postulates things that, though discovered through experience, do not depend on experience for existence.

But the knowledge of them is dependent on our experience, and so we can only say that we should expect them to behave within experience as if they persisted beyond our experience in a similar manner within a noumenal space and time—knowing full well we know nothing about what is actually happening in the world in-itself.

I think I follow, but there is more evidence to consider than what reaches consciousness. What reaches experience is but a small portion of everything there is. We don't experience photons - in the sense in which we are aware of them working in us - nor do we experience electrons or plenty of hues in the electromagnetic spectrum and so on.

This is all fine and good within our model of experience, which includes considering things which exist that we cannot directly perceive, of which we perceive (indirect) evidence of their existence.

The issue I have is that, given the title of the OP, you are saying or insinuating that metaphysics is an illegitimate source of knowledge, I disagree with that, because I think it covers much more than whatever is "beyond all possible experience."

But my OP is using the definition of metaphysics which is the study of that which is beyond all possible experience, so within that terminology I am saying it is an illegitimate source of knowledge (which you seem to agree with, but disagree with the semantics).

my OP is using the definition of metaphysics which is the study of that which is beyond all possible experience, so within that terminology I am saying it is an illegitimate source of knowledge… I think the single biggest problem for Kant is that he starts out with a model and not pure experience. We should always start epistemically with pure experience. We do not know immediately that our conscious experience is a representation, once we do take up that model then Kant’s arguments come into play. — Bob Ross

Kant’s metaphysics grounds the condition of possibility of experience in something prior to experience. This turns the subjective categories into in-themselves objects, transcendent to the experience they condition. Your recommendation to start out from pure experience runs the risk of substituting for Kant’s idealist metaphysics an empiricist metaphysics in which we assume the objects of pure experience can be made to appear to us disconnected from the presuppositions and expectations we bring to our apprehension of them.

Phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty, who advocated a return to the things themselves, argues that the pure experience of things always comes already conditioned by prior experience. Things appear out of a background interpretive field.

“We must show that idealism is on the same level as empiricism itself. Both take the objective world as the object of their analysis, when this comes first neither in time nor in virtue of its meaning; and both are incapable of expressing the peculiar way in which perceptual consciousness constitutes its object. Both keep their distance in relation to perception, instead of sticking closely to it.”

Addendum to ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/842289

Give an example of a ‘philosophical statement’ which is not a proposition which references the world in any manner. — Bob Ross

Really? How about ...

Forms-of-life regulate, or constrain, language-games played-created within them (e.g. exchanging "philosophical statements"). All truths are relative. Transcendental categories of reason create experience. I think, therefore I am. Consciousness is fundamental reality. God is the ground of being. Atman is Brahmin. The highest good is the Form of the Good. To be is to be perceived. Mathematical structures are real. A brain-in a-vat has no way of knowing whether or not it's a brain-in-a-vat. Things-in-themselves are unknowable. Observation collapses the wavefunction. Souls are eternal. 'A = A' is a necessary truth. Only ideas are real. God, or Nature. There is only one substance with two properies: mental & physical. The many emenate from the One. God did it. Nothing does not exist. The only constant is change. Definitions have use-values, not truth-values. The nothing noths. There are also unknown unknowns. All values are arbitrary: nothing matters. One can only live forwards and understand backwards. Philosophy is the art of learning to die. The wavefunction does not "collapse" which implies ... many worlds.

... etcetera. :roll:

Metaphysics is the attempt at determining ‘what things are’. No?

No. It's more like an "attempt at" deducing concepts and interpretions of "what things are".

Metaphysics is all of the deepest "What is the nature of" questions; time, space, energy, matter, self, consciousness, truth, knowledge, infinity, paradox ... Not! the 99% of woo nonsense that is called metaphysics.

Hello Joshs,

Kant’s metaphysics grounds the condition of possibility of experience in something prior to experience. This turns the subjective categories into in-themselves objects, transcendent to the experience they condition.

Correct. He derives transcendental truths. But the problem (I have with him) is that he derives them with the presumption that things still have a causal relationship to us, while also denying that they necessarily have a causal relationship. He takes our direct experience as justification that we represent, and then uses that to annihilate any knowledge that we actually represent anything.

Your recommendation to start out from pure experience runs the risk of substituting for Kant’s idealist metaphysics an empiricist metaphysics in which we assume the objects of pure experience can be made to appear to us disconnected from the presuppositions and expectations we bring to our apprehension of them.

Sort of (I guess). I would say that my view is more a pragmatism, which is definitely more empiricist than Kant, such that we can only produce models for experience and never say that we have any definitive a priori knowledge nor that there are objects impacting our sensibility that, in turn, produce representations. Instead, a priori knowledge is a part of the model wherein we represent things to ourselves. Within my model, I have no problem saying we represent things, and that we do not directly apprehend them.

Phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty, who advocated a return to the things themselves, argues that the pure experience of things always comes already conditioned by prior experience. Things appear out of a background interpretive field.

Of course. We experience things with preconstructed abilities to represent; but this isn’t where knowledge starts: that’s a model we came up with to predict our experience. It could be that we don’t represent anything at all, nor do ‘we’ exist in the world as it actual is.

Hello 180 Proof,

Really? How about ...

We must be using the term ‘proposition’ toto genere differently. By it, I mean a grammatical statement that expresses something that is truth-apt.

How is the claim, for example, “all truths are relative” not a grammatical statement that is truth-apt? Or “Consciousness is fundamental to reality”, or “mathematical structures are real”, … ?

Metaphysics is the attempt at determining ‘what things are’. No?
No. It's more like an "attempt at" deducing concepts and interpretions of "what things are".

That’s the same thing. To determine something is to derive concepts and interpretations of something. How is that different?

My point is that it is a study that thinks it can get at what reality actually is, and what things in that reality are. If not, then it is really just the study of determining models of what we experience, which is fine….

We experience things with preconstructed abilities to represent; but this isn’t where knowledge starts: that’s a model we came up with to predict our experience. It could be that we don’t represent anything at all, nor do ‘we’ exist in the world as it actual is. — Bob Ross

I think phenomenologists would agree that our ability to represent or model is not primary. They would say instead that there is no experience of any kind that is not conditioned by prior experience, which anticipatively projects forward into and shapes what we actually experience. This is not a consciously created model or representation that we simply fit over what we see. It is an intrinsic part of what we see. This mutual dependence between subjective projection and objective appearance is most fundamentally what the world actually is, and we can never get beyond or beneath this intertwined structure of experience to get to an independently objective world or an inner subjective realm.

How is the claim, for example, “all truths are relative” not a grammatical statement that is truth-apt? Or “Consciousness is fundamental to reality”, or “mathematical structures are real”, … ? — Bob Ross

And the truth-makers for these statements are?

Metaphysics is the attempt at determining ‘what things are’. No?
—Bob Ross

No. It's more like an "attempt at" deducing concepts and interpretions of"what things are". —180 Proof

That’s the same thing.

:roll: :sweat:

e.g. An assembled pile of logs, Bob, is not equivalent to a painting of "a log cabin".

My point is that it is a study that thinks it can get at what reality actually is, and what things in that reality are.

Those modifiers ain't working ...

Anyway, my point is

Metaphysics is the study of what it rationally makes sense to say about the most general prerequisites and implications of counterintuitive physics (i.e. natural sciences – which provisionally "determine how things are" in / constituting the world.) — 180 Proof

Addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/842289