Hi, Leontiskos — plaque flag

Hello, @plaque flag,

The boulder's shape is independent, in some sense, from this or that individual human perspective. So it transcends the limitations of my eyesight or yours. But it seems to me that what we could even mean by 'shape' depends on an experience that has always been embodied and perspectival. — plaque flag

Yes, we learn about shape through experience. My earlier comment may be worth quoting, "Opposing various forms of idealism, I would claim that reality exists and minds are able to know it. This is not to say that all knowledge is objective, but lots of it is" ().

Speaking as someone who embraces perspectivism and correlationism, I'd would not call the world 'mind-created' or basically mental. But I would insist... — plaque flag

Okay. Can you give a quick overview of what you mean by perspectivism and correlationism? I have seen these words used in different ways. Generally speaking, I am inclined to lump you, Wayfarer, and Mill together. :razz: It seems like you are all saying that reality cannot be known as it is in itself. Or in Wayfarer's words, "Reality has an inextricably mental aspect."

- Yes, I think Berkeley misses the mark, although I am speaking from the perspective of secondary texts. Really, I think modern philosophy tends to be <shades of grey> with respect to this topic, with the possible exception of Husserl and certain figures in his school.

Here is a concise text from Aquinas that @Wayfarer may also want to read. It situates my view and gives an initial outline of the problem:

It must necessarily be allowed that the principle of intellectual operation which we call the soul, is a principle both incorporeal and subsistent. For it is clear that by means of the intellect man can have knowledge of all corporeal things. Now whatever knows certain things cannot have any of them in its own nature; because that which is in it naturally would impede the knowledge of anything else. Thus we observe that a sick man's tongue being vitiated by a feverish and bitter humor, is insensible to anything sweet, and everything seems bitter to it. Therefore, if the intellectual principle contained the nature of a body it would be unable to know all bodies. Now every body has its own determinate nature. Therefore it is impossible for the intellectual principle to be a body. It is likewise impossible for it to understand by means of a bodily organ; since the determinate nature of that organ would impede knowledge of all bodies; as when a certain determinate color is not only in the pupil of the eye, but also in a glass vase, the liquid in the vase seems to be of that same color. Therefore the intellectual principle which we call the mind or the intellect has an operation per se apart from the body. — Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Question 75, Article 2

(The point is not that the power of the intellect is entirely unrelated to the body, but rather that it has an operation which is apart from the body.)

Note that modern philosophers would presumably just disagree with Aquinas that "by means of the intellect man can have knowledge of all corporeal things," but if his point is granted then I believe his conclusion follows, and scientists are liable to grant his point (especially to the degree that they are ignorant of modern philosophy).

Another, related more to Hume but highlighting a relevant danger:

Some have asserted that our intellectual faculties know only the impression made on them; as, for example, that sense is cognizant only of the impression made on its own organ. According to this theory, the intellect understands only its own impression, namely, the intelligible species which it has received, so that this species is what is understood.

This is, however, manifestly false for two reasons.

First, because the things we understand are the objects of science; therefore if what we understand is merely the intelligible species in the soul, it would follow that every science would not be concerned with objects outside the soul, but only with the intelligible species within the soul; thus, according to the teaching of the Platonists all science is about ideas, which they held to be actually understood [I:84:1].

Secondly, it is untrue, because it would lead to the opinion of the ancients who maintained that "whatever seems, is true", and that consequently contradictories are true simultaneously. For if the faculty knows its own impression only, it can judge of that only. Now a thing seems according to the impression made on the cognitive faculty. Consequently the cognitive faculty will always judge of its own impression as such; and so every judgment will be true: for instance, if taste perceived only its own impression, when anyone with a healthy taste perceives that honey is sweet, he would judge truly; and if anyone with a corrupt taste perceives that honey is bitter, this would be equally true; for each would judge according to the impression on his taste. Thus every opinion would be equally true; in fact, every sort of apprehension. — Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Question 85, Article 2

A good introductory resource for classical realism is the first issue of Reality, especially the introduction and initial essays (link).

Okay. Can you give a quick overview of what you mean by perspectivism and correlationism? I have seen these words used in different ways. Generally speaking, I am inclined to lump you, Wayfarer, and Mill together. :razz: It seems like you are all saying that reality cannot be known as it is in itself. Or in Wayfarer's words, "Reality has an inextricably mental aspect." — Leontiskos

This quote nails it for me.
Correlationism consists in disqualifying the claim that it is possible to consider the realms of subjectivity and objectivity independently of one another. Not only does it become necessary to insist that we never grasp an object ‘in itself’, in isolation from its relation to the subject, but it also becomes necessary to maintain that we can never grasp a subject that would not always-already be related to an object.

To me it's important to lean toward neutrality rather than subjectivity. Consciousness is the [only] being of the world itself. The world is world-for, and the subject is world-from-a-point-of-view. Wittgenstein whittles it down nicely in the TLP. See <5.6>.

I am my world. (The microcosm.) The thinking, presenting subject; there is no such thing. If I wrote a book "The world as I found it", I should also have therein to report on my body and say which members obey my will and which do not, etc. This then would be a method of isolating the subject or rather of showing that in an important sense there is no subject: that is to say, of it alone in this book mention could not be made. The subject does not belong to the world but it is a limit of the world.

I would myself tweak that last line. The subject is the [from-a-perspective] being of the world. Ontological cubism.

In my view, this is not so much a positive theory as a challenging of the intelligibility of a certain kind of talk. Permanent possibilities of perception turn out, in my view, to be pretty much all most people can mean by some independent world. Or what else do/can they have in mind ? A round square ? A mystified X ? Kant writes about the possibility of beings on the moon, and he correctly interprets claims of their existence in terms of the possibility at least of experiencing them. In the same way, the mountains that might outlast our species are, seems to me, understood as the mountains-for-our-species, as what they are , in theory, 'not.'

I agree with Aquinas. I count myself a direct (perspectival, phenomenological) realist. We see things themselves, not our images of them. But, following Husserl, we can see them with more or less clarity. And we see them from a perspective. Language generally intends the social-common object. This alone is a strong argument for direct realism. The stuff we argue about it is in our world. Don't know if this'll interest you, but I argue for a kind of minimal foundationalism here. We share a world and a language and various norms for discussion and inquiry to even adopt the role of philosopher in the first place.

I also consider thought to be plenty real. I'd even say that possibility exists in a fairly strong sense. A certain kind of scientistic materialism basically filters out about 90% of that which is and calls a remainder Real. This is practically and sometimes maybe even ethically justified. (A pluralistic, free-ish culture has reason to put various entities safely 'all in one's mind' and leisure and personal space.)

Suppose there were an argument about a piece of glass. One person says that anything perceived through the glass has "an inextricably glassy aspect." Another person disagrees, holding that this piece of glass is perfectly translucent. As far as I can tell, that's analogous to the argument over the intellect between Realists and Anti-Realists. If the former person is right, then nothing viewed through the glass can be seen as it is in itself. If the latter person is right, then things viewed through glass need not have a glassy aspect. — Leontiskos

The point to this analogy, better known as the tinted glass analogy, is that to settle this question it must be determined whether or not the glass adds a "glassy aspect" to the perception. If the glass is supposed to represent the human body, through which our perceptions of the world are made, then it is impossible to remove the glass to make a glass-free comparison. Therefore the only way to proceed is to produce a thorough understanding of the glass itself, to be able to determine whether or not it adds a "glassy aspect".

Because of this, the only way that we can achieve with certainty any understanding of the external world, is to first produce a thorough understanding of the perceiving body. That is to say that we cannot know with certainty, the nature of the supposed independent world without first knowing with certainty the nature of the perceiving body.

(The point is not that the power of the intellect is entirely unrelated to the body, but rather that it has an operation which is apart from the body.)

Note that modern philosophers would presumably just disagree with Aquinas that "by means of the intellect man can have knowledge of all corporeal things," but if his point is granted then I believe his conclusion follows, and scientists are liable to grant his point (especially to the degree that they are ignorant of modern philosophy). — Leontiskos

I come to a slightly different conclusion. It has become evident to me that the human intellect cannot have knowledge of all corporeal things. That is where the problems of quantum physics have led us, there are corporeal things which we as human beings, will never be able to understand. The reason why the human intellect cannot have knowledge of all corporeal things is that as Aristotle indicates, the human intellect is dependent on a corporeal thing, the human body, and this in conjunction with the premise given by Aquinas, that to know all corporeal things requires that the intellect be free from corporeal influence, produces the conclusion that the human intellect cannot know all corporeal things.

The point now, is that the human intellect, as an intellect, is deficient in the sense that it can never know all corporeal things. It is deficient because it is dependent on a corporeal body. Aquinas also argues this point when he discusses man's ability to obtain the knowledge of God. The same problem arises in that a man's intellect cannot properly know God while the man's soul is united to a body.

One of the worst judgements of humankind is that humans are not objects, that they are something other than, something over and above the thing itself. I wager that no other idea has given a greater motive toward the destruction of these objects.

One ought to consider the reason why one might be dismayed about the implications that humans might in fact be objects only, nothing besides, and that he cannot muster any other reason beyond superstition to value human beings qua human beings. Without some angel in the shell we are nothing but meaty robots, or an animal not much different than all others—just an object, like a stone.

...just an object, like a stone. — NOS4A2

There are a lot of difference between objects, and as likenesses go, "like a stone" leaves a bit out.

But you seem to be holding to two conflicting principles. Either the mind can know mind-independent reality as it is in itself, or it cannot — Leontiskos

I think I understand what you're seeing as a conflict. You think that what I'm saying must necessarily entail that 'the unobserved object doesn't exist'. But what I wrote was 'to think about the existence of a particular thing in polar terms — that it either exists or does not exist — is a simplistic view of what existence entails. This is why the criticism of idealism that ‘particular things must go in and out of existence depending on whether they’re perceived’ is mistaken. It is based on a fallacious idea of what it means for something to exist. The idea that things ‘go out of existence’ when not perceived, is really their ‘imagined non-existence’ - your imagining that they don't exist. In reality, the supposed ‘unperceived object’ neither exists nor does not exist. Nothing whatever can be said about it.'

In the Medium version there is a supporting footnote:

‘By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, “non-existence” with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, “existence” with reference to the world does not occur to one.’ ~ The Buddha, Kaccāyanagotta Sutta.

I'm sympathetic to the scientists, and I'm not very impressed with post-Kantian philosophy. I'm not convinced that any philosophy that takes Hume or Kant's starting point has ever worked, or ever will work, even if that starting error is mitigated as far as possible. — Leontiskos

Hume and Kant are chalk and cheese.

I think that physics has validated Kant's attitude in many respects. Many of Bohr's aphorisms seem to support it: 'It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.' Likewise from Heisenberg 'What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.' Then you have Wheeler’s model of the participatory universe, suggesting that the universe is incomplete without the participation of observers—essentially, that our observations help to bring the universe into existence (see the quotation from cosmologist Andrei Linde in this thread.)

"Opposing various forms of idealism, I would claim that reality exists and minds are able to know it. This is not to say that all knowledge is objective, but lots of it is" — Leontiskos

As I've said, I don't take issue with the objective facts (and besides, where to draw the line? What is 'lots'?). The question is one of interpretation.

As far as I can tell, that's analogous to the argument over the intellect between Realists and Anti-Realists. — Leontiskos

All due respect, it is not analogous, but is a misreading. I do understand that Kant's 'ding an sich' has been ferociously criticized (including by Schopenhauer) but I've previously referred to my prefered reading:

Kant's introduced the concept of the “thing in itself” to refer to reality as it is independent of our experience of it and unstructured by our cognitive constitution. The concept was harshly criticized in his own time and has been lambasted by generations of critics since. A standard objection to the notion is that Kant has no business positing it given his insistence that we can only know what lies within the limits of possible experience. But a more sympathetic reading is to see the concept of the “thing in itself” as a sort of placeholder in Kant's system; it both marks the limits of what we can know and expresses a sense of mystery that cannot be dissolved, the sense of mystery that underlies our unanswerable questions. Through both of these functions it serves to keep us humble. — Emrys Westacott, The Continuing Relevance of Immanuel Kant

these relative sizes will hold good whether or not they are measured — Leontiskos

And as I say, all such statements still carry an implicit perspective. As soon as you posit such a hypothetical you have created as what phenomenology calls 'the intentional object'*. This exists as a possibility within your mind. Then empirical investigation may confirm or disconfirm that posit.

I'm very interested in pursuing the discussion about Aquinas, but it's a separate topic, and one that I'm preparing further material on. A preview on Medium, The Ligatures of Reason (defending Platonic realism).

------
* The intentional object is not necessarily a real or actual object in the external world. Instead, it refers to the content or the "what" of a conscious act.

Humans are naturally endowed with a relational intellect, for which the capacity, as function, for discernment is integrated necessarily, but in doing so, in enacting, as operation, the functional capacity, re: being able to discern, there must already be that which serves as ideal against which the content under discernment is complementary. — Mww

Which in the Christian world, would amount to the faculty of conscience, grounded in faith in the Divine Word, which provides the criteria against which to make such judgements. But, of course, Kant was preparing the ground for a post-Christian world and trying to sieve universal principles of morality out of the wreckage of the collapsed Medieval Synthesis. Anyway, as we both agree, a diversion to this particular topic, perhaps more suited to a thread on Ethics. Thank you as always for your insightful contributions.

It seems like you are not distinguishing between the judgement itself, and what the judgement is about. Yes, the judgement is about an object, and it may be a judgement about what inheres within the object, but the judgement is not inherent in the object, and therefore cannot be "objective" by the definition you provided. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is objective to all intents and purposes (i.e. empirically) but also ultimately requires that there is a subject who judges (transcendentally ideal).

One of the worst judgements of humankind is that humans are not objects, that they are something other than, something over and above the thing itself. I wager that no other idea has given a greater motive toward the destruction of these objects. — NOS4A2

:up: :up:

Yes, we are self-reflexive (i.e. strange looping phenomenal-self-modeling) objects in which this self-reflexivity is completely transparent making each of us the "subject" of a narrative delusion (i.e. ideality, or supernatura) that s/he is not an object, or is ontologically separate from objects (i.e. reality, or natura).

addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/842295

Without some angel in the shell we are nothing but meaty robots, or an animal not much different than all others—just an object, like a stone. — NOS4A2

Thereby absolving us of all responsibility as moral agents.


Apparently.

Thereby absolving us of all responsibility as moral agents. — Wayfarer

Why do you say that? The idea of moral responsibility is inevitable for self-reflective social animals. To the degree that someone cannot be responsible to others, then to that degree he or she is not really fit for society.

Without some angel in the shell we are nothing but meaty robots, or an animal not much different than all others—just an object, like a stone.
— NOS4A2

Thereby absolving us of all responsibility as moral agents. — Wayfarer

In whose eyes?

Let’s start with a simple thought-experiment, to help bring the issues into focus.

Picture a tranquil mountain meadow. Butterflies flit back and forth amongst the buttercups and daisies, and off in the distance, a snow-capped mountain peak provides a picturesque backdrop. The melodious clunk of the cow-bells, the chirping of crickets, and the calling of birds provide the soundtrack to the vista, with not a human to be seen. — Wayfarer

Would it be possible to imagine something that you have never seen or experienced in your life before, or places that you have never visited in real life? If it is possible, how does the imagination suppose to work for such cases?

Would it be possible to imagine something that you have never seen or experienced in your life before, or places that you have never visited in real life? — Corvus

Imagination is an infinitely resourceful faculty. On the other hand, people do sometimes say they have encountered something, or something has happened to them, which was 'unimagineable' - 'I never imagined that would happen!'

something has happened to them, which was 'unimagineable' - 'I never imagined that would happen!' — Wayfarer

Not "unimaginable", but unimagined; if they can say what happened to them, then it could not have been unimaginable.

They might say it in hindsight, but the point was, they couldn't have imagined it happening before it happened. Anyway, it's pretty tangential to the discussion.

When it comes to physicalism, which is really what is asserted then..

Consider impenetrability, the proper essence of physicalism, it can neither be reduced to 1. the matter of experience (sensation) or 2. the concept of impenetrability in our minds, instead impenetrability is synthetic of both 1, and 2, that is, you need some entity which thinks abstractions for there to be a substance which unifies the plurality of sensations.

Touch a stone and you will know right there and then that the feeling that something is impenetrable in/of it can not be reduced to the plurality of the matter of the experience (sensation: touch), yet since all you have (in the totality of your being) is either a. experience or b. abstraction it can not precede the experience, EVEN if the concept itself of impenetrability is a priori.

If certain a priori concepts were allowed in addition to those abstracted from experience it would still need to be justified why impenetrability were one of these concepts and why it (in that constitution, as an a priori concept) applies synthetically to the world of sensation, since the neutral position is always that a given concept is acquired from repeated experience (whether direct or disjunctive) of the thing it depicts or describes. Though as I said in the latter half of the former paragraph, even if the concept applies synthetically to the experience and preceded the consciousness of the experience (a priori) it would still be no evidence for why the experience itself should apply to the stone in its independence.

Idealism is just a rejection of the independence of impenetrability, space, time and emergent phenomena, yet often proposed by people who thinks they have asserted anything what so ever of their own, by imagining that the "mind" could be a substance when the very essence which depicts it hinges on being dual to something different from itself, something different from mind.

Touch a stone and you will know right there and then that the feeling that something is impenetrable in/of it can not be reduced to the plurality of the matter of the experience (sensation: touch), yet since all you have (in the totality of your being) is either a. experience or b. abstraction it can not precede the experience, EVEN if the concept itself of impenetrability is a priori. — Julian August

:chin:

I suppose you're familiar with the 'argument from the stone', which is based on Samuel Johnson's response to one of Bishop Berkeley's lectures?

It is tangential, and I'm being pedantic in saying that it is not that they couldn't have imagined it, but that they didn't. Although, that said, if determinism is true, then perhaps they couldn't have imagined it, but that would not be because it was unimaginable, per se, but because they were constitutionally incapable of imagining it. I hope you'll excuse me for being off-topic—I'm just having a bit of fun playing with ideas. :halo:

It is objective to all intents and purposes (i.e. empirically) but also ultimately requires that there is a subject who judges (transcendentally ideal). — Wayfarer

It is not "objective" when the intent and purpose is to maintain consistency with the definition you provided, "inheres within the object". What you are saying is that the judgement, "it is cold", or "it is hot", is objective, so that the objectivity is a property of the judgement, not a property of the object. Therefore this use of "objectivity" is not consistent with your definition. The objectivity is something which inheres within the judgement, not within the object.

I think I understand what you're seeing as a conflict. You think that what I'm saying must necessarily entail that 'the unobserved object doesn't exist'. — Wayfarer

No, I most certainly do not think that, nor does the view that "the mind cannot know mind-independent reality as it is in itself" necessarily entail that anything does not exist.

I said, "If it cannot, then there is always a reason to deny the existence of external objects a la post-Kantian philosophy (thus modern philosophy is intrinsically bound up with solipsism)." What I meant was that it is possible to deny the existence of extramental objects, but not that it is necessary. I do not think it's a coincidence that solipsism is such a common problem in modern philosophy.

Hume and Kant are chalk and cheese. — Wayfarer

Batman and Robin. :wink:

I think that physics has validated Kant's attitude in many respects... — Wayfarer

I don't think so, but some more than others. We would have to examine these in detail to give them a fair hearing.

All due respect, it is not analogous, but is a misreading. — Wayfarer

Well say why in your own words. I give simple examples so that they can be easily interacted with. In my opinion folks too often advert to abstruse quotes from philosophers rather than speaking plainly in their own words.

But regarding your quote from Westacott, it seems premised on your initial idea that I think Kant must dispense with the noumenal altogether, which I do not. I think the glass example should have illustrated that, for surely there is no reason why the person who says that everything viewed through the glass has a glassy aspect is necessarily committed to the position which says that the viewed objects do not exist.

And as I say, all such statements still carry an implicit perspective. — Wayfarer

Haven't we already agreed <that it is likely false> that "boulders will only treat cracks differently than canyons when a mind is involved"? And if so, then is the claim that although boulders will act in the way described even if no minds exist, nevertheless the statement that this is so carries an "implicit perspective"? Because there is some categorical commitment to perspectives?

A statement is the affirmation of a proposition, and propositions require minds, but reality does not require propositions. Whether or not there are propositions and minds, boulders will treat cracks differently than canyons. At some point the perspectivalism becomes either strained or tautological. You could think of my argument about boulders as an argument against perspectivalism.

I want to say that the perspectivalism can only avoid tautology if "perspective" is defined as something beyond "proposition-esque." If all propositions are by definition perspectival then I should think we are lost in tautological thinking. We will at least need a middle term or an argument to connect them.

As soon as you posit such a hypothetical you have created as what phenomenology calls 'the intentional object'*. — Wayfarer

And everything hangs on the nature of that intentional object, which is like the <glass>. For example, you seem to want to claim that every intentional object "carries an implicit perspective." What sort of argument would be required for such a categorical claim?

Presumably the next step is to define 'perspective' and give an argument for why every intentional object must be perspectival.

I'm very interested in pursuing the discussion about Aquinas, but it's a separate topic, and one that I'm preparing further material on. — Wayfarer

Alright, sounds good. I don't know how much longer can sustain this pace, but even if I have to abandon ship I think we've made some headway. :halo:

Haven't we already agreed <that it is likely false> that "boulders will only treat cracks differently than canyons when a mind is involved"? — Leontiskos

How would you differentiate a case where there is a mind involved, from a case where there is not?

How would you differentiate a case where there is a mind involved, from a case where there is not? — Wayfarer

I think the easiest way is to follow your lead and talk about a pre-human age. Or a post-human age. Or if one thinks non-human animals possess knowledge, then a pre-animal age, etc.

I think the glass example should have illustrated that, for surely there is no reason why the person who says that everything viewed through the glass has a glassy aspect is necessarily committed to the position which says that the viewed objects do not exist. — Leontiskos

But I don't see that as a valid analogy for what Kant's idealism says. Kant's view is that we never know [the object] as it is in itself (ding an sich). Instead, we only know [the object] as it appears to us (the phenomena, meaning appearance), and this appearance is inextricably a product of the inherent structures of the mind (the primary intuitions of space and time and the categories of understanding). That is always the case for empirical (or sensory) knowledge. So the mind is not just a passive recipient of sensory data; it actively shapes and structures our experience. It is, I would aver, an agent.

The analogy's issue is that Kant doesn't merely claim the "glass" (our cognitive faculties) is translucent. Instead, Kant argues that our cognitive faculties play an active role in constituting our experience, not merely transmitting it. It's as if the glass doesn't just let us see the world but actively shapes, organizes, and structures what we see based on its inherent properties. So it's better compared to spectacles, which focus light so we can recognise what we're looking at. If your natural vision was poor, then without them you can't see anything but blurs.

That can be extended to argue that Kant's critical project was actually to learn to look AT your spectacles, not just THROUGH them - to turn our attention away from objects of knowledge and direct it towards the conditions that make knowledge possible ('knowing about knowing'). Instead of merely accepting our experiences at apparent value, Kant investigates the faculties and structures that underlie experience.

How would you differentiate a case where there is a mind involved, from a case where there is not?
— Wayfarer

I think the easiest way is to follow your lead and talk about a pre-human age. Or a post-human age. — Leontiskos

I did explicitly discuss that under the second heading.

I sense we're talking past each other here, so I'm happy to leave it at that, unless you have more issues you'd like to discuss.

Because of this, the only way that we can achieve with certainty any understanding of the external world, is to first produce a thorough understanding of the perceiving body. That is to say that we cannot know with certainty, the nature of the supposed independent world without first knowing with certainty the nature of the perceiving body. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your argument is well-made, but I actually disagree. I actually have a thread drafted on why epistemology is always posterior to metaphysics, but I don't know if it will ever see the light of day.

The extremely truncated argument is that it comes down to which of the two is more known: 1) That we know things (as they are), or 2) That there is a glassy perspective. Whichever is less-known must be funneled through that which is more-known, and the modern assumption is that (2) is more-known and that we must therefore begin with epistemology. I don't think that will work. Will I ever get around to addressing this more fully in its own thread? I don't know. :sweat:

(Another argument is that if our understanding is 'flawed', then our understanding of our understanding will also be 'flawed'. We can't fix (or necessarily perceive) the flaw in our understanding by reflexively applying our understanding to our understanding. Any uncertainty deriving from the faculty of the intellect will color both internal and external objects.)

I come to a slightly different conclusion. It has become evident to me that the human intellect cannot have knowledge of all corporeal things. That is where the problems of quantum physics have led us, there are corporeal things which we as human beings, will never be able to understand. The reason why the human intellect cannot have knowledge of all corporeal things is that as Aristotle indicates, the human intellect is dependent on a corporeal thing, the human body, and this in conjunction with the premise given by Aquinas, that to know all corporeal things requires that the intellect be free from corporeal influence, produces the conclusion that the human intellect cannot know all corporeal things. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well for Aristotle and Aquinas the intellect is immaterial for precisely the reason you are outlining. But on the other hand, matter qua matter (or qua singular) is not intelligible on Aristotelianism, but only matter qua property (or qua universal). So Aristotle would not be surprised that something like the quantum realm begins to approach unintelligibility.

The point now, is that the human intellect, as an intellect, is deficient in the sense that it can never know all corporeal things. It is deficient because it is dependent on a corporeal body. Aquinas also argues this point when he discusses man's ability to obtain the knowledge of God. The same problem arises in that a man's intellect cannot properly know God while the man's soul is united to a body. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't begrudge you your conclusion, because it is a reasonable inference. Yet recall that for Aquinas we will know God "perfectly" (as perfectly as we can) not only in the intermediate state, but also in the resurrected state. And in the resurrected state we will have a body of some kind.

Thank you for your thoughtful and cogent post.

Suppose there were an argument about a piece of glass. One person says that anything perceived through the glass has "an inextricably glassy aspect." Another person disagrees, holding that this piece of glass is perfectly translucent. As far as I can tell, that's analogous to the argument over the intellect between Realists and Anti-Realists. If the former person is right, then nothing viewed through the glass can be seen as it is in itself. If the latter person is right, then things viewed through glass need not have a glassy aspect. — Leontiskos

But I don't see that as a valid analogy for what Kant's idealism says. Kant's view is that we never know [the object] as it is in itself (ding an sich). Instead, we only know [the object] as it appears to us (the phenomena, meaning appearance), and this appearance is inextricably a product of the inherent structures of the mind (the primary intuitions of space and time and the categories of understanding). That is always the case for empirical (or sensory) knowledge. So he mind is not just a passive recipient of sensory data; it actively shapes and structures our experience. It is, I would aver, an agent.

The analogy's issue is that Kant doesn't merely claim the "glass" (our cognitive faculties) is translucent. Instead, Kant argues that our cognitive faculties play an active role in constituting our experience, not merely transmitting it. It's as if the glass doesn't just let us see the world but actively shapes, organizes, and structures what we see based on its inherent properties. So it's better compared to spectacles, which focus light so we can recognise what we're looking at. If your natural vision was poor, then without them you can't see anything but blurs.

That can be extended to argue that Kant's critical project was actually to learn to look AT your spectacles, not just THROUGH them - to turn our attention away from objects of knowledge and direct it towards the conditions that make knowledge possible ('knowing about knowing'). Instead of merely accepting our experiences at apparent value, Kant investigates the faculties and structures that underlie experience. — Wayfarer

Exactly right! I grant everything you say, and it does not invalidate my analogy, it accentuates it! Recall that the central issue here is whether we can know mind-independent reality as it is in itself. The first person in my analogy represents those who say that we cannot, whereas the second represents those who say that we can. I don't think anything you've noted about Kant moves him away from that first group, does it? The "glassy aspect" is merely representative of that which conveys reality in a way other than it is in itself; a "distortion," so to speak.

(Yes there are active aspects to the intellect, and I grant that that is another way the analogy limps, but this too does not move Kant out of the first group.)

I did explicitly discuss that under the second heading. — Wayfarer

Right, that's why I spoke about "following your lead."

I sense we're talking past each other here, so I'm happy to leave it at that, unless you have more issues you'd like to discuss. — Wayfarer

I think we're close to a good stopping point. :up:

objectivity is something which inheres within the judgement, not within the object. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let's consider the case of bona fide COVID vaccines vs quack cures such as hydroxychloroquine. Scientific studies show that the former are effective and the latter not. That is because of the inherent properties of the real vaccines, which the quack cures do not possess.

On the other hand, there's the interesting case of placebo cures. It is abundantly documented that placebos will often effect a cure even absent any actual medical ingredient in the tablet. In that case subjective factors, namely, the subject's confidence in the efficacy of cure, has objective consequences, namely, healing or cure.

So none of this open and shut. As the closing quote says in the essay ''Ultimately, what we call “reality” is so deeply suffused with mind- and language-dependent structures that it is altogether impossible to make a neat distinction between those parts of our beliefs that reflect the world “in itself” and those parts of our beliefs that simply express “our conceptual contribution.” The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a re-presentation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned.’

Even so, there are many things, like medicines, that are shown to be effective by objective measures. It's important to acknowledge that, lest you slide into out-and-out relativism.

(Oh dear, can let this one go by. I've added the qualifiers in square brackets, I trust this is as you intended? )

Recall that the central issue here is whether we can know mind-independent reality as it is in itself. The first person in my analogy [i.e. 'Kantian'] represents those who say that we cannot, whereas the second [i.e. 'empirical realist'] represents those who say that we can. I don't think anything you've noted about Kant moves him away from that first group, does it? — Leontiskos

It doesn't, but that is not the point. Surely the point is how to adjuticate which is correct? Kantian, or empirical realist? If you're supporting the latter, then the case has to be made as to why that is correct, and the Kantian view wrong.

(Oh dear, can let this one go by. I've added the qualifiers in square brackets, I trust this is as you intended? ) — Wayfarer

Probably, depending on what you mean by 'empirical realist'.

It doesn't, but that is not the point. Surely the point is how to adjuticate which is correct? Kantian, or empirical realist? If you're supporting the latter, then the case has to be made as to why that is correct, and the Kantian view wrong. — Wayfarer

I haven't said much about adjudication (apart from those quotes from Aquinas). I have only been trying to frame the question, which the image about the glass was supposed to effect. If the question has been framed correctly, then the position you're staking out is an anti-realist position, as is Kant's. Do we agree on this?

I've been wrestling against your alternative framing, where apparently Hume is a kind of anti-realist but Kant is not, nor is your OP.* Or else, that your perspectivalism is devised to resist a scientism which derives from the 17th century.

So the crux is apparently that scientism is realist, and can be resisted by the anti-realism of your OP, but I would prefer resisting scientism by way of an alternative realism.


* For my part I would only say that Hume holds to a stronger anti-realism than Kant.

The "glassy aspect" is merely representative of that which conveys reality in a way other than it is in itself; a "distortion," so to speak. — Leontiskos

I would not agree that Kant thinks our cognitions distort reality. I think he would agree that what we perceive is real; the way I see the tree, for example, is just the real way the tree appears to a human percipient. So, our perceived appearances of the tree are real, not illusory or distorted in any way, but they are not the whole story of the tree. It can appear differently to different kinds of percipients, different animals.

The way the tree appears to us is a function of what it is in itself, in conjunction with what we are in ourselves, but being an appearance, it is perspectival, whereas what it is as unperceived cannot be perspectival. The tree can only appear from some perspective or other, but it does not follow that it can only exist from some perspective or other. It also does not follow that we can only exist from some perspective or other, even though it is true that we can only understand our existence from some perspective or other..