Hello Banno,

One core problem has already been mentioned by
↪Ciceronianus
.

By @Ciceronianus own admission, it is not a contention with transcendental idealism; as it is a necessary and perfectly anticipated consequence of it.

Keep in mind that when Kant posited his ideas, microscopes were a novelty and Dalton had yet to explicate the place of atoms in Chemistry. Much that was hidden was subsequently revealed. We've learned quite a lot about the stuff we couldn't see. This has obliged Kantians to move to treating of phenomena rather than of reality.

So you might reconsider your first argument. Folk have experiences that do not imply that something exists - hallucinations, dreams, illusions and so on. Your conclusion is not justified.

:up: . I don’t see how this is a contention with transcendental idealism, as having an hallucination is also a representation. All knowledge, other than transcendental extrapolations of the forms of experience, are constrained to the possibility of human experience. Likewise, having more refined tools to perform empirical inquiries does not help resolve the problem that all of it is ultimately contingent on human experience.

Fair enough, my friend!

By Ciceronianus own admission, it is not a contention with transcendental idealism; as it is a necessary and perfectly anticipated consequence of it. — Bob Ross

Oh, not a contention, to be sure - but while Tully might speak for himself, it's plain that talk about a thing about which we can say nothing is at least awkward.

And our perceptions reach much further than they did in Kant's day, in ways he could hardly have imagined. I wonder would he have been so ready to talk about the thing-in-itself as beyond our understanding had he seen how far recent physics has taken us. Which is just to say he was a product of his time.

Finally, if all we are to take from "There is experience, therefore something exists" is the existence of the experience, I don't see that we have made much progress. Certainly we would have no reason to conclude that anything more than the experience exists. But that's not the main problem here; it's rather that you are already making us of language, along with all that entails; so your very line of thinking presupposes far more than it pretends.

... you are already making us of language, along with all that entails; so your very line of thinking presupposes far more than it pretends. — Banno

:100:

1. There is experience, therefore something exists. — Bob Ross

Tautology.

2. That something, or a part of it, must be producing experience.

(See my reply to #1.)

3. The unified parts of that something which are producing it is the ‘I’.

How do you/we know this is the case?

4. The ‘I’ can only produce experience through (data) input (i.e., sensibility).

(See my reply to #3.)

5. The production of experience via sensibility (and whatever may afterwards interpret such sensibility) entails that one’s experience is a representation.

Solipsism.

Instead, I know that what I am given is not a thing-in-itself, but the thing-in-itself could turn out to be a mirror (by happenstance) of what I am given (and I would never know it). — Bob Ross

Could you please elaborate and clarify on this sentence?  What do you mean by "mirror"? Where does the "mirror" come from? How do you know the mirror was given to you? By whom?

Thusly, I cannot say "this X is not Y" but rather "I only have knowledge of Y, which is not X". — Bob Ross

Could you please give some examples with content?  Talking with "X" and "Y" in the statement sounds totally empty and makes no sense to me.

I don’t see how that would entail a close mirroring of the things-in-themselves. — Bob Ross

Here’s the overlooked part of the whole ding an sich dichotomy: the thing of perception, or appearance, is the thing of the thing-in-itself, the only difference being time, or, occassion. Or, using your word, happenstance. Some ol’ thing is out there, just minding it’s own damn business, been doing its thing for a million years, suddenly gets itself perceived by a human operating under the auspices of Transcendental Idealism. POOF!!! The thing that used to be all by itself out there suddenly gets itself transformed into a mere representation by a being sufficiently equipped for doing it, and it’s off to the rodeo.

So, yes, all we have to work with is the representation, but we’re trying to mirror with it, the thing out there that was formerly just another extant, albeit undetermined, object in a universe full of ‘em.
————-

I have a different interpretation of this passage. — J

Been paying attention, haven’t you. For you, a pro; for me a con, in that I took some liberties with the author’s intent. Bob advocated negative knowledge, which require judgement, and from the preface to what we’re talking about here….

“…. Negative judgements—those which are so not merely as regards their logical form, but in respect of their content—are not commonly held in especial respect. They are, on the contrary, regarded as jealous enemies of our insatiable desire for knowledge; and it almost requires an apology to induce us to tolerate, much less to prize and to respect them….”

….I offered Bob a way out such he wouldn’t be exposed to the obligation for apologizing, to himself only of course, for something his reason should have guarded him against, which he actually did, of a sort, by admitting to the point.

I trust you, so here we go:

Regarding the content of a knowledge judgement….knowledge of things-in-themselves is impossible;
Regarding the “task of negative judgement”: reject false knowledge, re: reject as false that knowledge of things-in-themselves is impossible;
Regarding “where yet no error is possible”: given from pure speculative reason, it is necessarily the case knowledge of things-in-themselves is impossible, insofar as all knowledge is of mere representation;
Regarding substitution of such negative judgements that are…..

“true…..” (knowledge of things-in-themselves is not impossible iff negative knowledge of things-in-themselves is possible);
“but empty…” (negative knowledge is nothing more than negation of knowledge itself);

Regarding “…..and just for this reason….”: knowledge of things-in-themselves already having been shown as necessarily impossible reduces negative knowledge of things-in-themselves to the negation of that which never was;
And we finally arrive at: that which “…is inane, senseless and quite absurd”.

TA!! DAAAAA!!!
(Mic drop, kill the TED lights, Chaplin-esque waddle exit stage right)

Odd, isn't it, that when some folk discover that the chair they are sitting on is composed of atoms, and is overwhelmingly space, they sometimes decide that therefore it's no longer really a chair. — Banno

It depends whether one is an Indirect or Direct Realist

My belief is in Indirect Realism, whereby our ideas of objects existing in a mind-independent world are interpretations of sensory input derived from a mind-independent world that is real. I also believe that Kant and @Bob Ross can be said to be Indirect Realists.

I am sure that your belief is in Direct Realism, whereby objects in a mind-independent world are perceived immediately or directly rather than inferred on the basis of perceptual evidence

Odd, isn't it, that millions of years ago even before there were folks, lakes and seas existed, even though there was no mind present at that time able to judge whether a large stretch of water was a lake or a sea.

Odd, isn't it, that millions of years ago even before there were folks, that the colour red existed, even though there was no mind present at that time able to judge a similarity in the wavelengths of 620nm to 750nm.

Odd, isn't it, that that millions of years ago even before there were folks, there were rocks that could function as either a table or chair, even though there was no mind present at the time able to judge whether the rock functioned as a table or chair.

As lakes, seas, the colour red, rocks, tables and chairs only exist as concepts in the mind and names in language and don't exist in a mind-independent world, they cannot be perceived immediately or directly in a mind-independent world as required by Direct Realism.

Direct Realism is invalid as one cannot perceive something immediately or directly in a mind-independent world if that something doesn't exist in a mind-independent world.

There is experience, therefore something exists. — Bob Ross

As an Indirect Realist, I agree.

As both good philosophy and good science are founded on sound logic, your argument aiming at being logical is as much science as it is philosophy.

Whatever the things are in-themselves is entirely impossible to know. — Bob Ross

This is the position of the Indirect Realist. The Direct Realist would say that things-in-themselves are possible to know, as the world we see around us is the real world itself, where things in the world are perceived immediately or directly rather than inferred on the basis of perceptual evidence.

We can talk about things-in-themselves even if we don't know what they are

There are many passages in the Fourth Paralogism of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason where the thing-in-itself is declared to be the cause of appearances.

For example in A199/B244: Now if it is a necessary law of our sensibility, thus a formal condition of all perceptions, that the preceding time necessarily determines the following time (in that I cannot arrive at the following time except by passing through the preceding one), then it is also an indispensable law of the empirical representation of the temporal series that the appearances of the past time determine every existence in the following time, and that these, as occurrences, do not take place except insofar as the former determine their existence in time, i.e., establish it in accordance with a rule. For only in the appearances can we empirically cognize this continuity in the connection of times.

When we perceive the colour red, there is the appearance of the colour red in our sensibilities, which we can reason to have been caused by a particular thing-in-itself. When we perceive the colour green, there is the appearance of the colour green in our sensibilities, which we can reason to have been caused by a different particular thing-in-itself.

It is true that we cannot know the thing-in-itself that has caused our perception of the colour red, but we can reason that it is different to the thing-in-itself that has caused our perception of the colour green.

We may not know what the thing-in-itself that caused our perception of the colour red, but we can reason that it exists, and we can reason that it is a different thing-in-itself to what caused our perception of the colour green. We can name the unknown thing-in-itself that caused our perception of the colour red as R, and and we can name the unknown thing-in-itself that caused our perception of the colour green as G.

The names R and G are not descriptions, as a description of an unknown thing-in-itself would be impossible, but they are, as Wittgenstein says in Philosophical Investigations, replacements for the unknown thing-in-itself. As with the Beetle in the Box, PI 293, this allows us to talk about unknown things-in-themselves.

For the Indirect Realist, thing-in-themselves may be impossible to know, but we can talk about them.

Hello Banno,

it's plain that talk about a thing about which we can say nothing is at least awkward.

Not really. It follows from us having sensibility.

And our perceptions reach much further than they did in Kant's day, in ways he could hardly have imagined. I wonder would he have been so ready to talk about the thing-in-itself as beyond our understanding had he seen how far recent physics has taken us. Which is just to say he was a product of his time

I honestly think, although it is all conjecture, he wouldn’t have changed anything if he were alive today. Rather, he would have to address different contentions which are raised nowadays (which he could not have anticipated), such as the common Einsteinien special/general relativity one, but nothing would have changed; as it applies equally today as it did then, and will apply just as equally the forever future. That’s the nice thing about Kant: he stuck to a very oddly specific subject matter which can easily subsume all others underneath it.

Finally, if all we are to take from "There is experience, therefore something exists" is the existence of the experience, I don't see that we have made much progress

This just disqualifies the idea that nothing exists, and nothing produces experience.

it's rather that you are already making us of language, along with all that entails; so your very line of thinking presupposes far more than it pretends.

Like what? Making use of language does not necessarily entail any sort of linguistic dependencies in a theory; so long it is carefully distinguishes semantics from the underlying content.

Hello 180 Proof,

1. There is experience, therefore something exists. — Bob Ross
Tautology.
2. That something, or a part of it, must be producing experience.
(See my reply to #1.)

Agreed, but necessary explication if I am to deduce anything transcendentally without blindly trusting the content of experience.

3. The unified parts of that something which are producing it is the ‘I’.
How do you/we know this is the case?

It is definitional. The ‘I’ is the unified parts of that something which is producing experience. Are you asking why I know that there are unified parts? The parts of the something which produces experience must be unified insofar as they can “communicate” or “interact” with each other: if they were completely cut off from each other then they could not produce that experience.

I guess we could also say part of the ‘I’ is the thing-in-itself which is being represented.

4. The ‘I’ can only produce experience through (data) input (i.e., sensibility).
(See my reply to #3.)

Because it is either producing fabrications or non-fabrications: in both cases, the representative facutly(ies) must be taking in that data as input, which are just either real or fabricated sensations. Whether there is sensibility with respect to excitations of senses by real objects (rather than fabricated ones), that is impossible to tell transcendentally; but there must be sensations. There could also be sensibility and the excitations are of fabricated objects (for something else could be fabricating them).

If there is sensibility in the sense that real or fabricated objects excite them (as opposed to ourselves fabricating the content of sensibility), then there are things-in-themselves. If not, and (ontological) solipsism were true, then there aren’t.

5. The production of experience via sensibility (and whatever may afterwards interpret such sensibility) entails that one’s experience is a representation.
Solipsism.

Why?

Hello Corvus,

Could you please elaborate and clarify on this sentence?  What do you mean by "mirror"? Where does the "mirror" come from? How do you know the mirror was given to you? By whom?

I was just paraphrasing what Mww said (which I linked in the previous response): it could be the case that my sensibility is 100% accurate and everything about the thing-in-itself can be and is gathered by my senses; but I would never know it. My point was that I have no negative knowledge of the things-in-themselves either, for I only have positive knowledge of my own representative faculties.

Hence:

Thusly, I cannot say "this X is not Y" but rather "I only have knowledge of Y, which is not X".

I cannot say “this thing-in-itself is not square” but rather “I only have knowledge of a representation of the thing-in-itself, which is not the thing-in-itself.”. So I know the thing-in-itself is not a phenomena, but that does not count as any sort of knowledge of it.

the thing of perception, or appearance, is the thing of the thing-in-itself, the only difference being time, or, occassion.

Time, space, logic, math, and the limits of sensibility. So there’s not much determinate mirroring of the thing-in-itself from the thing.

Hello RussellA,

My belief is in Indirect Realism, whereby our ideas of objects existing in a mind-independent world are interpretations of sensory input derived from a mind-independent world that is real. I also believe that Kant and @Bob Ross can be said to be Indirect Realists.

Yes, Kant would be an indirect realist.

As both good philosophy and good science are founded on sound logic, your argument aiming at being logical is as much science as it is philosophy.

Not in the contemporary sense of the term: I did not deploy the scientific method to determine this, and I necessarily cannot.

When we perceive the colour red, there is the appearance of the colour red in our sensibilities, which we can reason to have been caused by a particular thing-in-itself. When we perceive the colour green, there is the appearance of the colour green in our sensibilities, which we can reason to have been caused by a different particular thing-in-itself.

It is true that we cannot know the thing-in-itself that has caused our perception of the colour red, but we can reason that it is different to the thing-in-itself that has caused our perception of the colour green.

Not really. I mean we have to abstractly remove our a priori means of intuiting and cognizing the said thing-in-itself(in-themselves) that caused either one, and that requires we remove logic, math, space, time, and various categories of the understanding. Without even logic, there’s no real intelligibility to your argument here.

it could be the case that my sensibility is 100% accurate and everything about the thing-in-itself can be and is gathered by my senses; but I would never know it. — Bob Ross

Hello Bob

Isn't it the case that when your sensibility is 100% accurate and everything about the thing-in-itself can be and is gathered by your senses, you cannot fail to know it?

In T.I. the reason that you cannot know the thing-in-itself is that your senses cannot catch it.  In other words, Thing-in-itself is not sensible, therefore you cannot know it.

Saying that your sensibility is 100% accurate and everything about the thing-in-itself can be and is gathered by your senses, but you would never know it, sounds like a contradiction, if not misunderstanding Transcendental Idealism, no?

I cannot say “this thing-in-itself is not square” but rather “I only have knowledge of a representation of the thing-in-itself, which is not the thing-in-itself.”. So I know the thing-in-itself is not a phenomena, but that does not count as any sort of knowledge of it. — Bob Ross

So you have knowledge of a representation of the thing-in-itself, but that does not count as any sort of knowledge of the thing-in-itself. Then where does knowledge of the representation of the thing-in-itself come from? I read you saying, it is not the thing-in-itself.

Been paying attention, haven’t you. — Mww

Attention is one of the few things I enjoy paying!

Not really. — Bob Ross

A shame. It is apparent that arguing the point pushes you to defend Kantianism, reinforcing it in your mind.

This just disqualifies the idea that nothing exists, and nothing produces experience. — Bob Ross

Yep. You say that as if it were a bad thing. I suggest that the idea that we need a proof that things exist is affected, an intellectual pretence. Descartes' bad idea. There are other ways of dealing with sceptics.

That’s the nice thing about Kant: he stuck to a very oddly specific subject matter which can easily subsume all others underneath it. — Bob Ross

Doesn't that sound a bit too good? A bit like the way in which disciples will praise the words of their Guru? Are his ideas perfect, and if not where do they go astray? If idealism is that good, it's odd that philosopher overwhelmingly reject it. Perhaps Kant was right, so far as he went, but was asking the wrong questions.

Like what? — Bob Ross

Your very participation here shows that you hold that there are others who understand something of what you are saying and will participate in a dialogue with you. You're already well past "I think therefore I am".

As I alluded earlier, flirting with Descartes, Kant, Spinoza and so on is a philosophical rite of passage. It's lack of critique that marks the novice. Can you tell us where Kant went wrong?

Solipsism.
— 180 Proof

Why? — Bob Ross

It's the culmination of tautologous premises #1-5.

Hello Corvus,

Isn't it the case that when your sensibility is 100% accurate and everything about the thing-in-itself can be and is gathered by your senses, you cannot fail to know it?

Me as a representative faculty would, but me as a self-reflective cognition (i.e., reason) or psychological tip of the iceberg (‘ego’) would never know. Another way to put it, is that one epistemically would never have any justification to say their sensibility was 100% accurate, even if it turns out, ontologically, it was.

Saying that your sensibility is 100% accurate and everything about the thing-in-itself can be and is gathered by your senses, but you would never know it, sounds like a contradiction, if not misunderstanding Transcendental Idealism, no?

It is just an ambiguity between our uses of indexical pronouns (e.g., ‘you’, ‘I’, etc.). You are deducing from, ontologically, one’s representative faculties being 100% accurate whereas I was starting from what one could epistemically justify with reason (and not the understanding).

Hello Corvus,

So you have knowledge of a representation of the thing-in-itself, but that does not count as any sort of knowledge of the thing-in-itself.

Correct. The thing-in-itself is necessary not the thing (the sensations): the former is whatever exists for and in itself, not whatever was sensed of it.

Then where does knowledge of the representation of the thing-in-itself come from? I read you saying, it is not the thing-in-itself.

The cognitions come from intuitions, and intuitions from sensations; and sensations from objects-in-themselves. The sensed object, is not the object-in-itself but, rather, whatever one’s sensibility could capture of it (and thusly not the thing-in-itself).

Hello Banno,

A shame. It is apparent that arguing the point pushes you to defend Kantianism, reinforcing it in your mind.
...
Doesn't that sound a bit too good? A bit like the way in which disciples will praise the words of their Guru? Are his ideas perfect, and if not where do they go astray? If idealism is that good, it's odd that philosopher overwhelmingly reject it. Perhaps Kant was right, so far as he went, but was asking the wrong questions
…
As I alluded earlier, flirting with Descartes, Kant, Spinoza and so on is a philosophical rite of passage. It's lack of critique that marks the novice. Can you tell us where Kant went wrong?

Banno, I am not interested in throwing insults back and forth at one another. I am not interested in any badges, prestige, nor pretentious “rite of passages”. I am only interested in the truth. So, what arguments do you find convincing against transcendental idealism? I have my own reservations of it, but I am not here to make your argument for you. If you have contentions with the view, then please share them!

Your very participation here shows that you hold that there are others who understand something of what you are saying and will participate in a dialogue with you. You're already well past "I think therefore I am".

Conversing with people does not entail the cogito argument at all: it could entirely be the case that I do not exist in reality as it is in-itself and still can have a conversation with you right now.

So, what arguments do you find convincing against transcendental idealism? — Bob Ross

Most of them?

I think it's been made clear, by myself and by others, that there are problems with the very idea of a thing in itself.

There's also the problem of one or two worlds - an area of disagreement amongst Kantians in themselves...

When you count the things that exist - say the chair on which you sit, or the cup on your table - how many do you count? Is it one, roughly the cup-in-itself as you perceive it? Or are there two, the cup-in-itself, unamenable to conversation, and the cup-as-perceived, about which we somehow can converse?

Or will you agree with me that being obliged to ask this question shows that something has gone badly astray?

How? Nothing I argued entails ontological solipsism. Perhaps epistemic, but not ontological.

And, paradigmatically, I am perfectly fine saying other people exist as bodies just as much as I do.

And those "other bodies" are just "experiences" (i.e. "representations") generated by "the I" (as per the OP), no?

... solipsism. Perhaps epistemic ...

:roll:

I think it's been made clear, by myself and by others, that there are problems with the very idea of a thing in itself.

I don’t think you have said much in terms of your contentions yet.

There's also the problem of one or two worlds - an area of disagreement amongst Kantians in themselves...

Interesting: could you please elaborate?

When you count the things that exist - say the chair on which you sit, or the cup on your table - how many do you count? Is it one, roughly the cup-in-itself as you perceive it? Or are there two, the cup-in-itself, unamenable to conversation, and the cup-as-perceived, about which we somehow can converse?

Is this the “problem of one or two worlds”? Irregardless, I would say that, in terms of your cup example, there are two.

Or will you agree with me that being obliged to ask this question shows that something has gone badly astray?

I am failing to see why this would be the case: could you please elaborate? To me it makes sense to separate the thing-in-itself from the thing (i.e., the sensation of it).

I'll come in on side with 's view here. A congenital problem with idealism is that, in denying that things exits outside the mind, it throws out the existence of other minds. Of course over the last few hundred years various arguments and excuses have accreted around Kant's thinking, but it seems difficult to see how we cannot be sure of the chair on which we sit, and yet we can be sure of the folk to whom we talk.

A congenital problem with idealism is that, in denying that things exits outside the mind, it throws out the existence of other minds. Of course over the last few hundred years various arguments and excuses have accreted around Kant's thinking, but it seems difficult to see how we cannot be sure of the chair on which we sit, and yet we can be sure of the folk to whom we talk. — Banno

:100:

I don’t think you have said much in terms of your contentions yet. — Bob Ross

Yeah, I can see your lack of comprehension.

Interesting: could you please elaborate? — Bob Ross

That's what the rest of my post does... the counting bit is the one/two worlds problem. So you are happy that you have two cups, when realism and common usage says there is but one.

See how metaphysics leads one astray?

Not to butt into someone else's argument but . . . aren't we getting a little over-simplistic here?
@Banno, surely Kant didn't "deny that things exist outside the mind" -- he merely sought to discover the limits of our knowledge of them. And I think he was quite sure his chair existed. What he questioned -- rightly, in my opinion -- was whether "My chair exists" is a statement about some bedrock Existence-with-a-Capital-E (the Ultimate German Noun! :smile: ) which would have the same qualities if it did not appear as a phenomenon to us. Indeed, what we now learn from physics seems to support this.