• Corvus
    3.1k
    It is nothing to do with pure or impure….
    — Corvus

    ….yet he states, clear as the nose on your face…..impure. How can it have nothing to do with exactly what he’s saying?
    Mww
    This is where Kant seems to be showing his inconsistency in CPR. If you think about it, you only observe the objects and the changed objects in empirical reality through time via your sense. There is no such a thing as "change" in the empirical reality. The concept 'change' comes from your mind via a priori intuition. It is nothing to do with the way reason works, but it is how we acquire a priori synthetic knowledge in TI.

    Math is purely a priori because it constructs its own objects; physics is a posteriori because its objects are or can be given to it from an external source, re: the world.Mww
    Some physics knowledge is definitely both a priori and a posteriori, hence synthetic a priori.
    " Mathematics and Physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to determine their objects a priori, the later is partially so, but is also dependent on other sources of cognition." - Preface 2nd Edition CPR, Meiklejohn.
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    “….. Mathematics and physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to determine their objects à priori. The former is purely à priori, the latter is partially so, but is also dependent on other sources of cognition….”

    Partially so means impure; other sources means from out in the world, or, experience.
    Mww
    We were quoting the same verse. I am not sure "impure" would be the right term. He has given out the official term for it i.e. "synthetic a priori" knowledge.
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    Knowledge given from the objective sciences is empirical, it informs as to experiences of the world; it is the way in which the knowledge is acquired, the systemic methodology for the development of principles and judgements, better known as logic, the intellect uses to acquire it, that is pure a priori.Mww
    Kant thought that just empirical knowledge for the objective sciences were not enough to be the source of infallible knowledge. The A priori elements are needed for the science to be able to have grounds for the rigorous system of knowledge.
  • Mww
    4.8k
    empirical knowledge for the objective sciences were not enough to be the source of infallible knowledge.Corvus

    Yes. All empirical knowledge is contingent and derived from inductive inference.

    The A priori elements are needed for the science to be able to have grounds for the rigorous system of knowledge.Corvus

    Agreed. The elements are a priori. The elements are the content of inductive inferences, which suffices for the rigor of the system, but it is still contingent, insofar as the content may change over time, but the form of the inference remains the same over all time.
    ———-

    I am not sure "impure" would be the right term. He has given out the official term for it i.e. "synthetic a priori" knowledge.Corvus

    It is the right term, for what it’s concern with. Synthetic is a relation of conceptions in a proposition or judgement, and is opposed to analytic. And it makes no difference what the proposition or judgement says. Propositions and or judgements of knowledge, must say something definitive in itself, or it isn’t knowledge.

    There are synthetic propositions a posteriori, those in which the conceptions in both subject and predicate are derived from experience but are not contained in each other. Those synthetic propositions in which the conceptions in subject and predicate are not contained in the other, but do not arise from experience, are a priori.

    Math is a pure a priori science, in that it constructs its own objects, and the principles of which are synthetic and purely a priori.
    Physics is an impure science, in that it does not construct its own objects, yet the principles of which are also synthetic and purely a priori.
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    :cool: :ok:
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    What could certain physiology mean?

    "In more recent times, it has seemed as if an end might be put to all these controversies and the claims of metaphysics receive final judgement, through certain physiology of the human understanding - that of celebrated Locke." - CPR A.ix
  • AmadeusD
    2.5k
    Welp, i've just this morning reached the Transcendental Logic, Second Division :Transcendental Dialectic.

    What pitfalls must i avoid in reading this section?
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    Welp, i've just this morning reached the Transcendental Logic, Second Division :Transcendental Dialectic.AmadeusD

    You are well ahead of me. I have gone back to the very beginning and starting over from the Preface.
  • AmadeusD
    2.5k
    You are well ahead of me. I have gone back to the very beginning and starting over from the Preface.Corvus

    Don't assume i understand more than 10% :P
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    Don't assume i understand more than 10% :PAmadeusD

    "All I know is I know nothing." - Socrates
    That is my 1st philosophical principle. :nerd:
  • RussellA
    1.8k
    What pitfalls must i avoid in reading this section?AmadeusD

    I would say that the biggest pitfall is reading it in isolation of secondary sources, which might include:

    IEP - Immanuel Kant: Logic
    He insists that formal logic should abstract from all content of knowledge and deal only with our faculty of understanding (intellect, Verstand) and our forms of thought.

    SEP - Kant’s Transcendental Arguments
    Among Immanuel Kant’s (1724–1804) most influential contributions to philosophy is his development of the transcendental argument. In Kant’s conception, an argument of this kind begins with a compelling premise about our thought, experience, or knowledge, and then reasons to a conclusion that is a substantive and unobvious presupposition and necessary condition of this premise.

    The Generality of Kant’s Transcendental Logic - Clinton Tolley - University of California
    Unlike the traditional logic, which focuses only on the form of thinking and judging, Kant intends his new transcendental logic to focus on the content of thinking and judging, albeit in a very abstract manner.

    Generation Online - Transcendental Logic
    Kant defines transcendental logic, on the other hand, as a subdivision of general logic, and distinguishes it from general logic in so far as transcendental logic does not abstract from all the contents of knowledge, but takes from transcendental aesthetics the forms of pure intuition of space and time into consideration, thus abstracting from empirical contents, whilst still accounting for pure intuitions.

    These secondary sources point at a distinction between the importance of the form of a logical statement in traditional logic and the importance of the content of a logical statement in transcendental logic

    Perhaps this means that a logical stalemate is as much dependent on its content as its form.
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    These secondary sources point at a distinction between the importance of the form of a logical statement in traditional logic and the importance of the content of a logical statement in transcendental logic

    Perhaps this means that a logical stalemate is as much dependent on its content as its form
    RussellA
    Great point. :up:
    In the past I have been stating this point to @Janus and @Mww in some previous threads. They sounded to have read somewhere about the traditional logic, and think that it is the only form of logic in existence. They have been opposing on the view that Logic can require contents for its operation. :roll: One can feel pointless trying to argue with the narrow perspectives.
  • RussellA
    1.8k
    They sounded to have read somewhere about the traditional logic, and it is the only form of logic in existence, and have been opposing on the view that Logic can require contents for its operation. :roll:Corvus

    The SEP article on Kant’s Transcendental Arguments, section 3, shows that Kant is still relevant today.

    Kant-inspired transcendental arguments against scepticism about the external world were developed with vigor in the mid-twentieth century, notably by P. F. Strawson, most famously in his Kantian reflections in The Bounds of Sense (1966). These arguments are often reinterpretations of, or at least inspired by, Kant’s Transcendental Deduction and his Refutation of Idealism.

    The article writes that Strawson’s most famous transcendental argument in 1966 is modelled on the Transcendental Deduction, where Strawson's target is sense-datum experience.

    However, according to the Wikipedia article on Logic, logic only deals with the form of an argument and not the content of an argument:
    Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It studies how conclusions follow from premises due to the structure of arguments alone, independent of their topic and content.

    However, the Wikipedia article assumes the possibility of the separation of form from content. But that cannot be the case, in that if all the content was removed, what form would be left. If all the metal was removed from the Eiffel Tower, what would remain?
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    However, according to the Wikipedia article on Logic, logic only deals with the form of an argument and not the content of an argument:
    Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It studies how conclusions follow from premises due to the structure of arguments alone, independent of their topic and content.
    RussellA
    I don't subscribe to the most of Wiki info. In the past any tom dick and harry used to go to Wiki and populate the contents with whatever contents they like. Not sure this is still the case.

    From the traditional logic perspective, they insist that contents is not dealt by logic. Fair enough on that. But from all the other logic, content itself is important part of logic. If you read Bolzano's Theory of Science, you would agree.
  • Mww
    4.8k
    Mww (…) been opposing on the view that Logic can require contents for its operation.Corvus

    Yep, he does, at least empirical content. If one wishes to insist the content of logic is its own laws or principles for its operation, he has misdirected it, insofar as the laws of logic apply to the operation of the understanding, such that the application of its own laws to itself, is absurd.

    “…. Now, logic in its turn may be considered as twofold—namely, as logic of the general, or of the particular use of the understanding. The first contains the absolutely necessary laws of thought, without which no use whatsoever of the understanding is possible, and gives laws therefore to the understanding, without regard to the difference of objects on which it may be employed….

    …. Pure general logic has to do, therefore, merely with pure à priori principles, and is a canon of understanding and reason, but only in respect of the formal part of their use, be the content what It may….. As general logic, it makes abstraction of all content of the cognition of the understanding, that is, of all relation of cognition to its object, and regards only the logical form in the relation of cognitions to each other, that is, the form of thought in general.…. Consequently, general logic treats of the form of the understanding only, which can be applied to representations, from whatever source they may have arisen….

    …..in the expectation that there may perhaps be conceptions which relate à priori to objects, not as pure or sensuous intuitions, but merely as acts of pure thought (which are therefore conceptions, but neither of empirical nor æsthetical origin)—in this expectation, I say, we form to ourselves, by anticipation, the idea of a science of pure understanding and rational cognition, by means of which we may cogitate objects entirely à priori. A science of this kind, which should determine the origin, the extent, and the objective validity of such cognitions, must be called transcendental logic, because it has, not, like general logic, to do with the laws of understanding and reason in relation to empirical as well as pure rational cognitions without distinction, but concerns itself with these only in an à priori relation to objects…”

    (Insert possibly irrelevant yet nonetheless moronic iconographic representation here)
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    Yep, he does, at least empirical content. If one wishes to insist the content of logic is its own laws or principles for its operation, he has misdirected it, insofar as the laws of logic apply to the operation of the understanding, such that the application of its own laws to itself, is absurd.Mww

    But if we look at an example, any analytic concept such as a bachelor, it has definition and logic all in the concept i.e. a bachelor is an unmarried man. If you didn't have the concept as a content in a statement, logic won't work. Will it?

    If you say, that you know a bachelor who has remarried recently, you know instantly you uttered a logical nonsense. Without the content "bachelor", how would you have come to the conclusion, the statement was illogical?
  • Mww
    4.8k
    if we look at an example….Corvus

    A mistake at the expense of, or in spite of, the quotations.
  • Mww
    4.8k
    “….. Now general logic, in its assumed character of organon, is called dialectic. Different as are the significations in which the ancients used this term for a science or an art, we may safely infer, from their actual employment of it, that with them it was nothing else than a logic of illusion—a sophistical art for giving ignorance, nay, even intentional sophistries, the colouring of truth, in which the thoroughness of procedure which logic requires was imitated, and their topic employed to cloak the empty pretensions.

    Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, must always be a logic of illusion, that is, be dialectical, for, as it teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, which do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects, any attempt to employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever. Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy….”
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    if we look at an example….
    — Corvus

    A mistake at the expense of, or in spite of, the quotations.
    Mww

    Was giving an example from general Logic point of view (not related to the quotes).
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, must always be a logic of illusion, that is, be dialectical, for, as it teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, which do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects, any attempt to employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever. Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy….”Mww

    Kant had low opinion on Logic, and his view on Logic is abnormally and impractically narrow.
  • Mww
    4.8k


    An aberration of the whole point. You’re giving an example from understanding’s point of view, which presupposes the logic. In response to the accusation I’m denying the content of logic in its operation, which is true, I can still affirm the necessity of content for its proofs. Examples merely suffice to demonstrate the validity of a logical condition, but do nothing to establish what that condition is.

    Kant had low opinion on Logic….Corvus

    Or did he have a low opinion of the typical employment of it, in which manifests the “mere prating”?
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    An aberration of the whole point. You’re giving an example from understanding’s point of view, which presupposes the logic.Mww
    Until one reads the statement with the analytic content in full, nothing is presupposed. The statement can be anything until it ends with ".".

    I’m denying the content of logic in its operation, which is true, I can still affirm the necessity of content for its proofs. Examples merely suffice to demonstrate the validity of a logical condition, but do nothing to establish what that condition is.Mww
    Even after the clear example of the most basic operation of Logic from the content of a concept, if you still keep denying it, then it seems you are denying not knowing what you are denying.

    Or did he have a low opinion of the typical employment of it, in which manifests the “mere prating”?Mww
    It is a well known fact from the numerous commentaries on Kant.
  • Mww
    4.8k
    Until one reads the statement with the analytic content in full, nothing is presupposed.Corvus

    Oh dear. The entire human intellectual system is presupposed. Do you have any idea at all, just how far it is in the procedural methodology, between reading the statement and the installation of the analytic content of it??????

    Even after the clear example of the most basic operation of LogicCorvus

    According to Kant, the most basic operation of logic “treats of the form of the understanding only”. How is your example anything like that?

    Of logic that “gives laws therefore to the understanding, without regard to the difference of objects on which it may be employed”……where in your statement “Bachelors are unmarried” is a law which governs without regard to whichever statement you had decided to use?

    It is a well known fact from the numerous commentaries on Kant.Corvus

    Ohfercrissakes. Each and every commentary is mere opinion, insofar as there is no original printing in which he himself states a low opinion of logic. Unless, of course, there is one, and I’m just not aware of it, in which case, I’d be wrong. But until presented with an exact replication of the opinion in fact, I’m perfectly happy with my reading of the text, which ironically enough, is itself merely opinion. But at least one I trust.

    When he says stuff like, “further than this logic cannot go”, he’s just warning the po’ fools trying to misuse it, but not that the misuse is the fault of logic.
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    Oh dear. The entire human intellectual system is presupposed. Do you have any idea at all, just how far it is in the procedural methodology, between reading the statement and the installation of the analytic content of it??????Mww
    Nothing is presupposed in nature and human intellect. That is why we need observation, reasoning and logic in coming to knowledge. When you see the data or content, you record, reason and apply logic to come to judgements.

    According to Kant, the most basic operation of logic “treats of the form of the understanding only”. How is your example anything like that?Mww
    That is just one side of logic, which is the traditional logic. You have a sea of different school of Logic doing things differently for different subjects, which you seem to have no idea of. Even just after Kant, Bolzano has his own theories in Science and Logic, and many other Neo-Kantian and Anti-Kantian philosophers came up with their own views and systems on Logic.

    When he says stuff like, “further than this logic cannot go”, he’s just warning the po’ fools trying to misuse it, but not that the misuse is the fault of logic.Mww
    Kant had very limited views and knowledge on Logic.
  • Mww
    4.8k
    The entire human intellectual system is presupposed….
    — Mww
    Nothing is presupposed in nature and human intellect. That is why we need observation, reasoning and logic. When you see the data or content, you record, reason and apply logic to come to judgements.
    Corvus

    To record, reason and apply logic presupposes the capacity for it. To come to judgement presupposes there is that which is possible to come to.

    many other Neo-Kantian and Anti-Kantian philosophers came up with their own views on Logic.Corvus

    Undoubtedly, but irrelevant.
    (Glances up at thread title)

    Kant had very limited views and knowledge on Logic.Corvus

    Compared to what….2023? Wonder what the views will be in 2123. Oh so easy to look backwards, innit?
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    To record, reason and apply logic presupposes the capacity for it. To come to judgement presupposes there is that which is possible to come to.Mww
    Under that system, one would be very prone to fall into prejudice and illusions instead of knowledge.

    Undoubtedly, but irrelevant.
    (Glances up at thread title)
    Mww
    There would be little point staring at the thread title all day long, if one cannot extend Kant's works into the present time of consciousness and reality.

    Compared to what….2023? Wonder what the views will be in 2123. Oh so easy to look backwards, innit?Mww
    Past is only significant in the perspective of NOW. Future is the same. We only have NOW. We can only look at anything from NOW. If you think you can be in 1781 in reality, then you are in deep illusion. :)
  • Mww
    4.8k
    one would be very prone to fall into prejudice and illusionsCorvus

    So? Same is it ever was. That it is done is given; the possibility for guarding against it is what the Critque offers.

    Take it or leave it, but first, understand it.
  • Corvus
    3.1k
    Take it or leave it, but first, understand it.Mww

    There must be more than just one way to interpret Kant, because it is now 2023, not 1781. Tendency of denying the objectivity on the obvious points can induce the debilitating melancholy and misunderstanding. :nerd:
  • Mww
    4.8k
    There must be more than just one way to interpret Kant…..Corvus

    Of course. There should be as many interpretations as there are folks that bother with it. What he wanted the interpretation to be, should be singular, no matter how many folks bother. Which was the whole point of grounding the theory in logic, insofar as if these premises are the case, then that conclusion follows necessarily. One can, then, grant the conclusions given those premises on the one hand, yet refute the logic by denying those premises ever were the case on the other. In which case, Kant hasn’t been refuted, he’s been replaced.
  • RussellA
    1.8k
    I don't subscribe to the most of Wiki info.Corvus

    As with most sources, whether Fox or CNN, whether the BBC or Talk TV, one has to make a personal judgement as to whether the source makes a logical and reasoned case.
    ===============================================================================
    From the traditional logic perspective, they insist that contents is not dealt by logic. Fair enough on that. But from all the other logic, content itself is important part of logic. If you read Bolzano's Theory of Science, you would agree.Corvus

    What is a Transcendental argument

    From the Wikipedia article on Transcendental arguments, which presumably uses transcendental logic, Kant used transcendental arguments to show that sensory experiences would not be possible if we did not impose their spatial and temporal forms on them

    In the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) Kant developed one of philosophy's most famous transcendental arguments in 'The Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding'.[8] In the 'Transcendental Aesthetic', Kant used transcendental arguments to show that sensory experiences would not be possible if we did not impose their spatial and temporal forms on them, making space and time "conditions of the possibility of experience".

    An example of a Transcendental argument is used by Kant in his refutation of idealism. Idealists believe that things have no existence independently of the mind. His Transcendental argument does not prove that things exist independently of the mind, only that the concept that things exist independently of the mind is legitimate.

    Kant argues that:
    1) since idealists acknowledge that we have an inner mental life, and
    2) an inner life of self-awareness is bound up with the concepts of objects which are not inner, and which interact causally,
    3) then we must have legitimate experience of outer objects which interact causally.

    I can make a similar Transcendental argument:
    1) A postbox emits a light having a wavelength of 700nm, and because I have the innate ability to perceive the colour red when looking at a wavelength of 700nm, I perceive the colour red.
    2) I perceive the postbox as red not because the postbox is red but because I perceive the postbox as red.

    My argument doesn't prove that the postbox is not red, but only the possibility that the postbox is not of necessity red.

    Is "bachelors are unmarried" an analytical statement

    As regards the statement "bachelors are unmarried men", when thinking about what the words refer to, as both "bachelor" and "unmarried men" refer to the same thing, the statement is analytic. However, when thinking about the sense of the words, as the sense of "bachelor" is different to the sense of "unmarried men", they don't refer to the same thing, and so is not an analytic statement.

    IE, the content or sense of the words must be taken into account , not just their form or reference.
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