Well, a question here is what it means to be "independent from observers." In a certain sense, everything we think of is, in at least some sense, not independent of observers. We have thought of it, therefore it is not independent of our thought. It is in this very broad sense that Parmenides contends that "the same is for thinking as for being." — Count Timothy von Icarus

‘There are no mind-independent objects!’

‘Sure there are.’

‘Well, name one.’

:chin:

I would say the weight of virtually all empirical evidence is that an apple being an apple doesn't depend on us specifically for its existence. When we leave a room, the apples don't vanish. We can tell they continue to exist because they are subject to corruption. being eaten by mice, etc. while we are gone. — Count Timothy von Icarus

One might imagine the object going in and out of existence, depending on whether it is observed or not, but that itself is a mental act. So there’s no need to account for the existence (or non-existence) of non-perceived objects. To attempt to do so is to engage in what Buddhist philosophy categorises as a dogmatic view. It is safe for all practical purposes to assume the persistence of objects of perception but they shouldn’t be understood to exist in any absolute sense. They’re not real ‘from their own side’ is one of the ways it is expressed. That is quite different to the Platonist take on it but that’s enough for one post.

We can ‘see’ things through deductive inference that are not empirically knowable. There’s a sense in which even arithmetic is transcendental in that it reveals aspects of nature which sense could not otherwise discern. — Wayfarer

The problem with transcendental arithmetic.

For example, using deductive inference it is possible to prove that the sum of every two integers is always even, something that is not provable empirically.

Deductive inference requires strong axioms and logic. In the above example, one axiom is that a + b = b + a.

However the axiom has been determined prior to any deductive inference, meaning that any result of the deductive inference depends on the axioms chosen. If a different axiom had been chosen, a different result would have been deductively inferred.

A transcendental situation is where not only i) has the axiom been determined prior to the result of the deductive inference but also ii) the axiom has been determined by the result of the deductive inference.

How would this be logically possible?

Although I introduced arithmetic, my point wasn't about "transcendental functions" in the technical mathematical sense but rather about the type of knowledge that goes beyond what’s immediately available to the senses. Arithmetic and mathematical reasoning exemplify this because they allow us to grasp necessary truths that, although not sensory, still inform our understanding of the world — similar to Kant’s idea of the synthetic a priori.

I'm simply drawing an analogy to show how there are forms of knowledge, like mathematical deduction, that function beyond sensory input and can help us conceive of Kant’s transcendental structures. Modern mathematical physics is full of examples where mathematical reasoning anticipates empirical confirmation, from the countless 'Einstein proved right, again!' headlines to Paul Dirac's prediction of anti-matter, which, as he famously said, 'fell out of the equations.'

Well, a question here is what it means to be "independent from observers. — Count Timothy von Icarus

How can an observer observe something that cannot be observed

As an Indirect Realist, I directly know my sensory experiences of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.

I have an instinctive belief that these sensory experiences have been caused by something rather than being self-generating.

I reason that some causes are this side of my sensory experiences, such as dreams and hallucinations, and some causes are the other side of my sensory experiences, which can be called the mind-independent world.

My belief is in Enactivism, in that life has evolved for about 3 billion years through a dynamic interaction between an organism and its environment.

One can sensibly reason that certain knowledge essential for survival in this environment, such as a belief in causation, have become an integral part of the physical structure of the brain, meaning that my belief in causation is beyond doubt.

I don't know that there is a mind-independent world, but my belief in such a world is beyond doubt.

I know a set of consistent sensory experiences, such as green in colour, without sound, smooth in touch, sweet in taste and slightly acrid in smell and name this set of consistent sensory experiences "apple".

"Apple" is not the name of something in a mind-independent world, but rather the name of a consistent set of sensory experiences.

In answer to the question, how can an observer observe something that cannot be observed, the answer is that they cannot

However, an observer can observe their own sensory experiences, which they can reason have been caused by an unknown something the other side of these senses, which can be called a "mind-independent world".

In other words, the "mind-independent word" is not the name of an unknown thing, but rather is the name for an unknown cause of known sensory experiences.
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I would say the weight of virtually all empirical evidence is that an apple being an apple doesn't depend on us specifically for its existence. When we leave a room, the apples don't vanish. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This takes me back to my previous question.

An observer can see that atom A (metaphorically speaking) has a direct relationship with apple X, and atom B has a direct relationship with apple Y.

But when the observer leaves the room, what is the explanation that the atoms have maintained these particular relationships?

Arithmetic and mathematical reasoning exemplify this because they allow us to grasp necessary truths that, although not sensory, still inform our understanding of the world — Wayfarer

Is 1 + 1 = 2 a necessary truth by definition or because in the world 1 + 1 = 2?

If I invent a mathematics and define 1 + 1 = 3, then within my mathematics 1 + 1 = 3 is a necessary truth.

If in the world 1 + 1 = 2, then in mathematics 1 + 1 = 2 would be a necessary truth. However, this depends on justifying that numbers exist in the world.

If numbers did exist in the world, then this would require a relation between 1 and 1. But what has not been shown is the ontological existence of relations in the world.

The ontological existence of relations in the world introduces a number of practical problems, suggesting that numbers don't exist in the world.
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I'm simply drawing an analogy to show how there are forms of knowledge, like mathematical deduction, that function beyond sensory input and can help us conceive of Kant’s transcendental structures. Modern mathematical physics is full of examples where mathematical reasoning anticipates empirical confirmation — Wayfarer

Deduction is important in being able to make decisions. For example, i) every day the sun rises in the east, ii) tomorrow will be a day, iii) therefore, tomorrow the sun will rise in the east. Reasoning can anticipate empirical confirmation.

However, deduction cannot change a belief that "every day the rises rises in the east" into knowledge that "every day the sun rises in the east".

In other words, belief cannot transcend into knowledge by reason alone.

Kant's synthetic a priori is the principle that we can discover a priori necessity from a posteriori contingency

Even Kant never justified this, perhaps because it can never be justified.

They’re not real ‘from their own side’ is one of the ways it is expressed. That is quite different to the Platonist take on it but that’s enough for one post.

Well, the bolded might work in a (Neo)-Platonist, Aristotelian, Thomistic, etc. context, depending on how we define "real from their own side." The apple is a sort of organic unity, although it is ultimately a mere part of such a unity. Its seeds have to potential to become self-organizing wholes themselves. Such unities, proper beings are "real from their own side," to varying degrees. They are involved in "staying-at-work-being-themselves," according to their eidos (form/act).

Just to think about it intuitively, we think that when we leave a room another person remains "real from their own side," even infants. And we would tend to allow this for a dog, a bird, etc. To deny these their own sort of reality seems to entail a slide towards solipsism. I would just argue that what makes dog "real as itself" is present to a lesser degree in plants as well. But I suppose the big question, which Aristotle and St. Thomas answer in the affirmative, is if the cosmos itself is such an ordered whole? Does nature have a nature?

It seems to me that a defining feature of early modern thought is to deny this. All cause is efficient cause, which can be traced back to active, extrinsic natural laws (Hegel would be a strong example arguing against this consensus). Nowadays though, it really does seem that natural philosophy is moving away from this position and back towards the idea that nature acts as it does because of what it is.

Justice . . . is concerned with what is truly himself and his own. . . . [The person who is just] binds together [his] parts . . . and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate, and harmonious. Only then does he act. (Republic 443d-e)

Our interest here (I’ll discuss the “justice” issue later) is that by “binding together his parts” and “becoming entirely one,” this person is “truly himself.” That is, as I put it in earlier chapters, a person who is governed by his rational part is real not merely as a collection of various ingredients or “parts,” but as himself. A person who acts purely out of appetite, without any examination of whether that appetite is for something that will actually be “good,” is enacting his appetite, rather than anything that can appropriately be called “himself.” Likewise for a person who acts purely out of anger, without examining whether the anger is justified by what’s genuinely good. Whereas a person who thinks about these issues before acting “becomes entirely one” and acts, therefore, in a way that expresses something that can appropriately be called “himself.”

In this way, rational self-governance brings into being an additional kind of reality, which we might describe as more fully real than what was there before, because it integrates those parts in a way that the parts themselves are not integrated. A person who acts “as one,” is more real as himself than a person who merely enacts some part or parts of himself. He is present and functioning as himself, rather than just as a collection of ingredients or inputs.

We all from time to time experience periods of distraction, absence of mind, or depression, in which we aren’t fully present as ourselves. Considering these periods from a vantage point at which we are fully present and functioning as ourselves, we can see what Plato means by saying that some non-illusory things are more real than other non-illusory things. There are times when we ourselves are more real as ourselves than we are at other times.

Indeed, we can see nature as a whole as illustrating this issue of how fully integrated and “real as itself ” a being can be. Plants are more integrated than rocks, in that they’re able to process nutrients and reproduce themselves, and thus they’re less at the mercy of their environment. So we could say that plants are more effectively focused on being themselves than rocks are, and in that sense they’re more real as themselves. Rocks may be less vulnerable than plants are, but what’s the use of invulnerability if what’s invulnerable isn’t you?

Animals, in turn, are more integrated than plants are, in that animals’ senses allow them to learn about their environment and navigate through it in ways that plants can’t. So animals are still more effectively focused on being themselves than plants are, and thus more real as themselves.

Humans, in turn, can be more effectively focused on being themselves than many animals are, insofar as humans can determine for themselves what’s good, rather than having this be determined for them by their genetic heritage and their environment. Nutrition and reproduction, motility and sensation, and a thinking pursuit of the Good each bring into being a more intensive reality as oneself than is present without them.


Philosophical Mysticism in Plato, Hegel, and the Present - Robert M. Wallace

My belief is in Enactivism, in that life has evolved for about 3 billion years through a dynamic interaction between an organism and its environment.

Well, enactivism is generally presented as a counter to indirect realism and representationalism. It is meant to dissolve the difficulty you are describing. Sokolowski recommends dispensing with "mental image" talk and instead using the concept of a lens we "see through." Essentially, experience is how we know not what we know.

In other words, the "mind-independent word" is not the name of an unknown thing, but rather is the name for an unknown cause of known sensory experiences.

Is it "unknown?" It seems to me that a lot is known about this, e.g. how light produces sight. It seems to me that the way we get into trouble here is by positing knowledge of things "in-themselves" as the gold standard of knowledge, while at the same time denigrating any relational properties that actually involve us. I just don't see a strong case for doing this (see below).

I suppose another related issue lies in correspondence theories of truth. One can never "step outside experience," in order to confirm that one's experiences "map" to reality. But this to me simply seems to suggest something defective in the correspondence theory of truth. It has some significant metaphysical baggage if it has to claim the "truth" is correspondence to unintelligible noumena drained of all whatness or content.

On page 233 Sokolowski writes about the "categorial, syntactic activity, along with the intellection that accompanies it," that comes with our "neural lens." It seems to me like this facet of "the internal structure of our sensibility" is useful for elucidating how we can have intelligibilities and essences "present to us."

One of the claims that is often made by the representationalist position that Sokolowski critiques is that many of the properties of objects that we are aware of do not exist "in-themselves," and are thus less than fully real. For example: "nothing looks blue 'of-itself, things only look blue to a subject who sees." If the property of "being blue," or of "being recognizably a door" does not exist mind-independently, they argue, such properties must in some way be "constructed by the mind," and thus are less real.

What I'd like to point out is that this sort of relationality seems to be true for all properties. For example, we would tend to say that "being water soluble" is a property of table salt. However, table salt only ever dissolves in water when it is placed in water (in the same way that lemon peels only "taste bitter" when in someone's mouth). The property has to be described as a relation, a two-placed predicate, something like - dissolves(water, salt).

I think there is a good argument to be made that all properties are relational in this way, at least all the properties that we can ever know about. For how could we ever learn about a property that doesn't involve interaction?

So, "appearing blue" is a certain sort of relationship that involves an object, a person, and the environment. However, this in no way makes it a sort of "less real" relation. Salt's dissolving in water involves the same sort of relationality. The environment is always involved too. If it is cold enough, salt will not dissolve in water because water forms its own crystal at cold enough temperatures. Likewise, no physical process results in anything "looking blue" in a dark room, or in a room filled with an anesthetic that would render any observer unconscious.

Intelligibilities require syntax. They result from bringing many relations together in such a way that they can be "present" at once. They are a very special sort of relationship. This isn't just because they involve phenomenal awareness. "Looking blue" or "tasting bitter" is a relationship between some object and an observer, but these do not "actualize" an intelligibility. What an intelligibility does is it allows many of an object's relational properties to be present together, often in ways that are not possible otherwise.

For example, salt can dissolve in water. It can also do many other things as it interacts with other chemicals/environments. However, it cannot do all of these at once. Only within the lens of the rational agent are all these properties brought together. E.g., water can boil and it can freeze, but it can't do both simultaneously. Yet in the mind of the chemist, water's properties in myriad contexts can be brought together.

In a certain way then, things are most what they are when their intelligibility is grasped by a rational agent. For, over any given interval, a thing will only tend to manifest a small number of its properties — properties which make the thing "what it is." E.g., a given salt crystal over a given interval only interacts with one environment; all of its relational properties are not actualized. Yet in the mind of the rational agent who knows a thing well, a vast number of relational properties are brought together. If a thing "is what it does," then it is in the knowing mind that "what it does" is most fully actualized. And this is accomplished through syntax, which allows disparate relations to be combined, divided, and concatenated across time and space.

So, rather than the relationship between knower and known being a sort of "less real" relationship, I would argue it is the most real relationship because it is a relationship where all of a things disparate properties given different environments can be brough together.

Well, enactivism is generally presented as a counter to indirect realism and representationalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Enactivism is no counter to Indirect Realism
It would seem that the physical structure of the brain is a consequence of around 3 billion years of evolution, shaped by a dynamic interaction between life and its environment (Enactivism)

Such a physical brain may well be born with "knowing how", such as how to feel pain, how to see the colour red, but not "knowing that", such as the sky is blue, snow is cold. See Gilbert Ryle and his book The Concept of Mind (Innatism)

Even accepting Enactivism and Innatism, it remains true that during its life, this physical brain can only gain new information about any outside world through its five senses, through its sensory experiences (I have seen no evidence for telepathy).

The problem remains, sensory experiences remain representations of what exists the other side of he senses.
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It seems to me that the way we get into trouble here is by positing knowledge of things "in-themselves" as the gold standard of knowledge — Count Timothy von Icarus

As an Indirect Realist, I agree.

When driving through a city, all I need to know is whether the traffic light is red or green. That the thing-in-itself is emitting a wavelength of 700nm or 500nm is of little immediate import.
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I suppose another related issue lies in correspondence theories of truth. One can never "step outside experience," in order to confirm that one's experiences "map" to reality. But this to me simply seems to suggest something defective in the correspondence theory of truth. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The Correspondence Theory of Truth is a problem for the Indirect Realist, but not for the Direct Realist, who believes that things in the world are perceived immediately or directly rather than inferred on the basis of perceptual evidence.
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One of the claims that is often made by the representationalist position that Sokolowski critiques is that many of the properties of objects that we are aware of do not exist "in-themselves," and are thus less than fully real

I, as an Indirect Realist, don't see it that way.

Indirect Realism, aka Representationalism, holds the position that any world the other side of the senses is fully real. This is why it is called "Realism". However, what we perceive is only a representation of what exists in any world.

The properties we perceive are representations of the properties that exist in the world.

This doesn't mean that the properties in the world as less real, because if they were, we wouldn't have had any perceptions in the first place.

The mind perceives fully real properties, believed to have been caused by fully real properties in the world, which may or may not be the same as what we perceive.

Kant's synthetic a priori is the principle that we can discover a priori necessity from a posteriori contingency — RussellA

Where in the pertinent text might I find support for such an assertion?

Is 1 + 1 = 2 a necessary truth by definition or because in the world 1 + 1 = 2?

If I invent a mathematics and define 1 + 1 = 3, then within my mathematics 1 + 1 = 3 is a necessary truth.

If in the world 1 + 1 = 2, then in mathematics 1 + 1 = 2 would be a necessary truth. However, this depends on justifying that numbers exist in the world.

If numbers did exist in the world, then this would require a relation between 1 and 1. But what has not been shown is the ontological existence of relations in the world.

The ontological existence of relations in the world introduces a number of practical problems, suggesting that numbers don't exist in the world. — RussellA

Mathematics doesn’t require numbers to exist as physical objects; rather, it functions as an abstract framework that helps us describe and understand relations and patterns in the physical world. When we say '1 + 1 = 2' in a physical context, we’re using numbers to represent observed regularities and quantities. Whatever mathematical system we invent must, by necessity, align with these constraints to be applicable. So you don't get to define necessary truths in any way you like!

The fact that mathematical reasoning often anticipates empirical phenomena (such as Dirac’s prediction of anti-matter) suggests a deep correspondence between mathematical structures and causal relations in the world. This doesn’t imply that numbers 'exist' in the same way as physical objects; instead, it indicates that mathematics captures and models crucial aspects of physical causation. Numbers, therefore, need not exist in the world to guide explanations of physical forces, provided they symbollically represent the appropriate values.

It's this relationship between mathematical logic (DME) and contingent causation that is central to the argument. You can't get around it by declaring that mathematics is purely arbitrary, because it ain't.

I think the 'practical problem' you're referring to, is how numbers can be real if they don't exist in a physical sense. Because that poses a problem for physicalism, doesn't it?

Well, the bolded might work in a (Neo)-Platonist, Aristotelian, Thomistic, etc. context, depending on how we define "real from their own side." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I was responding to the specific question of perceived object permanence, but perhaps ought not to have mentioned Buddhist philosophy in the context. However, it's not incongruent with the point made in the Sokolowski passage, about dependency on subject-object relations.

It's this relationship between mathematical logic (DME) and contingent causation that is central to the argument. — Wayfarer

As an Indirect Realist, I agree with much of what you say.

I perceive the colour red even though I believe that the colour red doesn't exist in the world. I perceive pain even though I believe that pain doesn't exist in the world. I perceive numbers even though I believe that numbers don't exist in the world.

@Wayfarer: Mathematics doesn’t require numbers to exist as physical objects.
Numbers, therefore, need not exist in the world to guide explanations of physical forces, provided they symbolically represent the appropriate values.
I think the 'practical problem' you're referring to, is how numbers can be real if they don't exist in a physical sense.

However, even though I believe that the colour red, pain and numbers don't exist in the world, I believe there is something real in the world that has caused my perception of the colour red, pain and numbers, even though I will probably never know what it is.

@Wayfarer: The fact that mathematical reasoning often anticipates empirical phenomena (such as Dirac’s prediction of anti-matter) suggests a deep correspondence between mathematical structures and causal relations in the world.

As I know that my perceptions are real, I believe that the cause of my perceptions are also real, even if I will never know what these causes are.

@Wayfarer: Whatever mathematical system we invent must, by necessity, align with these constraints to be applicable.

The fact that we invent maths does not mean that it is arbitrary, in that it is only useful to us if it corresponds with what we observe.

@Wayfarer: You can't get around it by declaring that mathematics is purely arbitrary, because it ain't.

What does "Contingent causal law" mean?

@J: whether “the facts under question arise from a degree of mathematical necessity considered stronger than that of contingent causal laws.”

There is a difference between the words "contingent" and "nomic".
A "contingent law" would be: "take your shoes off when entering a house in Japan"
A "nomic law" would be: "All bodies attract each other with a force inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them"
Isn't "contingent causal law" a contradiction in terms?

Mathematical logic and contingent causation

I invent Maths A whereby 1+1=3 and subsequently discover that it doesn't correspond with what I observe, so I discard it.
Within the mathematical logic of Maths A, 1=1 is necessarily 3, but doesn't agree with contingent observations.

I then invent Maths B whereby 1+1=2 and subsequently discover that it does correspond with what I observe, so I keep it.
Within the mathematical logic of Maths B, 1=1 is necessarily 2, and does agree with contingent observations.

Even if Maths B does agree with contingent observations, it doesn't logically follow that Maths B is necessarily true, because there is no guarantee that a particular observation will be discovered that it doesn't agree with.

Well the following:

Indirect Realism, aka Representationalism, holds the position that any world the other side of the senses is fully real. This is why it is called "Realism". However, what we perceive is only a representation of what exists in any world.

The properties we perceive are representations of the properties that exist in the world.

This doesn't mean that the properties in the world as less real, because if they were, we wouldn't have had any perceptions in the first place.

The mind perceives fully real properties, believed to have been caused by fully real properties in the world, which may or may not be the same as what we perceive.

Seems at odds with:

I perceive the colour red even though I believe that the colour red doesn't exist in the world. I perceive pain even though I believe that pain doesn't exist in the world. I perceive numbers even though I believe that numbers don't exist in the world.

If all the contents of experience cannot be said to "exist in the world" in virtue of "only existing in the mind," I don't see how that isn't denigrating the relationships that exist between things and thinking beings as in a way "less than fully real." As you say, the relationships are allegedly "unknowable," which seems to make the ethereal and unintelligible in themselves.

But this also gets us to Hegel's critique of Kant, that he begins by dogmatically assuming that perceptions are of objects. Is such a default assumption warranted given Kant's critical project? "Nothing can be known of X but X absolutely must be explaining Y." Why? If we're allowing the world to be unintelligible and unknowable why not simply allow that Y (the mind) generates itself as a brute fact? Ockham's Razor can shave off an entity.

If all the contents of experience cannot be said to "exist in the world" in virtue of "only existing in the mind," I don't see how that isn't denigrating the relationships that exist between things and thinking beings as in a way "less than fully real." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I know that I perceive the colour red and feel pain.

I believe that neither the colour red nor pain exist in the world.

I believe that sometimes my perceptions of red and pain have been caused by something this side of my senses, such as dreams and headaches, and sometimes have been caused by something the other side of my senses, such as the wavelength of 700nm or a thistle.

As I don't believe that pain exists in the thistle, I don't believe that the colour red exists in the wavelength of 700nm.

I believe that the cause of my perceptions is as real as the perceptions themselves, though not necessarily the same, in that the perception of pain is not the same thing as its cause, a thistle.

Do you believe that the colour red and pain exist in a world outside a mind?
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If we're allowing the world to be unintelligible and unknowable why not simply allow that Y (the mind) generates itself as a brute fact? — Count Timothy von Icarus

If that were the case, that there is no world the other side of my senses, and my mind has generated itself, then that means I wrote "War and Peace", composed Symphony No. 9 from "The New World" and developed the special and general theories of relativity.

Of the two hypotheses, that someone else wrote "War and Peace" or I wrote it, the simplest explanation is that someone else wrote it.

Do you think that Idealism is a simpler solution than Realism?

I guess another way to put it is that in many versions of representationalism the inability to tell if thought ever really corresponds to being is axiomatic. There is no resolving it. Once one steps into the box of ideas one is stuck in it.

There are indeed "scientific realist" versions of representationalism, but the ones I have encountered always leave this pocket of radical skepticism and paper over it on "pragmatic grounds."

The responses to representationalism by contrast seek to change the axioms. So, Plotinus rejects truth as the adequacy of thought to being on the grounds that one cannot conceivably "step outside thought" to *experience* being without experience. For him, thinking and being have to be two sides of the same coin, to suggest otherwise is incoherent since "being" must mean "that which is given to thought." I'd take the modern phenomenological position to largely follow Plotinus here, which is unsurprising since modern phenomenology was retrieved from Scholastic thinkers steeped in the Neoplatonic and Peripatetic synthesis.

Enactivism, by contrast, is focused on dissolving the strong subject-object dualism that is presupposed by the division of thought from being.

Radical empiricism and logical positivism "fix" the problem by refusing to discuss metaphysics and branding it meaningless. Pragmatists just accept the problem. And then you have theories that try to resolve it through various appeals to language and the linguistic turn (although arguably many of these re-create the same skeptical problem via the adequacy of language to the world).

And I suppose another option for the scientific realist crowd would be the Aristotlean option of claiming that causes are knowable through their effects and always intelligible. I might throw semiotic realism (in the tradition of St. Augustine, the Scholastics, CSP, and Deely) in this bucket, or at least it is similar.

But one might conceivably blend the phenomenological, enactivist, and semiotic responses, which would be my preferred approach. Thomism is interesting in that it already fits this bill, although it needs significant modernization. In particular, the central place of religion and particularly revealed religion seems sure to scare away many contemporary minds. This is why I think folks like Sokolowski are doing the community such a service by updating and translating.

J: whether “the facts under question arise from a degree of mathematical necessity considered stronger than that of contingent causal laws.”

Isn't "contingent causal law" a contradiction in terms? — RussellA

The term does invite confusion as it stands. If you read the paper, you see that what Jha et al. mean by "contingent causal laws" is no different from your "nomic laws." They're called contingent to distinguish them from mathematical necessity, which the authors believe is modally stronger. They're also contingent in the sense that we can easily imagine a physical world with different constants, different explanatory equations, etc. In this world, to be sure, they are nomic.

Enactivism, by contrast, is focused on dissolving the strong subject-object dualism that is presupposed by the division of thought from being. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree that life evolved through a dynamic interaction between itself and its environment over billions of years, such that life is an intrinsic part of of its whole environment.

There is thought and being.

The question is, how is it logically possible to overcome the dualism between thought and being when life only knows about being through thought?

The term does invite confusion as it stands. — J

:up:

Where in the pertinent text might I find support for such an assertion? — Mww

Synthetic a priori knowledge is central to the thought of Immanuel Kant, who argued that some such a priori concepts are presupposed by the very possibility of experience (Britannica - synthetic a priori proposition)

In CPR A2, Kant starts by explaining transcendental philosophy. He separates a priori cognitions, universal, independent of experience and having an inner necessity from a posteriori cognitions, dependent upon empirical experience.

Therefore, there is a priori necessity and a posteriori contingency.

However Kant is not an Innatist, in that a priori necessity is not something we are born with. He uses a transcendental argument that although cognition of inner necessity is prior to a posteriori empirical cognition, such a prior cognition has in fact been determined by a posteriori cognition.

Kant gives an example of a transcendental argument in CPR B276 in his Refutation of Idealism. For example, my consciousness of my existence in time depends on perceiving an actual thing outside me, which depends on my consciousness of my existence in time.

For Kant, a prior necessity can be transcendently deduced from a posteriori contingency.

If that’s what you get out of it, so be it. More power to ya.

Thanks anyway.

even though I believe that the colour red, pain and numbers don't exist in the world, I believe there is something real in the world that has caused my perception of the colour red, pain and numbers, even though I will probably never know what it is....As I know that my perceptions are real, I believe that the cause of my perceptions are also real, even if I will never know what these causes are. — RussellA

Rather a poignant expression of the plight of modernity. That is not a personal criticism - I think you're wrestling with a real conundrum inherent in modern culture and philosophy.

Kant is not an Innatist, in that a priori necessity is not something we are born with. He uses a transcendental argument that although cognition of inner necessity is prior to a posteriori empirical cognition, such a prior cognition has in fact been determined by a posteriori cognition. — RussellA

Kant maintains that the structures of cognition, like time and space, are necessary preconditions that shape any experience we might have; and that they are not derived from or contingent upon empirical experiences. The a priori nature of space and time is fundamental to Kant’s project, establishing these as the conditions that make empirical knowledge possible in the first place. In other words, while our temporal self-awareness needs external spatial reference (per the Refutation of Idealism), this does not imply that the a priori conditions (like the structure of time) are determined by empirical experience. Rather, the transcendental argument shows that experience as we know it requires these a priori forms.

Enactivism, by contrast, is focused on dissolving the strong subject-object dualism that is presupposed by the division of thought from being. — Count Timothy von Icarus

One of the foundational texts of enactivism, The Embodied Mind, has a chapter titled the ‘Cartesian anxiety’:

Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

(Coined in Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, 1983)

This anxiety underlies many a debate.

They're (physical laws are) called contingent to distinguish them from mathematical necessity, which the authors believe is modally stronger. They're also contingent in the sense that we can easily imagine a physical world with different constants, different explanatory equations, etc. In this world, to be sure, they are nomic. — J

Ah, but can you? One might imagine a world where physical laws are different, but that is no basis to believe that physical laws are, in fact, contingent. Just because one can imagine a Universe where different laws obtain is no reason to believe that there might be such a thing. You may recall Martin Rees ‘Just Six Numbers’, showing that a small number of physical ratios are fundamental to the existence of a physical universe. A few percentage points different either way, and there would be no complex matter and presumably no living beings. This reasoning underwrites the venerable philosophical intuition of mathematical facts as ‘true in all possible worlds’. And it provides a plausible nexus between mathematical logic and physical causation, wherein the entailments of these constants manifest as constraints or natural law. Which is just the kind of transcendental argument that the paper in the OP is seeking to counter.

Ah, but can you? — Wayfarer

Good response. Maybe we need three categories: 1. genuinely contingent physical phenomena; 2. phenomena which we can imagine were otherwise but in fact could not be; 3. phenomena like mathematically necessary statements, which we can't even imagine to be otherwise.

I see three distinct grades of necessity in those three categories. 2 and 3 may both produce outcomes that are, in practice, non-contingent, but our ability to imagine 2 otherwise, but not 3, has to make a difference, modally. Rough guess -- 2 is about necessity of Being, 3 concerns necessity of Thought. The capitalizations are meant to indicate that these are placeholder terms, having something to do with the synthetic/analytic division.

phenomena like mathematically necessary statements, which we can't even imagine to be otherwise. — J

I question whether mathematical axioms count as 'phenomena', which is 'what appears'. In classical philosophy mathematics belonged to the 'formal realm' rather than the phenomenal domain - although it is of course true that this is something that the authors of the article in question would not recognise. I think the classical picture was, very briefly, that the mathematical principles that science discovers and exploits are woven into the fabric of the cosmos, so to speak, but I think you could say that the general trend of 20th century philosophy has been against that.

As for the synthetic-analytic division, this brings to mind Quine’s critique where he argued that even mathematical axioms aren’t purely necessary but depend on the broader network of empirical and theoretical commitments. From this view, what we consider necessary mathematical truths might not be fundamentally woven into the cosmos but rather reflect our conceptual framework’s contingencies. This is a departure from the classical view, which saw mathematics as part of a formal realm—universally necessary and distinct from contingent phenomena. It could be said that one of the tendencies in analytic philosophy is to declare that everything, in fact, is contingent, thereby undermining the whole idea of there being necessary truths at all.

And therein lies a chasm!

By way of footnote, I feel there's an issue with the way 'thought' is used in these contexts. It's a term with many meanings, but to me it conveys a very casual sense of undirected mental activity. Our minds are full of thoughts - or anyway mine is - often hard to direct and mercurial as quicksilver. I feel when the ancient worthies speak of ‘thought’, this is NOT what they had in mind. Thought can be more or less concentrated, and I think that on a day-to-day basis ordinary thought is not at all concentrated. Whereas when the subject is ‘thinking-being’, I feel the kind of thought that is being referred to, is nothing like those vagaries of thought that tend to occupy one’s mind. Much more concentrated and indeed formal. Something to bear in mind.

Makes you wonder, donnit……~3b neuroconnections/mm3 in the human brain, yet we can only have one thought at a time….what are they all doing? Or, how come it takes so many? Or, how in the HELL do they all work together in order to get anything done at all?

No matter how ya look at it, it’s fascinating. Still, I can see where the pure empiricist would rather wait for the science that answers all those questions, then hold with a metaphysic that doesn’t even try.
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I question whether mathematical axioms count as 'phenomena', which is 'what appears'. — Wayfarer

Therewith has been set the stage for both a proper dualism on the one hand, and a certain idealism connected to it on the other.

I question whether mathematical axioms count as 'phenomena', which is 'what appears' — Wayfarer

I tried to pick the most neutral word possible. Is there a better term for the denizens (another neutral word!) of the "formal realm"? Happy to use it instead.

Quine’s critique where he argued that even mathematical axioms aren’t purely necessary but depend on the broader network of empirical and theoretical commitments. — Wayfarer

Is there a particular reference you have in mind? Quine's position wavered over the years.

I think you're wrestling with a real conundrum inherent in modern culture and philosophy. — Wayfarer

When driving in a city and see a red traffic light, I know what to do, which is to stop the car.

Do I need to know more than what I have directly perceived, a red traffic light, or do I need to worry whether a prior cause was a wavelength of 700nm?
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Kant maintains that the structures of cognition, like time and space, are necessary preconditions that shape any experience we might have; and that they are not derived from or contingent upon empirical experiences. — Wayfarer

The relevance of Kant
The OP asks "Can thought explain being?..................What we really want is an explanatory structure that preserves both of the seemingly ineluctable realities – of logic and of being."

Kant's synthetic a priori in the CPR seems appropriate to the OP, where the synthetic is about knowing the being of a world outside the mind and the a priori is about thought and logic inside the mind.

The relationship between a priori logical necessity and a posteriori empirical experience
Kant in CPR A2 discusses the transcendental nature of the relationship between a priori inner necessity and empirical experience.

Kant in the CPR proposes that we have a priori pure intuitions of space and time and a priori pure concepts of the Categories.

As you say: "The a priori nature of space and time is fundamental to Kant’s project, establishing these as the conditions that make empirical knowledge possible in the first place."

One question is, how does Kant explain the origin of these a priori pure intuitions and a priori pure concepts?

There are three possibilities. Either i) we are born with them, or ii) from self-causation or iii) from empirical observation.

As regards i), we know that from birth babies have an awareness of the pure intuitions of space and time and the pure concepts of the Categories, yet Kant was critical of the Rationalist version of Innateness (SEP - The Historical Controversies Surrounding Innateness).

As regards ii), as Causation is a Category, causal explanations rather than non-causal explanations are part of the CPR.

As regards iii) there are two reasons to support this.

First, Kant was aware of Newton and necessary mathematical laws derived from empirical observation. As you say "Modern mathematical physics is full of examples where mathematical reasoning anticipates empirical confirmation, from the countless 'Einstein proved right, again!' headlines to Paul Dirac's prediction of anti-matter, which, as he famously said, 'fell out of the equations.'"

Second, from the text of B276, the Refutation of Idealism, where Kant writes:
i) I am conscious of my existence as determined in time.
ii) Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is possible only by means of the existence of actual things that I perceive outside myself.
IE, the a priori "I am conscious of my existence as determined in time" is a consequence of the a posteriori "existence of actual things that I perceive outside myself.", and is a transcendental argument.

For the above reasons, it seems to me that the CPR only makes sense if a priori necessity has transcendentally derived from a posteriori contingency.

Common solutions: we introduce other toys so that everyone gets something (not an option in our example); no one gets it (not allowed in our example); they each get the whole thing because they will play with it together (not helpful for consumables, as in our example, which is why we split them); we divvy up not the toy but the time playing with it, take turns, and we can even measure the duration of those and make them equal-ish. — Srap Tasmaner

And are those constraints, empowerments, or both?

….how does Kant explain the origin of these a priori pure intuitions and a priori pure concepts? — RussellA

By transcendental exposition for the former, by transcendental deduction in the latter. Insofar as pure intuition relates to the form of objects of sense in general a priori, and pure conceptions relate to the form of objects of thought in general a priori with respect to time, he doesn’t need to explain by what facts their employment is justified, but merely by what right they have for it. That appearances are the necessary antecedent occasions for their employment, it does not follow they are derived from them, and in accordance with the theory, they are indeed, not, nor can they be.
—————-

it seems to me that the CPR only makes sense if a priori necessity has transcendentally derived from a posteriori contingency. — RussellA

It would seem to me that CPR would only make sense if the conceptions represented by the words in the title are taken together, and understood under the conditions presented by the author. In the case of investigations of pure reason grounded in transcendental conditions alone, the concern is only for the legitimacy of its objects according to principles, as opposed to the de facto mode of origin regarding empirical representations in understanding according to rules.

I know that I perceive the colour red and feel pain.

I believe that neither the colour red nor pain exist in the world.

This is exactly what is meant by "axiomatic dualism." Color and pain are "in the mind," thus they are not "in the world." I'd rather say the relationship between some red object and someone seeing that object as red is essentially of the same sort that exists between two meteors colliding in interstellar space.

I believe that sometimes my perceptions of red and pain have been caused by something this side of my senses, such as dreams and headaches, and sometimes have been caused by something the other side of my senses, such as the wavelength of 700nm or a thistle.

There is that hard dividing line again. Yet causation, information, energy, etc. seem to flow across the boundaries of animal bodies as if there was no boundary at all, so I see no reason to presuppose such a dividing line.

As I don't believe that pain exists in the thistle, I don't believe that the colour red exists in the wavelength of 700nm.

Well, presumably the number 700 doesn't exist outside minds either, right? Or discrete entities?

To quote an old paper of mine:

"Modern science paints a strange picture of the world. Our world is one of tremendous diversity. It includes many types of star and galaxy, a vast number of species, each with their own complex biology, a “zoo” of fundamental particles, etc. At the same time, it paints a picture of a word that is unified. There are no truly isolated systems. Causation, energy, and information flow across the boundaries of all seemingly discrete “things,” such that the universe appears to be not so much a “collection of things,” but rather a single continuous process. How do we reconcile this seeming multiplicity (the Many) with the equally apparent unity of being (the One)? How can we make true statements about the world given this problem?


Perhaps we might claim that the discrete things that populate our experience are in some way illusory, products “constructed by” our minds. “Out there,” in the world as it is “in-itself,” there is only endless frenetic change within universal quantum fields. Perhaps we cannot even say this much, since any conception of the world “out there” is inherently tainted by these
“mental constructs.”

Yet, it does not seem possible to eliminate all multiplicity. One of the most obvious facets of our world is that it is populated by minds, discrete phenomenological horizons, agents who experience the world and make choices. Once we acknowledge this initial multiplicity, we must also acknowledge the multiplicity that exists within phenomenal experience. Where does it come from? If it does not truly exist “out there,” why are we surrounded by it “in here?” Can we refer to things outside of our phenomenological horizon, or do our words only refer to our own ideas? Do our experiences give us knowledge of the world?
"

My main position is that "for no reason at all," is a poor answer to these questions.

Do you believe that the colour red and pain exist in a world outside a mind?

Well no, I don't think "nothing in particular," feels pain or sees red.

The question is, how is it logically possible to overcome the dualism between thought and being when life only knows about being through thought?

Well, again, this question assumes thought set over and against being. But thought is obviously something with being. Indeed, if we mean anything by being it seems to have to mean that which is thought, not "that of which it impossible to think."

As to "who wrote War and Peace," I don't think solipsism is good philosophy. However, I do think it's a difficulty when it becomes hard to avoid solipsism in a non-arbitrary or merely pragmatic manner.

My take would be that we experience the things we do for reasons, due to causes, etc. and such reasons do not bottom out in the inaccessible and unintelligible as soon as we leave the confines of our own discrete phenomenological horizon. Hence, I think Leo Tolstoy, another man with his own mind wrote War and Peace.

And I feel like there is a strong case for this. We might ask "why is experience this way instead of any other way at all?" Now, if mind is uncaused, springing forth from some shadow world beyond all reasons and causes, I can't think of any answer to this question. What occurs "for no reason at all," might be "any way at all." Yet I don't ever open my door into the void of space, or watch my son transform into a squid when I set him down in bed, or teleport to Paris upon biting into a cracker, etc. Of the very many ways experience could conceivably be, it only seems to actually be according to a rational pattern.

I question whether mathematical axioms count as 'phenomena', which is 'what appears'
— Wayfarer

I tried to pick the most neutral word possible. Is there a better term for the denizens (another neutral word!) of the "formal realm"? Happy to use it instead. — J

I don't know if there is - 'noumena' is nowadays almost exclusively tied to Kant, specifically. It was more a reflection that the use of 'phenomena' to describe 'everything that is' (including for example the axioms of mathematics) is nowadays commonplace, but it overlooks a semantic distinction that ought to be implied in the meaning of the term, namely, that it is 'what appears'. (Is the "is" implied in the "=" symbol a phenomenal existent? In 19th C Idealism it was customary to distinguish 'reality and appearance' but that was pretty well vanquished by Moore and Russell.)

Quine’s critique where he argued that even mathematical axioms aren’t purely necessary but depend on the broader network of empirical and theoretical commitments.
— Wayfarer

Is there a particular reference you have in mind? — J

"Two Dogmas of Empiricism" (1951) where he challenges the distinction between analytic (necessarily true by definition) and synthetic (empirically contingent) statements, arguing instead that all knowledge, including mathematics and logic, is part of a "web of belief." In this web, statements derive their meaning and truth-value not in isolation but through their interconnectedness with other empirical and theoretical commitments. This interdependence implies that even mathematical truths are not purely necessary in an absolute sense but are subject to revision if the overall network of beliefs demands it.

(While I acknowledge that my understanding of Quine is limited I think this is relevant to the OP.)