:up:

I'm not a moral realist, and I don't think this is how we should do ethics at all.

Ehhh, then I submit to you that you should be amoral: don’t meddle into matters of right or wrong behavior—because you don’t think there is such a thing. I don’t know why you would even care if North Korea is committing mass genocide because you don’t believe they are doing anything wrong.

:lol:

A nation does not impose its values on other nations. The individuals in government impose their own values on individuals in another nation, whether the rest of the nation approves or not.

It sounds like you don’t believe in personifying the State; and I would just briefly note that in a representative republic you have to—the government represents, to some sufficient extent, the people. You can’t separate any member of the government, or the government in totality, from the people in proper republics.

Human flourishing is not the goal of the state. Its goal is to secure its power and advance its own interests

That’s incredibly immoral. That’s like saying that an individual should only secure their own power and advance their own interests as much as they can—what about caring about other people? What about moral law?

Imposing values on another group of people is wrong for the same reason it would be wrong for them to do it to a western nation: it isn’t up to them. They have not been afforded any right to do so.

This is so obviously wrong, though. You are saying, e.g., that an nation shouldn’t interfere with mass genocide in another nation. It’s nonsense.

Candidates don't run on aggressive foreign policy.

There’s nothing about a representative republic that prevents this; nor why would it? What do you mean by “aggressive”—that’s a very vague term here.

The American people have just elected an isolationist president who doesn't give a sweet ff about other countries.

It’s not that he doesn’t care: it’s that he cares more about America—as it should be. Why would, e.g., Spain care more about the US than itself?!?

conquest is far more expensive than aid, and many representatives oppose even the barely adequate level of aid that might prevent those bad effects you want to march in to remedy.

This can be true, but isn’t always the case. I think you are denying my OP on the grounds of practicality, when it was meant in principle.

I absolutely do. By prevention - like, not propping up and arming bad leaders; like not bombing civilians or supplying bombs to those who will; like empowering the common people; like supplying medicine and technology. Not by conquest.

Do you think there’s a certain point where the Nation would have to use conquest, as a last resort? It seems to me that it is possible that all these alternative measures you spoke of, which certainly should be deployed first could fail and conquest ends up being the final resort.

I view national conquest—i.e., imperialism—as it relates to inferior societies like violence as it relates to evil perpetrators: violence is a just last resort, just like conquest is a just last resort. Do you agree with that? Otherwise, you are saying, analogously, that violence is not a resort at all.

I'm opining that your subset is a pipedream.

I can see it being impractical most of the time, if that is what you mean.

Importing a revolution only works if people want it internally.

Historically, as far as I can tell, it usually was either internally induced or an external government exerted brutality on them to get them in line—the latter being, obviously, immoral.

If I grant your point, then that just means that it is really hard to use sheer force to subjugate a population to fundamentally different values—does that mean we should just leave them be? I don’t think so.

Most of the cases, of which I can think of, the vast majority of the people would actually want the revolution, but they do not have the means (like North Korea, Afghanistan, etc.); and in some cases most of them wouldn’t because that would not be in their own interests (like in India). Sometimes you just have to force people to do the right thing, which is what the entire prison system is based off of—no?

When nationalism is defined as identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations, then it's totally logical to oppose this idea.

The nationalism I was advocating for can sometimes be at the detriment of the interests of other nations but it is NOT necessarily so: countries behave this way all the time. The in-group matters more than the out-group---just not always.

I surely do love my country, but I won't think that my country and it's people are better than others as I've met a lot of foreigners too

Is there any disparity in values between your country and another that would make you think it is better? What if we kept slowly making your country better and better and another worse and worse—when, roughly, if at all, would you say “yeah, my country is objectively better”?

So what's wrong with patriotism then?

Nothing is wrong with it; nor certain forms of nationalism. Patriotism is a form of nationalism.

Just what do you mean by "want to expand its values to the more inferior ones"?

E.g., westernize Talibanian Afghanistan.

But don't be so cocky and full of hubris that you think you have to expand your values to others

Why is that cocky and full of hubris? We do this all the time. E.g., if my neighbor likes different food than me, then no big deal; but if they like raping women...now I am going to intervene and subject them to better morals. What you are saying, e.g., is that we shouldn’t ever intervene because it is ‘cocky’. Confidence is not the same as arrogance.

If it works well, they can copy it from their own free will

You think North Korea is willingly going to stop torturing their citizens?!? Do you think a serial killer is going to magically decide to stop raping and killing women? This is hyper-liberal nonsense.

Besides the point you are trying to make maybe, but

You are absolutely right to note, in practicality, the consequences matter.

I don't think you get to strip away everything that is salient about a concrete situation, and still have something usefull or applicable to say about how to act in that situation.

Of course you can. That’s how ethics is done. What you are arguing for is moral particularism—which doesn’t work.

The reason it matters to analyze imperialism on its own merits, is that it changes how one thinks about politics ideally. If you are absolutely anti-imperialism; then you will never try to subject another nation to one’s nation’s values out of principle—irregardless of the consequences.

China is at least acknowledging the problem and trying to do something about it.

None of this is true. China abuses the environment and does nothing about it. They are the largest annual emissions since 2006, and their total energy-related emissions is twice that of the US.

Does it really need to be an existential threat?

It doesn’t. My point is that it has to be severe enough to warrant taking a nation over. Not all cultural differences are worth fighting about—worth imperializing over.

So maybe my counter-example wasn't the best example for the point I was trying to make, that morality by itself seems like a poor reason to attack a country.

Then you have no good reasons to ever attack a country; for you are not basing it off of what is actually good, which belongs to ethics.

Like what? The UN is a charade.

Like the US and its allies did for 20 years?

The US did not do anything remotely similar to what the Taliban is doing: am shocked you are trying to make that comparison. Perhaps I am misunderstanding.

The US public isn't even willing to support Ukrainians, who are actually willing to fight for their freedom in large numbers and seem plenty competent enough to win if given decent support.

The US isn’t in a position to be funding external wars right now; that’s why US citizens are fed-up. They have a serious budgeting problem that needs to be fixed.

However, to your point, I agree that most people would rather trade the lives of innocent out-group members a bit more flourishing in their in-group.

And note: the US didn't try to push democracy on South Korea originally. It applied some pressure, but that was largely internal, as it generally has to be.

Hmmm, let me ask you this:

if the US could take over North Korea with zero casualties (across the board) without threatening a war with other countries (like China) nor a nuclear war, then should they do it?

Think of different societies as being like plants. Some are corn plants, some are palms, and some are cacti. Each evolved to survive its own set of challenges

That’s an oddly good analogy.

Governmental systems are about the survival of a society rather than about some higher good. Basically, what's healthy for a corn plant will kill a cactus.

Ughhhh, cultural relativism—yet again. Nope. There are moral facts.

It's framed in an extremely inflammatory way. It's one thing to criticize say, the Chinese or Iranian (or Indian) government; it's a whole other thing to call their society degenerate and inferior. OP completely lost me there. The phrase to use is "repressive government" not "inferior society."

The reason I used those terms, is because it is true; and your terms do not accurately portray the point.

For example, india doesn’t have just a problem of a repressive government: their society, the legacy of castes, is still enforced by everyone at a societal level. The society itself still embodies the view that the untouchables are worthless scum—you can’t mask that with “it’s a repressive government”.

I do believe certain societies can warrant that label, but we need to be very careful.

That’s true; but wouldn’t you agree Talibanian Afghanistan is a prime example where it is warranted?

I dream of a state of universal human flourishing; where each person, not just human, has equal, fundamental rights and liberties......or do you mean when I am sleeping?

I agree with some aspects of your OP but I think it's framed in a somewhat inflammatory way

Why is is inflammatory to say it with the proper words? This is yet another example of the effects of hyper-tolerance: we no longer can admit to ourselves the obvious truth—instead, we dance around it.

But lumping China and India in with that - both of which have considerably longer histories of civilisation than does Europe - veers pretty close to out-and-out racism.

It has nothing to do with race.

China is a totalitarian regime; harvests the organs of North Korean defectors to sell in the market; uses North Korean defector females as sex slaves; bans free speech; bans freedom of religion; has concentration camps; helps recapture North Korean defectors; … need I go on?

India stills has an unofficial caste system, where there is a caste considered so worthless that they are untouchable.

I challenge you: how are these societies not inferior?

Also agree with the above that Trump/MAGA is a serious internal threat to liberalism

To you, is that a good or bad thing?

It's the UN's mandate, not any self-appointed guardian's, to organize interventions against genocide,

The UN is a joke: they don’t intervene in genocides because they lack the power to. The very countries which are doing genocide are members of the UN, and vote on the matter; which is incredible.

I think what you are trying to note here is that the UN is not self-appointed and countries are—but is that really true? I don’t think so.

Do you think members of a government, in representative republics, are self-appointed???

When the morally superior western nations finally did defeat Germany, they didn't prevent the next genocide; they didn't resettle the survivors in their own countries: they took the lands of people they had recruited to their cause and plunked a European population on it, which started 77 years of sporadic carnage.

I have never argued that the West has historically done no wrong deeds.

This 'duty' to fix other peoples tends to be expensive and end very badly.

But we are learning! Like I said, we are at the stage of Western development where we understand, by-at-large, how to proportionately and properly treat people. All I am saying is sometimes you have a duty to overtake another nation because that nation is so degenerate. You would have to argue that there either are no such degenerate nations (which is absurd), or that we shouldn’t intervene (which is immoral).

No empire conquers other peoples in order to help them.

Why not? You don’t think we should try to help oppressed people in other nations?

I get that. You're wrong, it's illegitimate, it kills more people than it saves and it doesn't work.

That’s not always true though. You are conflating a subset of scenarios with all of them.

I'm not sure that's the case.

Sort of. Kant was offering a solution, through the critique, between the rationalists (e.g., Wolf) and the empiricists (e.g., Hume): he sublated their positions. More specifically, Kant was seeking to critique the limits of reason.

There is nothing in the CRP that gives me any reason to think Kant saw anything more than a logical (i.e non-empirical, which is how your take has been framed) gap between the thing-in-itself and the experience of same (akin to the induction issue)

The thing-in-itself is a concept which reason deploys to demarcate the limits of experience, and so is ‘logical’ in this manner, but it is about how we experience (and so is not purely ‘logical’). The thing-in-itself, in terms of what it represents, is not a figment of reason’s imagination—it’s a real thing out there.

A thing-in-itself is never empirical, insofar as we understand empiricism as the a posteriori aspects of our experience; but it is real—not purely logical.

Reading that quote (of mine, that you used) in conjunction with the above, I can't see how the two are opposed.

In the first, you were denying that there is a medium by which we experience: that there is a “disconnect...between experience and that which causes the experience”. For Kant, of course there is: it is the way we sense and cognize that provides that disconnect.

In the second, you were affirming that there is a “disconnect” but that this provides no grounds to argue for two different external objects per external object—which is absolutely correct.

You have expressed said the coffee isn't out there. Meaning, something else is causing you to have a cup of coffee (in terms of causation, not like it forces you to drink coffee lol).

Let’s break this down. If you agree that the something which excited your senses cannot be known from the perception intuited and cognized from the sensations of it; then it plainly follows that what you are calling ‘coffee’ only holds intelligibility insofar as it is phenomena and not noumena (or qua thing-in-itself). The very concept of a ‘coffee’ is inextricably connected to conditional human experience—in short, on those a priori modes of cognizing reality. When you work backwards from your experience of the coffee to whatever excited your senses to have that experience of it, you end up with a perfectly unknowable ‘thing-in-itself’. That’s how it should be.

That 'something' is coffee on both ways to read my take.

Then, you must demonstrate how any phenomenal property of the coffee is a property of the coffee-in-itself; and then you will realize, in failing to do so, that the very concept of a ‘coffee’ is only distinguishable from the generic ‘thing’ insofar as it is already conditioned by the a priori means of cognizing it. That’s why Kant never says “coffee-in-itself” or anything similar, but always ‘thing-in-itself’: it has to be that generic.

What point are you making? I didn't follow. Cultural relativism and hyper-tolerance are nonsense.

Besides avoiding WWII seems like another solid argument no to do it.

That’s true, but despite the point.

I don't think you have to invade them, no, if they have no intention of attacking you or your allies... there are other measures.

Really? If you could invade and conquer North Korea with no casualties nor with starting any other wars (with other countries), you would choose to let the north korean people continue to be butchered and tortured?

Now Trump is elected one could make an argument that the US poses a treat to the health of earth's biosphere, as it is one of the biggest polluters and under Trump it also has no intention of doing something about it

China is the biggest polluter; and renewable energy produces more pollution to manufacture and maintain than fossil fuels.

Are other countries morally obliged to attack the US in order to prevent further damage to earth's biosphere?

If it actually were an existential-planet-threat and other countries actually had a way to significantly reduce pollution (other than population control), then yes. I can do you one better: what if the US decided that they were going to detonate a 1,000 nukes for fun—why wouldn’t other countries try to stop them?

Again - both pre-WW2 Germany and today's North Korea have or had formidable militaries - North Korea has nuclear weapons.

Correct, but that’s despite the point. I am saying that, in principle, you would have to reject the west invading the Nazis, or North Korea, or China, even if it were easily possible to do—because you are against imperialism.

Whether or not, in practicality, it is possible to do so is irrelevant to my point right now.

Has a military intervention to protect tyrannized people ever worked?

It was in Afghanistan until the US got out. Al Qauda was eradicated and the Taliban was suppressed; but then the US left and the Taliban took power (again).

There is no 'objective' realism.

That’s your problem: you aren’t a moral realist.

For example, if the Nazis stayed in Germany (in the sense of not invading other countries), then would you say that no country should have invaded Germany to stop the Holocaust? — Bob Ross
No country did; most wouldn't even take in refugees.

You didn’t answer the question; and provided, instead, a red herring. I will ask again but with more clarity: if the Nazis stayed in Germany (in the sense of not invading other countries), then would you say that no country is justified in invading Germany to stop the Holocaust?

Who "we"?

Ideally, the Western, modern world. Now, is it feasible for everyone to band together in the name of the human good? Probably not.

You read this in history, or tea leaves? How else do you get the majority of a people to volunteer for extreme hardship and danger, for the purpose of imposing one government's will on another?

In the name of the human good, or at least what is good. Most people would understand how it would be justified to conquer the Nazis to stop the Holocaust; but, to your point, many people would be too cowardly to act.

He wasn't alone; the regime was brutal. He reported to Ferdinand II and had the use of soldiers, administrators, overseers and priests sent by the monarch. Is there any record of the common people of Spain or Portugal clamouring to bring civilization to the Americas? D you truly believe they would have voted for the conquests on moral grounds?

The way they handled the conquest of abhorrent; because they were not trying to help the people there: they were wanting world domination. Imperialism is not identical with national world domination.

What the OP is referring to by imperialism, is its simple form of a nation having a duty, under such-and-such circumstances, to conquer and impose their values onto another nation (without it being legitimate self-defense or something like that).

I would like to hear your nuanced defense of the accusations I made to each of those three countries. I am open-minded; but I cannot envision such a defense.

By the way, the keyboard warrior over here is supporting imperialism, but they have no empire. All they have is falling apart Hollywood for spreading sodomy and georgefloydism worldwide and a pitiful army that got kicked in the ass by divided rice farmers and desert sheep herders. I can only imagine a war against a real country like Canada or Mexico. It would be great humiliation.

My OP is about Western values; not specifically the US. However, the US could wipe Mexico and Canada off the map—that’s not even a fair fight. You are confusing wars that the US was in where they were fighting something other than the actual people there with a full-out war with another country. The US got there butts kicked, many times, because of the dynamics of navigating the innocent civilians and the gorilla fighters (and what not). In a full out war, the US would just obliterate their opponent (with a few exceptions).

EDIT: I should also mention that nuclear war evens out the playing field quite a bit, which I excluded from my analysis above.

Anyways, this isn’t relevant to the OP.

Your political and social elites have several pedophile rings, buddy.

Show me evidence of a major, Western nation that ITSELF sactioned, officially or unofficially, child sex offenses. There’s not a single one.

We weren't even able to "forcibly impose" our values on rinky-dink third world countries like Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua even though we killed millions of people, mostly civilians, trying to do it. Generally, our interference has made things worse, e.g. our party in Iraq ended up sending millions of refugees into Europe. Just running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time overtaxed our armed forces.

This is a fair point; but don’t you think we have a duty to try?

If I take your argument seriously, then we should stop the Nazis if they were to stay in their own country; we shouldn’t stop North Korea from literally torturing their own people; etc.

We should want to expand western values as much as possible. Perhaps, in some situations, it is not feasible to go to all-out-war. I agree with that; but there’s others tactics we can deploy, which are equally imperialistic.

The fact that you would name countries like Iran, China and India in this list betrays an ignorance that is hard to explain in mere words.

This must be a joke.

China has concentration camps; harvests the organs of North Korean defectors for the black market; uses North Korean defector women in sophisticated sex-slave rings; denies people the right of privacy, free speech, freedom of religion, etc.; uses child labor in factories; … need I go on?

Iran has a moral division of the police that is designed to prosecute women that don’t follow Islamic tradition (like wearing Hijabs); has temporary marriage laws so that men can rent daughters from families for sex slavery; brutally kills homosexuals; … need I go on?

India, although it is now illegal, still has a very much enforced caste system where the lowest caste is called the untouchables, which are considered so worthless that they are not actually in the caste system (according to other classes in that system).

These countries are one’s you would...defend?!?

has a well-documented track record of genocide running throughout its history.

True, but they don’t do it anymore. Those countries I listed do still do it.

Meanwhile, the US is aiding and abetting genocide in Palestine as we speak

I don’t about that: it’s much more nuanced than that.

The problem I, and it seems plenty of other very intelligent people, have with this conception of both Kant's intention, and the (relatively) plain reading of the concepts is that there is no foundation for expecting a disconnect of this kind between experience and that which causes the experience. We simply have no reason to reduce our description to "something".

That’s literally the whole project of the CPR: you just denied the whole book here (: .

The experience couldn't be without that which 'triggered' it within us, within the bounds of our a priori concepts. We can easily still use the term "coffee" and just accept we can't know it's properties beyond it's tendency to elicit the experience of itself within the bounds of our a priori conceptual schema

Ok, now you are affirming the CPR (: .

Otherwise, we're saying things cause us to experience other things in some pretty direct fashion.

I wasn’t claiming that. Are you implying that’s what I was saying in the quote you had of my explanation of the coffee cup?

Regarding which, nationalism has been historically viewed as a source of ills towards any country aspiring towards a democratic state.

I could see that, insofar as it is fascistic: are you claiming that nationalism and fascism are the same?

Like the USSR appointed itself liberator of the world's exploited proletariat?

Not at all. I am evaluating the justifiability of imperialism via a moral realist theory: I am not saying that every country should just take each other over for any willy-nilly reasons. The problem with your view, is you have to deny obvious cases where a country should intervene. For example, if the Nazis stayed in Germany (in the sense of not invading other countries), then would you say that no country should have invaded Germany to stop the Holocaust? That’s the consistent conclusion of your argument here.

What I said:: there are always consequences. Consequences are inescapable. These days, consequences tend to come in the form of nuclear warheads, which several of your 'inferior' societies possess

Oh, are you noting that, in practicality, there would be some consequence to invading another country? I agree with that. There would be consequences to invading Germany to get rid of the Nazis.

No, I can't. And neither can a functional democracy. In order to have a government that's both arrogant and blind enough to try to impose itself on other sovereign nations, first, you need either absolute monarchy or a military-backed dictatorship

It wouldn’t be blind: it would be operating under policy guidelines; just like the Geneva convention or how the UN tries to enforce universal rights—instead, though, we would actually do something about it when it happens.

is the sequence of event leading to the prerequisite populist dictatorship

Imperialism does not presuppose a dictatorship. It never has and never will.

Oh, yes, I agree. All Columbus did was report back to the monarchy.

Uhhh, no he didn’t, lol. He would literally cut the hands off of slaves if they didn’t meet their daily quotas when mining. The dude was brutal.

I would say they only have a moral obligation to conquer other land if it's in their own vital security interests

So, if the Nazis would have stayed in Germany, then you think no one would be warranted in stopping them?

But to the point of imposing political systems, would you say historical track records are good for these kind of projects?

I don’t think there’s a particularly good track record, no. However, that’s because countries were taking each other over for bad reasons.

Partly because 'degeneracy' is far more evident in some western countries than in some you consider inferior; most western leaders and nearly all of their people lack the drive to conquer. Because 'democratic values' are not healthy enough in the west to survive transplanting.
But mostly because it can't be done. No western nation is powerful enough, no matter how many people it kills, cripples and displaces, no matter how much land it renders uninhabitable, how much of its resources are sacrificed, to attain, let alone maintain, such an empire.

I can foresee, as a possibility, a nation which comes up with a better economic system than capitalism; and if that happens then, yes, they should imperialize everyone else (assuming it drastically fixes the gaping issues with capitalism without introducing new catastrophic issues like communism). Either way, if I grant your point or not, it results in my OP being right.

That if doesn't bear scrutiny - in relation to more countries North Korea. That, too, is a good reason. What's the point of an empire of radioactive rubble and rotting corpses?

I didn’t follow this at all. What do you mean?

That's the inevitable destination: militancy, exceptionalism, xenophobia, ethnic cleansing, oppression.

Why? You can take over a country with the sole purpose of giving it the gift of democracy and then trying to salvage the culture as much as possible to keep the traditions. You are confusing the immoral acts of many instances of imperialism with its generic idea. If the West took over North Korea, e.g., we would not, in all probability, do anything remotely similar to what Columbus did to the Natives. Wouldn’t you agree?

The problem of imperialism is that it disconnects peoples from the traditional ways of their land and their context, which typically causes problems done the line for centuries to come no matter the intentions.

That's partially fair; but I would note that imposing important and vital political systems is good. E.g., if you are against imperialism completely, then we wouldn't have any justification to take over North Korea, Talibanian Afghanistan, etc. Nations have a moral obligation to imperialize sometimes.

I suppose this is the thesis of the OP

There’s essentially three theses:

1. The western supremacy thesis: western values are objectively better than many, if not all, non-western values which have historical arisen and, consequently, those values are superior.

2. The nationalism thesis: you should have some sense of pride in your country insofar as you have a vested interest in it and that, if applicable, it has superior values to other countries. Nationalism, to a certain extent, unites its citizens in a common good.

3. The imperialism thesis: imperialism is not per se wrong, as a proportionate response to inferior values is necessary and obligatory. The problems with imperialism was historically the immorality which came frequently with it: the West didn’t go in and free less-powerful groups but, rather, actively enslaved them for profit.

One, would be the aspect of nationalism enabling negative consequences

What do you mean?

I don't think this issue can be seen deontologically, with the baggage of human history in mind. The second question is whether if you don't accept the consequentialist assessment of the merits of nationalism

I am not sure I am following: I am neither a deontoligist nor a consequentialist—nor does the OP presuppose either of them.

then on what merit do you asses its morality or goodness to a nation defined as nationalist?

Most abstractly, based off of what is actually good. If you mean to ask what normative ethical theory I subscribe to, then it is a form of Virtue Ethics.

How do you impose democracy upon a people by force?

Enforcing, similarly to how we do in the West, the idea of liberties, rights, and equal representation. As a side note, most of the time; the people want it—the government is just oppressing them, and so the solution tends to be just overthrowing that government.

Should all nations think this way? Should all of them declare war upon all the others to impose their values upon other nations by force?

Very good question: yes. If a nation believes that they have an importantly better position than another one, then they should think this way. Otherwise, you are saying, e.g., that a country which values democracy is equal to a country that actively oppresses its people. That's nonsense.

To be clear, I am not arguing that nations should go to war over trivial things—and some cultural differences are just that; but if there are two nations so fundamentally different than each other, morally, then there should be an proportionate response by each to each other. Again, e.g., North Korea deserves to be usurped; and I cannot say that only Western countries should think this way—as that would be inconsistent and arbitrary. I just think that countries should imperialize for good reasons and in proportionate manners in relation to what is actually good.

You should make note which version of CPR you are quoting i.e. 1st or 2nd. They have many different contents on what they are saying.

It doesn’t matter: I’ve read many different versions; and there is a consensus that Kant did use the term ‘noumena’ at least in a double-sense in some parts of his works. I already demonstrated this.

Now it is your turn to demonstrate how he reworded it in a different version with respect to those sections I quoted. You haven’t even attempted to demonstrate that yet.

If all the daily objects you perceive in the external world had their Thing-in-itself, then the world would be much more complicated place unnecessarily and incorrectly. For instance, when you had a cup of coffee in a cafe, the cafe maid will demand payment for 2 cups of coffee. Why do you charge me 2 cups of coffees when I had only 1 cup? You may complain, and she will retort you, "well you had 1 cup of coffee alright, but remember every cup of coffee comes with a cup of coffee in Thing-in-itself, which must also be paid for. Therefore you must pay for 2 cups of coffee although you may think you had only 1 cup." You wouldn't be pleased with that, neither would had Kant been at the barmy situation

This made absolutely no sense. Kant never argued any of this; and I am unsure where to even begin. I would suggest re-reading the CPR. I’ll just give you some nudges and pointers.

had their Thing-in-itself

This implies there are two objects for each object: there aren’t. Kant’s critique is epistemic, not ontological.

well you had 1 cup of coffee alright, but remember every cup of coffee comes with a cup of coffee in Thing-in-itself, which must also be paid for. Therefore you must pay for 2 cups of coffee although you may think you had only 1 cup.

Not only was this ungrammatical, but it makes no sense. Kant never argued this at all—not even remotely.

The coffee which you perceive is the cognized version of the sensations of a thing-in-itself; whatever it may have been in-itself. There isn’t a coffee out there, and a coffee-in-itself which corresponds to it. The coffee which you perceive isn’t out there in the real world: it is a perception you have of something.

It is unpopular because by "animal" a philosopher tends to mean much more than what a scientist means by it. You are uncontroversially an animal in the latter sense; but it is worth mentioning that humans, as an animal, are deeply different than other animals. I don't see what's so controversial here.

Which version of CPR are you reading?

It has all the editions in it, as far as I understand, and it is translated by J.M.D. Meiklejohn.

There are several passages where Kant uses noumena and Thing-in-itself synonymously.

I am not denying that. As I said, no one really knows what Kant exactly had in mind with those terms; and that’s why I separated them hypothetically based off of which semantic schema one might accept.

The interpretation I have from the CPR and Prolegomena is what I already quoted, essentially, to wit, that the term “noumena” in two senses: the first negative, the second positive. The former is a thing-in-itself, which is just to say they are synonyms in this sense, but the latter is not a thing-in-itself at all.

Thing-in-itself is not available to your senses, ergo there is no sensation of it. If you have sensation of Thing-in-itself, then you would perceive it like you would see chairs, tables and cups. But you cannot have sensation of Thing-in-Itself.

The confusion lies in the ambiguity in your thinking here. What was sensed turns out to be different than the sensations of it, because our sensibility senses according to the way it is pre-structured to, so you are partially right and wrong when you say “[the] thing-in-itself is not available to your senses”. Kant is painfully clear in the CPR that a thing-in-itself is the thing which excited your senses as it were independently of how it excited those senses and what got sensed—viz., something excited my senses such that, as an end result, I perceived a cup: whatever that is, is the thing as it were in-itself.

There are things that is unavailable to your senses, so there is no excitation from the things. But your reason can infer the things which exists outside of the boundary of your senses such as God, spirits and souls.

No, you are demarcating an invalidly stricter set of real things as things-in-themselves; which are really just supersensible things—which would be noumena in the positive sense (at best).

Whatever excited your senses such that you see here a cup, is a thing in reality which exists in-itself in some way—that’s a thing-in-itself. A thing-in-itself could also, in principle, if you want, include noumena in the positive sense; if by this you carefully note, in your schema, that a thing-in-itself is just a real thing as it were in-itself and a noumena a thing-in-itself which cannot be sensed—but, then, most notably, you are still incorrect to say that things-in-themselves are not that which excite our senses but, instead, right to say that some things-in-themselves cannot excite our senses.

Some of the concepts are A priori. Senses are not A priori.

Yes they are. There are pure intuitions of sensibility, like space and time, and who knows what else. In principle, your sensibility is pre-structured to sense a particular way; and it is not true that all faculties of sensibility are equally structured to sense the same way. Viz., there could be an extra-dimensional being which senses toto genere different than us, and has different pure forms of sensibility.

Numena and Thing-in-Itself are described as the same thing in CPR.

No they are not at all. The word “noumena” is used in a double-sense in the CPR, and Kant is very explicit about that. E.g.,:

If, by the term noumenon, we understand a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensuous intuition, thus making abstraction of our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the word. But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensuous intuition, we in this case assume a peculiar mode of intuition, an intellectual intuition, to wit, which does not, however, belong to us, of the very possibility of which we have no notion—and this is a noumenon in the positive sense

–– (CPR, p. 109)

If thing-in-itself is unknowable and unperceivable, how could you talk about sensations of thing-in-themselves?

That’s the whole point of a thing-in-itself: it is whatever was sensed—and that is the limit of what we can talk about it. Viz.,:

At the same time, when we designate certain objects as phenomena or sensuous existences, thus distinguishing our mode of intuiting them from their own nature as things in themselves, it is evident that by this very distinction we as it were place the latter, considered in this their own nature, although we do not so intuit them, in opposition to the former, [ or, on the other hand, we do so place other possible things, which are not objects of our senses, but are cogitated by the understanding alone, and call them intelligible existences (noumena) ]

(PS: I kept in the bracketed portion as another demonstration of Kant’s double meaning to noumena, although it is not relevant to my point now). –– (CPR, p. 108)

How does it get sensed?

Because some thing excited your senses; otherwise, you are hallucinating, which is absurd. That thing which excited your senses, was a thing, whatever it may be, as it were in-itself.

Why isn't it migrated over into the sensations?

Because the way your senses sense is a priori.

When thinking-as-conceived is reduced to a series of thoughts, experience confirms we cannot think a plurality of thoughts simultaneously, which is to say we cannot think more than one thing at a time, which is the same as saying we have only one thought at a time.

But, in terms of what we actually are, as opposed to what we appear to ourselves, we cannot say any of this is true…right?

the transcendental analysis of experience demonstrates there is only ever one thought at a time, which does not prove more than one is impossible.

How can transcendental analysis demonstrate that there can only ever be one thought we have, when those thoughts are not occurring in the time which is used to represent them?

That understanding can think noumena….which is their true origin after all….. is not contradictory, but the cognition of them with the system we are theorized to possess, is impossible, for the exact reason that forming a representation through our form of sensuous intuition, of an object merely thought by understanding alone, is impossible.

How would such a noumena, though, be a representation of something which is real? The understanding can create an object of pure intellect, but that would always just be a product of imagination—wouldn’t it?

Your senses don't produce sensations

By senses, I just mean your faculties (or faculty) of sensibility; which is the power you have to be excited by things-in-themselves.

but sensations are caused by the external objects, which are phenomenon.

Phenomenon, in the Kantian tradition, are sensations of things-in-themselves; which are thusly not the thing-in-itself but, rather, conditioned sensations of them. The “external object” is not a phenomena—they are noumena (in a loose sense) or, if you wish to reserve such a term for merely an object of pure intellect (as it is unclear which one Kant meant), things-in-themselves.

Thing-in-itself is not sensible entity, but cognisible entity via reasoning

That would be a noumena, in the strict sense that Kant talks about it sometimes. A noumena is an object of thought which cannot be sensed. A thing-in-itself is sensed insofar as it is what excited the sensibility in the first place but necessarily is not migrated over into the sensations.

. It is the entity from the reasoning point of view, which must exist, but is unavailable to your senses, hence unknowable via normal perception

Right, it is, logically, the thing which, as it were in-itself, excited your senses; but cannot necessarily be sensed absolutely accurately because the sensibility can only sense relative to how it is pre-structured to,

It is a different type of perception you need to perceive Thing-in-itself.

things-in-themselves are never perceivable—not just for “normal” perception—unless by a thing-in-itself you are conflating it with a noumena (in that stricter sense of the word).

By my lights, a noumena, in this sense, is a contradiction in terms, because it posits an outer object of intellect; which posits that the understanding, or some form of a faculty of understanding, could possibly cognize an outer object without being given sensations of it. @Mww?

Very true. Very true. The only difference is that, I would say, cognitive science can't really get at the fundamental questions that Kant was trying to answer; being that it is purely philosophical. Most people nowadays won't grant transcendental philosophy as legitimate because they think science is the only valid means of inquiry into reality---which is false.

Empirical experiences are experiences that are assumed to be sensations that represent things outside of myself. Non-empirical sensations are those which are generated inside of myself.

Two things needing to be mentioned here:

1. This “empirical” vs. “non-empirical” distinction you are making is NOT the same as my distinction between what I sense vs. I use to cognize those sensations. You, here, are making a distinction between what is sensed about external objects vs. sensed about oneself.

2. The word “empirical” does not, nor ever has, referred to only sensations of external objects (assuming, and we must assume for your distinction to work, we are excluding ourselves as an external object); because anything which is sensed about reality is empirical (traditionally); and so anything of which my brain senses about my body or its own internal processes (e.g., thinking) is empirical data—for those are sensations of something which is in reality. The only time it would make sense to say that some set of sensations are non-empirical, is if we admit, which is highly questionable, that when we are hallucinating (or something similar) our senses are generating fake data. FYI, I would say that it is much more plausible, in that case, that our brain is simply capable of using the faculty of imagination as a source of fabricated sensations rather than our senses themselves being capable of, on cue, generating fake data.

I feel the above terms are clear and largely unambiguous, which is important for any model and discussion of knowledge. My issues is, "What is apriori"? Its not clear, and its not unambiguous.

Of course, as any philosophical discussion naturally goes, each participant believes they have all the unambiguous points (:

I don’t think your terms are clear at all but, rather, are muddied.

E.g., to use your tree example, you are saying that, if I understood correctly, the experience of the tree is empirical but that your thoughts about that tree are non-empirical; and this is because the tree is a representation of sensations of something in reality whereas your thoughts are not. However, your thoughts as presented to you in your conscious experience, are representations of something in reality just as much as the tree is—so both are empirical; and this distinction sidesteps the whole discussion about a priori aspects of experience, for you completely skipped over the fact that there are pre-structured aspects to the way that you experience that tree!

In the above two paragraphs, what would you consider apriori? What clarity and accuracy would the term add?

Let’s use the tree example: you are experiencing a tree. Ok. The tree, assuming you are not hallucinating, must be the product of your senses, ultimately, being excited by something in reality and of which your brain is intuiting and cognizing; and so the sensations, insofar as they are raw data of that thing which excited your senses, must be empirical (because they are about reality). The tree, however, is represented to you in space and time which are pure forms that your brain uses to intuit those (empirical) sensations and thusly are not properties of the thing, whatever it was, which excited your senses in the first place. So the space and time are synthetic. Likewise, the tree is presented to you not just in space and time, but also with strict mathematical relations; and this is something which is necessarily something which your brain synthetically adds to the mix in order to represent the ‘thing’ which is constructing from the sensations of whatever thing impacted your senses (in the first place) (viz., it is impossible for you to come up with a way to represent, e.g., a square on a plotting graph without producing inherent mathematical relations between each line and what not when graphing it). Likewise, the tree is not just represented to you synthetically in space, time, and with mathematical relations; but also with strict logical relations. Viz., when your brain is constructing the objects to present to you from those sensations, it does it in an inherently logical way: it will not, e.g., determine that it should represent that leaf and that other leaf in the same exact place in space and time because a proposition, for your brain, cannot be both true and false in accordance with those forms of intuition—these are, viz., rules a priori which your brain has which do not apply to whatever thing excited your senses in the first place. Likewise, your brain must have, in order to cognize those sensations, certain a priori, and primitive, concepts; such as causality (viz., your brain must already be equipped with the understanding that it must seek out cause-effect relations in those sensations in order to represent them inherently causally for you in the first place—e.g., in order for your brain to represent the sensations of whatever the tree is in-itself which excited your senses, it must already have the concept of causality at its disposal and the rule that it must connect things in those sensations in a cause-effect manner). Likewise, in order to do math (which is synthetic), your brain must, as another example, have the concepts of quantity (i.e., unity, plurality, and totality).

Just try plotting a line on a graph without having the implicit understanding that, e.g., a dot is identical to itself, the line unites the dots, there are multiple dots which are required to make the line, you must add the dots together in succession, etc. It’s impossible. Your brain is plotting objects on essentially a graph, namely space and time, to represent objects to you as an experience.

No, I can't agree that the term 'discrete' references space in some way. I feel like you're confusing 'living in space' with 'knowing space'. Because we live in space, we will act and sense things from space.

‘Discrete’ is obviously referencing space, otherwise you would have to posit that a discrete experience does not contain a multiplicity of objects.

We do not live in space, our brains represent things in space. Do you see what I mean? I think you think that there’s a space and time beyond the space and time which are the forms of your experience and, of which, you live in. We only ‘live in’ space and time insofar as we have conditional knowledge about ourselves and our environment which is inherently in space and time; because that’s how our brain represents them.

All things act as if they live in space, because they are beings that live in space.

That you understand things to be in space, like amoeba, does not entail that they are in space themselves. You understand an amoeba to react in space because space is a fundamental form which your brain uses to represent amoeba; or you use, with your reason, assuming you cannot see them with your own eyes nor with a microscope, to understand, conditionally, how they behave.

But no living thing has knowledge prior to interacting with space

Your brain does NOT interact with space: it uses it to represent whatever is going on in reality. You are using your knowledge of reality, which is conditioned by those spatiotemporal forms which your brain uses to represent things, to project that onto the things which excited your senses. You cannot validly do that. All you are doing is anthropomorphizing reality with the a priori modes that your brain has for representing it.

An electron circles around a hydrogen atom. Does it do this because it knows space and time apriori?

Electrons and atoms, and one circling the other, is already conditioned by your a priori understanding of reality; because it is deeply and inextricably ingrained in the a priori spatiotemporal means which your brain uses to cognize things. You are projecting that onto electrons and atoms with respect to whatever they are in-themselves, which we cannot know.

I can give you an even easier example: my car in my garage. When I say “my car is in my garage”, I am not saying that there’s a car which exists in a garage in the sense of what they may exist in-themselves; but, rather, explaining it in terms of the only way I can: as conditioned by the a priori means which my brain cognizes reality. I cannot think away space and time from my understanding of a car, a garage, and a car in a garage not because they are actually in space and time but, rather, because all I have ever experienced, and will ever experience, of a car, garage, and a car in a garage is going to be placed in space and time (synthetically by my brain in order to represent the sensations which were excited by whatever they are in-themselves).

These discrete experiences become memories, and beliefs can form about them.

All of which assumes that your experience is fundamentally spatial; and not that reality in which you exist is spatial.

What do you see as 'apriori'?

a priori has always referenced, traditionally, that which is prior to empirical data. Prior to Kant, it was primarily used to denote the forms of reality as opposed to its content (i.e., the rationalists arguing that reality is inherently rational because it has spatial, temporal, mathematical, logical, etc. forms); and for Kant, it was used primarily to denote that those inherently rational aspects, or forms, of Nature (e.g., the inherently logical and mathematical aspects to a leaf, or the laws of which is seems to obey) are actually the forms of our modes of experience. There’s nothing ambiguous about this. When someone says something is a priori, they are saying that thing pertains to the prior forms to something as opposed to the empirical aspects to it (e.g., the inherent mathematical aspect to a wooden block as opposed to how it reacts when being lit on fire).

Does it need to have another term tied to it like experience or knowledge? If so, give both.

a priori can be a noun or an adjective; so one can denote a certain thing as being the aspect of it which is a priori by saying “a priori <thing in question>”—e.g., a priori knowledge.

Simply put, a priori experience refers to the aspects of one’s conscious experience which are prior to the empirical data being represented and which are used to cognize the sensations of those things which excite our senses; and, of which, I gave a detailed account with the tree—so I don’t feel the need to add another example of this.

a priori knowledge refers to any knowledge which is grounded in those a priori aspects of experience. Such as “1+1=2”, “!(a && !a)”, etc.

Apriori and aposteriori are often seen as divisions between 'knowledge apart from experience (I generously say "apart from the empirical"' to fix this, and "Knowledge from experience (or the empirical).

This is true, because by experience they mean the empirical aspects of experience. E.g., you don’t need to technically sense anything in reality to know that 1+1=2; but you do need an experience, even if it be merely hallucinogenic, in order to do math. Viz., a knocked out mathematician cannot do math, but a conscious one can derive mathematical proofs without any empirical experiments.

So there should be an aposteriori conception of space

Ehhh….space is pure a priori. Not everything has both aspects to it. The a priori concept of quantity does not have a a posteriori aspect to it—that wouldn’t make any sense.

If I measure the table as being 1 meter long, isn't that an aposteriori conception of space?

Space is the extension in which the table is represented; and not the exact mathematical quantity that you measured. Math, not in terms of its axioms and propositions itself but in terms of how your brain represents things with math, does have an a posteriori aspect—the idea of representing it with extension does not.

Your brain learns, arguably, how to deploy the a priori axioms and propositions and concepts of math (e.g., geometry, quantity, addition, subtraction, etc.) in manners to better represent those sensations in space and time in relation to each object it determines is a part of those sensations; and, to your real point (I would say), the exact mathematical relations it attributes to something in order to represent it are conditioned by what it cognizes and intuits it is (based off of the intuitions).

In other words, math itself, which your brain is using, is a priori; but that your brain decides to represent that table as 1 meter long (although it is uncertain what unit of measure it uses, but that’s despite the point here) is conditioned by the empirical data which it is represented with that a priori math.

Think of it this way, as an analogy, if we are playing a game where I have a plotting graph (like in math class) which only allows me to draw in straight lines and tell me to represent a shape that is almost a square (but is a little squiggly); then I will use the mathematical principles which I do not learn from the fact that you told me to represent this squiggly square nor from the idea of a squiggly square to draw the straight-lined representation of the squiggly square. You telling me to represent a squiggly square, along with the nuanced squiggly square, in this analogy, is the empirical sensations and the math which I use to draw a representation of it is the a priori, non-empirical means of me representing it. You are, by analogy, with the tree, conflating these two and saying that the straight-lined representation of the squiggly line on the plotted graph is itself purely empirical—no, no, no...some of that is a priori.

Further, what is a clear term of 'transcendental knowledge' vs 'self-reflective knowledge'?

In simpler terms, it is the differencing between cognizing and thinking—it is the difference between your brain’s cognition for representing objects and your ability to reason about that constructed experience.

This is getting really long (: , so I will end it here.