Schopenhauer leaves us with that question: 'what do the necessities of thought have to do with the way the world is?'

Wittgenstein answers that question, so it's a long philosophical conversation. Witt owed Schop, who owed Kant, who owed Hume, and so on.

Is there really such a thing, for Kant, as what the individual can't know? Or is it the case that there is only such a thing as what the individual cannot know empirically? — Metaphysician Undercover

He says we can't know about that logical orphan: the thing in itself. :grin:


:up:

On the other end of the spectrum, it's possible to get a dog to follow rules and perform acts based on verbal commands, but the rule following there hardly seems like it can "fix" the content of thought. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Dogs cannot set out the rule they are following. We can. — Banno

Kripkenstein says normative meaning is a folktale. It sounds great and it fits a socially-centered narrative, but it's really not more than conjecture.

Back to Kant and what the individual sees and knows (and can't know).

. But I want to bring in Wittgenstein's later philosophy and the notion of language games and forms of life to emphasize that the locus of his new kind of transcendental philosophy is ultimately taken out of the head and placed in social practices. — Jamal

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. His later philosophy breaks the last rule in the Tractatus. He knew that.

For Hoffman, the core mistake would be the presupposition that experiences must necessarily be of objects "out there," which in turn leads to the concept of the noumenal and thus the significant problems understanding the world around us that follow from this being being posited axiomatically. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What would you replace that paradigm with?

Plus, if you think there now exist better answers to Hume's challenges and you are unhappy with where Kant ends up (or different readings on Kant), going back to the drawing board for a new paradigm only makes sense. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think there is a better solution to the problem of induction. Searle resorted to repeating Hume. What better answer did you have in mind?

Might it be valid to say that what is often labeled in Kant as "a priori" might be better described using modern concepts of "unconscious" processes, a concept unavailable to Kant? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Innateness is pretty modern since Chomsky. Remember that Kant is part of the trunk of the western philosophy tree. Every philosopher since Kant has been influenced by him in some way, even if he was seen as something to defeat.

I still think you're just sort of ignoring what's central about his epistemology. But good discussion! Thanks

However, his elucidation of these issues would seem to cast greater doubt on Kant's suppositions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which suppositions?

I guess my point was that we should take a second to understand Kant's thought experiments before we poo poo him.

Phenomena for Kant are appearances - which I so far take to always be in one way or another empirical. And, hence, I so far take it that for Kant space and time - both being a priori representations that are then in no way empirical - are not phenomenal in and of themselves.

Which is not to then say that either pure or empirical intuitions are not representations for Kant.

If you find this interpretation mistaken, can you please back up your disagreement with references. — javra

You're right. I thought you were saying that space and time are mind independent. Kant shows that they can't be.

So, Kant's analysis might very well be relevant to some "essential nature," of human experience, provided we narrowly defined what constitutes the actualization of such an essence. However, it can't be prior to sensory perception. If anything, developmental biology would suggest that such regularities only come to exist provided a narrow range of environmental inputs. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think what you're missing is that there's an aspect of the underlying framework of developmental biology that is a priori. You're putting the scientific cart before the logical horse.

That bats and humans might experience a rock differently does not entail that no part of their experience might be tied to the properties of the rock in a direct manner. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Kant isn't a simple indirect realist where there's some supervenience relation between the noumenon and the phenomenon. What's revolutionary in his insights is that the whole spaciotemporal framework is a priori.

Although all of this is a summery of sorts, I do take it to evidence that our scientific knowledge confirms that, for one example, the yellow flower which all of us humans can effortlessly agree occurs out there in the world independently of our senses and concepts is, in fact, fully contingent on our senses and concepts—this in all, or at least nearly all, respects other than its spatiotemporal properties (neither of which are phenomena in Kantian terms). To some other species of life, the very same spatiotemporal object which can be apprehended by all coexistent sentience will then be neither yellow nor a flower. — javra

Science doesn't confirm that there's a flower independent of our senses and concepts. It starts with that assumption.

Spaciotemporal properties are aspects of the phenomena for Kant, or aspects of what we intuit. You're thinking of Locke when you say those properties are independent of us. Kant showed that whatever those properties are, we somehow know about them a priori. We don't learn about them.

You can take the above and create a picture of humans projecting a framework of space and time for the things they encounter, but I think this is going a step further than the insights actually warrant. All we can really take confidently from Kant is that we aren't blank slates.

I hear the Tractatus as an anti-explanation — Paine

Exactly.

I think objectivity and subjectivity are two poles of the same concept. They appear together because each is in the meaning of the other, so to speak. Objectivity is fundamentally the perspective that isn't subjective. It's the narrator of the story as opposed to the first person account.

Kant explains why objectivity as we know it has a framework that appears to be a priori. Locke was wrong that we're blank slates that nature writes upon. Whatever is happening, it's not that.

That leaves us with a secondary kind of objectivity: the story of the thing-in-itself. We don't have access to that kind of objectivity. What we have access to is our own map-making.

Not at all surprising. Although, as a personal pet peeve, I do dislike the way mathematics-specific concepts sometimes overtake more mainstream philosophical concepts. Mistaking the purposive, hence teleological, notion of function for the mathematical notion of function comes to mind as one example of this. But be that as it may. — javra

:grin: :up:

To your knowledge, does the history of this particular mathematical concept of "abstract object" extend beyond this:

Abstract object theory (AOT) is a branch of metaphysics regarding abstract objects.[1] Originally devised by metaphysician Edward Zalta in 1981,[2] the theory was an expansion of mathematical Platonism. — javra

I think the concept of an abstract object comes from Frege.


:up:

In terms of the question of what Kant's view of the limits of empirical knowledge were, it seems to me to be a mistake to see that aligned to any theory of physics. How does one traverse the gap between space and time being posited as intuitions and having those concepts build a model of the world as it "truly" is? — Paine

Kant showed that we're bound to think along certain lines. I call it the contours of the mind. We feel our way to those contours by logic and conceivability. When we discover the indubitable, we've found it.

But what does the way we're bound to think have to do with the way the world actually is? My answer is that Wittgenstein explains that in the Tractatus. What's your answer?

Interesting. Its been a while sine I've read the likes of Lock, Hume, and Kant. Still, I so far take a visualized unicorn, for example, to be a "mental object" of one's awareness which is in some way perceptually concrete (i.e., has a specific shape, size, color, etc. when visualized), whereas abstract objects (quantities included) I take to be those mental objects of one's awareness whose delimitations are abstracted from - but do not include - concrete particulars. The concept of "animal" or "world" being two possible examples of the latter, among innumerable others. — javra

"Abstract object" has a specific meaning in philosophy of math. It's not a physical object, but it's still something that transcends the individual. So an abstract object (in this sense) is not a kind of mental object.

The idea of an abstract object didn't exist back then.
— frank

Weren't they termed "concepts", also sometimes termed "ideas"? — javra

I don't think they distinguished between mental objects (what you're thinking about now) and abstract objects (things like numbers and propositions.) I guess the basic idea was around, but not analyzed out?

Is this true though? I feel like I have a pretty easy time imagining abstract objects without having to attribute extension to them. I don't know if I buy theories that involve propositions as abstract, eternal objects, but I've never really had a problem of conceptualizing them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The idea of an abstract object didn't exist back then. He was talking about things like cups and trees.

I see what you're saying. I agree.

Hence you will have reasons to conclude that there is no need to suppose that something material passes from objects to our eyes to make us see colors and light, or even that there is something in the objects, which resembles the ideas or sensations that we have of them. In just the same way, when a blind man feels bodies, nothing has to issue from the bodies and pass along his stick to his hand: and the resistance or movement of the bodies, which is the sole cause of the sensations he has of them, is nothing like the idea he forms of them."

In this case, objects stimulate an innate mechanism which leads us to form an idea of the world. Notice that the objects just stimulated the blind man with the stick, but his ideas were inside the whole time. Similar observations apply when Descartes mentions the following:

"But then if I look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I just happen to have done, I normally say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax. Yet do I see any more than hats and coats which could conceal automatons? I judge that they are men. And so something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgement which is in my mind."

Leibniz, on the other hand, replying to Locke, points out:

"The reason why there is no name for the murder of an old man is that such a name would be of little use... ideas do not depend upon names [words with definitions, in this context] ... If a... writer did invent a name for that crime and devoted a chapter to 'Gerontophony', showing what we owe to the old and how monstrous it is to treat them ungently, he would not thereby be giving us a new idea."

We already know the meanings of words, prior to definitions. — Manuel

Oh! I see what you're saying. This is the difference I'm seeing between Descartes and Kant: Descartes is sort of saying that our ideas of the world supervene on our experiences. It's the argument from anatomy. Descartes knew that there are "strings" that flow through the body back to the brain. He thought the world "plucks" these strings and the brain subsequently does something with those pluckings.

Kant points out in the Transcendental Aesthetic that we can't imagine an object that doesn't have spacial or temporal extension. He's borrowing the form of Hume's Bundle Theory argument. If you can't conceive of objects without spacial extension, this shows that you don't learn about space through experience. Knowledge of space and time are a priori. That actually is Copernican! To me, anyway.

Kant points out that aspects of the phenomenon are known to us prior to experience with the world. He lays out clear and persuasive arguments for this. What you do next with that information is up to you.
— frank

As does Descartes, Leibniz and Cudworth — Manuel

I've never thought of Descartes as proving that some of our knowledge of the world is a priori. Nor Leibniz. Could you expand on that?

He also thinks he can’t just ignore it, because he regards it as an unavoidable product of the understanding. — Jamal

The idea that science can be purely empirical is still around. It's this vision of science that Kant and others killed, for philosophers anyway.

I once watched a discussion between Dennett and Krause in which Krause announces that he's an empiricist. Dennett tries to explain that he's not really, and Krause gets this quizzical look on his face. Krause is a scientist who thinks he's discovering the noumena. In other words, once you understand the concept of the noumena, then you can ignore it. Not before.

Kant points out that aspects of the phenomenon are known to us prior to experience with the world. He lays out clear and persuasive arguments for this. What you do next with that information is up to you.

Well I kept having this feeling that there's something wrong with creating a logical argument for physicalism, though I couldn't put my finger on it. But I think you're pointing to it: it's foundation problem. Let me try to put it in words:

A physicalist believes interaction with the world is primal. Logic is a realm of pure abstraction and universality. The physicalist says that realm is abstracted from our constant communication with the world. We ask the world questions, like what do I need to do to ease my hunger? Then I listen for the answer. What is my purpose? I listen for the answer, hoping I'm clear eyed enough to see the truth amidst the wishful thoughts and fears I give life to everyday.

Physicalism has to do with the truth. Give me the answer that has nothing to do with my fantasies. And to find that, I appreciate a little logic, but that's not the final source of truth because logic can also be manipulated to rationalize my fond stories. Look to where the rubber meets the road. That's the beginning of it all. Let the metaphors flow from there.

I think you hit the nail on the head the first time. :grin:
@Banno would be proud.

Maybe physicalism is first and foremost a form of life in Wittgenstein's sense. And he's another who seems to speak truth without rigor. We're in the land of metaphor.

Don't worry! They'll cook it and feed it to the masses. — Wayfarer

The Chinese masses are turning middle-class. There's a threat in that that Chinese communism never had to deal with. They have a learning curve ahead of them. But for now their economy is tanking. The immediate significance of that to me is that the Aussie dollar is dropping relative to all other currencies.

I like that, although it's not a slam dunk for physicalism. It's an excellent expression of the physicalist vibe.

I guess I particularly appreciate it because I've gone back to reading Nietzsche. He has to be taken the same way. None of it amounts to a rigorous argument, but it's more like the truth you find in poetry or maybe even music.

Fooled By Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb. This is philosophy of the market, which touches on philosophy of math. The same author wrote The Black Swan. There's a black swan event brewing in China as we speak.

Agreed. I never meant to the contrary. My original post was supporting methodological naturalism, not physicalism. — Bob Ross

Oh, I see. I thought you were saying they're the same.

Yes, it does. But out of respect for your present thread on physicalism I am trying to not veer too far off topic with a discussion of Phaedo and the problem of interpreting Plato in this thread. — Fooloso4

Thank you.

Phaedo is one of my favorite philosophical works. I also disagree with your interpretation, and indeed your whole take on Plato. But there's always room for diverse views. It creates dynamism in discussions.

If your point is that people with views which do not impede some areas of their naturalistic investigations can still contribute to our knowledge even if those views cannot, then I totally agree. — Bob Ross

My point was that physicalism isn't entailed by empiricism and naturalism.

I would say the most compelling reason to be a physicalist is methodological and not ontological. We simply have only one valid methodological approach: naturalism.

Every advancement we have made into the truth has been empirical, even if it be done from an armchair, and never by educated guesses that are not grounded in empirical evidence. Likewise, it seems, historically speaking, that we assume something we don't understand is supernatural and then learn later it is perfectly natural--which I think counts in favor of methodological naturalism. — Bob Ross

But Berkeley paired empiricism and idealism. Augustine advised methodological naturalism in that he advised people to look first for natural causes before claiming miracles. Augustine was a hardcore idealist like most intellectuals of his day.

Best explanation I've ever heard. Thank you, my friend. :up:

You wanna bring up Aristotelian vs Galilean physics, do it in the OP! — fdrake

I honestly thought it was obvious from the question itself. Oh well.

potential vs actual infinity and whether the limit construction in analysis actually represents the concept of infinity. — fdrake

Instantaneous velocity does touch directly on those issues, so Aristotle. :roll:

Plus you copied my use of "adjacent" you prick.

The answer varies with starting assumptions. Only one set of assumptions leads to the answer 4.

Specifically, you have to pay attention to what's been declared stationary, or what your POV is.

I think Israel would react the same no matter who was in Gaza. I don't think their actions are governed by racism, such that if the Gazans were Dutch, everything would be fine.

Pretty cool!

Anyway, the OP under discussion here was moved because it was lazy and far too brief. OPs need to have more than “x says y, true or false”. — Jamal

I think the appeal of the simple question is that it inspires one to think outside the box for a second. Instead of trying to figure Kant out, do some philosophy yourself. There isn't one right answer to the question. That's what was cool about it.

But I get it. It looked lazy to you.

Perhaps climate change should go to the Lounge as well. Keeping it the main page makes it more philosophy than science? — jgill

And Israel? And Ukraine? And whatever the hell other than philosophy?