Then all my efforts to distinguish the two in the text have been for naught — Paine

You don't need to be harsh on yourself. Your efforts were not wasted. The interpretation you were offering is still a plausible one. But there's not much we can do to make a definite or demonstrative case here, given the internal contradictions of CPR.

Only the few Godlike philosophers, such as Aristotle, can escape plain contradictions (when read properly)

Do you have any idea what "noumena" is? I've been reading this Kant quotes in my thread, and I'm having issues making sense of them... — ProtagoranSocratist

To be fair, there's no clear answer to this. But there are 3 main interpretations, all of which have problems

1. Noumena is the class of transcendental objects that act as a cause or ground of all phenomena, appearances or presentations. This causing or grounding is ontological. I prefer this.

2. Noumena is a rule or procedure which allows us to have a nexus of intuition & concept (understanding) come together under affections of senses. In this sense it's not much different from the schema of imagination.

3. Noumena is the boundary or limit of appearances. Like the frame of a picture which isn't the picture but enables you to see the picture. (The obvious problem here is if appearances have a limit, we will have to know the limit on the other side as well, irl, we do see the frame too & what's beyond it lol)

Where, in the text, do you see the transcendental object being a cause in itself? It seems more like a concept that gives us permission to propose causes even though we know very little. — Paine

Assuming you haven't ignored the quote of Kant I presented, the noumenon (transcendental object here) is the cause of appearance, phenomenon.

I don't know what you mean by "cause in itself". Do you mean uncaused ? Well, it is uncaused in the sense that all phenomena has a cause which can't be attributed to noumena

"Seems more like a concept" - it can seem anything to you but you can't attribute it to Kant for that reason.

Remember the Kantian slogan "Thoughts without content are empty" - the content of thought is provided by sensible intuition, which is totally lacking in the case of transcendental objects

An empty thought is no thought (concept) at all...

The existence of noumena has not been asserted or denied anywhere in the work. To call it a realm is to ignore:

The concept of a noumenon is therefore merely a boundary concept, in order to limit the pretension of sensibility, and therefore only of negative use. But it is nevertheless not invented arbitrarily, but is rather connected with the limitation of sensibility, yet without being able to posit anything positive outside of the domain of the latter.
— ibid. A255/B311

I am not aware of any place in the Critique where Kant argued differently from this. — Paine

I have already told you I believe CPR is inconsistent. So I'm not surprised Kant makes contradictory claims. The best we can do is give his intended & inconsistent reading.

Going back to a very old objection. For Kant, the transcendental object is the CAUSE of all appearances & clearly not an appearance. The obvious problem here is there is no sense in attributing a causal or grounding role to that which you don't even know if it exists or not. The agnosticism must apply to its causal & grounding role as well.

You may retort that the transcendental object is more like a rule or procedure but this makes no sense. It does not belong to any category of Kant, nor do the categories have anything to do with it, except maybe for causation (in contradiction)

But the understanding thinks it only as transcendental object. This object is the cause of appearance (hence is not itself appearance) and can be thought neither as magnitude nor as reality nor as substance, etc. (because these concepts always require sensible forms wherein they determine an object). Hence concerning this object we are completely ignorant as to whether it is to be found in us--or, for that matter, outside us; and whether it would be annulled simultaneously with sensibility, or would still remain if we removed sensibility. If we want to call this object noumenon, because the presentation of it is not sensible, then we are free to do so. — CPR, A288,B344,Pluhar

Another clear contradiction here to those with eyes is elsewhere Kant claims ALL presentations are appearances & here he has a presentation which isn't an appearance :lol:

So yes. CPR is irredeemable. It's full of contradictions. Kant to me is simply a dumber version of Sextus Empiricus, who was smart enough to use noumena & phenomena as dispensable distinctions, ready to be thrown out in the manner of Wittgenstein's (who was also a Pyrrhonist) ladder once the job has been accomplished.

A dreadful reply. Pile on the dead cats. It doesn't help your case. — Banno

Rest easy. I never attack those who raise the white flag. I'm no ordinary man, but I'm not a monster either.

"Wittgenstein was a social conservative… therefore his philosophy supports conservative conclusions." - an instance of the genetic fallacy.

Wittgenstein does not ground meaning in blind traditionalism. A form of life is not a tradition; it is the pattern of activities within which language-games have sense. — Banno

I'm surprised you are unaware of this. I can't count the articles I have read which established solid links between Wittgenstein's philosophy & his social conservativism

Forms of lives are not just any activities. Picking your nose, farting, pooping, drinking etc are also activities. But clearly not DEEP enough to ground language.

Let me quote Wittgenstein himself

Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses. — Investigations, 18

Want some more. I will give it to ya

It is, however, important as regards this observation that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even given a mastery of the country's language. We do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We cannot find our feet with them. — Investigations, Ilxi 225

“Deeply rooted traditions never disappear.”
Nuh:
The divine right of kings
Women as legal non-persons
Racial segregation as a legal norm
Capital punishment for homosexuality
The theological–political identity of the medieval state
Aristotelian medieval physics — Banno

1. There are plenty of kings in the Muslim world who use the Quran & Ahadith to justify their rule

2. Afghanistan (need I say more)

3. Israel & recently South Africa (yes, it's blacks against whites this time)

4. Homosexuality is still punishable by death in many (Muslim) countries

5. Once more, I have yet to see it being separated in the Muslim world

I'm obviously ignoring the West here for now but if you look at 20th century & just imagine for a second if the guy with the mustache had won, things would have turned out very differently. This always remains a future possibility & there's no guarantee of anything.

6. You had to go there. But guess what ? Aristotelian physics is a surprisingly good approximation of Newtonian physics, of material submerged in various fluids

Check this Article

https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057

Aristotle's Physics: a Physicist's Look
Carlo Rovelli

I show that Aristotelian physics is a correct and non-intuitive approximation of Newtonian physics in the suitable domain (motion in fluids), in the same technical sense in which Newton theory is an approximation of Einstein's theory. Aristotelian physics lasted long not because it became dogma, but because it is a very good empirically grounded theory. The observation suggests some general considerations on inter-theoretical relations.

In any case, you should go & read Aristotle's physics because most of the topics it treats fall under contemporary metaphysics or philosophy of physics & the arguments there are as relevant as ever

I also recommend Feyerabend's Aristotle Not A Dead Dog

Nuh. Wittgenstein's approach to rule following says nothing about domination; it says you cannot follow a rule privately. The point is public criteria, not authority or obedience. — Banno

Lol. Except it is. I'm gonna quote Wittgenstein once more.

Following a rule is analogous to obeying an order. We are trained to do so; we react to an order in a particular way. — Investigations, 206

When I obey a rule, I do not choose.
I obey the rule blindly. — Investigations,219

Claiming that "Progressivism is a secular myth" is mere assertion. And even if granted, says nothing about contemporary linguistic and social practices around gender; certainly not that they are illegitimate. — Banno

Well...myths based on blind following (prog liberalism) & emotions etc aren't solid grounds. Especially when the fascists are better at this game. Do you still wonder about the rise of far right politicians & politics across the West ?

You should seriously reconsider the use of Wittgenstein in your politics. Check One Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse. Philosophers like Wittgenstein represent the perfect bourgeoisie philosophers, whose philosophy can be used to justify anything

I want to go a step beyond that, to include, along side Davidson's point, the one made in Philosophical Investigations, §201; that there are ways of following and going against a rule that are not said, but shown; and this I take to be indicating that it is the activity that is at the core, not the rule. — Banno

And yet, Wittgenstein was a social conservative who wasn't pleased with women having voting rights. I imagine he would be even more disappointed to see people using his philosophy in defense of transgenderism. You can't disconnect the man from his ideas.

Wittgenstein grounding language in the forms of life is not in your favor. If anything, like Hegel, Wittgenstein is an advocate of master-slave rule forming dialectic. For him, all of us blindly following traditions is essential to mastering rules of all kinds. One of the unintended or intended consequences of this is deeply rooted traditions are never going to dissappear anytime soon. Progressivism is nothing more than a secular myth, which once had some sense & direction when it was backed by Christian humanism.

The aim & end of philosophy is the contemplation of the Good. This is why it's called the love of wisdom.

The same formulation is used in B, now with the role of categories having been established — Paine

No. I haven't ignored anything. It simply looks like you haven't been reading my posts carefully. I do believe Kant's refutation of idealism (ROI) is INCONSISTENT with his project of transcendental idealism. So merely pointing to contrasting views expressed elsewhere in edition A or B does nothing unless you can show us a different plausible reading of ROI, which you haven't

I prefer Pluhar's translation & I will tell you what I think about the passage you just quoted, beginning from the 2nd edition as it's the most relevant, showing Kant 's failure to remain consistent

Now, it is true that all our presentations are by the understanding referred to some object; and since appearances are nothing but presentations, the understanding refers them to a something as the object of sensible intuition. But this something is in so far only the transcendental object — CPR, A250,B305

In this passage Kant appears to tells us the transcendental object is itself an appearance & presentation (focus on the italicized part). You can pick 2 options here.

Either this transcendental isn't the object Kant talks about in his ROI, in which case you won't have a clear contradiction, but the passage won't refute my interpretation, whereby Kant claims noumenal objects exist

Or you can claim this transcendental object is exactly the object Kant talks about in his ROI, but then you will arrive at a clear contradiction since in his ROI he explicitly states this object CANNOT be a presentation.

I quote again

I am conscious of my existence as determined in time. All time determination presuppose something permanent in perception. But this permanent something cannot be something within me, precisely because my existence can be determined in time only by this permanent something.Therefore perception of this permanent something is possible only through
a thing outside me and not through mere presentation of a thing outside me. Hence determination of my existence in time is possible only through the existence of actual things that I perceive outside me. — CPR,B276

Going back to the part you quoted.

This, however, signifies only a something = x of which we do not know-nor (by our understanding's current arrangement) can in principle! ever know-anything whatsoever. — A250,B305

This remaining passage of A250,B305 isn't problematic in any regards in so far as positing the existence of a noumenal object is concerned. Why ? Because not knowing anything about X does not imply you can't say it exists. Why ? Because existence for Kant has no analytic or synthetic relationship to an object. It niether belongs to its essential concept nor can it ever add to its concept.

Some people unfortunately don't have this in mind when they read this passage & thus end up claiming if we don't know anything about x, we surely can't know if it exists since that is also a conceptual claim regarding x. In complete contradiction to Kant.

Further in the same section, Kant makes a distinction that is missing your account: — Paine

It's not missing. I told you I'm aware of the contradictions. The passage you quoted (A253,B308) doesn't save you from anything. It merely presents a dilemma. Either the transcendental object is not related to noumena & in which case, it says nothing about the object posited in ROI (not presentation, appearance, phenomenon) or Kant is wrong in claiming the transcendental object does not belong to the noumenal realm. Which is it ? Pick your horn or show us a third way.

Yes. Kant's CPR is inconsistent & I'm not the first one to point this out. So go & face ROI.

Sirius Is it any wonder you're so missing the picture with Nietzsche...

"To comprehend this collective discharge of all the symbolic powers, a man must have already attained that height of self-abnegation, which wills to express itself symbolically through these powers: the Dithyrambic votary of Dionysus is therefore understood only by those like himself! With what astonishment must the Apollonian Greek have beheld him! With an astonishment, which was all the greater the more it was mingled with the shuddering suspicion that all this was in reality not so very foreign to him, yea, that, like unto a veil, his Apollonian consciousness only hid this Dionysian world from his view" — DifferentiatingEgg

Trust me, my Nietzsche, who holds the torch of Heraclitus, is the true follower of Dionysus & not the postmodernist, timid, scrupulous & "it's just conceptual schemes, bro" Nietzsche you want me to accept. Never.

All the Greeks of the tragic age you admire were supreme metaphysicians. I will not deny this privilege to Nietzsche.

What we need more than ever now is pagan metaphysics. The Gods must return.

It's a little unclear as to whether you are meaning to equate the two, but I had thought that the "2 world view" and the "2 aspect view" were competing interpretations in Kant scholarship. — Janus

No. I don't mean to equate the two & they are indeed competing interpretations of Kant. My simple claim is Kant held to the 2 world view & Schopenhauer also read him like that, to his dismay, since in the latter's philosophy, there is only one word with 2 aspects.

The most radical difference between Kant & Schopenhauer has to do with their methodology. Kant accepts transcendental deductions. Schopenhauer rejects them in favor of abstractionist analysis, which falls under his categorization of reason. Ofc, this is nothing new, David Hume himself regarded ideas as being derivative of impressions, but Schopenhauer's unique twist is he adds understanding (immediate & beyond analysis in contrast to reason) to perception itself.

Kantian idea that all we perceive are appearances — Janus

If by appearance you mean some kind of a picture or moving pictures (images) etc, then that's out of question. The representation only comes about when your sensible intuitions + understanding + affections of senses work together. In other words, you need a schema of imagination.

I will just quote Kant here so that you can see this for yourself.

We saw, moreover, that the only way in which objects can be given to us is by modification of our sensibility and, finally, that pure a priori concepts, besides containing the function of understanding implicit in the category, must also a priori contain [enthalten] formal conditions of sensibility (of inner sense, specifically), viz., conditions comprising the universal condition under which alone the category can be applied to any object [enthalten]. Let us call this formal and pure condition of sensibility, to which the concept of understanding is restricted in its use, the schema of this concept of understanding; and let us call the understanding's procedure with these schemata the schematism of pure understanding. A schema is, in itself, always only a product of the imagination [Einbildungskraft]. Yet, because here the imagination's synthesis aims not at an individual intuition but at unity in the determination of sensibility, a schema must be distinguished from an image [Bild]. — CPR, A140, B179-B180, Pluhar

The idea that reality is an unnamable One is not limited to Kant or Lao Tzu. It is common in many philosophies. There comes a point when you can’t count on what other people say and you have to just look for yourself. — T Clark

I don't buy this mystical woo woo interpretation of most ancient philosophers. It amounts to cognitive & spiritual nihilism if taken seriously.

This is why we must restore paganism in philosophy, echoing Heidegger. There is no the One that can't be named. Rather, there are Gods (proper sense of beyond being) who have fashioned the world with intelligible forms. We do have names for them & we worship them. We worship their presence in this world.

These Gods are present with us in ways monotheists with their hatred of idolatry (metaphysics really) can never imagine. We seek less navel gazing, more pagan festivals.

Schopenhauer criticizes Kant for referring to things-in-themselves on the grounds that if, as Kant asserts, there is no space and time outside of perception, then there can be no diversity. So, if I recall correctly, Schopenhauer refers to the noumenon as Will and claims that we can know it as such. For me, this makes no sense either, since even willing would seem to presuppose diversity. — Janus

In my reading of both Kant & Schopenhauer, I believe the latter's criticism of the earlier USUALLY holds very little value. This is a testimony to the genius of Kant, to the radical proposal of his program.

First of all, this world being representation is a claim of Schopenhauer, not of Kant. In no place does Kant claim we have no understanding of the world outside of perception. We do. Our intuition of space & time & even matter (substance) falls under that. Their mode of existence is related to how we condition our experience.

Perception for Kant is void of any understanding. Our senses provide raw data that does not have any relation of space, time, substance or causality as given. The question whether raw data given to the senses is undifferentiated or not is from a Kantian POV, without any sense. We simply don't have a non sensible intuition of intelligibility & differentiation to judge this - which we do in the cognitive frameworks of traditional metaphysics.

I think you may be mistaken when you say Schopenhauer has no room for the thing-in-itself in his philosophy as I seem to remember that he constantly refers to the Will as the thing-in-itself. I could be wrong about that though since it is long since I read the work, and also I read an English translation. — Janus

Sorry for the confusion. I should have added there's no room for Kantian "thing in itself" for Schopenhauer. In other words, that which is not an aspect of this world as representation or will but beyond it.

Here's the relevant quote & it's right in the beginning of his text

But in this first book it is necessary to consider separately that side of the world from which we start, namely the side of the knowable, and accordingly to consider without reserve all existing objects, nay even our own bodies (as we shall discuss more fully later on), merely as representation, to call them mere representation. That from which we abstract here is invariably only the will, as we hope will later on be clear to everyone. This will alone constitutes the other aspect of the world, for this world is, on the one side, entirely representation, just as, on the other, it is entirely will. But a reality that is neither of these two, but an object in itself (into which also Kant's thing-in-itself has unfortunately degenerated in his hands), is the phantom of a dream, and its acceptance is an ignis fatuus in philosophy. — The World as Will & Representation, $1

From this, it should be clear that Schopenhauer not only attributed the 2 world view to Kant, but sought to correct it. So in order to understand Kant himself, you can't rely on Schopenhauer. Unfortunately, a lot of people are still told to understand Kant through him & this has led to the popularization of 2 aspect reading of Kant.

I think you’re right. If noumena aren’t phenomena, then they aren’t entities. In Taoism, the Tao, which cannot be spoken, is, as I understand it, not a thing at all. If it’s not a thing, then it doesn’t really exist at all. Taoists sometimes call it non-being. If it doesn’t exist, then it can’t be posited. — T Clark

Noumena is in the plural. If it's just that which is unknown or beyond naming, then why does it have a singular & plural form which Kant uses (knowingly) throughout his book ?

The claim that the thing in itself is distinct from the noumenon is also very weak. Throughout CPR, Kant refers to things in themselves, not just thing in itself

I see this common misinterpretation of Kant a result of Schopenhauer's conscious reinterpretation of Kant gaining currency in the public imagination. Unfortunately, even this involves misunderstandings since Schopenhauer has no room for "thing in itself" in his philosophy

Notice that he starts with "I am conscious of my existence as determined in time." That is phenomenology. He's pointing out that he experiences himself as being in motion through time. If he's in motion, it has to be relative to something stationary. If all he is resides within this thing traveling through time, then there must be something other than himself that is a stationary object. — frank

No. He is clearly not referring to any presentable object outside of him. A stationary object involves the intuition of time & space, it is a presentable object.

Furthermore, the empirical unity of consciousness is just an appearance amongst appearances. It is a presentable object. To claim empirical sensible objects (stationary) exist in a separable or independent manner from it is to undo empirical realism, which Kant is defending here (inconsistently, but that's not my concern for now)

Whether I can be conscious empirically of the manifold as simultaneous or as sequential depends on circumstances or empirical conditions. Hence empirical unity of consciousness, through association of presentations, itself concerns an appearance and is entirely contingent — CPR,B140, Pluhar

Please read Kant for who he is, not who you want him to be. If you like phenomenology, fine, but don't project it onto Kant unnecessarily.

and I’m saying to posit unintelligible objects, is itself unintelligible. We don’t care about the intuition we don’t have; we only care about setting limits on understanding, in order to prevent having to ask why we don’t, or, what would happen if we did. — Mww

I think you have it the wrong way here. I'm not defending Kant here & I do believe his claims are inconsistent. I'm an Aristotelian after all, not a Kantian.

But we must get the claims of Kant right first & this is where I 180proof disagree. He seems to think Kant held to the Permeinides thesis on the unity of being & intellect, that we must only posit intelligible entities, but he didn't. I have shown this by citing Kant's refutation of idealism.

Ascetic Socratism, decadence, self-hate, life-denying.. — DifferentiatingEgg

Guilty as charged. Where's my punishment for corrupting the youth ?

So, in other words, you're just making shit up like "the ground of metaphysics".. That's Reddit bs, son. — 180 Proof

Unc trying to ragebait me. :lol: , it won't work. I'm too playful to get butthurt.

No. Whether metaphysics is possible or not & under what conditions, all of that involves studying the ground of metaphysics.

It's not a coincidence that the principle of intelligibility is looked upon at the beginning of the inquiry. It deals with the question whether the structure of Intellect & Being has any link & what kind. If it fails, all fails.

This is a perennial question & I'm stupefied to see you so lost in understanding its importance

I don't want to derail this thread but I will respond to your objection. The fact of the matter is CPR has a 1st & 2nd edition. Almost all Kantian scholars agree the two editions appear to have contradictory claims & the majority do think the contradictions are real & ireconcilable

This is why I mentioned Kant's refutation of idealism, which he added to his 2nd edition of CPR. Here is where he makes strange claims in regards to noumena

I am conscious of my existence as determined in time. All time determination presupposes something permanent in perception. But this permanent something cannot be something within me, precisely because my existence can be determined in time only by this permanent something.Therefore perception of this permanent something is possible only through a thing outside me and not through mere presentation of a thing outside me — CPR, B276, translation of Pluhar (the best)

From this quote, it's clear the ground of our representations, all of phenomena, can't be an object of phenomena. It must be an object in the realm of noumena & it must exist in order for empirical realism to be true.

Thus the concept of pure, merely intelligible objects is entirely devoid of all principles of its application, since one cannot think up any way in which they could be given…”
(A260/B315) — Mww

The quote you provided doesn't refute my claim since I'm not saying Kant claims we have non sensible intuition of intelligible objects & thus we can posit them. Rather, I say Kant allows us to posit unintelligible objects for which we have no DIRECT sensible (the only kind for Kant) intuition in his refutation of idealism.

A world without truth could not be, as there would be no actuality. Of course it is something each must realize by themselves, which is the task of philosophy.

And furthermore the statement ‘there is no truth’ is self contradicting: if it is true then there is a truth. If it is not it is false. — Wayfarer

The problem with this refutation is those who claim there are no truths are also often prepared to violate the law of non-contradiction

And as Aristotle noted long ago, there's no way to demonstrate the universal neccesity of LNC. It's too basic, as a principle of thought. You can't say anything to the one who denies it. (Checking you Graham Priest)

So what you are saying is “Every truth is knowable” quantifies over possible worlds and possible knowers; it does not require that any knowers actually exist? But that “Every truth is known” is a claim about the actual world and requires actual knowers? — Banno

Yes. Precisely that. The consequence of this is the term k will be different for one of the two.

To illustrate,

(K(p),x) =: There exist x which knows p, for truth is known

K(p) =: p is knowable, for truth is knowable


Now, there is no way to draw an inference from the latter to the earlier since the total variables are different

If this argument isn't mentioned in SEP (I haven't checked it yet) then it doesn't show it's invalid. It could be out there, somewhere else. I don't think I'm the first one to ever raise this rather obvious objection.

Fitch is not arguing that for all p, we have p -> Kp. Fitch is arguing that if for all p, we have p -> ◇Kp, then for all p, we have p -> Kp, but since it is not acceptable that for all p, we have p -> Kp, it is not acceptable that for all p, we have p -> ◇Kp. — Banno

I understand. It's a supposition. But my argument above invalidates it.

Here's another problem with this approach though, & it is related to the nature of suppositionals. Some logicians won't allow you to conflates the material & formal conditions or unite them together.

So a claim in the form of "Suppose this, then so & so, therefore that" even if conceded by your opponents, has no demonstrative power. The conclusion is simply dialectical...it remains inconclusive. For a demonstration to obtain, the material conditions of the propositions must be fulfilled. You may regard this as an outdated Aristotelian objection, but it has actually inspired modern relevance logic [which extends to modality]

Explain how and why "metaphysics" requires a "ground". — 180 Proof

Oh boy, 360 proof, the ground of metaphysics I'm referring to is the principle of intelligibility. It has many different names. The principle of unity & sufficient reason. Does that ring a bell?

Your question, "WHY we need IT ? :joke: " presupposes it !!! Had you read Schopenhauer, which I did many moons ago, you would know this.

If you want to question everything, then don't stop in the middle & fashion naturalist castles in air (Spinoza's metaphysics). Half-assed skepticism is intellectually dishonest.

So what? Hume dispenses with this "axiom" (more recently Q. Meillassoux's anti-correlationism). — 180 Proof

My guy, Hume dispenses with metaphysics as well. Don't you know he denied the intelligibility & usefulness of substances & accidents altogether ?

It's gross incompetence on your behalf to conflate Kant's correlationism with the correlationism of Permeinides. Kant does allow you to posit entities that are beyond intelligibility, UNLIKE Permeinides. Check his refutation of idealism, which gives key support to the 2 world interpretation - a part of CPR severely disliked by Schopenhauer.

As for Meillassoux. Don't get me started on that. His works stand refuted. All I need to do is reach for my shelf. Hyperreal Speculative metaphysics was a fad, nothing more. Great for hoo haa & parties.

Obviously you've not studied Spinoza's work. — 180 Proof

Obviously, 360 proof. It just so happens that my objection to Spinoza is exactly the same one offered by another dumb guy by the name of Hegel, who also failed to STUDY Spinoza. :lol: , we poor peasants can only arrive at misunderstandings of Spinoza. Enlighten us Shīfū.

I don't see why.

We can write "Kp" for "we know p", and "◇Kp" for "we might know p", and "~Kp" for "we don't know p" and "~◇Kp" for "we can't know p", none of which are tensed. — Banno

There's a big difference between

"We might know p" & "P is knowable" , but I have mentioned this in the post above

p → ◇Kp also seems strange. By what entailment would one accept this as true ?

"We know p" may not imply "We may know P" since the latter expresses a degree of uncertainty which is nullified by the earlier statement, assuming infallibility.

Even if we don't assume infallibility, It all depends on what you mean by "may know P". It clearly involves epistemic modality & I don't see why it shouldn't be dealt with in terms of subjective probabilities. There is NO absolute truth evaluation here.

A realist will maintain that there are truths we do not know. An antirealist will maintain that every truth is possibly knowable. Fitch showed that if every truth is knowable, then every truth is known:
(p → ◇Kp) ⇒ (p → Kp)

That is, the antirealist cannot know that there are truths that cannot be known, without contradiction. — Banno

"Every Truth is knowable" is subject independent. It does not presume the existence of knowers.

"Every truth is known" is subject dependent since it presumes the existence of knowers.

Note : I'm not making a tensed argument.

So you can't claim both are represented by the same propositional form "kp" without justification.

Does Fitch justify this? If not, then it's the worst case of question begging & the formal logic showpiece is nothing short of sophistry. Symbols can only take you so far, what matters more is semantics, epistemology & metaphysics at a deeper level.

Nietzsche has many facets, that metaphysics is fictional doesn't mean it doesn't exist within thought...it's conceptual device created by humans — DifferentiatingEgg

No. You have the cart before the horse. The metaphysics of being is a fiction because the metaphysics of Nietzsche is related to becoming.

Nothing indeed has exercised a more simple power of persuasion hitherto than the error of Being, as it was formulated by the Eleatics for instance: in its favour are every word and every sentence that we utter! — Twilight § 5 Reason in Philosophy

Thanks for proving my point with the quote you brought. The reason language & thought itself is deceptive for Nietzsche is because it conceals the metaphysics of becoming & provides support to the metaphysics of being. Nietzsche clearly knows there's a way to overcome the limitations of language to grasp the true reality of the world. This would be impossible if metaphysics was SOLELY a byproduct of misunderstandings caused by language. Which it isn't. This is what I am disputing. You reducing Nietzsche to some sort of pseudo/proto Wittgensteinian.

Now it's my turn to quote Nietzsche but I don't want to turn this into a Nietzschean Bible quoting competition.

If you aren't functionally illiterate, then after having read all these quotes, you will acknowledge Nietzsche is a metaphysician & he isn't beholden to conceptual schemes. That would be a complete mockery & caricature of his actual stance, which favors direct sensible intuition to uncover reality. He even lists his "doctrines", which are the positive elements of his thoughts.

I still remained a little doubtful about Heraclitus, in whose presence, alone, I felt warmer and more at ease than anywhere else. The yea-saying to the impermanence and annihilation of things, which is the decisive feature of a Dionysian philosophy; the yea-saying to contradiction and war, the postulation of Becoming, together with the radical rejection even of the concept in all these things, at all events, I must recognise him who has come nearest to me in thought hither to. The doctrine of the “Eternal Recurrence” —— that is to say of the absolute and eternal repetition of all things in periodical cycles — this doctrine of Zarathustra’s might, it is true, have been taught before. In any case, the Stoics, who derived nearly all their fundamental ideas from Heraclitus, show traces of it. — Ecce Homo

But Heraclitus will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction. The “apparent” world is the only one: the “true” world is merely added by a lie. — The Twilight of the Idols

Heraclitus has as his royal property the highest power of intuitive conception, whereas towards the other mode of conception which is consummated by ideas and logical combinations, that is towards reason, he shows himself cool, apathetic, even hostile, and he seems to derive a pleasure when he is able to contradict reason by means of a truth gained intuitively, and this he does in such propositions as: “Everything has always its opposite within itself,” so fearlessly that Aristotle before the tribunal of Reason accuses him of the highest crime, of having sinned against the law of opposition. Intuitive representation however embraces two things: firstly, the present, motley, changing world, pressing on us in all experiences, secondly, the conditions by means of which alone any experience of this world becomes possible: time and space. For these are able to be intuitively apprehended, purely in themselves and independent of any experience; i.e., they can be perceived, although they are without definite contents — Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks

One aspect is that metaphysics is not verifiable, as metaphysics is undertaken using language, and truth cannot be discovered within language. Truth transcends language — RussellA

It's useless to tell us whether this or that is unverifiable until you tell us your criteria for verification. Not only that, you will also have to justify it.

Ofcourse, if language is a tool, then it cannot be the subject matter of any science which aims to discover truths. This was known to Aristotle. But the [neo-] positivists you are echoing actually disputed this. They regarded language as unveiling the structure of the world & mind. How ? Well, they never justified it. It was always begged. The Tractatus has no arguments & Wittgenstein was intelligent enough to cast all of it under the mystical (ineffable woo woo). The whole movement was an utter sham, complete embarrassment.

It is not the case that i) “everything within the empirical realm is in constant state of actuality (what it is now) versus potentiality (what it could be) is true” but rather ii) “everything within the empirical realm is in constant state of actuality (what it is now) versus potentiality (what it could be)” is true IFF everything within the empirical realm is in constant state of actuality (what it is now) versus potentiality (what it could be). — RussellA

This is a mistake. Actual & Potential are not mere substitutes for what is & what is possible. Both the actual & possible participate in being for Aristotle. The actual exists, the possible subsists. They come equipped with ontology. Both are also capable of interacting with one another. Why ? Because the possible has 2 aspects, one of which coincides with the actual & the other of which is oriented towards the future.

Secondly, pure actuality is never in time & is prior to time. It has essential priority, which cannot be described as "what is now". "Now" involves temporal ordering.

Thirdly, nothing in the empirical realm can be described as actual if you take empiricism in the sense of Hume. The sensible realm is the realm of potentiality by default for Aristotle. If you really want some modality within empiricism, it better be cashed out as your ignorance of the complete picture of the world. "What is possible" turns into "What is probable". There's no point in using Aristotelian terminology here.

As Collingwood said, absolute presuppositions are not verifiable, because, as Hume pointed out, even though all our knowledge comes from sensory experiences, we can only directly observe the regularity of events, never the cause of these regularities. Through reason and logic we hypothesise a speculative cause for these regularities, and we can only reason about our sensory observations. In the absence of any sensory observation, there would be nothing for reason to reason about. — RussellA

"All of our knowledge comes from sensory experience", a statement which can never be verified by any empirical method - that's an absolute presupposition if there ever was one. It's not ? Then you lose your reason for denying the possibility of non sensible or sensible intuition as an infallible source of knowledge. I recommend you to check the Critique of Pure Reason. Hume easily went too far. If you want a metaphysics which determines our conditions for the possibility of experience, then Kant is your guy, not Hume.

As with Kant, there must be a unity between what the mind observes, empirical sensory observations, and the mind’s comprehension in what it observes, logical reasoning. Also with Aristotle, there is unity between passive intellect, receiving and processing of sensory information, and active intellect, thought and reasoning. — RussellA

Except the active intellect of Aristotle has non sensible direct intuition of intelligible forms. It is immaterial & described as the highest aspect of the soul. Kant denied all of this. You guys need to stop with the lazy comparisons.

what's all this Jazz about Wittgenstein? I guess you thought I'm quoting him or something? Sorry homie, mostly my thoughts from reading Nietzsche (and Others) while considering the Platonic representation of words and how words shape human psychology... if those thoughts are like ole Witty's then he probably gathered a good deal from Nietzsche. — DifferentiatingEgg

Then that's a terrible reading of Nietzsche & "seduction of grammar" is such a Wittgensteinian turn of phrase that you can forgive me for thinking you are lying & very bad at that.

You don't become an anti-Platonist by creating a God out of logos (discourse), who rules over all of us & there's no escape from him. Language as a cage. It's all immanent Platonism if anything else, as noted by Deleuze.

So here's the deal buddy, Nietzsche did have a metaphysics of becoming & his essence or substance (what it is) of the world was nothing other than "will to power" - in tribute to Heraclitus. Yes. Pure difference. Check the reading of Heidegger here.

I know there are interpreters who read "will to power" as some physiopsychological drive inherent in all of us, but that commits Nietzsche to a prioritization of the unsophisticated & reductive "natural" over other interpretations of the world, in flat contradiction to his perspectivism.

I don't mean to be rude, but I won't respond to this given your inability to connect the link between the active & passive mind...the answer is already there. Is this functional illiteracy? I don't know. I doubt you understood Aristotle the first time you read him.

Good luck. :up:

Thank you, but I don't quite see how. Would Aristotle say that a thought does, or does not, cause another thought? — J

Ultimately, NO. First of all, it does not make much sense to speak of the mind's objects without establishing an identity between the mind & its objects. Secondly, without all knowledge as already given in the active mind via noesis (direct non sensible intuition), our passive minds would be incapable of generating any thought by themselves since they only have the POTENTIAL for thought. You can insist on them being capable of this, but the process will be unintelligible & magical, a common problem which plagues physicalism

Otherwise, in a qualified sense, sure, one thought does follow another thought in the passive, destructible & limited mind. It's the passive mind transformed by the active mind, so it TAKES ON its causality.

There's not much I can do to help you understand Aristotle with a few quotes here & there. I recommend you check out De Anima. It's totally worth it given your interest/question.

Actual knowledge is identical with its object: in the individual, potential knowledge is in time prior to actual knowledge, but in the universe as a whole it is not prior even in time. Mind is not at one time knowing and at another not. When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is immortal and eternal (we do not, however, remember its former activity because, while mind in this sense is impassible, mind as passive is destructible), and without it nothing thinks. — Aristotle, De Anima 3.5

This answers your question. Thinking is the identity of mind & its object of thought. Ultimately, it isn't algorithmic or sequential, what the ancients called discursive & it can't occur in passive matter alone since that would fail to capture all the universals qua particulars, by not allowing matter to be identical to all other matters. I would identify this active intellect with either the cosmic intellect posterior to the prime mover OR the prime mover itself. Being a physicalist (including a functionalist) is a recipe for a disastrous & poor philosophy of "mind"

Define "defective" — LuckyR

Not self flourishing, lacking virtue, not attaining required happiness, not fulfilling one's purpose etc. You can check Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for more details.

The whole is infinite and eternal (nature); its constituents and their configurations are finite and temporal (physics). Logical relations – entailments – between the whole and subwholes compose naturalists' rational mandalas. Not explaining but contemplating the current best explanations for nature is how I understand m e t a p h y s i c s (as practiced by e.g. Laozi, Democritus-Epicurus, Spinoza — 180 Proof

I will leave Laozi aside for now. He is a Neoplatonist to me, a perfect non-dualist.

The infinite & indivisible substance of Spinoza is a bare substratum, which can never be actual in of itself, since it lacks determination altogether. An undetermined being violates the Permeinides unity of being & intellect, the ground of metaphysics ; what can be thought of/be as must be intelligible & that which we can't think or be as, it is non-existent.

Guess who else doubted the Permeinides unity of being & intellect ? Kant. But he was far more intelligent than Spinoza & understood the consequences it entailed. (Reality is ultimately unintelligible & non critical metaphysics a fool's quest). Unfortunately, his project has deep contradictions & at best, you end up with Pyrrhonism or worse Academic Skepticism, nothing close to metaphysics.

There's a problem with the logical entailments you mentioned. It's a nice attempt at smuggling EXPLANATIONS (answers to why ?)

As I see, it's clear your logical entailments will be dependent on the mental modes of the infinite substance & incapable of playing the causal role required of them to establish the connection between various minds (passive intellect for peripatetics) & matters. BUT if you allow them independence from both mind & matter & all other modes, then we are back with forms as substantial forms. Now unless you want the forms to be free floating (nowhere) - which is bad to both Aristotle AND Plato, you will ground them in the active intellect, thought thinking itself, the prime mover, the pure act, the first substance. Everything other than it is its effect or consequent, not its mode, since that which is completely actual has no parts or dependence (all of which are potentials)

It is my understanding, which admittedly is not deep, that ancient philosophers were not materialists or empiricists. For them, the world was infused with spirit and human value. — T Clark

I understand where you are coming from. Does the atom of Democritus belong to the same kind of atom modern physics posits ? A simple way to go about this is to distinguish the methods by which the two paradigms arrive at the "atom", pre/pseudo (fill your criteria) scientific & scientific. But that's a lost cause. You can check Feyerabend on this.

Instead, we should look at the subject matter.

A safe bet is to see if we can extend Aristotle's categorization of physics (a branch of natural philosophy) to the present & to see if it would result in the destruction of metaphysics if it is taken to be basic. The study of all that changes & is inseparable from matter (not intelligible & extra mental)

Democritus's atom is clearly something which changes & it is inseparable from matter. It's easy to see where nominalism fits in this. The particular atoms are all that happen to be. At worst, the atoms can instantiate universals in our minds (also atoms), we can take this kind of moderate realism to be a weak version of nominalism, in so far as the basic make-up/grounding of the world is concerned. Mechanism is a tough nut to crack but it can be understood as a subcategory of change which is restricted to space & time. This is a minimalist description which covers all kinds of mechanistic systems.

All of this fits quite nicely with people who champion modern physics as the best guide to understanding the world in of itself. They are committed to all of the above.

I should have clarified, by empiricism, I mean the Humean kind, which reduces the world to appearances, the sensible realm. All ideas are obtained from basic impressions, "X appears as Y". This can be traced back to the Pyrrhonists or Skeptics in general. I'm not sure if I would ascribe this kind of epistemic attitude to Democritus though. I would not...After all, Hume was NOT a materialist (or an anti materialist). He discarded substances & accidents (to be immanent forms) all together :lol: , AND without forms or substantial forms, there can be NO metaphysics

Transmen & Transwomen are not natural kinds. It's a category error to assert or deny a male can be a transman or a female can be a transwoman biologically.

I assume everyone agrees with the biological distinction between male & female. The next question is, should all biological men realize their potential as men & should all biological women realize their potential as women ? This is a matter of ethics & politics. The answer from strict Aristotelian virtue ethics is a categorical YES. So a man being woman-like or a woman being man-like would be defective. On top of this, [free] men & women have different roles to play in the polis of Aristotle

Things like substances, essences, and unchanging truths, are mostly just fictional. Metaphysics is mostly "what a human says about a thing." A reification through grammar. A grammatical seduction — DifferentiatingEgg

Lol. Except Wittgenstein doesn't regard any of these as fictional or non fictional for that matter. That would involve backdoor metaphysics & Wittgenstein is smart enough to avoid that.

If I have to give a name to his position, it would be weak paradigmatic linguistic transcendentalism. He is niether a strict transcendentalist like Kant who searches for private a priori, fixed categories or conditions, nor is he is conventionalist like Carnap or other neo-positivists.

If you told Wittgenstein, the existence of electrons is fictional just like the existence of Harry Potter, he would clearly be disappointed since the usage of "fictional" in physics & story telling is quite different. In fact, deciding whether something is fictional or not is itself a language game & not a pseudo property of language games.

Turning different usages of languages, such as language acquisition, into conditions for the possibility of language is a mistake Wittgenstein corrects quite early on. The foundation of language games must be sought in life forms, which are evidently beyond the crude categories of fictional or non fictional.

However, the label "Metaphysics"*2 was later associated with a legalistic sub-category of General Philosophy : Theology (god-science). And that ideology is further associated with a sub-category of Religion known as scriptural Monotheism. Unfortunately, it's the dogmatic & legalistic sophistry & casuistry of Theology that have given Aristotle's philosophy of principles a bad name — Gnomon

This isn't fair. I regard the Neoplatonist polytheists, Muslims & Christians as some of the best commentators of Aristotle & you can't grasp the peripatetic TRADITION without them. Aristotle himself regarded metaphysics as a divine science, with the unmoved mover(s) serving as Gods or our philosophical models of Gods - the divine of divine. Metaphysics is Theology.

Physics deals with the things that have a principle of movement in themselves; mathematics is theoretical, and is a science that deals with things that are at rest, but its subjects cannot exist apart. Therefore about that which can exist apart and is unmovable there is a science different from both of these, if there is a substance of this nature (I mean separable and unmovable), as we shall try to prove there is. And if there is such a kind of thing in the world, here must surely be the divine, and this must be the first and most dominant principle. Evidently, then, there are three kinds of theoretical sciences-physics, mathematics, theology. The class of theoretical sciences is the best, and of these themselves the last named is best; for it deals with the highest of existing things, and each science is called better or worse in virtue of its proper object. — Aristotle, Metaphysics book XI - 7

Aristotle's physics was the study of nature and change, focusing on the physical world through observation and empirical study. In contrast, his metaphysics (which he called "first philosophy") was the study of being itself and the unchanging, immaterial entities that underlie the physical world, such as God. While physics dealt with the changeable, metaphysics addressed the principles behind things, like "being as such". — Gnomon

:up: ... That said, I often wonder (like Heraclitus, Buddha & Nietzsche) if it's even possible to understand movable & immovable, material & immaterial etc as strict contraries, whether as substances or modes or what have you. Why not collapse the categories ? But that would destroy the reliability & intelligibility of both metaphysics & natural sciences. The flux of Heraclitus destroys the possibility of any knowledge. It throws us before life with no wits.

understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term. — Wilfrid Sellars

This is too permissive in my understanding. Aristotle regards metaphysics as the first science since it deals with all that is unchangeable & immaterial. By this qualification, the "things" cannot be reduced to any natural substances, such as material entities and/or their compositions. In other words, metaphysics deals primarily with the intelligible realm - the realm of grounding & causality, with universals & forms.

Now if natural substances are the first of existing things, physics must be the first of sciences; but if there is another entity and substance, separable and unmovable, the knowledge of it must be different and prior to physics and universal because it is prior — Aristotle, Metaphysics book XI - 8

This quote has a radical proposal. It's not saying metaphysics can be physics, which would be a plain contradiction to Aristotle, but that if physics is the first science, then there can never be metaphysics. It would be unintelligible. The possibility of metaphysics hinges on metaphysical naturalism & its adjacent views like materialism, empiricism (YES), nominalism, mechanism being flawed or incomplete.