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  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    True, Kant's expositions in the antimonies of pure reason, when closely examined as they will be at length in the course of this work, do not indeed deserve any great praise; but the general idea on which he based his expositions and which he vindicated, is the objectivity of the illusion and the necessity of the contradiction which belongs to the nature of thought determinations:Gregory

    Would it be the criticism on Kant from Hegel's point of view?
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Hegel tried to bring contradiction into a non-dual unity where there is no room left for contradiction.Gregory

    Why does Hegel try to avoid contradiction and dualism? Are contradiction and dualism unacceptable faults in philosophy?
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    The point I was making regards standards of citation.Paine

    Yes, I agree. Detailed and accurate source info for the quotations and citations are important and critical in the postings. Without them, some readers might accuse you for plagiarism.
  • The infinite in Hegel's philosophy
    What does "reality" mean in Hegel? Is the dualism for the world(s), or between body and mind like the Cartesians?

    We create the world (philosophy), and the world thru atoms make us (science)Gregory
    Do we create the world? How do we do that?
  • The infinite in Hegel's philosophy
    Are you questioning that Hegel is an idealist? Most scholars say he was. The world is universals and we are Idea.Gregory

    What about we as matter and bodies?
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Of course. Hegel claimed Aristotle as his own,Gregory

    Rosen says it is impossible to understand Hegel without understanding Plato and Aristotle. Do you agree? Why is it the case?
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Ok, good idea. Will update soon.
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Which Hegelian text are you referring to? There are at least three your description could be pointing to.

    How about quoting some text so that the context can be appreciated?
    Paine

    I have Hegel's Philosophy of Religion, Phenomenology of Spirit and some other books too. I need to get back to reading them. I did read a couple of introductory books on Hegel long time ago, so most of them are faded away from my memory. Need to refresh searching and looking for the books somewhere in the cupboards. This is not a Hegel thread, so maybe if someone starts one on Hegel, I would follow. I am only a learner, hence would be for studying mostly reading and asking if any questions arise.
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    After getting better at reading his works, it felt as if i could predict what each next paragraph would be about.Gregory

    I feel Hegel is an important and significant philosopher, and was planning to read his original texts sometime. His metaphysics, and philosophy of religion were interesting. But Science of Logic sounds interesting too. Look forward to discussing on Hegel sometime in the near future with you and others who are interested in Hegel too.
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Reason, in Kant, is a generalizations of the various powers of judgment which ultimately want truth.Moliere

    In Logic Lecture book, it says logic is derived from reason. and is is a doctrine, it provides rules / it is a demonstrated theory. It contains the ground for passing judgements as to whether something is true or false. -pp.432
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Have you read one of Hegel's books?Gregory
    I did read some commentary books on Hegel. I did not read any of his original works.

    I've Phenomenology of the Mind about 7 times, and his "encyclopaedia' a few times. Sometimes there can be synchronisity in lifeGregory
    Cool. You must be very much familiar with Hegel's system. :up:
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    No.

    There's a lot of lingo there that can be interpreted in various ways. But "No", I think, is the true answer to all of your questions above.
    Moliere
    Ok, fair enough. I was wondering if reason and logic are the same or separate faculties in Kant. If they are the separate faculties, then they might create possible contradictory situations in their operations. That was my point to Mww. For the word "faculties", Kant uses the word often in his Lecture on "LOGIC" for meaning divisions.

    "Faculty" is a fun word from the early modern period. It doesn't specify much other than thought-furniture/functions in the imaginations of the early moderns.Moliere
    We can see the word "faculty" often in the Logic Lecture book of Kant. For example "Reason is the faculty of the derivation of the particular from the universal or cognition a priori." - pp.442
  • On eternal oblivion
    No reason to believe otherwise, unless willing to believe in the impossible.Fire Ologist

    Believing in certainty and high possibility would be trust. Isn't believing in impossibility faith?
  • On eternal oblivion
    Eternal oblivion is a poetic way of simply saying “not here anymore.”Fire Ologist

    Where is the place for the religious belief or faith in life after death?
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Where does purpose come from? We don't know but it's there.Gregory
    Purpose for what? Isn't purpose from your psychology?

    And yes, Hedeigger was a finitist Hegelian lol, imoGregory
    Under what evidence is it the case? Gadamer was into Hegel stuff for mainly on hermeneutics, but not sure if Heidegger was.
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    First of all, nowhere in the statement that made no sense to me was the concept of reality to be found,Mww

    The second statement, in response, in the form of a secondary conditional query, the conception of reality is found, so that statement makes sense to me.Mww

    Now I can say, reality does not hold contradiction, that being the purview of pure a priori logic manifest in critical thought, so even though the statement makes sense, it is theoretically invalid.Mww

    Your writings are ambiguous in what it is trying to say. My point was clear. If reason is based on logic, then they are likely to conflict on their judgements. Moreover it sounds a redundant statement to say that reason is based on logic.
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Which is why I said “commonly, but loosely, called”, insofar as the human intellectual faculties do not use symbols or language;Mww
    When there are the official definition of formal logic, describing logic in commonly and loosely was a bit odd. We do use symbols extensively in all sciences, mathematics, arts, and communications too. Ignoring the symbols would be ignoring intelligence.

    ….reason says true on X, but the logic says false on X at the same time…..
    — Corvus

    Sorry, that makes no sense to me.
    Mww
    How could a case of contradiction which is possible in the reality and also in logical thinking not make sense to you?
  • The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
    All this is too obvious. Beneath the surface of things there is a paralogical bi-reality.Gregory
    What do you mean by a paralogical bi-reality? Could you elaborate on that please?

    We have matter first. We are matter, we are extended so we are extension.Gregory
    We are not just matter.

    People think saying matter is extension is too Cartesian but look: that car there is extended that way, pushes off to the side there, ect. It's extended. It's not the principle of extension maybe, but what does that even mean?Gregory
    Isn't extended or extension a property of matter? That is obvious. If not, indeed what do you mean?
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Great summary :up: however a few points ...

    Logic employed by the understanding is commonly, albeit loosely, called formal,Mww
    Formal logic means the type of logic which uses symbols and formal languages for analysing the statements and propositions for validity i.e. propositional logic, predicate logic and modal logic.
    In mathematical logic it also means the logic which can be computable via the intelligent machines.

    Reason, on the other hand, employs transcendental logic, which has congruent subject/predicate form, but different origin of conceptions contained therein.Mww
    Reason itself is a faculty which analyses and finds truths, but if it is to employ transcendental logic for its operation, then does it not duplicate itself with another faculty of truth telling system? Does it imply that reason says true on X, but the logic says false on X at the same time? If both of them says true, then why does reason need the logic, and why logic needs reason?

    Are they not rather actually the same faculty expressed in different terms?
  • The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
    On the other hand we have Descartes arguments for soul. There is nothing about pure abstraction that speaks of an entended organ. This feels strange to write because i feel my own brain and know i am just a body on a material, dangerous planet. However, he has a point that spiritual experiences are perceived as going beyond matter.Gregory

    Cartesian idea of body and soul is rejected by many contemporaries as an outdated and invalid theory for the fact, that body and mind dualism cannot be proven and makes no sense.

    Do you believe in the dualism? Do we have souls? Could you prove the existence of souls? Do souls supposed to survive the bodily deaths? If they are separate substances, souls suppose to survive bodily deaths. If not, then where do they go, or what happen to the souls after death?
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Could it be said that Kant was not Hegelian, but was he an absurdist?Gregory

    Kant lived in the earlier times than Hegel. How could Kant have had been a Hegelian? Could Plato have had been Heideggerian? :D
  • Contradiction in Kant's Worldview
    Dialetheism is associated usually with Hegel,Gregory
    For Hegel contradiction is the essential element in the changes and progress of the world.

    Kant, who was very interested in formal logic,Gregory
    Kant's logic was not formal logic. It was transcendental logic i.e. he thought transcendental idealism works under the principle of the logic.

    has his mental "antimonies" in his system. So my question is: was contradiction a necessary part of logic and/or reality in the worldview of Kant? If we can only see two sides of an idea, how do we know they unite at a highet level?Gregory
    Antinomies were what our reasons face when dealing with God, world, freedom and souls. Reason was supposed to know truth on everything. But when it comes to these objects, reason doesn't know what they are. For Kant, that was antinomy of reason, which is also the limitation of reason.
  • Kicking and Dreaming
    Memories, for instance -- where might they fall on the "willful" spectrum?J

    Memories seem to play a part in dreams, but they are not exactly correct memories of the past. You might just see something you have had experience with in real life, but in a totally different context. There would be no thoughts or reasonings happening in dreams. You get what is unfolding in your dreaming without your choice in totally unpredictable manner.

    Even if you get to see the images and in some cases the situations happening albeit without any context, reason or history, you still have feelings and willful motivations which make you angry, sad, or joyous, and you might even act to defend yourself if you feel you were in danger even in your dreams. It tells us even when we are asleep, some part of our mind is semi conscious, and a lot might be happening in there.

    I don't believe it is a causal relationship between dreaming and actions while in sleep, but more likely contingent or random reactions due to the mental activities happening during sleep, because there is no constant regularity or necessity between the contents of dreaming and the reactions during dreaming. And it doesn't affect the majority of folks in the same way, but looks to be some random and contingent reactions to the dreams in some folks.
  • Kicking and Dreaming


    Ok, good point. Another reason that it is not causal reaction is that, when you say X is caused by Y. Y must cause on all instances of X i.e. if the dream caused your kicking, it must cause kicking to all other folks who has the same dream or similar dream kicking. But it doesn't. Maybe it does to some folks, but definitely not to all the folks. Hence it is not causal event. It is random or contingent event or reaction during the sleep.

    You mentioned also on supervenience i.e. Kicking was based on dreaming. It seems also not convincing, because when an action is based on something i.e. the dreaming, there must be also thought processes or willful motivations which must accompany the action Kicking. During sleep, your thought and willful motivations wouldn't be present for your Kicking to be based on the thoughts process or willful motivation on the dreaming.
  • Kicking and Dreaming
    As is now apparent, this is a little microcosm of the whole mental-causation problem. But I offer it because it’s curiously amenable to analysis, and makes me wonder whether any sleep researchers have actually used brain scans to look into this.J

    Isn't it just contingent or random events or responses? To say X is caused by Y, Y must be possible to repeat for more observations to see if X will happen.

    In human dreams, possibility of exactly same dream can happen is very low, if not impossible. And the contents of dreams are not something which can be controlled by external conditioning or by the dreamer himself.
  • The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
    Our only knowledge about any mind-independent world, any objective reality, starts with our subjective mental states. This means that knowledge about an objective reality cannot be separated from our subjective mental states.RussellA

    Are you not confounding knowledge about an objective reality with mind-independent world here?
  • The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
    Impossible for the mind to describe a mind-independent world.RussellA

    There seem to be two options.
    1) Mind-independent world doesn't exist. It is a figment of our imagination like flying horse or golden mountain or mermaid.

    2) It could be the countries or places which are known to exist, but we have never been in it such as Australia (for me, I have never been in the country). I read about it, watched youtube videos about it, and heard about it, so I imagine it is a vast land with great weather, and lots of wild bush land and many kangurus jumping around all over the place.

    I believe it exists, but I have no idea who are living in there, and what is happening in there. I have no direct perception on the country at all. In that sense, it is a mind-independent world for me.
  • The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
    Our only knowledge about any mind-independent world, any objective reality, starts with our subjective mental states.RussellA

    Could you describe what mind-independent world could be?
  • Meinong rejection of Existence being Prior to Predication
    But if X was originally a statue of X, then a statue of X is X. No?
    — Corvus
    No. The Trojan Horse was arguably a mythological statue. Pegasus was never a mythological statue.
    noAxioms
    X is a free variable. It can take any value in it. X could have been a statue of Pegasus for its original value. Your inability to understand even what a variable has been the cause of muddle and confusion

    , if I wanted to refer to the concept of 14, I would have explicitly said something like 'the concept of 14' or 'the perception of X'noAxioms
    It is not matter of if you wanted. We have had this discussion many times before, and it had been concluded that number is concept. Your ignorance on the fact has been contributing to beating around the bush in circles instead of seeing any progress in the discussion.
  • The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
    In exactly the same way, any pain a person experiences cannot be judged by anyone other than that person, as mind reading is impossible.RussellA

    Seeing a colour and feeling a pain are both subjective experiences that are unknowable to any one other than a mind reader.RussellA
    They are subjective mental states, nothing to do with knowledge. If you have knowledge of something, then you must be able to verify, demonstrate and prove on what you know objectively to other minds in linguistic forms, when asked.

    If you knew something about a mind-independent world then it couldn't be a mind-independent world.

    That would be like knowing something that is unknown.
    RussellA
    The world or reality means that you live in it, interact with other minds and objects in the world. If you cannot do that, then it is not a world, and it is not the world either. In that sense mind-independent world is a fiction.
  • The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
    But persons A and B are interchangeable,

    Therefore, it is possible that a person may see a colour that in fact doesn't exist in reality in the world
    RussellA
    When there are discrepancies in the claims of knowledge on the same situation or object between different folks, you always have chance to carry out testimonies on the knowledge via repeated observations, experiments, or testing on the claims, and update your false beliefs, or correct the other folks false claim on his knowledge. You also have option of mutual agreements on knowledge with the other folks who had different account of the knowledge from you via clarification process.

    Therefore Direct Realism is not a valid philosophy. The reality of a mind-independent world is inaccessible to the mind.RussellA
    What we see is the only world there is. There is no other world. Mind-independent world is meaningless if you cannot see or know what it is.

    But we know the world as we perceive and reason on it. Where reason cannot stretch further due to its own limits, inference can begin. This is what ideal realism saying, and I think it makes sense.
  • Meinong rejection of Existence being Prior to Predication
    It's a statue of X, not X. There's a difference, kind of the same difference between the concept of 14 and 14.noAxioms

    But if X was originally a statue of X, then a statue of X is X. No?
    The concept of 14 is 14.
  • The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
    Your seeing the colour red is knowledge about what is in the mind, but is not knowledge about what is in the world.RussellA

    You need to check and find out what the red coloured object is you are seeing. Just claiming you are seeing red coloured object doesn't mean much and not very useful to you as knowledge.

    You must find out, if it is a traffic red light shining at you, or an apple hanging on the apple tree, or fire burning in your garden, so you must be able to stop the car, or go and get the apple for your supper if it were in your own garden, or get a bucket of water, and pour over the fire in the garden, for your perception worthwhile serving you as knowledge for your survival.

    Just saying you are seeing something red, but it might be green is not knowledge, and it doesn't mean much at all. Even a bird can tell it is red object she is seeing, and she wouldn't do anything or care what the red object is about. That's no knowledge. We don't say birds have knowledge, even if they can see objects like we do.
  • The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
    You could look at the green object from all directions and all times of the day and will always see this green object as red.RussellA
    You need to check if you were wearing red coloured eye glasses, or perhaps you might have developed problems with your sights? Or indeed there is an object which is green, but appears red. The important thing here is that, you are thinking and reasoning that you are seeing red, but it could be green.
    You are not just seeing the object like antique CCTV camera.

    How is it possible for the human mind to analyse the fact that they always see a red object to discover the truth of reality that the object in the world is actually green?RussellA
    Because human mind thinks, imagines, reasons and infers on what they perceive.

    As regards the world, you may believe the colour of the object is red. You may be able to justify that the colour of the object is red. But if the object is in reality actually green, then you have no knowledge about the truth of reality.RussellA
    That sounds an extreme scepticism. We do have knowledge about the truth of reality, because we have perception and reasoning and inferring on the perception. Not just perception.
  • On eternal oblivion
    What was his view on it?
  • The world as ideas and matter in Ideal Realism
    Is that desk there an idea. A large, wooden idea and if i push it over, am i pushing an idea? Is my soul an idea?Gregory
    If you think, imagine, remember or believe in the existence of the large desk, then it is idea of the desk in your mind. If you stand in front of the desk, touch it, push it or work on it, then it is a matter, or a physical desk you are dealing with.

    How does my sole know matter as matter? Is there something that connects all philosophical ideas within my soul?Gregory
    Soul is a tricky concept. Does your soul exist? Where is it? In what form does your soul exist?
  • On eternal oblivion
    I knew what you meant. No misunderstanding there at all.
    At the point where experience is limited, inference takes place.
  • On eternal oblivion
    You seem to have misunderstood the inference as a declaration, hence pointed it out.
  • On eternal oblivion
    No. It is not a declaration.

    It is only an inference from what we see from the dead, and we also reason and infer the same situation to the ultimate fate of the living including us.