…we may infer its nature in accordance with what seems most plausible…. — Janus

Conventionally speaking, true enough. But what of those inferences we seek, regarding the nature of something for which we wish to obtain apodeictic certainty, for which the merely plausible isn’t sufficient?

The passage you quote puts it in a nutshell; All instances of "objectivity" are also moments in consciousness. — Paine

And yet I find no reference to Kant’s treatment of what you call the “object”, thus no indication of the ground for peer-reviewed dispute.

The cause of the questioning resides in the fact Kant doesn’t make such distinction, re: object/“object”, which implies he isn’t talking about either one except to define the former under initial conditions for the ensuing exposition in B137. And because he isn’t talking about either one within the exposition itself, I wonder by what ground is there objection to his treatments, and of whatever that treatment entails, why it should be called treatment of “objects”?

My question is repeatable with your “real”. All I wish to be told is the difference between object and “object” in the first case, and the real and the “real” in the second. A matter only of my interest, your interpretive arrangement be as it may.

Many of the objections to Kant, as they played out in his lifetime and afterwards, concern his treatment of the "object" as a product of what we do. — Paine

Many objections, sure.
What is to be understood by “object”?
And what is it we do by which the “object” is a product?

“….an object is that, in the conception of which the manifold in a given intuition is united. Now all union of representations requires unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them. Consequently, it is the unity of consciousness alone that constitutes the relation of representations to an object, and therefore of their objective validity, and the fact they are modes of knowledge; and upon it therefore rests the very possibility of the understanding….” (B137, in Kemp Smith)

Given scarce objection to the object here, by definition, how is it different from “object”?

Honest; just trying to see what you see.

So I don't have much time for the dogmatists who want to claim things like, for example, that we know, thanks to Kant, that space and time and all the categories are purely subjective or that intellectual intuition could be a reliable guide to the way things really are. — Janus

“…..For there are so many groundless pretensions to the enlargement of our knowledge by pure reason that we must take it as a general rule to be mistrustful of all such, and without a thoroughgoing and radical deduction, to believe nothing of the sort even on the clearest dogmatical evidence.…” (A210/B255)

Just to say the typical claims of knowledge presented herein, presumably under the auspices of “clearest dogmatic evidence”, re: knowledge of the purely subjective, and, knowledge of the applicability of intellectual intuition, thanks to Kant, do not meet the criteria for the possibility of knowledge in general, thus these claims do not, nor could they ever, afford to us any knowledge at all, which a “thoroughgoing and radical deduction” would prove.

Still, you might agree, while having no time for them is no less a legitimate prerogative, it’s more often the case, that they who make these types of dogmatic claims may be under-informed, or perhaps even fully informed by an entirely separate set of presuppositions, especially with respect to reliable guides for the way things really are, thereby not so much unrepentant dogmatist(s), which is merely he who claims….thanks to Kant…..knowledge of that for which no empirical demonstration is possible.

Idle comment; of no particular import. Idealism in context?

However, sciences like chemistry and physics, prove to us that reality is actually completely different from this conception/perception representation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Except that the reality demonstrated by the sciences is only demonstrable from the very same system of conception/perception representation, as the common Everydayman reality not the least concerned with the scientific version at all. When was the last time you approached the SOL…..etc, etc.

Activity is not at all as we represent it, as picking up objects called a hammer and nails, and hitting one object with another. That's a vastly oversimplified representation of what is actually going on, and really a faulty representation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Activity is exactly as we represent it to ourselves, give appearances in compliance with our particular physiology alone. The fact it is a vastly oversimplified representation doesn’t make it false; it merely makes it incomplete, and that merely from perspective, iff given by a deeper scale of investigation. The point being, the completion of the representation, determined from such deeper scale, wouldn’t be a necessary addendum to our experience, insofar as knowing e.g., the distinct molecular composition of different kinds of forks, does nothing whatsoever for disturbing the already established activity of getting food to the mouth using one. Contingent with respect to future experience, certainly, for deeper-scale investigations make things like penicillin possible. Such is science, not as opposed but in juxtaposition, to metaphysics.

How is all that not exactly congruent to the fact SR/GR doesn’t falsify Newtonian physics, but supplements it, given a different scale of representation?
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The LNC does not apply to the good of intention. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it doesn’t; it applies to the understanding of whether or not the good is judged to be satisfied by the intention.

This is why goods are often said to be subjective…. — Metaphysician Undercover

(I hesitate with the term “goods”, but continue with the subjective)

Of course. On the one hand, good things for me are not necessarily good things for you, hence each good of a thing is a subjective judgement. On the other hand, any of my judgements regarding what is good, insofar as they all arise in me alone, can hardly be termed subjective, in that there is nothing to which they relate except my own determinability. The good in such case, reverts to relative degrees of a necessarily presupposed good, rather than different forms of good itself. Such condition is the same for both of us, granting the commonality of our respective human inclinations and intellectual attitudes.

Even the same person will sometimes have conflicting goals. — Metaphysician Undercover

True enough for Everydayman, but the well-practiced philosopher is the more likely to not.
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Science demonstrates very clearly, that the conceptual structure based in objects of substance, physical objects, moving and interacting in space, is insufficient, and cannot adequately represent the reality of activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Insufficient….for what? It is quite sufficient for us. We’ve conceived space and time, applied them quite adequately to the activity of objects. Is there more? Sure, could be, seems science has said so. Doesn’t make what we’ve already done with our conceptual structure any less adequate.
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we need to start all over, from the bottom up, with something more reasonable as the foundation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fine. You’ve suggested dumping what we have, but haven’t suggested what to replace it with. You are in no position to prove the system we speculate as adequate for us, has a substitute that is better for us, which is really nothing but a greater degree of adequate.

Please accept this as reality, instead of referring to mundane experiences in an attempt to make fun of the reality of the situation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh, I have no problem with accepting the science. As a matter of fact, because science is the best indicator of the LNC available to us, wouldn’t it be great to subject the speculative methodologies by which our mundane experiences manifest in us to the same criteria, in order to discover whether or not we can get something beneficial out of them?

Ever noticed that no science is ever done that wasn’t first thought? Ever heard of a scientist that wasn’t human? You favor the scientific so far beyond the necessary ground for its very possibility, making fun is what one does rather than to disrespectfully scoff outright at the absurdity of the favoritism. Or, fanaticism, perhaps. At any rate, the objects of science proper are irrelevant with respect to how science is done.

That being said, I shall immediately rescind my objections, upon being presented with that rational system which is better than, over that system which is merely not good enough.
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The category of "speculative reason" is completely unnecessary, created and referred to, as a distraction. — Metaphysician Undercover

This, and all that pursuant to your practical reason and theoretical reason may contradict, I leave for future debate, for the subtleties therein are even more obscure than those at present.

I still don't get it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, my fault, being facetious. I’m just having trouble understanding how anyone could feel physical pain from a “faulty idea”. You said objects were, or might be, just faulty ideas, a hammer, being an object represented by that conception, would fit the bill.

I started out by saying, you hit my thumb with a faulty idea and I’ll hit yours with a hammer, but it got lost in the shuffle somehow.

Anyway….
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You seem to be saying that the process would go on forever — Metaphysician Undercover

In the search for accurate representation, if not for the LNC, what other way is there to judge the relation between the object we perceive and the object we think? If logic doesn’t end the search, insofar as all relations are determinable by it, it stands to reason the search for a relation wouldn’t end. But it always does, either in the affirmation or negation thereof, so the logic would seem to be both necessary and sufficient.

Do you recognize two very distinct meanings of "object"? — Metaphysician Undercover

Doesn’t everyone with even an inkling of philosophical inclination? A thing is always an object but an object is not always a thing.

Since the physical object of empirical knowledge is demonstrably a faulty concept, produced by the deceptive nature of the senses… — Metaphysician Undercover

There’s that faulty idea thing again. Ya know, right, the senses don’t describe? The only “nature” attributable to the senses would be to inform of a real presence, nothing more or less.

Furthermore, empirical knowledge is not of a physical object, but the representation of it, and the senses have nothing to do with representations, being merely the occasion for the possibility of them.
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Do you classify knowing the good as impossible? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. The good isn’t something to know; it is something to feel. That by which one feels anything is reducible to an aesthetic judgement, that by which he knows something is reducible to a discursive judgement. The formal ground of the one is pure practical reason, of the other is pure theoretical reason.

Last but not least, that by which one merely comprehends the possibility of knowledge, is pure speculative reason, upon which is constructed the transcendental philosophy of German Enlightenment idealism.

What's your point here? — Metaphysician Undercover

Ohfercrissakes. Obviously, my point is your thumb will be just as wounded by a mis-directed “faulty idea” as mine is by a hammer.

And for truth accurate representation is necessary….. — Metaphysician Undercover

Wonderful. Be sure and let me know when, or if, you happen upon an accurate representation. That to which you compare the one you have, to another you don’t, from which the necessarily deficient quality of yours is determinable….well, good luck with that, I say.

Now, you might say the comparison is always just between your own representations, a succession predicated on changes in experience, which, ironically enough, is precisely what every cave-dweller since Day One, has done. But there is never in the manifold of successive changes in your own representations the implication of the unconditioned, that from which no further change is possible and from which the only logical notion of an accurate representation, is given.

Which leaves you with….(sigh)…..only those that don’t contradict each other, and from which it is clear the form of truth, that in a cognition which conforms to is object, already manifests an accurate representation, and justifies logic as the necessary criteria for the form any truth must exhibit.
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To find truth we must exceed empirical knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

Given as established the conditio sine qua non form of truth, that in a cognition which conforms to its object, and the impossibility of exceeding empirical knowledge with respect to experience of the objects contained in those cognitions, which is always that to which the form of truth relates, it follows there is no universal criteria for the fact of truth available to the human being.

There may be considered sufficient reason to exceed empirical knowledge insofar as the empirical knowledge we have does not afford us truth as such. But considering sufficient reason for an impossibility, is incomprehensible.

What I am saying is that the idea that there is "a thing" which is perceived is a faulty idea. — Metaphysician Undercover

Tell that to my thumb, after getting whacked by a mis-directed hammer.

Modeling reality as consisting of things which are perceived by us is not an accurate representation, and very misleading to anyone who wants a true understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Doesn’t have to be an accurate representation; it is only necessary such representation not contradict either Mother Nature, at the same level, and not contradict antecedent experience on any level. Being flawed intelligences on the one hand, in that we get stuff wrong once in awhile, and being as we possess a purely speculative idea of our own intelligence on the other, it is forgivable that we may not have, nor is there sufficient reason to expect to ever have, a true understanding. And we may not even know true understanding, if it happens.

Your reasoning is exemplary; it just exceeds the criteria for empirical knowledge of things on a common everyday scale. I mean….when was the last time you approached the SOL in anything with which you were consciously engaged? We’ve all perceived the alignment of susceptible particles into the shape of a field, but none of us have perceived the field of which the particles assume the shape.

I guess I should say I’ve never perceived; perhaps others have, dunno.

I would say that a perception is unique to the being that perceives it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I imagine you meant each perception is unique to the being that perceives. Yours implies a perception is perceived. Nobody perceives a perception.

But I didn’t ask about the perception as much as its causal necessity.

So you don’t agree that a thing given by which dissimilar being’s senses are affected, is the same as the effect a given thing has on dissimilar beings perceiving it.

Ever notice, e.g., forest fires, where all sorts of critters are all running away from the same thing;
Creatures as dissimilar as whales and terns each treat bait balls as the same one thing;
You claim to see a horse’s head, I claim to see a lion’s head, but we are only perceiving a cloud.

Judgement of a perception is unique; perception itself, that by which various and possibly dissimilar sensibilities, are effected, is not.
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He brings the potential of matter (by Aristotle's principles) right into the conscious mind as "the a priori structures of sensibility" — Metaphysician Undercover

I don’t read A20/B34 that way, which is where he first installs matter as such into the system.

….since "matter" refers to the unintelligible aspect of reality…. — Metaphysician Undercover

It doesn’t; it refers to the undetermined aspect of reality. The undetermined is not necessarily the unintelligible.

Ok, I’m done with this.

…not my car, the wallaby… — Janus

HA!!! Good one.

The dog and I both see something we call a wallaby. — Janus

Who’s we? You and the dog? It’s only you and the dog perceiving this thing, right then, right there, and that is one damn special dog telling you he sees what he calls a wallaby. Nahhhhh, there’s no one else there, so it’s you and the dog seeing what you call a wallaby.

You got the right idea, kinda, but your wording needs rewording. My opinion, of course. Maybe I’m missing the point here, dunno. Cuz the wording’s so….confusing.

…..that within which the sensations can alone be ordered and placed in a certain form…. — B34-A20

What might that be. That within which. Hmmmm…..

Usually known by the name of the ordering and placing in a certain form, rather than the name of that within which it occurs. Sorta like, only reason people know Joe the plumber is from his plumbing. And the term for the result of all that ordering and placing in a certain form, is as well-known as George Herman Ruth’s nickname.

Be careful, anyway. There’s two of them. Or one of them with the proverbial split personality. Everydayman himself …..all else being given…..admits he’s got one, and readily acknowledges he even uses it. But how it’s doing what it does when he uses it he cannot tell you. One of the anti-Kantian gripes…..he can’t tell you how either (A78), but incorporates it as a what that plays its part, not in one, oh HELL no, but BOTH!!!!! (Yikes) aspects of the very system transcendental philosophy prescribes, re: sensibility, where all that ordering and placing of empirical stuff, happens, and logic, where all the ordering and placing of rational stuff happens.

But still, it’s his philosophy, he invented it. Take it or leave it, right?

Way past the register of being (A247) for sure, but maybe not quite the register of knowing.

Judgements about what is observed are interpretive and of course may differ―what is observed is not a matter of interpretation. — Janus

The first is correct, the second is the contradiction of it, which makes it false. That there is a thing observed is not a matter of interpretation, corrects the contradiction.

You’re correct….or, I agree….that you and the dog see the same thing, whatever it may be. Of the two, only you represent the thing seen with a particular concept, but you would readily admit that you haven’t a clue what the dog’s doing with his perception, but you can be sure he isn’t representing it to himself with the same conceptual reference as you.
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Wouldn’t you agree it’s possible for a human and some other kind of intelligence to have a common perception? Which is just to say some thing is given by which their respective senses are affected, which in turn is just to say, albeit with fewer technicalities, they see the same thing, isn’t it?

Brain fart. I’ve never used a Mac, and like you I use an iPad these days, so can’t explain why I said Mac.

Anyway….. command/c, command/p.

For windows, highlight, simultaneously control/c, control/p;
For Mac, highlight, simultaneously command/c, command/p.

I had the same frustration with the Cambridge download.

….dismisses the either/or quality…. — Paine

Are you referring to principles, that in which resides always and only absolute certainty?

Agreed on last words, generally. Thing is, Kant sets a high bar for himself, then claims to have attained to it. Anyone is free to agree whether he did, thereby tacitly giving him the last word, or not, denying the last word and setting the stage for saying something else.

This misses the mark because he does not talk of a noumenal world in any physical sense. — I like sushi

I said as much here on pg 59. He doesn’t talk about a noumenal world at all.

The chapter on noumena is relatively short, in which is found that noumena are merely the proverbial red-headed stepchild of a wayward human understanding.

After two books consisting of four chapters consisting of eight sections, ~200 pages, telling us all about how the faculty of thought/judgement/cognition works properly, and prior to moving on to the faculty of reason itself, he concludes with a scant 20-page exposè warning, by example, of understanding’s attempts to function beyond its warrant, perfectly demonstrating the major limitive premise, “….I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself….”

To say he talks about that for which even a representation is impossible to conceive, is so far beyond mistaken as to be deemed…..speaking of which…..ignorant.

deleted duplicate, sorry

Hey…these damn gadgets are almost too modern for me.

Oh man. In the A/B 700’s. You’re diggin’ waaaaayyy down deep in the weeds. Not many get that far, and of those, fewer stay for the rewards. One finding things-in-themselves hard to get past is going to seriously flounder with the “transcendental concept of reason is none other than the concept of the totality of conditions for any conditioned”. Took me more than a little while, I must say.

I’ve always been struck by the compositional structure of the critique: first is what happens for knowledge: perceive a thing, yaddayaddayadda, know a thing. Most just stop there. But fully half the book, roughly pg 297 through ~ pg 700, depending on the translator, tells all about the proverbial man behind the curtain, that by which it all works together, from the background, and what happens when attention is not properly paid.

Anyway….good stuff. ‘Preciate it.

There's a lot of confusion caused by the question 'what is the "in itself"' - as if it is a mysterious thing…. — Wayfarer

It baffles me to no end, that the trivially obvious fact that there are no things as such between the ears, making representation of things a necessary predisposition of human intelligence, doesn’t thereby automatically make things-in-themselves a perfectly comprehensible explanatory device.

All those goofy lookin’ creatures in the depths of our own oceans? Must we say their existence is predicated on whether or not humans development the equipment by which their reality is given, or, do we merely grant they were already there beforehand?

And that ain’t even the fun part. If we insist things we haven’t experienced don’t exist unless we do, it follows necessarily, e.g., that the very equipment used to discover those creatures, would never be developed, insofar as that equipment has never yet been an experience for us.

To reconcile the absurdity, it is clear on the one hand humanity is not itself sufficient natural causality and the possible existence of things is affirmed by inference a priori without the experience thereof, and on the other, there must be an apodeitically certain duality in the manner of a real thing’s existence. And yet, somehow or another, that affirmation which any rational intellect surely grants, is refused the representation “thing-in-itself” by some of them.

The thing-in-itself is a thing, says so right there in the name. A thing in this manner or a thing in that manner, as the duality of its nature requires, insofar as a thing is an experience for us at one time or it is not at another, can have whatever name sufficient to distinguish one from the other, which is all and only what the “thing-in-itself” conception was ever intended to do.

On placeholders:

Hasn’t anyone noticed that there can be a whole boatload of spaces and times of any thing, but one and only one space and time of any one thing-in-itself?

Logical and mathematical knowledge are of a different kind of, say, empirical knowledge. — boundless

Yeah, the argument is, empirical knowledge is required to prove logical or mathematical knowledge. But that doesn’t mean empirical and mathematical knowledge are the same. One must be an epistemological dualist to grant that distinction.
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I am not sure we can even know completely any phenomena. — boundless

I suspect that’s true no matter which philosophical regimen one favors. Whether phenomena represent that which is external to us, or phenomena represent constructs of our intellect within us, we cannot say they are unconditioned, which relies on endless…..you know, like….boundless…..cause and effect prohibiting complete knowledge of them.

On the other hand I can say I perceive the space between objects, albeit usually more or less filled up with other objects…. — Janus

Hmmm. Sure, I suppose you could say that. Take a dinner table place setting: the space between the dinner fork and the salad fork seemingly filled by the perception of the table they both rest on.

I’ve got a pretty decent telescope, and when I look here, and look there, the space between is full of stuff I don’t perceive without it.

Still, in both of these, the space between is actually space in general; the table isn’t in the space between the forks, and with respect to the ‘scope, the other objects seemingly between here and there could very well be in front or behind and not between them at all.

…..I do perceive space but I don't perceive empty space. — Janus

If you agree all perceptions have a sensation belonging to them…..what sensation does one receive from the perception of space? What is it about your perception which distinguishes the space you perceive from empty space you do not?
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to refer to things-in-themselves as "strictly transcendental human constructs" is again a particular way of framing, not an expression of any determinable fact of the matter. — Janus

Yeah…the bane of speculative theoretics in general, the fact of impossible physical verification. Nevertheless, it’s hard to argue with proper logic.

If things are human-independent existents that have mass, form and size then space and time would be the condition for their existence — Janus

While it may be true, at least for a human or human-like being, that in order for there to even be a thing at all, mass, form and size are the conditions by which it is so. But it still needs to be known the necessary conditions for mass, form and size of a thing, and even more importantly, the necessary conditions by which differences in mass, form and size of different things are related.

All of which reduces to the inevitable conclusion, that the necessary conditions the relations of mass, form and size have nothing whatsoever to say about the existence of the thing to which they belong. Space and time, then, are merely the necessary conditions for the possibility of a thing for which mass, form and size are determinable, the existence of which is given regardless of whatever mass, form or size it may be determined to have.

A reminder that space and time are pure intuitions belonging to sensibility, while existence is a pure conception belonging to understanding. That the representations of one are conjoined with the representations of the other for any human experience reflecting perception of real things, does not make one dependent on, nor the condition for, the other.

The problem here is, of course, I have argued why the conclusion of your opinion represented by the quoted comment cannot hold, but I have nothing by which to judge whether my argument is relevant to the construction of your opinion. In other words, I have no idea what qualifies the truth value, the logical ground or presuppositions, of what you say, which means I may have engaged myself in a dialectical non-starter.

Perish the thought!!!
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In our material existence we are not different than other things. — Janus

There’s one major difference: my material existence can never be in-itself, insofar as it is apodeitically necessary that my body be an appearance for me, whereas that condition is merely contingent for any other material existence.

But I get the point: the material of my existence is no different from the material of any other existence. What do you intend to be gleaned from such analytical truths?

I think we don't know what bodies are. That is, when a body stops and becomes something non-body. — Manuel

Agreed, in principle. Best we can do is know what we say bodies are.

Hey you!!! Returning hopes, I am.

Stronger than an assertion, methinks, but not necessarily a fact? In the text, it’s simply an analytical logical judgement, true given the relations of the conceptions contained therein.

If there ever is a body encountered that isn’t extended, the judgement would need a revision, along with our entire logical system. I mean, blow one certainty out of the water is sufficient probability for blowing them all.

I wouldn’t know. I would guess “scholarly consensus” for Kantian discourse is an oxymoron.

If that’s what you think, so be it.

In a sense, we know nothing, because we do not have a complete knowledge of anything. But of course, this doesn't mean that we are completely ignorant. — boundless

In a sense, yes. An empirical sense, a posteriori. In a rational sense a priori, that which is known by us with apodeictic certainty, the negation of which is impossible, is complete knowledge of that certainty, re: no geometric figure can be constructed with two straight lines. Or, all bodies are extended. There aren’t many, but there are some.

You say that Kant "proves" that things-in-themselves cannot exist in space and time, when all he can prove if anything is that they don't exist (…) in our perceptual space and time. — Janus

Our space and time is not perceptual, meaning our senses do not perceive them, for that would be the same as space and time being appearances. Our space and time is intuitive, hence in us as a condition of our intelligence, where the things that exist can never be found, whether or not such things affect the senses.

It follows that Kant’s proof of the non-existence of things-in-themselves in space and time is predicated on the tenets of his theory, which states, insofar as they are strictly transcendental human constructs, space and time cannot be the conditions for existence of things, but only the conditions for the possibility of representing things that exist.
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I say that speculative conceptions of the kind of bare bones in-themselves nature of the objects that appear to us as phenomena is not at all contradictory. That is just an interpretation-dependent stipulative judgement that I don't accept. — Janus

Neither do I. I don’t accept it because it is contradictory, the judgement being diametrically opposed to the method under discussion prescribes.

If we are going to talk about things at all, then we should be consistent with what logic is implicit in thinking in terms of things. — Janus

True enough, but isn’t the logic already implicit when the thought is of things? But I see what you mean…to think this is to use this logic, to think that is to use that logic, as long as the conceptions contained in this and that, or at least the origins of them, are sufficiently different from each other….

Then if we posit things beyond cognition we are in speculative territory. — Janus

“….To think an object and to cognize an object are by no means the same thing….”

….just like that.

As I said, once you accept that knowledge can be of better or lesser quality, it's easier to accept that our knowledge can be imperfect, despite not knowing what 'perfect knowledge' would be. — boundless

As I said, I won’t stand in your way of using perfection as a relative measure of knowledge quality. I’m satisfied with the amount we know about a thing in juxtaposition to the quality of our ways of finding out more about those things. From there, the jump to imperfect, from our knowledge being contingent on the one hand and incomplete on the other, is superfluous, insofar as calling it that doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know.

But that’s just me.

Then we are not struggling with an explicitly dualist view, because the things that appears to us are the same things that have their own existence apart from our perceptions of them — Janus

Agreed; no struggle.

Then we can speculate that things in themselves may exist in their own space and time, which cannot be proven but which seems most plausible… — Janus

Agreed, given the conditions which make that speculation plausible. It just isn’t a Kantian speculation and to which I only object because I think it is being made to look like it. In this particular speculation, while Kant also cannot prove things-in-themselves may exist in their own space and time, he only has to prove they cannot, in order for his entire metaphysical thesis with respect to human knowledge, to have an empirical limit. And he does exactly that, by proving….transcendentally….that space and time belong to the cognizing subject himself, which makes the existence of things in them, impossible.
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For me it makes no sense to say "of course things have their own existence independent of any mind in the empirical sense, but not in the transcendental sense'. — Janus

Agreed, in principle, for the transcendental sense has nothing whatsoever to do with the empirical domain of things, that belonging to understanding alone as reference to causality. It follows it is just as true things have their own existence independent of any mind in a transcendental sense, as it does in an empirical sense. All of which is quite beside the point, insofar as all which concerns us as knowing subjects, is any of that which is entirely dependent on the mind.
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If Kant is not positing that there is something which gives rise to phenomena then his position is no different than Phenomenalism. — Janus

Dunno about all that, but it’s moot anyway, for he most certainly does posit something which gives rise to….makes possible the representation of…..phenomena. The whole 700-odd page critical treatise begins with it.
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I would like to offer, for your consideration…. — Mww

I recognize nothing that hints you have considered, so I shall assume you’re not so inclined. Or you have and kept it to yourself. Which is fine; just thought you’d be interested.

What would perfect knowledge look like anyway?
— Mww

I don't know. But I do know thay my knowledge is imperfect. — boundless

Yikes!!! You done got yo’self in a whole heapa logical doo-doo. What are you judging the imperfect by, if you don’t know that by which imperfect can be measured?

I bet you’re familiar with complementary pairs: up/down, right/left, right/wrong, and so on. Which reduces to….for any conceivable thought the negation of it is given immediately. In simplest terms here, imperfect’s pair is perfect. You’d be correct in not knowing how perfect knowledge manifests in your consciousness, but you must know what the criteria for perfect knowledge is, in order to know yours isn’t that.

The only way out I can see, is to agree our knowledge isn’t perfect because it is true we do not know everything there is to know. But I’d argue that merely because we don’t know everything is not in itself sufficient reason for calling out the knowledge we do have, as imperfect. You know…..sorta like, just because water’s falling from the sky doesn’t mean it’s raining.
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In a sense, all phenomena are mysterious for us. — boundless

Be that as it may, and I agree in principle, how do we get to imperfect knowledge from mysterious phenomena?

Now, I agree that the means by which humans acquire knowledge of things external to us, cannot be taken as proof those things could not possibly be otherwise. I won’t stand in your way if you wish to claim imperfect knowledge given that condition, but I’ll stick with maintaining it really is a moot point.
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Consider a table. Even if we knew its composition at its atomic level — boundless

Another logical mish-mash for ya: take that famous paradox, wherein if you cover half the distance to a wall at a time, you never get there. Using your atomic structure scenario, if you take enough half-distance steps, sooner or later you’re going to get into the atomic level of physical things, where the atoms of your foot get close to the atoms of the wall. Except, at that level there is no foot and there isn’t any wall. And as a matter of fact, there wouldn’t be any you taking steps, insofar as “you” have to be present in order for any half-step to be taken. So it is that talking about a table at the atomic level, isn’t talking about tables.

Incidentally, Kant calls this line of reasoning “…a lame appeal to a logical condition, which is no doubt a necessary condition of the existence of the conception**, but is far from being sufficient for the real objective possibility…”
(**herein, existence of the conception is existence of the paradox)

NOW we’re having fun. I don’t care who y’are, that right thar’s fun, as my ol’ buddy Larry the Cable Guy always says.

Aristotle has instances of "particular substance" independent from the mind, things with an identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Is this to say, in Aristotle things come with identity?

Identity being what a thing is, in Kant, identity is assigned to things, not for what it is, but for as what it is to be known. The so-called, and mistakenly labeled “Copernican Revolution”, although he would probably cringe at hearing it called out as such.

….usually subject to an array of different interpretations… — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely. Hopefully, in such case, there’s a common ground, an unarguable starting point, from which the divergences can be reconciled.
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A good example is Plato, and Platonism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Good synopsis. Thanks for that.

I see two unexplained assertions here: that there is a 'given' and that such a 'given' can be arranged — boundless

Yeah, I can see that. My response to the first would be there is no need to explain it, and for the second, we simply don’t know how.
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…..philosophy doesn't seem to 'progress'. — boundless

Agreed. While it certainly changes, it doesn’t necessarily improve.
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Our knowledge is imperfect in two ways:…. — boundless

If you’re treating knowledge as a general human condition, I will agree our knowledge is imperfect, a least from those two ways. The next logical move, then, might just be it doesn’t matter if the kind of knowledge we end up with is imperfect if it is the only kind there can be. We’re stuck with it, whatever kind it is.

We might even be able to reflect this back on the lack of philosophical progress, in that regardless of the changes in the description of knowledge, we still cannot prove how we know anything at all. I think it a stretch that because we con’t know a thing our knowledge is imperfect.

What would perfect knowledge look like anyway?
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There are degrees of (the quality of) knowledge. — boundless

Again, the general, or the particular? The quality of knowledge in general remains constant regardless of the quantity of particular things known about. I’m not sure knowledge of is susceptible to qualitative analysis: a thing is known or it is not, there is no excluded middle. By the same token, I’m not sure that when first we didn’t know this thing but then we do, the quality of our knowledge has any contribution to that degree of change.

Even if your idea revolves around the possibility that because our knowledge is imperfect there may be things not knowable, which is certainly true enough, it remains that there are more parsimonious, logically sufficient….simpler……explanations for why there are things not knowable.

"Noumena" for Kant is analogous to "matter" for Aristotle. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps; you’re more qualified to say than I. If I were to guess, though, I’d probably go with “substance” in Kant relates to “matter” in Aristotle.

If it is true in Aristotle matter acquires form to become particular substance, and because it is true in Kant matter acquires form to become particular phenomena, then original to both is matter, which leaves Kantian noumena, as it relates to matter, out in the cold…...right where it’s supposed to be.

But I don’t know how Aristotle treats matter at its inception, so….
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Then many people assume these concepts to be a description of some independent feature of reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

If only those many people would just study the damn book. One does not have to accept what he’s saying, but should comprehend the point he’s making, the major premise in the “ground of the division of all objects”.

And yet Kant talks about the noumena that we cannot experience, cannot know…. — Janus

I would like to offer, for your consideration, the idea, the interpretation, that Kant isn’t talking about noumena at all. He is talking about the faculty of understanding, and its proclivity for exceeding its warrant, such warrants having already been specified in preceding sections of his critical theory. It may be nothing more than an extreme example of common knowledge, that humans are wont to imagine all sorts of weird stuff, he merely explaining the fundamental causal process in play when we do that.

Especially considering the title of the section in which the subject is brought to bear: “Of the Ground of the Division of all Objects…..” (A236/B295) One should grasp that the objects being divided according to a certain ground, does not presuppose those objects, but only the relation of conceptions in general contained in a ground, which makes a division predicated on such relation, possible.

Remember? “…I can think what I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself…”, which is precisely what understanding is doing, when empirical conceptions of possible objects arise from it alone, the empirical representation of which, from intuition, is entirely lacking.

Ever notice Kant never defines what a noumenon is, but only the advent of it as a conception, and the consequences thereof?

In the text is found the categorical, re: apodeitically certain, judgement “…. Thus the criterion of the possibility of a conception (not of its object) is the definition of it, in which the unity of the the truth of all that may be immediately deduced from it, and finally, the completeness of what has been thus deduced, constitute the requisites for the reproduction of the whole conception.…” (B115)

So are we not forced to admit, insofar as Kant offers no definition of what a noumenon is, offers no descriptions of what a noumenon would be like, but authorizes (B115) its validity as a mere possible, non-contradictory, conception, there can be no talk of noumena as such, but only the conception itself, represented by that word, which is actually nothing other than talk of the modus operandi of the faculty of understanding in opposition to its own rules?

The conception is a possible thought, therefore is not self-contradictory. (I can think what I please…)
The effort to represent the thought without the required sensuous intuition necessary of all empirical objects, is. (….and with this I contradicted myself)

The talk is not of noumena; it is of the foibles of pure understanding of which noumena is merely an instance, and from which the ground of the division resides in understanding being limited to cognition of phenomena at the expense of noumena.

Think about it, if you like. Or not.

Interesting. But isn't this a form of 'transcendental realism', though? — boundless

This is what I mean by different theories.

The Kantian system of knowledge a posteriori, is twofold: sensibility, arrangement of the given, and, cognition, the logic in the arrangement of the given. The logic of the arrangement is determined….thought….. by the tripartite coordination of understanding, judgement and reason. All that which is produced by logical thought alone, is grounded in principles a priori; all principles arise transcendentally in pure reason, therefore the concept of “real” in transcendental logic is inappropriate, instead subsumed under the primary condition of logic writ large, which is correctly called “valid”. From which follows the notion that “transcendental realism”, is self-contradictory.

An alternative epistemic theory may be predicated on transcendental realism, but not within or even implied by, a Kantian system, but rather, by re-defining the predicates of an established method and/or constructing different relations between the components of that method.

Such is the fate of metaphysics in general: a guy adds to a theory in some way, shape or form, then accuses the original of having missed what was added. It may just as well have been the case it wasn’t missed in the former at all, so much as rejected. So the new guy merely cancels that by which the original rejection found force, and from within which resides the ground of accusation of the missing. Even without considering your particular instance of this, it is found in Arthur’s critique of Kant, and, ironically enough, Kant’s critique of Hume, a.k.a., The Reluctant Rationalist.
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…..it remains the case no human is ever conscious of all that which occurs between sensation and brain activation because of it…..
— Mww

On this, I agree. That's why I think that our knowledge is imperfect. — boundless

Dunno about imperfect, but even if it is, it has nothing to do with being unconscious of some operational segment of our intelligence, in which no knowledge is forthcoming in the first place. Perhaps you’ve thought a reasonable work-around, but from my armchair, I must say if you agree with the former you have lost the ground for judging the relative quality of your own knowledge.

Contingent, without a doubt. Imperfect? Ehhhhh……isn’t whatever knowledge there is at any given time, perfectly obtained? Otherwise, by what right is it knowledge at all? If every otherwise rational human in a given time knew lightning was the product of angry gods, what argument could there possibly be, in that same time, sufficient to falsify it? Wouldn’t that knowledge, at that time, be as perfect as it could be?

The system used to amend at some successive time the knowledge of one time, is precisely the same system used to obtain both. So maybe it isn’t the relative perfection of knowledge we should consider, but the relative quality of the system by which it is obtained.

And we’re right back where we started, re: any system in which a part is missing must be imperfect.

Do you see the contradiction? What would you do about it?

I meant that I prefer d'Espagnat's view than Kant's…. — boundless

Which is your prerogative. My point was simply that the two views are distinct enough from each other that they should be considered as different theories altogether.
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Kant also asserts that there is 'something' about phenomena that it is not 'mental'. However, we are left with no clue on how that 'something' is related to appearances. — boundless

There is something about intuition that is not mental; there is nothing of phenomena that is not mental. The relation between the non-mental of intuition and appearance, is sensation.

For us, the non-mental of a real existent, is appearance;
The non-mental of appearance, is matter;
The non-mental of matter, is sensation;
All subsequent to sensation as intuition, is mental.

Of what there is no clue, is how the non-mental matter of appearance transitions to its mental component of intuition. That it is transitioned is necessary, so is given the name transcendental object, that which reason proposes to itself post hoc, in order for the system to maintain its speculative procedure.

Science, of course, gives this to us as the information exiting the sensory apparatuses, then traversing the respective peripheral nervous system to the brain. We have no metaphysical clue regarding such transition insofar as we are consciously oblivious to it.

Even if there is a transcendental realist epistemological theory which explains Kant’s missing clue, it remains the case no human is ever conscious of all that which occurs between sensation and brain activation because of it, which just is Kant’s faculty of intuition whose object is phenomenon.

Not sure a whole mini-dissertation is called for here, even though I just wrote one. I’ll just say I don’t agree with Clark, at the same admitting I am far from academically equipped to prove his complaint as unjustified. I might be able to find a veritable plethora of pertinent textual quotes that in my opinion suffice, but still the chance of barking up the wrong epistemological tree, remains.

Unless you’ve got something more you’d like to talk about…..

All good; thanks for taking the time, and I did give your response the attention it deserved.

Yes, first critique, and, translation used is Gutenburg’s J. M. D. Meiklejohn, ca 1856, for the simplicity of search + cut/paste, not available in my other IPad renditions.

And to a lesser extent, for seniority, in that I downloaded it to Kindle about a million years ago.

But most of all, for protecting the “FN” AB Bookman’s-conditioned Ex Libris Cambridge University 1929 first edition Kemp Smith, gold gilt on red leather and all….(don’t ask)

Useless trivia here aside, should I have found something in your response that shows I misunderstood Clark’s statement?

He admits that things in themselves act on us, on our senses. — W. Norris Clarke - The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics

Given that the subject of this particular passage is Kant’s theory, it follows that in “he admits”, he is Kant. However, in A493/B522 is found….

“… For I can say only of a thing in itself that it exists without relation to the senses and experience.…”

….which makes patently obvious Kant admits to no such thing.

It is profoundly contradictory, and destructive to the Kantian form of transcendental metaphysics, for the thing in itself to act on human senses. If the thing in itself appears to us, which just is to act on our senses, the very concept itself is invalid.

OR…..I would greatly appreciate being informed of where I can read, in first-hand texts only, that he admits….or even hints….in accord with Clark’s statement.