Yeah, well, you know…I’m that much in agreement with your general philosophical presentation, if I didn’t pick a nit once in awhile, I wouldn’t have anything to say. And while being a yankeevirgobabyboomer makes the background a pleasurable enough position to hold, every now and then I think it’s ok to raise my hand.

Awareness that the way that we construe our sense of what is real…..

….is real presupposes some real as given;
….our sense of what is real just indicates real in this or that way, predicated on one or more of five physiologies affected by the given;
….we construe our sense of what is real, insofar as the given is real in this or that way, by intuiting the manifold inherent in the sensation given from the real;
….the way we construe our sense of what is real, then, must be found in the intuition, as a function of it alone, and that necessarily under a set of conditions entirely distinct from the mere affected physiology;
—————-

….. is always in accordance with our prior conditioning or metaphysical commitments.

Awareness that the way we construe, is always in accordance with our metaphysical commitments, or the speculative theoretical method by which consciousness of our sense of the real, or consciousness of which sense of the real becomes manifest in us, is deemed both possible and sufficient for that which follows from it.

Awareness of the way we construe our sense of the real, is understanding, which always accords with our prior conditioning, whether in affirmation or negation of some relevant aspect of it, and is reflected in judgement.

Awareness of the construal itself, our manifest sense of the real, that description of the relation between the given and the subject in which it is cognized, is that by which he himself determines what his knowledge of the given real, will be.

As my ol’ buddy Paul Harvey used to say….now you know the rrreessstttt of the story: how to put the subject back into the scientific picture, where he’s always been on the one hand, and overlooked on the other.

…..an awareness that the way that we construe our sense of what is real is always in accordance with our prior conditioning or metaphysical commitments. — Wayfarer

I might be inclined to suggest the way we construe….interpret….our sense of what is real, is always in accordance with the sensation the real provides, which in turn is always mandated by the physiology of the sensory apparatuses. This is sensibility writ large.

The relation to prior conditioning or metaphysical commitments, of immediate sensation of the real, is construed post hoc ergo propter hoc as new or old in the subject interpreting, insofar as “prior conditioning” equates to, or represents, experience. This is understanding writ large, and within it judgement specifically.

But I understand you to have a broader view of the real than the above permits; a sympathetic metaphysical commitment, then, which favors less stringent judgements for those conceptions subsumed under the general “real” in compliance with the LNC, becomes nonetheless viable.

Metaphysical commitments. Like anyone could get along without one, huh???

The real world object (rock, tree...) exists irrespective of our ever having perceived it…
— Relativist

This is the whole point at issue. — Wayfarer

The real world object (the named, experienced representation)….

One of these things is not like the other.

Everydayman could care less iff it occurred to him to ask himself about it; the philosopher wants to know because he does.

The point should have been but never was, not whether a thing exists, but the myriad of necessary principles detailing that intelligence alone is entirely insufficient causality for the naturally occurring things that do.

Oh how they laugh at speculative metaphysics the contents of which can never be empirically rendered, but just love the waveform collapse even though restricted to the very same criterion. The former is merely logical, the latter is merely mathematical, yet both represent that of which the observation will always be missing from the very thing explained by them.

They insist the brain causes human consciousness, but human consciousness is not an observation the brain permits. Human observation causes waveform collapse, but waveform collapse is not what the human observes. Odd, innit? The human intellect immerses itself into the less explainable in its attempts to explain.

And then, it is found the continuous existence of a thing, if determinable by my mere belief in temporal consistency, is catastrophically insufficient reason for anything at all having to do with empirical conditions. Constant conjunction has been relegated to the back-burner for centuries, after all, not that it ever should have been otherwise. How would I ever be able to justify the closing of my eyes momentarily, as different in principle from having my eyes open continuously but the thing in question not in its field? Shades of that stupid cup-in-the-dishwasher scenario, made popular by less critical methods.

That I believe a thing remains after I’ve closed my eyes is the weakest possible justification for it doing so, insofar as the construction of such belief is grounded in the mere contingency of its possibility, re: there can only be a belief in the continuance of an existence iff there has been an antecedent experience of it. Such experience is then ground for the presupposing the thing as object of the belief, in which case, the logical conclusion is not that the thing continues to exist, but the contradiction involved in the possibility that it does not.

….leaving it at that sounds good to me.

….reference is made to an intuition we do not possess but can imagine as possible. — Paine

Yes, the intellectual intuition. Understanding is that faculty for which no other kind than the discursive could even be imagined, and no other at all could we possess and remain of human intelligence.

Yep. Still, for those objects in general, which I think Kant wants understood as “objects of reason” derived from cosmological ideas, the questions regarding their constitution, which just is what they are, are better left unasked. Reason is always at liberty to present a question, but it not necessarily obliged to pursue it.

Caveat: the higher pagination is tough on me. Layer upon layer, hard to assimilate into a system, as he wants us to do.

There‘s a two-year-old CPR thread on here, in “Categories - Reading Groups”, with 600+ posts.

Oh. Sorry.

A reason to reject the empiricist view that I learn about space and time from experience….(…). I can't imagine a chair that doesn't possess those properties. — frank

The problem is two-fold. First, CPR goes to great lengths to show that thinking is wrong, and second, doesn’t go to hardly any length at all to show why it matters that much to be that wrong.

That an object possesses the properties of space and time just is the empiricist view Kant himself found reason to reject.

Why is it, do you think, that the thing you learn about empirically through the senses, and the thing representing it that you merely remember, are close enough to each other that, as a rule, the rememberance doesn’t confuse you? Better yet, why is it you don’t have to learn what a thing is, each and every time you perceive it?

The point being, even if speculative theoretical metaphysics can’t answer those questions, it is in fact reason itself that presents them, and the critique of reason is only that cautionary tale for how NOT to bother with some of that which reason asks. Or, as The Man says, to “guard against” those “transcendental illusory” cognitions.

“…. For if one regards space and time as properties that, as far as their possibility is concerned, must be encountered in things in themselves, and reflects on the absurdities in which one then becomes entangled, because two infinite things that are neither substances nor anything really inhering in substances must nevertheless be something existing, indeed the necessary condition of the existence of all things, which also remain even if all existing things are removed; then one cannot well-blame the
good Berkeley if he demotes bodies to mere illusion; indeed even our own existence, which would be made dependent in such a way on the self-subsisting reality of a non-entity such as time, would be transformed along with this into mere illusion; an absurdity of which no one has yet allowed himself to be guilty….” (B71)

If you’ve any serious interest, I highly recommend at least the translator’s intro, CPR, Guyer/Wood, Cambridge Press, 1998…

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/5/25851/files/2017/09/kant-first-critique-cambridge-1m89prv.pdf

….a ~100-odd page altogether outstanding synopsis, including originally unpublished footnotes, and other cool stuff. While it may be true there’s some subjectivity involved with the language translation differences, that’s going to be the case no matter who’s translating German to English.

While the intro alone is worth spending some time with, the text itself remains the typical Kantian grammatical morass of paragraph-sized sentences, and the like. Genius at work, donchaknow.

B344-5 in Guyer/Wood, is understanding warning sensibility not to exceed its purpose, which it would be doing if it treated the object understanding thinks of its own accord, a noumenon or a transcendental object, as the cause of what sensibility takes as an appearance. The warning because such object, the one merely thought, can never be an appearance.

Reference ibid Bxxvii.

We’re good.

Both may be thought "transcendentally" but are not identical. — Paine

Of course they are not identical, never said they were, and never should have been thought to imply they were. That they have common source can be described as both belonging to the realm…or faculty, or domain or some such…..of understanding. No big deal.

Your exposé of the transcendental object, while quite good, has nothing to do with what I said.

Hey now. It worked for me, and I’m richer, smarter and immeasurably better looking.

You are stipulating a tendentious definition of real…. — Janus

Yeah, I’ll own that. All that is real are the schemata of “reality”, just as are all things the schemata of “world”. Postmodern/current philosophy does nothing for me, so there’s no positive reason to update myself from such….tendeneity? Is that a word? If it wasn’t, it is now.

That which exists but is not perceived is only understood as having to be real, via inference. That which is perceived necessarily exists and is known to be real, via experience.

The necessary existence of the thing-in-itself, and the perceived thing of the thing-in-itself, is simply a matter of the time of the one relative to an observer and the time of the other relative to the same observer. At this time it is a thing existing in-itself, at that time it is a thing existing as perceived and represented in him.
—————-

The major criteria for things being real, according to common usage, is that they exist…. — Janus

I understand that, and agree. To be real is to exist. But that’s not the contentious issue, that being, what is it to exist and be real, however idealistically contentious that may be?

That thing is red, just asks…what thing is red? A thing exists and is real, just asks…what thing exists and is real?

Hardly anyone asks what is it to exist and be real, but certain philosophers do, and seriously inquisitive regular folks might.

Simplest, most parsimonious, and altogether non-contradictory response, as far as we humans are concerned, is….a thing that exists and is real is that thing effecting the senses. That which doesn’t meet the criteria of effecting the senses can only be said to a possible thing, some thing conceived in thought, the reality of which is not addressed by the mere thought of its possibility.

BOOM!!!! Done deal, can’t argue that one bit without being stupid.
—————-

On OLP:

When doing philosophy as a subjective personality, or even philosophizing with respect to a given thesis objectively…are we allowed to use terminology any way we like?

As you say, there is no absolute fact of the matter as to the meaning of the terms we use in philosophy, generally, for which common usage would then be a proper guide, but there is, or can be, facts of the matter relative to terms used in particular philosophies. And if a guy deviates from such facts of the textual matter, e.g., “….by this I mean to say…”, or, “….in this is to be understood….”, he falsifies the very thesis he presents, and if he is a position to be teaching it, that deviation teaches sheer nonsense.

But I get your point. Phenomenon, say, means this for this guy, it means that for that guy. Whether they are using the term wrong depends on the source they acquire it from. No term in its use could possibly be wrong if he invents the term for a purpose, but it could be very wrong if he uses it in some sort of opposition to the source, not himself, he learned it from. He would have to prove the original was wrong, in order for his use not to be.

I picked phenomenon because some folks like to call Kant a phenomenologist, which of course he would never call himself, which makes explicit he was not. And he wouldn't call himself that because he already stated for the record what he thought of himself as being, and that wasn’t it. Whoever says that considers himself at liberty to say whatever he likes merely because he thinks it the case. One might say, here, OLP was his guide.

My question was: how would Kant defend a priori knowledge to Locke? — frank

Hmmmm, I’m not sure he could. I doubt Locke had any inkling, nor entertained the possibility, of knowledge given from man himself. Empiricists in general attributed knowledge to experience alone. Impressions and whatnot. But ol’ Johnny was pretty smart, so Kant might have enabled him to see the transcendental light.

The most prominent relation Kant had with Locke’s philosophy, as far as I know, is the notion of innate knowledge, which Kant rejected. As far as empirical realism is concerned, Kant maintains that for Locke’s version, and Hume’s as well, space and time must be properties of things, whereas…as we all know…Kant restricts space and time to our own internal faculty of intuition. For an infinitely divisible yet immaterial thing to be a property, is absurd, for Kant.
—————-

If things are actually something in themselves then it follows that they are real in themselves. — Janus

Another technicality. For a thing to be something in itself is just to be a thing in itself, and while it is necessary to say such a thing exists, it is not necessary to say it is real. To do so is to contradict the category, insofar as reality is the conjunction of a thing with perception and we never perceive things-in-themselves. From which follows it must be that the thing of the thing in itself, is that which is in conjunction with perception, and the thing is real to us.

The main point is that things must be real, insofar as they appear to the senses, but things-in-themselves, insofar as they are as they are in-themselves they do not appear to our senses, so the major criteria for being real, is absent.

But if your way makes sense to you, far be it from me to intrude. You know…like I just did.

The puzzle for me is what it could really mean to say the world is empirically real and yet transcendentally ideal. — Janus

Technically, it is things in the world that are empirically real. The world is a general conception representing the totality of those empirically real things, but is not itself empirically real. Hence an a priori conception representing an object in general, or, an ideal originating in reason.

Kant defines “object” to accord with perception and phenomena, from which it is deductible that “world” is not an object, hence cannot be empirically real. I’m find that for you if you’re interested.

Hardly from god. Kant’s motto, circa 1784: sapere aude.

From the nature of human intelligence.

Speculative metaphysics means you gotta stop somewhere in formulating tenets supporting your theory. Infinite regress on one hand, inevitable contradiction on the other, in going too far.

….Copernicus removed us from the centre of things and Kant does precisely the opposite. — Janus

Yeah, that is ironic, hence ill-warranted “revolution”. That and the notion of treating metaphysics as a science. Still, both manifest as paradigm shifts in their respective disciplines.

….every thought inevitably produces its opposite. — Janus

That’s just logic, right? Principle of Complementarity? So two aspects of thought, yes, but the subject was two aspects of the world. Not sure complementarity works there.

From the perspective of Enlightenment philosophy in general, and Kantian metaphysics in particular, transcendental thinking is thinking (the synthesis of conceptions by means of the reproductive imagination) in which the conceptions are a priori (not only having nothing to do with this or that experience, but having nothing to do with any experience whatsoever).

A priori. Not of this or that experience, not of any experience whatsoever, but always for any possible experience whatsoever.

Transcendental whatever, is just the condition by which that whatever comes about. Transcendental cognitions are a priori; transcendental judgements, transcendental ideas, transcendental knowledge and so on.

All reason is transcendental, but not all transcendental is reason.

Understanding does not originate any transcendental conceptions, but uses them to construct mathematics, which is a system of synthetic a priori judgements.

Nutshell….

Good.

But ya know…realm of noumena. Understanding. Same as the transcendental object. Both concepts thought transcendentally.

I had thought that the "2 world view" and the "2 aspect view" were competing interpretations in Kant scholarship. — Janus

They are, but should they be? I recommend the section which is commonly, but without proper warrant, called the Copernican revolution, the major premise being….

“…. We here propose to do just what Copernicus did in attempting to explain the celestial movements. When he found that he could make no progress by assuming that all the heavenly bodies revolved round the spectator, he reversed the process, and tried the experiment of assuming that the spectator revolved, while the stars remained at rest….”

…all that follows from this at Bxvi through the footnote at Bxx is an exposé for the prelude to the speculative metaphysics of pure reason, which just is the world as it is, compared to the world as it is for us. Or, perhaps better known philosophically as the world as it is given and the world as it is thought. After 700-odd pages we find the world as it is and the world as it is thought are nowhere near the same thing but that is very far from meaning there are two worlds.

Pretty easy to see the 2-aspect condition of one world, n’est ce pas?

Verse 4, line 2.

Truer words, and all that, for all of us I should think.

…..it’s my understanding that he did see a priori knowledge as coming before any sensory input…. — T Clark

Mine as well, that knowledge a priori arises from pure reason itself, in the form of principles.

When I observe, e.g., an object falls to the ground when I let go of it, it is not given because of it that I know that every object I let go of will fall to the ground. I know it, but not because of any singular instance of its observation. It becomes, then, that the observation is proof of what I already knew, but didn’t know I knew. And maybe don’t even care that I knew. Hence….pure a priori cognitions, which in the end, is knowledge, and the prime mover, the raison d’etre of CPR, from the 1781 get-go.

….the empirical unity of consciousness is just an appearance amongst appearances. It is a presentable object. — Sirius

Subject/copula/predicate: consciousness/is/appearance; consciousness/is/(presentable)object.

Really?

The unity of consciousness is apperception; when that which is united, is determinable only by empirical conceptions synthesized with the intuition of an appearance. Conscious unity belongs to understanding, appearance belongs to sensibility.

Benefit of the doubt: what is the empirical unity of consciousness, and what is an appearance, such that the unity of consciousness is one?

If noumena aren’t phenomena, then they aren’t entities. — T Clark

From that if/then, follows necessarily that because noumena are not phenomena, noumena cannot be entities, insofar as phenomena are necessarily representational entities, within that metaphysics demanding that status of them.
—————-

….that leads to the irony that we’re here talking about what can’t be talked about. — T Clark

In a sense, yes. But there isn’t talk of noumena other than the validity of it as a mere transcendental conception, having no prescriptive properties belonging to it. There is no possible talk whatsoever of any specific noumenal object, which relegates the general conception to representing a mere genus of those things the existence of which cannot be judged impossible but the appearance of which, to humans, is.

Why all this comes about, is more important within the metaphysical thesis overall, than the fact that it does.

He seems to think Kant held to the Permeinides thesis on the unity of being & intellect, that we must only posit intelligible entities — Sirius

I’m finding I should have led with this at the beginning of our dialectic: for you, what does it mean to posit?
——————-

I have shown this by citing Kant's refutation of idealism. — Sirius

What citation can be taken from the refutation that references unintelligible objects?
—————-

It is indeed far better to get Kant’s claims right, then to attribute to him mistakenly. Best way to do that is to keep in mind what’s said in the beginning, when examining what’s said towards at the end. CPR is intended as an exposition of a particular systemic rational method; it must be maintained in its entirety as such.

But I don't think metaphysics can bother with qualia either. — Apustimelogist

Indeed. A bridge too far. For me to undergo any mental state, is just the state of me.

‘Preciate it. I got two of ‘em, a rarity I must say.

It is obviously, clearly, not unintelligible to posit unintelligible objects. — AmadeusD

Ok. If it isn’t unintelligible, indicating it is intelligible, what would it look like….what conditions would have to be met….to go ahead and do it? How would you intelligibly posit unintelligible objects?

Seriously. I mean….I can’t so would like to be informed as to why that is.

A specific unintelligible object makes explicit the possibility of a multiplicity of them. If one is unintelligible to posit, and if there is a multiplicity of them, then they all are, insofar as whichever unintelligible object it is, that is posited, is undeteminable. If they all are unintelligible merely bcause one of them specifically is, then none of them can be posited, which is just the same as there is no positing of unintelligible objects.

Stupid f’ing language games.

I say Kant allows us to posit unintelligible objects for which we have no DIRECT sensible (the only kind for Kant) intuition….. — Sirius

….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.

Kant does allow you to posit entities that are beyond intelligibility…. — Sirius

Gotta be careful here. Is to posit an entity to think it?

Kant allows the understanding to think whatever it wants, but these thoughts are mere conceptions, for understanding is primarily the faculty of conceptual representation. And if understanding can think a conception, to then deem the concept unintelligible is contradictory.

Entities, then, might better be considered as the possible representation of that which is subsumed under the conception. In the case of those conceptions that are intelligible insofar as understanding thinks them, re: noumena, but objects the conceptions of which are not, it is the understanding itself in which resides the intelligibility quality, not the object.

The proof: there is no such thing as a noumenal entity, for the human intelligence, which is to say Kant does not allow positing entities beyond intelligibility. To posit that which understanding cannot think, is impossible.

This is not to say noumenal objects are impossible; only that they are not within the human capacity to think, therefrom to cognize, which just is to posit, at all.

“…he will not even be able to justify the possibility of such a pure assertion, without taking
account of the empirical use of the understanding, and thereby fully renouncing the pure and sense-free judgment. 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)

You know…..just sayin’.

Here's what really puzzles me. Metaphysics is said to be about the world - de re. — Ludwig V

Some metaphysical theories may be about the world, but I wouldn’t hold with any of them. But then, as well, metaphysics is sometimes said to be above or after physics, and I don’t agree with that at all.

Nahhhh….metaphysics, as a conception, is the “science” of human reason, the limitations and applicability thereof, at least according to some early modern, re: post-Renaissance, philosophers.

Then, of course, after having figured out the limitations and applicability of reason, it follows the investigations of the world, through the practice of empirical science, becomes attuned to it. So metaphysics is actually lower than and before physics, and thus not about the world, it being given whatever it may be, but establishes a method by which humans comprehend it.

Bottom line is, I suppose, because there’s no cut-and-dried consensual definition of metaphysics, you can call it just about anything you like, limited only be staying away from names already taken.
——————-

….whether there are questions for which a mathematical answer is not appropriate…. — Ludwig V

Hmmmm.

Maybe.

Because mathematics is conditioned by the impossibility of its negation…2 + 2 /= 4 is contradictory hence impossible….maybe it is, that for those questions conditioned by the impossibility of the negation of its answer, those answers are appropriately mathematical. It follows that those questions having nothing to do with, or make no allowances for, possible contradictions in their answers, mathematical answers would not be appropriate.

The most obvious, ubiquitous with respect to humanity in general, of these kinds of questions refer to feelings, the answers to questions of feelings being aesthetic, regulated not by pure logic, but merely how the subject doing the asking, finds himself inclined. From there, it’s a short hop to mathematical answers to moral questions are not appropriate.

Just a thought…..

…..directly acquainted example of irreducible ontology, then it seems ontologies strongly emerge macroscopically. An issue is that if all our conscious behavior can in principle be simulated and reproduced from models of functioning brains, this emergent ontology seems not only epiphenomenal but also disconnected from our own reports about our own experience which would be due to the brains - this seems incoherent. — Apustimelogist

From the PubMed link….

“…. A key insight here is that structure emerges from influences that are not there, much like a sculpture emerges from the material removed….”

….which by all accounts would seem very much contrary to the principle of cause/effect, and removes the prohibition regarding uncaused effects, making “irreducible ontology” rather suspect.

And this, immediately preceding, for context…

“….The requisite absence of specific influences are precisely those described above; namely, internal states and external states only influence each other via the Markov blanket, while sensory states are not influenced by internal states…”

….while it may be true sensory states are not influenced by internal states, it must be that internal states are influenced by sensory states, which contradicts that internal and external states only influence each other, insofar as sensory states are themselves internal.

Even all that aside, there seems to be a fertile ground remaining for representationalism regarding the human cognitive system, which is all metaphysics needs for the development of a purely speculative theory prescribing a method to it.

And if that is the case, then the more parsimonious relief of the “incoherence” related to being “disconnected from our own reports about our own experience”, resides in the notion that “all our conscious behavior can in principle be simulated and reproduced from models of functioning brains”, is false.
—————-

When I think about this stuff, it always invokes the imagery of the strange loop and munchausen trilemma that really be escaped from. — Apustimelogist

I understand you probably meant can not be escaped from, and to that I would certainly agree. From the metaphysical view alone, it is circular to describe reason with reason, even while it is impossible to do otherwise, and, from the metaphysical view with respect to the physical view, the former only works with the invocation of abstract ideas, themselves the product of the “strange loop” of pure logic. “Strange loop” being a euphemism for necessarily extinguished infinite regress.
————-

idea that physicalist accounts can go only so far and we should refrain from overstepping their explanatory power.
— Punshhh

For me, nothing can fill that gap. — Apustimelogist

Why should there be a gap, when it is really a case of no contact? Physics over here looking right, metaphysics over there looking left. Inside the skull, outside the skull. Metaphysics describes how to think, physics is merely one of the myriad of things thought about.

Critical metaphysics generally doesn’t concern itself with the possibility of possibilities, which perfectly describes empirical knowledge of neural fundamental conditions, such as Penrose/Hameroff (1990) “O.O.R.”, and whatnot.

Hard physical science generally doesn’t concern itself with logical justification for, e.g., pure a priori synthetic cognitions.

Physics shouldn’t bother with consciousness; metaphysics shouldn’t bother with time dilation.

Better, methinks, to grant the ignorance implicit in both, than to force them to fight with each other because of it.

….physical theory only characterizes its basic entities relationally, in terms of their causal and other relations to other entities…. — Apustimelogist

Theory characterizes (its objects) relationally, yes, the first and foremost relation being, such objects in conjunction with the human constructing the theory.

Ever notice, that Einstein’s (1931) stone-dropping/railroad platform gedankenexperiment requires a mediating observer not on the platform nor in the car? The immediate observer(s) in either place characterize the stone-drop relative to himself, the second-party mediator characterizes the drops relative to each other. Simultaneity of relativity cannot be observed by an immediate observer.

Objects may be theoretically characterized as relating to each other, re: a planet and its moons, but that relation must still be meaningful, which cannot be found in the mere relation itself, but requires an subsequent relation to a subject by which the first is adjudicated. On the other hand, for that relation of object to subject with no other intervention, it must be the case meaning is contained in the relation, as a possible deduction from it, which is commonly called judgement.

This then, may be the dividing line between the physical and the metaphysical. The former’s meaningfulness requires a series of relations and the judgements thereof, the latter’s meaningfulness is deductible from the relation alone, for which only a singular judgement is required.

Physicalism and toaster ovens/particle collides, not a problem;
Physicalism and human subjectivity, not a chance.

….when we come to looking for an answer…. — Ludwig V

It would help to bear in mind the question for which an answer is sought. If it is the case that answers sustained by experience determinable through science, are vastly more consensual than answers sustained by logical speculation determinable through metaphysics, it follows that the questions related to the one are very different than the questions related to the other.

While it is true metaphysics cannot be a science in the sense of the established empirical sciences, there is no contradiction in treating metaphysics scientifically, that is, in accordance with basic principles as grounds for its speculative maneuvers.

A human does, after all, use his one brain to ask vastly different kinds of questions, which presupposes the brain’s capacity for addressing either one. Mathematics is sufficient proof, in that for what reason proposes from itself metaphysically, experience proves with apodeictic certainty naturally.

Otherwise, how well the address in general, is another matter entirely. Like….you know…gods and stuff. And that gadawful notion of possible worlds. (Sigh)

I wasn’t expecting a response, and a well-spoken one at that. So…thanks.

I’ll address just this one item, the rest being uncontentious other than relevant particulars:

The issue is that nothing tells you about or can articulate an "intrinsic" nature of things. — Apustimelogist

I understand nature of things to mean real material things. Even so, I’m of the opinion metaphysics can articulate the intrinsic nature of me, whether or not the mere satisfaction I get from it reflects the truth.

I agree explanations don’t come for free, and I think the fundamental restriction is the human intellect itself. We are, after all is said and done, at the mercy of ourselves.

The odd thing is that in asking the question, one also answers it. — Ludwig V

Or at the very least, presupposes the possibility of it. From there, it’s legitimate to propose a theory under which it may be described.

Physics doesn't tell you about an "intrinsic" nature of things…. — Apustimelogist

At least one thing must have an intrinsic nature, such that there is a “you” physics doesn’t inform.

If physics…..

…..only predicts how things behave. — Apustimelogist

….and insofar as there is an intrinsic nature of at least one thing physics doesn’t inform, it follows physics cannot predict the behavior of the same “you” it doesn’t inform.
—————-

The thing with an intrinsic nature for which physics can neither inform nor predict with apodeitic certainty, with universality and absolute necessity, re: according to law, resides in the human brain, from which “you” originates. In order to reconcile contradictory theses, parsimony mandates another substantially different explanatory system for that which physics cannot address. Or, the “you”, not included in the explanatory domain of physics, must remain ever uninformed and unpredictable, which would immediately jeopardize the brain’s very use of the term itself, insofar as it there wouldn’t even be a “you” without it.

Which gives raison d’etre to the idea of an intrinsic nature as such, in this case, “you” as it relates to physics and is contained in the brain: there is a veritable plethora of evidence justifying the human being’s general distaste for being uninformed, to the extent that the brain will construct an explanatory system which satisfies the want for it.

So, no, physics hasn’t the means to predict that the brain would invent metaphysics, and physics hasn’t yet informed the brain of its own intrinsic nature by which that invention occurred, and, that there is a “you” to which it belongs.

But it gets worse than that. Physics cannot be used to explain how the brain originates that supposed domain of explanation having no ground whatsoever in the method by which physics does anything at all according to law.

And the fun part? The brain doesn't do physics, it merely operates in accordance with the discipline called “physics”, which was (gasp) invented by the very same intrinsic nature of the brain for which it is not the sufficiently explanatory method.
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Of course, the answer is….there isn’t any “you” in the first place. None of the inventions of the brain, from itself, to explain itself, are really real. Which only leads to the question, if there isn’t any of that invented stuff in concreto, why is it that the brain makes it seem like there is? Every fargin’ thing the brain does seems to belong to a “you” of some time and place, such that it is incomprehensible that it never did, yet there is a not single one of them anywhere to be put in a box, to be charged a ticket to gawk at.

Why not grant to metaphysics legitimacy as an explanatory device, for no other reason than physics isn’t enough? I mean….it’s been done, however subconsciously, long before humans figured out how to write about it.
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Rhetorically speaking….

D’accord.

Yeah, sorry. I get skittish when language is brought into the dialectic. On the other hand, it might just be that your subtlety escaped me, re: “…language of practical reason”
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I think Kant constructs a system which is incompatible with solipsism — frank

I’m not sure he ever even acknowledged the concept as it is today. Like most -ism’s, it’s a cover for many books.