All good, except….

….the conditions described at B132 to B138 are observed…. — Paine

….I think “observed” is out-of-place here. The listed pagination concerns the analytic of logical functions, not the aesthetic of empirical givens.

I have the feeling you appreciate the precision in recounting the text, with the same precision with which it was written, and meant to be understood.

But, as with , I know what you mean.
————-

….what determines whether a given object is treated in accordance with sensibility or in accordance with pure speculative reason. — Ludwig V

A given object is always treated in accordance with both sensibility and reason. What determines that such should be the case, is nothing but this particular version of speculative metaphysics.

An object in general, or a merely possible object, without regard to any particular one, constructed by the understanding hence that object not given to the senses but still related to possible experience, is called an empirical conception and is treated a priori by pure theoretical reason. For example, justice, beauty, geometric figures, deities, and the like.

That object without any empirical content whatsoever, and no possibility of it hence entirely unrelated to possible experience, both constructed and treated by pure speculative reason, and is called a transcendental object or idea. For example, the categories, mathematical principles, inferential syllogisms, and the like.

These are not proper objects, of course, not existent things, but merely indicate a position in a synthesis of representations in which they are contained. Rather than being objects as such, they are objects of that to which they stand in relation. Object of Nature is an appearance, object of intuition is a phenomenon; object of understanding is a conception; object of reason is an idea. Explanatory parsimony, if you will.

That’s what I get out of it, anyway. Loosely speaking.

Can’t argue with any of that. Except that absent any percipients thing; you seem alright with it, so I’ll leave it be. I know what you mean.

“….if the critique has not erred in teaching that the object should be taken in a twofold meaning,
namely as appearance or as thing in itself…”
(Bxxvii)

In other words, the Critique does teach the twofold aspect, but not of the object. It is the two-fold aspect of the human intellectual system as laid out in transcendental philosophy. It is by means of that system that an object is treated as an appearance in accordance with sensibility on the one hand, or, an object is treated as a ding an sich on the other, in accordance with pure speculative reason.

All that is perceived must exist, but it does not follow that only the perceived exists. Because it is absurd to claim only the perceived exists, insofar as subsequent discoveries become impossible, we are entitled to ask….for that thing eventually perceived, in what state was that thing before it was perceived?

Why? To defeat Berkeley’s “esse est percipi”, as prescribed by that “dogmatic” idealism predicated on subjective conditions alone.

Years ago, I found it much more advantageous to shy away from the A edition. Read it for context, but not study it for comprehension. I mean…there’s a reason the Good Professor made changes, so I just figured it best to go with what he himself thought as better.

Sidebar: the “a” in “….specifically a wholly distinct appearances…”, is a translator’s (not author’s) footnote indicator belonging to “specifically”; it isn’t the indefinite article of grammar spellchecker wants it to be.

I think it potentially very confusing to think of “I” as an appearance, as mentioned in A379, however specifically distinct it may be, especially if one has already understood the transcendental aesthetic in which appearance is only that empirically/physically/materially real thing from which sensation follows necessarily. One would naturally surmise that “I” is certainly no real thing therefore should not have been considered as an appearance at all.

But an appearance to the senses is that by which they are affected. To be consistent, then, regarding appearance, if I am an appearance it must be that I am an affect on myself, which, of course, is that very specific distinction he meant to convey in the text but only makes perfectly clear in a bottom-of-the-page asterisk.

Still, I’m sure you’re aware, all that is revised in the B edition, 157, where “that as I appear to myself” reduces to “only the consciousness (…) that I am”, which releases appearance as previously given in the Aesthetic, from the intuition which is proposed as necessarily following from it. And, which is kinda cool, by doing that he tacitly supports Descartes’ sum while not being quite so supportive of the “problematic” idealism explicit in the cogito ergo… part. Also, he belays the whole existence thing, relegating it to a category where it belongs, rather than connecting to the “I”, which is only a transcendental thought to which existence proper does not belong.

(I am)….not because I think, but because the (consciousness of thinking) represents that I am. Or something like that…. “synthetic original unity of apperception”, is what he’s trying to establish to modify or amend or basically replace the whole original cogito idea.

If you haven’t already, scroll all the way to the end of the text you’re referencing, to the translator’s comments, by text page-grouping, to see that Kant had trouble with this whole thing….getting what he wanted to say across to his readers. And if he had that much trouble with getting it out to us, it’s not hard to image how much trouble we have taking it in.

Or…it’s just me and I’ve completely missed the mark. (Sigh)

….painting a specific appearance. — Paine

I saw that, and the first thing that came to my mind was, to say the same thing….I’ll have to think about it.

Probably not what you meant, but, considering the currently discussed author and his original Prussian linguistic tendencies, I might be forgiven.

I shy away from the term 'self'. — noAxioms

As is your prerogative, being the thread host. I agree with the topical question….where’s the mystery….albeit for very different reasons apparently.

Postmodern philosophy has become like Big Pharma, in that the latter creates ailments to sustain medicinal inventions while the former creates scenarios bordering on superfluous overreach, and both thrive when the individual generally is, or artificially made to appear as, either pathetically blasé or pathologically ignorant.

First-person is a euphemism for self…
— Mww

I'm not using it that way. — noAxioms

To what else could first-person perspective belong?
————-

I personally cannot find a self-consistent definition of self that doesn't contradict modern science. — noAxioms

I don’t find a contradiction; a self-consistent definition of self isn’t within the purview of typical modern science to begin with. The so-called “hard” sciences anyway.

But you’re right to ask: where's the mystery? I don’t know why there should be one.

If every human ever is always and only a first-person….
-Mww

I don't understand this at all. First person is a point of view, not a property like it is being treated in that quote. — noAxioms

First-person is a euphemism for self, indeed a point of view; properties belong to objects, the self can never be an object, hence properties cannot be an implication of first-person subjectivity.

The frames of reference are incongruent. — Paine

The subject that thinks, is very different from the subject that describes thinking. Even myself, should I describe my thoughts, necessarily incorporate a supplement to that method which merely prescribes how my thoughts obtain.

If every human ever is always and only a first-person, doesn’t that make the first-/third-person dichotomy, false? Or, if not, at least perhaps a simplified NOMA, re: Gould, 1997?

Agreed on incongruent frames, even if from a different point of view.

The more things change the more they stay the same, re: translator’s intro, “…. how precarious Court favour then was….”, in juxtaposition to today’s White House.

Mid-1600’s, a numbered series of sentences; early 1900’s, a number series of paragraphs, neither of which satisfy the want of systemic philosophical theory. Which is fine of course, no set-in-stone way to do philosophy. Personal preference kinda thing.

Maybe he was more the anthropological moralist than metaphysical philosopher anyway.

I wasn’t familiar with the Duke, so thanks for the chance to check him out.

Not sure how to take it, but….thanks?

The Duke's influence on Kant doesn’t have much exposure, assuming there was any, but what you wrote sounds a lot like some of the foundational aspects of the second Critique.

I know Kant took a couple French Enlightenment thinkers quite seriously, so there is precedent.

Interesting you brought him up, regardless.

On this forum (…) I have a very hard time finding (…) intellectually informed people discussing Philosophy leisurely… — Ansiktsburk

One of the biggest gripes of philosophers is that folks like to cherry-pick what they write. I admit to it in this case, but I also found a reason: as a rule, intellectually informed people don’t discuss leisurely.

the echo of Aristotle's form-matter dualism. — Wayfarer.

250 years ago, Aristotelian logic ruled academia, from 1770 Kant held the chair of metaphysics and logic at U. of K., so could hardly dispense with it altogether. Thanks to Leibniz in the one hand and Newton on the other, though, Kant did, as you say, move the standardized matter/form duality from an ontological to an epistemological condition. He took it away from the object and gave it to the subject.

And his treatment of time…fascinating. At the expense of real things, no less, that which could actually kill us, relinquishes its importance to something having not the least effect on us at all.

Ballsy move, ya gotta admit, considering the relatively recent advent of the hard sciences, and it took 35 years or so (WWR, 1818) for a decent comprehension of what just happened.

What is an intuition? Empirically, it is the synthesis of the matter of a given appearance, with a form, the representation of which, is phenomenon.

“…. That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form. (…) It is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us à posteriori; the form must lie ready à priori for them in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from all sensation….” (A20/B34)

This is what I was talking about above, where the matter of an object is irrelevant, because there isn’t an object, in mathematical judgements a priori. But it is a judgement, which requires a relation of conceptions.

Now, the matter of an empirical intuition is conditioned by space, but the form is conditioned by time, hence the two pure intuitions one hears so much about. Absent the need for the condition of space for lack of an appearance, but retaining the condition of time, we “…exhibit an empirical intuition a priori…” to ourselves, in order to cognize a relation of synthetical conceptions, which are represented in the judgement.

What is cognition? It is presentation to the subject the consciousness of a judgement, from which follows that mathematical judgements a priori are not in themselves yet cognitions. The missing piece is the intuition, which in the case of mathematical judgements in order to be cognitions, must get their intuition a priori as form alone.

Incidentally enough, there is a definitive conjunction here: the categories are all relations of time, and number is a schemata of the category of “quantity”, so it naturally follows that form is a representation of time. Not represented in time, but of time.

Remember, we were discussing a certain kind of judgement. By involving intuition we’ve moved on from mere synthesis of unrelated conceptions. While we are certainly authorized to think all connected to something like 7 + 5 = 12, thinking does not present any objective validity, and for which is required the invention and use of real objects.

The drawing of numbers or figures, associating them in accordance with operative demands, is the method of proof. When we draw a figure or number, that becomes the appearance, and that, conditioned by space, combined with time already established as present in the mind, and we have an actual phenomenon. Now the synthesis in intuition is space and time, the synthesis in understanding is phenomenon and conception, and experience of the determined mathematical cognition is given.

Oh what a tangled web we weave….right? While metaphysics cannot be a science, this is how it can be treated as if it were.

“…find the sum…” is the something reason directs understanding to do, in the synthesis of given conceptions; what the sum is requires intuition, because only from sensibility can an object representing what reason requires. Herein is counting, for the easy math, the development of formulas and equations for the not-easy, thereby obtaining empirical knowledge of that which originated in thought alone.

This is Kant's “…mathematical cognition….”, in which is what he calls the “….construction of conceptions….”, as opposed to philosophical cognitions, in which is the “… spontaneity in the production of conceptions…”, herein whatever intuition represents the synthesis of the two given constructed conceptions, which will eventually be constructed that elusive “12”.
(Constructed conceptions arise immediately as schemata of the categories, not mediately as representations belonging to mere thought)

There are no numbers naturally in Nature; all of them are put there by us, as objects of sensibility, hence numbers, when employed by understanding in mathematical cognitions, originate as intuitions a priori. How did that happen, you ask. Well…cuz reason switched gears on us, of course, by insinuating presupposing categorical schemata as a real object for what is usually mere phenomena given from a naturally occurring object.

The transcendental aesthetic prescribed the method required for the beginning of empirical knowledge. In keeping with that, if one were to use his fingers for counting, how did he get 1, 2, 3…and not finger, finger, finger….

Same with lining up rocks in aggregate with respect to the quantity: when you count rocks you don’t think, rock, rock, rock….

Stick an object up in front of your face, you experience all that from which is intuited in that object. Stick that object of experience now called a hand in front of your face, but this time, while still perceiving fingers as incorporated in the object called hand, you think them as numbers. Not only numbers, but numbers in succession, in exact relation to alternate fingers. Coolest part is…..you’re not the least confused by contradicting your own antecedent experience (finger) by determining something which should be impossible from it (number).

This is the construction of conceptions, and from them are the empirical intuitions a priori, and why this whole shebang must come from reason herself, a transcendental faculty, for if this arrangement originated in any cognitive, or discursive, faculty, we would be oh-so-confused by conflicting experiences, and in fact, most likely couldn’t even function in such manner at all.
(Keeping in mind, reason has nothing to do with knowledge as such but only provides the rules and principles, through “transcendental ideas”, for knowing successfully, that exclusively the purview of the logical faculties of cognition, re: understanding)

The differences in the text is so subtle.
….In the Aesthetic, we have intuitions which are given as “the matter of objects”;
….In judgement of mathematical cognitions, we have “….exhibition à priori of the intuition which corresponds to the conception…” for which the matter would be irrelevant;
….In judgement of philosophical cognition we have conceptions which conform to the intuition insofar as “…the intuition must be given before your cognition, and not by means of it.…”.

Now we see what ALL mathematical judgements are synthetic and ALL are a priori. Pretty simple really: we observe relations in Nature, the a posteriori, but represent them to ourselves with that which isn’t observed in Nature at all, the a priori.

Added bonus: because the intuition of number is exhibited a priori in correspondence to the conception from which it is given, that intuition can contain nothing more than that which is contained in the conception. Hence arises the apodeictic certainty of mathematical judgements.

Dunno if any of this helps or not, and it is all opinion, so…..

Careful what you ask for. I don’t have a problem with the Prolegomena because I don’t consider it the relevant text for the current discussion.

300 years after the fact, all there is, is opinion. My opinion is, most everybody, in concentrating on this or that, overlooks transcendental philosophy as a whole.

I can explain til I’m blue inna face, but there remains a serious problem: there’s no need for mathematical judgements or their synthetic a priori classification, when I’ve known all about them since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, thanks to my 1st grade teacher. It’s extremely difficult to comprehend the reason for them when rote instruction has removed the consciousness of their applicability. That being said….

1)….the human being has not evolved out of the condition he was in 300 years ago: he still perceives and he still thinks, from which it follows the tenets of transcendental philosophy still hold;
2)….from 1), regardless of current opinion concerning the system prescribed by transcendental philosophy with respect to human cognition, each part of the system remains fully dependent on all the others;
3)…..from 2, mathematics being synthetic judgements a priori is merely an example of what they are, where they reside in the system, and what they do for the system, but rely on something else for sufficient proof of their possibility.

It makes no difference if synthetic judgements a priori are accepted or not; within the theory they are required, which just means to reject that part is to reject the whole. Which is fine, things do move on, after all.
————-

In the case of the conception of a priori itself, Kant did not mean it with respect to time as such, but with respect to placement in the system as a whole. The systemic procedure in a nutshell, for knowledge of things, is perception through to experience. Kant allows a priori to be pure or impure, but stipulates….probably for the sake of his editors…when he writes the word, he means the pure version, always, without exception. The pure/impure signifies whether or not the subject under consideration is empirical, subject being the propositional form thereof, indicating what he’s talking about at the time: impure means, e.g., the subject conception is represented by a real thing, while pure, on the other hand, means, “….not such as is independent of this or that kind of experience, but such as is absolutely so of all experience….”.

Now, given the only two possible ways for the human cognitive system to work, either from perception of things, which is all the empirical side, or, from mere thinking of things, which is all the rational side, it follows that “independent from experience” makes explicit the term is restricted in its use to the rational side alone.

So, a priori means within, or restricted to, any internal systemic function in which there is nothing having to do with empirical predication. To then say a priori, as it relates to time is before experience, is not quite right, insofar as pure thought absent empirical conditions, is already that for which there never will be any experience anyway, so before experience or before the time of experience, in such case, is superfluous.

It is the entire point of transcendental philosophy, is to combat Hume’s reluctance to pursue pure rational thought as the ground of knowledge. In order to be successful, Kant had to demonstrate those conditions under which ALL knowledge stems, and that from the very condition Hume’s resolution was to “….consign it to the flames…”.
————-

To answer your question when do we know 7 + 5 = 12, we know it when we represent it to ourselves by empirical example. Yet beforehand, we know a priori there is nothing contained in the conception “7”, or in the conception “5”, from which we are given the conception “12”.

Because that is known with apodeictic certainty….
(when all you have is boards over there and nails over there)
….yet the are mathematical statements we know with equal certainty from experience….
(yet there’s houses everywhere you look)
….it remains to be undetermined how to get from one to the other….UNLESS….the cognitive part of the system as a whole, and in particular the part which reasons, does something with the two given conceptions…
(hammer the nails into the boards is the way to build a house; synthesis the “7” and the “5” in understanding is the way to judge the relation of two given conceptions having nothing to do with each other)

Full stop. You hammer all day long, you still don’t have a house; you synthesis the conceptions, you still don’t have the conception “12”. Now we see synthetic judgements a priori are only representations of a very specific cognitive function, a synthesis done without anything whatsoever to do with experience, and of which we are not the least conscious. It is all an act of reason, which is that systemic faculty not so much involved in knowledge itself, but provides the principles by which it becomes possible. At this point we don’t care about the 12, just as we don’t care the house isn’t done yet. All we want is proof for a way to get the house built, and proof of a way to get to whatever the relation of 7 and 5 gives us.

We think nothing of combining 7 and 5. We don’t think anything of the combining of them. But we stop dead in our cognitive tracks, when the very same synthesis is just as necessary but for which immediate mental manipulation is impossible. The rote mechanism of mere instruction doesn’t work for a vast majority of us, when the synthesis is of, like, numbers containing many digits, or of a different form of synthesis altogether, i.e, calculus. The principle is the same, though, for all of them.

And all that, is only half the story….

Cool. I figured, but confirmation is always best.

Need the year of publication, for whatever text you’re saying has Groundwork in its title. The Groundwork I’m familiar with is a treatise on moral philosophy, having nothing to do with mathematical judgements, and 7 + 5 is not discussed as far as I could determine, but that a categorical "ought" implies a synthetic a priori proposition, is.

And sec 281 doesn’t Google.

Thanks.

I'm not sure what you mean by "even if it isn't the case". — Janus

As you say, there are no synthetic a priori judgements, but as Kant says, that logical construct (proposition, judgement), in which the conceptions have no relation to each other but are connected in thought, are called synthetic a priori judgements, and are used by the cognitive faculties as principles. You may be correct, in that it isn’t the case the cognitive faculties use such judgements as principles, because there isn’t any such thing.

Thing is, even though I cannot prove the tenets or conditions supporting the theory, you cannot disprove them either. Of the two, my position is nonetheless stronger, in that the logic used in the construction of the theory cannot be shown to be self-contradictory, which is the only way to falsify the theory itself. Best you can do, is start over, with different sets of initial premises and thereby come to a different conclusion.

What will you do, then, to escape the fundamental starting point, the least likely to be wrong initial condition, that the shepard simply “sees” a two-poled fence won’t work? Granting that point, which seems the most reasonable, all that remains is the explanation for what it is to “see”.

Same as it ever was…..as my ol’ buddy Brain Eno used to say.

I don't see how a tautology could be independent of its conceptual content—can you give an example? — Janus

I said irrespective, not independent. It is impossible to even think, judge, cognize, reason…any of that stuff, independently of conceptual content. Even so, I probably could have worded it better, in that, while being independent of conceptual content is impossible, the fact the judgement warrants the title “tautology” indicates only a certain relation between them.

I meant to say it isn’t the conceptions themselves that earn the title, but the relation of them to each other. For those conceptions that don’t relate the title is lost, that’s all.
————-

if they put in just two parallel fence lines, it would have been obvious that would not keep the sheep in or the wolves out. — Janus

Actually, a good example. It shows since Day One, humans had this cognitive capacity, as simply a part of its general intellect. Those academically/philosophically/scientifically illiterate shepards knew something without having to do the work for experiencing it. All that was needed, a few centuries later when somebody stopped to think about it, was a system in which that knowledge was possible, followed by a theory to demonstrate how the system works.

It never was a question of it being done, but, how it is done. Kant’s Claim to Fame is that he assembled the first definitive exposè for this particular inherent human capacity, and no one has done it any better since. “Better” here meant to indicate more complete, beginning to end, front to back, top to bottom.

Why two straight lines cannot enclose a space, is no longer a mystery. Even if it isn’t the case, it is still a perfectly logical explanation.

It is logically self-evident that a pair of lines cannot enclose a space…. — Janus

Since the ancients that has been the case. It just makes sense that two straight lines cannot enclose a space but no one ever thought about the rational mechanism by which two unrelated, non-empirical conceptions can be conjoined to construct its own evidence, since Nature is never going to provide the universality and absolute necessity required for its proof.

….so I'd call that analytic, not synthetic. — Janus

Usually a judgement is termed tautological insofar as it is true by definition irrespective of its conceptual content, whereas analytical merely indicates that the subject/predicate conceptions as the content in self-evident judgements belong to each other, or that one contains the other within it.

The conception of a straight line, on the other hand, does not contain the conception of number, nor can the conception of a number be thought as belonging to the conception of a line, hence the judgement with “two straight lines” as its subject, is termed synthetical. In the judgement “every body is extended”, the conception in the subject is related to the conception in the predicate, in that you cannot think a body without the extension connected to it, so is analytical.
—————-

I don't see how either logical possibility or internal consistency can yield certainty. — Janus

Neither do I; in themselves they don’t. They are the conditions necessary in the form of a judgement, for the certainty in the relations of the conceptions which are its content. They don’t yield, or produce, certainty, so much as make it possible.

Sorry for the delay. I got doin’ Her Satanic Majesty’s Request, if ya know what I mean. Flower beds, of all things. The kinda thing the average joe’s hardly likely to get right.

I agree there is logic used in "cognitive methods" (…), but that logic is not deductive, so I would say its results cannot be apodeictic. — Janus

There is a theoretical argument in which parts of the cognitive method, under certain conditions, as means to certain ends, is deductive, but the subject is not conscious of its functioning. I’d nonetheless agree the cognitive method in itself, insofar as it is not susceptible to empirical proof, wouldn't meet the criteria for apodeictic certainty. But the point of speculative metaphysical theory in general only extends to whether the parts of the method reflect certainty with respect to each other. It’s like….if this then that necessarily (the point)…..but…..there’s no proof there even is a this or that to begin with (beside the point).
————-

I disagree with Kant that non-analytic judgements can be apodeictic. — Janus

Non-analytic judgements are synthetic, and it is true no synthetic judgement possesses apodeictic certainty. But synthetic and synthetic a priori while being the same in form are not the same in origin.

There can be no synthetic apriori certainty. — Janus

Of course there can, provided the method by which they occur, which just is that difference in origin, is both logically possible and internally consistent. And is granted its proper philosophical standing.

Case in point: mathematics. How many pairs of straight lines would you have to draw, to prove to yourself you’re never going to enclose a space with them? After you’ve thought about it, maybe even drawn out a few pairs, why do I NOT have to tell you it cannot be done? And if you thought about it more narrowly, you'd discover you wouldn’t need to draw any pairs of lines at all to arrive at that conclusion yourself.

The form of that discovery;
…..(the judgement you made)….
The process by which the discovery manifests;
…..(a priori because you didn’t need the experience of drawing pairs of lines to facilitate the judgement)….
And the content of the discovery;
(The unrelated, thus synthetic concepts, “enclosed space” and “pairs of straight lines”, conjoined in the judgement)

…..gives exactly what you say there cannot be.

So even if this particular method is not accepted, it is still true, still necessarily the case, two straight lines cannot enclose a space. Is there another way, equally valid, to get this apodeictally certain kind of non-empirical knowledge?
—————-

…..doesn't really tell us much about anything. — Janus

True enough. Knowledge proper is in experience. Logic merely guides the system and limits the method by which experience is possible.
—————-

Have you heard about the observation of (the effects of) colliding black holes? Talk about paling in comparison, everything I just said…..

Getting complicated, methinks. Logic talked about is in propositions; logic used in a cognitive method is in judgements, and the first presupposes the second.

The apodeictic certainty in Aristotle rests on either definition or self-evidence in propositions and is empirically demonstrable; the apodeictic certainty in Kant rests on judgement, and is merely thought. In Kant, the certainty which rests on definition or self-evidence, are termed analytic judgements. It follows that judgement antecedes and sets the ground for propositions.

That something is not logically necessary does not say it is not logically possible. The proof of that apodeictic judgement is in the truth of its negation: for that something which is logically necessary, that something must be possible.

Anyway….I think for the not logically necessary, there is apodeictic certainty in its logical possibility.

Ok. Thanks.

Hmmm. Good question. Insofar as logic regards only what we think, maybe logical contradiction has to do with the relation of conceptions to each other we think in a judgement, whereas logical impossibility has to do with the relation of judgements to each other we think in a cognition.

With respect to physical/metaphysical impossibility, the former has to do with the content, the latter with the form, of propositions in general? The physically impossible is e.g., that proposition in which there can exist no object to which conceptions may belong, and the metaphysically impossible merely exposes that this conception has no relation whatsoever to that conception.

Dunno. What say you?

That, and the stronger version, that of which the negation is impossible.

Neither of these can refer to things we know, however. There can be no apodeitic certainty in empirical knowledge, at least that given from inductive inference, re: Hume, 1739.

Is your question about "object" such that you remove yourself as a peer capable of reviewing the text? — Paine

Nope; got nothing to do with the text. By asking what you mean “object” to represent prevents me from prematurely mis-judging your use of it solely from what I think it represents.

I just want to know what “object” gives me that object doesn’t. What do the marks give to object that object doesn’t already have?

…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?
————-

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.
————-

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.
————-

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.
—————-

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….
—————-

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.
—————-

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.
————-

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.
————-

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.