….."perceive" as in "correctly identify an object of the senses." — J

Even if that were the case, isn’t it necessarily presupposed there is an object to identify, correctly or otherwise? If so, then deny that very same necessary object as a content of perception, is contradictory, from which it follows…..barring absurdity….that object itself cannot be doubted.

Our senses can be doubted. But if I 'experience' a thought, then it is certain that that exact thought is happening. — Kranky

So if you perceive something, it is not certain you perceived it? Some thing….don’t matter what it is….gets right in front of your eyes, but you doubt that thing made the trip from the front to the back of your eye? Why wouldn’t it? What’s to prevent it? All necessary presuppositions being given, of course, re: awake and aware, intellectually/physiologically functional.

How does your eye know how to deceive you? How….indeed, why….would your fingertips, when sensing roughness (of sandpaper), pass on to your brain the sensation of smoothness (of the fridge door handle)? Why is it always that the odor of bacon is never sensed by the ear?

In the same way it is certain for any thought that exact thought is happening, it is just as certain for any perception that exact perception is happening. By the same token, that the content of thought is impossible to deny, so too is the content of perception impossible to deny.

Nobody said, nor is anyone justified in saying, the mere reality of empirical content of sense, nor the mere rational content of thought, means knowledge of what either one is, and, with respect to the original question, the difference between our thought and our senses cannot be determined by whether or not their respective content is susceptible to doubt.

Since at least Plato…knowledge that is not the same as knowledge of, more recently, in Russell 1912, knowledge by acquaintance vs knowledge by description.

he couldn't have had been overly and unfairly critical to Kant. — Corvus

I dunno, man. He spent 184 pages rippin’ Kant a new one. Right after page one, where he says Kant’s the greatest philosopher ever ….until he came along to show how he could have been even better.

Peculiar for us, maybe? Wonder what the peer-group at the time thought. Truth be told, I don’t know S’s relation to H as well as I know his relation to K, other than in the former he is not gentle in his derision.

Julian Young's book on Schopenhauer says Schopenhauer's Will was Kant's Thing-in-Itself (…) and he was wrong. — Corvus

“….The thing in itself I have neither introduced surreptitiously nor inferred according to laws which exclude it, because they really belong to its phenomenal appearance; nor, in general, have I arrived at it by roundabout ways. On the contrary, I have shown it directly, there where it lies immediately, in the will, which reveals itself to every one directly as the in-itself of his own phenomenal being….”
(Schopenhauer, WWR, Vol 2, App., pg 85, 1818, in Haldane/Kemp 1909)
————-

Funny to have S brought into a thread on H….oil and water:

“….It became the fitting starting-point for the still grosser nonsense of the clumsy and stupid Hegel…”
(Ibid, pg 8)

“It” being K’s lacksidaisical invention of the ding an sich, re: being the lesser nonsense. Schopenhauer had less than even precious little respect for Hegel, berating the “young Hegelians” as well, for wasting their time at his lectures, much less cracking one of his books.

FYI.

Doesn't Kant acknowledge that Metaphysics is not the same type of Science as the other Sciences? — Corvus

Sort of, yes. He calls it “…a vain dialectical art….”, but because his version of metaphysics does incorporate synthetic a priori principles for its cognitions, they are to be treated scientifically under some conditions. The point being, that to treat metaphysical cognitions scientifically doesn’t mean metaphysics is a science.

But, yes, if it was a science it would be a different kind, that of a pure speculative nature, insofar as it is “…. more useful in preventing error than in the extension of knowledge…”.

Prolegomena, huh? What does that essay tell you, such that your argument for metaphysics as a science is shown by it?
————-

Metaphysics can, and that is what Kant laid out in CPR as the principle of Metaphysics as Science. — Corvus

I got to thinking about that, and I think you’ve come pretty close. What Kant laid out in CPR, are changes in the ways in which philosophers thought about metaphysics, and those changes were, not so much what would make metaphysics a proper science, but rather, why it hadn’t ever been taken as such. It does come down to principles, but it turns out that principles are not enough. They elevate metaphysics beyond the established doctrine of the time, insofar as it acts as sufficient ground for all other sciences, it is still left wanting as a science in itself.

The simplified objection for denominating metaphysics as a science in itself is in Prolegomena, sure, but the reason why not, remains in CPR, as well as the proper name under which a scientific version of metaphysics must be known.

We don’t care that metaphysics works as a science just fine with respect to possible experience; we’d be in trouble if it didn’t.
— Mww

It is not so much of our issue at this time of history whether metaphysics works as science or not. — Corvus

Agreed; it is the issue in Kant’s time. By “we” is meant humans in general, regardless of time. My fault for thinking this was the accepted implication meant by “we”.

Kant thought he could make metaphysics a legitimate science as physics or chemistry, by establishing its boundaries and domains where our reasoning can be applied like the other sciences, hence he wrote CPR. — Corvus

I think Kant wondered why it wasn’t, rather than thinking he could make it so. Before making it so, before he could make metaphysics a legitimate science, he had to think up an experiment along the same lines as that which establishes other domains as legitimate sciences. When he performed that experiment, he discovered he could not make metaphysics a science in the same manner as the established sciences, even while accommodating it under some conditions.

So….what are those boundaries? Therein lay the key.

Hey….

Once again, thanks for the nod, but I abstain from conversations having free will as the topic, insofar as the very notion of “free will”, as far as I’m concerned, has already confused the issue. That being said….

Kant's transcendental freedom (….) which claims that our reasoning is governed by rational principles unrestrained by one's natural instincts. — Bob Ross

…is only the case under very restricted conditions, re: pure practical reasoning, in which the subject himself is necessary and sufficient causality for all that which is governed by those principles, sometimes even to the utter subordination of natural instincts, re: the trolley problem.

Possible experience is what Kant regards as the domain of efficacy in our reasoning, where metaphysics is possible as a science. — Corvus

We don’t care that metaphysics works as a science just fine with respect to possible experience; we’d be in trouble if it didn’t. We want to know if it works as a science for everything it is possible to think, insofar as the human being in general thinks ever more, and to a greater depth, than even his possible experiences. And it is just in these more common and deeper exercises of intelligence, that metaphysics, as the science of pure reason, that arena the objects of which transcend even possible experience, is found to be no help at all.
—————-

As usual Janus posts are filled with anger and hatred towards others…. — Corvus

Ehhhhh…..that’s a subjective judgement, better known as mere opinion, to which of course you are entitled. I don’t see it, but then, even if it was my opinion, by recognizing the subjective natural of it, I’d keep it to myself.

‘Tis most suspicious, to say the inventor of a paradigm-shifting epic, a magnum opus in form and function bequeathed to posterity in its completed form, had no interest in it.

O course, claiming an author wasn’t really interested could be simply a novel and daring approach to a not-so-simple work. But I doubt it’ll catch on.

Isn't the whole content of CPR about experience, its objects, and how reasoning and judgements and concepts are related to them? — Corvus

The title says something very different. A critique of pure reason won’t have much to do with experience or its objects, and as a matter of contextual fact, makes serious effort to distance itself from them.

The origin, and relation to experience, of judgements and concepts, among other factors, such as understanding, intuition, consciousness, are metaphysical studies, I’ll grant that.

Didn't Kant say that Metaphysics is possible as Science as long as it deals with the objects in our experience? — Corvus

Not that I’m aware. Metaphysics in Kant does not, in itself, deal with experience or its objects. It deals with how it is possible to know about them, which means, it deals with us and the proper use of our intelligence.

As well, ideas, logic and reasoning are not themselves objects of experience, so could be said to come under the metaphysical explanatory umbrella.

If you find otherwise, I’d be interested.
————-

Or it may be that an argument strong enough to convince you may not work on me—or vice versa. — Janus

D’accord.

It seems Kant wanted to disprove metaphysics as a science with Newtonian materialism. What do you think? — Gregory

I think he wasn’t trying to prove yea or nay, regarding metaphysics as a science, which presupposes it is one. He wanted to find out if it was possible for it to be a science in the first place, where such presupposition is lacking. Given a set of criteria for what science is, whether or not metaphysics exhibits those same criteria will determine whether metaphysics can be a science. Then all that’s left, is to figure out what kind of science it would be should the criteria be met, and dismissing it as a science if it cannot.

Turns out, metaphysics cannot be a proper science given the empirical criteria of Newtonian materialism, nor can it be a science given the Kantian rational criteria of pure synthetic a priori principles, insofar as, first, Newtonian materialism already refers to the science of physics thus to attribute to it metaphysics at the same time is self-contradictory, and second, those principles belong to reason alone, and science cannot be justified by any domain the only objects for which are transcendental ideas.

Metaphysics is then relegated to a natural disposition of the human intellect, merely that to which we as humans are generally and inevitably inclined toward, but for which no satisfactory justifications are afforded beyond pure transcendental logic. Which is an altogether crappy way to do science, right?

“…. Respecting these sciences**, as they do certainly exist, it may with propriety be asked, how they are possible?—for that they must be possible is shown by the fact of their really existing. But as to metaphysics, the miserable progress it has hitherto made, and the fact that of no one system yet brought forward, far as regards its true aim, can it be said that this science really exists, leaves any one at liberty to doubt with reason the very possibility of its existence….”
(**physics and mathematics)
(B21)

But never fear: just because metaphysics as a science lacks justifications, doesn’t negate the validity of a form of knowledge determined metaphysically, that is, in accordance with the pure a priori principles resident in and determined by nowhere else than in reason.

Besides…”miserable progress” implies that just because metaphysics wasn’t justifiable as a science in 1787 doesn’t mean it can’t be later. But then, there’s still those sets of criteria, which one would suppose would also have to become different. Good luck, I say.

And, also, I may be lost in the noise. — Moliere

There are (nudgenudgewinkwink) maybe 300 pages of CPR I’ve read 1000 times, and with which I can’t for the life of me agree or disagree. Bottomless pit of noise that, I must say.
————-

Yes, one world, for which the empiricists are right.
Yes, the representations of whatever the constituency of that one world, which is all we are ever going to possibly know anything about, for which the idealists are right.
Let the dualist games begin.

Neither the matter nor the noumena establish something for dualism? — Gregory

You asserted your idea of what made his philosophy dualistic, but this question only relates conceptions to each other, both of them….matter and noumena….implied as being real things, hence not establishing anything for dualism per se. Matter being necessarily real stuff we can experience, noumena being not-impossibly real stuff we cannot.
————-

….he only riffs on Kantian ideas to do his own thing. — Moliere

Only those on top of the heap are worth the trouble of removing; posterity says whether and how much the trouble was worth.

But whether or not Kant was a dualist I think is still a matter up for debate because it sounds like the question of whether or not Kant was a one-world or two-world theorist. — Moliere

I’d be surprised if you were not with the familiar 1783 passage regarding “dogmatic slumbers”. THAT….is the root of Kantian dualism, the unity of rational vs empirical doctrines prevalent in his time. The two-world or two-aspect-of-one world confabulation was the illegitimate, red-headed stepchild of a veritable PLETHORA of successors, except Schopenhauer, methinks to be the foremost immediate peer that actually understood wtf the noise was all about.

Noise. Including, but not limited to….whether or not that which can be treated as a science, actually is one.

I don't think your quotes from Kant on matter fully establish dualism. — Gregory

They weren't supposed to. They serve only to affirm, that because he favored transcendental idealism, by implication he considered himself a dualist. He does explain what he means by being a dualist, which would establish at least what he means by dualism itself.

Noumena have nothing whatsoever to do with his philosophic dualism; as a general conception, it is merely an inevitable consequence of a faculty professed to be legitimately capable of thinking whatever it wants, which just means any of us is capable of thinking whatever he wants.

That is just my view which might not be 100% correct. — Corvus

Same with any of us, I should think.

It does seem daft that Kant said there were two worlds, although he did say there is no purely logical condition under which a noumenal world is impossible. But saying such a thing is not impossible is not tacit affirmation of its reality.

….try to come to my own interpretation from my own reasoning…. — Corvus

As do I, and everyone else. One person’s lack of comprehension is not necessarily another’s ambiguity or lack of clarity.

There were miriad of Kant commentators who were making unfounded interpretations. — Corvus

If you say so.

I read the books, not the commentary on them. Skip the middle-man, donchaknow. Translators being subject to peer-review critique, so out of my cognitive jurisdiction.

Are they direct claims of Kant? — Corvus

Of course not. He’s dead.

He admitted to being a dualist,
— Mww
What was his exact words? — Corvus

“…The transcendental idealist, on the other hand, may be an empirical realist, or, as he is called, a dualist, that is, he may admit the existence of matter (…) From the start, we have declared ourselves to be in favor of this transcendental idealism; and our doctrine removes all difficulty in the way of accepting the existence of matter….”
(A370, in Kemp Smith, 1929)

“…. The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter (…) Now we have already declared ourselves for this transcendental idealism from the outset. Thus our doctrinea removes all reservations about assuming the existence of matter…”
(A370, Guyer/Wood, 1998)

Because from my view, it is not clear that Kant's world view was dualism. — Corvus

Kant’s worldview is a dualism. Clarity comes with the fact there cannot be a view, that isn’t itself a judgement, that is, some determined relation between the world and an understanding of it. The dualism resides in world on the one hand (as it is given), and judgement on the other (representing how the given is understood).

Hence it appears to be misunderstanding on Kant to say that Kant was a dualist, and his world view has a contradiction. — Corvus

He admitted to being a dualist, so it isn’t a misunderstanding to say he was. But it does not follow from his being an admitted dualist, that his worldview has a contradiction, although misunderstood, hence mistaken, worldviews are certainly possible.

I remain unconvinced…. — Janus

My fault for not putting up a convincing argument; nevertheless….

We visualize what we are reasoning about…. — Janus

….we agree on that.

Anyway, I’ll stick with the affirmative regarding your “are (there) any "a priori cognitions in general" which do not have their genesis either in experience or in rules that are at their basis derived from experience”.

Those principles, it seems to me, at their most basic are abstracted from reflecting on an analyzing our experiences — Janus

Well sure; that’s so easy to say, when there is already so much mathematically-inclined experience. We’ve all been exposed to number systems since a very early age. It doesn’t take long to learn that counting to 7, then continuing the count by another 5, gets you to a total of 12. From there, you easily see those two counts can never ever get you to any other number but 12.

I submit that it is from the most basic reflection and analysis of our counting experiences, that only the philosophically-inclined appreciate the apodeictic certainty, that it is impossible to arrive at 12 when all you have is a 7 and a 5. There is nothing at all contained in a 7, nor in a 5, which further authorizes you to do anything at all. From which it follows, even with experience of the existent numbers themselves being given, that whatever principle there may be regulating the use of that experience, is not contained in it. Hence the claim that while experience itself is conditioned by such principles, experience is not the condition from which they are given.

Might be easier this way: how many attempts, given only two straight lines, would it take to experience an enclosed space?

Now, before you laugh…..or maybe before you laugh any harder…..ever wonder how the very first ever farmer recognized, rather than have his sons stand guard all night, that to keep the indigenous fauna out of his wintertime food-stocks, it was necessarily required of him that he enclose such area, which he immediately and unquestionably realized to be impossible except under one and only one condition. In other words, he did NOT need the experience of destroyed crops, nor, insofar as he was the first ever, did he need the experience of other existent enclosed spaces, to know with apodeictic certainty, not so much how many lines do enclose a space, but how many do not.
————-

How ‘bout this: as soon as you imagine a triangle, that is, construct a three-sided figure in your head, so to speak, you’ve destroyed the very idea of a triangle in general.

There are things a human just knows, merely for being human. At this level, knowledge indicates that of which the negation is a contradiction.
————-

So, I don't see reason as a disembodied thing that can stand alone. — Janus

I rather think reason is certainly not a thing, and I think reason as certainly being disembodied, insofar as there is no place in any possible body in which reason as such is to be found. Nor any other abstract theoretically-constructed intellectual faculty.

Still, even granting to it greater import, does not mean reason stands alone. Reason is part of a system, after all, however speculative that may be. While it may do things of such greater import by itself because of what it is thought to be and thereby the powers thought as belonging to it, its importance is only manifest in relation to something else.
—————-

Granting there are things a human just knows merely because he’s human, neglecting, or even in spite of, natural instinct…..how do we talk about it?

Ok Thanks.

Some people regard him as the greatest philosopher ever — Gregory

They shouldn’t; he was adamant that there is no such thing as a philosopher. (A839/B867)

Speaking of contradictions albeit regardless of worldview…..
He takes great pains to qualify several well-known individuals as philosophers, yet, given the above, questions the existence of philosophers as such, rather denominating them as “teachers”, and the rest learn, not philosophy, which cannot be taught, but, merely to philosophize.

Not as important as it is interesting, I guess.

…..his system for me leaves something missing. — Gregory

Which system?

How does the suggested contradiction in his worldview relate to something missing in his system?

Just curious.

They never finished their systems to their own satisfaction. — Gregory

Kant said he did. Not only his own satisfaction, but to everyone else’s as well, assuming a commensurate ability to understand it. See Bxxiv.

Do you believe there are any "a priori cognitions in general"…. — Janus

Understanding may construct a priori cognitions concerning possible experience, true enough, re: motion is necessarily change in time but not necessarily change in space (think: rotation). But principles and mathematical axioms, on the other hand, are the transcendental constructs of reason alone, hence, while they may certainly condition possible experience, insofar as their proofs reside in the domain of empirical knowledge, they are not conditioned by it, contra Hume.

Good question, but tough to short-answer convincingly.

How could a case of contradiction which is possible in the reality and also logical thinking not make sense to you? — Corvus

First of all, nowhere in the statement that made no sense to me was the concept of reality to be found, and nowhere in the logic of my own understanding of the statement, was the deduction of the conception of reality possible.

The second statement, in response, in the form of a secondary conditional query, the conception of reality is found, so that statement makes sense to me. Now I can say, reality does not hold contradiction, that being the purview of pure a priori logic manifest in critical thought, so even though the statement makes sense, it is theoretically invalid.

Formal logic means the type of logic which uses symbols and formal languages…. — Corvus

Which is why I said “commonly, but loosely, called”, insofar as the human intellectual faculties do not use symbols or language; it is only when talking about such use, in the attempts at describing it, is various symbology necessary in order to communicate. We represent to ourselves logic in a metaphysical sense, merely that by which the system functions, with various conceptions some of which the system itself doesn’t even use. Reification writ large, and the bane of proper metaphysics.

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

Sorry, that makes no sense to me.

Kant, who was very interested in formal logic,
— Gregory

Kant's logic was not formal logic. It was transcendental logic i.e. he thought transcendental idealism works under the principle of the logic. — Corvus

Logic employed by the understanding is commonly, albeit loosely, called formal, but by Kant’s theory-specific terminology, called general or applied. Reason, on the other hand, employs transcendental logic, which has congruent subject/predicate form, but different origin of conceptions contained therein.

Understanding is the faculty of cognition in accordance with general/applied logic of rules, hence may or may not be empirical; reason is the faculty of determination of rules in accordance with transcendental logic, hence is never empirical. Logic is still logic, the source of its conceptions indicates the kind of logic it is, the functional domain to which it belongs.

Kantian speculative philosophy treats human intelligence as a tripartite syllogistic logical system, in which understanding provides the major either with or without conjunction with sensibility, judgement provides the minor(s) either with or without empirical representations, reason provides the conclusion, which is always and only transcendental, in accordance with pure a priori principles, the arbiter being contradiction either with itself or with experience. In this format, there is given the contingency of empirical knowledge on the one hand, and the certainty of pure a priori inference on the other.

The purity of this type of speculative analysis was taken to be sufficient ground for refuting Hume, which was the primary raison d’etre for the construction of transcendental philosophy in the first place….to falsify the standard empiricist’s claim that a priori cognitions in general, all that which cannot follow from the “constant conjunction of empirical cause and effect”, should be “consigned to the flames…”, insofar as if such were to be the case, the universality and necessity of mathematical truths cannot be explained.

….or so it seems.

was contradiction a necessary part of logic and/or reality in the worldview of Kant? — Gregory

What said, except I rather think contradiction is certainly a necessary part of logic. Or, maybe, if not a necessary part, then at least the fundamental ground for the validity of logical constructs.

Slightly different names, slightly different primary ideas, but pretty much a familiar philosophy to some.

So yeah, there’s at least one “other folk(..) who thought about this aspect of worldview before.

This is explained quite well by physicist Richard Feynman…. — Metaphysician Undercover

“….The fact that the electromagnetic field can possess momentum and energy makes it very real ... a particle makes a field, and a field acts on another particle, and the field has such familiar properties as energy content and momentum, just as particles can have....”
.....A “field” is any physical quantity which takes on different values at different points in space....
.....There have been various inventions to help the mind visualize the behavior of fields. The most correct is also the most abstract: we simply consider the fields as mathematical functions of position and time....”
(Feynman lectures, (CalTech, 1956), in Vol. II, Ch 1.5, 1963)
————-

I can see I’ve opened a can of worms…. — Wayfarer

Nahhhh…I get it. Pretty simple, really. It all begins with an idea, in this case, “fields”. Forgetting the altogether unremarkable commonplace rendition of field as merely grass-y ground, the idea of fields as “quantitative values in space” or fields as “subjectivity”, are nothing but the idea under which distinguishing conceptions are subsumed, but without contradicting the bare notion itself.

This field possesses, e.g., momentum and energy, that field possesses, e.g., sensibility and discursive/aesthetic judgement;
This field is the condition of every object to which it relates, that field is the condition of every subject to which it relates;
That the relations are different does not contradict the validity of the respective conditions. That every particular kind of thing called a subject belongs to a subjectivity field is no less logically coherent than every particular kind of thing called an electron belongs to an electromagnetic field.

Whether that’s of any benefit or not, whether there’s any explanatory gain…..dunno. As my ol’ buddy Stephen says…..nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.

Wonderful that after your whimsical poem….. — Wayfarer

I was merely highlighting a personally-opined absurdity, re: casting a very specific intellect into the virtually unfathomable waters of Mother Nature.

I mean….how in the HELL would we humans ever know whether a honeypot ant underground in the Sonoran desert, after having turned into a nectar larder for his hive-mates to survive on during the dry season, can be considered conscious of having done so, to have instilled feelings for an otherwise impossible-to-neglect evolutionary obligation.

So we got these cool little mini-cameras down there about ten feet of so, witness the transformation of these little guys, gawk in wide-eyed wonder, then exalt our own silliness by asking if maybe they’re embarrassed from being spied on. We would be, so why wouldn’t an ant, huh?

But why stop there. Why not offer….probably best received in some peer-reviewed anthropomorphism journal….that they’re actually proud of their evolutionary majesty, which we can justify to ourselves because they haven’t ganged up and destroyed the cameras, which OBVIOUSLY means either they’re quite comfortable exhibitionists, or, they’re perfectly aware that if they do, whoever put them there will stomp the shit out of their snug home it took three years to build.

(Sigh)

“…. There is unrest in the forest
Trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas
The trouble with the maples
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream, "Oppression"
And the oaks just shake their heads
So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
They say, "The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light".

Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw…”
————-

Not much for guidance I know. But still….for that intelligence internally sufficient to enable itself with such a notion as “subjectivity”, is just as enabled to either deny it elsewise on the one hand, or make an absolute mess of it altogether on the other.

“….It is the highly distinctive spirituality of Kant’s philosophy that provides its transformative force, its cultural gravity, and its historical specificity. At least that is what I shall argue in the following entirely provisional and experimental outline of the forms of spirituality present in the Critique of Pure Reason….”
(Spirituality and Philosophy in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, pg. 8)

Sure, just about any text can be interpreted to suit the reader….
————-

…..even if almost always at the expense of the author:

“….. This substance, merely as an object of the internal sense, gives the conception of Immateriality; as simple substance, that of Incorruptibility; its identity, as intellectual substance, gives the conception of Personality; all these three together, Spirituality. Its relation to objects in space gives us the conception of connection (commercium) with bodies. Thus it represents thinking substance as the principle of life in matter, that is, as a soul (anima), and as the ground of Animality; and this, limited and determined by the conception of spirituality, gives us that of Immortality.

Now to these conceptions relate four paralogisms of a transcendental psychology, which is falsely held to be a science of pure reason, touching the nature of our thinking being. We can, however, lay at the foundation of this science nothing but the simple and in itself perfectly contentless representation “I” which cannot even be called a conception, but merely a consciousness which accompanies all conceptions….”
(A345/B403, in Kemp Smith, 1929)
—————-

Because of this….

“…. Criticism alone can strike a blow at the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which are universally injurious—as well as of idealism and scepticism, which are dangerous to the schools, but can scarcely pass over to the public.…”
(Ibid Bxxxv)

….in which spirituality, being conspicuously absent hence apparently not universally injurious, seemingly warrants it as not only provisionally and experimentally discoverable somewhere in the text, but possibly useful, in direct opposition to the author’s declaration of the soul’s nature as “….purely negative and does not add anything to our knowledge, and the only inferences to be drawn from it are purely fictitious…” (A799/B827, in Miekeljohn, ca1852)

Philosopher: I’ll tell you how I think;
Psychologist: I’ll tell you how you think.

(Sigh)

I’m no more a fan of phenomenology than I ever was.
— Mww

Would you mind saying a little about why? — Tom Storm

Ehhhh….it’s just me; I never graduated from the continental German Enlightenment paradigm on the one hand, and never gave….never saw a reason to give….post-Kantian speculative metaphysics due diligence on the other.

To put a finer point on it, while admitting a somewhat incomplete grasp of phenomenology proper, that of it I do understand, has already been accounted for in Kant’s “objective unity of self-consciousness”.

While it may be perfectly valid in phenomenology that “….consciousness is the grasping of being…”, I prefer that the grasping of being should belong to understanding.

“….Consciousness as a self-contained ‘subject’….” seems better said with ego as the self-contained ‘subject’, ego representing the totality of all those representations of which the self-contained subject would be conscious.

I’m not in any position to deny the validity of phenomenology, while reserving the purely subjective right to ignore it.

Hume's expression of the vulgars….. — Corvus

HA!! Yeah, Schopenhauer uses the word, too. Not as pejorative as we tend for it these days. Kant was a little more kind, just calling out as common rather than vulgar.

Still, we see changes in meaning for words in our own language, in addition to translation difficulties in others.