Would say that Kant thought we could gather knowledge of the world (…) or he thought that we could never acquire such knowledge (…)? — Bob Ross

Technically, it is only knowledge of representations, hence not of the world per se. The amendments to our representations over time corresponds to the relative correctness of our knowledge, which we call experience. The world itself doesn’t change in its time as much as our knowledge of it does in our own, so it is obvious there is a major distinction between the two.

To me, Kant goes dangerously close to (if not actually argues for cryptically for) epistemic solipsism. — Bob Ross

If it is to say epistemic solipsism is the notion that the only absolutely certain knowledge is that which belongs to the subject capable of it, then the proposition is an analytical truth, a mere tautology, carrying the implication there’s no need to argue for it, insofar as it is a given. Put another way, its negation is impossible. Kant is arguing, not for the certainty of our knowledge but the warrant for it, the illusory nature of its origins a priori, and thereby its limits. A critique of the given, not a proof for it.
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How does Kant even know, if he cannot know anything about things-in-themselves, that his mind is representing objects — Bob Ross

Sensations. The thing of sensation is the same thing as the thing of the ding an sich. The thing of sensation is as yet undetermined, and only possibly determinable. Plato’s “knowledge that”, Russell’s “knowledge of acquaintance”. Sensation is just of an undetermined something, called an object mostly I suppose, because it is opposed to, distinct from, yet an affect upon, a subject.

Why not “the unknown which may not be an object at all”? — Bob Ross

It is an object for the sake of communication, for talking about it. As far as the system is concerned, in and of itself as a system, it isn’t an object, it is an effect by that which is external to it, sometimes called an appearance. Sometimes called that which awakens internal awareness.
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….we only come to realize that our minds are the best explanation for the production of the conscious experiences we have which, in turn, show us that we are representing something…. — Bob Ross

Technically, conscious experience shows us we know something. Theoretically, knowledge of things presupposes the representation of them necessarily, given the kind of system by which humans know things.

…..but this doesn’t work if one is positing that all of it is mere phenomenon that cannot furnish them with knowledge of things-in-themselves — Bob Ross

All of it, re: conscious experience, is not phenomenon, and experience, as a methodological terminus, is not itself a mere representation. In Kant, the last rendition of a representation is in judgement, an aspect of understanding, which, in the form of a logical syllogism, is way back at the point of the manifold of minor premises, whereas experience stands as the conclusion.
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one can’t even argue that their mind is representing anything but rather that there’s just given conscious experiences. — Bob Ross

Which is fine, but reason will always ask….experience of what, exactly? Convention allows that all we need, under the most general of conditions, to grant is conscious experience; it is, after all, what is most readily apparent to us; the philosopher wants to make the clear exposition of just what is involved with such convention, in order to sustain, or falsify, it, once and for all. Or, bluntly, to…..

“…. raise a loud cry of danger to the public over the destruction of cobwebs, of which the public has never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it can never feel.…”
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The only thing I will say now is that the universal mind, under Analytic Idealism, doesn’t will them completely into our representations: there are “objective” ideas that our faculty tries represent (and depending on how well that faculty is, it may not be represented all that accurately) — Bob Ross

With respect to accuracy….agreed. Judgement requires exercise, exercise amends experience.

With respect to representations, on the other hand, how does the subject determine which idea/representation belong to the universal mind and which are his own?

the world one is fundamentally representing is will (i.e., ideas in a universal mind) as opposed to something unknown — Bob Ross

So…..mid-Enightenment, in the schools, Aristotle and God were still in charge. K comes along, paradigm-shifts cognitive metaphysics away from God, maintains Aristotle. If you’re S, a professional philosopher, whacha gonna do when the guy just before you upset the established applecart so completely, all that’s left is to find a loophole in what he said, because it’s just too powerful to cancel. So you concentrate of the one thing you find questionable, and that is the prescription on the limits of knowledge, which you go about finding a way to exceed.

So the deal is, in K-speak, in a human representational system, that which is represented by the system, is not what is is entailed in human knowledge, which is the same as saying that for which the representation stands, is unknown by the system, which just is the human himself. That which is represented in humans is the world, so first and foremost the world itself is that which is unknown by humans.

The fix for that, is to say, in S-speak, even if the world is not known by humans, it is surely known by something not human, whatever it may be. If it happens to be a universal mind, and if Aristotle is still in force, then that universal mind will necessarily know everything about everything, which makes explicit it will know all about the very things humans do not, which the most important would be the world itself.

Long story short, the universal mind has ideas, wills them into worldly object manifestations, complete in themselves, subsequently representable in humans just as completely as the willed idea prescribes in its manifestations. This, of course, logically, makes human knowledge of the ding an sich not only possible, but given. If the universal mind has the idea of it, wills it, then the human system can represent it in himself, and K’s human knowledge limit is exceeded. Which was, given the time and place, the whole raison d’etre for S’s world as will and representation (idea) in the first place.

Close enough? Not even wrong, as my ol’ buddy Wolfgang might say? Whatever objections I might raise are irrelevant, if I got the synopsis wrong, or, not right enough. If close enough, however, it remains to be posited what is gained by such a program, and why it should not be dismissed as a bridge too far.

I bet there is a lot you will want to respond to in my post (; If not, then there’s plenty Kantian questions I have for you. — Bob Ross

There may be a lot to respond to, depending on how well I’ve understood it so far. I suspect, perhaps somewhat egocentrically for which I somewhat apologize, faults in the universal mind theory must be addressed from a Kantian perspective, insofar as the one is almost directly connected to the other, thus if I can refute it, if the universal mind theory cannot withstand refutation, your questions would be answered thereby.

Your turn.

Firstly, under every metaphysical theory, there must be something posited (…) as metaphysical necessary — Bob Ross

Agreed; I’ll go with the three logical laws of thought.

Secondly, the idea is that what is expressed in space (and time) is the representation of immaterial ideas (from a previous time): the physical is just an expression of the mental. — Bob Ross

Is it just the same to say representation of immaterial ideas are what’s expressed in space and time? And is it representation of immaterial ideas that is expressed by the mental? So the physical is just mental representation of immaterial ideas.

If my relocation of nomenclature doesn’t change any of your propositional truth value, I wouldn’t push an argument. The way I’d say it is quite different, but it’s possible we’d end up in the same place, iff it is my mind, my ideas, my representations.

Thirdly, it is not necessary that reality must be a universal mind but, rather, that the universal mind is being posited as metaphysically necessary as a part of what would be claimed as the most parsimonious account of reality. — Bob Ross

What are the other parts of the account of reality. I consider reality to be that which corresponds to a sensation in general, that, consequently, the conception of which indicates a being. It follows that there isn’t need for a further account of reality, but there would certainly need to be an account for sensation. Sensation is how we are awakened to reality, which, of course, thereby presupposes it, be it what it may. No need to account for it. Sorta like your metaphysical necessity?
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”The representation is never the physical stuff, and the mental is sometimes what is represented.”
-Mww

The representation within the physical world is the representation of an immaterial idea. From the side of the physical, it appears as a seemingly potential infinite chain of physical causes; from the side of the mental, it was the expression of will (i.e., of immaterial ideas). — Bob Ross

Hmmm. This looks like it puts representation in the external world, when I want it to be in my head. I’d be ok with something like…representations of the physical world are (mentally generated) immaterial ideas. Then we’d have to discuss whether conceptions are immaterial ideas, insofar as I wouldn’t have any problem calling conceptions mental. Immaterial, sure, but I’m not too sure I’d leave conceptions as mere ideas. Both conceptions and ideas are representations, an idea is a conception, but a conception is not necessarily an idea.

But the real problem is expressions of will, which for me belong in moral philosophy alone, which makes this metaphysical nonsense…..

“….. indeed the answer to the riddle is given to the subject of knowledge who appears as an individual, and the answer is will. This and this alone gives him the key to his own existence, reveals to him the significance, shows him the inner mechanism of his being, of his action, of his movements. Every true act of his will is also at once and without exception a movement of his body. The act of will and the movement of the body are not two different things objectively known, which the bond of causality unites; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect; they are one and the same….”
(WWR, 2. 1. 18, 1844, in Haldane, Kemp, 1909)

….for he who would attribute to will no more than autonomous volition predicated on subjective principles.

Which brings out one of S’s gripes with K….causality, cause and effect. S rejected K’s invocation of freedom as a causality, so without it, for him, will does not stand the relation to cause and effect.

What’s next?

Analytic Idealism posits that one can come to know the world from two sides: the representations (which is the physical stuff) and the mental events which are being represented. — Bob Ross

I’m having trouble here. The representation is never the physical stuff, and the mental is sometimes what is represented. How is yours not backwards? Actually, it is backwards, so the real question becomes….how do you justify the backwardness, without merely saying it isn’t?

Why is it not that coming to know the world from two sides isn’t two kinds of knowledge? I agree there are two kinds of knowledge, re: a priori as representations of mental events, and a posteriori as representation of physical stuff, but only the latter is coming to know the world.

I’d be happier if it was the case coming to know the world from two conditions, which would be physical stuff and mental events, but not so much that each is a kind of knowledge all by itself without influence from the other. Two sides just seems to invoke excessive separation.

For Kastrup, the thing-in-itself, like Schopenhauer, is the universal mind. — Bob Ross

For S it is the will, I thought, but either way…same-o, same-o. Only way this theory works at all, to assign to a concept that which didn’t formally belong to it, is to redefine it. Which effectively makes it a different philosophy.

We, as ‘minds’, are disassociated alters of that universal mind, such that we are ‘cut off’ from experiencing everything at once. — Bob Ross

Right. I mentioned not too long ago that, in us, thoughts are singular and successive, presupposing the condition of time, so it is reasonable we do not experience everything at once.

The ‘physical’, in the colloquial sense of the term (viz., tangible, solid objects within conscious experience), is an extrinsic representation of the mental — Bob Ross

So physical with respect to the conscious experience…..of humans.
Physical for humans is representation of the mental…..of the universal mind?
So for humans a representation of a representation?
The representation of the physical as conscious experience belongs to us as humans, but does the representation the universal mind gives to us as the physical, imply a conscious experience for that to which the universal mind belongs?
In conjunction with the above, wherein reality….our reality….is the brute fact of the universal mind, implies our reality just is the manifold of representations of universal mind without regard for the conscious experience of that to which such universal mind belongs.

Fine, I guess. We prescribe representations to ourselves without knowing how they come about, so no difference in kind prescribing them to something else we couldn’t know anything about. I suppose, from a Kantian perspective, which is what you’re asking for, we have no warrant whatsoever, to speculate metaphysically on that which is not completely within ourselves.

reality is a mind-at-large (i.e., a universal mind) and that is the brute fact (metaphysically necessary) of reality — Bob Ross

You’re on record as admitting a Schopenhauer-ian bent. He was the champion of the PSR, yet brute facts negate the PSR. It must be that being “metaphysically necessary” is sufficient reason, or the PSR doesn’t apply here. But why should it be necessary that reality be a universal mind, or manifest from such a thing?

I would much appreciate it if we kept discussing it, as I am interested in your take from a Kantian perspective. — Bob Ross

Cool. Socratic dialectics? Robert’s Rules? Jousting?

Cards on the table kinda thing, I must say, if we’re discussing analytic idealism from a Kantian perspective, I’m not sufficiently versed in the one to juxtaposition to the other. So maybe you should start with a brief synopsis of what analytic idealism is. Or, just start anywhere you like.
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Kantian idealism has almost no following on this forum….. — Wayfarer

What’s that ol’ adage? If it was easy everybody’d be doing it?

Before getting into all that, you’re promoting analytic idealism, which is interesting in itself. The problem is that attempting to understanding Kantian idealism may very well negate your promotion. We get into this deep enough, you may find your idealism was Kantian all along, or, if it most certainly was not, then why query a form of idealism which is, for present intents and purposes, irrelevant. And even if questions regarding Kantian idealism are merely a matter of your own personal interest, satisfying that interest isn’t necessarily to support your thesis. In short, it’s possible you’re wasting your own time.

Your thread, your call.

I thought perspective came from inside us. — Tom Storm

Where in the data….is perspective. Inside us, outside the data.

”So no, the mind does not produce space and time, it conceives apodeitic conditions as explanatory devices. Mww

But under Kantianism the mind is producing space and time (being synthetic a priori), is it not? Perhaps you have a neo-kantian view, but I am talking about Kant’s original argument. — Bob Ross

I’m saying it doesn’t, taken from Kant’s original text. Apparently we’re at odds over interpretations, which is certainly nothing new. Be that as it may, the second edition introduction states a priori cognitions are contained in the intellect, of even the philosophically unsophisticated. Now for the mind to produce them in order to be contained in the intellect, is for you to say but not Kant himself.

But nevertheless, benefit of the doubt: where does the notion that space and time are synthetic a priori come from? Synthetic a priori does not stand alone, insofar as they indicate the kind and source of cognitions or judgements, which space and time are not. Synthetic/analytic has to do with logic, hence subsumed under reason, but space and time have to do with empirical objects hence subsumed under intuition. While all experience is synthetic, space and time are not experiences. And while space and time are representations a priori, they are not synthetic. I guess I don’t see how you’ve come up with the notion, is all.

He says that there are two pure forms of sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge à priori, namely, space and time. Now this stipulates that there are synthetic a priori principles of knowledge, but that is not to say space and time are themselves synthetic a priori. Which, pardon me for saying, doesn’t make sense for its incompleteness. Synthetic a priori…..what?
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Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like Kant is arguing that there is an external world that is impressed onto our senses but that is not the thing-in-itself. But, then, I ask: doesn’t that concede that the mind’s synthetic a priori pure forms of intuition isn’t the only origin of space and time — Bob Ross

Not wrong; he is arguing that. Whatever other origins there are for space and time are irrelevant to any system that conceives its own. Human intelligence originates them this way, its the only intelligence we know about so that kind of origin is all we need. Could our intelligence originate space and time in a different way? Maybe, dunno. Has anyone tried? At any rate, we’d best not get bogged down by mere names. Whatever best answers our questions, right?
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If we are admitting that the world is external to our mind and that it operates likewise in space and time, then space and time are not purely synthetic. What you say to that? — Bob Ross

I say I don’t agree the mind operates likewise to the external world. The mind operates conditioned by time, but not space.

I say I understand the pure ideality of space and time, but don’t understand what you mean by qualifying them with synthetic.
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To me, when I read CPR, it sounded like he was claiming anything beyond the two pure forms of intuition is the noumena (i.e., the things-in-themselves — Bob Ross

Noumena are not things-in-themselves. The latter are real spatial-temporal existences, the existence of the former is only possible for an intelligence unlike our own.

If by beyond the two pure forms of intuition you mean not conditioned by them, then it is the case noumena are beyond them. Still, anything not conditioned by space and time is utterly unintelligible to us, therefore we are not authorized to say that which is beyond them, are noumena.

if the phenomenal world around me is just a representation under space and time that are synthetic of my mind, then I cannot know anything about an external world beyond my mind because it lies outside of space and time — Bob Ross

Again with your vocabulary, the mind is not outside time, is conditioned by it. We can validate this iff it is the case all thoughts are singular and successive, which presupposes a temporal conditioning.

As for knowing anything about the world beyond the mind…..how can anything at all be known beyond the mind, if the mind is absolutely necessary and sufficient for all knowledge. Phenomena are of course necessary, but not sufficient, in that mere perception and representation in phenomena does not give any knowledge at all.
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I don’t think my view requires two actualized infinite spaces and time — Bob Ross

You said the mind produces, and in common vernacular to produce is to actualize, I should think.

I think within Kant’s view space and time are not a representation of anything — Bob Ross

It’s stated as representing an infinite given quantity. Space does not represent any property of objects as things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their relations to each other; in other words, space does not represent to us any determination of objects such as attaches to the objects themselves. Time, on the other hand, represents coexistences or successions.

Great talk; I’m liking it, so….thanks.

…..has great significance for understanding the situation we find ourselves in. — Janus

Exactly right. In other words, whatever the situation, guard against the illusions inevitably contained in the understanding of it. But I hold a rather low opinion of the human species in general, so, there is that.

I find there to be a conceptual error here of Kant’s (and maybe perhaps Schopenhauer to) of the mind’s ontological status. — Bob Ross

Ok. What do you see as his concept of the mind’s ontological status, and what was the error you found in it?

If the forms of representation are space and time, then that thereby (by my lights) admits the mind as having ontological status. — Bob Ross

Oh. That. Ok. What ontological status does the mind have then? You just mean it is a real thing? But it isn’t real in the sense it can be measured, so you must have a different sense for an ontological status the mind could hold. Which is fine, perhaps even called for in analytic idealism.

If we have no access to the things-in-themselves because our experience is just the expression of them in space and time which is produced by our minds, then our minds must be a thing-in-itself. — Bob Ross

Aren’t you just doing with the mind what Schopenhauer did with the will? If not, then awful close to it, seems like. Again, good enough, I suppose, but I can’t really comment on it.
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The only way to reconcile this (by my lights) is for Kant to claim that our minds have no ontological status either—but, then, the mind cannot be producing space and time. What would your response to that be? — Bob Ross

Using your vocabulary for dialectical consistency, the mind doesn’t warrant an ontological status if it doesn’t produce space and time. I think it more the case the mind recognizes that all things are separate from each other and no thing can be more than one thing at once. Two things can be at once but two things cannot be in the same place at once. It recognizes things can change place but no thing can change place instantly. You say the mind produces space and time; I say there is that which are necessary conditions for the explanation of object’s relation to us and to each other, and these reside in that faculty which forms those relations.

Your way, re: the production of space and time, requires the production of two infinites, with all the irregularities found therein. My way needs no infinites, but only those spaces and times which condition the perception, or possible perception, of an object, followed by the experience or possible experience thereof. Lots cleaner and simpler. Or as the mathematicians are wont to say…..much more elegant.

So no, the mind does not produce space and time, it conceives apodeitic conditions as explanatory devices. Therefore, it is possible the mind has no warrant for ontological status.
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I find that Kant’s view is incompatible with reasonable, parsimonious metaphysical explanations of scientific knowledge. — Bob Ross

FYI, he wrote the precursor essays that would eventually become tectonic plate theory, nebular theory, tidal retardation of axial velocity theory, a refutation of Newtonian absolute space and time, all grounded by the Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science, 1786, which includes a chapter on the first dedicated modern exposition of what would eventually become phenomenology. I rather think his view just IS a metaphysical explanation of scientific knowledge, so you might mean his view is incompatible with someone else’s.
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if our mind doesn’t ontologically exist, then it can’t be producing space and time to represent things to itself. — Bob Ross

Again, FYI……in CPR, mind is the subject of a proposition 176 times, reason is the subject over 1300 times, in ~800 pages total. Mind can be merely a convenient placeholder, signifying nothing more than the terminus of infinite regress hence omitted generally without detriment to a metaphysical theories of the human condition, but reason cannot, insofar as reason actually belongs to every human and without which he is just an animal. If we’re going to reify an abstract, let’s reify that which a human can be proved to possess, rather than that which he could conceivably do without.
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with Kant’s view, we are forced to claim that we cannot infer that there is an natural environment, that we are impacted by other bodies, etc. because we cannot know anything about the things-in-themselves. — Bob Ross

Kant proves that the impossibility of denying the existence of my own body is sufficient to prove the existence of the external world. The reverse establishes the truth, in that without an external world conditioned on space and time, there is no apodeictic certainty for my own body, the denial of which is blatantly contradictory. As such, the inference of an external world is not necessary, for its reality is certain. It follows that that by which we are impacted and that from which representations are given and empirical knowledge is possible, is not the thing-in-itself, which is the ground of his empirical realism doctrine from the beginning.

Maybe Mww can shed more light. — Janus

Thanks for the invite, but I wouldn’t know where to start. I don’t agree with 90% of what’s said herein regarding any of the three Critiques, not so much because of the general lack of intelligence but because of the failure to hold with the intended perspective on the one hand, and putting on much stock in secondary literature on the other.

Anyway, for starters I guess, regarding CPR, it behooves one to get it, that there are 26 pages concerning the world that is perceived, and 285 pages dedicated to a thesis on what the human intellect does with it, and by association, what it does with everything. It follows that referencing Kant is an automatic limitation to reason (the noun) and reason alone, the world in general and your neighbor in particular can get the hell outta the way; they are irrelevant. And bothersome.

It very well may be separate metaphysics attribute to things-in-themselves and noumena a knowledgeable reality of their own, but in Kant, having given only 26 pages to objective reality, the implication is that nothing about them has any significance. Yeah, there’s a world. Of course there is. So what. Still, that we don’t have any legitimate reason to care about them doesn’t reflect on how the conceptions of them came about, which gets us back to the 285 pages.

Ever onward. Buried as a footnote in the preface to the second edition, which is obviously the very beginning, is the statement that I can think whatever I want provided only that I don’t contradict myself. Many MANY pages later, at the beginning of the 285 page second part, is the statement, understanding is the faculty of thought.

Now we have understanding can think whatever it wants provided only that it doesn’t contradict itself, which implies understanding can think objects of its own all by itself, which it does, and they are represented as conceptions. Then the theory goes on to say understanding has no use for conceptions except to judge by means of them. OK, so we got a conception….but what is there to judge? Merely thinking a conception is all well and good but an exercise in futility if no judgement is facilitated by it. So at this point noumena is a conception understanding thinks but can’t do anything with.

The problem manifests in the fact the impossible cannot be conceived, which just means the conception represented as noumena cannot be impossible, but that does not mean there is a thing that can be related to it, something on which to formulate a judgement. The theory has already stipulated, with respect to things, the only relation permissible to conceptions are intuitions, represented as phenomena. All intuitions are sensible, therefore if there is a noumenal thing to relate to the object understanding thinks, it must be sensible, therefore a phenomenon.

Therein lay the logical contradiction, insofar as if noumena are only objects understanding thinks they cannot be sensible objects perception receives because if they were, they’d be phenomena which means they could not be objects only thought by the understanding. But noumena are valid conceptions, understanding is nonetheless entitled to think them, in that they do not contradict other conceptions, so it must be the case that it just isn’t possible to know whether there are noumenal objects or not, but if there are they are not sensible by us.

But none if that is really important. So what…understanding can do this thing, but get nothing out of it, from which arises a methodological contradiction. Abominable waste of transcendental effort. But like that French guy says in The Matrix (imitates bourgeois Merovingian accent)….there’s always a reason. For want of not bludgeoning the uninterested, the reason is found in the categories, in short, because for that which the understanding thinks, whether in the attempt to solve the world’s problems or just from twiddling its imaginary thumbs cuz it’s bored itself into a stupor, the categories have no effect. What Kant has done, by assigning particular jobs to particular faculties in a systemic methodology, is sustain internal logical consistency. Sure, understanding can do all this fancy shit, but, given a certain set of conditions, here’s what can be known, here’s why it can be known, anything else is junk so don’t go there.

The book on logic is formidable, and might be clearer if not for the prolonged discourse attempting to clarify it. For me anyway, half a century into it, I like to think I’m getting close.

”I think Kant's claim that we don't know what things are in themselves stands”

I disagree: I think schopenhauer finished Kant’s project by correcting this error of Kant’s. — Bob Ross

No, he didn’t correct the error; there wasn’t one to correct. It is impossible to know what things are in themselves, iff the human cognitive system is representational, which they both accepted as the case, and that necessarily. All S did was take that which is impossible to not know….the will….and call it the thing-in-itself, a philosophical blunder for which there is no legitimate excuse.

Let’s do some science. For any transformation of energy there is loss. It follows that for whatever mode of energy incorporated in the mode of reception by the sensory organs, that transforms into another form of energy in the peripheral nervous system, there is a loss in the original form. Therefore, whatever information is represented in the secondary form cannot be identical to whatever information was contained in the original. If that information in the secondary energy represents that which ends as knowledge, and that secondary information is not identical to the original information due to energy loss, it is impossible such knowledge can be of the original energy source.

So it seems metaphysics already proposed in its domain what physics subsequently obtained in its own.
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if Kant were correct in saying that we never come to understand the noumena—but we can. — Bob Ross

Context aside, insofar as there is no pertinent connection, it remains Kant could not have said noumena could not be understood, after having himself conceived a version of them. In Kant, understanding is the origin of conceptions, noumena are conceptions, or rather, noumena is a conception of a general class of conceptions, therefore noumena in general must be understandable, for otherwise the conception itself would be impossible. He made the apodeitic systemically conditioned argument that noumena could never be represented in the intuitive faculty of human cognitive system, therefore no noumenal objects could be an experience for us. Which is not entitlement to say there are no noumenal objects, but only that those systems predicated on a intuitive/discursive systemic methodology are not equipped to know what one would entail.
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”There isn’t a proof, per se, only an internal affirmative logical consistency”.

I just mean what is the case for it? What do you mean by it being an internal affirmative logical consistency? — Bob Ross

Be it granted it is impossible to know what an object is, if for it there is only a single intuition or a single conception. Many things are round, but to cognize any one thing, it must be more than just round. For however many representations there are by which an object becomes an experience, all those representations must be united into a single cognition. The categories are those primitive conceptions, not by which they are but by which representations of objects can be united such that a cognition is possible. This and this and this make up the cognition of that, but there still must be that which facilitates that this and this and this can be connected without conflicting with each other.

The categories can be thought of as regulatory principles, in that the cognition of objects depends on a logical system adhering to something that both makes the cognition possible and at the same time, alleviates contradictions in them. For instance, it is not enough to know it is possible to experience that which exists, but something must make it apodeitically certain it is impossible to experience that which does not exist, even if non-existence itself holds no contradiction insofar as it is merely a complementary conception.

The real attraction justifying the categories, is the human ability to construct its own real existences from abstract conceptions, re: numbers, letters, and so on, which would be utterly impossible if, like Hume, the denial of pure a priori conceptions, as logically invalid or altogether rationally impossible, were the case. It is tacitly inconceivable how we could invent mathematical objects if we didn’t already have the pure a priori conception of quantity contained in our understanding. There would be no moral philosophy predicated exclusively on abstract conceptions, justified post hoc by empirical behaviors.

Anyway….basic rendition of the what they are, but not so much the how they work, which would take a hellava lot more than a couple paragraphs and more than a couple presuppositions.

Fast times at Ridgemont High, or, you gotta be a complete stoner to comprehend this stuff??? Not to be taken as a confession, I swear.

Here I am presented with thinking deep enough to be appreciated, but at the same time, fraught with inconsistencies, prejudicial as they may be. Rather than have our dialectical histories repeat themselves, I’m just going to say thanks, and let it go.

Could you elaborate on the proof? — Bob Ross

There isn’t a proof, per se, only an internal affirmative logical consistency.

Yes, I could elaborate on the rationality justifying the categories, but to do so is a foray into the seriously transcendental, which may be a different idealism then is represented in the theme of your thread. And even if it isn’t that different, the categories are a few magnitudes of depth below what’s been presented in your thesis so far.
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As having "extension in space" is simply how we represent objects, conceptually. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not really. Having extension in space is that by which objects are sensed and represented intuitively as phenomena. Objects represented conceptually is that by which they are thought. Technically, albeit theory-specific, re: intrinsic human cognitive duality, having successions in time is how we represent objects conceptually, space not being a condition for conceptual representation.

we cannot truthfully sat that "space belongs to the object" — Metaphysician Undercover

Correct. Extension belongs to an object, space does not. Shape, then, just is the kind or degree of extension it possesses.

I read Kant and I didn’t think he really did a good job of arguing for the categories. — Bob Ross

He argued only enough to suit the overall purpose. All he needed to do in justifying a systemic conclusion (the possibility for human empirical knowledge), is demonstrate the necessity of a certain set of antecedent conditions. It’s just a simple “if this then that” logical construct.

Speculative metaphysics writ large.

The form this takes is not something intrinsic to the objects, but is inferred by the mind. — Wayfarer

Agreed, but with respect to the case at hand, the form of the perceived, but as yet undetermined, object, is not the same as the shape of it, which is its extension in space and belongs to the object alone.
———-

On Pinter: “objects in an unobserved universe have no shape”.

For we as humans, an object, whether observed or not, to have no shape makes explicit there is no extension in a space for it, which presupposes the unobserved universe is not itself a space, an inference for which there is no logical justification.

That experience is sufficient to grant us the authority to say what an observed object is, we are not thereby authorized to conceptualize what the unobserved is not.
———-

Omnibus-ing can be fun.

On the unity of subjective experience:

Let’s do some real science. Let’s hook up a nifty machine, expressly constructed to measure neural correlates relating perception of your favorite breakfast meal and the pleasure you get from it, to a material manifestation. What you should see is a graph or an o’scope pattern, so big or modulated or whatever for this degree of taste, lesser or something else for that degree.

Oh but wait a New York (CityUniversity) minute….neural correlates are on the nano-scale, but the probes attached to the machine are mini-scale. Dammit, that’s just not gonna work, you’ll wreck the very neurons you’re trying to get a measurement from. Ahhh…so just quantum-ize the probes, insert them into this pathway, then that pathway, or better yet, insert a whole boatload of ‘em in all sorts of pathways just to find out which one actually reads out as “bittersweet, but slightly overcooked”.

But first, solve or disregard the observer problem whereby merely inserting the probes disrupts the influence of the natural components on each other….

Well, crap on a cracker, Mr. Bill. There’s no ‘scope ever possible to build that will read out as bittersweet but slightly overcooked, but only as representing 140 phosphorous ions across a 56pm cleft under 12nv activation potential.

And there ya go. Your love of scrambled eggs is nothing but 140 ions, etc, on this probe, too much pepper on that probe, put only this much jelly on the toast on still another, and so on, and on and on.

If you find that uncomfortable, and who wouldn’t with all those probes, let’s use dyes of different colors then all you have to do is suffer the needles. Now you’re see red dye where bittersweet is and blue dye where overcooked is, and you’ve got your breakfast experience in multicolored science. Yea. Wonderful.

Screw it. Magnetic imaging? Ultrasonic vibration? Some new and unproven futuristic space-age gizmo? Won’t make one whit of difference. For any scientific methodology, you’ll get nothing but what that method gives you, but it will never ever give you what you give yourself.

To quote my ol’ AM radio (remember AM radio? Anybody?) buddy Paul Harvey, and now you know the REESSSSSTTTT of the story.

(Sigh)

So….anything I said find a place in your analytic idealism?

All good.

Could you elaborate on why one should believe that these categories are what our minds use as functions to produce phenomenal experience? — Bob Ross

Unless the human cognitive system is granted as being representational and inherently logical, re: relational, nothing anybody says in support of the categories will be deemed theoretically plausible, much less acceptable.

Unless the human cognitive system is granted as dualistic, whereby the phenomenal part of the system by which objects are given through perception has no cognitive power, the categories are meaningless, for they apply to nothing else whatsoever, but are contained in the other part that has cognitive power, the power of logical thought. So it is that the categories aren’t what produces phenomenal experience, which is a conceptual redundancy anyway, insofar as there is no experience, re: empirical knowledge of objects, that isn’t phenomenal in origin. The system as a whole produces, not just any single aspect of it.

The categories represent the necessary fundamental conditions by which the object perceived represented as a phenomenon, relates to the object thought represented as a conception. They determine, not how the object is to be understood, but that it can be understood at all. Without that underlaying criteria, that which is perceived cannot be conceptually represented hence will never make it past the mere sensing of it. It’s not that we won’t know what the object is, but that there is no way to understand that it is anything at all.

To have no understanding at all, irrespective of its certainty, is contradictory, insofar as any object given to the senses absolutely must be something to which a conception may or may not relate. This is in fact the case, in that sensations given from perceptions are themselves impossible to deny. And if the sensation is undeniable, it leaves it for something to be done with it, can’t just stop being something. Like sensory information traveling down a nerve and never making it to the brain. Just doesn’t happen, all else being equal. The appeasement of the contradiction, allowing the cognitive operation to continue, is sufficient warrant for justification of the function of the categories.

So….one should believe all that iff it makes sense to him. If it doesn’t, he won’t.

So…..metaphysical reductionism to a certain point is an explanatory necessity, but beyond that point is inevitably illusory?

“….6.373 The world is independent of my will….”

what would those categories be exactly? — Bob Ross

Not to step on ’s toes, but to give a quicker answer……

Mathematical:
Of Quantity: unity, plurality, totality;
Of Quality: reality, negation, limitation;
Dynamical:
Of Relations: subsistence/inference, causality/dependence, community/reciprocity;
Of Modality: possibility, necessity, existence.

Fair warning: merely knowing what they are by name doesn’t tell you of the required presuppositions for their function.

…..reductionism is the best means of explanation….. — Bob Ross

But that’s a very good start, insofar as certainly the Kantian, and in some respects, Aristotelian, categories are the reduction of all conditions for function of the human intellect regarding real physical objects, pursuant to a particular speculative metaphysical theory.

Keyword: theory.

…..the power of creating itself. — Wayfarer

…..which is, without doubt, the foremost logical catastrophe, like…..ever.

(Disclaimer: not exactly sure you mean, so I’m begging anticipatory forgiveness)

Everything humans do is a product of culture and society, and always has been. — Jamal

Good.

everything humans do is a product of our nature, culture and society — Christoffer

Better.

As you wish.

Ok, thanks.

Everything humans do is a product of culture and society, and always has been. — Jamal

Dissent seconded. Everything a human does is “related to….” more than “a product of…..”.

Logically, the implication is that a culture or society is necessary for a human to do anything, which is quite absurd, insofar as the notion that humans did things before there were cultures or societies for their activities to be a product of, is hardly self-contradictory.

I have found a passage in the "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" that, in my opinion, can serve as evidence that Kant justifies the categorical imperative with self-interest, thus contradicting himself. — Jacques

Nahhh….that’s not what he’s doing. He’s showing how the moral subject contradicts himself, by subsuming “meritorious” duties, re: conditioned by inclination, under the same principle which should only legislate an “inflexible” duty, re: conditioned by law. The paragraphs immediately following those four examples should clarify.

The Enlightenment era not only categorically rejected all Religious doctrines, it also rejected all philosophical beliefs that "go beyond" actual/factual descriptions of the world based on the five senses (meta-physics). — Gnomon

Enlightenment philosophy may have demystified established doctrines of the era, but at the same time, initiated its own doctrines under religious, or at least theological, conditions, so the Enlightenment didn’t categorically reject all religious doctrines.

And the general Enlightenment philosophical arena certainly didn’t so much reject metaphysics altogether, but rather, merely created a new way of doing it, in which the a priori domain as subjects, rather than the five-senses descriptions of the world as objects, assumed primacy.

It isn’t so much what the Enlightenment rejected, but what it initiated; not which forces were diminished as much as which forces were empowered.

Our star, sol, is one of these so called sacred ones. A god really does inhabit our star. The responsibility of this god is to maintain, guide the entirety of our solar system. — Varnaj42

What would be the responsibility of a lesser god inhabiting a star with no solar system to maintain?

…..this kind of rationality makes explicit the intrinsic duality of human nature.
— Mww

Yes, we cannot split our brain in physical two, the duality cannot be real, only simulated. — Christoffer

Sure. It’s an explanatory device, and nothing more. That we’re capable of such speculations, though, that’s the wonder of it all, methinks.

— Kurt Tucholsky — Jacques

“…. Natural and moral philosophy, on the contrary, can each have their empirical part, since the former has to determine the laws of nature as an object of experience; the latter the laws of the human will, so far as it is affected by nature: the former, however, being laws according to which everything does happen; the latter, laws according to which everything ought to happen. Ethics, however, must also consider the conditions under which what ought to happen frequently does not…”

—Not Kurt Tucholsky. And a few more than two sentences, to say the same thing.

Which, leads to us seeking out the comfortable ideas that can explain it, even when unexplainable. — Christoffer

Wouldn’t that be bias in its conventional sense? Or perhaps, if not conventional, then psychological? Being the red-headed stepchild of metaphysics, rational psychology is a poor substitute for critical reason a priori, but at the same time, the implementation of the one presupposes the misuse in the minor but the utter neglect in the major, of the other. I should rather think the value immeasurably greater in recognizing the rules for critical thought, than the mere occasions for the exceptions to them.

“…. For, as the world has never been, and, no doubt, never will be without a system of metaphysics of one kind or another, it is the highest and weightiest concern of philosophy to render it powerless for harm, by closing up the sources of error….”

But you are right, in that all-too-many do invoke comfort at the expense of reason.
———-

I have never met a single entity that does not fear the unknown. — Christoffer

That may be true, and you would fare none the worse for it. But you’re forced to admit the possibility of those that do not hold such fear. Makes sense, doesn’t it, that if there is no knowledge, empirical knowledge that is, of something, then how can it be known as sufficient to cause fear? With so much being unknown, just seems quite wasteful to fear it all, so why bother deciding which is worth fearing and which isn’t, when all of it is equally unknown?

Besides, if it be granted knowledge is experience, then to fear the unknown is to fear an experience never had. I’ve been both remorseful and quite happy regarding experiences I’ve never had, but I’d categorically deny being afraid of them.
———-

Then there is the master, who have trained their mind to function in a detached and distant perspective from their emotional identity. — Christoffer

It’s much simpler than that. To understand the impossibility if such detachment in the first place, is to recognize a different set of conditions which determines the mental space in use for any given circumstance.

I get what you’re aiming for, but I submit there is no escape from oneself. There is, not the detachment from, but only the relaxing of, one mental space in order to favor the other, and the space being called upon is determined by the certainty required.

I’ll admit though, that this kind of rationality makes explicit the intrinsic duality of human nature. If one doesn’t accede to such duality, then he’s welcome to philosophize under conditions where it isn’t necessarily the case.

Anyway, carry on.

We don't embrace not knowing or non-knowledge as comfortable. — Christoffer

Perhaps you’re right, but that in itself is a bias, re: embracing a mere comfort, albeit in the negative.

“… Here, therefore, is a case where no answer is the only proper answer. For a question regarding the constitution of a something which cannot be cogitated by any determined predicate, being completely beyond the sphere of objects and experience, is perfectly null and void..…”
————

…..how can you distinguish good biases from bad if you don't form arguments in a mental space where biases do not exist? — Christoffer

Biases are themselves arguments, properly referred to as conclusions of aesthetic judgements, formed nonetheless in a mental space, a non-cognitive mental space. It is thereby self-contradictory to suppose a bias-free mental space, when it is in a mental space where all biases reside. It follows that the determination of good or bad relative to an aesthetic judgement, itself merely a judgement contingent on the first, still presupposes the mental space in which it occurs.

All that being given, it is then the case the object of the judgment, and the object of the bias which follows from the judgement, may not even relate to each other. In the former is found a objective conviction with respect to the conclusion of a judgement, in the latter is found a subjective persuasion regarding the validity of the conclusion, i.e., “I know this is correct, but I don’t like it”.

The real problem manifests in instances where the conviction is not so much met with opposing persuasion, but with outright rejection, i.e., “I know this is right but I am not going to accept it”, and this may be referred to as pathological stupidity.

Assuming sufficient rationality, while there are mental spaces in which there are no biases, the good/bad relation of standing biases are not determinable in them. Which stands to reason, insofar as to judge a relative quality makes explicit the necessity for maintaining a consistency in that which is being judged, by that which is judging. In other words, to judge the good or bad of a bias makes necessary being in the very arena…..in this case the mental space…..where good/bad and the bias itself, are relatable to each other. Which, ironically enough, reduces to the judgement of good/bad with respect to biases, is itself a bias.

How can you deconstruct something if it is essential to the human existence? That would imply that all of philosophy is circular reasoning, one bias following the next ad infinitum. — Christoffer

With the exception to “human existence”, which is necessary for, but utterly irrelevant with respect to, circular reasoning, it is the case philosophy in the form of pure metaphysics is circular, iff it is not held to a logically regulatory critique. One bias will naturally follow from its antecedent conditions, and because….

“….education may furnish, and, as it were, engraft upon a limited understanding rules borrowed from other minds, yet the power of employing these rules correctly must belong to the pupil himself; and no rule which we can prescribe to him with this purpose is, in the absence or deficiency of this gift of nature, secure from misuse….”

….. judgement is a peculiar gift, which does not and cannot require instruction but only exercise, biases are often as easily overcome as they are established.

A few thoughts, from a more limited perspective.

D’accord.

…..hidden layer of meaning in the texts themselves. — Wayfarer

I was introduced to Steiner a few years ago. Figured out halfway through “Philosophy of Freedom” esoteric theosophy, re: occult science, wan’t the ticket.

Does it even make sense to quantify knowledge? — Moliere

No, not if it is the case it is impossible for an otherwise rationally competent subject to have no knowledge.

To quantify knowledge of, or knowledge that, is readily admissible, but that’s not the same as quantifying knowledge in and of itself.

How much knowledge is there? Only as much as there are subjects to which it belongs.

I had some pretty momentous acid trips, which were revelatory in their own right….. — Wayfarer

Oh, man, the stories to be told, but only significant to those that already know them. (Sigh)

Ahhhh, ok, gotcha.