I believe that the cause of the conclusion, judgement, comes from something other than the act of considering the possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

……exactly what I said, with which you were quick to disagree.
————

The act of relating two conception together, will cause a relation between them, in the mind. But it does not necessarily cause a judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

Never said it did. Just as relating is not relation, so too is the cause of a relation not the judgement of it.

So, I believe that the cause of the conclusion, judgement, comes from something other than the act of considering the possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

In the mini-treatise preceding this conclusion, and following from your argument just above it, there is not much with which to take exception. Pretty much conforms to what I’ve been saying. I might counter-argue that conclusions can follow immediately from the considering. The only way for there not to be a judgement at all, neither in affirmation nor negation of the considering, is if that which was under consideration wasn’t even imaginable in the first place. Hence the principle…that of which the imagination is impossible the object cannot be conceived. Or, if you prefer, the conception of the unimaginable is empty.
————

Your use of "necessary" and "necessarily" here indicate that you are determinist, and this is either the result of, or the cause of your refusal to separate reasoning from judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

Dunno about determinist, but my use of those terms certainly label me as holding with the laws of logical thought, insofar as the term “necessary” is a condition of any law, merely indicating the invocation of its negation, amounts to at least a contradiction and at most an impossibility.

Let me take a look at your proposition here. A collection of conceptions is necessary for cognition, and it is what results from cognition. You ought to recognize that this is a vicious circle of causation. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is patently obvious, so why did you think it was anywhere part of my proposition?

If a collection of cognitions is the effect of cognition….. — Metaphysician Undercover

It isn’t….

……then how could the initial collection of conceptions come into existence….. — Metaphysician Undercover

Theoretically, by the effect of being imagined…..

Suppose we have existing separate conceptions, not yet related so as to form a collection. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fine. Those are presupposed, insofar as a collection of them is impossible without its constitutive parts.

And let's say that there is an act required to "synthesize" these conceptions to make them a collection, a whole. You'd be inclined to say that this is cognition. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I would not.

So we need another name for the act which causes the synthesis. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, and I’ve already stated the name of that other act.

We need an act which supports, or causes the existence of the parts, and another distinct type of act, which supports or causes the unification of the parts as a whole. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, we do. What we have not yet addressed, is the act which causes the existence of the parts. But we have considered the part that unifies, or, as was stated, synthesizes, re: imagination.

You notice that at the base level of cognition there is needed a different type of act, intuition. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I do notice, but only in relation to cognition of objects. We are not authorized by that, to say this is base level of cognition in general.

I am arguing that at the highest level of cognition, judgement, there is also the need for a different type of act. — Metaphysician Undercover

To which I adamantly object: the highest level of cognition is not judgement. The source of all human cognitive error, insofar as such error is in fact error in the relation of conceptions to each other, judgement, cannot be the highest level to which cognition can attain, from which follows the possibility of error far outweighs the possibility of correct thinking.

The highest level of cognition, is reason. Reason here the faculty, not the condition by which rational intelligences are distinguished from that which does not possess it. Reason the faculty subjects judgement, and thereby the cognitions given from them, to principles, by which the immediate judgement is regarded as conflicting or sustaining their antecedents. It is here phrases like, “I knew that” and “Now I know that”, hold as, or become, truths.

So it is that understanding is the faculty of rules, reason the faculty of principles, which are the necessary ground for laws.
————

Are you talking about changing my mind because I recognize that I made a mistaken judgement? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but not just you. Me and everybody else as well.

Did I misunderstand your question? — Metaphysician Undercover

No. I was thinking you might substitute your arguments into my parentheticals. In other words, the words I write that you perceive are my (some perceived object) for you, which, because you disagree, can’t be what you think for yourself, my “___” (a cognized known object) for you, and you disagree because the object common to both of us…the words….is missing some property you would give the words, a determinant of relative intentionality, or has properties I gave to them you think don’t belong, a determinant of relative meaning.

If more confusing than purposeful…just forget it. Sometimes I get ahead of myself, and indeed, sometimes beyond. (Sigh)
—————

It is you who is playing a silly language game here. — Metaphysician Undercover

HA!!!! Yeah….everybody that speaks involves himself in language games. I let my abject abhorrence of analytic philosophy impinge on my transcendental nature; I only meant to try making it clear when we say stuff like we do this or that, the manifested doing has no personal pronouns connected to it. If, as you say, we think in images….kudos on that, by the way…..it is absurd to then demand that images themselves invoke personal pronouns. Recognition of this removes the Cartesian theater from being a mere oversimplication, as you claim, but eliminates it altogether.

Just agreeing that your statement was itself an argument, a reason indirectly supporting the persuasiveness of treatise itself.

were you persuaded? — Tom Storm

Oh HELL no……but I mighta been if I hadn’t already been exposed to greater persuasions.

How is that not an argument? — Wayfarer

Argument: a series of reasons meant to persuade, usually in the form of a treatise or doctrine supporting an opening observation or logical premise.

“…. “The world is my idea:”—this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness….”

And with that…….we’re off to 450-odd pages of persuasions.

Don't we relate conceptions to each other, without necessarily making a judgement? — Metaphysician Undercover

That kind of thinking is where the notion of Cartesian theater, or the dreaded homunculus, comes from. The relation of conceptions just IS judgement. WE don’t relate; there just is a systemic process in which that happens. Beware of….and refrain from, at all costs….those abysmally stupid language games.

Note the rela-TION of conceptions is not the relat-ING of them. Relating, which is the subsuming of a manifold of minor conceptions as schema of a greater, technically, a synthesis, is done by imagination; judgement merely signifies the relative belonging of them in the collection, one to another.

So it is that, under the auspices of this particular theory, because no cognition of a thing is at all possible from a singular, stand-alone conception, a synthesis of a collection of conceptions is itself necessary for cognition and all which follows from it, and because the synthesis is necessary, the judgement follows from it necessarily. So, no, there is no relating of conceptions without judgement signifying the relation.

Sidebar: there is a caveat here regarding the cognition of things, but for the sake of simplicity, it shall be overlooked, re: intuition. For the mere thinking of things, the synthesis of conceptions holds by itself, and judgement works the same way for both.

Think about it. Has it ever occurred to you that, say, this thing (a perceived object) can’t be “__” (a cognized known object) because it’s missing some property (a conception) already understood (judged) as belonging to (synthesized with other conceptions) that certain “__”?

No, I would not agree with that at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

Rhetorical question, because that is precisely what you did right there, which would be readily apparent to you, when you examine what and how your disagreement came about.

If I understand you….. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here you do, well enough.

I think this is just an avoidance of the question…. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here you do not.

So when "knowledge" is conceived in the way I propose, suspending judgement reduces to preventing the production of knowledge, not to not knowing what is known. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed, but you’re in a different systemic time. In the time I used, re: “with respect to cognitions…”, which makes explicit the conceptions have already been related to each other, which means judging has already been accomplished, satisfying the conditions necessary for knowledge. I’m saying it is stupid to grant the possibility of suspending a judgement that’s already happened, which implies the possibility that something has become known.

By saying phenomena do not provide knowledge limits your claim to the faculty of sensibility, insofar as all your talking about is phenomena, and in this regard you are correct. I, on the other hand, have progressed methodologically far downstream from sensibility, from which follows that phenomena have already been addressed in the methodological timeframe. Cognitions, of course, belonging to understanding, along with the business of relating conceptions to each other.

When we think about things, that's what we're doing, relating concepts to each other, and from this we may make a judgement about the thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

That’s not all we’re doing. Relating conceptions IS the judging. And we don’t make a judgement about a thing; we cognize a thing, from the relation of conceptions thought as belonging to it. And, need I remind you, we’re talking about things here, real spacetime objects….you know, the things not in our heads (sigh)…..represented as phenomena, which in the thinking process, requires something else from understanding not yet considered.
————

It appears to me (you’re) forcing a separation between thoughts and feelings, but then allowing the feelings into the mind as phenomena, which might ground the knowing in some kind of necessity. Is that what's going on here? — Metaphysician Undercover

Separation, yes. Allowing….no. That which enters the mind as phenomena is that physical thing which represents how that feeling is to be understood. I’d hoped to make it clear feelings per se are not cognitions, and that being the case, combined with the necessity of cognitions for knowledge, it should follow that there is no knowledge in feelings as such. We can certainly say we know we are are affected in some way by them, which informs us of their occasion, this actually being more a change in our subjective condition than predication for knowledge as such. The knowledge as such, then, reserved for the cause of the feeling rather than the feeling itself.
————-

With respect to volitions in a rationally grounded logical system employed by the will….
— Mww

I do not see how you can separate a rationally grounded system from an empirically grounded system, in the way that you do. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you don’t see the distinction in empirically grounded and rationally grounded systems as I promote it, you must favor some other antagonistic dichotomous system, or, see the same dichotomy but promote it in a different way. Which would be……what?

If you separate the phenomena, images, or whatever you want to call it, from the intellect….. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps you don’t see the way of my separation because I separate as you stated right there, but, of course, that’s not at all my way. All I ever separated from the intellect is aesthetic judgement, and the will as autonomous causality.

……to provide an outside grounding, making the phenomena necessarily known, then it cannot get into the mind in the first place. — Metaphysician Undercover

You could say “empirically grounded” equates roughly to “outside grounding”, but it does not follow from that, that phenomena are necessarily known. Which is kinda silly in itself, insofar as if phenomena are necessarily known, why invent a complete theoretical knowledge system in humans, of which phenomena are the mere occasion for its instantiation?

If it's in the mind, then it's just part of a rationally grounded system. — Metaphysician Undercover

If it’s in the mind, it is a part of a rationally conditioned system. Again, we’re talking about things….you know, real spacetime objects not in the head (sigh)…..which makes them the ground of the system. That with which the system is immediately concerned and without which the system has nothing immediate to do.

In a rationally grounded system, there are no real spacetime objects under immediate consideration, eliminating the faculty of sensibility, hence phenomena, from the methodological process.

An empirically grounded system, the governance of which is Nature, requires the cooperation of sensibility and reason, the culmination being knowledge a posteriori; a rationally grounded system, the governance of which is logic, requires only reason in cooperation with itself, re: non-contradiction, the culmination being knowledge a priori.

That separation seems pretty straightforward, does it not?
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All judgement does in thought of things…
— Mww

So you can't dismiss judgements about things, as judgement, because judgements only relate concepts to each other — Metaphysician Undercover

These two statements do not say the same thing. I certainly can dismiss judgement about things, because judgement isn’t about things. It’s about the relation of conceptions, and conceptions have nothing to do with things, but only with the representations of things as they are thought.

Furthermore, if you recall, I said judgement cannot be dismissed (I actually said suspended) at all, under the assumption they are properly employed in the first place.
———-

Fun is a feeling. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nahhhh, it isn’t. Pleasure is the feeling, fun is merely the relative qualitative measure of it. Would you agree that every quality of feeling is reducible to one or the other of only two of them?

If the domain of representations corresponds to 'the phenomenal realm', then the nature of the knowing subject corresponds to 'being in itself' — Wayfarer

If that is to be the case, it arises from a non-Kantian theory, insofar as conceptions are also representations, but with respect to their origin and use in understanding, have nothing to do with the phenomenal realm of sensibility.

Sorry….I don’t know how to relate the knowing subject/being in itself to representation/phenomenal realm. I agree the self can never be a phenomenon, but we are still allowed to think that which represents the process of thinking, which, obviously, gets us into all kindsa trouble.

The link was interesting, made some good points and some I could leave be, so thanks for that. You have a highly commendable habit of coming up with the good stuff.

If everybody agrees the nature of human intelligence is representational, what would be used to examine the “inner nature” of representations?

What sense does it make to ask if representations have a nature, if to find out what it is, if the only possible way to understand what it is, is by means of the very thing being asked about?

But would you class judgement as part of the reasoning process? Suppose reasoning is the feeling which causes a volition. — Metaphysician Undercover

I wouldn’t accept that reason is a causal feeling. At bottom, thinking is the reasoning process, and we do not think our feelings. While thinking is an innate human ability, the constituent objects of which aggregate over time to reflect the condition of the intellect, feeling is an innate human quality reflecting on the condition of the subject itself, the constituent objects of which subsist in themselves as wholes. The former reduces to experience, the latter reduces to conscience.

…..if we say that the mind reasons, i.e. thinks about things, would a conclusion (judgement) come about naturally as part of the reasoning process… — Metaphysician Undercover

I take things here to mean represented by phenomena. Real spacetime objects. A conclusion with respect to a thought about things would come about naturally, but it wouldn’t be a judgement. All judgement does in thought of things, is relate concepts to each other, this being the discursive kind as opposed to the aesthetic, the relation itself called a cognition. Reason concludes whether the immediate judgement conflicts with antecedent judgements, hence determines the truth of the relation.

If one wishes to assign a feeling to this empirical system of things, he would use statements like…this does or doesn’t feel right, which represents a conflict in logic. In the case of aesthetic judgements, in a rational system of feelings, he would use statements like, this does or doesn’t feel good, which represents a conflict in subjective, re: personal, principles.

……or is there a separate act of will required which constitutes the judgement or conclusion? — Metaphysician Undercover

There is not a separate act of will in the thinking about things, no, insofar as the will does not concern itself with phenomena. Nevertheless, in the act of willing, the mind does reason to conclusions, does employ judgement, the major distinction being, the objects upon which it is concerned regarding such willing, are of its own creation, as opposed to objects of Nature’s creation. This is an entirely separate philosophy, though, and has no business being mingled with worldly considerations.

But if a separate act of willing is required then one might suspend judgement even in the cases of logical necessity. And I wonder if this is possible — Metaphysician Undercover

I submit it is impossible to suspend any judgement, it being a necessary constituent of any logical system. If it is merely a premise in a logical system, to suspend a premise is to destroy the system, which contradicts the employment of it for the suspension.

With respect to cognitions in an empirically grounded logical system employed by the understanding, to suspend judgement reduces to denying the very knowledge phenomena provide, which reduces to not knowing what is known, which is absurd, the efforts to do so is called stupidity.

With respect to volitions in a rationally grounded logical system employed by the will, to suspend judgement is not to deny the volition, which would lead to the same absurdity, but to deny the rationality of it, which is certainly possible, and even occasionally observable, but herein the efforts to do so, is called immorality.

The guy exhibiting stupidity elicits pity; he who exhibits immorality, elicits disgust. Ya know what’s ironic here? It is actually impossible to accuse ourselves of being stupid, in the pathological as opposed to the incidental sense, then proving it, but we can very easily accuse ourselves of being immoral and very easily prove it. Why? Because it is impossible to know why I might be stupid…..if I knew why I couldn’t be stupid….but it is easy to will the proper moral volition, then completely and utterly disregard it. In addition, with respect to the subject himself, there is no feeling per se in being stupid, but there is always a feeling necessarily conjoined with being moral with its complementary feeling in being immoral.
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account for the reality of the separation between judging and acting. — Metaphysician Undercover

These are already separated; it is the separation between will and judgement I contest. Besides, we don’t act on a judgement, we act on a volition, which is what the will determines and judgement directs. Still, we do judge the act itself, post hoc, that is, after its manifestation in the world, but in such case, the judgement has been transposed into a discursive judgement insofar as we then understand hence cognize, some certain effect we ourselves have caused. Pretty simple really: we judge in one way for the throwing or the not throwing of the switch, we judge in a completely different way when we witness the results of the switch having been thrown or not thrown.
————

the thing requiring mere acceptance is never allowed to pertain to the system granting the acceptance.
— Mww

It does pertain though. It's related as cause to effect. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh absolutely related to cause and effect. But….how? What is it and from whence does it arise? Your aforementioned loophole.
————

The purpose of a will is to cause an end.
— Mww

I think I have to disagree with this characterization of "will". I think that what is caused by the will is the means to the end, not the end itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ehhhh….depends at which point one is examining the system. If he thinks an end is the act, then will could be the means, insofar as will does not cause an act. If he thinks an end is the determination of how to act, but not the act itself, then will can be said to cause such determination. The former causality of will as means is a volition, the latter causality of will as cause proper, is an imperative.

Havin’ fun yet?

Judgement (…) is an instance of willing. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think it more correct to say judgement depends on, or follows from, an instance of willing, but one is not the other. An instance of willing is the immediate determination of an act, therein called a volition, in accordance with a feeling; to judge is to relate the correspondence of the volition to the feeling that caused it.

But there appears to be some sort of loop hole which allows for a type of random action, exempt from the laws of natural order. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ahhhh….possibly the greatest source of abhorrence in metaphysical practices, in which the warrant for a principle which is both entirely sufficient in itself and absolutely necessary as a merely logical terminus, yet completely unavailable to empirical justification, must be given a place in a sub-system of the human condition. It is here your loophole makes its appearance, as the very epitome of abstract rationality.

It’s abhorrent because to be useful it must be accepted as legitimate, and hardly anybody wants to merely accept anything carte blanche. Made worse by the stipulation that the thing requiring mere acceptance is never allowed to pertain to the system granting the acceptance. It’s the same as…conceiving a thing, but prohibiting that conception from acting on or even within the system that conceived it. How absurd is that!!!! Can you walk without moving your foot???

Who was that guy that said…metaphysical statements are neither true or false, they just don’t make sense.

So….I have no reservations that you know the name of that loophole. Acceptance of it, of course, is another matter.
————

I still haven't really freed the will from the need for an end, and the need for a judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

I submit you won’t, for the will needs an end, which represents the human being’s inevitable feeling for a need to act or respond to an act, which is very far from objectively consummating it. (“…if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice…”)

The purpose of a will is to cause an end. It is the end itself that is judged, the willing of it be what it may. The secondary question would then be….what end does the will purpose itself toward, but the primary question must remain…how is the agent in possession of such a will informed as to does or does not the end he wills satisfy the need he feels. And TA-DAAAA!!!, there’s where your preference to…..

….completely remove will from the intellect — Metaphysician Undercover

….meets its authority, but…..

I think will ought to be separated from judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

….is contestable on theoretical grounds, insofar as will remains connected to judgement of a certain kind, itself removed from the intellect as well.

But we’ve wandered afield from Socrates and Platonic forms.

judgement it appears sometimes to be associated with reason, as logic forces judgement, and sometimes it appears to be associated with will — Metaphysician Undercover

On the first, agreed, that judgement being called discursive, that is, its objects, whether phenomena or mere ideas, are logically constructed in association with pure reason but in accordance with a particular cognition.

On the second, however, I think I’d go with judgement associated with desire rather than will, in which case the judgement is aesthetic, in association with practical reason, but in accordance with a particular feeling, or perhaps more accurately, in accordance to some arbitrary degree of a general feeling. As has been hinted elsewhere herein, account must be made for necessarily different causalities corresponding to these thoroughly incongruent kinds of objects.

Aquinas shows a similar issue, will he says, is generally subservient to reason. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ehhh….I’m reluctant to let the will be subservient to anything within the human condition. If there is any way whatsoever, in which the subject has even the slightest modicum of self-control, in which he is the arbiter of his own circumstance, only restrained by natural limitations, then there must be a means for it, and if that means is called will, so be it. It’s as simple and certainly as plausible as….we might think we can talk and swallow at the same time, only to find out we cannot, an altogether empirical determination, but we can always think a thing within our limitations we might do, then find out we can either cause or not cause the doing of it, which is a rational rather than empirical determination.
————

I think I would prefer to completely remove will from the intellect — Metaphysician Undercover

Maybe parts of it, but not altogether, I don’t think. I’d be ok with moving will from, say, intuition or even understanding, but there are non-empirical judgements, and as dedicated as that kind of judgement may be to mere feelings in the form of desires, inclinations, persuasions and so on, there must be a way to determine which object is sufficient to cause an act by the subject because of them, or determine a range of objects sufficient to explain them if the subject is acted upon, which, either way, is the purview of reason in its practical employment which we must admit as being a part of the intellect.

More agreement than not, overall, methinks.

….false judgement is shown to be impossible. But this conclusion is derived from the premise that knowledge is true judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

Judgement. All-important, hardly comprehensible. As in other things, the ancients didn’t attribute to judgement its due, while on the other hand, subsequent philosophies may just as well have made theoretical expositions regarding it, damn near incomprehensible.

At the very least, seriously complicated. Like…what is it, are there different kinds, from different sources, relating, and related to, different conditions. Is it its own faculty, or is it part of another.

All that being said, I’ve come to reject JTB as inadequate, and “knowledge as true judgement” as misplaced functionality. Which, of course, are themselves merely judgements of mine, which in turn suggests I should know how I came by them. (Sigh)

Anyway, thanks for the input.

Kudos. You guys sure seem to know your way around Greek thought.

I appreciate the lesson.

Outstanding synopsis, and thank you for it. I can actually follow all that, and even if I don’t quite agree with it, it makes its own kinda sense. I’d even go so far as to say, for its time, both those guys thought deeper into the human condition than any one else ever has, at least those present in the historical record. That being said….I’m going to allow myself to take exception to Plato’s notion of “the good”, preferring to relegate the idea to the irreducible ground for a specific moral philosophy.
————-

Sidebar: I would like to say there are no false judgements. Regarding….

the arguments where "false judgement" is shown to be impossible. — Metaphysician Undercover

…..what was the conclusion? Are they, or are they not, possible?

Can you see the issue lurking behind these controversies? — Wayfarer

I recognize a few from my own opinion, as in…..

….abstract objects independent of human thought, is a contradiction;
….mathematical objects exist, that is, are found in the world, iff a suitable intelligence puts them there;
….mathematical relations are “out there”, that is, empirical cause/effect relations describable only by numbers; truths, mathematical or otherwise, belong to that self-same suitable intelligence;
….truths are not confirmed by thinking about them; truths are determined by it, and the thinking is subsequently confirmed by empirical practices;
….“our best epistemic theories seem to deny that knowledge of mathematical objects is possible”, yet we have mathematical knowledge, which indicates the theory denying such objects, is hardly our best theory.

Very big iceberg indeed. Not so much the need to drop empiricism, but that much more needs be ceded to the thinking subject that is currently kept from him. Nothing whatsoever has any meaning without relation to a particular intelligence capable of being affected by it.

We love our empiricism for the simple reason that it is irrational to object to the lawful conditions which ground it. We love empiricism too much, insofar as the very idea of irrationality and even lawful conditions, are not themselves empirical determinations, which justifies the notion that empirical thought is not as great and grand as is pretended for it.

I simply meant that the natural numbers and such things as laws and principles, are real….. — Wayfarer

Ok. What makes that form of realism Platonic? I’m sure it must have something to do with forms, but I’m not up on Plato’s theory enough to grant them as real, in the same sense of real as, say, logical or transcendental objects. I don’t think a particular form as such is susceptible to definition, and I don’t see how forms themselves are conditioned by time. But I concede to being stuck in an Enlightenment rut, so……

Invented or discovered….hmmmm, that’s a tough one right there, even though I’d allow those listed, among others of like kind, to be real, insofar as they are certainly both susceptible to definition and conditioned by time. To be discovered is to be presupposed….can’t discover what wasn’t there…..so maybe the invention just is the conception that spontaneously belongs to that which is presupposed.

Dunno. Mind bender, to be sure.

Again, the issue is ethics rather than metaphysics. — Banno

THE METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF ETHICS

By Immanuel Kant

1780

Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

…..if ya can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?

Still working on it. — Wayfarer

Looking at 74b, we can see the inkling of something new and different just beggin’ to be exposed. Socrates says stuff like…when we think……but leaves it at that. Kant steps in with a new notion of what is actually happening when we think, and the transcendental arguments are the necessary conditions that justify those speculative notions. It’s Aristotle’s logic in spades: if this is the case, which the LNC says it is, and that follows necessarily from this case, which the Law of Identity says it does, then the entire systemic procedure is only possible if this certain something is antecedent to all of it.

By delving deeper into the human cognitive system, examining it from a transcendental point of view, claimed to be the only way to determine that antecedent something, Kant both sustains and refutes arguments from imperfection. Refutes insofar as purely logical systems can be perfectly formed and thereby perfectly concluded, hence can be absolutely certain in themselves; sustained insofar as being metaphysical, there are no possible empirical proofs for those transcendental points of view, which a proper science must have, hence is imperfect.

The former, being perfect, allows trust in knowledge in general; the latter, being imperfect, allows amendments to particular knowledge without jeopardizing the system by which it is furnished. And that combination ends Hume’s radical skepticism forever.
(Until the next new thing comes along, and ends Kant’s transcendental philosophy forever)

We end up with, again in 74b, we don’t “think” as Plato says. We tacitly understand, and that purely a priori, herein a euphemism for subconsciously, re: behind the curtain of mere phenomena, those conceptions Socrates says we are born with, have knowledge of, and of which we think, none of which are the case in the pure a priori use of reason.

…..I’m still working on it.

'argument from imperfection' anticipates Kant's Transcendental Arguments. — Wayfarer

Sure reads that way.

Any comments on the Argument from Imperfection? — Wayfarer

As in all logical dialectics, the Argument from Imperfections would stand undiminished, if not subsequently diminished by better initial premises. The bottom line holds nonetheless, even if wearing clothing other than robes, insofar as the ideal is the perfect, the unconditioned, which is unattainable by reason, from which follows all logical arguments are from imperfection and cannot rise to the objects representing the pure ideas of them.

74b: “…Did we not, by seeing equal pieces of wood or stones or other things, derive from them a knowledge of abstract equality, which is another thing?…”

This presupposes the two pieces seen, are already determined to be equal. But if it is the case we don’t ever see pieces as equal, but rather, only see two things relating to each other by degree of conceptual unity with the apodeitic pre-established form of one or the other of those two things, then the determination of equality does not rely on the condition of the pieces themselves, but in their relation to that pre-established form.

An abstract ideal, in this case equality which is indeed different than being equal. is not properly a knowledge but more an intellectual presupposition, later to be transformed into Aristotle’s categories, thus not technically derivable from instances of perception. Socrates says we are born with a manifold of them, which is at least logically sufficient to proclaim, but he also says we are born with them as knowledge, which would not be logically sufficient at all, depending on the definition of it on the one hand, and the manifestation of it, regardless of its definition, on the other.

Idle musings….

The problems of philosophy are reducible to the problem of reason:

“….. These unavoidable problems of mere pure reason are God, freedom (of will), and immortality. The science which, with all its preliminaries, has for its especial object the solution of these problems is named metaphysics—a science which is at the very outset dogmatical, that is, it confidently takes upon itself the execution of this task without any previous investigation of the ability or inability of reason for such an undertaking.…”

Ehhh….I just found that cuz you asked.

I don’t think any rational thinker is going to discriminate against Descartes’ philosophy because of his anatomical science. Like hoeing a crooked row only to blame the dirt.
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Makes one wonder about the agenda residing in those that promote undocumented nonsense, resting assured somebody or other will take it for gospel.

it's even more unclear that Descartes philosophy is the reason we treat animals the way we do. — Moliere

Hell….maybe it’s just us. The way we are as a species.

Something I'd like to see is the connection between Cartesian philosophy and how we still treat animals. — Moliere

At the conclusion of this paper:

“….“Forget the pig is an animal. Treat him just like a machine in a factory. Schedule treatments like you would lubrication. Breeding season like the first step in an assembly line. And marketing like the delivery of finished goods….”

Although this admonition from an American pig farmer conflicts with our widespread belief that animals differ from inanimate objects, it is this type of Cartesian thinking that allows agribusiness corporations to offer low-cost animal foods to consumers. The corporate ownership of animals has had a devastating impact on animal welfare, particularly through factory farming….”
(https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2728&context=facpubs)

I was lucky enough to find a translation of the letter on the internet. — Moliere

Ahhhh….excellent. I gave you objections, you gave me letters. Tip of the pointy hat.

I guess it is established Descartes did vivisections in the spirit of anatomical science, but more than likely without the embellishments of the modern sensationalists.

Perhaps we shan’t quibble over the editing of supposedly verbatim correspondence in assuagement of delicate constitutions on the one hand, or, being informed of that which we don’t need to know, on the other, re: Bennet 2017 vs Letter to Plempius 1638.
—————

The early-modern philosophical question remains: given the intrinsic duality of mind and body necessarily conditioned by their respective substances, how to determine the substance of the mind, unless to eliminate the substance of the body; how to eliminate the substance of the body from substance of the mind, by determining exactly how the substance of the body performs, such that it is proven to have no effect on the performance of substance of the mind; how to determine exactly how the substance of the body performs, unless by observing it as it performs.

Where is the fault, exactly?

Cool. You’re a better keyword-er than I, I guess. Got a link?

Better than that….how can dissected individual parts go on beating.

Rarely do we get such a clear cut relationship in a historical document of a person's thought directly advocating something — Moliere

Descartes, Letter to Plempius, Feb 15 1638

I’d be careful here. Try finding that historical document, which is in truth the only way to glean from it some personal thought. As far as I have been able to find, all we have is he said he said, but we don’t have what he himself said.

While it may be sufficient to accept as given that Descartes “practiced and advocated vivisection”, because some referenced letter apparently says so, and the historical record supports period-specific occasions in general, re: Boyle, Malabranche, the personal thought with respect to it resides in the context, which is not determinable from the claim alone.

Also, in letters to Mersenne, 1632, in following Vesalius 1629, he talks of dissection, which may or may not be the linguistic precursor to vivisection. If we grant he used the word as it stands today, we can say he didn’t do the latter, having instead admitted the former, and if he used the word as we use vivisection today, we still don’t have evidence of his personal thoughts regarding its ethical/moral implications. Scientifically, yes…it’s fine, animals don’t feel pain like humans, which is probably true. But that doesn’t say they don’t feel something which is pain to them, the truth of which science can never prove, and the implications of which he didn’t address.

Anyway…..fun to think about.

…..understanding the background to these disputes…. — Wayfarer

Be pretty hard wouldn’t it, when everything at university from which the disputes arose, was fundamentally predicated on what we now call classical philosophy but was standard at the time, on one hand, and good old fashion theology on the other. I think this matters, because we got Discourse, but we didn’t get Le Monde, simply out of fear of church reprisals, a la Galileo.

Rumor has it Le Monde had originally contained a treatise on animals, among others, which would probably have shed some horse’s-mouth, first person light on his attitude directly towards the worthiness of moral implications with respect to the treatment of them. So saying, I never once would have disagreed with your standing on animal abuse; I do have a different opinion nonetheless, over such implications, relative to our own civil and post-Enlightenment evolution.
————-

Quite what Descartes means by 'thought', (…) I have a rough idea — Wayfarer

As in Kant, I’ve found it best to go with the cut-and-dried definition, and that’s in First Principles, 1, 9.
For whatever that’s worth.

But it seems to me that Descartes' understanding of the mind or soul is too narrow. — Wayfarer

As for understanding mind….absolutely. As for soul….ehhhh, I’m not a soul kinda guy myself. In the world of pure metaphysical abstractions, I’m ok with drawing the line at mere consciousness.
———-

On Dennett: he’s accessible. Why bother researching moldy tomes when a video is right there. ‘Nuff said?

…..a lot more to be discovered. — Wayfarer

Perhaps not so much discovered, in that you may already know of it, but I’m thinking Part V “Discourse on Method of Rightly Conducting….”, prior to the paragraphs quoted in the link, might be entertaining for its gross inaccuracies, but I’m also thinking that in the time of its publication, and with respect to those few academics exposed to it, must have been absolutely fascinating. I mean….generation of animals spirits like very subtle winds….musta given them something to talk about over mead and mutton.

As to discoveries, I finally found the 3rd objection to the 6th Meditation, and reply, to the section on animal thought, in which we see the background for some of the early modern thinking that seldom, if ever, occurs to we post-moderns:

“…. As for dogs and apes: if I conceded that they have thought, that would imply that ·in this respect they resemble men·, not because in men as well as in animals there is no mind distinct from the body, but rather because in animals as well as men there is a mind distinct from the body. This was the view taken by the very Platonists whom my critics were taking as authorities a moment ago, as can be seen from their following the Pythagoreans in believing that a soul could move from one body to another….”
(https://homepages.uc.edu/~martinj/Rationalism/Descartes/Descartes%20-%20Objections%20VI%20and%20Replies.pdf)

Odd innit? We think in terms of space, time, quantum probabilities, while they think in terms of gods and older philosophers, which is merely a reflection on the state of empirical knowledge.

Not to be confused with, “…c’mon baby take a chance with us, meet me at the back of the blue bus…”

Ahhhh….those were the days.

Though generally even then they were treated as conscious entities - which Descartes denied….. — Bylaw

He denied reason and soul to animals, in “First Principles…..”, as distinguishing conditions. I find little support for the notion that animals were generally treated as conscious entities.

My sentiments as well.

The author of the SEP article on animal consciousness, re: “… It would be anachronistic to read ideas about consciousness from today back into the ancient literature.…”, seems to hold a similar inclination.

could novelty, a novelty inherent in the object itself, ever be considered to be a coherent aspect of aesthetic judgement — Janus

Whoa! That’s Ken Kesey/ Merry Pransters kinda heavy, right there, insofar as both pro and con are in the same query: con…novelty isn’t in the object at all; pro….novelty is certainly an object of judgement. Boys and girls woulda had a blast with that one, methinks, trippin’ down the highway.

Still, things change. The hippies then for the rights of free spirit, the woke dipshits now for the pathologically stupid over-sensitivity regarding Ms. Green M&M’s wearin’ thigh-high boots.

(Sigh)

As it is said, there's no accounting for taste. — Janus

And yet, all there ever is, with respect to quality, is aesthetic judgements. Which reduces to…..there’s no accounting for each other’s tastes. Which is probably what you meant.

a market that demands what it has become accustomed to — Janus

Gotta admit to that myself. Band comes along, love their music for three or four albums….then they change style.

For re-inventing, probably can’t top the Beatles. Drippy girly AM pop in ‘63 to FM album Sgt Pepper in ‘67….massive musical offset.

“…. One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity…”
(Rush, Permanent Waves, 1980)

Admirable, to be sure.

I submit, it is only the two world wars and the Holocaust that reformed our empathetic conditioning to its present state with respect to us as humans. While additionally the Civil War changed Americans alone; the others changed everybody.

I think they were no more disconnected then we are, what with the present population endlessly fingering keyboards or joysticks on the one hand; on the other, the past population taking a bath once or twice a year.

Benefit of the doubt: what do you mean by disconnection from reality?

Bottom line…it wasn’t to the participants, which were legion in those days. Lots of literature on the doing, but hardly any on objecting to the doing.

Can’t use our moral compass to judge the righteousness of bygone eras. Well…actually we do, but, legitimately, only as comparison.

……he actually might have closer to an evil genius. — Wayfarer

Ehhhh….animals were generally treated differently in those days, so it’s consistent they would think of them as medical experiments. I mean, nobody got upset by spearing horses in battle just to get the rider on the ground to make it easier to bash his head in, so…..