Rarely do we get such a clear cut relationship in a historical document of a person's thought directly advocating something — Moliere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 Try finding that historical document, which is in truth the only way to glean from it some personal thought.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…..

Whether true or not, can you judge the philosopher/mathematician without judging the anatomist?

Ok; all good….

With Kant's categories he is so certain that we know what he's talking about that he says we already know what he's saying. — Moliere

….except for that. He was pretty certain we commoners hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, even though he says every one of us is doing what his theory suggests. But I see what you mean: after his explanation, we can say…oh hell yeah, that’s right!!!!

I think I'd say logic has changed considerably since Kant, and I'd say that it's for the better too. — Moliere

You wouldn’t be alone.

Modal logic is more specific than Kant's. — Moliere

Maybe; dunno. Specific in what way? As I said in another thread… one division containing two books containing five chapters containing eight sections containing 179 pages…..and an appendix. All as only one of two divisions in an rather thorough exposition of a very specific human logical functionality.

Can’t help but think the moderns have that exposition, as the ground of their own presuppositions. Likely, since Kripke actually begins this article with a reference to it.

But this isn’t the place for Kant himself, so…..

all of these things might have happened. They didn't, but they may have. — Banno

Nobody cares about what might have happened, when they are only affected by what does.

Recent modal logic gives us a way to deal with such suppositions. What you have proposed, does not. — Banno

Correct. Not much need to deal with might-have-beens. Psychologists excepted, but (sorry, Isaac) no proper philosopher cares about them anyway.

Logic has advanced somewhat since Kant. — Banno

Logic has changed. Whether it has advanced, is questionable. All the basic conceptions of modern modal logic are already contained in Kantian metaphysics, and have been classified as such since Aristotle.

Admit it, Good Sir: you’re grasping at straws. All the cool stuff has already been done, and you missed the boat.

Sure, it's actually in this room. But it might possibly have been in the other. — Banno

On logic…..

“…. Notwithstanding, there lies so seductive a charm in the possession of a specious art like this (…) any attempt to employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever. Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy…”

It is possible for there to be a lectern in another room. It is possible for a lectern to be anywhere. According to the example in question, “this very object, in the room it is in fact in, even at this very time” cannot possibly be in any other room.

Try as I might, some folks I just can’t help. Horse/water kinda thing, I guess.

Here he’s saying this lectern cannot have any material property other than the essential one it does
— Mww

I don't agree. (…) he might equally have used a material example such as that the lectern might have been painted pink or had his name engraved on it. — Banno

Of course, but these are not properties the lectern cannot have. They do not represent the properties the lectern must have such that to not have them the lectern wouldn’t be “this very object”. You’re talking about what it can have; he’s talking about what it cannot have. If space is a property it cannot have, THIS lectern cannot be in THAT room, for then it would be in two spaces simultaneously.

These are ways in which the properties of that very lectern may have been otherwise. — Banno

These are ways that very lectern’s properties are cumulative without contradiction. Add all the properties you like, but it’s still going to be made of wood, it’s still going to be in this room. As long as the subject making the statements is as well, which is tacitly understood to be the case.

Again, this odd interpretation has the result that when one says the lectern might have been in the other room, one is talking about a different lectern. — Banno

Actually, it’s a demonstration of the different “categories of truth”, and how it is his “wish to distinguish them”, beginning at the bottom of pg176. It isn’t about different lecterns; it’s about different ways of knowing about one lectern.

He says, “We can certainly talk about this very lectern and whether it can have certain properties which in fact it does not have. For example, it could have been in another room from the one it was in fact in, even at this very time, but it could not have been made from the very beginning from water frozen into ice”.

Here he’s saying this lectern cannot have any material property other than the essential one it does, but we can still talk about it as if space were one of its properties. Which is what we do when we say this lectern could have been in another room, but it couldn’t be made of ice.

One of the properties “which in fact it does not have”, regarding the lectern in particular and objects in general, is, of course, space. And, as hinted, so too is time a property objects in general cannot have.

Thus is the conflict incurred between Kripke’s “categories of truth” and Russell’s so-called “scope of description”, re: this/that modal distinctions, whereby a necessary identity statement regarding THIS thing, that THIS thing cannot be in THAT place on the one hand, in juxtaposition to the contradictory attribution of space and time as properties, on the other.

Logical statements are validated by themselves, but their proofs are in experience alone. It is far easier to prove THIS thing can be in THAT place and remain THIS thing, then to prove THIS thing in THAT place is not THIS thing.

Ahhh…ok.

Are you supposing that combining them has been attempted?

Yeah, I can see that. Change some terms here and there, but the basics would be pretty similar. Matter belongs to the object, form belongs to the subject, kinda thing, maybe?

Oh. Cool.

…what I think the traditional meaning of 'noumenal' refers to- (…). (I'm still investigating what becomes of 'form and substance' in Kant.) — Wayfarer

Are you attempting to relate the traditional meanings to form/substance in Kant? Connect them somehow? See how an investigation of the one would get you to the other?

As you said….no entrapment. Just curious.

Making my way (slowly) through the online editions — Wayfarer

FYI….the online Guyer/Wood has a fabulous 90-odd page translator introduction, also has standard pagination, but…..sadly….isn’t searchable. If some secondary literature references a A/B number, you can scroll to it, but with 700 pages…that’s potentially a lot of scrolling.

But the intro is worth the time, I think, even if it is technically a second-party interpretation.

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

My notes on this: 'abstract' and 'intuitive' seems a very odd translation. I would have thought the distinction was between 'sensible' and 'rational' cognition, but I can't find the passage in Schopenhauer (if anyone has a precise reference I'd appreciate it.) — Wayfarer

Dunno about precise, but this contains the beginning notations referring to the words in your notes:

“…. But thus Kant brings thinking into the perception, and lays the foundation for the inextricable confusion of intuitive and abstract knowledge which I am now engaged in condemning. He allows the perception, taken by itself, to be without understanding, purely sensuous, and thus quite passive, and only through thinking (category of the understanding) does he allow an object to be apprehended: thus he brings thought into the perception. But then, again, the object of thinking is an individual real object; and in this way thinking loses its essential character of universality and abstraction, and instead of general conceptions receives individual things as its object: thus again he brings perception into thinking. From this springs the inextricable confusion referred to, and the consequences of this first false step extend over his whole theory of knowledge….”
(WWR, 2, App., pg 35, 1844, in Haldane/Kemp, 1909)

And I’m not eccentric. I got the proper stamped, signed, coffee-stained release papers to prove it.

So the entry in Britannica under Noumenon is wrong — Wayfarer

I’m hardly qualified to criticize the contributors to an encyclopedia. I can say, without equivocation, that entry doesn’t reflect any of my understandings.

…..the capacity for acting as a moral agent—makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated in which freedom, God, and immortality abide.

Those are the three fundamental problems of pure reason, boiled down to the conceptions of the unconditioned, which pure reason seeks as its own nature demands, and never attains. There’s no need of a noumena world in which they abide, insofar as they already abide, at least as conceptions, in this world of human reason.
———-

Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena

“…. For this result, then, we are indebted to a criticism which warns us of our unavoidable ignorance with regard to things in themselves, and establishes the necessary limitation of our theoretical cognition to mere phenomena.…”

“…. We come now to metaphysics, a purely speculative science, which occupies a completely isolated position and is entirely independent of the teachings of experience. It deals with mere conceptions—not, like mathematics, with conceptions applied to intuition—and in it, reason is the pupil of itself alone.…”

You be the judge.

I favor the B edition as well. I mean…spend a few years re-thinking something, best just go with that one. No sense in using what he thought better of, when talking about what he ended up thinking.

Guess that makes us a couple stubborn ol’ peas on either end of an overextended virtual pod, donnit?

The rest of your post seems to be a move from looking at the logic to demeaning the logician. — Banno

I’ll own that. I looked at the logic, found it wanting, so tacitly disparage the logician positing the very thing I found wanting. And while I acknowledge my wanting means nothing in The Grand Scheme of Things, it arrives honestly, with due diligence, hence there’s as yet no reason to rethink it.

I hope Mww joins in. — Jamal

Yikes!!!

Understanding. Faculty of. Faculty of thought; faculty of judgement; faculty of synthesis of conceptions; faculty of pure a priori cognitions. All listed, as such, verbatim.

One division containing two books containing five chapters containing eight sections containing 179 pages. Oh….and an appendix. Depending on translation.

No wonder there’s mass confusion over just how this thing goes about its business. After 20 years of working on it, two somewhat differing renditions, copious margin jottings, a plethora of peer correspondence….hell, by the time he got done, he might have confused himself.
————

Kant does overlook the difference between S’s abstract and intuitive cognitions, but S overlooks Kant’s difference between discursive and intuitive cognitions. If it is discoverable that Kant’s discursive is not that different than S’s abstract…..S’s criticism is pretty weak.
————

There is a distinction between Kantian and ancient notions of noumena, following from a distinction between Kantian and ancient philosophy. Whether subversion or progress, it is the way of human intelligence generally: build on or tear down whatever some predecessor said.

…..didn’t S do the same thing with respect to Buddhist notions, as S accused Kant of doing with respect to the Greeks? You know….change meanings, relations and whatnot? I dunno myself, although I am aware he associated himself with Buddhist thought in some ways. Just asking.
————-

Kant defines noumena. He stipulates exactly how he intends the conception to be understood in relation to transcendental philosophy in general and the faculty of understanding in particular. Nowhere in the definition is there a clue, an implication, or even a vague hint, of a relation to the ding an sich. It’s in the text, black and white, done deal. Take it to the bank.

The misuse of the conception, in opposition to its definition…..that’s not on him.

That he elaborates on his intended use of the conception in such a way as to confuse the use with the definition….(sigh)…..that is on him, but only because he’s writing for academics, who are supposed to grasp the subtleties on their own, unlike me and those like me, who wouldn’t normally even know there is such a thing to begin with, much less a proper/improper use for it.
(Hume and S call us “vulgar”. At least Kant wasn’t so mean, only referring to us as “common”. Actually, they mean the vulgar or common capacity of our understanding, not us personally.)
————

Universal is listed in the table of judgements, it is an a priori conception, but it is not a pure conception of the understanding, so named in the text, which are the categories, in which universal is not listed. The conceptions in the table of judgements are thought, are put there….arrived at…..as a part of the process of reason; the conceptions in the table of categories are contained in understanding without being thought, insofar as they are “true pure, primitive”, “original”, they’re just there naturally, as integral to our kind of intelligence. Although, there is a bit about the introduction of “transcendental content”…..whatever that entails isn’t given much explanation.

Metaphysical reductionism covering ubiquitous Kantian dualism writ large, for better or worse.

Anyway…. I joined. Whether contributing anything beyond mere opinion, that’s another matter.

….things known empirically that he claims are necessary truths. — Banno

I think this is a misunderstanding…..literally. Things that are known empirically is one thing; that there are necessary truths is quite another.

It cannot be an absolute necessary truth that H is P, if there was a time when they were known with apodeitic certainty to be different things. The Greeks were quite aware it is absurd to name one thing differently, which makes explicit it was necessarily true for them there were two things, and H was not P. It is only now necessarily true that H/P/V are all one and the same object, which makes the truth of the relation between H and P such that H is P, contingent on the time of its being understood.

Funny thing about that…..to be consistent with the Greeks, one must have a congruent experience of this particular celestial object, which is merely a bright spot in the sky in the morning and a bright spot in the sky at night, and nothing else whatsoever. Now we arrive at the real necessary truth, and that resides in the quality of whatever experience it is from which the knowledge is given. It never was necessarily true H was P, but it is certainly necessarily true whoever thinks they are, must have the exact same understanding of their experiences. Necessary truth isn’t inferred from what is known, but deduced from the understanding of what may or may not eventually be known.

If you understand it is necessarily true an object made of wood cannot be made of ice, you must have already understood how an object made of wood manifests as an object of your experience. If you didn’t already understand how a thing is, you couldn’t say how it isn’t. To say a thing known as being made of wood can’t be made of ice, is merely an exercise in cognitive redundancy, which doesn’t tell of anything not already understood. Whether one realizes it or not, is irrelevant; it still happens just like that, with no more or less theoretical speculative authority than Kripke himself posits in his thesis.

Actually…I take that back. Kripke demeans his speculative authority but asking it repeatedly to be imagined, then informing that to imagine is itself flawed. Why imagine something, only to find out you had no warrant to imagine it? Or that you were doing it all wrong? It surprises me to no end Kripke thinks it even possible to imagine incorrectly, when the very conception of imagination as a human cognitive faculty or capability, precludes it as such, from ever being a source of truth.

That being said, I don’t want to be told what I shouldn’t do to arrive at something; I want to be told how to get there.

he gives a variety of examples of what he says are necessary a posteriori facts... — Banno

Yes, he does. But he neglects to mention how, and certainly doesn’t inform as to the possibility that, the examples get to be facts.

“…. For explanations and examples, and other helps to intelligibility, aid us in the comprehension of parts, but they distract the attention, dissipate the mental power of the reader, and stand in the way of his forming a clear conception of the whole…”
————

Disclaimer: I understand this article is a transcript from an oral lecture. I also understand the audience more than likely has some philosophical background, which means they should have a clue about the subtleties not addressed in the lecture itself.

As well, being of analytic persuasion, Kripke has no inclination to metanarratives regarding human intelligence. So saying, a proper critique of the article as it stands on its own, confined as it is to language use and intentionality towards it, finds little support for the procedure by which the content of the article comes to be, and non-analytic philosophers will find little agreement with it for that very reason. The best to be said herein, then, is that Kripke is right in his own way but his own way isn’t right.

Any empirical knowledge is contingent
— Mww

(…) hard to see why Kripke denies it. — Banno

Reference? Page number?

"Heat is necessarily the motion of molecules" cannot literally be true
— RussellA
I don't agree. — Banno

Heat is the motion of molecules…..as far as our experience informs us. Any empirical knowledge is contingent, therefore heat is necessarily the motion of molecules cannot be literally true. It is only as true as we know as of this point in our experience. Will it always be the motion of molecules? Probably, but we are still not logically justified in saying it is necessarily so. Hume’s problem of induction, T.H.N., 1.,3.,6., 1739. You know……more of that old stuff.

What will probably be argued by Mww is that, if heat is the movement of molecules, then while we learned this, it is an a priori fact deriving from the definition of heat. — Banno

Not quite. After we learn this, it resides in experience, such that we can say we know a priori heat is the motion of molecules without immediate testing or experience to prove it. Besides, if I read you right, if it is an a priori fact given from definitions, we wouldn’t need experience to prove it.
———-

we know stuff only by induction or by deduction? — Banno

We know empirical stuff by experience, we know possible empirical stuff, or empirical stuff possibly, by induction; we know a priori stuff only by deduction because there is no need for immediate experience on the one hand, and indeed there may not even be any on the other, for that kind.
————

What's puzzling Kripke is what it might mean to call such truths a priori. — Banno

Dunno why it should be puzzling. For that which is true a priori just means there’s no immediate proof from experience, or no proof from experience possible at all. Whatever makes something true in such case, is merely logical.

Maybe he shouldn’t confuse truth with that which is true. There are no empirical truths; there are only relations between things that do not contradict each other, which makes the relation true under the conditions from which the relation is given.

I’m not a fan of true/truths as such. Far too ambiguous and subject to the inclinations of whomsoever is professing it. Plus, we gotta keep in mind just what kind of intellect is doing all this knowing and truthing and whatnot.

Then comes:"But, all we need to talk about here is this: Is everything that is necessary knowable a priori or known a priori?" — Banno

…..and in the talking about, is the very containment of epistemological within metaphysical statements he denies.

Since it is a mathematical statement, if it is true, then it is true in any possible world - it is necessarily true. — Banno

….which is a metaphysical statement regarding knowledge. From a few instances of a posteriori proofs is developed a principle. For any instance other than from experience, in which the principle is the ground, the proof must hold as it did a posteriori. Otherwise, it is impossible to deduce how the principle could be thought in the first place.

Since we do not have a proof, we do not know if the conjecture is true. Hence we do not know a priori that the conjecture is true. — Banno

It is already given no proof from experience is possible, in that the iterations of the statement are infinite. We have nothing with which to judge infinite conditions, except the logical validity of the principles by which the iterations stand as proven a posteriori, which is of course, the epitome of knowledge a priori.

It becomes unclear what it might be to claim it is true a priori. — Banno

We don’t care if the conjecture is true, we can’t ever arrive at its finality anyway; we only care that the principles which ground the conjecture, work together and do not contradict themselves. We know a priori the principles of universality and absolute necessity, from which is given the LNC. From the LNC is given validity of the conjecture, even without the possibility of empirical proof for it.

What it might be to claim it is true a priori, then, is just to show that if it isn’t, the entire base of human intelligence, re: logic, is junk, insofar as if we cannot use the LNC to validate the conjecture, the use of it to validate anything at all becomes questionable, which is itself a contradiction.

We can reduce ambiguity and increase certainty by employing axioms which leave no room for ambiguity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed. Which returns to I think a major bone of contention in Kripke’s thesis, with respect to classes of statements of knowledge and of metaphysics, where he says, pg 177, “Now I hold that neither class of statements is contained in the other”.

This is to categorically deny the validity of a priori knowledge, the statements of which are always metaphysical, and by such denial the very possibility of purely logical truth disappears. And if that is the case, then purely logical conceptions, in particular, the modal relations under which this entire thesis is constructed, are empty.

Your “leave no room for ambiguity” is the very same thing as the validity of principles, and the “increased certainty” arises from the subsequent employment of them in deductive inferences, which are only and always from pure thought, a quite metaphysical enterprise, I must say.

Just in passing…..rhetorically speaking.

Ok. Thanks.

What do you make of this, pg 177-8:

“One could not say that though in fact every even number is the sum of two primes, there could not have been some extra number which was even and not the sum of two primes. So we certainly do not know, a priori or even posteriori, that every even number is the sum of two primes”.

But does temperature equate to (the sensation of) heat? — Banno

For a thermometer, or some sort of mechanical probe, seems so. For the human skin, its sensation is of more or less heat, or heat or no heat, temperature, as representation of a specific degree of heat relative to a standard, being irrelevant.