Good that Kant is your favorite philosopher.

Space meets the Kantian requirements as a transcendental.... — val p miranda

Transcendental.....what? — Mww

A pure concept that is not empirical. — val p miranda

Thing is....the pure conceptions belong to understanding and are called categories, of which space is not one.

“...Consequently, the original representation of space is an intuition a priori, and not a conception....”

“...Space is no discursive, or as we say, general conception of the relations of things, but a pure intuition....”

“....Hence it follows that an à priori intuition (which is not empirical) lies at the root of all our conceptions of space....”

But all that doesn’t answer, “transcendental....what?”

Space meets the Kantian requirements as a transcendental..... — val p miranda

Interesting statement.

Transcendental.....what?

Philosophy is fun! — Srap Tasmaner

Ahhhh....the sheer joy of it!!! I’m about to indulge, so....here goes.

The sensibility of these scenarios proves the distinction between truth and judgement. — Michael

Is this to say common sense is sufficient criterion for proof?
———-

There is no judgement. — Michael

If two men disagree on whether or not something is the case.... — Michael

That one agrees or disagrees with another is nothing more than one’s judgement relative to the other’s. That a third party invokes the logical laws to justify the differences between the first two, is no less a judgment.
———

we determine the meaning..... — Michael

Our language use determines the meaning.... — Michael

.....which reduces to we are our language use, which presupposes we of particular abilities. Better to understand what we are, such that our abilities are then possible, before making claims about things we do with them. If, given sufficient examination, it is discovered every initial thought or consequential speech-act, by each and every individual otherwise rationally adept human, is a determined judgement, then it follows necessarily that truth is a judgement, a judgement of relative certainty. Relative with respect to the conditions for its ground, certain in accordance with experience.

Thing about having fun with philosophy, is that it just might be at someone else’s expense, for which I offer a sort of apology.

Sorry, Micheal, if my fun costs your dismay, but I couldn’t let this go by transcendentally unmolested. Feel free to.....you know.....judge the comprehensibility of my comment, or not, as you wish. But just by reading it, haven’t you already?

Which to me implies that Kant isn't intending to differ from the classical account. — Andrew M

I’ll have to leave that alone; I don’t see how classical can be derived from nominal, but that’s ok. Also....once again.....translator’s preference. The SEP quote is right, but mine on pg 45 herein, is also right, and different. In addition, the SEP quote, after “is assumed as granted”, leaves out “...and is presupposed”, which offers a clue as to what exactly definitions are supposed to do.

Nevertheless, there is rather apparently an intended difference between Kant and Aristotle, insofar as the former’s definition contains cognition, while the latter’s does not. They would have been much less different if Aristotle had said, “to think that what is is......”.
———

the word is not defined within its own definition — Andrew M

Granted, on a technicality.

“....This will be plain if we first define truth and falsehood. To say that what is is not, or that what is not is, is false; but to say that what is is, and what is not is not, is true....”

Still, it appears he writes that truth as such shall be defined, but really only exemplifies what form a true statement would have.

Anyway.....good enough for me. Thanks.

This one's a lot like Kant's distinction between phenomenon and noumenon — fdrake

Effectively we're arguing about whether semantic content relates to appearance or phenomenon! — fdrake

Semantic content: having to do with meaning of linguistic or logic symbols.
A.) neither phenomena nor noumena, as such, have to do with symbols of any kind, with the acknowledgement that representation is itself not a symbol, but an integral member of a particular intelligence system, and......
B.) phenomena arise from sensibility as the faculty of intuition, but noumena arise from understanding as the faculty of thought, and while for human cognition they must work in conjunction with each other, they are entirely different faculties, and in and of themselves, do not relate to each other.

Regarding the kettle is boiling statement, the kettle is a phenomenon, insofar as there is a general, undetermined object of perception susceptible to being represented by a particular conception, or a manifold of related conceptions. (Kettles are metal of a shape, but also this metal or that metal of a shape). So it’s hard to see anything in the present discussion having to do with the distinction between phenomena and noumena. Perfect example of this, in relation to Kant anyway, is that there are a veritable plethora of representations of phenomena, the kettle being one of course, but not a single one, ever, anywhere, representing a noumenon. We can think noumenon, but we can never represent to ourselves, a noumenon. If we cannot represent to ourselves a noumenon, we cannot affirm semantic content for it.

If it be acknowledged that words represent conceptions, and conceptions arise from the faculty of understanding alone, then semantic content has nothing to do with phenomena nor appearance, insofar as those arise from sensibility. Semantic content, then, relates to what we think about phenomena, but does not relate to phenomena themselves. And what we think about phenomena, manifests in the conceptions attached to them. (Correctly....synthesized with them via imagination, but I suspect eyebrows reaching for the heavens here, so.....never mind)
————-

Hell...I’ve come this far, might as well continue, right?

Earlier, in the “Aesthetic”, Kant had defined appearance as: “the undetermined object of an empirical intuition” (A34/B20).

In Kemp Smith 1929 and Guyer/Wood 1989 this is correct, but in Meiklejohn 1856-7 it reads “...The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon...”. Why does this matter, you ask, and I know you are. Well, taking the standard pagination as gospel, in conjunction with the index of terminology, phenomena isn’t even mentioned, except in Meiklejohn, clean up to A249/B306. If phenomena are a condition of sensibility, why did he wait so long to present an exposition as to what they are, and when he did, it was in the section devoted to the faculty of understanding. An explanation for this can be found in the text, but sorta requires a certain interpretive inclination.

Ahhhh....now the nifty stuff, in which has made a great point: appearance with respect to sensibility is presence, the presence of an undetermined object of sensation, the schema of our intuitions; appearance with respect to understanding is image, the schema of our conceptions. We are not conscious of our phenomena, but we are conscious of our images. Kant was an admitted dualist, so does not contradict himself in using appearance in two senses, and the reader must satisfy himself as to the separation logically mandated by their respective use.

When appearance is in the sense of image, it must have been given a semantic content, re: a logical composition, re: a synthesis of related conceptions. Otherwise, there would be nothing comprehensible on which to form a rational judgement, and therefore knowledge of that object we initially sensed, would be false at best hence possibly correctable, or altogether impossible at worst, hence not correctable at all.

Kinda like....the image we construct is what the presence is judged to look like. I mean...we can really envision an object we know, without it being present.

So what's happening here is not really to do with the semantic content of each word, or the order we put them in. It's to do with another person sharing my model, my expectations. — Isaac

D’accord. This notion holds even for rote instruction, such that those youngsters in their first years of schooling, by merely perceiving the objects of instruction, still have to relate those objects to an self-contained, internal, system of their own, consistently, with whichever arbitrary source they come from.

Taking the notion a step further, while it is your expectation, it is another’s anticipation. You expect me to understand; I anticipate I will. And vice versa.

Is Kant's definition of truth, "the accordance of the cognition with its object”, much different to Aristotle's definition "To say of what is that it is ... is true"? — Andrew M

Regarding Aristotle, for those interested, and for context, see Metaphysics, 4, 1011b.

I think much different, yes. “...This will be plain if we first define truth and falsehood....”, which immediately precedes the passage in question, so it appears by defining both, he is merely pointing out what he calls “contraries”, and subsequently, to eliminate what he calls “intermediaries”. In effect, whatever is said about anything at all, that is to say, anything that exists....his words...., must be either entirely true or false, not both under the same conditions, and not part of one and part of the other under the same conditions. So we have statements concerning that which is true or false, but....again....not what true or false is.

As well, it is logically inconsistent to contain the word being defined within its own definition, which Aristotle does, but Kant does not. From that alone, it may be said Aristotle is not defining what truth is, but simply relating truth to that which is not false.

To relate Aristotle’s passage to Kant, it is probably better to use Kant’s, “the mark of truth is that for which the negation is a contradiction”. Not to be confused with, “ the mark of necessity is that for which the negation is impossible”.

Besides, a cognition qua procedural mental event, is far antecedent to its representation in language form in the saying of it. To say a thing is true presupposes, albeit perhaps only metaphysically, the cognition from which the language representing that truth, is assembled in the form of a particular judgement.

Yes? No? Maybe?

from the perspective that patterns of association in language mirror patterns of association in environments — fdrake

Understood, and agreed, in principle. My language would be......errrr, shall I say, older?.....different, but the idea behind it would be congruent. My reluctant quibble would be, then, from whence comes the mirror, and what form does the mirror require in order for the associations to work.
————-

the initial metaphysical question cannot be answered with empirical examples.
— Mww

This is a thing. — Srap Tasmaner

....and from this well-worn and exceedingly comfortable armchair, a very big thing it is. The solution seems to have become the disregard of metaphysical questions, or at the very least turn them into anthropological/psychological questions. Which is, I must say, “...beneath the dignity of philosophy...”.

Nothing I've posted so far has gone anywhere. — Srap Tasmaner

HA!!! My post on pg 45 didn’t even get a response, even though it contained a distinct and irreducible answer to the question. Might not be correct, and is certainly open to disagreement, but at least it was there.

First: utmost respect; interesting and informative dialectic.
Second: how, in the answer to “what is truth”, should that general dialectic by conditioned by at least an unstated presupposition, or at most, a particular falsehood?
Case in point: the conclusion you can never boil the same kettle twice is justified, but only insofar as to state a kettle boils even once, while not impossible, is nonetheless contrary to experience and diminishes the power of the affirmation for what truth is. Kettles don’t boil, even though that is the linguistic and therefore logical construct presented in the dialectic, which necessitates the unstated presupposition in order to validate the argument. In effect, what is true is being conditioned by a mere presupposition, such that an example of what is a truth, but absolutely nothing is accomplished by it, with respect to what truth is.

As states, in an apparently Hume-ian fashion, re: “constant conjunction”, if you say the kettle is boiling, you expect bubbles, which would be the case, for this is at root an analytic judgement. But the tacit understanding the bubbles expected are given by the content of the kettle and not the boiling kettle, immediately makes the statement itself no longer analytic, and thus becomes the source of an illogical inference, and....as we all know....needs awaken one from his “dogmatic slumber”.

Now I’ll rejoin that rather minuscule human demographic of the overly-critical, or, if preferred, the more general group of those hopelessly under-informed, but perhaps you’d agree with me that the initial metaphysical question cannot be answered with empirical examples.

I'm not expecting an academic answer..... — Skalidris

By stipulating “philosophical research” sufficient to answer the questions, isn’t an academic answer implied?

to me they all lead to the same problem once they're debated.... — Skalidris

What problem? Sans debate, the problem doesn’t arise?

Those “a little bit interested” can offer opinion. Is that enough?

It should be emphasized that neither the expression (T) (....) nor any particular instance of the form (T) can be regarded as a definition of truth. — Andrew M

In seeking an answer to the question, “what is truth”, that passage says, in a modernized, which is to say, seriously overblown, manner, nothing effectively superior to the entry on pg 45.

Anthropology/psychology (satisfaction) to metaphysics (truth), is limestone/gypsum to a biscuit recipe.

There's more to an explanation than a kind of sub-level of more foundational grounds. — Isaac

Usually, conventionally, yes, but does not remain that case, in which an explanation serves as a proof? Granted, a highly restricted explanatory domain, to be sure, but can’t it be said that proofs are explanations given from the most foundational ground relative to that which is explained?

more foundational grounds doesn't exhaust the sort of thing an 'explanation' might be. "It just feels that way" is such an answer, for example. — Isaac

.....to which I would argue that “it just feels that way”, while indeed a foundational ground and may be an answer, it is difficult to suppose as an explanation. Here I would agree that there is more to an explanation than this kind of foundational ground.

We can leave it here, if you like. You’ve got a lot of answering to do otherwise, so...thanks for taking the time.

explaining a couple of the presuppositions — Isaac

Ooooo....you sneaky devil, you. I see what you did right there. Everyone has his own presuppositions, and your chosen field of expertise aims to reduce them all to something by which they are all explained.

Even if you’re right, and all presuppositions can be explained, we’re still left with the “horse....water” conundrum. Which is fine, we’re already in one anyway, presented by reason itself.

Same as it ever was.....

My point is all about bringing logic back into the real world by showing how it is in fact grounded in the brute reality of a pragmatic modelling relation. — apokrisis

We were warned, not to extend logic so far it needs bringing back:

“....Because, however, the mere form of a cognition, accurately as it may accord with logical laws, is insufficient to supply us with material (objective) truth, no one, by means of logic alone, can venture to predicate anything of or decide concerning objects, unless he has obtained, independently of logic, well-grounded information about them, in order afterwards to examine, according to logical laws, into the use and connection, in a cohering whole, of that information, or, what is still better, merely to test it by them.

Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, (...) teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, (conditions) which do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects; any attempt to employ it as an instrument 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....” (CPR A61,2/B85,6)

I'm interested in any "finessing" you may care to offer. — Janus

How do I know the world is not my experience? It is self-evident. — Janus

.....just like that. Such knowledge is given immediately from that which constitutes experience, pursuant to a epistemological theory that proves what experience is and thereby the constituency of it.

Claiming self-evidence is dangerous, though, for, with respect to human cognition, that which is irreducibly self-evident concerns itself with logical form a priori without regard to objects, whereas “world” is an empirical conception a posteriori representing a manifold of all possible objects. In effect, that which is known or knowable, re: a multiplicity/plurality of synthetically derived particulars, is put in conflict with that which is merely thought or conceivable, re: an analytically derived universal.

On the other hand, however, that knowledge, and consequently, experience, of a manifold of infinite possibilities is itself impossible is categorically presupposed, from which it follows that knowledge of the world cannot be experience is necessarily self-evident to pure reason, which is metaphysically transcendental, but not necessarily to judgement, which is cognitively relational.

Make no mistake about it: the notion of “conceptual schema” cannot be divorced from empirical states of affairs. Not for us as humans, operating under the auspices of an intellect that absolutely requires it. And from that necessity, the assertion, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”, taken at face value, is catastrophically false, in that language makes no appearance whatsoever in mere representations of conceptual schema, which in and of themselves alone, are limits of a world. I am limited by what I can think, and that, at least sufficiently, by the laws of rational thought, not by what I can express by symbolic device.

Yeahyeahyeah.....I know: one guy’s finessing is another guy’s nonsense. But, hey.....you asked for it, so, there ya go.

Our perceptions and conceptions evolve out of experience, individually and collectively. We know that we experience images, we never perceive whole things, and we never perceive the world at all, but just images of the objects we understand to constitute it. We have conceptual purchase on the world just because it is our idea, we certainly don't have experiential purchase on any such totality. — Janus

Well said. The subtleties can be finessed.....but generally, well said.

the exact relational nature of the world has to be uncovered through thought — introbert

THAT’S what’s next.

It's a wide open invitation. — Sam26

I do so love being invited. It’s only later I sometimes regret it.

“...The old question with which people sought to push logicians into a corner, so that they must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms or confess their ignorance, and consequently the vanity of their whole art, is this: “What is truth?” The definition of the word truth, to wit, “the accordance of the cognition with its object,” is presupposed in the question; but we desire to be told, in the answer to it, what is the universal and secure criterion of the truth of every cognition....”

After all the analytical hoopla....there isn’t one.

Philosophically, it means that if sound reasoning supports the negation of a proposition under one set of conditions, and an affirmation of the very same proposition under a different set of conditions.....there’s something much more fundamental going on than whatever’s contained in the proposition.

If idea is only representation and analogy only implies relationship then the ideas/ perceptions of the world serve as a representation that gives the perceiver some relationship to the world. — introbert

While that may be necessary, it isn’t sufficient, insofar as no account is given for what the relationship is, or how it manifests, and consequently, what is to be done with it.

Good start. What’s next?

not even a second rater, in your view? — Janus

Ehhhh.....his philosophy is, in my view. And as a regular guy, I think he’s way too harsh on his peers, almost disrespectful. Combining the two subjective judgements, one could relegate S to the second tier. On the other hand of course, if there has already been one chosen to be at the top, all the others are second-rate, or less.

Kant’s use of noumenal vs thing-in-itself is notoriously convoluted. — schopenhauer1

The relevant texts sustain the fact he doesn’t convolute one with the other; they are entirely different conceptions. It is those who followed that are guilty of it. His interchanging of the terminology is understood, and forgiven, in context.

A difference that makes a difference? I think not, insofar as our knowledge extends to neither of them.
————

the demonstration was the use of one’s own internal willing nature and he took the leap to apply it to all phenomena where there are forces, and animals with a striving force etc. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, I see the demonstration, but don’t quite accept the justification. I mean, he’s authorized to speculate as he wishes, as are philosophers in general, but he still needs to give empirical evidence in support of it. To equate “force of nature” with “unity of will” just seems a bridge too far.

are you looking for the specific term "nominal" in his writings? — schopenhauer1

No. I’m questioning the OP, in which is stated, “Schop says that the narrow door to the truth is that our bodies appears to us as both external physical objects (as representation) and as something we can experience such as touch hunger and desire I.e as will. And because our bodies appears to us as both will and as representation-the noumenal world is entirely constituted out of will.[/quote]

I can’t find any justification for S relating the dual nature of our understanding of ourselves, to the noumenal world. Maybe there isn’t any, in that S never did actually relate one to the other, instead, invoking the thing-in-itself, which the post-Kantians, and meager philosophers in general, illegitimately seized upon as noumena.

I guess I was hoping someone could transfer the notion of will with respect to the empirical world, to the noumenal world.

Perhaps someone can help me with S’s speaking of the noumenal world....or anything noumenal....cuz I can’t find it, at least in WWR, or FPSR.

All that aside, S pats Kant on the back, then criticizes his foremost “error”, by committing the exact same kind:

“....That the will which we find within us does not proceed, as philosophy has hitherto assumed, first from knowledge, and indeed is a mere modification of it, thus something secondary, derived, and, like knowledge itself, conditioned by the brain; but that it is the prius of knowledge, the kernel of our nature, and that original force itself which forms and sustains the animal body, in that it carries out both its unconscious and its conscious functions;—this is the first step in the fundamental knowledge of my metaphysics.....
(WW & I, 3, XXIII, 1844, in Haldane/Kemp, 1889)


.....That, further, it is that same will which in the plant forms the bud in order to develop the leaf and the flower out of it; nay, that the regular form of the crystal is only the trace which its momentary effort has left behind, and that in general, as the true and only αυτοματον, in the proper sense of the word, it lies at the foundation of all the forces of unorganised nature, plays, acts, in all their multifarious phenomena, imparts power to their laws, and even in the crudest mass manifests itself as gravity;—this insight is the second step in that fundamental knowledge, and is brought about by further reflection....
(Ibid)

....For it is the tracing back of that which is quite inaccessible to our immediate knowledge, and therefore in its essence foreign and unknown to us, which we denote by the words force of nature, to that which is known to us most accurately and intimately, but which is yet only accessible to us in our own being and directly, and must therefore be carried over from this to other phenomena. It is the insight that what is inward and original in all the changes and movements of bodies, however various they may be, is in its nature identical; that yet we have only one opportunity of getting to know it more closely and directly, and that is in the movements of our own body. In consequence of this knowledge we must call it will. It is the insight that that which acts and strives in nature, and exhibits itself in ever more perfect phenomena, when it has worked itself up so far that the light of knowledge falls directly upon it, i.e., when it has attained to the state of self-consciousness—exists as that will, which is what is most intimately known to us, and therefore cannot be further explained by anything else, but rather affords the explanation of all other things. It is accordingly the thing in itself so far as this can ever be reached by knowledge. Consequently it is that which must express itself in some way in everything in the world, for it is the inner nature of the world and the kernel of all phenomena....
(Ibid)

.....The unity of that will, here referred to, which lies beyond the phenomenon, and in which we have recognised the inner nature of the phenomenal world, is a metaphysical unity, and consequently transcends the knowledge of it, i.e., does not depend upon the functions of our intellect, and therefore can not really be comprehended by it. Hence it arises that it opens to the consideration an abyss so profound that it admits of no thoroughly clear and systematically connected insight, but grants us only isolated glances, which enable us to recognise this unity in this and that relation of things, now in the subjective, now in the objective sphere, whereby, however, new problems are again raised, all of which I will not engage to solve, but rather appeal here to the words est quadam prodire tenus**, more concerned to set up nothing false or arbitrarily invented than to give a thorough account of all;—at the risk of giving here only a fragmentary exposition.
** “it is something to proceed thus far, if it be not permitted to go farther” (Horace)
(ibid XXV)

So....Kant says there is that knowledge unavailable to us simply because our particular intelligence is not equipped for it, to which S says he merely didn’t examine properly why such should be the case. S then goes about substituting “force of nature”, or, “unity of will”, or simply “will”, which is the most known to us of all things, for the ding an sich. But, alas....even that “unity of will”, which is a facile euphemism for “will-in-itself”, is that of which human knowledge has no immediate access, but at the same time, “will” is that of which each otherwise rational human intellect, has full and complete access, albeit on an individual basis. Just as things are that which are known as opposed to things-in themselves which are not, so too is will that which is accessible, but will as force of nature, is not. All that really happened here is effectively reducible to a “recourse to pitiful sophisms” (CPR, A58).

There may be a force of nature by which “...the plant forms the bud in order to develop the leaf and the flower out of it...”, but by what warrant should that force be derived from the conception....as transcendental as it must be....of the human will?

S comments that K’s thesis is a form of negative knowledge, in that K grounds his theory on what knowledge is not, or, on how knowledge illegitimately acquired is no knowledge at all. S then stipulates that his own metaphysics, taken as an improvement on K’s insofar as the thing-in-itself can be immediately known to us when conceived as “will”....but ultimately declines to forward a positive knowledge with respect to it, by invoking Horace.

Over the years, I’ve come to favor the notion that if S hadn’t begun by heaping praise on Kant by the bucketful, thereby putting himself in the limelight of a paradigm shift, hadn’t deemed himself a proper German transcendental idealist, thereby conforming to the philosophical standard of his time and place, and at the same time hadn’t ridiculed his peers mercilessly....especially Hegel and somewhat less-so Fitche.....his metaphysics wouldn’t have however much traction subsequently attributed to it. It seems rather obvious that if WWR preceded CPR, or, which is the same thing, if proper human intellect had been attributed necessarily to an external ontological domain rather than an internal epistemological one.....it may not have even got off the scholastic ground.

Thus it is, contra S is not so much a second-rate philosopher as a coattail rider, and, in affirmation with , a poor critic of Kant.

All that, without ever asking...... how in the HELL is it possible to “trace back” from the unknowable, re: a necessary force of nature, to the most known, re: freedom as ground of the human will? How S accomplished that, is even more suspect than the exchange of the Kantian unknowable thing-in-itself (an altogether empirical something), to a Schopenhauer-ian knowable metaphysical condition (an altogether transcendental something). This isn’t just apples and oranges; it’s more like apples and dump trucks.

Now...back to the noumenal world: what about it?

I don't like your proof because it proves me wrong, and I simply reject it possibly with some baseless argument or foolish comment. (....) How would you call my rejection of proof, in philosophical manner? — SpaceDweller

You’d think a philosopher would respond in a philosophical manner, right? At least one does, here:

“....General logic contains no directions or precepts for the faculty of judgement, nor can it contain any such. For as it makes abstraction of all content of cognition, no duty is left for it, except that of exposing analytically the mere form of cognition in conceptions, judgements, and conclusions, and of thereby establishing formal rules for all exercise of the understanding. Now if this logic wished to give some general direction how we should subsume under these rules, that is, how we should distinguish whether this or that did or did not stand under them, this again could not be done otherwise than by means of a rule. But this rule, precisely because it is a rule, requires for itself direction from the faculty of judgement. Thus, it is evident that the understanding is capable of being instructed by rules, but that the judgement is a peculiar talent, which does not, and cannot require tuition, but only exercise. This faculty is therefore the specific quality, the want of which no scholastic discipline can compensate. For although 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.[26]

[26] Deficiency in judgement is properly that which is called stupidity; and for such a failing we know no remedy. A dull or narrow-minded person, to whom nothing is wanting but a proper degree of understanding, may be improved by tuition, even so far as to deserve the epithet of learned. But as such persons frequently labour under a deficiency in the faculty of judgement, it is not uncommon to find men extremely learned who in the application of their science betray a lamentable degree this irremediable want....”

That’s how I would call your rejection, given baseless argument or foolish comment. Kindly, deficiency in judgement, or harshly....stupidity.

In the example, "p" is what is said to be true, so "p" represents a judgement which is judged as a true judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

Understood, and here is an assertorial judgement, insofar as “p is true” affords none other than an affirmation.

I won’t agree “p” represents a judgement, but even without that, “p is true”, does, so the feature of truth residing in judgement, holds.

"true" and "false" are attributed to judgements. Ignoring this simple feature of truth leads to endless discussion getting nowhere. — Metaphysician Undercover

Simple feature...agreed. What would you say if “truth” and “false” weren’t so much attributed to judgements, but ARE themselves judgements?

C'mon, give me something to disagree with... — Janus

HA!!!

Sorry... I messed up. Posted a minor point I disagreed with, but that wasn’t what you asked for. I’ll have to think about it.

I said that my thoughts ,feelings and bodily sensations are what is most immediately present to me...., — Janus

Agreed, in principle. Just depends on which act of the play......which step in the method..... is under consideration.

”Descartes famously emphasized that subjective reality is better known than objective reality....”

I don't agree with Descartes as this represents him. — Janus

Agreed, this time wholeheartedly. Meditations II, where all this originates, is titled OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND; AND THAT IT IS MORE EASILY KNOWN THAN THE BODY, so are we then to accept that the nature of the human mind is subjective reality. I don’t.

All the rest is just folks figuring that’s what he really meant, and would really have said, if only he thought like us.

We know our own existence as body, not as some "non-physical" self. — Janus

Yeah, pretty much. I as representation is logically superior to I as existence. You know.....no category can be a predicate in a logical proposition, so it is said. Biggest deal is, even so, the I qua conceptual representation, is never present in thought as such. When I say, “I think.....”, the thinking has already been done.

Anyway....carry on.

I'm familiar with Kant's version, and I have little argument with it; but I don't think he has the same thing in mind that you do. — Janus

I must agree. And....good series of comments.

And here's a scholar summarizing: — Pie

....and at the very end of that “scholar” summarizing, is a get-out-of-jail-free card, or, as I already mentioned, suited himself for his own ends:

“....Such an account depends on a particular interpretation of Kant’s texts, and is both ambitious and highly complex in its ramifications....”, which is fitting, insofar as perusal of the various translations of the texts themselves, say nothing about reason’s autonomy. Kant would never have lasted as long as he has, as the GoTo Guy of epistemological metaphysics, if he insisted the will and pure reason occupied the same legislative chair.

But I understand the derivation of the interpretation, in that, for Kant, autonomy is complete freedom from outside influence, and Kant says reason is subject to its own critique, which is not outside influence, hence someone reads autonomy into it. Which is either fine and worthy, or fast and loose, depending on how much the genius himself is respected.
————-

I just presented an opportunity for you to ask yourself a question....
— Mww

Are you really asking me how I'd apply a concept ? — Pie

Nope; just wanted to see how you’d respond to a direct inquiry. I wouldn’t know and hardly care about how you do whatever it is you do.
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Representation isn't the only possible metaphor here, and we don't have to have to accept an entity for a noun. — Pie

You’re doing that; reason must accept that which is for that which is not, in the simplest non-contradictory way possible. That which is accepted into the system is nothing but representation, for acceptance of the thing itself is absolutely impossible. An entity for an entity, pure and simple.

But you’re correct: we don’t have to accept anything, and in our dialectic, one theory over another. But whatever we do accept should be completely examined, understandable and not infringe on the natural order. With yours, I must say, stuff like....

Concepts, koncepts, khancepts, conecepts. — Pie

......is mere sophistical subterfuge.

I recall that you hate linguistic philosophy, but language is what you must make your case in. — Pie

I have no use for OLP, but I have no choice but to use language, iff I wish to make a case. As I said....or maybe I deleted because I decided not to make that case.....expression which requires only a singular subjectivity, or communication, which requires a plurality of subjectivities, are only possible through a medium that is not subjective.
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Your version of understanding, if we grant a nonlinguistic version of this in the first place, isn't enough. — Pie

It is enough for what it does; it is not enough for that which is beyond its power. My version of understanding represents the biggest wheel in the set of cognitive gears, nothing more, nothing less. It can do nothing by itself, but nothing can be done without it. That’s how systems work. Theoretically.
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As Kant saw, reason is autonomous, one and universal, — Pie

Yeah, well....in Kant, autonomy does not relate to universality, but causality, so whoever said Kant said, or meant, that, has merely suited himself to his own ends. And as you say, we are entitled to interpret, but we do not have license from that entitlement, to subvert.
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How does an experience of an unjust incident inform you of how it could be so, if you didn’t already have an idea what form justice itself must have?
— Mww

We could actually talk about semantics if you want. — Pie

No need. I just presented an opportunity for you to ask yourself a question. Shouldn’t be any more difficult, or use any other faculties, than asking yourself what would be nice to have for dinner.

Am I to think that you imagine the possibility of a Kant without some rich culture that birth and trained him, gave him the very languages of his art ? — Pie

What....you never heard the expression “thinking outside the box”? What is a culture if not a box? Being in a culture and conditioned by it, does not necessitate being restricted to it.

My focus on language is simply that of an epistemologist trying to figure out a philosopher's minimum commitment. — Pie

......but there’s nothing in that that says the philosopher’s minimum commitment has to be language, which implies you’re focus is misplaced, or, being an epistemologist is not the proper discipline for figuring a philosopher’s minimum commitment. I would say a philosopher’s minimum commitment, is understanding. What can any philosopher accomplish if he understands nothing? Which means he must understand something, which means he must possess a fully functional faculty for understanding. As it so happens, a transcendental metaphysician is more adept at figuring a philosopher’s minimum commitment than an epistemologist, who actually is only interested in the philosopher’s minimum knowledge, which he could never determine anyway.

I oppose the view that (most) concepts are 'pre-given' — Pie

Pre-given carries a temporal implication. Pre-....what? Most are not pre-anything, arising spontaneously with initial perception of a given real object, but some are pre-cognition, according to one specific view. Pretty obvious, I should think. Conceptions refer to something represented by its object, but there are concepts that refer to something that does not have an object that represents it. Cause is a concept, but there is no representable cause object, but only objects represented as being caused or causal. Beauty is a concept, but there is no beauty object, only objects that are beautiful.
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Was it not clear that my point was about language acquisition ? — Pie

Nope....I musta missed it. My impression has been that you’ve merely presupposed it, at least for all intents and purposes. What was your point about language acquisition?
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Then koncepts are public and what actually matters here. — Pie

.....which implies the concepts used in private thought don’t actually matter here. That’s fine, concepts are nothing but notions in a speculative theory with respect to human cognition. Something makes private thought possible, or, there is no such thing as private thought. Pick your own preferred bondage, right? Would you saw off the limb you’re sitting on, by allowing that humans think, but find no authorization for allowing it?
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I suggest that it's not confusion but simply a matter of replacing a broken theory with something better. — Pie

“Something better” and “broken theory” are subjective judgements. Who says it’s better, and, better than what? And what’s broken about some extant theory? The insight “meaning is use” just changes the location of “use”, from the internal, rational with respect to a system, to the external, empirical with respect to a language. Left out of the insight, and solving the riddle of possible human cognitive extravagances, is.....time. Doesn’t matter that meaning is use, insofar as no use of any linguistic representation is prior to the concept to which it belongs.

Instead of what's essentially a theology of mystic Forms..... — Pie

So....you know what justice is because you’ve experience things that seem just or unjust to you? How does an experience of an unjust incident inform you of how it could be so, if you didn’t already have an idea what form justice itself must have?

(Well, shucks, Mr. Bill. If you’ve seen enough injustice, you know what justice is, because it isn’t that.)

It isn’t that ad infinitum still doesn’t tell you what it is, and if you are not informed as to what it is, you cannot explain why it seems otherwise. So the lackadaisically disinterested end up with, “well, damned if I know. It just is”, then go about their day kicking the cat or running over the trash barrel some fool left in the driveway.

Let the game continue then. — Pie

Not much point, really. I am he who unabashedly “rises to the level of speculation”, you are not, by your own admission.

Here's the real Descartes: — Pie

Nahhhh. Here is the real Descartes:
https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/descartes1637.pdf;
https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=philosophy#page50
https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/descartes1644part1.pdf.

Concepts are public. — Pie

As with thinking, no, they are not. They may have public exhibition, but they are not themselves public.

We could invent 'thoughts' as postulated, explanatory entities. — Pie

....which merely asks how inventions are possible. The common mistake of confounding the thing with the use of the thing. For those bent on misappropriation of logical systems, it is unintelligible that the thing IS its use.

but I never made such a claim..... — Pie

......but in each case of the claims you do make, what I say may follow without violating the LNC. Not for refutation of, but as expansion on, such claims.

I’m far too old and been around far too many blocks to be offended by anything but the most egregious. But thanks for the sentiment.

The philosopher is an individual among others, offering and justifying claims presumably because others are possibly unaware of either those claims as possible truths or of their justifications as possibly warranting their adoption as beliefs. — Pie

“.....it does not deprive the speculative philosopher of his just title to be the sole depositor of a science which benefits the public without its knowledge. This can never become popular and, indeed, has no occasion to be so; for finespun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force themselves on every man who rises to the height of speculation, it becomes (a) manifest duty (...) to enter upon a thorough investigation of the rights of speculative reason and, thus, to prevent the scandal which metaphysical controversies are sure, sooner or later, to cause even to the masses. It is only by criticism that metaphysicians (and, as such, theologians too) can be saved from these controversies and from the consequent perversion of their doctrines. Criticism alone can strike a blow at the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which are universally injurious—as well as of idealism and scepticism, which (....) can scarcely pass over to the public.....”
(CPR, Bxxxvi)
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I can survive in the woods for months perhaps, because I have a few great survival books with me..... — Pie

Having the books with you and surviving, does not prove you could not have survived if you didn’t. Which immediately transforms the implied causal necessity of language into a mere conditional possibility. Cum hoc ergo proper hoc doncha know......

And by including the relational qualifier “perhaps”, only turns the cum hoc mistake into a post hoc mistake. I did survive because of having the books becomes if I do survive it will be because of having the books. Neither condition is necessarily true in itself, conditioned by merely having the books.

All I’m saying is hopefully there are formal pro-language arguments less susceptible to self-destruction than that one. And the first thing required for that, is a commonality of presuppositions, which is missing in your proposition. You have the books and your presupposition is that you read them and transform the contents into the physical means for your survival. I, in merely reading your proposition, have no such presupposition, insofar as I’m concerned, you have the books, and although as books their primary purpose is to be read, I have no ground to presuppose you actually did read them merely from the fact you have them and perhaps survived.

Your thinking, given its presuppositions, and my thinking absent those presuppositions, makes explicit each ends in a private determination belonging to an individual subject, which in turn contradicts the notion that.....

Thinking is public. The negation of this statement is unintelligible. — Pie

The negation of that statement, re:, thinking is not public, or, no thinking is public, is both logically sustainable and intelligible, given the axiomatic principle “thought (the process of thinking) is cognition** by means of conceptions”
(CPR A69/B94, my parenthetical; **”knowledge” in Kemp Smith, 1929, “cognition” in Guyer/Wood, 1988)

The totality of private thinking, the compendium of all subjectively determinable cognitions by means of conceptions, does not authorize thinking as being more public than private. Even if it is true that everybody thinks, in itself such is no justification for the claim that thinking is grounded by communal necessity. Communication of private thinking by means of language, on the other hand, requires reciprocity, which in turn requires a more than singular private subjectivity, but mere expression of private thinking, also by means of language, requires neither reciprocity nor community and only a singular private subjectivity. It follows that absent both communication and expression of private thinking, language has no absolutely necessary function whatsoever.

“.....if some of the moderns have thought to enlarge its domain by introducing psychological discussions on the mental faculties (...), or anthropological discussions on (cognitive or personal) prejudices, their causes and remedies: this attempt, on the part of these authors, only shows their ignorance of the peculiar nature of logical science. We do not enlarge but disfigure the sciences when we lose sight of their respective limits and allow them to run into one another....”
(CPR Bvii)
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This individual body is trained into the language system....... — Pie

Yeah.....no. The idea is, upon reception of “your shoe’s untied!!”, the body immediately proceeds to go through the motions of rectifying the implication of the received language. The body first yanks the strings to gather the requisite material for tying, crosses one string over the other, etc., etc., etc. But none of those actions are contained in the given language.

So the argument is that all those actions were trained into the body at some anterior time, given by their own anterior language reception. Now arises the absurdity that the body can never go through the motions of tying shoes if it hadn’t been trained in a language system.

A body could never have a “shoe” to tie if not for a language system that trains it as to what a “shoe” is?
(A protective covering on the foot is only possible because of language training?)

A body could never have a “foot” to cover if not for a language system that trains it as to what a “foot” is?
(That one thing is to be contained within another thing can only happen because of language training?)

.....and through the series of deductive inferences, at last is concluded the absolute necessity that even given all the conditionals dependent on language training, there is nothing whatsoever in any of the training, that assembles the manifold content of it into an activity perfectly satisfying the training. There just isn’t enough language to be trained by, nor precise enough language quality to promise strict compliance with, to facilitate the exchange of every empirical occasion with another. Something else is requisite, antecedent to and more powerful than language, such that tying a shoe is accomplished, but after three or four steps, that damn tying is not again undone, or that tying a shoe is accomplished but not with that by which the tying can never be undone.

Where in the language game is it that the guy, howsoever trained in the language system for shoe-tying, walks around with them untied, simply because he can’t be bothered with his training.
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The links concerning Kant are full of holes, as the respective original texts would show.

If nothing else, I appreciate being given the subject matter and thereby the opportunity, to talk too much. As you say: mass quantities of my sole remaining vice......exceptionally good coffee.

That's a silly objection..... — Pie

Alrighty then.....

But I dispute very much that they are the product of an individual intelligence. — Pie

Such is your prerogative. So what are they a product of, or, from where do they originate?

Even the idea of an individual intelligence is problematic. I don't mean that a man can't write poetry in the woods. — Pie

How would it be problematic, if the individual writing of poetry presupposes the individual intelligence of the writer? Is the writer using an intelligence that does not belong to him alone? Perhaps it is the case that writing poetry requires no intelligence, which makes the individuality of it, irrelevant.

much of my thinking in this thread..... — Pie

.....would seem to follow from your individual intelligence. Conditioned by others, maybe, but the thinking, as such, must be your own else in saying “my thinking”, you contradict yourself.
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I'll grant that, in this tiny corner of human life, we have relatively exact concepts. — Pie

Relatively exact. Can’t be both simultaneously. Up is relative to down, but up and down are each exactly representative of their part in a logical relation.
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But 'self-evident' non-linguistic thoughts sounds like mysticism. — Pie

Metaphysics carries a less pejorative implication, but, suit yourself.

I think it's incoherent to deny that concepts are public...... — Pie

The use of them is public, as a means to an end. The origin of them cannot be public, iff they are the product of an individual intelligence.

That named things are given to us as a matter of course, from the day we individually began learning what things are, obscures the fact that, originally, nothing already named was ever given to anybody.

The implications were obvious to the ancients, merely uncomfortable for the post-moderns, who would prefer to be told this thing is a basketball, rather than think about how it came to be one.
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how or why should I trust that I understand what you 'intend' 'behind' the concepts 'privately'? — Pie

You first need to grasp the categorical error of conjoining what you understand, with what I intend, upon which is found trust has nothing to do with it. You understand, or you do not, regardless of what I intend, which reduces to similarities in experience, and nothing more, insofar as the mechanisms of our respective intelligences are sufficiently similar, if not exactly identical, to each other.
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Concepts need not be perfectly definite. — Pie

Yes, they do, otherwise, logical systems, and therefore human knowledge, is impossible. How the concept is represented.....the name assigned to it......may be contingent, but that which is named, is perfectly definite. If this were not the case, then a square circle could be an object of experience.
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The 'important' part of my mind, as I see it, is the thinking, linguistic part. — Pie

There is no thinking linguistic part; there is the thinking part, and the linguistic part, from which arises the old adage, “think before you speak”, or, “for that which you don’t know you cannot speak”.
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We’re so inescapably surrounded by people, that we’ve forgotten ourselves.

The 'we' is 'deeper' or more 'primordial' than the (linguistic) 'I.' — Pie

Yet, it was an “I” from which that notion of primordial is given. If the other way around, how come “we” is at the top of the second column of pronouns, while “I” is at the top of the first?

If the (linguistic) “I”, what qualifies the “we”? What is a linguistic “I” anyway?

I'm hoping you'll enjoy what he makes/takes of Kant. — Pie

Not bad. Don’t agree with much of it, but then....I ain’t got no letters after my name, so what ta hell do I know.

Some time later: it’s actually pretty good. First I read only the posted excerpt, hence the disagreement, only later the whole link, which helps the context of the post.