I think Mww would agree that objects being real checks out…. — Bob Ross

Yeah, he would. With the provisio that “checks out” is relative to a specific theoretical framework. Within the confines of that same framework, it follows necessarily that space and time are not real.

But then, of course……there’s possibly as many frameworks as minds that can think them up.

Good quote.

I'm betting sure that Kant never said that any noumenon "appears." — tim wood

Safe bet, go all in. Wife’s car. That autographed Roger Maris 59th. First-born.

….what appears is the phenomenon, that is, a creation of mind…. — tim wood

What appears is the thing, that which effects the senses, the material object the representation of which becomes experience. Phenomenon is the creation of intuition specifically, mind generally if you like, representing the affect on the senses.

The noumenon is no creation of mind, and being itself thereby not a phenomenon, never appears. — tim wood

Not a phenomenon hence never appears, true, but a creation of understanding specifically, mind generally if you like. A creation of understanding is a conception; noumena is a conception alone, never anything else, never cognized, never sensed.

As an aside, Feynman said in one of his CalTech lectures, that fields are real things, insofar as they occupy space and are measurable as a force over time. From this point of view, magnetism does not refute empiricism, iff empiricism represents the possibility of knowledge of real things conditioned by space and time. Problem is….I can’t find the reference so…never mind.

If the senses are out there, and what appears to the mind is in here, then where does the boundary between these two lie?
— Metaphysician Undercover

In the faculty of intuition, where that which appears acquires its representation, called phenomenon. — Mww

OK, you say that intuition provides the boundary between the senses as out there, and the appearances in the mind, as in here. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’ve already stated that appearance is that which is an effect on the senses, as input; appearances, then, and the senses can be said to be “out there”. How the senses react to that which appears, as output, is sensation, which can be said to be “in here”. There is nothing to be gained procedurally speaking, by asking for a boundary, when all that’s necessary is a transformation of whatever kind, between out there and in here. I’ve also said already the human is not conscious of all that transpires between the appearance of a thing to the senses, and the judgement attributed to it, and if we’re not conscious of it we can neglect the effort required for determining wherever some boundary may be.

So "the faculty of intuition", may in this way, provide the mind (the internal) with the capacity to be receptive to sense activity…. — Metaphysician Undercover

And that’s all we need to move on to the next faculty, the next procedural step on the way to determining how the appearance is to be known. There is an explanation for what intuition does pursuant to speculative metaphysics, but, again, the subject himself, being unconscious of the what, has even less need of the how.
————-

All of my sensations appear to me to be right in the organs which sense them. — Metaphysician Undercover

That’s fine, if you like. I’ll stay with the effect of things on my sensory devices on the one hand, and the sensations such effects provide, accommodated by the type of sensory devices I possess, on the other. All I need is an input to the faculty of intuition, something from which phenomenon can be constructed. This is required in order to determine which sense has been affected, and what
a posteriori material is being processed, in which form may be imagined as belonging to it, and, VOILA!!!…a very basic image is born.
————-

A completely legitimate explanatory bridge.
— Mww

I wouldn't say the gap is bridged legitimately. You have conveniently left out the role of intuition here, — Metaphysician Undercover

Not left out; yet to be a systemic consideration; intuition plays no role in perception, but only in the formulae for representing that which is perceived.
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An object necessarily has a form, as its identity, and "form" is intelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed. And where, in Kantian transcendental metaphysics, does form reside?

Notice that "intelligible" signifies the possibility of being grasped by an intellect, so actually being apprehended by a human intellect is not required. — Metaphysician Undercover

Intelligible means necessarily cognizable by the human intellect, re: all logical criteria have been met. Unintelligible, then, merely means a cognition is impossible, even if a representation relating to a conception, is not. So what makes a conception a legitimate thought, but for which schemata representing it, is not at all possible? What’s missing?
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This is how Kant turns things around from the traditional Christian perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting approach, but very far from the textual explanation.

Anyway…..enough for now.

If the senses are affected by the things sensed, then the senses are noumenal…. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, that doesn’t follow at all. That’s like saying an ice cube is noumenal because it shatters when hit by a hammer.
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If the senses are out there, and what appears to the mind is in here, then where does the boundary between these two lie? — Metaphysician Undercover

In the faculty of intuition, where that which appears acquires its representation, called phenomenon.
————-

If I say that the senses are out there, then the idea of a boundary between in here and out there makes no sense, because the sensations are in here, yet also in the senses, which are out there. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sensations are in the senses? If there were the case, why would we have both? You want the hand to tell you the thing is heavy when all it can do is tell you of the appearance of cellular compression. You want the ear to tell you there is a sound when all it can do is register the appearance of variations in pressure waves. And so on….
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….you have phenomena as belonging to intuition, a completely different thing from senses providing "internal images of the external things". — Metaphysician Undercover

Senses providing “internal images of external things” is not what I said.
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If mind is assumed to be the composite of those faculties, and all the faculties cannot be shown to co-exist as a unity of "mind", then there is an incoherency within the conception. — Metaphysician Undercover

I didn’t say all the faculties couldn’t co-exist. In fact, I said the mind could be called the composite of all the faculties, which makes explicit they do co-exist. Each faculty can still be imbued with its own dedicated functionality without contradicting the notion of a unity.
—————-

This capacity, to distinguish between external and internal, which you assign to the senses is an arbitrary judgement. That, distinction is a spatial judgement, so it requires intuition. — Metaphysician Undercover

This little dialectical segment is my fault, for not correcting you here:

So the Kantian system is really inadequate to account for reality because it doesn't allow that the senses partake of both, the external and the internal. — Metaphysician Undercover

Kant defines reality as “….Reality, in the pure conception of the understanding, is that which corresponds to a sensation in general…”. From that definition, insofar as only from the senses, and correspondingly by the sensations given from them, is any account of reality possible. This just says reality is given to us if or when the senses deliver sensations. So it is that the senses are in fact involved in both the external (input: effect of that thing which appears) and the internal (output: as affect corresponding to the appearance, which just is sensation). A completely legitimate explanatory bridge.

I probably should have just said…the senses allow us to distinguish. Or, allow a distinction to be possible.
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So the whole is filled with a self-contradicting idea, an intelligible object which is unintelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Might help to know what the “ever-so-abstract logical hole” actually is, where it resides, and the complications arising from it. Knowing that, it becomes clear there is, not a contradiction but a theoretical inconsistency, inherent in noumena. It is not itself a self-contradictory idea, but it is an unintelligible object.

And Kant doesn’t, indeed cannot, deny the possibility of noumena, insofar as to do so is to falsify the primary ground of transcendental philosophy, re: “….I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself…”, which just says if I do think noumena, which is to hold a certain conception, and then prescribe to myself an object corresponding to it, then I immediately contradict the mechanisms I already authorize as that by which corresponding objects are prescribed to me at all, from which follows I have contradicted myself. The warning ends up being.…think noumena all you like; just don’t try to do anything intuitive with it. And if you can’t do anything intuitive with it, don’t bother thinking it in the first place.

The logical proof, and thereby the unintelligibility, is in the mechanism by which objects are prescribed on the one hand, which is determined by the very specific functionality of individual faculties on the other.

The legitimizing of noumena resides in a cognitive system I do not possess, arising for no other reason than I cannot say the cognitive system I possess is the only one there is. Phenomena belong to humans, noumena might belong to dolphins, or honey bees, or some rationality unknown to us. Which is….DUH!!!!…..all of them.

Philosophers get acclimatized to a very general use of words like "appearance". — Ludwig V

True enough, plus, words often get defined in order to accommodate a project. I’ve already mentioned the difference in meaning for the word appearance relative to the Kantian metaphysical project, as opposed to the common meaning relative to others.
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….the senses do nothing but forward information in the form of sensation….
— Mww

Well, that's how we think of them, especially when we have little or no idea how they work. — Ludwig V

These days, there is good evidence for how they work. Before, thus from a metaphysical point of view, how they work wasn’t important enough to jeopardize speculative philosophy, insofar as humans are not even conscious of most of that which is under the purview of natural law anyway. Even now, while science has cleared much ignorance, the subject himself in general remains unconscious of most of his own intellectual machinations.
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….the fact that we can tell that some experiences are misleading means that we can distinguish appearances that are not misleading from those that are. — Ludwig V

And how do we tell? From whence does the distinction arise?

Sweeping up all sensations under one description is misleading and creates unnecessary problems. Look at the details. — Ludwig V

Not sure what that means. I can describe all sensations as merely that by which I become aware of my environment. I am not mislead and have no unnecessary problems, because the description does not contradict the facts. Someone else, describing senses in some other way, might then think me misled and invoking unnecessary problems, which is fine by me.

Show me the details?

First off….nothing following is meant to change your favored philosophy. You know yours as well as I know mine, and we can forgive each other for our separate ways. That being said, here’s some stuff I think might alter your view.

So the problem I see, is that this assumes a sort of Cartesian separation between external and internal. — Metaphysician Undercover

You called it a “Kantian distinction”, which I think much more the case than separation. It is inescapable that the human sensory apparatuses are affected by things appearing to them, which tends to negate the premise the senses and that which is sensed are separated on all accounts.

In addition, it is equally inescapable, hence trivially obvious, that the real physical things out there are not the representational things of experience.

So, yes, a decidedly refined sort of Cartesian dualism.
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So if the senses are causally affected by activity which is external, they must be completely "out there" themselves. — Metaphysician Undercover

I hesitate to admit the senses are causally affected, but rather think they are functionally affected, in accordance with the natural physiology, which makes explicit they are “out there” themselves, in relation to the cognitive system itself. That is to say, the sensory devices are just as much real objects as are basketballs and snowflakes.

But if the senses are creating the phenomenal appearances in the mind, they must be completely internal — Metaphysician Undercover

Ahhhh, but they do not; the senses do nothing but forward information in the form of sensation, again, in accordance with respective physiology. Not hard to understand the senses as merely a bridge between the real and the representation of the real. Phenomena belong to intuition, which is a whole ‘nuther deal than appearance/sensation, which might…..very loosely….be deemed the source of the internal images of the external things.

So the Kantian system is really inadequate to account for reality because it doesn't allow that the senses partake of both, the external and the internal. — Metaphysician Undercover

As stated above, the account does allow the senses to, maybe not partake in so much as distinguish between, the external and the internal.
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That's the problem with naming the noumenal as completely inaccessible to the human mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

It cannot be completely inaccessible. If noumena were inaccessible to the mind there could be no conception of it. Which highlights a misconception: Kant’s is a system in which different faculties function in unison. Mind may be understood as the composite of those faculties, but it remains that each faculty does its own job, and when examining the system, to overlay all onto mind misses the entire point of the examination.

Noumena are inaccessible to some faculties but not others, so it cannot be said, or said accurately, they are inaccessible to the mind. Technically, noumena are accessible to the understanding alone, insofar as the understanding is the faculty of conceptions, and a conception is all a noumenon could ever be.

Be advised: you lose absolutely nothing by neglecting noumena entirely when examining human knowledge. The only reason Kant brought it up was to plug an ever-so-abstract logical hole.
(Actually, some secondary literature accuses him of backing himself into a corner, from which his extrication demanded a re-invention of classic terminology, which in turn seemed to demand an apparently outlandish exposition, which really isn’t at all.)

Anyway….ever onward.

But it's actually very significant in metaphysical implications. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps. In Kantian metaphysics, though, the notion of appearance is merely intended to grant ontology in general, which serves to limit metaphysics to the conditions of a “logical science”, entirely internal to the human intellect. Which reduces to….whatever’s out there is whatever it is; all that remains is to expose how the human intellect of a specific dedicated form treats it.

I don't think that we first recognize that something appears to us and we then make judgements about it…. — Ludwig V

If such were the case, though, you’d have a logically consistent answer regarding when a mistake is known to have been made.

I'm not a fan. — Ludwig V

Don’t blame ya; I’m not either, but probably for different reasons.
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I believe that since appearances are the creation of the living system….. — Metaphysician Undercover

That’s fine; I’m not going to argue with that. Myself, I prefer to think of appearance as something that happens to, rather than being a creation of, the living system.

….mistakes inhere within the appearance, as mental illness demonstrates….
— Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with that. But consider - if all you have to go on is appearances, how do you know when you have made a mistake? — Ludwig V

What are you guys calling “appearance”? The context of your dialogue obtains from Kant’s notion of intuition with respect to the world, in which appearance has nothing to do with mistakes, and, the world has nothing to do with appearances.

The only way your dialogue works, is to correlate appearance with “looks like”, while Kantian phenomenal correlation is with respect to “presence of”. In order for your arguments to hold, therefore, re: mistakes are inherent in appearances, you have to allow the mere presence of a perceived thing a form of cognitive power, or, grant to appearance more content than the space and time Kantian doctrine permits.

Not to curtail your dialogue, but as stated it’s not consistent with the reference upon which it is, at least initially, premised.

Thing is….I’m sure both of you are fully aware mistakes in empirical cognitions inhere in judgement, not in appearances. And mental illness is not the rule, but the exception to it.

I know the term "doubt" is sometimes used to refer to an emotional state, but here I think it just means demanding justification for a proposition. — goremand

Yep, pretty much where I’m coming from. Self-awareness implies sensibility; self-consciousness implies logical thought. Doubt, insofar as it is a relative judgement, presupposes logical thought, of which the subject himself must be conscious. If such be the case, then we can just say self-consciousness represents the entirety of that which the subject himself must be conscious, from which follows the notion of a strict requirement, or what can be termed a principle.

…..self-awareness doesn't seem like a strict requirement for doubt. — goremand

I’d go with self-consciousness myself, rather than self-awareness.

Self-something, at any rate.

Interesting interpretation, I must say. I’ll have to think about it, try to find some correspondence with the relevant text.

So what happened to spatial movements making the concept of time necessary, rather than merely secondary?
— Mww

Spatial movements are what make 'the concept' of time necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok. That’s all I was asking.
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Where can I read about the reducing of time to an aspect of space?
— Mww

This is relativity theory. It's known as spacetime, in which time becomes the fourth dimension of space. — Metaphysician Undercover

“…. In order to have a complete description of the motion, we must specify how the body alters its position with time; i.e. for every point on the trajectory it must be stated at what time the body is situated there…”
(Einstein, Relativity….., 1. 3., 1916, in Lawson, 1920)

I don’t find the justification for the given “alters position with time”, with your “fourth dimension of space”. Besides not needing to delve into non-Galilean parameters.

So, while it is an empirical fact that universe pre-existed conscious beings, the way in which it exists outside of, or before, conscious beings is unknowable as a matter of principle — Wayfarer

Agreed; couldn’t be otherwise. I’m a little particular about descriptions of what there is to work with, those necessary conditions, and how they are treated.

Sense observation is of the external, therefore producing principles of spatial separations and movements. "Time" as being understood through internal reflection, and logical comparisons, is secondary. — Metaphysician Undercover

So what happened to spatial movements making the concept of time necessary, rather than merely secondary?

Where can I read about the reducing of time to an aspect of space?

Zeno's paradoxes, and the idea of infinite divisibility, had cast doubt toward the reality of spatial continuity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hmmm….dammit, you’re right, I forgot about that. In the strictest possible sense of spatial continuity, yours is the stronger for being deferred to the temporal, but for the common understanding of the ordinary man…of which there are decidedly many more than philosophers per se….that a thing is in his way is very much more apparent than the notion that if he waits long enough, it won’t be.

As usual, you present interesting stuff, to which I like to think out loud about. To think out loud should not be construed to mean criticism, which would be pretty foolish of me, considering your superior level of academia.

…..with David Hume and the advent of modern philosophy, the whole concept of natural causation is thrown into question. — Wayfarer

I’d chalk that natural causation question up to QM rather than philosophy. Whether the cause/effect principle is resident in the human intellect, such that natural causation is comprehensible, that I would attribute to a changing philosophical agenda.

To conflate what comes first in time with what is most fundamental in being is to mistake the descriptive for the ontological. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. Hence the Kantian dictate that both are equally necessary conditions for empirical knowledge. The antinomies prove one can be nonetheless thought as ulterior or antecedent to the other.

The logical relations and causal connections we discern in the world are only possible because the world is idea—a representation shaped by the mind. — Wayfarer

The logical relations and causal connections we discern are a product of our intellectual capacity and only possible therefrom, having to do only with existent objects in relation to each other, or to ourselves. When the world as idea is thought as a universal concept, it is not necessary for us to discern the logical relations of its particular content.
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But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye.' — Wayfarer

It bothers me that world as idea…only appears. The world may indeed be an idea, a universal object of reason, re: that in which are found all possible objects but is not itself an object, but world as idea isn’t that which appears to an eye. Only existences appear, the world, as pure transcendental object, isn’t an existence.

I’m sorry, but “opening of the first eye” is absurd, if such is meant even remotely literal. To reconcile the absurdity, we are forced to admit the metaphor merely represents some arbitrary initial impact on a fully developed rational intelligence. The problem for humans then reduces to the opening of the first eye may not have even been human, but the world as idea is predicated on it anyway, which is a contradiction. Nothing’s solved by attributing first eye to humanity in general, nor to individual human subjects therein.
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How is the ding as sich not just as “outside” as the objective world? The “inner kernel” of an outside thing is just as outside as that of which it is internal.

What is "science proper?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

….dull reductions to "observation + modeling”…..sounds about right to me. I’d add in “experimenting”, and the whole process doesn’t have to be dull, necessarily. Although…dunno if I could sit still long enough waiting for a cosmic neutrino.

…."matter"; that being the concept which Berkeley insisted we can dispense with. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed.

In my understanding "matter" is a concept employed by Aristotle to underpin the observed temporal continuity of bodies, allowing for a body to have an identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Kinda agreed. I’d be more inclined to grant to the concept of matter the underpinning for spatial continuity allowing a body to have an identity.

….under Hegelian principles "matter" is still necessary as the kernel of content within the Idea. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand the concept represented as “becoming”, and, with respect to the kernel of content within the Idea, isn’t that more Platonic? Maybe where the notion of “becoming” initiated? My armchair mandates that matter is the kernel of content for experience; ideas, as such, have no material content at all.

Berkeley may have been opposed to realism, but that doesn't mean religion is opposed to realism. — Leontiskos

I’m not sure realism has much to do with it, whereas the primary source of it, its fundamental causality, does.

“…. Such is the artificial contrivance of this mighty machine of nature that, whilst its motions and various phenomena strike on our senses, the hand which actuates the whole is itself unperceivable to men of flesh and blood….”
(Principles…. , 1710, #151)

Lots commendable in the WWR excerpt, but for this:

….on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being….

Each conscious being indeed maintains the form, the condition, of its world in accordance with its effects, but each conscious being isn’t his own world’s existential causality.

That being said, there’s agreement whereby *reductive* materialism, as a purely monistic ontology, ignores the subject in favor of the regressive series of things.

Sure, no prob. The human can only account for his world in his own terms, and whatever the difference between his terms and Nature’s, cannot be determined by them. The illusion resides in thinking they can.

Right? Is this somewhat like what reminds you?

Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own….
— Mww

Yes, but is it just modern science? — Leontiskos

I think science did more than anything else to liberate the intellect, yes.
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I'm of the view that it was this emerging modern view of the universe that the good Bishop wished to oppose. — Wayfarer

I’m not sure he could do otherwise, could he? I guess I’m of the mind that, rather than oppose science, his raison d’etre was to uphold religion. I mean….

“…..But you will say, has Nature no share in the production of natural things, and must they be all ascribed to the immediate and sole operation of God? I answer, if by Nature is meant only the visible series of effects or sensations imprinted on our minds, according to certain fixed and general laws, then it is plain that Nature, taken in this sense, cannot produce anything at all. But, if by Nature is meant some being distinct from God, as well as from the laws of nature, and things perceived by sense, I must confess that word is to me an empty sound without any intelligible meaning annexed to it. Nature, in this acceptation, is a vain chimera, introduced by those heathens who had not just notions of the omnipresence and infinite perfection of God….”
(Ibid 157)

…..YIKES!!!! Nonetheless odd as hell, I must say, that had I lived in 1710, I might have just as similar an opinion, as the different one I do have.

The interesting part? Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own, or at least enough on their own to call into question isolated external causality of the Berkeley-ian “un-constructed” spirit type.
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Kant called Berkeley’s idealism “dogmatic”, meaning it was formed as a doctrine without sufficient critical examination of the warrant for doing so, and the greatest of that was the principle esse est percipi, wherein the insufficient warrant falls on what it is to perceive, as formalized in ’s OP, re: “For Berkeley, perception encompasses the whole experience of the world as presented to the mind”. Which is these days pretty much established as not the case.

The way this relates to Kant, is that, generally, as you asked, in transcendental idealism, existence is granted outright, immediately removing it from necessary reference to ideas and the condition of our perceptions. Very generally, to be sure.

When the topic of this discussion was current affairs, religion ruled the day, hence, one couldn’t stray too far from it and maintain his cultural standing. It was a race of sorts, among interested parties anyway, not so much the common man, to offer the strongest arguments for the distribution of properties, whether they belonged to things given by Nature, or belonged to things given by deities. But then….Nature itself may have been given by deities, resulting in nothing new. Comparative philosophical doldrums.

Enter science proper, and stuff gets real interesting.

#34 a “….. Before we proceed any farther it is necessary we spend some time in answering objections which may probably be made against the principles we have hitherto laid down.

#34 b “….To all which, and whatever else of the same sort may be objected, I answer, that by the principles premised we are not deprived of any one thing in nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or anywise conceive or understand remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever.

#37 “….The philosophic, not the vulgar, substance, taken away.--I will be urged that this much at least is true, to wit, that we take away all corporeal substances. To this my answer is, that if the word substance be taken in the vulgar sense--for a combination of sensible qualities, such as extension, solidity, weight, and the like--this we cannot be accused of taking away: but if it be taken in a philosophic sense--for the support of accidents or qualities without the mind--then indeed I acknowledge that we take it away, if one may be said to take away that which never had any existence, not even in the imagination.

#33 “…. The ideas imprinted on the senses by the Author of Nature are called real things; and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed ideas, or images of things, which they copy and represent. But then our sensations, be they never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless ideas, that is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its own framing. The ideas of sense are allowed to have more reality in them, that is, to be more (1) strong, (2) orderly, and (3) coherent than the creatures of the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind. They are also (4) less dependent on the spirit, or thinking substance, which perceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more powerful spirit; yet still they are IDEAS, and certainly no IDEA, whether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it….”

#9 “…..The philosophical notion of matter involves a contradiction.--Some there are who make a distinction betwixt primary and secondary qualities. By the former they mean extension, figure, motion, rest, solidity or impenetrability, and number; by the latter they denote all other sensible qualities, as colours, sounds, tastes, and so forth. The ideas we have of these they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of anything existing without the mind, or unperceived, but they will have our ideas of the primary qualities to be patterns or images of things which exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they call matter. By matter, therefore, we are to understand an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist. But it is evident from what we have already shown, that extension, figure, and motion are only ideas existing in the mind, and that an idea can be like nothing but another idea, and that consequently neither they nor their archetypes can exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence, it is plain that the very notion of what is called matter or corporeal substance, involves a contradiction in it….”
(A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Sec 1, Of the Principles…., 1710, in
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4723/4723-h/4723-h.htm)
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First…cherry-picked, I know. I picked out what I thought most related to the OP’s query. There’s a veritable plethora of mitigating textual relevance the cherry-picking avoids, hopefully not so much as to show I missed the point completely.

Johnson, following fellow British empiricist Locke, used the primary qualities of things in order to refute the validity of mere ideas as resemblances of them, re: ideas cannot fracture a toe. But in doing that, insofar as, e.g., solidity in things is necessary for fracturing toes, he did nothing to prove such primary qualities were existents in things, the absence from which it follows, that such primary qualities remain mere ideas in the mind of the mediating perceiver, in accordance with Berkeley’s considered metaphysical thesis, in opposition to Locke.

If you can’t prove primary perceptible qualities in us are not ideas in an immediate principal perceiver, perhaps it can be argued…….what difference would it make to the human perceiving mind, if they were not? Was the idea of measurable distance implanted in my head as an idea belonging to some sort of prevalent, re: un-constructed, spirit, or does the idea belong to me alone, as a mere distinction in relative spaces?

Sapere aude anyone?

Oh, no real reason. It’s just that’s not the way humans normally do things.

Either you are intentionally being obtuse or you're less intelligent than artificial intelligence. — Harry Hindu

…..and with that, I’m out.

Let q be any thought….. — J

Nahhhh….I ain’t doin’ that. Language use is tough enough without that nonsense. Sorry.
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Sorry for the delay; I changed my mind regarding the type and depth of reply.

As thinking that things are so is thinking it valid to think this, the 'I think' is thought in every act of thinking. — Wayfarer

…..thinking that things are so….
(is a judgement relative to those things; thinking things, is thought as such)

….as thinking that things are so is thinking it valid to think things are so….
(Judgement, with respect to its form, cannot be self-contradictory; if I judge this plate is round it is necessarily valid that I’ve already conceived a thing as conjoined with its shape)
“…. for where the understanding has not previously conjoined, it cannot dissect…” B129)

….the “I think” is thought in every act of thinking.
(As thinking that things are so, this thinking, this unity of conceptions, only relates to things judged to be so. “I think” is not to be found in thinking of things, for such act belongs to understanding, but merely represents the consciousness that the unity of conceptions for things which understanding thinks, is given)

If all that Kantian counterargument is the case, and Rödl mandates his metaphysics to be absent the character** of the subject in order to be absolute idealism, he must eliminate the transcendental unity of apperception, which JUST IS the character of the subject in his empirical nature, and in keeping with strict Kantian dualism, his moral disposition being his rational nature.

If “I think” is self-consciousness, and “I think” is thought in every act of thinking, and I am conscious of my act of thinking, which quite obviously is the case, then very idea of self-consciousness as underlaying the subjective character has lost its validity, the character of the subject disappears, and that particular condition for absolute idealism is true.
**ibid, 1.2, pg 4, and others
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The unity of apperception, represented by “I think”, makes explicit the presence of representations, insofar as “I think”, by assertion, must be able to accompany all of them. In the proposition, As thinking that things are so is thinking it valid to think this, the 'I think' is thought in every act of thinking, there doesn’t appear to be any representations. That was a general statement, having nothing given as cognized, so…..what is contained therein for “I think” to accompany?

I don’t fathom a connection between accompanying all my representations and accompanying all my thoughts, with an identical self-consciousness.

“…. Understanding is, to speak generally, the faculty of cognitions. These consist in the determined relation of given representation to an object. But an object is that, in the conception of which the manifold in a given intuition is united. Now all union of representations requires unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them. Consequently, it is the unity of consciousness alone that constitutes the possibility of representations relating to an object, and therefore of their objective validity, and of their becoming cognitions, and consequently, the possibility of the existence of the understanding itself. (…)

The first pure cognition of understanding, then, upon which is founded all its other exercise, and which is at the same time perfectly independent of all conditions of mere sensuous intuition, is the principle of the original synthetical unity of apperception. (…)

The synthetical unity of consciousness is, therefore, an objective condition of all cognition, which I do not merely require in order to cognize an object, but to which every intuition must necessarily be subject, in order to become an object for me; because in any other way, and without this synthesis, the manifold in intuition could not be united in one consciousness. This proposition is, as already said, itself analytical, although it constitutes the synthetical unity, the condition of all thought; for it states nothing more than that all my representations in any given intuition must be subject to the condition which alone enables me to connect them, as my representation with the identical self, and so to unite them synthetically in one apperception, by means of the general expression, “I think.” B137-139

Condition of all cognition, of all thought, if an analytical principle, explicates necessity; must be able to accompany is because necessity has already been given. As well, condition for, as analytical principle, is systemically antecedent to that which is conditioned by it.

Ya know….the deeper we go the cloudier it gets. Not sure there are any A-HA!!! moments here.

You say that "thought is an activity," something done by means of concepts. But does Kant have anything to say about what the noun "thought" refers to? — J

Yes, an activity of the faculty of understanding, which makes thought an object, or product of the activity, hence, a noun. Even to say I think something is to say I have a thought that refers to that something, so again, that thought stands as an object of my thinking, hence a noun.

Cognition is what is done, synthesis is how cognition is done, conceptions are what synthesis is done with. Thought, then, is cognition by means of the synthesis of conceptions.
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“…. But the conjunction of representations into a conception is not to be found in objects themselves, nor can it be, as it were, borrowed from them and taken up into the understanding by perception, but it is on the contrary an operation of the understanding itself, which is nothing more than the faculty of conjoining à priori and of bringing the variety of given representations under the unity of apperception. This principle is the highest in all human cognition….”

By this is shown the difference between uniting representations into a conception, re: apperception, and uniting conceptions into a cognition, re: thought. It also supports the argument that “I think” must not always be able to accompanying all my thoughts, insofar as self-consciousness is that by which alone conjunction is possible which is not thought, whereas understanding is that by which synthesis is possible, which is.

It is a process after all, right? Getting to knowledge from mere appearances?

Again…..dunno if this helps or hopelessly occludes.

Your posts…. — Leontiskos

Thanks for that, but we all know stuff expressed in here is mere opinion, however well-supported.

And we all know there’s no substitute for first-hand exposure to the original, for then the exposure and the opinion at least belong to the same subject.

How would you categorize an animal you have not seen before but looks like an animal you have seen before? — Harry Hindu

This is contradictory. If I haven’t seen a thing before, I can’t say it looks like one I have. If I’ve not seen this cat, but I’ve seen those cats, I’m justified in characterizing the unseen as the same kind as the seen. The difference is, in the first the thing is undetermined, in the second the thing is determined as cat.

what was it about those different cats that allowed you to place them all under the umbrella of cat — Harry Hindu

The quantity of conceptions that sufficiently correspond with the original experience. Those conceptions that do not sufficiently correspond are those which tell me I’m justified in cognizing a different version of the original experience; those that do not correspond at all tells me I’m not justified in cognizing a cat at all.

What key characteristics do they share to then place them in the same visual category? — Harry Hindu

That condition belongs to sensation, not cognition. For different things be placed in the same visual category is for each to have congruent visual representation.

Doesn’t matter that an in abstracto object in general is represented by a universal idea, it isn’t a cat until I cognize that thing as such.
— Mww

What is that process like? What goes on in your mind to cognize some thing if it does not include an abstract object? — Harry Hindu

All my cognition includes abstract objects; they are representations. The objects represented in my cognitions are particulars, not universals.

It seems to me that your mental object of cat is the very cat you first experienced…. — Harry Hindu

Yes, so the metaphysical story goes. As such, it is entered into consciousness, and serves as that by which all other similar perceptions are judged.

….until you've experienced other cats in which your mental object changes to leave out certain characteristics and retain others. — Harry Hindu

There isn’t a definitive cut-off for similar or different characteristics. There was already a whole boatload of representations in order to cognize cat in the first place, so altering some relatively minor number of them wouldn’t be sufficient to cause an entirely different experience. Although, I suppose given one or two glaring differences, one could only cognize what a thing is not, relative to his experience, but not what it is.

….is it possible to give a simple discrimination between "representation" and "thought," in Kantian terms. — J

Oh man. One but not the other. Possible but not simple. Very little in Kant is simple.

“…thought is cognition by means of conceptions….” (A69/B94), from which can be inferred thought is an activity. Conceptions are representations of the faculty of understanding in the same way phenomena are the representations of the faculty of intuition. So if thought is by means of conceptions, and conceptions are representations, then it follows representations are antecedent to that activity which cognizes by means of them.

Kant does not define representation (vorstellung), thus consideration of his time is paramount, insofar as the Scholastic tradition, in which properties of things belonged to them and were “transferred” to the mind when thought about, had been overturned by Descartes with “thinking substance”. Subsequently, because “thinking substance” contradicts the categories, Kant replaced the ontology of things as having properties belonging to them, with the ontology of having the properties of objects already in us, and we transfer them to the objects, from which arises the proverbial “Copernican. Revolution”.

All that we have in us that can be “transferred” to a thing as properties, which we call judgement, and expanded to relations of those properties to each other, which we call logic, Kant denoted as “representation”. How we come by them, by what means to they arise, he does not expound, but it’s pretty obvious, whatever they really are…we got ‘em.

Probably not much help, I know. But it’s a simple as I can make it without saying nothing. Sorry.

Personally, I think it warrants the weight, and a perfect example for why I wholeheartedly detest OLP, but simply dismiss analytic philosophy. More than mere words, it’s a matter of conceptual meaning…what can this word mean, what does it indicate and thereby what can it do, that the another word cannot. If that is all given beforehand in a certain context, but consequently disavowed within that same context, that upon which the disavowal rests, must be considered undeserving.

But you’re quite correct, in that Rödl’s philosophy would stand if he hadn’t mentioned Kant, insofar as his targets were specifically members of his own peer group, Nagel and Moore. Nevertheless, the reality that he did, requires accounting, which we know because he did it himself.

I canceled probably 3 full pages here, because the arguments therein were Kantian, in opposition to the main character in the thread. Threads are invariably derailed this way and I didn’t want to be guilty of it. Rödl deserves his own limelight no less than any other, however briefly, and deserves proper respect for his bringing the relatively unfamiliar to the forefront.

Idealism writ large generally grants the validity of cognitive faculties, assigns them their respective functions, unites them into a system, toward a certain goal. Absolute idealism, by way of introduction, grants those faculties as that which, as Rödl says, “we already and always know”, but turns them back into themselves, rather than uniting them into a system. Judgement just is the consciousness of judging; knowledge just is the consciousness of knowing. It follows necessarily that thinking just is the consciousness of thought, the end result being the absoluteness of the idealism of each of those faculties. All of which is fine for an introduction to a doctrine, even if such introduction itself is not intended to account for what is to be done with those faculties after the exposition for how the author requires them to be understood.

I found no internal contradictions or inconsistencies in the introduction to absolute idealism, even though there are a veritable plethora of contradictions to other metaphysics. I also didn’t immediately find any use for it, insofar as the possibility that e.g., judgment just is the consciousness of judging, doesn’t tell me a damn thing about what judging does, and thereby its function in a system. If my primary concern is the comprehension of my relation to the external domain, for which of course, a system of some nature is requisite, I must have precious little need for absolute idealism, and lose nothing by dismissing the entire doctrine.

I am in agreement with with respect to an important initial premise attributed to Kant, and the intentional misappropriation of it in the furtherance of a doctrine in which that very same initial premise is invalid. In addition, I’m somewhat dismayed to read Rödl claims Kant’s position presupposes his own, and would have been demonstrated if Kant had seen fit to elaborate. It is my comprehension, that Kant didn’t elaborate for the simple reason to do so, such that Rödl’s position is justified, would be to falsify the very thing he just stated as the case, re: “I think” must be able to accompany all my representations.

It is not the case that “I think” must be able to accompany all my thoughts, if the origin of thought is the faculty of understanding, and the origin of “I think” is transcendental pure reason, the objects of which are principles. Understanding is that faculty by which thought is possible, in the synthesis of conceptions, the object of which is cognition. “I think” is not of a cognitive faculty as such, but of a mere human condition, and represents nothing more than “…the highest Principle of all exercise of the Understanding….”, which is nothing more than the consciousness of having conjoined conceptions regardless of whatever the cognition following from it. From which, at least in this respect, it may even be said Kant was more absolute than Rödl.
(Sidebar: the implication of intuition serves as proof we as humans, actually do unite all our representations, in this case empirical ones only, and while not necessarily conscious of doing it, must possess the consciousness of having done it. For otherwise, it is impossible that all the perceived parts of objects, each represented in us by its sensation, can be understood as the unity of conceptions, from which cognition of a whole in a single experience follows as a methodological necessity. The “I think” is nothing more than representing that the system recognizes the understanding as having fulfilled its function, which we simplify into the term “consciousness”.)

The explanatory conditions for why representation is not the same as thought, and therefore why “I think” must be capable of accompanying one but not the other, are legion in Kant, but of no use whatsoever in Rödl, insofar as absolute idealism is not concerned with representations as much as is speculative metaphysics regarding human cognition.

Which is what I meant by:

Anyway….not that big a deal. — Mww

One that might be is the same as a possible cat. — Harry Hindu

Yes, what some term a priori cognition under empirical conditions. Nevertheless I can’t think a possible cat a priori without having the antecedent experience, in order to reduce the possibility to a particular object. Otherwise, I have no warrant for representing the conception with the word “cat”.

how would you recognize a cat that is different than the one in front of you….. — Harry Hindu

Isn’t that just another possible cat? As far as my cognitive operation is concerned, it is.

…..if the universal does not represent all possible cats? — Harry Hindu

Doesn’t matter that an in abstracto object in general is represented by a universal idea, it isn’t a cat until I cognize that thing as such.
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….we can never get at the world as it is independent of us, only at the relation itself. — Harry Hindu

Close enough, but given relations alone is insufficient for knowledge.

….essentially thinking what you are going to say before saying it? — Harry Hindu

Close enough.

In expressing something are you not using some form of representation? — Harry Hindu

Everything my form of intelligence does, is predicated on representation, despite what the materialists or spiritualists would have me think.

So when you think of the image of a cat, that is not a representation of all possible cats? — Harry Hindu

No. Representations are not for universals, which are objects of reason, concepts without representation. We don’t think all possible cats; we think either the one right in front of us, or the one that might be.

Isn't the primary purpose of thinking to simulate the world as accurately as possible? — Harry Hindu

Nothing wrong with that, but specifically I rather think the primary empirical purpose of thinking is to understand the world’s relation to us, the way we are affected by it. Bu empirical thinking is not the limit of thought, so technically, the primary purpose depends on the domain in which object thought about, is found.
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The OP left a bad taste in my mouth given the way it handles Kant. — Leontiskos

Me too, but I laid it off to my seriously entrenched predispositions. But I like to think I gave it a good ol’ fashion continental examination, donchaknow.

Can we simulate a third person view from the first person? — Harry Hindu

Yeah, I suppose, when I think about what another person thinks iff he speaks of it.

It seems that the very idea of a "view" is what invokes the nonsense of a Cartesian theater and homunculus. — Harry Hindu

I don’t think it’s the view that invokes the nonsense, in that a view presupposes a viewer, or that which represents agency, which is a necessary condition for philosophical theory in general, and metaphysics in particular. Otherwise, what’s the point? Multiple instances of either, is the problem, and that occurs when all that’s left for affirmation is “….recourse to pitiful sophisms…”, from which follows the conclusion that I am “…as many-colored and various a self as there are representations of which I am conscious….”.

But I see your point: there isn’t a view, in the proper sense of seeing; there is only the modus operandi of an intellect, the same intellect that allows the construction of pitiful sophisms, such that an irreconcilable mess is made in attempting to explain itself.
(As in….what follows below *grin*)
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What about when we talk to ourselves in our head? — Harry Hindu

That’s not what we’re doing. Ok, fine. I reject that’s what I’m doing. I’m processing an extent understanding given from experience, subsequently the possibility of expressing it coherently.

If language is representation and we think in language…. — Harry Hindu

I agree language is representation, but reject thinking in language. Thinking, as such, in and of itself, is cognition by means of conceptions, conceptions are the representation of extant images, again, from experience. The mental act of composing an expression, is nonetheless a thought, albeit perhaps moreso a complex arrangement of them, even a succession of arrangements into a whole.

……what does that say about which view we are participating in when thinking in a language rather thinking in images, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells? — Harry Hindu

It says there must be a difference in the view in which the subject participates, and the view the subject represents. No matter the many things I think, it is still only me thinking.
(Not sure what you’re trying to elucidate here, but that’s my understanding of it)

In thinking in representations are we not relegating ourselves to the third person? — Harry Hindu

We don’t think in representations, but by means of them in their relation to each other. I’m not getting a third-person out of that.

Anyway….for what all that’s worth.

Do you think Rodl might believe that what occurs is consciousness of the activity itself? — Leontiskos

I’m not sure. When he says…

“…. And I use “consciousness” to designate a genus of which thought, judgment, knowledge are species….” (1.4, pg 4)

….it appears he’s grouping things under a heading, the soundness of which escapes me, just yet. For me, all that which he calls species, thought and judgement belong to understanding, and knowledge, not being a faculty at all, doesn’t belong to any of them. And consciousness isn’t a genus iff it’s merely a condition. Consciousness isn’t how thought is possible; it only represents that to which thought belongs, re: “I think”.

On the other hand, if there is sufficient justification contained in the text as a whole, for the genus/species thing he’s got going on, then maybe he can affirm what Kant had denied.

Like I said….hard to unpack.