There are diverse instances of horses, instantiation of five and examples of the good, so I'm not seeing the difference you are attempting to refer to? — Janus

I have to keep this short, in that this is a thread concerned with Greek philosophy, of which I am rather less than proficient. When I say we are affected by immaterial objects, I mean to indicate, on the one hand rationally by feelings, and on the other epistemically by the categories. Of the former we are immediately conscious, of the latter we are not. The former is given, the latter must be synthetically derived.

The argument ensues from the notion that the common understanding overlooks that when we speak of A number, or THE horse, or SOME good, and also irrespective of the extent of the series of any of those, there must be that which underpins each instance or series thereof. You hinted at it when you said “we are discussing number”, but then you went on to give an example with A number. Exhibition of an empirical example cannot ground the validity of immaterial objects, re: it doesn’t mean anything to discuss number by invoking five, because any congruent representation would be sufficient, and any example of anything is always reducible to that which it is an example of.

But I don’t think I’m telling you anything you didn’t already know. I’m just offering an exposition of what I meant by being affected.
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I prefer the sense in which Kant and Husserl characterise the transcendent as 'that which constitutes experience but is not itself given in experience.' — Wayfarer

I would never be so presumptuous as to impinge on your preferences, but I wonder if you might want to re-think that. Or, to be fair, show me why I should.

It's a squabble although I think to call it 'intellectual' is flattering it. — Wayfarer

Point. From respect, perhaps....squabble of intellectuals?

I think it's incorrect to say the noumenal realm - numbers and universals - exists, but it is nevertheless real. — Wayfarer

Understood.

Universals, and the like, do not exist, but are real as the constituents of rational thought — Wayfarer

Ditto.
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By immanent I just mean that we have every reason to think there is real difference in the world, real patterns or repetitions, if you like, that would explain our perception of a world teeming with different species. landforms, and elements. — Janus

Fine by me. Immanent refers to that which is possible to experience, guaranteeing distinction from the transcendent. As such “immanent existence” refers to a thing, but does not describe the domain in which it is found.

So I don't say there are real numbers; immaterial platonic objects or ideas, I say that there is real number, shown to us in the diversity of the world of similarities and differences that we perceive. — Janus

I think there may be a problem with your characterizations, because some Platonic immaterial objects are real because they can be empirically represented, but some Platonic immaterial objects are real insofar as we are affected by them. Then it must be the case that empirical diversity and quantitative relations are not sufficient in themselves for describing them.

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up for me.

That I like. I might have used axiomatic principles, but I didn’t come up with it, so.....

I don’t care what anybody says, just gotta appreciate a guy who has an answer for a question, that doesn’t do anything but make another question inevitable, and this......

radical skepticism differs from regular doubt in that it is not just: how to identify a goldfinch from a robin, but: how do we know that is (an instance of) a table, or a piece of wax? — Antony Nickles

....answers my question unmistakably. And it follows, that if no further query is necessary for some sufficient understanding of an original, the way is left open for a counterpoint consistent with the answer to it. So saying, initially at least, the distinction between radical skepticism and mere doubt may be characterized as a matter of degree. The degree is, of course, knowledge, insofar as there would be little additional knowledge needed to differentiate between like kinds, re: finch/robin, but much more to differentiate between kinds, re: table/wax.

Skepticism is, at bottom, the consciousness of ignorance, and ought, instead of forming the conclusion of my inquiries, to be the strongest motive to the pursuit of them. All ignorance is either ignorance of things or of the limits of knowledge. If my ignorance is accidental, in which case I may not know a thing, or if my ignorance is necessary, in which case I have not the capacity to know a thing, it must incite me, in the first case, to a dogmatical inquiry regarding the objects of which I am ignorant; in the second, to a critical investigation into the limits of knowledge itself.

But I understand that’s not what you intend for me to derive from your answer. Just my preliminary counterpoint. The main point is here.....

Once we get to that question (taken from your “how do we know that is (an instance of) a table”), the fear is that there needs to be an answer or we end up in a place where we are asking how do we know what is real at all. — Antony Nickles

....to which I would counter with, superficially, it’s easy: in the first place, we know an instance of a thing from experience, and in the second, we know a real thing from the affect it has on us. Care must be given to temporal separations here, nonetheless, in that if an object has a word representing it, like table, the experience of it is not necessarily mine, but is necessarily the experience of the subject that assigned that representation objectively to it. It follows that I know an instance of a table because I already know what a table is, because somebody else gave it that name and I merely carried on with it. On the other hand, if it was possible I never had any experience whatsoever, in any way, shape or form, of this object otherwise represented as a table, it would be my first instance of it, its first affect on me, and as such, wouldn’t even be a table, to me. It would be nothing more than an “undetermined object of perception”. The implication of my radical skepticism regarding the “table” is invalid, insofar as I don’t even know it as anything.

Now it is the question becomes, to whom does the fear intrinsic to radical skepticism belong? It cannot be the subject that represented the object as “table”, because he said it was that, and it makes no sense for him to be skeptical of that which he himself declares to be the case. It cannot be he who is subsequently affected by the same object, because it has already been established that that thing is a table, which will serve as the consistent representation in all its instances, and it makes no sense for that subsequent perceiver to represent it as anything else, for if he does, he is more irrational than radically skeptical.

That which makes radical skepticism a valid conception, is epistemic certainty combined with the logic of the human cognitive system. We can think radical skepticism without contradiction, but it does nothing for us except stretch reason beyond its proper limits.
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Wittgenstein and others found is that the skeptic's abstraction from tables and goldfinchs to generalized terms like appearance and particular and meaning and true, stripped away our criteria for each thing and a context in which to apply them. — Antony Nickles

All the more substance for demurring from skepticism in general, and radical skepticism certainly, for they got the proverbial horse on the wrong end of the cart. We don’t abstract from, we assign to. Finches don’t inform us as to what they are, but only provide the data from which we tell them how they are to be known. That feat is accomplished with such speculative metaphysical predicates as appearances, particulars, meanings and truths, along with that which unites them all under a logical system, which doesn’t strip away, but PROVIDES our criteria for each thing and the context under which they are applied. All found out long before W and the others, and stemmed from Hobbes and Hume, moreso than others.

All we should ever be radically skeptical of, is the incantation of absolutes, which no proper rational agency does anyway.
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What I was tracking was that if we want to ensure that the world is "real" (certain), then the fallible part must be me, my perspective, my individuality, my irrationality — Antony Nickles

That is.....er......absolutely.....most agreeable. Although, on another note, I must say your “real” is not my “certain”. My certain is true, from which arises the possibility that the world can be very real without me being knowledgeable about the certainty of it.

Math and formal logic and science are grounded within themselves. — Antony Nickles

That seems to be the current paradigm, but it overlooks the intrinsic necessity for human reason. What if the human cognitive system is itself a logical system? If that is the case, how could the certainty of math and logic occur, if not by that which is of its own kind? Maybe math and logic broke no falsity because they arise from a system that cannot permit it. Maybe we use math and logic as a standard for any truth because our system is mathematically logical. Maybe there’s only mathematical objects in Nature because we put them there. And so on......

There’s your groundlessness and radical skepticism writ large. What ground do we have to prove certainty, when what we use to prove it, isn’t certain.

Toljaso.....we’re not so far apart.

I was backtracking for context, and it became apparent that if I was to comment on the dialogue you’re engaged in with , I’d first have to find out how you intend the term “immanent” to be understood, insofar as it asks “of patterns, of species and kinds”, in which “existence” they are contained, or perhaps, to which “existence” do they relate.

immanent existence of patterns, of species and kinds — Janus

The answer to that determines the domain of, on the one hand, and to whether or not the criteria for and thus the viability of, universals in modern thought, has any consistency with the ancestral origins and employment of them on the other. All that has bearing on this....

The drift of it was simply that all phenomenal objects (1) are composed of parts and (2) come into and go out of existence (i.e. they're temporally delimited). (....) Then I saw that numbers don't fall under this description. — Wayfarer

.....because there is sufficient reason, depending on what “immanent” is meant to indicate, for saying “numbers don’t fall” under the description of phenomenal objects. So if your “immanent existence” in not the same as the existence his phenomenal objects go “in and out of”, you’re each talking past the other. You’re not on the same page, which makes the entire dialogue a mere intellectual squabble, which, as we all know, is......he said, in his sternest possible (fake) Prussian accent.......“quite unbecoming to the dignity of philosophy”.

So......to which “existence” are patterns, species and kinds immanent?

There are as many answers as there are those that answer, but here’s one:

“....Of all the a priori sciences of reason, therefore, mathematics alone can be learned. Philosophy—unless it be in an historical manner—cannot be learned; we can at most learn to philosophize. Philosophy is the system of all philosophical cognition. We must use this term in an objective sense, if we understand by it the archetype of all attempts at philosophizing, and the standard by which all subjective philosophies are to be judged. In this sense, philosophy is merely the idea of a possible science, which does not exist in concreto, but to which we endeavour in various ways to approximate, until we have discovered the right path to pursue—a path overgrown by the errors and illusions of sense—and the image we have hitherto tried in vain to shape has become a perfect copy of the great prototype. Until that time, we cannot learn philosophy—it does not exist; if it does, where is it, who possesses it, and how shall we know it? We can only learn to philosophize; in other words, we can only exercise our powers of reasoning in accordance with general principles, retaining at the same time, the right of investigating the sources of these principles, of testing, and even of rejecting them.

In this view philosophy is the science of the relation of all cognition to the ultimate and essential aims of human reason, and the philosopher is not merely an artist—who occupies himself with conceptions—but a lawgiver, legislating for human reason. In this sense of the word, it would be in the highest degree arrogant to assume the title of philosopher, and to pretend that we had reached the perfection of the prototype which lies in the idea alone....”
(CPR A838-9/B866-7)

Sorry for the delay; duties of everyday life, doncha know.

the fear of the conclusions of the radical skeptic creates the need to answer him with a particular kind of solution, ignoring the ordinary means of judgment we already live within, because they are not a solution. — Antony Nickles

Hmmmm. I grant the need to answer the radical skeptic with a solution (rebuttal? refutation?) of a particular kind. But first, what does it mean to “fear” the conclusions of a radical skeptic? How would that conclusion manifest? Without understanding these, what kind of answer would I be able to formulate? If ordinary means of judgement result in truth, why wouldn’t that answer the radical skeptic, as a legitimate solution?

I was going to ask before, but didn’t, so I’ll ask now: what is an ordinary means of judgement? Are there extraordinary means? I’m guessing you have an explanation for what judgement is, in order to distinguish the ordinariness of it we already live within, from something other than that.
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The ultimate groundlessness of knowledge is not an exception but our human condition, without an intellectual solution. — Antony Nickles

I grant the contingency of empirical knowledge is a human condition, but reject the groundlessness of it. Knowledge is an intellectual process giving a solution in itself, which suffices as necessary ground. There is irreducible certainty in human rationality, therefore knowledge is possible. That which is possible must have a ground.
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we want to ensure our being understood...... — Antony Nickles

Yes.

we want our knowledge to guaranty our acts beforehand....... — Antony Nickles

Yes.

relinquish us from responsibility for failure. — Antony Nickles

Perhaps, insofar far as the failure is not mine, but the other’s. I try my best to be understood, and that I have tried relinquishes me from responsibility for you not understanding me. Nevertheless, I hold with no “overcompensation to an insecurity”. If I am not responsible, for having tried, there’s no insecurity for which overcompensation is a remedy.

and so we save the world and internalize the failure as our own..... — Antony Nickles

Yes, in the case where it is not a human-to human relation, but human-to-world relation, where one mis-judges something about the world.

we take responsibility to avoid being responsible. — Antony Nickles

I can see taking responsibility FOR avoiding being responsible, but if I do take responsibility, something I’m responsible for is presupposed. It would seem I cannot, then, take responsibility TO avoid being responsible. If I take responsibility I AM responsible for taking it, hence haven’t avoided being responsible at all.

To know S is a proposition, it is not necessary to know S.

Why is this so difficult? — InPitzotl

Because on the face of it, the sentence is a ridiculous contradiction, for to say “to know S is a proposition, it is not necessary to know S (is a proposition). Only when understood that the S known as a proposition is not the S it is not necessary to know, does the difficulty disappear. But that understanding is not implicit in the sentence itself, it must be deduced from it, in order to reconcile the contradiction. It follows that the only relevant deduction can be that the S to know is a form, the S not necessary to know, is a content. What remains is, to know S is a proposition, it is not necessary to know what is contained in S.

Some people, not difficult; most people, irrelevant.

Also not the difficulty to which I directed my comment.

It’s fascinating how much of that carries over to subsequent metaphysical renditions.

Just goes to show....humans haven’t changed that much, from then to now.

It makes no difference whatsoever to my argument that there is no such thing as an unknown proposition — Olivier5

I must agree. If there was a proposition that was not known, what would make it a proposition? The idea of propositions in general, not created, hence not known, is fine, but the idea cannot be its own object.

Furthermore, it is true all propositions are known, iff the negation....
1.) is a contradiction, in the form all propositions are not known. “All propositions are known” is itself a known proposition, therefore the contradiction holds, or,
2.) is an impossibility, in the form not all propositions are known. In which case, some proposition not known must be proved, and the proof of it necessarily manifests as that proposition, which is then known, therefore the impossible unknown holds.

Another way to look at it is, the truth of P as such, relates a conception to itself. Any proposition in which the subject and predicate are subsumed under the principle of identity, cannot be falsified. If there is P, or when there is P, it is analytically true P is. Here too, the negation is also true, insofar as if or when there is no P, then P isn’t. It follows that to suppose it cannot be known whether or not P is or isn’t, is patently irrational, bordering on the pathologically stupid.

Mike drop, exit stage right.......

(Or maybe.....enter giant hook, yank speaker by the neck stage right)

Tell that to Descartes. — Antony Nickles

Are you suggesting fear is synonymous, or compatible, with doubt? Either or, Rene was explicit in his doubt, but it can’t be said with sufficient justice, that he was afraid of it. In fact, it might be said he used it as a weapon. And if not a weapon, then certainly a most unconditioned judgement.

Even that rascally demon, which is nothing but a means for fear-mongering, with respect to Descartes’ metaphysics at least, was merely the other of a pair of extremes, in accordance with the human system of rational complementary. As such, he didn’t fear it, or its potential, but rather accepted its formal necessity, for without it, his idea of god would be meaningless.
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And we do not succumb..... — Antony Nickles

....making the inherent potential for failure and uncertainty seem like (the) only state (left to us) — Antony Nickles

.....IS to succumb. It just makes no sense to me, to argue the validity in fearing a mere potential, or in doubting the possibility of avoiding it. Why would anybody even get out of bed in the morning, if he was constantly wracked with fear for making potential failure the rule of the day?

Nahhhhh.....no profit whatsoever in allowing the exception to the rule to become the expectation.
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If, as you say....

capable of telling us its secrets, — Antony Nickles

...and if, as The Esteemed Professor says....

“...approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it...”

.....then how exactly does this relate?

The problem is the projection of reality — Antony Nickles

As regards reality, if we always receive, who or what is projecting? I submit or your consideration, we don’t project anything upon, nor do we tell reality or Nature in general, anything at all, but always and only tell ourselves how reality appears to be. As soon as this is understood as the fundamental condition of the human state of affairs, there is no legitimate reason to fear, or doubt, the inherent potential for failure and uncertainty in the “ inability to manage with the imperfect criteria of our lives”. As a matter of due course, it is to be given, for without mistakes resulting from failures, learning is impossible, other than by sheer accident, the occurrence of which can never be itself a fear nor a failure.

On the other hand, you might be indicating by “projection of reality”, a relative behaviorism, in that once reality is understood in a certain way, it is then the ground for the treatment of its other inhabitants, supporting your “otherwise groundlessness”. In which case, I understand “projection of reality” as a euphemism for projecting oneself as a reflection of a particular reality, which is common practice, yes. Then, perhaps the fear of failure and uncertainty is with respect to how one will be received by his projection, which, rather than a fear of one’s own understanding, is a fear of being misunderstood.

Perhaps we’re closer to each other’s theories than first appears. I make the case for wishing to be understood BUT NOT holding with any fear of failing in my own understanding, you make the case for the fear of not being understood BECAUSE of the potential for failure in one’s own understanding.

Or not.....

Our compulsion for certainty is from our fear of the failure of our ordinary means of judgment — Antony Nickles

Only the common, or the uninformed, succumb to such disaster. Everyone makes mistakes; no need to fear anything. The human compulsion for certainty is merely a reflection of our nature as rational agents to seek truth, and we seek truth because anything else is reducible to it. Simple as that.

Kant's imposition of the terms of judgment as what blinds us to the vast variety of criteria of every different thing — Antony Nickles

We’re only blinded....so to speak....to the remaining vast variety of criteria, after having determined the ones that fit. Every different thing already implies a vast array of criteria, but each thing has its own. Of course I’m blind to any variety of criteria that doesn’t fit my cognition of “water buffalo”, if that is what under judgement.

All this just seems like a solution in need of a problem.

Wittgenstein will say we are compelled (to strip our world of any measure and replace it with a requirement for certainty). — Antony Nickles

As overblown as W makes that sound, it is actually what the human system attempts to do, if not attain to certainty, at least have some certainty by which to judge our comprehensions a priori. Hence, the three Aristotelian laws of logical thought, from which all proper deductive inference follows. Schopenhauer is credited for establishing the principle of sufficient reason to the three from the Ancients, but it is merely supplemental to the irreducible axiomatics.

Still, to be compelled implies the limitless, insofar as it demands an end even if it be contradictory or absurd, the very epitome of irrationality, but to merely wish implies its own limit, and it is always better to be unsatisfied that irrational.
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I understand what you mean with....

capable of telling us its secrets........ — Antony Nickles

....but I like this as much more fluent.....

“.....(We) must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose....”

....found close to the bottom of the pile excavated from that 240yo hole.
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.....but not if we require that it be certain knowledge or necessarily stem from a cause. — Antony Nickles

Wait. Wha??? W says we’re compelled to certainty, but we should at the same time disregard the first principle of certainty, re: cause and effect?

You’re one of those few hereabouts not liable to self-contradiction, so.......what did I mistake?

I don't think we need to say that we experience "reality-in-itself" in order to say that we experience part of reality. — Manuel

Good, because experiencing anything “-in-itself”, is impossible. Again, under the auspices of a representational cognitive system operating with logical predication. Even without the “-in-itself” signifier, given the definition that reality is the totality of all possible experience, and because the accumulation of all experience is impossible, it is clear the experience of reality is a non-starter. So not only do we have no need to speak of it, we actually have no business with it at all, except as an unconditioned, pure a priori conception used to terminate an ontological infinite regress.
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Whatever they experience is part of reality for that creature. — Manuel

If experience is not part of reality as appears to us..... — Manuel

The first makes explicit an object of experience as part of reality, the second suggests experience is the object of reality. Only one of these can be true.

It’s fine, no harm-no foul. We just each have quite diverse conceptions of reality, that’s all.

Of course, if you did not mean to say quality, but simply that the world is best conceived as rational, — Antony Nickles

Nope, would never mean to say that, seeing as how being hit by a bus has certain altogether empirical implications on the one hand, but my subjective condition will be affected in an entirely different way in the other. A broken pelvis is hardly anything like self-recrimination for being clumsy.

"Rational' easily slides towards predetermined, complete, self-enclosed, and, most importantly, certain. — Antony Nickles

Yes, absolutely, and why shouldn’t we wish for certainty in some form or another? If we trust the principle of law with respect to empirical science, why not the principle of sufficient reason for pure metaphysics?

Ok. Thanks.

Is it your contention (...) that you experience, say, basketballs, as such? — Mww

If as such you mean "in itself", no. Of course not. — Manuel

Cool. So, can we say this.....

Most of the work is done by me, automatically and in large parts unconsciously. — Manuel

.....is what your.....

the "I think" that accompanies experience — Manuel

....is meant to indicate?

If such is the case, and it is as well the case that what you experience is not the object itself that is in reality, then how can your experience be part of it?

Do you think perhaps you might be using the word “experience” too broadly?
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As Cudworth put it "the book of nature is legible only to an intellectual eye". — Manuel

If this is true, must’nt the intellectual eye be outside that which it views? If the intellectual eye is a placeholder for “I think”, and if either view the book of nature, re: reality, then both must be other than, or outside, reality.

Yes? No?

If I follow, the "I think" that accompanies experience, would form a part of experience. And thus be a part of reality (for me). — Manuel

Is it your contention.....your understanding, your belief, your mindset/worldview......that you experience, say, basketballs, as such?

I think Mww may be trying to make the distinction between empirical and epistemological knowledge such that the world is something we can point to, something which is "publicly available". He'll correct me. — Manuel

Yep. The empirical domain we can point to, the rational domain we can point with.

The knowledge of each is as different in kind as the domains themselves, re: public as opposed to private, from which it is quite apparent the method sufficient for acquisition of one must be somewhat distinct from the method of acquisition of the other, partially reflected in your “tiny bit aware”.

real is best conceived as a rational quality
— Mww

Again, the abstraction of reality into a quality...... — Antony Nickles

Notice the difference?

Cool thing about a 240 yo hole? Nobody’s successfully filled it in. Scoffed at it, ridiculed it, bastardized it, FUBAR’ed it....but never showed its irrationality.

I think experience is the which we are most acquainted with out of everything. — Manuel

Yeah, we would disagree a lot on that. The justification for the disagreement in contained in your own proposition, in that your “I think” is antecedent to that which you’re thinking about, which is always the case, without exception. The subjective condition is that which holds the greatest acquaintance, insofar as it is absolutely impossible to escape your own personal state of affairs.

Think of it this way: what you experience is always contingent on circumstance and you have no promise of knowledge given from it, but that the experience belongs to you alone is undeniable, thus impossible not to know with apodeitic certainty. Doesn’t it then seem that the greatest acquaintance would be that which is inescapable?
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But I don't think it's the main a priori facet, that is inscrutable to us. It's part of a process of which we only become aware of a tiny part. — Manuel

Now that I do agree with.

Tell me where my thinking goes wrong. — 180 Proof

Not so much wrong, as insufficient. The brain is responsible for everything, but it is not known how the brain does what seems other than strict adherence to natural law. That it does is given; how it does is not.

And from that, I rather think....

So, no need for some quasi-platonic "transcendental deduction" ... pace Kant et al — 180 Proof

....that is a mistake, insofar as we do need, or perhaps convince ourselves we need, a theory of human cognition, for the same reason as we need theories for anything we don’t already know, as the means for logical explanation. Even if some cognitive theory is found deficient, we’ve lost nothing, because we don’t have the fullest knowledge the theory represents anyway. And we’ve gained nothing, for to find a theory deficient is to generate another to replace it, and that under exactly the same conditions but merely with alternative major premises. The only way to falsify a metaphysical theory is with empirical proofs, which more than likely we will never have. Even without empirical proofs, we are still entitled to grant to ourselves warrant for non-contradictory logical explanation.

Ask yourself.....if some measurement of the brain can be displayed that shows your deepest darkest secret, would you then feel as if you don’t really have one? It follows that if you don’t feel the display, while certainly existing in reality because it represents as a quantity in space and time, is the definitive interpretation of the secret as it really seems to you, there is a necessary qualifiable distinction between the two.

If A is in B and if B is in C, then A is in C is true, iff all A’s, B’s and C’s are the same kind, or inhere with congruent modality. If reason is in the brain and if the brain is in reality, then reason is in reality.....just doesn’t work, because they aren’t, and they don’t.

Or so it seems......

I think things become fuzzy quite quickly in the a-priori vs. empirical domain. — Manuel

It shouldn’t be all that fuzzy, if it be accepted that which we sense, the empirical, is very far from that which we merely think, which is always and only ever a priori. Brain mechanics aside, of course. How do we tell a beautiful object, if we don’t already have some notion of beauty?

Even though we cannot see it (we cant go behind our a-priori mechanisms and see them in action) — Manuel

Ahhhh....but we can. We know it as thinking. And we do separate, by delineating that which is sensed, from that which is thought.
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if whatever the a priori is that we have (....) is not a part of reality as such, then we can't speak of reality at all. — Manuel

I think it incorrect to say we cannot speak of it at all, because that which is conceivable, can be spoken of, insofar any conception can be represented by a linguistic symbol, a word. And to speak about it, is merely to assemble words representing conceptions conjoined with it, and to speak about it sensibly is just the assemblage of conjoined representations of conceptions that don’t contradict each other. Still, to speak of a thing is sufficient to prove its possibility, but not sufficient to prove an empirical existence.

If reality in and of itself is not an empirical existence, then it must be that we can talk about only by means of a priori conceptions. We can think reality, but we are never going to have a sensation caused by it, right? Case in point....if reality is conceived as that which contains all real things, reality cannot itself be conceived as a real thing, for then reality must contain itself, an impossibility. If reality is not a thing, but can be represented in thought, hence subsequently talked about, then it is nothing more than a conception, and the conceptions conjoined with it to form propositions about it, must themselves be either hypotheticals or altogether unknowable.

Good speaking with you as well, and don’t sell yourself short. Nothing trivial about this stuff. It is what we do, after all.

What say you regarding a-priori knowledge and its status in regards to reality? — Manuel

In short, a priori knowledge has nothing to do with reality in itself, that being an ontological domain. A priori conceptions, and by continuation, a priori cognitions, are the necessary ground for the possibility of experience of reality, given two conditions: a representational cognitive system, and that system operates under logical predicates, such as (theoretically) found in humans.

I won’t disagree with your “we can only have a posteriori knowledge if we have a priori "filters"”, which is, in effect, what I just said, but I would disagree that these “filters”, or any conceptions a priori, are part of reality.

Reality is best conceived as an empirical domain; real is best conceived as a rational quality. Separate accordingly, I should think.
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I’m always around. I just don’t talk as much as I read.

Reality: that which meets the criteria for a posteriori human knowledge, or, which is the same thing, experience.

I guess I shoulda just plain asked what you meant by “rational order of the cosmos”. I took the statement to tacitly affirm an intrinsic quality the cosmos possesses. Doesn’t sound like you, even from an Eastern perspective, for it hints that the cosmos, the other-than-mind, thinks.

But, as I said, I have no wish to take the discussion into an arena foreign to it.

Bones and sinews. — Wayfarer

Aye. The flexible to bond the rigid. The pure to structure the practical.

I can't see how the convergence of rational thought with the rational order of the cosmos can be denied. — Wayfarer

If we re-imagine forms as moral principles and universals..... — Wayfarer

That’s how.

I’m learning from this discussion, so I won’t taint the classical content of it with Enlightenment speculative metaphysics, but when the idea of forms is moved....re-imagined as moved....from the Platonic cosmos, to the predicates of rational thought alone, the convergence is easily denied, because the “rational order of the cosmos” disappears. The subsequent convergence then undeniable, is rational thought with the natural order of the cosmos.

Marvin pushes his glasses — Banno

I saw that!!! Wouldn’t catch Buddy Holly doing that, betcha.

But both at the same time! — Thunderballs

And yet....attempts to reduce metaphysical dualism to a non-starter, continues.

Whats an enlightenment thing? A way of enlightened thinking (according to science and scientific ratio)? — Thunderballs

A way of thinking yes, but not necessarily according to science, but instead, according to the principle sapere aude.

Is a human founded in enlightenment? — Thunderballs

Hmmm. This can only be answered as a matter of opinion, and mine would be.....these days, with the current evolution of technology and empirical knowledge in general, basically he is, but practically, he may not like to admit it.

Perfect.

Good analysis/critique. Something else philosophy is all about.

Except....there’s always one, seems like....

A human, which is a strictly Enlightenment thing, which reduces to proper subjective metaphysics.
— Mww

I don't agree. A human is more than a thing.. — Thunderballs

....”thing” here relates, albeit euphemistically, to “Enlightenment”, not a human.

The only human “thing”, is its body, as says.

I think that this reflects the distinction that I draw between the objective homo sapiens which I am, and the subjective "I". — Michael Zwingli

Agreed, in principle. I would agree unequivocally, if you’d left off the “which I am”. Whatever “I” am, “I am” not an objective homo sapien.

Yeah, but that may be just to dig a deeper hole. Being human can be a general objective proposition, a universal form if you’re into the Greek thing, which reduces technically to empirical anthropology insofar as it covers all of us, or, maybe (sputterchokegasp) psychology. Still, the only way to even think about it, is from being A human, which is a strictly Enlightenment thing, which reduces to proper subjective metaphysics.

Pick yer own poison, I guess, right?

the objective human being is simply that body existing as an object within objective reality — Michael Zwingli

What I meant by including that clause in my post, is that we have no evidence for any part of the human being other than the body — Michael Zwingli

Wouldn’t it be the more consistent to say we have no objective evidence for any part of the human being other than the body? It is true there is no other empirical, re: objective, evidence of the human being other than the body, but the whole of the human being may not be found in the body alone. And if that is true, more than objective evidence for the whole human being would be required, wouldn’t it?

Admittedly, the subject effectively changes from “human being” to “being human”, but are we not entitled to consider that form of reality?
————

What about me seeing color, feeling emotions...... — Thunderballs

......just like that.

I knew a guy once, maybe 30-40 years before you were even born, got all pissy over something I said, did an abrupt about-face, yanked the door open with a major flourish......and walked right into it. Funniest damned thing I ever saw. Felt sorry for the dumbass, though, like to broke his nose. After I got over my hysteria and he got over his tantrum, we burned a doobie, went about our business, never saw each other again.

(Sigh) I see petulance is still comical, after all these years.

I don’t see any profit in repeating anything. If there’s something new, related but different.....fine. Bring it on.

It never was the general notion contained in your thesis to which I took exception. I took exception only with the argument sustaining it, which is technically unsound for lack of critical thinking.

You begin with “YOU are not your body”, followed by “YOU is unanalyzable”. Even if you were merely trying to relieve some folks of a particular belief, you can’t do that by telling them the subject of the belief can’t be given due diligence. Not to mention the obvious occasion of forcing yourself into a contradiction, in that if YOU is unanalyzable, what ground is there for saying anything at all about it, especially in asserting what it is NOT?

And, no, you couldn’t inform me of how simple YOU is, for the very reason that it is unanalyzable. By asking you to inform me, you presupposed I didn’t already realize what your response would have to be. Analysis of “I” is possible; analysis of “you” is not. The former is a rational deduction with an intrinsic certainty, the latter, if susceptible to any kind of informal comprehension, is a mere empirical inference contingent on supposition from reason that does not belong to it. Hardly analytic, I must say.

Anyway.....enough of this. If I made my point, fine. If I didn’t, that’s fine too. The point being.....in case it’s buried too deep.... “iff it is true that an “I” is not the body in which it resides, then it is also true that all iterations of “I” are not the body in which it resides”. Now it should be clear no YOU is or needs be involved. Conflicts with realizations, analysis and inferences are eliminated, and everybody can go home, confident in that he speaks only for himself.

when the topic is about some arbitrary YOU
— Mww
Do you consider youself, a person a human being something arbitrary? — Alkis Piskas

These do not relate to each other.

What affirmation would I gain from being informed “how simple YOU is”?
— Mww
A lot! More than you can think of! (Hint: It has to do with realization, not concepts) — Alkis Piskas

This only works if realization does not involve understanding. If you can’t inform me of how simple YOU is, because it is that which is only given through realization, perhaps you can inform me how realization is possible without the understanding which necessarily accompanies it.

Even granting that realization without concepts is epiphany, that still couldn’t inform me of how simple YOU is, if I didn’t subsequently transpose such epiphany into the representations, in this case the concepts, made explicit by the contents of it.

If “more than I can think of”, indicates that which is beyond the capacities of my thinking, or, which is the same thing, that of which the conceivability is either not immediately present or altogether impossible, then all that is necessarily beyond my comprehension. If how simple YOU is, is a realization more than I can think of.....how in the hell would I ever be informed by it? Here we would have an unintelligible epiphany, which is, of course, a contradiction.

All that to say this: one can force his intelligence to deflect only to a certain point, after which it becomes deniable by an observer.

This topic was simply about YOU, not the "self"..... — Alkis Piskas

I say that people are lost in concepts instead of seeing the obvious, using simple logic. They seem to trust concepts more than what they themselves can experience directly. This is really sad. — Alkis Piskas

Doesn’t simple logic suggest any “you” represents a “self”? Seems logical that when the topic is about some arbitrary YOU, it can be nothing but a topic about some abstract yet validly represented self. The statement “the topic was simply about YOU, not the “self”, seems then, not to so much contradict itself, as to be a misnomer. Any YOU is a “self” without equivocation, but any YOU is the “self” is equivocal from perspective.

Am I not forced to trust the conceptual validity of a disconnected yet validly represented self, given from my own thinking alone, from the very impossibility of having the ability to experience it?

While I agree with the proposition, “YOU are not your body”, declaring the certainty of a negation does not warrant any affirmation related to it. What affirmation would I gain from being informed “how simple YOU is”?

Stupidity: an affliction...... — tim wood

recourse to irrationality...... — tim wood

Good.

Those reducible to deficiency of judgement (?) An affliction manifests in examples, but isn’t explained by them.