I dunno, man. Ol’ Samuel might be the darling of folk psychology, but he’s a lousy logician, even granting for the moment the possibility the quote is definitively attributable to him and not passed down through the centuries, beginning with Seneca, at least.

If it is a thing in my life, regardless of its relative severity, how could it not have happened? And if only some of the worst things in my life never happened, what makes them different from some of the worst things in my life that did happen? If I know a worst thing because it happened, how would I know a worst thing that didn’t? If I can’t know a worst thing that never happened.....why mention it in the first place? I get the purpose of the exercise, really, I do. It is....how to imagine reaping a bountiful anthropological crop from a barren epistemological wasteland.

So we begin with the dubious “seminal quote” explicitly attributable to Clemens alone, and end with the falsehood of “searing accuracy”. But hey.....don’t mind me none. Y’all’ll have to pardon me whilst I lament the gross indignities forced upon proper philosophy.

(End Andy Rooney impersonation)

I’m not knowledgeable enough with the particular background sufficient to comment, but nonetheless an interesting read.

But indeterminism is not a threat to the metaphysical sense, since that sense just is freedom from determinism, which just is indeterminism. And then we circle back around to indeterminism not being a useful kind of freedom... which just goes to show that the metaphysical sense of the term "free will" is not a useful sense of the term. — Pfhorrest

Speaking of circling back......hope you don’t mind.

Does your statement “indeterminism is no threat to the metaphysical sense” meant to indicate a metaphysical sense of free will? In which case, the statement then becomes.....indeterminism is no threat to the metaphysical sense of free will. If so, does it follow that indeterminism is no threat to the metaphysical sense of free will because (or, iff) the will is taken to be free to make determinations of its own kind, by its own right, in a metaphysical sense? But it doesn’t follow from that, that your “that sense just is freedom from determinism”, which if indeterminism is no threat because determinism is the case, contradicts itself. Indeterminism is freedom from determinism, but the metaphysical sense of free will makes determinism necessary, so indeterminism IS a threat to the metaphysical sense of free will.

Ok, so.....indeterminism is no threat because....or, iff....the will is free as a determining functionality. How, then, does it follow that the metaphysical sense of free will is not a useful sense of the term? How is it that the metaphysical sense is not the only possible sense of free will there can be, without getting involved in that damnable “....wretched subterfuge of petty word-jugglery...” (CpR, B1,C3, Para 45, 1788)?

I submit, and that rhetorically, the term “free will” is useless because the concept of “free” does not belong to the will as much as does the concept of autonomy belong to it necessarily. But this goes further afield than your thesis admits, as far as I can tell. You know.....because you never mention the word.
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And to the extent that determinism is not true, indeterminism is true, which then makes the argument for hard incompatibilism: one way or another free will is impossible. — Pfhorrest

Isn’t there a need to distinguish kinds of determinism? If physical determinism is not true with respect to the metaphysical sense of free will, I don’t agree indeterminism is therefore true, under the same conditions. Given the metaphysical sense of free will, it is logically consistent that the sense of determinism should itself be metaphysical, in which case, determinism must be true if it be the case that the metaphysical sense of free will abides exclusively in its law-giving functionality. I don’t think it is reasonable to suppose that because a metaphysical sense of determinism is not susceptible to inductive support in the same way as physical determinism, that the conception is therefore inherently flawed.

Clarification, not counter-argument.

total amount of several hundred billion such connections — Vessuvius

Ironic, I think, that to measure and experiment on such scale, should tend to disrupt the system being measured. Pretty hard to see how the objective observer.....the dude directing the measuring device....doesn’t himself eclipse the subjective observer, the one being measured, merely from the measurement itself. Plus....how many gaps make a network? To determine what makes, e.g., a moral degenerate (or a genius diagnostic surgeon) is to quantize some pathway......how many probes would that require? And to determine that, is to possibly destroy it.

Humans. Never ones to leave well enough alone.

You know the freedom in your Kant quote (“Metaphysics of Ethics”, 1797), relates to jurisprudence, re: “The Science of Right”, not the “free will” related to pure moral philosophy, right?

When speaking of the human faculty of will, we are restrained thus:

“...That element in the question of the freedom of the will, which has for so long a time placed speculative reason in such perplexity, is properly only transcendental, and concerns the question, whether there must be held to exist a faculty of spontaneous origination of a series of successive things or states....” (CPR, 1787.)

As you can see, that which is given as a necessary birthright of humanity, which reduces to free to be, cannot be a mere transcendental wish that something be held as existing, which reduces to free to choose how to be.

A general tactic I like using in philosophy is recognizing positions that claim to be competing answers to the same question to instead be answers to completely different questions. — Pfhorrest

From a general academic point of view, perhaps, yes, but then I think merely as a matter of interest. And this is technically philosophizing, the dissemination of various theory qualifications, historically given.
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even my core philosophical principles are all about differentiating between different senses of broad concepts (....), approving of one sense while disapproving of the other. — Pfhorrest

This more like being used in philosophy proper. Still, given core principles, hasn’t one already approved one sense over all the others? I suppose one may exercise his core principles without the necessity of knowing what they actually are, but recognizing the validity of them from the feeling he gets in their manifestation in the world post hoc.

Applause for the inclusion of at least the conception of a metaphysical will.

That, or will is born Athena-like fully formed and armored. — tim wood

I think this. Will is born fully formed....half a will is quite useless, after all....and armored, but chinked. Even a toddler makes moral choices, albeit without knowing what he’s doing, but usually predicated on self-conceit rather than self-respect. The chinks in the armor are filled in with practical reason, once the wearer has established his own moral disposition, which come only with experience.

freeness of a free will can only enter with reason. — tim wood

Oh, absolutely. However, without holding to a deontological moral philosophy, the exposition of how this is so, and why it should be so, is to fall on deaf ears.

Initiate splice, on my mark........

I vote will comes first, as instinct to.... — tim wood

Will is instinct? Reason isn’t used for instinct. And instinct isn’t refined or made appropriate. If reason is used for the will, will cannot be instinct.

A human can both think and feel, the one being never like the other. I vote the faculty of will comes first with respect to that which is a feeling, the will being the source for determining what satisfies it, which is for us called a desire. While the cognitive faculty of thought, on the other hand, remains associated with that which may arise as experience, the objects belonging to that, arising only from Nature herself.

Are you saying simply that to have a will and it deployed, it must be about something, and the "about" arising out of reason or circumstance? — tim wood

Basically that, yes, insofar as circumstance is a demonstration of us in a casual capacity, as opposed to Mama Nature being the causality. Arising out of practical reason insofar as the objects willed....your “it” in “I will it”, are our own determinations.

Do you have a personal favorite? — Mww

Yes. A free will requires a will, and one that is free — tim wood

But is that an inference, or a presupposition? I agree as to the latter, but if an inference, it needs its own ground, either empirical or logical.

Yep......many inferences possible. Do you have a personal favorite?

Cool.

Now all you gotta do, is show that imagination has the power of apodeictic certainty, which is the fundamental criterion of proof.

A compelling argument is not necessarily a proof, as you probably know. Perhaps you might want to decide which one has the better chance of success.

Because you asked.....I hold there is no proof of free will. There is only logical affirmation, and that only under certain conditions.

This explains why a certain style of philosophy (popular on forums) leaves more practically minded people cold. — T H E

Agreed, in principle. Not just here, but practically-minded folks in general, usually consider the objects of their inquiries to be given, re: Peirce’s “first sensations”, hence propositions with respect to such inquiries are considered “perfectly free from all actual doubt”.

On the other hand, that which leaves the practically-minded cold, so to speak, becomes moot for them, from sheer disregard. When presented with these conditions, with respect to Peirce’s “first principles”......

“....Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion....”

.....leaves them to simply not bother inquiring into those kinds of questions predicated on some doubt or other. So, no, this is not reason as madness tamed, but reason as madness denied**, madness herein indicating irreconcilable doubt. With this view, of course, your “doubt as a paralyzing, unpleasant state”, doesn’t exist in the practically-minded domain, but instead manifest as mere complacency, but runs amok, that is to say, “....has fallen into confusion, obscurity, and disuse from ill directed effort....” in the theoretically-minded domain, called pure metaphysics.

** not so much extinguished, as you say, for I think to extinguish presupposes the reality of madness extant beforehand, whereas to deny merely presupposes the possibility.

Anyway.....fun, this philosophy stuff, where good/bad is the proper standard, over right/wrong.

YEA!!!!

doubt is a clever game. — T H E

Indeed it is, one I’m playing right now, in attempting to reconcile the appearance of a contradiction in an otherwise respectable philosopher. From your link:

“....To satisfy our doubts, therefore, it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency -- by something upon which our thinking has no effect. (.....) Such is the method of science. (.....) We can ascertain by reasoning how things really and truly are; and any man, if he have sufficient experience and he reason enough about it, will be led to the one True conclusion....”

What a belief may be about, may be nothing human, but the determining of the belief, which relates its subjective form to its objective content, must be entirely human, a priori. Therefore, “...a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by (...) some external permanency....”, is self-contradictory. It is possible to satisfy doubt (knowledge), and it is possible the method of science is the proper methodology for it (experiment), and external permanency is possible (the “Real”), but that “by which our beliefs are determined”, is certainly not “nothing human”.

Bottom line....young Charles tried so hard to rebut Kant, as this early 1877 article shows, but mature Charles discovered it couldn’t be done, as the later 1905 articles show. So he compromised, yet maintained his independence, as all good philosophers are wont to do, by labeling Kant “a somewhat confused pragmatist”. Which would be just short of hilarious, damned with faint praise nonetheless, if Charles weren’t such an intellect in his own right.

Rhetorically speaking......

Construe' is the same root as 'construct' but pertains to language and meaning, in particular. — Wayfarer

Agreed, in principle. But the originating assertion is operating under the auspices of transcendental idealism, as stipulated by its author herein. As such, to construe carries the implication of understanding, as you say, but understanding presupposes that which is to be understood, which is an antecedent construction, in the Kantian sense, called synthesis, and that is the purview of the faculty of imagination alone, having nothing whatsoever to do with perception in and of itself.

Hopefully we agree that perception does not construct anything at all. Or, if it does, that I may be shown how such should be the case.

Excellent bad things do happen, — Pfhorrest

Ya know......when we were growing up, one of the constant admonitions of our teachers was, “CHECK YOUR SPELLING!!”. Nowadays, given all these aids that effectively dumb us down, we would be well-advised to check our spellchecker. Which just goes to show....the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The contention is “constructs” not “construes”.

Agreed on understanding/judgement, but perception is the source of that which is empirically knowable, but it is not the source of empirical knowledge. It is possible to perceive a thing and not know what it is.

“...Our knowledge springs from two main sources in the mind, first of which is the faculty or power of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions); the second is the power of cognizing by means of these representations (spontaneity in the production of conceptions)....”
(CPR A50/B74)

This grants the strict passivity of human perception. We are affected by objects, which is called sensation, is supplied by specific physical apparatus, but at that point, no cognitive faculties are employed in the pursuit of knowledge. Nowadays, of course, that theory is......diminished.

Never mind. Sorry I asked. First, even.

Sometimes see three or four of ‘em, all lined up one after the other, same things being said by the same people, as if repetition makes the case.

Maybe some of them are right....dunno.

Sorry, but the burden isn’t on me. The assertion is yours, and I’m interested in how you arrived at it.

Ok. Just wondering from whom this philosophy originated, for it certainly isn’t Kantian, in which perception does not construct anything at all. And you mentioned the CPR, so.....just connecting possible dots here.

To perceive is not a passive process, but constructive one. — Constance

What does perception construct?

Ehhhhh.....I don’t do advice. But I can tell you, without experience, you’re usually gonna lose.

Books. And more books. Always books.

Free will is not a thing, hence cannot meet the criteria regarding knowledge of its reality. Best I can say is, there is free will if one needs there to be. It may be nothing more than an explanatory conception, the reality of it being irrelevant.

Errrrr....no it isn’t. It does not follow from the fact that not everything is known, that everything is possible. I mean....it’s not possible to know everything, so knowing everything is possible, is itself impossible.

People can choose who they want to be all day long. Choosing and attaining are two completely different things, though, right?

Can I choose to want to be a physicist? Sure, I can. Will I ever be one? Not impossible, from a practical point of view. But I can also choose to want to be an inhabitant of Mars, which is impossible for me practically, even if not impossible logically.

If this is what you meant by identity being limited by understanding, than I will agree, but only with respect to limitation in choice to a particular type of human I might choose to be, predicated on the means for attainment of that identity. However, as for the identity of being human in general, I don’t agree.

And not letting beliefs restrain you falls into the realm of practical possibility, rather than human identity predicated on a limiting understanding alone.

Nahhh. Using a chainsaw is a skill. If a human is a member of a certain class of carbon-based intelligence, then the being of human, is a condition of that class. Skills are learned, conditions are given, in this case, given naturally.

In matters of skill, I agree. But you asked about knowledge of being human, which is more than a skill.

Why isn’t it the case that I must be human in order to even ask what a human is?

Not asking. Listening.

Your initial statement, your follow-up exposition.

Interesting. Care to say more?

I hold no reverence for the human race in general, even if I’ve been acquainted with some fine individual members of it.

I’m going with predication solely on my own continuance, I must say.

Are we not committed to affirming the transcendental ego? — Constance

There is not a transcendental ego, per se. If it is affirmed that there is a conception under which all my representations are united, and it is called “ego”, the representation of which is “I”, then the deduction of its possibility, is transcendental.

Parsimony and speculative consistency suggests, then, that the question become, are we committed to affirming the ego transcendentally, to which the proper response would be.....yes, but iff one wishes to affirm the conception of ego at all.

But still....this is metaphysics, so if one doesn’t satisfy, pick another.

it only proved what Kant had already implicitly claimed: the synthetic and axiomatically independent character of the first principles of geometry.

What do you suppose the character is independent of? What does axiomatically independent really say?

Just agreeing with you. However we each come to our conclusions doesn't matter all that much.

If you could fate the human race to its cessation, in instantaneity, would you? — Aryamoy Mitra

Smacks of suicide, and I ain’t done yet, so......no.

Kant's antinomy still holds, "That the universe has a beginning in time is impossible; that it has no beginning in time is also impossible." — Joe0082

That’s exactly the opposite of what the first antinomy says.

FIRST CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
THESIS. The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited in regard to space.
ANTITHESIS. The world has no beginning, and no limits in space, but is, in relation both to, time and space, infinite.

The conflict proves the universe has a beginning, and it proves it does not. That’s what makes the conflict an antinomy of reason in the first place. Possibility, and its negation, is not a consideration, under the conditions stipulated in the text.

For accuracy, not antagonism, doncha know.

The truth of that will be overshadowed by the effort required to direct anybody to it.

I’m good. You stipulated material universe, so.....hard to miss.