And there is a rationalized justification for an act that most would consider genocidal. Lovely frame work. Thanks Kant. — Book273

There you have it, folks. Perhaps the greatest thinker since Aristotle, personally responsible for the last real paradigm shift in modern philosophy, develops a moral theory with so many holes in it a ten-year-old can blow it up with a single existential possibility.

Schopenhauer is probably wondering why he never thought of it; Hegel first, then Quine, both want to be remembered as having thought it already.

“....[f]or non-Kantian philosophers, there are no persistent problems — save perhaps the existence of Kantians....”
(Rorty, 1982)

On the vulgar understanding’s forays into the academic:

“.....a sophistical art for giving ignorance, nay, even intentional sophistries, the colouring of truth, in which the thoroughness of procedure which logic requires was imitated, and their topic employed to cloak the empty pretensions.....”
(CPR A61/B86)

Still....one remains free to think whatever he likes. (Sigh)

Nor do I find in this any ground whatsoever that relativism might survive in. — tim wood

Agreed, here is no room for relativism with respect to freedom as a necessary intellectual conception. It is worth remembering “intellectual” just indicates a conception having nothing to do with sensibility, the conceptions of which are always empirical, which in turn means there are physical objects subsumed under them. Freedom has no physical object, obviously; it is nonetheless an object of pure practical reason.

The relativism resides in the will of the subject, of which freedom is merely the ground of the will’s capacity to author moral laws to which that subject obligates himself.

I think that when one reaches for that, one finds not ground but bootstrap — tim wood

Hmmm....perhaps. I wonder if Kant knew the word. He certainly maintained the necessity, hence the validity, of causality. The prime intellectual conception of causality being, of course, freedom. And just as no unconditioned causality in Nature can be discovered, so too is it impossible to prove the reality of freedom as a purely intellectual causality. A form of bootstrapping, indeed, but perhaps logically permissible. Perhaps? If not that, then what?

“....Now I affirm that we must attribute to every rational being which has a will that it has also the idea of freedom and acts entirely under this idea. For in such a being we conceive a reason that is practical, that is, has causality in reference to its objects. Now we cannot possibly conceive a reason consciously receiving a bias from any other quarter with respect to its judgements, for then the subject would ascribe the determination of its judgement not to its own reason, but to an impulse. It must regard itself as the author of its principles independent of foreign influences. Consequently as practical reason or as the will of a rational being it must regard itself as free, that is to say, the will of such a being cannot be a will of its own except under the idea of freedom. This idea must therefore in a practical point of view be ascribed to every rational being. I adopt this method of assuming freedom merely as an idea which rational beings suppose in their actions, in order to avoid the necessity of proving it in its theoretical aspect also. The former is sufficient for my purpose; for even though the speculative proof should not be made out, yet a being that cannot act except with the idea of freedom is bound by the same laws that would oblige a being who was actually free. Thus we can escape here from the onus which presses on the theory...”

Gotta start somewhere, right?

what does not constitute the principle of morality. — tim wood

Does that a lot, doesn't he? It’s not this, it’s not that, get rid of enough of the stuff a thing isn’t, what it is arises as all the more legitimate.

Be great to arrive at that which is impossible to be rid of.......

“....That metaphysical science has hitherto remained in so vacillating a state of uncertainty and contradiction, is only to be attributed to the fact that this great problem, and perhaps even the difference between analytical and synthetical judgements, did not sooner suggest itself to philosophers. Upon the solution of this problem, or upon sufficient proof of the impossibility of synthetical knowledge a priori, depends the existence or downfall of the science of metaphysics. Among philosophers, David Hume came the nearest of all to this problem; yet it never acquired in his mind sufficient precision, nor did he regard the question in its universality. On the contrary, he stopped short at the synthetical proposition of the connection of an effect with its cause (principium causalitatis), insisting that such proposition a priori was impossible. According to his conclusions, then, all that we term metaphysical science is a mere delusion, arising from the fancied insight of reason into that which is in truth borrowed from experience, and to which habit has given the appearance of necessity. Against this assertion, destructive to all pure philosophy, he would have been guarded, had he had our problem before his eyes in its universality. For he would then have perceived that, according to his own argument, there likewise could not be any pure mathematical science, which assuredly cannot exist without synthetical propositions a priori—an absurdity from which his good understanding must have saved him....”

And there you have it: abstract ideas depend exclusively on a priori cognitions of pure reason, which Berkeley never even considered, and Hume rejected outright.
——————-

Every triangle that I imagine is a particular triangle. — L'Unico

Correct, but knowing the construction of a triangle in general, according to rules, is the ground of any particular triangle of imagination. These rules arise in thought, but still require experience for their reality.

“...In truth, it is not images of objects, but schemata, which lie at the foundation of our pure sensuous conceptions. No image could ever be adequate to our conception of a triangle in general. For the generalness of the conception it never could attain to, as this includes under itself all triangles, whether right-angled, acute-angled, etc., whilst the image would always be limited to a single part of this sphere. The schema of the triangle can exist nowhere else than in thought, and it indicates a rule of the synthesis of the imagination in regard to pure figures in space. Still less is an object of experience, or an image of the object, ever to the empirical conception. On the contrary, the conception always relates immediately to the schema of the imagination, as a rule for the determination of our intuition, in conformity with a certain general conception...”

A brief touch of conflicting philosophies, acceptance of them be what it may.

Oh. Ok, then......

There can be no such freedom to either cause or unreasonably risk such harm. — tim wood

Absolutely, at least with respect to freedom as a moral condition, for such is gross disrespect for humanity in general regarding cause, and himself as a member of it, regarding risk.

On definitions: fascinating that the third section of part two of “Lectures.....” is mostly definitions, part two establishing the background to which the definitions subsequently apply. Just about anything you can think relative to morality or ethics is covered, and would be advisable in following Kant.

You know.......like the OP says.

Symbolic translation is inherent in the concept. These symbols have no inherent connection with their corresponding signals in reality. — hypericin

Symbolic translation is inherent in the conception, but then, how is the brain/mind informed as to which perception is in play, if the symbol has no connection with the signal?

Does freedom really have a more secure metaphysical status than causality? — Garth

What if it wasn’t a question of more secure, but rather, as secure?

The regret being evidence. — tim wood

With measurably greater Prussian intellectual verbosity of course, that is Kant’s exact closing stipulation in Groundwork.
————-

That's some word! — tim wood

Context helps, maybe:
“....In one word, Leibnitz intellectualized phenomena, just as Locke, in his system of noogony (if I may be allowed to make use of such expression), sensualized the conceptions of the understanding, that is to say, declared them to be nothing more than empirical or abstract conceptions of reflection...”
————-

Nevertheless, no argument is offered for the supposed conclusion of the OP. — Banno

I already know the argument, so whether or not one is missing here doesn’t affect me much. Tim can handle it alright.

Following Kant (...) freedom is..... — tim wood

Lock's version (of) freedom.... — Banno

This is no different than re-defining terms to refute an argument, rather than using the terms given by the argument and showing some conclusion of that argument doesn’t follow from them.

Locke’s liberty can never stand anywhere near Kant's freedom. It is dialectically absurd to use Locke to refute Kant, when they have entirely different domains supporting their respective philosophies. Locke, and by association, you and your raising arm, are concerned with empirical actions of the will for general purposes, while Kant is concerned with the pure a priori conditions under which the will acts, and then only those conditions and acts pursuant to a very specific, altogether singular, purpose.

Here’s your Word of the Day: Noogony. Don’t fall for it.

Cheers (?)

Not so much asked on this forum, but one I’ve pondered, and the one I’ve chosen, although admittedly it was originally asked and answered in 1787:

“.....How is pure mathematical science possible? How is pure natural science possible? Respecting these sciences, as they do certainly exist, it may with propriety be asked, how they are possible?—for that they must be possible is shown by the fact of their really existing. But as to metaphysics, the miserable progress it has hitherto made, and the fact that of no one system yet brought forward, far as regards its true aim, can it be said that this science really exists, leaves any one at liberty to doubt with reason the very possibility of its existence. Yet, in a certain sense, this kind of knowledge must unquestionably be looked upon as given; in other words, metaphysics must be considered as really existing, if not as a science, nevertheless as a natural disposition of the human mind. For human reason, without any instigations imputable to the mere vanity of great knowledge, unceasingly progresses, urged on by its own feeling of need, towards such questions as cannot be answered by any empirical application of reason, or principles derived therefrom; and so there has ever really existed in every man some system of metaphysics. It will always exist, so soon as reason awakes to the exercise of its power of speculation. And now the question arises: "How is metaphysics, as a natural disposition, possible?" In other words, how, from the nature of universal human reason, do those questions arise which pure reason proposes to itself, and which it is impelled by its own feeling of need to answer as well as it can?....”

we should be careful not to allow our interest in keeping it a mystery prevent us from solving the problem. — Harry Hindu

To keep some mysteries a secret is the same as pervasive skepticism over the possibility of relieving ourselves of ignorance of their objects. So, yes, good philosophy’s interest should not contain an over-abundance of dogmatic skepticism.

Long past the age, actually, and, finally. No need for further investigation.

Indulgence. Ehhhh....granting the authority of a particular moral philosophy doesn’t mean actually living by it. I’m pretty sure I haven't always lived up to the obligations necessarily integrated into mine.

Never mind. In trying to relate what you wrote to what I wrote, I see I misquoted you.

Sorry.

the argument here is that freedom is exactly freedom to do one's duty, and nothing else. — tim wood

At the finest reduction, this is correct. Just takes a lot of reducing to get there.

Nor is freedom being able to do whatever you like, that being just license or raw capability. — tim wood

And from that, everything else follows.

Theoretically.......

Sure, folk say silly things. (....) Relativity was not in conformity with our observations. — Banno

You mean...like that little gem? As far back as the historical record shows, this has always been relative to that. How and in what manner this is relative to that may have been at the mercy of era-specific investigation, but all that does is affirm the condition. It’s common knowledge SR wasn’t demonstrated as empirically valid for 35 years after its theoretical possibility was conceived, but thanks to 707’s and transistors, that kind of relativity immediately conformed to our observations of clocks.

That so many caveats have to be made for "the world being as it appears" is evidence the world is decidedly not as it appears. — Marchesk

Absolutely. And the greatest caveat is.....in which sense of “appearance” is the world to be taken? Appear as “instill an affective presence”, or, appear as “looks like”.

If the former, the world cannot be other than as the entry it makes into our senses, the doctrine stipulating the passivity of direct perception, insofar as perception itself makes no judgements respecting the objects it receives, and henceforth easily translates to the world necessarily is as it affects the systems receiving it.

If the latter, and because “looks like” implies a non-passive attribution, the world is nothing but that which is actively represented by and within the systems that receive it, the doctrine of indirect realism, which translates to the world necessarily being as it appears as representation, but not necessarily as it appears as an affect.

If there is no distinction between senses of appearance, and given that the human cognitive system is representational, it follows necessarily there can be no distinction in the means for the acquisition of our knowledge. And if there is no difference in the means of our knowledge, it becomes impossible to distinguish whether it is the world as it affects us, or the world as our cognitive system represents the world to itself, that is responsible for the mistakes we make with our knowledge, as its ends.

Ironic as hell, isn’t it, that everything I just said, is rife with caveats. (Sigh)

Having rejected the classical insight of 'nous' and made all knowledge subject to empirical validation......

Pretty sorry state of affairs if you ask me.

..........This is why we nowadays insist that what is real must be situated in space and time (‘out there somewhere’......

Used to be external, or material, was that which is situated in space and time, while the real could be situated in time alone, from which reality in and of itself, is conceived in accordance with the definition, that which exists in a determined time. This allows equal representational validity for planets and judgements.

.........although physics itself seem now to have overflowed those bounds)...... — Wayfarer

Yep, and just like that, what with mental states being brain states, and the observer problem, physics has to come to grips with what the metaphysician always condoned, that the real being internal as well as external, is logically consistent, hence theoretically feasible.
—————

Evolution is a natural processs, but it has generated beings who are capable of seeing beyond the bounds of biology. — Wayfarer

And even if there are those who insist animals are gifted with rational thought, it begs the question, as to whether they think in accordance with rules. If such cannot be proven to be the case....and it cannot because it cannot even be proven that humans inhere with that methodology..... animal “thought” reduces to mere reactive/repetitive instinct. And the human can propose this without contradicting himself, on the one hand because his own at least reactive instinct remains with him, albeit below the consciousness of his mental acuity, and on the other, because his rational thought is direct, dedicated acquaintance, which can never suffice for second-order suppositions. That all brains work the same is nothing but clandestine anthropomophism.

Of course humans are on an intellectual pedestal. We put ourselves there, and that should be the end-all of the discussion.

Worthy read, yes, so.....thanks for it. I particularly favor Part III onward, myself.

But I have to ask....what does the paper say to you? You are historically an analytic-type, the premier tenet of which, is the notion that metaphysical propositions are not so much true or false, but generally meaningless. Yet the opening paragraph in the linked paper specifies that they are not, being “too serious to be shrugged aside”. Odd, I must say, that the thesis, as “too serious to be shrugged aside” as a ghost story, appeals to that very same pejorative conception as the ground for justifying it.

Inquiring minds want to know.....were you already familiar with this article, or did you do some research in order to comment, however clandestine such comment may be, on my “every change is succession in time”?

But even setting that aside, where in the levels of “logical decidability” does your response to it: “the floor changes from the living room to the bathroom”, fit in? And did you see, did it occur to you, that your floor changing response sustains the author’s anecdotal missive, “...It is curious that some anti-metaphysicians have relied on some instantiation criterion of empirical confirmation without realizing that this lets in a host of untestable metaphysical doctrines...”

Let’s just call me confused. Might be my fault, but it seems to me you’ve always presented yourself as anti-metaphysical, yet this article presents metaphysical sentences is a more favorable light than you’ve allowed them. And if you’re not an anti-metaphysicalist, how did you not approve my “change” comment, but rather, attempt to refute it with propositions entirely insufficient for doing so?

Anyway......interesting read, especially the latter parts.

OK, thanks.

I’d think differently about only two things, for sure, the remainder being nonetheless informative.

I suppose you could call them noumenal objects (I didn't think of this at the time and it's certainly not something Kant would have said. — Wayfarer

Nahhhh....he would have called them transcendental objects. “Them” being numbers. For us, with our discursive understanding, noumenal objects are incomprehensible.

We can't see the world as it really is, because there is no way it 'really is'. — Wayfarer

Because of the kind of intelligence we are as humans, we think there must be a way the world really is. We just aren’t entitled to the irreducible certainty of our knowledge of it. Quantum tunneling aside, it behooves us to respect objective reality as given necessarily, and the practical ground for all objective reality resides in the empirical conception of “world”.

Again.....thanks.

All good.

Realist with respect to universals.....universals are real? In which sense? What kind of real?

I’m not sure what I think about them, so.....just wondering. Brief overview will suffice, if you’re so inclined.

Hmmmm.....Ol’ Rene was right after all; there is a demon. What else but a demon would be so callous to send me a thought wave manifesting in me as thinking thought waves are the stupidest thing I could ever imagine, then deceive me into doubting I ever thought it.

Amplitude modulation presupposes a carrier. If thoughts are the modulation, they can’t be the carrier, which is the inherent characteristic of FM, so where does the carrier come from?

I saw where you mentioned him elsewhere, but hadn’t seen for myself until this.

Good stuff, by which I mean....it meets with my unabashedly entrenched cognitive prejudices. But he is a theologian, and a post-modern at that, so, boo!!! Advocating the reinstatement of reason to supplant the cultural supremacy of empiricism, so.....yea!!!

Minor point, if I may: this.....

“....And not only is human knowledge entirely encompassed in, and limited to, sense-experience (a point which Kant, while reacting against Hume, admitted like Hume)....”

....is wrong.

“....But as this process does furnish real a priori knowledge, which has a sure progress and useful results...”
(CPR, A6/B10)

But I’m sure, somewhere in his corpus, he espouses in more detail what he means by it. You know....the ol’ “dogmatic slumber” thing? Pretty inconsistent to react against, then at the same time, admit to, the very thing reacted against.

All that aside, thanks for the reference.

as a practical matter I see the tree. — tim wood

Yep. Better hope so, especially if you’re on an intercept course with one.
—————

Can you see a way reason gets there faster with more? I cannot. — tim wood

The idea that reason doesn’t get you there faster is quite likely what Hume meant by his “constant conjunction” phrase......Enlightenment Brit for, this is generally because of that, so if you know this, you don’t need to reason about that. So in his mind, reason doesn’t usually do anything faster (than habit itself, that is), and often reason doesn’t do anything at all.

But just because we are not conscious of reason in action doesn’t mean it isn’t; reason doesn’t turn on and off depending on experience. Reason is thought and the conscious human thinks constantly. But reason obviously doesn’t work as hard, and we don’t think as much, under the conditions where habit seems to be the case, or, which is the same thing from a metaphysical point of view, when an antecedent experience reflects back on intuition. Psychologists call that mere memory, but we don’t care about them, right?

So experience (habit) tells you to use a wrench on that frozen nut, but “faster with more” pure reason tells you to put an extension on the wrench for that added Archimedes leverage principle to play. But only that one time, of course.

Now, as to things present to your senses of which you know nothing at all about, not only is reason faster and more, it is only.

I've a Swiss army knife, if needed, for the beans. — tim wood

Which is to say.....right tool for the right job (?)

Hey.......

One of my very favorite opening salvos in philosophical discourse, Hylas to Philonous:

“....I was considering the odd fate of those men who have in all ages,
through an affectation of being distinguished from the vulgar, or some
unaccountable turn of thought, pretended either to believe nothing at
all, or to believe the most extravagant things in the world. This however
might be borne, if their paradoxes and scepticism did not draw after them
some consequences of general disadvantage to mankind. But the mischief
lieth here; that when men of less leisure see them who are supposed
to have spent their whole time in the pursuits of knowledge professing an
entire ignorance of all things, or advancing such notions as are
repugnant to plain and commonly received principles, they will be tempted
to entertain suspicions concerning the most important truths, which they
had hitherto held sacred and unquestionable....”

‘Course, everybody else with their own important truths and their own idea for plain and commonly received principles, will say just about the same thing.

Do you think there’s anything in Berkeley we can use today?

Chomsky??? Really.

Boys and girls.....here’s proof of what not to do if you want to be understood in your speech acts. Now, please, don’t bother asking me what to do, because that would be tedious and would require you to actually put some effort into examining your own lingual gymnastics. Sorry.....you’re on your own here. Heaven forfend that there were but a definitive treatise, ready-made and theoretically complete, logically consistent........culminating in the most classic understatement of recorded human history: if your conceptions don’t relate to each other, you be nothin’ but flappin’ yer jaws even if the other guy is statistically cognizant (gasp) of each and every word you be speechifyin’.
——————

But the floor changes between here, where it is wood board, and the bathroom, where it is tile. — Banno

I went to bed last night; the bathroom floor was covered in tile. I got up this morning, the bathroom floor was still covered in the same tile.

I sympathize with your position, in that the world is all that can be the case. Thoughts are in my head, my head is in the world, therefore my thoughts are in the world. Nevertheless, my thoughts cannot be treated like basketballs are treated, so we must come to grips with that rather obvious monkey wrench.

Moving on.......

I think that is precisely what analytic philosophy attempts to do: analyze and bring to light the logic of thought. — Janus

Agreed, but I submit the formal predicate logic they use to deconstruct thought, is not the Aristotelian syllogistic propositional logic used to construct it. Apples and oranges?

I'd like to see this filled out: an example, perhaps. — Banno

What need does an example serve, when the truth of a proposition lays in the fact the negation of it is impossible. If a proposition must be either true or false, and the falsity of the proposition is impossible, the truth of the proposition is given necessarily.

The only way to falsify the proposition, is to change the definitions of the conceptions contained in it. But that’s cheatin’ dammit!!
——————

It's just making noise. — Banno

Again with language. By definition, one cannot enunciate incomprehensibly. Incomprehensible speech is still speech, even if it is impossible to understand, re: Swahili to a 10yo Finlander. Feynman could have spoken to me in our common language but with his kind of terminology and I wouldn’t have understood half of what he said, but I wouldn’t dare claim he was merely making noise.

you spoke (....) of the world as a "euphemism for whatever there is on the input side of our senses"; but for the analytic tradition (...) the world is that of which we make true statements - the world is all that is the case.

IS this difference at the root of our disagreement? — Banno

Truth be told, the root is in language use itself, and the supremacy I think falsely allotted to it. Case in point.....it may be that the world is that about which true statements can be made, but it does not follow from that, that the world is all that is the case merely because true statements are possible because of it. It is also possible, after all, to make true statements having nothing whatsoever to do with the world, re: change is successions in time.
——————

things about which nothing can be said — Banno

As well, I think this needs qualifiers, insofar as there is nothing about which it is impossible to say anything, from your admitted analytic prospective. There are things that if anything is said about them, such saying will be irrational, nonsensical, absurd, meaningless, and so on, but theses are still somethings that can be said.

Things about which nothing can be said, on the other hand, this from the non-Anglophone continental tradition, is that to which no thought has been given. And THAT is what gives ordinary language use its secondary status.

I know.

But let's not pretend we have the answer where there can be none. — Banno

Agreed, that this can be both dangerous and foolish. Is this a general cautionary statement, or have you witnessed an occasion where such pretension is evident, and refer me to it?

I think there’s some confusion here, things aren’t relating to each other. I was talking about my gripe with analytic philosophy, in that it answers questions logically by breaking them down, as Banno says, but I hold that questions should have been constructed logically in the first place, if it be granted the human cognitive system is itself a logical enterprise. It follows that breaking the question down doesn’t have near the explanatory power as would breaking down the logic under which the question was constructed. And because logical constructions are metaphysical without regard for language, which has only to do with expressions representing such constructions, the disassembly of that logic should be metaphysical as well. Nothing can be re-stated that hasn’t been re-thought.

As to not seeing the world as it is prohibits seeing my own body as it is......with respect to empirical knowledge, this is quite correct. My foot, e.g., is the same kind of perceptual sensation and I cognize my foot as an experience just as I perceive, represent, cognize and experience the oak tree down back. But the quality of the foot as MY foot among feet in general, is very far from the quality of the one tree among trees in general, from which follows the certainty of knowing very much more about MY foot than feet in general. Still, no matter how much more I know about my foot, I am not authorized to say I know my own foot as it is in itself, without contradicting the entire system by which I base the possibility of my empirical knowledge. For then I must admit my foot is not represented to me as a phenomenon as is every other object of my perception, and I then successfully defeat my own experiential methodology.

Now......the importance of “quality”......

Ehhhh.....none of that interests me.

Starting from causative relations between objects and then trying to explain consciousness on top of this IS the problem — Joshs

Yeah, I’m fine with that brief. Personally, I would then ask, if science solves the hard problem by relating the physical mechanisms of brain to the metaphysical mechanisms of subjectivism......what has really been accomplished? I rather think no one will care, except the scientists.

Now, can we write a definition of "identity" that allows us to treat either one of them as an individual object? — afterthegame

No. 10m separation identifies an unoccupied space, but does not identify the objects the unoccupied space presupposes. No definition of identity is required for the treatment of objects.

The fact that black ball is given as means for identification in that universe is irrelevant, because there is nothing else in that universe to use the identification, hence the definition of identity is not necessary in the treatment of objects.

If the claim is that an observer outside the black ball universe uses the object’s given identity as black ball, then the entire scenario is irrelevant in itself, because the observer has already identified the spatially separated objects as two black balls, which makes explicit he has already defined identity sufficiently to himself, in order to attribute “black ball” to each of those objects.

It cannot be said there are two black balls, then fail to account for them. If there is no account, it cannot be said there are two black balls. Then the whole thing becomes an exercise in irrationality.

We cannot speak of the world as it is in itself. Then how can it have any significance? — Banno

True, but it does nonetheless. The significance being, the setting of limits of human knowledge, the limits being, not the world, but ourselves.

So far I've taken "see" to be roughly understood as "perceive". But it might mean something like "discern". — Banno

It doesn’t. To discern is to understand, to comprehend. Perception doesn’t think, and comprehension doesn’t perceive.

What I've writ so far is along the analytic tradition, breaking the question down into pieces and seeing if, by finding answers for each, we can answer the original question. — Banno

Well, there ya go: your analytical way finds answers to questions, the other, and dare I say all the more fundamentally significant, way seeks the conditions which must have been involved, in order for questions to even be asked in the first place.
—————-

The idea is that there is a world that stands outside our perceptions of it, and hence is outside of our capacity to discern. — Banno

Yes and no. The idea is, and yes it stems from transcendental idealism if not other doctrines as well, there is no world for a human other than the world of his perceptions, but rather, the idea is, whatever that world is, is not necessarily represented by his knowledge. It’s just shorthand for the notion that the world doesn’t tell us about itself, but we tell ourselves about the world. The world is as it is, for it couldn’t logically be otherwise, but nevertheless, we just can’t claim knowledge of it as it is, but only as we understand it.

The direct realists say the world and our understanding of it are on a one-to-one correspondence, but that is of course, provably not the case.

So change your evil ways, dump those analytic bovine droppings, and join the real philosophers!!!!

My hunch is that the so-called easy problem of consciousness at a mechanistic level is equally as difficult as the so-called hard problem at the subjective level. They might even be the same problem. — Wheatley

Interesting read here, in that they may be kindasorta equally difficult problems, but they are certainly not the same problem: http://cogprints.org/1617/1/harnad00.mind.humphrey.html