Feelings are things. Ideas are things. Feelings and ideas are a causal part of the world, just like everything else we make statements about. — Harry Hindu

I disagree. That which is given to sensibility is a thing, that which to us becomes phenomena. Causality for things in the world requires both sufficient reason and necessity; feelings are sufficient reason for some things but do not carry necessity for those same things, so fails the criteria for causality of things in the world.

But, if you ain’t buyin’ none of that, that feelings are not things, c’mon over and we’ll crack open this brand new jug of righteousness, grill up some happy, top off the evening with nice game of timid, and we’ll talk about these......er..... things.
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Feelings don’t matter in statements not about feelings but about things.
— Mww
...which was the point I was making about the distinction between objective and subjective statements - when you confuse talking about things that are not your feelings with talking about your feelings. When you tell me the apple is red, are you talking about the apple or your feeling? — Harry Hindu

One cannot talk intelligibly about his feelings without some object in the predicate of the proposition, that identifies them, that predicate immediately makes the proposition objective. A purely subjective proposition has the form, “I feel bad”. Or, “Juicy ripe apples make me feel happy”, where the predicate is the feeling. Both worthless tautologies. A big fat.....yeah, and???

Rather than a category error, I think the distinction between objective and subjective statements is what can be possibly done with them. Objective, possible dialogue; subjective, no dialogue, or amendment to an objective statement in order to facilitate a possible dialogue.

Or not. Too much bother, methinks. The technicalities beyond the scope.

You: If statements are about feelings, then what are feelings about?
Me: And if they’re not, why would it matter?
You: Exactly. If feelings aren't about anything, then your words and your feelings wouldn't matter...

Statements not about feelings are statements about things.
Feelings don’t matter in statements not about feelings but about things.
Statements not about feelings doesn't mean feelings aren’t about anything.
Feelings are always about something. If feelings aren’t about anything, statements with feeling as predicates are worthless tautologies, re: beauty is a feeling.

Our feeling of reading words is about words that exist on the screen — Harry Hindu

No. Our understanding of reading words is about words that exist, and that from an assertorial judgement on a given cognition on empirical grounds; feeling is only an aesthetic judgement that is not given from any cognition, but on a priori ground alone. Understanding is an affect on experience; feeling is an affect on personality (technically, subjectivity) because of an experience.

Do try to separate feelings from cognitions, psychology from philosophy.

there is a passive state of subjectivity (when thought is not active) — TheGreatArcanum

I would name this sensibility.

and an active state of subjectivity (when thought is active) — TheGreatArcanum

I would name this understanding.

that is to say that the subject has a quasi-unconscious non-representational a priori knowledge of its potential to create change within itself through thought. — TheGreatArcanum

I would name this consciousness.

subject doesn't need to represent itself using propositions to know that it exists, — TheGreatArcanum

Reification, or misplaced concreteness generally, and James’ (1890) psychologist’s fallacy in particular. Or so it seems. And if not that, then the logical mistake of using existence as a predicate. If a subject knows anything at all, whether from its propositions or otherwise, then its existence is given which makes knowing it exists, quite superfluous.
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the subject, while the active state is not instantiated, is not non-existent, but existent in a state of potentiality, in which every aspect of its essence (with the exception of a few; I'm sure you can guess which ones are active and which are not) are still existent. — TheGreatArcanum

So the mind has a process, which involves a series of steps, so to speak. At some point in that process, according to your theory, some steps are inactive because the subject is not actually thinking, per se. What happens to the input to a system, when it meets an inactive step? What comes out the other side, if its activity is blocked by an inactive step in the process? It sounds to me like you’re proposing the aspects of the subject are still there, but just not doing anything.

OK, so....there is an aspect in which the subject’s active state is not instantiated, meaning the subject is not engaged in thought, and I name it “sensibility”. It is that in which the matter of perceptions (theoretically, mind you) is found, and gives to the active, thinking subject its material, which I name phenomena. But as you can see, it is very far from inactive, for otherwise, we might perceive an object but never be given the means to henceforth think it as the representation of, e.g., “bulldozer”.

This is all quite reasonable, given that all sensations, traveling from the receptivity of organs responsible for each type along their specialized, dedicated nerves to the CNS, the empirical facts and therefore the absolute necessity of which we are never the least bit conscious.

Now....state of potentiality. Sounds at first rather far-fetched. Seemingly wants to be reduced to possibility, which just sounds better. But that reduction misses a very fine point that potentiality grants, and that is....there is no smell of frying bacon unless bacon is in fact frying. Experience tells us that the stuff frying is bacon, but potentiality tells us how bacon would smell if it fries. Your potentiality is not far-fetched at all; I just name it differently, as intuition.
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even people who disagree with my philosophy are going to love my philosophy simply because of its poeticness and its originality. — TheGreatArcanum

Weeellllll....it isn’t all that original, and I don’t want my philosophy poetic. But your thinking is admirable nonetheless. You know.....cuz it adjoins my own enough to say so. Which only means we both might be so FOS our eyes are brown. (Grin)

This leads@Mww puzzling over the mistaken metaphor as to whether the house is built on its foundations or the foundations built under the house. — Banno

What....I was supposed to get that, out of this?

“....given at 248: 'I have arrived at the rock-bottom of my convictions. And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house.'....”

That’s like the other day, this guy tells me...the fly is trapped in the bottle because it’s transparent.

I suppose there’s some kind of epiphany in both of those, but the expense of effort isn’t worth the find.

how can we say that knowledge is reducible to propositional knowledge? — TheGreatArcanum

Dunno, which is why I would never say that. I, in fact, reject the notion entirely, under either a priori or a posteriori conditions.

As for the rest, I’ll have to think about it. Some seems right, some not so much. But I’m cognitively prejudiced, so there is that......

the process is contained within the essence of the subject and does not exist independently of it. — TheGreatArcanum

The subject never even arises until or unless the system thinks about itself, insofar as the subject merely represents the first person nature of the system, by means of propositions the system constructs in accordance with its own rules.

Hence, the aforementioned intrinsic circularity.

the logical form and process of thought and its relationship to the logical form of the mind considered in itself — TheGreatArcanum

meaning that the essence of the subject involves the formulation of thoughts; — TheGreatArcanum

Logical consistency requires that if the first is the case, then it follows that the second should read....the essence of the mind involves the formulation of thoughts. The subject is that to which the thoughts belong, the subject is not itself the process. The essence of the subject, though, is merely the manifold of his representations.

But hey........it’s your philosophy, do with it as you wish. Who knows; we might be witnessing another paradigm shift.

the logical form and process of thought and its relationship to the logical form of the mind considered in itself — TheGreatArcanum

This is the what a system of thought does, considered in itself. There are no propositions, hence no circular reasoning involved therein, but are deriveable from it by means of it.

When I asked about the intrinsic circularity contained in the system, you answered with the circularity possible from the illogical employment of the system.

Can’t mix the two, in building a new philosophy.

Kant's Metaphysics — 3017amen

Mentioned.

Dismissed as......primitive.

Systems. Antecedent to propositions constructed by it.

That is to say that the structure of the mind is logical, and can be known, logically. — TheGreatArcanum

And what is to be done with the intrinsic circularity of such a system?

If statements are about feelings, then what are feelings about? — Harry Hindu

And if they’re not, why would it matter?

Are you an anti-realist or solipsist? — Harry Hindu

Depends. Is there prize or penalty for the right answer?

allows me to infer, from particular to universal, with absolute certainty. — TheGreatArcanum

Oh. Ok.

Good luck with that.

Start at the beginning: Critique of Pure Reason. Make no mistake......whatever is said today, about what you’re asking, is grounded in one way or another, pro or con, by that complete metaphysical treatise on the human cognitive system.

As an added bonus, you get a real test of your comprehension abilities.

Have fun!!!

That is the category error - when a statement is asserted to be about the empircal state-of-affairs when it is really about the person's feelings or emotional state. — Harry Hindu

Because every statement ever made is first constructed by a subject, and because a subject has feelings, then any implied empirical statement is really a statement about feelings, hence a category error?

Too absurd to be true, so I’ll grant the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s not what you meant.

The fly is trapped in the bottle because it's transparent. — T H E

I’m gonna go ahead and assume that right there exemplifies good philosophy, but I’m just too dense to grasp it, and the benefit in expending the hard work of making the hidden assumptions visible, isn’t obtained by the effort.
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trapped' in the transparent bottle of Cartesian assumptions — T H E

'Prove to me I have a hand.' — T H E

It's just wheels spinning in the mud. — T H E

Yeah, just like that. Because ol’ Rene said he could doubt he had a hand presupposes it (the mud), so the proof thereof is given, making the request for such proof superfluous (a spinning wheel).

'Do I see a chair or a representation of a chair?' — T H E

Dunno. Try sitting in a chair with your eyes closed, see if your butt lands on the floor. The spinning wheel here, is the mistaken relation between what is perceived and the representation of it. It isn’t the same. Never was.
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I can't do the word-math that proves the confusion in a word-math approach. — T H E

Seems that way, yes. If you could, you wouldn’t be questioning the chair. So maybe the confusion isn’t in the approach itself, but merely its proper application.

the whole man-in-the-box problem of getting to the real world — T H E

The word-math system shows the man-in-the-box that he doesn’t have to get to the real world, for the simple reason that real world is given to him. The real world gets to him so much so that it is absolutely impossible for him to ignore it. Sorta like that fly.....it is in no way self-contradictory to propose he (fly/man) isn’t so much trapped in a transparent bottle (box) objectified as his real world, as to propose he is, rather, protected by it. The boundary restricts his exorbitant creations (language games/inconceivable abstractions) concerning the other side, being necessarily governed by a very particular domain of possibilities he has been fated to populate.
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Mentalistic man-in-the-box language is unfortunately necessary. — T H E

There’s an inescapable reason for that, and it’s unfortunate only because it is impossible to work around that very necessity intrinsic to a “word-math” system. Which, of course, says loads about such attempts.

Good talk. Coin-side one vs coin-side other.

I don’t see why we can’t say reason depends on non-physical stuff, if only because reason is itself non-physical
— Mww

That's begging the question there. — Pfhorrest

.....says the guy that doesn’t deny human reason, insists it must in no way depend on non-physical stuff, yet can’t measure it. Can’t show how signals from a sense organ enable some quanta of neurotransmitters such that Lima beans are translated into that which the brain registers as gawd-awful. Then, even enables itself to inform some other brain it has registered Lima beans as gawd-awful, with which that other brain may not agree. Maybe because it has no “gawd-awful” pathways enabled....dunno.

I’d rather just beg the question.

Any time you make a statement that asserts how some state of affairs exists for all humans (....) like what perception and understanding is for all humans, you are making a objective statement. — Harry Hindu

Point, but of questionable relevance.

Subjective statements are categorical errors, insofar as statements are technically empirical objects in the world, hence are not contained in the mind....or brain, if you wish....hence not subjective. Nevertheless, statements are themselves merely empirical manifestations of cognitive goings-on.....reason.....of the subject that creates them. The inescapable folly of language games. No statement is at all possible without the subject that creates it, so.....

I just figured it went without saying, that because perception and understanding are faculties belonging to all humans in general and thereby to each human in particular, then it follows necessarily that the objects of those faculties belongs to any human in possession of them. Which is sufficient reason to claim perception and understanding of reality, or anything at all in fact, is entirely subjective, the ontology of perception and understanding themselves, standing beside the point. They are given from the conditions of human nature, from where makes no difference. And refutable by the principle of induction, sure, but if you find a human without these faculties, no one will deny you your Nobel. (grin)

I don't at all deny human reason, only that it depends at all on some kind of non-physical stuff. — Pfhorrest

Agreed....reason cannot depend on non-physical stuff, in the strictest sense. So you.....and everybody else that “...rises to the level of speculation....” grants the necessity of physical ground for reason, but nobody knows how one follows from the other. So we don’t deny the reality of that which we know nothing real about. An insurmountable paradox best left alone.

I don’t see why we can’t say reason depends on non-physical stuff, if only because reason is itself non-physical, FAPP, and it is reason that tells us about itself. It’s how humans operate, so to reject that operational character is to reject our own intrinsic humanity.

You do decent philosophy, but at what cost?

Ok, thanks.

Usually the burden on the claimant, at the very least, is to show warrant in the text of the claim. Otherwise, there is naught but mere assertion.

In the case of the OP, however, by saying “if all perception and understanding.....”, no claim has been made, but merely a premise has been stated, from which a claim is to follow in the predicate of the proposition. You’ve given the “if, but not the “then”, so you haven’t claimed anything, so there is no burden for anybody.

Actually....what purpose do the parentheticals hold? What’s the difference between “if all perception and understanding of reality....” and “if all (perception and understanding of) reality....”? Either way, the conditions under which “all reality” must necessarily be taken, is exactly the same.

I agree, by the way. All perception and understanding of reality is subjective. How could it be otherwise. Doesn’t mean reality is itself subjective.

It's better perhaps to think of Wittgenstein as doing a kind of phenomenology, which is to say call our attention to what would be obvious if it wasn't so terribly taken for granted. A certain kind of philosophy is trapped in a picture. — T H E

And what is it that is taken for granted? That a certain kind of philosophy trapped in a picture is experienced as necessary, when it should be experienced as merely contingent?

Perhaps it would it be better to think this kind of phenomenology when attempting to understand Wittgenstein, but seems rather inept when attempting to understand human nature in general.

Keeping with language games, all philosophies are trapped in their respective pictures by the mind that creates them. Never stays that way, re: interpretational distinctions, which raises concerns over what being trapped really means. If trapped in every mind, it isn’t trapped in any. The epitome of contingency.

Burden of proof is not on.........what.

The first part of OC1is interesting because I agree with it, with respect to the set of components attributed to Wittgenstein in support of it, “...The view I shall call OC1 and which constitutes a version of a foundationalist refutation of scepticism, and therefore a contribution to the theory of knowledge...”

And this is interesting because I don’t:

“....a clever encapsulation of the transcendental argument is given at 248: 'I have arrived at the rock-bottom of my convictions. And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house.'...”

Metaphoric representation aside, it remains that foundation walls are not carried by the house; the foundation walls carry the whole house, in which case it is found that the clever encapsulation of Wittgenstein’s transcendental argument...is neither clever nor that argument.

While the transcendental argument is the means to arrive at what’s called the rock-bottom of my convictions in the form of propositions which are not susceptible to doubt, re: #341 (in the Kantian sense, the unconditioned), and is a foundation of that which is possible to follow from it, it is self-contradictory to then say it is that which is built upon the conviction, that is itself foundational.
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I had a bone of contention with Antony, a Wittgenstein advocate of high caliber, as to method. In the present article is found....

“.....Of course it only sketches a kind of view; it amounts to recognising that theories of knowledge like, say, Kant's–framework-invoking theories–are on the right lines. Now one would like to see the hard detail of such a theory....”

....which exactly describes my lack of reception of Witt’s philosophy: he tells me all this stuff but never once tells me how it comes to be that way. I mean....

“....#450. A doubt that doubted everything would not be a doubt.....”

......is an analytic truth, a tautology, and while correct in itself, never gets used to justify something relatable to it. It’s one of those foundational rock-bottom convictions of his, but without the bother of building a house the foundation would support.

Anyway.....now you know. Not to rain on your parade or anything, just some personal observations.

Isn’t there a need to distinguish kinds of determinism?
— Mww

I'm not clear what you mean here, but it sounds like you're talking about determinism in the physical world versus determinism in some kind of non-physical world that interacts with the physical world. I deny that any such non-physical world could possibly exist in the first place, but even if it did, that wouldn't solve any problems with regard to free will. — Pfhorrest

I’ve not read where you deny the metaphysical domain of human reason, so I wonder how you can categorically deny the possibility of some kind of non-physical world here. If it is impossible to deny the appearance.....the seemingness......of human rationality, isn’t it permissible to grant the validity of its sufficiently critiqued cognitive machinations? Why can’t the metaphysical domain be a valid placeholder for a non-physical world?

I submit that a metaphysical domain does solve the problems of free will, if one is satisfied by mere acceptance of possible logical consistency, rather than necessary empirical proofs.
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The non-physical agent would still either make the decisions it makes on the basis of prior facts (....), or else it makes its decisions without regard to the facts, at random, in which case its decisions are undetermined. — Pfhorrest

What of the possibility that determinations can be made without regard to facts, but with regard for law? In such case, those determinations cannot be in any way random.

I think we must account for A.)....circumstances in which the facts are not known, yet in which some determination is nonetheless required, and B.)....circumstances in which the facts are known but the agent makes his determinations in direct opposition to them. In other words, it doesn’t hold that the predicates of a purely physical world can be the sole arbiter of the human decision-making procedure. Which you apparently condone, given your “.....an ability to correctly assess what you should do...”, which presupposes some ability to relate a subjective judgement to its objective manifestation.

As I said.....applause for the conception of a metaphysical will, but I regret to see you spoil it by denying its usefulness.

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......