The premise with OLP is that we regularly do not know what the criteria for a concept are (they work behind the scenes as it were),
— Antony Nickles

Oh come on, this is nonsense. — Metaphysician Undercover

Just a quick butt-insky here, if you don’t mind. I think it is the case that the average person doesn’t know how it is he knows things. Regularly, a guy accepts his knowledge as being merely given from personal experience or instruction by rote. If this be granted, it follows that not only does the average joe not know what a concept per se is, he also won’t have any idea what it means for a concept to have its criteria. To him, a dog is just some particular thing; the ways and means between the thing and knowing it as a particular thing are (regularly) undisclosed to him. It is only when he wants to know its kind, its degree of danger, etc., must he then determine supplemental conceptions to add to the conception of dog in general, such

From here, it is easier to see that there are only two criterion for any conception....the principle of identity for those conceptions relating to conceptions in general, and the principle of non-contradiction for those conceptions supplementing given general conceptions.....both principles operating entirely behind the scenes.

People act out of habit when they talk. And acting out of habit is not applying criteria. — Metaphysician Undercover

Or, it is applying criteria behind the scenes, without ever being conscious of it. Makes sense actually; regularly-learned folk don’t need to consciously examine the validity of a thing’s verbal description when the habitually communicated description has always sufficed. Nevertheless, theoretically-learned folk will maintain that the cognitive system as a whole must still be in play, otherwise, we are presented with the necessity for waking it up when needed, and then the determination of method for waking, and then the necessity of determination of need, ad infinitum......and nothing rationally conditioned is ever successesfully accomplished.

So....my thinking is that OLP as I understand it, is at least superfluous and at most utter nonsense, but that the criteria for our conceptions, operating “behind the scenes”, and therefore not “regularly” known as belonging to our knowledge structure, is not.

tell me that no reason is manifested there — tim wood

Reason by what standard? If ours, then surely not; we don’t know how our own reason works, assuming there is such a thing that isn’t merely a premise in a metaphysical theory. That something is happening between our ears there can be no doubt, but whatever is happening is at the same time the very thing that tells us what is happening, so we have a thing representing itself. In other words, we’re telling ourselves what ourselves are telling us. So we’re going to gain something, are we, by using that gross circularity to tell us about the exact same thing but in a different situation under different conditions? I think not, mon ami.
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You appear to have extended this to reason. — tim wood

There is no use whatsoever for inventing concepts like understanding, consciousness, synthesis, experience, knowledge.....reason itself, except as means for US, as humans, to relate to other things. So presumptuous of us, on the one hand, and absolutely necessary on the other, if you ask me, to use concepts relating to humans for their own purpose, in observing the operation of animals nothing like us except for being of alive and taking up space.

It would be impossible to talk about experiences in other animals, if we hadn’t already determined what the concept entails, and we can only determine what the concept entails, when we relate it to ourselves. We invented it....what else could it be applied to, sufficient to justify its invention?

Is there another kind of reason in other kinds of animals? Could be, but....so what? We can’t do anything with it, we can only make inferences pursuant to observation, from which we know nothing of its reasoning, that isn’t in fact contingent on our own. As you say...cat for cat, dog for dog, and so forth.

Now, the common rejoinder is, because all biological entities are composed of the same elemental chemistry, they must obey the same physical laws. It follows that because all brains operate under the same physical conditions, it must be the case that the manifestations of their operations must have an intrinsic congruence. But logic informs us that a condition being necessary is not the same as being sufficient, which means if we can find a situation of disparity for similar possibilities, it may simply be a case of insufficiency. Now it becomes a matter of lesser animals meeting the condition of necessity, but lacking the condition of sufficiency, and BOO-YA!!!....animals in fact might reason, just of a different kind than, and therefore unavailable to fundamental examination by, humans.

But I ramble. Old people do that a lot, I’m here to tell ya.

Oh.......did you see the fireworks in DC last night? Man, that was the most intense display I’ve ever seen. Most impressive, I must say. ‘Course...I don’t get out much, so there is that.

of animals that appear to have mental capacities (very much to be clarified), it seems to me not that they are different in kind, but in degree. — tim wood

Sneakers and loafers are both shoes, but they are different kinds of shoes. A size 3 shoe is different in degree than a size 11 shoe of the same kind, but neither of them fit a size 9 foot.

Report that a car just hit a mailbox, first thing you’ll be asked is....what kind of car was it? If degree was more important, you would have been asked....how hard was the mailbox hit?

Doesn’t matter the degree of a brain; it matters what it is capable of, and kinds of brains have different kinds of capabilities. Degree would matter regarding the same kind of brain, it’s general capabilities being developmentally predicated on evolution, long term, or merely common experience, short term. A hummingbird brain is never going to evolve enough, nor experience the requisite preliminaries, to do calculus.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Complexity is just another word for degree. Did you know and elephant has more neural connections than a human, and he can’t even write his own name. An orangutan has only slightly fewer neural connections in a brain roughly the same size as a human, but he picks his nose in public, fercrissakes!!!!

Territorial animals will kill interlopers of their own kind, and matriarch lionesses apparently torture an interloping female lion before allowing the rest of the pride to kill it. Does that grant a human the warrant to suppose such animals have a moral disposition, when, as far as he knows, it is only himself that supposes moral dispositions per se?

A whale dives hundreds of feet for squid. Does that grant a human warrant to suppose a whale knows a priori, to hold his breath, when a human knows a priori, not that he must hold his breath underwater, that being merely instinct, but rather, what will happen if he doesn’t? Odd, isn’t it, that young whales don’t attempt to dive with the adults, but does that give a human the warrant to suppose the youngster thereby knows a priori he is at the mercy of orcas?
——————

because I have seen with my own eyes.... — tim wood

....and whatever you’ve seen, and therefore anything derived from it, is bound by your own cognitive system. You have not the means to judge by any other system whatsoever. So......what exactly have you seen? Nothing but that which is within the bounds of your system to report, which can tell you nothing about any other reporting system unlike yours. Which is what we’re talking about here, at bottom: @possibility and his a priori information synthesizing capabilities.
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Nagel 1974: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf

reluctance of philosophers to venture into the domain of psychology. — Possibility

One informs the intellect, the other insults it? Opinion only, of course.
Philosopher: I can tell you how I think.
Psychologist: I can tell you how you think.

Kant would never concede a relation between empirical neurological research and pure reason. At the same time, if he had any knowledge of empirical neurological research, it is unlikely he would have spent 12 years developing transcendental philosophy. Still, that particular bell can never be unrung.
————

I’m afraid there’s a lot to unpack here, though. — Possibility

True enough, and starting with the recognition of anthropomorphism. The bane of good philosophy, but conveniently overlooked in the other sciences. What warrant have we to classify the mental capacities of lesser animals, ref. Nagel, 1974. No matter what we think about how lesser animals process information, such thinking is only possible from the way we think about anything at all. It looks to us as if dolphins enjoy surfing, and it looks to us like eagles play catch with their catch. Might be nothing but another kind of observer problem.

You ask what if we let go of the assumption only higher intelligence animals synthesize information a priori; I say the strictly human criteria by which lesser animals synthesize information a priori, can never be met.

Still fun to talk about, though. As long as nobody claims to have all the answers.

Kant argues that a priori knowledge (what we appear to ‘just know’) can be synthetic......

A priori knowledge can be synthetic...yes. A priori knowledge can also be analytic.

.....and demonstrates this synthesis by converting qualitative variability in phenomenal experience into a rational structure.....

Is there another way to say: demonstrates this synthesis by converting qualitative variability in phenomenal experience into a rational structure? This would be good to know, in order for me to understand why such synthesis allows all a priori knowledge to be synthetic. Sure, you could use qualitative phenomenal experience to justify “to fall up contradicts gravity”, but why would you? And what about a priori knowledge by which no phenomenal experience is at all possible, re: all parts of space are themselves each a space”, yet still has a rational or logical structure?

.....In my own constructionist view this allows for all a priori knowledge to be understood as synthetic - but there is no allowance for this in Kant’s anthropocentric perspective of knowledge. — Possibility

Which is fine, depending on what you mean by constructionist, given that the concept exemplifies the difference between some speculative epistemology in metaphysics based on reason, and some psychology of learning in the physical world based on experience alone. Although, it might be hard to disseminate how all a priori knowledge is the kind of knowledge susceptible to being learned, as opposed to being merely thought. Might be what Kant had in mind with:

“....For it would be absurd to think of grounding an analytical judgement on experience....”

So does your constructionist perspective deny analytic a priori knowledge?

Yes, we learn from a young age by means of qualitative relation, and I suppose psychology has more to say about it than philosophy.

Kant's... criteria......
— Mww

This the philosopher's dream of power. — Antony Nickles

I suppose, yeah. He does admit his intention to:

“....bequeath a legacy to posterity, in the shape of a system of metaphysics constructed in accordance with the Critique of Pure Reason, still the value of such a bequest is not to be depreciated....”

Still, I doubt if he sat around indulging in vainglorious rumination, “I’m gonna be remembered long after Baumgartner, Schelling, Mendelssohn, et al are merely faded wannabes”. Dunno....I wasn’t there.

Fine line between rampant ego and manifest genius.
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OLP was (initially) directed at traditional analytical philosophy and the metaphysics, representationalism, positivism, and descriptive falacy, etc., of philosophical theories or statements that, among other things: communication/rationality works in one universal or specific way, or towards a particular standard, that it is dependent more on individuals, and that we have more control in how it works. — Antony Nickles

This implies a distinction between traditional analytic philosophy, and philosophical theories regarding metaphysics, representationalism, etc. Is that right? Is there a distinction? Or are you meaning to say, directed at analytic philosophy and those philosophical theories and statements contained in it?

Doesn't matter, really. All philosophy is human rational construction, therefore is itself confined to the species, it is dependent on individuals and they do have control in how it works. It’s a simple as, objects and ideas control my intelligence, the ends by which I philosophize, but I and only I control my intellect, the means by which my philosophy is developed.
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What it (OLP) is trying to do is put the human, say, voice, back into the philosophical discussion by bringing up the contexts in which our concepts live. — Antony Nickles

If OLP doesn’t have its own method sufficient to justify its tenets, hypotheses or claims, it is nothing but a compendium of illustrative examples and not a philosophy at all. Such method may explain how bringing up the contexts in which our concepts live, puts the human “voice” back into philosophical discussions. It might begin by showing how there can even be a philosophical discussion that doesn’t have a human “voice” participating in the discussion, and making the discussion possible in the first place. But, I suppose, as in “ordinary”, there might be a different......grammar.......for “discussion” in regards to OLP as opposed to conventional discourse.

Do I recall you positing that the ordinary in OLP doesn’t mean conventional use of words? Hopefully, because we both know concepts don’t “live” in the conventional sense.
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It's (OLP’s) necessity is to breath new life into a tradition which has removed us from its considerations. — Antony Nickles

I agree analytic philosophy tends to remove us....us being thinking subjects as such.....from its considerations. Still doesn’t tell me how OLP puts us back, which wouldn’t at the same time make it just another form of speculative or theoretical metaphysic, imitating the ones we already have.

The current policy is driven by the notion that all human life has intrinsic value and that our response to covid is all about preserving those valuable human lives... — dazed

Where is the remnants of theism in that, necessarily? How is it that such policy would be impossible if not for theism? It isn’t, of course, for such policy is altogether possible if there never were any such thing as theism, which makes explicit the policy never was necessarily grounded in any degree of theism in the first place. Innate human values are, after all, products of pure reason, and thereby do not require anything transcendent for their logical validity.

Apparently, the thread title and the opening text contradict each other. Or at least, the text does not support the title unconditionally.

I don’t think he believed humans were as constrained by discursive understanding as CPR suggested with regard to noumena. — Possibility

Hmmm....yeah, I can see that. Understanding itself is not constrained with respect to noumena; it is allowed that understanding thinks objects belonging to the categories, and those objects would be called noumena. On the other hand, if the categories can only apply to phenomena, and phenomena are the only possible objects of experience, and objects of understanding called noumena are themselves not phenomena, then it follows noumena cannot be cognized as objects of experience.

“....But, in this case, a noumenon is not a particular intelligible object for our understanding; on the contrary, the kind of understanding to which it could belong is itself a problem, for we cannot form the most distant conception of the possibility of an understanding which should cognize an object, not discursively by means of categories, but intuitively in a non-sensuous intuition....”

So we are constrained by discursive understanding with respect to cognitions, but understanding itself is not constrained with respect to noumena as general conceptions.
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Kant structured this aspect of human perception in an additional dimension of affect or feeling. — Possibility

Yes, he did. But at the same time, he had precious little respect for the burgeoning science of psychology, which makes me wonder why he felt the need to examine purely subjective conditions with which this aspect of human perception concerns itself, albeit outside moral considerations. Transcendental moral philosophy is necessarily predicated on subjective conditions, sure, but knowledge of calculus and dump trucks? Or, our feeling of the beautiful/sublime inspired by them? Ehhh.....not so sure about that. Seems all he did was take the transcendental doctrine of a faculty of judgement with respect to empirical cognitions, and transplanted it into an a priori ground for something beyond itself.

Still, in the preface to the A critique, he made it a point to have “.....the intention of erecting a complete and solid edifice of metaphysical science...”, elaborated in the B preface, “.....attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the procedure of metaphysics, after the example of the geometricians and natural philosophers....”.

So I suppose all that in the CofJ is how such completion is attained.

I have argued from OLP in my post about Wittgenstein’s lion quote (@Mmw) — Antony Nickles

Yeah, I got some enlightenment from that; just not enough to rearrange my metaphysical prejudices. This thread is interesting as well, but doesn’t really cover new ground, does it? Like....method?

the point of OLP is that words "embody" the unconscious, unexamined ordinary criteria (not made-up, or philosophically-important criteria)--all of the richness that is buried in them of all the different ways we live. — Antony Nickles

And from this is raised the question...how can the hidden, unexamined, unconscious criteria be called ordinary? If some embodiment is unavailable for examination, how can it be said to be ordinary? And if ordinary just stands for “not made up”, how is that not self-contradictory, if words are exactly that....made up in order to properly represent the objects to which they are meant to relate?

I accept there is a certain unconscious part of the system from which words arise, but I reject the words themselves can arise from unconscious criteria, or that they necessarily embody such unconscious criteria. Case in point....phenomena have no names, but subsequently cognized objects derived from them, do.

Kant was well aware of this (hey, you mentioned him three times already, so......), thus ensuring his method allowed words to merely represent the concepts used by the understanding in its relation to objects of experience. As such, they do embody certain criteria, but such criteria is by no means hidden or unexamined, insofar as both concepts and the words which represent them in objective manifestation, arising from perceptions or from pure thought, are entirely present to conscious mental activity**. From here, it is nothing but the domain of general employment given by common experiences, which sustains the notion of “ordinary”, and somehow or another this became sufficient causality for language philosophers to simply assign a different connotation to “ordinary”, but with insufficient explanatory methodology for doing so.

So we arrive at: to whom is OLP actually directed, and why does to whomever it is directed, need it?

Here’s my version of OLP: I speak, you listen; you speak, I listen. If we communicate successfully, fine. If we don’t...start over. Wash, rinse, repeat. Don’t need any analytic philosophy for that.

**Not quite, but elaboration is beyond the scope, methinks. Not for you so much as the subject matter.

Is it always wrong to interfere with autonomy or can it be right under certain conditions? — Tom1352

First, one would need to stipulate where, and in what form, autonomy resides. For instance, in deontological moral philosophy, autonomy can’t be interfered with at all, otherwise the concept is self-contradictory and the entire philosophy refutes itself.

Second, one would need to show interference is in fact an act upon autonomy, or merely an act upon the volitions that follow from it, or, nothing more than a hindrance with respect to personal happiness/well-being.

But to answer the question, from my point of view anyway.....interference with autonomy is impossible, so whether such interference is right or wrong, is unintelligible. Still, with a sufficiently broad notions of interference and autonomy, the possible connections between them become more apparent.

Copernicus’ revolution, for Kant, was more about the moveability of the spectator than its de-centralisation - even though arguably the most significant effect of that revolution was to de-centralise the limited human perception (empiricism) in relation to knowledge of reality. — Possibility

What Copernicus proposed was indeed about the movability....the motion....of observers relative to a stationary Universe, in opposition to the standing general consensus. And now I see what you meant by de-centralizing the limited human perception, insofar as the seed being sown that we ourselves are not The Big Picture, so to speak.
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Even so, with that moveability, which I understand, I am left with this seemingly unrelated moveability, which I do not......

So Kant synthesised human knowledge (...) and even rendered it moveable (by phenomena) in relation to possible knowledge of reality (noumena) — Possibility

......insofar as, according to Kant, there is no knowledge of noumenal reality possible for intelligences imbued with merely discursive understanding, such as is claimed for humans. Would I be correct in supposing you mean, that because of the speculative predication of phenomena, human knowledge is restricted to a sensory-determinant empirical domain, in effect removing it from any noumenal reality? That actually does make sense to me, in spite of the inconsistency explicit in the concept of “moveability”.
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His transcendental or synthetic a priori knowledge (imagination in relation to understanding and judgement) was an anthropocentric perspective of the conditions for knowledge of reality. — Possibility

Interesting take on a fairly well-hidden gem in Kantian metaphysics. Other than appreciating your familiarity, I might say your proposition only works when the proper imagination is tacitly implied. I say that because, while productive imagination is the relation between intuition and understanding/judgement, and can be thought as an anthropocentric perspective of the conditions of empirical knowledge, it is not itself a priori knowledge, which requires an object consciously known as such. This is relevant because if it is true Kant realized......

the structure of metaphysics was more dependent upon ‘feeling’ than he had anticipated. — Possibility

.....and it had already been proven feelings are not to be considered the same way as are cognitions, and because it had already been proven judgements are absolutely necessary constituents of the entire human rational system, there must be another kind of imagination, iff some form of synthesis is required in order to facilitate judgement based on feelings alone, and iff imagination is still necessarily responsible making these kinds of judgements both possible and authoritative.

I don’t think Kant realized that metaphysics depended more on feelings than he anticipated, which implies the CofJ was a stop-gap treatise, when in fact he already had in mind a tripartite doctrine to cover all aspects of the human cognitive system, from the very beginning. To say otherwise says Kant denied human feelings, which of course he couldn’t do and still call himself a proper philosopher.

Long story short, the affect on the pure subjective condition by objects of sense, which is what we call feelings, or, how we are internally affected by something of perception, which is different than how we think about the object as it is, implies a judgement. But the faculty of judgement, the connection/conjunction between understanding and reason with respect to cognition of objects leading to possible knowledge of them, is consequentially very far from the methodological chronology of merely being subjectively affected by them. Therefore, there must be a kind of judgement intrinsic to the system which serves to connect such pure affect on us as subjects with feelings from the empirical affect on us as subjects with cognitions, with respect to one and the same object. From there, its off to Never-Never Land!!!
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It’s more that no knowledge is at all possible without ‘feeling’. — Possibility

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said so far, as much as I disagree with that.

At any rate, thanks for helping me out with that de-centralizing, moveability thing.

For Kant’s shift to take effect......

Presupposes it didn’t, because:

......Kant was missing a step.....

And that missing step takes the propositional form:

.....de-centring our perspective of temporal reality by rejecting the assumption that the existence of humans (and their rationality) was the plan or purpose of eternity — Possibility

First, if it is we seeking an investigative domain, I don’t see how it could be otherwise than it is we who are central to it. De-centralizing our perspective, whether of temporal reality or anything else, would seem to immediately negate the validity of our investigations, the correctness of them being as it may.


Second, is “Kant’s shift” the same as your so-called “Copernican turn” of a day or so ago, and if so, wherein, as laid out in CPR Bxvii, and from subsequent speculative justifications in relation to it, is the implication that the “plan or purpose of eternity” is precisely that humans should exist because of it? I submit there is no such implication, which then suggests “Kant’s shift”, the one that hasn’t taken effect, lays in some other conceptual scheme, in which may be found the assumption “the existence of humans was the purpose of eternity”, that should have been rejected, such that that shift would take effect. So...if that was Darwin’s position, how could it have been used by Kant? What Kantian “shift” possibly would have occurred had Kant only theorized as Darwin did?

Does academia nowadays consider Darwin an Enlightenment transcendental philosopher? If not, why would anyone think his empirical anthropology theories would find standing in Kantian speculative epistemology?

I’m following the ongoing dialectic with respect to the Critique of Judgement, which I appreciate, insofar as hardly anyone does that. Guess I got confused as to how the CPR, having to do with the possibility of a priori knowledge, could have any relation to the CJ, which has to do merely with “feeling” in a certain sense only, and from which no knowledge is at all possible.

Anyway.....just wondering.

Well done.

The questions and answers never were more important than that which makes them possible.

Asking questions about the questions merely proves it.

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.
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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.
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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...”
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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.
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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.
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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.