The history of philosophizing can be taught; a specific method for philosophizing can be taught. Philosophy itself, re: the system of reasoning based on conceptions alone, cannot.

Give a kid the conditions under which he may develop his own reasoning. Then stand aside.

What do you think? — Humelover

“...It must certainly be allowed, that nature has kept us at a great distance from all her secrets, and has afforded us only the knowledge of a few superficial qualities of objects; while she conceals from us those powers and principles on which the influence of those objects entirely depends....”
(E.C.H.U., 4. 2., 1739, in 2ed, 1777; 1963 ed. sec. 29)

“...Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose....”
(CPR, Bxiii, in Kemp Smith, 1929)

So.....valid or sound skeptical arguments? From his perspective, it may be either or both. With the premises from which the argument ensues, his conclusions follow logically. But that’s not really what should be asked, given the professed notion that reason and thought in general is not to be considered of greater import than experience, with which the empiricist philosophy of the day concerned itself. If reason and thought are given more substantial influence, experience must release some of its influence, which indicates Hume’s initial premises, while not exactly false, where at the very least, incomplete, as they are predicated on insufficiently explanatory conditions.

Hume wasn’t so much wrong as uninformed. And he was uninformed because, as a philosopher, he didn’t allow himself to think deeply enough to recognize the power reason actually has, a priori. In effect, he didn’t inform himself. He came so close, in the affirmative, in his argument on the missing shade of blue, which he professed a mind enabled to supply, yet in the negative, failed to recognize that same principle with respect to arguments in, e.g., geometry, insofar as he professed the mind has no power to arrive at the sum of interior angles synthetically. Which is exactly how the mind, or pure reason, supplies the missing shade.

Hume’s philosophy wasn’t so much refuted, as it was expanded.

Ontology is the study of various ideas about the nature of reality. — Coben

So what would be a good initial idea about the nature of reality, and what form of study would be entailed by it?

So....no, ontology is irrelevant (...).....
— Mww
How is ontology irrelevant? — Coben

Because at least one, and perhaps the most comprehensive, established definition of it, which is a study of the nature of being. I personally see no reason to study something, that is: indulge in a concerted effort to acquire knowledge of, the result of which makes no difference to me. Somehow, I just can’t get excited about studying the fundamental nature of a basketball. And studying the fundamental nature of elementary particles may very well lead to a better toaster oven, but the particle remains as it ever was.
————-

It might only require, for me, a rephrasing of the above paragraph. — Coben

The key is contained in it: that a thing has a nature is given, it is given because it exists, it exists because it is represented in me as a phenomenon. Which would be the case no matter the fundamental nature of its being, the stipulation obvious that beings of different nature merely manifest as different phenomena. Simply put, I have no need of the true nature of “canine” to cognize “wolf”, because it is I that determines both, those concepts, and which objects may eventually be subsumed under them.

The argument in conjunction with that, eventually ends with....it is the phenomenon to which a concerted effort to acquire knowledge belongs. My one and only concerted effort is to understand the relation between the object I perceive and the phenomenon I experience, which is called knowledge, an altogether epistemological domain. The object itself, remains nothing more than an occassion for the exercise of my understanding, with respect to the reality of which such object is a member. This, and only this, enables me to characterize, e.g., certain animals as “canine”, and from that cognize particular instances of general characterizations, as “wolf”.

“....the proud name of ontology must give way to a the modest title of analytic of the understanding...”
(CPR, A247/B303)

Now, the whole theory is shot to hell if the notion of phenomena as representation is rejected. Which is fine, reject away, but in doing so, one must take great care with its replacement.

things that are not apodeitic certain can be relevent. — Coben

Absolutely; was never contested.

I am not sure where 'apodeitic certain' is coming from. — Coben

The proposition containing an apodeictic certainty merely expresses the impossibility of its negation, or, to a lesser degree, its negation ends in a contradiction. Mathematical expressions are the more ubiquitous of such expressions, all of which are entirely predicated on the the principles of universality and necessity but nevertheless are dependent on experience for their proofs. The pertinence of the concept of such certainty relative to this particular dialectic, shows itself in the mode of their proofs, insofar as, in the case of knowledge of the fundamental nature of objects, because it relies exclusively on the experience of them, cannot adhere to the principles of universality and necessity.

But we’re circling the proverbial drain here, methinks. Which is fine.....no harm, no foul.

There are chicken and egg aspects to this, and both likely came into being together and influenced each other. — Coben

Agreed; no one should doubt the reality of an ontological domain. That which is susceptible to doubt, is apodeitic certain knowledge with respect to its content, which necessarily includes the fundamental nature of its constituent objects. You know....their fundamental ontological predicates.
—————-

I don't see how you can decide how you can have knowledge of things, if you have no idea what things are. — Coben

This is correct, which simply means I do have ideas about what things are, because to say I don’t know something about things is self-contradictory. I do not make the mistake of granting objects the ability to tell me what they are, but rather, I tell them what they are, henceforth depending on future experience to show me otherwise.

You could be an idealist, for example — Coben

Yes, but the question inquires after what I am not, not what I might be. Any rational agency demonstrating a faculty for discursive understanding is an idealist.
—————

The mere assumption/conclusion that there are subjects and objects is an onlological assumption/conclusion. — Coben

If you say so.

But it isn’t; one cannot assume anything without thinking something antecedent to it, and one cannot conclude anything that isn’t a judgement about something antecedent to it. Both thought and judgement are members of the epistemological domain, insofar as knowledge is its end. The only reason for there to even be an ontological domain at all, is, initially, because the discursive understanding requires external objects to which its conceptions relate despite the impossibility of knowing the fundamental nature of such objects, and, more importantly, from post-modern academics, the invalid representation of the ding an sich as the unknowable aspect of any external object.

I don’t know how things fundamentally are, but only as I think them to be.
— Mww
You're not a physicalist? — Coben

That I think a way for an object to be necessarily presupposes the reality of it, which makes explicit my acceptance of the physicalist domain.
————-

I don't think one have an epistemology without an ontology. You have to be taking a stand, say an empiricist one, or a rationalist one, that has inherent it it how subjects relate to objects, — Coben

The manner by which subjects and objects relate to each other is a logical condition, and no determination of the fundamental nature of either is given by their mere relation. Truth be told, one cannot take an empiricist or a rationalist stand on anything, for if the prerequisite is how a subject relates to an object, then both paradigms are required simultaneously. It’s just the way the human cognitive system works. Theoretically.

We’re getting off track; the question is ontology, the fundamental nature of things and whatever knowledge is possible from it.
—————-

The very reasons you think one cannot know for certain what reality is made of or what your thoughts are has an ontology in it....

.....Most people have, for example, some kind of model of perception that has ontologies in it. — Coben

Please explain, bearing in mind the keyword fundamental.

Doesn't your position depend on ontological conclusions about the way things fundamentally are? — Coben

Ontological conclusions....not so much, other than, yes, there are things. Ontological conclusions about the fundamental way things are? Not a chance; I don’t know how things fundamentally are, but only as I think them to be. There is nothing in my determinations which promise the correctness of them, except the laws of logic. Which are, coincidentally enough, epistemological conditions which belong to me, and rational agency in general, but not to the object itself. If I am responsible for the methodology which tells me about things (reason) and at the same time responsible for the regulatory system justifying the validity of that same methodology (logic)....what means do I have to claim anything with apodeictic certainty outside of it, including the fundamental nature of things I want to know about?

And no, I have no more idea about the fundamental nature of my thoughts any more than the fundamental nature of things. That I seemingly create them from my own fundamental nature is entirely sufficient, if not conclusive, for their true nature, whereas, on the other hand, I have nothing whatsoever to do with the creation, hence the fundamental nature, of objects external to myself.

So saying, reductionism to a point is necessary; reductionism too far is self-defeating. I don’t need to know the fundamental nature of objects, as long as my thought of it is logically consistent with how it appears a priori, and susceptible to moderation by experience a posteriori.

the good will is not fully realized unless it encompasses both the end and the means. — Echarmion

Well said, the ramifications being, 1.) intentionality towards others is moot, subsumed under obligation regardless of others, and 2.) morality is the a priori condition for, but not the determination of, the act that follows from it. Sometimes, the moral thing to do is to do nothing, and sometimes the moral thing to do is not done.

Of course, all that presupposes humanity in general actually seeks a full realization of a good will, and, which usually kicks deontology out of the batter’s box, presupposes that the theoretical tenet given by pure practical reason....

“...Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will.”

.....is worth a damn.

From the human perspective.....the only one from which anything comprehensible follows.......whatever ontology entails presupposes the possibility of knowing about it. So it makes perfect sense to understand the epistemological domain before attempting to understand the ontological domain. One cannot argue with respect to the reality of his own thoughts, so it is much more parsimonious to know how he knows anything given the nature of the only cognitive system he can use, before he can claim to know something about that which he finds outside it.

So....no, ontology is irrelevant; that a thing has an actual nature is given, even without the possibility of ever knowing the irrefutable truth of what it is. Granting the validity of an ontological domain does not at the same time grant apodeitic knowledge of it, and the human cognitive system in fact prohibits it.
(Prohibits iff the human system is representational, which would seem to be the case)

People are already objects, so why a Step 2? Addition of a mind makes a person no more or less an object.

Even if Step 2, because people have minds, why then Step 3? Minds are presupposed by Step 2, thus no need to add it. Plus, people without minds is a logical inconsistency at least, and incomprehensible at most.

Even if Step 3 already assigned a first-person experience by the assignment of subjectivity, then Step 4 implies a Me, not a You. “First-person perspective existence” and “You” are mutually exclusive.

Thus, from Step 3, Step 5 implies a plurality of Me’s, not You’s.

A plurality of Me’s implies multiple singularities, thus do not necessarily mutually exclude each other, hence Step 5 ceases to be a problem.
——————

when the world is observed, it exists from a single frame of reference — bizso09

I get what you mean, but this, as worded, is patently false, insofar as the existence of the world is determinable only by means of the observation of it, which makes explicit that antecedent to the human minds with which this treatise concerns itself, there was no world in existence, which is absurd. An exemplification of the Kantian premise that the pure conception, a.k.a., the category, of “existence” can never be a predicate in a synthetic proposition.

More suitably stated then, is, when the world is observed, knowledge of it is from a single frame of reference, the same frame in which the observation occurs.
—————-

If there are many frames of reference, then what tells you which one You are seeing right now? — bizso09

....“what tells you which one You...” makes no sense;
....one doesn’t see a frame of reference; one sees from a frame of reference.

There can be no “complete description of the world”, for such absolutely requires the unconditioned, the ideal, the irreducible. Neither logical syllogism nor pure thought can manufacture the unconditioned that is at the same time part of the very world it is meant to describe.

Constructive critique, not a rebuke.

You got those backward — Pfhorrest

Hmmm...I sure did. Beside the point, though, I think, with respect to knowledge.

Thanks for the clarification anyway.

every question has an answer — Pfhorrest

....the principle grounding empiricism and rationalism generally;

every answer must be questionable — Pfhorrest

....the principle grounding objectivism and critical rationalism.

If epistemology and ontology are not in conflict, which is agreeable, and are necessitated by the same principle, yet these listed principles are not the same......what is the same principle that necessitates both?

Is “empiricism and rationalism generally” to be considered epistemology, and “objectivism and critical rationalism” to be considered ontology? The other way around? Not connected at all?

I see two fundamental principles but I don’t see the same fundamental principle necessitating two schematically distinguished cognitive paradigms.
(ontology the prime schema of which is “existence”; epistemology the prime schema of which is “necessity”)

And.....how is the intrinsic circularity of those two given principles reconcilable with the characteristics of human knowledge? Seems rather to be fertile ground for the infinite regress terminating in nihilism, which is the same as the impossibility of human knowledge itself, which is anathema to both a posteriori science and a priori metaphysics.

Not trying to be obtuse, honest. Just don’t see the logical authority in those principles, when conjoined to each other, which appears must always be the case.

Reason: the innate capacity of the human cognitive system to generate inferences by means of conceptions.

I suppose one gets to choose his own.

I ascribe to reason; I philosophize in accordance with my reason conditioned by a particular philosophy.

I was gifted a Kindle when they first came out, made the typical non-professional evolution from pc to laptop to notebook, finally getting the Kindle for IPAD a few years ago. There’s 64 non-fiction books on here, mostly niche authors of a certain era, alongside a smattering of that new-fangled technical stuff from the first half of the 20th century.

But, as you say, there are a couple very special books for which electronics just won’t do, and for these I’ve done due diligence and obtained the oldest, rarest ones I could find, with the help of an antique bookseller living just down the road. You know what, and you know who, and I’m not saying what those cost me!!

But none are the wrong wrench properly used and understood, and each exactly the correct tool on the machine it was intended for. — tim wood

And there you have it: a worthy, if oft-forgotten, nutshell.

The way we cause in willing is not subject to the determinism of Humean causality. — Dfpolis

Thankfully, as far as my commenting at all herein is concerned, Hume now stands alone. Which makes the statement correct. Which ends my involvement.

If you think otherwise, quote Kant defining essential causality under any name, or saying that it (...) is involved in moral agency. — Dfpolis

I can do both, but how about one at a time:

“....The will is a kind of causality belonging to living beings in so far as they are rational, and freedom would be this property of such causality that it can be efficient, independently of foreign causes determining it; just as physical necessity is the property that the causality of all irrational beings has of being determined to activity by the influence of foreign causes....”

“...Every rational being reckons himself qua intelligence as belonging to the world of understanding, and it is simply as an efficient cause belonging to that world that he calls his causality a will....”

Don’t you see I’m tacitly agreeing with the general principles implied by your OP, only taking exception with your iteration of the “Humean-Kantian” aspect of causality?

However Kant believes only the "idea of freedom" is required. I think Kant's position may involve a vicious regress, however.... — Pantagruel

Maybe not required, but sufficient? Can we say there is a distinction between the two? And Kant’s position would involve an infinite regress, if he didn’t acknowledge that his idea was merely a stipulation grounding a very specifically predicated theory.

“...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....”

Still, the question remains whether or not an idea is itself sufficient justification for anything generally, and a moral philosophy in particular, which we are told by the post-modern determinists, it is not.

and so a species of essential causality. — Dfpolis

......and therefore not the “accidental causality” of your “Humean-Kantian time sequence by rule”. Which is all I intended to convey, and by which the equivocation in the quote makes explicit. You know...”on the one hand” as opposed to “on the other hand”?

Anyway....carry on.

The Kantian sense of causality, which is actually rules sequenced in time, is the empirical sense of it, and does not apply to his moral philosophy:

“...Man considering himself in this way as an intelligence places himself thereby in a different order of things and in a relation to determining grounds of a wholly different kind when on the one hand he thinks of himself as an intelligence endowed with a will, and consequently with causality, and when on the other he perceives himself as a phenomenon in the world of sense (as he really is also), and affirms that his causality is subject to external determination according to laws of nature....”

So, within the last 1800 years, there is a third causality, which is called freedom. Regardless of the validity assigned to it by informed respondents, it is on the philosophical record. By the use of this causality, man is responsible for his practical moral determinations a priori, and thereby responsible for the objective manifestations of them.

Just sayin’.......

Deconstructing the Analytic Concept of Truth.....

“..."What is truth?" The definition of the word truth, to wit, "the accordance of the cognition with its object," is presupposed in the question; but we desire to be told, in the answer to it, what is the universal and secure criterion of the truth of every cognition. (...) If truth consists in the accordance of a cognition with its object, this object must be, ipso facto, distinguished from all others; for a cognition is false if it does not accord with the object to which it relates, although it contains something which may be affirmed of other objects. Now an universal criterion of truth would be that which is valid for all cognitions, without distinction of their objects. But it is evident that since, in the case of such a criterion, we make abstraction of all the content of a cognition (that is, of all relation to its object), and truth relates precisely to this content, it must be utterly absurd to ask for a mark of the truth of this content of cognition; and that, accordingly, a sufficient, and at the same time universal, test of truth cannot possibly be found. As we have already termed the content of a cognition its matter, we shall say: "Of the truth of our cognitions in respect of their matter, no universal test can be demanded, because such a demand is self-contradictory."
(CPR A58/B83 in KempSmith, 1929)

It's a fundamental, and not disposable part of thinking. — Olivier5

....which says all that can be said about the a priori conception of truth, even if the notion that truth is what we think it is, doesn’t set well with the post-moderns, some of whom, apparently, wish to advance philosophy without actually improving it.

It goes without saying anything can be criticized if the definitions grounding the criticism are in opposition to the definitions given in that which is being criticized.

Kant apparently didn’t find it worthwhile, in the necessary certainty of “I think”, to attribute that certainty to humanity as a whole. In other words, just because I am apodeitically certain I think, does not grant me the authority to thereby claim that I am the only one who thinks. Even so, it should be readily apparent that any agency operating under a given system, speculative or otherwise, would necessarily operate in accordance with that system. Which immediately falsifies the Enlightenment notion of solipsism.

With respect to “the real self” as noumenal, the definitions are opposed to what Kant himself posits. Briefly, without the backdrop which contextualizes it:

“...Now, in this intuition the thinking self must seek the conditions of the employment of its logical functions as categories of substance, cause, and so forth; not merely for the purpose of distinguishing itself as an object in itself by means of the representation "I," but also for the purpose of determining the mode of its existence, that is, of cognizing itself as noumenon. But this is impossible, for the internal empirical intuition is sensuous, and presents us with nothing but phenomenal data, which do not assist the object of pure consciousness in its attempt to cognize itself as a separate existence, but are useful only as contributions to experience...”
(CPR, B430 in Kemp Smith, 1929)

With respect to space and time being “faculties of the brain”.....that just doesn’t work at all from a Kantian position, first because Kant doesn’t discuss the brain other than incidental mention, and second because the brain is substance, which has no faculties qua faculty, but has only material cause and effect as functional predicates. The author has taken unwarranted liberties, for a faculty of the brain is very far from “the subjective constitution of the mind”:

“....What then are time and space? Are they real existences? Or, are they merely relations or determinations of things, such, however, as would equally belong to these things in themselves, though they should never become objects of intuition; or, are they such as belong only to the form of intuition, and consequently to the subjective constitution of the mind, without which these predicates of time and space could not be attached to any object? In order to become informed on these points, we shall first give an exposition of the conception of space. By exposition, I mean the clear, though not detailed, representation of that which belongs to a conception; and an exposition is metaphysical when it contains that which represents the conception as given a priori....”
(ibid B38)

Your author may have some points to make, but it would appear he has nonetheless begun his theory under a misappropriation of terms. And I concur, insofar as T.I. properly understood gives no ground to admit solipsism.

False equivalence? Dunno....I’m not much of a logician.

I’d like to see those definitions, though, bearing in mind CPR is an epistemological treatise, in which the plurality of human subjects on the one hand, and the necessity of the material world on the other, is given, along with the possibility of other rationalities contained in it. How one gets from that to solipsism is beyond the scope of the work.

A fallacy is generally an error in logical argument, while equating T.I. with solipsism is merely a gross misunderstanding.

Probably shouldn’t try to identify a fallacy without the argument from which it may arise.

You can't locate consciousenss in the material world. (...)....— Yohan

Well, you can. So... — Kenosha Kid

You just mean if a human is located then consciousness is located, right?

Yes, it might, much the same as, say, rocket engines extend the principle of cause and effect.

Perhaps. But one person’s quibbling can be another person’s dialectical precision.

But it doesn’t really matter, insofar as your “I experience something, therefore I and that something exist”, while certainly true, always and inevitably reduces to his “I think therefore I am”.

Oh, dear. Harry, please consider this: cum hoc ergo propter hoc.

You and your scribbles. Do you have any idea how BOOOORRRRING that is?!?!

Anyway, I’ll be happy to discuss this stuff with you, as soon as you see the point actually being discussed.

In the way Descartes uses “thought”, it is entire possible that all perceptions are merely thoughts: we could just be imagining, dreaming, hallucinating, all the things that we “perceive“. — Pfhorrest

Actually, this is precisely the way Descartes uses “thought”, to wit, from P.P., 1,9:

“....I take the word ‘thought’ to cover everything that we are aware of as happening within us, and it counts as ‘thought’ because we are aware of it. That includes not only understanding, willing and imagining, but also sensory awareness....”

Conspicuously missing from the list is experience, and while experience is certainly something that happens within us, it is always a consequence of thought, and not a necessary condition for it. Not to mention the glaring redundancy in awareness of experience.

all of which reduces to Descartes’ cogito
— Mww

Not quite. Instead of “I think, therefore I am”, you have “I experience something, therefore I and that something exist”. — Pfhorrest

Because one can think a thing....and it is never the case where a thought isn’t of something....but never experience it, thinking and experiencing must be different. Even if it were insisted that experiencing of thought follows necessarily from the rational activity of thinking, we should see cognizance from perception, which is experience, and cognizance from thought, which is reason, accord with separate and distinct rational faculties, having no logical warrant for being considered congruent consequences.

This is from where my query arises: why did Descartes use the mental activity to prove a abstract reality over and above the standing proof of material objects by means of indubitable experience? There was no need to think in terms of experience because the validity of it was never in question. He had to stay within a system of non-material processing in order to justify the reality of a mind/body dualism, which of course, ended up being both a philosophical paradigm shift and a intellectual clusterfork forever and a day thereafter.

For what it’s worth.....

Maybe "thought to pertain to" instead of "belong"? — dussias

Compromise: subsumed under, rather than pertain to?

Nonetheless shall I insist on “necessarily”. (Stomps foot...exits stage right)

Where would we be without elegance.

This is a great framework for efficiency, but maybe not the best for discerning knowledge. — dussias

A pox...POX, I say....on language philosophers. Now, if you please, excuse me while I indulge in it.

Knowledge is not discerned, it is a consequence of a logical process, in effect, an acquisition.
————

If you were going to ask, but decided not to ask, it doesn’t matter what the response would be, for a judgement has already been made as to its relevance. In this case, it is, much to my chagrin, against me, for it seems your point would be missed by whatever my definition might be. Some would say that’s rather presumptuous....but not me. I readily admit to missing the point, insofar as I find the grounds for whatever it might be, as given so far, suspect.

Real: that to which an object can be thought to belong necessarily.
————-

”Do with it as you wish.”

An easily underestimated statement. — dussias

Could be. But actually, it’s pretty hard to underestimate something so ill-defined as “as you wish”.

we must get to the place — JerseyFlight

Absolutely. You have historical precedent for cheering folks for expressing their thoughts, so allow me to forward the sentiment.

the only thing that matters to philosophy is the nature and quality of criticism. — JerseyFlight

In the response to it, yes; in the construction of it.....not so much. Unless you want to say, the only thing that matters to philosophy is the criticism by which it is, or is not, validated.

Anyway....good O.P., even if only because I always defend reason.

Exactly, and that is the rule. Just makes me wonder why we need to even consider questions for which the answers are altogether quite worthless. Pretty simple, actually; if everything is questionable, just don’t question everything. Only question stuff for which an answer is both possible and rational.

Oh....and you thought wrong: “the previous statement” is, not so much a lie, but catastrophically false. What we think about and name can be real; it’s just that the means for doing it, are not the same kind of real. In other words, things named and thought about are physically real, the representations of them are not, yet still real in another sense.

Just sayin’. Do with it as you wish.

Yeah, I suppose there are cases where IT is the only valid answer, while at the same time not answering anything. But these are the exceptions rather than the rule, whereas it’s much more efficient just to say I don’t know.

to make a law of ignorance. — Kenosha Kid

Gives new meaning to the 1965 AM radio hit song, “I fought the law, and the law won...”