If nothing else, we agree the notion of solipsism is empty, thus attempts to disprove it are foolish. At least from the perspective of our mutual reference material.

Interesting. Thanks.

I might go with causal agents rather than active, with respect to practical reason. Unless you have a special meaning for “active”.

I agree that Kant's argument does not directly approach the thesis of solipsism….. — Paine

Cool. That’s all I was looking for.

Regarding idealism and the refutation thereof, in A, idealism is distinguished as empirical or transcendental. In B, idealism is distinguished as dogmatic or problematic. The introduction of a dedicated title consisting of a “new refutation” in B, meaning over and above the 4th paralogism in A, I think is just his way of uniting the former distinctions into “psychological idealism”, in order to justify his reduction of the idealism being refuted in B, to “material idealism”. In other words, empirical and transcendental idealisms have a common psychological ground, countermanded this way, dogmatic and problematic idealisms have a common material ground, countermanded that way.
————-

What do you think Descartes’ solipsism problem was?
What do you think the view of the self both of them held was, that Kant rejected?

As you well know, Kant’s refutation concerns itself with the existence of things, but the OP asks about the existence of minds.

It seems that if you’re going to prove the existence of bodies in general from the apodeictic certainty of your own, you still have to prove, given that certainty, the existence of other minds, that is not mere inference.

Even if every human ever, already granted Kant’s argument by and for himself, perhaps without even knowing of its precedence, he still hasn’t proved it for any human not himself.

For Kant, in his time, the statement that awareness of self required the existence of "exterior" things was his argument against solipsism. — Paine

I’m not so sure the refutation of the established idealism of the day, is the refutation of solipsism itself. The proof for the consciousness of your self cannot follow from my proving the consciousness of my own.

Existence itself is misused with respect to minds anyway. Existence is a category, categories apply only to phenomena, mind is not and cannot be phenomena, so mind is not conditioned by existence. Or, mind in not that which exits, so trying to prove it does or doesn't exist, is unintelligible.

Seems to me, anyway.

Thank you for that careful analysis. — Wayfarer

Ehhhhh….I would never be so presumptuous to hint you needed support. Or even wanted any. It’s just that when they line up against a metaphysical paradigm, without comprehending its depth, or misunderstanding the implications of an otherwise simple proposition, or purely rational concept….

But yeah, on the other hand, if you can’t wrap that paradigm in weights and measures, it ain’t worth a piss hole in the snow, right? And yet, no science (for which weights and measures are mandatory) is ever done that isn’t first thought (for which there are no weights and measures at all).

Anyway….ever onward.

The theorem:
With only seven pages to check, I found none of your insistence that materialism is demonstrably false. Sometimes inappropriate in its application, manifestly appropriate in others, but never its all-encompassing fallaciousness.

The substance:

I still maintain that an effective (….) argument against physicalism…. — Wayfarer

…..here I understand this to not be a denial of it, as you have been accused. To claim denial of physicalism presupposes an argument proving its impossibility, and for any worldview the proof of its impossibility is self-contradictory, hence any argument is unintelligible.

…..you could not think if materialism were true. — Wayfarer

…..patently obvious insofar no human ever thinks in purely materialistic terms.

….not as an external agent shaping an independent material realm…. — Wayfarer

…..which presupposes it, the exact opposite of denying it. One can be quite rational in not denying a thing, without the need for affirming it.

…..the world we inhabit is inseparable from the activity of consciousness…. — Wayfarer

….here I understand inseparable to mean in conjunction with. Anything inseparable presupposes that which it is inseparable from. Given that the world represents the manifold of all possible material things, those material things are necessarily presupposed if consciousness is claimed to be inseparable from them. One cannot deny that which he has already presupposed as necessary. From which follows denial of materialism as such, is self-contradictory given from its being the ground for the composition of the world of material things consciousness is said to be inseparable from.

……linguistic communication would be impossible if materialism were true… — Wayfarer

….if materialism were true with respect to linguistic communication, it would be necessary to find a word store, assemble an aggregate of words from the shelves….or jars, or buckets, whatever they were stored in….with the additional burden of picking just that perfect word expressing whatever’s being communicated, perfectly. Makes one wonder….in 1634, say, was there a word store with “Slinky” on its shelves? Or…(sigh)….in 400BC an aggregate of them sufficient to communicate the principle of simultaneity. I think not, but the people still linguistically communicated.
(I could have soooooo much fun with this, silly as it is)

The conclusion:

….not prepared to reckon with it. — Wayfarer

“….useful truths make just as little impression….”
—————-

And that argument that was great and ignored? Was questionably the first and certainly not the second.

My thoughts on it are that time and space are meaningless without there being a perspective. And perspective can only be provided by an observer. — Wayfarer

Sure, I agree with that. But rulers measure relative distance (not space) and clocks measure relative duration (not time). This is not all that can be said of space and time, but it is, with respect to rulers and clocks. And I rather think it is the “relative” that concerns perspective/observer.

Guess I was over-thinking it. Sorry.

With the trove of usual antagonists in line, you take time for me. How cool is that?

But….no, they don’t. And I think you already knew what I would say.

whether time and space themselves exist independently of measurement — Wayfarer

Just to make clear, it isn’t space and time that is measured, so by this I understand you to mean measurement in general. I’m maybe over-thinking it.

So you’re saying, because how I represent my perspective, insofar as it is at least non-sensical or at most just plain wrong, I couldn’t possibly agree with you that all truths are known?

WTF, man. You shoulda just left it at thanks, and gone your merry way.

….isn't it the case that…. — Metaphysician Undercover

No.

….doesn't this imply that…. — Metaphysician Undercover

No.

You asked, I answered. You could have just said thanks.

I’ll end with this: an invitation to the dreaded Cartesian theater in your critique of my perspective. It is self-defeating, systemic nonsense, to conflate the thing with a necessary condition for it.

"True" is a judgement. Judgements are only made by intelligent minds in the process called "knowing". Therefore all truths are known. — Metaphysician Undercover

“True” isn’t the judgement; it is the relative quality of the judgement;
Judgements are, but not necessarily only, made by rational intellects in the process of understanding;
All truths are known, but not because of either of those.

The necessary condition of empirical truth as such, in general, is the accordance with a cognition with its object, cognition itself being the relation of conceptions to each other in a logical proposition, re: a judgement, or, the relation of judgements to each other, re: a syllogism. It is impossible not to know whether the relation of conceptions or of judgements accord with each other, for in either there is contradiction with experience if they do not. It is not given by that knowledge the cause of such discord, only that there resides no truth in it.


It is not that all true things are known, insofar as the sum of all possible cognitions is incomplete, some of which may be true respecting their objects, but that the criterion of any truth is known, for which the sum of possible cognitions is irrelevant.

…..all truths are known. — Metaphysician Undercover

I certainly agree with that, but I’d re-state your premises justifying it.

Useful truths making just as little impression as those useful truths brought against……..

Thing is, consciousness is already strictly a metaphysical conception, hence necessarily non-physical, from which follows that to ascribe to it the possibility of being an integral brain state in accordance with eliminativism, is contradictory, and upon having attributing to it a theoretical brain-state correlate in accordance with materialism, to then attempt to measure the brain state hypothesized by that correlate, is impossible.

Whatever the material correlate to metaphysical consciousness may be, it isn’t consciousness. And whatever metaphysical conception consciousness may be, it isn’t material.
—————-

Put a guy in a chair, hook him up to some device, tell him to think of something……can you even imagine what kind of machine will immediately display the ‘57 DeSoto the guy picked as his thought? No doubt his own brain can bring up the image, so the constructed device would most likely be something like the brain, in order to display what the brain produced. But we don’t know how the brain presents material correlates, so constructing a device the operation of which is unknown to us insofar as its performance is congruent to the brain’s, is manifestly unintelligible.

Even if that were possible, and say there actually was such a device, guy gets up from the chair, might even be awe-struck….but still can’t properly express why he hates the taste of Lima beans, gets back in the chair, gets hooked up, and the device display should by all accounts remain empty, for the human cannot think anything aesthetically, but only subjectively feel some relevant condition qualitatively satisfied by one of them. The subjective condition in the form of mere feeling, is as much a resident of his consciousness as the bean, yet only one of them can be displayed on a device recording brain states related to human thoughts in particular or thinking in general.

Do you really think, that upon being proven by one of the hard sciences, that all metaphysical entities are in fact demonstrable brain states, you will cease speaking from the first-person perspective? If science proves there’s no such thing as “I”, will you therefrom stop saying, e.g., “I think ‘mericans got their heads up their collective asses when it comes to football!!!”

Even if it is the case the metaphysical entity represented by “I” is in fact a brain state, but there is no awareness of brain state activity as such in human consciousness, then it must be logically true that brain state itself is a metaphysical entity, from which follows necessarily that any display on a constructed external physical measuring device, is also a metaphysical entity, insofar as the intuition of its appearance to the senses merely represents a coexistent representation. The human intellectual system, whatever its named speculative constituency, prohibits any other interpretation of the objectivity outside itself.

Humans think natural law, but humans do not think in terms of natural law. The brain, because it is a natural object, must therefore be thought to operate in terms of natural law in order for a human to understand the possibility of it….and he immediately defeats his own purpose in using one to explain the other.

Your point is nonetheless well-taken.

“….This** can never become popular and, indeed, has no occasion to be so; for finespun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against these truths.…”
(** this being, or reducible to, critical thinking)

You’d think that would be ‘nuff said.

I'm a big fan of the a priori. To problematize it as unscientific looks quite silly to me. — Manuel

Agreed; the idea has enough problems without being unscientific. It was never supposed to be scientific in the first place, only meant to catalog the objects of certain kinds of cognition as to their source. The ground for the possibility of these kinds of cognitions, and by association their respective objects, is given in every rational human, regardless of the terminology used to describe it.

Saying it's a priori is fine, but it leaves me uninformed. — Manuel

It does need to be taken in context. I would think you’d be informed enough, after it's been described, and what it’s supposed to do within that description. Doesn’t mean you gotta believe a word of it, but you’d be informed nonetheless.

And when you begin to explain the a priori, you use language. — Manuel

Yeah, but when you put out words to explain something with language, that something has already thought by you without it. When you bring in words that explain something to you, there is no sense in them until their relations are thought by you, and it’s the other guy that’s thought first and talked second.

Anyway…..put this to rest?

It's more so, what would a human be like, if they never developed senses….. — Manuel

Dunno. Maybe the autonomic system would still work, but the cognitive system wouldn’t for lack of direct sensory input, and the aestetic part wouldn’t work for lack of feelings about things of sense, so it looks like none of what is called a priori, like your “pure thought”, would be available. But hey….probably wouldn’t be dead.

I'd wonder if there's "something that it's like" to be that, from a phenomenological perspective, "pure thought", absent language. — Manuel

Again, don’t know, but given the otherwise fully equipped human, I’m convinced all thought is absent language.

…outside of language, we don't know what non-linguistic thought is. — Manuel

You mean outside the language we use to speculate on what non-linguistic thought is. I agree we don’t know what non-linguistic thought is, only because we don’t know what thought is regardless of its modifiers. Just as I’m convinced thought is absent language, so too am I convinced at least empirical thought is in the form of images which reflect the state of my knowledge. Even so, I haven't been able to pin down a describable form of pure thought, as it is called by the metaphysicians, a priori.

The question here is, what would a human being's thought pattern be like if they were comatose all throughout? — Manuel

Comatose being the state of unconsciousness? Hmmmm…dunno. Seems like comatose presupposes the antecedent state of being conscious, right? One never is first comatose then becomes conscious, far as I know. So can we even say there’s any such thing as being comatose throughout?

Methinks ‘tis a perfect example of the logician’s term for circular reasoning, and our ol’ buddy Immanuel’s transcendental illusion. Logically, if this then that, then that without this is unintelligible. It is transcendental because the subject is reason itself, the illusion is to speculate ourselves as fundamentally conditioned by consciousness, then attempt to speculate what we’d be like without that condition.

We might like to say there wouldn’t be a thought pattern if we were comatose, but current science has shown brain waves resident in comatose patients, re: “sleep spindles”. Tested comatose patients were not comatose throughout, though. Not sure any science has been done on a patient that has never been conscious.

I personally don't find the hard problem to be the hard problem. Just one of many we have to live with. — Manuel

Yep.
——————

One may even wonder why we introspect at all…. — Manuel

I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between what I’m doing when I introspect and what I’m doing when I think. Notice, though, through the ages of dispute over the original, no one’s taken “introspectro ergo sum” seriously enough to argue for it.

….in a hypothetical scenario…. — Manuel

Dare I say it? I’ve no experience with being comatose. Even the deepest sleep doesn’t turn off senses, although it’s unlikely I’d exercise my taste buds. Sure my eyes are shut, but they haven’t been debilitated; they’ve just been removed from their objects.

I'd say a lot of the time there is an I, for which the conscious experience happens. — Manuel

Given that a lot of the time there is an “I”, rather than have to theorize on when there isn’t, and what the differences might be when there isn’t, why not just say there always is?

But we both know there isn’t a real “I”; no where in the skull can there be discovered some thing or other identifiable as such. Just as there no such thing as reason, judgement and any of those other metaphysical-ly things these words are used to represent. Hell….we’d be hard put to find even one of those representations we have insisted upon since forever.

…..as soon as you verbalize it gets reintroduced. — Manuel

So there is something from nothing after all. Whodathunkit. (Grin)

Nahhhh…..there’s something, always. Every human ever has presented evidence of it, however indirectly that may be, and however fantastically it may be described.
—————-

….certain unconscious processes - willing, judging, spontaneity, creativity - are things that come out of us without us being consciousness of them until they happen. — Manuel

Yeah, well, that’s the brain’s fault. The brain fools us into thinking we will, judge, create…..but the process the brain tells us it operates under, fondly called natural law according to the very process we’re in the process of investigating, doesn’t give any indication there is any willing, judging or creating going on. Or, for that matter, that there is even any thinking going on.

Neurotransmitters and synaptic clefts give us grapefruit juice, but the how is impossible to prove…..and we get nowhere;
Reason gives us cause and effect and categorical imperatives, but the how is impossible to prove…we get nowhere.

The brain, in its fantastic non-overlapping magisteria….
On the one hand by the principle of induction, forces physics itself to be never-ending;
On the other hand by the principle of contradiction, allows metaphysics itself to have an end.

I’m afraid to inform you, Good Sir, it is inescapable NOT to have a horse in this fight. As you say, as soon as verbalization occurs, one or the other, or both, hands are active, and even though proofs are always absent, at least we can take refuge in that for which an end is possible.

And there’s the answer, right there. The brain produces a thinker, who in turns produces in himself sufficiently conclusive metaphysics, in order to ward off from itself the never-ending search of its physical secrets.

Yeah, right. See the contradiction? Neurotransmitters and synaptic clefts did indeed produce metaphysics, and even if there’s no proof of how, it remains that formerly determined nowhere, happened.
————-

Speaking of fighting….

“….The apagogic (indirect) mode of proof is the true source of those illusions which have always had so strong an attraction for the admirers of dogmatical philosophy. It may be compared to a champion who maintains the honour and claims of the party he has adopted by offering battle to all who doubt the validity of these claims and the purity of that honour; while nothing can be proved in this way, except the respective strength of the combatants, and the advantage, in this respect, is always on the side of the attacking party. Spectators, observing that each party is alternately conqueror and conquered, are led to regard the subject of dispute as beyond the power of man to decide upon. But such an opinion cannot be justified; and it is sufficient to apply to these reasoners the remark: Non defensoribus istis Tempus eget.…..”**
(**loosely translated as….dude, you brought a knife to a gun fight???)

If we couldn’t have some kinda fun with this, why bother doing it.

What do you mean by "experience" here? I make no distinction between experience and consciousness. — Manuel

There’s dozens of definitions for experience, but I personally favor the one that says experience is knowledge of objects through perception. For consciousness, I go with the definition that says consciousness is the quality of the state of being conscious. It is clear the former is of much narrower pertinence than the latter, for one is certainly conscious of his thoughts as well as his perceptions.

Besides, there is reason to suppose consciousness has its own representation, but experience does not. Consciousness is represented by that to which it belongs, the “I” or the transcendental ego, while experience on the other hand, nonetheless a statement concerning the condition of a subject, it is so only from the sum of his perceptions, having no concern with the subject’s condition relative to his moral disposition or his aesthetic feelings in general.

Consciousness entirely defines the subject in which it is found; experience merely records the limits of a subject’s reality.

If we state we are conscious of our experiences we run little risk of ambiguity or illusion. If we maintain that we experience our consciousness, we are in pains to say how without involving both.
—————-

You make no distinction, because you don’t think making one solves anything? Do you, in not making a distinction, revert to treating them equally?

Maybe it’s that when speaking of one there's no need for speaking of the other?

Thoughts?

to construct something (whether it is a phenomenon or through understanding) is to bring into being something which did not exist as (now) thought (representation, image, object, etc.). — Manuel

I’d agree with that regarding phenomena; these are something constructed that did not exist as (now) thought. But understanding just is the faculty of thought, so anything understanding does exists as (now) thought. The difference is, the synthesis intuition uses in the construction of phenomena, re: matter and form, is very different from the synthesis understanding uses in the construction of thought, re: the schemata of relevant categories, or, conceptions.

But what we call it and how we categorize that is the issue. — Manuel

My thinking as well. Which gets us to the brain thing: there is no doubt regarding the real existence of that object between the ears, but that object is only a brain because one of us, at one time or another, said so. From which follows necessarily, while that thing may always be, and be right where it is, it isn’t a brain from that alone. Same for the ears the brain is between. Actually…..same for the very notion of “between”.
————-

Sounds to me like you are speaking about something like the unconditioned…. — Manuel

We were talking about sense data, so I meant the systemic end to be empirical knowledge. That’s all sense data is ever going to give us, and that only iff it is in conjunction with something not that. The unconditioned, which is certainly an end in itself, must be considered transcendental, insofar as no phenomenon representing a sensible object is possible, hence can be conceived through reason alone.
————-

Possible real things? What about numbers? — Manuel

Crap on a cracker. Fair point; I should have said naturally occuring real things. Numbers are real things iff we inscribe them on Nature, and by that condition alone is their sensible appearance possible. Numbers we think are not real in that sense, which limits them to being valid conceptions of relative quantity, empirically represented by the thing we give to Nature…….oh, wait.

Like, what you meant by construction of something that didn’t exist? That much is true, in numbers we construct something that didn’t exist, but in this case I think what didn’t exist must still be thought before it does. Otherwise, how would we know what to put out there as an object? And how would we explain how there are can be so many representations of the same quantity without involving contradictions? And the killer….how is it that mathematics is always synthetic cognition referencing a myriad of distinct operations, but a number is always analytic, or that conception which is called primitive, in referencing only a singular quantity?
————-

….give an example of something that's not a "mental operational constituency"…. — Manuel

At the risk of argumentum ad verecundiam, and from a human point of view alone, mental operational constituency is sensibility and logic in general, and those reduced to representation, thought, judgement, cognition and reason. Thus, things-in-themselves on one end, and experience on the other, stand as not mental operational constituency. Neither of those enter mental operations, the former being that which gives the operational referent its beginning, the latter that which gives its termination.
————-

the misleading thinking that says, "matter can't think in principle", which is an assertion not based on evidence. — Manuel

Know what? If we follow that out to an extreme, the brain, being matter, must think, in principle, for it disguises itself in manifestations of a thinking subject.

Like I said…no need to confuse ourselves twice. Once, like this, is plenty.

….settle on what a "construction" means. — Manuel

It may, but not necessarily, mean….construction is thought; to construct is to think.

I take it as, whatever the mind does when it interprets sense data. — Manuel

I’m bouncing yet again:
The representation of sense data is phenomenon; the interpretation of sense data as phenomena, is understanding.

To think is to construct thoughts by the synthesis of conceptions. To synthesize is to imagine the relation of representations. To imagine is to hold an image. To hold an image is to spontaneously generate schemata subsumed under a general conception.

Spontaneous generation, then, is that function for which speculation fails, further attempts must defeat all antecedent speculations, and speculation with respect to spontaneous generation fails, simply because the logic justifying it, is immediately susceptible to irremediable self-contradiction. Which satisfies the notion that mere construction of thought, while complete in itself, is never enough to obtain a systemic end.
————-

You know how we treat “world” as the collection of all possible real things? Why not treat “mind” as the collection of all possible human mental operational constituency? If we do that in the same non-contradictory fashion as we treat “world”, all possible human mental constituency is not a limitation to interpreting sense data, in the same fashion as “world” is not a limitation to any particular which is a member of its collection. World and mind are general conceptions without operational functions belonging specifically to them.

There is no interpretive function in any of the senses, they being physiological apparatuses having only transitional modus operandi; thus, with respect to the intellect, there is only the instillation of a presence, an occassion for which the human actual interpretive mental constituency awakens towards its systemic function with respect to a given cause. If there is no interpretive function in the senses, no determinations as data or information are at all possible from them, which makes the notion of “sense data” empty, from which follows it cannot be sense data that the mental system interprets.
————-

It is just a fact legislating the human intellect, that we can logically explain what we’ve never seen, from which we can infer the possibility of what we’ve never seen, but we can never obtain any knowledge of what we’ve never seen.

It is “….beneath the dignity of philosophy….”, that the enormity of empirical knowledge resident in the current iteration of the human being in general, is sufficient reason to neglect how he came by it.

Nobody considers the notion that if the resident knowledge is all there ever was, he cannot explain to himself how it is he learned anything at all, for it would be impossible for him to differentiate that by which he learns, from that by which he simply remembers it on the one hand….
(re: Hume’s “constant conjunction”……)

….and on the other, how he can learn by instructing himself.
(Hume’s dilemma inevitable from mere constant conjunction, re: the impossibility for a priori cognitions in the form of, e.g., pure mathematics, or, the transcendental conception of freedom and its objects given from pure practical reason)

Why is that a human seldom allows himself to acknowledge that rote instruction regarding what he knows, and purely subjective deductive inferences regarding what he knows, is possible only from that singular mental functionality capable of both simultaneously?

Not only is idealism possible as a doctrine, there is an established argument for its necessity as a condition of human intelligence. It only remains to be defined in such a way as to limit its domain within that intelligence, and whence done successfully enough, comes entitlement to overlook the question-begging that comes along with the intellectual condition itself.

Ironically enough, the same applies to materialism, but we don’t care about that, insofar as there’s no legitimate need to confuse ourselves twice, so we grant the material world and concentrate on what to do with it.

Cool.

So which of the trails and tribulations of human-kind shall we rectify next?

….dualism would be a distinction in how we organize the way we think about the world. — Manuel

Nice.
—————-

Rather more broadly than you, apparently….
For metaphysics I mean the study of the use of reason in determining the possibility, principles, and extent of human knowledge a priori.
For epistemology I mean the study of the possibility, content and method, for human knowledge a posteriori.

For the world I mean the totality of possible experience, which reduces to the study of material things, which is the empirical science of ontology. Other arbitrary non-empirical use of the concept, re: the world of ideas; the world of fine art, etc, merely represents the sum of a certain class of objects as general content, the investigation of which may not rise to the power of science proper.

Always fun bouncing stuff off you.

I wouldn't deny that we think in dualist terms (…) but I do deny it as a metaphysical distinction. — Manuel

Interesting. Are you saying thinking in dualist terms is not a metaphysical operation? Can’t be investigated or talked about from a metaphysical point of view?

Guess I’m not sure what you mean.

Yikes!! Glad for your recovery.

Agreed on aesthetics. That, and my cognitive prejudice, are both purely subjective judgements, conditioned most likely by mere interest, yours from loss of it, having put forth initial effort towards a end, mine from lack of it, from which there wasn’t an effort put forth at all.
————-

….the discussion here is framed as if…. — Manuel

True enough and pretty much why I stay out of it. That and the misconstrued relation between the thinking and existing “I”. However much a minority classed and personal an opinion that may be.

….to argue along his lines today is to force a distinction that does not look clear at all. — Manuel

While res extensa and res cogitans as such may have run their respective courses, don’t we still argue a form of intrinsic metaphysical dualism to this day? Even dropping out the notion of substance still leaves two ideas categorically different from, but necessarily related to, each other.

But I’m an unrepentant dualist in this more-modern-than-me age, so what do I know.

….whether there is an external world or not. — Manuel

Ehhhhh….I would be far less generous: it’s pathologically stupid to deny the existence of that external thing, the forceful contact of which is sufficient cause for a displaced appearance, subsequently cognized as a farging bloody lip!!! (Sigh)

Obscure. Historically, British philosophers were empiricists, or at least pseudo-Kantian dualists. Who did you have in mind?

Long time ago, I was urged to check out “The Phenomenology of Spirit”, but, given my philosophical persuasions, the conjoined conceptions in that title bespoke inevitable conflict. So I never did. Not to mention the serious trash-talkin’ ol’ Arthur laid on him and “those ridiculous Hegelians” in general. You know….that ubiquitous cognitive prejudice we all suffer to some degree of another.

Is the brain not a mental construction based on sense data? — Manuel

Yes, it is; no material object, no sense data, comes with a name already imposed on it.

Idealism is that by which the imposition of names is possible; materialism is that which is presupposed by idealism as that empirical domain of objects to which the names belong.
—————-

But the alleged rift or incompatibility between idealism and materialism is merely verbal. — Manuel

Agreed; it is merely another instance of the principle of complementarity, in that, for whatever cognition is possible its negation is given immediately. Idiosyncrasy of the intellectual beast.

Yes, Prolegomena is much friendlier.

Ironic, innit? Same guy…..700-odd page book on very complicated subject with a short simple title, mere 5-page essay on roughly that same subject, greatly simplified, but with a title damn near a foot long.

Yeah, well, you know….in the interest of “certitude and clearness”, perhaps Kant might have been better off shying away from his notoriously difficult paragraph-sized sentences.

“…. many a book would have been much clearer, if it had not been intended to be so very clear….”
(Axix)

He’s talking about the overabundance of examples used to vastly belabor a point that should have been easily comprehended without them. Sometimes, though, given the complexity of the subject, even the examples need examples.

He devotes four pages to why his own philosophical writing is so dense for some, and open to positive or negative criticism by others, and for both, he makes no excuse.

With respect to the thread title, his basic standard for philosophical writing is, “…. two indispensable conditions, which any one who undertakes so difficult a task (…) is bound to fulfil. These conditions are certitude and clearness….”

For the premier poster of original material, and actual philosophical material at that, even if beyond my personal interest, to excuse himself, would adversely affect the forum as a whole.

There’s so much dumb shit on here…..well, everywhere, actually.

Take the light when it comes around, I say.

…..believe and think, are the same with respect to the the actual assertion. — Millard J Melnyk

Therein lay some difference in our philosophies: an assertion is a statement predicated on language, but the OP is concerned with the relative quality of thought and belief, its irrationality, which are determined by the logical validity of the cognitions of which they are the content, and with which language has nothing to do.

While I agree assertions of thought or belief, in and of themselves, hold the same epistemic value, demonstrated by their interchangeable language use….however indiscriminate that may be…..without serious loss of mutual understanding, it remains they are very far from being interchangeable in the system in which they are the constructs necessarily presupposed in any language use.

One is no more or less true than the other. Agreed? — Millard J Melnyk

Agreed, assertions expressing them aside, thought has no more truth value than belief, but only because there is no truth value in either one. Truth resides exclusively in the conformity of the thought or belief with experience on the one hand, or another antecedent thought or belief that has itself already conformed to experience, on the other. Conformity with respect to experience is empirical proof, legislated by the principle of induction, re: contingently true only insofar as we know; conformity with respect to antecedent thought/belief is logical proof, legislated by the LNC, re: necessarily true insofar as its negation is impossible. Empirical proof is called knowledge, logical proof is called apodeitic certainty.
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It's just not that complicated. — Millard J Melnyk

Or…it’s overly simplified?

Either way, it’s your thread; I’m just a visitor.

….when considering thought vs. belief, there is no epistemic difference inherent between the two. — Millard J Melnyk

Agreed, in principle, but from that, how does it not follow that all thought is irrational? It is unintelligible that all thought is irrational, for the thought that all thought is irrational is itself irrational, ad infinitum, therefore it must be the case, given the criterion of epistemic congruency, that not all belief is irrational. The caveat being….epistemic congruency just means neither thought nor belief is knowledge.

The key is the judgement which follows from the act of cognition, insofar as it is possible to think without judging the validity of the object thought about, while on the other hand, the object thought about must have been judged in order to then affirm or deny the validity of it.

To think, e.g., its raining, merely indicates a priori, that some of the manifold of conditions experience informs as necessary, must be observed, such that rain is possible. To believe it’s raining is to judge whether enough of those conditions are actually met in order to validate that an observation accords with experience. To know it is raining, then, indicates that all the conditions experience informs as necessary are met, from which it is invalid, re: self-contradictory, for the judgement to be that it is not raining.
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….why we talk about reason. — Paine

…..just as you say, with anthropology, psychology and that ridiculous OLP conspicuous in their absence when we do.

Yes, we can think all kinds of stuff, related or unrelated to each other, but never simultaneously. It follows that for the thought of P from this inference at this point, and the thought of Q from that inference from some other point, makes explicit the rules must be as equally dissimilar as the points. Otherwise, we couldn’t determine we’ve thought different things, which is a contradiction justified by having already thought “P” according to this rule and subsequently thought “Q” according to that rule.

So much for rules, but what of natural law? Where is that, with respect to purely mathematical constructs like geometric figures? And if it is necessary to construct an empirical sphere upon which is proved the existence of geodesics, you’re never going to find human rights on any point on that line.

Why should the human intellectual condition of thinking a myriad or related or unrelated thoughts, be a problem? I submit it would be a problem if we did NOT have that condition, insofar as the consequence of an alternative condition would be the impossibility for accumulating knowledge of vastly different kinds of things.

Besides, inference can be a rule or a law, depending on its use. Rules of inference are guides; laws of inference are principles; principles ground natural law but are not themselves natural laws.

But all this is much further afield than I wish to proceed, so I’ll leave it with you to carry on.

The Demarcation Meridian then states that there exists no shared collection between the Rules of Man and the Law of Nature. — Pieter R van Wyk

…..the demarcation problem is the question of how to distinguish between science and non-science… — Pieter R van Wyk

Sorry for thinking that if the demarcation meridian references the necessary separability of law from rule, the demarcation problem would thereby reference the distinction between law and rule in general, such that the meridian statement cannot possibly be false.
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"Through perception, we gain information, glean knowledge, construct abstract things and conjure imaginary things - even play politics." — Pieter R van Wyk

You’re entitled to your own definitions, of course, but here must be the ground for the parting of our epistemological ways, for it is my contention that through perception we gain information, and nothing more than that, the rest belonging to other components of the human intellectual system.
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You can either agree with me…. — Pieter R van Wyk

I’ve already agreed with what you’ve called the demarcation meridian, but I’m not inclined to agree with your argument for its affirmation, for no other reason that I reject the domain and range of its initial condition, re: perception.

…..perhaps even get the perception of a fatal flaw….. — Pieter R van Wyk

My perception understanding of a fatal flaw, is the aforementioned domain and range of perception. You’ve attributed to it much more than I think it deserves, which is sufficient reason for at least questioning the inferences provided by it.

I mean….if there is perception of an imaginary thing, how is it still imaginary? That thing imagined, then perceived, was only ever really a possible thing anyway, while the thing imagined but not perceived can be either a possible or impossible thing. All that in conjunction with your time-variance/invariance premise in the OP.

And if there is perception of an abstract thing, how is not actually a concrete thing? In fact, how can a thing be abstract? Again, I suppose….definition-dependent.

I like it. From an earlier idealist philosopher, but still….

I have named this statement The Demarcation Rule…. — Pieter R van Wyk

This answers the question in my first response, whether the statement is a rule or a law. Now that it is given as a rule, we are met with the appearance of a contradiction, in that “there exists no shared collection” implies the apodeitic certainty of law instead of the mere contingency, or, at best, the hypothetical certainty, of rule.

The demarcation between law and rule in general is trivially true, from which is given the demarcation between the laws of Nature and the rules of man, hence shouldn’t even be a philosophical problem in need of a solution. The problem does arise, on the other hand, at least potentially, in any proposed solution from an argument affirming the distinction itself, those conditions under which it is necessarily the case. And it is a problem only insofar as the conditions justifying the distinction are purely metaphysical, dependent entirely on the initial set of premises determined a priori in a deductive logical syllogism, historically there being precious little accommodation for consensus with respect to metaphysical solutions.
(This makes this a law and not a rule, that makes that a rule and not a law)

From which follows your perception, in and of itself alone, is nothing but an observation of empirical relations, which can subsequently be understood as objective verification….or not….of that which the conclusion of the a priori syllogism for this or that law or rule, warrants.

I hesitate to bring forward the ol’ adage…it’s a matter of principle. But, of course, that’s exactly what it is.

My solution is grounded on the assumption of the conditional truth of the existence of physical things. — Pieter R van Wyk

The proof….not merely the assumption of a conditional truth….for the existence of physical things relative to human perception, preceded you by about 250 years.

Even so, I don’t find a connection between the assumed conditional truth of the existence of things, and the prohibition of the collection of natural laws from mingling with the collection of human-based rules.

Perhaps a synopsis of the reasoning for this assumption to your proposed solution, is in order. I already agree with the conclusion, but from a rather different set of majors and minors, I’m sure. So…..for me, a simple matter of procedural interest.