….granting too much to the given…. — Manuel

As in, Sellars, the myth of? Faith in…holding to….sense-data theories of direct empirical knowledge?

I know I would, and I think you would, disagree with that, rather holding to representational, that is, indirect, knowledge theories.

….the fantastic advance of the sciences….. — Manuel

Ahhhh….sorta like, video killed the radio star.

one can spend one's whole career studying the neuron of a squid, without knowing much more about biology. — Manuel

Ahhhh…..sorta like OLP: it’s enough that everybody speaks without having to think about how there came to be words.

Which is worse for Mr. or Mrs. Thinking Subject, not caring, or being too lazy to care, about what goes on between the ears that doesn’t require test equipment to discover.

…..it could be that one system is "closer to truth" than another one. But we have no possible way of finding out which one is correct. — Manuel

Do you think maybe that accounts for the rise of the analytic doctrine, the non-systemic program? If one system is no more provably correct than another, why hold with systemic metaphysics at all?

“…. It is positively painful to see bow utterly his opponents, Reid, Oswald, Beattie, and lastly Priestley, missed the point of the problem….”

You’re right: in defense of Hume in particular contra British/Scottish empiricism in general.

Ironic, innit? Hume termed his empirical cause/effect conditions “constant conjunction”, which Kant translated into “habit”, and Kant was himself the epitome of habit, given the anecdotal evidence of his contemporaries.

….not by appealing to it as an oracle when one has no rational arguments to offer. — Manuel

Ill-disguised poke at British/Scottish empiricism in general?

Oh, I metaphysics too. Quite a lot. — Manuel

“…. Time was, when she was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour. Now, it is the fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon her…”

Maybe it’s still fun because we heap no contempt, instead just let it play out.

“…..Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. (…) The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysics…”

Looks like the problem-solvers just don’t bother with that sphere of cognition in which the mysterians find their endless contests.

Maybe we’re all problem-solvers from a practical point of view, but mysterians otherwise.

If you’re one I wouldn’t hesitate to join up.

What’s a mysterian?

IT is required to speak about what we currently know as to a relationship between the brain an experience. — AmadeusD

Language is required to speak; dualism is that by which a functional relationship between the real and the abstract, is possible.

For dualism to be inherently incoherent is to prove with apodeictic certainty the relation between brain dynamics and, e.g., its empirical manifestation as experience. To propose a “perfect” model of the brain as being sufficient to provide that proof, violates the principle of induction, insofar as it is impossible to anticipate that the construction of the model won’t destroy the possibility of what it’s trying to prove. Which is immediate sufficient reason for an established doctrine represented as dualism to be left intact as an explanatory device, which contradicts the proposition that it is inherently incoherent.

The problem is quite obvious: the apodeictic certainty of the relation between brain dynamics and its manifestation…..won’t be of experience, in that the natural law of physical dynamics only determines conditions according to natural law, to which experience does not abide. While this seems to eliminate the abstract from the initially proposed functional relationship, the whole purpose of the “perfect” model to begin with, it just leaves us with that which in general we will refuse to accept, and we’ve succeeded wonderfully in making things that much worse.

I don't think such things are a threat to people's humanity. — Apustimelogist

Yeah, me either, truth be told. I suspect a “perfect” model is altogether impossible, and a relatively perfect model doesn’t tell us what we want to know.

There is nothing in cognitive science that would lead us to predict conscious experience from the underlying structure of, lets call it awareness, which is in turn strictly tied to (theoretically) the underlying physical relational structure of information processing in the brain. — Apustimelogist

…..and yet, methodological dualism is still not granted as necessarily the case with respect to human intelligence.

….unfolding on the same experiential space with the same category of underlying explanation very broadly in terms of brain dynamics. — Apustimelogist

…..and yet, there is currently no plausible explanation for experiential space in terms of sufficiently reduced brain dynamics.

So someday some scientific genius figures out how the brain’s dynamics functions right down to a gnat’s ass, and all “I”’s disappear. It shall be known there never was an “I”, never an experiential space that wasn’t legislated by the empirical cause/effect of natural law, and no one really registers the cognition of “broccoli” without this many neurotransmitters crossing this many clefts in this network in this region, neuroplasticity be damned.

Yea. Wonderful. Let’s all stop being human for the sake of facts by science. Probably best to kill off those that remain insisting on cognition by personality rather than cause/effect by activation potential.

(Sigh)

But their "thing in itself" is as unknowable as that of an apple. — ENOAH

That object which was initially unknown became “apple”, hence to say that object is unknowable, is a contradiction. The thing-in-itself, on the other hand, never becomes anything at all, so can be said to be, and remain, unknowable.

Both are known already mediated, and there is no inherent difference in what they are in our experience. — ENOAH

The thing-in-itself is not mediated, hence the difference in what they are relative to our experience, in that only the mediated object, in this case called “apple”, is one.
————-

We" as in the particular form human Mind took, constructed logic no more or less than it constructed apple. — ENOAH

Somewhat more or less, but I get your point. The constructed apple is the synthesis of empirical conceptions grounded by the categories. Logic is the a priori transcendental deduction of relations in the form of principles, for which the categories have no application.

And what these two are independent of our constructions are equally not knowable. — ENOAH

And what I just said relates to this, because logic cannot be independent of our constructions, insofar as the human intellect just is logical, whereas all that is naturally real, can.
————-

Really real in Kant is the affect of things on our senses.
— Mww

Is that a settlement he necessarily reaches given his empirical approach? — ENOAH

The point of the treatise, given from its title, is to describe what the system does when it is left to its own internal machinations, which can only arise in juxtaposition to what it does when it is affected by external influences. So it isn’t so much a settlement he reaches, as the simplest, easiest place to begin.

That is, is he saying, What things are, I cannot know…. — ENOAH

He’s obviously not saying that; we do know what things are. We tell them what they are by the properties we think as belonging to them.

…..so I can only express positions on them as appearances — ENOAH

This seems to mistreat appearance as “what it looks like” when it should be “when it makes its presence felt”.

Or, is he saying reality is its effects? (…) reality was the affecting. — ENOAH

Yes, by definition, that is in principle what he’s saying:
“…. reality is concerned only with sensation, as the matter of experience…”
“… reality is the conjunction of the thing with perception.…”

it sounds more like Schopenhauer's Will being that which drives all activity of being. And perhaps Kant just stayed clear of that — ENOAH

Oh HELL yeah he stayed clear!! Kant wouldn’t let will be the equivalent of, or synonymous with, reality, no way, no how. In Kant, reality is a pure conception of the understanding, a category, but will is a pure transcendental faculty from which arise moral volitions. Reality is a necessary condition for knowledge a posteriori; will is a necessary functional component for aesthetic judgements a priori. One can never sub for the other.
————-

It's well-known that Schopenhauer despised Hegel…. — Wayfarer

And was severely critical of the “Young Hegelians” who followed him blindly. Not one to pull his punches, ol’ Arthur.

'noumena' and 'ding-an-sich' (which are not the same but often confused with each other) — Wayfarer

Whew!! Finally. Music to my ears. The text says treated the same as, cognized the same as, which the inattentive consider as being the same as.
————-

In traditional (pre-modern) philosophy, wasn't it the case that 'intelligible objects' were known immediately, i.e. knowledge of them was unmediated by sense? That when you know an arithmetical principle or proof, you 'see' it in a way that you can't see a sense-object? — Wayfarer

You’d be more familiar with that than I, but I’d say, in Kant, the immediacy of knowledge a priori is relative to the principles upon which it rests, in particular, the LNC, which he calls analytical or explicative judgement and we call tautological truths.

….the noumenal as still mediated reality; though posited as unknowable because its constructed source is ambiguous; that which remained unspoken of by Kant — ENOAH

If noumena are mediated reality, why do we have phenomena? We know….theoretically…..what phenomena are mediated by, re: sensation, but what mediates noumena when we don’t even know what a noumenon would be? And whatever it may be, it certainly isn’t a sensation for us.

It isn’t posited as unknowable because of its source, for it is possible for a priori knowledge to arise from understanding alone, re: mathematics, or, the logical laws of rational thought.

It’s unknowable not because of what it is or what its source is, but because of what it isn’t and what its source is not; it isn’t that which appears to human sensibility and therefore its source is not intuition.

that which remained unspoken of by Kant (…) as really real…. — ENOAH

Really real in Kant is the affect of things on our senses.

….though neither philosopher made compelling arguments for how they described/why they "ignored" it.) — ENOAH

I suppose you could say he failed to describe affects on our senses. He made a brief reference to the ontology of things, but in a treatise on epistemology, things just need to be given, where they come from and what they are be what they may. Where they come from doesn’t matter, and we’re going to say for ourselves what they are anyway, as befits our kind of intelligence, so……

Cool thing about speculative metaphysics: you can see across the board any way that makes sense to you.

….either extremely honest or extremely convenient. — ENOAH

Maybe, but with respect to a theory predicated on sound logic, honesty and convenience don’t have much sway. At its simplest explanation, noumena cannot be known because they are what are called intellectual objects meaning they have no possibility of being represented in intuition. Only that which is intuited can be phenomenon from which arises experience, which is the same as being known as a certain something.
—————

….that which really is unknowable…. — ENOAH

How do we distinguish between the unknowable and the really unknowable?

I'm not sure if Mww is trying to convey this but..
Noumena is a speculative notion that are the "objects-themselves" or the "things-in-themselves" - a reference to the "entity" non-cognized, but as it is "in itself". — schopenhauer1

I’m not, in keeping with the definitions incorporated in the thesis. While it is true noumena are speculative notions, by definition a notion is “….a pure conception, in so far as it has its origin in the understanding alone, and is not the conception of a pure sensuous image….”.

The solution to what noumena entails, arises from why is there no sensuous image. And while it is the same reason for noumena as it is for things-in-themselves, re: neither are ever appearances to sensibility, that does not make the one the same as the other, but they remain nonetheless conceptually interchangeable with each other given their respective origins both reside in understanding alone.

The difference is the starting point. For us, we start with the thing’s appearance to our senses, then understand that which appears does not have to appear, and if it doesn’t, we understand that thing still remains as it is in itself. Noumena, on the other hand, originate, not in its affect on sensibility but in understanding, and from its conception we immediately comprehend why it cannot ever be an appearance.

(“….intuition cannot think, and understanding cannot intuit…”///“…. Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind….”)

For what that’s worth…..

Is there a "direct reality" for Kant? Does he even get into that? — ENOAH

Not as such, no. There’s serious conceptual diversity between him and his successors, in that for Kant, the only realism is empirically conditioned, as opposed to that pseudo-realism which is technically only logical validity, while the only empirically direct, which he terms “immediately given”, is perception. So it is that the only directly real is that which is perceived, but that has nothing to do with direct reality, which, pursuant to reality’s inclusion in the table of categories, is neither directly real empirically nor perceived. “Direct reality”, then, reduces to a metaphysical non-starter.

On the other hand, reality, as such, is directly deduced transcendentally as a pure conception, pure meaning without a definitive conception subsumed under it, more commonly termed a universal, from which follows that this form of the real, first, belongs to reason rather than sensibility, and second, is real only insofar as without it all a priori cognitions become impossible. Which presents a kinda quasi-contradiction, in that if the real is only that which is empirically conditioned, then pure transcendental deductions cannot be real, but they are real insofar as they are and can only occur as objects of pure thought.
———-

What were the "opposing" "realities" in his dualism? — ENOAH

He states for the record his dualism resides in that which is experienced as opposed to that which is thought. Whether these are realities is questionable, considering how these conceptions are defined in accordance with the theory to which they are the ground.

And to nip the inevitable in the bud, no, noumena are not one of the opposing realities. While it is a valid conception, insofar it is not self-contradictory, it remains only that, a mere conception, hence is very far from an empirical reality for human intelligence.

Yea? Nay? Maybe, who knows?

I appreciate your comment, and I offer these rejoinders just to demonstrate a conformity.

S says…..The difference between abstract and intuitive cognition, which Kant entirely overlooks…..
K says……(to cognize) as attested by experience, or à priori, by means of reason…..

To cognize by experience is intuitive; to cognize by pure reason is abstract, hence the difference is not entirely overlooked.
———-

S says….the opposition and incommensurability between these terms….
K says…. inasmuch as, if this condition is removed, all significance, that is, all relation to an object, disappears, and no example can be found to make it comprehensible what sort of things we ought to think…

One says they are opposed and incommensurable; the other had already acknowledged the case and says why it is so.
———-

Wiki says…..the object of an act of thought….
K says….the understanding (…) takes for granted that an object (…) must be capable of being thought (…) and is thereby led to hold the perfectly undetermined conception of an intelligible existence….

One must already grant that understanding just is the faculty of thought, without which the comparison doesn’t work.
————

Feser says…..For any mental image of a triangle is necessarily going to be of an isosceles triangle specifically, or of a scalene one, or an equilateral one….

K says….. No image could ever be adequate to our conception of a triangle in general. (…) the image would always be limited to a single part of this sphere.

While it is true we think in images, as soon as we present to ourselves a representation of a triangle in general, it is a particular instance of a universal idea. In no other way than by means of principles, is it possible to think things in general, the backbone of pure transcendental cognitions.
———-

it seems to me that 'noumenon' as 'intelligible objects' in the sense of those two quotations make sense to me, but that does not seem to be what Kant meant by the term, as Schopenhauer said. — Wayfarer

“…. The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and of the world into a mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis…”

“…. I find, however, in the writings of modern authors, an entirely different use of the expressions, mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis, which quite departs from the meaning of the ancients—an acceptation in which, indeed, there is to be found no difficulty, but which at the same time depends on mere verbal quibbling….”

Kant wanted noumena to be understood only as intelligible objects, and the conception of strictly intelligible objects in general does make sense, insofar as Kant was an admitted dualist, so if we can come up with this, then we damn well better be able to come up with non-this but that, other than as a form of mere negation. But the fact remains, it is impossible to cognize a noumenal object, no matter how much sense the notion makes.

I always wondered….who is doing the quibbling? Those who question his use of the terms, or himself for using them as he does?

I bow to your expertise on all things Schopenhauer. And thanks for not rippin’ me a new one for misconstruing his philosophical value.
————-

Y….is mediated reality. X…..is direct reality.

KANT: Noumena(X)-->Phenomena(Y) — ENOAH

The others I leave to others, but in Kant, while phenomena as mediated reality is correct, it is not the case noumena represents direct reality. Noumena are nothing more than a conception understanding thinks on its own accord, for no other reason than there is no reason it can’t.

“…. In order to cognize an object, I must be able to prove its possibility, either from its reality as attested by experience, or à priori, by means of reason. But I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself; that is, provided my conception is a possible thought, though I may be unable to answer for the existence of a corresponding object in the sum of possibilities….”

“…. I call a conception problematical which contains in itself no contradiction (…) but whose objective reality cannot be cognized in any manner. The conception of a noumenon, that is, of a thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but….solely through the pure understanding…..is not self-contradictory, for we are not entitled to maintain that sensibility is the only possible mode of intuition….”.

If noumena are instances of direct reality, why is it there is never an example of a noumenal object? Everybody talks of noumena as a general kind of thing but no one ever gives a name to what a particular noumenon might be. Because no one can, under the auspices of Kantian transcendental idealism pursuant to a posteriori cognitions, re: experience.

Anyway….in trying to help sort it out I might have just made it worse.

your standards (of which I've always considered to be extremely high). — Manuel

And I, yours even moreso. One had better appreciate and respect those with far greater formal training than himself.

Do you have a valid objection to what I wrote? — creativesoul

Of course I do, to some of what you wrote. We call it a mere difference of opinions, but that reduces to a disparate sets of logical inferences, which are, in my case, themselves the valid objection. Just as are yours relative to me.

No harm no foul?

Unless the thing K said we couldn't possibly "know" we simply "are". — ENOAH

Empirically, to know is to represent phenomenally. That which we simply “are” cannot be represented phenomenally, insofar as such representation is given from sensation alone, and we obviously cannot sense that which has no perceivable matter or substance.

On the other hand, derived from a long convoluted transcendental argument, if we think of ourselves as subject to which all representation belong, united under a single consciousness, we cannot possibly discover a conception by which it becomes possible to know “what” we are. It is then the case we, thought as subjects, can never be objects, which is the same as never knowing ourselves as such. So it is that we must be content to know we are nothing more than a mere transcendental idea which functions as subject. All this because when we try to know as something, the very thing that knows anything, we are met with an impossible situation.

Thing is, in juxtaposition to S, re: questions about knowledge of the world and that which is unknowable in it, these are strictly empirical questions, which cannot include mere transcendental ideas. So it is that a quite similar notion, unknowable as the what we “are” that is unknowable, which gets us to the mistake I hold S to have made, for he wants to force a purely transcendental idea into a necessary ground for a strictly empirical domain.

Furthermore, S couldn’t have even forged his personal philosophy if he didn’t de-construct what Kant intended the ding an sich to be. The thing-in-itself, in Kant, is a real existence, unknowable merely from the fact that thing has never been an appearance to our sensibility, has never run the gauntlet of the human cognitive system. As soon as the thing-in-itself is presented to sensibility, it is no longer -in-itself, it becomes a yet undetermined thing -in-us, and we can intuit, thus represent it as phenomenon, subsequently experience it and know it as a certain thing. S, on the other hand, wants all things as representations of will, which removes the very construct of representation from the cognitive system itself. Under these conditions, and in anticipation of Kant’s concept that no knowledge is at all possible for that without representation, we find the thing that was unknowable because it wasn’t representable, now is the very representation that was formerly unavailable to us.

Instead of things being given to sensibility, it is representations that are so given, which leaves the gaping explanatory hole in the form of…..how the HELL can a mere representation be of physical substance???????? How does a sensation follow from a representation, in the same manner as a sensation follows from a real physical object’s affect on the sensory apparatuses?

And if S’s representations are conditioned by space and time in order to make them appear real for our senses, as Kant’s things appear to us, then it remains questionable how the will can be a source of such conditions insofar as will is the origin of them. And if will doesn’t originate space and time, in that they still belong to the subject as pure a priori intuitions of transcendental deduction….S hasn’t done anything Kant didn’t already do.

Kant took Plato’s forms from the external instances of universals and made them internal a priori content of the mind; S took Kant’s internal representations as content of faculties of mind and made them external objects of will. Turn-about is fair play? If he can do it so can I, kinda thing? Dunno, but maybe….

Anyway….opinion. I’m entitled to mine no matter how misguided….prejudiced….it may be. (Grin)

Hey you…..

Would I have preferred S not to write? Great big emphatic no; it’s not for me to say.

From a personal point of view, would I have preferred he not write what he did? From the perspective of German idealism…the philosophy of the day, so to speak….what he wrote was inevitable; it’s what happens when one guy sets the world on fire, but the next guy wants to say something to make a name for himself by either making the fire bigger and better, or by demonstrating the ease of extinguishing it.

If S didn’t write what he did, somebody else would have written something; the enemy you know is easier to combat than the enemy you never met.

Ok, so…what. There’s an Enlightenment-era paradigm shift in metaphysics. It’s recorded history, not open for debate. The philosophical world is on fire. Every peer group member says to himself….why the HELL didn’t I think of that??? Ironic that Einsteins’s physics’ paradigm shift had to wait 30 years to be sustained because the technology of the day wouldn’t allow it even given the understanding of the primary ground, re: the math, but Kant’s metaphysics took 30 years to obtain even a respectable glimmer of comprehension because the peer group of the day couldn’t wrap their collective heads around even the basic conditional predicates.

If one has a background in K before studying S, he should recognize that S understood K pretty damn well, above and beyond the fact that S merely says he does.

Odd, innit, that a paradigm shift in metaphysics with a predication on empirical knowledge, logically proves as irreducibly the case that there is something the human intellect doesn’t know, and never can?

Given a system by which all empirical knowledge is possible, then defeat that system by making it impossible to know this something….why not make it so that something unknowable, actually is? Well, shucks, it can’t be the same as the unknowable thing, so what best to be exchanged for the unknowable, than the absolutely knowable, without question or exception, logically proved by the conclusion that the negation of such knowledge is impossible?

Those with sufficient exposure are already familiar with what the unknowable is in K, and also just as much what erasure of the unknowable is in S. Bottom line….if we know our will indubitably, and if it is possible to make the will, as it is known, to represent what K stipulated as unrepresentable, then the thing K said we couldn’t possibly know, just disappears, and with it the entire Kantian epistemological dualism.

My bitch? Kant’s will, re: the very thing we know best of all, can never do the job S’s will is called upon to do, re: replace what we don’t know at all. Kant’s will belongs to moral philosophy, and has nothing whatsoever to do with German transcendental idealism writ large, hence can never be, as a perfectly well-known conception, a substitute for a perfectly unknown conception.

But, you know as well as I the pervasiveness of cognitive prejudice. Pretty hard to dislodge what’s first absorbed.

Your proposal has several layers of complexity; several layers of existential dependency. We're looking for a bare minimum form of meaningful experience. We start with us. We set that out.
— creativesoul

I agree we start with us, because “us” is what we know, it is that by which all else is judged. When we examine “us”, we find that the bare minimum form of experience is the very multi-layered complexity of the human cognitive system. — Mww

In the examination of “us” as the bare minimum form of the possibility of experience is itself a multi-layered complexity.
————

My own view (….) allows much simpler iterations/forms of human experience than yours can.
— creativesoul

Mine doesn’t have form at all — Mww

In the first exchange, the subject was “us”; in the second exchange the subject is…..I understood to be….experience. I guess I figured you’d distinguish the first as the form of the possibility of experience, that is, the necessary conditions for it, while the latter presupposed experience as given. Dunno how to think a form into that which either is or is not.
————

I’m never going to be happy with that approach.
— Mww

Individual personal happiness is not necessary. — creativesoul

C’mon, man. Really? Would you rather I said…..here is an perfect example of an aesthetic judgement of mine in complete irreconcilable discord with a phenomenal observation?
————-

Picking oranges on a rainy day is neither an abstraction nor a mental construct. It's an experience — creativesoul

There is a physical activity understood by a certain relation; the relation is then cognized as picking oranges, and THAT is the experience.
————

Certainly, at numerous times prior to the emergence of humans, oranges were picked. — creativesoul

No, there was not. Never before humans were there oranges; there was, after humans, only non-contradictory inference for the existence of a certain kind of thing, eventually cognized post hoc as an orange by a human. Conception of a thing is not proof of existence.

Picking an orange implies intentionality. Before humans, from whence would intentionality in fact arise such that picking oranges was an existential activity?
————

All abstract conceptions are existentially dependent upon language use. — creativesoul

No, they are not; they are entirely dependent on deductive thought alone, from which they obtain their logical validity whether or not there ever is any existential representation at all.
————

Where there has never been language, there could have never been any notion of "picking oranges". — creativesoul

Notions, insofar as the conceptions representing them are predicated on sensuous image, re: phenomenal intuition, don’t need language anyway. The notion of “picking oranges” makes no sense to me; we pick oranges or we don’t. Picking oranges makes explicit we know what we’re doing; “picking oranges” implies we don’t. What’s the big deal?
————

The group itself consists of all the separate instances of picking oranges. They do not require being taken account of. — creativesoul

Maybe not, but the metaphysics of it all, does.

Now, given that the maladies of human beings…. — Shawn

Personally, I find the relative value of S’s philosophy not related to human maladies, but to the general human investiture in transcendental idealism.

in your opinion, is his enduring influence to this day due to him being right? — Shawn

Nahhh, not from this armchair. Whatever influence he has, is due to his being Kantian. And Kant is on record as denying to himself any certifiable empirically-grounded correctness….being right…..re: metaphysics as a doctrine cannot stand the tests of being a science, and insofar as if it is the case that the apple doesn’t fall that far from the tree, then S should also deny being right to himself.

On the other hand, to posit for the record his philosophy is more right than Kant’s**, which is simply to say Kant was wrong about this or that, merely reflects conclusions from disparate initial conditions, but that doesn’t make S’s PSR or WWR any more or less “right” than CPR, CpR, or CJ.

That any of us these days think one or the other right, is a different story altogether, predicated on mere aesthetic agreement, rather than factual correctness.

** “…. What I have in view in this Appendix to my work is really only a defence of the doctrine I have set forth in it, inasmuch as in many points that doctrine does not agree with the Kantian philosophy, but indeed contradicts it. A discussion of this philosophy is, however, necessary, for it is clear that my train of thought, different as its content is from that of Kant, is yet throughout under its influence, necessarily presupposes it, starts from it; and I confess that, next to the impression of the world of perception, I owe what is best in my own system to the impression made upon me by the works of Kant….”
(WWR, 2, App., 1844, in Haldane/Kemp, (pub) 1909)

As I said: personally…..

Very nicely worded…. — ENOAH

Thanks; much appreciated. But in all honesty, taken from a moldy Enlightenment tome, formerly a positive paradigm shift in philosophical thought but now in somewhat diminished favor.

The very notion of mental implies internal, in the sense of residing/existing/happening completely in the brain/mind, body, etc. I've a more holistic approach that makes the most sense of meaningful experience as neither exclusively internal nor external, but rather - consisting of both….. — creativesoul

I’m never going to be happy with that approach. Experience is an abstract conception, is entirely a mental construct, hence exclusively internal. What the experience is of, that which is represented by the mental construct, is not, hence is exclusively external.

It is impossible to arrive at experience without an object, but the object itself is not the experience. So rather than consisting of both, I find the one’s relation to the other to have the more explanatory power.
————-

My own view (….) allows much simpler iterations/forms of human experience than yours can. — creativesoul

Mine doesn’t have form at all; there is, or there is not, experience, period. In that respect, mine is far the simpler iteration. Yours might be simpler iff you meant to say the process by which experience occurs. Still, whatever process you might invoke should capture that which is established as human intellectual composition, such as judgement, understanding…..those abstract conceptions manufactured in order to comprehend something we know so little about we are forced to speculate if we wish to say anything at all.
————

Question: of all that supposedly attributable to lesser animals, in your opinion which is the primordial consideration such creature must attain antecedent to all else, in order for him to be afforded meaningful experiences? — Mww

In other words, what is it about a candidate that experiences, such that he must consider something, the negation of which is impossible.

Answer: he must consider himself as subject. He is that to which all representations, all objects of consciousness belong, such that there resides an implicit unity in the manifold of all rational/intellectual doings.

What is authorized for humans to claim, is that iff lesser animals do not consider themselves as subjects, they will not experience in the same manner as those higher animals that do. Which is all the original claim meant to emphasize in the first place.

No so called lesser animal (a label which I dispute) has any hope/fear of having meaningful experience because meaning is precisely what distinctly human mind constructs out of its incessant and autonomous dialectical processes. — ENOAH

My sentiments exactly.

And I mean “lesser” animal to indicate precisely that missing primordial consideration. And I mean “consideration” insofar as only in speculative metaphysics is that missing piece proven logically necessary.

The primordial consideration such creature must attain antecedent to all else if they were to similarly construct meaning….. — ENOAH

While this is sufficient cause for a given effect, whatever form the cause has, is reducible. I want to know to what it is reducible, such that THAT is irreducible, hence, primordial.

Part of the evolution of that system of signifiers involved meaning. — ENOAH

That’s gonna get a great big HOOYAH!!! from my most worthy dialectical cohort, .
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So that it seems like they are not expressing a single linguistic representation. But they are. If not the words….. — ENOAH

The words just ARE the linguistic representations, of the conceptions apprehended as belonging to each other, from which a cognition, hence a possible experience, follows. Before they become words, they are schemata, that which as a multiplicity of minor conceptions, is subsumed under a major. You touched on it with your “image-ing”, which I hold as a requisite component of human intelligence, in that we actually think in images. But we cannot express an image, project it beyond ourselves, so we developed language to do just that.
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That this seemingly silent apprehension, is in fact, yet a subtle description. — ENOAH

Pretty much, yep. A strictly internally constructed, and systemically employed, description. To descend another step into the metaphysical morass…..

…..the relation between the apprehension, re: the thought of “this” (an iteration of your “from the source, Reality”),
…..and the description, re: the cognition (your “constructed meaning”) of “this” as “that”…..
…..resides in pure reason, which subsumes the correspondence between “this” and “that” under pure principles a priori, in order for the ensuing experience, whereby “this” becomes knowledge, to be non-contradictory, not with itself, but with some other extant experience “that”, albeit of the same perceived thing…
…..and herein is a form of your implication of time, which follows from my position that experience is an end, a terminus of a speculative procedural methodology.

(From the cognitive neurobiology point of view, “this” is some initially stimulated neural pathway, “that” is a previously enabled pathway, the correspondence manifests in the meeting of the two pathways into a common network, from which the currently perceived thing becomes the same as, or sufficiently congruent with, the “dump truck”….or whatever….. experienced last week)
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….indirect realism gets my vote. — ENOAH

Mine as well. The real that is direct is so from its perception; the real that is indirect is so from its representation. It is by representation alone that knowledge of the real is possible, and knowledge is what we’re after, the real be what it may. The dual nature of human intelligence is required for these to subsist at the same time with respect to the same thing.

Anyway….fun to play with, plus, it’s legal.

My thesis is simple: moral subjectivism is internally inconsistent. — Bob Ross

You’ve stipulated conditions under moral subjectivism, but you haven’t stipulated moral subjectivism itself. What if moral subjectivism, as a self-consistent doctrine, has nothing to do with mere belief?

How does the internal inconsistency of moral subjectivism fare under the auspices of, i.e., a deontological moral doctrine predicated on necessity of law alone, which makes the contingency of mere belief irrelevant?

What makes subjectivism “moral” anyway? What it is that makes subjectivism in general reducible to a particular instance of it?

Would any of that matter with respect to your thesis? I think it does regarding when subjectivism is adjoined to moral predicates, but…..maybe not.

Meaningful experience requires….. — creativesoul

I agree with all that, which means I accept your general argument, perhaps while disputing the minutia of the grounds for it.

We must first have an experience as well as the ability to reflect upon it prior to being able to describe the conditions thereof/therein. — creativesoul

Would it have been better for me to have said the conditions for the possibility of our experiences must be apprehended beforehand, rather than described?

The candidate….must only be capable of drawing correlations…between different things in order to attribute meaning to different things. — creativesoul

In my world, apprehending the conditions for, manifests in the same mental process as drawing correlations between. I overlooked the pervasiveness of language-use conjoined to descriptive practices, insofar as I see no reason why the human cognitive system in itself, in its synthesis of conceptions to each other, have not in effect described the conditions by which an experience is given, without ever expressing a single linguistic representation of those conceptions or the cognition which follows from them.

The language less creature has no inkling of just how important a role the sun plays in its own existence. — creativesoul

I submit that kind of creature has insufficient rational capacity to apprehend the conditions by which the sun attains its role in a necessary relation to said creature’s existence, from which follows the only creatures known to function under such criteria, is the human creature.
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Question: of all that supposedly attributable to lesser animals, in your opinion which is the primordial consideration such creature must attain antecedent to all else, in order for him to be afforded meaningful experiences?

They can recognize their own offspring and kin. If these don't qualify for you as meaningful experiences, I'd be interested to hear why not. — Janus

Because they are all reducible to instinct. Meaningful experience implies reason, or at the very least, understanding, which is not a component of mere instinct.
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…..but Mww may correct me on this. — Janus

Thanks for the nod, but I wouldn’t ever be so presumptuous as to say I’m right. That being said….

So, on that account perceptible things become meaningful, and are thus perceived. — Janus

….might be better spoken with perceptible things become meaningful and are thus understood. That which has become meaningful, at least empirically, must have already been perceived, which makes “are thus perceived” superfluous. In short, meaning is not a quality of perception itself, but may be for that object which appears to it.

On this account there must be some pre-perceptual interactions already going on of course — Janus

There are pre-perceptual conditions, but not as yet interactions. If pre-perceptual, then there isn’t anything to which the pre-perceptual conditions can be connected. They’re there, ready and waiting, but idle, so to speak.

…..they involve the objects and the senses but are yet to reach the status of perception. I think Kant refers to this as "intuition" — Janus

It is not actually wrong from a Kantian point of view to say intuition involves objects and the senses. Nevertheless, to be technically correct, one should say, that which Kant refers to as intuition, re: “….the faculty of representation….” involves synthesis in imagination the object of which is a phenomenon. As you can see, this procedural episode is after, thus apart from, perception. That is to say, because they are given from perception, it is impossible that they reach the status of perception. Probably more simply understood by relegating perception to physiology, while holding intuition to mentality, each maintaining its own ground.

…..a bare minimum criterion for experience - shared between all individual cases thereof, is that the experience itself is meaningful to the creature having it. If all experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience, then the candidate under consideration(the creature having the experience) must be capable of attributing meaning to different things. — creativesoul

I agree that for a creature to have a meaningful experience, such creature must be able to at the very least describe the conditions of that experience, even if only to himself, in order for the meaning of it to be given.
— Mww

I don't agree with that. Weird way to use "I agree". — creativesoul

Ok, so how would you attribute meaning to an experience without a description of its conditions? If meaning is a relation, wouldn’t the relations need to be describable in order to comprehend that they belong to each other, which just is the meaning of it?
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Your proposal has several layers of complexity; several layers of existential dependency. We're looking for a bare minimum form of meaningful experience. We start with us. We set that out. — creativesoul

I agree we start with us, because “us” is what we know, it is that by which all else is judged. When we examine “us”, we find that the bare minimum form of experience is the very multi-layered complexity of the human cognitive system. No experience is possible at all, without the coordinated systemic process incorporated in human intelligence. Which is why I maintain the position, that without the complexity, experience, as such, the kind we know best and by which all other kinds must be judged, is undeterminable at least, and altogether impossible at most.

Bottom line….in examining meaningful experience the first thing to be done is to eliminate instinct, or any condition that could be attributed to mere instinct. And the best, more assured way to eliminate instinct, is to ground the necessary conditions for experience, as such, in reason alone.
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I think one important thing to keep in mind is that meaningful human experience happens long before we begin to take account of it.
— creativesoul

Oh, absolutely.
— Mww

How do you square that with your minimum criterion presented earlier which demanded being able to describe the conditions of one's own experience in order to count as meaningful experience?

You see the problem? — creativesoul

There shouldn’t be one. I said describes even if only to himself. To describe conditions to oneself, is to think; to think is to synthesize conceptions contained in the conditions into a cognition.

Perhaps you’ve subbed in accounting for the experience insofar as it must be meaningful, while I’m accounting for the conditions by which being meaningful is possible. Meaning must be cognized insofar as it is a relation; experience is not a relation hence is not a cognition, it is an end, a terminus, of cognitions.

F’ing language games. When I hear “long before we begin to take account of it” I think long before we talk about it. To account for is to determine conditions; to take account of implies the determinations have been met. Dunno….maybe too analytical on my part.

…..for whatever a purpose is supposed to be follows from the kind/content of the judgement from which it is given.
— Mww
Ok, but this would seem to cover everything — tim wood

My teleological/aesthetic to your purposivity/purposefulnes…..don’t we want all our bases covered?

…..predisposition in accordance with subjective moral law.
— Mww
Hmm. There is in this a question of governance. — tim wood

Yes, undoubtedly. Or, if not governance per se, then at least legislation.

About ol’ Sydney’s last act: where/how does he fit into your notions of purpose with it?

Hey…..
Good to see you once again.

And purpose comes with – or is invented by – mind. — tim wood

Agreed. However purpose is understood, it follows from judgement alone, and for whatever a purpose is supposed to be follows from the kind/content of the judgement from which it is given.

Can we do purpose without first doing teleology on the one hand, or aesthetics on the other?

Invented or discovered? Neither: they follow implicitly and necessarily from that which is the condition for them, that being….a-hem…..predisposition in accordance with subjective moral law.

Not much more I can contribute here, however interesting the topic is. I have neither opinion nor knowledge regarding purpose in and of itself, so….

…..a bare minimum criterion…. — creativesoul

I agree that for a creature to have a meaningful experience, such creature must be able to at the very least describe the conditions of that experience, even if only to himself, in order for the meaning of it to be given.

I'm saying that direct perception of distal objects is necessary for all cases of human perception, and that there are many other creatures capable of it as well. — creativesoul

I agree with that as well, with the caveat that mere direct perception is very far from meaningful experience. It would be far less contradictory to posit creatures with eyes directly see things, than it is to posit that same creature that directly sees things obtains a meaningful experience from that direct perception alone.

Are you saying that direct perception of distal objects is not necessary for meaningful experience….. — creativesoul

Assuming the possibility of experience in general, yes, not necessary for meaningful experience, re: echolocation in bats and whales. Direct perception is an unmediated receptivity by the creature, whereas echolocation is direct receptivity of that which has been initially projected from the creature.
(awful loosely-goosey here, cuz the counterpoint will inevitably take the form….light reflected off objects enabling direct perception by vision is no different in kind that echolocation reflecting off objects. Depends on how precisely one needs his definitions to be, I guess, and their relation to a complete system)

…..or that direct perception of distal objects is insufficient for meaningful experience…. — creativesoul

In humans, yes, it is very much the case that very much more than mere perception is necessary for experience. In any other creature, it is impossible to justify with the same irreducible certainty, in that it is not so certain that other creatures have experiences, as such, in the same form as those creatures which require more than mere perception for the meaningfulness of their experiences to even be possible in the first place.

…..or that direct perception of distal objects is something that is exclusive to only humans? — creativesoul

We are entitled to say that direct perception is necessary for human experience, but we are not entitled to say experience predicated on direct perception is exclusive to humans.
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I think one important thing to keep in mind is that meaningful human experience happens long before we begin to take account of it. — creativesoul

Oh, absolutely. One of my philosophical pet peeves is the gross mistake in thinking a speculative prescription of the human cognitive system, which requires language use, is how the damn thing actually works, which needs no language use whatsoever. I’ve said in this conversation, that we in fact do not know what experience in humans really is, but that doesn’t dissuade us from inventing stuff in order to relieve the itch of wanting tell ourselves at least something about it.

So, yes, I agree without equivocation that whatever human experience is, it happens long before it can be talked about. And if such is the case, and is the case beyond legitimate scepticism, what does that say about our talking about those creatures, the only indicator for the possibility of experience in them, manifests as nothing more than mere behavior? From which logically follows…plants have meaningful experience insofar as they behave in a very specific fashion in relation to sunlight.

How dare we, from no more than perceiving whales in the motionless vertical position, suppose they are experiencing sweet dreams over gruesome nightmares.
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Again, I think that one basic necessity for having meaningful experience is the ability/capability of attributing meaning to different things. I do not see how it is possible for any creature that is inherently incapable of perceiving different things. — creativesoul

This still leaves the problem of attribution of meaning even when the perception is given. It now becomes the situation where the perception is merely the occassion by which a meaningful experience is possible, but in itself, perception does not give whatever meaning the experience will end up having.

This relates to our conversation because in humans there is an established methodology for attribution of meaning to experience predicated on biological structure, and it is always and only by this methodology we can say what experience is. It is, therefore, illegitimate to attribute this known established methodology to those creatures the biological structure of which cannot support the conclusions thereof.

Ya know….if we say other creatures have meaningful experiences, just not like ours….what have we really said? Nothing. Not a damn thing. Who the hell cares about an experience that isn’t like ours, when it is ours alone by which we can understand anything at all?
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And how do we get our experiences right?
— Mww

That's a great question. Methodological approach matters. Guiding principles matter. Basic assumptions matter. Comparison to/with current knowledge base matters. — creativesoul

Do you have, can you iterate, offer examples of, those?
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…..a priori and a posteriori are used to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on experience — creativesoul

Distinguish types, yes, but not by reliance on experience. By the origins of conceptions and their relation to each other in cognitive propositions which are one or more of either knowledge, judgement or argument. All of which is a function of understanding alone, not of, hence not in reliance on, experience. This minor rejoinder would have been different if you’d said distinguished in relation to, rather than by reliance on, experience.

…..we must first get our own meaningful experience right prior to being capable of discriminating between experiences that only humans are capable of and experiences that some other creatures are as well. — creativesoul

And how do we get our experiences right?
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Direct perception of distal objects is one physiological capability that all experiencing creatures must possess. This points towards the irrevocably important role that biological machinery plays. — creativesoul

This presupposes all experiencing creatures experience via direct perception, which makes explicit there is no other way to experience, irrespective of the type of creature. We have no warrant for claiming that is a valid condition, from which follows there is nothing necessarily pointing to the irrevocably important role biological machinery plays. Just because it is so for humans does not mean it is so for all intellects.

Do you restrict experience to only humans? Are non human animals forbidden, by definition, from having any experience? — creativesoul

Experience, as such, yes, the reason being, all of that by which experience is considered a valid concept is derived purely a priori from the nature of human intelligence alone, and insofar as this concept is a priori, it can never apply outside the intelligence from which it arises. That being said, experience, as such, is forbidden to non-human animals, but that does not preclude them having something conceptually congruent with it, albeit exclusive to their kind of intelligence.

Besides, and we’ve previously agreed on this without equivocation, to profess that a human condition may also be assigned to non-humans, is anthropomorphism, the bane of good philosophizing. So while other animals may have something, we aren’t qualified to say what that something is, even if logically we are authorized to say what it is not.
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For my part, although we cannot know everything, we can surmise one very important feature of our own experience. It is meaningful to us. — creativesoul

Yes, I suppose experiences are meaningful, but to surmise meaning from experience is to presuppose experience, which still leaves the primary question of what it is, which just means that in order for experiences to be meaningful, experience would need to be defined in such a way as to accommodate meaningfulness in it.
(Sidebar: my definition of experience is unlikely to meet with more than your passing glance, which is fine; I don’t mind. No theoretical philosophy is correct, after all, right?)

I rather attribute meaning to conceptions, in that whatever is represented by a conception is the meaning of it. To attribute “round” to an object just means that object is understood to have a certain shape and no other is attributable to it without self-contradiction. This pertains because we can attribute concepts and thereby meanings to a thing without ever actually experiencing it, that is to say, we can merely think it, re: algebra. Or, heaven. But I guess all that just reduces to all experiences are meaningful but not all meaningfulness is experiential.

Anyway…..for what it’s worth.

It's the direct perception part we agree on, I think? — creativesoul

Ahhhh….yes, sounds good to me.

We differ when it comes to what all is involved in/for experience. — creativesoul

It’s tough, innit? On the one hand we just don’t know, on the other we make stuff up to tell ourselves at least something.

What all is involved? That’s gonna be a pretty long list, I should think, depending on what one thinks experience is. In my world, experience is an end, the terminus of the human speculative intellectual methodology, from which follows, all that is involved for that end, is the sum of the means necessary for the attainment of it.

I know you’re not a great fan of this kind of method, and you’re certainly not alone. But we’ve all got our favorite persuasions, for better or worse.

This topic finds agreement between us. — creativesoul

Hopefully you’ve understood and I were both talking about human experience related to things active in the world, re: “what a cow is doing”, and its manifestation as an appearance to people such that experience of it is possible.

Under the assumption you’ve understood that, it causes consternation when juxtapositioned to…..

….whether or not cows can have experience…. — creativesoul

…..which is quite disconnected from human experience, and for which….

Biology looms large. — creativesoul

……would have no apparent relevance insofar as all humans have the same biology.

Help me understand what agreement we’re having here?

I don’t understand how you get from “unmediated empirical affect” to “mediated representation”. — Luke

From the object’s point of view, it is an effect on human sensory devices. From the point of view of those devices, the object is an affect on them, they are affected by it. Upon transformation by the components of the system, the object that effects has become a mediated representation, called phenomenon.

Just as perception is that by which the external object passes into the internal domain of sensation, so too is intuition that by which the sensation passes into the domain of representation. Perception is where an object is sensed, intuition is where the sensed object is represented.
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Are you talking about the mediation of our perceptions of objects? — Luke

Not exactly. Perception is just like a knock on the door, letting you know there’s someone on the other side wanting something from you. Also called the veil of perception, the epistemic problem, when all it really is, is an occassion for initiating the use of the intellect under empirical conditions alone.
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What is being mediated here? — Luke

The effect the object has on the human sensory receptivity, called sensation.
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What are they mediated by? — Luke

Scientifically, this sensation goes to this part of the brain, that sensation goes to that part of the brain, so as not to confuse one with the other. Sensation, then, is mediated by the section of the brain to which it is sent in accordance with the nerve bundles in the body responsible for transferring from one place to another.

Metaphysically, hence the implication of indirect realism itself, sensations are mediated by that which arranges the content of a sensation according to its form, meaning from which apparatus the sensation arose. All this is doing, is informing the downstream cognitive part of the system which conceptions belong to which kind of sensation, such that those related to the smell are not adjoined to what is heard, and so on. It is the reason we never associate the concept “loud” in the determination of an object’s sensation delivered by the nose. Understanding, according to rules, donchaknow.

Some folks have better luck with, and actually this whole snafu originated from, the conceptions mediate and immediate, rather than direct and indirect. Objects are given to us immediately….they are there or they are not, no gray area, nothing controversial, insofar as it makes no difference what the something is, but only that something is there. Objects considered, contemplated, conceived, judged, experienced, whatever……are mediated, meaning something is being done to the given by that which is not contained in it.
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…..I am not an indirect realist. — Luke

Oh, but as soon, or as long, as you talk about this kind of stuff, you must be. The really real is the brain at work you can’t talk about because you don’t know what to say, the indirectly real is the brain at work that you can talk about because terms are invented in order to make it possible.

Brains aren't presented with cows. — Michael

Correct; you’re preachin’ to the choir. See my comment to Banno three days ago, pg. 66.

The difference now is, you said “talk of what the cow is doing”, which presupposes it as an extant experience.