“….The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a representation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned….” — Dan Zahavi, Husserl’s Legacy

“….. France's greatest thinker, Rene Descartes, gave transcendental phenomenology new impulses through his Meditations; their study acted quite directly on the transformation of an already developing phenomenology into a new kind of transcendental philosophy. Accordingly one might almost
call transcendental phenomenology a neo-Cartesianism, even though it is obliged — and precisely by its radical development of Cartesian motifs — to reject nearly all the well-known doctrinal content of the Cartesian philosophy….”
(Husserl, Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, Intro,1931, in Cairns, 1960)

“…. the idea of science and philosophy involves an order of cognition, proceeding from intrinsically earlier to intrinsically later cognitions, ultimately, then, a beginning and a line of advance that are not to be chosen arbitrarily but have their basis "in the nature of things themselves"….”
(Ibid, 1 Med, #12)

“…. By this preliminary work, here roughly indicated rather than done explicitly, we have gained a measure of clarity sufficient to let us fix, for our whole further procedure, a first methodological principle. It is plain that I, as someone beginning philosophically, since I am striving toward the presumptive end, genuine science, must neither make nor go on accepting any judgment as scientific that I have not derived from evidence , from "experiences" in which the affairs and affair-complexes in
question are present to me as "they themselves"….”
(Ibid 1Med, #13)

So…apparently, not representation of mind-independent things, but mind-independent things as such? Which I suppose must be done, if the object is to make Husserl-ian transcendental metaphysics a science in itself, which prior Enlightenment analytics had already established as being impossible.
————

All well and good…it’s what philosophers do, make what was once determined as impossible seem possible after all. But having been exposed to a situation…..

“….. Instead of a unitary living philosophy, we have a philosophical literature growing beyond all bounds and almost without coherence. Instead of a serious discussion among conflicting theories that, in their very conflict, demonstrate the intimacy with which they belong together, the commonness of
their underlying convictions, and an unswerving belief in a true philosophy, we have a pseudo-reporting and a pseudo-criticizing, a mere semblance of philosophizing seriously with and for one
another. This hardly attests a mutual study carried on with a consciousness of responsibility, in the spirit that characterizes serious collaboration and an intention to produce objectively valid results. "Objectively [objektiv] valid results" — the phrase, after all, signifies nothing but results that have been refined by mutual criticism and that now withstand every criticism. But how could actual study and actual collaboration be possible, where there are so many philosophers and almost equally many
philosophies? To be sure, we still have philosophical congresses. The philosophers meet but, unfortunately, not the philosophies. The philosophies lack the unity of a mental space in which they
might exist for and act on one another….”

….it stands to reason the won’t ever be a “unitary living philosophy”, given the propensity for none of them being able to “withstand every criticism”, a sorrowful vastness of which is “mere semblance of philosophizing seriously”.

Besides….what would the alleged transcendental ego be, if not the immediate precursor for that very “mental space in which they might exist for and act upon one another”? I find it quite odd the two majority shareholders of transcendental idealism posit such conception, but only one of them doesn’t subtract from it in his theory, what he’s already prescribed for it in his speculative deductions.

All that to express interest in a forthcoming (?) metaphysical heuristic predicated on abandonment of “the very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a representation of something mind-independent…”, at least with regards to empirical knowledge.

It is pre-cognitive and so cannot be taken into account. — Janus

“It” here being observation, and observation is pre-cognitive? If so, I agree, from which follows that “apparatus of perception, which includes (…) conceptual apparatuses of interpretation”, is false.

But I'd suggest there must be account, however mere….that is to say, trivially given…. it may be.

Of course there is a sense in which our perceptions are always already interpretations. — Janus

I would agree with this as well, iff interpretation here is meant as judgement. Experience is the common character of already interpreted perceptions, but not all perceptions result in determined experience, so always interpreted cannot be imposed on experience. Judgement fits both always and already, and….added bonus…judgement is the very epitome of conceptual apparatuses’ functionality.

Pick any object X (…) with following features a,b,c..etc. It’s conceivable that I can alter all the features you perceive of X by changing your brain chemistry or neural structuring. In which case, the object X would just be some empty "thing in itself" with no inherent features to it, — Sirius

If it is the case that all “features a, b, c, etc” of any object are prescribed to it by the subject himself, but are not perceived in it as such, and if the means by which those features are prescribed, change…..why wouldn’t the subject merely think he perceived a different object, Y?

In which case, the object X would just be some empty "thing in itself" with no inherent features to it, if we establish identity across change. — Sirius

Given that we have established identity across change in that object X has become object Y because the features by which I cognize it have changed, why should that identity change be sufficient reason to cause object X revert to anything? Nothing about the thing has changed; only my own means for determining what the thing is. Or, in truth, you’ve forced me to alter how that thing appears to me.

The boundary between extra mental and mental objects belongs to neither camps. Kant ran into this problem and there hasn't really been any satisfactory response to it. — Sirius

Boy howdy!!: he did run into the problem, he did respond to it, but the response may not be all that satisfactory. I mean….transcendental object? That is the name given to whatever ensues transitionally between the input to the sensory device, re: appearance of a thing, and the output of each of them, re: sensation of the effect which represents a thing. Which isn’t quite right still, in that the boundary between is neither one or the other, but the transcendental object here is certainly mental yet just stands for what isn’t, all in the interest of methodological continuity, however speculative that may be.

And…YIKES..…The “Principle of the Succession of Time According to the Law of Causality” as explanation? But ya know, considering this….

“…..what we call outward objects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made….”

….already conditions the subject himself not to bother with what he cannot know, with that which he is not even equipped to know. So why would Everydayman care that “the boundary between mental & extra-mental objects is blurry”? What has he lost by not knowing?

The distinction isn’t useless or wrong, it’s just…..superfluous?

I could change the wording of my belief…. — RussellA

Good luck with that.

But, in terms of what we actually are, as opposed to what we appear to ourselves, we cannot say any of this is true…right? — Bob Ross

That would seem to be the case, but where does that leave us? We continue to think even without apodeitic certainty of being right under any and all conditions. We are left, then, to think as well as we can, in which logic is chosen the sole arbiter.
———-

How can transcendental analysis demonstrate that there can only ever be one thought we have…. — Bob Ross

Because transcendental analysis is downstream from that which it analyses, and it is logically parsimonious by introspection, and is confirmed by experience, that thoughts do not coexist. How that analysis proceeds is unknown, but they don’t coexist, and apparently they don’t, there are a multiplicity of them, and obviously there are, then they must be successive. And if they are successive, they must be one at a time, the whole syllogism comprised of synthetic principles a priori forms a transcendental deduction of pure reason, by which the notion comes to the conscious forefront in the first place.

Funny, innit. We love our science but understand we’re limited in our knowledge from it. Why should it be surprising we’re limited in the thoroughness of our metaphysical speculations?
————-

How would such a noumena, though, be a representation of something which is real? — Bob Ross

Representation of something real is phenomenon. Noumenon, then, cannot be representation of something real.

The understanding can create an object of pure intellect, but that would always just be a product of imagination—wouldn’t it? — Bob Ross

Not quite. While it is a condition of transcendental metaphysics that the understanding can think whatever it wants, that which it does think must still be under the rules provided by cognitive overwatch, if you will. One aspect of that overwatch is, even though imagination would be the only means for representation of that which the understanding thinks, imagination cannot conjure an otherwise impossible object, or, that object that does not come under the jurisdiction of the same set of rules, in short, that object for which no possible cognition is forthcoming.

A-Hem…
Thought is the synthesis of different conceptions, by imagination; cognition is that by which the relation of different conceptions to each other produce an experience. When understanding thinks an intellectual object, there is no synthesis of different concepts, hence no relation of them to each other insofar as there is no other, hence no cognition and obviously, no experience, is at all possible for conceptions of intellectual objects alone.

Dems da rules, donchaknow, thus it turns out imagination cannot always produce that which the understanding conceives.

Yes, "synthetic a priori" is the name of a principle, not a description….. — RussellA

I’m sticking with the text, in which, first, the content of cognitions are examined in relation to each other, and second, the domain in which certain conceptions used to form such cognitions, is examined.

It does not follow from the fact all sciences of reason contain synthetic a priori judgements as principles, that instances of particular relations of particular conceptions, are all principles in themselves.

“….The term principle is ambiguous, and commonly signifies merely a cognition that may be employed as a principle, although it is not in itself, and as regards its proper origin, not entitled to the distinction. (…) Cognition from principles, then, is that cognition in which I cognize the particular….(((2 + 2 = 4)))…. in the general…(((any quantity adjoined to any other quantity is an aggregate quantity)))….by means of conceptions. Thus every syllogism is a form of the deduction of a cognition from a principle. For the major always gives a conception, through which everything that is subsumed under the condition thereof is cognized according to a principle. Now as every general cognition may serve as the major in a syllogism, and the understanding presents us with such general à priori propositions, they may be termed principles, in respect of their possible use…..”
(A300/B357)—- (((….))) are mine —-

The relation of numbers and the arithmetic operation attached to them is an synthetic a priori judgement, subsumed under the general condition that any quantity adjoined to any other quantity is an aggregate quantity, and the arithmetic operation is cognized according to that principle, but is not itself a principle.

If you wish to stipulate that Kant’s synthetic a priori is the principle that….that’s fine, but I doubt it’s what Kant intended for it.

Mww? — Bob Ross

That’s the way I understand it, yes. Perhaps, rather, an impossibility of intellectual capacity than a contradiction in terms.

That understanding can think noumena….which is their true origin after all….. is not contradictory, but the cognition of them with the system we are theorized to possess, is impossible, for the exact reason that forming a representation through our form of sensuous intuition, of an object merely thought by understanding alone, is impossible.

We know this is the case, insofar as we talk about noumena as this something-or-other ‘til Doomsday but never once figure out what one would be like if it was right there in front of our face. We can’t even imagine anything about a noumenal object, that sufficiently distinguishes it from a mere phenomenon.

….our internal thinking in-itself occurs only with one occurring at a time….. — Bob Ross

Yes, with the understanding that what we call thinking is nothing but an initial condition of a theoretical metaphysic. In other words, it seems as though we have this mental activity we subsequently conceive as thinking as a function of that activity. When thinking-as-conceived is reduced to a series of thoughts, experience confirms we cannot think a plurality of thoughts simultaneously, which is to say we cannot think more than one thing at a time, which is the same as saying we have only one thought at a time. But this is only a general rule in accordance with the theory, insofar as there may be exceptions to such rule, re: savants, autistics, sheer geniuses, and the like.

People in general, however, all else being equal, do not have the capacity to think more than one thought at a time. In addition, for those promoting the notion all thought is in images, it is quite clear it is impossible to hold more than a single image as a focus of attention, at any one time. Even following upon each other apparently instantaneously is still one at a time.

Thinking-in-itself, that supplemental physical system functionality for which we have grossly insufficient empirical knowledge given from thinking-as-conceived, may indeed have a clandestine level not included in the empirical domain. But insofar as there is no experience, a predicate of a metaphysical system, at all possible from the functionality of a purely physical system, whatever thoughts-in-themselves which reside below the level of conscious awareness are by definition unintelligible, hence necessarily of no consequence.

Perhaps it is merely the natural workings of the physical system, rather than the conscious workings of the metaphysical system, that permits confinement of some thinking to subconscious levels, as a way to prevent mental overload. But then the question arises how does the physical system ascertain which thinking to hold subconscious and which to raise to conscious level, to which the metaphysical system answers…..instinct.
————-

I don’t see how one could prove, transcendentally, that I cannot have two thoughts at a time; other than to say that my brain would fail to properly render that into my self-consciousness — Bob Ross

It isn’t proved; the transcendental analysis of experience demonstrates there is only ever one thought at a time, which does not prove more than one is impossible. Maybe it’s a simple as the transcendental principle that knowledge of a thing is its certainty, and from that principle, if all certainty follows from the synthesis of certain conceptions in a single judgement relative to that which is thought about, then if there are multiple thoughts in the form of syntheses of conceptions, there would then be multiple judgements relative to that which is thought about, in which case certainty is merely contingency and the fundamental notion of knowledge itself, becomes self-contradictory.

The critique of pure reason is the textual admonishment not to go beyond what is possible to know, in the fruitless search of what there is no possibility of knowing.

Bergson's critique aligns with Kant in suggesting that time is not merely a succession of isolated moments that can be objectively measured, but a continuous and subjective flow that we actively synthesize through consciousness. — Wayfarer

Do you think it appropriate that we denote the succession of isolated moments as change, leaving time itself to represent continuous and subjective flow, which we think of as motion?
————-

Your primacy of perspective should be considered Philosophy 101.

Kant writes about synthetic a priori unity (B264), synthetic a priori concepts (A220), synthetic a priori about appearances (B217), synthetic a priori cognitions (B19) and synthetic a priori judgements (B19). — RussellA

“….. the predicate B lies completely out of the conception A, although it stands in connection with it. (…) the latter add to our conceptions of the subject a predicate which was not contained in it (…) By the addition of such a predicate, therefore, it becomes a synthetical.…”

“…. Mathematical judgements are always synthetical…”
“…. proper mathematical propositions are always judgements à priori…”

“… Not only in judgements, however, but even in conceptions, is an à priori origin manifest….”

“…. The science of natural philosophy (physics) contains in itself synthetical judgements à priori, as principles….”

“…. I shall adduce two propositions. For instance, the proposition, “In all changes of the material world, the quantity of matter remains unchanged”; or, that, “In all communication of motion, action and reaction must always be equal.” In both of these, not only is the necessity, and therefore their origin à priori clear, but also that they are synthetical propositions. For in the conception of matter, I do not cogitate its permanency, but merely its presence in space, which it fills. I therefore really go out of and beyond the conception of matter, in order to think on to it something à priori, which I did not think in it. The proposition is therefore not analytical, but synthetical, and nevertheless conceived à priori; and so it is with regard to the other propositions of the pure part of natural philosophy…”

“…. metaphysics, according to the proper aim of the science, consists merely of synthetical propositions à priori….”
————-

Of course the synthetic a priori is a principle. — RussellA

Synthetic a priori is not itself a principle; it is the condition of principles, unities, conceptions and anything else to which it applies, in which representations relate to each other in a certain manner, re: synthetically, and, representations are of a certain origin, re: a priori.
————-

If you want to say certain forms of representations adhere to the synthetic a priori principle, you haven’t in the least said anything about those forms, other than give them a name, without anything about what it means to be so. So now you have to go back and describe what it means to adhere to such a principle, and you arrive at exactly where you should have began.

Ever notice…given that experience is knowledge, there is such a thing as synthetic a priori knowledge but no such thing as synthetic a priori experience?

Transcendental philosophy is rife with dualisms, and this is just another one of them.

I’ve said it before….you come up with the most interesting stuff to read. Hell, I read them when they aren’t even addressed to me.

I’m inclined to suggest Bergson was Kantian, but the article doesn’t support me, so I better not.

Einstein, though….that guy. While the guy on the train sees the thing differently that the guy on the tracks, it takes a guy that is neither to see them both, which ol’ Albert doesn’t see fit to mention. It must have been he that was that third guy in order to construct the simultaneity of relativity in the first place, but in fact, he was neither. Philosophically, he nonetheless denied the validity inherent in Kantian synthetic a priori cognitions….all the while being thoroughly engaged by them.

“…. In my opinion the answer to this question is, briefly, this: as far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality…”
(Einstein, “Geometry and Experience”, 1921, in Norton, U. of Pittsburgh, 2013)

You said synthetic a priori is a principle; Kant says synthetic a priori judgements are principles.

Hopefully, it is merely your language use that disguises the fact you actually do understand the difference.

I get it; sorry, I shoulda stayed away from ill-begotten attempts at humor.

On agreeing with the difficulty in questioning the instinctive sense of reality of the sense-able world, re: those that say stuff like….time passes. They instinctively understand it as time passing or changing, they have difficulty in questioning their instinctive notions, especially when they change their clocks and thereby insist their manipulations are altering the passage of time. Transcendental idealism, on the other hand, argues that time does not pass or change, but only things in time.

Even a word like “yesterday” implies a time that was, and the common understanding has no issue with attaching meaning to the word synonymous with the passage of time, but in truth, there ever was only a succession of discreet times.

Ehhhh…..not never. Let’s be honest. 1964, it was. Historical precedent for me being wrong. I told my buddies those mop-haired caterwallin’ British punks would never be bigger than the Beach Boys.

Don't you think the issue here is the difficulty of questioning the instinctive sense of the reality of the sense-able world? — Wayfarer

It might be part of the issue, but I think the greatest divide is differences in understanding the overall intent of Kant’s text. I think my present dialectical opponent is bound and determined to make a molehill out of a mountain.

Even if Kant does provide sufficient proof for external objects, the transcendental idealist already grants their necessary reality so couldn’t care less about a proof for them. He may have reason, on the one hand, to care about those that wish to doubt or deny altogether such existence, and on the other those that give such existence more attention than they deserve, and it is they that need to be directed to the sufficient method for getting their nose away from the tree far enough to provide the forest an opportunity to show itself.

Or……my understanding is wrong, and that is the issue. But even if it is, I’ve been given nothing but repetitive textual references without supporting argument, such that I might have some ground for changing my mind.

But to answer directly, I don’t have enough experience with Russell’s personal philosophy to grasp whether he questions the instinctive sense of the reality of the sense-able world. I may be inclined to think he grants such reality, but it remains a question by what means is that grant warranted.

Thanks for the Magee; he’s definitely worth a serious read.

“Kant's synthetic a priori is the principle that we can discover a priori necessity from a posteriori contingency". — RussellA

Where it all began, yes, but I reject that as nonsense, justification for it not found in the over-used reference.

Kant’s synthetic a priori is the principle…..synthetic a priori isn’t a principle, it’s a relation of the content of certain kinds of conceptions to each other;

We can discover a priori necessity….necessity isn’t discovered, it’s given as a transcendental deduction a priori for the use of the understanding in its empirical judgements;

We can discover a priori necessity from a posteriori contingency…..implies the possibility of apodeitic certainty from empirical conditions, which contradicts experience.

What sense does it make to say, that I am conscious of the determination of my own existence in time, is a discovery?

What sense does it make to say that the determination in time of which I am conscious, is only discoverable because of the existence of external things?

That I am conscious of a determination in time does not in itself necessarily extend to my own existence. To add my existence is to add a predicate to an a priori judgement, which then becomes a synthetic a priori judgement, a mere logical inference of understanding the proof of which is not yet given, and is still not thereby a proper principle, the origins of which, is reason.

“…. That is to say, the consciousness of my own existence is at the same time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things without me….”

This is not proof of the existence of external things, but the proof for the necessity of them, insofar as if I am conscious of my determinations with respect to the former it is requisite that I be conscious of my determinations with respect to the latter. Or, more exactly, if I am conscious of the determination of my own existence in time it is requisite that I be conscious of the determinations of the existence of external things in time, which makes explicit the necessary existence of those things, and by which the conditional a posteriori contingency, is lost.

Immediate consciousness of the determination of the existence of external objects does not imply the intuitive representation belonging to them. The proof of the existence of an object, regardless of any of my conscious determinations in time related to it, is the effect it has on sensibility, which is very far indeed from the mere consciousness of time-determinations alone.

Where do we make our conscious determinations in time? In understanding.
Where do the pure conceptions of necessity and existence reside? In understanding.
Where does the synthesis of pure conceptions with representations of the external objects occur? In understanding.

Only through proper understanding then, is the doubting and/or impossibility of external objects destroyed, which just is the refutation of material idealism, all with which this section was ever concerned. As if the title didn’t say enough.

Over the course of seven days, you’ve included B276 in every single one of seven consecutive responses to my posts to you, but never say any more than the text itself.

Can’t you do any better? Have you nothing more to offer?

One must not overlook the significance embedded in propositions such as, consciousness of determinations of existence in time.

We don’t care, at this point, that there are things external to me, only that it would be impossible for me to determine my own existence in time if there weren’t. Therefore, insofar as I most certainly can determine, and am certainly conscious of, my own existence in time, the doubt of external existences manifest in problematic idealism, and indeed the impossibility of them as manifest in dogmatic idealism, does not hold, and material idealism in general is properly refuted.

And what of the significance in NOT proposing the consciousness of determinations of existence in space? Insofar as they are all thought, all conscious determinations are in time, external existence, which can only be of real objects in space anyway, eliminating the mere presupposition of their possibility, being just another one of them.

“One more step, and it becomes clear why there are only two pure intuitions, given the dualistic nature of the human intellect.
-Mww

Could you elaborate on this? I didn’t follow this part. — Bob Ross

In its simplest form, that which doesn’t require any explanation and without regard to any exceptions, we perceive things, and we think things. If the primary conditions for both of those very dissimilar activities had equal functional necessity, we couldn’t distinguish one from the other. But it is in our nature that we can, and we are perfectly aware we can, and that without any self-contradiction whatsoever, the content of either being whatever they may.

It follows that for the thought of things and the perception of things, even of the very same thing, there is necessarily a primary, fundamental difference in whatever it is that enables us to do both, such is the dualistic nature of the human intellect.

Again, on its simplest form, if we can do both, and each is different than the other, it follows that perception of things is conditioned differently than thought of things. Most obviously the difference in perception and thought, is one is conditioned necessarily on real things external to us and the other is not so necessarily conditioned.

So all we need is that which makes “external” necessary, which is nothing more than a relation between the object and the subject affected by it, and we ended up calling that relation “space”, such that the subject and the object are related to each other by the necessary differences in their spaces. It turns out mighty convenient that we can also determine the relation of objects to each other by their spaces.

All well and good, but turns out not all we need, in that space doesn’t give us something else just as necessary, that being, the immediate recognition that a multiplicity of objects is perfectly warranted, but absolutely not any of them in the same space. Or, and just as important, we can immediately recognize the existence of an object and the immediate non-existence of the very same object, which…..DUH!!!….has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the space of it. From all that, we conceive coexistence, duration and succession, and call that recognition, time. And this is why we have two and only two pure intuitions. I mean, we just don't need more than two, and any less negates the functionality of our kind of strictly empirical intuition.

Now, since time and space have to do with our perception of objects, yet have nothing to do with each other, we can now proceed to what is missing from the thought of objects, such that the difference in these perception/thought activities is valid, without the negation of either because of the intrinsic relation they may have to each other. Right? I mean, the object we merely think is not external to us, so there isn’t a representation of it as a phenomenon at the time of its thought, which absolutely requires a space, but is only represented as a conception, which doesn’t.
(Here’s where someone telling you he put your car in the garage prevents your knowledge of it being there, insofar as all you know is what he tells you but not of anything regarding the object he tells you about. All you’re allowed, is to think the car is where he said he put it, contingent on his honesty, but you have no ground whatsoever to claim to know either the moral inclination of his honesty, or the empirical location of the car.)

Ehhhh……enough already. In perception, it is a fact more than one sensory device can be affected by the same object, but in thought, it is impossible to think more than one object at a time. So it is that perception is conditioned by both space and time, but thought is conditioned by time alone without regard to space. But those objects we think, if they have already been antecedent cognitions, re: from memory for the psychologists in the audience, or consciousness for the philosophers, have already been condition by time as a pure intuition in phenomenal representation, and if not already cognized must be nonetheless a possible phenomenal representation, insofar as to think an impossible object is itself impossible, and thereby in conjunction with the categories which are themselves, not conditioned by time, but conditions of it. And we end up with time as the fundamental condition of thought, even if not as a pure intuition as needed for perception.
————-

Your #2:

The Kantian way of thinking about it, philosophically, is essentially:

1. An object “impacts” your senses.
2. Your sensations produce sensations. — Bob Ross

That got the Andy Rooney-esque single raised eyebrow from me. Like…wha???

Anyway, 5 days ago, so long passed.

Sorry if I talked too long about stuff too obscure. It’s what sometimes happens to the elderly retired hence otherwise idle. (Grin)

In B276, Kant starts with the theorem: "The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me." — RussellA

While that is the case, it is merely beside the point. It needs be shown why external objects as considered by the established idealisms of the day were conceived without proper regard for what came to be posited as transcendental conditions, the foremost being, of course, time.

“….The reader will observe, that in the foregoing proof the game which idealism plays is retorted upon itself, and with more justice. It assumed that the only immediate experience is internal and that from this we can only infer the existence of external things. But, as always happens, when we reason from given effects to determined causes, idealism has reasoned with too much haste and uncertainty, for it is quite possible that the cause of our representations may lie in ourselves, and that we ascribe it falsely to external things. But our proof shows that external experience is properly immediate, that only by virtue of it—(…) internal experience—is possible.…”

“…. as regards the third postulate, it applies to material necessity in existence, and not to merely formal and logical necessity in the connection of conceptions. (…) But the only existence cognized, under the condition of other given phenomena, as necessary, is the existence of effects from given causes in conformity with the laws of causality. It is consequently not the necessity of the existence of things (as substances), but the necessity of the state of things that we cognize, and that not immediately, but by means of the existence of other states given in perception, according to empirical laws of causality….”

The first says immediate experience is entirely internal and is projected onto the world of external things, re: Berkeley’s ideas, in that these are the cause of our representations and the things in the world are accounted for by them. Kant reverses that notion of material idealism, making it so our representations are given from external things and not originating on their own internally. We do not project our ideas on the world; the world gives itself to us by being perceived, and we discern for ourselves what we are given.

The second says immediate experience, re: Descartes’ problematic idealism, of things, is not the case at all, insofar as all perceptions of things, which give us immediate existences, must then be mediated by the logical part of the system as a whole, in order for there to even be experience at all. The empirical laws of causality, of course, being the purview of understanding, and not in any way connected to sensibility.

Immediate experience, in Kant-speak, is consciousness, in that the subject is affected by himself, with or without affectation from empirical conditions. Experience proper, is cognition by means of conceptions, of which sensibility is incapable, and shows where Descartes misstepped: we indeed do have the capacity for formal judgements of strict certainty other than, or in addition to, the consciousness of the determinations of our own existence in time.

B276 is all well and good, but beaten to death at the expense of The Grand Scheme of Things. The Big Picture. Alas….The Critique of Pure Reason.

Alright Mww and @Wayfarer, your mysterious forces are beginning to sway me. — Bob Ross

HA!!! Mysterious forces.

There’s some great stuff in your post here, Bob. I particularly note your “introspectively analyze my own thinking” and its relation to time. One more step, and it becomes clear why there are only two pure intuitions, given the dualistic nature of the human intellect.

I might mention your #2 from a few days ago, but that wasn’t addressed to me.

Anyway…..carry on.

The removal/deletion of a single word makes your latest remarkably improved over the preceding. Kant’s use of internal/external experience has to be judged from its context or exposition, and sometimes is better left alone. He does the same thing with phenomena and sense, etc., expecting the reader to know the difference in his meanings.
—————-

This is the purpose of Kant's Refutation of Idealism, an attempt to prove the existence of objects in space outside a representation of them. — RussellA

Kant has no need to prove the existence of objects external to us, those having been granted as necessary in the first sentence of the first paragraph of the first book, in the Doctrine of Elements.

He is demonstrating the fallacy in dogmatic idealism on the one hand, insofar as existent objects are denied by it, and the insufficient logic of problematic idealism on the other, insofar as the existent objects are merely doubted. The thesis, re: that the consciousness of my own existence as determined in time proves the existence of objects in space outside me, is just to show the premises in material idealism’s arguments are ill-grounded, which tends to make the conclusions from such premises, irrational.

In other words, insofar as it is apodeitically certain I am conscious of my own existence as determined in time, it is only so insofar as time-determinant conditions are given relative to existences in general. Time-determinant conditions are themselves possible only insofar as there is a permanence external to me by which time determinations in me are possible. It is already the case I am conscious of my own time-determined existence, which presupposes the time-determinant conditions as not merely possible but necessary and are that by which my time-determinations are given. The only permanence external to me, a necessity, is given from the reality of things which appear to my senses, and from which time-determinant conditions of which I am already conscious, are given.

Kant isn’t proving the existence of things as much as he’s proving the material idealist’s denial or doubt of things, is improperly justified. As an added bonus, he is also solidifying his contention, or admonishment if you like, that our representations are not entirely imaginary. As if getting, e.g., a broken arm from falling out of a tree wasn’t sufficient reason for granting external reality.

He has no issue with the validity of realism, being a self-admitted dualist having the real/reality/realism as half of such dualism. But, naturally enough, that “realism” from the perspective of 18th century understandings, which should prohibit the attachment of modern alterations.
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“….From the fact that the existence of external things is a necessary condition of the possibility of a determined consciousness of ourselves, it does not follow that every intuitive representation of external
things involves the existence of these things, for their representations may very well be the mere products of the imagination (in dreams as well as in madness); though, indeed, these are themselves created by the reproduction of previous external perceptions, which, as has been shown, are possible only through the reality of external objects…”

I think it better to understand that, that is to say for me the system of transcendental metaphysics is more comprehensible when, Kant isn’t proving the existence of external things, but suggesting, first, it is absurd to suppose, then, second, proving it is impossible, that there aren’t any.
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This seems to be a transcendental argument. — RussellA

Yeah, well….any argument, or even a dialectical thesis, having Kantian transcendental philosophy as its ground, which is to say any argument or dialectical thesis ultimately given by and for reason itself, is transcendental, in the proper sense. Other non-Kantian definitions or descriptions of the concept, of course, don’t count. (Grin)

“I am conscious of my existence as determined in time" is an a priori pure intuition. — RussellA

The quoted section is only a synthetic judgement based on a pure a priori intuition.

There are but two pure intuitions, space and time, operating a priori to make phenomena possible, and no discursive judgement relative to existences, is given from mere phenomena.

My existence as a body begins as an empirical intuition. Neither the consciousness of my body’s existence, nor the experience of it, can be found in faculties the only function of which is to represent appearances.

I am conscious of my body’s existence as determined in time, only insofar as no other determination with respect to the existence of my body, or any other body whatsoever, is at all possible.
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“The existence of actual things that I perceive outside myself" is a posteriori empirical experience. — RussellA

The quoted part is a pretty good definition of sensation. The assertion as a whole is false, insofar as experience is not of things perceived, but representations of them.
—————-

….my a priori pure intuition is possible only by means of a posteriori empirical experience. — RussellA

Why would the refutation of material idealism have this as a conclusion? Space and time, those being the only two pure a priori intuitions, are only possible because there occur experiences?

Maybe YOUR a priori pure intuitions according to your transcendental argument, but if Kant with his means for humanity in general the only two are space and time, and they are the necessary conditions for possible experience, it is the other way around from yours.

….how does Kant explain the origin of these a priori pure intuitions and a priori pure concepts? — RussellA

By transcendental exposition for the former, by transcendental deduction in the latter. Insofar as pure intuition relates to the form of objects of sense in general a priori, and pure conceptions relate to the form of objects of thought in general a priori with respect to time, he doesn’t need to explain by what facts their employment is justified, but merely by what right they have for it. That appearances are the necessary antecedent occasions for their employment, it does not follow they are derived from them, and in accordance with the theory, they are indeed, not, nor can they be.
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it seems to me that the CPR only makes sense if a priori necessity has transcendentally derived from a posteriori contingency. — RussellA

It would seem to me that CPR would only make sense if the conceptions represented by the words in the title are taken together, and understood under the conditions presented by the author. In the case of investigations of pure reason grounded in transcendental conditions alone, the concern is only for the legitimacy of its objects according to principles, as opposed to the de facto mode of origin regarding empirical representations in understanding according to rules.

Makes you wonder, donnit……~3b neuroconnections/mm3 in the human brain, yet we can only have one thought at a time….what are they all doing? Or, how come it takes so many? Or, how in the HELL do they all work together in order to get anything done at all?

No matter how ya look at it, it’s fascinating. Still, I can see where the pure empiricist would rather wait for the science that answers all those questions, then hold with a metaphysic that doesn’t even try.
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I question whether mathematical axioms count as 'phenomena', which is 'what appears'. — Wayfarer

Therewith has been set the stage for both a proper dualism on the one hand, and a certain idealism connected to it on the other.

If that’s what you get out of it, so be it. More power to ya.

Thanks anyway.

Kant's synthetic a priori is the principle that we can discover a priori necessity from a posteriori contingency — RussellA

Where in the pertinent text might I find support for such an assertion?

Ehhhh…..no correcting coming from me. puts out thought-provoking stuff I find worth addressing, is all.

I see no obvious reason why consciousness cannot perceive itself as an object.
— ucarr

Grab your right hand with your right hand and report back. — Wayfarer

There shouldn’t be a report. Back or otherwise, re: objectively with regard to the impossibility of the physical exercise itself, or subjectively with regard to a necessarily irrational construction of an explanation relative to the claim to which the exercise refers.

Hard to tell, innit? Whether definitions set the stage for good philosophy, or get in the way of it.

My understanding is limited, and deploys a limited concept of ‘real’ in order to construct my conscious experience. — Bob Ross

As it should be, and does…..

“…..the understanding which is occupied merely with empirical exercise, (…) is quite unable to do one thing, and that of very great importance, to determine, namely, the bounds that limit its employment, and to know what lies within or without its own sphere….”

……but on the other hand….

Through reason, pure reason, which is purely self-reflective, I can know that reality must be far more than what the understanding determines it to be. — Bob Ross

…..troubles abound from such insistence, insofar as….

“….the dogmatical use of reason without criticism leads to groundless assertions, against which others equally specious can always be set, thus ending unavoidably in scepticism….”

…. correction and guidance seemingly required…..

“….because it aims (…) to serve as a touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all knowledge à priori….”

….and in this case, where you’ve given understanding the power of cognizing the content of experience and calling it knowledge, you then your invite pure reason to question, arbitrate and possibly overthrow that very power.

Pure reason, in its “dogmatical” use, cannot inform you there MUST be more to reality than understanding determines, insofar as immediately upon deducing there must be, it may also deduce with equal justice there cannot be, you end up knowing neither, and you, in order to maintain rational integrity, revert back to what understanding has already told you, re: reality is that which is susceptible to sensation in general, from which, a priori, properly critiqued pure reason can only inform for that which does not appear, the reality of it remains undetermined.
—————-

you are using the concept of ‘reality’ which is a transcendental category of the understanding; and deny, for some reason, the concept as understood by self-reflective reason—by meta-cognition. — Bob Ross

Meta-cognition. Ehhhh….thinking about thinking. What a waste. Thinking about thinking just IS thinking. I don’t know how what seems to be me thinking, comes about, I haven’t a freakin’ clue. All I’m doing here, is iterating my comprehension of some theory by which the ways and means of what appears to be my thinking makes sense to me, without any possibility of it actually being the case. I’m not thinking about thinking; I’m thinking about the content of a speculative metaphysic, my actually thinking, if there be such a thing, be what it may.

So it is that within the predicates of this particular theory, there is no such thing as meta-cognition, the description of a system in operation in the talking about it, which I know because it is me describing it, is very far from the system in operation, in itself, which I don’t know at all, and for which I can say nothing**. It is only in the description can stuff like “concept as understood by self-reflective reason” be said, insofar as in the operation of the system itself, reason doesn’t understand and understanding doesn’t reason.

In my comprehension of the theory, then, it arises that, yes, I use reality as a pure conception of the understanding, a category, because that’s what the theory stipulates, and likewise deny to reason the use of that category, and all other categories, in its transcendental activities, for transcendental reason is that by which the deduction of them, the restrictive applicability of them, hence their objective validity, is given.
—————

And now it comes to pass, that this cannot be true…..

My other point, now, would be that our self-reflective reason has the ability to understand, just like it can about other transcendental things, that the true concept of reality cannot be identical to that category of the understanding which you refer; because something can be which is not sensed. — Bob Ross

…..because pure reason is the origin of the concept of reality transcendnetally in the first place, which instantiates it as the “true” concept understanding uses in its synthetical apperceptions a priori, regarding things that appear to the senses. While the category “reality” belongs to understanding for its use, and while it is not the same as the conception named reality thought to arise spontaneously in the synthesis of conceptions to phenomena for the act of judging objects, these are two very different functions of understanding itself and are deserving of their differences.
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Because something can be which is not sensed, is a logical inference, which must be separated from existence. There can be conceptions, there can be intuitions, there can be judgements, the actual experiences of which are impossible, just as there can be inhabitants of some other celestial body, the experience of which may be possible. Reality can be but not be sensed, but reality is not an existent. We experience real things, or, if you like, and loosely speaking, we experience things that are in reality; either way, we do not experience reality. As it is with all the pure conceptions of the understanding deduced by pure reason transcendentally: necessity can be that required for experience but necessity is not itself sensed; causality can be that required for experience but causality is not itself sensed, and so on.

Same with pure intuitions deduced transcendentally a priori. We manufacture the conception of time to understand Nature, but we have no understanding of the reality of time itself, insofar as it can never be an appearance to sensibility, but only reason to it for its necessity as a primary condition for everything else.
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If you deny this, then the very concept of ‘reality’, as a category of the understanding, is not real; nor anything which is not currently being sensed; nor anything else transcendentally determined. — Bob Ross

I do deny “reality” as a category, reality as a condition. Or, I affirm that “reality” as a category, is not real, as well as all else transcendentally originated. As far as the real juxtapositioned to the not currently being sensed, still leaves the possibility of sensation in the future, by which the reality of the thing would then be given. Reality, being defined as the reception of sensation in general, makes no allowance for time, or, which is the same thing, allows for sensation in any time.

Is this legitimate? Yes, not only legitimate, but necessary, within the predicates of this particular speculative metaphysics, for which logic is the only arbiter. The more pertinent question then becomes….is this particular metaphysics itself, or the tripartite syllogistic logic which grounds it, legitimate, and for that, only a subjective motivation or inclination suffices for the determination of an answer.

(** and Wittgenstein thought he had itself an epiphany. (Sigh) Sorry, dude; long before you it had already been covered)
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….how can something which isn’t real cognize something which is? — Bob Ross

First you have to prove why it must be that only the real can cognize the real. Or, prove from a pure, empirically grounded, science, that the non-real cannot cognize the real. In no other way can you prove it is impossible the merely valid can be sufficient to cognize the real. Failing that, it comes about that we already know how something which isn’t real can cognize the real. Whether or not that knowledge is worth a damn, is another question altogether.

Why isn’t it real for you if you have no intuition of it? — Bob Ross

Because of the definition in play for the conception of reality, which is a category, having all the real as schemata subsumed under it, re: “….Reality, in the pure conception of the understanding, is that which corresponds to a sensation in general; that, consequently, the conception of which indicates a being (in time).…”

I spoke of things I merely think, and for those things, there is nothing that appears to me by my perception of it, hence no sensation, no intuition, no phenomenon, so do not meet the criterion of the definition of the real in play.

Your car in the garage isn’t real right now, even though you have every reason to believe it is there, because you can’t currently sense it? — Bob Ross

Correct, it isn’t a real thing as far as my sensibility is concerned, unless, of course, I can perceive it by being in the garage along with it. But to say I have every reason to think it is where I put it when I’m not there, is wrong, insofar as I only have one reason, re: I have the certainty of knowing I put it there. The best I can say otherwise, is that I have no reason to think it isn’t still there, but that does not authorize me to say I know it is still there.
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This is incoherent though: you are saying that there could be a thing which is in reality but is not (i.e., does not exist because it cannot be given to the senses). — Bob Ross

The parenthetical is wrong: a thing can exist and not be given to the senses. Without the parenthetical the statement is a contradiction, re: there could be a thing in reality but is not.

I would agree to the statement that there could be a real thing that is not given to the senses, or, there could be an existence I’ll never experience.
——————

You are playing around with ‘being’ in ways that are not fundamental enough — Bob Ross

Except I’ve never used the word, preferring exists or existence instead. The word and concept represented by it is contained in the quote above, but that’s not my usage. And I use existence because to me that’s as fundamental as it gets, with respect to real things.
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….to know things (…) from that reasoning alone, is a posteriori reasoning.
-Mww

Then, you are claiming that all a posteriori knowledge….. — Bob Ross

Why are you talking about knowledge, when I’m talking about reasoning?

…..since only directly perceived things exist. — Bob Ross

No. Only perceived things are real; things may exist that are not perceived. But if a thing is perceived its existence is given. All of which is irrelevant, insofar as to reason about an experience presupposes it, and the existent thing perceived in order to make the experience possible. From the faculty of reason, the thing reasoned about is an indirect perception, or, if you like, a historic perception.

Technically, the content of the experience being reasoned about, resides in consciousness, so isn’t perception, direct or otherwise. I should have written that differently. But still, reasoning about experience is a posteriori reasoning because its contents are all empirical.
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Your answer doesn’t respect the question.
-Mww

How so? Isn’t it epistemically justification enough to claim that the car is in the garage (even though I don’t see it right now) because I had just drove it in there 5 seconds ago? — Bob Ross

If you read the damn question, you’d know you weren’t the one driving!!! THAT’S how so.
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“Space, a purely logical concept if there ever was one, would be useless if it didn’t refer to concrete things….”
-Mww

Noooo. The concept of space refers to extension….. — Bob Ross

Hmmm. Ya know, that could be reasonable, in that space refers to concrete things, which always must be extended, so maybe space refers to extension.

However, I personally take the idea of extension in relation to things, from A21/B35, which says….

“…..Thus, if I take away from our representation of a body all that the understanding thinks as belonging to it, as substance, force, divisibility, etc., and also whatever belongs to sensation, as impenetrability, hardness, colour, etc.; yet there is still something left us from this empirical intuition, namely, extension and shape….”

….key part being “what the understanding thinks”. It follows that understanding cannot think away extension, which leaves in to remain in empirical intuition. Empirical intuition, now, as defined at A20/B34, is that intuition which relates to an object through sensation. Sensation, as defined just beforehand, is the effect of objects on the faculty of representation insofar as we are affected by it.

“Still something left for us”, then, seems most likely to be that which can never be dismissed from the things that appear to the senses. This makes more sense when we consider that in thinking away all that belongs to things, we cannot think away the space in was in. The space of the thing is represented a priori in us by the extension of it represented a posteriori by its appearance to us, therefore extension must belong to the thing.

Another way to look at it: we can easily think the non-existence of things, but can never think the non-existence of space. The non-existence of a thing reduces to the mere absence of extension, while the space remains for a thing to be extended into, making explicit they are not the same kind of representations.
—————

So it is that space, as a pure intuition all its own, doesn’t refer to extension, but refers to the relation of things to us, and thereby is a condition belonging to the subjects themselves. Extension, as well as shape, on the other hand, represents that condition of things the negation of which is impossible, for otherwise there is nothing to appear, hence belongs to objects alone.

Something else: in normal cognitive operations, understanding thinks that which belongs to objects in order to cognize something about them. Understanding has no need to think extension as a necessary conception in its syntheses with a phenomenon in order to form a cognition of it, which makes explicit extension is already given. Support herein arises from the predicates of a particular speculative metaphysics in which the categories are necessary for the cognition of things, and in which extension is not a category.

To me, because understanding cannot think away what it hasn’t first connected, and it cannot think away extension hence doesn’t need to think of things in accordance with that conception, extension itself doesn’t belong to any part of the internal system by which things are thought. Which leaves extension belonging only to things as they are given. Furthermore, if it is the matter of things which is given to sensibility, as the text mandates, it follows that extension is necessarily presupposed.
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then I agree. — Bob Ross

YEA!!!
(Does the happy dance, feet just a’flyin’, enough to make Snoopy jealous, I tell ya)

Then a thing-in-itself is not a concept which is purely logical—that was my only point on this note. It is referencing something concrete. Mww is denying this, and I thought so were you. — Bob Ross

The thing-in-itself is a purely logical concept, distinguishing the concept of the empirical thing as sensibility would have it, from the concept of the empirical thing as reason itself would have it without input from sensibility. Thus, a purely logical concept can still have reference to something concrete, even if cognition of something concrete belonging to that conception, is not determinable from such mere reference alone.

Space, a purely logical concept if there ever was one, would be useless if it didn’t refer to concrete things, so……there ya go. The categories, even while being deduced a priori from reason, reference concrete things, in that no judgement regarding cognitions of concrete things is possible without the relevant schema of categories.

So, no, I do not deny the thing-in-itself references something concrete, while maintaining the thing-in-itself is a purely logical conception.

Hopefully there’s no need to clarify the sense of logic being used here. But just in case, it is entirely syllogistic and propositional in its expositions in the form of a particular philosophy, that is, first in its theoretical construction and then its subsequent analysis, as governed by Aristotle’s laws of proper rational thought, with the additional methodological limitation from Kant, that understanding and reason are the two cognitive faculties the metaphysical functions of which are legislated by those laws, which is not as much its philosophical exposition as its speculative use by a system predicated on that philosophy.

How, then, do you distinguish from a fake thing which is does not exist, and one which does (but of which both are not given to the senses)? — Bob Ross

In experience, I can do nothing with, thus have no more than passing interest in, that which does not appear to my senses. For that of which I merely think, which would be that thing which for me cannot be real because I have no intuition of it, there’s no difference in my internal treatment of a real and a non-real thing, insofar as the only representation for either of them is a conception or a series of conceptions, in accordance with a rule.

….a ‘fake [viz., non-real] thing’…. — Bob Ross

This is a logical contradiction when viewed from proper understanding, to which a fake thing is nonsense and a non-real thing is impossible, re: optical illusion, and a transcendental antinomy when viewed from reason, to which a synthesis of ideas and experience occurs but from principles without the power to unite them, re: deities, infinite time of the world, etc..
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It is necessary that some thing exists, which becomes the experience of, in this case, cup.
-Mww

Agreed; but you are also saying that this necessary thing that is given not only exists but is real; which implies that a thing which exists but is not given is not real. — Bob Ross

Yes, for any experience, a real existent is necessary for it. For that of which existence is possible, but for which there is no appearance to my senses of it, I can affirm nothing of its reality, for there is nothing to affirm.
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the sensibility must have some pre-structured way of sensing before anything is intuited or cognized—i.e., without reason. — Bob Ross

Yes, sensibility must be capable of accomplishing what reason theorizes in its prescriptions for it. If we are not conscious of the machinations of sensibility as an empirical faculty in a physical system, and there is a feasible method for its machinations as a metaphysical faculty in speculative system, why would those of us not in the field of cognitive neuroscience and related disciplines, care how it does it?
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I have no clue why we would assume that most, if not everything, can be sensed by our sensibility—viz., given to the senses. — Bob Ross

It is safe to assume every thing can be given to the senses, iff it meets the criteria of pure intuitions and pure conceptions proposed as belonging to human intelligence. Every thing is not, nor can ever be, the same as everything, and a silly language game ensues for lack of separating the respective notions from each other, according to rules.

The real and the existent are pretty much already interchangeable….
-Mww

Not at all under your view! The real is only a subset of existent things which are given or (perhaps) possibly given to the senses. I — Bob Ross

Not quite. Dialectical consistency mandates that, for us, the real and the existent are necessarily codependent, it follows that the merely possible existent holds as only possibly real. In other words, it is not certain that possible existences are real.

The real, then, is the set….not a subset…..of existent things given to the senses, which says nothing at all about things not given to the senses, and for which, therefore, the real has no ground for consideration.
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I think you still see my point: we can reason about our experience to know things which are not directly perceived. — Bob Ross

All experience is from that which is directly perceived. That which is not directly perceived cannot be experience. Hence to reason about experience, and to know things not directly perceived from that reasoning alone, is a posteriori reasoning. Knowledge of that which is not directly perceived is possible, but does not descend from, or relate to, experience, hence is called a priori reasoning. These are principles, pure conceptions, and so on, which ground experience but are not experiences themselves or reasoned from them but rather, make reasoning about them possible.

This is the difference between “…. though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience….”.
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What do you really know, with respect to the car itself, when somebody tells you he put your car in the garage?

I know it, because I have a true, justified belief. E.g., I just drove it into the garage, went inside, and now am being asked “is the car in the garage?” — Bob Ross

Your answer doesn’t respect the question. Trust me, it’s pertinent, at least to the theme we’re immersed in up to our eyeballs in right now.
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What makes something a priori and knowledge, then? — Bob Ross

Pure reason. What a human does, and the conclusions he infers, when he thinks in general.
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there is just a pre-structure for doing so, and that propositions that we (qua agents) know a priori because of that pre-structure (e.g., “all bodies are extended”)? I can get on board with that. — Bob Ross

Cool. This pre-structure is very far from the pre-structure you assigned to sensibility, however. The pre-structure here, re” “all bodies are extended”, is an empirical principle, in that it applies to things alone, and is only susceptible to natural proofs, but our knowledge of this arises through separate pure principles of universality and necessity, in that without these pure principles, the empirical principles cannot have natural proofs at all, from which follows the possibility some bodies are not extended, and we are presented with a contradiction and our knowledge of empirical things becomes forever undeterminable.
(Sidebar: technically called Hume’s dilemma, for which ol’ Dave had no answer.)

…..“that which is real its existence is given; a real thing cannot not exist (necessity)”
-Mww

Is this “real thing” the object which was given to the senses? — "Bob

Yes.

Why would it be necessary that a cup exists because we experience a cup? — Bob Ross

It is necessary that some thing exists, which becomes the experience of, in this case, cup.

I don’t see the necessity you are talking about here. — Bob Ross

The thing is necessary for human intelligence to have something to work with. If not the thing, then at least something not contained in any part of human intelligence, which is the same as being outside all parts of it, so why not just call it an appearance, in which case the thing is just shorthand for that which appears.
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The way we sense is prestructured (….) in a certain way to react to stimuli — Bob Ross

That just says what we sense with, is prestructured, which is true. Ears hear this way, eyes see this way, and so on. Science has a lot to say nowadays about the way we see, that wasn’t available in the times of traditional metaphysical theory. But even so, I suspect empirical science hasn’t much consideration for a priori ventures into the sublime.

Ehhhhh….until 1925 anyway, when scientists became philosophers once again, or at least were forced to think like one.
——————

Technically, though, the a priori structure of sensibility itself (…) resides in reason, insofar as the matter of sensation is transcendental.

I don’t see how it would be. Our neurons send the sensations to the brain; not vice-versa. — Bob Ross

Errrr….wha??? We don’t care what neurons do when talking about speculative transcendental architecture. You’re explicitly demanding neurons send the feeling of a mosquito bite, when the science legislating neural activity will only permit neurons to send quantitative electrochemical signals.
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I think we have good reasons to believe, e.g., that electrons exist. — Bob Ross

That was never a contention; believing in a thing is very far from knowledge of it.

Why not, though, just use ‘real’ and ‘existent’ interchangeably and note, instead, that not all the models and concepts we deploy to explain experience necessarily exist in reality (i.e., are not real)? — Bob Ross

The real and the existent are pretty much already interchangeable, and none of the concepts we deploy to explain experience exist in reality to begin with, so….what’s the point?
——————

If we can't sense it, can’t indicating an impossibility, how would we know it exists?

Through empirical tests with the help of self-reflective reason. — Bob Ross

Then it’s no longer impossible. Sensing an affirmative second-hand representation proves a possibility. Sensing changes in spectral lines proves that which changes state is possible, without sensing the electrons themselves.
——————-

That’s an equivocation. (1) I wasn’t asking just about empirical knowledge…… — Bob Ross

Yes you were, you just didn’t know it. Because you’re talking sensing, the only knowledge you’re going to get from it, if you get any at all, is empirical.

your using the term ‘empirical’ to only strictly refer to what is sensed—that’s not what it usually means. — Bob Ross

That’s all it’s ever meant to me. I use empirical to describe a kind of knowledge, rather than a posteriori, which prescribes its ground or source.

What else does it refer to for you?
———————-

I know that my car is in my garage even though no one is sensing it. For you, this is invalid knowledge. — Bob Ross

For me it’s unjustified to call it knowledge.

What do you really know, with respect to the car itself, when somebody tells you he put your car in the garage?
———————-

……representing objects in space is a priori knowledge; which I thought you were denying because it is intuition. — Bob Ross

Representing objects in space is a priori; it is intuition, which isn’t knowledge.
———————-

We are getting there — Bob Ross

Helps to keep foremost in mind here….we’re not talking about things you know, we’re talking about how you know things.

We take it for granted for the sake of convenience, but the proof is not established. — Manuel

Well said.

Otherwise is Hume’s “constant conjunction”. Never once have I put a cup in the cupboard, come back later and NOT found that cup just where I left it. Hence, my claim that I know that stupid cup is right where I left it, even without seeing it, is proven?

Nahhhhh….it’s just easier on my poor ol’ brain to think the vanishing impossibility that it isn’t there, suffices for proof that it is.

If it is real, then it exists; and if it exists, then it is real. This clearly does not hold in your schema. — Bob Ross

Too simplistic. For that which is real its existence is given; a real thing cannot not exist (necessity). For that which exists, whether or not it’s real depends on experience; a thing may exist without ever being a real thing of experience (contingency).

Sensibility has an a priori structure for sensing…. — Bob Ross

No, it doesn’t. Sensibility has an a priori structure for representing; sensing is entirely physiological, real physical things called organs being affected by real physical appearances, called things.

Technically, though, the a priori structure of sensibility itself, as the faculty of empirical representation, resides in reason, insofar as the matter of sensation is transcendental. But with respect to the operation of the empirical side of human cognition, the transcendental aspect has no influence.

We are scientifically aware of many objects which are real… — Bob Ross

Or is that we are scientifically aware of second-hand representations of those objects? We don’t perceive electromotive force, re: voltage, as a real thing, but do perceive its manifestations on devices manufactured to represent it. Even getting a real shock is only our own existent physiology in conflict with a force not apprehended as such.
————-

Are you saying that anything that we can’t sense, but of which we know exists, isn’t real? — Bob Ross

If we can't sense it, can’t indicating an impossibility, how would we know it exists? if follows that if an existence is impossible to sense, it is then contradictory to say that same existence is real. That which is impossible to sense cannot be thought as real. That which is as yet not sensed, indicating a possible existence, holds a possible reality in conjunction with it.

Anything else is merely logical inference given from direct represention of an indirectly perceived, hence contingent, existence.
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Don’t you agree that we have knowledge of things which we cannot sense? — Bob Ross

No, I do not. We can think things we cannot sense, which is to say we can conceive things we cannot sense, from which the logical inference for the possibility of things we cannot sense, but in its strictest relation, there is no experience, hence no empirical knowledge, of things we cannot sense.

Such knowledge is the conclusion of a system’s function in its entirety, which makes explicit if the system does not function in its entirety, there is no possibility of a conclusion given by it, which is sufficient reason justifying that in the absence of sensed things the system has nothing on which to direct its function, so not only does it not function in its entirety, it doesn’t function at all, with respect to empirical conditions.
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What do you take a priori knowledge to be then? — Bob Ross

Well….that’s just the system functioning without regard to empirical conditions. In this case, the entirety of it is not required, which is fortunate on the one hand and awful damn convenient on the other, because in the case of a priori cognitions, there isn’t anything given to sensibility for the remainder of the system to use.

Technically, though, empirical knowledge is the synthesis of conceptions derivable from intuition, whereas a priori knowledge is the synthesis of internally constructed conceptions, without the input from intuition, re: mathematical symbology and geometric figure, logical principles, axioms, imperatives, and the like.

This is relevant, in that with this distinction in method and initial conditions, comes the justification for distinguishing between the real, and the merely valid.
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I sincerely am not trying to straw man nor misrepresent your view — Bob Ross

Oh, I know, Bob. It’s just that this stuff is so obviously reasonable to me, yet I cannot get either inkling nor epiphany from you from its exposition. Which means I’m not presenting it well enough, or, you’re of such a mindset and/or worldview it wouldn’t matter what form the exposition takes. Nobody’s at fault, just different ingrained perspectives.

I’m saying, the effect of objects on our senses is necessary, but not sufficient, for knowledge about them.

It is necessary for the human cognitive system, in whatever form it actually is, to do something with that effect, within its intrinsic capacities, sufficient to relate the effect the object imparts, to a cognition of it, such that what was initially given as mere appearance can be known as a certain particular object.

C’mon, Bob. You asked if things-in-themselves are real for me, I said no (by definition), and now you say I said things-in-themselves don’t exist for me. That’s not even wrong, as my ol’ buddy Wolfgang used to say.

I’ve never denied the existence of things-in-themselves, for to do so is to question the very existence of real things, insofar as the mere appearance of any such thing to human sensibility is sufficient causality for its very existence, an absurdity into which no one has rightfully fallen.

Do you really believe that all objects in reality are possible objects of sense for humans? — Bob Ross

Why would you not?

There’s absolutely nothing about reality that entails that there isn’t an object which we are incapable of sensing. — Bob Ross

Yes, agreed. Which calls into question why you might think it not possible that all objects in reality are possible objects of sense in humans. I mean….all any one of them has to do, is appear to our senses, and VOILA!!!!….we’re capable of sensing it. Doesn’t mean they will or must, but iff they do.
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If you take that reality is the totality of existence, on the contrary, then you find that things-in-themselves, as properly understood, are the things which comprise that totality. — Bob Ross

Hmmmm. Might this be backwards? If, instead, you take existence as the totality of reality, there remains the possibility of existences that are not members of reality, hence not members of that which is susceptible to sensation in humans, i.e., dark energy. Quarks. And whatnot.

Added bonus…if you let the totality of existence contain all of reality, that of which reality is not a condition may still be contained in it. Then you have justification for permitting things-in-themselves as existing but not for being real. Not to mention, we conceived the idea of e.g., dark energy, from its effects, so by the same token the idea of things-in-themselves is conceivable by their effects, re: things.
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…..the intuition aspect of representation in space is non-cognitive (so there is no knowledge in that regard)…. — Bob Ross

Yes.

…..our faculty of judgment, understanding, and cognition must formulate justified, true, beliefs in relation to the a priori principles and conceptions…. — Bob Ross

Yes.

….in order to actually represent the objects in space, according to spatial-mathematical relations. — Bob Ross

Ehhhh…not so sure about that. According to spatial-mathematical relations is a form of knowledge, which flies in the face of what was already given as the case, re: there is no knowledge in regard to representation in space.

Objects are already represented in space by intuition, and are called phenomena. The in order, then, for these first two, is for the possibility of empirical knowledge, or, which is the same thing, experience.

And a minor supplement: justified true beliefs…assuming one grants such a thing in the first place….are given as stated, but in relation to a priori principles and conceptions is close to overstepping the purview of understanding, which, as afore-mentioned, is for the behoof and use of experience alone. While understanding may be in relation to such principles and conceptions, they do not arise from it, which hints there’s much more to the overall system.

the only thing we know about distal objects is how they affect our senses. — Michael

I considered that part irrelevant, insofar as we know nothing of a thing by its effect on our senses, except that is “…an undetermined something….”. To say we know how they affect our senses is already given by sensation, which only informs as to which sense it is, but nothing whatsoever about the thing, except its real existence.

D’accord.
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Hey….I got the R right.

Thanks.
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I think this quote provides a simple account of it:

“And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something.” — Michael

The quote is self-contradictory:
….objects of sense as mere appearance, yes;
….based upon a thing-in-itself, yes;
….know not this thing-in-itself, yes;
….but only know its appearance…..no. The thing-in-itself does not appear; if it did, it wouldn’t be in-itself. It would be that object of sense as mere appearance, hence the contradiction.

Under what authority do we “rightly confess”?