That we can't reason to satisfying explanations of our phenomena — AmadeusD

Ya know….everything from the output of our sensory devices, to the input to the brain, and even through some of the regions of the brain itself…..we haven’t a clue as to what is actually happening, real-time? We are not the least conscious of all that transverse the nervous system proper, just as in speculative metaphysics, we are not conscious of any of our intuitive representations and precious little of the machinations of our understanding.

As I mentioned way back at the beginning, sometimes it doesn’t pay to ask too many questions. And in fact, the overall thesis of CPR is to relegate pure reason to experience alone, letting the transcendental side be merely of some relative interest, as in God, freedom and immortality and such, but not much else.

Its just unsatisfying because we can never have any knowledge of that which 'causes' the appearance of any object of intuition. — AmadeusD

Then why not let Nature be the causes the thing that appears. That way, we can get away with saying the appearance is caused by the thing. We don’t know, at the time of appearance, what the thing is anyway, so what does it really matter what causes it? As well, we can let there be a causal relation between the thing and the thing-in-itself without contradicting either Nature or ourselves, insofar as the the former we can only possibly know and the latter we never can.

We end up with a causal relation between the thing and the thing-in-itself, a relation between the thing and us, without the need of a relation between the thing-in-itself and us. Everybody goes home happy.

Kant used Thing-in-itself to posit the existence of God, Soul, Freedom and Immortality. — Corvus

Those existences….more accurately termed transcendental conceptions…..are listed under something very much other than the thing-in-itself. To be fair, I have an inkling of how you got here, but I’d be willing to bet, with closer examination, you might retract the statement. A CPR reference substantiating your claim would be nice, to determine if we’re on the same page.

Thing-in-itself has nothing to do with the physical objects in the empirical world. — Corvus

While the thing-in-itself may have nothing to do with our knowledge of representations of physical objects in the empirical world, they very much have to do with those objects. Unless, once again, you have a CPR reference substantiating your claim.

No one was denying the concept of Thing-in-themselves. — Corvus

Not here, no, but there are objections, which was what I actually implied. And it is true, if one doesn’t hold with transcendental philosophy and all its conditions, he has no need of things-in-themselves.

But what is the point even bringing up a concept that you cannot even think about? (…) If it was unknowable, then how did you know it was unknowable? — Corvus

Been the bone of contention since 1781, hasn’t it? Why have something necessary for this one thing, but about which nothing can be known? If nothing can be known about it, why conceive it in the first place? Why think about that of which our empirical knowledge isn’t even about?

Problem is…the answers for the plethora of why’s don’t help much, mostly because the line of reasoning for what they really imply is so long and convoluted, it’s just easier to pretend they don’t stand as the original intention for them demanded. Every decent thinker from Schopenhauer right on through Quinne took exception to that intent.

The proof for the conceptual validity of things-in-themselves manifests in the reality of the human type of cognitive system being representational. The long line of reasoning, then, merely outlines why and how the human cognitive system is in fact representational, and that, of course, in keeping with the general critical thesis from a transcendental prospectus.

Pretty simple, really. If one doesn’t hold with transcendental philosophy, he has no need for things-in-themselves as such. By the same token, though, one can’t hold with some principles of CPR while rejecting others, and at the same time deny the notion of things-in-themselves.

The claim that the external world is caused by the internal world is wrong…..
— Mww

I'm not convinced. We cannot conceive of things entirely askance from any empirical intuition. — AmadeusD

While we cannot conceive of things entirely askance from any empirical intuition, these are merely representations belonging to the internal human system, hence have no concern with external causal conditions, which belong to Nature itself.

You know, like….round pegs/round holes; square pegs/square holes. Neither fits in the other.

The root of our discussion is here, from pg 12, with which I disagree:

I do recall passages in which it's essentially said that by inference, we can't get away from accepting that there are things-in-themselves causing our impressions of them — AmadeusD

Then, from pg. 16, in which I disagreed with #1:

All we know is that it is something with sufficient affect on our senses, a mere appearance.
— Mww

(…) I suppose the thing remaining is that thing between the two -

1. Thing-in-itself appears to us as an unknowable entity;
2. ????;
3. Something is presented to our sensuous organs; — AmadeusD

Now, because the second effectively repeats the errors in the first, re: the thing-in-itself appearing, I didn’t consider “the thing remaining”, the “????” you were apparently trying to account for, in this:

The transcendental object, i cannot find as distinguished from the thing-in-itself. If that's the case, then Kant seems to be fairly obviously connecting the two in a causal relationship - albeit, one with entirely unknowable properties. — AmadeusD

Then, from reference in A538, “Possibility of Causality…..”, which is an exposition on the dual nature of an object of the senses from the domain of pure reason alone, I wonder……what do you think all that really says, and, what exactly does it have to do with the fact things-in-themselves are not that which appears?

I’m just not sure what you’re trying to convey, as a way to fill in the “????” in #2 in your list. And, why there needs to even be a #2 anyway.

Help a brutha out, wodja?

I find the distinction between object/objective and subject/subjective quite intelligible. — Wayfarer

In any relational environment, such must be the case. In order to dismiss the distinction, the conditions by which it is necessary must be dismissed, in which case there remains, regarding human intelligence, nothing.

Has there ever been a sufficiently explanatory thesis, in which human intelligence is not predicated on relations necessarily?

The claim that the external world is caused by the internal world is wrong….
— Mww

Agreed. It sounds like an extreme subjectivism or solipsism. — Corvus

It’s actually impossible, no matter what -ism is assigned to the idea. While it may be the case we alter the state of affairs in Nature with highrise buildings and forest destructions and whatnot, we just don’t have the capacity, nor should we, for creating natural things.

We strip the seas of fish, but can’t create roe. Although, I recall an article on 60 Minutes awhile ago, where we’ve eliminated almost every variety of banana, for purely economical reasons. It follows logically, that given enough time and a certain purpose, science will inevitably screw up our place in the world, compared to the philosopher who merely thinks about what might be.

But you’re right; those who would think it so, exhibit extreme subjectivism or solipsism.
————

As long as one's sensibility and understanding works with concept, categories and intuition, one must be perceiving the external world, and making sense of the them acquiring knowledge of the world. — Corvus

That’s fine, with the caveat that knowledge is contingent on the sense derived from perceiving the world. We know now lightning is not the wrath of angry gods, and spacecraft don’t fall apart when they get far away, which indicates mathematical propositions are indeed universal.

There are various types and levels of knowledge. — Corvus

Various levels, yes, depending on each individual’s experience, but I’d draw the line at only two types, myself, re: a priori or a posteriori. So, I guess, yes, various, but very many of the one and very few of the other.

A193 doesn’t relate to the paragraph title you gave, which is found at A538. And I couldn’t come up with a reasonable connection between A193, A538 and your hesitations for accepting the differences in things-in-themselves and the empirical representations which regulate human knowledge.
————-

Kant makes it clear here that we are free to infer, with some certainty, that objects in themselves exist and exert some 'causal lineage' with out phenomena….. — AmadeusD

He states for the record that things-in-themselves exist and from that we can infer the necessity of a causal lineage from such external existence, to appearance, through perception, sensation, intuition, ending in internal phenomenal representation. As such, for the entire range of faculties having to do with sensibility.
————-

Your claim that the external world is caused by your internal world is wrong….
— Corvus

I think the point, and I completely missed this with Mww, is that what you are capable or conceiving, is a result of your perceptions in aggregate. — AmadeusD

The claim that the external world is caused by the internal world is wrong, but that has nothing to do with the capacity for conception. The aggregate of perception, technically**, is how we come by objects of sensation, which just is the totality of intuition, not conception. The capacity of conception is unlimited, or, more correctly, is limited by productive imagination, which is itself unlimited. Remember “…..I can think whatever I wish…..”.

If you like, you could with justice say what you are capable of knowing is the result of your perceptions in aggregate, insofar as any and all empirical knowledge is of things perceived.

(** Kant didn’t need to know about the operational physiology of the human sensory devices, but he did know Newtonian conservation of matter. He knew whatever was outside us had to be converted to something inside us, so he just called it aggregates of perception to show the principle of cause and effect relative to time, such that the thing of appearance and its phenomenal representation related to each other necessarily. In that way, there is no reasonable conclusion which allows us to merely imagine we are being affected by the appearance of things to our senses on the one hand, and forbids, through temporal sequence, the causality of appearances from any internal constructions on the other. The nuance behind this way of reckoning, is that would be impossible to obtain an apodeictic logical conclusion, re: every experience is certain, if we started out with that by which its support is questionable.)

This isn't even a problem for Kant, it's a problem for you. — AmadeusD

I’m sorry for not presenting an argument sufficient enough to prevent being so badly misunderstood.

“…. In order to prevent any misunderstanding, it will be requisite, in the first place, to recapitulate, as clearly as possible, what our opinion is with respect to the fundamental nature of our sensuous cognition in general. We have intended, then, to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of phenomena; that the things which we intuite, are not in themselves the same as our representations of them in intuition, nor are their relations in themselves so constituted as they appear to us; and that if we take away the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time, but even space and time themselves disappear; and that these, as phenomena, cannot exist in themselves, but only in us.

What may be the nature of objects considered as things in themselves and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us. We know nothing more than our mode of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us, and which, though not of necessity pertaining to every animated being, is so to the whole human race. With this alone we have to do. Space and time are the pure forms thereof; sensation the matter. The former alone can we cognize à priori, that is, antecedent to all actual perception; and for this reason such cognition is called pure intuition. The latter is that in our cognition which is called cognition à posteriori, that is, empirical intuition. The former appertain absolutely and necessarily to our sensibility, of whatsoever kind our sensations may be; the latter may be of very diversified character.

Supposing that we should carry our empirical intuition even to the very highest degree of clearness, we should not thereby advance one step nearer to a knowledge of the constitution of objects as things in themselves. For we could only, at best, arrive at a complete cognition of our own mode of intuition, that is of our sensibility, and this always under the conditions originally attaching to the subject, namely, the conditions of space and time; while the question: “What are objects considered as things in themselves?” remains unanswerable even after the most thorough examination of the phenomenal world.

To say, then, that all our sensibility is nothing but the confused representation of things containing exclusively that which belongs to them as things in themselves, and this under an accumulation of characteristic marks and partial representations which we cannot distinguish in consciousness, is a falsification of the conception of sensibility and phenomenization, which renders our whole doctrine thereof empty and useless…”

Something must be presented to our sense organs to even perceive that something has happened — AmadeusD

How can I be “clearly wrong” when we agree? That, however, is different from your…..

1. Thing-in-itself appears to us as an unknowable entity; — AmadeusD

….and therein the discord with CPR which is my objection.

The thing-in-itself is not that which appears.
— Mww

Well, it doesn't appear in intuition, but for the system to make any sense it must appear to our sense organs to impart an impression outside of our ability to perceive that process. — AmadeusD

Actually, it doesn’t. Looks like you’ll need some sort of self-generated epiphanic episode to catch the philosophical drift. But, as I said, most folks just give up.

But I get it. When a mosquito bites, it’s really hard to think it isn’t the mosquito itself that bit you.

All good, except….

1. The thing-in-itself is not that which appears. As I said, it is “-in-itself”. In German, it is ding an sich, which some translators make into “thing as it is in itself”, in order to separate it from “thing as it is in us”, which is, of course, mere representations of things. Copies, if you will. Constructions. Manufactured look-alikes. Whatever. As long as the thing out there is not the same in kind as the thing in here, while at the same time at least corresponding to it, call it anything you like.

5. Off to the races indeed, and has all the right constituency, but not quite in the proper sequence. Called the “higher powers” to distinguish them from sensibility and phenomena, they are understanding/judgement/reason. Kant treats the higher powers as a standard Aristotelian tripartite logical syllogism in form, where understanding is the major, re: a conception, judgement is the minor, re: a unity of conceptions into a proper cognition, and reason determines the relation between them or between that immediate conclusion and those antecedent in consciousness a priori or experience a posteriori.

Obvious our impressions are not of the thing — AmadeusD

Our impressions are not of the things-in-themselves; they must be of things, otherwise we couldn’t say where such impressions come from. Like here:

“…. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears—which would be absurd.…”

From this, I can only be left with things that have no effect on sense, and impressions that come from nowhere/nothing. — AmadeusD

There is that which has no effect on the senses, re: things-in-themselves, but impressions cannot come from nowhere/nothing, for if such was the case there would be no sensations, no phenomenal representations given from them, hence nothing to experience. And it is obvious we have experiences, which presupposes the things we have experiences of.

Don’t worry too much about the things we perceive, at least as far as CPR is concerned. They are, after all, nothing but…

“…. The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon.…”

….so the thing we perceive? We don’t know anything about it anyway, at the point of its perception. All we know is that it is something with sufficient affect on our senses, a mere appearance. That’s it. Philosophers since Plato (knowledge of vs knowledge that), and lately, in Russell (knowledge by acquaintance vs knowledge by description), figured this out, setting the stage….or making a stronger case…..for the intrinsic duality of the human cognitive system, from which follows the subjective/objective dichotomy the postmoderns detest but cannot figure out how to escape.
————-

i really hope its not tedious and you turn into 180 Proof on me — AmadeusD

Nahhhh. I’ll play the game as long as it’s interesting. Truth be told, most people just sorta disappear, give it up, so to speak. Either found it too difficult to understand, or, understood it well enough to consider it a thoroughly stupid way to do things.

That's in the Amphiboly if I don't misremember — Manuel

Yes, an altogether fascinating appendix to The Analytic of Principles. It solidifies what some consider the gibberish of that preceding book. Kinda funny, too, in that it makes explicit, in relatively plain speech, the errors in thinking that no one really even knew they were doing anyway.

I mean, c’mon, man. When was the last time either of us stopped to think….opps, can’t do that, can’t substitute a transcendental conception in that for which an empirical one is expressly required. Shame on us, I must say, for attempting such an illusory cognition!!!
(Grin)

HA!!! I consider myself warned.

Kant considers monads to be negative noumena available to introspection! — Manuel

Yes, regarding monads. “…. And so would it really be, if the pure understanding were capable of an immediate application to objects, and if space and time were determinations of things in themselves…”

He respected Leibnitz but held this against him:

“…. This philosopher’s celebrated doctrine of space and time, in which he intellectualized these forms of sensibility, originated in the same delusion of transcendental reflection.

The great utility of this critique of conclusions arrived at by the processes of mere reflection consists in its clear demonstration of the nullity of all conclusions respecting objects which are compared with each other in the understanding alone, while it at the same time confirms what we particularly insisted on, namely, that, although phenomena are not included as things in themselves among the objects of the pure understanding, they are nevertheless the only things by which our cognition can possess objective reality, that is to say, which give us intuitions to correspond with our conceptions…..”

The delusion of transcendental reflection is the attribution of objective validity to objects by the understanding alone. If that is the case, such that understanding does that and it is not a delusion but is a valid methodology, the proposition…..

“…. Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind….”

….is meaningless, and Kantian metaphysics falls apart.

As with most philosophies, one can pick and choose which he favors. The professionals, though, they who construct the philosophies the rest of us choose from, invariably reject others in favor of his own. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

I take issue with the "idiotic insistence" suggestion, as if the equation of the noumena and thing in itself is such an unsustainable suggestion — Hanover

Yeah, my bad. I get a little carried away sometimes. Nevertheless, and despite Kant’s apparent textual contradictions, there are entries where the equation(s) is (are) clear-cut, thus making the conceptions quite distinguishable.

I understand it’s hard, when a simple, maybe even a one-line statement gets lost in the massive amount of information, to bear in mind the system as a whole. Thing is, those one-liners are in there, in black and white. And if that wasn’t enough, it should be apparent the two of those things have no business being connected to each other, when it is the case they are each individually connected to understanding alone. The whole empirical side of transcendental philosophy depends on it.

Or….I got it all wrong. There is that, of course, so……

we can't get away from accepting that there are things-in-themselves causing our impressions of them — AmadeusD

In Kant, this is wrong.

we can't get away from accepting that there are things-in-themselves causing our impressions
— AmadeusD

This is correct. IFF one accepts that the thing that appears to our senses, is the thing of the thing-in-itself. — Mww

I left off the part of your post which parted ways with CPR. Our impressions cannot be of the things in themselves, else they wouldn’t be in themselves. The very meaning, as Kant intended it, for “-in-itself”, is merely…..not in us. What is in us are representations, so if not in us means representations not in us, and from that, as you said…impressions of them is exactly what is not in us.

But those representations in us must have a cause. That which makes an impression on the senses, an appearance, from which follows a sensation, is sufficient cause. But, as already proved, it cannot be the thing-in-itself that causes the impression on the senses, which leaves only the thing of the thing-in-itself.
————-

Kant tells us that there are real, material objects 'out there' of which we can know nothing things in themselves. But that these objects cause our intuitions... which are not, as far as we care capable of knowing, anything like hte thing-in-itself.. — AmadeusD

We can’t know they are alike, because our knowledge is of representations of things, but not the things-in-themselves. But we have given to us the appearance of things, what Kant calls the matter of those representations, which gives us something to go on, when we subject the thing we perceive, to the system that informs of us of how we should know it.

So it isn’t the thing-in-itself that causes our intuitions. The matter of things we perceive, is all we get from the thing “out there”, via the sensation we get from it, hence the cause of our intuitions is much more than the mere sensation of a perceived thing. It is here that two of the necessary predicates of transcendental philosophy enter the speculative metaphysical fray, re: synthesis, and imagination.
————-

These seem cautious admissions that the only inference is that things-in-themselves cause us to receive empirical intuitions of them, — AmadeusD

I think it rather a warning, that the only inference allowed to us, is that things-in-themselves are the cause of things we perceive. If he doesn’t cover that base, and stifle that logical inconsistency, it remains that the human cognitive system is both sufficient and necessary causality, as he says here….

“….out of that which I should reckon as phenomenon, I made mere illusory appearance….”
————-

Going to leave this here, though, as it directly contradicts what I've come to think is what Kant meant:

"The conception of a noumenon, that is, of a thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but as a thing in itself (solely through the pure understanding) — AmadeusD

Just break down the statement itself: conception…of a thing….cogitated…as a thing in itself.

Switch from 18th century Enlightenment Prussian to modern English and you get: However a thing-in-itself is thought, that is how a noumenon is thought.

Ok, so…solely through the pure understanding. Because understanding has already been said to stand for the faculty of thought, and cognition….being cogitated, in old Prussian…..is the synthesis of conceptions, we have….noumena is nothing but conceptions understanding synthesizes into a cognition, all by itself, for no particular reason. Maybe it was just bored, has nothing better to do. Maybe it follows from an earlier aphorism….

“…..I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself….”

The text itself, however, just says understanding, because it’s been entitled to think whatever it wants, has no limits on its capacities. Nevertheless, the entire Critique is an exposition on limiting various functions of the human intelligence, so if he doesn’t nip this unlimited stuff in the bud, his system won’t work.

So it is, then, both noumena and things-in-themselves are nothing but conceptions, that which understanding takes upon itself to cognize, and, of course, no empirical knowledge is at all possible from a mere conception alone.

This is where Kant confuses the average reader, by connecting noumena to things-in-themselves. All he means when he does that, is that understanding thinks them in the same way, and NEVER EVER that they are the same thing.
————-

This seems to restrict noumena to merely things-in-themselves…. — AmadeusD

That is impossible, for us anyway, insofar as things-in-themselves are real existences, of which the representations are known by us, whereas noumena are nothing but conceptions, having no phenomenal representations at all, hence cannot even be known to exist.

…..perceived by something other than sensuous intuition. — AmadeusD

Sorta right, except we can’t say anything about a non-sensuous intuition. We can say, if noumena are perceivable by a non-sensuous intuition, for that kind of intuition then, noumena could be like the thing-in-itself is for us.

Another thing, for background, maybe. The argument has been that Kant painted himself into a corner, by positing the understanding can think whatever it wants, which he had to do on the one hand, because it is clear imagination is nothing if not pure thought and ever single otherwise rational human bing ever, images stuff at one time or another. But on the other hand, part of the overall Kantian transcendental system resides in the condition that reason is the caretaker of understanding, in that reason is what prevents understanding’s imaginings from running away with themselves and causing all kindsa harm to our knowledge.

So if phenomena are the representations given from human sensibility, noumena cannot be either the representations, or the means for the possibility of them. Otherwise, we have exactly what the aforementioned aphorism says…..something is thought that is self-contradictory.
————

Curious, and unhelpful — AmadeusD

Yeah, most unhelpful. I can see why he brought those stupid noumena thingys into the fold, but when it comes right down to comprehending the overall system, they are very unhelpful. We want to know what we can do, what our system allows us to do, not so much what we can’t, because it doesn’t.

Anyway….hope that helps.

thinking in images OR words is required for meaningful cognition. — AmadeusD

THAT’S what I hoped to hear. I might insist images or words, or the irreducible seeming of them, just IS cognition, presupposed in meaning.

Bu this is hardly a best argument for physicalism, per the thread title, so let’s agree and leave it at that.

I was just pointing out that language can't be utilized by everyone in their mind…. — AmadeusD

Cool. I get that. I wonder though, if they can’t use language….or if they don’t do what seems to be congruent with the use of language….what do they use?

I’m addressing the difference between what you said, and what’s in the title of the link.

Same with internal dialogues.... — AmadeusD

I get your point, but it can’t be a dialogue. It’s just the brain keeping you informed that it’s still working.

Won’t ever let you know how it does what it does, but at least you know it’s doing something.

Ahhhh, ok. Thanks.

……but not everyone can….. — Moliere

I don’t get it.

Why can’t everyone do it? What’s the catch?

…..the ‘desire’ is just the want for something; whereas the ‘accomplishment’ is the happiness it may bring us upon achieving it—correct? — Bob Ross

Close enough. If anything, the primary consideration is worthiness, not happiness. It is possible, and often the case, happiness occurs but worthiness for it does not. To accomplish a gain, say, in paying less than market value for a thing, has denied its worth, insofar as the gain on the one hand has cost the seller his profit on the other.

consequently acquire happiness, when we have performed something worthy or perhaps have a character that is worthy (virtuous). Correct? — Bob Ross

Yes, in a moral sense. One is always worthy of his happiness iff he acts in accordance with his virtuous character. Still, it is incumbent upon him, to determine only that act which justifies both his virtuous character, and the happiness he obtains from it.

this is predicated on the assumption that everyone would subjectively agree to this, and I don’t think most would. — Bob Ross

Yeah, that is the common argument. Still, the real point is only to profess that moral condition which is both irreducible and irrefutable. If this and this and this occur, one is morally secure, without equivocation. Seeing as how all this and this and this is an approach to perfection, and no human being ever was an example of perfection, the system it itself an “as if” kinda exposition. Or, “if only”.

Easy to see why folks favor a more practical moral philosophy, one which accommodates less-than-optimum human inclinations. The possibility remains nonetheless, insofar as there is historical precedent for, e.g. categorical imperatives, in the form of galvanizing communities into an objective like-mindedness, re: Pearl Harbor, the Magna Carta, even the Inquisition. Getting a community all together is very far from getting the entire species all together, but maybe it’s merely a matter of the degree of necessity. Alien invasion, global catastrophe….whatever.

Anyway….fun to think about.

….critique of speculative realism….. — Wayfarer

Oh dear. Correlationism. Yet another “Kantian catastrophe”!!!!

Fascinating, innit? To save ourselves from ourselves, we should understand it’s “…entirely appropriate to ask “What’s it like to be a computer, or a microprocessor, or a ribbon cable?”….”

Sounds an awful lot like the seepage “from the rot of Kantianism” explicitly being denied, to even suggest that question has any relevance. I mean….from whence should one expect to be answered?

Thanks for the interesting read. Small wonder, methinks, that I voluntarily neglect modern thought.

….an end cannot be a desired goal, as you say, but is instead a necessary accomplishment.
-Mww

I didn’t understand the distinction here between “desired goal” and “necessary accomplishment”: could you please elaborate? — Bob Ross

After all the metaphysical reductionism, desire is a mere want, the satisfaction of which is anything sufficient for it, hence, contingent. A desired goal may be specific in itself, but makes no allowance for its satisfaction, which may still, then, remain contingent. An accomplishment indicates a satisfaction in itself, a particular goal, but a necessary accomplishment manifests as a satisfaction of a specific goal achievable only under a certain condition, hence not contingent.

This relates to the topic at hand iff the adherence to a subjective principle from which an act according to a categorical imperative the principles prescribes follows, is the one and only permissible means leading to a necessary accomplishment, re: worthiness of being happy.
—————

Notwithstanding my quibble with happiness being necessarily the core of moral agency, I think this makes sense; but my issue is, although it is very practical, that it isn’t a commitment one has simply by being committed to being rational — Bob Ross

Happiness isn’t the core of moral agency; the worthiness for being happy, is. A guy understandably feels happy for having done the moral thing which justifies it, but he can just as well feel morally worthy of being happy by doing that from which he receives no pleasure at all.

The worthiness of being happy is the core of moral agency; the rationality with which you’ve taken issue I think, comes into play in the injunction of the subjective principle, by means of pure practical reason, from which the worthiness manifests. In this way, a guy may be worthy of being happy, even if the prescription from his own principles cause him to act in such a way he feels no happiness at all.

Happy and happiness are just words, those alledged “fuzzy concepts”, that represent a specific kind of feeling. One could use righteousness, positive well-being, or the like. The word as used here is meant to indicate a fundamental human aesthetic condition. Call that whatever you like, I suppose.
————

….why should I care about being a member of a kingdom of ends? — Bob Ross

If there were such a thing, and it was a universal condition, there would be no need to, e.g., turn the other cheek, or, engage in the ol’ eye-for-an-eye routine. And that would make everybody happy, or if not so much happy, then at least to release them from having to worry about being a target of them.
————-

Instead, I think, it would be much more convincing (especially to the layman) if it followed from the avoidance of a logical contradiction — Bob Ross

In a system where the agent is a causality, contradiction is impossible. The ground of pure practical reason is the construction of its own objects, re: all things moral. Once given, or technically by being given, there is no contradiction possible. If there were such possibility, the agent could not have been his own causal nexus, in which case the entire morally prescriptive methodology is destroyed.

Takes an awful lot of presuppositions for this all to work, but none of them are particularly far-fetched.

I am rethinking this normative theory; because I don’t think it works anymore. — Bob Ross

Right off the bat, maybe I shouldn’t comment, being more a subjective moralist than a normative ethicist, but one thing that stands out in my mind, as a possible clue to rethinking what you’ve done here already, is this…..

What if I also treat myself as a means to an end? — Philosophim

You can’t: it violates FET. — Bob Ross

…..in which is violated the fundamental moral condition, re: the worthiness of being happy. The argument is that he who is a moral agent in the strictest sense of the idea is thereby worthy of his being happy, which is the same as his happiness being given by his accordance with his own moral law. So it is that, not the being of happy, but the worthiness, the deservedness, the righteous acquisition, of it, as end, is always and only given by the self-determined moral law, re: the autonomous “command of reason”, as its means.

It follows that anything violated by acting in accordance with the worthiness of being happy, is an illegitimate moral condition, so if you claim I should not treat myself as a means to an end because it violates the FET, there’s something wrong with the FET.

The something wrong might be as little as….. an end cannot be a desired goal, as you say, but is instead a necessary accomplishment. It is that which determines the morality, the moral constitution, of such agent naturally imbued with it.

Now, ethically speaking, or, speaking from the perspective of a community predicated on moral agency, which just is a kingdom of ends in its strictest sense, putting the pieces of this particular puzzle together, you get to the conclusion that, if all members of the community are worthy of the happiness they each have, they must have all acted in accordance with a subjective moral principle. And if they are all happy within the community, which is the same as all happy with each other, they must have all acted in accordance with a subjective moral principle common to each member. Another name for a principle common to all which abide by it, is a universal law. And that subjective command which adheres to such law, is a categorical imperative, the formula for which in a community would be, then, treat each member as an end in himself, just as I treat myself.

These are the irreducible conditions, the means, for a necessary result, a moral end. Humans, on he one hand, being human, are hardly likely to all adhere to a common principle, such that it is impossible that all members of a community are not worthy of whatever happiness they each may have. Some, on the other, consider themselves happy in their disregard of such common principle, but should the less consider themselves worthy of it in the same sense as the other members, because they are not in accord with the community to which they belong, the ulterior witness herein being the administrative code of conduct, which relays to the offender the fact of his immorality and the related condition that his happiness, in whatever form it may have taken, is underserved.

Disclaimer: without “happiness” as the fundamental human aesthetic condition, re: what everybody wishes he had, and without “worthiness of being happy” as the fundamental human moral condition, re: what everybody ought to have, and a method for relating one to the other, none of the above is of any use and can be disregarded without fault.

Anyway….some thoughts, for whatever good they may be.

What does 'mental substance' mean? — Wayfarer

Descartes, however infamously, wanted mental substance to be that to which certain attributes are known to belong, in order to distinguish from extended substances to which very different kinds of attributes are known to belong.

See P.P. 1. #51-55 or so. You know….philosophy done in an orderly way. In 1644. Which is some cause for concern in itself.

The why’s and wherefore’s don’t matter, but if he’d thought a little more about it, he might have said attributes known to belong to a certain thing are themselves mental substances.

Six of one, half dozen of the other: attributes of a certain kind are mental substances, or, mental substance is that to which certain attributes belong.

Ok. Thanks.

these comments seem to ignore the importance of the empirical in the nature of Kant's Transcendental Deductions. — RussellA

They in fact do ignore, because there is none. Might you be confusing, or co-mingling, the nature of, which can ignore the empirical, with the application to, which cannot?

He says, in clear print, for the categories there isn’t technically a deduction, but an explanation for the possession of them. An explanation for, under certain conditions, merely serves the same purpose as, does the same job as, obtains the same results as, and in effect, just is, a transcendental deduction.
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My position is along the lines of the SEP article…. — RussellA

….and mine is along the lines of reading CPR. I wouldn’t begrudge you your position, but I wouldn’t allow that it be at the same time a Kantian position.
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As I see it, the transcendental deduction of either a priori pure intuitions of space and time….. — RussellA

These are not transcendental deductions.

“…. Section 1 Of Space;
#3 Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Space.

By a transcendental exposition, I mean the explanation of a conception, as a principle, whence can be discerned the possibility of other synthetical à priori cognitions….”

I’ve been over this. To treat as a deduction properly is to relate premises in a syllogism. The content of the judgments which are the premises in a syllogism regarding space and time would necessarily be conditioned by the infinite, and any conclusion derived from relations conditioned by the infinite is useless for human knowledge. Hence the reduction from the general impossible to know, re: space in its infinite capacity, to the particular, re: the space of only that capacity which limits the extension or shape of a possible appearance, which is thereby possible knowledge.
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I am reasonably sure that Kant's position is that it is not possible to abstract these ideas and principles just from empirical experiences, but rather, transcendentally deduce them from empirical experiences. — RussellA

In Kant, the appearance of a thing does not give us that it is, e.g., a circle, but only that such thing has a certain shape. Circle, is a quality of the shape of the space into which that appearance extends, the quantity of the shape of the space is its extension. Both of these are preconditions for representing the given appearance under a certain set of empirical conceptions, and from which knowledge of it follows. These preconditions reside in pure understanding, technically they are explained as belonging to pure understanding, therefore are antecedent to any experience hence cannot be derived from them.

Guy’s wife has looked the same for so long, he just takes the relation of this appearance and that experience as apodeitically affirmed. He doesn’t need the recognition, the methodological understanding, that his intellectual system works exactly the same way for the first instance as each and every subsequent instance, for the effect this single thing he knows as “wife” has on his senses.

If the very first time you saw the moon it appeared as an illuminated circle, but some other time you saw some object in the sky that didn’t appear as an illuminated circle but merely as some partially illuminated shape….. how would you ever justify calling it the moon?

Don’t make a big deal out of it; all you have here is two perceptions, two appearances, and nothing else. These demonstrate the conclusion that the appearance to the senses alone of a thing, does not contain the means for judging what it is. And furthermore, that the successive appearances of the same thing under different conditions does not in itself justify remembering what it is. Your wife, regarding congruent experiences, and the moon, regarding non-congruent experiences, both sustain the proposition that experience itself cannot be a condition by which experience occurs.

Inference to a best explanation is nothing if not a metaphysical process, right?
— Mww
It's an epistemological process. — Relativist

I’ll grant the “best explanation” is a condition of the epistemological process, in that some knowledge is either affirmed or denied by it. But the query asks about the inference to, not the explanation for.

…..just the grounding for your worldview, right?
— frank

I agree with Mww, but add that it's grounded by the fact that (IMO) physicalism is an inference to the best explanation for the known facts of the world. — Relativist

Inference to a best explanation is nothing if not a metaphysical process, right?

Whoa. There’s some serious paralogisms you got goin’ on right there.

Well done, I must say.

Not so sure about what the conclusions might be, but that’s ok.

Consider me as one of those physicalists that won’t deny that the world might contain, as you say, many items that at first glance don’t seem physical.

Can I be a metaphysical physicalist? At least until convinced I can’t be?

The problem is with Kant. How can he discover what is necessary and universal just from experiences….

He can’t, and doesn’t try, denying the very possibility. Discovery just from experience is always contingent through the principle of induction.

…..using transcendental deduction? — RussellA

That deduction is for necessity and universality, rather than that which is either or both. The application of these is to experience, but not the derivation of them from it.

The key: transcendental is not cognition by conceptions, which arise spontaneously in understanding and condition experience, but cognition by means of the construction of conceptions, which arise through reason and find their proofs through experience.

How does Kant justify that transcendental deduction is possible? — RussellA

The possibility is given by showing how an empirical deduction doesn’t work. The justification is given by the demonstration of their place and purpose in a method, and that they are in no way self-contradictory.

In logic generally, deduction is top-down, re: from the general to the particular. Transcendental logic, then, is nothing but the kind of deduction it is, or, which is the same thing, nothing but the conditions under which the deduction is accomplished.

Transcendental, in Kantian philosophy, is that by which pure a priori is the determining condition.

Also in Kantian philosophy, a priori is meant to indicate the absence of any and all empirical conditions, hence, the denomination “pure”.

A deduction in Kantian philosophy follows the general rule of logic, in which a minor premise is subsumed under a major, for which a conclusion exhibits the relation of them to each other.

From all that, it follows that a transcendental deduction, first, must be purely a priori therefore can have no empirical predication whatsoever, insofar as it is transcendental, and second, it must exhibit reduction from the general to the particular, insofar as it is that certain type of logical operation.

Now, with respect to a transcendental deduction of the categories, which is in fact the title of a subsection dedicated to just that, this kind of argument cannot have to do with representations of objects, because, being purely a priori, there are no phenomena hence no representations of objects, but still must be a reduction from the general to the particular in order to qualify as a deduction. It follows that without representations of objects, but requiring the general as a major premise, it must be a conception relating to the representation of any object, or, which is the same thing all objects.

So, first, that which makes cognition of all objects possible, is the “diversity in pure intuition”, which serves as the major in a deductive syllogism. But the major subsumes under itself the minor, which is said to be the synthesis of the diversity, which has already been termed the synthesis of matter of objects to their form, from which arise phenomena, a conception which represents all objects in general, or, which is the same thing, phenomena are that which are subsumed under the diversity in pure intuitions a priori.

All that being the case, with respect to the pure conceptions of the understanding, re: the categories, it is quite clear there is no experience, and no examination of the nature of experience, insofar as experience, being defined as….

“…. an empirical cognition; that is to say, a cognition which determines an object by means of perceptions. It is therefore a synthesis of perceptions, a synthesis which is not itself contained in perception, but which contains the synthetical unity of the manifold of perception.…”

…..and given only a diversity in general, and a synthesis of it, there is as yet no determination of a particular object, hence no cognition of an object at all, and by which experience is impossible, which immediately removes experience from any consideration regarding the origin and purpose of the categories.

“….. The first thing which must be given to us for the sake of the à priori cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the understanding….”
(A79/B104)
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Now…..why is this the case. Hmmmm, let’s find out, shall we?

1.) If Kant deduces the categories in accordance with logical syllogisms having empirical content, he loses the capacity to enounce the conditions for pure thought of possible objects. All cognitions must be of appearances alone, and no object that is not an appearance can ever be thought;
2.) It is in this way that noumena are impossible for this kind of intelligence, in that, while noumena are indeed objects of pure thought, they are not and cannot be appearances to which alone the categories apply, and therefore by which noumena are termed “the limitation on sensibility”;
3.) There is no transcendental conditions that are determinable by sensibility. All conceptions as representation, whether empirical or a priori, belong to understanding alone, but confining the categories, which are pure conceptions a prior only, having no representation belonging to them**, and the expositions related to them, to understanding and reason respectively, Kant removes the possibility of cognizing objects from the mere affect they have on the senses. In so doing, he justifies the ding an sich as that which is real but for which experience is impossible, along with noumena which isn’t even real, insofar as they are never to meet the criteria of being phenomena.
(**the schema of the categories are not representations; they are merely conceptions subsumed under and modifying the conception of the category itself of which they are members)
4.) If Kant deduces the categories in strict accordance with logical method, even a priori, he must limit himself to form only, pure logic being devoid of content by definition. Any conception devoid of content is empty, any empty conception cannot be ground for determining the cognition of objects. If this is the case, the third requisite remains missing, and the transcendental predication falls apart. But it doesn’t, in that there is the cognition of objects, and because that is the case the methodology stands, the third requisite must be present. All that’s left, having already denied innateness given by mere birth, and failing the non-contradiction of a pure deduction on transcendental ground, Kant’s position is simply to grant the validity of the categories as “given by the understanding”, which he then calls the exposition of the possession of them, rather than the syllogistic conclusion making them absolutely true.
5.) In which is found the subtelty behind the mention, “ so long as we are careful in the construction of our fictions, which are no less fictions on that account…”
6.) A transcendental deduction can never follow from an observation, by definition. B276 is rife with pure a priori conceptions, hardly to be amendable to empirical conditions. “My existence in time” is a presupposition, not an observation.

Bet none of that is in your secondary literature!!!!!!

WOOHOO!!!

The greatest danger to pure reason is reification, the blaming of reason for doing, or the blaming for failure in not doing, this or that merely because reason is or is not the kind of thing suited to meet expectations. To express reason, or any metaphysical faculty, as a conception, merely in order to forge an exposition of the methodological system to which they all are necessary constituents, does not carry any implication whatsoever these are things in themselves, or are existents of any kind.

“…. This attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the procedure of metaphysics, after the example of the geometricians and natural philosophers, constitutes the aim of the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason. It is a treatise on the method to be followed, not a system of the science itself. But, at the same time, it marks out and defines both the external boundaries and the internal structure of this science. For pure speculative reason has this peculiarity, that, in choosing the various objects of thought, it is able to define the limits of its own faculties, and even to give a complete enumeration of the possible modes of proposing problems to itself, and thus to sketch out the entire system of metaphysics. For, on the one hand, in cognition à priori, nothing must be attributed to the objects but what the thinking subject derives from itself; and, on the other hand, reason is, in regard to the principles of cognition, a perfectly distinct, independent unity, in which, as in an organized body, every member exists for the sake of the others, and all for the sake of each, so that no principle can be viewed, with safety, in one relationship, unless it is, at the same time, viewed in relation to the total use of pure reason…”

“…. Reason is present and the same in all human actions and at all times; but it does not itself exist in time, and therefore does not enter upon any state in which it did not formerly exist. It is, relatively to new states or conditions, determining, but not determinable….

……Hence we cannot ask: “Why did not reason determine itself in a different manner?” The question ought to be thus stated: “Why did not reason employ its power of causality to determine certain phenomena in a different manner?”….

……But this is a question which admits of no answer. For a different intelligible character would have exhibited a different empirical character; and, when we say that, in spite of the course which his whole former life has taken, the offender could have refrained from uttering the falsehood, this means merely that the act was subject to the power and authority—permissive or prohibitive—of reason…..

……Now, reason is not subject in its causality to any conditions of phenomena or of time; and a difference in time may produce a difference in the relation of phenomena to each other—for these are not things and therefore not causes in themselves—but it cannot produce any difference in the relation in which the action stands to the faculty of reason…..

……Thus, then, in our investigation into free actions and the causal power which produced them, we arrive at an intelligible cause, beyond which, however, we cannot go; although we can recognize that it is free, that is, independent of all sensuous conditions, and that, in this way, it may be the sensuously unconditioned condition of phenomena. But for what reason the intelligible character generates such and such phenomena and exhibits such and such an empirical character under certain circumstances, it is beyond the power of our reason to decide. The question is as much above the power and the sphere of reason as the following would be: “Why does the transcendental object of our external sensuous intuition allow of no other form than that of intuition in space?” But the problem, which we were called upon to solve, does not require us to entertain any such questions….”

Sometimes, it’s more foolish to ask the question, then to expect a satisfactory answer.

How does Kant justify that transcendental deduction is possible? — RussellA

“….if a deduction of these conceptions is necessary….”
“….an explanation of the possession of a pure cognition….”

He doesn’t. There’s no need, no reason a justification be required. It may not even be possible to deduce the categories without eventually running into contradictions; maybe it’s just simpler to grant the possession of something which satisfies a specific requirement.

If the categories, or whatever serves the purpose of them, seem to have a justifiable purpose, then it is the requirement of reason to discover them, and determine the domain of their employment from a purely logical ground or precondition, in order to support a speculative metaphysical theory of human knowledge.

“…. Transcendental philosophy has the advantage, and moreover the duty, of searching for its conceptions according to a principle; because these conceptions spring pure and unmixed out of the understanding as an absolute unity, and therefore must be connected with each other according to one conception or idea. A connection of this kind, however, furnishes us with a ready prepared rule, by which its proper place may be assigned to every pure conception of the understanding, and the completeness of the system of all be determined à priori—both which would otherwise have been dependent on mere choice or chance.…”

Kant is merely calling the discovery of the categories a transcendental deduction of them.

“…. General logic (…) expects to receive representations from some other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into conceptions….

….. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it the manifold content of à priori sensibility….

…. Now space and time contain an infinite diversity of determinations of pure à priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind’s receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations of objects, and which, consequently, must always affect the conception of these objects. But the spontaneity of thought requires that this diversity be examined after a certain manner, received into the mind, and connected, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of it. This process I call synthesis….

…..By the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I understand the process of joining different representations to each other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition….

….the duty of transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions, not representations, but the pure synthesis of representations….

…..The first thing which must be given to us for the sake of the à priori cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the understanding….”
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Thus, the explanation for possession as given, rather than a logical deduction from antecedents, of the categories, re: “those conceptions which give unity to this pure synthesis”, as merely a constituent in a methodological procedure, all in accordance with a very specific, albeit entirely theoretical, system.
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we use the Categories to make sense of experiences. — RussellA

No, we don’t. Not technically, and not with respect to CPR, which is what concerns this discussion overall. The categories make empirical cognition possible from which experience follows, regardless of whether or not such experience makes sense.