Sorry....that flew right over my head. Are you asking me to reword the statement “ all effects must have cause” to validate its truth value? I don’t know how to do that, because as stated, it’s negation is a contradiction, so its truth value is given by itself.

As I said, I ain’t no logician. The only logic I concern myself with, are the Aristotelian laws of thought, to which of course, the cause/effect proposition is a prime example.

#2 is answerable directly: Yes. — tim wood

What am I missing, such that you would say yes, but I would say no?

And now Tim got there first; I also wish a clarification of.....what he said.

I am going to allow you the chance to notice the very specific qualifier in my comment, which should permit you to better understand its validity.

Kantian epistemological philosophy is predicated exclusively on reason and logic, of which “all events must have a cause” is the foremost rendering of it a priori. So, no, the Kantian “all effects must have a cause” does not fit into a category of something beyond reason and logic. Truth be told, I can’t imagine anything beyond reason and logic. Even the alleged “transcendental illusion” is itself reason and logic, however misguided it may be.

Nevertheless, I’m not a logician per se, so I wonder about this conditional stuff. If it rains tomorrow I will go for a jog may be true, but if it doesn’t rain tomorrow, what prevents me from going for a jog anyway? What is it about the rain that if there isn’t any I can’t go for a jog?

The cause/effect proposition and negation I understand, insofar as any effect must have a cause and if there are no effects no cause can be supposed. But the rain thing doesn’t seem to be the same kind of proposition.

1.) The evidence is out there for anyone to see, that of all the trades available for human endeavor, philosophers tend to pick on each other moreso than others.

2.) The more one exposes himself to the thoughts of philosophers, the more he tends to think himself worthy of being the copy of one. And the more one adopts the philosophy of an established author, the more he relinquishes the philosophy of others, at the real risk of becoming the proverbial one-trick pony in the world’s metaphysical rodeo.

3.) I’m never going to tell anybody how much philosophy I’ve studied, because I’m self-antiquated by 2.) and thereby I am deathly afraid of 1.)

Understood.

If the premise had been, “can reason and logic explain that which is present to human observation or mere thought” I wouldn’t have been so quick to jump. The human cognitive system, re: reason, is a relational system, re: logical, therefore it is by means of a methodology based on reason and logic a human should ever claim to know anything at all.

I see no reason to suspect you do not accept that physical science is grounded by pure reason, at least in its theoretical domain, which all science must be at some point. Whether the laws which justify our understanding of the world inhere in the world and are merely discovered, or are rationally determined a priori in response to the affect of the world on our sensibility, is sufficient to demonstrate the absolute necessity for pure reason with respect to the human’s ultimate seeking after knowledge.

Nevertheless, in a certain sense, you are correct, insofar as nothing whatsoever a consciously interactive human ever does, excepting pure reflex or sheer accident, is not immediately preceded by the thought of it, which is the epitome of reason and logic, however rational/irrational, logical/illogical it may be.

.......reason is explained by science, — Wayfarer

Yeah, but it isn’t. Mental machinations resulting in observable conditions, sure. Tickle this part of the brain, my toes wiggle. Measure 16 phosphorus ions cross the gap in sector 3 of the occipital lobe, see a particular,repeatable pattern on the ‘scope with respect to my appreciation of a nice French burgundy. B.F.D.

How a person arrives at personal understanding of his own experience a posteriori, or why a particular moral predicate is favored over another.....never gonna happen.

Hopefully.

Odd, isn’t it? How inherently circular, that reason gives us the means to talk about itself.

Twelve pages of philosophy done right, worthy of a subtle nod from the back of the room. Subjectively speaking, of course.

Carry on..........

Both reason and logic are nothing more than theoretical a priori processes in the human rational system. They don’t explain anything in and of themselves, but only set the parameters for the methodology from which explanations become possible.

That being granted, it follows necessarily that the question as to whether reason and logic can explain everything, is insusceptible of a rational answer, because the major premise in both propositional constructions are themselves unjustifiable inductive inferences.

Nothing like using reason and logic incorrectly, in order to ask them to do something they’re not equipped to do anyway.

Still, everything changes, so.............

Reason: the name given to the highest faculty of a human subject, to which all others are subordinated.

One is ill-advised to use Descartes or Hume to characterize reason, except to view an initial, hence necessarily incomplete, understanding of it. Even so, all understandings of reason in and of itself, is entirely speculative.

I have to admit a knowledge of S to be decidedly less than a knowledge of K. But I do know S was just as much a transcendental idealist as K, based his philosophy on the presupposition that Kantian transcendental philosophy stood as fair accompli, even going so far as “....putting an end to (fourteen centuries of) Scholasticism...”.*

I also understand S to have a greater respect and utility for the principle of sufficient reason, “...to which I have given the name the ground of being...”**, than Kant, who rather favored the principle of universality and necessity, re: logical law. S claims the necessity of law derives immediately from sufficient reason, which just can’t be right!!!! I mean, c’mon, man. Everybody knows the understanding is the source of all that good a priori stuff. Jeeeez, Arthur!!! Get a grip!!

As to your question concerning S’s use of scientific cause and effect to ground his theory, I would have to say both S and K accepted Hume’s claim that cause and effect was an undeniable principle in itself with respect to human a posteriori knowledge, but K went so far as to extrapolate the connection between them which Hume did not attempt, while S, on the other hand, denied the methodology K used to do it, substituting his own based on an improper understanding of Kantian transcendental logic and the Analytic of Principles.***

I find S just tried waaaaayyyy too hard to one-up his immediate peer, but doing a rather messy job of it.

*WWR, Bk 2, Appendix, pg 17, 1819;
**WWR, Bk I, par3, 1819;
***https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/9110/auslegung.v12.n01.033-044.pdf?sequence=1

Intellect.

The objective reality of a thing cannot be demonstrated as necessary by pure practical reason, without first being conceived as possible by pure speculative reason.

Kant does acknowledge the primacy of practical reason, but only within considerations of morality in rational agencies, and it is not so much the primacy of the practical taken within the complete spectrum of reason itself, but rather allows that which the limitations intrinsic to the speculative, denies.

In Kant, practical reason is still pure, just not speculative, insofar as the practical incorporates, or proves, or demonstrates the necessity for, an objectively, albeit not physically, real object.

And I hesitate to suggest Kant himself would acknowledge the modernism of “voluntarism”. Seems more the case that term has been assigned to him by others, and would be more appropriately given to Schopenhauer, who didn’t consider the will as connected to reason at all. While Kant does consider the will as the source of personal conduct, it is not the supreme principle of it, and the human will has no say whatsoever in the general being of the Universe.

My opinion in language form, of course.

it seems to be more of a reification. — Janus

Concur.

Qualia: what gets invented when “representation” isn’t good enough.

Eye’s mind. I like it!!

Reason’s greatest teaching tool: euphemism.

While technically not education per se, as a formal discipline, I tend toward being instructed by a particular kind of philosophy, rather then educated in it generally.

it's just a pile of rubble. — tim wood

Hmmm......

Can chaos be designed?
If order implies design, and if everything is ordered, wouldn’t chaos be impossible?

Sorry....what dichotomy are we talking about here?

Yeah, I suppose. Still, anyone living life, no matter the how, if he should internally examine any part of it whatsoever, he must use pure reason to do it. Maybe it has a different name these days, but that’s still what it is, for all intents and purposes.

Thanks, but with Kant, one is not often sure he’s got it right. Mostly his fault, though.....he didn’t write for us common folk, doncha know. He wrote for the university professors of his day, and to quietly take sides in the Mendelssohn/Jacobi pantheistic Spinoza-isms running rampant in Germany and France at the time.

Why does he say that he cannot use the term intuition if they are to become knowledge? — Atharva Dingankar

An intuition does not become knowledge; it is the first stage in representing a real external object of which we may have a posteriori knowledge. We “...cannot rest on these intuitions...” because they are, while absolutely necessary, entirely insufficient by themselves for acquiring knowledge of anything. Intuition makes knowledge possible, but are not themselves knowledge, or even knowable as such, described rather as “...forms of objects residing in the mind, in which all the manifold content of the phenomenal world is arranged and viewed under certain relations....”.

The “...if they are to become knowledge...” refers to the objects of sensibility, represented by the term “appearance”, which then must relate to an intuition or manifold of intuitions, by means of the imagination under rules called “schema”, which then become “the yet unnamed objects” called phenomena.

One must be very careful, and very exact, with respect to the Kantian epistemological system. “...if they are to become knowledge...” makes explicit the object presented to sensibility is not already known, it is something new, of which there is no extant experience. It follows that objects of which there is no experience cannot have its own intuition, which is the primary ground for Kant’s refutation of Hume’s rejection of a priori reason and “reason is merely the slave of the passions...”.

There is an argument, or maybe just an interpretation, that if morality presupposes a will, and all wills are good, then every man who is a moral agent possesses a good will. If true, the good mark of a man can’t be that which is presupposed in him.
— Mww

I don't understand. — tim wood

I guess I was thinking the possession of a good will does not predict with certainty a man will act in accordance with its volitions. He ought to, sure, but that in itself is no guarantee. Therefore, the good mark of a man, is that he actually does so act in such accordance, which must depend for its reality on empirical conditions, and not the rational conditions which ground the origin of the volition in the first place.

And partly I might have been thinking with a certain degree of semantic dislocation, insofar as the good mark of a man, is very far from the mark of a good man. The former cannot be from a mere presupposition, for it is entirely empirically discovered, but the latter can find its theoretical validity by no other means than that presupposition, which is pure a priori speculation.

And partly I might have been thinking a kind of syllogistic dislocation, because it does not necessarily follow from the analytically certain first minor (every man possesses a good will), that we are allowed a synthetic, hence merely possible, conclusion (the good mark of a man is his possession of a good will).

Take your pick? Dump ‘em all in the circular filing cabinet?
————————

obligation under the law may well be mandatory, but determining that law may involve some art. — tim wood

Oh HELL yeah!!!! The ol’ be careful what you wish for thing. I might think the greater saving grace for moral artistry is the availability of such transcendental hypotheticals as innate values (beneficence, respect, etc), and natural dignity (humility, forebearance, etc), that by which the instillation of one’s moral laws arises, and where one’s obligation to them resides. It’s also that artistry’s greatest stumbling block: how does one think laws for himself and immediately think himself obligated by them.

The answer is so simple, it escapes attention thus casting the whole moral theory in doubt.

Credit to everyone posting except the OP (that's me) — tim wood

Ok, fine then. I’ll credit you for putting forward a worthwhile subject for discussion. Seems to be a dearth of them, if anyone were to ask me. Which I have no reason to suspect anyone will, but anyway.......

D’accord. As long as things are qualified by “we can say...”. Or at least carry that tacit implication.

I acknowledge that my imagining what they might say is an anthropomorphic projection. — Janus

Yeah, I feel ya. We are simply abbreviating “the totality of conditions adverse to survival” and conceive “danger” by it. Non-rational animalia do neither of those, but they do share sensibility with humans, such that the formal concept “danger” in us, and the natural predicate “instinct” in them, carry exactly the same weight, as sufficient causality for self-preservation.

By the same token, it is absurd to consider that a non-rational animal can “believe” it is either in danger or out of it. It can no more than sense or not sense the presence of “danger” by the only means available to it, i.e., perception. It follows that the “danger” sensed by them isn’t true or false, but rather, present or not present, insofar as some perception triggers the instinctive criterion in which “a condition adverse to survival” immediately exists, or it does not, and can say nothing whatsoever about the truth of it at all, that isn’t a post hoc fallacy by those that call themselves rational animals.

The sensing of danger by instinct, belongs to the gazelle; the truth about the sensing of danger by reason, is ours alone.
——————

I think such the tendency, the need even, to anthropomorphize is inevitable; we cannot but think in our own terms. (...) We just need to remain mindful of what we are doing. — Janus

Perfect.

That’s actually pretty good.

rests on its own Ararat — tim wood

Oh man...a real wordsmith, I must say. William of Warwickshire ain’t got nuttin’ on that. Well....maybe a little. Here and there.

There is not the good? — tim wood

No, I’m guessing not. Mostly we work with “gifts of nature” as in skills or talents, and “gifts of fortune” as in luck or temperance, as representations of good, but there is no good to be cognized as good in itself.
————————

Sense? Nonsense? — tim wood

Sense, for sure, but not much to do with the predicates of pure moral philosophy. The statement “one who chooses....(x)....is good” in order to give “a meaning of good in each case” can only apply to empirical circumstance and responds to a hypothetical imperative for its precepts, for the presence of the very act of choice has already negated the mandatory obligation of law, which we know offers no choice at all. It is nonsense, on the other hand, to expect an imperative grounded in a mere precept, or inclination, to be the foundation of a moral constitution.

So sense/nonsense just depends on what exactly is under discourse, seems to me, anyway.

A.) Because of the quote: nothing can be considered good except the will, which is presupposed in the being of a moral agent. This must include the man, and even the mark of a man. The possession of a good will makes possible a man that does good moral things, but does not necessarily make him morally good for its own sake.

B.) Oh no siree bub!! Respect is very far from inculcated, by which I understand you to mean instilled from experience, or, taught. Rather, respect is the consciousness of the power and authority of law itself, whatever the content of the particular set of moral laws I simultaneously construct for myself and obligate myself to honor, such that no inclination whatsoever shall usurp such laws. One can never learn that; he must have it in him naturally, in keeping with his own consciousness.

All speculative moral philosophy, and therefore barely a step above personal opinion, of course.

Or not.... — tim wood

HA!!! Good one.

The will is the ideal good, yes. Good without expectation of return.

There is an argument, or maybe just an interpretation, that if morality presupposes a will, and all wills are good, then every man who is a moral agent possesses a good will. If true, the good mark of a man can’t be that which is presupposed in him.

That being said, I’m more inclined to identify the good of a man by his respect for law, the prime facilitator of duty. Respect for law is not a presupposition, but a necessary condition for what follows from it. None of which will meet the criteria of a rabid consequentialist, nor the virtue ethicist.

"Good," to start with, is left undefined. — tim wood

As it should be, methinks, it being a transcendental conception, meaning it has no object belonging to it necessarily. Others similar being, i.e., possibility, existence, etc. Things are possible, things exist, things are good, but “good” cannot be cognized as a thing.

It follows that a man qualified by nothing but good in itself, and this good being undefined, is sufficient reason to suppose that to which it is assigned also be left undefined, hence the idea of a good man is unintelligible and the reality of a good man is self-contradictory. Rather, there is a man of good nature, or, a man that does good things, which experience can readily verify.

Or not......

But here's the problem, if I think it's immoral to serve if given the option not to, I would then have to say that anyone with the option to not serve shouldn't do it. — SightsOfCold

This is....almost....correct, from a very specific and quite narrow moral point of view, but merely highlights the care one should take in formulating his moral considerations.

When you say that anyone with the option, ought not to serve, you’re implying the reality of a universal moral law (no moral agent shall serve in an organized military engaged in war) to which those same anyone’s subscribe, as the justification for them not serving. If such were the case, the principle of your moral action (wars do unjustified harm) validates your volition of choice (ought not to serve), because you are acting in conformity to a universal law.

Problem is....the universality of such law is not given, and for all intents and purposes, couldn’t be given, which makes explicit you have no ground for saying anyone else, with the option to not serve, ought not to serve.

The care one should take, is for the maxim that grounds his willed choice. One can will himself not to serve, however irrational I personally may consider that to be, but the maxim “wars cause unjustified harm” is not in itself sufficient principle for grounding it, insofar as one can still serve as a dedicated non-combatant; one can serve in a specialty non-military group that inflicts no “unjustified harm due to excessive force”.

I am aware, that were I personally to find myself engulfed in a sufficiently terrible predicament then, (...) I would nonetheless cry out to God to save me with a desperateness I presently cannot vicariously suspect. If, no matter your convictions, you personally think otherwise of yourself then I would say you are mistaken. — Robert Lockhart

Hmmm.......I guess my predicaments weren’t sufficiently terrible? Sure seemed that way at the time.

Just how terrible does a situation have to be to demonstrate your claim that I would call out for saving?

So, meanness comes from arrogance? — schopenhauer1

Yes, but mean-ness could also be pathological, in which case explanations from psychology holds sway. Humans are seldom entirely arrogant, which is an over-abundance of conceit, nor are they entirely humble, which is the containment of it, the two simply naming the major groups under which all our inclinations may be listed.

Non-pathological mean-ness is a variety of arrogance, where a subject thinks himself powerful enough to cause discomfort or displeasure in others, not as a matter of course, but rather as a merely spontaneous incidence, and because this kind of arrogance is a rational rather than physical condition, the influence of our inclinations on our moral disposition may be explained from moral philosophy.

One such philosophy asserts that the highest humility in humans is respect for moral law, which defeats arrogance; as the one goes up, the other goes down. One who holds moral law as the legislative authority in the service of his morality has contained his arrogance in the recognition of a force understood and granted as greater than himself, hence is not apt to mean-ness, hence is not likely to be mean. But then.....nobody’s perfect.

Mean-ness can be thought as describing a subjective feeling under the umbrella of arrogance. Being mean is the manifestation of mean-ness, and takes its objective form by causing the feeling of displeasure in another subject of like kind by an action that supports mean-ness.

IFF one predicates his own morality on the existence and power of moral law, he is immediately immoral, that is, subjectively, by having mean-ness incorporated into his personality, yet only mediately, that is, objectively, immoral if he should subsequently act to treat another subject as an end, by means of the satisfaction of his own feelings of arrogance.

To be arrogant in its various forms, is the prime facilitator for actions that exhibit such immoral conditions in a subject, but does not thereby make such actions absolutely necessary, re: the deviation from which is impossible, for it is not uncommon to witness people generally known for being mean circumstantially acting kindly.

Personally, yes, I think a mean person is immoral, and I think mean-ness is a moral flaw. But I have been mean, and I may yet be mean, so......there is that.

That's not an exception. It was never a sound syllogism in the first place. — creativesoul

Oh, but it was certainly sound to all those considering it. It would have been impossible for them to think it wasn’t. In its time, it was the rule; in a later time it is the exception.

But I know what you mean; all truly sound syllogisms are not time-dependent. But any sound syllogism not time dependent, is also not empirical.

All I’m saying is that to consider sound logic we must at the same time consider what truth really is.

Glory be to all rabbit holes!!!!!

On your view, what constitutes sufficient/adequate ground for us to acquire knowledge regarding the thought/belief content of language-less creatures? — creativesoul

If all thought/belief is, is the correlation between perceptible things, then all I need to know language-less creatures possess thought/belief, is to observe action/reaction in one.

But the sufficient ground to acquire knowledge of a language-less creature’s though/belief content, is altogether impossible for me, for the simple reason that I have no access to it. In effect, I would have to be one, in order to know what it’s like to operate as one. Hell, I don’t even know the content of your thought/belief, other than it possibly resembles mine, and we are the same kind of creature. To suppose there is sufficient ground to acquire knowledge of the internal mental ongoings of a creature diametrically opposite to me, is......well......unintelligible.

This is why I don’t fancy talking about language-less creatures, with respect to mental ongoings in general, and the possibility of thought/belief as its ends, in particular. We generate all kinds of theories concerning our own thought/belief system, but at least we’re in the same reference frame as the theory, rather than theorizing about a reference frame of which we can have no part.

If you brought up language -less creature’s thought/belief merely to make a point about something else, please tell me what that point is.

It's usually not a good sign..... — creativesoul

Hey....you told me to imagine, I did, and the product of the imagining was sufficiently explained by instinct.

...immediately refuses to accept the terms..... — creativesoul

There haven’t yet been any terms to refuse. Only general conditions (thought/belief is drawing correlations....), which I have accepted as good groundwork.
———————

I reject the proposition/statement:"Language-less creatures draw correlations that are given from instinct" on the following grounds...

You:
1. Being given presupposes a giver. Unnecessarily multiplying entities is unacceptable on my view.
2. Correlations are not given to the non linguistic thinking/believing creature..... — creativesoul

Me:
1. Yes, but being given from merely presupposes a source, which is not necessarily an external entity, per se, but could just be an internal constituent of the thought/belief process.
2. No, not so much given to, agreed, which seems to imply some outside origin, but rather.....as you say, correlations between different things are drawn by the creature. Again, the subtle difference between my given from and your changing it to given to.

Nevertheless, your rejection of instinct is all fine and dandy.....it is your theory after all....... but as yet you haven’t replaced it with anything. You may have been better served by agreeing instinct is indeed sufficient, but something else is necessary, in keeping with the hypotheses of your thought/belief theory.
———————

Is it not an error of equivocation, to suggest that just because a language-less creature, e.g., preserves his well-being instinctively, he is drawing correlations?
— Mww

What difference does that make? It would not be an error I've made.......

All I’m saying is that it would be an error of equivocation, if instinct is entirely sufficient to explain our observations of action/reaction in language-less creatures. It would not be such an error, if the theory of thought/belief in language-less creatures is demonstrated as being predicated necessarily on correlations they actually make, and make in some manner that cannot at all be mere instinct.

................Drawing correlations between different things begins happening long before the creature becomes aware of their own mental ongoings. — creativesoul

Ironically enough......so does instinct. Just sayin’.

By the way, isn’t saying “mental ongoings” with respect to language-less creatures, if not an error of equivocation, nonetheless an anthropomorphism, of a minor sort? Humans have brains and any human knows he has mental ongoings, so does it follow necessarily that any creature with a brain has mental ongoings?

Don’t worry, not important, really. There are behaviors in language-less creatures that would be quite difficult, and somewhat unreasonable I suppose, to attribute to instinct alone.
————————

I would not dare claim to know what it's like to be a language less creature. (...) I can clearly set out the basic elemental constituents of both language-less thought/belief and apple pie nonetheless. — creativesoul

Pies don’t do anything, dogs do stuff.

But go ahead and list those elemental constituents. I would think the creature list should be a whole lot longer than the pie list, right?

All thought/belief consists entirely of mental correlations drawn between different things. — creativesoul

Ok, but.....what things?

With a non linguistic creature all of those things are directly perceptible. — creativesoul

So “what things” are things directly perceptible. Ok.

Does that mean non-linguistic creatures can’t remember things?

Point:

There are no false statements in a sound syllogism. It is impossible to falsify a true statement. — creativesoul

Counterpoint:
Except when the statement was never true in the first place, re: in the case of the time-evolved knowledge that conditions the premises.
——————

Those premisses cannot be verified. Logical possibility alone(argument by definitional fiat) is inadequate ground for belief. Some valid syllogisms predicated solely on rational premisses can most certainly be falsified. — creativesoul

Falsification of valid syllogisms is possible merely by not holding with the conditions in the premises, yes. But a logical construction of a single subject, with his own purely rational premises, is not likely to be merely valid to himself, for the only productive reason to construct a logical argument at all, is to tell himself something with as much certainty as possible, the construction of which should then be conclusively valid. Or.....sound. That is not to say, on the other hand, that he cannot subsequently falsify his own argument, by simply re-thinking the conditionals.
——————

See my critique of the OP's first premiss... — creativesoul

Yeah, I’m aware. Although, your first entry concerning this whole shitshow rejects the 4th minor. I thought you were critiquing from that platform.

Imagine a language-less creature that has just touched fire for the first time. (...) All that is needed is a creature capable of drawing correlations between their own behaviour(the touching) and the pain that immediately ensued. — creativesoul

For the language-less creature, it is sufficient to say his correlations are given from instinct. Is it not an error of equivocation, to suggest that just because a language-less creature, e.g., preserves his well-being instinctively, he is drawing correlations? Isn’t it rather the case we think he must be making correlations because correlation is the only way humans can think anything at all? Including, what it’s like to be a language-less creature merely from his observable reactions.
———————

What we're reporting upon(the thought/belief of a language-less creature) is not existentially dependent upon language. Our report most certainly is. — creativesoul

Any report of ours is existentially dependent on language. That does not grant us authority to report on the thought/belief of language-less creatures. I mean.....what would the report say? That some animal emphatically withdrew from the effect of fire can tell us nothing about his inner workings, except there seems to be a mode of self-preservation that prevented him from NOT withdrawing, but that mode does not in itself suggest a responsible thought/belief process.
——————-

Definition and conception are not required for rudimentary level thought/belief..... — creativesoul

I’m going to wait for expansion on this. I tentatively hold that the only thought/belief possible to say anything about is our own, and in which conception is most certainly required. As to rudimentary level...we’ll see.

What does the thought/belief of a creature that has never spoken about it consist of? — creativesoul

I’m going with “understanding”. Just a guess.

I’d rather be informed of what it consists of, to tell the truth.