a la Kant, if there were no minds it would be incoherent to have spatio-temporal reference points. — Noah Te Stroete

Kantian speculative philosophy, and Enlightenment philosophy in general, tacitly presupposes the human mind. There is mounds of theoretical expositions on how the mind works, but not a shred on what the origin of mind is, the reasoning being, if one is engaged in rational thought he must have a mind, which makes its ontology, and theories concerning it, quite irrelevant.

So Kant....nor anyone else of any repute....is not going to say anything about coherency in the absence of the human mind. Because all meaning of anything whatsoever, is always relative to a human mind, the very idea of coherency absent the mind, is unintelligible.

But if you mean to say the human mind creates spatio-temporal reference points, then Kant would agree, for the excruciatingly simple reason Nature doesn’t incorporate them in her catalog of physical objects. If she did, you can bet yer arse there’d be a preferred one, which from our perspective of course, there isn’t.

we don’t directly apprehend reality. We perceive an independent reality — Noah Te Stroete

Exactly, methinks. We directly perceive, but indirectly apprehend. As dpolis says, we add elements from within us. Which is the fundamental principle grounding epistemological dualism.

Experience doesn’t amount to data unless it is interpreted. — Wayfarer

That’s the first thing I said back on page one.

Great minds.......etc, etc, etc.

Yes. Although as Janus pointed out to me a while ago, while he fully admits to it in the 1781 edition, as quoted below, he does not go so far in the 1787 edition. Makes one wonder who or what caused him to back off from declaring for the metaphysical doctrine he himself developed. Probably figured it was so obvious everybody should declare for it.

“...From the start we have declared ourselves in favor of this transcendental idealism, and our doctrine thus removes all difficulty in the way of accepting the existence of matter on the unaided testimony of our consciousness, or of declaring it to be proved in the same manner as to the existence of myself as a thinking being is proved...”

Bear in mind the proof spoken here is merely a logical proof, based on the concept of law, which is itself based on the principles of universality and absolute necessity. Very Aristotelian on the one hand and very Cartesian on the other.

Not saying you’re wrong, just wondering how projection would work, as you see it.

Six of one, half dozen of the other, when it’s all said and done.

Fine. Again. Square one.

So what mechanism does reality use to project itself?

Why don’t we just say reality appears to us, rather than projecting itself? That way we don’t need a projection mechanism for reality......it’s just there. Besides, reality can project itself to hell and back, but it’s completely irrelevant to us, until we are affected by that minuscule part of it we perceive, or can possibly perceive.

Gimme back those gold stars.

You haven’t said anything that isn’t reducible to human cognition. I asked for the mechanism for reality projecting itself, but I got back how it affects us, which is not its projection but is merely our own receptivity.

Ergo, reality ceases to exist when there isn’t any? Or reality is still all there, just doesn’t project itself in the absence of wavelengths we can see? I can experience the reality of electrical shock in the dark. Trust me on that one.

I actually think this might be a better model than Kant’s from Critique of Pure Reason. — Noah Te Stroete

Fine. It’s a free country, doncha know. Plus Brentano is all of half a century more modern than that crazy old fart from PRUSSIA, which doesn’t even exist anymore!!! (Grin)

Don’t mind me.....I’m just sittin’ here wonderin’.....what mechanism does reality use to project itself?

I do not understand this sentence. — Dfpolis

Our reason is intentional (...). Thus, it points beyond itself. — Dfpolis

Close enough.
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...models combine abstracted and constructed elements. — Dfpolis

Abstraction has multiple meanings and applications, and as much as I detest running to a damn dictionary for clarification.....here I go running away, but only to forward a guess about your intention in using the word: “the process of considering something independently of its associations, attributes, or concrete accompaniments”. I submit that’s diametrically opposed to what we do when we think; all thought is associative, insofar as understanding is the synthesis of intuition with conception, the epitome of an a priori construct. That which is constructed, is the model of whatever object affects perception, better known as representation.
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Do you agree empirical realism does not diminish the theory that the human cognitive system is representational? If so, then I don’t understand how epistemological dualism can be denied.

But that’s OK. No worries. We hold with different metaphysical predicates, is all.

I would say that we try to model reality, — Dfpolis

Granted, but what is a model but a construct? Whether model or construct presupposes that which is its cause, which in its turn presupposes a necessary displaced orientation of it. That is, because it is reason modeling, the cause absolutely must be oriented exclusive to reason, otherwise reason is merely modeling itself, from which knowledge of the model cannot be distinguished from knowledge of the cause of the model. Hence, empirical realism, and the inescapable aspect of epistemological dualism associated with it.

Everydayman is seldom surprised by reality, but he is exposed to precious little of it, and that of which he is exposed is rather tedious. This can be explained by theorizing that data, re: information, generating experience, once so generated, is no longer considered information, for it provides no new knowledge. But give to his sensibility something for which he has no ready conception, he should be all the more surprised by what little he really knows.

I don’t do ribbons.

Gold star, now. That’s worth awarding.

Have a couple.

Minor distinction, perhaps. I consider projections of reality our expressions about it. Reality itself is that which is given to us. Reality comes in via perception, projections go out via understanding.

Pretty much covers it, yep.

I'm a moderate, Aristotelian-Thomistic realist, who thinks that we can have different projections of reality — Dfpolis

Well......there ya go. I’m a transcendental idealist, who must be an empirical realist by inclusion. I support different projections of reality, but adhere to the thesis that because there is some general empirical data, re: experience and therefore knowledge, potentially common to all rational humans, reality in and of itself is most probably one iteration of all those various and sundry individual projections.

Yes, we think of data differently, but herein I think we are both right with respect to what we each are saying.

Yes, we cannot mis-experience. Odd, isn’t it? We can easily misunderstand, misjudge, and even if those have philosophical explanations, we never characterize our experiences, in and of themselves, as missed. That bell cannot be un-rung.

Certainly, if the constituency and manufacture of your house represents the shape of the your world.

Shape stands for extension of objects in the world (your house), or, shape stands for the condition of a thing, in this case of the world in which the objects are extended. Because the shape of the world as an extended object is given, when you speak of the shape of the world you must be referring to the condition of it. In other words, what you or a consensus think of it. Knowledge of electricity may shape the general world but it is very far from shaping the world of an Inuit, whose knowledge of missing seals informs his world almost entirely, with no knowledge at all of global warming.

Right? If not, then sorry I misunderstood.

I agree experience is all we have to work with empirically, but I wouldn’t call experience “data”. I understand you to mean the thinking subject draws on extant experience for his subsequent judgements, so experience does serve as a database. Of sorts. I guess.

Nevertheless, when you say

I do not see any other way for there to be data. — Dfpolis

and if “data is given exclusively in experience”, implies there can be no data outside our experience. If there is no data outside our experience we are presented with two absurdities, 1.) we should know everything because all the experience we have is all the data there is, or 2.) data and experience are congruent which would force the impossibility of misunderstandings.

Be that as it may, I accept the gist of what you’re saying in the OP, so my little foray into the sublime can be disregarded without offense.

Is an authoritative source sufficient evidence? — Pantagruel

Yes, albeit contingent. Multiple sources can be authoritative differently, thus sufficient differently.
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Does the person who has experimentally verified an hypothesis have "more knowledge" than a person who has read about and understands those experimental results? — Pantagruel

No. The former has knowledge of the experiment; the latter has knowledge of the report on the experiment. Even if the end knowledge is the same, more knowledge is involved in the experience of doing than the experience of reading about the doing.
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Living in a world shaped by knowledge is not the same thing as having knowledge about the world in which you live. — Pantagruel

The only knowledge sufficient to shape a world must be a common empirical knowledge. There is no such thing as common knowledge, meaning a thing or series of things every inhabitant of the world knows. If there is no common empirical knowledge, then the only knowledge that shapes a world is individual knowledge, or arbitrary collections thereof sufficient for distinguishable parts of the shape of the world, which then is no longer necessarily empirical knowledge. If individual knowledge shapes a world, then it is false that a world shaped by knowledge is not the same as having knowledge about the world in which you live. It is your knowledge that shapes the world in which you live, for you.

Or not.....

One minor consideration, if I may.

Experience is the data we have to work with. One can either work with experience, or one can simply cease thinking. — Dfpolis

All else being equal, it is impossible to cease thinking and remain a rational agent. If thinking is necessary, and if thinking is the means with experience its ends, then experience is equally necessary, which implies data is contingent, in as much as not all data is experience. If that is reasonable, then I submit a reformation of the quote to: data we have to work with is experience.

Opinions might not be the best way to properly understand much of anything.

Truth is conditioned by thought, knowledge is conditioned by possibility; both are conditioned by time. I don’t see as one will ever be a requirement for the other. Not all truths are known and not all knowledge is true.

On the other hand, I know I detest Lima beans, so it is absolutely required that it be true Lima beans be something in order for me to know I detest them. When I was 6 it was 18 steps from my bed to the bathroom. When I was 16 it was 14 steps from my bed to the bathroom. The truths and the knowledges of each set of circumstances are exactly the same, but not so are all the states-of-affairs.

One can talk about truth, or one can talk about knowledge, for days. But trying to put them together is a whole ‘nuther can of metaphysical worms.

“I can’t know that I know many things.”

I can’t know that I know.....wait.....what?????

I know I can’t know many things is a tautology; the negation of a tautology is a contradiction; I can’t know I know many things is a contradiction.

Or....there is some subtlety hidden in the negation that escapes me, and the whole OP actually has some epistemic value.

A naive realist has this factual edifice going for.....her, in that no matter what’s actually happening between our ears from which our abstractions are created, it has something to do with the brain. Never was a tautology so ill-conceived, I must say, and presupposes the naive realist holds with some sort of materialism supporting his realism.

I regard myself as a superficial empirical realist, inasmuch as the inconceivable complexity of the human brain seems to be sufficient in itself for grounding our abstractions, but I’m strictly a transcendental idealist inasmuch as even if such is proven with absolute certainty how such physicalism should be the case, my “I” as representation of my intrinsic subjectivity, will remain undiminished. And I challenge anyone to relinquish........his, and at the same time adhere to the primacy of determinism.

If the physical mechanisms of the brain are fully determined, I submit that at the same time will be discovered the biological animal cannot function as the human without an epistemic void, for then arises the reality of “incongruent counterparts”: the left hand of determinism will never match the right hand of rationalism, although both hands are absolutely necessary for satisfying the requirements for a complete body.

......so ends the of Spiel of the Day.

Oh, I suspect your smatterings and inklings are rather more substantial than you’d admit. That, or my readings of you hereabouts are grossly over-rated, which I would never admit.

Sir James Jeans, Cambridge lecture, 1930, published subsequently in “The Mysterious Universe”. Family library, growing up. I remember because the image of the Universe in the shape of a brain, but pulsing like a heart. Freaked me out. Then made me laugh.

I accept your comment as stated. While I understand the Greek origins of noumena, and Kant’s intimate knowledge of the classic Greek metaphysicians, I am nonetheless responding to my interrogatives from the way Kant used the Greek concept in his own way. That is to say, it may very well be the case that my interpretation of noumena is mistaken from the Greek perspective, or even St. Augustine’s, but I’m not arguing from there. I would certainly appreciate a critique of my interpretation, but it would seem rather apropos to receive that critique from the same context from which the interpretation was initially given.

I will say, with respect to your quoted passage, that any particular indeed may not be grasped by the bodily senses, which are passive recipients of affectations, but “considerations of the mind” can be simply Kantian a priori manifestations, which *DO* allow “grasping” the particular, all without the need for noumena.

Test for Echo?

What would be examples of noumena? — Andrew M

There are none. The prerequisite for noumena is a kind of intuition, and by association, a kind of understanding, we don’t have. They are nothing but logically or intelligibly possible conceptions, but can never be conceived as something cognizable. And if we cannot cognize a thing, we have no means to give an example of it.

Hidden in the weeds of Kantian epistemic speculation is the contra-distinction to it. If the theory expounds how it is that we know things, it is well advised to give at least some account of how it is that we do not know things, because, obviously, there are things we don’t understand, hence cannot know. The primary tenet of the theory is that reason itself must be curtailed from its own cognitive extravagances, called illusion, and one of the ways that curtailment may arise is to curtail the understanding, from which all cognition evolves. Kant may have invented his brand of noumena for no other reason than to provide an argument sufficient to do just that. If that should be the case, it follows logically that the reason we cannot know some things is because understanding is attempting to wander into territory in contradiction to that which the positive nature of the theory had already proclaimed as valid.

Another reasonable conjecture, mine own, to be sure, may be that given the times, where publication and even professorships required the blessing of a beneficiary, in Kant’s case in his critical period, Fredric II, King of Prussia, and, given the religiosity of the general population at the time, perhaps the mental restrictions attributed to noumena were a subtle nod to the....er......”Supreme Author of the Universe”. An Omni-everything outta be able to conceive noumena, right? Just because we weakling human agents can’t think beyond ourselves shouldn’t restrict supersensible beings.

Yeah....but it is odd. Naive realism from a psychological perspective emphasizes cognitive bias; naive realism from a philosophical perspective denies representationalism. If that be true, and one rejects naive realism from a philosophical point of view because he holds with representationalism as absolutely necessary, then by definition he could be deemed a naive realist from a psychological point of view.

What a tangled web we weave.........

Understood, and agreed in principle. The basic premise remains that if we grant a distinction between how a thing appears to us and how it actually is regardless of us, we tacitly grant the possibility of a difference, however remote such possibility may be. My take on speculative epistemology is that the human cognitive system does not avail the subject in possession of it, and by means of it, to determine what the difference may be. It’s like being stuck on one side or the other of a mathematical equality, insofar as we have no means to make the jump across the operator in order to prove the universality and absolute necessity the meaning of the operator demands.

On the other hand, and by far the less controversial, is just to assume what appears to us and what is irrespective of us, to be the same under any condition, right up until it is shown that it isn’t.
(Did you know Kant used “quanta” in the modern sense 100 years before Einstein? I don’t mind saying that Kantian epistemological dualism is remarkable similar to preliminary quantum mechanical interpretations, albeit the latter being rather more extended, with respect to the ubiquitous “observer effect”. Re:, in the former nothing is known until it is experienced; in the latter nothing exists until it is observed. A stretch? Perhaps, but not negligible, methinks.)
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On form(s).

Kant does use the concept of form repeatedly, and grounds his theoretical metaphysics with:
“....That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form. (...) It is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us a posteriori; the form must lie ready a priori for them in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from all sensation....”

But as to an archetypal conception, Kant went more with Platonic “Ideas”, rather than forms. He exposes them up with......

“...Plato employed the expression idea in a way that plainly showed he meant by it something which is never derived from the senses, but which far transcends even the conceptions of the understanding (with which Aristotle occupied himself), inasmuch as in experience nothing perfectly corresponding to them could be found. Ideas are, according to him, archetypes of things themselves, and not merely keys to possible experiences, like the categories....”

......and subsequently honors him and them with.....

“....Setting aside the exaggerations of expression in the writings of this philosopher, the mental power exhibited in this ascent from the achetypal mode of regarding the physical world to the architectonic connection thereof according to ends, that is, ideas, is an effort which deserves imitation and claims respect....”
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On dualism, Kant spent more time elaborating Cartesian rational dualism at the expense of Berkeley, than the hylomorphic dualism of Aristotle and Aquinas, mostly, I think, in order to expound on the idea that all dualism is intrinsic to reason rather than the granting the necessity of invoking any divine influence. I personally have little experience with Aquinas, and hold with no supernaturalism of any kind, so am at a loss in discussions of his philosophy.

In that trying, beware the bane of speculative philosophy.....the dreaded, but nonetheless ever-present, categorical error.

You spoke before of naive realism. Are you suggesting the modern rendition naive realism, is the same as the Enlightenment rendition transcendental realism in A369?

Real tricky real fast is well-spoken, no doubt. Kant speaks here of “outer appearance” and elsewhere as just appearance by which one can assume he means inner, which seems to be an entirely different kind; “effect in us” in juxtaposition to “affect on us”........and on and on.

I wish I knew if there were margin notes, or scribbles somewhere, about why he changed this section so drastically from A to B.

Anyway......it was fun.

It has been the case forever, that human reason has the capacity to think anything it finds conceivable. So said, practically every notion in the OP is perfectly legitimate as pure thought, but is nonetheless merely subjective desiderata, with barely a vain hope of objective validity. Not to say the above is wrong, but only that it is personal, which relegates the discussion to the field of psychology, in order to discover why you feel the notions in the OP are justified, rather than materialistic vs idealistic metaphysical naturalism in order to discover how the notions in the OP are possible.

It would all depend on the power of your argument, so.......have at it, and good luck.

would it be more accurate to say that the mind subsequently determines what first appears in the senses? — Andrew M

If the mind determines what first appears, we would know everything of every experience. The simplest way to look at it might be that the mind determines if an appearance relates to experience. In other words, the mind doesn’t determine what first appears (phenomena = undetermined object), but rather, determines the relationship of what first appears, to something else. The determinant faculty is judgement, in affairs with empirical content.
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if there is an affect on sensibility, then the mind is aware of an appearance of something' is that 'something' the thing-in-itself? — Andrew M

I suppose one could say that a “thing-“ that affects sensibility necessarily brings the “in-itself” with it, but the claim is that we can never know the thing-in-itself even though knowledge of a thing is quite possible. Therefore, it must be that “thing” and “thing-in-itself” are distinct, and therefore separable, or, that which is known, is nothing but a representation of the thing-in-itself, in which case there is no need to separate the thing from the -in-itself.

Personally, I think the “-in-itself” signifies a real, physical existence completely independent of us. Nothing completely independent of us can comprises an appearance, for such would never be met with perception, and at the same time serves as a parsimonious support for the claim that we can never know with certainty what it truly is. The “thing” of “thing-in-itself” can nonetheless still be the real as yet undetermined phenomenon.
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does Earth also refer to the 'raw' thing-in-itself (...) or only to the phenomena ? — Andrew M

It may be safe to say Earth refers the to the raw thing-in-itself, for “refers to” simply denotes a conformity of relation, where the manifold of conceptions understanding brings to the table supports the intuitions imagination initially assigned to the thing way back at its perception. In effect, our knowledge claim is grounded in this conformity, which we call experience, not knowledge of the thing that made its appearance.

It is just as safe to say “Earth” refers to a particular phenomenon as well, but only when examined at a much lower level than conception from which the name arises. Everything of empirical content passing through the human cognitive system is at one instance a phenomenon. But once experienced, reason pretty much rockets right through this part, relying more on the faculty of judgement than the faculty of imagination for its conclusions.
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As an analogy, you could present at the family reunion in a clown costume but it's still you, or you could send a robot replica as your representative, which is not you. — Andrew M

Differences in perspective. To another, the appearance is of a clown, and the judgement will be with respect to a clown and clown will be cognized. Even with knowledge beforehand of the person presenting the clown, if clown as disguised person is observed, induction is the only means to claim knowledge of the person, and we all know the inherent dangers of inductive reasoning. In effect I know it is me with absolute certainty; any one else has the certainty only of clown.
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what is the relationship between schema and noumena? — Andrew M

I must admit to not being aware of one. Schema are pure a priori conceptions, but they can be reproduced as empirical objects. Noumena are not, so cannot. Our kind of rationality is the only one we have on which to base any philosophy of knowledge at all. But our kind of rationality does not have to be the only one there is. Another kind of rationality may very well incorporate noumena specific to its methodology, in fact, it must, otherwise it would be indistinguishable from human rationality, hence would not be another kind after all. We cannot deny noumena, but we also cannot claim anything with respect to what they might be.

Finally, as an aside.....one opinion cannot over-rule another, if the opinions reside in separate subjects.

sure enough, searching through the Transcendental Dialectic, I found these two passages — Janus

As much as I’d like to have a good reason (I spend all my time and draw all my quotes from the 1787 B edition, in which none of that appears) for not being familiar with those terms, I can come up with nothing but poor excuses (I know the 1781 A edition just as well as the B, but being interested only in the philosophy, as soon as he called them psychologists I found no use for any of it).

At any rate, thanks for the enlightenment.
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Justified, yes; over-ruled, not necessarily.

Don’t know that Kant referred to naive realism or transcendental realism; he may have used different terms for those things, because technically speaking, neither of them as such were in vogue in his time. He was more concerned with general common-sense physical empiricism, which he accepted, and purely subjective idealism, which he squashed like a proverbial bug.
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On illusion: absolutely.

“....Logical illusion, which consists merely in the imitation of the form of reason (the illusion in sophistical syllogisms), arises entirely from a want of due attention to logical rules. So soon as the attention is awakened to the case before us, this illusion totally disappears. Transcendental illusion, on the contrary, does not cease to exist, even after it has been exposed, and its nothingness clearly perceived by means of transcendental criticism (....) There is, therefore, a natural and unavoidable dialectic of pure reason—not that in which the bungler, from want of the requisite knowledge, involves himself, nor that which the sophist devises for the purpose of misleading, but that which is an inseparable adjunct of human reason, and which, even after its illusions have been exposed, does not cease to deceive, and continually to lead reason into momentary errors, which it becomes necessary continually to remove....”
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On noumena: because taking from the actual book is so much mo’ better.....

“....The critique of the pure understanding, accordingly, does not permit us to create for ourselves a new field of objects beyond those which are presented to us as phenomena, and to stray into intelligible worlds; nay, it does not even allow us to endeavour to form so much as a conception of them. The specious error which leads to this—and which is a perfectly excusable one—lies in the fact that the employment of the understanding, contrary to its proper purpose and destination, is made transcendental, and objects, that is, possible intuitions, are made to regulate themselves according to conceptions, instead of the conceptions arranging themselves according to the intuitions, on which alone their own objective validity rests. Now the reason of this again is that apperception, and with it thought, antecedes all possible determinate arrangement of representations. Accordingly we think something in general and determine it on the one hand sensuously, but, on the other, distinguish the general and in abstracto represented object from this particular mode of intuiting it. In this case there remains a mode of determining the object by mere thought, which is really but a logical form without content, which, however, seems to us to be a mode of the existence of the object in itself (noumenon), without regard to intuition which is limited to our senses....

.....Before ending this transcendental analytic, we must make an addition, which, although in itself of no particular importance, seems to be necessary to the completeness of the system. The highest conception, with which a transcendental philosophy commonly begins, is the division into possible and impossible. But as all division presupposes a divided conception, a still higher one must exist, and this is the conception of an object in general—problematically understood and without its being decided whether it is something or nothing. As the categories are the only conceptions which apply to objects in general, the distinguishing of an object, whether it is something or nothing, must proceed according to the order and direction of the categories. To the categories of quantity, that is, the conceptions of all, many, and one, the conception which annihilates all, that is, the conception of none, is opposed. And thus the object of a conception, to which no intuition can be found to correspond, is nothing. That is, it is a conception without an object, like noumena, which cannot be considered possible in the sphere of reality, though they must not therefore be held to be impossible...”

I would never be so presumptuous as to call your interpretation......er......misguided, but I will say in all confidence that I cannot find anything in each of my three separately translated, physical volumes, that corresponds with it.

In addition......because I’ve never been mellow enough to just let things be......your response to the “if noumena were known they’d be phenomena, being “PRECISELY!!!”, is actually addressed at the end of the first division of Transcendental Logic, where Kant says, “...The object of a conception which is self-contradictory, is nothing, because the conception is nothing, therefore is impossible, as a figure composed of two straight lines...”

There cannot be a figure of two straight lines, hence the self-contradiction; if noumena were known is its own self-contradiction in the same way as a figure of two straight lines, insofar as noumena cannot be known. Both impossible conceptions. And, obviously, an impossible conception stands no chance of being transformed into something knowable. The aforementioned logical illusion writ large.

Writ huge.

Writ bigly. (Sorry.....just trying a little levity in the furtive hope you won’t stomp all over me for proving myself more right than you. Or maybe I just shot myself in the foot by using a Trump-ianesque soundbite. Maaannn.....life is SUCH a bitch, innit????)

On the other hand......and there’s always an other hand......maybe you meant “PRECISELY” in conjunction with noumena being the limit of knowledge, but that’s just as Kant-ianesque wrong, which can be proven just as easily, but I’ve sudden, inexplicably, become mellow enough to let that one be.

In the immortal words of Jon Bon Jovi......have a nice day.

That distinct human beings each have a perspective, does not produce the conclusion that there is one human perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

I reject that a fact of the matter implicates a logical fallacy. Maybe I just don’t know how to write about it fault-free. Every human ever, otherwise capable of it, reasons; all perspectives are opinions; all opinions are a result of reason; therefore every opinion derived from human reason and expressed as a perspective must be a human perspective.

It appears that you’re treating perspective as an object (there is no one human perspective), whereas I’m treating it as a subject (all perspective is human). We’re both correct.

The problem is that the naive realist insists that objects do, totally independent of all minds, exist in the same form (whatever that could actually even mean!) as they do in our perceptions of them. — Janus

Agreed, that is a major problem.

On the rest.....we see the same thing with different eyes. Nothing remarkable about that.

If you and I, and by association you and Janus, can agree that the term “perspective” denotes a particular attitude or opinion about a thing, and we each as particular persons all agree as a matter of discourse that the fins on a ‘60 Cadillac were rather extreme.....wouldn’t we have a common perspective with respect to extremism? We’re not talking about how we came to our respective opinions, but rather the having of some perspective in common about something because of them.

If humans are known with absolute certainty to be entities with the capacity for perspective, then the concept of human perspective cannot be either false nor contradictory. If it is true every human ever has or had or will have a perspective, then it follows necessarily there is a human perspective. And “us” does refer to a number of individuals......all of them, in fact. The question remains, however, as to the possibility of a perspective common to us all as humans.

No matter what, I, myself, don’t see a loss of comprehension or intelligibility by using the term human perspective in a standard conversational format.

Does that capture it? — Andrew M

Pretty much, with a couple minor caveats:

The person's mind synthesizes the phenomenal object that subsequently appears to him. — Andrew M

Yes, the mind synthesizes the phenomenal object, However, there is some controversy on the Kantian rendition of appearance. Some say it means what a thing looks like, others say it is mere presence, like, e.g., I made my appearance at the family reunion. I favor the latter, because to say what a thing looks like presupposes the very attributes conceptions are supposed to give it. This relates because “subsequently appears” is temporally misplaced; if there is an affect on sensibility, then the mind is aware of an appearance of something. This affect, or appearance, is also called sensation by materialists, and occurs antecedent, not subsequent, to any synthesis.

the a priori categories of time and space — Andrew M

Time and space are not categories, they are “pure intuitions a priori”. From the previous quote, “intuitions to which all objects must conform” specifically means these two. There are no objects possible for human cognition that are not in space and time. This is not to say there are no objects, but rather there are no objects to which human cognition may apply. We can know nothing a posteriori that is not conditioned by space or time. There is no such thing as experience itself without those two conditions. There are two chapters....27 pages no less...... dedicated to just what those two intuitions are, what they do and how they do it.

As time and space belong to intuition, so too do the categories belong to understanding. As space and time are pure intuitions, that is, not derivable from any object of experience but belonging to any object of experience in particular, so too are the categories pure conceptions, that is, having no object of their own, but belonging to all objects of thought in general. Re: Wayfarer’s triangle, the category of quantity makes the thought of lines possible, the category of quality makes the thought of flat possible, the category of relation makes the thought of arranging lines in a certain shape possible, henceforth conceived as a triangle. Lines, flatness, arrangements are all mental images, called schema.
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Is the purpose of noumena just to serve as a logical placeholder at the boundary of knowledge? — Andrew M

Not quite. The logical placeholder for the boundary of knowledge, is the transcendental illusion. The placeholder for the logical boundary of understanding, are the noumena.

When we speak of phenomena, we tacitly grant a specific mode of intuition, we are speaking of a certain way things are done in the mind, predicated solely on the reality of empirical objects. But even granting the reality of empirical objects, it does not follow that the mode of intuition we use with respect to them is the only mode there is. From here, it also follows that understanding in general and the pure conceptions of the understanding in particular, pertain only to sensuous objects. It is, after all, the method by which we know them for what they seem to be. But just as there is no promise of only one mode of intuition, there is no promise that understanding cannot use its conceptions for that which is not sensuous, and can never be sensuous, or, in other words, that for which there is no object understanding can subsume under its conceptions. If there is no object for understanding to assign conceptions, there is no meaning, hence no possible cognition at all. Still, just because there is no object presented as phenomenon doesn’t preclude the possibility that understanding can think its own object and subsume that object under its pure conceptions.

No matter what, the next step is judgement, the determination of logical consistency with extent experience, or that of possible experience. If there is no phenomenon, yet understanding thinks it own object, that object is called noumenon. Herein lay the problem: what is there for judgement to determine, if there is no logical consistency to judge? We will never sense an object thought by understanding alone, we will never intuit anything, never cognize anything, never experience anything even remotely related to it.

But that’s not the real problem. Schema....remember schema? Where the HELL did schema come from? Well....I’ll be damned: understand thinks them. Holy crap, Batman!!! There are things understanding thinks. But wait, he said, with all due enthusiasm. How can something be thought by understanding, yet subsumed under the very category it is a part of? Schema apply to sensations, or...you know.....phenomena, as part of the categories, so they don’t count. We can intuit schema without contradicting the system. Things like numbers, succession/permanence in time, stuff like that.

Here’s the fun part, and what frosts my balls when people twist the Good Professor’s intent. The noumena, as opposed to schema, are thought as objects-in-themselves by some mode of intuition of which we are not informed. I mean, c’mon, man. It is easy to grasp that we can accept the real objects out there in the world as things-in-themselves, and all the brew-ha-ha that goes with it, so why not treat things thought by understanding alone the same way? Noumena are NOT things-in-themselves of the world, they are objects-of-themselves of the mind.

All that to say this: it is not the case that,

if anything were (or could be) known about noumena, then it wouldn't be noumena, it would be phenomena. — Andrew M

, because phenomena are derived from sensibility, and noumena are derived from understanding, so one can never be exchanged for the other. The reason we can’t know things-in-themselves is because the human cognitive system doesn’t permit it; the reason we can’t know noumena is because there isn’t anything to know. Things-in-themselves exist and are quite real so don’t need to be thought; objects-in-themselves exist but are not real so must be thought.

And no.....not a chance in hell I’m going to post the excerpt where Kant actually calls things-in-themselves as noumena. The context for it is too long and just shows where the common understanding of it is lop-sided at best. People get their philosophical kicks from saying, “ See? Right there!! He called it that himself, the crazy old fart!!” Sad, but true. That he said it, not that he’s an old fart.

Thanks for showing an interest in perhaps the epitome of paradigm-shifting philosophy.

And if anyone has a better understanding, please, by all means....correct me.

Are you not being a little harsh, perhaps? If there is at least one irrefutable commonality in human reason, wouldn’t the concept, or just the idea, of a human perspective be validated?

I must say, I find no irreconcilable difficulties in Janus’ assertion with respect to a general human perspective, albeit a very, very narrow domain. The addendum “for us” is tautological, as you say, but it isn’t necessarily impossible and certainly not contradictory.

Kant was intent on showing is that we should abandon the naive realist view that empirical objects exist iindependently in just the same way, or the same form, so to speak, as they exist for us. — Janus

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m not sure Kant outright rejects what is these days is considered a naive realist point of view, or, which is for practical purposes the same thing, the Hume-ian common sense empiricism of British Enlightenment. Empirical objects may very well exist in the same form as they exist in the mind. The problem isn’t whether or not they do, but the impossibility of proving whether or not they do. While it is true the Kantian speculative epistemology prevents any such knowledge, that doesn’t negate the possibility that the true nature of things and our understanding of them are congruent. Hence the force and power of the Law of Non-contradiction.