Interesting. But isn't this a form of 'transcendental realism', though? — boundless

This is what I mean by different theories.

The Kantian system of knowledge a posteriori, is twofold: sensibility, arrangement of the given, and, cognition, the logic in the arrangement of the given. The logic of the arrangement is determined….thought….. by the tripartite coordination of understanding, judgement and reason. All that which is produced by logical thought alone, is grounded in principles a priori; all principles arise transcendentally in pure reason, therefore the concept of “real” in transcendental logic is inappropriate, instead subsumed under the primary condition of logic writ large, which is correctly called “valid”. From which follows the notion that “transcendental realism”, is self-contradictory.

An alternative epistemic theory may be predicated on transcendental realism, but not within or even implied by, a Kantian system, but rather, by re-defining the predicates of an established method and/or constructing different relations between the components of that method.

Such is the fate of metaphysics in general: a guy adds to a theory in some way, shape or form, then accuses the original of having missed what was added. It may just as well have been the case it wasn’t missed in the former at all, so much as rejected. So the new guy merely cancels that by which the original rejection found force, and from within which resides the ground of accusation of the missing. Even without considering your particular instance of this, it is found in Arthur’s critique of Kant, and, ironically enough, Kant’s critique of Hume, a.k.a., The Reluctant Rationalist.
————-

…..it remains the case no human is ever conscious of all that which occurs between sensation and brain activation because of it…..
— Mww

On this, I agree. That's why I think that our knowledge is imperfect. — boundless

Dunno about imperfect, but even if it is, it has nothing to do with being unconscious of some operational segment of our intelligence, in which no knowledge is forthcoming in the first place. Perhaps you’ve thought a reasonable work-around, but from my armchair, I must say if you agree with the former you have lost the ground for judging the relative quality of your own knowledge.

Contingent, without a doubt. Imperfect? Ehhhhh……isn’t whatever knowledge there is at any given time, perfectly obtained? Otherwise, by what right is it knowledge at all? If every otherwise rational human in a given time knew lightning was the product of angry gods, what argument could there possibly be, in that same time, sufficient to falsify it? Wouldn’t that knowledge, at that time, be as perfect as it could be?

The system used to amend at some successive time the knowledge of one time, is precisely the same system used to obtain both. So maybe it isn’t the relative perfection of knowledge we should consider, but the relative quality of the system by which it is obtained.

And we’re right back where we started, re: any system in which a part is missing must be imperfect.

Do you see the contradiction? What would you do about it?

I meant that I prefer d'Espagnat's view than Kant's…. — boundless

Which is your prerogative. My point was simply that the two views are distinct enough from each other that they should be considered as different theories altogether.
—————-

Kant also asserts that there is 'something' about phenomena that it is not 'mental'. However, we are left with no clue on how that 'something' is related to appearances. — boundless

There is something about intuition that is not mental; there is nothing of phenomena that is not mental. The relation between the non-mental of intuition and appearance, is sensation.

For us, the non-mental of a real existent, is appearance;
The non-mental of appearance, is matter;
The non-mental of matter, is sensation;
All subsequent to sensation as intuition, is mental.

Of what there is no clue, is how the non-mental matter of appearance transitions to its mental component of intuition. That it is transitioned is necessary, so is given the name transcendental object, that which reason proposes to itself post hoc, in order for the system to maintain its speculative procedure.

Science, of course, gives this to us as the information exiting the sensory apparatuses, then traversing the respective peripheral nervous system to the brain. We have no metaphysical clue regarding such transition insofar as we are consciously oblivious to it.

Even if there is a transcendental realist epistemological theory which explains Kant’s missing clue, it remains the case no human is ever conscious of all that which occurs between sensation and brain activation because of it, which just is Kant’s faculty of intuition whose object is phenomenon.

Not sure a whole mini-dissertation is called for here, even though I just wrote one. I’ll just say I don’t agree with Clark, at the same admitting I am far from academically equipped to prove his complaint as unjustified. I might be able to find a veritable plethora of pertinent textual quotes that in my opinion suffice, but still the chance of barking up the wrong epistemological tree, remains.

Unless you’ve got something more you’d like to talk about…..

All good; thanks for taking the time, and I did give your response the attention it deserved.

Yes, first critique, and, translation used is Gutenburg’s J. M. D. Meiklejohn, ca 1856, for the simplicity of search + cut/paste, not available in my other IPad renditions.

And to a lesser extent, for seniority, in that I downloaded it to Kindle about a million years ago.

But most of all, for protecting the “FN” AB Bookman’s-conditioned Ex Libris Cambridge University 1929 first edition Kemp Smith, gold gilt on red leather and all….(don’t ask)

Useless trivia here aside, should I have found something in your response that shows I misunderstood Clark’s statement?

He admits that things in themselves act on us, on our senses. — W. Norris Clarke - The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics

Given that the subject of this particular passage is Kant’s theory, it follows that in “he admits”, he is Kant. However, in A493/B522 is found….

“… For I can say only of a thing in itself that it exists without relation to the senses and experience.…”

….which makes patently obvious Kant admits to no such thing.

It is profoundly contradictory, and destructive to the Kantian form of transcendental metaphysics, for the thing in itself to act on human senses. If the thing in itself appears to us, which just is to act on our senses, the very concept itself is invalid.

OR…..I would greatly appreciate being informed of where I can read, in first-hand texts only, that he admits….or even hints….in accord with Clark’s statement.

Kant is a kind of dualist with his phenomena/noumena distinction.
— Tom Storm

He is! Perhaps Mww can check in here, but I often refer to this passage:

The transcendental idealist... can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist…. — Wayfarer

In the next paragraph of A370 is found his admission in favor of just that idealist/realist metaphysical dualism, but not because of the phenomena/noumena dichotomy, but rather, “….our doctrine removes all difficulty in accepting the existence of matter (…) or declaring it to be thereby proved in the same manner as the existence of myself as a thinking being is proved….”.

How the proofs arise, is given by the logical construction of the theory.
————

My belief about the in-itself is that it has caused a great deal of baseless speculation…. — Wayfarer

True enough. Dunno why, myself, for what it is, what it does, the reason for its conception, all about it, is in black and white, in the text. Same with that phenomena/noumena nonsense, I must say.

But you know how it goes…..opinions are like noses: everybody’s got ‘em.

The mind structures experience. — Tom Storm

Conventionally, true enough, I suppose.

In the interest of systemic analysis, on the other hand, reason structures experience, at least because mind, as such, is not reducible to systemic composition, but merely represents as half of a complementary pair.

Anyway…..light is always good.

….the exact difference between Kant’s transcendental idealism and classical idealism. — Tom Storm

The exact difference refers to a systemic, albeit speculative, purely logically methodology for human thought. Classical predecessors: humans think; Kant: this is what it is to think.

The general, rather than the exact, difference reduces to an investigation of the faculty, thus the role of, and limitations imposed on, pure reason, as that which provides the principles for proper thinking, re: in accordance with logical laws, hence the name “transcendental” as a modified doctrinal idealism.

Well said, except a minor quibble, if I may:

The empirical reality of objects is grounded in the fact that they conform to the universal and necessary structures of cognition (space, time, causality, and so forth). — Wayfarer

Knowledge of objects, which just is experience itself….is grounded in the possibility of conforming to…

Empirical reality is mere appearance, “….that which corresponds to a sensation in general…”

I guess that for me Kant's (…) approach is incomplete…. — boundless

With respect to D'Espagnat’s thesis on, as you say, “…‘reality beyond/before phenomena' has its own structure that is 'veiled' for us (and by studying the 'empirical world' we can know 'as through a glass darkly')…”, the only way it would work, that is, to have sufficient explanatory power, would be to re-define the structure of transcendental arguments beyond the Kantian norm. Otherwise, there is only contradiction.

Kant’s philosophy regarding empirical knowledge is complete within itself; anyone can call it incomplete when taken beyond the measure by which its completeness was already given.

Better to say D’Espagnat developed a more complete epistemic idealist theory grounded in transcendental realism, than to say Kant developed a less complete epistemic theory because it wasn’t.

Entirely a Kantian.

Yes. Of a certain kind.

Actually, technically, a dualist.

But to understand why idealism is important, we need to be clear about what prompted its emergence…. — Wayfarer

Sapere aude

S’all good.

Question: how do you arrive at….

But you beg the question, which is whether speaking of something affects it. — Ludwig V

….from….

As soon as you name a ‘world’ or a ‘thing’ or ‘an unknown object’ which you claim is unaffected by or separate from your thought of it, you are already bringing it within the ambit of thought. — Wayfarer

First of all, why isn’t it “effects” rather than “affects”?
But most of all, the second doesn’t say anything about speaking of something, which makes the question-begging claim irrelevant. Doesn’t it?

To name is to first think, that is, to conceive, that which is subsequently cognized in a judgement. To name a ‘thing’ is to already have conceived that which is represented in a cognition as a particular thing. It follows that to name a ‘thing’ is not the same as a thing named.

You said nothing is changed by speaking of it, which is true, but your comment referenced something which wasn’t claiming anything was spoken. I got confused, is all.

Just wonderin’…..
—————-

On Cambridge change:

“….Among the trivial subjects of discussion in the old schools of dialectics was this question: “If a ball cannot pass through a hole, shall we say that the ball is too large or the hole too small?” In this case it is indifferent what expression we employ; for we do not know which exists for the sake of the other. On the other hand, we cannot say: “The man is too long for his coat”; but: “The coat is too short for the man.”

We are thus led to the well-founded suspicion that (…) all the conflicting sophistical assertions (…), are based upon a false and fictitious conception of the mode in which the object of these ideas is presented to us; and this suspicion will probably direct us how to expose the illusion that has so long led us astray from the truth….”
(A490/B518)

I bring this up only to show, once again, what seems new, mostly isn’t.

…how is that by which one decides what his relation to himself is. — boundless

From a purely speculative metaphysical perspective, bottom line is, one’s decision on his relation to himself follows necessarily from whether or not the volitions of his will justify his worthiness of being happy. Clear conscience on steroids, so to speak.

….which article…. — Ludwig V

https://www.bing.com/search?q=veil+of+perception&form=APIPA1&PC=APPD
————

….do we seek to know a thing, or do we seek to know the cause of a sensation?
— Mww

What if a thing is the cause of a sensation? — Ludwig V

That’s given; there’s no knowledge in a given, arguments from Plato and Russell aside. Next in timeline from the given thing that causes a sensation, is the sensation itself, and it is there that the system is triggered, booted, if you will, into function.

What do I care that you have the cutest damn kid ever, if I’ve never seen it?
————

It all depends on what you mean by "know". — Ludwig V

What I mean is, to know is to end a systematic cognitive method in a possible experience, given a particular sensation. Logically, that reduces to simply…..knowledge is experience, and from which follows the fundamental justification for affirming mind-independent reality.

What about you? What do you mean by “know”?

Are you saying that the methods by which we come to know what something is aren't methods at all? — Ludwig V

Of course not; that’s self-contradictory. I’m saying the method by which things in particular are known, re: the system, in whichever form it may have, is very far from talking about the things possible to know, re: reality in general.

….thinking of what enables us to know what a thing is as a veil between us and what we seek to know — Ludwig V

I dunno, man; what enables us to know is a system of cognition; thinking of what enables us to know is philosophizing about a system of cognition. Those don’t fit the conceptual “veil”. On the other hand, the representation, not being the thing, but necessarily that of which our knowledge consists, is a better fit for the conceptual “veil”, but to think of what enables us to know, the system itself, is not to think of representations, which are mere parts of the system. For a whole boatload of -isms reflecting the confusion this nonsense brings, see the SEP article.
————-

Riddle me this: do we seek to know a thing, or do we seek to know the cause of a sensation?

Pretty silly, methinks. I know what a basketball is, but trust me when I say there isn’t and never was any such thing in my head. Why should both of those judgements be so apodeitically yet trivially true, but some folks still want to make some sort of veil out of it? And….spoiler alert…therein lay the answer to the riddle.

That's why we know that things are not entirely dependent on our minds. — Ludwig V

Ehhhhh….on the other side of a very large coin, why we know things are not entirely dependent on our minds, is because it is not things we know, from which follows nothing of a thing is dependent on our minds. A simple re-stating of the thread title.

Havin’ fun yet?

I would say that morality also is about how one relates to others. — boundless

To get to the bottom, though, it might be closer, to say morality is that by which one decides what his relation to others ought to be, irrespective of the particular incident for which a morally predicated act is required. What I mean is, how one relates to others, or, the manner by which the relation manifests, requires some relevant act, but something else must be the ground for determining what the act ought to be.

Another two cents, and an entirely different philosophical doctrine, then merely supporting the mind-independence of reality.

….one can be moral or immoral even when alone. — boundless

One is moral or immoral only if he is alone. Otherwise, he is possibly criminal, or merely unethical, which stand as objects of moral dispositions, but says nothing regarding the determinations of them.

Caveat: this under the assumption morality, in and of itself, is an intrinsic human condition, and if so, can only be represented in himself, by himself, because of himself. Criminality and ethics presupposes a community in which a member can be alone within; morality itself, does not, and indeed, such communal presupposition negates the validity of intrinsic condition.

Two cents…

….cognitive disorientation….
—Wayfarer

Disorientation is a good way of characterizing philosophical problems. But I don't experience that here. — Ludwig V

Cognitive disorientation: the empirical kind, a posteriori, and properly reduced, occurs when we say we know what a thing is but we don’t realize it is not the thing but always and only the representation of it, to which such knowledge expression relates. So yes, you, and everyone else, is a victim of it, but it isn’t an experience, as such. It is the mistake of conflating the occurrence of a cognitive method with the post hoc ergo propter hoc expression of its functional terminations.

Some folks like to quip….the universe doesn’t care what the human thinks about it, it is what it is. Compounded categorical errors aside, it is at least consistent to quip that human thought doesn’t care what the universe is. It remains the case that the universe, or, with respect to empirical knowledge, the objects contained in it, can never be comprehended as anything but that of which the human mode of intellectual determinations prescribes. Why these should be considered incompatible with each other, is beyond reason itself.

It only becomes a contradiction if you claim the existence of misunderstanding, and also claim the lack of existence of anything. — noAxioms

Which is precisely what you did, on both counts, affirming the LNC violation you asked for.

I don't see how the lack of anything violates any of those laws…. — noAxioms

…..and yet, in order to not understand what I said, what I said necessarily must have been something that appeared to your senses. Hence, the LNC….which follows from the quoted absurdity on the bottom of pg17….you can’t claim to misunderstand something that wasn’t there.

Same deal with the cause/effect principle. What I said caused your misunderstanding; your misunderstanding is an effect causally related to what I said. If I hadn’t said it you wouldn’t have misunderstood it.

….I don't need idealists defending the realist view…. — noAxioms

….and yet an idealist can defend a realist view better than a realist, insofar as the latter denies, or at least refuses to acknowledge that he necessarily employs, the very intellectual machinations the former provides, for defending anything at all. Not to mention, of course, a proper idealist is in fact a dualist, as are all humans, with respect to their fundamentally relational cognitive powers.

(Sigh)

I admitted to unabashedly supporting mind-independent reality, which makes explicit something that is, and is necessarily, regardless of what I think about it.
— Mww

I agree. The interesting part is which items qualify as mind-independent and under what criteria. — Ludwig V

For me anyway, the only mind-independent items are those I don’t think about, either particularly, from the lack of occassion yet for which an experience is nonetheless possible immediately upon such occassion, or, generally, from the impossibility of a conception sufficient to represent them, for which there can never be an experience at all.

This relates iff mind-dependence begins at intuition, not perception, insofar as, with respect to criteria, at intuition is the first representational construct, which replaces the empirically real of things effecting the senses, in a theoretical point of view regarding the human intellectual system.

I’m not a fan of the concept of mind; all that is mind can be replaced by reason. The explanatory power of mind I can do without; of reason I cannot.

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

What’s violated, absent the something that necessarily is…the LNC and the principle of cause/effect.

….reality is real because it's necessary. — noAxioms

Reality is not real; things that appear to the senses are real, and those are real necessarily. Reality is merely that general pure conception representing the totality of real things that appear to the senses, and from which the possibility of experience itself, is given.

I find both "empirically objective" and "rationally subjective" to be somewhat contradictory terms. It is quite difficult to communicate with such a gulf in how we choose to use language. — noAxioms

Ehhhh….we use language the same way, as means to represent a favored system, one in which you find the terms contradictory, another in which I find them complementary. The gulf resides in the disparity of the systems, not so much the words used to talk about them.

Objective implies something that is, independent of context. — noAxioms

As first responder herein, I admitted to unabashedly supporting mind-independent reality, which makes explicit something that is, and is necessarily, regardless of what I think about it.

I’m not sure how to relate the mind-independence of reality with context-independence, if mind just is the context from which reality is independent. If mind is necessary context for that objective which is independent, it follows the totality of context-independence for the objective, is impossible.

Most interesting set of comments. I’m sort of attracted to new things my old ways would like to snub but realize quickly they’re not properly qualified for it.

Natural philosophy – as the systems science legacy of Aristotelean metaphysics – got it right. We won. — apokrisis

Yet “I” am still here.

It seems a thermostat has some sort of nature in itself just like anything else. — noAxioms

Nature in itself? I’m not sure how you mean the concept of nature to be understood in these cases, but I personally can think of no reason to even consider what the nature of a thermostat, or anything of existential likeness, might be. I can’t be blamed, given this general idea of a thing’s nature, for thinking a hammer’s latent nature, manifest sooner or later, is to hit my thumb instead of the nail.
————-

….something appearing to something's senses makes it by definition subjective, not objective. — noAxioms

My use of appearance merely indicates the presence of a thing as an effect on my senses, which is the parsimonious method for distinguishing the empirically objective from the rationally subjective. The effect of the thing on my senses by its appearance, affects me as a sensation, and THAT is where subjectivity arises. Effect of the object is the affect on the subject.
—————-

I don't think anything at all has objective existence…… — noAxioms

Interesting. Where do you find fault with the concept of objectivity, then?

Collingwood: the only modernization of Kant worth a damn. (That I know about)

Absolute presuppositions of the one, are the transcendental principles of the other.

….that because physics finds no purpose, the universe therefore has none. This is not science speaking, but metaphysics ventriloquizing through the authority of science. — Wayfarer

….and doing it badly, first, in that the impossible is not analytically contained in the merely insufficient, and second, effect is always analytically conjoined with cause, but purpose, and by categorical subsummation a priori, intent, is not necessarily conjoined with effect.

Just tickled by the catchy phrase, I was. Nothing particularly noteworthy in what I said. Common knowledge sorta thing, I hope.

What would a thermostat-in-itself even mean?
— Mww

Well it wouldn't have the name 'thermostat', and it wouldn't even have 'thingness'….. — noAxioms

Pretty much, yep, hence….unintelligible.

How is it being 'natural' or intentionally created or not in any way have any bearing on the nature of the thing in itself? — noAxioms

It isn’t a question of natural; it’s naturally-occuring. It relates to things-in-themselves only insofar as things-in-themselves are the only necessary naturally-occuring existents, which, of course, a thermostat is not. To say or even imply it is the one is unintelligible, to say or imply it is the other is a contradiction.

….whether or not the objective reality of a thermostat….
— Mww

It being an objective thing is already a mind-dependent assessment. — noAxioms

I don’t agree. All that’s required for being an objective thing, is the possibility of its appearance to our senses, which, the senses being purely physiological in function, is very far from mind-dependent.

Now, I grant the logic from which this is the major is mind dependent, but in such case, the objective thing is presupposed as given, and THAT is not mind-dependent. If infinite regress is not nipped in the bud, every cognitive speculation is immediately reduced to junk, the human empirical knowledge theoretically possible from it is lost, and all the toaster ovens, particle colliders and…..er, you know…..thermostats, just never were.

….a question posed to nature…. — ChatGPT

“…. It is only the principles of reason which can give to concordant phenomena the validity of laws, and it is only when experiment is directed by these rational principles that it can have any real utility. Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose….”
(B intro)

Cool. Bot ‘n’ I read the same book.

Oh. I missed the clue. Sorry.

What a thermostat would be like absent human experience, is unintelligible, insofar as any named thing follows from a possible human experience. That being given, the reverse proves the case, for it remains impossible, absent human experience, to cognize how that in-itself could ever be referred to as thermostat. Or, simply put….how does a thermostat-in-itself get its name?

You might be thinking the thermostat-in-itself is the one outside my kitchen window, that I don’t experience from my tv room. Be that as it may, that thermostat, while a natural object, is not for that reason alone a naturally occuring object, nor is it absent my experience, but only my immediate awareness.

Agreed: less critical. Kant’s absent human experience means all and every human experience, ever. A totality irrespective of time.

What would a thermostat-in-itself even mean?

Could there ever be a thermostat that wasn't a possible human experience?

The question never was - is a thermostat a natural object, which is easily affirmed - but whether or not the objective reality of a thermostat, re: the existence of it, reduces to a necessary conscious reflection of a particular intelligence.

Even the idea of a naturally-occurring thermostat still requires some human cognitive relation by which such thing meets the rational criteria employed in the experience of that thing to which the conceptual representation initially applies. Is Ol’ Faithful a thermostat?

I wonder….but not very much….what these AI chatbots would say about that.

Long live the observer.

I got a ton of unreal stuff in mine, bordering on a chaotic rhapsody if I’m being honest, all of which I’m somehow persuaded I can’t do without.

Language games. Put unreal stuff in an unreal place, then call it by real names. Sure. Why not.

But I do have a problem with the skimpy version of the idea that we have here. It is a fragment of the practice of betting — Ludwig V

I agree it is a skimpy version of the idea, and it is a fragment of the practice itself. I was thinking to highlight the history, the origin and purpose the idea represents, rather than its manifestation as a practice.

When push comes to shove, it seems to me elaboration of the idea into a practice degrades the dialectic regarding it, to a psychologically-bounded exhibition, when it started as a metaphysical idea. In other words, we’re at the ends of a thing without the means by which the thing occurs, from which arises the legitimate right to ask, not about what or how much the bet, which presupposes no more than the belief related to it, but rather, the composition of the belief itself such that a bet relative to it represents defense of that composition. So we have what looks like belief in a belief, which is absurd.
—————-

“The usual test, whether that which any one maintains is (…) his firm belief, is a bet.”

From a subjective point of view, isn’t it possible for one to bet on his firm belief, shown subsequently some conditions by which his construction of it is flawed, yet still firmly maintains it? Furthermore, in Kant, there are those beliefs in the purely empirical domain of which maintaining the firmness of them is irrational in which case some tests are failed, but there are others in the purely moral domain, the firm maintenance of them is necessary, in which case every test is passed.

And this is what happens when skimpy versions are filled out. Or….bloated, as some might say (grin)

….philosophy is “larger” than science…. — Antony Nickles

No science, besides the accidental, is ever done that isn’t first thought, but even accidental science makes necessary thought relative to purpose.
—————-

Bernard Williams offers some of his own thoughts about the nature of philosophical inquiry. He points to a familiar problem: We would like some sort of absolute knowledge…. — J

Yeah, humans, huh? If they want something badly enough, they’ll change the conditions under which it was formerly impossible, in order to satisfy themselves that it isn’t. First glance, absolute knowledge is unintelligible; second glance, absolute knowledge is at least conceivably transcendent relative to human intelligence; third glance, absolute knowledge as a valid conception, the attainment of which remains nonetheless logically impossible; at some future glance, absolute knowledge may be provided by empirical science. They’ll talk it to death, thereby losing sight of what set the stage in the first place.

A true brain teaser, given from and determinable only by that which refuses access to its works, all the while allowing us the knowledge that we don’t know how it works.

Funny animal it may seem, yet still be nonetheless relevant to the topic at hand. Or, I guess, now, the sub-topic.