What's weird about my view is its stubborn and intense anthropocentrism. — plaque flag

I’m a firm supporter of the relation between the human intellect, and the method by which the world is understood by means of it. It’s not weird at all, it’s impossible that is could be otherwise.

Feuerbach — plaque flag

YIKES!!! A Young Hegelian?!?! Schopenhaur’s favorite targets, and he t’weren’t proper gentlemanly about it, neither.

the world is only for or through such persons. (….) the world is independent of any particular individual subject, — plaque flag

Do these not contradict each other? Or, how do these not contradict each other? Can a thing be both for and through, and independent of that for which it is for and through?

To whose transcendental ego have you favored as your own?

I'd say the subject is just a person, a total human being. — plaque flag

So no subject/object dualism?

So I'll concede that, strictly speaking, bodies do not experience. — plaque flag

So tacit acknowledgement of subject/object dualism?

There is no right or wrong here. Just whatever one favors, er…..subjectively.

Is anything real ? — plaque flag

Of course. Just shouldn’t mix the empirically real with the logically valid.

Are you really (earnestly) claiming that human bodies experiencing the world aren't real ? — plaque flag

Human bodies are real;
Experience is a condition of an intelligent subject;
The body is not an intelligent subject;
Bodies do not experience.

our subjectivity only makes sense if understood as localized in world-encompassed flesh. — plaque flag

Ehhhh…..subjectivity is just another in a series of useful fictions and makes sense only in speculative metaphysics, a useful fiction which has its location in pure reason, a useless fiction itself….and the fictional circle is enlarged and self-sustained by the quantity of useful fictions contained by it. As such, its locality is irrelevant….even metaphorically….when elucidation of its purpose is all that can be expected of it.
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I can only aspire not to be stupid about it…. — Janus

Aye. You, me, and hopefully all those who “rise to the height of speculation”.

We know nothing of a world apart from the one given to our timebinding cultural flesh, though this same flesh can daydream about pure ur-matter or pure fleshless subjectivity, forgetting itself as a condition of possibility for that daydream — plaque flag

Which reflects back on that age-old dilemma….the body is certainly necessary, but it is not itself sufficient for such subjectivity. What is given to the cultural flesh is useless without that which has the capacity to do something with it, and even if cultural flesh is merely a euphemism for the brain, the knowledge how regarding subjectivity, is still as missing as it ever was.

I get my realism directly, I’m here to tell ya, got the scars and assorted blemishes to prove it, which is very much the same as reality not being hidden from me. How it is understood may be incorrect, but I can still go through the motions.

— plaque flag

Are we then allowed to say…..(the) actually perceived…..should….be regarded as…. intrinsically foreign to it…. — Husserl

“The physical thing as determined by physics, however, is nothing foreign to what appears sensuously”
-Husserl

Ok. One problem solved. The second just says the first should not be allowed.
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“What makes itself known here — by being made known in intentional unities pertaining to mental processes of consciousness — is obviously something essentially transcendent. According to all this it is clear that even the higher transcendency characterizing the physical thing as determined by physics does not signify reaching out beyond the world which is for consciousness, or for every Ego functioning as a cognizing subject.”
-Husserl — plaque flag

It is clear that the physical thing determined by physics as obviously something transcendent yet at the same time does not signify reaching out beyond the world which is for consciousness….disregards the concept of immanence, insofar as the domain in question herein, is determined physical things.

How does that which is made known in intensional unities pertaining to mental processes of consciousness, signifying a conjunction with such processes, have at the same time a higher transcendent characterization? There is no real difficulty, as long as one understands the use of transcendent as a characterization under certain conditions, conforms to the notion of transcendental characterization under generally similar conditions, albeit from a greater specificity regarding the method for appearance-processes, re: A288/B344.

Nahhhh….the real problem arises from the former, transcendent, characterizes determinations by physics hence contained in consciousness, whereas the latter, transcendental, denies the very possibility of any determination, hence to consciousness.

Husserl justifies the noumena Kant prohibits, by assigning a different quality and domain to transcendental logic.

General commentary, or, the fine line between critical thought and throwing Jello at a wall. As says, philosophy is thinking for oneself, carrying the tacit implication that he’s not being stupid about it.

…..our deliberations….did not take due notice of the physical thing as determined by physics….for which…. (the perceptually given) physical thing (…) is said to function as a “mere appearance,” perhaps even as something “merely sub­jective.”…. — Husserl

Are we then allowed to say…..(the) actually perceived…..should….be regarded as an appearance of…..something else, intrinsically foreign to it and separated from it? May we say that, theoretically considered, this something else should be accepted as a reality, completely unknown by acquaintance, which must be assumed hypothetically in order to explain the course of mental appearance- processes? — Husserl

…..such theories are possible only as long as one avoids seriously fixing one’s eyes on, and scientifically exploring, the sense of a physical thing-datum and, therefore, of “any physical thing whatever,” a sense implicit in experience’s own essence, the sense which functions as the absolute norm for all rational discourse about physical things. — Husserl

The perceived physical thing itself is always and necessarily precisely the thing which the physicist explores and scientifically determines following the method of physics. — Husserl

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Apparently, the physical thing determined by physics is other than the perceptually given thing of mere appearance.

What does it mean for the actually perceived to be regarded as an appearance of something else?

How can that appearance of something which is or should be accepted as a reality, at the same time be completely unknown…..by acquaintance?

While it may be the case the physical thing is separate from its mere appearance, it does not follow from the separation, that it is intrinsically foreign to it, which casts dispersions on the claim the appearance is of something else than the physical thing determined by physicists.

If theories for the course of mental appearance-processes hypothetically assumes the reality of the something else of mere appearances, a sense implicit in experience’s own essence, which presupposes it must be known by acquaintance, to then claim the perceived physical thing itself be always and necessarily the thing the physicist explores, is self-contradictory.

Husserl 1929: the origin of transcendental logic is predicated on the content of judgements being genuine objects which “mental appearance-processes” require, re: phenomenology;
Kant 1787: the origin of transcendental logic is predicated on form alone, irrespective of the empirical content “mental appearance-processes” would require, re: pure a priori synthetic propositions.

And so it goes….

Cool. So is innatist epistemology an offshoot of, or derived from, the rational idealist doctrine, or implicitly contained in it? Or is it the other way around?

Not being familiar with Cudworth, I went to SEP, and it starts off by saying his philosophy “defies classification”. Is he the root of your rational idealist tendencies, cuz he’s the earliest? Minor contributor?

I'm not a fan of reductionism. — Manuel

Well then. Here we go again. A proponent of reasonable elimination, but not of reductionism.

Sorta like eating soup with a fork, innit?

Agreed on +/- 90%; the rest here is just filler. Not important.

We eliminate as much as we reasonably can — Manuel

Ooooo….a metaphysical reductionist. Ain’t you just fulla all kindsza surprises.

Gonna have to amend my Christmas card list. You know…after I start one.

Cool. Noumena limits a priori what can be thought with respect to the nature of reality, the ding an sich limits a posteriori what can be experienced of it.

Once a dualist always a dualist, right?

All I'm claiming, is that I believe the idea of the "thing-in-itself" is more coherent, for the type of limiting notion Kant was introducing. — Manuel

Ok, I’ll buy it. Let’s finalize: what limiting notion does the thing-in-itself represent?

If we want to attribute only what is strictly necessary to such an idea as the negative noumenon, then it is simpler to assume the existence of a single "thing" — Manuel

Ok, I get that. Without a minimal content, any conception is empty hence meaningless. The idea, or in Kant-speak, the notion, of the thing-in-itself, is a simple concept, the strict necessity of which would be only its negative relation to things that are met with intuition. Such is a function of logic.

But there are still a multiplicity of examples that conform to the notion, and don’t contradiction the rule that the experience of them as objects is impossible. A single example may well suffice for the idea, but it won’t hold for the affects of things on our sensibility.

Just for the record, there is the argument that the strict necessity for an idea, is the comprehension of the relation of the conceptions contained in its definition. I would agree, under this condition, that to say things-in-themselves, the plurality of the idea, adds to the conception that which is superfluous. Does this get us on the same page?

Plurality is a category and can only apply to phenomena…. — Jamal

I thought we were talking about the plurality of real existences, which phenomena are not but representations of real existences.

Categories apply to the thought of things, which would include those which appear in whatever quantity, which in turn presuppose the thing-in-itself from which each are given.
———

We see plurality….. — Manuel

Do we? Or do we think it, in connection to a series of relations?

Is the best place to find Schopenhaur’s objection in the Appendix for WWR? Don’t recall the argument, but…I’m old and forget shit all the time, donchaknow.

Guess I’m missing something here. If for every thing there is the thing in itself, therefore for a plurality of things it follows necessarily that there are a plurality of things in themselves. Just doesn’t seem like an assumption.
———-



What??? Two of you? What do you guys know that I can’t seem to get a grip on?

isn't Kant making an assumption by saying there are "things in themselves"? — Manuel

Nope. The rest of that thinking/cognizing quote reads: “…. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears, which would be absurd….”

Not knowing what a thing-in-itself is, is very far from knowing that there must be a thing-in-itself.

Oh. And how the HELL can “ that which is originally itself only appearance” have a name?

“….. It is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us à posteriori (…) ….the undetermined object of an empirical intuition…. ”. When he fills in with “…e.g., a rose…” he’s already considered the time between the appearance of the undetermined object, and the name for understanding the phenomenon representing the appearance.

Matter, as such, cannot have a name, which is a representation derived from the synthesis of conceptions, hence given from thought, not sensation.

“…. Conceptions may be logically compared without the trouble of inquiring to what faculty their objects belong, whether as noumena, to the understanding, or as phenomena, to sensibility. If, however, we wish to employ these conceptions in respect of objects, previous transcendental reflection is necessary. Without this reflection I should make a very unsafe use of these conceptions, and construct pretended synthetical propositions which critical reason cannot acknowledge and which are based solely upon a transcendental amphiboly, that is, upon a substitution of an object of pure understanding for a phenomenon….”
(A270/B326, in Meiklejohn 1855)

Hmmmm. Round peg, round hole; square peg, square hole.

Got it.

Next?

Catastrophically irrelevant.

That’s some good stuff right there, and thank you for it.

….is Kant actually progressing critically and undogmatically as he claims? — Count Timothy von Icarus

“…. This critical science is not opposed to the dogmatic procedure of reason in pure cognition; for pure cognition must always be dogmatic, that is, must rest on strict demonstration from sure principles à priori—but to dogmatism, that is, to the presumption that it is possible to make any progress with a pure cognition, derived from (philosophical) conceptions, according to the principles which reason has long been in the habit of employing—without first inquiring in what way and by what right reason has come into the possession of these principles….”

It seems to me, that given the three listed “problems of pure reason”, for which no conclusions are to be obtained, he proves it is not possible to make any progress with at least some pure cognitions. On the other hand, while stipulating what those “sure principles a priori” actually are, he doesn’t say how reason comes into possession of them. Reason being the faculty of principles, I suppose we’re left with a rather loose end.

Which is why, in the end, metaphysics can never be a proper science.

that is just what language is, whether "ordinary" lingo or mathematical or formal logical. — Janus

Ahhhh…..of course you’re quite right. I got stuck on language = ordinary lingo. (head explodes)
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I agree, in principle, in that it is a legitimate criticism. Kant’s analysis generally concerns reason, which is internal to us and hence tacitly separates us from the world. “Entrapping us” is kinda harsh, but still true enough, beside the fact he pretty much admits to it, at A247/B303, insofar as…..paraphrased……“the proud name of ontology must give way to analysis”. And it is easy to see why this is so, given that the human system works exclusively with internal representations of things, but not external things in themselves.

I never would regard ChatGPT as an authoritative source. — Quixodian

WHEW!!! I regard you as perhaps the most well-read participant herein, so to see you reference a glorified typewriter…..well, ‘Nuff said.

the language that we speak fundementally shapes how we experience the world, turns out to be quite weak….. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I think it surely must be. Nature shapes, words express the shape.

I detest OLP with a passion. I relegate the doctrine to cover those that would find more value in talk than thought. And while it may indeed be the case humans talk all the damn time (yawn), it is even more the case they one and all think even more than they talk, so……there ya go.

Kant altered the meaning of ‘noumena’ in line with his philosophical requirements. — Quixodian

Oddly true, and slightly disappointing, in juxtaposition to…..

“…. even if the original meaning of the word has become somewhat uncertain, from carelessness or want of caution on the part of the authors of it, it is always better to adhere to and confirm its proper meaning—even although it may be doubtful whether it was formerly used in exactly this sense—than to make our labour vain by want of sufficient care to render ourselves intelligible….” (A312/B369)

….and even if noumena wasn’t an example of what he was saying, it remains that he is tacitly suggesting the original meaning of some words are not as they should have been, which justifies the robbery of a word in its original sense, and substitute for it a different sense, in order to render himself more intelligible than the original would have allowed.

I guess the point was…better to rob an old word with its altered implications for which a reader might adjust himself, than to manufacture a new one for which he can’t.

As Mww has pointed out, and if he is right, things in themselves are not noumena. — Janus

Far be it from me to claim I’m right, but I know what I read and I’m pretty sure I understood what I read.

“…. things in themselves, while possessing a real existence….” (Bxx)

“…. cogitated by the understanding alone, and call them intelligible existences (noumena).” (B306)
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we can have no idea about its (our thinking’s) soundness except it has empirical or logical justification. — Janus

Exactly. Empirical justification is experience, logical justification is non-contradiction.
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Is abstract reasoning not all and only a matter of language use? — Janus

Interesting. In what way would that be true?
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I disagree that "anything experienced has already been conceptualized" is necessarily true. — T Clark

Absolutely. That proposition is merely a theoretical tenet, hence shouldn’t be considered as necessarily true. It is still worthy of being considered nonetheless logically consistent and sufficiently explanatory.
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This leads to the criticism that Kant's analysis cuts us off from the world, entrapping us in our own subjectively-modulated reality. — Quixodian

Do you consider that a legitimate criticism?

….an example of a concept that is easy to grasp in principle, but is almost impossible to form or recognise an image of. — Quixodian

Correctly stated in Descartes, its formal exposition found in “Schematism of the Pure Understanding”, for whatever it’s worth. It is actually quite impossible to prove with apodeictic certainty one has accurately constructed a complex image in complete homogenous correspondence to its mere thought.

Lao Tzu would say you can experience the Tao. You just can't conceptualize it or speak about it. — T Clark

I’m no Taoist, that's for sure, but in western philosophy generally and Enlightenment German idealism in particular, anything experienced has already been conceptualized, and therefore can be spoken about.

Experience is an end, not happening without the orderly means.

Ahhh…gotcha. Thanks.

I’d agree, but what was said that enabled that thought of yours?

So, it seems noumena belong to an empty set, which cannot even be named or categorized? — Janus

Pretty much spot on, I think. At least so by humans, iff our intelligence is properly described by transcendental speculative metaphysics. I mean, the one responsible for all this “…. ambiguity, which may easily occasion great misapprehension…..”, never once listed or gave an example of a proper noumenal object. In short because we are not equipped with the means for the experience of them. That doesn’t mean there are no such things as noumena, that noumena are impossible things, for we have no right to say what Nature provides, but only that experience of them is impossible for us, and strictly intuitive sensibilities in general.

…..it may be possible to give an example of some kind of thing. — Janus

So it should be clear now, it never was about kinds of things, but only about kinds of intellectual systems. Or maybe one could say, it isn’t about the kinds of things we can’t know, but only the kind of things we can, and THAT because of the kind of intellectual system we are supposed as possessing, and by which we know anything.

All this confusion simply because “…I can think whatever I wish…”,

……and I can think whatever I wish because…..

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

…..and it may just be that Kant painted himself into a corner, insofar as if he limits understanding he immediately falsifies the proposition that I can think whatever I wish, a contradiction because I can in fact do just that…..like, you know…..non-natural causality, a.k.a. freedom, and Planck scales and oh, yeah: noumena. In order to alleviate the conundrum, he made it so instead of limiting understanding, he limited the other faculties from being influenced by its contributions, antecedently making intuition strictly sensuous, thereby being undisturbed by intellectual infringements, and, by making reason the faculty of principles by which understanding is subsequently legislated a priori, in which case reason effectively blocks knowledge, which manifests in us as either the mistakes of a forced judgement, or the mere confusion of a judgement inconsistent with prior experience. Perfectly in order with overall Kantian dualism: intuitive perception on the one hand, logical judgement on the other and n’er the twain shall meet but work together they must for a common end, experience, or, which is the same thing, empirical knowledge.

Easy peasy. Plain as the nose on yer frontend skull covering.

can you give me an example of anything that would be classed as noumenal? — Janus

Absolutely not. Humans have an intuitive sensibility, which makes explicit the necessity for real physical things external to us, conditioned by space and time. Intuition is the means by which objects are represented in us; it follows that non-intuitive intelligences for us are incomprehensible. But noumena are not represented in sensuous intuition, if they were they’d be phenomena, being nothing but conceptions belonging to understanding alone, hence there is nothing whatsoever represented from intuition by them, hence nothing for which understanding to conjoin its otherwise empirical conceptions, hence nothing to cognize as object. Thought without content is void, remember?

This is why the title of the chapter is the division of objects into phenomena and noumena. The former is for those intelligences that have a sensuous faculty of intuitive representation conditioned by space and time, the latter is for those intelligences the sensuous faculty of which is non-intuitive and for which there may not even be any pure intuitions at all.

The purpose of the Critique is to show the proper limits of reason. But if Kant says I can think whatever I wish so long as I don’t contradict myself…what limits my thinking such that I can’t contradict myself? That limit is the mere conception of noumena, in that I can think it as I wish, but I can do not the least damn thing with it, and if I try, I must contradict myself, insofar as I am attempting the impossible because I must use faculties I don’t even have, or….what’s worse….misuse the only ones I do have.

If only objects of the senses, that is those things which appear to us are things in themselves…… — Janus

Things that appear to us, cannot be things as they are in themselves. Upon affecting us, things are no longer in or of themselves.

If only objects of the senses, that is those things which appear to us (….), would space, time, causality and the perceiving subject be noumena, according to Kant? — Janus

I’d have to say no. While it is the case these are never given as appearances, therefore can never be phenomena, doesn’t thereby mean they are noumena. Space and time are not conceptions understanding thinks on its own accord, they are pure intuitions, so do not meet the criteria for noumena. Causality is a derivative manifestation of a category, which is a conception but not one understanding thinks on its own accord, insofar as it arises from a transcendental deduction of reason, the faculty of principles, so also does not meet the criteria for noumena.

The perceiving subject is unclassifiable, I think. Or maybe I just don’t know to which class it belongs. Technically, subjects don’t perceive, that being the domain of the senses. Subjects are that which comprehends, or that to which comprehension belongs, is about as far as I’d go with what it is, but I’d be ok with stipulating what it isn’t, that being noumenon.

‘Tis a wicked game we play, innit? With our opinions?

Thanks. ‘Preciate it.

”What things things is not itself a thing” — T Clark

Marvelous subtelty in there as well.

Yes, with the caveat that an object of understanding is logical only, whereas an object of sense is empirical. Since both types of cognitions belong to a thinking subject, then it follows that the general conception acts as a logical object for whichever subjects thinks it. And, of course, first off, no mere conception of anything is sufficient for its existence, and second, very few of them bother.

Oh. And noumena are not thing-in-themselves, which are always real physical worldly objects. Noumena can never be an appearance to humans, according to transcendental philosophy, for otherwise a representation would follow, which it cannot insofar as noumena are nothing but objects the understanding thinks on its own, whereas representations from perception in humans, is always sensuous and never only intellectual. Other theories may have different conditions, but those are not being considered when Kant is the given author.

Nahhhh…..the text stipulates noumena may be treated as things-in-themselves, in that neither are subjected to the totality of the human intellectual system in the pursuit of knowledge a posteriori, but that does not make them the same. I mean, what warrant would there be to make the claim that they are, when it is impossible to know anything about either of them? I’d be forced into the absurdity of claiming….it is impossible that I know what this is, but I know that is just like it. (Sigh)

Noumena. What happens when that which is trained to be an eye doctor, wants to use that training to be a structural engineer. It isn’t as contradictory as it is misguided.

Understanding is misguided when it takes upon itself to think transcendentally, which it is fully entitled to do without self-contradiction, that object for which its cognitive training extends only to empirical referents.

It follows that to think noumena as a general conception is not contradictory, but to cognize a singular noumenal object as a referent for that general conception, is impossible, as it is for every transcendentally conceived object absent its intuitive representation.

Oh, so….I think, therefore thinking is occurring? I get it, but that reflects on ’s note on tautological truths and minimal relations, in that the switch wouldn’t lead to a productive philosophy. He wasn’t interested in the thinking, which was never in doubt, but only in that which thinks, and that as something other than object.

Descartes should have said: "thinking is occurring." — Tom Storm

“….. I take the word ‘thought’ to cover everything that we are aware of as happening within us, and it counts as ‘thought’ because we are aware of it. That includes not only understanding, willing and imagining, but also sensory awareness…..”
( Principia Philosophiae, 1. 9., 1644)

Pretty indicative of occurring, I should think.

Still, there will be those that insist heartbeats are thoughts…..occurring inside and conscious of, and all that…..hence the advent of a proposed substance not the kind to be laid out on the cutting table.

Have it your way.

Ok. Thanks.

Does Being present itself directly to humans, or do humans have to re-present being? — charles ferraro

Only things are presented, being is not a thing so is not presented. And while things that are presented presuppose the necessity of their existence, or if one wishes to say the necessity of their being, there is nothing gained by exchanging one for the other.

Cogito I understand. What is pre-reflective cogito?

I do not agree with your interpretation of Kant here. — Metaphysician Undercover

Be that as it may…..I mean, you pretty much disagree with everybody…..it is clear that priority in the mind, as such, cannot be phenomena.