It was intended as an alternative account, not a representation of Kant's account.

Given the above, it is clear this is not the case, under the assumption the object the mind knows of, is the same object the mind may not know all of. It is absurd to suppose the dark side of the moon, at those times in which there was no experience of it, there was only the dark-side-of-the-moon-in-itself. — Mww

The purpose of defining the in-itself in the way that I did was to avoid smuggling any ontological commitments into the definition at the outset. This is an epistemological/normative account of the in-itself, not an ontological account. Much of your response to my post amounts to a re-assertion of the dependence of the object upon the mind. You are free to set up the presuppositions of your philosophy in any way you wish, but doing so does not amount to making an argument.

That which is inferred is a strictly logical construct. Existence is a category, and all categories and their subsumed conceptions have reference only to things of experience, and never to merely logical inferences. An existence is empirically given, an inference is only logically valid. Under these conditions, it cannot be said noumena exist, but it can be said it is impossible to know they do not. — Mww

As I wrote in my recent response to Wayfarer, in classical realism form was understood to have two modes of existence - esse natruale and esse intentionale - such that the one-and-the-same form can be instantiated simultaneously both in the intellect and in the world, thereby bridging the gap between them. On this view there is no reason to presuppose that an inferred object exists only within the intellect.

But to view ourselves against that background is implicitly to view ourselves from outside of our lives, to loose sight of the significance of the fact that as intelligent subjects, we are in some vital sense the way that whole process has come to begin to understand itself. And that is not a thought that is novel to me. To view ourselves simply as a species, or as phenomena, is really an artifice. It is not actually a philosophy. — Wayfarer

Yeah, I get it, and I can relate. And while I personally don't subscribe to scientism by any means, I am sympathetic to metaphysical realism, which is why I am trying to explore your critique. I get that I'm probably not your primary target here, but the scope of the argument you presented does seem to include any position that claims we can have knowledge of mind-independent objects.

I don’t think I’m assigning an ontological status to objects. I’m not saying that objects depend for their existence on minds. I’m saying that objecthood — identity, determinacy, intelligibility — is a cognitive status, not an ontological primitive. — Wayfarer

But this is itself an ontological claim.

What do the characteristics of objecthood apply to if not to an object? I think we can (probably) both agree that objecthood must apply to an object, but notice that so far we have said nothing about whether the object is or is not dependent on the mind. In my opinion, this is as it should be. The question of whether a given object is mind-independent is a question that should be asked about specific objects, it’s not something to be settled ahead of time when inquiring into the nature of objects in general. If we stipulate that the characteristics of objecthood apply only to mind-dependent objects from the outset, then we’ve simply ruled out realism by fiat. This is fine - there’s nothing wrong with building one’s philosophy on top of such assumptions, but it doesn’t constitute an argument against realism.

But what kind of existence do they have? You can't show them to me, only explain them to me. Anything that has to be explained is conceptual, not phenomenal. — Wayfarer

Yes, I agree, but it is not uncommon for us to grant existence to things that can only be explained and not seen, like quarks or gravity.

Now you may argue that things like gravity and quarks aren’t the same because you can toss a bowling ball off a bridge to demonstrate gravity, or take me to the LHC at CERN to show how the mass of quarks is measured. In both cases I will see many things, but gravity and quarks will not be among them. Quarks and gravity are theoretical constructs that are posited in order to explain what we see, not unlike how the structure and functions of the transcendental subject are posited in order to explain phenomenal experience.

From a classical realist perspective this makes sense because in all cases the mind is grasping form. You’ll recall that in the Aristotelian tradition substance is interpreted as a metaphysical compound of matter, form (and later also existence). Form is subdivided into substantial and accidental. To understand what something is, the intellect must grasp the forms associated with it. Not copies of the forms, or representations of the forms, but the very same forms. Once understood, reason can then inquire into whether the thing exists independently of the mind. In the case of theoretical science, it is specifically the relations between things that are being tracked. Relations are a perfect example of something that can't be seen but only understood.

I don't believe that the transcendental subject is a being in a sense other than the indexical. We can't single out the transcendental subject and say what it is. I don't think that Kant thought that the transcendental subject was something we could know. — Wayfarer

True, the transcendental subject is not itself an empirical object in Kant's system, but the structure and the function of the transcendental subject is nonetheless knowable via an inference to the conditions for the possibility empirical experience. My interpretation of what Kant is arguing in CPR is that 'something' must exist that has this structure and these functions otherwise empirical experience would be impossible. This is an ontology. Noumena exist. The transcendental subject exists. However, their existence is inferred rather than experienced. If they didn't exist, then empirical experience itself would not be possible.

The “excess” disclosed in inquiry is not an object standing outside cognition, but the open-endedness of meaning itself. And notice I'm not saying there is nothing outside of or apart from the cognized object - that would be to assert its non-existence - but that, whatever we make of the object, is through that process of assimilation, whereby it becomes incorporated into the network that comprises the world of lived meanings (the 'lebenswelt'). Were it totally outside that, then we couldn't even cognize it. — Wayfarer

You are right that the 'excess' is not to be understood in ontological terms.That's the whole point, we can't start by assuming our conclusion. The question of whether any given object exists independently of the mind should be answered at the end of inquiry into the nature of that object, not assumed at the beginning. After we've inquired into the nature of the object and have judged that the object exists independently of the mind, that's it. That is just what it means to make an ontological commitment. Whereas what you are doing is defining 'object' as 'mind-dependent' from the outset, so that no matter what we learn about the object through the process of inquiry this knowledge always only applies to a mind-dependent object by definition. You are deciding the ontological status of the object in advance of the inquiry, which just begs the question.

Now, I'm not saying that the world is ontologically dependent on our cognitive acts, but that outside cognition, it means nothing to us. That is what I take the 'in-itself' to mean: that the object (or world) as it is, outside of or prior to our assimilation of it, has no identity. By identifying it as a meaningful whole, we can say it exists, or doesn't exist. — Wayfarer

But again I think you are still "smuggling" an ontology into your premises - namely, the ontology of the Kantian transcendental subject. In this ontology the content of the phenomenal world is entirely "for-consciousness" because it is the product of the operations of the mind operating on the in-itself (noumenal world). The conclusion that the in-itself is unknowable is completely predetermined by the selected ontology.

Instead of starting with ontology we could start with an analysis of acts of consciousness (such as questioning or claiming) and see what is presupposed by these acts. For instance, we can take for granted that the mind asks questions about the object without making any ontological assumptions about the relationship between the mind and the object. The act of questioning presupposes that the mind already knows enough about the object to formulate a question about it. What the mind already knows about the object is the object as it is for-consciousness. The act of questioning also implies that the mind doesn’t know everything about the object, otherwise it wouldn’t ask the question. What the mind doesn't know about the object is the object as it is in-itself. Therefore, the object as it is in-itself is in excess of the object as it is for-consciousness. Furthermore, the act of asking a question presupposes that what the mind doesn't yet know about the object (the in-itself) is knowable because, again, otherwise it wouldn't ask the question. Therefore, the act of asking a question about an object presupposes that the object as it is in-itself is knowable.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to idolize reason and rationality. It's more that I think the decline of the classical understanding of the faculty of reason has had hugely deleterious consequences. The decline of scholastic realism has had huge consequences for culture, but they're very hard to discern because nominalism is so 'baked in'.

But you and I have been through that, and this is not our fate (to quote the bard). — Wayfarer

Sorry for being so slow to reply. Part of the reason I don't post here often is because I don't always have time to keep up with the pace of these discussions.

I did want to circle back to the original issue for a moment, which was the claim that metaphysical realism is incoherent. The line of reasoning goes something like this: when the mind posits the existence of a mind-independent object (the in-itself) it is actually just generating yet another idea. Since ideas are mind-dependent, any knowledge of mind-independent objects just reduces to knowledge of mind-dependent ideas. Ergo, knowledge of the in-itself is a contradiction in terms.

But this argument already assumes an ontology in which the direct objects of the mind are ideas. In other words, it simply assumes idealism and then proceeds to deduce that realism is self-contradictory. This is illicit. Ontology cannot be the starting point for an argument against realism without begging the question.

But here is where my preferred heuristic distinguishes between what is real and what exists. I maintain that universals, numbers and logical laws are real even if they are not phenomenally existent. They are real as the 'invariant content of reason': — Wayfarer

It sounds like we would generally agree here, though I'm perhaps more hesitant to posit reason as a transcendental invariant, because if we do so then it seems like it becomes more difficult to explain the fact that we (apparently) have to learn how to reason, or that standards of reason have evolved over time, or that traumatic brain injury can impair the use of reason, etc.

Regrettably, I haven't had a chance to dig that deeply into the work of Plotinus, though I'd like to at some point. I know that there are some figures on the contemporary scene who are heavily steeped in that tradition (John Verveake comes to mind).

Quite right—though it’s worth bearing in mind that Aristotelian (and Thomist) realism is a far cry from empiricism or modern scientific realism. It is built on the metaphysical reality of universals, which is precisely what nominalism has since done away with. — Wayfarer

Generally speaking, yes, though it’s worth noting that some contemporary philosophers interpret the Aristotelian tradition in a broadly materialist way (William Jaworski is the only name coming to mind, but I know there are others). While recognizing the reality of form, they maintain that only material substances exist. Form is always yoked to matter and is understood as the principle of structure/pattern within nature. Such an approach denies the existence of Platonic heavens, separable/immortal souls, angelic/spiritual beings, etc.

Although Berkeley was largely indifferent or even hostile to the Schoolmen, his idealism nevertheless arose as a reaction against the nominalist–empiricist schools that had already severed the older participatory epistemology characteristic of A-T philosophy. That broader historical context is the focus of another OP Idealism in Context. — Wayfarer

Looks like an interesting thread. I will take a look.

Yes—Edward Feser makes a strong contemporary case for that in Aristotle’s Revenge, arguing that modern science is quietly rediscovering exactly the kinds of formal and teleological principles that mechanistic metaphysics tried to exclude. And I've noticed neo-Aristotelian (and Platonist!) strands appearing in many discussions of contemporary biology. — Wayfarer

Yes, it seems that classical ideas have been making a bit of a comeback in the last 20 - 30 years, both within science and philosophy, though still very far from being anything like the dominant paradigm. Personally, I welcome the change.

Here, the word 'substance' is being used in the philosophical sense i.e. 'bearer of predicates', So he's arguing that while the proverbial apple, tree or chair really do exist, they don't comprise some 'corporeal substance' which is real wholly apart from their phenomenal appearance. So, yes, apples, trees and chairs really do exist, but they lack the inherent reality that naive realism tends to impute to them. Whilst I have differences with Berkeley's philosophy on other grounds, here I'm in agreement . — Wayfarer

I would agree that Berkeley made a cogent critique of Cartesian and Lockean metaphysics, but I’m not sure that those critiques apply to all forms of metaphysical realism. In the more traditional Aristotelian formulation, matter was construed not as res extensa, nor as a bare substrate, but rather as the principle of individuation and potentiality in the world. In this view, a material object is not mere matter (which cannot not exist on its own), but a compound of matter and form. The mind gains knowledge of material objects via the processes of perception and understanding (intentional acts), through which it comes to grasp the very same forms inherent in the material object itself. This approach would seem to dodge Berkeley’s critique by eliminating the gulf between matter and mind that was opened up by Cartesian dualism and Lockean representationalism because the mind comes to grasp the intelligible forms inherent in the object itself.

Well, yes, but notice something - mathematical models are essentially intellectual in nature. Myself, I am sympathetic to Aristotelian realism, which declares that 'intelligible objects' (including numbers) are real - but they're not corporeal (or material). So they're 'mind-independent' in the sense that they are in no way dependent on your mind or mine - but then, they are only perceptible to the rational intellect, so in that second sense, not mind-independent at all. — Wayfarer

Yes, I think we agree on this for the most part. Aristotelian realism does indeed declare that mathematical models are incorporeal intelligible objects (i.e. mathematical forms), but it also allows these forms to ‘inhere” in material objects (which, as discussed above, are compounds of matter and form). So on the Aristotelian account the mind would come to grasp basic mathematical forms (quantity, relation, etc) via abstraction from sense perception. Aristotle’s approach to mathematics was rather “down to earth” in comparison with his mentor’s, and I don’t believe that he would have been in agreement with Augustine on this matter, who seemed to favor a more Platonic theory of mathematical objects.

The genius of modern physics, and scientific method generaly, was to find ways to harness physical causation to mathematical necessity. And this is actually further grounds for a scientifically-informed objective idealism. But this came at a cost - the elimination or bracketing out of the subject in who's mind these facts obtain, with the consequence that they came to be seen as true independently of any mind whatever. Especially when taken to be true of empirical objects, this introduces a deep contradiction, because empirical objects cannot, pace Kant, be understood as truly 'mind-independent'. That is responsible for many of the controversies in these matters. — Wayfarer

I agree that sciences such as physics succeed by abstracting away the subjective aspect of experience, but I think this can be interpreted in many ways. The representationalism of the early moderns created an epistemological chasm between subject and object - namely, the mind can only know representations of empirical objects, which are purely constructions of the mind and which contain nothing of the objects themselves. But again, perhaps the Aristotelian tradition could offer a way out of this impasse. Perhaps what the mind grasps through the physical sciences are the intelligible forms of material objects themselves, abstracted from sense perception. This doesn’t have to lead us back to naive realism, because we can distinguish between knowledge of material objects as they are in relation to our sense faculties (e.g. knowledge of how objects look, feel, taste, etc.) and knowledge of material objects as they are in relation to each other (e.g. quantitative relations of mass, velocity, etc.). While the former is truly relative to our sense faculties (and therefore, does not constitute knowledge of objects “in-themselves”), the latter is not. Perhaps this could be one way for a realist to evade the charge of incoherence.

But, as said, my sympathies are with some form of Platonic realism. And this is consistent with the views expressed in the mind-created world. (It is perhaps best expressed in Husserl's mature philosophy but that is a subject I'm still studying.) — Wayfarer

Ah, I see. I think in one of the comments above you had mentioned you were partial to “Aristotelian” realism, but probably had meant to write “Platonic” realism. I've decided to leave my response as originally written. Apologies for any confusion in my above comments.

This is precisely the 'objection of David Hume'. It was Hume who pointed out that the conjunction of events such as the effects of collisions leads us to believe that these are necessary facts, when in reality, there is no logical basis for such a belief, other than the repeated observation. That is central to the whole 'induction/deduction' split which begins with Hume. But, recall, it was precisely this which awoke Kant from his 'dogmatic slumber' and inspired him to show that these kinds of physical reactions are intelligible precisely because of the categories of the understanding which the mind must bring to them. Again, this calls into question the natural presumption that these kinds of causal relations must be real independently of any mind, as Kant demonstrates that the whole idea of 'causal relations' is not really grounded in observation as such, but in the fact that causal relations are native to the intellect. — Wayfarer

Certainly, Kant’s solution to Hume’s skepticism is ingenious, but I don’t believe it is the only path forward. Hume is reacting to the metaphysical and epistemological choices made by his predecessors and drawing out the somewhat absurd logical conclusions. Kant represents a major advance in modern philosophy, but he is ultimately solving problems that only arise out of choices made by the likes of Descartes and Locke. If we see Descartes and Locke as having taken a wrong turn, then we aren’t obliged to look to Kant for solutions, but can (perhaps) evade those problems at the outset by hearkening back to the classical realism of Aristotle and his successors instead.

That’s not to say that one can’t or shouldn’t ground their own philosophical outlook in the incredibly rich and subtle synthesis that Kant created, only that it isn’t the only way that one might proceed.

I am not positing 'metaphysical beliefs'. I am pointing out the inherent contradiction in the concept of the mind-independent object. It's actually physicalism that is posing a metaphysical thesis (and a mistaken one.) — Wayfarer

Hi Wayfarer. I just finished re-reading your essay in order to refresh my memory on the thrust of the argument. Much as I enjoyed reading the article, and much as I agreed with many of the points you made in it, I don't think it succeeds in showing that the concept of a mind-independent object is inherently contradictory.

You rightly point out that the brain is an active participant in the construction of the familiar world of shaped and colored objects, the world of experience. This would seem to undermine the naive realist's assumption that the objects we experience exist out there in the world just as we experience them. Fair enough, but this doesn't seem to undermine the weaker claim that experience provides us with at least some information about the entities that exist out there in the world and, therefore, gives us some epistemic purchase on those entities. While those entities perhaps cannot objectively look, feel and smell as presented in experience (since these qualities only exist relative to our perceptual apparatus), we are nevertheless warranted in thinking that those entities exist and that we know something about them.

Consider the mathematical models that we build to predict and explain the phenomena we experience. While it is certainly true that these models require experience and intelligence to construct, these models describe quantitative relationships rather than qualitative properties, and therefore are not relative to our perceptual apparatus in the way that qualitative descriptions are (unless you are willing to argue that mathematics has no purchase on world). I would argue that knowledge of these quantitative relationships constitutes genuine knowledge of mind-independent entities because it is knowledge of relationships between those entities irrespective of their relationship to us.

To take a well-worn example, consider the case of two billiard balls colliding. While it may be true that the billiard balls do not objectively "look" and "feel" like they do in our experience, I would argue that we can rightly claim that there are two entities out there in the real world that have mass and velocity, and that they will exert force upon one another upon collision in a way that described by the laws of physics regardless of whether anyone is there to witness it.

Anyway, I've already written more than I had intended. Would be interested to get your thoughts.

However, this third person point of view would be an error in conception. — schopenhauer1

Why do you believe this?

However, along the way, the possibility of arriving at a 'unitive vision' of the nature of things seems to have become impossible, as the amount of data and information, and the number of disciplines that science embraces, makes it impossible for any individual to understand the whole picture. Maybe that's why metaphysics has indeed become meaningless. — Wayfarer

I would agree that probably no one can master every one of today's many intellectual disciplines, but I don't think that one has to master them all in order to get a sense for what they all share in common. Metaphysics, after all, is nothing more than a general conceptual framework that describes the most general structure of reality. That's how I have come to think of it, at least. This doesn't require comprehensive mastery of all disciplines, though it probably does require adequate familiarity with many or most of them.

But, Quine and his ilk are not representative, in that they’re philosophers, and are sufficiently educated to realise the difficulties inherent in abandoning realism with respect to abstractions. But as a rule of thumb, most nowadays believe that the human intelligence is an evolved adaptation, and that therefore the basic explanation for it is - and can only be - biological in nature. — Wayfarer

That may be true, but the point stands that naturalism is not equivalent with the elimination of abstractions from one’s ontology.

This point is basically the same as that which underlies the ‘argument from reason’ - which is that reason itself is a faculty for which there is not a physicalist or naturalist explanation. — Wayfarer

I am quite sympathetic to the idea that the operation of the intellect cannot reduced to physical processes, but I am also open to considering proposals to the contrary. Much depends in this discussion (as in most philosophical discussions) on how one defines one’s terms. Many times, people end up disagreeing without realizing or bothering to discover that they are using words in fundamentally different ways.

The part played by a prime mover would be the thermodynamic imperative or least action principle. — apokrisis

I am no theoretical physicist, but I think that I can understand the basic idea here. In your metaphysic, the least action principle is the prime mover in the sense that it imposes a universal constraint upon the behavior of all physical systems. It plays the role of final cause for the universe at large in virtue of foreclosing possibilities and thereby "forcing" nature down one particular path (or set of paths) rather than others as it hurtles toward its ultimate, "pre-ordained" end - namely, the eventual heat death of the universe.

I'm sure that there are many nuances in the maths that I am glossing here, but does that capture the basic idea?

Basically the yardstick for what can be considered real according to naturalism, is what an evolved intelligence is able to detect by sense (or instruments.) — Wayfarer

That sounds more like strict empiricism rather than naturalism. Consider the fact than many arch-naturalists are willing to accept the existence of (for example) abstract entities into their ontologies (e.g. Quine).

There is no conception of transcendent cause or reasons, by definition, so ultimately it is nihilist. — Wayfarer

I would agree that nihilism with regard to ultimate purpose and meaning does seem to one of naturalism's more unsavory (in my opinion) implications.

If there were an eternal entity, then nature would be its temporal unfolding. It doesn't seem to make sense to say there could be more than one eternal entity, because differentiation is a spatio-temporal thing. — Janus

This raises a question in my mind: would this eternal entity be inside or outside of space and time? If inside, then differentiation would be possible after all, and it opens up the possibility that there could be multiple eternal entities. If outside, then temporal unfolding would presumably not be possible.

Also because temporal things become eternal by having been, then the eternal must consist in the having been of everything temporal.Every event becomes eternal by passing away into the objective history of the past. From the "point of view" of eternity, though, all of the past, present and future is always already eternally present. — ”Janus”

This would seem to imply that there are a multitude of eternal entities – namely, every entity (event) that has ever passed away.

Spinoza says God is the ultimate efficient cause of everything, but I don't think this is right, because causality belongs only to temporality, not to eternity. So the temporal is not caused by the eternal, but is the other side of its "Janus face", so to speak. As Plato beautifully said; "Time is the moving image of eternity". — ”Janus”

I do not have a ton of familiarity with Spinoza, so what I say here may not be completely hermeneutically correct, but my understanding is that Spinoza tied causality to the principle of sufficient reason. Everything in his system requires a reason for its existence, and causes provide those reasons. Since god (substance) is the only entity in Spinoza’s metaphysics that provides its own reason for existence, it must act as the causal ground for every other entity (modes) in the system.

I will say that I find it difficult to accept many of Spinoza’s propositions. For instance, I don’t not agree with his claim that substances are causally isolated, nor do I think that the concept of efficient self-causation is coherent. These are just some of the propositions that lead him to conclude that there is only one substance, which is yet another claim that I find difficult to accept.

That said, there is an undeniable, austere beauty to the rigor and concision with which he presents his metaphysics that I greatly appreciate and admire.

My apologies. I admit that I did not read the entire thread. I have gotten in the bad habit of reading threads starting from the last page, and I've never replied prior to this (I've been a lurker for about 2 years) so my etiquette may not be up to snuff.

In the scholastic hylemorphic systems god played perhaps the most important of all causal roles - namely, that of ultimate first cause or "ground of being". Scholastic systems also tended to heavily anthropomorphize this entity, being as they were developed by Christian theologians and apologists of the day. Setting aside the question of anthropomorphism, does your system posit a "necessary" component that causally grounds the entire system?

That's very interesting. So would you say that an eternal entity is still a natural entity? Do you believe in the existence of an eternal entity? If so, do you believe that it participates in causal relations with other entities?

Yes. Hylomorphism was a good early stab at understanding Being. The problem would be that there was a lot of scholastic rewriting of what it might mean. But the systems view would take it as being essentially right, once shorn of any transcendental or supernatural aspects. — apokrisis

So basically, hylemorphism without God? That's an interesting prospect, but I wonder if it works. In scholastic hylemorphism God is existence itself. How does the systems approach to hylemorphism account for existence in the absence of God?

Wow, there's a lot to digest in what you wrote! Not sure I understand it completely, to be totally honest. It sounds like you accept some of the features of an Aristotelean metaphysics (four causes) - do you also admit the Aristotelean concept of substance? If yes, to what degree or in what way?

Ok, I can see how that makes sense.

So, do you consider yourself a naturalist?

Naturalism is essentially the view that there is no ontologically transcendent reality. — Janus

That's an interesting definition of naturalism. I've always thought of naturalism in terms of a lack of belief in the existence of "immaterial" entities. Would you be willing to expound a little on what you mean by "ontologically transcendent"?