White people are largely invisible to themselves in a way that different toned ethenticities can never be. — Cavacava

Nope, this is more propaganda because it's not qualified. White people may be largely invisible to themselves in SOME parts of the Western world, but you try going to the Middle East and see how "invisible" to yourself you are there. If you think that what is going on between whites and other races in the West is racism, just have a look at some places in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia and you'll be horrified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia_and_racism_in_the_Middle_East#Saudi_Arabia

And you don't even have to go to the Middle East - just head over to mostly black neighbourhoods as a white man, and you'll see how fast you become aware of your skin color.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-leimert-park-joggers-discussion-20170315-htmlstory.html

Racism seems to be a knee-jerk response that occurs across cultures in groups that are mostly of one skin color against others of a different skin color. If you want to deal with racism, then you must be aware of this, and not consider racism as a "white-only" problem.

You can protest endlessly, but they both pedal right-wing conspiracies, cherry-pick science, and rant about "The Left", albeit in differing degrees. — Maw

So there can't be decent right-wing views? Everything that is right-wing is therefore wrong? And you can parrot about the right-wing all day, but they're not allowed to talk about "The Left" because there is no such thing as "The Left". "The Left" just means all decent people who are right by default - actually, your favorite trick, there is no such unity amongst them to call them "The Left". Really, you've just bought into the mainstream propaganda.

When Obama was President and Democrat views prevailed, no one talked about divided America. — Hanover

The thing is though, Democrats pretty much control the Academia and the Media - I mean their narrative is the wider cultural narrative. So when they're in power, they feel that everyone is on their side, so they don't see America as divided. They choose not to listen to others with different views, and they dismiss them as lunatics who don't even deserve to be taken seriously - just like @Maw is trying to dismiss me in this thread.

But when Trump is President, then you have the Media and the Academia on one side, and then Trump and the establishment on the other - suddenly, now there is division, where previously they saw only unity, and Trump and others were dismissed as crackpots.

"Encouraging discrimination against white heterosexual males" is propaganda and false?

Can you give an example of this discrimination? — praxis

Like when a black lesbian female is given the position of professor over a heterosexual white male simply because she is black, lesbian and female, even though she is less competent than her competition.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/04/white-professors-sue-alabama-state-discrimination/25302767/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/white-professor-was-fired-from-predominantly-black-university-due-to-colour-of-skin-court-rules-a7788171.html

Of course, if you listen to people like @unenlightened, if you're white, you don't have to worry about being picked on with regards to your skin color on the street... except if you happen to live in Pakistan, or you go through the wrong neighbourhood, etc.

So, there are formless sense impressions? — Janus

No. What is this below:

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. — Kant

far-right ignoramuses — Maw

It is utterly ridiculous that you call:

Ben Shapiro — Maw

Jordan Peterson — Maw

Ignoramouses and put them in the same category with InfoWars. When you do something like that, you can't be taken seriously anymore, because you're obviously intellectually dishonest. InfoWars is a lunatic conspiracy "news" outlet, and the former two are credible intellectuals with a long track record.

have painted an dangerously ahistorical, conspiratorial, and profoundly false narrative, and it is extremely detrimental to the health of America's body politic. — Maw

I don't think the former two did. Their view is largely true. You can cover your ears and pretend you're not hearing, but it won't make it false.

During the Presidential elections, from the beginning, when I was saying exactly what Peterson is saying today, people were laughing at me. And I told everyone, you can think what you want, but this is the truth. This politically correct culture, with its obsession with identity politics, race, encouraging discrimination against white heterosexual males, etc. is a modern leftist propaganda and has nothing to do with the truth. At the time people laughed, now they can't laugh anymore, because events proved that I was right. You can ignore those things, but it doesn't mean that they aren't happening or that they are ahistorical.

far-right — Maw

And the funny thing is that I'm not far-right at all:

By the way man, I'm not American if that's what you were thinking with "divide America".

There's a lot of good insight in the transcendental aesthetic, but it's doubtful whether the metaphysical principles which it is based in are acceptable. — Metaphysician Undercover

What are those metaphysical principles? The Transcendental Aesthetic is not super long (well, it is long, but not super long), so we can quote at length from it:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4280/4280-h/4280-h.htm#chap12

Consider that physical existence, which we apprehend through the senses, by means of phenomena, is "in itself" noumena. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure what this means from within Kant's system. "Physical existence" is not something different from the phenomena, so we can't apprehend it by means of phenomena - "physical existence" just is the phenomenon.

So it's like this. Sense impressions are given within the pure intuition (of space and time), and structured under the categories of the understanding (like causality). That's the objective world. So sense impressions are the matter, and space & time & the categories are the forms. Together these form the phenomenon. Kant's writing is quite clear:

In whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate to objects, it is at least quite clear that the only manner in which it immediately relates to them is by means of an intuition. To this as the indispensable groundwork, all thought points. But an intuition can take place only in so far as the object is given to us. This, again, is only possible, to man at least, on condition that the object affect the mind in a certain manner. The capacity for receiving representations (receptivity) through the mode in which we are affected by objects, objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensibility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions. But an thought must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.

The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon. 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. But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation. 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.

I call all representations pure, in the transcendental meaning of the word, wherein nothing is met with that belongs to sensation. And accordingly we find existing in the mind a priori, the pure form of sensuous intuitions in general, in which all the manifold content of the phenomenal world is arranged and viewed under certain relations. This pure form of sensibility I shall call pure intuition. Thus, if I take away from our representation of a body all that the understanding thinks as belonging to it, as substance, force, divisibility, etc., and also whatever belongs to sensation, as impenetrability, hardness, colour, etc.; yet there is still something left us from this empirical intuition, namely, extension and shape. These belong to pure intuition, which exists a priori in the mind, as a mere form of sensibility, and without any real object of the senses or any sensation. — Kant

It's not a matter of subjective interpretation, it's the question of can we apprehend an object directly with the intellect, without the medium of sense phenomena. — Metaphysician Undercover

What does it mean to apprehend directly with the intellect? Anything that the intellect apprehends has already passed through the "filter" of the pure intuition - it must pass through that filter in order to be individuated and be an object of awareness at all.

Notice that Kant even describes the intuition of time as an "internal" intuition. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's what that means:

Time is the formal condition a priori of all phenomena whatsoever. Space, as the pure form of external intuition, is limited as a condition a priori to external phenomena alone. On the other hand, because all representations, whether they have or have not external things for their objects, still in themselves, as determinations of the mind, belong to our internal state; and because this internal state is subject to the formal condition of the internal intuition, that is, to time—time is a condition a priori of all phenomena whatsoever—the immediate condition of all internal, and thereby the mediate condition of all external phenomena. If I can say a priori, “All outward phenomena are in space, and determined a priori according to the relations of space,” I can also, from the principle of the internal sense, affirm universally, “All phenomena in general, that is, all objects of the senses, are in time and stand necessarily in relations of time.” — Kant

I suggest you re-read the Transcendental Aesthetic quickly (or at least the relevant parts) since otherwise it will be difficult for me to tell you at each and every point how Kant uses his technical terms, so that we can be talking about the same thing.

As an internal intuition it is distinct from the phenomenal influence of sensation, and therefore must be a direct intuition of the noumena. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is "internal" in the sense that it applies to our subjective world as well - to what thoughts we have and, in short, to our intellect.

So our intuitions of time may be derived from our direct access to the noumena through the apprehension of our own being, rather than what you describe, as the intuition of time being a medium between oneself and the noumena. — Metaphysician Undercover

But our apprehension of our own being is given through the mind right? And the mind thinks successively, not all at once. Thus this aspect of ourselves presupposes time.

divide America politically — Maw

The real truth though is that America was already super divided politically. Just that this was not known, since the Media and the Academia have been entirely left-leaning for many years already. So all that we had in public discourse was the leftist narrative - even politicians on the right (Bush, McCain, Romney, etc.) were playing based on this narrative.

As I've told you before, the notion that the contemporary American "Left" is reducible to identity politics is false. It is as inane as reducing the contemporary American "Right" to white supremacy. — Maw

Sure, all I'm saying is that there is a heavy tendency to lean the way of identity politics on the left, which is not healthy (for the left).

If the goal of the Russian operatives was to foment discord and confusion, and further divide America politically, then they've certainly succeeded with you. — Maw

With me? :s

On the other side of the fence Maw, there was this video I listened to awhile ago:


It explains how the left is now literarily left behind - they no longer understand their environment, and keep trying to play by the old rules. They keep using the same old tactics - scream white supremacy, etc. - but those tactics no longer work because people see through it.

And now you go whining to the moderators because I have called you out and exposed your baseless criticisms asblind prejudice. — unenlightened

I didn't whine to anyone, I just clicked flag on your post. And I didn't flag you because you disagree with me (or you "exposed" my baseless criticism and prejudice), I flagged you for your language which was violent and inappropriate.

Damn Agustino, when did you transform into a stereotype of contemporary Right-Wing agitprop? If there was a bingo game formed out of such nonsensical talking points, your comment would be enough to win the game twice over. — Maw

Well, I really think that the left should abandon this form of identity politics. On the one hand, for ethical reasons: it simply is unethical because it is untrue. On the other hand, because it simply doesn't work anymore, people can see through it. It won't get the left anywhere.

Okay, I read sections I and II of the article. Seems to me to be entirely delusional - it is like I am reading actual fantasy. I had not been acquainted with this type of leftist propaganda lately, but when I read it, I am reminded of the paranoid anti-Western & masochistic delusion in the Academia and the Media who persistently attack the same old imaginary enemies: white males, patriarchy, heterosexuals, religious people, etc. It really is a delusion - there is no such enemy out there, at least not even close to the level that leftists think there is. Sure, there are some white supremacists out there, but they are a FRINGE group. To give so much undue importance to them, as if everything rotated around them, is ridiculous. They literarily have almost 0 political influence!

But, at least, I am glad to have gotten an inside peek into how these people on the left think. I certainly would not want to live in a society filled by such resentful paranoiacs who insist on framing everything to be about race, gender, sexual orientation and religion. So glad Crooked Hillary didn't win - can you imagine how intense the discourse of these self-righteous leftists would have been had she won? They are already making such a big fuss now when their candidate lost.

We already live in a society where all races, both genders, all sexual orientations and religions are equal. That's how it should be. That's what eradicating racism, sexism, etc. means. It means that our discourse and our society no longer revolves around what skin color you have, because that no longer matters. It doesn't matter if you're black or white, etc.

I recommend you read this fantastic piece, Agustino. — Maw

Thanks, I will look into it!

So let's see. You dismiss as fake and propaganda a talk by a professor of History that you haven't heard, on the basis that it it is about white supremacy and mentions Trump. Now that is definitely making shit up to suit your prejudices, and frankly wilful ignorance that really ought to be beneath even your dignity. And as for trying to make it my fault, well just fuck off, bigot. — unenlightened

Just so you know, I reported your post which, in my honest opinion, ought to be deleted.

First of all, I never swore at you or was disrespectful, and yet, you start foaming at the mouth and calling me a bigot, you say "fuck off", your post is littered with all sorts of comments lacking any style ("beneath even your dignity", "making shit up", "wilful ignorance", and the like). So, shame on you.

You dismiss as fake and propaganda a talk by a professor of History that you haven't heard, on the basis that it it is about white supremacy and mentions Trump. — unenlightened

Nope, that's not what I did. That's just more propaganda.

I said:

A program claiming to explain the place of Trump titled "The Roots of White Supremacy" is propaganda, and ought not to be taken seriously. — Agustino

That's how you portrayed the program:

Explaining the place of Trump — unenlightened

I simply said that a program aiming to explain the place of Trump by appealing to White Supremacy is ridiculous and ought not to be taken seriously (why? well, as I said, Trump's supporters are not, in their vast majority, white supremacists).

Then I explained to you that I didn't listen to the program, and was basing what I said about it based on your description of it - the way you presented it. In fact, I clarified that what was clearly propagandistic wasn't the program as it was, but the way you presented it:

The way you presented it is certainly propagandistic. — Agustino

And that is true, because it turns out, by your own comments, that the program barely mentions Trump.

Thanks.

@Baden @Hanover

Can we have the above comment moved to a different thread please, and I will reply there? Thanks!

What 'we all know' is no doubt extensive, but listen to fucking thing before you know quite so well what it is saying. — unenlightened

I haven't listened to the thing, but I'm not tempted to after you've presented it as "explaining the place of Trump" when this place is associated with "white supremacy", something that I see as a fringe view since most of Trump supporters are not white supremacists. If you said here's a documentary about white supremacy that would have been interesting - but you didn't present it that way. The way you presented it is certainly propagandistic.

What is really terrible, is that Trump barely get's a mention, and then as merely the continuation of an historical process. — unenlightened

So... let's see. Trump barely gets mentioned, but this documentary is supposed to "explain the place of Trump".

Have some history dudes. Explaining the place of Trump and all sorts of other inexplicable strangeness.

https://soundcloud.com/historyworkshop/episode-4-the-roots-of-white-supremacy-part-1?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook — unenlightened

A program claiming to explain the place of Trump titled "The Roots of White Supremacy" is propaganda, and ought not to be taken seriously. After losing the election, radical leftists seem to have jumped back on their "Nazi nazi nazi, white supremacist, white supremacist" cart, where everyone they dislike is automatically a nazi or a white supremacist. The tactic of throwing this kind of fake dirt at your opposition no longer works. We all know that the millions of Americans who voted for Trump were not white supremacists. Sure, maybe among the 62 million that voted for Trump, 1 million or so, let's say, were white supremacists. But that's not the majority. That's not even a significant portion of Trump voters.

From the Platonic tradition, we have direct access to apprehend intelligible objects (noumena) directly with the intellect, through intuition. — Metaphysician Undercover

For example, given the transcendental aesthetic this is wrong. Those "intelligible objects" are given at minimum mediately, through the pure intuition of time. Thus, they are not given as they are in-themselves, but as they are in time.

Oh, please! Surely you are not counting on Donald Trump to restore God to some alleged central place in American public discourse? Give us a fucking collective break. — Bitter Crank

Not necessarily, but he's the first Republican to have adopted the right attitude when fighting the Democrats, and not give in to their presumptions, not fight the battle on their territory. That is important.

Actually I think it's Kant who is wrong on this point. From the Platonic tradition, we have direct access to apprehend intelligible objects (noumena) directly with the intellect, through intuition. That's why Aristotle placed intuition at the highest level of knowledge. Kant simply defines "intuition" in an odd way (as you explain in the other thread), and this dismisses "intuition" in the traditional sense, disposing of our access to the noumenon. — Metaphysician Undercover

You should open a new thread about this, it would be interesting to discuss. A direct confrontation between Kant and Aristotle/Plato/Aquinas is never brought about, and, usually, participants on both sides only skirt around the issues and dismiss each other. I have yet to see a rigorous treatment of Kant from a Thomistic perspective (for example), or a rigorous treatment of Aquinas/Aristotle from a Kantian perspective.

I'm not sure Kant is wrong. For Kant to be wrong, I think the transcendental aesthetic must fall - without collapsing the transcendental aesthetic, I don't think it's possible to show that Kant is wrong.

I mean the issue is that the other Republican candidates, prior to Trump, were pretty much fighting the battle on Democrat ideological battleground, accepting the assumptions of the Democrats, which also happen to be the prevailing cultural assumptions that get disseminated through Media and the Academia. Trump is the first one taking the battle on his own ground, which is different from that one.

This is the most controversial aspect to Kant' thesis because the noumenal self is not subject to deterministic laws and therefore not bound by time — TimeLine

I think that's the other way around - not bound by time, and therefore not subject to deterministic laws which can only apply within time.

Whereas free will is not bound by nature — TimeLine

But free will is noumenal - we cannot empirically know it.

if we know what we ought to do, we choose to do what is right — TimeLine

Except that we don't "know" what we ought to do, at least we don't know with certainty.

You are saying that we do not have access to it, but we do, we just don't know how we have access because it is not bound by categories since free will can causally influence nature. — TimeLine

Where do you get the idea that free will can causally influence nature from :s ? I think this is wrong, because, once again, causality is imposed on the phenomenon by the understanding. So you cannot infer causality outside of the domain of application of the understanding, meaning outside the phenomenon. I think it is fair to say that the phenomenon as a whole is some kind of "reflection" if you want of the noumenon, but not that one causes the other.

That means that we know once we experience the effects from noumenal causality. — TimeLine

I disagree we can experience effects FROM noumenal causality. Effects are always given from within the pheonomenon - one experience is given to us, presented to us, as the cause of the other. But both experiences are necessarily within the phenomenon.

I'm sure there are plenty of other Republicans who will do that too. — Michael

For sure, but if I look at the past 20 years or so I haven't seen any Republicans do that pretty much. Bush didn't. McCain didn't. Romney didn't. Etc.

Also, is there any particular reason why you'd want Trump to win as opposed to some other Republican? — Michael

The good thing about Trump, as opposed to many other Republicans, is that he's not afraid to be conflictual with Democrats when he must. For example, about the importance of God in American public discourse, etc.

Again? Has he already won in 2020? — Michael

Again because he won the Presidency in the past.

Trump to win in 2020 again!

Our awareness to exercise moral law that is authentically willed and therefore real is based on our understanding of ourselves as one that establishes this law, the world of understanding that is grounded in the transcendental 'I' and this does not follow if the things-in-themselves cannot be known. — TimeLine

We never know ourselves as we are. We know THAT we are, but not WHAT we are. The access we have to our own subjectivity is also given mediately, through the pure intuition of time.

What I am attempting to convey is that there is no exclusion from accessing the noumenal because we have practical reason to postulate that free will exists there and presume that it is the location that constitutes reality even if it can be experienced only qua appearance. — TimeLine

While I am not as familiar with Kant's ethics as I am with his metaphysics, I don't quite follow you here. Through practical reason we postulate those that we cannot know through pure reason, but which are needed in order to act. I don't see how this "gives us access" to the noumenon.

Overall, understanding of the ultimate nature of reality remains unknown, but we are nevertheless capable of regulating using reason the principles that govern our experience that is constitutive of this free will. — TimeLine

The argument goes more like this: we can presume, if you want, that the noumenon is the location of freedom because causality is a category imposed by the understanding, and the noumenon stands outside of it.

Subjective experience is phenomenal. The object of the phenomenon is noumenal. If you say the noumenal is knowable, reading generously, I read that as rejecting Kant as opposed to misunderstanding Kant, but I can't follow your suggestion that the subjective is noumenal (i.e. the phenomenal is noumenal). — Hanover

I get what TimeLine is trying to get at, but she's still wrong that we can have access to the noumenon. Contrary to the Cartesian version, in Kant, the subjective is not prioritised over the objective as giving us access to knowledge that is more "certain", since the subjective is still mediated through the pure internal intuition of time, and hence is not given to us as it exists in-itself. I don't have direct access to either external objects or to myself. So just like the noumeon corresponds to an "object in-itself", it must also correspond to a "subject in-itself". These two are both inaccessible. In fact, the whole talk of "object in-itself", even though Kant uses it, makes no sense, since objects always exist for subjects, and the noumenon does not have the forms of space and time which permit for the individuation of existence into the poles of subject and object.

However, just like how we come to learn about external objects, we also come to learn about who we are (our subjectivity). This is not something that we see clearly - we can (and often are) wrong about what we want, who we are, what we react like, what will make us happy etc. It is only by going through phenomenal experience that we come to learn more (hopefully) about who we (phenomenally) are. But we are often deceived about our intentions, our desires, and our inner states. Often, we also deceive ourselves into thinking we are so and so, or we are capable of so and so, when in truth we aren't.

So yes, TimeLine is right that there is a subjective "in-itself" - but she's wrong that we have access to it.

I'm very happy to go along with your definition of reality as the phenomena rather than the noumena as, not being a materialist, that is the idea of reality that is most natural to me as well. — andrewk

Well, it is not only my definition it is also Kant's definition of the empirically real. Certainly, Kant would never have thought that physics, or whatever other things that we can do empirically, can ever lead us to knowledge of the noumenon. That is out of the question. So for the most part, barring Schopenhauer's advances and insights that can be achieved through meditation, direct revelation, prayer, etc. we'll leave it that all that reality is, is empirical reality, the phenomenon.

With that definition, why do you think there's a problem with the idea that different people have slightly different ways of processing phenomena, even if we describe that as having slightly different empirical realities? — andrewk

I don't think that is a problem (people having different experiences of some empirical phenomena). But we were discussing (pure) geometry, which according to Kant is a science a priori and not empirical. This geometry must be objective (true for all), since it is a priori. It is not like other matters of experience (eg. color, which can be different for different people).

But, with the exception of space, there is no representation, subjective and referring to something external to us, which could be called objective a priori. For there are no other subjective representations from which we can deduce synthetical propositions a priori, as we can from the intuition of space. (See § 3.) Therefore, to speak accurately, no ideality whatever belongs to these, although they agree in this respect with the representation of space, that they belong merely to the subjective nature of the mode of sensuous perception; such a mode, for example, as that of sight, of hearing, and of feeling, by means of the sensations of colour, sound, and heat, but which, because they are only sensations and not intuitions, do not of themselves give us the cognition of any object, least of all, an a priori cognition. My purpose, in the above remark, is merely this: to guard any one against illustrating the asserted ideality of space by examples quite insufficient, for example, by colour, taste, etc.; for these must be contemplated not as properties of things, but only as changes in the subject, changes which may be different in different men. For, in such a case, that which is originally a mere phenomenon, a rose, for example, is taken by the empirical understanding for a thing in itself, though to every different eye, in respect of its colour, it may appear different. On the contrary, the transcendental conception of phenomena in space is a critical admonition, that, in general, nothing which is intuited in space is a thing in itself, and that space is not a form which belongs as a property to things; but that objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made. — Kant

I don't follow why one couldn't believe that our perceptions have been skewed by societal expectations and then further hold that we can somehow transcend our skewed perceptions and then correctly perceive the thing in itself. That is a common view afterall. It's the idea that clarity can be obtained by contemplation, meditation, prayer, or whatever. I get that it's counter to Kant, but so what? I'd think even the staunchest direct realist would admit to false perceptions, yet contend they could be clarified. — Hanover

I don't object to that, but please don't use a word with heavy connotations when you want to put forward this sort of idea, because then you'll be misunderstood.

Kant also accepts that idea - that we can be mistaken in our views about empirical reality, and these mistakes can be corrected. Kant's distinction is between thing-in-itself and phenomenon. The thing-in-itself is unknowable. Within the phenomenon, we have the distinction between the empirically ideal and illusory, and the empirically real. So when you're in the desert and hallucinate an oasis, that is empirically ideal, and you can achieve clarity about this, and overcome this false perception. But overcoming this false perception has nothing to do with gaining access to the thing-in-itself, and starting to talk about the thing-in-itself in this context really confuses matters, because the word already has a philosophical baggage.

Ask not what the rose can do for you, ask what you can do for the rose. — TimeLine

We generally ask both questions - if you imagine that we must treat each and everything in the world by solely asking what we can do for them is (somewhat) silly I think. As I said before, we always see the world from both vantage points - both as a world of things and as a forum for action. Indeed, if we didn't see it as the former, then we couldn't act, because any action implies using things in some way or another. Now you might say that only some kinds of usage are ethically permissible, and that is fine, but it doesn't change the fact that we always see the world from both vantage points.

Eliminating the "world qua forum for action" viewpoint leads to nihilism and despair. Eliminating the other pole, "world qua set of things" leads to idealism and inaction, precisely because we're left with nothing with which to act.

Fair enough, noted. The intro to my copy outlines exactly where to go to get the gist of the Critique, so I'll follow that. I just don't have time for the Critique right now, my interests are too broad. — Noble Dust

Hmm, I see. Then you're more likely going to enjoy literature atm I think, since the Critique (and the Prolegomena pretty much) go step by step, discussing subject after subject in depth.

Prolegomena goes straight to addressing how is mathematics possible, how is science possible and then how is metaphysics possible. That's it's structure, pretty much.

The Critique explains this whole journey in a lot more detail and shows how it actually happens.

I read in several places that it was a good intro to the Critique of Pure Reason, and since I have a lot of other stuff to read, I figured it would be a good crash course, and then I'll get to the Critique in the future. No? — Noble Dust

My comment was more tongue-in-cheek with reference to this thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2871/what-would-kant-have-made-of-non-euclidan-geomety/p1

Having read both, I don't particularly think the Prolegomena is better than the Critique to start with, though many have thought that. I think the Critique is quite thorough if you go slowly - Kant explains how he uses his terms throughout. I personally found the Prolegomena more confusing than not, and personally, I found the Critique harder, not easier to understand afterwards, since I had some judgements based on the Prolegomena that ended up being erroneous in light of the Critique.

You're talking about the dichotomy of thing in itself and appearance and have no clue what that even means. Great. I mentioned that your metaphysics isn't very good, no wonder you don't participate in many of the metaphysical discussions here.

As above. Far out, Agu, do you have to do this in every single thread? — TimeLine

???? Yes, that is in a place where I quote your wrong use of thing in itself.

I didn't pull it out, you did and you are the one misunderstanding it. — TimeLine

This dichotomy between the thing in itself and things as they appear to us. — TimeLine

Where did I pull it out when you are the first to have mentioned it in this thread? :brow:

I can't accept this. — TimeLine

It's not about what you can accept. You can't just pull out a term out of Kant's philosophy and completely misunderstand it. The nature of the transcendental aesthetic precludes whatever is empirically real from ever giving us access to things-in-themselves. To claim otherwise is just to misunderstand Kant's metaphysics.

Projection. In the end, the representations we make of objects in the world is a projection that determines the quality of our own mental state. — TimeLine

That is not the rose seeing me, but rather I seeing myself in the rose, through the way I choose to relate to it.

This dichotomy between the thing in itself and things as they appear to us. — TimeLine

The thing-in-itself is not accessible.

Our value depends on the success of how well we sell ourselves. It is no longer about the quality of our experiences, but whether our experiences are approved. The mode of having. — TimeLine

No, that's not true. Some people's value depends on that, because they let it depend on that, since they want the good things in life, but are not aware of Epictetus' dichotomy of control. Some things are in our power, and some things are not. Their mistake isn't with regards to the preferred indifferents - they are preferred for everyone. Their mistake is with regards to the fact that they cannot wield control over success, if that is defined by having your experiences approved. So in choosing to place your value in that, you give up control to others, and hence are vulnerable to be disappointed.