Noumena =/= phenomena. — StreetlightX

Sorry. My mistake. Noumena=things in-themselves.

Simply put, phenomenon is sensible experience and noumenon is not, and cannot, be experienced sensibly. The experience is given to us but the thing in itself isn’t and never can be - it is, as a phenomenal conception, useful as a realisation of limit (without which limit sensibility would be nought as if everything is sensible to us in full extension there is no ‘difference’ perceivable where there is no limit of experience). — I like sushi

These are to ways of speak of the same thing. Ontologically and epistemologically. This is said in your quote: Thing in-itself=phenomenon

calling thing in themselves (not considered as appearances) noumena.

I think Special Relativity provides a useful model here. Things can have different properties in different reference frames (and one can translate between reference frames). But there is no absolute reference frame for how things "really" are. — Andrew M

The most spectacular reference is quantum mechanics, where the act of measuring creates the measured.

Kantian epistemology is very relevant to the current theory of science with only one important correction: what he believed were a priori conditions of any form of understanding (intellect) were in fact the conditions of Newtonian science. The same is true of Euclidean mathematics.

I already pointed out that a subject has a mental life while an object doesn't. Aside from that what is the difference? — khaled

This is like men and women. A small difference. Long live the small difference!

All joking aside, the only difference you've noticed involves a lot of other big ones.
Anyway, I was just arguing against the distinction. Someone, perhaps you, had claimed that there was none.

he noumenon (the unknown) is "internal" because it's "cognitated" by the pure understanding. The thing in itself (the unknown) is "external" because it's an object of sensibility. — Xtrix

This may be absurd, but it's the opposite of what Kant said. Noumenon and the thing itself cannot be known simply because they fall outside the human (a priori) conditions of knowledge.

Hmmmm......here’s ridiculous: the claim, or even the intimation, that because noumena and the thing in itself are both unknowable to or by means of the human system, they are therefore the same thing. And the thing-in-itself is not crucial, per se, to the Kantian epistemology; it is merely given ontologically as extant, therefore inescapable and irrelevant. I — Mww

Ridiculous or not, phenomenon and thing in-itself are synonymous in Kant. They are very important concepts in a negative sense. They are the unattainable horizon of human research. They provoke the metaphysical illusions of God, of the Universe, of the soul and so on.

he forms of sensibility are time and space. These are a priori. We can't experience anything at all except through these forms. Matter, causality, phenomena or objects of any kind are experienced through these forms -- as representations. — Xtrix

Let me be precise about what you said. Space and time are a priori forms for sensitivity. Perceptions in our common language are formed in the conditions of space and time. This is studied in the first part of the Critique of Pure Reason. Causality, on the other hand, is an a priori form of physics. It is the condition for making empirical judgements. This is studied in the second part of the CPR.
Therefore, the phenomenon is what is perceived under the a priori conditions of space and time. Causality is not a phenomenon but a category of statements. Both are not objective but subjective although they are universal and necessary. Currently we would speak of "intersubjective". Everyone captures things under these conditions, but they are not properties of things in themselves, but fixed by our reason.

The issue is the terms have various applications in different fields of interest. — I like sushi

This is a philosophy forum. Therefore, it is advisable to use words in the common philosophical sense. I have mentioned above the usual philosophical meanings. They are common in the history of philosophy, epistemology, anthropology, ontology, etc. I agree that in some cases further clarification may be necessary. Although this is not the same as arbitrarily creating personal meanings that only add confusion to confusion.

I would like you to clarify the distinction between "conscious awareness" and mere "consciousness" and why it is necessary. It sounds, but I do not see its direct relationship to the subject-object distinction.

Try to define "object". Now try to define "subject". I find that I can't actually find a difference between them. — khaled

Subject is the referent of any activity related to consciousness and/or subconscious.
Object is what is outside the subject.
Some (few) philosophers identify it, but the distinction is clear at the analytical level.

The fact that this "essence" wasnt detected by other cultures was seen as proof of their degradation. So it's not just that homosexuality was bad, failure to understand the essence behind that judgement was bad. — frank

Even if there were an objective method of knowing the human essence, it would be irrelevant to determine whether an essential trait is good or bad.

For example, let's say homo homini lupus. This does not mean that jumping down someone else's throat is good. It would be advisable to control human nature at this point.

There are two main ideologies that use and abuse the supposed goodness of human nature. Religions and social Darwinism. United extremes.

Point out the study that shows individual organisms of these species establishing same sex relationships while abstaining completely from heterosexual relationships. Only humans do that. — Harry Hindu

I suppose he would describe his two-value gender range as "scientific", and dismiss multi-value Queer categories as political Neo-Marxism, rather than democratic fairness. — Gnomon

I don't know what it has to do with the legitimacy of being homosexual that penguins are homosexual, that Darwin established the difference between species or that science (which, biology, sociology, semantics?) maintains a clear distinction between sexual genders.

Chimpanzees exercise sex between males as a social activity and are cannibal. I don't think that either of these things is definitive of chimpanzee essence, much less that it has to do with a supposed human essence. I don't think Darwinism can impart ethical standards and I don't think human beings are natural at their present state. In its origin, it can be.

The question is: is this good or is this bad? The rest is entangling the problem.

I am not in the habit of discussing human nature with spiritualists, but I suppose that if you believe that human nature exists, you can describe a series of natural or spiritual laws that apply to human beings. Can you give an example? Even if it's from Aristotle.

However, it is being realised that in the final analysis, man is really not apart from or outside of nature, and that science itself forever has a subjective pole, comprising the mind of the observer, which has been ‘bracketed out’ of the reckoning of science by the Galilean method. This, however, is precisely what the ‘observer problem’ in quantum physics has called into question. — Wayfarer

Thanks for the references. I've read a few chapters of Heisenberg's book.

As for the problem of interpenetration between the subjective and the objective, quantum mechanics has raised it in a heated way, as you say. However, it seems that contemporary physics has taken Bohr's side. But I think that Kant had understood the problem much earlier, declaring the thing in itself unknowable. Critical Kant, of course. It's surprising that Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg and others often mentioned Plato, Berkeley, Hume or Mach and none of them remembered Kant. I suspect that they had not read many philosophical works.

And ‘specifying what it consists of’ was precisely the task of classical metaphysics. That is why I made mention of metaphysics and its decline in a previous post but I don't think you got it - which I understand, because these ideas are hardly taught any more, you have to dig for them. — Wayfarer

I'm sorry I can't comment on all the posts. They are very interesting, but very long. As for understanding them, maybe it's presumption for my part, but my knowledge of metaphysics seems to me sufficient.

I believe that classical metaphysics has little to say in matters such as anthropology or ontology. I stand corrected: it can be a source of inspiration. This was the case with Heisenberg, Einstein and other relevant scientists, who were more than just lab rats. I believe that reality cannot be understood without sufficient knowledge of science. That's why ontology is becoming more and more like philosophy of science.

But I agree with you that it is also not acceptable for some to pretend to make science a substitute for philosophy (Sam Harris). You have to stay in the middle, which is not always the middle position.

From that perspective I believe that what Darwinism can teach us is that human beings are the only species that have created an artificial nature in the form of culture. We know that primates can use occasional tools, devise solutions to simple problems. But none of them have ever thought of creating themselves as a species capable of destroying their natural bases to the point of sending the whole planet to hell. And us along with it.

So the question is not what is innate within us. The question is what we do with what we are to counter the destructive impulses that are proving dominant today. We are not angels, as Bit--Carlos said, it means that we are contradictory. Not that we are demons.
Whether innate or not, we know that our impulses can be countered on an individual level. But we don't seem to know how to do it collectively.

I'm afraid the issue is political. It looks bad.

NOTE: Steven Pinker seems to me awfully naive on this subject.

The point about understanding the nature of the essential is not to arrive at a simple answer. Essence is not a formula. — Wayfarer

Right. But we'll have to specify what it consists of or leave it to poetry.

I don't think it's abstract at all; we see it throughout history. — BitconnectCarlos

That feature is so broad that it would only rule out utopias. But even utopian thinkers knew that their kingdoms were fantastic. "Task for the gods," says Glaucon to Socrates in The Republic.

Human nature is like the rainbow. As soon as one comes down to it, fades away. (I swear I have made up this phrase myself alone).

I had a Lacanian friend who said sentences like blocks and left you thinking for an hour. I don't know if she knew what she was saying, but she was very provocative. One of her sentences was:
"Mental illness is not a lack". I found it difficult to understand that she was meaning "a lack of humanity".
Or put another way: A person with Down syndrome is no less a person because of it.

So, what is it to be a person? (Humanity).
I doubt we can find a single answer.

That's true of both Conservatives and LIberals though. — Gnomon

Well, we were talking about the use of human nature to sneak in values. That's a typically conservative resource. That's not to say that reformists or revolutionaries don't mix facts and value judgments too easily. Even human nature itself (see Rousseau).

We can start with "men are not angels." Well, besides Kim Jung Un obviously. — BitconnectCarlos

OK. But that kind of thing is very abstract. You won't get precise rules out of them. Besides, they don't need to respond to a human nature, but could be the result of habits or customs. What is your method of distinguishing one thing (nature) from another (culture)?

I believe that recourse to human nature is conservative, irrespective of the fact that this link can sometimes be broken. This is because it is used as a barrier to any major change in society. "There will always be rich and poor"; "a woman is not equal to a man"; "a family is the union of a man and a woman", etc., are common conservative expressions. Their aim is to shield a social situation that progressives consider unjust. So what "is" opposes what "should be changed," nature opposes justice. "Never" or "always" can reinforce this "is".

What is typical of this situation is that conservatives seem to make a statement of fact, but in reality it is a value judgment.

Notice how easily conservatives abandon essentialism when it comes to making a conservative revolution.

In any case, welcome to the Forum, I encourage you to continue! — Wayfarer

Thank you. I'll try.

Welcome, David. — SophistiCat

Well met, Mr. Cat.

I think you casually assume that there's nothing special about being human. — Wayfarer

You draw excessive consequences from my short comment. It is a personal assumption that electronic brains are capable of holding a simple conversation until a very specific test can catch them in. But I don't draw anthropological or metaphysical consequences from that.

Apparently what has changed in recent years is our attitude toward Nature itself, since Darwin discovered its fallibility and amorality. — Gnomon

Distrust of human nature existed before Darwin. Remember Hobbes: homo hominis lupus.

My mistrust refers to the possibility of knowing it. I think the concept of the human condition is less rigid and more useful. About man, we know tendencies, not natural laws.
Social Darwinism? No, thank you.

Excellent first post. However I feel compelled to ask, could it have been composed and written by a non-human? — Wayfarer

Thank you.
I don't quite understand the scope of the question. Anyway, I suppose I could write a text like this if I were a computer programmed by a human being. But I am not. I can't think of any other alternative.

First of all, I apologize for my English. Obviously, it's not my first language. I hope my ideas are better than my English.

The first problem of essentialism is to develop a safe method of distinguishing the natural from the artificial. In the case of human nature the problem is defined in terms of the opposition between the innate and the acquired. Comparison with similar species? Traits common to the entire human species? I think that method does not exist, or at least it is not safe.

The second problem is ethical. Even if it were possible to distinguish innate from acquired, there is no rule that innate is better. If one came to the conclusion that humans are aggressive by nature, to infer from this that war is a natural state is a fallacy.

I think essentialism is only useful to conservative ideologies based on rough slogans.