Nietzsche in other passages gives Kant hell for making the real world (this one) an illusion. — plaque flag

However, one also reads in the Edinburgh Research Archive that Nietzsche was probably an anti-realist, whereby any external reality is hypothetical and not assumed.

Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche often suggest that he is some form of anti-realist, i.e. he does not affirm objective scientific truth or understanding of the world. Nietzsche advocates a viewpoint known as perspectivism, which may seem to cement this anti-realist interpretation, insofar as it emphasises the perspectival nature of understanding. Similarly, Justin Remhof interprets Nietzsche as an object constructivist, i.e. that objects within the world are constructed by human concepts, and this also seems to align neatly with anti-realist interpretations.

I think the intentional concept has to include the public structuralist aspect of meaning, but that their can be a private founded aspect of meaning made possible by this public aspect. — plaque flag

Let's use the example in Wittgenstein's PI 1 of the colour red.

In the world is an object emitting a wavelength of 700 nm that society has named "red".

Bertrand's private mental image is unknown to us, but suppose when he sees an object emitting a wavelength of 700 nm his private mental image is of green. Similarly, Russell's private mental image is also unknown to us, but suppose when he sees an object emitting a wavelength of 700 nm his private mental image is of blue.

For both Bertrand and Russell, when seeing a wavelength of 700nm, there is a private meaning and a public meaning. For Bertrand, the private meaning is experiencing an intentional content of green and the public meaning is having seen a colour named "red". For Russell, the private meaning is experiencing an intentional content of blue, and the public meaning is having seen a colour named "red".

The private meaning is associated with the public meaning, but the private meaning is not included within the public meaning.

It is the same with Aristotle's Categories, where the categories may be associated with each other even though independent of each other. For example, in the sentence "there are four rocks", where "four" is quantity and rocks is substance.

Private meaning is not made possible by public meaning.

Likewise, the beetle-in the box argument wasn't made to deny the semantic importance of intentional content, but to stress how social customs, such as the custom of physical language, have evolved to facilitate the expression of intentional content. — sime

As I understand the "Beetle in the Box" - in the world, suppose there is something that has been named by society a "beetle".

When looking at this "beetle", Bertrand actually has the private mental image of an ant, and Russell has the private mental image of a bee. Bertrand can never know Russell's private mental image, and vice versa.

Yet both Bertrand and Russell can have a sensible conversation about "beetles", even if their intentional contents, their private mental images, are different.

Within the language game, private mental images drop out of consideration as irrelevant.

In my view, the scientific image is valued because it describes this world and not something hidden under or behind it. — plaque flag

The language of science also has metaphorical value

An interesting topic that leads into the nature of language. It can be argued that language, including the language of science, is more metaphorical rather than literal.

The scientific image is also valued not because it is able to directly describe the reality of the world but because it allows humans a metaphorical understanding of what cannot be literally understood through the use of metaphor.

Metaphors are commonly used in science, such as: evolution by natural selection, F = ma, the wave theory of light, DNA is the code of life, the genome is the book of life, gravity, dendritic branches, Maxwell's Demon, Schrödinger’s cat, Einstein’s twins, greenhouse gas, the battle against cancer, faith in a hypothesis, the miracle of consciousness, the gift of understanding, the laws of physics, the language of mathematics, deserving an effective mathematics, etc.

Andrew May in Metaphors in Science 2000 makes a strong point that even Newton's second law is a metaphor
"In his article on the use of metaphors in physics (November issue, page 17), Robert P Crease describes several interesting trees but fails to notice the wood all around him. What is a scientific theory if not a grand metaphor for the real world it aims to describe? Theories are generally formulated in mathematical terms, and it is difficult to see how it could be argued that, for example, F = ma "is" the motion of an object in any literal sense. Scientific metaphors possess uniquely powerful descriptive and predictive potential, but they are metaphors nonetheless. If scientific theories were as real as the world they describe, they would not change with time (which they do, occasionally). I would even go so far as to suggest that an equation like F = ma is a culturally specific metaphor, in that it can only have meaning in a society that practices mathematical quantification in the way that ours does. Before I'm dismissed as a loopy radical, I should point out that I'm a professional physicist who has been using mathematical metaphors to describe the real world for the last twenty years!"

As Nietzsche wrote “We believe that when we speak of trees, colours, snows, and flowers, we have knowledge of the things themselves, and yet we possess only metaphors of things which in no way correspond to the original entities.”

Within this familiar (life-)world, we enrich our knowledge of everyday entities by adding scientific entities which are inferentially entangled and semantically dependent on those everyday entities — plaque flag

A nice, almost poetic explanation of Indirect Realism.

I'd say we learn how to conceptualize and discuss a pain and a color that is just there, mostly nonconceptually, as a kind of overflow of any mere intending or labeling of it. — plaque flag

In Kant's terms, we conceptualize our intuitions.

Lately it looks to me that structuralist approaches to meaning (meaning as use, perhaps as inferential role) are illuminating but maybe leave something out — plaque flag

If Structuralism focuses on the way that human experience and behaviour is determined by various structures external to the individual, then it is suffers from the same problem as Behaviourism.

I don't learn how to feel pain as a result of the social world I may happen to live in, but suffer pain, am able to see the colour red, feel anger, etc because of Innatism, in that the mind is born with already-formed ideas, knowledge, and beliefs.

Meaning may be use within a form of life, as Wittgenstein said, but meaning is also in part determined by the fact that we are not born as blank slates.

Yes, Rouse was heavily influenced by Wittgenstein. — Joshs

It seems that the post-modernism of the French post-structuralists in the 1970's can also be traced back to the Wittgenstein's investigation into the limits of language and language in the 1950's.

Joseph Rouse — Joshs

There are similarities between Rouse's postmodern view that we can never get outside our language and Wittgenstein's view, as a possible anti-realist or linguistic idealist, that the meaning of a word is determined by the language itself rather than any transcendent reality.

Wittgenstein wrote in PI 43 "For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language."

As Joseph Rouse wrote about a postmodern view of science - "we can never get outside our language, experience, or methods to assess how well they correspond to a transcendent reality"

There are other ways of thinking about the relation between mind and world than in terms of the binaries realist vs anti-realist or empiricist vs idealist. — Joshs

What other ways are you thinking of, of how the subjective mind of colours, pains, fears and hopes relates to the objective world of rocks, mountains, supernova and gravity.

Furthermore, the existence of the particulars is neither strictly in the mind nor in the world. It is in the relational practices that make linguistic meaning dependent on the enacting of material configurations through our engagement with the social and non-human world. — Joshs

Wittgenstein writes that the meaning of a word exists in the relation between the mind and the world.

PI 43. For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

Wittgenstein may well be either an anti-realist or idealist

From the IEP article on Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889—1951)
Wittgenstein’s place in the debate about philosophical Realism and Anti-Realism is an interesting one. His emphasis on language and human behaviour, practices, etc. makes him a prime candidate for Anti-Realism in many people’s eyes. He has even been accused of linguistic idealism, the idea that language is the ultimate reality.

Anti-realism is a belief opposed to Realism, which contends that there are things that exist mind-independently.

If Wittgenstein is in fact either an anti-realist or idealist, where there is no mind-independent world, then as for Wittgenstein the meaning of a word is in its relation between mind and world, and as for Wittgenstein the world exists in the mind, then it follows that for Wittgenstein, the meaning of a word must also exist solely in the mind.

Whereas my interest is in showing that things which look the same are really different — Fooloso4

As Wittgenstein said, board games and card games may not have anything in common, but they do have similarities, which he calls "family resemblances".

PI 66. Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?—Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games' "—but look and see whether there is anything common to all.—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that.

PI 67. I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than "family resemblances"; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way.— And I shall say: 'games' form a family.

Concepts in the mind pick out categories in the world — javi2541997

Given that concepts in the mind pick out categories in the world, the question is, which came first, the concept in the mind or the category in the world.

Either i) first there are concepts in the mind which then pick out categories in the world or ii) concepts are created in the mind by picking out categories in the world.

Which better explains the world, Innatism or Behaviourism.

For the Innatist, we are born with certain concepts, and then use these concepts to discover categories in the world, such as the category table. For the Behaviourist, there are categories in the world that we discover in order to create concepts in the mind, such as the concept table

Where does the essence of the table exist - as innate concepts in the mind or Platonic Forms in the world.

Where do family resemblances exist - in the mind or in the world.

Many human concepts family resemblance categories rather than classical concepts (Aristotelian). — javi2541997

Wittgenstein's and Aristotle's categories have different purposes, in that they are trying to achieve different things.

Aristotle's categories are trying to divide the world into features that are independent of each other, for example, organic vs non-organic, where something exists vs when it existed, the properties of an object vs what the object can do using these properties, etc.

Wittgenstein on the other hand is concerned with finding those words within language that may not be thought as independent of each other, such that chess and football fall within the same category of game.

Aristotle would not have an interest in the difference between chess and football as such difference does not contribute to our understanding of how the word is divided into independent categories, whereas Wittgenstein would have an interest in the difference as they are both part of the same category of "game".

Aristotle is using categories to discover differences, whereas Wittgenstein is using categories to discover similarities.

The question is "do the noumena exist and do the noumena cause appearances?" Not do "appearances have causes?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree that when sleeping and dreaming, appearances have not been directly caused by things external to the mind. The question is that when awake, is it also the case that appearances have not been caused by things external to the mind. An Idealist would say yes, a Realist would say no.

Regarding Idealism, it is either the solipsism of my mind or Berkeley's mind of God. I exclude the first possibility as I doubt I wrote War and Peace. I exclude the second possibility because of Occam's razor, in that there being no God is a simpler explanation than there being one.

This leaves Realism, in that there is a world outside the mind, and appearances can be caused by things external to the mind.

It's a false dichotomy to claim that rejecting noumena means rejecting the reality external world. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If it is possible for there to be an external world without things in themselves, what would make up this world ?

To say the noumena IS accessible in that is must be the cause of appearances is to beg the question. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think a Direct Realist would say that things in themselves are directly accessible, whereas an Indirect Realist would say that they are only indirectly accessible.

Nevertheless, isn't Kant making an assumption by saying there are "things in themselves"? This includes plurality, how do we know if there is such a thing? — Manuel

For two reasons, common sense and textual.

Common sense
What kinds of objects are things in themselves.
From A29 of CPR: For in this case that which is originally itself only appearance, e.g., a rose, counts in an empirical sense as a thing in itself, which yet can appear different to every eye in regard to colour.
From A272: Of course, if I know a drop of water as a thing in itself according to all of its inner determinations, I cannot let any one drop count as different from another if the entire concept of the former is identical with that of the latter.

By common sense, does anyone not believe in the existence of roses, drops of water, houses, camels, trucks, etc. Would anyone crossing a busy road and seeing a truck bearing down on them actually think that the truck, the thing in itself, doesn't exist in reality but only as a figment of their imagination. Wouldn't everyone make sure they quickly got out of the way. Doesn't everyone believe in that things in themselves exist independently of their own thoughts of them.

Would Kant have not worked at the University of Königsberg for 15 years if he thought that the thing in itself, the University, only existed in his imagination and not in reality.

Can anyone argue from common sense that Kant was not a Realist.

He was clearly not a Direct Realist, as the Direct Realist believes they have direct and immediate knowledge of the thing in itself.

His philosophy, as @mww writes "Matter, as such, cannot have a name, which is a representation derived from the synthesis of conceptions, hence given from thought, not sensation" is that of Indirect Realism, the view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is, but perceive it through the lens of a conceptual framework.

Textual evidence for the existence of the thing in itself
Kant makes numerous statement against the charge of Idealism.

In the CPR Anticipations of Perception, sensation can be understood both as stemming from the object of experience as well as the thing in itself. This duality may only be understood if the transcendental is distinguished from the empirical. Kant's Theory of Affection allows for two different explanations, though together make a coherent whole account of human knowledge.

It would be a mistake to conclude that because a thing in itself remains indeterminate it cannot exist. Common sense tells us that there is something behind an appearance, even if we don't know what it is.

Kant wrote in A536 of the CPR that appearances must have grounds that are not appearances.
If ... appearances are not taken for more than they actually are; if they are viewed not as things in themselves, but merely as representations, connected according to empirical laws, they must themselves have grounds which are not appearances. The effects of such an intelligible cause appear, and accordingly can be determined through other appearances, but its causality is not so determined. While the effects are to be found in the series of empirical conditions, the intelligible cause, together with its causality, is outside the series. Thus the effect may be regarded as free in respect of its intelligible cause, and at the same time in respect of appearances as resulting from them according to the necessity of nature.

We know that objects of experience, although they are mere appearances, are given to us. If the appearance has not been generated by the knowing subject, then an external cause must exist, even if the external cause is unknowable. The thing in itself allows for the very possibility of appearance.

There are many passages in the Fourth Paralogism where the thing in itself is declared as the cause of appearance, and even in the Second Analogy, the thing in itself is described as the source of affection.

Summary
Kant is clearly a Realist, and in today's terms an Indirect Realist. Kant's Theory of Affection
may be read as not only that sensation stems from the object of appearance but also from the thing in itself, not a contradictory position, but two parts of a coherent whole.

Paul Davies............by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers — Quixodian

Science tells us the Universe began about 13.8 billion years ago, and life began on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago.

Is Davies saying that as the Universe can only exist if there are observers to observe it, life must have begun 13.8 billion years ago.

Don’t be a pillock — Jamal

Pillock, a stupid person. I will have to remember to use that term in the future on the Forum.

I was just correcting your anglocentric assumptions. — Jamal

In what way is my belief that humans across the world subjectively perceive colour in a similar way Anglo-centric ?

Note that this is just cultural. Russians have no word for blue*. Light and dark blue, goluboy and siniy, are seen as different colours, as different as red and orange. — Jamal

I can only speak from general knowledge, but whilst I agree that colour has different linguistic and social meaning between different cultures, I don't agree that humans within different cultures would not have the same subjective perception of different wavelengths.

The Wikipedia articles on Color and Color Terms writes that whilst English has 11 basic colour terms, other languages have between 2 and 12. How the spectrum is divided into distinct colours linguistically is a matter of culture and historical contingency. Colours have different associations in different countries and cultures.

Even though a Russian and a Scot have different linguistic terms for colours, if you showed the Scot and the Russian the three wavelengths of 420nm, 470nm and 700nm, my belief is that they would both agree that there was a common feature between 420nm and 470nm but not between 420nm and 700nm

IE, colour perception is not just cultural, it is human, common across different cultures.

Colour is not wavelength — Metaphysician Undercover

If what I've read on this is accurate the human can distinguish about 10 million colours, although for simplicity we don't have many different names for them. — Janus

The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from about 380 to about 750 nm The average number of colours we can distinguish is around a million.

English has 11 basic colour terms: black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, orange, pink, purple, and grey.

It is part a problem of terminology. On the one hand, a wavelength of 420nm is a different colour to a wavelength of 470nm, but on the other hand, even though we can distinguish them, we perceive them both as the single colour blue.

The interesting question is how we can perceive the wavelengths of 420nm and 470nm as two different things yet at the same time perceive them as a single thing.

Kant sometimes oscillates between the "thing-in-itself" and "things in themselves", and these, obviously, are different in an important respect, in that one presupposes individuation, the other does not. — Manuel

It seems "things in themselves" refer to several objects of experience, whilst "thing in itself" refers to one object of experience.

From the CPR:
B xxvi Yet the reservation must also be well noted, that even if we cannot cognize these same objects as things in themselves, we at least must be able to think them as things in themselves.
A30 For in this case that which is originally itself only appearance, e.g., a rose, counts in an empirical sense as a thing in itself, which yet can appear different to every eye in regard to colour.

From the SEP article on Kant's Transcendental Idealism, Prauss (1974) notes that, in most cases, Kant uses the expression “Dinge an sich selbst” rather than the shorter form “Dinge an sich”. He argues that “an sich selbst” functions as an adverb to modify an implicit attitude verb like “to consider”. He concludes that the dominant use of these expressions is as a short-hand for “things considered as they are in themselves”

I guess the whole point is that we don't know that there are things in themselves, only that we believe that there are. The "selbst" indicates a mental attitude to something rather than the physical state of something.

Do we have in mind noumenon in a negative sense or in a positive sense? — Manuel

Although Kant distinguished between positive noumena and negative noumena, as he didn't think positive noumena were possible, because they would require intellectual knowledge of a non-sensible intuition, the term noumena is assumed to mean a negative noumena, aka thing-in-itself, aka Dinge an sich selbst .

Also: being a realist does not preclude being an idealist — Count Timothy von Icarus

It depends what is being meant by realism and idealism. It comes down to definition, which are difficult to pin down, especially when there was even a thread on the Forum titled "Definitions have no place in philosophy". The SEP articles on Idealism and Realism are a start.
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Dorrien: Kant postulated a self-sufficient noumenal realm set apart from everything belonging to the phenomenal realm — Count Timothy von Icarus

A sensible acknowledgement that for the 10 billion years before life began on Earth, there was possibly no phenomenal realm.
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Dorrien: Kant’s Platonism, however, stood in the way of dealing with anything real — Count Timothy von Icarus

In another passage Hamann attacks Kant for elevating Reason into a universal Platonic ideal rather than being something grounded in a specific language and cultural context. An unwarranted criticism, in that a philosopher should not to be forced to make judgements unduly swayed by short term pressures from the particular society that they happen to live in.
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Kant realized that his critics would say the same thing about the thing-in-itself, but he needed the idea of the noumenon to account for the given manifold and the ground of moral freedom. The idea of a thing-in-itself that is not a thing of the senses is not contradictory, he assured — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is still a problem that Indirect and Direct Realism grapples with 200 years after Kant's death.
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Like Fichte, Hegel wants to find out how basic categories have to be understood, not just how they have in fact been understood. This can only be discovered, he believes, if we demonstrate which categories are inherent in thought as such, and we can only do this if we allow pure thought to determine itself—and so to generate its own determinations—“before our very eyes” — Count Timothy von Icarus

There is no problem of self-reference in Kant. It is not the case that thoughts can only be about thoughts.

For Kant, we think about objects of sensible intuition using the categories. The category doesn't determine what particular object is being thought about, although it is true that the categories limit what particular objects can be thought about.

It is true that the fact that I have the ability to see the colours red and green but not the colour ultra-violet does limit me in which colours I can see, but it does allow me to distinguish between the colours (of sensible intuition) that I am able to see.

Catastrophically irrelevant. — Mww

In what way is pointing out that Kant didn't have the advantage of knowing about evolution irrelevant to when it comes to finding a solution to the problem of infinite regression as laid out in the quote by Stephen Houlgate in his book The Opening of Hegel's Logic.

Fichte maintains that Kant himself “does not derive the presumed laws of the intellect from the very nature of the intellect,” but abstracts these laws from our empirical experience of objects, albeit via a “detour through logic” (which itself abstracts its laws from our experience of objects). In Fichte’s view, therefore, Kant may assert that the categories and laws of thought have their source in the spontaneity of the intellect, but—because of the way he proceeds—“he has no way to confirm that the laws of thought he postulates actually are laws of thought and that they are really nothing else but the immanent laws of the intellect.” The only way to confirm this, Fichte tells us, would be to start from the simple premise that the intellect acts—that the intellect is “a kind of doing and absolutely nothing more”—and to show how the laws of thought can be derived from this premise alone.

How can the question as to the source of our a priori non-sensible intuitions and categories of concepts be properly answered without reference to a modern understanding of Innatism ?

We are not living in 1781 when the Critique of Pure Reason was first published.

Do you think space and time are real independently of the mind? — Quixodian

As an Indirect Realist, yes. I believe that space and time existed independently of the human mind for at least the 10 billion years before life began on Earth.

How would that have mattered? — Quixodian

It has been said about Kant that he is dogmatic about us having a priori pure intuitions and categories of concepts, yet without explaining where they came from.

It seems clear with with hindsight, in part the debate between Innatism and Behaviourism, that a suitable candidate from their origin in the human mind is that a priori knowledge offers evolutionary advantages.

Through both of these functions it serves to keep us humble (Emrys Westacott). And I think if it is understood in that spirit, it is still a perfectly understandable principle. "We do not see things as they truly are, but only as they appear to us". — Quixodian

As an Indirect Realist, something I definitely agree with.

Indirect Realism is the view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is, but perceive it through the lens of a conceptual framework, as opposed to Direct Realism, the view that conscious subjects view the world directly.

As Indirect realism was popular with several early modern philosophers, including Descartes (1596 - 1650), Locke (1632 - 1704), Leibniz (1646 - 1716) and Hume (1711 - 1776), each born before Kant (1724 - 1804), Kant would have been familiar with the concept.

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. — Mww

Kant (1724 to 1804) unfortunately didn't have the advantage of Darwin's book On the Origin of Species 1859, so couldn't include the theory of evolution in his philosophy.

Your examples are just an attempt to avoid the issue because explaining what it means to perceive one specific type of red does not explain how we perceive red in the general sense. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is the same problem as to how we are able to perceive any concept, such as triangles, the colour red, mountains, love, giraffes, tables, apples, democracy, etc. Things that exist only the mind and not outside the mind, unless one believes in Plato' Forms.

If I could explain how the brain processes concepts I would be well on the way to solving some of the deepest problems in philosophy today, including the mystery of consciousness.

However, it seems a sensible evolutionary advantage to have limit our concepts of colour to seven: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. If the human could only distinguish one colour, they couldn't distinguish between an edible green apple and a rotten brown apple. If the human could distinguish 1,000 colours, this would probably give the brain too much information to satisfactorily process. Therefore, the concept of 7 colours seems a good, middle-of-the-road evolutionary solution.

That things are not percieved as they are in themselves is fundamental in the Critique — Quixodian

Totally agree, and also a position held by the Indirect Realists.

However, this is different to ChatGPT's quote that "For Kant, noumena are things-in-themselves that exist independently of human experience and cognition."

If that were true, then how can we be discussing them.

As Kant is committed to the principle of Affection, whereby things-in-themselves causally affect us, things-in-themselves don't exist independently of human experience and cognition.

That concluding phrase ('that space itself is in us') should torpedo any suggestion that Kant was a realist tout courte. — Quixodian

As he writes in A370 of the CPR, "The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist", this suggests that the idea that Kant was a Realist cannot be torpedoed because of his belief in the a priori.

There is no contradiction in being an Indirect Realist, a belief that we perceive the world indirectly, and Innatism, a belief that the mind is born with certain ideas and knowledge.

As Innatism is the foundation to Indirect Realism, non-sensible intuition and the a priori categories are the foundation to Transcendental Idealism.

Note, however, that in the wake of the Feder-Garve review, Kant evidently felt that “transcendental” idealism may have been a poor choice of name. In the B Edition, Kant adds a footnote to his definition of transcendental idealism to remark that perhaps he should have called his position “critical idealism”.

This makes no sense to me. There are many different shades of red, produced from many different combinations of wavelengths. We learn how to perceive the colour red by learning how to correctly apply the word "red". Without learning the word "red", we would perceive many different shades of colours without knowing any of them as "red". — Metaphysician Undercover

When someone looks at an object emitting a wavelength of 700nm they perceive a particular colour.

The English speaking world has determined that not only is the wavelength of 700nm named "red", but also the wavelengths 620 to 750nm are also named "red".

It is not true that we learn how to perceive the colour of the wavelength 700nm by knowing its name. I don't need to know the name of the wavelength 700nm in order to perceive it.

I've been consulting ChatGPT on Kant's conception of the phenomenal-noumenal distinction — Quixodian

What epistemic grounds can Kant have for the proof of such noumena that don't rely on presuppositions—on dogma? He can't have any empircal support for such things, by his own admission. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Kant was a Realist not an Idealist

The following is mainly taken from SEP - Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Kant is committed to Existence, Humility, Non-spatiality and Affection, where Affection is the principle that things-in-themselves causally affect us. Kant has the position that sensory content is not generated by the mind, but is generated by Affection with mind-independent objects, things-in-themselves.

Kant writes in A19 of CPR that cognition relates immediately to objects:
In whatever way and through whatever means a cognition may relate to objects, that through which it relates immediately to them, and at which all thought as a means is directed as an end, is intuition. This, however, takes place only insofar as the object is given to us; but this in turn, is possible only if it affects the mind in a certain way. The capacity (receptivity) to acquire representations through the way in which we are affected by objects is called sensibility. Objects are therefore given to us by means of sensibility, and it alone affords us intuitions; but they are thought through the understanding, and from it arise concepts. But all thought, whether straightaway (directe) or through a detour (indirecte), must ultimately be related to intuitions, thus, in our case, to sensibility, since there is no other way in which objects can be given to us

Kant is not an Idealist. In the Prolegomena Kant wants to distinguish his view from Berkeley's Idealism. Kant reinforces that his view is not Idealism. The Critique constantly maintains that bodies exist in space and time, and maintains that we have immediate non-inferential knowledge of them.

Kant is not a strong phenomenalist, in that his position is that there are objects outside the mind.

Kant argues that his idealism is a formal idealism. It is only the form of the object that is due to our minds, not their matter. Kant makes the point that sensory content is not generated by the mind, but is generated by affection with mind-independent objects, things-in-themselves. Using such sensory content, we can then cognize about objects by synthesising intuition and concept in the unity of apperception. IE, non-sensible spatio-temporal intuitions and concepts logically structured by the a priori categories of quantity, quality, relation, modality.

Therefore, Kant's epistemic grounds for the understanding of things-in-themselves is Affection, the principle that things-in-themselves causally affect us.

Therefore, ChatGPT's comment that Kant's things-in-themselves are entirely beyond our capacity to experience or comprehend is incorrect for the same reason, that of Affection, the principle that things-in-themselves causally affect us.

Only to some degree. I can believe magic will let me drive my car through a wall, but when I try it, I presume my perceptions will not match up to my past belief. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hugh Urban has described chaos magic as a union of traditional occult techniques and applied postmodernism.

As a believer in neither the occult nor postmodernism, chaos magic does not appeal, although I find its cut-up technique interesting.

That being said, as one reads that 99% of Morocco are Muslim, 68% of Norway is Christian, 94% of Thailand are Buddhists, 74% of Israel are Jewish and 79% of India are Hindu, this suggests that one's perception of the world can be changed by changing the beliefs of one's geographic location.

But surely there is a difference between the conditions required for the acquisition of knowledge, and knowledge itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

The distinction between knowing-how and knowing-that was brought to prominence in epistemology by Gilbert Ryle who used it in his book The Concept of Mind

As regards the concept of the colour red, which is descriptive knowledge, I know that vehicles need to stop at traffic lights on red . As regards the intuition of the colour red, which is procedural knowledge, the brain knows how to perceive the colour red when presented with a wavelength of 700nm.

Knowledge can exist in the absence of consciousness, as with a knowledge-base.

The brain knows how to acquire knowledge. IE, the brain has the innate knowledge of how to acquire knowledge.

So this is akin to post-modernism's notion of "all is text". — schopenhauer1

Yes. As the Wikipedia article on Postmodernism writes:

Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourse characterized by skepticism toward the "grand narratives" of modernism; rejection of epistemic certainty or the stability of meaning; and sensitivity to the role of ideology in maintaining political power. Claims to objectivity are dismissed as naïve realism, with attention drawn to the conditional nature of knowledge claims within particular historical, political, and cultural discourses. The postmodern outlook is characterized by self-referentiality, epistemological relativism, moral relativism, pluralism, irony, irreverence, and eclecticism; it rejects the "universal validity" of binary oppositions, stable identity, hierarchy, and categorization.

Unless we can trust in the truth of language, we must dismiss its meaning entirely. Chaos will reign, but no one will listen to its proclamations. — unenlightened

That's the direction many think Society is heading towards at the moment.

As the Wikipedia article on Criticism of postmodernism writes:
Postmodernism has received significant criticism for its lack of stable definition and meaning.

"Intuition" appears to refer to a faculty or means by which we obtain knowledge directly, without the need for sensation nor reasoning. — Metaphysician Undercover

In today's terms it's referred to as Innatism. Chomsky mentions it.

But is it really appropriate to call something acquired through intuition, Knowledge? — Metaphysician Undercover

SEP - Innateness and Language
The philosophical debate over innate ideas and their role in the acquisition of knowledge has a venerable history.

Wikipedia - Innatism
In the philosophy of mind, innatism is the view that the mind is born with already-formed ideas, knowledge, and beliefs.

Within language there are true statements of fact — unenlightened

There may well be, but does anyone agree what they are.

It also depends whether one is using the Correspondence, Semantic, Deflationary, Coherence or Pragmatic Theory of Truth.

The issue here is the type of "intuition" which could receive the noumena — Metaphysician Undercover

I can only Kant understand through an analogy.

We perceive the colour red, yet science tells us the cause of our perceiving the colour red is a wavelength of 700nm. Science tells us that what we perceive as the colour red doesn't exist outside the mind. What exists outside the mind is a wavelength of 700nm.

Our knowledge that the cause of our perceiving the colour red is the wavelength 700nm comes indirectly through science. It is impossible for us to directly see the wavelength of 700nm.

It is also a fact that we are not able to imagine the colour red in the absence of seeing it. Only by being presented with a wavelength of 700nm can we ever perceive the colour red. The brain has the innate ability to perceive the colour red, but only when presented with a wavelength of 700nm

However, we are able to think about the colour red in the absence of being presented with a wavelength of 700nm through the use of concepts. I know that when a traffic light turns red, vehicles are required by law to stop, some roses are red in colour and the colour red has a wavelength of 700nm.

On the one hand, the brain has the ability to perceive the colour red but only when presented with the wavelength of 700nm, and on the other hand the brain can imagine the concept of red other than when presented with the wavelength of 700nm.

Summarising:
i) I have an innate belief in cause and effect, and although I may never know what caused my perceiving the colour red, I know something in the world caused me to perceive the colour red. The category of cause and effect can be applied to things-in-themselves, and phenomena are caused by noumena..
ii) We can never directly know what a wavelength of 700nm looks like. We can never directly know what a noumena looks like
iii) What we perceive as the colour red doesn't exist in the world outside the mind. Similarly, what we perceive as space doesn't exist in the world outside the mind. What we perceive as a phenomenon doesn't exist in the world outside the mind
iv) We can have the concept of the colour red in the absence of being presented with a wavelength of 700nm. We have concepts.
v) We have the innate ability to perceive the colour red, but can only perceive the colour red when presented with a wavelength of 700nm. We have intuitions.

Alternatively, the referent of the noumena is simply a thought structure of a person who buys into the idea that phenomena are caused by things we can know nothing about. That is, one solution to Kant's implicit dualism is to simply say that the person thinking of noumenal is simply referring to their own delusions — Count Timothy von Icarus

Kant is saved from nihilism by his categories of understanding, which includes that of cause and effect.

He wrote in Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics 1783 that the category of cause and effect can be applied to things-in-themselves.
"And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something."

As an Indirect Realist, having an innate belief in cause and effect, I may not know the cause of an appearance, but I know that there has been a cause.