How do you know you understand the rules of tennis? — Isaac

The same way I know I understand anything; I experience a state of comprehension. Perhaps nothing I say could convince you about that; but that's fine, because your conviction that I understand is not necessary to my understanding. Think about it; if I didn't understand the rules of tennis, I would not be able to demonstrate them, by either implementing them or describing them. If I did implement them or describe them to your satisfaction; how would I know that you were a competent judge (which would require that you understood the rules of tennis)?

That's a stupid question, Isaac. It's obvious, for example think about tennis. The rules of tennis are perfectly comprehensible to me, and yet I haven't played the game. I know I understand the rules of tennis, and that understanding does not require that I demonstrate it to anyone.

Incorrect; you would first have to understand a rule in order to be able to demonstrate that understanding. You are committing the same conflation as Banno; that between understanding and demonstrating understanding..

It's a simple point: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. — Banno

I think that's a different point, but yeah, whatever...

Both. What I am denying is that the whole of understanding a rule lies in interpreting it. One shows that one understands the rule by implementing it. Implementation is more then interpretation. — Banno

It seems you are conflating understanding a rule with showing that you understand a rule. One could understand a rule without ever implementing it. If this were not so, for example any spectator of a sport they never played would be unable to understand its rules; which is obviously an absurd conclusion.

Before it can change, it has to be a thing. That thing then can change into something else. Change is something that happens to things. Change is a thing.

Serious question - Did Kant think that things-in-themselves changed? — T Clark

Obviously there are no things-as-perceived absent perceivers; does it logically follow that there are no things at all? You haven't answered the question as to how the totally amorphous, changeless thing in itself gives rise to perceivers who perceive change, and "carve up" the world in fairly cohesive and consistent ways. Do you believe our structuring of the world could be totally arbitrary? If not, then what structures it?

I think Kant believed we cannot talk sensibly about things in themselves. Nevertheless, he said we must posit things in themselves because if there are appearances there must be "something" which appears. To be consistent he would have to say that things in themselves change, because for each phenomenon there is the noumenon which gives rise to it, and if phenomena change, then so must noumena. Kant it seems was not all that consistent in his treatment of things in themselves.

I think Schopenhauer's critique of and "solution" to Kant's noumena is pretty piss-poor because there is no answer as to how something completely changeless, a blind striving will. could give rise to a perceived world of change and seemingly replete with invariances and consistent lawlike behavior.

So the 'thing in itself' is completely changeless and amorphous and any "cutting up" we do is totally arbitrary? — Janus


Any better response? The universe is just hanging out as humans conceive it, but without human conception? — schopenhauer1

First, you haven't said what is wrong with the response, and second it is actually a question, not an assertive response, a serious question, a problem for your apparent position which you haven't answered.

So the 'thing in itself' is completely changeless and amorphous and any "cutting up" we do is totally arbitrary?

I would say that non-sentient beings do not have perspective. There are no events in an a world with no sentient beings. — T Clark

No big bang, no rapid inflationary period, no galaxy formation, no changes on pre-life earth? :cry:

The question was not whether the concept of cause was right, useful,
and even indispensable for our knowledge of nature, for this Hume had
never doubted; but whether that concept could be thought by reason a
priori, and consequently whether it possessed an inner truth,
independent of all experience, implying a wider application than
merely to the objects of experience. This was Hume's problem. — Wayfarer

Right, but all that seems to be saying is that intelligible experience itself, and not merely rightness, usefulness and even indispensability for our knowledge of nature, is impossible without thinking in terms of causation, and again I think that Hume might have agreed.

I'm not sure what Kant could mean by "implying a wider application than merely to the objects of experience" unless he is just referring to any possible object of experience as opposed to actual objects of experience.

Kant was not a realist about causation. As I understand it Hume claims that on account of "constant conjunctions" of events we come to habitually assume that the preceding event causes the constantly observed attending subsequent event. It certainly seems that events are intelligible to us only on account of positing causation, almost the whole of the natural sciences are based on this, and I think this is Kant's answer, which Hume would probably have agreed with.

Kant's position, as I understand it, is that, notwithstanding the intelligibility of the empirical being reliant on causation and the obvious fact that the comprehensibility of the relations between events is couched in terms of causation, these epistemological facts by no means show that causation is a property of "events in themselves" (if this latter term is even coherent).

Isn't that exactly what I said, predictions do not prove hypotheses? So why do you think it constitutes a misunderstanding? — Metaphysician Undercover

When you say this

When a hypothesis produces a prediction which works, this does not necessarily mean that the hypothesis ought to be accepted. — Metaphysician Undercover

it shows the misunderstanding I'm talking about, Scientists don't imagine that observed predictions prove hypotheses, so that is not the reason they are accepted. They are accepted because they work as long as predictions are observed to be accurate.

Your following paragraphs are nonsense, so I won't bother responding; if scientists didn't (provisionally) accept hypotheses and continue to test them, then science would grind to a halt.

Clearly though, the successful predictions are nothing more than successful predictions, and my hypothesis hasn't been proven at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

You misunderstand the nature of science; hypotheses are never proven, if by proven you mean rendered absolutely certain. Hypotheses, even established theories, are always provisional.

We (the community of inquirers) accept theories for as long as observations continue to manifest what is predicted of those theories.

I think the inner nature of nature (pardon the redundancy) will remain a secret, beyond our understanding. But, that's idiosyncratic. — Manuel

I agree; all we have are various ideas about what we are able to imagine as possibilities. We can say the whole question is irrelevant, incoherent or even meaningless, but that would just be another idea.

as evident by knowledge derived through fundamental particle physics / astrophysics, evolutionary molecular biology, pure mathematics (e.g. Lie Groups, Number Theory, Axiomatic Set Theory), as examples, which we cannot perceive directly (via "intuition") and are "beyond" human experience. — 180 Proof

Kant would agree with you that we have knowledge of the empirical, and analytic and/ or synthetic a priori knowledge in the form of logic and mathematics. Does any of this, insofar as these are all human activities, say anything about anything beyond the human domain, though?

What's curious here is why we even have the capacity to do physics at all, and also why the universe seems to be "built" in such a way that math can see into her secrets.

It doesn't make sense in terms of a survival purpose. — Manuel

But does math really "see into her secrets"? We seem to be able to model things mathematically and make extraordinarily accurate predictions. We accept such modeling if it works (if what is predicted is what is observed). Now imagine reducing those modeling processes back to their basic levels, of say predicting how hunted animals will behave, how traps will work, what are the most effective sizes and shapes of weapons and other implements or what effects burning will have on the landscape, and so on and we can see that it makes very good sense in terms of survival.

The fundamental premise of phenomenology is that there is nothing but appearance. No veil between what is ( the thing in itself) and what seems to be. The appearance IS the thing in itself. — Joshs

Sure, you might say that for phenomenology a thing is the sum of all its possible appearances, and nothing beyond that. On the other hand, it is always possible that things are constituted in ways that do not, even cannot, appear to us. Of course we can also say that that possibility is of no relevance to us at all. These are all possible ways of thinking about it.

Modern physics , to the extent that it accepts a form of realism, assumes a split between what appears to a subject and reality. — Joshs

I don't think this is true, or least not necessarily true. There are many physicists and they no doubt have different ideas about what is real. All that has to be accepted is what appears to our observations, and the testing of the explanations that can be imagined and modeled.

By abstraction I mean entities such as objects having spatial extension and temporal duration. They are ideal entities, intended as having no ‘subjectivity’ within themselves but instead only enduring properties. — Joshs

These are concrete entities that can be measured, studied and modeled, not "abstract" entities. Of course they are appearances, but they are concrete appearances, not abstractions. It is our ideas, our models, of them that are abstractions. Now, that is one way of thinking about the situation, and there are others of course. But they are all just ways of thinking with their different starting assumptions. There are no presuppositonless ways of thinking.

This wasn't a refutation at all, just a simple assertion. But it's really a defeatist attitude. If we say that reality extends beyond our capacities of sensation (and what science shows us is that it does), yet we claim that reason has not the capacity to understand this reality, then we render science as impotent. Science uses hypotheses to understand what is beyond the limitations of sensation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Science is accepted because it works. We can make observations and measure and model the world as it appears to us. We can think in terms of causation and imagine ways in which the things of the observed world and their observed parts and functions might work. Then we can think of what we would expect to observe if our hypotheses were right, and if, on experimentation, we do observe what we predicted, then we accept our hypotheses, and they become established as theories. None of this relies on any belief that we can know the nature of things in any "absolute" sense.

I should note that for writers like Heidegger, Derrida and some of the phenomenologists, the notion of the human is presupposed but is instead a derived abstraction. From their vantage framing metaphysics in terms of what is within or outside of human experience is already anthropocentric because it begins from the notion of the human subject. nModern empirical science, including physics, is anthropocentric for this reason. The transcendental starting point for these authors is not yet a human subjectivity Even though it is a kind of subject, it does t lend itself to a dichotomy between what is experienced from a human point view and what is outside of it. — Joshs

I don't know whether you meant to say "is not presupposed, but is a derived abstraction". Traditional metaphysics certainly thought in terms of (purported) metaphysical truths being absolute, in contrast to the relativity of human opinion. Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza all thought, in their various ways that pure intuitive rational knowledge of the nature of reality was possible.

It is not so much a matter of "beginning with the subject" in my view, but of forming a distinction between appearance and reality. For Kant, we can know only appearances, but he also was the first to show that we can know what are the necessary conditions for any knowledge of appearances.

Modern physics is not anthropocentric, other than in the definitional sense that any human inquiry is anthropocentric in that it is an inquiry by the anthropos, by us. The notion of the human is a "derived abstraction" as are all notions altogether, including those of Heidegger, Derrida, etc.

Non-empirical knowledge (e.g. mathematical theorems) does not "come from experience". — 180 Proof

Is such knowledge possible without mathematical experience?

Right, I misread anthropocentric as anthropomorphic. In any case my point stands re anthropomorphizing, and we are apparently in agreement about knowledge outside human experience being impossible.

But then they simply fall into the fallacy of I don't know... I'll just call it whatever the opposite of curiosity is. — schopenhauer1

As Kant says, we cannot acquire discursive metaphysical (in the traditional, not his Synthetic a priori, sense) knowledge, but that it is, nonetheless, intrinsic to rational thought to seek the unconditioned as the totality and ultimate explanation for the conditioned.

"I don't know" is not a fallacy, as I see it, but a suitably humble acknowledgement of the limits of knowledge; and it is by no means an injunction to cease thinking about such unknowables, because such thoughts can, and obviously have, enriched human life and creativity.

"STOP!!" "Thouh shalt not pass!!" :lol: :lol: — schopenhauer1

LOL, we can pass, but we have to leave our analytical discursive minds at the gate. The mind of the Muse may enter.

Can we access the worm's eye view? Any animal's? Ubermensch's?

No. Epistemology cannot posit "knowing" it's own "conditions of possibility" – begs the question, no? — 180 Proof

Why? Epistemology is the inquiry into what we know and how we know anything. It is arguable that we can know, on the basis of reflection, what the essential general elements of all kinds of experiences are. Knowledge comes from experience; where else? I don't see any question-begging here.

It's not an "anthropocentric fiat" unless it purports to extend its findings beyond the anthropos, in other words as long as it doesn't aim to make claims about what lies beyond human experience. The latter is what anthropomorphizing consists in, as I understand it.

If you take that as an "ad hominem attack", then you are probably too overly sensitive for a robust philosophical discussion, so yes, we'd best leave it. Good luck with your education.

My tentative, meta-philosophical claim is that this implies that in some sense, the appearance of conscious sentient beings literally brings the universe into existence. Not that ‘before’ we came along that it didn’t exist, — Wayfarer

You seem to be contradicting yourself. How could the appearance of conscious sentient beings bring the universe into existence if it is not the case "that 'before' we came along it didn't exist". And why the inverted commas around "before"?

A shame you need to make a personal attack. We're done. — Jackson

It wasn't a personal attack. By your irrelevant comments you have demonstrated that you don't understand what Kant was doing. I am not criticizing you; I am criticizing your demonstrated misunderstanding of Kant's project. Don't you want to learn?

And I don't accept Kant's concept of space and time. So, his conditions of experience are contrary to science. — Jackson

Kant is talking, not about any purported objective characteristics of space and time ( for him they are not objective, but subjective), but about how they are experienced by us. You may have read a lot of Kant, but it doesn't look like you've understood him.

What is time? — Jackson

Duration. All experiences must persist for a time. I wasn't thinking of sequence; but that raises a different question: can we understand events without sequentiality?

Kant was a Newtonian. He thought there was absolute time and space. — Jackson

And...?

We cannot determine all possible experiences. — Jackson

What do you mean "determine all possible experiences"? Are you saying we cannot think of the necessary general characteristics of any experience? That seems just plain wrong; since time, for one, certainly seems to be necessary for any experience.

Why do you say that? What about the necessary conditions for any actual experience (which is the same thing expressed differently)?

Right, but I would say not since Kant.

And Kant was simply doing metaphysics under the guise of epistemology — Jackson

Or was it epistemology under the guise of (a new kind of) metaphysics or proto-phenomenology? Do you think it is possible to reflect on and know what characteristics any possible experience or judgement must have?

This is becoming boring and pedantic, so I'll leave you to it.

I wrote Aristotle's definition. — Jackson

Where? Write it again or link to it; I couldn't find it.

Stated it several times. — Jackson

Where? Remember I'm asking for traditional definitions, not your definition.

One definition, yes. — Jackson

Can you offer some other traditional definitions of metaphysics?

I like to be informed about my judgments. — Jackson

If you think he is boring and pedantic it wouldn't have taken you much reading to discover that you think that, would it?

Is it merely that which is not False? — Jackson

No, it is traditionally considered to be that which is absolutely existent (as opposed to what appears to us to be existent).

I don't define metaphysics as the science of the real. — Jackson

You may not, but traditionally metaphysics was understood according to that definition.

It is just a topic in philosophy about what we think the totality of the world is. — Jackson

What do you mean by "totality of the world"? Is thinking about that different than thinking about what the Real is?

I've read a lot of Kant and I find him boring and pedantic. — Jackson

Why did you read a lot of Kant if you found him boring and pedantic?

And Kant was simply doing metaphysics under the guise of epistemology. — Jackson

If metaphysics is taken to be the science of the Real (where "real" is understood to be what is independent of human experience) then Kant was not doing metaphysics. His aim was to establish what characteristics all possible human experience and judgement must have.

Metaphysics is a tool. If it works, it's valid. — T Clark

I agree with this except for "invalid." — T Clark

Perhaps "invalid" is a problematic term, given it's use in logic to denote consistency as distinct from truth. My point is that if metaphysics is taken to be the attempt to arrive at a definitive answer as to the nature of absolute reality, then it is not, and cannot be, adequate to the task. This was the point of Kant's project.

This negative approach is, I contend, even less perspectival, or subjective, than the positive (à la kataphatic) approach by virtue of negating the unreal in order to make explicit (but without defining) the real. — 180 Proof

:up: That's it!