On Aug 14, 4:16 am, Immortalist <reanimater_2...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Aug 13, 5:37 am, Michael Gordge <mikegor...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > Being objective.
>
> > Space, time, area, duration, nothing, something, distance and weight
> > are but a minute fraction of the number of concepts used by man to
> > help construct his knowledge and to communicate facts of matter
> > existence and events etc clearly with other humans.
>
> > A concept is a trigger word and words are just man made recognition
> > symbols used to link and explain / communicate existence.
>
> > Concepts are used to trigger in man's mind a mental image, i.e. an
> > abstraction of existence including matter object/s and or a sensory
> > event or events etc etc.
>
> ...nothing intuited in space is a thing in itself, that space is not a
> form inhering in things in themselves as their intrinsic property,
> that objects in themselves are quite unknown to us, and that what we
> call outer objects are nothing but mere representations of our
> sensibility, the form of which is space. The true correlate of
> sensibility, the thing in itself, is not known, and cannot be known,
> through these representations; and in experience no question is ever
> asked in regard to it.
>
> Critique of Pure Reason Page
73http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy=
/Kant/cpr/
>
> Kant: Appearances and Things in Themselves ...what Kant understands by
> 'empirical idealism' is basically Berkeley's view (as well as the view
> of the others mentioned above) - i.e., the claim that the mind has
> immediate access only to its own ideas or representations.
> 'Transcendental realism,' by contrast, is the view that "mere
> representations" are "things in themselves" (A490-1/B518-19), i.e.,
> that things are as our sensibility maintains them to be.
>
> In Kant's view of the history of philosophy, these two views are
> frequently associated. If the mind knows only its own ideas, and
> things are just what they seem to be, then Berkeley's conclusions seem
> unavoidable: things are the ideas in our own minds. Total skepticism
> is avoided only by identifying the "real" with the immediate objects
> of consciousness.
>
> The distinction between appearances and things in themselves occurs in
> both empirical and transcendental forms, and Kant thinks it crucial to
> keep from running these two sets of distinctions together.
>
> Suppose I say, in a given context, that "The stick looks straight to
> me." Typically, I would say that it "looks" this way to distinguish my
> perception of it - the appearance of the stick to me ("appearance" in
> the empirical sense, or my "idea" of it, as the empiricists would say)
> - from how it might appear to you or someone else. (We ordinarily
> would not say that the stick merely "looks" straight unless there was
> some reason to doubt it's straightness, e.g. if you had just claimed
> it to be curved.) But suppose I'm right about the stick. Then its
> straightness is a property of the stick-in-itself, but here the "in-
> itself" is purely empirical. In this way, the empirical appearance/
> thing-in-itself distinction corresponds to the difference between
> mental states and the physical or material thing. This holds,
> however, only in the ordinary language of experience (which includes
> both common sense and science).
>
> In a transcendental sense, however, the situation is quite different.
> Here, to say that something is an "appearance" (or "mere
> representation" - the thing as it appears to us) is to say that its
> properties are reflective of the necessary and universal conditions of
> human cognition in general (the synthetic a priori). (Qua appearance
> in this sense, the stick is spatially extended and exists through
> time, for example.) To call it an "appearance" is principally the
> acknowledgement that we cannot claim to know things independently of
> the nature of human cognition itself, which would amount to having a
> knowledge gained by "stepping outside of ourselves," so to speak, an
> impossibility. But this is not to say, crucially, that appearances
> are mere ideas. To do so would be to confuse appearances in the
> transcendental sense with appearances in the empirical sense. It
> would be tantamount to denying that external objects are spatial,
> something Kant thought obviously absurd.
>
> Another way to put the point is that for Kant, empirical idealism,
> transcendental realism, and the tempting association between them
> involve a confusion or equivocation about what it means for something
> to be "outer" (Kant's ausser or ausser uns) In the transcendental
> sense, something is "outer" if its properties are completely
> independent of the nature of human cognition (the synthetic a
> priori). In the empirical sense, for something to be "outer" is just
> for it to independent of this or that person's thoughts - e.g., for
> the table to be in the room, and not in my mind. The key mistake that
> results in empirical idealism and transcendental realism is a sort of
> slide: I conceive the table to be in space and time and to continue
> existing independently of myself, and hence as "outer" in the
> empirical sense. The temptation is then to suppose the table can be
> known to exist in space and time independent of all conditions of
> human cognition. But if this the way we expect to be able to know the
> table, then either the skepticism of Descartes results (we don't know
> it at all), or skepticism is avoided only by restricting our knowledge
> to the idea of the table in our minds (Berkeley). Kant suggests in
> one place that Berkeleyanism is not unreasonable as a response to
> Newton's view of the absolute (transcendentally real) nature of space
> and time. (Given Newton's view of "two infinite things, which are not
> substances, nor anything actually inhering in substances, [yet must]
> have existence, nay, must be the necessary condition of the existence
> of all things, and moreover, must continue to exist, even although all
> existing things be removed, - we cannot blame the good Berkeley for
> degrading bodies to mere illusion." CPR B70-71 Newton's problem, to
> Kant's way of thinking, is that he mistook the transcendentally ideal
> and empirically real nature of space and time for its transcendental
> reality. In different terms, he mistook an epistemological necessity
> for an ontological one.)
>
> Here's the succinct way Graham Bird puts it: consider two claims, a)
> that there are external objects of which we have knowledge, and b)
> that we are immediately aware only of our ideas, representations or of
> appearances. For Kant, the first claim is transcendentally false, but
> empirically true; the second claim is transcendentally true, but
> empirically false.[1] For Berkeley, though, the former is
> (empirically) false (unless we allow Berkeley to understand 'external'
> in his own strange way), and for this reason Kant calls him an
> empirical idealist. Berkeley would say the latter is (empirically)
> true, and this is the source of his idealism. For Kant, tables,
> sticks, etc. are transcendentally ideal (their a priori necessary
> features can be asserted only relative to our mode of knowledge), but
> empirically real (in space and time outside our minds). Or to put it
> more positively, Kant is a transcendental idealist because our
> knowledge of such objects is not limited to ideas in the empiricists'
> sense.(Since the synthetic a priori extends our knowledge beyond the
> data given by the senses.) Hence, Kant and Berkeley disagree
> fundamentally.
>
> A different way to make some of these points comes courtesy of Henry
> Allison.[2] To Kant's thinking, his predecessors in modern philosophy
> had a theocentric model of knowledge. (Theocentrism here is the
> strategy of analyzing human knowledge in terms of its conformity, or
> lack thereof, to the standard of cognition achievable by an "absolute"
> or "infinite intellect," i.e. God. And God, of course, knows things
> "as they are in themselves.") Spinoza's theocentrism is pretty
> obvious, since the goal of human knowledge is to know things sub
> specie aeternitatis ("under the aspect of eternity"). But Leibniz too
> was theocentric. He thought that in God's mind, one finds "the
> pattern of the ideas and truths which are engraved in our souls." (New
> Essays 4.2.14) Leibniz of course did not claim that we know all that
> God knows; much of the latter is for us only "confused" and limited.
> But this is a difference of degree, not kind. Consider also Leibniz's
> containment theory of truth, which makes all truths analytic. God
> knows them all, and knows them in their analyticity, since He has an
> intuitive grasp of the infinite and can thus grasp the infinite number
> of steps of analysis required to "demonstrate" the contingent truths
> (reduce them to a simple identity, x =3D x). We can't, but it's as
> though our failures here are more the result of our lack of cognitive
> horsepower rather than a fundamental divide in the way we know things,
> as compared to God. What we do know, though, is as God knows it - as
> it is in itself. Hence, Kant complains that Leibniz "took the
> appearances for things in themselves" and "intellectualized
> appearances." He overlooked the essentially sensible (spatiotem****al)
> aspects of our knowledge.
>
> On the empiricist side, Berkeley's theocentrism is pretty obvious, but
> Locke also stands accused. One passage where it comes out is in
> Locke's attempt to distinguish real and nominal essences. (The
> nominal essence, recall, is the basis on which we classify something,
> e.g. gold - it's weight, color, malleability, fusibility, etc. The
> real essence is the "constitution of the insensible parts of that
> body, on which those qualities and all other properties of gold
> depend." Consider the following passage, which occurs after Locke has
> discussed the nominal essence of man:
>
> The foundation of all those qualities which are the ingredients of our
> complex idea, is something quite different: and had we such a
> knowledge of that constitution of man, from which his faculties of
> moving, sensation, and reasoning, and other powers flow, and on which
> his so regular shape depends, as it is possible angels have, and it is
> certain his Maker has, we should have a quite other idea of his
> essence than what now is contained in our definition of that species,
> but it what it will: and our idea of any individual man would be as
> far different from what it is now, as is his who knows all the springs
> and wheels and other contrivances within the famous clock at
> Strasburg, from that which a gazing countryman has of it, who barely
> sees the motion of the hand, and hears the clock strike, and observes
> only some of the outward appearances. (Essay)
>
> Here Locke clearly equates knowledge of real essences with knowledge
> that our "Maker has." With regard to his theocentrism, the key is
> that Locke regards God's knowledge as perceptual. (In a telling
> passage early in the Essay, he alludes to God's "microscopical
> eyes".) As for Leibniz, for Locke our knowledge differs from God's
> only in the sense that He has more of the same. For Locke, this means
> God has greater perceptual abilities, while for Leibniz it means God
> has infinite reason. But as it was for Leibniz, for Locke the
> difference is one of degree, not of kind. Locke and Leibniz thus both
> agree that "genuine" knowledge - the goal for us, which God achieves -
> is of things in themselves. Hence Kant's complaint is that Locke
> "sensualized all concepts of the understanding" and regarded
> sensibility "as an immediate relation to things in themselves." (CPR
> A271/B327) In other words, as did Leibniz, Locke commits the mistake
> of transcendental realism. Berkeley's empirical idealism is the
> result of drawing the appropriate conclusions from Locke's
> assumptions.
>
> http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~sbruton/Appearances.htm
>
> > Distance, as a concept, is specific in meaning / defintion but is also
> > not limited at the same time, it can be used and or triggers in the
> > mind an explanation of a fraction of inch or zillions of miles.
>
> If we remove from our empirical concept of a body, one by one, every
> feature in it which is [merely] empirical, the colour, the hardness or
> softness, the weight, even the impenetrability, there still remains
> the space which the body (now entirely vanished) occupied, and this
> cannot be removed. Again, if we remove from our empirical concept of
> any object, cor****eal or incor****eal, all properties which experience
> has taught us, we yet cannot take away that property through which the
> object is thought as substance or as inhering in a substance (although
> this concept of substance is more determinate than that of an object
> in general). Owing, therefore, to the necessity with which this
> concept of substance forces itself upon us, we have no option save to
> admit that it has its seat in our faculty of a priori knowledge.
>
> Time is not an empirical concept that has been derived from any
> experience. For neither coexistence nor succession would ever come
> within our perception, if the representation of time were not
> presupposed as underlying them a priori. Only on the presupposition of
> time can we represent to ourselves a number of things as existing at
> one and the same time (simultaneously) or at different times
> (successively).
>
> Time is a necessary representation that underlies all [A31/P075]
> intuitions. We cannot, in respect of appearances in general, remove
> time itself, though we can quite well think time as void of
> appearances. Time is, therefore, given a priori. In it alone is
> actuality of appearances possible at all. Appearances may, one and
> all, vanish; but time (as the universal condition of their
> possibility) cannot itself be removed.
>
> Time itself does not alter, but only something which is in time. The
> concept of time thus presupposes the perception of something existing
> and of the succession of its determinations; that is to say, it
> presupposes experience.
>
>
http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/http://www.bright.net=
/~jclarke/kant/index.htmlhttp://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/cpr/toc.htmlhttp://www=
..4literature.net/Immanuel_Kant/Critique_of_Pure_Reason/http://www.marxists.=
org/reference/subject/ethics/kant/reason/ch01.htm
>
> That space and time are only forms of sensible intuition, and so only
> conditions of the existence of things as appearances; that, moreover,
> we have no concepts of understanding, and consequently no elements for
> the knowledge of things, save in so far as intuition can be given
> corresponding to these concepts; and that we can therefore have no
> knowledge of any object as thing in itself, but only in so far as it
> is an object of sensible intuition, that is, an appearance...Thus it
> does indeed follow that all possible speculative knowledge of reason
> is limited to mere objects of experience. ...though We cannot know
> these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in position at
> least to think them as things in themselves; otherwise we should be
> landed in the absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without
> anything that appears.
>
>
>
> > Even mystics imagining their concept called god, are required to try
> > and imagine it as something existing in some form of existing sensory
> > matter.
>
> > That's so as to make the image as real in their minds as possible. The
> > more use of sensory existents that the mystics use, to visualise that
> > mental image, then the more real their god becomes to them.
>
> > Soooo how can the Kantian's claim man's knowledge of the concepts
> > space and time arrived or exist for man (innately) i.e. before man is
> > able to form mental images of the existing matter / substance / event
> > giving rise to the concepts of area and duration?
>
> > The answer is, man doesn't do anything of the sort. Man doesn't have
> > any such thing as innate concepts / innate knowledge, its utter
> > invented Kantian trash.
>
> > Its the stuff of mindless morons who also believe in gods and fairy
> > tales or who dont through nothing but sheer fluke or accident.
>
> > Michael Gordge- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Dear Immortalist
I thought yours is a good post that seemed reasonably clear. I shall
have a think about it at my leisure, because I'm very lazy and also
tend to get confused. But it has always seemed to me that Kant misses
something about normal, na=EFve, empirical realism, and that from this
normal point of view although his system is very intellectual, and
subtle it runs the danger of being a ridiculous sort of over subtlety
that is unbelievable.
You say that we couldn't know things in themselves without being able
to stand outside our modes of perception and reasoning faculty. It
depends on what you mean by 'know'. If you mean 'have a justified
certainty and guarantee that we have grasped them correctly as they
are in themselves' then I can see how it could seem that such a
guaranteed degree of certainty, at least, must depend on our own grasp
of the situation. We could not be certain about something that could,
as it were, float away from our own grasp and do what it liked-I don't
think there is any such certainty, including, I'm inclined to say, in
logical deduction. In another sense of 'know' i.e. could we have
accurately grasped the thing in itself as it is in itself, it seems to
me there is a possible criteria by which we could make a judgement
about realising how the independent object could itself be. It seems
to me that we could try to see how what we are aware of through
experience could form an independently self sufficient system.
If, for instance, we saw how it appeared self sufficient then in
seeing this we would be seeing how it itself explained itself. As an
example of this take Darwin's theory of evolution through natural
selection. It is supposed by this theory that the world, space, matter
and its properties carry on independently and that life forms are
brought into being and evolve and develop naturally, i.e. the
continuation of space, matter and its properties are themselves
sufficient to produce the appearance of life forms and their gradual
and continuing development up to and beyond the presently observable
state of things. But this seems an essentially different sort of a
claim from, for instance, trying to claim that these things can appear
self sufficient due to our reasoning faculty. This seems because 1) no
mention is made of our reasoning faculty in discussions about how the
continuation of these things could be sufficient to produce the
current state of life forms, and 2) if our reasoning faculty were
supposed necessary to make it appear these things could be self
sufficient to produce the current state of life forms this would be
claiming that the continuation of these things could not themselves be
sufficient to produce the current state of life forms. But this is
what the theory is claiming. Thus Kantians are in danger of miss
understanding the nature of what is being claimed in such cases, and
of producing a superfluous level of explanation. If something is self
sufficient it can't need another layer of explanation. If it needs
another layer of explanation, then in that respect it can't be self
sufficient.
As another attempt to bring out this essential difference between the
two approaches, and what is being claimed by each. According to
evolution through natural selection, evolution through natural
selection can't depend on anything human, or conscious, because for
most of the time it was operating there were no humans or
consciousness. Similarly anything e.g. space and time, that may seem
universal and invariable in human experience can't depend on humans
because humans vary and there is no essential nature to any species.
There are only wider or closer groupings of variations. The reason why
some aspects of experience may be invariable is because it is claimed
these are part of the structure of existence and so life forms (and
their variations) that are subsequent to and produced from these more
fundamental forms can't alter them; although they certainly can vary
in their perception of them in various ways. On the other hand
Kantians, it seems, must claim that there is an essential nature to
humans (at least), and so, consequently in some respects humans must
be invariable. But this does not seem very plausible when we consider
some of the gross deformities (i.e. very unusual, or socially
unacceptable, variations) that can result from human unions; E.g.
babies born without a head. Or are we to only count as humans, for
instance, people who experience space as Euclidean? (Such a claim
would seem-to me-to have the added complication that since space is
experienced in combination with the laws of perspective, which are
additional to the properly 'Euclidean' properties, the normal
experience of spatial relations can't be strictly Euclidean).
The big difference between the two approaches, it seems to me, is that
the naive realist, and often science, tend to concentrate on how the
world does it. 'How' both in the descriptive sense, but also, often,
in the explanatory sense of attempting to see how these 'objects' in
the world can form a self sufficient system producing what we
experience to occur of them, depending on our position in this system.
But often, or mostly, Philosophy tends to concentrate on how the mind
could handle its data and produce its ideas and understanding of the
world. Philosophy tends to think that its type of question undercuts,
and is more fundamental than the na=EFve or scientific approach, but I
think that the na=EFve approach does not require answering those
philosophical questions, carries its own possible justification within
it, and is more directly engaged with experiencable reality.
http://members.lycos.co.uk/causalrealism/
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