On Sep 9, 8:55 pm, Immortalist <reanimater_2...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Sep 9, 8:42 pm, malen...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sep 9, 8:08 pm, Scott H <zinites_p...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > > Everyone is free to debate about this, but I won't discuss it with
> > > Michael Gordge if he chooses to use personal attacks.
>
> > > Kant gives us an example in an attempt to illustrate how we cannot
> > > know things in themselves.
>
> > > >From Critique of Pure Reason (A 48/B 65):
>
> > > "Take the proposition that three straight lines permit construction
of
> > > a figure, and try ... to derive it from these mere concepts ... Now
> > > suppose that there did not lie within you a power to intuit a
> > > priori ... and that the object (the triangle) were something in
> > > itself ... If that were so, how could you say that what necessarily
> > > lies in [or belongs to] your subjective conditions for constructing
a
> > > triangle must also belong necessarily to the triangle itself? For,
> > > after all, you could not add to your concepts (of three lines)
> > > anything new (the figure) that would therefore have to be met with
> > > necessarily in the object, since this object would be given prior to
> > > your cognition rather than through it. Hence you could not
> > > synthetically a priori establish anything whatsoever about external
> > > objects ..."
>
> > > The mathematical form of the statement is,
>
> > > (El)(Em)(En)(Line(l) & Line(m) & Line(n) & EnclosesATriangle(l, m,
> > > n)),
>
> > > stated in Euclidean geometry, where (Ex) means, "there exists an x
> > > such that ..."
>
> > > First of all, I consider three lines to be objects, not concepts.
> > > Second, it's not clear to me what he means when he says that "this
> > > object would be given prior to my cognition rather than through it."
>
> > Kant did not state that we cannot know things in themselves, only that
> > sensibility is limited to appearances. And sensibility is not a
> > faculty of knowledge. Things in themselves do however provide the
> > matter for sensibility, while sensibility provides the forms, the
> > synthesis of form and matter being called appearances.
>
> > You have concepts of objects, so I don't know where your objection
> > lies
> > about considering a straight line only as an object. If you didn't
> > have a
> > concept of a straight line you couldn't very well think about it.
>
> > Kant is saying that cognition lends the triangle its a priori
> > necessity. The
> > triangle itself, however, is given subjectively -- it is an imaginary
> > object,
> > constructed in imagination. (So I will give you the point that a
> > straight
> > line is an object in the imaginary sense.) If this triangle were not
> > presented through cognition (and yet you were of course aware of its
> > imagining), it would be presented only as imagining, possessing less
> > objective validity than a dream since even a dream seems real when one
> > is dreaming,
> > so dreams obviously have a formal manifold of their own. But this
> > particular
> > imaginary triangle is being represented, in Kant's example. outside of
> > any manifold, any form, thus any cognition.
>
> > Further on, Kant is arguing that, outside of any manifold (that is,
> > outside
> > of your ability to think about triangles) you couldn't very well add
> > the
> > straight lines which form the synthetic part of the theorem's proof.
> > The
> > imaginary triangle was not, in the example, formed by synthesis,
> > nothing
> > rational can thereafter be done with it, most particularly, you cannot
> > provide
> > proof of its objectivity.
>
> > That's kind of like Rand's Objectivismd: not formed through cognition,
> > or
> > reason, and thereafter nothing rational can be done with it, a fact
> > which Gouge
> > demonstrates for us so well.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> Would it be correct to say that the "objects" or lines, he was talking
> about were really "representations" of sensations?
No, just representations. When a geometer intends to draw his figures
on paper, he first envisions (intuits and imagines) them, he doesn't
first sense them as if they were sensations originating apart from
him.
There are as many types of representations as there are means by
which we can represent them. And the basic term for that means is
known as a "faculty."
> Since (as Hume had noted) individual images are perfectly separable as
> they occur within the sensory manifold, connections between them can
> be drawn only by the knowing subject, in which the principles of
> connection are to be found. As in mathematics, so in science the
> synthetic a priori judgments must derive from the structure of the
> understanding itself.
>
> http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/5f.htm
>
> REPRESENTATION [A320/B376] "There is no lack of terms suitable for
> each kind of representation...Their serial arrangement is as follows.
> The genus is representation in general (repreaesentatio). Subordinate
> to it stands representation with consciousness (perceptio}. A
> perception which relates solely to the subject as the modification of
> its state is sensation (sensatio), an objective perception is
> knowledge (cognitio). This is either intuition or concept (intuitus
> vel conceptus)". In addition to concepts, intuitions, sensations, and
> perceptions, Kant holds that appearances are representations. He
> maintains all judgments, and thus all acts of knowledge, involve the
> representations of representations. [Bxl] However, Kant also suggests
> that we are not only conscious of different types of representations;
> the Preface to B he asserts that "I am conscious of my existence in
> time...and this is more than to be conscious merely of my
> representation".
We are also conscious of the fact of being conscious, and that is no
mere representation but the very heart of the Understanding itself.
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