The only interesting, pragmatic and meaningful context to talk under the theme of subject/object, is the mind-body problem — Zelebg

Oh, OK. Glad your towering intellect is here to set us straight.

Proves my point. Reported. Thanks.

As did the entire thread for you, apparently. I didn’t ask for your ridiculous rationalizations for voting third party or not voting at all, I’m asking about the democratic candidates- hence why they’re the only ones listed. It’s a poll. To say anything else is completely irrelevant.

So no, it didn’t go over my head —because it’s irrelevant to begin with.

Yeah, that makes you both oh-so-special. Good for you.

Maybe. Singer is such a doofus though it's hard to take him seriously about anything.

Riveting.

would think most philosophers would be against activism given the mob mentality it often results in — NOS4A2

This is another good point. And again, this applies to scientists as well. It’s almost considered in bad taste, similar to getting involved with “pop culture”— who can be bothered? I took that attitude for a long time, only now seeing how that was a very big mistake indeed.

Like Russell said when asked why he bothers protesting rather than simply doing more work in mathematical logic (paraphrasing): if I don’t, there’ll be no one around to read the logic.

philosophy at its most potent defarmiliarizes the world, casting it in terms and grammars that are not of its own. It's only by keeping this distance in place that philosophy resists an impotent re-doubling of the world in thought. — StreetlightX

Very true. I think it’s exactly this “deworlding” that accounts for the lack of enthusiasm for activism among both philosophers and scientists. But again, you read Aristotle and see so much emphasis on politics it makes one at least want to try harder at some kind of reconciliation. I think the current era needs all hands on deck.



I agree about Rousseau but Marx was very much involved in politics and had to move to England due to his political involvements.

I’d be interested to know for sure but it appears to me that most lived a life removed from what was going on around them. — Brett

Exactly. Strange too, see as how Aristotle put quite an emphasis on the polis and political engagement.

One can’t simply live in an Ivory Tower and call oneself a philosopher— it does indeed need to show up in your lived life, in action, character, decisions, etc.

This is one reason I consider Russell and Chomsky so admirable.

For context, I'm with Kant 100% that we get reality 'filtered.' I'm just not sure that his particular system is stable or eternally correct. What Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Derrida have to say about language makes the situation more complicated, IMV. — mask

See, here I disagree. Derrida is on par with Zizek in my view -- a completely incoherent waste of time. Please point me to what you're referring to regarding Derrida's contribution to language.

which is why we're referred to as beings. — Wayfarer

_____
being (n.)
c. 1300, "existence," in its most comprehensive sense, "condition, state, circumstances; presence, fact of existing," early 14c., existence," from be + -ing. Sense of "that which physically exists, a person or thing" (as in human being) is from late 14c.
_____

"Being" applies to anything that exists, not just to conscious things.

Heidegger was entirely right to inject time into any analysis of things, even though he tethered that injection to (a certain conception of) death in a way I find problematic. — StreetlightX

Being-towards-death plays a role in human life and temporality, yes, but I don't see how it's very problematic. In fact the above is rather vague.

This would be forgetfulness or ignorance of 'tool being' or equipment as ready to hand but not 'present.' — mask

Particularly the not-noticing of equipment use, yes. Our "ready-to-hand" activities simply don't involve a subject and an object at all, and yet this is how we spend the majority of our time. From Plato on, then, the history of philosophy has been a history of "presence." This is what's especially fascinating in Heidegger, in my view. His analysis of the Greek language and the presocratics is superb. It's funny that a lot of his work is untranslated still.

Repeat: your interpretation is wrong, but I don't care. It's not beneath discussion -- I started this discussion. Feel free to start another one. Or respond to someone else. It's irrelevant to me.

So even if a person jettisons the death and authenticity stuff, the unveiling description of all the structure of the mundane that we usually ignore as too close to us is a game changer. — mask

I've never placed too much importance on Heidegger's views on death. Authenticity is interesting. But you're right -- his phenomenological analysis of "average everydayness" has always beens striking to me. His Introduction to Metaphysics should be read by anyone serious about Heidegger, and would be my recommendation to you if you haven't already.

Because it makes a difference as to what kind of thing the transcendental subject is. Collapsing the noumenon into the thing-in-itself idealizes the thing-in-itself in a way that makes Kant... Fichte. It makes all the difference in the world. — StreetlightX

No, it doesn't. As I said above -- does it negate the conception you mentioned? No. And that's all I care about.

Try as I did I still don't see your interpretation as being coherent, or supported textually. But really whatever else one wants to say about noumena is irrelevant to me at this point.

I’m mostly in that camp with your friends. He does well to make clear some of Husserl’s ideas, but overall he narrows the phenomenological interest to language alone. — I like sushi

Regarding the last part: you could argue, maybe, that later Heidegger narrows himself to language (and poetry), but earlier Heidegger certainly not. HIs interest then, and I'd argue even later, was ulitmiately being, not language. Hardly too narrow.

In phenomenological terms the whole subject/object issue isn’t much of an issue at all. — I like sushi

True enough.

I like Heidegger, especially the lectures that made him famous among students well before Being and Time. Have you read any of the early stuff or perhaps The Young Heidegger by Van Buren? Having looked at the early stuff, it's clear to me that Blattner's Heidegger's Temporal Idealism gets 'death' wrong. It's nothing so complicated. It's just the possibility of our own death, certain but indeterminate. Memento mori! — mask

Yes I've read his lectures on Aristotle and Hegel. I didn't find Blattner's book all that convincing. I haven't heard of "The Young Heidegger."

Theory's subject-object device is part of an epistemological project that neglects our primary, non-theoretical kind of existence --the same experience of sharing a world of tools and words that makes such a theory possible in the first place. — mask

Interesting. It does seem he's getting at that when speaking of "de-worlding." But yes, that the subject-object dichotomy is just a "founded" mode of seeing the world I get out of him as well. And I have to say that prior to reading Heidegger, I never had quite considered things in this way, despite reading Freud and Schopenhauer and all our contemporary talk of automaticity.

Thanks again - I wasn't familiar with his podcast, but I like the podcaster as an interviewer. I know Dan, we live in the same town, and although I don't particularly agree with him much he's a very kind man and deserving of his success.

So to move this discussion into a slightly different direction: is anyone very familiar with Heidegger's take on the subject/object distinction? I myself have read a great deal and am not in the camp that he's a deliberately obfuscating charlatan, as many of my friends claim.

Nevertheless, if anyone has bothered I'd like their interpretation.

That is, the-thing-itself is so inaccessable to knowledge that we can't even say of it that it is an object, or that it has the form of an object. — StreetlightX

Exactly correct. So you're right, why bicker about whether noumenon means the same thing or something else -- it doesn't negate the above, which is all I'm really concerned with in this thread.

Thank you, I'll check it out.

Thank you!

And also a lot of nonsense.

Here are the definitions of subject and object that seem to best fit the OP's meaning: — Andrew M

Can someone explain to me what "OP" stands for? Thanks.

But in terms of what they refer to, noumena (or better the noumenal) is thought as being appearance relative (insofar as it is the "limit" of appearance) whereas things in themselves are thought as being utterly independent of all appearance (and human thought, understanding and knowledge). — Janus

"limit of appearance" is meaningless at this point. It can be repeated again and again, sure, but until it's explained it's just nonsense. I'm tired of pointing this out. Might as well say the noumenon is the limit in the Twilight Zone between appearance and thing-in-itself. Whatever the case may be, if there is a distinction it's so trivial it's a wonder we've spent so much time on it. According to Wikipedia there is debate about what it is in serious scholarship, so I suppose it doesn't make one dim to struggle with it. But I fail to see it. Simply declaring "it's the limit" or "the boundary" isn't saying anything at all. Nor has there been any definitive, clear textual evidence presented of anything remotely like this being said.

So far you just said:
Thing in itself = independent of appearance.
Noumenon = relative to appearance.

So both are at least contrasted with appearances in some way. Regardless, neither can be known, neither have properties of any kind, etc., but yet they're different. In what other way are they different than what's stated above? Can you give me anything else whatsoever?

You remove the subject, you remove both. Or you can say if you remove the subject, both still exist. But to say removing the subject and one stays around due to it's independence, but the other disappears because it's defined as the limit is just unnecessary. Just call the damn thing the limit of understanding in that case. Calling it a different word is an extra step.

Blahhh

Very clear. Almost my thoughts exactly.

These semantic games are tiresome. The thing in itself is beyond our knowledge, as I said before. The rest is irrelevant to me.

I’m unconvinced by your arguments- my reading is clearer, and every quote given so far either clearly agrees or can very easily be interpreted as much. Yours makes sense after much a linguistic gymnastic. Regardless, I’m sure you’ll simply claim the opposite- so be it. There’s no sense prolonging this discussion. I appreciate the effort.

Things-in-themselves (thus outside our spatial-temporal modes of experience) — Xtrix

Things, without respect to whatever they are in themselves, absolutely must conform to our necessary conditions of space and time, otherwise, we would never be affected by them. — Mww

Sure.

Things and things-in-themselves are equal as objects, just not as knowledgeable objects. Things as they are in themselves are still spatial-temporal things. — Mww

This doesn't make any sense I'm afraid. The thing-in-itself is exactly what Kant, repeatedly, says is what cannot be known. Why? Because we're bound by space and time. You seem to keep wanting to bring the thing-in-itself back into the spatial-temporal world somehow.

We label objects as thing-in-themselves only to tell us we have no way to prove that what we know about objects is what they actually are. — Mww

"Actually are" apart from our way of knowing them, which is spatial-temporal. There's nothing left over, hence why we cannot say anything about it.

That is: the limitation set by the understanding on sensibility does not apply to things-in-themselves. Noumena are 'appearence-relative', and only appearence-relative. Things-in-themselves are not. — StreetlightX

The quote does not demonstrate this at all. In fact it does not MENTION noumena, it mentions things in themselves as apart from our (limited) understanding. Of COURSE the things-in-themselves are appearance-relative. How could it be otherwise?

Further down: "If we want to call this object a noumenon because the representation of it is nothing sensible, we are free to do so. But since we cannot apply any of our concepts of the understanding to it, this representation still remains empty for us, and serves for nothing but to designate the boundaries of our sensible cognition" (B346, my emphasis) — StreetlightX

Again, substitute "thing-in-itself" in this and see if it works. I think it does, without any contradiction whatsoever.

Yes, what effects us from outside corresponds exactly to what we sense. That which effects our eyes exactly corresponds to what we see; that which effects our ears corresponds exactly to what we hear, etc. We have to have consistency between incoming data and what the cognitive system works with. — Mww

Then the stimuli would be the thing in itself, not representation.

All kinds of things are outside us, but they are not representations, they are real, physical objects of experience, — Mww

Saying they're real physical objects and representation is the same thing. Of course they're representations. If not, you're arguing some kind of correspondence theory of truth. Again, that's not Kant.

Yes, we perceive objects. We don't perceive objects in themselves.
— Xtrix

I just quoted Kant as saying that’s exactly what we do.
“...objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility...” — Mww

I'm utterly baffled. I say we don't perceive objects in themselves (which is obvious), then you disagree and quote Kant and the first thing he says is "objects are quite unknown to us in themselves" and "mere representations of our sensibility," which is exactly what I said. What's the deal here?

Object are quite unknown to us in themselves says exactly the same as objects in themselves are quite unknown to us. — Mww

Sure. So you agree?

I can think swimming the English Channel, and it is experienceable, but the perception, the sensation and indeed the very phenomenon, are entirely absent. — Mww

Fair enough. Like I said earlier, I do consider thought to be phenomenal. It is true that Kant isn't the exemplar of clarity on this.

Imagination is not an experience. Empirical cognition is. — Mww

I just don't see this as true at all. Imagination is, of course, an experience. Reducing experience to "empirical" experience is pretty limiting, and not very clear. But I see now how you define the terms, and the source of misunderstanding in this conversation. So be it.

And the band played on..... — Mww

Yeah, I think we're getting into the weeds. The last thing I wanted to do was defend Kant in some way or other. I don't really care! The initial response was about my saying the subject/object variation I was thinking of was Kant's. But at this point, I'll concede it's not Kant's -- it's my interpretation of Kant. And could be completely wrong.

Maybe that'll stop the band?

Not at all. I've repeatedly acknowledged that noumena can be understood as things-in-themselves. Only that the converse does not hold in all cases. There is an asymmetry. — StreetlightX

Clear enough. I just cannot for the life of me understand the justification for this. They can be understood as things in themselves, but they're NOT things in themselves? What's added or subtracted? You claim it's in relation to the subject, but I have said repeatedly you can make the exact same argument by substituting "thing-in-itself" for "noumenon" in that case, and it still works.

But even if your point is granted, and there is a difference -- it doesn't seem to illuminate Kant's argument in any way, it doesn't give us insight into human understanding, sensation, perception, our scope or limits...who cares? Earlier you said it's important to insist about this "subtle" distinction. Why?

By their respective relation to the subject! — StreetlightX

And as I said before, they're both related to the subject. If you argue the thing in itself somehow sticks around with no subject, yet the noumenon disappears with the subject gone, then the noumenon is either subject-dependent and thus phenomenal, or there's no difference between it and the thing in itself, which (at least as a concept) disappears with no subject as well. I see no difference, and the point was to differentiate the two.

I've run out of ways of saying the same thing. — StreetlightX

Fair enough. And I've heard you, but still think it's a mistake.

Kant distinguishes between knowing and thinking. We can think about infinity, but not know it. Knowing implies defining and grasping its existence. — David Mo

And both are phenomena.

Similarly we talk about rivers of honey or flying horses. Mixing concepts or using meaningful words in wrong contexts where they mean nothing. — David Mo

OK, but that's all phenomena as well, in my view. It's all experience -- the experience of imagination, of creative use of words, metaphor, etc. Again, thinking is an activity and thus phenomenal.

I probably didn't explain it that simply after all. The way I understand it is that 'noumenon' is an idea of a limit beyond which sensory experience cannot go. A limit is itself an idea or at least a conceptual 'object' so 'noumenon' is in that sense an idea of an idea. — Janus

'Thing in itself' is an idea of an actuality which is totally independent of (and not merely a limit to) sensory experience and any and all human knowledge and understanding. — Janus

Ok, I follow you here a little more. If noumenon is a word for (or idea of) the limit of our understanding, fine. That's, I believe, what Streetlight and Mmw are saying as well. But I don't see any need for it. Why not just say "the limit of our understanding"? Why the idea of an idea, to use your phrase? It sounds to me like "noumenon" now becomes a word for "boundary," like being on the fence -- not a thing in itself, but not appearance/representation ("phenomenal"). I suppose you could read some passages this way (and only some), but I don't really see what it adds or why it's important.

Which follows from that fact that the thing-in-itself, as I keep saying, is not defined by it's relation to the subject, as the noumenon is. — StreetlightX

What is the thing in itself "independent of"? The subject. You said so yourself. Yet it's not defined in relation to the subject?

Your argument in general is somewhat odd: it's true that both share a certain 'quality' (that of not being subject to space and time), but this alone cannot say anything as to their idenity. Two apples may be green, but that does not make them the same apple. — StreetlightX

True, but if both noumenon and thing in itself are beyond space and time (green), what ELSE makes them different? You say the relation to the subject, that noumena is the limit or the mark of the limit. I say both can be applied to things in themselves as well.

If both are unknowable, how can we differentiate? It's like saying there are numberless, timeless, spaceless apples -- but there are two, and they're different somehow, but both are also unknowable. It makes no sense to me. Better to just say that human beings have scope and limits -- a scope bounded by space and time. Beyond this limit (of space and time), whatever there is we can't know -- because what we know is, again, bounded, and thus if we could know something about it it wouldn't be noumenal, it'd be phenomenal. What's the point of saying, "From the subjects point of view, the word for our limit is noumenon, which would disappear if we disappeared -- but from the point of view of nowhere, there's a thing in itself which lives on regardless"?

It frustrating to me. If there's something I'm truly missing, I want to know. Obviously it's convincing to a lot of people here -- more than I realized -- so I don't disparage it, but I still think my reading is more accurate.

"The concept of a noumenon is thus a merely limiting concept, the function of which is to curb the pretensions of sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment. At the same time it is no arbitrary invention; it is bound up with the limitation of sensibility, though it cannot affirm anything positive beyond the field of sensibility." (B311) — StreetlightX

Yes, a limiting concept. Just as the thing in itself is a limiting concept. He's not saying noumena ARE the limit, as you stated, he's saying it's a limiting concept. You could just as easily replace "noumenon" here with "thing-in-itself" and Kant would be make exactly the same point. I still see no grounds for a distinction, or at least the one being made here on this thread.

"Understanding accordingly limits sensibility, but does not thereby extend its own sphere. In the process of warning the latter that it must not presume to claim applicability to things-in-themselves but only to appearances" (A288, my bolding). There could hardly be a clearer distinction between the remit of noumena and the thing-in-itself than in this passage. — StreetlightX

Our understanding limits sensibility, and can claim applicability to appearances only, not to things in themselves. This is what he says. If this is the clearest distinction, then I'm truly unconvinced and don't see how anyone can arrive at the conclusion that noumena are somehow different from things-in-themselves.

If both are not subjected to space and time, then what's the difference? Nothing. In my view these passages cited certainly don't support any such differentiation, and in fact at least one has been cited that clearly states they're the same thing.

I think it's unmotivatable to make this move, and really don't see what it adds, but to each his own.

One might say: noumena are things-in-themselves under the aspect of the transcendental subject. However, get rid of the transcendental subject, and one similarly 'gets rid' of noumena - but not things-in-themselves, which are subject-independant. — StreetlightX

So noumena are subject-dependent, unlike things in themselves -- and they mark the limit of sensibility.

So the limit of sensibility is what exactly? Not phenomena or representations, and not really the thing-in-itself. It's just another word for the boundary between what can be known and what can't?

It's clear that we have limits. We're limited by space and time. Something in itself isn't part of that. Are noumena part of space and time or not? If not, and yet they differ from things in themselves, then what are they (is it)? Saying noumena "mark the limit" just isn't clear to me.

Or put it this way: what exactly is "gotten rid of" when the subject goes away? In that case, why not just say the thing in itself goes away too? Who's to say?

Putting it very simply and in a way that Kant may not have specifically explained it: a noumenon is the idea of an idea; the concept of something beyond our (sensible) knowledge; an idea of the in itself. A thing in itself is the idea of an actuality beyond not merely our knowledge, but our very ideas. — Janus

So they're both "ideas"? This seems so riddled with confusion I really don't know how to respond. But if it makes sense to you, you're a smarter guy than me.

This shit is all very hard to speak coherently about: hence the disagreements and misunderstandings. — Janus

I certainly agree.

Please explain why he gets it right, by all means.

"The concept of a noumenon, i.e., of a thing that is not to be thought of as an object of the senses but rather as a thing in itself[...]

No, I do not grant that what we perceive are representations. — Mww

This is baffling to me, but OK...

One needs to keep in mind perception actually is nothing but reception of incoming empirical data. If incoming data, not in but incoming, are representations, how were they created? We can say how representations are created on the backside of sense organs, but we cannot use the equipment from the inside of us to create representation on the outside of us. Inside, everything relates to something, on the outside, what would data relate to except other data, which tells us nothing. — Mww

The incoming stimuli, our sensations, are data, yes. The second they hit the sense organs, they become representations to us, unless you argue that what effects us from "outside" corresponds exactly to what we sense, perceive, etc. That's fine, but it's not Kant. So how are representations created? By the brain and nervous system on the "occasion of sense," through our cognitive faculty. Whatever our representations are representations of, outside of our cognitions, is the thing in itself. Things in themselves are what is represented to us, but because we are bounded by space and time, there's nothing whatever to say about them (or it).

Saying we can't create representations "outside of us" is not true -- there's all kinds of things outside me: trees, books, rivers, anything at all. Who said representations are limited to "internal" things like feelings or thoughts? If that's not what you're saying, OK, but then surely you admit trees aren't "internal" -- and if you do, then everything we can know or talk about is technically "internal", bounded by our skin so to speak, and so the "internal/external" or "inside/outside" distinction is useless.

An affect on our senses, not of. It isn’t that perceptions are unknown, as in we don’t know we have been affected. We don’t know what we’ve been affected by. — Mww

We don't know what we've been affected by in themselves, you mean? We certainly know what we've been affected by otherwise -- as objects in space and time; our representations. I already granted we don't know what our sensations or representations are of in themselves, apart from our spatial-temporal boundedness.

Try this: incoming data is information in certain forms of energy. The output of the sense organs is still energy, but a different form. — Mww

This is saying the same basic thing, yes. And I agree. But the "different form" is our representations -- how we experience the world, bounded by our brain and nervous system.

We don't perceive it, because we have no knowledge of it
— Xtrix

Thing is...to say we have no knowledge is to say we have no experience. — Mww

You're right. We don't experience the thing-in-itself either. Experience is bounded by space and time.

But we often perceive things of which we have no experience, every time we learn something new. — Mww

That's not using experience the way I'm using it here, of course. I mean human experience in general, not, say, an "experienced doctor." The forms of any experience whatsoever is space and time. Anything we experience at all will be experienced in this way. Thus, to say we have experience of the thing in itself isn't correct.

Not yet. If something is perceived, it will be a phenomenon. It isn’t phenomenon merely by being an affect on the senses. That is sensation and tells us something has appeared to the faculty of representation. — Mww

Ok, you're using the term in a different way from me. I consider sensations to be phenomena. What would it be prior to "becoming" phenomena, exactly? How do we know we even have sensations at all "before" they become phenomena. Either something is experienced (as phenomena of experience) or it isn't. I don't understand these extra steps you seem to put in. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Correct. It’s not. See above. The thing-in-itself perceived is just another something perceived. Same-o, same-o. See waaaayyyy above: object in itself equals thing-in-itself, and we certainly perceive objects, so....... — Mww

Yes, we perceive objects. We don't perceive objects in themselves. I don't know what that would mean. How can we perceive an object that isn't spatial or temporal? What would it look like? What properties does it have? We don't know, because we can't say a thing about it. We can certainly say plenty about objects -- as objects of our sensations and perceptions, and thus representations.

I think this stems from the above and not using sensation and perception in the same way I am. Again, I consider them phenomena, and by phenomena I mean literally anything experienceable. Out experiences are bounded, again, by space and time. Thus, whatever else sensations, perceptions, phenomena, etc. are outside of these forms we really cannot experience or perceive in any way. That would be the thing-in-itself. it's almost a matter of logic.

Don’t forget. We cognize representations, not things. There’s no contradiction in allowing things-in-themselves to be the objects of perception, because they have nothing to do with the system, other than to kick-start it. — Mww

That's exactly what I think, yes -- it's a contradiction. I don't see how "things" and "representations" are different. Things-in-themselves (thus outside our spatial-temporal modes of experience) is a different story.

We can’t have an empty object affect us. How would we know we’d been affected? We have no knowledge of a thing as it is in itself. That doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about the thing that affected us. We are given an object, that object must have characteristics of some kind which show up in its appearance. — Mww

Of course it has characteristics -- in space and in time. A weight, a mass, color, shape, a quality of feeling, etc. We know we're affected because we experience things, as representations -- not in themselves. So whatever affects us certainly isn't empty to us -- it's any object at all, and not just trees and books but feelings, emotions, pains, thoughts, etc. Anything else whatever is the thing in itself, which you admit is not knowable. There isn't a third realm between knowable and unknowable, in my view -- or between experience and nothing, or between life and death. There's one or the other.

You almost seem to be saying there's an object out there affecting us that isn't yet a phenomenon but isn't empty, and that we can still know something about. I still have no idea what this means.

No, the phenomenon has been imagined as having wings. In light of the manifold of intuitions imagined, that contradicts experience, this object is not possible. Scratch the wings) — Mww

Imagining a pink unicorn is still an idea, yes? Imagination is an experience as well, bounded by our human limits. That's still part of phenomenology.

The cantankerous one is very much correct. That doesn’t stop them being a needless impolite and obnoxious person. — I like sushi

I don't think this characterization of me is altogether just, but I guess that's neither here nor there.

"it also follows naturally from the concept of an appearance in general that something must correspond to it which is not in itself appearance, for appearance can be nothing for itself and outside of our kind of representation; thus, if there is not to be a constant circle, the word "appearance" must already indicate a relation to something the immediate representation of which is, to be sure, sensible, but which in itself, without this constitution of our sensibility (on which the form of our intuition is grounded), must be something, i.e., an object independent of sensibility. Now from this arises the concept of a noumenon, which, however, is not at all positive and does not signify a determinate cognition of something in general, in which I abstract from all form of sensible intuition". (A251–2) — David Mo

(My italics)

Exactly right.