Functionally, a mechanism is just a specialized process or procedure that produces a desirable output (teleological goal) from relevant input (raw material).

I'm not sure if that's useful.

would you prefer to think of Inference as "magic"?

That seems like a false dichotomy.

Mechanism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_(philosophy)

I don't see why using Google's definition is useful when addressing philosophical concepts. You think that Google is going to define mechanism in any way that's analogical to how the mechanists did?

Nor do I see why it's useful to define mechanism by employing the term in the very definition itself. Particularly if it seems to be only placed in the concept aesthetically. Also, If using step-by-step inferences is "mechanistic" then anything is "mechanistic." Which seems vacuous to me.

How then do you define "teleology", without "purpose"?

You don't exclude purpose. You exclude the word "ultimate", and just use "goal-directed", or "purposeful actions" in some way. I believe there might be some ultimate purpose of nature, but you don't have to argue for the uniformity of nature to explain the uniformity of an organism, and its organization.You just simply stipulate that there's a functional end to every organism; you posit that things do things in order to obtain a certain x — temperature regulation, conversion of energy into matter, etc. You stipulate that a organism's system maintains itself, builds upon itself continuously for it's own continual survival, and produces more of itself (being the cause of it's own effect.) There is some sort of concept which subsumes the general properties underneath it (top-down causation).

On the Character Peculiar to Things [Considered] as Natural Purposes.

I would say, provisionally, that a thing exists as a natural purpose if it is both cause and effect of itself (although [of itself] in two different senses). For this involves a causality which is such that we cannot connect it with mere concept of a nature without regarding nature as acting from a purpose; and even then, though we can think this causality, we cannot grasp it. [...] In the first place, a tree generates another tree according to a familair natural law. But the tree it produces is of the same species [Gattun]. Hence with regard to its species the tree produces itself: within its species, it is both cause and effect, both generating itself and being generated by itself ceaseless, thus preserving itself as a species.

Second, a tree also produces itself as an individual. It is true that this sort of causation is called merely growth; but this growth must be understood in a sense that distinguishes it completely from any increase in size according to mechanical laws: it must be considered to be equivalent to generation, though called by another name. {For the matter that the tree assimilates is first processed by it until the matter quality peculiar to the species, a quality that the natural mechanism outside the plant cannot supply, and the tree continues to develop itself by means of a material that i its composition is the tree's own product." — Immanuel Kant

This type of causality remind you of anything?

On the Principle for Judging Intrinsic Purposiveness in Organized Beings:

This principle, which is also the definition of organized beings, is: an organized product of nature is one in which everything is a purpose and reciprocally also a means. In such a product nothing is gratutious, purposeless, or to be attributed to a blind natural mechanism. — Immanuel Kant

Efficient Causation:

A causal connection, as our mere understanding thinks it, is one that always constitutes a descending series (of causes and effects); the things that are the effects, and that hence presuppose others as their causes, cannot themselves in turn be causes of these others. This kind of causal connection is called that of efficient causes (nexus effectivus). — Immanuel Kant

But each daily goal is merely one instance of the long-term purpose of avoiding death. The end goal is implicit in the proximate goal. No? — Gnomon

If that was the case, then what is the theory of natural selection exactly doing? Does it have no predictive power? Because if it can make predictions prior to the instances, then the instances seem to be conforming to the rule, not the instances. The instances are instead subsumed under the concept of survival and reproduction.

I don't know what you're talking about. Please explain "intrinsic teleology and extrinsic teleology". Are these distinctions necessitated by some specific doctrine?

Extrinsic teleology is imparting a teleology through the intention of an artisan onto an artifact. It's direction is proportional to the concept that's implanted by the artisan. The purpose of a factory and how it functions is derived from the extrinsic concept of a designer.

Intrinsic teleology is one in which the telos is immanent to the organism and it's form. An example might be the offspring's inheritance in DNA (it's form) is going to not be imparted but passed on from the parent. Generally, an organism doesn't have a form of extrinsic teleology that establishes its causal functions derivatively.

Inferences are the product of a metaphorical step-by-step logical "mechanism", not a physical mechanism.

Well, then, we're just equivocating on what a mechanism is. What's your definition of it?

but I don't have any knowledge of the ultimate Purpose of the process.

You don't need knowledge of an ultimate purpose in order to demonstrate teleology. You can just restrict it to goal-orientated functions.

Philosophical Teleology : the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise.

Theological Teleology : the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world.

The first and second are interrelated. Purpose can serve as a form or the basis off of what the telos does (direction).

I don't understand how ego-driven activity isn't teleological. And I don't understand how inferences are a mechanism. They are reason-giving, and driven by justification in a logical space of reasons. Why would I believe that inferences are the same thing as casual activities?

So, human teleology is not very useful for anticipating events beyond a couple of weeks.

I mean, I don't know why you say that. It seems as though there's a lot of utility in teleology. And even if it was just a few weeks (in certain cases), it just means the teleology changed. This isn't disproving teleology.

And no. There's obviously a distinction between intrinsic teleology and extrinsic teleology. You don't need intention for a teleological cause.

My hypothesis is that there is no way to disambiguate the two, and that everything has normative conceptual features all the way down that dictate what things do. These are functionally teleological according to a concept that determines something's content. (Conceptual Realism). When we view organisms we recognize that conceptual content, and form beliefs in accordance with it. That conceptual content is relative, though, so it can change over time. That's why final causes aren't fixed (predeterministic), but moreso a rule that's situated in a context. — Marty

So do you disagree or not?

I'm not quite sure if I follow how this is an argument against teleology.

You seem to be saying there is an analogy between teleological explanations and efficient causation. But a billiard ball moving because of an external force, exerting momentum onto another ball, doesn't seem to be indicative of what teleology is. It seem as though what teleology is is having a certain goal-orientated action behind what a thing is doing, explicated in virute of a concept (a norm). But that seems to be true of everything for me.

As for the body's homeostasis being a by-product of various processes I agree with you. But then those processes themselves just seem to display organization of sorts, and then in turn, when coupled, produce the organization of homeostasis.

I'm not sure if those are inferences as much as they are dispositional tendencies occurring in the brain. They are not strictly epistemic events, but I can agree that they relate to epistemic events.

Either way, let's say that mechanism was there. It doesn't seem like you have some way to disambiguate why certain empirical events are teleological and others are not. You can postulate that one presupposes a mind having an intention, but that seems to be appealing to some psychological state, not empirical events. Yet it seems based on just empirical events we are able to deduce teleological states in at least some cases (that is predicting the norms associated with our behavior).

My hypothesis is that there is no way to disambiguate the two, and that everything has normative conceptual features all the way down that dictate what things do. These are functionally teleological according to a concept that determines something's content. (Conceptual Realism). When we view organisms we recognize that conceptual content, and form beliefs in accordance with it. That conceptual content is relative, though, so it can change over time. That's why final causes aren't fixed (predeterministic), but moreso a rule that's situated in a context.

I can understand what it means to transfer momentum from one object to another, but I certainly don't see why most physical systems work this way — that is like billiard balls. So I'm not sure what your argument against teleology is. It seems to be saying that because things can possibly exist without teleology that teleology is false. But that doesn't seems to be satisfying.

Nor do I understand the distinction between function and purpose. Unless you're saying what definitionally makes something teleological is intention, but that doesn't seem correct to me. It seems definitionally all teleology is is end-goal activity, or cyclical activity (the maintenance of some cyclical function). So why is it that the body functions dynamically with all it's parts (or rather processes) to produce things like homeostasis or metabolism?

You also didn't seem to answer my question:

And how is this done? This "intuiting"? You just see? Non-inferentially? Why is it that when we "see" in whatever way we do, we omit certain properties that're teleological from certain behaviors/functions and not from others? What is it about our seeing that creates a projection, and in order types of perceptions veridical precepts?

Might ask if there can be purpose before use. Logically, maybe, temporally, no. The history of life on the planet simply is that use has evolved, and purpose an abstract categorical name applied after-the-fact. That is, in reality, no theological teleology.

That teleology might be a useful way of thinking about some things may be granted, but ought to be taken together with the responsibility to neither confuse nor be confused by misapplying the idea of it.

If all teleological explanations occurred after-the-fact, then they should not be able to have predicative power to generate explanations of the future. But unless there's a substantial change in the organism or being that you're analyzing, it seems as though teleological explanations have plenty of explanatory power, and can be postulated to occur before the organism (or being) has undergone whatever future transformation. You can generally cash these out in terms of hypothetical necessities generally.

I also tend to question why things have a utility. Why is it the case that we can see certain types of feedback loops, or cycles occurring in the world with some degree of certainty? The idea that "things occur" doesn't seem to generate any explanations.

I also don't really see a reason why teleological explanations are only "in us" as a regulative function of our cognitive processes. It seems as though we need an error theory for that.

I would make a distinction between the mechanical function of a body part, and the teleological purpose of the whole person. Function is simply a consistent input-output ratio. You input Energy and get useful Work as the output. But human Purpose implies Ambition or Aspiration. It requires the ability to imagine a possible future state, and to control functional body parts in such a way as to achieve that preferred outcome. Human purpose is not merely motivated by physical energy, but by metaphysical intentions.

But then the question gets pushed back: why do we have to say the theory of functionalism is non-teleological? Just because you have an input and output of anything doesn't mean that things don't occur for a specific functional purpose. Just because "things occur" doesn't mean that they don't have a guided purpose or a way expressing what they are. You can create a speculative judgement of what certain types of behaviors mean in terms of a universal concept.

The willful purpose of a single human is made manifest in the person's behavior. We can intuit their intentions from their actions.

And how is this done? This "intuiting"? You just see? Non-inferentially? Why is it that when we "see" in whatever way we do, we omit certain properties that're teleological from certain behaviors/functions and not from others? What is it about our seeing that creates a projection, and in order types of perceptions veridical precepts?

I don't understand anti-teleological views.

It seems as though everything has a purpose in so far as everything in the world operates underneath rational constraints. That is, simply, in virute of what a thing is (having determinate characteristics/a form), it does what it's nature is. It does not do what it's not. As long as a concept determines the object of inquiry, that concept then determines in advanced what it's parts functionally do.

Aristotle made a sort clever argument once that accidents (or things occurring by chance) are generally understood from purpose, and not the other way around. We see something occurring by accident as a by-product of multiple purposeful acts. When I incidentally walk into my friend at the park due to the fact that I wanted to have a stroll in the part, I would say that would have occurred "by chance."

Yeah, I think you can separate particular (and therefore contingent states of affairs) of loneliness from your friends. What I don't think can be separated is the universal notion of loneliness and it's universal instance of craving someone that brings you out of the loneliness.

So, you can highlight different aspects of the same thing.

Let me use another example in causality: the sugar cube causes the water to become saturated. Inversely, the water causes the sugar cube to dissolve. What is highlighted in one instance isn't highlighted in another. But that doesn't mean these are two different scenarios.

Likewise, what I am getting at, is that although you can say that I feel lonely because I am missing my friends, what is also inversely true is that I don't seem to like being with myself.

I wouldn't say it's a tautology, but it is a priori statement. Perhaps synthetic and therefore amplative (not trivial). That is to say, when we align these two statements, we find out something new about ourselves.

Sure, but that's not the point. The point is when it is occurring these are the direct (and perhaps logical) consequences of such a dispositional state.

There's a sense of where content here is being used differently. You're equivocating.

If someone is content, then they lack motivation in some specific area due to being fulfilled in that area already. So there would be no reason why they would satiate a desire that is already fulfilled. (Problem of motivation).

What I am saying is, there is at least some level of threshold that needs to be meet (a threshold of feeling content) that is needing to be satiated when a person craves or desires something. So there is no scenario where you can be content and still feel the need to seek out company.

I'm not talking about the literal sense of being alone. I'm saying talking about loneliness.

Note here I am talking about the feeling of loneliness and not actually being alone.

That's why I expressed it as a feeling instead of a descriptive state. It's an ontological form of attunement.

And that's what I'm putting into question: if they are content to be with themselves, they would have never sought out company. If they sought out company, inversely, they are not content to be by themselves. These have a logical relationship.

But isn't a lack-of connection with other people precisely the same type of thing as being alone with oneself? Just expressed in two different ways?

That's why I expressed it as a feeling instead of a descriptive state. It's an ontological form of attunement.

So when you are not connecting, you are by yourself. And you hate that in the disposition of loneliness.

Why not the entire book?

So having read more now, I think the German Idealist's account of causation seem to be dead on right. The dynamic theory of causation seems pretty prominent in all scientific discussions. That, and having read more processual ontology, that seems to be pretty legit for a lot of things: like identity in biology is something like the self-organization of certain processes working in tandem. That is, if certain processes are working harmoniously (or rather working homogeneously towards something) it seems to be indicative of a biological identity. Pretty sure this would work for the rest of Nature too.

The general problem I see with Hume's position is that causation is defined as a relation that relates two events or objects that takes place in a diachronic sequence. However, that assumption seems to be predicated on a false assumption: mainly that cause and event are distinct due to it being imaginable, in which he fails to hold a distinction between the intellect and imagination, and secondly, that it treats the world as a series of discrete events. If we don't take the phenomenological primitive to be discrete piece-meal moments, but rather treat the continuous as being primitive than this opens up a view of process ontology. In which case: the cause and effect are occurring at the same time, and also interdependently causing each other. So, A causes B which causes A, in a synchronic sequence. The tools in a diachronic sequence to determine causation just simply isn't sufficent; they are under-descriptions of any phenomenon.

Hume believed in hypothetical norms.

Well, that was my question to the forum! If Naturaphilosophie is dead in the water, then the only thing we can take from Schelling would be his views on freedom, identity philosophy, art, mythology, etc.

Yeah, I guess there'd also those dualisms too. But I mean, other the general problematic of transcendental philosophy, what's the issue with the other ones?

This seems like the only salvageable reading of Kant purported by Henry Allison in Kant's Transcendental Idealism. The divide is an epistemic divide, where the phenomenon and noumenon are just two aspects of the same world. Thus, the noumenon isn't a positive entity existing outside of the phenomenal one, with it's own separate ontological status. To make it a positive entity like that is to commit the transcendental illusion.

My reading of Kant is actually anti-dualistic. I'm not sure to what extent the latter German Idealist actually captured Kant's thought correctly. I see Kant's system as a dual-aspect theory with both aspects not being an ontological divide, and most of the criticisms of Kant to be really bad. This is why Neo-Kantians are still around, imho. But this story I think is familiar to most people by now.

But any way, it doesn't matter. The interesting thing to me is, as you said, is unifying reason with nature and positing possible preconditions of nature. As well, as re-enchanting nature to include certain historical approaches.

I just offered one last post.

I don't think "those are ways we think" is enough to say it's merely that, either. Might as well go on to say that things we see are just "ways of seeing" and the objects are just in our heads or something.

Sure, the point is if it's conditioned by the mind or not.

If something is necessarily true, like mathematical statements, I'm not sure how they can be dependent on something contingent: like the mind that incidental exists, or psychological states that are vague.

The general project of making some of the categories transcendental is to hold some form of identity between the world and the subject, and having some basis for the form the world phenomenally shows itself.

I'd need a positive account for why that'd be the case.

I'm not sure what it means to say that, like, logic, mathematics, valid inference rules, certain types of categories are "in the mind".

I mean, it's probably a mistake.

Just off the top of my head, Hume advocated psychologism with the problem of induction. Kant seems to have advocated an antipsychologism take on philosophy with his Critique of Pure Reason. It can go both ways with Kant.

Some other notable philosophers that seemed to have proponents of psychologism were Schopenhauer, existentialists (kinda broad definition), and phenomenologists.

Well, I think any psychological view of Kant is a really bad misreading. I mean his entire critiques attempts to prove the universality of epistemology, ethics, aesthetics. Later his construction of nature was extremely antithetical to any psychologisms.

As for Hume, you may be right: he might be the only example historically that I can think of. With the caveat that I think Hume actually left it open that things like causation do really occur, and there might be a uniformity of nature, but we just do not possess the capacity to know.

Also, I'm not sure about Schopenhauer? Nor am I seeing it with any of the existentialist (perhaps Nietzsche)? And definitely not the phenomenologists — all phenomenon are intentional (directed towards objects), and Husserl himself had a giant critique of psychologism.

I'm curious whether any historical philosopher (that we would know about any way) really committed themselves to a psychologism. I know there were early refutations of this in Frege and Husserl, but I'm not sure who they would have addressed other than maybe early psychologists, or people who thought logic and mathematics were mind-dependent entities. Always seemed like nonsense.

What an embarrassing thread.

After his second post you can conclude it's not worth anyone's time.

Transcendental isn't the same as transcendent.

Transcendental just means "conditions of possibility"
Transcendent is something like, "beyond our limits of understanding", or in contrast to the immanence of experience.

Or I guess he meant to say "the transcendentalists..."

The more general question is why have any explanations at all? Aristotle is on the right track in beginning his Metaphysics by observing that "All humans by nature desire to know." To be human is to be knowledge-seeking. That is the reason that many young children tire parents out with incessant "Whys?" Aristotle, after years of studying his predecessors, found that there are four basic types of explanation: material, formal, efficient and final. What stands before us, the given (datum), is because it is made of this stuff, in this form, by this agent, for this end.

Of course, not everyone notices, or cares, about the same projections of reality. If you go to a good movie with articulate friends, the conversation after can turn to plotting, character development, set design, costuming, cinematography, scoring or a myriad of other aspects which integrate to give the movie its impact. Not everyone will notice or care about many of these aspects, but they are still part of what is given in the movie. What anyone notices or cares about will depend on their nature and experiential background. It is the same with modes of explanation.

I'm not asking the general question. I'm asking the specific one: why teleological explanations at all? I'm not talking about a universal skeptic, just a teleological one. For there could be the possibility of someone inventing a fifth form of causation. One compatible with the others, yet used specifically because the other forms of causation under-determine it's form of explanation. However, the form of causation is used ad-hoc. The person then can't appeal to "I'm just asking questions! Just the facts, please!"

I did not say that some phenomena yield more readily to a teleological approach to prediction than to a mechanistic one to justify teleology generally, but to rebut the often-heard objection that it has no predictive value. Of course it does. Most predictions of human behavior are based on understanding individual goals.

While increasing predictability gives theories (modes of understanding) utility and evolutionary survival value, there is more to the human desire to know. We not only seek utility, but intellectual satisfaction. That is why humans study fields such as theoretical physics, mathematics, metaphysics and theology without hope of application.

I think Andrew Woodfield made this argument in his book Teleology. However, I'm also looking for a reason why future mechanical explanations could not replace teleological predictions. Some prior telo-biological explanations (so I've heard) have already been replaced. Why does under-determination stand as an argument at all?

As I just said, it was not intended to be. "Ought" is based on the relation of means to ends. If we are ordered to some natural completion, to some end, then we ought to effect adequate means. (This is, itself, a teleological argument.) As we have a natural desire to know, then we ought to employ the means of satisfying that need. Aristotle's study of his predecessors can be seen as an empirical study of the modes of explanation that satisfy human curiosity. Among them is the teleological mode.

Yes, but then one could just tailor teleological causation to things agents have and not the entire world. One could imagine another saying, "Let's grant that the human-being, with a mind has intentional (and therefore normative) goals. The form of these are teleological." Not many have denied this. The further question is whether or not we should apply this to the natural world.

If we have an end (telos), how can we not have teleology? The idea of teleology is that the end is latent in a prior state because the on-going operation of some intentionality (e.g. a human commitment, or the laws of nature) will bring it to fruition. How can we even speak of an end if this is not so?

Well in the example of the snow ball, the end of it's motion will be when it reaches the bottom of the hill. But that isn't it's telos. So there are at least some ends that aren't teleological. How do we form a criterion to know which one is teleological and the other one not to be?

Taking my lead from Plato in the Sophist, I understand "to exist" as convertible with "to be able to act.". If "pure concepts of understanding" do not exist, they can do nothing. So, we can safely ignore them in all contexts. On the other hand, if you insist that they do something, it is a corruption of language to say that they do not exist.

By the way, existence is transcendental, applying to all reality.

Well, I am no longer familiar with what Plato had in mind in the Sophist, but I'm guessing "the be able to act" just probably means" causally efficacious" unless you mean something else? Sometimes "being able" to means something like capacity-of without ever acting. But I'm not sure why I would have to accept this. Some deflationist view could just say "to exist" is used in a variety of ways depending on what you mean. For example, numbers "exist" in some sense, idea exist in some ways, middle earth in the LOTR "exists" in some other way — it's relevant on context and our understanding of the situation, but we seem to affirm this predication non-trivially. However, numbers, idea, nor middle earth is causally efficacious in our space-time continuum. Ideas and reason would be conceptual tools to use in the logical space of reasons, but I don't know why I'd make them causally efficacious.

However, Kant had already demonstrated causation to be ideal at the point he addressed the idea of existence not being a real predicate. If indeed existence wasn't a real predicate, then the application of concepts like, "the ability to act" could have applied to existence, but not derive from existence — that would have just been another property in addition to it. It is not "the ability to act" in a being that's existence, it's merely existence itself separate from any predication for Kant. That is why in order to form knoweldge, we cannot have concepts alone but also use our sensibility in receptivity.

Nothing can "create" anything unless it is operational -- and nothing can be operational unless it actually exists. Thus, it is incoherent to say they do not exist. How can anyone say anything relevant to reality about what does not exist?

The question is worked backwards for Kant: how can their be a reality at all to experience, unless we have transcendental tools to experience it in the first place? You would have to somehow create a theory in which we readily just receive the world without any cognitive tools. Such things like intuition. However, Kant has already told us that intuition without concepts are empty, as concepts without intuitions are blind. Such content could never get us any form of justification without the other, and never enter into the logical space of reasons.

I can't relate this sentence to anything in my experience. Perhaps you could illustrate it with an example?

The categories of space-time are constitutive of all experiences, as all experiences will include them. In terms of the pure concepts of understanding: quality, quantity, modality and relation are also contained as forms of existence.

It is not a predicate in Aristotelian metaphysics either. That does not mean that we have no concept of existence. The concept of existence reflects an indeterminate capacity to act. The specification of a being's capacity to act is given by its essence.

It's not only that we have no concept of existence, it is that existence isn't a concept! For the concept of "existence" adds nothing to an object. For even you yourself changed the prediction of "existence" to mean "the ability to act" — something, in which for Kant, would have been independently applied to existence.

I have no idea what this means. We reason to the existence of God. And, we can reason hypothetically, prescinding from the question of actual existence. I will grant that we cannot reason to existence except from existence.

It means what I have now written above.

This sentence is incoherent. To know something specific (a tode ti -- a "this something"), we must have some means of ostentation, of identification, of pointing "it" out. If we cannot do that, and Kant says we can't with noumena, then we can't know "it" vs. something else. We can know, by analogy with our continuing experience of novelty, that there are things we do not know, but absent some means of identification, we cannot say it is a this rather than that that we do not know.

The same sentence assumes facts not in evidence. We do not know that there are any intrinsic limitations to our understanding, nor is it clear that we ever could know that there were such limits. To know that there were such limits we would have to know that there were facts we could not know -- a contradiction in terms.

That seems odd to me. Let's say a cat could reason in some sort of way — which presumably it can. You think it could know the limitations of it cognitive capacities? Do we not believe it to have some? Like do you really think it could in any way understand a laptop? But why would we believe we have the cognitive strength of realizing everything? If we do have such humility, it would already seem to point out some utter limitations. Thus creating the Noumea.

— Dfpolis

Perhaps, but not to the separation of noumena and phenomena that Kant posits. I know of no sound argument that would lead us to reject the notion that phenomena are how noumena reveal their reality to us. Do you have even one?

I accept that you are not a Kantian, but I do not see that I am misunderstanding Kant.

You say you aren't misunderstanding Kant, then you proceed to say that the phenomena appears from the noumena. It appears from the world. The noumena/phenomenon are just two aspects of the world. As I take it the only reasonable interpretation of Kant is the dual-aspect interpretation.

If there were "pure concepts of understanding," then synthesizing them with what is sensed before we are aware of it would leave us confused as to what belongs to the "pure concept" and what belongs to nature as we are sensing it. Thus, they would be projected upon our understanding of nature.

As there is no evidence whatsoever for any "pure concepts of understanding," there is no reason tor believe that the object of awareness is other than nature. Of course to say that it is nature is not to say it is nature exhaustively, but only that it is nature as interacting with us as subjects. — dfpolis

The pure concepts of understanding don't "exist". They are transcendental. They merely create the conditions of possibility for us to understand/experience nature. We realize the form of the concepts in the possibility of any experience whatsoever being constitutive of them. They are natural insofar as nature is just merely the phenomenal character of these concepts applied. The argument to prove this is just transcendental: X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y—where then, given that Y is the case, it logically follows that X must be the case too.

To consider them to be anything, we must first have evidence of their being. Kant's authority is not evidence. — dfpolis

They have no Being. They are ideal. Being isn't a real predicate in Kantian metaphysics. We reason from existence, and not to it. That is, we don't apply it.

If noumena cannot be known by sensory experience, if they are "not an object of our sensible intuition," then the only way of knowing them is by some direct, mystical intuition ("the intellectual"). But, Kant tells us that "we cannot comprehend even the possibility" of this. (This is a most peculiar claim, for if he cannot comprehend the possibility, he cannot sensibly write about the possibility.)

What cannot be known by the only two ways we have of knowing (sensory and mystical experience) cannot be known in any way. So, Kant's noumena are epistemologically indistinguishable from nonbeing. How is it rational to take as a principle of one's theory, of one's understanding, the existence of something you claim to be absolutely unknowable? — dfpolis

We know it as a form of limitation of our understanding — as something that we're not. It's known in that sense negatively. I sometimes think of it in the way Aquinas conceived of what God is by what he's not. The difference is that Kant just bars the idea of any positive description.

Clearly, we do not know as God knows. God knows by knowing His own act of sustaining creation in existence (creatio continuo). We know by interacting, in a limited way. with a portion of creation. It does not follow from this that we do not know some of the same objects, the same noumena, that God knows. Indeed, if we are to know at all, we must know the being God knows Hew holds in existence.

So, I can grant that "we do not have the capacity of an intellectual intuition," taken as "a type of non-conceptual, non-sensory intuition of the world as it is that God" has, without denying that we know, in a limited way, what God knows exhaustively. — dfpolis

I wasn't talking about divine psychology. I'm merely stipulating that subjects do not have the power to know in the same way that a God would — that includes intellectual intuition. Which if we don't, we run back towards the noumenon for Kant.

Now I'm only defending Kant from a misunderstanding. That's not to say I am a Kantian.

The relevant texts I'm drawing from here are all in the Critique of Pure Reason.

This question seems to assume what I deny, i,e, that mechanical explanations are opposed to teleological explanations. So, in employing teleological reasoning, there is no denial of the necessity of mechanisms to attain ends in the natural world. Choosing one form of explanation has nothing to do with denying the relevance of the other. When we do choose, we typically whatever is the simplest or most efficient mode of explanation. If you want to know how a spider will respond to a fly caught in its web, it is much more efficient to ask what is the end of a web than to model the neural state of the spider and its response to visual inputs and vibrations of its web.

I am unsure what you are asking about evolution, but as I show in my paper (https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution), one can fully accept the mechanisms of evolution while concluding that it has targets (ends). Nor is evolution based, as is often claimed, on pure randomness. So, it is not an example of order emerging from mindless randomness. — Dfpolis

I think this misunderstands my question. I'm not saying mechanistic and teleological explanations are at odds. I'm asking why even have teleological explanations at all? You said earlier because the complexity of certain phenomenon would be too complex to explain mechanistically, but that seems to appeal to the under-determination of the relevant facts. That isn't enough to then say that we ought to have teleological explanations.

Falsifiability applies to hypotheses. The relevant hypothesis is that evolution is random, not deterministic. This is incompatible with the mechanistic position that evolution is fully compatible with physics. In physics, the only random process is quantum measurement -- which cannot have occurred before the emergence of intelligent observers. So, if one holds that evolution is compatible with physics, then it is not random, but fully deterministic. In other words, at least up to the advent of intelligent life, the species that have evolved are fully latent in the initial state of the cosmos and the laws of nature.

How are these determinate ends achieved? By applying the laws of nature, microscopically and macroscopically, to initial states. The microscopic application is relevant to the mechanisms of genetic mutation, while the macroscopic application is relevant to the mechanisms of natural selection.

So, there is no need to choose between the existence of determinate ends and the operation of fixed laws. They are different ways of conceptualizing the same reality. — Dfpolis

Let me put it another way. How do we know the heart was selected for too circulate blood throughout the body, as oppose to it being a by-product of another form: the heart going "bump-bump-bump". How do we devise a hypothesis that can test for which was selected instead of merely being a by-product?

Not every event is teleological in the sense of being "for the sake of" something else. Every event is teleological in the sense of being determined either by the laws of nature in general or by some rational agent. As Aristotle points out, some events are accidental in the sense of resulting from the coincidence of lines of action directed to other ends. You and I might meet at the store because I need eggs and you need peas, and then become friends, but our becoming friends was not the end of either of us in going to the store. So, snowballs might roll down hill because gravity is necessary for life to evolve (as shown by the physics behind the fine-tuning argument.)

Let me add that the existence of ends, even for the sake of something else, does not imply that we understand, or even can understand, the ordering of the proximate to the final ends. — Dfpolis

But the question was not whether or not somethings are teleological or not — clearly I said as much. The question was how do we differentiate between non-teleological ends such as the one I mentioned, and teleological ones? What is the criterion to discriminate between them?

The fact that things are determined to x means that x is the end of the system. So, the problem is not whether there is an end, for that is a given. The problem is why should we think of x as an end? Often there is no reason to think of x as an end, as there is often no reason to think of an end as effected by detailed mechanisms. We humans have limited powers of representation, and so we abstract those features of a situation we consider to be most relevant. If we do not consider the attainment of x as important, we will generally not consider it as an end. If we see its attainment as important, we are more likely to see it as at least a proximate end.

How do we know whether something has a result of x, rather than x is the intended consequence of certain processes?

Also, there would be a lot of argumentation here to read (8 pages), but I'm also going through a teleological phase right now so I wanted to ask you some questions since you seem knowledgeable about it, and I don't want to go through pages of 'counter-arguments' that I've seen a million times, but I am curious if you have any answers to these:

1. Why would the complexity of mechanical explanation be a reason to then opt out for teleological explanations? Wouldn't that be a form of appealing to consequence because our mechanical explanations as of now under-determined the relevant facts? Many mechanists claim that there have been advances in biology/evolutionary theory that replace teleological explanations before. Could it not just occur later?

2. How do you generally answer people who offer the argument that we couldn't differentiate between something in evolution as being a by-product of selection (spandrels), or an actual form of adaptive selection? That is, what is adapted for, or what can be a suppose end of adaption, is not falsifiable?

3. Similar to (2), how do we differentiate between seemingly teleological events, and teleological events? Such as a snowfall rolling down a hill isn't going down the hill because it's end is the bottom. But it seems like, say, metabolism is directed towards converting food for-the-sake-of energy.

4. How do you generally response to the statement that, "Given that things are set up in a certain way, x just happens." I know you could theoretically offer a compatible teleological explanation, but why would one want to even begin to do so?

5. What books do you particularly feel are the best for getting a handle on teleology?