Do we have in mind noumenon in a negative sense or in a positive sense? — Manuel

Although Kant distinguished between positive noumena and negative noumena, as he didn't think positive noumena were possible, because they would require intellectual knowledge of a non-sensible intuition, the term noumena is assumed to mean a negative noumena, aka thing-in-itself, aka Dinge an sich selbst .

Yes, that is my understanding too. That doesn't mean that positive noumena are impossible, just that we can't comprehend how they could exist, or even if they could exist at all, but the possibility of such a thing remains open.

Kant sometimes oscillates between the "thing-in-itself" and "things in themselves", and these, obviously, are different in an important respect, in that one presupposes individuation, the other does not.

But Kant only introduced the concept of the “thing in itself” to refer to the world as it is independently of our experience of it and unstructured by our cognitive constitution. — Quixodian

I'm still reading Charles Pinter's book, subtitled : How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things . . . .. In his chapter on Realism, he distinguishes between "direct realism" (naive realism) --- which equates the world with the appearances created by the mind to represent physical features --- and philosophical realism --- which is supposed to be more self-aware, taking into account the observer's contribution to reality. Presumably, Direct Realism & Materialism ignore the Me in the middle of the sensation/cognition equation.

That's the same conclusion quantum physicists came to when they discovered that the expectations & presumptions of the observer seemed to have some effect on the transformation of holistic entanglement into the particular objects of sub-atomic reality. John A. Wheeler called it the "observer effect"*1. Since such self-consciousness was not allowed in the objective/reductive scientific method, they turned to Eastern philosophy (e.g. Buddhism) for ways to account for the meddling man-in-the-middle.

The Buddha advised his followers to seek true reality by ignoring the mis-interpreting Self. He referred to "pure" & "impure appearances". He seemed to presume that intro-spection was more pure than extro-spection. Quakers, sitting quietly in church, are also seeking the Inner Light, that presumably comes directly from God. We may get closer to "pure" Truth by quieting the constantly processing brain. But do we really commune with God, or with our naive (child-like) model of reality?

Pinter said Kant "claimed that what we experience is never the thing in itself, but always as it is represented in our mind". It's the observer's self-interest that muddles our "impure" view of things-as-they-are from God's unbiased "pure" perspective. He also says "Kant was perhaps the first philosopher to draw a real distinction between properties which things have in themselves, and the experiences they produce in us". Empirical material properties are innate, but abstract essential qualia are attributed.

Pinter goes on to note that "the animal mind . . . envisions a world of features, aspects, and appearances, but those things don't exist outside the mind". Also, "without a living subject looking at a thing, it has no specific features, nothing it 'looks like' " {my bold} That observer effect may be what Nagel meant by his challenge to the Mind-Body problem : "What is it like to be a bat?" All minds take-in sensory information from the environment, then process & code the data into "cognitive" mental representations, that are meaningful to the observing Self.

On this forum, we often contrast Realism/Materialism with Supernaturalism/Idealism. But that black vs white dichotomy also overlooks the flesh & blood man-in-the-middle : the cogitating Brain/Self. Likewise, the Phenomena/Noumena polarity may miss the real world conjunction of Brain/Mind, which translates Real sensations into Ideal experiences. :smile:


*1. Observer Effect :
The surprising implications of the original delayed-choice experiment led Wheeler to the conclusion that "no phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon", which is a very radical position.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%27s_delayed-choice_experiment

Kant sometimes oscillates between the "thing-in-itself" and "things in themselves", and these, obviously, are different in an important respect, in that one presupposes individuation, the other does not. — Manuel

It seems "things in themselves" refer to several objects of experience, whilst "thing in itself" refers to one object of experience.

From the CPR:
B xxvi Yet the reservation must also be well noted, that even if we cannot cognize these same objects as things in themselves, we at least must be able to think them as things in themselves.
A30 For in this case that which is originally itself only appearance, e.g., a rose, counts in an empirical sense as a thing in itself, which yet can appear different to every eye in regard to colour.

From the SEP article on Kant's Transcendental Idealism, Prauss (1974) notes that, in most cases, Kant uses the expression “Dinge an sich selbst” rather than the shorter form “Dinge an sich”. He argues that “an sich selbst” functions as an adverb to modify an implicit attitude verb like “to consider”. He concludes that the dominant use of these expressions is as a short-hand for “things considered as they are in themselves”

I guess the whole point is that we don't know that there are things in themselves, only that we believe that there are. The "selbst" indicates a mental attitude to something rather than the physical state of something.

Thanks for the clarification.

Nevertheless, isn't Kant making an assumption by saying there are "things in themselves"? This includes plurality, how do we know if there is such a thing?

“…. Conceptions may be logically compared without the trouble of inquiring to what faculty their objects belong, whether as noumena, to the understanding, or as phenomena, to sensibility. If, however, we wish to employ these conceptions in respect of objects, previous transcendental reflection is necessary. Without this reflection I should make a very unsafe use of these conceptions, and construct pretended synthetical propositions which critical reason cannot acknowledge and which are based solely upon a transcendental amphiboly, that is, upon a substitution of an object of pure understanding for a phenomenon….”
(A270/B326, in Meiklejohn 1855)

Hmmmm. Round peg, round hole; square peg, square hole.

Got it.

Next?

As an Indirect Realist, yes. I believe that space and time existed independently of the human mind for at least the 10 billion years before life began on Earth. — RussellA

But Kant does not, and was not 'an indirect realist' in the sense you're indicating, although you're actually articulating scientific realism, I think.

There's a passage I will often refer to, from a book by Paul Davies, the popular science author, which illustrates the role that the mind plays in the construction of the universe.

The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers.

Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time looses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe.

So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

Since such self-consciousness was not allowed in the objective/reductive scientific method, they turned to Eastern philosophy (e.g. Buddhism) for ways to account for the meddling man-in-the-middle. — Gnomon

That's where Frithjof Capra hit the jackpot with the Tao of Physics.

All minds take-in sensory information from the environment, then process & code the data into "cognitive" mental representations, that are meaningful to the observing Self. — Gnomon

Bingo. And without that observing self, which is never amongst the objects being observed, nothing whatsoever exists.

isn't Kant making an assumption by saying there are "things in themselves"? — Manuel

Nope. The rest of that thinking/cognizing quote reads: “…. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears, which would be absurd….”

Not knowing what a thing-in-itself is, is very far from knowing that there must be a thing-in-itself.

Oh. And how the HELL can “ that which is originally itself only appearance” have a name?

“….. It is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us à posteriori (…) ….the undetermined object of an empirical intuition…. ”. When he fills in with “…e.g., a rose…” he’s already considered the time between the appearance of the undetermined object, and the name for understanding the phenomenon representing the appearance.

Matter, as such, cannot have a name, which is a representation derived from the synthesis of conceptions, hence given from thought, not sensation.

If the human could distinguish 1,000 colours, this would probably give the brain too much information to satisfactorily process. Therefore, the concept of 7 colours seems a good, middle-of-the-road evolutionary solution — RussellA

What if the human eye could distinguish a million different coulors?

HOW MANY COLORS CAN HUMANS SEE?
Researchers estimate that most humans can see around one million different colors. This is because a healthy human eye has three types of cone cells, each of which can register about 100 different color shades, amounting to around a million combinations. Of course, this will vary for people who have a color impairment (or are ‘colorblind’).

In terms of shade variation, the human eye can perceive more variations in warmer colors than cooler ones. This is because almost 2/3 of the cones process the longer light wavelengths (reds, oranges, and yellows).

While millions of potential colors may seem overwhelming, color guides and tools like Pantone offer users different ways to organize and manage colors. There are also so many ways to describe the colors we see. Check out our guide to the characteristics of color for more. — https://www.pantone.com/articles/color-fundamentals/how-do-we-see-color#

Colour is not wavelength.

If the human could distinguish 1,000 colours, this would probably give the brain too much information to satisfactorily process. — RussellA

If what I've read on this is accurate the human can distinguish about 10 million colours, although for simplicity we don't have many different names for them.

Colour is not wavelength — Metaphysician Undercover

If what I've read on this is accurate the human can distinguish about 10 million colours, although for simplicity we don't have many different names for them. — Janus

The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from about 380 to about 750 nm The average number of colours we can distinguish is around a million.

English has 11 basic colour terms: black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, orange, pink, purple, and grey.

It is part a problem of terminology. On the one hand, a wavelength of 420nm is a different colour to a wavelength of 470nm, but on the other hand, even though we can distinguish them, we perceive them both as the single colour blue.

The interesting question is how we can perceive the wavelengths of 420nm and 470nm as two different things yet at the same time perceive them as a single thing.

On the one hand, a wavelength of 420nm is a different colour to a wavelength of 470nm, but on the other hand, even though we can distinguish them, we perceive them both as the single colour blue. — RussellA

Note that this is cultural. Russians have no word for blue*. Light and dark blue, goluboy and siniy, are seen as different colours, as different as red and orange.

*The word you get if you Google Translate it corresponds only to dark blue, i.e., it is untranslatable into Russian.

Note that this is just cultural. Russians have no word for blue*. Light and dark blue, goluboy and siniy, are seen as different colours, as different as red and orange. — Jamal

I can only speak from general knowledge, but whilst I agree that colour has different linguistic and social meaning between different cultures, I don't agree that humans within different cultures would not have the same subjective perception of different wavelengths.

The Wikipedia articles on Color and Color Terms writes that whilst English has 11 basic colour terms, other languages have between 2 and 12. How the spectrum is divided into distinct colours linguistically is a matter of culture and historical contingency. Colours have different associations in different countries and cultures.

Even though a Russian and a Scot have different linguistic terms for colours, if you showed the Scot and the Russian the three wavelengths of 420nm, 470nm and 700nm, my belief is that they would both agree that there was a common feature between 420nm and 470nm but not between 420nm and 700nm

IE, colour perception is not just cultural, it is human, common across different cultures.

colour perception is not just cultural — RussellA

That seems fairly obvious. I was just correcting your anglocentric assumptions.

I was just correcting your anglocentric assumptions. — Jamal

In what way is my belief that humans across the world subjectively perceive colour in a similar way Anglo-centric ?

Don’t be a pillock. I was very clear about what I was responding to. I even bolded the crucial line.

Don’t be a pillock — Jamal

Pillock, a stupid person. I will have to remember to use that term in the future on the Forum.

:up:

In British English it’s only very mildly insulting. You got off lightly :wink:

Paul Davies............by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers — Quixodian

Science tells us the Universe began about 13.8 billion years ago, and life began on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago.

Is Davies saying that as the Universe can only exist if there are observers to observe it, life must have begun 13.8 billion years ago.

I meant to say that isn't he making an assumption that things in themselves, are plural? The fact that he is referring to plurality by speaking of "things" adds individuation, which is an additional attribution to the general idea of the "thing-it-itself".

I'm not questioning that something like the thing in itself exists, I think such a postulate is quite necessary.

I meant to say that isn't he making an assumption that things in themselves, are plural? The fact that he is referring to plurality by speaking of "things" adds individuation, which is an additional attribution to the general idea of the "thing-it-itself". — Manuel

This was one of Schopenhauer's criticisms of Kant.

Guess I’m missing something here. If for every thing there is the thing in itself, therefore for a plurality of things it follows necessarily that there are a plurality of things in themselves. Just doesn’t seem like an assumption.
———-



What??? Two of you? What do you guys know that I can’t seem to get a grip on?

Plurality is a category and can only apply to phenomena, so...

Or rather, can only be known to apply to phenomena.

That's right, I think on this point Schopenhauer was correct.



I think you are starting from the wrong end. We see plurality, much the same way we see color, we can't help but see them in objects. Doesn't mean the object has color, or that the objects are in fact separate from something another object.

We identify a tree from the surrounding ground (both as representations, of course), but that's something we apply to the environment, it could be considered a single thing.

Nevertheless, isn't Kant making an assumption by saying there are "things in themselves"? This includes plurality, how do we know if there is such a thing? — Manuel

For two reasons, common sense and textual.

Common sense
What kinds of objects are things in themselves.
From A29 of CPR: For in this case that which is originally itself only appearance, e.g., a rose, counts in an empirical sense as a thing in itself, which yet can appear different to every eye in regard to colour.
From A272: Of course, if I know a drop of water as a thing in itself according to all of its inner determinations, I cannot let any one drop count as different from another if the entire concept of the former is identical with that of the latter.

By common sense, does anyone not believe in the existence of roses, drops of water, houses, camels, trucks, etc. Would anyone crossing a busy road and seeing a truck bearing down on them actually think that the truck, the thing in itself, doesn't exist in reality but only as a figment of their imagination. Wouldn't everyone make sure they quickly got out of the way. Doesn't everyone believe in that things in themselves exist independently of their own thoughts of them.

Would Kant have not worked at the University of Königsberg for 15 years if he thought that the thing in itself, the University, only existed in his imagination and not in reality.

Can anyone argue from common sense that Kant was not a Realist.

He was clearly not a Direct Realist, as the Direct Realist believes they have direct and immediate knowledge of the thing in itself.

His philosophy, as @mww writes "Matter, as such, cannot have a name, which is a representation derived from the synthesis of conceptions, hence given from thought, not sensation" is that of Indirect Realism, the view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is, but perceive it through the lens of a conceptual framework.

Textual evidence for the existence of the thing in itself
Kant makes numerous statement against the charge of Idealism.

In the CPR Anticipations of Perception, sensation can be understood both as stemming from the object of experience as well as the thing in itself. This duality may only be understood if the transcendental is distinguished from the empirical. Kant's Theory of Affection allows for two different explanations, though together make a coherent whole account of human knowledge.

It would be a mistake to conclude that because a thing in itself remains indeterminate it cannot exist. Common sense tells us that there is something behind an appearance, even if we don't know what it is.

Kant wrote in A536 of the CPR that appearances must have grounds that are not appearances.
If ... appearances are not taken for more than they actually are; if they are viewed not as things in themselves, but merely as representations, connected according to empirical laws, they must themselves have grounds which are not appearances. The effects of such an intelligible cause appear, and accordingly can be determined through other appearances, but its causality is not so determined. While the effects are to be found in the series of empirical conditions, the intelligible cause, together with its causality, is outside the series. Thus the effect may be regarded as free in respect of its intelligible cause, and at the same time in respect of appearances as resulting from them according to the necessity of nature.

We know that objects of experience, although they are mere appearances, are given to us. If the appearance has not been generated by the knowing subject, then an external cause must exist, even if the external cause is unknowable. The thing in itself allows for the very possibility of appearance.

There are many passages in the Fourth Paralogism where the thing in itself is declared as the cause of appearance, and even in the Second Analogy, the thing in itself is described as the source of affection.

Summary
Kant is clearly a Realist, and in today's terms an Indirect Realist. Kant's Theory of Affection
may be read as not only that sensation stems from the object of appearance but also from the thing in itself, not a contradictory position, but two parts of a coherent whole.

Plurality is a category and can only apply to phenomena…. — Jamal

I thought we were talking about the plurality of real existences, which phenomena are not but representations of real existences.

Categories apply to the thought of things, which would include those which appear in whatever quantity, which in turn presuppose the thing-in-itself from which each are given.
———

We see plurality….. — Manuel

Do we? Or do we think it, in connection to a series of relations?

Is the best place to find Schopenhaur’s objection in the Appendix for WWR? Don’t recall the argument, but…I’m old and forget shit all the time, donchaknow.

As an Indirect Realist, having an innate belief in cause and effect, I may not know the cause of an appearance, but I know that there has been a cause.

I don't know if PSR fixes the problem. The question is "do the noumena exist and do the noumena cause appearances?" Not do "appearances have causes?" You can maintain PSR and deny that noumena make any sense or have any explanatory value. Appearances can have causes in reference to other appearances, or we can say that appearances simply what there is, which is true in naive realism, logical empiricism, absolute idealism, etc.

By common sense, does anyone not believe in the existence of roses, drops of water, houses, camels, trucks, etc. Would anyone crossing a busy road and seeing a truck bearing down on them actually think that the truck, the thing in itself, doesn't exist in reality but only as a figment of their imagination. Wouldn't everyone make sure they quickly got out of the way. Doesn't everyone believe in that things in themselves exist independently of their own thoughts of them.

Would Kant have not worked at the University of Königsberg for 15 years if he thought that the thing in itself, the University, only existed in his imagination and not in reality.

This is a false dichotomy. The question is IF we should say there are inaccessible things in themselves that are suis generis that cause appearances, not "does the external world exist." It's a false dichotomy to claim that rejecting noumena means rejecting the reality external world. To say the noumena IS accessible in that is must be the cause of appearances is to beg the question.

Categories apply to the thought of things, which would include those which appear in whatever quantity, which in turn presuppose the thing-in-itself from which each are given.

For Kant, sure, but is this the best way to look at it? If the world is not intelligible than we are forced to accept radical skepticism. If the world is intelligible, logical, than why should categories only apply to thought. From whence this viel of ignorance? How can we say to what degree our categories have any correspondence to being qua being? Moreover, why should we assume, as Kant does, that the categories of classical logic from Aristotle just so happen to be the ones implicit in thought?

Another way to put it is this: "the world is rational, to reject this is to embrace radical skepticism. Both the structure of our minds and our experiences do not suggest the world is unintelligible. Thus, if appearances map to the external world at all then there must be isomorphisms between them, and the categories are a good place to start looking for these morphisms, but ONLY if we derive the categories from necessity, not from dogma.

Further, if the world is intelligible, it must be so by necessity, since it must be a logical place. Thus, the categories, whatever we actually find them to be, should be built up from logic. With this in hand, the categories need not be only be descriptions of experience, only applicable to appearances. Rather, they can be applied to being qua being, being simpliciter? Why? Because we build them up from logic, excluding prior dogmas. We examine bare thought and see what must necessarily spring from it in the speculative moment. That is, we construct not only a logic of thought but also the objective logic. We examine how the existence of one thing may imply others, as when a proof one one object applies others, adjoint modalities, implicit definition, etc.

The rational is the bridge between the subjective and objective. Moreover, we have no reason the believe either of these are suis generis. There is one actuality, and so we should be looking for the description of the whole, not simply a relation between entirely distinct parts."


E.g.,

Quantity : discreteness ⊣ continuity

The adjoint modality in a local topos is that given by flat modality ⊣ sharp modality
♭ ⊣ ♯

Capturing discrete objects/codiscrete objects. The corresponding unity transformation is

♭× ⟶ × ⟶ ♯×

According to (Lawvere 94, p. 6) this unity captures the duality that in a set all elements are distinct and yet indistinguishable, an apparent paradox that may be traced back to Georg Cantor.

Looking through Hegel’s Science of Logic at On discreteness and repulsion one can see that matches with what Hegel calls

(par 398) Quantity is the unity of these moments of continuity and discreteness.

The question is "do the noumena exist and do the noumena cause appearances?" Not do "appearances have causes?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree that when sleeping and dreaming, appearances have not been directly caused by things external to the mind. The question is that when awake, is it also the case that appearances have not been caused by things external to the mind. An Idealist would say yes, a Realist would say no.

Regarding Idealism, it is either the solipsism of my mind or Berkeley's mind of God. I exclude the first possibility as I doubt I wrote War and Peace. I exclude the second possibility because of Occam's razor, in that there being no God is a simpler explanation than there being one.

This leaves Realism, in that there is a world outside the mind, and appearances can be caused by things external to the mind.

It's a false dichotomy to claim that rejecting noumena means rejecting the reality external world. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If it is possible for there to be an external world without things in themselves, what would make up this world ?

To say the noumena IS accessible in that is must be the cause of appearances is to beg the question. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think a Direct Realist would say that things in themselves are directly accessible, whereas an Indirect Realist would say that they are only indirectly accessible.

He's an empirical realist and a transcendental idealist. Kant has some very acute and critical things to say about common sense, incidentally, though the comments I have in mind appear in his Prolegomena, not the Critique.



We might think it or think it and perceive it or maybe imagine it - this is terminological, which is not to say it does not matter, it does.

The point is that individuation is an extra step, as applied to the concept of "things-in-themselves", it adds something to what would otherwise be singular, the thing-in-itself.

If we want to attribute only what is strictly necessary to such an idea as the negative noumenon, then it is simpler to assume the existence of a single "thing", than to attribute many things, and say all these several things each have a thing-in-itself as the grounds of the representation.

Maybe plurality is correct. It's not so clear to me.

As for the specific page in Schopenhauer, I do not recall, he probably does mention it in the Appendix, but I believe he also mentions it in both volumes, more so in the second one.

My memory isn't pristine either, though it's not an age issue. Limited "software" as it were... :wink: