• Wayfarer
    23.5k
    I could make the same case for the pistol shrimp and say that it is an ontologically distinct species because it has the unique faculty of shooting shockwaves out of it's clawsgoremand

    Which is a triviality. The mere fact of uniqueness is not at issue: species are defined in terms of uniqueness. At issue is the capacity to reason, unique to h.sapiens and the entailments of that. So whomever has tried to 'point that out' is mistaken.
  • goremand
    114
    But I don't see what makes our ability to reason relevant here, other than that it a unique ability to h. sapiens, just like the the pistol shrimp has it's own unique ability. What is your basis for saying some faculties are "trivial" while others are ontologically important?
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    I don't see what makes our ability to reason relevant here,goremand

    Said he, reasoning.
  • goremand
    114
    I'm sorry, I don't understand your point at all. I am using all kinds of different faculties to conduct this conversation, what does that prove?
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    That you have the faculty to have such a conversation, something which no other sentient being possesses.
  • goremand
    114
    Yes, but how does that prove I belong to an ontologically distinct species? Why isn't it just one interesting animal ability among a thousand others?
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    It opens up horizons of being that are not availalable to other creatures, although I suppose if you don’t find that significant, there’s probably nothing that can be said.
  • goremand
    114
    I suppose if you don’t find that significant, there’s probably nothing that can be said.Wayfarer

    Recall that this was what I originally said was the problem: you argue from the position that your view is intuitive, but when people do not share your intuition you have nothing to say. Basically you can only convince people who in a sense already agree with you.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    Fair, And they’re few in number. I find that reassuring.
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    So the Kantian system is really inadequate to account for reality because it doesn't allow that the senses partake of both, the external and the internal. And the Kantian system is caught by the "interaction problem".Metaphysician Undercover
    I can see why that is a problem for the Kantian system. What I don't see is why there is a problem about accepting that, because we have senses, we can interact with our environment in ways that insensate objects cannot; this is one of the markers of being alive. But, of course, in order to establish that one has to persuade people that the phenomena (appearances, ideas, impressions, sense-data) are not a veil between us and our environment, but a window. It's not an easy or straightforward project.

    Ahhhh, but they do not; the senses do nothing but forward information in the form of sensation, again, in accordance with respective physiology.Mww
    Well, that's how we think of them, especially when we have little or no idea how they work. But you seem to ignore the familiar point that the transformation of causal input into information requires a good deal of work.

    Be advised: you lose absolutely nothing by neglecting noumena entirely when examining human knowledge. The only reason Kant brought it up was to plug a logical hole.Mww
    That's a very interesting take - and very helpful, Now I can see that, just as Berkeley, having acknowledged that there must be a cause of those of our ideas that are not under our control, plugs the gap left by his rejection of matter with God, Kant plugs the same gap with noumena. The fundamental problem arises from the idea that our senses do not put us in touch with reality, but separate us from it. Then generations of philosophers wrestle with a problem that is created from the way that the question is asked.

    Philosophers get acclimatized to a very general use of words like "appearance". But not all appearances are the same.

    For example, Descartes' point that sometimes our senses deceive us is the ground for the philosophically traditional radical scepticism. Escaping from that trap is one of the basic motifs of modern philosophy.

    We know that some appearances are misleading. What follows? Does it follow that all appearances are misleading? No. Does it follow that all appearances might be misleading? No, the fact that we can tell that some experiences are misleading means that we can distinguish appearances that are not misleading from those that are.

    So the Kantian system is really inadequate to account for reality because it doesn't allow that the senses partake of both, the external and the internal. And the Kantian system is caught by the "interaction problem".Metaphysician Undercover
    I can see why that is a problem for the Kantian system. What I don't see is why there is a problem about accepting that, because we have senses, we can interact with our environment in ways that insensate objects cannot; this is one of the markers of being alive. But, of course, in order to establish that one has to persuade people that the phenomena (appearances, ideas, impressions, sense-data) are not a veil between us and our environment, but a window. It's not an easy or straightforward project.

    Ahhhh, but they do not; the senses do nothing but forward information in the form of sensation, again, in accordance with respective physiology.Mww
    Well, that's how we think of them, especially when we have little or no idea how they work. But you seem to ignore the familiar point that the transformation of causal input into information requires a good deal of work.

    Be advised: you lose absolutely nothing by neglecting noumena entirely when examining human knowledge. The only reason Kant brought it up was to plug a logical hole.Mww
    That's a very interesting take - and very helpful, Now I can see that, just as Berkeley, having acknowledged that there must be a cause of those of our ideas that are not under our control, plugs the gap left by his rejection of matter with God, Kant plugs the same gap with noumena. The fundamental problem arises from the idea that our senses do not put us in touch with reality, but separate us from it. Then generations of philosophers wrestle with a problem that is created from the way that the question is asked.

    Philosophers get acclimatized to a very general use of words like "appearance". But not all appearances are the same.

    For example, Descartes' point that sometimes our senses deceive us is the ground for the philosophically traditional radical scepticism. Escaping from that trap is one of the basic motifs of modern philosophy.

    We know that some appearances are misleading. What follows? Does it follow that all appearances are misleading? No. Does it follow that all appearances might be misleading? No, the fact that we can tell that some experiences are misleading means that we can distinguish appearances that are not misleading from those that are.

    When Macbeth sees a dagger in front of him, there is no dagger. So we say that there appears (to him) that there is a dagger. Macbeth is deluded. The dagger is a subjective experience - an image, not a reality. When the sun appears over the horizon at dawn, exactly on time as usual, there is no mistake, no delusion. Here, an appearance is perfectly real, perfectly true, perfectly objective. These appearances are revelations, not illusions.

    Before Copernicus & co., everyone assumed that it was the sun that was moving and the earth was still. That is a mistake, just like the illusion that one sometimes gets when the train on the next tracks moves in relation to our train. We tend to assume that our train is still because we are still in relation to it and there are no visual clues to tell us otherwise. But this is not a subjective, delusional appearance like Mabeth's dagger. It is just an misinterpretation of the real situation. From a different point of view, the situation would be perfectly clear.

    Under certain conditions of sun and rain, rainbows appear. One wants to say that there appears to be a coloured arch floating in the sky. There is no arch. But this is not a delusion like Macbeth's dagger or the relative motion of the trains. It is a perfectly real phenomenon, which is just what it appears to be, except that the physical substrate of the phenomenon is not what we expect; it is millions of rain-drops reflecting the sun's light.

    Sweeping up all sensations under one description is misleading and creates unnecessary problems. Look at the details.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.4k
    You called it a “Kantian distinction”, which I think much more the case than separation. It is inescapable that the human sensory apparatuses are affected by things appearing to them, which tends to negate the premise the senses and that which is sensed are separated on all accounts.Mww

    The point though, is that if this is the case, then the Kantian distinction cannot be maintained. If the senses are affected by the things sensed, then the senses are noumenal and there will be difficulty keeping the phenomenal as separate from the noumenal.

    I hesitate to admit the senses are causally affected, but rather think they are functionally affected, in accordance with the natural physiology, which makes explicit they are “out there” themselves, in relation to the cognitive system itself. That is to say, the sensory devices are just as much real objects as are basketballs and snowflakes.Mww

    If the senses are out there, and what appears to the mind is in here, then where does the boundary between these two lie? Or, more to the point, how can there even be a boundary? Sensations are just as much "in here" as ideas are "in here", but they appear to be an aspect of the sense organ. If I say that the senses are out there, then the idea of a boundary between in here and out there makes no sense, because the sensations are in here, yet also in the senses, which are out there.

    It appears to me, that unless I place the boundary as between the sense and the object sensed, the idea of a separation, or even a distinction, makes not sense. The brain and the senses are all aspects of the same nervous system. Therefore the boundary must be between the mind and the whole body (leaving an interaction problem), or between the senses and the objects sensed. I prefer the latter because it provides a better way to deal with the interaction problem.

    Ahhhh, but they do not; the senses do nothing but forward information in the form of sensation, again, in accordance with respective physiology. Not hard to understand the senses as merely a bridge between the real and the representation of the real. Phenomena belong to intuition, which is a whole ‘nuther deal than appearance/sensation, which might…..very loosely….be deemed the source of the internal images of the external things.Mww

    If you look closely, analyze this described scenario, you will see that you have an interaction problem here. You describe the senses as providing information, but not causing any phenomena. And, you have phenomena as belonging to intuition, a completely different thing from senses providing "internal images of the external things".

    By this description, the senses are external in relation to intuition and phenomena, but they somehow create internal images. So we can ask how does that boundary between external and internal get crossed. How is it that the sensations (images) are internal yet the senses are not. And why do you place a further (internal) boundary, or distinction between these images and intuition with phenomena?

    As stated above, the account does allow the senses to, maybe not partake in so much as distinguish between, the external and the internal.Mww

    This capacity, to distinguish between external and internal, which you assign to the senses is an arbitrary judgement. That, distinction is a spatial judgement, so it requires intuition. But you have already separated intuition off, far away. So it's incoherent to say that the senses can make such a distinction, unless we allow intuition to be within sensation itself, and this implies that the conceptual structure needs to be changed to allow the mind to be within the senses.

    It cannot be completely inaccessible. If noumena were inaccessible to the mind there could be no conception of it. Which highlights a misconception: Kant’s is a system in which different faculties function in unison. Mind may be understood as the composite of those faculties, but it remains that each faculty does its own job, and when examining the system, to overlay all onto mind misses the entire point of the examination.Mww

    You might say, "to overlay all onto mind misses the entire point of the examination", but I would say that to overlay like this exposes the fundamental fault of the examination. If mind is assumed to be the composite of those faculties, and all the faculties cannot be shown to co-exist as a unity of "mind", then there is an incoherency within the conception.

    Be advised: you lose absolutely nothing by neglecting noumena entirely when examining human knowledge. The only reason Kant brought it up was to plug an ever-so-abstract logical hole.
    (Actually, some secondary literature accuses him of backing himself into a corner, from which his extrication demanded a re-invention of classic terminology, which in turn seemed to demand an apparently outlandish exposition, which really isn’t at all.)
    Mww

    This demonstrates the incoherency of the conception. There appears, "an ever-so-abstract logical hole". The assumption of "noumena" is required to plug the hole. But "noumena" doesn't do anything, as you admit, except create the appearance that the hole has been plugged. Really though, the hole is still there, but it now exists as an abstract object, "noumena", and that abstract object is completely unintelligible. So the whole is filled with a self-contradicting idea, an intelligible object which is unintelligible.

    This is analogous to Aquinas' position on God. God is most highly intelligible, but fundamentally not intelligible to the human mind. Aquinas explains this, as God being a pure, separate immaterial Form, independent from matter. The human mind cannot grasp the separate forms due to its dependence on material existence, its unity with matter. This is an attempt to resolve the self-contradiction. Theoretically, after death when the soul leaves its dependence on matter, it can grasp the pure Forms. But the way that Kant turns things around, he appears to make matter the thing which plugs the whole, but that really leaves the hole unpluggable.

    At issue in that criticism is the claim that reason makes use of another faculty, apart from sensation and imagination, and it is this faculty which distinguishes the human intellect. As Jacques Maritain, another A-T philosopher, put it, what distinguishes the human from animal minds, is the ability to grasp universals - the universal 'man' for example.Wayfarer

    This is similar to Mww's description of the Kantian conception above, a division into distinct "faculties". What is at issue, is whether the division into these supposed distinct faculties is supported by good ontology, or whether they are just arbitrarily produced for some other purpose (for example, for Kant, an epistemic purpose).

    So Kant for instance, denies the relevance of any independent, external existence by designating it "noumena". By this principle, truth as correspondence, is no longer applicable, and this allows Kant to produce all the internal divisions and categories at will, so long as logical consistency, and correspondence with phenomena is maintained.

    You can see, that from this perspective, we can simply designate "the ability to grasp universals" as a distinct faculty, and claim this to be a difference of kind. That is why I explained that we need to go beyond this simple stipulation of "distinct faculty", and examine the object of that faculty, in relation to the objects of other faculties. If it turns out that two supposedly "distinct faculties" (with that designation of 'distinct', supporting the claim of a difference in kind) actually have the same type of object, then the claim of a difference in kind is not supported ontologically.

    This is what I think is required to support your claim of an ontological difference of kind. If you support it with epistemological categories, and the epistemology is not well grounded in good ontology (like Kant's), then the claim of an ontological difference of kind is not well supported.
  • Mww
    5k
    Philosophers get acclimatized to a very general use of words like "appearance".Ludwig V

    True enough, plus, words often get defined in order to accommodate a project. I’ve already mentioned the difference in meaning for the word appearance relative to the Kantian metaphysical project, as opposed to the common meaning relative to others.
    —————-

    ….the senses do nothing but forward information in the form of sensation….
    — Mww

    Well, that's how we think of them, especially when we have little or no idea how they work.
    Ludwig V

    These days, there is good evidence for how they work. Before, thus from a metaphysical point of view, how they work wasn’t important enough to jeopardize speculative philosophy, insofar as humans are not even conscious of most of that which is under the purview of natural law anyway. Even now, while science has cleared much ignorance, the subject himself in general remains unconscious of most of his own intellectual machinations.
    ————-

    ….the fact that we can tell that some experiences are misleading means that we can distinguish appearances that are not misleading from those that are.Ludwig V

    And how do we tell? From whence does the distinction arise?

    Sweeping up all sensations under one description is misleading and creates unnecessary problems. Look at the details.Ludwig V

    Not sure what that means. I can describe all sensations as merely that by which I become aware of my environment. I am not mislead and have no unnecessary problems, because the description does not contradict the facts. Someone else, describing senses in some other way, might then think me misled and invoking unnecessary problems, which is fine by me.

    Show me the details?
  • Mww
    5k
    If the senses are affected by the things sensed, then the senses are noumenal….Metaphysician Undercover

    No, that doesn’t follow at all. That’s like saying an ice cube is noumenal because it shatters when hit by a hammer.
    ————-

    If the senses are out there, and what appears to the mind is in here, then where does the boundary between these two lie?Metaphysician Undercover

    In the faculty of intuition, where that which appears acquires its representation, called phenomenon.
    ————-

    If I say that the senses are out there, then the idea of a boundary between in here and out there makes no sense, because the sensations are in here, yet also in the senses, which are out there.Metaphysician Undercover

    Sensations are in the senses? If there were the case, why would we have both? You want the hand to tell you the thing is heavy when all it can do is tell you of the appearance of cellular compression. You want the ear to tell you there is a sound when all it can do is register the appearance of variations in pressure waves. And so on….
    ————-

    ….you have phenomena as belonging to intuition, a completely different thing from senses providing "internal images of the external things".Metaphysician Undercover

    Senses providing “internal images of external things” is not what I said.
    ————-

    If mind is assumed to be the composite of those faculties, and all the faculties cannot be shown to co-exist as a unity of "mind", then there is an incoherency within the conception.Metaphysician Undercover

    I didn’t say all the faculties couldn’t co-exist. In fact, I said the mind could be called the composite of all the faculties, which makes explicit they do co-exist. Each faculty can still be imbued with its own dedicated functionality without contradicting the notion of a unity.
    —————-

    This capacity, to distinguish between external and internal, which you assign to the senses is an arbitrary judgement. That, distinction is a spatial judgement, so it requires intuition.Metaphysician Undercover

    This little dialectical segment is my fault, for not correcting you here:

    So the Kantian system is really inadequate to account for reality because it doesn't allow that the senses partake of both, the external and the internal.Metaphysician Undercover

    Kant defines reality as “….Reality, in the pure conception of the understanding, is that which corresponds to a sensation in general…”. From that definition, insofar as only from the senses, and correspondingly by the sensations given from them, is any account of reality possible. This just says reality is given to us if or when the senses deliver sensations. So it is that the senses are in fact involved in both the external (input: effect of that thing which appears) and the internal (output: as affect corresponding to the appearance, which just is sensation). A completely legitimate explanatory bridge.

    I probably should have just said…the senses allow us to distinguish. Or, allow a distinction to be possible.
    ————-

    So the whole is filled with a self-contradicting idea, an intelligible object which is unintelligible.Metaphysician Undercover

    Might help to know what the “ever-so-abstract logical hole” actually is, where it resides, and the complications arising from it. Knowing that, it becomes clear there is, not a contradiction but a theoretical inconsistency, inherent in noumena. It is not itself a self-contradictory idea, but it is an unintelligible object.

    And Kant doesn’t, indeed cannot, deny the possibility of noumena, insofar as to do so is to falsify the primary ground of transcendental philosophy, re: “….I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself…”, which just says if I do think noumena, which is to hold a certain conception, and then prescribe to myself an object corresponding to it, then I immediately contradict the mechanisms I already authorize as that by which corresponding objects are prescribed to me at all, from which follows I have contradicted myself. The warning ends up being.…think noumena all you like; just don’t try to do anything intuitive with it. And if you can’t do anything intuitive with it, don’t bother thinking it in the first place.

    The logical proof, and thereby the unintelligibility, is in the mechanism by which objects are prescribed on the one hand, which is determined by the very specific functionality of individual faculties on the other.

    The legitimizing of noumena resides in a cognitive system I do not possess, arising for no other reason than I cannot say the cognitive system I possess is the only one there is. Phenomena belong to humans, noumena might belong to dolphins, or honey bees, or some rationality unknown to us. Which is….DUH!!!!…..all of them.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    This is what I think is required to support your claim of an ontological difference of kind.Metaphysician Undercover

    On what basis did Aristotle designate man the ‘rational animal’?

    The ‘faculty of reason’ is a perfectly intelligible expression, and the idea that humans alone possess it fully developed, and some animals only in very rudimentary forms, ought hardly need to be stated. Yet for some reason whenever it is stated, it provokes a good deal of argument. Which I attribute to the irrationality of modern culture!
  • Tom Storm
    9.4k
    The ‘faculty of reason’ is a perfectly intelligible expression, and the idea that humans alone possess it fully developed, and some animals only in very rudimentary forms, ought hardly need to be stated.Wayfarer

    I am familiar with this common argument and it has always left me somewhat cold. I don't have anything devastating against this view just some random thoughts. And yes, I'll be using reason.

    Your wording seems very biased when you write things like "fully developed" and "very rudimentary forms" Surely that's a contingent viewpoint based on a series of assumptions?

    This view is entirely predicated on us identifying ourselves as special - humans seem to have an innate ability to determine that we are favoured creatures of gods, and better/smarter than everything else on the planet. Is this not also one of our great blind spots - putting ourselves at the centre? Our reasoning is often indistinguishable from monomania. Perhaps this is why we have worked very hard to destroy the world and its wildlife. Reasoning often takes us to oblivion.

    Is the line between us and animals so special because we have atom bombs and iPhones? Are our more complex adaptations and affectations a sign of superiority or really a kind of deficit?

    It might even be argued that our particular brand of reasoning makes us inferior to animals who have and can find and do everything they need much more simply and elegantly than humans. They need no internet, no space programs, no Vogue magazine, schools or social media to thrive and live in harmony with nature. I'm not convinced that complexity equals superiority.

    Our reasoning produces some useful and remarkable things (to us), but much reasoning is weak and bias ridden, and poorly inferred and dependent upon heuristics and simplifications. Humans have epic limitations on using reason which suggest we are simple and confused. (Yes, I know, this is your cue for something about higher actualization.)

    Isn't one of the key arguments in Evan Thompson's Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (2007) that consciousness is enactive? That is, it arises from dynamic interactions between the body and the world rather than being an intrinsic property or essentialist trait? This isn’t my area, but that sounds fascinating and I wonder what this says about animals.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    s the line between us and animals so special because we have atom bombs and iPhones? Are our more complex adaptations and affectations a sign of superiority or really a kind of deficit?Tom Storm

    I’m going to make a spinoff thread and respond, but it will tomorrow.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    On second thoughts, what I will say is that I think humans alone are capable of giving explanations, and I think that this is self-evident. So if you want me to explain that, I will decline, as I don’t think an explanation is required.

    humans seem to have an innate ability to determine that we are favoured creatures of gods, and better/smarter than everything else on the planet.Tom Storm

    That is how Christians are said to have construed it, which fact is then regarded as an argument against it. But the Greeks proclaimed the sovereignty of reason before Jesus came along. Again, any argument against it must appeal to the very faculty which it seeks to question. It must give reasons.

    It might even be argued that our particular brand of reasoning makes us inferior to animals who have and can find and do everything they need much more simply and elegantly than humans.Tom Storm

    A moral judgement which no animal would make. There is nothing better or worse for them. They’re not able to envisage that things could be otherwise than what they are.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.4k
    But, of course, in order to establish that one has to persuade people that the phenomena (appearances, ideas, impressions, sense-data) are not a veil between us and our environment, but a window. It's not an easy or straightforward project.Ludwig V

    The issue is with the proposed analogous term, "window". The term characterizes the senses in a descriptive way. So we can ask, is the description accurate? Suppose the senses are like a window, we can apply the tinted glass analogy, and ask how is the window itself affecting our perception of what's on the other side. And when we look at the reality of being alive, we see that life is active, and then we need to allow that the supposed "window" is not a passive pane of glass, but it is actively doing something.

    And if we say that the activity of the mind is to interpret the information, then why wouldn't we say that the activity of the sense organ itself is an interpretation? So the information received to the conscious mind, from the sense organ, is already a type of interpretation. And if we assume that the rational mind is a distinct and higher faculty (a difference of kind, as @Wayfarerdoes), then we ought to accept that the interpretations given to the rational mind by the senses are less reliable.

    In the faculty of intuition, where that which appears acquires its representation, called phenomenon.Mww

    OK, you say that intuition provides the boundary between the senses as out there, and the appearances in the mind, as in here. But I think this produces the problem of determining where exactly the sensation is, in here, or out there. Kant, I believe, obscures the problem by talking about "sensibility", implying the potential for, or possibility of sensation, rather than talking about actual sensation. So "the faculty of intuition", may in this way, provide the mind (the internal) with the capacity to be receptive to sense activity, but this only veils the underlying problem of where exactly the sensation is, in here (in the mind), or out there (in the sense organ).

    Sensations are in the senses?Mww

    It sure seems to me like sensations are in the senses. When I touch something and feel its texture, warmth, softness, etc., I feel these sensations right in my fingertips. I taste things right in my mouth, and smell things in my nose. Sounds appear to be right inside my ears, and visual images appear to be in my eyes. All of my sensations appear to me to be right in the organs which sense them.

    If there were the case, why would we have both? You want the hand to tell you the thing is heavy when all it can do is tell you of the appearance of cellular compression. You want the ear to tell you there is a sound when all it can do is register the appearance of variations in pressure waves. And so on….Mww

    "Heavy" is not properly a sensation, but if we considered it as a sensation, we would feel it in the muscles, the pain in the muscles which are lifting the weight. The pain (sensation) is felt to be right at the location where it is sensed. Likewise, sound is heard to be right in the ears. You say that ears register vibrations, but you are not talking about "sensation" any more. If we stick to sensation, we need to recognize that the sensation we call sound, appears to be right within the ears.

    Furthermore, we need to acknowledge that we are talking about appearances, and the appearance is that the sensation is right in the sense organ. This is how the concept of "intuition" clouds and obscures the issue. Instead of acknowledging that the sense organ is part of "in here", because the sensation is in the sense organ, "intuition" produces a boundary. Then "sensibility", as the capacity to sense gets placed on the other side of the boundary from the sense organ, instead of putting the capacity to sense within the organ itself. And this classifies all the senses together, as activity in the same category of "sensibility".

    However, we really need to look at each different sense as possibly a distinct capacity, with a distinct object. If they are distinct, then there is a difference of kind between them, and it's wrong to look at sensibility as one capacity of the mind, provided by "intuition". We need to look at each sense as a distinct capacity, afforded by the corresponding sense organ, and determine what provides the possibility for each one.

    I didn’t say all the faculties couldn’t co-exist. In fact, I said the mind could be called the composite of all the faculties, which makes explicit they do co-exist. Each faculty can still be imbued with its own dedicated functionality without contradicting the notion of a unity.Mww

    The point though, is that the concepts of "intuition" and "sensibility" lead to an unsound description of sensation. So there is an unnecessary, and I would say unjustifiable boundary created between the mind, as the unity of the faculties, and the sense organs which are left outside the mind, as other than faculties.

    Kant defines reality as “….Reality, in the pure conception of the understanding, is that which corresponds to a sensation in general…”. From that definition, insofar as only from the senses, and correspondingly by the sensations given from them, is any account of reality possible. This just says reality is given to us if or when the senses deliver sensations. So it is that the senses are in fact involved in both the external (input: effect of that thing which appears) and the internal (output: as affect corresponding to the appearance, which just is sensation). A completely legitimate explanatory bridge.Mww

    I wouldn't say the gap is bridged legitimately. You have conveniently left out the role of intuition here, to create the appearance of legitimacy. If we include "intuition", then we see that sensations are not delivered by the senses, they are delivered by intuition, as providing sensibility, the possibility for sensation. Then the gap remains, but it is between intuition and the senses, and there is no necessity to have "the senses deliver sensations". Intuition could deliver sensations (as in dreams), without the role of the senses at all. And so the senses are not involved in the internal at all.

    So the imposition of the concept "intuition" produces the appearance that the gap has been bridged with that intermediary, intuition. However, in reality the proposed medium "intuition" is placed completely on one side of the gap, and therefore does not actually provide a bridge.

    It is not itself a self-contradictory idea, but it is an unintelligible object.Mww

    "Unintelligible object" is contradictory by traditional Aristotelian principles. An object necessarily has a form, as its identity, and "form" is intelligible. If it has no identity, form, it cannot be said to be an object. Notice that "intelligible" signifies the possibility of being grasped by an intellect, so actually being apprehended by a human intellect is not required. This is how Aristotle excluded "prime matter" (matter without form) from reality, by showing that it cannot be an external, independent object, it can only be an idea in the mind. But as an idea in the mind it is self-contradicting, therefore it is excluded from the mind as well.

    This is why the Christian metaphysicians assigned "Form" as the necessary aspect of the independent objects, and "matter" accounts for the accidents and contingencies, observed within the independent objects. The "logical hole" is then filled with an intelligible Form, God, which is to the highest degree intelligible, yet cannot be apprehended by the human intellect due to the human intellect's dependence on matter. The hole is filled because God is intelligible, yet unintelligible to humans, so we do not have self-contradiction within that form, or idea.

    And Kant doesn’t, indeed cannot, deny the possibility of noumena, insofar as to do so is to falsify the primary ground of transcendental philosophy, re: “….I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself…”, which just says if I do think noumena, which is to hold a certain conception, and then prescribe to myself an object corresponding to it, then I immediately contradict the mechanisms I already authorize as that by which corresponding objects are prescribed to me at all, from which follows I have contradicted myself. The warning ends up being.…think noumena all you like; just don’t try to do anything intuitive with it. And if you can’t do anything intuitive with it, don’t bother thinking it in the first place.Mww

    This is how Kant turns things around from the traditional Christian perspective. The tradition holds that the boundary, which is "the unintelligible", is matter, and places that as external to the mind. Kant brings the boundary as "intuition" into the mind. This allows "noumena" as a sort of replacement to "matter", being the unintelligible, to creep into the mind, in that area of the mind portioned off by the boundary, intuition. The self-contradictory concept is hidden behind intuition, so to speak. Within the mind it is nothing but a useless self-contradicting concept, unintuitive. Therefore we can see the need to reject it completely. But this requires restructuring the boundary so as not to allow it in there, behind the intuitions.

    On what basis did Aristotle designate man the ‘rational animal’?

    The ‘faculty of reason’ is a perfectly intelligible expression, and the idea that humans alone possess it fully developed, and some animals only in very rudimentary forms, ought hardly need to be stated. Yet for some reason whenever it is stated, it provokes a good deal of argument. Which I attribute to the irrationality of modern culture!
    Wayfarer

    The problem I see here, is that we, in our rational thinking impose strict boundaries on species of life forms. These boundaries are produced for epistemic purposes, although they may be based in real ontological principles, such as reproductive capacity. So we tend to believe that the differences indicated by our divisions of species, are real differences of kind even though they are really just established for epistemic purposes.

    The real problem which this creates is an inability to adequately understand evolution. Once we set up those differences of kind between the species, we rob ourselves of the conceptual tools required to properly understand the interspecies relations which are essential to that process called evolution. So the divisions into types are very useful for some purposes, but as Plato shows in The Sophist those purposes could include sophistry. This means that we need to call into question, to doubt the boundaries which are drawn, because they are generally drawn for a purpose which might not be representative of good metaphysics.

    So for example, you say some animals possess the faculty of reason "in very rudimentary forms". Isn't this indicative to you, that this difference is a difference of degree? I think, that to assign to human beings a distinct faculty, which is a difference of kind, we need to exclude these rudimentary forms from the others. And I am not at all arguing that this is impossible. As I said, I think that some of the distinct senses we have demonstrate differences of kind. But this creates a further problem which is the need to understand how differences of kind can evolve.

    This is an ancient problem, traditionally resolved by having God create the different kinds of life forms individually. Denying the reality of differences of kind altogether, allows for the reality of evolution, and emergence, but this produces a different problem, the one encountered by the ancient atomists. To avoid an infinite regress of divisibility to account for all the differences, we need to assume a first basic, universal kind, a fundamental particle, known as prime matter. But as Aristotle showed, "prime matter" is actually incoherent. This implies that differences of kind must be real, and ontological, but we just do not have the adequate principles of understanding to properly identify them. And so we continue to assign "difference of kind" by somewhat arbitrary principles, according to the purpose at hand.
  • Mww
    5k
    If the senses are out there, and what appears to the mind is in here, then where does the boundary between these two lie?
    — Metaphysician Undercover

    In the faculty of intuition, where that which appears acquires its representation, called phenomenon.
    Mww

    OK, you say that intuition provides the boundary between the senses as out there, and the appearances in the mind, as in here.Metaphysician Undercover

    I’ve already stated that appearance is that which is an effect on the senses, as input; appearances, then, and the senses can be said to be “out there”. How the senses react to that which appears, as output, is sensation, which can be said to be “in here”. There is nothing to be gained procedurally speaking, by asking for a boundary, when all that’s necessary is a transformation of whatever kind, between out there and in here. I’ve also said already the human is not conscious of all that transpires between the appearance of a thing to the senses, and the judgement attributed to it, and if we’re not conscious of it we can neglect the effort required for determining wherever some boundary may be.

    So "the faculty of intuition", may in this way, provide the mind (the internal) with the capacity to be receptive to sense activity….Metaphysician Undercover

    And that’s all we need to move on to the next faculty, the next procedural step on the way to determining how the appearance is to be known. There is an explanation for what intuition does pursuant to speculative metaphysics, but, again, the subject himself, being unconscious of the what, has even less need of the how.
    ————-

    All of my sensations appear to me to be right in the organs which sense them.Metaphysician Undercover

    That’s fine, if you like. I’ll stay with the effect of things on my sensory devices on the one hand, and the sensations such effects provide, accommodated by the type of sensory devices I possess, on the other. All I need is an input to the faculty of intuition, something from which phenomenon can be constructed. This is required in order to determine which sense has been affected, and what
    a posteriori material is being processed, in which form may be imagined as belonging to it, and, VOILA!!!…a very basic image is born.
    ————-

    A completely legitimate explanatory bridge.
    — Mww

    I wouldn't say the gap is bridged legitimately. You have conveniently left out the role of intuition here,
    Metaphysician Undercover

    Not left out; yet to be a systemic consideration; intuition plays no role in perception, but only in the formulae for representing that which is perceived.
    ————-

    An object necessarily has a form, as its identity, and "form" is intelligible.Metaphysician Undercover

    Agreed. And where, in Kantian transcendental metaphysics, does form reside?

    Notice that "intelligible" signifies the possibility of being grasped by an intellect, so actually being apprehended by a human intellect is not required.Metaphysician Undercover

    Intelligible means necessarily cognizable by the human intellect, re: all logical criteria have been met. Unintelligible, then, merely means a cognition is impossible, even if a representation relating to a conception, is not. So what makes a conception a legitimate thought, but for which schemata representing it, is not at all possible? What’s missing?
    —————-

    This is how Kant turns things around from the traditional Christian perspective.Metaphysician Undercover

    Interesting approach, but very far from the textual explanation.

    Anyway…..enough for now.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.4k
    There is nothing to be gained procedurally speaking, by asking for a boundary, when all that’s necessary is a transformation of whatever kind, between out there and in here.Mww

    Of course there is something to be gained here, because if we assume a boundary, then knowledge would be gained by understanding the nature of that boundary. If it is a "transformation" then there must be a cause of it, and understanding the source of that cause would be very important. Even the very existence of this supposed "transformation" casts doubt on the accuracy of our intuitions of space and time, as the transformation would be prior to the a priori. It would be the condition for the condition of sensibility.

    In other words, we'd have to assume an active, animated cause of sensation, the transformation occurring at that boundary, which is prior to the a priori intuitions, and this would render those tools, (the intuitions) as useless for understanding reality. We would need to obtain a full understanding of that transformation, as the a priori intuitions are already posterior to that transformation, being applied to the results of the transformation. This produces the requirement for a huge procedural difference if one's goal is to understand reality.

    .
    And that’s all we need to move on to the next faculty, the next procedural step on the way to determining how the appearance is to be known. There is an explanation for what intuition does pursuant to speculative metaphysics, but, again, the subject himself, being unconscious of the what, has even less need of the how.Mww

    But if the named "subject" is a metaphysician, then by the nature of a metaphysician, the subject has a need of the how. That is exactly what the metaphysician wants to know. And if it turns out that the a priori intuitions are already posterior to the transformation which occurs at the senses, then the conceptual structure is useless to the metaphysician because it places that transformation into the category of noumenal. This can only leave the metaphysician dissatisfied by what appears to be a faulty procedure.

    All I need is an input to the faculty of intuition, something from which phenomenon can be constructed. This is required in order to determine which sense has been affected, and what
    a posteriori material is being processed, in which form may be imagined as belonging to it, and, VOILA!!!…a very basic image is born.
    Mww

    The problem though, is that this "input" is already the product of an active, animated process, which you call "a transformation of whatever kind", that has occurred at the boundary between out there and in here. So the "basic image" is merely a representation of the product of that transformation. Therefore if we want to understand the true nature of the "out there", we need to recognize that the intuitions of space and time are not being applied to the "out there", they are being applied to the product of the transformation, which is already "in here". So we need to get beyond these intuitions of space and time, and understand the nature of that transformation, if we want a true understanding of the "out there".

    Intelligible means necessarily cognizable by the human intellect, re: all logical criteria have been met. Unintelligible, then, merely means a cognition is impossible, even if a representation relating to a conception, is not. So what makes a conception a legitimate thought, but for which schemata representing it, is not at all possible? What’s missing?Mww

    This, I think is a key point. The philosophical mind seeks to know everything, so it is counterproductive, sort of hypocritical, to designate anything as unintelligible. So the Aristotelian approach is to designate that to be an object is to have a form, therefore to be intelligible, as the law of identity indicates. However, Aristotle also noted the reality of "potential", as a sort of possibility for an object. And "potential" violates the law of excluded middle, throwing the intelligibility of that aspect of reality into doubt. This possibility of an unintelligible aspect of reality is not pleasing to the philosophical mind.

    The metaphysician has to be crafty to avoid being stymied by the prospect of an unintelligible aspect of reality, so the traditional solution is to assume the reality of an intellect with a higher capacity than the capacity of the current human intellect, that would be God. To avoid the connotations of that name, we might call this a potential intellect, a possible intellect, which could understand the reality of things which appear to be unintelligible to the human intellect. This allows us to place into the category of "intelligible" things like independent Forms, which provide for the intelligibility of the reality of potential, and which the human intellect cannot grasp, making them appear as unintelligible potential. By this little trick, your definition of "intelligible" as "necessarily cognizable by the human intellect" is rejected as unacceptable.

    Furthermore, the "trick" is well supported by evolutionary evidence. Living beings are extremely varied, and they evolve to develop different capacities. So the idea of an intellect (possibly a future more evolved intellect) which can grasp things which are unintelligible to the human intellect is clearly justified. And the so-called "trick" (which was formerly known as assuming God) is really a valid way for the metaphysician to get beyond the appearance of unintelligibility, and bring what appears to be unintelligible into the category of intelligible.
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