If there is a thing having reasonable status by my understanding of it, which implies a non-contradictory judgement, why would I invite doubt to come into play? Doubt arises when the status of a thing is understood as something less than reasonable, meaning, in short, the concepts under which the representation of the thing is subsumed, do not belong to each other with sufficient justice. — Mww

People have non contradictory judgments all the time in "their understanding," no? After all, understanding like this does not play out universally, and so people have entangled doubts about many things, but this is just incidental. Less than reasonable given what one understands has no philosophical status. So the concepts involved in some matter or other are not found in the scope of Kantian critique. Even in science, these are "paradigms" of science. Science itself has doubts. But again, this is not a Kantina issue, not an ontological or epistemological issue. These themes begin with doubt, that is, arguments that look at, say, how it is that a judgment can be both about the world and be apriori, and conclude to something that excludes doubt, affirmation, conditional propositional making and the rest.

Reality is entirely other, by definition, re: that which corresponds to sensation in general. How he came up with that definition is an example of his transcendental thinking, but it is not a proper indication of why his thinking is called transcendental. Given his definition of what thinking is, it is clear not all his thinking, nor anyone’s for that matter, is transcendental, but is only so from the relation of conceptions, or the origin of the ideas, contained in it. — Mww

Thinking for Kant is synthetic, and to think about how this is so, or what its nature is, must be done in the very medium that is under analysis. This is the basis for positing the transcendental. Thinking shows us a world, as Wittgenstein will say, but cannot show us what thinking is.

The origin of ideas? What do you mean by this?

Not all his thinking is transcendental? Well, it's all analytic. And it leads to claims of what is transcendental.

This other….the aforementioned “other”, as in, reality? That which corresponds to sensation in general can never be representation, so you’re saying Kant was mistaken in not realizing it actually is? So he got his entire paradigm-shifting, drop-your socks, OMG metaphysical do-over….wrong????

Nahhhh, he didn’t get it wrong; other folks just think they got it more right, when all they really got, was different. — Mww

What exists for Kant that can be talked about at all? Concepts without intuitions are empty, intuiitons without concepts are blind. So what is "there" is a synthesis, and one cannot reasonable talk about one absent the other lest having the transcendental dialectic come down one, that is reason wandering off by itself creating illusory thinking. This is what Michel Henry calls "the lost desert of the Dialectic" where subectivity and everything else goes to die, because nothing escapes prison of representational status. The world reduced to representation, not itself "really" there, but something "other".

What he got wrong is that noumenon is supposed to be an all encompassing metaphysics entirely outside of possible understanding. But how does one arrive at such a concept if not for evidence that issues from the phenomenon? What he discovers in judgment that is apriori is entirely possessed by the discovery itself, and to separate the phenomenon from the noumenon places a limitation on the latter, draws a line where one begins and the other ends, but this is impossible, for one would have to have a vision of both sides to do this. Again, this is Wittgenstein's argument against metaphysics. But this is not to say nothing is transcendental at all. It is to say everything is transcendental; that the transcendental IS the immanental. How can this be? The world we live in is BOTH.

This is what Kant missed. Philosophers miss this because, an analytic anglo american thinking , transcendentalism is off limits. They are just positivists drunk on the success of science.

So the concepts involved in some matter or other are not found in the scope of Kantian critique. — Astrophel

Concepts involved in some manner or other are found in every aspect of Kantian critique.

Thinking for Kant is synthetic, and to think about how this is so, or what its nature is, must be done in the very medium that is under analysis. — Astrophel

Not all thinking for anybody is synthetic, re: principles. But I agree all analysis of the nature of thinking must be done from within the medium being analyzed.

Thinking for Kant is synthetic… — Astrophel

Not all his thinking is transcendental? Well, it's all analytic. — Astrophel

It’s all both?

Transcendental refers to a certain mode of cognition, so, no, not all his thinking is in that mode, even if he made a name for himself by rebutting Hume in the proving the possibility of it and validity of its use.

Transcendental this or transcendental that merely describes the origin of, and the limitations for, the conceptions in use. There is empirical thinking, rational thinking….hell, there’s magical thinking. Transcendental thinking is just a higher level of plain ol’ thinking.

Michel Henry calls "the lost desert of the Dialectic" where subectivity and everything else goes to die, because nothing escapes prison of representational status — Astrophel

A ultra-modern phenomenologist chastising an Enlightenment continental philosopher. Where’s the news…or indeed the value….in that?

What he got wrong is that noumenon is supposed to be an all encompassing metaphysics entirely outside of possible understanding. — Astrophel

Supposed to be? Who says? How can anything entirely outside possible understanding be supposed at all, much less supposed as an all-encompassing metaphysic? Noumena is nothing but a conception, for which there is no possible representation, which, incidentally, falsifies the claim that all subjectivity is imprisoned by them.

Concepts involved in some manner or other are found in every aspect of Kantian critique. — Mww

No, the meaning here is that Kant is talking about a specific critique, not some matter or other that is merely incidental. Incidental things are bracketed in Kant, and attention is solely on the formal structure of logic. Kant cares little, if at all, for the content of judgments.

Not all thinking for anybody is synthetic, re: principles. But I agree all analysis of the nature of thinking must be done from within the medium being analyzed. — Mww

No. All thinking is synthetic. A thought at all is the application of a universal. 'Tree' is a universal, subsuming particulars under a general idea, so when we say, Look at that tree, the understanding grasps the particular in the universal. Even when one is talking about things in a most particular way, zeroing in on the uniqueness, one is making a synthetic judgment.

It’s all both?

Transcendental refers to a certain mode of cognition, so, no, not all his thinking is in that mode, even if he made a name for himself by rebutting Hume in the proving the possibility of it and validity of its use.

Transcendental this or transcendental that merely describes the origin of, and the limitations for, the conceptions in use. There is empirical thinking, rational thinking….hell, there’s magical thinking. Transcendental thinking is just a higher level of plain ol’ thinking. — Mww

No, it does not refer to a certain mode of cognition. It refers to the structure of thought itself.

No, not just conceptions in use. He says: "The term 'transcendental', that is to say, signifies such knowledge as concerns the a priori possibility of knowledge, or its a priori employment." thus, it is a feature of all knowledge claims. He divides logic into its parts in the analytical attempt to discover that which is in thought itself that is transcendental. He says, "Logic, again, can be treated in a twofold manner, either as logic of the general or as logic of the special employment of the understanding," as a move to dismiss special employment of the understanding so that he can arrive at the general, where he will begin his Deduction to show how the pure forms determined.

A ultra-modern phenomenologist chastising an Enlightenment continental philosopher. Where’s the news…or indeed the value….in that? — Mww

Or better, where is the argument in this statement? Henry is not ultra modern. He is considered post, post modern, responding the Nietzschean element of post modern nihilism that sways philosophy toward a radical dismissal of metaphysics. Kant is seen as starting this. Heidegger, too. Not atheism, but a critique that throws cold water over all metaphysics. This is continental philosophy, and the issues are timeless, and Henry is right in the middle.

the value? What is the value of doing philosophy? What is the value of continental philosophy's issues?

Supposed to be? Who says? How can anything entirely outside possible understanding be supposed at all, much less supposed as an all-encompassing metaphysic? Noumena is nothing but a conception, for which there is no possible representation, which, incidentally, falsifies the claim that all subjectivity is imprisoned by them. — Mww

Kant's is a philosophy of the self, subjectivity. So ask Kant what subjectivity is and what to you get? The transcendental unity of apperception. All things end up HERE. This is why he is a transcendental philosopher. Noumena is, as you say, a mere conception, but it is played against phenomena, the empirical world we live and breathe in. When he talks about things in themselves, he is not wasting space. He has to talk about this if he is going to talk about the finitude of things that are not what they are "in themselves".

The prison: Calling all phenomena not what things really are in themselves, puts human knowledge in a place where thought cannot escape TO the things themselves. Reality, what is really real is structually beyond grasp.

There is this impossible epistemic and thus ontological distance between knowledge and the world, until, that is, this distance is closed. — Astrophel

But how can it be closed?

Our only direct knowledge is that of the sensations in our five senses.

We perceives shapes and colours, relations and quantities, which are clearly not the thing in the world.

From these sensations alone we infer a world that has caused these sensations

We can only make inferences when moving from the epistemology of our sensations to the ontology of a presumed world, but inference is not knowledge

Even though we only know our own sensations, there is an intersubjective agreement about things like the Moon, but is this public agreement about our intersubjective sensations or about a thing in the world causing these sensations?

But then, what contributions does "the mind" make to "the moon" being the moon when it encounters that out there we call the moon? Clearly the moon is not simply in one's mind, but nor is the moon simply out there. It is the simplicity that spoils this response, for to say the mind "just sees it" is to ignore the question of epistemic distance as if it didn't exist. Science may do this, for this is not the kind of thing it thinks about, but philosophy? This is where philosophy begins. — Astrophel

It is definitely the case that the Moon doesn't exist in me when I am seeing it.  It exists out there in space somewhere. It also is the case that the Moon causes the image to appear in my mind when I am seeing it, because when some nights it is raining or cloudy, the image of the Moon doesn't appear in my mind at all even if I try to see it.

A lot of processes happen physiologically, neurologically and chemically in the body and brain when we see an object.  It is not a simple event even if we say "I see it there" sounding simple.

The image of the Moon in our mind is not the biological, neurological or chemical substance in the brain or retina, but something immaterial which emerged from the brain as an abstract entity which is the same nature as concepts.

I mean, think about it: what is scienctific knowledge and how does it present to me the moon as it is? One has to look not at the quantification, for this doesn't give us anything but relational structures in a system that is ontologically distinct from the presence of the moon itself. — Astrophel

Science can only describe what are observable. The hidden and unobservable parts of the world for them are same as metaphysics i.e. conjecture, inference and abstraction. Knowledge has limits, and all existence has both knowable and unknowable aspects which are the inherent properties of them.

Quantifications on the objects will make the knowledge more objective, but not absolute or ultimate.

So the concepts involved in some matter or other are not found in the scope of Kantian critique.
— Astrophel

Concepts involved in some manner or other are found in every aspect of Kantian critique. — Mww

No, the meaning here is that Kant is talking about a specific critique, not some matter or other that is merely incidental. — Astrophel

Oh. My bad. I took your “some matter” as a misprint, changed it to “some manner”. Concepts involved in some matter is rather ambiguous, wherein lay my justification for taking it upon myself to change it. Doesn’t make much difference, though, really. The concepts involved in some matter or other are still found in the scope of Kant’s critique, as the a posteriori side of the synthesis of phenomenal representations in general. Concepts involved in matter being distinct from concepts contained in matter.
————-

Not all thinking for anybody is synthetic, re: principles.
— Mww

No. All thinking is synthetic. A thought at all is the application of a universal. — Astrophel

The analytic/synthetic dichotomy only refers to the relations of subject/predicate conceptual content. Any thought, that is, any cognition by means of conceptions, is analytic if the conceptions in the subject relate in a certain way to the conceptions in the predicate, but synthetic if they do not.

A thought at all is the application of a universal. 'Tree' is a universal — Astrophel

Tree is a particular thing, of all possible things; thought of things in general is possible only under a universal conception, a category. Thought is not always of things, but may be of ideas or mere notions, for which no thing is cognizable as relating to it, in which case understanding has no need of the categories, and the idea is itself the universal, re: justice, beauty and the like. The categories belong to understanding and apply only to phenomena; the universals belong to pure reason alone and never apply to phenomena.

Even when one is talking about things in a most particular way, zeroing in on the uniqueness, one is making a synthetic judgment. — Astrophel

Thinking in a most particular way #1: A = A. Analytic judgement, a priori through identity;
Thinking in a most particular way #2: 1 + 1 = 2. Synthetic judgement, a priori through contradiction.

In talking of things in a most particular way describes experience, which is always grounded in synthetic judgements, yes.
————-

Transcendental thinking is just a higher level of plain ol’ thinking.
— Mww

No, it does not refer to a certain mode of cognition. It refers to the structure of thought itself. — Astrophel

Ehhhh, so it might seem. But the words in the text say otherwise; see A12/B26. Cognition generally belongs to understanding, of which we are conscious; transcendental cognitions belong to pure reason, and of those we are not. Hence the higher level.

Not that thought doesn’t have a structure. But one must decide as to whether the structure is represented by the subject/predicate propositional construct, which is the synthesis by productive imagination, or, the relation of units contained in those propositions to each other according to rules, which is logical inference, or, the origin of that which unites and regulates propositions within certain limits, which are principles as such.

But thought, in and of itself alone, in its empirical nature, is the act of referring a given intuition to an object by means of a conception. It is absurd to suppose we cannot have any such thought, nonetheless in and of itself alone, as doesn’t have an intuition given from an object of the senses.

What of that thought represented by a single concept? We can certainly think “round” without that to which round is intuited. While it is true such singular concept is empty, insofar as it has no accompanying phenomenon, it is still a valid thought, hence can be legitimate content of a priori cognitions.

I might be inclined to accede to the idea that transcendental refers to the structure of thought of a certain mode, but less so as reference to the structure of thought in general. In general, transcendental refers to the structure of experience, in that by it certain kinds are either impossible, or merely illusory.
————-

Calling all phenomena not what things really are in themselves, puts human knowledge in a place where thought cannot escape TO the things themselves. — Astrophel

True enough. What’s the problem? That we’re trapped in our own heads? Like….wishing we weren’t is enough to negate all the philosophy predicated on the necessity that we are? It makes much more sense, and is very far more productive, to organize the mechanisms we’re stuck with into an error-correcting method, than to pretend we can withdraw from them.
————-

Interesting perspective you got on this subject. We may not agree, but that doesn’t make it less interesting.

he analytic/synthetic dichotomy only refers to the relations of subject/predicate conceptual content. Any thought, that is, any cognition by means of conceptions, is analytic if the conceptions in the subject relate in a certain way to the conceptions in the predicate, but synthetic if they do not. — Mww

I'm rather talking about the synthetic nature of a thought, what brings particulars under a heading just to think AT ALL. I say, That is a fence post! None of these terms in play are free of the universality of reference for all concepts are universals, no matter if one is speaking tautologically or synthetically. It is the very nature of speaking at all I refer to.

Tree is a particular thing, of all possible things; thought of things in general is possible only under a universal conception, a category. Thought is not always of things, but may be of ideas or mere notions, for which no thing is cognizable as relating to it, in which case understanding has no need of the categories, and the idea is itself the universal, re: justice, beauty and the like. The categories belong to understanding and apply only to phenomena; the universals belong to pure reason alone and never apply to phenomena. — Mww

All particularity is lost with Kant. Calling it a particular thing is an employment of a string of concepts that have no dealings at all with whatever there is "before your waking eyes". Rationalism does this to the world. Justice? Beauty? What are these? Such is the world of representations merely: The understanding is essentially conceptual, all concepts are universals. Pure reason is just this, a philosophical construct in a world of representations. Think like Hegel does: a "particular" tree? But what is particularity if not this before me brought under a universal that subsumes all cases of the same kind? Justice and beauty are no different. Rationalist transcendental thinking never confronts the world at all.
The kingdom of ends? What is a kingdom to the understanding at the level Kant's epistemological analysis? A synthetic term. An end? The same. Pure reason?

But thought, in and of itself alone, in its empirical nature, is the act of referring a given intuition to an object by means of a conception. It is absurd to suppose we cannot have any such thought, nonetheless in and of itself alone, as doesn’t have an intuition given from an object of the senses. — Mww

Right, but Kant dismisses the content, the "material" of sensible knowledge in favor of the "science" of apriority. The rich content of the tree, its palpable phenomenal presence, has no place in knowledge, for as it is "as such," it is merely "blind". The transcendental aesthetic covers his concerns about a scientific handling of sensibility. Content is lost, and so, there is no being-a-tree in that thing there minus the presence of the reductive function of the understanding, reductive to mere form. Understanding for Kant is a matter of mere form through and through.

I might be inclined to accede to the idea that transcendental refers to the structure of thought of a certain mode, but less so as reference to the structure of thought in general. In general, transcendental refers to the structure of experience, in that by it certain kinds are either impossible, or merely illusory. — Mww

But what are the categories if not the essential structure of ALL that thought can think? Nothing escapes this. IF there is knowledge, THEN there is representation; so what is representation? It is essentially defined by what the understanding can say, speak, judge. Look out on a clear day at the horizon of things and what does Kant say that you "know" about anything? You know what the synthetic function of the understanding tells you. All else is blind. This is why his moral theory is so vacuous.

But how can it be closed?

Our only direct knowledge is that of the sensations in our five senses.

We perceives shapes and colours, relations and quantities, which are clearly not the thing in the world.

From these sensations alone we infer a world that has caused these sensations

We can only make inferences when moving from the epistemology of our sensations to the ontology of a presumed world, but inference is not knowledge

Even though we only know our own sensations, there is an intersubjective agreement about things like the Moon, but is this public agreement about our intersubjective sensations or about a thing in the world causing these sensations? — RussellA

But this is a physicalist's view of things, yes? This kind of thinking is what makes the issue an issue, for it localizes the one, sensations, in an ontology, here, while putting the other, that tree, over there, thereby creating this distance. It is okay to speak of this distance in everyday talk, because it is useful to do so, not to forget the sciences that do this all the time. But philosophically, we pull away from common talk in an attempt to look more closely. When we are introduced to a world in infancy, the world out there is not something that has to be discursively determined. Rather, the moon and the rest are already there. No distance has to be crossed to make it so. So what makes this distance arise at all? It is the language in the "over there" and a "a mile that way" and all the talk about under, over, beneath, and so on, and it is in this language setting that distance comes to be. But these meanings have utility, not some authoritative original ontology. Originally, things had no epistemic distance at all. The moon was simply there, as it continues to be.

The distance came into existence in the utility and familiarity of language's spatial vocabulary, not in the primordiality of things fundamentally separated. Again, the trees, moon, hills and valleys are originally all simply there; the distance was closed before it even opened up. The way to close the distance is to reaffirm what was there at first, and then move from the obvious state that things are over there, outside of this, inside of that, and then ask, how is this possible? The tree is there, now how in the givenness of this clear fact do we give an account? Clearly, I am already connected.

It is definitely the case that the Moon doesn't exist in me when I am seeing it.  It exists out there in space somewhere. It also is the case that the Moon causes the image to appear in my mind when I am seeing it, because when some nights it is raining or cloudy, the image of the Moon doesn't appear in my mind at all even if I try to see it.

A lot of processes happen physiologically, neurologically and chemically in the body and brain when we see an object.  It is not a simple event even if we say "I see it there" sounding simple.

The image of the Moon in our mind is not the biological, neurological or chemical substance in the brain or retina, but something immaterial which emerged from the brain as an abstract entity which is the same nature as concepts. — Corvus

Keep in mind that when you speak of a brain, it too is "immaterial which emerged from the brain." Weird as this sounds, this is what your thinking here is forcing one to say. You know, if one insists on talking about consciousness being a kind of epiphenomenon of a brain, one creates again and again the basis for this absurdity. Physicalist talk (or some derivative, modified version) will never make epistemology make any sense.

One has to drop physicalism, materialism, naturalism as an ontology. think of the world as an event in which there is an interface between consciousness and the world, only both are conceived IN the interface. Things are events and the moon and the perceptual act that meets it are really a singularity. Impossible to think of the one without the other, yet in the division that allows talk about "the one and the other" one is abstracting from an original whole.

Look at it like Rorty does: in his pragmatic, qualified naturalism, you are here, the moon is over there, two objects, and the one can never "get into" the other. Nonsense to think like this. But when I am sith my sister, if she not...well, there? Clearly not a brain event; I mean, my sister is NOT a brain event; she's right there in front of me.

My view is that BOTH must be accepted: She is not a brain event and she is not what she is independently of my perceiving her when I perceive her. This is the nly conclusion. But how can I be aware of something outside of brain events? Simple: they are not brain events. My brain is not a brain event! But when I witness my brain (in open brain surgery?), the imposition of the witnessing is, well, strongly constitutive of what I see as my brain. To make the move into how this constitution can be analyzed, one has to read the kind of philosophy that does just this, phenomenology.

But what are the categories if not the essential structure of ALL that thought can think? — Astrophel

Not all thought; thought determined from sensibility only, related to appearances. The categories do not have anything to do with pure a priori cognitions.

so what is representation? It is essentially defined by what the understanding can say, speak, judge. — Astrophel

Nahhh….phenomena are representations, defined by the synthesis of matter and form, long before understanding exercises its logical function. We are not cognizant of phenomena, which is what you mean by saying they are blind, so…..

It is the very nature of speaking at all I refer to. — Astrophel

Ahhhh…..speaking. One can construct his thoughts without speaking, but he cannot speak without constructing his thoughts.

Why are we continuing this conversation, when you can’t seem to find anything good about it?

Just out of curiosity, what is your answer to the thread title?

To make the move into how this constitution can be analyzed, one has to read the kind of philosophy that does just this, phenomenology. — Astrophel

Problem with phenomenology is that it is another Kantian idealism without Thing-in-itself.

There is this impossible epistemic and thus ontological distance between knowledge and the world, until, that is, this distance is closed. — Astrophel

There seems to be three main theories of perception: Idealism, Direct Realism and Indirect Realism.

For the Direct Realist, i) the external world exists independently of the mind (hence, realism) ii) and we perceive the external world directly (hence, direct). For the Indirect Realist, i) the external world exists independently of the mind (hence, realism) but ii) we perceive the external world indirectly, via sense data (hence, indirect).

In a sense we all start off as Direct Realists. As you say, in the world of infancy, the world is not something that has to be discursively determined. For the child, there is no psychological distance between their immediate sensations and the object of their sensations
.
But later, language introduces us to spatial and temporal concepts, such as near and far, above and below, before and after. These concepts make us to look more closely at the world, and philosophically question more deeply their meaning.

Some then become Indirect Realists, conscious of a distance between our sensations and the object of these sensations. Some remain Direct Realists.

There is the question about the role of language in distancing the language user to their world.. As the Direct Realist directly perceives the world as it is, there is no distance between themselves and the world. As the Indirect Realist only indirectly perceives the world as it is, there is a distance between themselves and the world. As both the Direct and Indirect Realist use the same language, it does not seem that it is language that is opening up a distance between the observer and the world.

Not all thought; thought determined from sensibility only, related to appearances. The categories do not have anything to do with pure a priori cognitions. — Mww

But pure apriori cognition is only conceived in thought. This is the point. The prison.

Nahhh….phenomena are representations, defined by the synthesis of matter and form, long before understanding exercises its logical function. We are not cognizant of phenomena, which is what you mean by saying they are blind, so….. — Mww

There is no representation long before the exercise of the understanding's logical function. That is impossible.

It is sensory intuitions that dare blind without concepts.

Ahhhh…..speaking. One can construct his thoughts without speaking, but he cannot speak without constructing his thoughts. — Mww

There is no interest here in the difference between talking, thinking, writing. In all of these we find the evidential basis for postulating underlying structure.

Why are we continuing this conversation, when you can’t seem to find anything good about it? — Mww

I sounded a bit negative because you started off being careless in how you put things across. So no choice on my part, really. I do think you got better. Also, philosophy is inherently negative, or critical, deconstructive. This is what it means to question at all.

Kranky asks,

Why are our thoughts different from our senses in that the content of thoughts cannot be doubted? — Kranky

Kranky needs to read Heidegger. When we speak of thoughts, senses, moods and general affectivity, and really anything at all, we are speaking (writing, thinking putting down in brail; really this is not the point. Not yet, that is), and so the issue lies not in the difference between the two, but in that which makes differences in the first place, and this is language, "the house of being," as Heidegger puts it. So when we talk about doubt, we need to look into what it means to doubt, and since this is philosophy, the incidental matters are suspended, you know, the details of this and that talked about in various ways in science, in everyday talk, so as to open up inquiry to the most basic assumptions. What is not suspended are these foundational issues that are not encountered in science, like epistemology, ontology, ethics, aesthetics. But you already know this.

So doubt. When we doubt the senses, we do because we can, so what makes doubt possible? At the most basic level, it is built into language itself, for language can doubt anything language has to say, and this because of the contingency of language, that is, anything that can be put into a proposition, is never some stand alone affirmation (conditionals are affirmations, as are negations, conjunctions, etc.), but has its meaning bound up in a world of already existing possibilities. When I see a cup on the table, it is not a cup until it is assimilated into a vast contextual historical understanding that comprises everything one has received from culture and language modelled by others. Here we discover what a cup IS. Doubt arises when language constructs a context for doubt, and this is possible for anything, thoughts, abstractions, the Taj Mahal, my love of Hagen dasz, simply because anything that can be said, can be doubted. And this the case because the meaning of these things is embedded meaning, and there are no such singularities in what language can say.

So thought and the senses can all be doubted. The trick for philosophy is to discover something that can affirmed that stands outside of language, but this discovery can only be "discovered" in language, a thesis, a proposition.

Problem with phenomenology is that it is another Kantian idealism without Thing-in-itself. — Corvus

Well, that is a loaded statement, you know. There is so much philosophy in this, one barely knows where to begin. Kant wasn't wrong (though the Critique can be argued endlessly. Was Strawson right? Here and there, yes), but seriously incomplete; such is rationalism.

I strongly suspect you ground your philosophy in science. If I am wrong, then you can tell me so, but based on what you have said, even when you qualify your naturalism, it is this that rules your basic assumptions. The thing in itself, and idealism, these need to be dismissed at once. Not that they have no meaning, but that they entirely spoil the philosophy because they need context, and if there is no context, then there is nothing at all.
Rorty once said that one of his bottom line critiques centered around the idea that it was just impossible to see how anything out there in the world got in here, into a knowledge claim, a proposition that says such and such is the case. He was being a naturalist in this line of thinking, but his naturalism was not the ground level for him, pragmatism was.

So I would ask you, if you like, to ask Rorty's question of how things out there get in knowledge claims, just to begin showing the strength of phenomenology. It begins with the question of epistemology.

There seems to be three main theories of perception: Idealism, Direct Realism and Indirect Realism. — RussellA

I am going to dismiss these. Not that they are not meaningful, but the approach that informs my thinking has no place for them (though after said approach is opened up, there may be room for this, but differently conceived).

There is the question about the role of language in distancing the language user to their world.. As the Direct Realist directly perceives the world as it is, there is no distance between themselves and the world. As the Indirect Realist only indirectly perceives the world as it is, there is a distance between themselves and the world. As both the Direct and Indirect Realist use the same language, it does not seem that it is language that is opening up a distance between the observer and the world — RussellA

If the direct realist perceives the world as it is, I would ask, what do you mean by world? If the indirect realist knows the world indirectly, I would ask the same question.

It is a question of ontology. When one sees a world, what IS it one is seeing? Then, what is seeing, for this question is begged.

Realism doesn't make any sense until one has discovered what it means for something to be real. One might ask, is General Motors real? It IS a huge automobile manufacturing company, and we talk about it all the time, but we all know that some time in the company came into existence, and this was done in conversation, thematically grounded in business concepts, and these one time came into existence during historical dealings with economics. And when thinking like this sets in, one finds questions as to where language begins and what is real ends. I mean, it is not as if the matter is so clear, for ask about something like a tree of a cloud, and while you may have an object right in front of you, a palpable sensory imposition, the same language constructs that make General Motors what it is, make a tree what it IS, that is, historically, there were primitive relations to trees that expanded pragmatically, socially, descriptively, into these formal institutions of science and society.

No doubt, there is something there that is not language, don't get me wrong. But the "what is it?" philosophical question has to solve this matter of what is "there" and what makes it what it IS. Traditional talk about primary and secondary qualities, making the tree what it is as something in time and space is still.....talk.

Language does stand for the world, but "stands in" for the world, as Derrida put it.

But pure apriori cognition is only conceived in thought. This is the point. The prison. — Astrophel

Conceived in thought. I don’t know what that means. There are so many forms of pure a priori cognitions, or so many dissimilar applications of them, I wouldn’t be so ready to call out their conditions. But generally, pure a priori cognitions belongs to reason, which eliminates them from the spontaneity of conceptions, hence “conceived in thought”, which belong to understanding.
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phenomena are representations, (…), long before understanding exercises its logical function.
— Mww

There is no representation long before the exercise of the understanding's logical function. That is impossible. — Astrophel

Actually it isn’t, given the tenets of this particular metaphysic. Conceptions alone constitute the representations of understanding, from which it thinks, and of course, as we all know….or should know….understanding cannot intuit and intuition cannot think.

Phenomenon is the undetermined object of intuition**, which makes explicit no conception is as yet thought as belonging to it. It is merely the matter of sensation given a posteriori, synthesized with the some relevant form residing a priori in the subject himself. To say it is blind is merely a euphemism indicating nothing can be done with representations in this condition, until understanding gets its grubby paws on it and does its rule-bound logical thing. It thinking thing, donchaknow, by which conceptions are connected to that phenomenon, the condition for a possible objective, that is, empirical, cognition.
(**depending on translator; some call it appearance. Either way, the salient point is, undetermined)
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There is no interest here in the difference between talking, thinking, writing. In all of these we find the evidential basis for postulating underlying structure. — Astrophel

The underlaying structure determines how the differences manifest. It is absurd to suppose, given the biological structural congruency of all humans in general, that there resides manifestly different underlying intellectual structure, simply given the invention of different words representing common things.

Your interest may lay anywhere you like, but mine is centered exclusively on the structure of thinking, from which all else follows in accordance with its structure, including the names by which I represent to myself its collective entities and functions.

Which leads me to this: what is you opinion on the presence of, or the validity in conditioning the human cognitive system on, imagery?

Conceived in thought. I don’t know what that means. There are so many forms of pure a priori cognitions, or so many dissimilar applications of them, I wouldn’t be so ready to call out their conditions. But generally, pure a priori cognitions belongs to reason, which eliminates them from the spontaneity of conceptions, hence “conceived in thought”, which belong to understanding. — Mww

It means that when one asks basic questions about the world, one cannot escape the delimitations of representation. All the understanding can ever affirm lies with his rationalist finitude, an ontology of the formal structure of language only. Inquiry can never penetrate beyond this impossible wall into this impossible actuality of things-in-themselves. These are propositional delimitations, and so whatever is said at all must be found to exhibit this categorical adherence, and this exhausts the understanding. To conceive of pure apriority is to conceive with just these apriori structures in place, in other words, the Critique of Pure Reason dos not escape the finitude of logical possiblities. Logic SHOWS us apriority, but when we speak of what it IS we are necessarily bound to the medium of language's meaning possiblities, the categories. So when Kant says something like, "What must first be given with a view to the a priori knowledge of all objects is the manifold of pure intuition," this sentential construction is itself bound to the categories.
The "pure" categories are entirely metaphysical postulations. But they cannot be warranted because they can only be derivative of what is IN phenomenological possiblities.

Phenomenon is the undetermined object of intuition**, which makes explicit no conception is as yet thought as belonging to it. It is merely the matter of sensation given a posteriori, synthesized with the some relevant form residing a priori in the subject himself. To say it is blind is merely a euphemism indicating nothing can be done with representations in this condition, until understanding gets its grubby paws on it and does its rule-bound logical thing. It thinking thing, donchaknow, by which conceptions are connected to that phenomenon, the condition for a possible objective, that is, empirical, cognition.
**depending on translator; some call it appearance. Either way, the salient point is, undetermined) — Mww

It is a confusing way he puts it. Phenomenology, of which Kant is the, well, grandfather, takes the phenomenon to be the whole that comprises all that in makes appearance possible (unless you want to talk about deviations for this, which is not what this here is about). Something does not appear unless it is understood. The color red does not appear to a newly born; only blooming and buzzing. If Kant wants to call the phenomenon as the material equivalent of sensory intuitions, then fine.

Which leads me to this: what is you opinion on the presence of, or the validity in conditioning the human cognitive system on, imagery? — Mww

Those thoughts I had about Kranky's OP didn't register, eh?

Conditioning the human cognitive system? Historicity and time.

One might ask, is General Motors real? — Astrophel

There are thoughts, language and the world, and there is the question as to how these relate.

The three theories of perception, Idealism, Direct Realism and Indirect Realism are primarily interested in the relation between thought and the world, though of course language is needed to express their different epistemological positions. What we do know for certain are our thoughts and sensations.

I cannot answer for the Direct Realist who knows that they directly perceive the world as it is through their sensations, as I don't agree with them.

As an Indirect Realist, I believe that there is a world independent of my observing it that has caused my sensations. I can never know, but I believe that there is, because it a satisfactory explanation for the sensations that I experience. What is real is a mystery, a world of things-in-themselves. I believe a real world exists, but only because this is the most satisfactory explanation.

As regards thought, the phenomenological approach makes sense. In part by removing the Cartesian separation between the mind and the mind-independent and in part by removing the problem of the unknowable thing-in-itself. Phenomenology attempts to create the conditions for the objective study of what is usually regarded as subjective, our judgements, perceptions and emotions of our conscious experienced sensations. Phenomenology rejects both Rationalism and Empiricism in favour of the person's lived experiences.

As regards language, linguistic idealism makes sense. Language is not contingent on the world, but rather language underpins the world that we know. It is not the case that there are objects in the world that are nameable within language, but rather the objects in our world exist because they are named in the language that we use to describe them. An object being named can only exist within its context as a logical semantic part of the sentence it is within. As you say, language does stand for the world, but also "stands in" for the world. When Derrida wrote "there is nothing outside the text" some have interpreted this as linguistic idealism, which denies the existence of a real-world outside language. Wittgenstein as well said that he had come to believe that thoughts and language were two aspects of the same thing, in that we can only think using language.

We don't know for certain how thoughts, language and the world relate, but for me, a combination of Indirect Realism, Phenomenology and Linguistic Idealism seems to be a sensible combination.

Well, that is a loaded statement, you know. There is so much philosophy in this, one barely knows where to begin. Kant wasn't wrong (though the Critique can be argued endlessly. Was Strawson right? Here and there, yes), but seriously incomplete; such is rationalism. — Astrophel

My ideas seem to be based on natural logic rather than science.   I don't deny science, but always be aware of the limitations of science.  But yes, I do like pragmatism and intend to read Dewey, James, Pierce, Whitehead, and Strawson too.

How do we have knowledge?  I feel idealism and materialism and realism all have their points.  But they all seem to have limitations too.  Phenomenology seems interesting, but it too, seems to be only emphasising on the experience side of perception and knowledge, while mentioning the significance of body, consciousness and intentionality, they don't seem to go deeper into those areas.  I could be wrong here. I must admit I hadn't read a lot on phenomenology, and my idea on it is purely from guessing.

It is definitely correct that our senses feed us with the external world as a phenomenon i.e. appearance, but there is more than just phenomenon and appearance in the world.  There are actual facts, matters, objects and changes.  Kant was definitely correct in saying that there is the boundary of our senses, and out of the boundary there is the world of the unknown.

But knowledge is far more than just sense perception.  We apply our thoughts, logic and reasoning on the contents of perception in order to build knowledge.  Some knowledge becomes the foundation for further inference and reasoning other knowledge, hence knowledge keeps expanding.

We know that science, math, logic and language are the tools for describing, verifying and expanding our knowledge.

But going back to OP, our most foundational criteria for knowledge is sense perception. We only doubt sense perception when there is discrepancies in the perception which doesn't make sense due to possible illusion or mistake on the perception. So, the OP's premise that we tend to doubt sense perception in most cases is incorrect. Our contents of thought have more chance of going wrong due to the folks' faulty reasoning or mixing the thought process with their personal irrational emotion. Hence we often see folks making false claims and statements on others ideas, and also making bad decisions on their own affairs too.

So I would ask you, if you like, to ask Rorty's question of how things out there get in knowledge claims, just to begin showing the strength of phenomenology. It begins with the question of epistemology. — Astrophel

I have not read Rorty, hence I cannot comment on his philosophy at this point. I owned a book by Rorty titled "Mirror of Nature???", and read a few pages. But the book has gone missing, and cannot be located. Will try reading it again if and when I find the book. From my memory Rorty was mentioning a lot of Heidegger.

As regards thought, the phenomenological approach makes sense. In part by removing the Cartesian separation between the mind and the mind-independent and in part by removing the problem of the unknowable thing-in-itself. Phenomenology attempts to create the conditions for the objective study of what is usually regarded as subjective, our judgements, perceptions and emotions of our conscious experienced sensations. Phenomenology rejects both Rationalism and Empiricism in favour of the person's lived experiences. — RussellA

Sorry to be a noodge, but not subjective. Continental philosophy doesn't really take up issues in terms of subjective vs objective (though these terms will show up), realism, direct of otherwise, nor is idealism a term used, because terms like this set up a structure of inquiry that is misleading and lacking what is needed for purging from philosophy a lot of bad metaphysics that makes philosophy so resistant to understanding. What is real? is going to be determined in primordiality of the world, what is "there," and a term like realism and its variations, uses as its basic assumption something that is prior to this givenness, an assumption going into first thoughts about what is to be achieved, a kind of assumed Archimedean place where thought first digs in and wields in arguments, then ends up struggling in essentially the same old ways simply because basic thinking is so stubborn. One cannot start with a concept like realism because the sense of the term has yet to be established. I underline this because it is central to the phenomenological approach. All there is, is what is given, and the real is to be determined only from this. Putting it bluntly, idealism, saying all there is is idea, plays against realism, saying all there is is something independent of idea, is a dichotomy that creates two polar opposites that cannot be reconciled, and as long as one thinks like this, one is bound to some sort of compromise, some "in between" thinking that tries to explain things, again, all along knowing full well that this cannot happen, not really, with these concepts foundationally in place.

Phenomenology really can't be put in this context of thought, but it generally is for a pretty simple reason: most of what people read over here is anglo american analytic philosophy, typically grounded in some form of naturalism and science that makes the stage for thoughtful events. And phenomenology is SO alien these this assumption, and, of course, difficult to penetrate due to this.

Reading Being and Time is a revolution, turns familiar thinking up side down and if one has a real desire to understand the world, and not just arguments (analytic thought is like this, a reduction of philososphy to language games, which is what you get when you put the fate of philosophy in the hands of a logician like Bertrand Russell. Of course, Kant was a logician, too, and the former thought the latter fantasist, but note how empty Kant is, as if understanding the world could be fit into a strictly formal analytic) one has to read it.

Of course, most that do this find it dense and weird, and it is. But this is the idea, really: he had to remove philosophy from assumptions that literally created division where there is none, so it is necessary take up an essentially descriptive vocabulary, putting aside this other vocabulary that was inventing problems. The world is not divided ontologically into any parts, things over there, thoughts and feeling here, and there is no epistemic distance between me and this tree at all. There never was!

…..this exhausts the understanding. — Astrophel

That phenomena must meet the criteria of the categories doesn’t exhaust understanding, it enables the manifold of conceptions understanding possesses to be synthesized in the construction of a judgement on the one hand, or, enables an appeal to experience in the case of repetitive perception on the other.

In order for the affect of the thing on the senses, and the representation of that thing as it is understood, be sufficiently congruent to be knowledge of the thing, there must be rules by which one relates to the other, and, that by which the conceptions annexed to the phenomenon relate to each other. Something must have already prohibited the conception “round” from being imagined as belonging to the conception “tall”, when the thing perceived ended up being cognized initially, or remembered as post hoc experience, as a dinner plate.
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….whatever is said at all must be found to exhibit this categorical adherence….. — Astrophel

Whatever is said of gods and tooth fairies is possible without reference to phenomena representing an object cognized as belonging to those conceptions, such object being all that requires exhibition of categorical adherence.

The pure conceptions of the understanding are transcendental deductions of reason. Understanding uses them, but they are not given from understanding itself. These in opposition to conceptions arising spontaneously within understanding itself, in response to the influx of intuited representations. Pure conceptions condition sensibility, empirical conceptions condition thinking.
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So when Kant says something like, "What must first be given with a view to the a priori knowledge of all objects is the manifold of pure intuition," this sentential construction is itself bound to the categories. — Astrophel

Kant wouldn’t say something like that, for knowledge of all objects is always empirical, and what must first be given is the object itself, insofar as it appears to sensibility. That which is representation must first be perception.

You more than likely meant to say, what must be given with a view of knowledge of all objects is the manifold of pure intuition a priori. Or even, what must be given a priori with a view to knowledge of all objects, is the manifold of pure intuition.

As for the sentential construction being bound to the categories, considering this proposition is a tenet in speculative metaphysics, for which there is no empirical proofs for its objects derived from experience, the categories are not involved, from which follows the construct is not bound by them. Every object of theoretical speculation is transcendental; there are no faculties of human intelligence in concreto.
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The "pure" categories (…) cannot be warranted because they can only be derivative of what is IN phenomenological possibilities. — Astrophel

What is IN phenomenological possibility? I don’t recognize phenomenological possibility, and I certainly have no idea what is IN possibilities. Nothing is IN a possibility, it is never schema but has schemata under it, re: the schema of possibility is determination of a representation in any time. Common-speak being…that thing that doesn’t appear to me is no possible experience for me.

In things that are possible is not the same as what is in possibilities. I mean….what sense does it make to ask if a thing has possibility, when all we want to know is if the thing is possible. The former presupposes the thing being asked about, which proves it must be a possible thing.

Which reduces the whole mess to the notion that categories can never be predicates, but only subjects, in logical propositional constructs, and as such, derivatives of what is IN possibilities becomes unintelligible.
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Phenomenology, of which Kant is the, well, grandfather…. — Astrophel

If that’s the case, his successors treat it as the proverbial red-headed stepchild, to which Kant would have vehemently objected. Ripped the concept of phenomena right outta its old-fashioned sandbox, consigned it to a post-modern tarpit.

Something does not appear unless it is understood. — Astrophel

So that which is not understood never appears? Guy’s walking down the street, hears a loud bang from around the corner. An appearance to his ears, manifesting as a sensation of sound is immediately given, without him immediately understanding the cause of it.

Something does not appear iff there is no effect on the senses. If there is an effect, if the senses are affected, there is necessarily an appearance. Full stop. There is no cognitive power in mere perception, therefore any cognitive function is irrelevant with respect to it. On the other hand, something does not become cognized until it is understood.
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what is you opinion on the presence of, or the validity in conditioning the human cognitive system on, imagery?
— Mww

Those thoughts I had about Kranky's OP didn't register, eh? — Astrophel

You mean this?

So thought and the senses can all be doubted. The trick for philosophy is to discover something that can affirmed that stands outside of language, but this discovery can only be "discovered" in language, a thesis, a proposition. — Astrophel

Fine. Doubt abounds. What’s that got to do with imagery?

What you specify as a “trick” of philosophy, is nothing but some arbitrary, indiscriminate iteration of human intelligence bringing itself to the fore. Different human, different iteration, different form of the same intelligence. Another one might say the duty of philosophy is to discover apodeitically that by which such intelligence manifests, but for which language has no relevance except for expressions of such discoveries.

And the beat goes on……..

The world is not divided ontologically into any parts, things over there, thoughts and feeling here, and there is no epistemic distance between me and this tree at all. There never was! — Astrophel

I can understand Phenomenology as part of a personal philosophy, but it seems limited if it made up the whole of a personal philosophy.

Phenomenology rejects rationalism and empiricism in favour of a person's "lived experience", relying on an intuitive grasp of knowledge free from any philosophical intellectualising.

For example, in Bracketing, one withholds any conscious opinion of what is perceived, taking no position as to the reality of what is seen, but simply to witness it as it presents itself.

I agree that Phenomenology can be insightful in our understanding about the relation of the mind to the sensations it experiences, but it seems insufficient not to question these sensations and only witness them.

Philosophy must surely be about questioning, not simply about phenomenologically accepting.

Key Ideas in Phenomenology by Marc Applebaum, 2012

How do we have knowledge?  I feel idealism and materialism and realism all have their points.  But they all seem to have limitations too.  Phenomenology seems interesting, but it too, seems to be only emphasising on the experience side of perception and knowledge, while mentioning the significance of body, consciousness and intentionality, they don't seem to go deeper into those areas.  I could be wrong here. I must admit I hadn't read a lot on phenomenology, and my idea on it is purely from guessing. — Corvus

How about liberating inquiry from a lot of bad thinking that manufactures problems? Phenomenology is not subjective; it is talked about like that because phenomenology allows for these "subjective" matters to be taken up philosophically rather than being dismissed as irrelevant. And so when Heidegger talks about moods (attunements), he is simply allowing for the event of a perception to be what it is rather than dismissing the perceptual end of this entirely. Imagine thinking of a perceptual event excluding perception altogether! When one encounters something, someone, there is IN the interface an interest, a caring, and the like, and in the encounter, there is recollection and anticipation, and predelineated ideas in place, and certainly not simpy an acknowledgement of what is there as a "stand alone" entity. Why does phenomenology talk about such things? Because this is what constitutes an encounter with the world. Talk about what is outside of this is just bad metaphysics.

Look at it like Rorty does, from a naturalist's pov (keeping in mind he is only a naturalist because he thinks this is the only wheel that rolls and not because he abides by the naturalist's metaphysics): I am here, and in this being here I have these events, and across the street there are things that are just what they are. All that is out there, those things, people, appear here, in this entity I call me and they never enter my locality any more than the street lamp enters the fire hydrant. That's physicalism, yes? And just as the reflection of the hydrant may appear on a sunny day in the metallic surface of the lamp's steel body, but the lamp itself not move an inch, these things I see never enter me, but I "see" them in me as physical aspects of my own existence, but this seeing is not representational, because to have representation you have to have some clear idea about what is being represented apart from the represntation and this is never forthcoming. One can't have a representation of Y in representation X, if one never encounters Y at all. This seeing, thatis IN this physicalist account, in a human brain is absolutely most emphatically nothing at all even remotely like the lamp, and this makes talk about the lamp outside of this physical feature of myself of my own existence impossible! Rorty is stubborn on this point, and there is a feud between Rorty and Putnam such that the latter mocks Rorty for saying he never actually encounters his own wife! Putnam's position is crystal clear, but is it stronger that Rorty's? I mean, how do even begin to deny that his wife is there? But Rorty's pragmatism just calls it like it is: brain events are not lamps, clouds or other people.

This is where talk about physicalism, naturalism gets one, in an impossible epistemology. What happens in phenomenology is that this epistemic distance has no status, because the lamp post, the fir hydrant, are there, just as they appear to be, and the approach to acknwowledging their existence (their being "really there") never goes beyond this. Things we observe are not actually something else being represented; rather, they are what they are.

One has never witnessed anything that is not a phenomenon.

That phenomena must meet the criteria of the categories doesn’t exhaust understanding, it enables the manifold of conceptions understanding possesses to be synthesized in the construction of a judgement on the one hand, or, enables an appeal to experience in the case of repetitive perception on the other.

In order for the affect of the thing on the senses, and the representation of that thing as it is understood, be sufficiently congruent to be knowledge of the thing, there must be rules by which one relates to the other, and, that by which the conceptions annexed to the phenomenon relate to each other. Something must have already prohibited the conception “round” from being imagined as belonging to the conception “tall”, when the thing perceived ended up being cognized initially, or remembered as post hoc experience, as a dinner plate.
—————- — Mww

The point is more simple. We know how this goes. It's just that when one pulls back and realizes where Kant's ontology takes one, it is realized that the entire enterprise is an abstraction of our existence and the world, not something that is even looking for apodicticity in existence. Kant's greatness lies in attention to ordinary judgment in common experience, not in far flung metaphysics. But his conclusion are literally vacuous. Of course, he also didnt realize the nature of language in which this formal analysis is finds its theme, logic.

If you and I were principally agencies of logic, synthesizing and analyzing the data afforded by the senses, then Kant would have nailed the human condition. But such an idea is absurd.

The pure conceptions of the understanding are transcendental deductions of reason. Understanding uses them, but they are not given from understanding itself. These in opposition to conceptions arising spontaneously within understanding itself, in response to the influx of intuited representations. Pure conceptions condition sensibility, empirical conceptions condition thinking. — Mww

You mean they are deduced, not that they are deductions. Understanding doesn't "use" them. They are of the structure of the understanding itself. I don't know what you're talking about here.

Kant wouldn’t say something like that, for knowledge of all objects is always empirical, and what must first be given is the object itself, insofar as it appears to sensibility. That which is representation must first be perception. — Mww

What he means by "first" is presupposed by the possibility of aprioity. There must be a manifold of pure intuition to account for the structure of knowledge of objects. Kant's is an extrapolation from what is the case, to what has to be the case to explain this. The manifold must be the case given the way ordinary judgments are put together. This is fundamental to the whole Critique.

It's a quote.

As for the sentential construction being bound to the categories, considering this proposition is a tenet in speculative metaphysics, for which there is no empirical proofs for its objects derived from experience, the categories are not involved, from which follows the construct is not bound by them. Every object of theoretical speculation is transcendental; there are no faculties of human intelligence in concreto. — Mww

The categories are ALWAYS involved. As I write and think. There is no escaping categorical placement. If this isn't making sense, just consider what symbolic logic is. There is NO proposition that escapes logical form. When you awaken, notice a world around you, you are already "in" Kantian categories as the logic of affirmations seize upon intuitions.

No faculties in concreto? What does this even begin to mean in Kantian thinking?

What is IN phenomenological possibility? I don’t recognize phenomenological possibility, and I certainly have no idea what is IN possibilities. Nothing is IN a possibility, it is never schema but has schemata under it, re: the schema of possibility is determination of a representation in any time. Common-speak being…that thing that doesn’t appear to me is no possible experience for me. — Mww

No, possiblility here refers to what is necessary for something to be possible at all.

In things that are possible is not the same as what is in possibilities. I mean….what sense does it make to ask if a thing has possibility, when all we want to know is if the thing is possible. The former presupposes the thing being asked about, which proves it must be a possible thing. — Mww

The matter goes to what must be the case for something that is there before you to be what it is. If I have judgments that are, say, negations, and there is nothing in empirical perceptions explains what a negation is, then I have appeal the form itself, and an explanation for this lies in the nature of the possiblity of logicality, and this lies in out of transcendentally out of reach.

Which reduces the whole mess to the notion that categories can never be predicates, but only subjects, in logical propositional constructs, and as such, derivatives of what is IN possibilities becomes unintelligible. — Mww

This is not about that. The discussion here is about deriving the categories in the first place, that is, the ground for their postulation. But on the other hand, keep in mind that when we talk about a category, this itself will be done ALSO within the presuppositional ground of speaking at all, and then, when language deals with these presuppositions, the categories' own structures are necessarily in place. Categories "themselves" are transcendental, and cannot be spoken, so when they are spoken "about", the speaking is subject to their own manifest rules.

Possibilities here should be understood in light of statements like this: "If, therefore, we seek to discover how pure concepts of understanding are possible, we must enquire what are the a priori conditions upon which the possibility of experience rests"--- from what is given to what must be the case to make this possible. This is the nature of an apriori argument. The whole argument of the deduction in an extrapolation.

If that’s the case, his successors treat it as the proverbial red-headed stepchild, to which Kant would have vehemently objected. Ripped the concept of phenomena right outta its old-fashioned sandbox, consigned it to a post-modern tarpit. — Mww

Would Kant have approved of Husserl or Heidegger; or Kierkegaard? Of course not. But such things never occurred to him. I can't imagine what he would think reading Derrida. He would have to rad Heidegger, first. It would take a radical leap of philosophical imagination. But so what. Kant laid the foundation for just this kind of development. No Kant, no phenomenology. Therein lies his greatness. Not in the sustainability of all he said.

Tarpit is puzzling. Who do you have in mind, and what is calling this a tarpit about? Or perhaps you're just throwing out frustrations with difficult reading. I find this usually to be the case.

So that which is not understood never appears? Guy’s walking down the street, hears a loud bang from around the corner. An appearance to his ears, manifesting as a sensation of sound is immediately given, without him immediately understanding the cause of it. — Mww

This sounds naive. Understanding is not about explicit analysis. Read Husserl for this, his Ideas I, but this doesn't mean he is right an all accounts, but here, given that we are agenies of language awareness, there is this awareness implicit in the conscious events of our lives, even in the most immediate ones. So when the loud bang is heard, the familiarity of loud bangs makes the alarming matter meaningful, not alien to the understanding. And while one could say the same for cows and goats regarding the pre established familiarity, it is us whose pragmatic affairs are grasped in language and its logic, and thus, Kantian categories are 'in" the recognition.

If a newly born were to hear the loud noise, she would clearly react, register the event, but it would not be a loud noise. It would not BE anything. It would be, as Kant would put it, blind intuition, and this, it must be stated with emphasis, is not thinkable. It is transcendental.

This is not Kant talking here. Note how I have here and there criticized the thinking in the Critique for conceiving the world in a vacuum of meaningless form, I do this because the true philosophical ground for the ansalysis of what and who we are lies in this dimension of our transcendence, which he mostly ignores. Granted, it is a critique of logical purity he aims for, but then, this is my point. A person is not, clearly, reducible to what the Critique has to say. But Kant opens the door for just this discussion.

Something does not appear iff there is no effect on the senses. If there is an effect, if the senses are affected, there is necessarily an appearance. Full stop. There is no cognitive power in mere perception, therefore any cognitive function is irrelevant with respect to it. On the other hand, something does not become cognized until it is understood. — Mww

But note that when you say "iff there is no eeffect on the senses" you are saying this, and in this you comply with Kant's own insistence on stepping out of mere "blindness". Without language context, for us, that is, and not the animal, it is not as if there is nothing there, but it makes no appearance AS something. Even if you speak of a "pure phenomenon" this never occurs to us outside of, if you will, the purity of the language that grasps it, implicitly of otherwise. What this means is hard to say ourside of the literature.

What you specify as a “trick” of philosophy, is nothing but some arbitrary, indiscriminate iteration of human intelligence bringing itself to the fore. Different human, different iteration, different form of the same intelligence. Another one might say the duty of philosophy is to discover apodeitically that by which such intelligence manifests, but for which language has no relevance except for expressions of such discoveries. — Mww

Or the beat actually pauses where things are getting close. Where can one settle doubt? Forget the categories as some impossible things in themselves. This is metaphysics, or, misleading metaphysics or metaphysics that draws a hard line, and such lines can never be drawn in any meaningful way because, as Wittgenstein put it, that would require an understanding of what is on both sides of the line, and clearly, the categories cannot be understood.

Lety's say Kant was right, and the magic of metaphysics lies with apodicticity. so when we witness a stone, and realize the stone cannot move by itself by necessity, it is the necessity that grounds causality in the truly Real, why? Because necessity by definition cannot be gainsaid. But then,we know that it CAN be gainsaid. Logic can be gainsaid? Of course, since logic is given to us in language, and language is historically conceived, so even when on calls something apodictic, it is a calling, a taking something "as" something in language, and this brings the contingency of language down upon what is said. Sure, I can't imagine a thing self moving, but what this IS in itself is utterly transcendental, yes, even calling it transcendental is bound to this contingency. This is roughly Derrida.

So talk about how intelligence manifests presupposes the language that speaks about intelligence. This does what Kant does, takes thought to its own presuppositions, but makes the important steps forward. The "trick" is to see that when Language takes one to this final confrontation, the matter of language encountering language, as when one says, "what am I?" (see, for a more dramatic unfolding of this, Beckett's Molloy or Blancho's Thomas the Obscure), it finds liberation from, not Kant's categories, but from the illusory assumption that this bottom itself IS a language construction. Language "brings" one to the world, the radical "other" of a world.

I can understand Phenomenology as part of a personal philosophy, but it seems limited if it made up the whole of a personal philosophy.

Phenomenology rejects rationalism and empiricism in favour of a person's "lived experience", relying on an intuitive grasp of knowledge free from any philosophical intellectualising.

For example, in Bracketing, one withholds any conscious opinion of what is perceived, taking no position as to the reality of what is seen, but simply to witness it as it presents itself.

I agree that Phenomenology can be insightful in our understanding about the relation of the mind to the sensations it experiences, but it seems insufficient not to question these sensations and only witness them.

Philosophy must surely be about questioning, not simply about phenomenologically accepting. — RussellA

You are asking a question that is taken up as a major theme in Heidegger. What the nature of questioning? But also, your thoughts on the exclusivity of the "lived experience" need to be addressed, and obviously I can't convince you that reading Heidegger's Being and TIme would be the most important philosophical experience of your life just by saying so. And the arguments are just so involved.

So all I can really do is mention why it is important.

Too much to say, but at the basic level one thing stands head and shoulders above others: all that one ever has observed, or can observe, is phenomena. Kant's thing-in-itself is derivative of phenomena, so whatever Kant hd in mind with thing-in-itself had to have been derivative of what is, simply put, there, in what is given. When one discovers apriority in necessity, from whence comes this? and the transcendental ground itself, and this is very important as I see it, this ground itself and the term 'transcendental" must be discoverable in the structure of what is given, and the idea of the beyond, the metaphysical, this, too, is IN the immanent. The only conclusion: immanence IS transcendental. So when I look at my wife, and see her there, she is BOTH there in all the usual ways, AND she is utterly transcendental, for the language that is IN my understanding of her being who she is in foundationally indeterminate.

There is no line drawn anywhere except that line which is conceived in the liberties of language's openness. Language can conceive of a great deal of things, pragmatic and useful, cultural and institutional (weddings, funerals, e.g., are institutions of culture), theoretical, and so on, so put this all down (see Husserl's epoche) and allow the world to declare itself in a kind of Yielding (gelasenheit. See Heidegger's Conversation on a Country Path about Thinking in his Discourse of Thinking) or listening or meditative thnking. Only here can one discover what all the fuss is about. One has to suspend or "bracket" all that makes the world familiar, in order to "see" this hidden world that is entirely "other" than what familiarity says it is.

Takes practice. The phenomenological reduction (epoche) is a "method" of discovery, not merely a theory. It will not fit into science. Science "fits into" the reduction, so to speak, for the reduction is foundational. For Heidegger this means equiprimordial, meaning there is only the frontier of language's openness. From here is gets complicated. See, e.g., What is Metaphysics?

Heidegger's Being and TIme — Astrophel

I cannot really respond as I have limited knowledge of Husserl, Heidegger and Existentialism in general.

However, in my agreement with Linguistic Idealism, I have sympathy with the notion in Husserl's Being and Time that the human is not a subjective spectator of objects, but rather that subject and object are inseparable. In my case, linked within language.

I don't know the background to Existentialism, have not read Kierkegaard and have only limited exposure to Nietzsche. However, I naturally agree with any critique of rationalism, and am supportive of their interest in the problem of meaning.

I have spent more time on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, respecting his attempt to understand the limits and scope of metaphysics, as well as investigating how reason may be used to gain knowledge about the world.

As regards Husserl's Logical Investigations, for me there is promise in Brentano's concept of Intentionality and the problem of intentional inexistence, the investigation of the relation between the act of consciousness and the phenomena at which it is directed. I tend more to agree more with the "bracketing" of assumptions about the existence of an external world than the Direct Realist who believes that they directly know the external world.

Continental philosophy opens up a whole new field of understanding.

…..realizes where Kant's ontology takes one…. — Astrophel

CPR doesn’t treat of empirical ontology; it is a purely epistemological thesis, from a metaphysical perspective.

Kant's greatness lies in attention to ordinary judgment in common experience (…). But his conclusion are literally vacuous. — Astrophel

What…..not a fan of freedom as sufficient cause?

If you and I were principally agencies of logic, synthesizing and analyzing the data afforded by the senses, then Kant would have nailed the human condition. — Astrophel

91 pages on sensibility, just under 400 pages on logic, all integral to the human condition. Fine if you wish to deny we are agents of logic, but I’m happily convinced human agency is necessarily predicated on it.
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Kant's is an extrapolation from what is the case, to what has to be the case to explain this. — Astrophel

Nope. Extrapolation from what is the case for us, to how the case is to be known by us. We understand the world; we explain the understanding. Language for the second, not for the first.
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what must first be given is the object itself, insofar as it appears to sensibility. That which is representation must first be perception.
— Mww

What he means by "first" is presupposed by the possibility of aprioity. — Astrophel

Nope. What he means by “first” here, is merely that occassion given to a theoretical systemic procedure. There happens to be a particular theoretical system which presupposes a priori conditions, turning sensation into representation according to pure intuitions and productive imagination.
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The categories are ALWAYS involved. As I write and think. (…) When you awaken, notice a world around you, you are already "in" Kantian categories as the logic of affirmations seize upon intuitions. — Astrophel

When I write and think, about my notice of the world. While it may that the categories are always involved when I write, it being a phenomenal exercise, it is not the case for when I think, for it is possible that I think in pure a priori terms, that is, non-empirical, for which the categories are not involved. The logic of my a priori judgements still requires affirmation, at least to be productive, but there is no occassion to seize upon intuition.
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What is IN phenomenological possibility? I don’t recognize phenomenological possibility, and I certainly have no idea what is IN possibilities. Nothing is IN a possibility, it is never schema but has schemata under it….
— Mww

No, possiblility here refers to what is necessary for something to be possible at all. — Astrophel

I need not go beyond relations in time, to discover what is necessary for something to be possible, as I already mentioned. For something to be possible at all its representation must be determinable in any time. Necessity: determinable in all time; existence: determinable in a time.

Categories "themselves" are transcendental, and cannot be spoken….. — Astrophel

Agreed, which justifies the claim there is no language in pure thought.

…..so when they are spoken "about", the speaking is subject to their own manifest rules. — Astrophel

Correct, from which follows the rules for speaking are very far from the rules for transcendental deduction.

"If, therefore, we seek to discover how pure concepts of understanding are possible, we must enquire what are the a priori conditions upon which the possibility of experience rests" — Astrophel

Wait…..so all you’re talking about is justifying the origin of the categories, while I’m talking about justifying the use of them? What is necessary for the possibility of things makes little sense to me, but what is the ground for the possibility of transcendental deduction of the categories, is a whole ‘nuther ball of wax.

Dunno where your quote comes from, but in A88/B120 in Kemp Smith is shown that is precisely how the deduction is NOT served.

“…. they make affirmations concerning objects not by means of the predicates of intuition and sensibility, but of pure thought à priori….”.

Your a priori conditions upon which the possibility of experience rests”, are precisely those very intuitions my quote denotes as “not by means of”.

This is the nature of an apriori argument. The whole argument of the deduction in an extrapolation. — Astrophel

Nope. This is the nature of a transcendental argument, which is a priori. But not all a priori arguments are transcendental, re: those of understanding in its categorical judgements. Transcendental arguments originate in, and are the exclusive purview of, pure reason alone.

Page one.

Page two:

The pure conceptions of the understanding are transcendental deductions of reason. Understanding uses them, but they are not given from understanding itself.
— Mww

You mean they are deduced, not that they are deductions. Understanding doesn't "use" them. They are of the structure of the understanding itself. I don't know what you're talking about here. — Astrophel

Po-TA-toe, po-TAH-toe. Anything deduced is a deduction. They are deduced transcendentally by pure reason; they are transcendental deductions of pure reason.

“…. Thus, the same understanding, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its representations, on which account they are called pure conceptions of the understanding, and they apply à priori to objects….”
(A79/B105. So the categories, the pure conceptions of the understanding, are used by it. Used by still is not origin of, worth keeping in mind)

As to the structure of the understanding itself….that is a very tall order. I submit that all the understanding does, all the constituents of its function, reduce to what can be called the transcendental unity of self-consciousness.
(Nobody said this was gonna be easy. Or, necessarily the case. But logically coherent nonetheless, hence at least theoretically reasonable)

Understanding is not about explicit analysis. — Astrophel

That’s in fact all understanding is about. It is the analysis of all that contained in the primitive representation “I think”.

“…. And thus the synthetical unity of apperception is the highest point with which we must connect every operation of the understanding, even the whole of logic, and after it our transcendental philosophy; indeed, this faculty is the understanding itself.…”

Thus it is that the function of understanding is distinct from that to which it directs itself when it thinks, or, when the subject exercises his innate capacity for thinking. To understand, on the other hand, presupposes the completion of that analysis, the affirmation or negation of constructed judgements relative to empirical conditions, not yet verified by experience.

All without a single solitary word, either expressed, or merely thought.
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If a newly born were to hear the loud noise, she would clearly react, register the event, but it would not be a loud noise. It would not BE anything. — Astrophel

This is in part contradictory. To react, to register an event, makes explicit something being sufficient causality for such reaction to even obtain. It may not register as a loud noise, insofar as this describes a judgement of relative quality conjoined with a specific mode of intuition, which an infant would not possess the rational ability to construct, but it would still be something for him.

Aren’t babies given hearing tests, to discover whether their ears work, rather than the brain? Be funny as hell….give a baby a hearing test, then ask him what he thinks he heard.
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Note how I have here and there criticized the thinking in the Critique for conceiving the world in a vacuum of meaningless form…. — Astrophel

And I reject that criticism, in that the thinking in CPR resolves the illusion of conceiving the world in any way except as the form of all that is relatable to it, hence hardly meaningless. We perceive things in a world; we don’t perceive worlds. From which follows world is conceivable only as the form of that in which all things are contained, but is not itself contained by it.

…..I do this because the true philosophical ground for the ansalysis of what and who we are lies in this dimension of our transcendence, which he mostly ignores. — Astrophel

He ignores it in CPR because the analysis of who or what we are is properly the concern of his moral philosophy, which is not transcendental.
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Even if you speak of a "pure phenomenon" this never occurs to us outside of, if you will, the purity of the language that grasps it — Astrophel

The name given to it presupposes the grasp of the conception to which the name relates. It’s occurence in thought, its conceivability, is explicitly the very purity by which the language describing it, is even possible. Language doesn’t grasp, it merely represents what’s already been grasped.

The purity of language is in thought; the purity of thought is in logic; the purity of logic is in pure reason; the purity of pure reason is the irreducible human condition.

I cannot really respond as I have limited knowledge of Husserl, Heidegger and Existentialism in general.

However, in my agreement with Linguistic Idealism, I have sympathy with the notion in Husserl's Being and Time that the human is not a subjective spectator of objects, but rather that subject and object are inseparable. In my case, linked within language.

I don't know the background to Existentialism, have not read Kierkegaard and have only limited exposure to Nietzsche. However, I naturally agree with any critique of rationalism, and am supportive of their interest in the problem of meaning.

I have spent more time on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, respecting his attempt to understand the limits and scope of metaphysics, as well as investigating how reason may be used to gain knowledge about the world.

As regards Husserl's Logical Investigations, for me there is promise in Brentano's concept of Intentionality and the problem of intentional inexistence, the investigation of the relation between the act of consciousness and the phenomena at which it is directed. I tend more to agree more with the "bracketing" of assumptions about the existence of an external world than the Direct Realist who believes that they directly know the external world.

Continental philosophy opens up a whole new field of understanding. — RussellA

Well, you sound like someone who just might do the work required to understand these people. So often the initial interest is killed by the alien nature of what is being said and the hard work of assimilating the ideas and the jargon. Those who want to think as if nothing really important is going on in philosophy head towards anglo american philosophy which tries to reduce its thematic possiblities to ordinary talk, which is why they rely on science for their bottom line, and this way is nothing but disaster at the level of basic questions. When you try to simply eliminate metaphysics in the willful act of ignoring it, you end up with the trivial tail end of science. And really much worse: Science, as a philosophical ontology/epistemology goes absolutely nowhere, quite literally. And science doesn't even begin, again, literally, to talk about the most salient feature of your existence, ethics/aesthetics.

Two kinds of philosophers, the anglo american analytic above, and the continental. This latter is usually ignored by the former, certainly due in part to the reluctance to learn any German, French or Greek, in part. A competent paper in Heidegger has to deal, at least in part, with the way German handles ideas because Heidegger is making a bold move to use language in a way that defies tradition, and he does this by endless neologizing The German. He wants to eradicate metaphysics, just as the analytics do, but then, Heidegger, and this is one thing that makes him a deeply profound thinker, recasts metaphysics in finitude! He is just extraordinary, for he realizes that metaphysics is grounded in the essential givenness of the world, and that Kant was right: Philosophy must be rid of centuries of bad Christian metaphysics; THOUGH, I would add, after Heidegger, there is a group of neoHusserlians in post-post modern French theology that take Heidegger;s "exposition of the human soul" if you will, into a finitude that is subsumed by infinity! See Emanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, Jean Luc Marion, et al. Heidegger is huge door that opens up into extraordinary insight. There are also a slew of Catholic Heideggerian, rather than Thomist, as they have always been, theologists like Von Hildebrandt, Karl Rahner, who explain Christian metaphysics through Being and Time's basic thinking.

Anyway, so good to hear that someone wants to do this "authentic" work in philosophy, rather than the pointless Anglo american thinking. Not that it is a completely worthless. Quine is helpful for balance, and even someone like Daniel Dennett can be helpful, showing what really rigorous thinking comes to when science rules basic ideas. But then, he REALLY does understanding the world at all. And he's not trying to. He just wants arguments to work, and this I define as the basic drive on that sid e of philosophy. They just look at arguments and construct truth table style coherence. Such thinking about truth is propositional and logical, which is fine. But contrast this to Heidegger's alethea! This is the world! This is our existence!