My interpretation is as follows: to say that we have knowledge of only of phenomena is not to say we know nothing, as pragmatically speaking, the phenomenal domain exhibits all of the regularities and consistencies which natural science observes. So when I said 'not mere appearance', I'm saying that Kant doesn't regard the appearance of phenomena as a mere trifle or an optical illusion or something that can simply be dismissed. — Wayfarer
But the practical import for all of these discussions is that 'things only ever exist from a perspective'. That is, nothing has real 'self-existence' or exists in its own right. — Wayfarer
without human beings there is no phenomenal domain, and the Earth only exists within the phenomenal domain. — Andrew M
Sans the blind men there is no perspective, but there is still an elephant.
However it seems on Kant's view that without the blind men (or anyone else), neither is there an elephant. — Andrew M
In response to Locke’s line of thinking, Immanuel Kant used the expression “Ding an sich” (the “thing-in-itself”) to designate pure objectivity. The Ding an Sich is the object as it is in itself, independent of the features of any subjective perception of it. While Locke was optimistic about scientific knowledge of the true objective (primary) characteristics of things, Kant, influenced by skeptical arguments from David Hume, asserted that we can know nothing regarding the true nature of the Ding an Sich, other than that it exists. Scientific knowledge, according to Kant, is systematic knowledge of the nature of things as they appear to us subjects rather than as they are in themselves.
So, it doesn't mean the universe doesn't exist when there are no observers, but the only universe we will ever know is that revealed in and by human experience. The error is to forget that, and to 'absolutize' scientific knowledge, as if it exists quite independently of humans. Basically that means, treating humans as objects, and leaving out the subjective nature of experience (and therefore reality). And we're all so embedded in that, that it is second nature to us. — Wayfarer
The logic is the same with either "seeing" or "experiencing".Hallucinating an asteroid is not experiencing an asteroid, but experiencing an hallucination. If an asteroid is experienced then it follows that the asteroid plays an essential part in producing that experience. The logic here is irrefutable. — Janus
That is, without human beings there is no phenomenal domain, and the Earth only exists within the phenomenal domain. — Andrew M
nonetheless the phenomenal domain is not the world of naturalism since the former is dependent on the perceiver (per Kant's "Copernican revolution"). — Andrew M
But the practical import for all of these discussions is that 'things only ever exist from a perspective'. That is, nothing has real 'self-existence' or exists in its own right. — Wayfarer
We can say that "things only ever exist from a perspective, for us" — Janus
Our account of the Blind Spot is based on the work of two major philosophers and mathematicians, Edmund Husserl and Alfred North Whitehead. Husserl, the German thinker who founded the philosophical movement of phenomenology, argued that lived experience is the source of science. It’s absurd, in principle, to think that science can step outside it. The ‘life-world’ of human experience is the ‘grounding soil’ of science, and the existential and spiritual crisis of modern scientific culture – what we are calling the Blind Spot – comes from forgetting its primacy. — Frank, Gleiser, Thompson
Cartesian anxiety, which refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".
Humans are always implicated, that knowledge is always 'for us' or 'discovered by us'. The modern plight is to lose sight of this and presume that the world exists completely independently of our observation of it - but this doesn't acknowledge the role of the mind in constructing experience and so knowledge. — Wayfarer
The further point is that if, leaving off that critical "for us", you then want to go on to say that since "things only ever exist from a perspective" and " nothing has real 'self-existence' or exists in its own right", it follows that the Real must be ideal, that mind or consciousness must be fundamental, you are drawing an obviously unwarranted conclusion; a conclusion no more or less unwarranted than saying that because things appear to us as material, then the physical must be fundamental. — Janus
Again, it seems to me that you are drawing an unwarranted conclusion here. Of course our knowledge is always "for us" by us, of us, in us and so on. On the other hand we are warranted in assuming that the world exists independently of our observations of it, just not that it exists in the same form as our observations of it. — Janus
So the mind is of course involved in "constructing experience and so knowledge", but so is the world in ways which must remain unfathomable to us, unfathomable at least apart from our scientific investigations of nature, human physiology and perception, and so on, which are all " for us" insofar as we are obviously involved in them.
We can see the world although we cannot see it but "through a glass darkly". — Janus
I don't see how you can argue this. If it is true that "things only ever exist from a perspective", then perspective is fundamental as the basis for the reality of existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
I see no reason to assume the reality of what you call 'the world". Once you accept the reality of the principle you've stated, that what we see is "through a glass darkly", then you ought to recognize that there is no reason to believe that there is anything at all beyond the glass. — Metaphysician Undercover
haven't said it is true that "things only ever exist from a perspective"; I have said that this is only true with the added caveat "for us". — Janus
The further point is that if, leaving off that critical "for us", you then want to go on to say that since "things only ever exist from a perspective" and " nothing has real 'self-existence' or exists in its own right", it follows that the Real must be ideal, that mind or consciousness must be fundamental, you are drawing an obviously unwarranted conclusion; a conclusion no more or less unwarranted than saying that because things appear to us as material, then the physical must be fundamental. — Janus
What I said, is that if we leave off the "for us", and consider that things only exist from a perspective (and this can be derived from the special theory of relativity incidentally), then the conclusion actually is justified. You only make it unwarranted by adding "for us". But the "for us" only makes a useless tautology anyway. — Metaphysician Undercover
If you leave off the "for us", then you are making a claim that we can see things as they really are; a claim that contradicts the very basis upon which it is made; namely that we cannot know things in themselves. — Janus
I equate 'the phenomenal domain' with 'the domain studied by the natural sciences', in other words, the realm of phenomena. — Wayfarer
But this is because the realist view doesn't grasp that everything we say about 'what exists' presumes an implicit order which already presumes an essentially human, or at least sentient, perspective. — Wayfarer
H. Sapiens' brain is the most complex entity known to science, and what it does, is generate a world. But when you ask, 'you mean, without the brain, the world would disappear?' the answer is, 'what world?' — Wayfarer
“......The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon....”
While it is true that without humans there is no phenomenal domain, it does not follow from Kantian speculative epistemology that the Earth **only** exists within the phenomenal domain. The Earth is named in accordance with conceptions belonging to it, so is known to exist as a determined object. Still, it is phenomenon only insofar as the immediate temporality of the human cognitive system passes it by rote to judgement.
(Judgement merely for logical consistency a posteriori, because understanding already thinks the phenomenal object as representation contains the manifold of conceptions experience says it should have) — Mww
“....If the intuition must conform to the nature of the objects, I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori. If, on the other hand, the object conforms to the nature of our faculty of intuition, I can then easily conceive the possibility of such an a priori knowledge......( )......Before objects are given to me, that is, a priori, I must presuppose in myself laws of the understanding which are expressed in conceptions a priori. To these conceptions, then, all the objects of experience must necessarily conform....”
It is the how they necessarily conform that is the ground of the epistemological theory itself, and where all those confusing terms and their temporal locations are to be found. — Mww
Using the Earth as the example, what is the undetermined object here? — Andrew M
where else would the Earth exist? — Andrew M
So why would Kant be assuming we know anything of objects a priori? — Andrew M
You can't really equate the domains since naturalists and dualists conceptualize the world differently — Andrew M
For the realist, human beings (and their brains) are part of the world, not the generators of it. What exists (as opposed to what we say about what exists) does not depend on a human perspective. — Andrew M
why would Kant be assuming we know anything of objects a priori? It seems he is inverting the 'conform' direction simply to reinforce that assumption. — Andrew M
The special theory of relativity won't help your case here because it is part of the "for us". The "for us" does not make "a useless tautology" because it highlights the distinction between knowing and the real. It is safe to assume that we and our perceptions are part of the real, but we and they are not adequate or sufficient to a complete revelation of the real, insofar as they will always remain partial (in both senses of that word). — Janus
However it seems on Kant's view that without the blind men (or anyone else), neither is there an elephant. — Andrew M
What Kant was intent on showing is that we should abandon the naive realist view that empirical objects exist iindependently in just the same way, or the same form, so to speak, as they exist for us. — Janus
The whole solipsist dilemma is a strawman having sex with a red herring; it trades on the mere fact that we cannot prove deductively that the external world, other people or anything at all exists independently of our apprehensions (nor can we prove anything else that is not merely formally abstract, for that matter). — Janus
When will people let this, and other vapid vacuities like BIV, "evil demon", p-zombie and so on, go, as they should, into the dustbin of intellectual history. They've been on the slaughterbench for long enough now for us to be confident that they are in fact dead ideas with nothing whatsoever to offer. — Janus
Stop being such an idiot. I think you know, or should know, full well that by "for us" I am referring to human perspective. — Janus
The distinction is between the "in itself' (no perspective or interpretation) and the "for us" (perspective or interpretation). — Janus
It's an amazing level of stupidity you are displaying if this is not deliberate obfuscation. — Janus
Kant was intent on showing is that we should abandon the naive realist view that empirical objects exist iindependently in just the same way, or the same form, so to speak, as they exist for us. — Janus
All the above is relatively instantaneous, of course. In the case of Earth, which is nothing new, all the concepts pertinent to the phenomenon have been previously processed, so all that’s required is for judgement to give its blessing.....yup, that’s Earth all right.....we cognize logical consistency, and know we’re looking at, talking about, picturing.....whatever....a very specific object of common experience. — Mww
I do not acknowledge noumena. They serve no purpose other than to make people go where Kant himself refused to go and suppose for themselves things he never meant. It’s fine to understand how they were developed, but to use them for anything cannot be done. — Mww
You can't really equate the domains since naturalists and dualists conceptualize the world differently
— Andrew M
But I’m not criticising dualism. I hold a kind of dualist view myself, as a kind of working hypothesis. — Wayfarer
That is the basic point, that is where the argument hinges. That is there the whole recursive loop happens. Seeing through that is the task of philosophy as distinct from science. — Wayfarer
Wouldn't that apply to other humans as well as elephants? How do I know other people exist? The same way I know elephants exist. If that's just part of what appears to me, then solipsism is the logical conclusion. If that's what Kant meant.
This isn't to say Kant intended solipsism, only to show that this sort of view leads there. Why would other people be the one exception? Aren't they part of the world being perceived, just like elephants?
For that matter, don't elephants perceive? — Marchesk
Does that capture it? — Andrew M
The person's mind synthesizes the phenomenal object that subsequently appears to him. — Andrew M
the a priori categories of time and space — Andrew M
Is the purpose of noumena just to serve as a logical placeholder at the boundary of knowledge? — Andrew M
, because phenomena are derived from sensibility, and noumena are derived from understanding, so one can never be exchanged for the other. The reason we can’t know things-in-themselves is because the human cognitive system doesn’t permit it; the reason we can’t know noumena is because there isn’t anything to know. Things-in-themselves exist and are quite real so don’t need to be thought; objects-in-themselves exist but are not real so must be thought.if anything were (or could be) known about noumena, then it wouldn't be noumena, it would be phenomena. — Andrew M
Are you not being a little harsh, perhaps? If there is at least one irrefutable commonality in human reason, wouldn’t the concept, or just the idea, of a human perspective be validated? — Mww
The addendum “for us” is tautological, as you say, but it isn’t necessarily impossible and certainly not contradictory. — Mww
there is no such thing as "the perspective for us". — Metaphysician Undercover
It's substantial enough to attract considerable attention from major philosophers throughout history. — Marchesk
When a consensus has been reached that those arguments have either been refuted, dissolved or shown to be meaningless nonsense. Attempts have been made to do so, of course. But consensus is lacking.
You didn't mention the correlationist circle, which the continental realists have been struggling to get past. Their understanding of Kant, or those who followed Kant, is that it traps us into a world of how things appear to us such that we can't say there are things like mind-independent fossils. — Marchesk
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