The deeper question is: in what sense would time exist absent any awareness of it? The difficulty is that as soon as you begin to think about that question, you are already bringing time into awareness, or rather, bringing your mind to bear on the question. So time is always already part of the consideration. — Wayfarer

OK, fair enough on that. But it doesn't say anything about why and how time is intuition, and nothing about the nature of time itself. Remember time is not a new topic. It has been one of the hot topic since ancient Greek era. We could like to try to figure out what the nature of time could be in more understandable and realistic manner from our own material world we live in.

Idealist's account of time would be meaningless and groundless, if it just says that time is something unknowable, and hard to understand, but it makes our perception possible and is a precondition of perception. Anything can appear in our intuition, and time is intuition. It does not really say much about the nature of time itself.

We still have to search, explore and aim to demonstrate in more concrete manner where in our material world time might be existing hidden in the form of different level or type of existence.

….the statement that Time is intuition, said by Kant. — Corvus

“… In this investigation it will be found that there are two pure forms of sensible intuition as principles of a priori cognition, namely space and time…” (A22/B36)

I did say they were intuitions, when I should have said they were the pure forms of intuitions, and of sensibility in general.

“…. We have therefore wanted to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us, (…). What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknown to us. We are acquainted with nothing except our way of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us, (…). We are concerned solely with this. Space and time are its pure forms, sensation in general its matter. We can cognize only the former a priori, i.e., prior to all actual perception, and they are therefore called pure intuition; the latter, however, is that in our cognition that is responsible for it being called a posteriori cognition, i.e., empirical intuition….” (A42/B60)

All intuition is representation of appearance, space and time are not representations of any appearances, therefore not any intuition. Kant would not have said time is intuition, or time is an intuition.

“…. Time can no more be intuited externally than space can be intuited as something in us. Now what are space and time? Are they actual entities? Are they only determinations or relations of things, yet ones that would pertain to them even if they were not intuited, or are they relations that only attach to the form of intuition alone, and thus to the subjective constitution of our mind, without which these predicates could not be ascribed to any thing at all?…”

What they are, covers 15 A paginations and 16 B.
—————-

If time can no more be intuited externally than space can be intuited internally, can that be extended to mean time can be intuited internally and space can be intuited externally? In which case, space and time can indeed be intuitions, even if Kant didn’t actually say they were?

But if space and time, in and of themselves alone, are said to represent conceptions the transcendental expositions of which are idealities, must it then be possible to intuit idealities in the same regard as appearances? No, for to cognize transcendentally is to reason, from which follows in the cognition of a ideal representation, we in effect represent to ourselves purely a priori nothing more than the ground of a principle, in this case for the use of sensibility in general insofar as by it the representation of appearances in intuition, re: phenomena, becomes possible.

Which is why everybody hates speculative metaphysics: in most cases, the greater the explanation the less the comprehension.

But if space and time, in and of themselves alone, are said to represent conceptions the transcendental expositions of which are idealities, must it then be possible to intuit idealities in the same regard as appearances? No, for to cognize transcendentally is to reason, from which follows in the cognition of a ideal representation, we in effect represent to ourselves purely a priori nothing more than the ground of a principle, in this case for the use of sensibility in general insofar as by it the representation of appearances in intuition, re: phenomena, becomes possible. — Mww

:up: Yes, agreed.

Capital ‘S’ Self. Which is the entire aim of the path. There’s nothing really corresponding with that in Western culture save as a kind of import from Indian sources. Which is not to imply disrespect but mindfulness of context.

Yes, very much the undifferentiated self, but seen, or known from a personal perspective.
As for a Western equivalent, it seems like it was lost in the mists of time. Maybe never was here, I don’t know.

I think learning to accept and live with the elusive nature of the self/subject/'I' is a fundamental life lesson.
— Wayfarer

That's a bit pf a tantalising idea. Are there 2 or 3 aspects of this particularly you can dot point? — Tom Storm

E.g. reflecting on which things are you or yours. We do this casually every day. For example, when you eat food, when it's inside of your digestive system, you call it yours (and call it your body when the particles in the food become parts of your bones, muscles, etc.), and then you disown it by excreting it. Your car is yours, and you feel bound to it (legally, emotionally), it's a type of extension of yourself, but once it breaks down beyond repair, your disown it. Looking at old photos of yourself, you can also characteristically distance yourself from "the person you were back then".

Another passage from the Transcendental Aesthetic:

We have therefore wanted to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us; and that if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, then all constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves, would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknown to us. We are acquainted with nothing except our way of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us and does not necessarily pertain to every being, though to be sure it pertains to every human being. — General Remarks on the Transcendental Aesthetic

Notes:

•“Aesthetic” in contemporary usage usually refers to beauty or artistic appreciation. In Kant, it simply means what pertains to sensibility or sense-perception (from aisthēsis), as distinct from logic. Aesthetic concerns how things are given to us in experience; logic concerns how we think about what is given.

• Note here the centrality of the subject (nowadays often referred to as “the observer”). This passage makes very explicit the constitutive role of the subject in the form of experience — arguably one of the most radical passages in the Critique.

• “Objects in themselves” are said to be entirely unknown to us. This is not to say that they cease to exist, but that whatever kind of existence they may have independently of our mode of cognition is inaccessible to us.

• Finally, note the qualification “every human being.” Kant allows for the possibility that other kinds of beings might have different forms of cognition, and elsewhere he speculates about what a divine intellect might be like. It does give a hint of the breadth of his considerations (elaborated at greater length in some of his other works).

E.g. reflecting on which things are you or yours. We do this casually every day.

Interestingly there are also things we take for granted every day, like that we are reliably in our home, our garden, with our social group, that the sun shines. That when we pay money into our bank, it will be there when we want it. Things, which if they they suddenly stopped our world would grind to a halt, or fall apart.

The Immanuel Kant Song

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1035819

So: the self that has experiences is a noumenal reality. ...Hegel believed that this fact could be made use of, so that somehow the self could serve as a wedge to pry open a doorway through the wall of mystery, into an understanding of reality as it is in itself. — Eric Reitan

While it is true that Hegel introduced a view of Reason that overturned many elements of Kant's work, Reitan is mischaracterizing these differences by suggesting that Hegel discovered his individual self as an intellectual thing through the subject of the Transcendental Ego. I challenge anyone to find Hegel using "noumena" and "thing in itself" in this context. In his Logic Hegel does criticize the limits of what can be known through through intuition and the categories as presented by Kant. He also acknowledges Kant did well to criticize the "old" metaphysics.

Before digging into all that, a good starting place is to remember that Hegel presented Geist as an agent that worked through generations of individuals lives. You would never know that from Reitan's depiction.

I only selected that post by Eric Reitan because of its very specific focus on the question of the unknowable nature of the noumenon, and also the unknowable nature of the subject who knows ('mere cognition').

Of course, in a blog post comprising half a dozen paragraphs, nobody is going to capture the massive sweep of Hegel's 'Phenomenology of the Spirit' or his dialectical method.

If all of this (i.e. Kant's argument) is correct, then “ultimate” reality is unknowable. And...this implication of Kant’s thought was not one that others were prepared simply to accept. In the intellectual generation immediately following Kant, there were two towering figures in philosophy and theology who, each in his own way, sought a pathway beyond the wall of unknowability that Kant had erected around the noumenal.

What follows is not intended as a summary of their responses, but mainly to point out that they were reacting against Kant's declaration of the unknowable nature of the in-itself.

What follows is not intended as a summary of their responses, but mainly to point out that they were reacting against Kant's declaration of the unknowable nature of the in-itself. — Wayfarer

All I am asking for is an example of Hegel doing that in his own words. I think Reitan is misrepresenting
Hegel's intentions regarding the "unknowable" as a departure from Kant.

Surely this passage at least hints at that:

If my understanding of myself is at odds with what I am in myself, Hegel thought this would become apparent as I attempt to be (in practice) what I take myself to be (in theory). There arises a clash between my self-concept and what the self really is, a clash that manifests itself as a “contradiction,” one that then forces a revision in my self-understanding. When I try on this new self-understanding and attempt to live it out, another contradiction emerges. And so on. The resulting “dialectic” (Hegel’s name for this evolutionary process) continues until (at the end of history, so to speak) I finally reach a self-understanding that generates no contradictions when lived out. At that point, the phenomenal self has collapsed into the noumenal self—and I come to see what I am in myself.

According to Hegel’s own developed philosophy, the vision I have of my noumenal self turns out to be not just a vision of one small piece of the noumenal realm, but rather a vision of the Absolute (Hegel’s term for the ultimate noumenal reality).

I understand the importance of learning through contradiction but where in Hegel's words can I find the reason to agree with:

According to Hegel’s own developed philosophy, the vision I have of my noumenal self turns out to be not just a vision of one small piece of the noumenal realm, but rather a vision of the Absolute (Hegel’s term for the ultimate noumenal reality).

Why should I accept this interpretation? Hegel does not, to my knowledge, use the term "noumena" in this way.

Edit to add: I do think a reading of Hegel's Logic is good place to look for where Hegel departs from Kant. I don't mean to make my challenge outside of any context.

I am not going to try to persuade you that Eric Reitan's blog post is correct. It may well not be! It made interpretive sense to me, that's all.

The interpretation prompted me to re-read a lot of Hegel. A lonely enterprise these days.

agree. I find him pretty difficult, although I very much appreciate what he's trying to do, at a high level.

We could like to try to figure out what the nature of time could be in more understandable and realistic manner from our own material world we live in. — Corvus

We can only figure out what the nature of time is in the context of how time appears to be to us. It doesn't follow that there is no time independent of us and our figuring.

So, we can either take the illegitimate leap and firmly declare that there just is no time apart form us, or we can allow that time has, or at least may have its own existence―an existence we can only surmise from our own experience, or if we don't allow that our experience shows anything at all bout the 'in itself' nature of time, then on that assumption we must accept that the 'ultimate' nature of time is unknowable.

Why should I accept this interpretation? Hegel does not, to my knowledge, use the term "noumena" in this way. — Paine

Judging from my own study of Hegel (admittedly many a year ago now) he rejects the idea of noumena and the "in itself" altogether. "The Rational is the Real". Nietzsche also rejected the idea of the ding an sich, but for a very different reason―he also rejected the dialectic method as a way to knowledge.

then on that assumption we must accept that the 'ultimate' nature of time is unknowable. — Janus

What is your stance on the issue?

I did say they were intuitions, when I should have said they were the pure forms of intuitions, and of sensibility in general. — Mww

I thought about the points of discussion over the weekend, and still found some parts of the passages were not clear.

What do you mean by sensibility in general, and the pure form of intuitions? Is time not the object of intuition, rather than the intuition itself in Kant's writing?

“Objects in themselves” are said to be entirely unknown to us. This is not to say that they cease to exist, — Wayfarer

How do you know if something exists or not, if it is unknowable?

but that whatever kind of existence they may have independently of our mode of cognition is inaccessible to us. — Wayfarer

What do you mean by "inaccessible" here? In what sense our mode of cognition is inaccessible? How is it different from "unknowable"?

Is time unknowable or inaccessible in Kant? Isn't time intuitable according to Kant?

What do you mean by sensibility in general…. — Corvus

With respect to the Kantian system for human empirical knowledge, sensibility in general is that part of the system having to do with bridging the external world of real things to the internal world of representation of things.

…..and the pure form of intuitions? — Corvus

Form is meant to be in conjunction with the matter of real things, a continuation of the standard matter/form duality established by the classical philosophers. Form is that criteria which must be met by this or that thing, the matter of which is given by sensation, and pure form, then, is that criteria which must be met by every possible thing, whether it is perceived or not, such that any of these are or may be phenomena in us and by which external/internal, thing/representation bridging is successful.

Part of the problem may be that intuition itself hasn’t even been touched, and thereby the part pure forms of it take their meaning, lose some explanatory power. It doesn’t help that Kant didn’t discuss intuition all that much either, so there’s precious little to interpret, forcing us to just accept what there is in the way of description of methodological processes.

But ironically enough, he was correct in not getting too deep into the metaphysics, because humans in general are not aware of what’s going on in their peripheral nervous system, which just is, after all, what is meant by the faculty of intuition for the construction of sensory representations, from the point of sensation to reception in the brain. In other words, it’s very hard to construct even a speculative theory with respect to that for which the human isn’t the least conscious of actually doing. Which is what he was saying with, “…intuitions without conceptions are blind…”

So anyway….if the switch is to thinking, and the thinking is of things, then we are thinking of things in a certain way, which means we attach stuff to things in order to say what we think they are. If we think stuff onto things, we can think stuff off them just as well. So we think all the stuff off, say, a basketball, all the properties we’ve already assigned to it, we still cannot think away that which belongs to its shape. We can think away the sphere, we can imagine the immediate disappearance of the whole ball, but that into which it had extended remains, and thinking that away is impossible for the excruciatingly simple reason that we didn’t think it into the thing called basketball in the first place. From which arises that necessary idea, which, after reason gets done with it, becomes the transcendental conception represented as “space”.

Time’s very different, as should be expected, but reason’s arriving at the idea of it is just as legitimate.

It doesn’t help that Kant didn’t discuss intuition all that much either, so there’s precious little to interpret, forcing us to just accept what there is in the way of description of methodological processes. — Mww

Yes, this is the point. Kant's work might be a few hundred years old now, and some might say they are far too outdated for today. I still feel that we can find some jewels of wisdom from his writings, if we can manage to interpret them well. The reason I ask all these questions on the others' ideas and writings on the issue is not always necessarily I am totally unaware of or ignorant on the issue.

On many occasions I do so, so I could compare the others' ideas with my own, and progress for further points for discussion in order to understand the issue better. If I remember correctly, Socrates has used similar methodology for coming to truths and conclusions on the philosophical topics they were discussing.

Anyhow my ideas of the interpretation on the issues might be different from yours or others. But if they are, then we can further discuss why they are different, and which ones make more sense for clear understanding.

My ideas on intuition in Kant is, that it is a faculty that is for the objects that can be perceived (intuited), but not be seen or heard. We intuit on the things that don't come into our sensory organs, but for some reason, we can still talk about, feel, believe in them.

The pure form of intuition is the conditions that is a priori, which makes the intuition possible. If time is the pure form of intuition, then it is the condition or prerequisite for the intuition possible. Hence we know it, but we often don't think about it, and we take it for granted.

Space and time are both the pure form of intuition, because when we see an object, we cannot observe the object without space around it. Every existence in the universe exists in space. Wherever someone exists standing, sitting or lying, he/she is in space around them. But we don't talk or think about the space. We take it for granted as part of the existence. We only notice the space, when we are paying attention to the spatial situation for fittings or locations of the object in it.

Likewise time is the pure form of intuition in the sense that whenever we perceive something, we are perceiving at this moment of time "NOW". Time is already in the part of the perception. We cannot perceive objects or situations without the underlying time - now. We don't think or talk about time - NOW when seeing something, but when we need to, we can intuit it as time now. It is not visible object, but we clearly can know it by intuition, and the intuited time now is the pure form of intuition in the sense that it is already and always there even without any sensory data on the time itself.

Likewise when remember the past events, we call back the images or the sounds of the past events, but we also intuit the time "past" in the memory which has the pure intuition of time as the pure form.

For some others idea of time being "unknowable", I don't agree with it. Because I believe Kant has written CPR in order to draw line between knowable and unknowable. What is knowable is subject for Science, what is unknowable is topics of Metaphysics. Time doesn't belong in unknowable. It belongs in knowable.

According to Kant in his other publications on Religion, it is possible for us to know the unknowable,but not via our sensory organs and sensory perceptions. It is our faith and intuition which can make the unknowable to knowable.

But is time only our internal pure intuition? Could time exist in the external world? I think yes, time exists in the material world. If so, in what form and what type of existence? This is my next question. What does Kant say about it? What do some other philosophers say about it?

Judging from my own study of Hegel (admittedly many a year ago now) he rejects the idea of noumena and the "in itself" altogether. "The Rational is the Real" — Janus

He certainly does not treat the things in themselves as a mysterious region behind the veil of appearance:

44.] It follows that the categories are no fit terms to express the Absolute—the Absolute not being given in perception;—and Understanding, or knowledge by means of the categories, is consequently incapable of knowing the Things-in-themselves. The Thing-in-itself (and under 'thing' is embraced even Mind and God) expresses the object when we leave out of sight all that consciousness makes of it, all its emotional aspects, and all specific thoughts of it. It is easy to see what is left,—utter abstraction, total emptiness, only described still as an 'other-world'—the negative of every image, feeling, and definite thought. Nor does it require much penetration to see that this caput mortuum is still only a product of thought, such as accrues when thought is carried on to abstraction unalloyed: that it is the work of the empty 'Ego,' which makes an object out of this empty self-identity of its own. The negative characteristic which this abstract identity receives as an object, is also enumerated among the categories of Kant, and is no less familiar than the empty identity aforesaid. Hence one can only read with surprise the perpetual remark that we do not know the Thing-in-itself. On the contrary there is nothing we can know so easily. — Hegel's Logic, being part one of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences translated by William Wallace

I did a word search for noumena in the book and came up empty. I don't read it as a rejection of the ideas but a part of Hegel opposing how objectivity is contrasted with subjectivity in our thinking. Here is a sample from Logic:

Thought in such a case is, on one hand, the synonym for a subjective conception, plan, intention or the like, just as actuality, on the other, is made synonymous with external and sensible existence. This is all very well in common life, where great laxity is allowed in the categories and the names given to them: and it may of course happen that e.g. the plan, or so-called idea, say of a certain method of taxation, is good and advisable in the abstract, but that nothing of the sort is found in so-called actuality, or could possibly be carried out under the given conditions. But when the abstract understanding gets hold of these categories and exaggerates the distinction they imply into a hard and fast line of contrast, when it tells us that in this actual world we must knock ideas out of our heads, it is necessary energetically to protest against these doctrines, alike in the name of science and of sound reason................................

In that vulgar conception of actuality which mistakes for it what is palpable and directly obvious to the senses, we must seek the ground of a wide-spread prejudice about the relation of the philosophy of Aristotle to that of Plato. Popular opinion makes the difference to be as follows. While Plato recognises the idea and only the idea as the truth, Aristotle, rejecting the idea, keeps to what is actual, and is on that account to be considered the founder and chief of empiricism. On this it may be remarked: that although actuality certainly is the principle of the Aristotelian philosophy, it is not the vulgar actuality of what is immediately at hand, but the idea as actuality. Where then lies the controversy of Aristotle against Plato? It lies in this. Aristotle calls the Platonic idea a mere δύναμις, and establishes in opposition to Plato that the idea, which both equally recognise to be the only truth, is essentially to be viewed as an ἐνέργεια, in other words, as the inward which is quite to the fore, or as the unity of inner and outer, or as actuality, in the emphatic sense here given to the word. — ibid. section 142

Anyhow my ideas of the interpretation on the issues might be different from yours or others. — Corvus

Yeah, standard state of affairs, right? Human subjectivity…the bane and the blessing of philosophical discourse.

Have fun with it, I say

Yeah, standard state of affairs, right? Human subjectivity…the bane and the blessing of philosophical discourse. — Mww

Not just blind subjectivity. That would be meaningless. I just feel that philosophical interpretation has to be clearer and decipherable than the original writings. If the interpretations are more abstract or complicated than the original writings, then it wouldn't be good or meaningful interpretation. And also interpretation can be open for more discussions, investigation, criticisms and more interpretations if need be.

Of course, interpretations can be wrong, but as long as they are crystal clear, it can be revisited with the above procedure for getting them right.

Have fun with it, I say — Mww

Thanks. You too.

On the first passage (and leaving aside the digression into his commentary on Plato and Aristotle) - there's still a more 'charitable' reading of the 'in itself' in Kant, which is not so vulnerable to Hegel's criticism (or caricature). As Kant scholar Emrys Westacott says:

Kant's introduced the concept of the “thing in itself” to refer to reality as it is independent of our experience of it and unstructured by our cognitive constitution. The concept was harshly criticized in his own time and has been lambasted by generations of critics since. A standard objection to the notion is that Kant has no business positing it given his insistence that we can only know what lies within the limits of possible experience. But a more sympathetic reading is to see the concept of the “thing in itself” as a sort of placeholder in Kant's system; it both marks the limits of what we can know and expresses a sense of mystery that cannot be dissolved, the sense of mystery that underlies our unanswerable questions. Through both of these functions it serves to keep us humble.

So the in-itself is a boundary, if you like. It’s only when 'the noumenal' or the ding an sich is treated as a 'mysterious unknown thing' that it becomes a reification — a thing about which nothing can be said. ("What is the thing we can't say anything about?") Whereas the appropriate stance is more one of unknowing.

Notice in that passage you quote that 'The Thing-in-itself (and under 'thing' is embraced even Mind and God)...' - this is uttered so casually, as if the manifest nature of both mind and God is something that ought to be obvious to any intelligent observer. But isn't it Hegel who is here introducing the reification ('thingifying') the 'in itself'? 'Nothing you can know so easily' - or rather, think you can know, hence the famous prolixity of Hegel.

(All that said, I don't believe Kant has the "final word" on the limits of knowledge. But it would take us too far afield to begin to consider that topic. Here, in the thread 'About Time', the basis of the argument is simply the ineluctably subjective grounding of time.)

My push back on Reitan's comments is not an endorsement of what Westacott objects to. I am not defending Kant or Hegel.

I think all readers can agree that Hegel does not put forward the humility of Kant. That means we should be extra careful about how to compare their language.

There is a significant element in Hegel regarding time and history. Can that be approached through an enlargement of the general ideas or does the new philosophy introduce incompatible ideas?

What is your stance on the issue? — Corvus

I tend to favour seeing process, relation as ontologically fundamental rather than thing or substance being fundamental. So, things are processes, not ultimate entities or substances. So, I would say we know things―we are inextricably related to things, and those things are inextricably related to other things, and other things know them in ways that we don't. So, we don't know anything exhaustively. I think it is inapt to say we don't know anything about things in themselves, because the idea of a thing in itself is nothing more than an abstraction.

There is a significant element in Hegel regarding time and history. Can that be approached through an enlargement of the general ideas or does the new philosophy introduce incompatible ideas? — Paine

I think Hegel's philosophy of history is really important in its own right - not in relation to Kant only. I've discovered an Hegel scholar called Robert Pippin (read about him here) - although I admit I'll probably never get the book out of the library. At this stage of life, there are only so many authors I can take on. But generally speaking, I understand Hegel is going through a bit of a renaissance, considering writers like the above, and many other commentators. I think it is likely true that Hegel was a genius (notwithstanding Schopenhauer's scorning of him.)

But the theme I keep coming back to is really a very basic one, like Kant 101 - that the mind is not a 'blank slate' upon which experience engraves knowledge, but an active agent that builds its world as it goes.

-----------------------------------------

And, speaking of About Time: this is all from Wayfarer for the immediate future. I'm working on a novel, I'm at around 66k words, but I'm procrastinating, and logging into the Forum every day is splintering my attention. To finish it needs undivided attention for probably the next couple of months. I'm not terminating membership, and I look forward to participation in the future. I've often said, and will say again, I've learned an immense amount from the contributors here, about topics, ideas and philosophers I hadn't even known existed, and I highly value The Philosophy Forum. (Oh, and the novel is in the hard science fiction genre, 'hard' meaning no spaceships or aliens, but a seemingly plausible series of inexplicable events. I'm caling it a 'psi-phi' novel.)

But for now, for that reason, I must suspend my involvement. I will probably not respond to PM's unless from Board Admin (particularly regarding site migration). So bye for the time being, and keep up the great conversations! :heart: :pray:

@Jamal, @Tom Storm, @Banno @Esse Quam Videri , @Astorre, @Joshs, @Corvus, @Janus, @AmadeusD, @Punshhh, @Gnomon, @boundless, @Metaphysician Undercover, @Philosophim (and anyone else interested who's ID I can't bring to mind.)

Oh dear... go well, Wayfarer, we'll miss you. :up::up: