Thanks for your useful comments.

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

Yes, nonetheless the phenomenal domain is not the world of naturalism since the former is dependent on the perceiver (per Kant's "Copernican revolution"). That is, without human beings there is no phenomenal domain, and the Earth only exists within the phenomenal domain.

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

Whereas the natural view is that things are only ever known from a perspective.

In terms of the blind men and an elephant parable, naturalism permits different descriptions of the elephant from different perspectives. 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.

without human beings there is no phenomenal domain, and the Earth only exists within the phenomenal domain. — Andrew M

I equate 'the phenomenal domain' with 'the domain studied by the natural sciences', in other words, the realm of phenomena. (I don't think mathematics is included in that domain, but most modern naturalists tend towards the view that mathematics can also be understood naturalistically as in some sense a product of the brain which is in turn the product of evolution.)

But here's an interesting thing - that Wheeler paper we were discussing a few months back contains the statement that 'no phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is registered' - that is, until it appears. The Copenhagen interpretation, generally, takes a similar view - that it is meaningless to speak of an 'unregistered' or 'unobserved' entity, and mistaken to believe that there is such a thing lurking there undiscovered. So, likewise, these interpretations support the original notion that the phenomenon is 'what appears' to us, and discourage speculation as to what it is that appears.

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

I don't think Kant would have agreed with that at all. That's basically extreme skepticism. (Incidentally that parable hails from India, and is found in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain literature.) Kant's 'refutation of idealism' presents an argument that we must have knowledge of a world outside our own ideas (linked above), so he was not at all sceptical in the obvious sense.

But I think it's important to make this point: that Kant's form of idealism emphatically doesn't say that 'the world disappears when it's not perceived'. (I don't think any serious idealist philosophers maintain that.) It is the kind of thing that realist thinkers presume must be entailed by what they understand 'idealism' to mean. But that criticism is based on the 'imagined non-existence' of the world - that things go in and out of existence, depending on whether they're perceived or not. 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.

We know a great deal about the physical universe and the vast aeons of time that existed before humans evolved, no question about that. But the sense of scale, duration, and perspective which are combined to make that judgement, are still derived from and grounded in human experience, but with the subjective or personal supposedly bracketed out, and only taking into account the aspects ('primary qualities') which may be quantified (which had been the stance of post-Galilean science generally although it is starting to change). That is why philosophical and scientific materialism wishes to land upon the ultimately real constituent represented by the fundamental particle ('the ultimate thing').

But try to conceive of anything from no perspective. If you were an intelligence that lived on the scale of an atom, then one of our everyday objects - a glass or a jug - might be a galaxy. If you were an intelligence that lived for 10,000,000 years - say, if mountains were sentient - then many things which humans are familiar with would be so ephemeral you wouldn't even register them. (You'd register rivers, because they are around long enough to make an impression!) And you can't see or know anything from all perspectives at once, and at all scales simultaneously - it simply doesn't make any sense. 'Existence' statements all presume a scale and perspective. And I think that's what Kant's sense of the 'primary intuitions' of space and time mean; space and time aren't entirely objective, because the mind provides the sense of perspective, scale and duration by which they're measured. (That is how I interpret the meaning of the Andrei Linde quote we discussed before. )

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?'

When the tree falls in the forest ..... - which tree? You can't even try to answer without imagining it.

Someone else posted a paragraph in another thread which is pertinent:

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.

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 alternative to this is to suppose there is a structure to reality that human beings come to know about imperfectly. First through everyday experience and cognitizing that in whatever primitive fashion. And then later using the tools of logic, math and science.

The subjective nature of experience is how we experience the world as upright walking apes, but we can still kind of understand the structure of reality, even though it has taken a lot of trial and error.

Isn't this fundamentally what the debate over realism amounts to? Whether there is a structure to the world we can know about, or whether the mind imposes that structure?

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

What logic? It looks like a matter of begging the question to me, and that is a refutation Care to show me the premises and conclusion, to demonstrate that you are not begging the question? Your claim appears to be that "an experience" requires something sensed, the sensations play "an essential part in the experience". Is a dream not an experience? Suppose that the person was dreaming, and there was nothing "extra" acting as an essential part of the "experience". By what argument do you demonstrate that the person is wrong to refer to the thing in the dream as an "asteroid", and call this an experience of an asteroid in a dream. Clearly the person experiences "an asteroid", in a dream, and there is no "extra" playing an essential role in that experience.

That is, without human beings there is no phenomenal domain, and the Earth only exists within the phenomenal domain. — Andrew M

“......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)
—————————

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

While this is true, it is a misinterpretation of the so-called “Copernican Revolution”, which is in its simplest form:

“.....I may assume that the objects, or, which is the same thing, that experience, in which alone as given objects they are cognized, conform to my conceptions—and then I am at no loss how to proceed...”

It is clear the use of the method used by Copernicus, in switching perspectives, pertains to Kant long after the phenomenal stage in his rational system espoused in the first critique. All he is doing is justifying a particular means by initially assuming an end. Then he goes back to establish the means such that the end is logically obtained as originally assumed. Combined with the part above about phenomenal domain being undetermined objects, and here objects are given in experience thus really determined, is shown the difference in the temporal placement.

Furthermore, the whole idea behind bringing Copernicus into the scene was to justify a priori cognitions, which obviously have nothing whatsoever to do with the world of naturalism, but only the possibility of knowledge with respect to it.

“....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.

Or so it seems........

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

But this is not something we are entitled to claim tout court. We can say that "things only ever exist from a perspective, for us" or "nothing has real 'self-existence' or exists in its own right for us".

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.

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.

The point is, as I see it, to eschew fundamentalist thinking altogether; to admit the undecidable, and to leave it alone, by moving on to more interesting questions and ideas.

As Ashleigh Brilliant says, roughly paraphrased: "The biggest problem we have is what to do about all the things we cannot do anything about".

That could be changed to fit the epistemological context: "the biggest epistemological problem we face is how to know all the things we cannot know".

We can say that "things only ever exist from a perspective, for us" — Janus

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.

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

This leads to

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".

Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.

There's a chapter on this topic in the book The Embodied Mind which (not co-incidentally) was co-authored by the same Evan Thompson who co-wrote the Blind Spot.

//ps// have just found Embodied Mind.pdf on the internet, and will re-read it now, haven't looked at it since just after it came out.//

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

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.

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".

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

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. So unless you can separate perspective form mind or consciousness, the conclusion that mind or consciousness is fundamental to the reality of existence is clearly justified.

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

There is no such warrant. If the world as we know it is a construct of our minds, then the assumption that the world exists independently of our observations is clearly unwarranted.

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 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. The glass itself could be generating the impression that there is something beyond it. The "darkness" of the glass could be what you call "the world". "The world" is within the glass

The question now is is this true, what is the nature of the glass. If the mind constructs the experience with what is received from the glass, then what is beyond the glass, what you call "the world" is irrelevant. Our reality is the glass itself. One might ask, whether or not the mind itself has constructed the glass. If the glass is the human body, the thing we see the proposed "world" through, then I would argue that the mind does construct the glass. And if we ask what it constructs the glass out of, we cannot say "the world", because "the world" comes after the glass, as a proposition of what is on the other side of the glass.

This is the importance of the temporal perspective. We create a tool by which we can observe (sense), let's call this the glass (it's the human body). Through the use of this tool we create "the world", which is supposed to be what we are observing through the glass. To say that the glass was created from the world is a faulty temporal perspective because the glass was created before there was a world. What is on the other side of the glass is not unfathomable to us, it simply requires determining what the glass is made of.

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 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". To say that things exist for us is to say they are known (by us). So the true formulation is "things are only known from a perspective". It does not follow from this that things (in the broadest sense of the term to include both determinate and indeterminate things) can only exist from a perspective.The tree as perceived and examined is a determinate thing; the tree in itself is an indeterminate, although (not exhaustively) determinable, thing.

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

This is nonsense. the principle I stated is that the world is seen "through a glass darkly". It follows logically that if the world is seen through a glass darkly, then there is a world which is seen through a glass darkly. If the world were nothing more than our seeing of it, then it would make no sense to say that we see it through a glass darkly. In other words you have it exactly arse-about.

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

You clearly said, "leaving off" the "for us", that this is unwarranted. And that is what I objected to.

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.

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

What I said was:

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

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).

I equate 'the phenomenal domain' with 'the domain studied by the natural sciences', in other words, the realm of phenomena. — Wayfarer

You can't really equate the domains since naturalists and dualists conceptualize the world differently. For a naturalist, the natural world encompasses everything - for example, Aristotle's form and matter are immanent in the natural world.

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

Yes, everything we say about 'what exists' presumes a human perspective. So that isn't a point of difference between Kant's system and naturalism or realism.

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

OK, so that seems a point of difference. 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.

Thanks for your comments.

“......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

Using the Earth as the example, what is the undetermined object here? Simply the Earth's referent (without its characteristics)? Also, on Kant's view, where else would the Earth exist? The noumenal domain? In one's experience or judgment?

It seems to me the model here is of an unfurnished object that acquires form when it is perceived. Is that correct?

“....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

So 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.

Using the Earth as the example, what is the undetermined object here? — Andrew M

As you probably know, the first critique is 700-odd pages and took ten years to compose, and included in there, in order to fulfill the.....

“...completeness and thoroughness necessary in the execution of the present task. The aims set before us are not arbitrarily proposed, but are imposed upon us by the nature of cognition itself....”,

.........are terminologies for every damn thing specific to it. That, in conjunction with the methodology to which the terms belong, leads one down the merry, albeit unabridged, path of theoretical human thought.

So skip to the chase: an object presented to sensibility is nothing but affect, lets us know there’s something for the mind to get involved with. Imagination takes the affect, synthesizes to it a bunch of intuitions. (The psychologists simply call this memory; neurobiologists call it activated neural networks; physicalists, brain states...etc, etc, etc). Now we have a phenomenon, an undetermined object. Object because it is now intuited as being external to us hence empirical, and undetermined because as yet no concepts have been thought for it, which is the job of the understanding. We cannot yet have any knowledge whatsoever of the phenomenon, not even that sensibility has been affected. Again, psychologists call this the unconscious; neurobiologists call it part of the autonomic nervous system, physicalists call it hogwash....etc, etc, etc.

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.
———————-

where else would the Earth exist? — Andrew M

Because the real object Earth affects sensibility, it’s physical location absolutely must be in space and time, an altogether convenient way of saying.....outside us, and serves as validation of objective reality. The representation of the empirical object that resides in the mind exists as a collection of determinant conceptions, thereby experienced, and referred to, as Earth.
———————

So why would Kant be assuming we know anything of objects a priori? — Andrew M

It isn’t that we know anything of objects a priori, it is rather that the means of knowing anything at all rests on principles a priori. Every cause has an effect; all bodies are extended; no two straight lines enclose a space....and so on. Some concepts we know a priori as ideas of conditions that have no object, round, singular, existence, necessity, to name a few, similar to Platonic Forms, Aristotelian predicaments (categories), even Hume’s passions.....which really aren’t, but ok.
———————

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.

Anyway......

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.

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

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.

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

We know 'ideal objects' a priori - that the triangle is a flat plane bounded by three straight lines, and a multitude of other similar facts. The thing that intrigues Kant is why the synthetic a priori, how we can derive conclusions from logical principles that are not simply contained in their premisses.

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

Your proposition is flawed because it assumes a "for us". Since we each have our own distinct perspectives, there is no such thing as "for us", when we are talking about perspectives. So you have just made up an impossible scenario, a premise based in the contradiction, that "we" have "a perspective".

We cannot proceed with this discussion until you relinquish the contradictory premise of "a perspective, for us". If we are talking about perspectives, there is no such thing as "for us", do you agree? Either we are talking about "for us", in which case the unity of "us" must be validated such that "us" might represent an existing enity, or we are talking about "perspective" in which case we each have our own.

So we're right back to the same point, if we remove the "for us", which is clearly warranted because the unity which creates an "us" has not been validated as being anything real, then we are left with perspective as the fundamental principle of what is real.

However it seems on Kant's view that without the blind men (or anyone else), neither is there an elephant. — Andrew M

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?

Stop being such an idiot. I think you know, or should know, full well that by "for us" I am referring to human perspective. I have nowhere used the words 'perspective(s) for us, since that would be a redundant use of terms. The distinction is between the "in itself' (no perspective or interpretation) and the "for us" (perspective or interpretation).

We cannot proceed with this discussion until you address what I have actually said. It's an amazing level of stupidity you are displaying if this is not deliberate obfuscation. If it is deliberate then I don't want to converse with you anyway.

Kant did not deny the mind-independent existence of what appear to us as empirical objects. Anyone who says he does, doesn't understand Kant, in my view. 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.

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). 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.

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

I agree with this.

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

It's a little bit more than that. Kant was responding to skeptical implications Hume raised with his empiricism, which were raised by ancient skeptics as well. Plato and Aristotle were also responding to skeptical arguments. And so did Wittgenstein.

It's substantial enough to attract considerable attention from major philosophers throughout history.

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

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.

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

I have a perspective, and you have a perspective. They are clearly not the same. What I am asking is how do you validate this proposed "human perspective".

The distinction is between the "in itself' (no perspective or interpretation) and the "for us" (perspective or interpretation). — Janus

The point is that your proposed distinction is unacceptable because there is no such thing as "the perspective for us". As I explained, that is impossible, contradictory, and therefore your division is unacceptable. A similar, and acceptable distinction would be between "in itself", and "for me".

Are you ready to dismiss "for us", and start with an acceptable premise, "for me"? Then if we manage to synthesize a "for us", by way of some agreement, you might acknowledge that the "for us" is a synthesis of a multiplicity of distinct "for mes", and not actually a true perspective. it is artificial.

It's an amazing level of stupidity you are displaying if this is not deliberate obfuscation. — Janus

The problem you have created is that you are designing "perspective" on the faulty base of "for us", and therefore you obviously have no clear understanding of what a perspective actually is. In other words, it is you who is actually displaying an incredible degree of stupidity. if you have no desire to proceed, and attempt to remove this fundamental stupidity from you argument, then so be it. You can live with that stupidity.

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

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m not sure Kant outright rejects what is these days is considered a naive realist point of view, or, which is for practical purposes the same thing, the Hume-ian common sense empiricism of British Enlightenment. Empirical objects may very well exist in the same form as they exist in the mind. The problem isn’t whether or not they do, but the impossibility of proving whether or not they do. While it is true the Kantian speculative epistemology prevents any such knowledge, that doesn’t negate the possibility that the true nature of things and our understanding of them are congruent. Hence the force and power of the Law of Non-contradiction.

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?

I must say, I find no irreconcilable difficulties in Janus’ assertion with respect to a general human perspective, albeit a very, very narrow domain. The addendum “for us” is tautological, as you say, but it isn’t necessarily impossible and certainly not contradictory.

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

OK, so as I understand it the object goes through various internal processing stages after which the person judges that he's talking about the Earth.

The person's mind synthesizes the phenomenal object that subsequently appears to him. So, logically, phenomena are at least partly dependent on mind. However in accordance with the a priori categories of time and space applicable to phenomena, the Earth is judged to be a distinct and several-billion-year-old entity - temporally prior to and spatially external to the person.

Does that capture it?

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

Is the purpose of noumena just to serve as a logical placeholder at the boundary of knowledge? That is, if anything were (or could be) known about noumena, then it wouldn't be noumena, it would be phenomena.

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

Yes, I know. What I mean is that for the naturalist, the natural world is all there is. Thus 'the study of nature' excludes nothing. Whereas for the dualist, the natural world is one part of reality that excludes whatever the other dual part is (noumena, mind, Platonic forms, or whatever).

If, as a dualist, you assume the natural and dualist conceptions of the natural world are the same, then you will conclude that the naturalist must be missing something important - the other dual part. But that's not how the naturalist conceives of the world. That other dual part is already integrated in the naturalist's conception of the world in some other form (likely in ways the dualist doesn't easily recognize, since it is not incorporated dualistically).

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

OK, what would be the recursive loop and is it a problem?

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

Yes, so you can substitute something non-sentient instead, say, a tree. As I understand Kant's view, the precondition of something appearing to a person as phenomena is that it is situated in time and space. So that precludes solipsism since other people and things appear phenomenally. But if there were no sentient creatures at all, then there would be no phenomena, including trees. Just noumena which seems to be a placeholder for what can't be referred to or described.

Does that capture it? — Andrew M

Pretty much, with a couple minor caveats:

The person's mind synthesizes the phenomenal object that subsequently appears to him. — Andrew M

Yes, the mind synthesizes the phenomenal object, However, there is some controversy on the Kantian rendition of appearance. Some say it means what a thing looks like, others say it is mere presence, like, e.g., I made my appearance at the family reunion. I favor the latter, because to say what a thing looks like presupposes the very attributes conceptions are supposed to give it. This relates because “subsequently appears” is temporally misplaced; if there is an affect on sensibility, then the mind is aware of an appearance of something. This affect, or appearance, is also called sensation by materialists, and occurs antecedent, not subsequent, to any synthesis.

the a priori categories of time and space — Andrew M

Time and space are not categories, they are “pure intuitions a priori”. From the previous quote, “intuitions to which all objects must conform” specifically means these two. There are no objects possible for human cognition that are not in space and time. This is not to say there are no objects, but rather there are no objects to which human cognition may apply. We can know nothing a posteriori that is not conditioned by space or time. There is no such thing as experience itself without those two conditions. There are two chapters....27 pages no less...... dedicated to just what those two intuitions are, what they do and how they do it.

As time and space belong to intuition, so too do the categories belong to understanding. As space and time are pure intuitions, that is, not derivable from any object of experience but belonging to any object of experience in particular, so too are the categories pure conceptions, that is, having no object of their own, but belonging to all objects of thought in general. Re: Wayfarer’s triangle, the category of quantity makes the thought of lines possible, the category of quality makes the thought of flat possible, the category of relation makes the thought of arranging lines in a certain shape possible, henceforth conceived as a triangle. Lines, flatness, arrangements are all mental images, called schema.
———————-

Is the purpose of noumena just to serve as a logical placeholder at the boundary of knowledge? — Andrew M

Not quite. The logical placeholder for the boundary of knowledge, is the transcendental illusion. The placeholder for the logical boundary of understanding, are the noumena.

When we speak of phenomena, we tacitly grant a specific mode of intuition, we are speaking of a certain way things are done in the mind, predicated solely on the reality of empirical objects. But even granting the reality of empirical objects, it does not follow that the mode of intuition we use with respect to them is the only mode there is. From here, it also follows that understanding in general and the pure conceptions of the understanding in particular, pertain only to sensuous objects. It is, after all, the method by which we know them for what they seem to be. But just as there is no promise of only one mode of intuition, there is no promise that understanding cannot use its conceptions for that which is not sensuous, and can never be sensuous, or, in other words, that for which there is no object understanding can subsume under its conceptions. If there is no object for understanding to assign conceptions, there is no meaning, hence no possible cognition at all. Still, just because there is no object presented as phenomenon doesn’t preclude the possibility that understanding can think its own object and subsume that object under its pure conceptions.

No matter what, the next step is judgement, the determination of logical consistency with extent experience, or that of possible experience. If there is no phenomenon, yet understanding thinks it own object, that object is called noumenon. Herein lay the problem: what is there for judgement to determine, if there is no logical consistency to judge? We will never sense an object thought by understanding alone, we will never intuit anything, never cognize anything, never experience anything even remotely related to it.

But that’s not the real problem. Schema....remember schema? Where the HELL did schema come from? Well....I’ll be damned: understand thinks them. Holy crap, Batman!!! There are things understanding thinks. But wait, he said, with all due enthusiasm. How can something be thought by understanding, yet subsumed under the very category it is a part of? Schema apply to sensations, or...you know.....phenomena, as part of the categories, so they don’t count. We can intuit schema without contradicting the system. Things like numbers, succession/permanence in time, stuff like that.

Here’s the fun part, and what frosts my balls when people twist the Good Professor’s intent. The noumena, as opposed to schema, are thought as objects-in-themselves by some mode of intuition of which we are not informed. I mean, c’mon, man. It is easy to grasp that we can accept the real objects out there in the world as things-in-themselves, and all the brew-ha-ha that goes with it, so why not treat things thought by understanding alone the same way? Noumena are NOT things-in-themselves of the world, they are objects-of-themselves of the mind.

All that to say this: it is not the case that,

if anything were (or could be) known about noumena, then it wouldn't be noumena, it would be phenomena. — 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.

And no.....not a chance in hell I’m going to post the excerpt where Kant actually calls things-in-themselves as noumena. The context for it is too long and just shows where the common understanding of it is lop-sided at best. People get their philosophical kicks from saying, “ See? Right there!! He called it that himself, the crazy old fart!!” Sad, but true. That he said it, not that he’s an old fart.

Thanks for showing an interest in perhaps the epitome of paradigm-shifting philosophy.

And if anyone has a better understanding, please, by all means....correct me.

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

How does agreeing on something validate a common perspective? Suppose you and I agree to call something by the same name, how would this validate the claim that we have the same perspective of that thing?

The addendum “for us” is tautological, as you say, but it isn’t necessarily impossible and certainly not contradictory. — Mww

It is only tautological if "us" refers to a number of individuals, each with one's own perspective. It is false and contradictory if "us" refers to a point of view called "human", with its own perspective.

If you and I, and by association you and Janus, can agree that the term “perspective” denotes a particular attitude or opinion about a thing, and we each as particular persons all agree as a matter of discourse that the fins on a ‘60 Cadillac were rather extreme.....wouldn’t we have a common perspective with respect to extremism? We’re not talking about how we came to our respective opinions, but rather the having of some perspective in common about something because of them.

If humans are known with absolute certainty to be entities with the capacity for perspective, then the concept of human perspective cannot be either false nor contradictory. If it is true every human ever has or had or will have a perspective, then it follows necessarily there is a human perspective. And “us” does refer to a number of individuals......all of them, in fact. The question remains, however, as to the possibility of a perspective common to us all as humans.

No matter what, I, myself, don’t see a loss of comprehension or intelligibility by using the term human perspective in a standard conversational format.

what would be the recursive loop? — Andrew M

That would be the blind spot

there is no such thing as "the perspective for us". — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course there is not a single perspective for all humanity and I haven't said there is. Why do I have to keep showing that you are misrepresenting what I have said? I shouldn't have to waste time doing that and if you read attentively I wouldn't.

So, there is no single perspective, but "for us" signifies perspective in general, the fact that all those different perspectives are examples of perspective, human perspective.

It's substantial enough to attract considerable attention from major philosophers throughout history. — Marchesk

I would say that "considerable attention" is an exaggeration. How many philosophers, ancient, medieval, modern or postmodern can you name who have given serious attention to solipsism as it is often trotted out and argued over ad nauseum in philosophy forums?

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

Consensus? Again how many philosophers have taken these arguments as being of significance. Descartes was concerned with the evil demon, but never really considering it as a possibility; more as a preamble to asserting the benevolence of God and the belief that He would never deceive us. A few modern philosophers may have used BIV, but again only as a thought experiment to illustrate epistemic limits or rather the limits or lack of deductive certainty. P-zombie has been used by a few to argue that consciousness may be an illusion, but I think the idea that consciousness could be an illusion, on account of the incoherence of such an idea, has been pretty convincingly refuted, and again how many modern philosophers can you name who have actually concerned themselves with such questions?

I think the "anti-correlationsists" are more or less irrelevant, anti-correlationism is a storm in a teacup, insofar as their arguments seem to be based on a misunderstanding of Kant's arguments; the outline I gave of which you agreed with above. I think that pretty much (dis)solves the "dilemma".