• Gregory
    4.7k
    The antinomies could be seen from all (infinite) angles and resolved only if there is a "thing in itself" (that is, a Platonic reality) but such a thing can only be spoken of, and is what we speak of in all our speech
  • val p miranda
    195
    Of course, the antinomies are faulty. Proof of a contention and then proof of the opposite should alert one of a faulty thesis. Truth is not true and false simultaneously. The Critique is all about the transcendental which is entirely un-empirical. I thought a Kant follower would be interested in why there is a universe at all.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    We're not interested in why there is a universe. Language is platonic because it's human. Reality is non-platonic: real non-real phenomena
  • Mww
    4.8k


    Indeed. I don’t give a damn WHY there is a universe. That there is something I think of as it, is good enough.
  • Mww
    4.8k
    Proof of a contention and then proof of the oppositeval p miranda

    An antinomy isn’t a proof; it’s a logical argument, a “...dialectical proposition or theorem of pure reason...”

    “....This method of watching, or rather of originating, a conflict of assertions, not for the purpose of finally deciding in favour of either side, but to discover whether the object of the struggle is not a mere illusion, which each strives in vain to reach, but which would be no gain even when reached....”
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    I suppose you think you can refute solipsism
  • val p miranda
    195
    you're right. I was regarding the antinomy from a different point of view, not a logical one. I suppose I didn't like Kant's reform and correction of metaphysics. I am a metaphysician, but a more cautious one thanks to the ereudite and wise philosopher.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    You don't understand metaphysical process. You're not seeing that antinomies of self, geometry, world, and divinity reach a point, literally a point, in the brain around which your mind revolves. Your mind isn't revolving
  • val p miranda
    195
    True. At the moment, the metaphysical process is beyond my understanding.
  • Mww
    4.8k
    I suppose I didn't like Kant's reform and correction of metaphysics.val p miranda

    As is your prerogative.

    I’d be interested in how you regard the antinomies from other than a logical point of view. Not sure I’d understand, but I’d at least gain familiarity.
  • val p miranda
    195
    A thesis cannot be true and false simultaneously was my response when I was reminded that the antinomies were a logical response to metaphysical errors.
  • Mww
    4.8k
    A thesis cannot be true and false simultaneously was my response when I was reminded that the antinomies were a logical responseval p miranda

    True enough, but that isn’t “a different point of view, not a logical one”. What you say here is still a logical point of view.
  • val p miranda
    195
    I may have erred.
  • Mww
    4.8k


    A noble attitude, for which I salute you.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    In order to communicate, humans developed language which is very universal. The intricacies of inner life are such that we can only speak in general terms. It appears that Platonic ideals and talk about noumena results from the function of language itself. It is as if we can't really speak of individual phenomena in itself without putting it into general agreed upon categories
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    Those who put forward such assertions really themselves say, if we bear in mind what we remarked before, the direct opposite of what they mean: a fact which is perhaps best able to bring them to reflect on the nature of the certainty of senses experience. They speak of the existence of external objects, which can be more precisely characterized as actual, absolutely particular, individual things, each of them not like anything or anyone else; this is the existence which they say has absolute certainty and truth. They mean to say " this bit of paper I am writing on", or rather have written on: but they do not say [write] what they mean. If they really wanted to say "this bit of paper" which they "mean" and wanted to say so, that is impossible, because the "this" of sense, which is "meant", cannot be reached by language- Hegel, first chapter of PoS
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    More:

    They "mean", then, doubtless this bit of paper here, which is quite different from that bit over there; but they speak of actual things, external or sensible objects, absolutely individual, real, and so on; that is, they say about them what is simply universal. Consequencely what is called unspeakable is nothing else than what is untrue, irrational, and something barely and simply " meant"- Hegel
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    Kant first speaks of antimony ("to contradict ") in his 1763 essay on Negative Magnitude, wherein he juxtaposes logical contradictions with "real contradictions". Logical contradictions are not resolved in their proper spheres, while a real contradiction is for example two forces equally cancelling each other. The interesting thing about logical contradictions is that we get knowledge of them from the world.

    Note: Kant first explains time and space as intuitions in his Inaugural Dissertation of 1770
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    The wrench, too much torque applied, breaks the bolt. But did the wrench break the bolt, or the excess of force applied - the person using the wench? If language is the problem, is that fixable? The answer pointing back to the user of language. And if not fixable, that too points back to the user.

    Which is to say that in any significant endeavor in which language figures, it is the language that must first be wrestled with and controlled. Evidence being the usual effort at first, and at least, to define terms and rules of usage.

    It would appear from this that the problem, substituting "mind" for "people," is minds, all the way down. In as much as this problem seems ultimately unsolvable, it falls to prudent navigation when required - it being always required - to make as much sense as possible; as navigation itself is the means to plotting a shortest and safest course.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    "Becoming" is a word which resonates with Eastern and Western philosophers, but as you say language is important and Kant's use of the word "phenomena" in the context of his "analogues of experience" is important because it situates "substance" in between being and nothingness (in that substancial existence not noumena) but doesn't say the world is illusion (unlike Berkeley). We understand being in the context of everyday life and inner experience but we never find a pure Beingness because such just doesn't exist
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    "Space and time are modes by which we live, not conditions IN which we live". Kant

    Actually that was Einstein lol
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    We understand being in the context of everyday life and inner experience but we never find a pure Beingness because such just doesn't existGregory

    Will you accept the emendation to "exists only as an idea"? As summum genus? Being that which is, from which all that makes it this being as distinct from that being has been removed? But that's a problem because if you take the what-makes-a-brick-a-brick from a brick, then nothing, no-thing, is left? That does not seem right.

    Which itself implies that language and logic are essentially helpless in the face of reality, even though they are sometimes good to adequate to describe it. Hmm.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    Nothingness is left when you take away being, but that is not no thing (Sartre). Being and nothingness are a fabric which makes spacetime to the left and matter to the right. But to follow this to its conclusion seems to indicate that objects exist and don't exist at the same time, therefore you're right that it's hard to find the single point around which any philosophy can revolve
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    "A singular thing is actual as coming from Concept [mind] and posited [by language] as something universal in identity with itself... Concept produces itself.. and is what is mediated by and with itself. It is a mistake to assume that, first of all, there are objects which form the content of our concepts of them, through the operation of abstracting that we spoke of earlier.. Instead, the Concept is what truly comes first, and things are what they are through the activity of the Concept that dwells in them and reveals itself in them... The Concept is its own relation to self."

    That's Hegel in the lesser (second) Logic talking about what phenomena is
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    Instead, the Concept is what truly comes first,Gregory
    It would seem this concept is not primordially prior - because then one asks what it comes from - but temporally prior to the perception/phenomena of the singular thing, thereby part of the process. And we're mindful that prior and a priori are different terms. I'm not arguing here - I don't know enough for that - but am instead rolling out the idea a little thinner to see if it still coheres, or if it breaks apart. The notions of concept as mind and positing as language seem very strange.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    As I understand phenomenology, mind is a priori in that it springs from the brain but we also do not know, and can't figure out, which is prior
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