I think that's a disingenuous claim and all the more so since you know very well that I actually used to agree with you on this, and that I have at least as much reading of Kant as you do, and since you apparently cannot say what it is that I purportedly don't understand. It looks much more like you are employing the disingenuous tactic of claiming that I don't understand because you are unable to address the objection I raised.

If you think that’s a critique of me then you misapprehend me. I’m all about recursion.

Anybody who takes a dim view of metaphysics is a type of anti-realist. — frank

No, Frank. The term has a specific meaning that you would drown by your inattention.

Sure. Take a look at Lovejoy's essay here. Keep in mind that for some strange reason, Lovejoy was very anti-German, so take his critique with a grain of salt:

https://archive.org/details/essaysphilosoph00unknuoft/page/264/mode/2up

...you misapprehend me. — Pfhorrest

I do hope so.

Cool. I'll have time tomorrow.

No, Frank. The term has a specific meaning that you would drown by your inattention. — Banno

You're wrong.

Wait, keep going. This might be your most fuck-witted feat.

Ain't it the truth?

:up:

I shouldn't have to explain that. — Wayfarer

Oh, okay. You draw distinctions without presenting any differences they make? I guess I'll just have to do without and ignore your posts, sir.

Straw man. You're trapped in the 'mind versus matter' dichotomy.

No. This "dichotomy" you're pinning on me is the strawman, Wayf. No worries though, you're entitled to your inconsistencies (& woo); I won't trouble your dogmatic slumber again.

I’m trying to tease out the contribution of the subject not just to the appearance of the object but to the essense of the object.

Even if that were the case. Now what. Ok the subject determines the ontology of the object. This isn't very revolutionary since QM. An electron isn't an electron until something looks at it. Now what?

Do you do a wayfarer and then say that "Thus the subject is a separate sort of thing from the object" or do you stay monist? I don't see the reason behind doing a wayfarer. Maybe you could enlighten me (assuming that's what you want to do).

Anyway, as I tried to say before, it's Saturday morning here, my other half is annoyed with me playing with my invisible friends, so have to sign out for a while. Bye. — Wayfarer

You should explain to your "other half" that from the fact that she cannot see us it does not follow that we are invisible. :brow:

Ok the subject determines the ontology of the object. This isn't very revolutionary since QM. — khaled

QM modifies the terms of realism but stays within its bounds. Phenomenology argues that the subject is not separate from the object. What wayfarer’s move does is turn the subject into a kind of object. Phenomenology doesn’t begin from a subject looking at an object. Rather, it begins from indissociable interaction wherein each moment of experience is an intentional act composed of a subjective and objective pole. Neither exists by itself and each reciprocally determines the other.

Here’s a critique of representational realism from a phenomenological vantage:

https://www.academia.edu/34265366/Brain_Mind_World_Predictive_coding_neo_Kantianism_and_transcendental_idealism

I think that's a disingenuous claim. — Janus

I will have another try, then.

But that observation [that there's no light inside the skull] according to your own argument, is derived from what is empirically given and hence must be (according to you) unreliable as a guide to what is real, and also does not, according to the standard definition, qualify as an a priori argument. — Janus

I think it's a priori. The skull is not transparent. The cornea is, and light strikes the receptors in the retina, but those stimuli are then interpreted - which is the point at issue.

What does it mean to be an empirical realist if not to say that the phenomena we collectively experience are independent of any mind? From my readings of Kant and his expositors I think that is what he thought. — Janus

Kant argues against Berkeley's idealism in which he agrees that there is indeed something beyond ideas themselves. But as I have already said, I don't agree that idealism means that 'the world is all in the mind'. What I'm arguing is that all knowledge of the world has an inextricably subjective component, which is not apparent in experience (as per Kant and Husserl) but without which knowledge is not possible.

Materialism and physicalism both overlook or ignore the irreducibly subjective nature of knowledge in that sense. I say that 'the physical' is itself a construct - that is why the definition continually changes. The notion of what constitutes 'the physical' is completely different now than it was a century ago, and may be completely different again in 100 years. Which is precisely Hempel's dilemma.

As to his transcendental idealism, I take that to mean that we can only speculate what things are "in themselves", or what anything even the mind itself is "in itself" via ideas, and that those ideas can never constitute knowledge. — Janus

Right - they can constitute knowledge of phenomena, but not knowledge of things as they are in themselves. I am in agreement with the quote that @Joshs provided in this post - which I take to be neo- or post-Kantian in spirit.

That is why Kant is understood to have undermined traditional metaphysics which had always been based on the idea that we have a faculty of intellectual intuition which was taken to yield knowledge of the real.

I suppose you can say that, but we can have certain knowledge of mathematical proofs, and so on.

I guess I'll just have to do without and ignore your posts, sir. — 180 Proof

No skin off my nose.

Phenomenology argues that the subject is not separate from the object. — Joshs

In what sense could we be said to be not separate from, for example, galaxies which are yet to be discovered? This would only make sense conceptually if a universal or collective mind were posited in which all the things and events we call the universe are thoughts or imaginings that our own experiences, thoughts and imaginings are "mirroring". In this view the essence of things would be ideal and physicality itself a manifestation of this ideality.

There can be no definitive evidence either way, but the assumption of mind independent energetic structures and processes is arguably the more parsimonious hypothesis, and to me, the more plausible. I acknowledge that in the final analysis plausibility, if not parsimony, is a matter of taste, though.

I suppose you can say that, but we can have certain knowledge of mathematical proofs, and so on. — Wayfarer

Sure, but mathematics is conceptual, so the knowledge there is analytic and does not by itself tell us anything about the world. It seems that the world is mathematical and patterned in structure, though, and even some animals can do rudimentary counting, so it does not seem implausible that it should evolve out of pattern recognition. Animals can also recognize things, obviously; otherwise they would be unable to survive.

What wayfarer’s move does is turn the subject into a kind of object. — Joshs

Yes and I don't like that.

Phenomenology doesn’t begin from a subject looking at an object. Rather, it begins from indissociable interaction wherein each moment of experience is an intentional act composed of a subjective and objective pole. Neither exists by itself and each reciprocally determines the other. — Joshs

As long as the "subjective and objective poles" are made of the same stuff then I can live with that. But I have a problem with splitting the things in the world into objects that need observing and observers that observe them, as 2 ontologically different categories.

Our observation ontologically "creates" reality. That's just QM (at least the versions with collapse, MWI disagrees). My problem is when people say that the observation, and observers, are different kinds of things from the things getting observed. I see no evidence for it and I a lot of problems that can arise.

What wayfarer’s move does is turn the subject into a kind of object. — Joshs

Please show me where I've done that. As far as I'm concerned that is what I've been arguing against.

My problem is when people say that the observation, and observers, are different kinds of things from the things getting observed. — khaled

So you would say that when a biologist observes lions in the wild, that the biologist is a lion?

So you would say that when a biologist observes lions in the wild, that the biologist is a lion? — Wayfarer

No but that the biologist is a bunch of matter just like the lion.

The quote says I disagree with observers and observed being different kinds of things. A lion and a biologist are the same kind of thing in many respects. Being a physical object for one.

What I disagree with is the idea that the biologist is onotologically different from the lion, not physical somehow. That seems to me to be what you're saying.

I don't think your thinking is precise enough to appreciate the distinctions that being made. If you're happy with the notion that everything is just stuff, then probably, don't waste your time on philosophy.

I think it's a priori. The skull is not transparent. The cornea is, and light strikes the receptors in the retina, but those stimuli are then interpreted - which is the point at issue. — Wayfarer

This is an empirical observation, not an a priori judgement.

Kant argues against Berkeley's idealism in which he agrees that there is indeed something beyond ideas themselves. But as I have already said, I don't agree that idealism means that 'the world is all in the mind'. What I'm arguing is that all knowledge of the world has an inextricably subjective component, which is not apparent in experience (as per Kant and Husserl) but without which knowledge is not possible.

Materialism and physicalism both overlook or ignore the irreducibly subjective nature of knowledge in that sense. — Wayfarer

I think this is a strawman. Of course all knowledge (ours at least) is human knowledge, and as such, is not independent of the human mind, or indeed, of the human body and its senses.

Berkeley argued that the world is in God's mind (any universal mind would do). Kant rejects this, and he does not posit a universal mind in which individual minds partake. Kant considers the appearances of things to be dependent on the human mind, but not things in themselves. What he says is that, although we can imagine that things in themselves are "something" we cannot imagine or understand what that something is, because any such imagination or understanding would not be (human) mind-independent. He rejects the traditional (and specifically Spinozistic) notion of the veracity of intellectual intution, and thus puts paid to traditional metaphysics.

So, in summary, it is trivially true that all knowledge of the world has an inextricably subjective component, and from that trivial truth no further knowledge may be gleaned.

it is trivially true that all knowledge of the world has an inextricably subjective component, — Janus

It is contested by all those who advocate physicalism, it's the very point at issue. Designating it 'trivially true' is simply a deflection.

I think you are wrong about that. The eliminative materialists (for example, Chruchlands) say that consciousness and experience is not what we intuitively take it to be. They do not deny (how could they?) that all knowledge is knowledge had by subjects, even if they take those subjects to be wholly physical beings.

I'll let this quote make the point for me:

“Knowledge is taken to consist in a faithful mirroring of a mind-independent reality. It is taken to be of a reality which exists independently of that knowledge, and indeed independently of any thought and experience (Williams 2005, 48). If we want to know true reality, we should aim at describing the way the world is, not just independently of its being believed to be that way, but independently of all the ways in which it happens to present itself to us human beings. An absolute conception would be a dehumanized conception, a conception from which all traces of ourselves had been removed. Nothing would remain that would indicate whose conception it is, how those who form or possess that conception experience the world, and when or where they find themselves in it. It would be as impersonal, impartial, and objective a picture of the world as we could possibly achieve (Stroud 2000, 30). How are we supposed to reach this conception? Metaphysical realism assumes that everyday experience combines subjective and objective features and that we can reach an objective picture of what the world is really like by stripping away the subjective. It consequently argues that there is a clear distinction to be drawn between the properties things have “in themselves” and the properties which are “projected by us”. Whereas the world of appearance, the world as it is for us in daily life, combines subjective and objective features, science captures the objective world, the world as it is in itself. But to think that science can provide us with an absolute description of reality, that is, a description from a view from nowhere; to think that science is the only road to metaphysical truth, and that science simply mirrors the way in which Nature classifies itself, is – according to Putnam – illusory. — Joshs

Bolds added. That's what I've been saying throughout, if it isn't clear, apologies for that.

The eliminative materialists (for example, Chruchlands) say that consciousness and experience is not what we intuitively take it to be. — Janus

But they're still trying to eliminate something. What, pray tell?

If you're happy with the notion that everything is just stuff, then probably, don't waste your time on philosophy. — Wayfarer

Ah guess every monist is wrong. Riveting argumentation.

I don't think your thinking is precise enough to appreciate the distinctions that being made. — Wayfarer

Saying "you're too dumb" in 15 words instead of 3 doesn't make it smart. Or less of an ad hom. We were being civil so far and it was enjoyable. So why?

I don't think you have enough evidence to conclude that my thinking is not precise enough. Considering so far you've talked to countless people who have had as much or more experience than you in the field and found none of their thinking to be precise enough. So either you're a genius and truly everyone is just not precise enough, or just confused. From what I've gathered, it's the latter. You think there needs to be an ontological split where it isn't necessary.

it is trivially true that all knowledge of the world has an inextricably subjective component,
— Janus

It is contested by all those who advocate physicalism. — Wayfarer

False.

Then again the way you use physicalism and idealism is weird.

I don't think any of the idealist philosophers seriously contemplate that mind is an objective constituent of things. — Wayfarer

But they're still trying to eliminate something. What, pray tell? — Wayfarer

Unnecessary ontological splitting that you haven't been able to justify despite being asked by everyone to justify it.

Knowledge is taken to consist in a faithful mirroring of a mind-independent reality. — Joshs

If knowledge is true (and if it is not then it is not knowledge at all) then it is a faithful mirroring of how things are presented to the community of inquirers. We can thus surmise that our knowledge grows out of our pre-cognitive interactions with the things in themselves, and such interactions count as mind-independent insofar as we cannot be aware of them at all.

So, I repeat that it is trivially true that all (apart from other animal) knowledge is human knowledge and thus cannot, by definition, be said to be independent of the human, and that there can be no absolute sentient being-independent knowledge; we are entitled, indeed bound, to say that much.

But they're still trying to eliminate something. What, pray tell? — Wayfarer

They are trying to eliminate the intuitive notions we have of consciousness and experience and subjectivity.

I’m trying to tease out the contribution of the subject not just to the appearance of the object but to the essense of the object. — Joshs

You really can't because the contributions of subjects to the appearances of objects are pre-cognitive. Essence is just an idea.There is no essence beyond the idea of one, or at least if there were, we could never apprehend it without it becoming just another idea, or at least we could have no way of knowing that it was anything more than just an idea.

They are trying to eliminate the intuitive notions we have of consciousness and experience and subjectivity. — Janus

No. They are saying that everything there is to know about the mind, can be known by way of the objective sciences. And that's all I have to say at this point, thanks for your responses.

No. They are saying that everything there is to know about the mind, can be known by way of the objective sciences. And that's all I have to say at this point, thanks for your responses. — Wayfarer

Everything that can be known about the brain ( at least about how it appears to us) can only be known by way of the objective sciences. We can know (directly in the sense of familiarity) our experiences, what we think and how we feel and so on, but that knowledge does not tell us anything about how they those experiences, thought and feelings came to be just as they appear to us to be.

Ah, shit. Fire is raging in this thread. Pardon my interruption.

Yes. I said "When did we add the purpose sauce" sarcastically to imply that there is no "purpose sauce". That there is no "guiding force" over and above the things that are moving. — khaled

So, without “purpose sauce” in a materialist or physicalist universe, either:

a) There is no purpose, period.
b) Everything has purpose, including little subatomic quarks and such; i.e., matter/the physical is ubiquitously purposeful and so AI purpose and human purposefulness are nothing but emergent aspects of matter’s purpose in general.
c) ???, but do express what option “c” might logically be as a rational option, if option (c) is needed.

As a reminder, I started off by claiming that there can be no purpose in a materialist/physicalist universe, this being option (a).

Also as a reminder, you’ve claimed it ridiculous that matter/the physical is of itself purposeful, thereby denying option (b), here (if I’ve misinterpreted, please clarify):

As to the natural arising part: If mater, or the physical, is that which is natural, and if this is in itself purposeful, then you are just expressing that purposeful given X arose from purposeful given Y. So there's no add-on of purpose involved — javra

Yes. That was the point of the sarcastic comment. — khaled

It's OK, you can say it if you want to: you're a materialist and for you goal-directed behavior - this, again, being purpose - is not real.