And brain states aren’t Innatism; they’re cognitive neuroscience. Or quantum biology maybe. Sure as hell ain’t proper metaphysics. — Mww

I wouldn't classify the mind-body problem, the debate between Dualism and Monism, and the debate between Innatism and Behaviourism, as not proper metaphysics.

As it should. Since it is Kant’s notion of space and time being discussed, we would use Kant’s notion of perception. Which is……? — Mww

As regards Kant's notion of perception, the the IEP article on Kant: Philosophy of Mind writes:

One has a perception, in Kant’s sense, when one can not only discriminate one thing from another, or between the parts of a single thing, based on a sensory apprehension of it, but also can articulate exactly which features of the object or objects that distinguish it from others. For instance, one can say it is green rather than red, or that it occupies this spatial location rather than that one. Intuition thus allows for the discrimination of distinct objects via an awareness of their features, while perception allows for an awareness of what specifically distinguishes an object from others.

From B147 of Critique of Pure Reason

Things in space and time, however, are only given insofar as they are perceptions (representations accompanied with sensation), hence through empirical representation.

For Kant, perception allows us to not only distinguish green from red, left from right, etc, but also to be aware of what distinguishes green from red, left from right, etc.

Things in space and time, however, are only given insofar as they are perceptions — RussellA

Good onya for the reference. Exactly the one I would have used.

Not so good in calling out red and left as things given to us in perception. What sensation do you get from left? What does up feel like? Why does a thing look red to you but the very same thing look some crappy shade of pink to me?

perception allows for an awareness of what specifically distinguishes an object from others. — RussellA

Perception allows for awareness, is just another way of saying perception is that by which awareness is possible, but says nothing whatsoever of what that awareness entails. We would never be physically aware of things if we didn’t have a sensation of them through perception.

You’ve admitted the sensation of an itch doesn’t give you the cause of it. An itch is the perception which serves as awareness of an object. But you can’t distinguish from the sensation what the object is, only that there is one.

And finally, the one thing that specifically distinguishes one thing from another, is the one thing that doesn’t belong to either, and is not perceived in our awareness of the sensation the thing gives us.
————

Anything with the slightest hint of anthropology or psychology isn’t proper metaphysics.

Kant was a genius, but his thinking shared in a serious problem common to the tradition of 'methodological solipsism' (Robert C. Solomon's term). By chance it was a line in Nietzsche that made the problem vivid for me.

... And others say even that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our body, as a part of this external world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves would be the work of our organs! — BGE

Whatever is given us as object, must be given us in intuition. All our intuition however takes place by means of the senses only; the understanding intuites nothing, but only reflects. [T]he senses never and in no manner enable us to know things in themselves, but only their appearances, which are mere representations of the sensibility, we conclude that 'all bodies, together with the space in which they are, must be considered nothing but mere representations in us, and exist nowhere but in our thoughts.' — Kant

The problem is of course that the sense organs are mere appearance and yet these merely apparent sense organs are the bedrock of the system.

Now,if I go farther, and for weighty reasons rank as mere appearances the remaining qualities of bodies also, which are called primary, such as extension, place, and in general space, with all that which belongs to it (impenetrability or materiality, space, etc.)—no one in the least can adduce the reason of its being inadmissible.[/b] As little as the man who admits colors not to be properties of the object in itself, but only as modifications of the sense of sight, should on that account be called an idealist, so little can my system be named idealistic, merely because I find that more, nay,

All the properties which constitute the intuition of a body belong merely to its appearance.

The existence of the thing that appears is thereby not destroyed, as in genuine idealism, but it is only shown, that we cannot possibly know it by the senses as it is in itself. — Kant

As far as I can make out, the vision at the base of this reasoning is of a brain, locked in the cave of the skull, constructing the world from inputs to the sense organs and concepts. But this is of course (at least) spatial reasoning. Where could ideas of the brain and its sense organs come from in the first place if not from their untrustworthy 'mere appearance' in (merely apparent) space and time ?

In ordinary life, we see people seeing. We model what they know by their spatial position relative to an event, etc. In short, common-sense time-and-space everyday experience of the bodily role in knowledge is unwittingly appealed to and used as the foundation for a system which calls this role, its own foundation, unreal -- mere appearance.

https://gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52821/52821-h/52821-h.htm

Interesting. There seems to be a similar performative contradiction in Donald Hoffman's idealist philosophy - if evolution is only about survival and does not support humans acquiring truth about reality, how does Hoffman ascertain that his metaphysics is true? I recall his response being something like - 'I don't, everything is wrong, even my theory.' Perhaps this is taking fallibilism too far.

An unorthodox hypothesis to address your concerns:

Suppose that two or more – hence, at least two – instantiations of individuated awareness co-occur. In other words, suppose solipsism to be false. (This shouldn't be that hard to hypothesize.)

The awareness-resultant time and space (one could add causality to the list as well) that is requisite of these multiple instantiations could then either be a) strictly relative to the instantiation of awareness addressed or b) equally applicable to all instantiations of awareness that in any way interact.
That space, time, and causality which falls under (b) would not be partially applicable to any but, again, would be equally applicable to all concerned. It would hence be completely impartial – objective in at least this sense – such that its occurrence would be fully independent of any one instantiation of awareness.

The process by which this objective space, time, and causality manifest could not here be that of causality. I would instead need to be the outcome of material causes in Aristotelian terms. In this case, where the ultimate constituents are these very instantiations of awareness: in this hypothetical, the cosmos’s prime matter. Its not a relation in which that which determines occurs before that determined – as causality is – but instead is one in which the two necessarily occur simultaneously.

The greater the quantity of these individuated instantiations of awareness, the more stable would their commonly shared objective world of space, time, and causation be. For example, in presuming that only humans are awareness endowed, there currently co-occur over 7 billion instantiations of awareness on Earth. Assume all life is so endowed and … one gets the picture.

In such a universe, there would then be an objective world that is perfectly impartial to the whims of any one instantiation of awareness – that is in this sense perfectly independent of individual minds. Nevertheless, this very objective world could not however occur in the absence of Kantian categories.

That said, in such a world, that which is objective would then necessarily inform each individual instantiation of awareness – skipping over a minefield of details, such that in humans the objective human brain informs, and in turn gives form to, the instantiation of first-person awareness we term our conscious selves. No brain, no instantiation of awareness; yet awareness at large, when globally conceived, remains to keep such a universe going.

--------

This is only a very rough sketch of just one possible account regarding Kantian categories and the objective world. Other accounts might also be possible to envision such that they make sense of the two. All the same, though there obviously would be innumerable details to yet work out, I so far don’t see any self-contradiction in the hypothetical just provided.

I’ve provided it only to illustrate that ways of accounting for both an objective world and the Kantian categories are not impossible to devise.

Interesting. There seems to be a similar performative contradiction in Donald Hoffman's idealist philosophy - if evolution is only about survival and does not support humans acquiring truth about reality, how does Hoffman ascertain that his metaphysics is true? I recall his response being something like - 'I don't, everything is wrong, even my theory.' Perhaps this is taking fallibilism too far. — Tom Storm

It's a bit like conspiracy theory. One seems to performs a daring skepticism but that skepticism is directed selectively indeed. At the base is a 'positive' attachment to a doctrine (equivalent to a persona) that fails to genuinely address the criticism of actual skeptics.

'The truth is there is no truth' is presented as the truth. 'There is a no world' is a presented as a fact about the world. The temptation is probably to push an awareness of individual bias to the extreme.

I would have thought that Hume based his theory of constant conjunction on our natural sensations, not on some abstract philosophical reasonings. — RussellA

Clearly, Hume's understanding of "our natural sensations" was somewhat off the mark, as I explained. Therefore what he took as being "our natural sensations", was really just some abstract philosophical reasoning.

Anyway, unless they are specifically scientific, aren't all theories about natural sensations just abstract philosophical reasonings?

As far as I can make out, the vision at the base of this reasoning is of a brain, locked in the cave of the skull, constructing the world from inputs to the sense organs and concepts. But this is of course (at least) spatial reasoning. Where could ideas of the brain and its sense organs come from in the first place if not from their untrustworthy 'mere appearance' in (merely apparent) space and time? — plaque flag

I think there's an error in your reasoning here. Recognising that the brain synthesises sensory inputs with pre-existing knowledge is not 'spatial reasoning', but comes from direct analysis of how cognitive processes and reason operate together. That analysis doesn't comprise, for instance, literally looking at how areas of the brain react to various types of stimuli, as neuroscience does, which would clearly take place in the objective domain.

A priori knowledge - things that are known by reason alone - doesn't arise from experience, as a matter of definition for Kant. (I understand that Quine and other current philosophers have called this into question but I'll leave that aside for now.) Instead, that faculty is required for us to make sense of experiences, to understand the relations between the different data of experience, and to sequence them as existing in time and space. The mind (or the brain) does all of this, as is nowadays well-attested in cognitive science. The key point is, contra empiricist philosophy, the mind is not a passive recipient, a tabula rasa, receiving impressions from the pre-existing world, but an active agent who synthesises impressions with existing knowledge to generate a unified world-picture (this is the topic of the 'subjective unity of experience').

'There is a no world' is a presented as a fact about the world. — plaque flag

That is not what Kant is saying. Distinguishing between the world as it appears to us, and the world as it is in itself, doesn't say that the former is merely illusory or non-existent or dream-like. It's simply a statement about an inherent limitation of what we know as embodied rational creatures. Kant recognises that you can be at once an empirical realist and a transcendental idealist.

The two key paragraphs are these:

I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves. To this idealism is opposed transcendental realism, which regards space and time as something given in themselves (independent of our sensiblity). The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding. (CPR, A369)

Having carefully distinguished between transcendental idealism and transcendental realism, Kant then goes on to introduce the concept of empirical realism:

The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum. For because he allows this matter and even its inner possibility to be valid only for appearance– which, separated from our sensibility, is nothing – matter for him is only a species of representations (intuition), which are called external, not as if they related to objects that are external in themselves but because they relate perceptions to space, where all things are external to one another, but that space itself is in us. (A370)

A priori knowledge - things that are known by reason alone - doesn't arise from experience, as a matter of definition for Kant. — Wayfarer

I believe that is untrue. Kant as I remember it, acknowledges that all knowledge begins with experience. The synthetic a priori is knowledge which has been synthesized by reflection on and generalization from experience, and which, once acquired, is henceforth independent of experience for its validation.

@Mww?

According to Kant, a priori knowledge refers to knowledge that is independent of experience, meaning it is derived from reason and logic alone. This type of knowledge is not derived from sensory perception or empirical observations. A priori knowledge is considered to be universal and necessary, applying to all possible instances.

a posteriori knowledge, also known as empirical knowledge, is acquired through experience and observation of the external world. It is contingent on particular sensory perceptions and is derived from specific instances or examples.

Kant argued that both a priori and a posteriori knowledge are necessary for a comprehensive understanding of the world. He believed that while a posteriori knowledge provides us with factual information about the empirical world, a priori knowledge enables us to have synthetic judgments, which go beyond mere analysis of concepts and provide us with genuine knowledge of the world.

According to Kant, a priori knowledge refers to knowledge that is independent of experience, meaning it is derived from reason and logic alone. — Wayfarer

How could you have an understanding of space or time if you had never been embodied in a spatiotemporal realm? Reason and logic alone are empty and by themselves can give us nothing, being as they are merely formal codifications of the rules that govern "correct" thinking.

“But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.” This is from the CPR.

It's a subtle point but I take it to mean that a priori knowledge is not directly apprehended in experience but is derived by reflecting on its general characteristics. For example, we might say that we do not directly experience space and time, but we do experience objects as always being spatially extended and temporally enduring. This re-cognition can then be generalized to the a priori principle that all experiences must be given either temporally or spatially or both.

Without prior experience to reflect upon (without memory in other words), how would we ever be able to discover such principles? The only way then would be to examine present experience, and see that, yes, all the objects in my field of vision are spatially and temporally extended although the temporal part might be a bit difficult to realize without any memory at all.

I'm open to the possibility of an intricate tale that absorbs this piece of Kant and saves it from immediate self-cancellation. But this is an extremely low bar ! In the same way, maybe the God of Abraham did create the world, about 6000 years ago, and put in all kinds of misleading stuff like the 'wrong' amount of radioactive carbon, etc., for who knows what reason.

I'm trying to emphasize the huge gap between the distantly maybe possible (with lots of effort) and that which we can fairly confidently take for granted as we discuss more outlandish possibilities. Kant is offering something that's supposed to be foundational, but it's outlandish, and he doesn't even see the issue I addressed (at least I am not aware of him addressing it.)

Without prior experience to reflect upon (without memory in other words), how would we ever be able to discover such principles? — Janus

I think you nailed it. I project what I learn from the past into the future. So I know (or think I know) some things about events that haven't happened yet. The knowledge is prior to the experience of those events, not to experience in general.

I know (I have license to assert and expect) that any 3-sided polygons I stumble upon will have angles that sum to $\pi$ ( radian measure). But I know this because of the study of Euclid in the past.

“But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.” This is from the CPR. — Janus

I remember various appreciators of Kant stressing his realization of how actively the mind projects hypotheses. Isn't the updated version basically the denial of the blank slate ? Without the absurd denial of the reality of brain, thankfully.

This is only a very rough sketch of just one possible account regarding Kantian categories and the objective world. — javra

It occurs to me that any such sketch is aimed at describing the world. Your words are understood to be relevant to me. Communication that intends truth assumes (tacitly) a single world that encompasses all participants, and any relatively private subspaces (personal imaginations, maybe qualia) that might be allowed to them, as well as a set of shared semantic-logical norms. I see all this as a unified phenomenon.

More on this here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13308/our-minimal-epistemic-commitment-fixing-descartes-cogito/p1

You’re both right. There is a priori knowledge derived from extant experience, but in Kant, the stipulation is made that when he talks of a priori knowledge, he means absent any and all experience. The first is “impure”, the second, “pure”, and the second is the meaning throughout. This stipulation is on the first pages of the entire treatise, indicating its importance.

“….. Knowledge à priori is either pure or impure. Pure knowledge à priori is that with which no empirical element is mixed up. By the term “knowledge à priori,” therefore, we shall in the sequel understand, not such as is independent of this or that kind of experience, but such as is absolutely so of all experience. Opposed to this is empirical knowledge, or that which is possible only à posteriori, that is, through experience....”

The synthetic/analytic dichotomy, however, relates to judgement alone, insofar as these distinguish only the relative content of conceptions in a proposition to each other, which is a function of understanding. We can say we have knowledge based on synthetic a priori cognitions, but that is not to say we have synthetic a priori knowledge. Case in point, that every change universally and necessarily presupposes a cause, is a synthetic proposition understood purely a priori, but change is itself an empirical conception entirely dependent on intuitions, which makes explicit any knowledge derived from it, is empirical.

And if that doesn’t work for you, check out his simple arithmetic brainstorm.

Hope that helps, at least a little….

It occurs to me that any such sketch is aimed at describing the world. Your words are understood to be relevant to me. Communication that intends truth assumes (tacitly) a single world that encompasses all participants, and any relatively private subspaces (personal imaginations, maybe qualia) that might be allowed to them, as well as a set of shared semantic-logical norms. I see all this as a unified phenomenon. — plaque flag

Yes, precisely so.

More on this here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13308/our-minimal-epistemic-commitment-fixing-descartes-cogito/p1 — plaque flag

There’s a lot to the link you’ve shared. Descartes was a man in search of infallible knowledge. I’m one to believe such cannot be had. This ala Cicero et al. – the very folk Descartes wanted to disprove. My fallible reasoning for upholding fallibilism? Our lack of omniscience entails that no one can ever prove that, in the span of all remaining time, no one will ever find valid reason for why some proposition X which is currently held by us as true might, in fact, not be true – thereby mandating that proposition X can only technically remain liable to being wrong, this irrespective of what it might be: including “I am” and “1 + 1 = 2”. But this is not to deny that our fallible knowledge comes in a wide array of different strengths: that “1 + 1 = 2” is not on a par to “it will rain tomorrow” (both of which can well be knowledge claims).

At any rate, this epistemological issue of fallibilism vs. infallibilism aside, there remains this question:

If there are universals among, at the very least, all human beings – to include identical aspects of our cognition as a species, the occurrence of other humans, and the reality of an objective world commonly shared by all – how might these universal truths be discerned or discovered without any investigation into what is in fact actual relative to the individual subject? This such as that which Kant engaged in in his discovering of the categories.

And for this, the individual subject must first be evidenced to in fact be.

Yes, precisely so. — javra

:up:

I think we agree on fallibilism.

There’s a lot to the link you’ve shared. Descartes was a man in search of infallible knowledge. I’m one to believe such cannot be had. — javra

Just to be clear, I didn't expect you to read all of that thread. I think many philosophers have tried to establish a safe base of operations, a relatively certain center from which to speculate.

My suggested 'core' (which I think is what Karl-Otto Apel was getting at) is what you seemed to accept also.

Communication that intends truth assumes (tacitly) a single world that encompasses all participants, and any relatively private subspaces (personal imaginations, maybe qualia) that might be allowed to them, as well as a set of shared semantic-logical norms. — plaque flag

To deny this leads to performative contradiction, so it's something like non-emprical knowledge (approximately analytic). As philosophers ( I claim) we can rule out self-contradiction right away. Personally I tend to also rule out fancy words that merely hide ignorance. The classic example is explaining the existence of the world, very complex already, with an even more complex god which itself is left unexplained. In other words, I vote for open-mindedness within the limits of telling a coherent story and recognizing and avoiding pseudo-explanations. I think we agree on an awareness of ignorance --on keeping the darkness visible.

Recognising that the brain synthesises sensory inputs with pre-existing knowledge is not 'spatial reasoning', but comes from direct analysis of how cognitive processes and reason operate together. — Wayfarer

I don't mean anything fancy by spatial reasoning. I mean the most barbarically obvious common sense of brains being inside skulls, connected to the spinal cord. I mean realizing that the optic nerve runs from the eye to the brain. I mean looking at other human beings and seeing their sense organs and understanding that their awareness (reports of beliefs and feelings) is a function of (among other things) the spatial and temporal relationship between sense organs and events and objects in the world. Barbarically obvious common sense. Nothing fancier.

And let me stress that I'm not averse to challenging common sense. But one cannot, if one cares about developing a rational system of beliefs in the first place, simultaneously use commonsense to argue against that same common sense. The following is absurd : 'Sense organs are mere appearances (not real) because sense organs are so real that they create reality.'

It says something about us humans that we so easily tell ourselves such confused stories. We take a sensible awareness of the importance of the individual human nervous to ridiculous self-cancelling extremes. (Others pretend they can do without the world-encompassed nervous system in the opposite 'antispiritual' direction.)

I think many philosophers have tried to establish a safe base of operations, a relatively certain center from which to speculate.

My suggested 'core' (which I think is what Karl-Otto Apel was getting at) is what you seemed to accept also.

"Communication that intends truth assumes (tacitly) a single world that encompasses all participants, and any relatively private subspaces (personal imaginations, maybe qualia) that might be allowed to them, as well as a set of shared semantic-logical norms." — plaque flag — plaque flag

Yes, there most certainly is agreement here. If I were to nitpick, I’ve at least so far found that addressing the totality you've just outlined leaves one with few options to then proceed in formulating conclusions from this - what we both find to be - sound premise. Such as in manners that could stand up to those who find doubt for the given affirmation, in part or in whole. That said, to each their own paths in enquiry just as in life.

In relation to this, although maybe coming out of left field: Though I don’t have tremendous respect for the person who said it, I can jive with the aphorism, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” It’s just that, in the non-solipsistic world we in fact inhabit, I find this implicitly entails that there are consequences to everything we will – sooner or later, in one form or another. Hence, action and consequence; cause and effect. … But this isn’t pivotal to the topic at hand. Still, I do like the aphorism. In a way, it reminds me of the better aspects of Nietzsche.

In other words, I vote for open-mindedness within the limits of telling a coherent story and recognizing and avoiding pseudo-explanations. I think we agree on an awareness of ignorance --on keeping the darkness visible. — plaque flag

In agreement here as well. And very well said.

Though I don’t have tremendous respect for the person who said it, I can jive with the aphorism, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” — javra

In a similar way, I think there's a worthy insight wrapped up in Stirner's work. From Brandom I get the idea that the autonomy project is at the very heart of the Enlightenment. Lucifer is the light bringer. Socrates questions everything. Presuppositionless is the freedom of a god.

Roughly speaking, Stirner's points about the radically free ego are like Hegel's points about a community that's transcended its alienation. That alienation is the 'illusion' (necessary like training wheels, for awhile) that the species has to ethically account for itself to something outside it. To be sure, our environment constrains us practically, but that's a different issue. Stirner recaptures (reiterates in a new lingo) what was already in Romantics like Schlegel --the idea of an infinite irony, the transcendental buffoon. I suppose some of this is in DADA too. We'd probably agree that it feels bad to be cruel or petty. So the person aware of 'insane' freedom tends even to be nice. A sense of the infinite puts one in a good mood. I speculate that maybe even the Buddha saw such freedom but didn't bother talking much about 'the dark side of the force.'

In a way, it reminds me of the better aspects of Nietzsche. — javra

Yeah, Nietzsche's golden passages are transcendent and joyous and sweetly wicked.

If there are universals among, at the very least, all human beings – to include identical aspects of our cognition as a species, the occurrence of other humans, and the reality of an objective world commonly shared by all – how might these universal truths be discerned or discovered without any investigation into what is in fact actual relative to the individual subject? — javra

To finally reply to this (though I think you and I have already come to agreement on it) [ so this might be redundant for those who have grasped the point already ] :

My approach can't talk the madman out of his madness. What I'm trying to do is find the assumptions (often tacit) that must have already been made in order to play the game of philosophy in the first place.

So I respond to the person who makes certain claims by pointing out that their claims are a performative contradiction. The person who doesn't believe in a world that encompasses us both and a language we can discuss it in is (if somehow sincere and actually thinkable) simply insane -- cannot even count as a philosopher. In short, the very concept of philosophy implies/assumes a encompassing-shard world-language that individuals can be wrong about (or more or less correct about, etc.)

We'd probably agree that it feels bad to be cruel or petty. So the person aware of 'insane' freedom tends even to be nice. A sense of the infinite puts one in a good mood. I speculate that maybe even the Buddha saw such freedom but didn't bother talking much about 'the dark side of the force.' — plaque flag

Yeah, Nietzsche's golden passages are transcendent and joyous and sweetly wicked. — plaque flag

Couldn't help but given a joyful smile at this. Something about Nietzche's own aphorism of a beast of burden which, upon taking too large of load, transmutes into a predatory carnivore fighting off the monster or "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not" which, upon liberating itself of this monster, again transmutes into a babe newly birthed into the world ... one of his insights that has always stayed with me. As far as I know, it certainly fits the mythos of the Buddha underneath the tree in the wilderness. And it doesn't strike me as the only mythos to which it could apply.

And it doesn't strike me as the only mythos to which it could apply. — javra

:up:

You ever looked into Finnegans Wake ? It's a wild wheel that's built on archetypes. It's as if Joyce had studied so many plots that they all bled together. Language itself had to melt to capture the liquidity of symbolic reality. He wanted to share a timeless consciousness. Jung's essay on Joyce's Ulysses is also profound. Starts negative but gets more and more complimentary and insightful, as if he was grokking it as he griped.

The person who doesn't believe in a world that encompasses us both and a language we can discuss it in is (if somehow sincere and actually thinkable) simply insane -- cannot even count as a philosopher. In short, the very concept of philosophy implies/assumes a encompassing-shard world-language, exceeding individual philosophers (else it's just mysticism or something.) — plaque flag

Fair enough! Still, there are some who do maintain that the philosopher, as an individual subject (subjected to the very same world of objects and logic to which everyone else is an equal subject of), is strictly illusion ... a view which, once analyzed, I so far find leaves the universality of this shared world in shambles. This though such philosophers wholeheartedly disagree. What can one say. One tries as a self-purported and always imperfect lover of wisdom to discern what is true from what isn't as best one can.

I don't mean anything fancy by spatial reasoning. I mean the most barbarically obvious common sense of brains being inside skulls, connected to the spinal cord. — plaque flag

Here, though, ‘the brain’ could easily have been replaced with ‘the mind’ which is not so amenable to that kind of description.

Sense organs in situ are not objects in the world, unless you’re studying them as an optometrist, for example. They are fundamentally elements of experience - they’re referred to in Buddhism as ‘sense-gates’. They’re provide the perceptions which are constitutive of experience and perception.

It says something about us humans that we so easily tell ourselves such confused stories. — plaque flag

What ‘confused story’ are you referring to? Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason?

You ever looked into Finnegans Wake ? — plaque flag

No, not yet at least. I tried Joyce's Ulysses but - just as with Virginia Woolf - though I recognize the genius in the work, it so far hasn't spoken to me. Maybe I'll check out Jung's analysis though, sounds quite worthwhile.

You’re both right. There is a priori knowledge derived from extant experience, but in Kant, the stipulation is made that when he talks of a priori knowledge, he means absent any and all experience. — Mww

Only one of us said that :-)

there are some who do maintain that the philosopher, as an individual subject (subjected to the very same world of objects and logic to which everyone else is an equal subject of), is strictly illusion — javra

My retort to them would be: please explain what illusion can even mean without a person in a world they can be wrong about.