Here is the nub of the issue as I see it:

The key distinction (between the Aristotelian and Kantian) is that Aristotelian noumena are still connected to the world of phenomena and provide an explanatory role for the properties of things, whereas Kantian noumena are unknowable things-in-themselves that are entirely beyond our experience and understanding. Kant's noumena do not serve as explanatory principles for phenomena but rather as a limitation on the scope of human cognition.

This leads to the criticism that Kant's analysis cuts us off from the world, entrapping us in our own subjectively-modulated reality.

Contrast this with an account from a current neo-scholastic:

Characterized by forms, reality had an intrinsic intelligibility, not just in each of its parts but as a whole. With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble.

In short, the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality. Preoccupied with overcoming Cartesian skepticism, it often seems as if (modern) philosophy’s highest aspiration is merely to secure some veridical cognitive events. Rarely sought is a more robust goal: an authoritative and life-altering wisdom. — Joshua Hochschild, What's Wrong with Ockham?

We have intuitions. — RussellA

Really? Do you think so? We claim to have sensations. We claim to have thoughts, and ideas. But do we have intuitions? "Intuition" appears to refer to a faculty or means by which we obtain knowledge directly, without the need for sensation nor reasoning. I assume "an intuition" would be an object of knowledge acquired through intuition.

But is it really appropriate to call something acquired through intuition, Knowledge? Don't we assume a separation between the cause and the effect, as if each of these refers to something distinct from the other? So if intuition is the means by which someone might obtain a specific type of knowledge, it would be the cause of this type of knowledge. Then why would we call the knowledge itself, as the effect derived from this cause, "an intuition"? Consider, "a thought" refers to a past act of thinking, which is the cause of the currently existing "thought", and this is way that "a thought" as an effect, is differentiated from the act of thinking, as the cause.

Yet without intuition you can't have faith, the act Kant considered the crown of practical reason

They seem very much of a piece don't they? That the evolution of language and reason would go hand in hand, would it not? That would not be a controversial claim would it?

I think this aspect of Kant's philosophy - his treatment of the noumenal - is a deficiency. I'm still working out why, but the outlines are becoming clearer. — Quixodian

Yes. I think abstract reasoning and language are codependent; you could not learn to think in abstract terms without language, and you could not learn to employ language adequately without the ability to think abstractly.

So, I agree with what you seem to be suggesting: that rudimentary language which plausibly would have consisted in sounds or gestures used to indicate just particular things, moods and actions to begin with, probably would have evolved into the use of sounds or gestures to indicate types of things, moods and actions and so on, and that that would be the beginning of abstraction. Gestures might have resembled what they were meant to represent: this would be a kind of drawing with the hands and arms in the air, but sounds could only resemble other sounds, not visual phenomena.

It is generally accepted that writing came much later and probably at first consisted in pictographs, which convey meaning by resembling what they depict. Once this is possible, the ability to recognize general patterns must have already been in place. The question is whether animals have this ability to recognize general patterns, which I think they must, since they can obviously recognize their own kinds, their food or prey, water, shelter and so on. This is not yet abstraction, which would plausibly be a further development characterized by a symbol representing something which it does not actually resemble.

This is all just armchair speculation of course and it presents a probably grossly over-simplified picture of the evolution of language and the ability to reason abstractly.

A mental image of a chiliagon cannot be clearly distinguished from a mental image of a 1,002-sided figure, or even from a mental image of a circle.The concept of a chiliagon is clearly distinct from the concept of a 1,002-sided figure or the concept of a circle. Likewise I cannot clearly differentiate a mental image of a crowd of one million people from a mental image of a crowd of 900,000 people. But reason easily grasps the difference between the concept of a crowd of one million people and the concept of a crowd of 900,000 people (from Ed Feser). — Quixodian

Maybe I've misunderstood. Are you saying that the difficulty in picturing a chiiliagon is the same as that for picturing noumena? That's certainly not how I understand it.

I’m no Taoist, that's for sure, but in western philosophy generally and Enlightenment German idealism in particular, anything experienced has already been conceptualized, and therefore can be spoken about. — Mww

I disagree that "anything experienced has already been conceptualized" is necessarily true. I think it is possible to experience reality - noumena or the Tao - directly without conceptualization.

The key distinction (between the Aristotelian and Kantian) is that Aristotelian noumena are still connected to the world of phenomena and provide an explanatory role for the properties of things, whereas Kantian noumena are unknowable things-in-themselves that are entirely beyond our experience and understanding. Kant's noumena do not serve as explanatory principles for phenomena but rather as a limitation on the scope of human cognition. — Quixodian

I'm accepting what @Mww presented regarding Kant's intent, which does not equate noumena with things in themselves, but that leaves me wondering what, if anything noumena are. We know what things in themselves are inasmuch as they are thought to be what gives rise to phenomena. This means we do know things in themselves insofar as they appear to us, but we do not know what they are in themselves and can only speculate. Are they actual independent existents, or can the fact that we all see the same things be explained by our minds being connected with one another in some way we cannot be conscious of, or with some universal mind that "thinks" the objects we encounter every day? Or is there some other explanation we cannot even (at present or ever?) imagine?

Those are the kinds of metaphysical possibilities we can imagine, but we have no way to test them, or even to know if they have any relevance at all to the actual nature of what is happening. We don't know anything at all, metaphysically speaking, it seems.

Do you mean it is "useful" in the sense of being inspiring? — Janus

Example - I think a materialist approach to reality is useful for doing science. Conceptually breaking the world down into pieces - analysis - allows us to grasp the pieces and manipulate them for our purposes. That doesn't mean materialism is true.

Another - An idealist approach is useful when doing mathematics. Seeing mathematical entities as real allows us to work with them without contradiction. I've read that mathematicians tend to be idealists. Again, that doesn't mean idealism is true.

I disagree that "anything experienced has already been conceptualized" is necessarily true. I think it is possible to experience reality - noumena or the Tao - directly without conceptualization. — T Clark

But is it possible to say anything intelligible about that experience? (I'm not referring to poetic language here, I'm thinking of propositional intelligibility).

I can get what you are saying, but I don't doubt that an idealist can do science just as well as a materialist, or that a materialist can do mathematics as effectively as an idealist.

Kant named the noumena such because all we can do is think about it. It is never in our direct experience. — Gregory

Kant can be a wordy, inconsistent, confusing philosopher. The same is true of Lao Tzu. They both use the same words to mean different things at different times to suit their purposes. I don't know Kant well enough to know whether he and I mean the same thing when we talk about "experience." I'm not even sure Lao Tzu and other Taoist philosophers would agree with me.

So, do you think abstract reasoning is possible without language? — Janus

They seem very much of a piece don't they? That the evolution of language and reason would go hand in hand, would it not? That would not be a controversial claim would it? — Quixodian

I do think that language is necessary for abstract reasoning.

I think this aspect of Kant's philosophy - his treatment of the noumenal - is a deficiency. I'm still working out why, but the outlines are becoming clearer. — Quixodian

I think any philosophy that doesn't address the unspeakable, unknowable foundation of reality is missing something. I like the way Kant has formulated it, made it such as prominent part of his philosophy, but there parts of his take I don't agree with or don't understand enough to disagree with.

But is it possible to say anything intelligible about that experience? — Janus

Sure, but what gets said then is conceptualized. For me, that's the essence of the unspeakable - whatever it is, when you speak about it it becomes something different. It's important to recognize that, although I can process, conceptualize what I've experienced, it is not necessary that I do so.

I can get what you are saying, but I don't doubt that an idealist can do science just as well as a materialist, or that a materialist can do mathematics as effectively as an idealist. — Janus

I don't disagree, but I do think a materialist approach leads more naturally to a scientific understanding. It's also important to recognize that you can use more than one approach depending on the specific subject. You can see things materialistically when you're doing science and idealistically when you're doing math. We are not tied to a single metaphysical foundation.

Do you mean it is "useful" in the sense of being inspiring? — Janus

I'm thinking more about my response. I didn't really answer your question. I didn't like your use of "inspiring" but as I think more I think there is truth in it, although I'm not sure "inspiring" is the right word. I think materialism greases the skids for scientific thinking. It makes it easier to think about scientific questions, at least as those questions are generally formulated in today's science.

Are you saying that the difficulty in picturing a chiiliagon is the same as that for picturing noumena? — T Clark

It’s given as an example of a concept that is easy to grasp in principle, but is almost impossible to form or recognise an image of. In its context it was provided to illustrate the difference between concepts and mental images. But it also serves to illustrate the idea of ‘an object of mind’ i.e. you can understand it rationally even despite the difficulty of grasping its phenomenal depiction.

Remember the original distinction in question was between ‘phenomenal’ (what appears) and noumenal (what is discerned by reason, therefore what ‘truly is’.) As noted Kant altered the meaning of ‘noumena’ in line with his philosophical requirements.

Those are the kinds of metaphysical possibilities we can imagine, but we have no way to test them, or even to know if they have any relevance at all to the actual nature of what is happening. We don't know anything at all, metaphysically speaking, it seems. — Janus

I think you’re expressing the predicament of modern culture. That’s exactly what it seems, and the modern philosophers, including Kant, are who made it that way.

"Intuition" appears to refer to a faculty or means by which we obtain knowledge directly, without the need for sensation nor reasoning. — Metaphysician Undercover

In today's terms it's referred to as Innatism. Chomsky mentions it.

But is it really appropriate to call something acquired through intuition, Knowledge? — Metaphysician Undercover

SEP - Innateness and Language
The philosophical debate over innate ideas and their role in the acquisition of knowledge has a venerable history.

Wikipedia - Innatism
In the philosophy of mind, innatism is the view that the mind is born with already-formed ideas, knowledge, and beliefs.

Yet without intuition you can't have faith, the act Kant considered the crown of practical reason — Gregory

Faith is not a type of knowledge. Is it a cause of knowledge?

In today's terms it's referred to as Innatism. Chomsky mentions it. — RussellA

Well, where is Chomsky when you need him?

SEP - Innateness and Language
The philosophical debate over innate ideas and their role in the acquisition of knowledge has a venerable history. — RussellA

Here, "the acquisition of knowledge" is mentioned. But surely there is a difference between the conditions required for the acquisition of knowledge, and knowledge itself.

Wikipedia - Innatism
In the philosophy of mind, innatism is the view that the mind is born with already-formed ideas, knowledge, and beliefs. — RussellA

I do not think that what might be called "innate knowledge" would classify as "knowledge" under a strict epistemological definition, like justified true belief. And since these two senses pf "knowledge" must be different, then there is ambiguity and the possibility of equivocation in any logical argument proceeding from the premise that we are born with "knowledge".

This is why Aristotle distinguished between different types of "potentials". We are born with the capacity to obtain knowledge, and this is a specific type of potential, as the capacity to learn. After we learn, we have a different type of potential, we've ascended to a higher level, which is the actual possession of knowledge. The two, what we are born with, and what we acquire, are in the same general category, as "potential", but they are very different in character because one is logically prior to the other, as a necessary condition for it.

If we use the very general category, "potential" to refer to them both, there is less chance of equivocation, because unless specified, "potential" refers to a very general category. "Knowledge", on the other hand is more often used in the more specific sense of epistemology. So talking about a type of "knowledge" which we are born with is more conducive to equivocation because many people think of :knowledge as what we acquire through learning and education, and something which is justified through the use of language. But we do not possess the skill of language when we are born, just an innate condition which inclines us with the desire to learn.

whatever they are beyond our cognitions of, and cogitations about, them seems to be obviously beyond the scope of our experience and understanding.

But that's exactly what the noumenal world is, and why some philosophers reject it in the first place. Saying our perceptions are somehow "knowing," these things begs the question. How could we possibly prove that our perceptions are actually "of" these noumena? If we can't, why bother positing it? Once you start positing unknowable entities, why stop at any one point? Why not posit an infinite number of shadow realms?

And, if noumena can be known by phenomena, then why do the attempts to map the noumenal world as such, the "view from nowhere," run into so many problems?

In any event, the other critique is of Kant's entire process. It isn't undogmatic, it jumps from judgement to assuming, dogmatically, all of Aristotle's categories. So there is a methodological critique as early we Fichte.

The alternative to thinking there is something "behind" phenomena would be phenomenalism, and to me that cannot explain how it is that we share a common world.

It's an alternative, I don't think it's the only one. Hegel's Absolute Idealism for example supposes there is something "above," not "behind" subjective experience, something that subsumes both experience and nature.

As an Indirect Realist, having an innate belief in cause and effect, I may not know the cause of an appearance, but I know that there has been a cause.

Sure, but just asserting that as so begs the question re: whether Kant is talking nonsense or not. Of course it isn't nonsense if the noumenal is the cause of the phenomenal. However, that's assuming the thing in question is already true. What epistemic grounds can Kant have for the proof of such noumena that don't rely on presuppositions—on dogma? He can't have any empircal support for such things, by his own admission.

The question is about if Kant has any grounds at all for saying that the noumena exists. I don't think "how else could we all see the same things," works given his critical project. You can't pull an entire shadow realm out of your hat as an ad hoc explanation for a question brought to us by empirical experience. This falls victim to a form of the old John Edwards Cosmological Argument. Once we have things we can never know existing "behind," the phenomenological world, why stop with one set of things? Why not posit an infinity of inaccessible worlds sitting atop or below our own? This gets into Delarocca's 10,000 glass spheres sitting atop each other territory.

Put in more modern terms, we can ask whether the noumena has any explanatory power at all and why we should even consider it? I don't see a good "critical" argument in Kant. It's there as a dogmatic given by both our history and our faculties. If the noumena's existence or non-existence is the same, always and forever for all observers, then its being and non-being are coidentical for all observers, always and forever. So, why posit it?

As Mww has pointed out, and if he is right, things in themselves are not noumena. — Janus

Far be it from me to claim I’m right, but I know what I read and I’m pretty sure I understood what I read.

“…. things in themselves, while possessing a real existence….” (Bxx)

“…. cogitated by the understanding alone, and call them intelligible existences (noumena).” (B306)
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we can have no idea about its (our thinking’s) soundness except it has empirical or logical justification. — Janus

Exactly. Empirical justification is experience, logical justification is non-contradiction.
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Is abstract reasoning not all and only a matter of language use? — Janus

Interesting. In what way would that be true?
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I disagree that "anything experienced has already been conceptualized" is necessarily true. — T Clark

Absolutely. That proposition is merely a theoretical tenet, hence shouldn’t be considered as necessarily true. It is still worthy of being considered nonetheless logically consistent and sufficiently explanatory.
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This leads to the criticism that Kant's analysis cuts us off from the world, entrapping us in our own subjectively-modulated reality. — Quixodian

Do you consider that a legitimate criticism?

….an example of a concept that is easy to grasp in principle, but is almost impossible to form or recognise an image of. — Quixodian

Correctly stated in Descartes, its formal exposition found in “Schematism of the Pure Understanding”, for whatever it’s worth. It is actually quite impossible to prove with apodeictic certainty one has accurately constructed a complex image in complete homogenous correspondence to its mere thought.

But surely there is a difference between the conditions required for the acquisition of knowledge, and knowledge itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

The distinction between knowing-how and knowing-that was brought to prominence in epistemology by Gilbert Ryle who used it in his book The Concept of Mind

As regards the concept of the colour red, which is descriptive knowledge, I know that vehicles need to stop at traffic lights on red . As regards the intuition of the colour red, which is procedural knowledge, the brain knows how to perceive the colour red when presented with a wavelength of 700nm.

Knowledge can exist in the absence of consciousness, as with a knowledge-base.

The brain knows how to acquire knowledge. IE, the brain has the innate knowledge of how to acquire knowledge.

Kant altered the meaning of ‘noumena’ in line with his philosophical requirements. — Quixodian

Oddly true, and slightly disappointing, in juxtaposition to…..

“…. even if the original meaning of the word has become somewhat uncertain, from carelessness or want of caution on the part of the authors of it, it is always better to adhere to and confirm its proper meaning—even although it may be doubtful whether it was formerly used in exactly this sense—than to make our labour vain by want of sufficient care to render ourselves intelligible….” (A312/B369)

….and even if noumena wasn’t an example of what he was saying, it remains that he is tacitly suggesting the original meaning of some words are not as they should have been, which justifies the robbery of a word in its original sense, and substitute for it a different sense, in order to render himself more intelligible than the original would have allowed.

I guess the point was…better to rob an old word with its altered implications for which a reader might adjust himself, than to manufacture a new one for which he can’t.

I guess the point was…better to rob an old word with its altered implications for which a reader might adjust himself, than to manufacture a new one for which he can’t.

Indeed. The problem with making up a new vocabulary is that it acts as a barrier to communications. Although, using existing terms in a specialized, technical sense, especially if it's a compound phrase of multiple words, also tends to clog up our prose and make things less readable. I am not sure what the right play is here.

I originally thought one of the best arguments against the "presuppositionlessness" of Hegel's Greater Logic was that the language he is using necessarily presupposes many things. This brings to mind Nietzsche's critique that we allow the structure of grammar to shape how we think the world should be.

I have since decided that this argument against Kant, Hegel, and others, and the entire "linguistic turn," while it makes some good points, suffers from the tendency to expand theses into a maximalist version of themselves. The evidence for the "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis," the idea that the language that we speak fundementally shapes how we experience the world, turns out to be quite weak. Yeah, you have some statistically significant differences in how speakers of different languages can recall colors based on the way their language divides up the visible spectrum, but the distributions largely overlap and the effect is mild. Eskimos having so many words for snow is better explained by how their language is structured. The "cognitive shaping," of language turns out to look fairly mild. This seems like an instance of making a mountain out of a molehill; the Whorfian view was so readily embraced because people wanted it to be true.

Moreover, modern cognitive science suggests that the systems we use to understand language, to visualize prose, to glean syntax from incoming messages, is exactly the same systems we use for sense perception used in largely the same ways. Visualizing prose is done by running information through the same processing areas that we use for visualizing sight. Disorders like associative agnosia, where people can draw an object they see perfectly but can't recognize what the thing is, or is called, shows how modular cognition is, relying on a bunch of specialized systems.

This says to me that the division between "sense perception," and "language," is overblown, we have bleed through everywhere. Nor does there seem to be one "private language," of thought, but multiple "private languages," for different specialized systems to communicate between one another.

This doesn't counter the post-modern insight that the same messages mean different things to different people. That's true, it's just not true in virtue of the nature of language. The same message, same environments, also mean different things to us at different times to use based on trivial differences like being hungry, our emotional state, etc.

From the very birth of semiotics, with Augustine, there has been the question of how we can possibly communicate when we are all "locked in" to our own phenomenal bubble. Locke sees this same problem. Thus, I don't really think Kant changed much on this front, and fears of his dualism on the grounds that it "cuts us off from one another," seem misplaced. Nor does language "cut us off from one another," quite the opposite. Expressionist semiotics seems to miss that we essentially construct/hallucinate our enviornment, and we use the same natural processes to construct/hallucinate other's views of their enviornment when we communicate with them. It's not a categorical difference.

Are they actual independent existents, or can the fact that we all see the same things be explained by our minds being connected with one another in some way we cannot be conscious of, or with some universal mind that "thinks" the objects we encounter every day? Or is there some other explanation we cannot even (at present or ever?) imagine? — Janus

I think the answer is simpler. We all have human minds with similar capacities. Those minds are stuffed full of knowledge about the world and how it works, much of which is taught to us by other people. That's how our minds are connected with each other.

I disagree that "anything experienced has already been conceptualized" is necessarily true.
— T Clark

Absolutely. That proposition is merely a theoretical tenet, hence shouldn’t be considered as necessarily true. It is still worthy of being considered nonetheless logically consistent and sufficiently explanatory. — Mww

the language that we speak fundementally shapes how we experience the world, turns out to be quite weak….. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I think it surely must be. Nature shapes, words express the shape.

I detest OLP with a passion. I relegate the doctrine to cover those that would find more value in talk than thought. And while it may indeed be the case humans talk all the damn time (yawn), it is even more the case they one and all think even more than they talk, so……there ya go.

It’s given as an example of a concept that is easy to grasp in principle, but is almost impossible to form or recognise an image of. In its context it was provided to illustrate the difference between concepts and mental images. But it also serves to illustrate the idea of ‘an object of mind’ i.e. you can understand it rationally even despite the difficulty of grasping its phenomenal depiction. — Quixodian

Your distinction between sensory Phenomena and mental Noumena, reminds me of a judicial distinction between observation and opinion : "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it"*1. That's similar to the difference between knowing an empirical fact, and feeling an emotional sentiment.

Phenomena are objective, but Noumena are subjective. So there is no particular real-world referent for an amorphous ideal-world concept. As justice Potter pragmatically concluded, all we can do is point to several real world instances, from which the other person can construct her own hypothetical Noumenon from her personal experience. :smile:

PS__Empirical evidence is recognizable for anyone with a human sensorium. But to cognize a rational Principle requires a philosophical background. Principles are not real, but ideal.


*1. The phrase "I know it when I see it" is a colloquial expression by which a speaker attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly defined parameters. The phrase was used in 1964 by United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to describe his threshold test for obscenity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
Note -- A scene of two people behaving like rutting animals in polite company, may be literally porno-graphic, but "obscenity" is a generalization from many different instances in various circumstances, including personal mores of the observer & opinionator. It's the principle of the thing.

Faith is a different, unique form of knowledge. Kant was in a bind because his reason could not prove there was something besides appearance and his intuition was locked unto the empirical. He spoje of faith but the leap was very great. The philosophers that came after him, starting with Fitche, wanted to go beyond understanding and beyond reason to intellect, a union of intuition and (abstract) thought. Kant keep his mental powers separate while others wanted a more holistic use of the mind

Yes, all I meant by "inspiring" was something like "being a catalyst for new ideas and feelings".

I think you’re expressing the predicament of modern culture. That’s exactly what it seems, and the modern philosophers, including Kant, are who made it that way. — Quixodian

I can't see how it is not that way, discursively speaking, because the critical turn in thought has shown us that the only justifications we can find for propositional claims are either empirical or logical. Otherwise, we can exercise our imaginations and speculate as much as we wish, coming up with possibilities that cannot be ruled out provided they are not self-contradictory. But such speculations cannot be ruled in either.

I would say the modern situation is that we have lost faith in the ability of our mere imaginations to yield truth, to inform us about the actual nature of things. Is this a bad thing or a good thing? I'd say there are both positive and negative aspects to it.

But that's exactly what the noumenal world is, and why some philosophers reject it in the first place. Saying our perceptions are somehow "knowing," these things begs the question. How could we possibly prove that our perceptions are actually "of" these noumena? If we can't, why bother positing it? Once you start positing unknowable entities, why stop at any one point? Why not posit an infinite number of shadow realms?

And, if noumena can be known by phenomena, then why do the attempts to map the noumenal world as such, the "view from nowhere," run into so many problems? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'll leave aside noumena, as I have no idea what they are, and just consider the question of "things in themselves". The way I look at this is that we seek to explain how it could be that the things we experience everyday are the same for everyone. By this I mean that if I see a red car parked in front of my house and point at it and ask you what you see there, you will almost certainly say you see a red car.

This is unquestionably the situation with the everyday world of objects; we all perceive the same things and since we are not aware of any "mind-melding" going on at all, we cannot but think that the objects of common experience must exist independently of us in some way. Is the independent existence of those objects physical or mental, or is that question itself really incoherent? We don't know, because there is no way of testing any of the speculative answers we can come up with.

So, we cannot but think that there is something causing us to all see the same things, since straight up phenomenalism seems absurd. The seemingly obvious conclusion is that whatever the things we perceive are in themselves, we can only know what they are as they appear to us.

Do we need to worry about "mapping the noumenal world", something which, by mere stipulation, is impossible in principle? Is it somehow demeaning to have to acknowledge our limitations?

Is abstract reasoning not all and only a matter of language use?
— Janus

Interesting. In what way would that be true? — Mww

First, I want to emphasize again that I am not saying that I believe all reasoning depends on symbolic language. Abstraction consists in making one thing stand in for another, where the thing that does the "standing in" does not resemble the thing it stands in for. So, a picture is not an abstraction but straight up representation of the pattern of thing being represented; the picture resembles what it depicts. So, we can think or reason employing images, but that thinking or reasoning is concrete, not abstract. We can also think or reason employing symbols and that is just what language is, whether "ordinary" lingo or mathematical or formal logical.

I think the answer is simpler. We all have human minds with similar capacities. Those minds are stuffed full of knowledge about the world and how it works, much of which is taught to us by other people. That's how our minds are connected with each other. — T Clark

I don't see that as being a sufficient explanation for the fact that we see the same things in our shared world. It can explain how we see things in human ways that differ from how other animals see them, but it cannot explain how we, and animals, judging from their behavior. see the same basic environmental details.

Phenomena are objective, but Noumena are subjective. — Gnomon

Disagree. Going back to the pre-Kantian idea of noumena as ‘object of mind’, the noumenal might be understood as something nearer the original meaning of the idea, form or principle (bearing in mind that ‘form* *is nothing like* ‘shape’ :brow: ) The way that I interpret it (me, not Kant!) is in terms of principles that can only be grasped rationally, but which are independent of your or my particular mind. There’s a dialogue between Einstein and Tagore, in which Einstein insists that the Pythagorean theorem is true independently of what anyone thinks about it. Which I agree with, but I think the overlooked point is that it can only be grasped by a rational intelligence. So it’s mind-independent in the sense of being independent of your mind or mine, but mind-dependent in that it can only be grasped by a mind. That I take as the basis of objective idealism. That’s why such principles are taken as subjective, or ‘in the mind’ - but they’re not in any individual mind. Bertrand Russell describes it exactly: ‘they are not thoughts, but when they are known they are objects of thought’.

This says to me that the division between "sense perception," and "language," is overblown — Count Timothy von Icarus

Don’t know about that. Many animals have far superior sensory perception to h. sapiens but lack speech. It’s a separate faculty, though obviously deeply intertwined. (By the way, have you encountered anything by Andrew Brook, who contends that Kant was the main precursor to cognitive science? A contestable claim, but seriously considered, several articles on Kant in the SEP were authored by him e.g. this.)

I still think that the distinction between what can be grasped through reason, as distinct from through sensory experience (that is, the a priori/a posteriori distinction) is valid, notwithstanding the 20th c effort to derail it as part of the effort of ‘naturalising reason’. As has been observed elsewhere, we’re in the cultural predicament where reason itself is treated with suspicion due to the cultural impact of empiricism.

because the critical turn in thought has shown us that the only justifications we can find for propositional claims are either empirical or logical. — Janus

That is precisely the import of A J Ayer’s ‘Language, Truth and Logic’, the seminal text of logical positivism. It too is one of the expressions of the predicament of modern culture and society.

This leads to the criticism that Kant's analysis cuts us off from the world, entrapping us in our own subjectively-modulated reality.
— Quixodian

Do you consider that a legitimate criticism? — Mww

Still considering it. It was a remark made in an online lecture I was listening to, but in the context it seemed a bit of a lightbulb moment to me.