OK, sure, I'll come back to your response to my posts about scholastic realism. You said:

For me, ‘reality’ is the ‘totality of what exists’; and ‘existence’ is the primitive concept of ‘being’. ...given the modern perspective, we understand that reality in-itself lacks any forms. Perhaps you can give some insight into this. — Bob Ross

To me, to take a ‘realist’ account, in the medieval sense, is to necessarily posit that the a priori ways by which we experience is a 1:1 mirror of the forms of the universe itself; and I have absolutely no clue why I should believe that. — Bob Ross

From a high level, your instinctive intuition of the world is that you are separate from it. Ideas, including universals, are in the mind but are not attributes of reality as such, which 'lack any forms'. I presume you would also say that you believe the world to exist independently of yours' or anyone's mind, that it is something we discover and explore through empirical means. The customary modern notion of the world is that its 'mind-independent' nature is a hallmark of the kind of reality it has - 'reality is what continues to exist when you stop believing in it' as Philip K. Dick said.

But, and again from a high level, what I'm calling attention to the sense in which the mind constructs reality on an active basis moment by moment. The world is not simply a given, and we ourselves are not passive recipients of information about it. Every sensory signal we receive is absorbed through the process of apperception and then incorporated into the background of our existing understanding. That is the thrust of Kant's 'Copernican revolution in philosophy': contrary to what the empiricists say, the mind is not tabula rasa, a blank slate on which things are merely impressed. Things conform to thoughts, rather than vice versa. (That's why I included the video 'Is Reality Real?' Cognitive scientists are also very much aware of the constructive activities of mind. That's why Kant has been called 'the godfather of modern cognitive science'.)

The second point I want to make is about 'the Cartesian division' (or 'anxiety'). This refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his divisions of "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other". (Richard J. Bernstein Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, 1983)

That is very much bound up with the ground of modern culture, although as we're embedded in it, it can be very hard to notice (i.e. 'fish unaware of water'.) But the upshot is, just as you say - ideas and forms are in the mind, the vast Universe inchoate, driven only by the processes described by physics, devoid of intentionality. That is the political and philosophical background of modern liberal individualism.

I have more to add on why I hark back to scholastic realism, but that's enough for one post.

My apologies Mww, I forgot to respond.

Because of the definition in play for the conception of reality, which is a category, having all the real as schemata subsumed under it, re: “….Reality, in the pure conception of the understanding, is that which corresponds to a sensation in general; that, consequently, the conception of which indicates a being (in time).…”

Ahhh, I understand now. For me, what is real for my understanding, in the Kantian sense, is not the same as I would define “reality”. My understanding is limited, and deploys a limited concept of ‘real’ in order to construct my conscious experience. Through reason, pure reason, which is purely self-reflective, I can know that reality must be far more than what the understanding determines it to be.

The parenthetical is wrong: a thing can exist and not be given to the senses. Without the parenthetical the statement is a contradiction, re: there could be a thing in reality but is not.

Perhaps I used your terms incorrectly: then it would be “you are saying that there could be a thing which is in reality but is not (i.e., is not real because it cannot be given to the senses).”

I think I get where you are coming from now: you are using the concept of ‘reality’ which is a transcendental category of the understanding; and deny, for some reason, the concept as understood by self-reflective reason—by meta-cognition.

Like I said before, my first point would be a semantic note: when something is not real, it does not exist because it is not—under your view, this does not hold because some things which exist are not real.

My other point, now, would be that our self-reflective reason has the ability to understand, just like it can about other transcendental things, that the true concept of reality cannot be identical to that category of the understanding which you refer; because something can be which is not sensed.

If you deny this, then the very concept of ‘reality’, as a category of the understanding, is not real; nor anything which is not currently being sensed; nor anything else transcendentally determined. I think you are just going to bite the bullet on this; so let me just point out that if there really aren’t these a priori modes of cognition (which they cannot be real according to your view) then that undermines the grounds that anything object which is cognized is real—for how can something which isn’t real cognize something which is?????

YEA!!!
(Does the happy dance, feet just a’flyin’, enough to make Snoopy jealous, I tell ya)

(:

I appreciate your elaboration!

But, and again from a high level, what I'm calling attention to the sense in which the mind constructs reality on an active basis moment by moment.

I don’t disagree with anything you said in your response; but what I am wondering is if you believe that there are forms to reality as it is in-itself or not (which is what ‘realism’ and ‘nominalism’, which you brought up, are debating). If you agree with me that the forms of reality are really attributed by our cognition; then they are not ‘real’ (in the realist’s sense) but rather transcendentally ideal; and this would be a position which is neither nominalist nor realist (in the sense of those terms as you defined them). What are your thoughts?

If you agree with me that the forms of reality are really attributed by our cognition; then they are not ‘real’ (in the realist’s sense) but rather transcendentally ideal; and this would be a position which is neither nominalist nor realist (in the sense of those terms as you defined them). — Bob Ross

Very perceptive question. That was the reason I called out scholastic realism, and C S Peirce's recapitulation of it:

For Peirce, universals are real because they represent tendencies or patterns in nature that guide how things behave. His realism is grounded in his belief that the regularities of the world, such as the laws of logic or nature, are not arbitrary constructs of the human mind but are real features of the universe.

and that:

while something real may be said to exist, reality encompasses a broader domain of truths, including abstract concepts like laws of nature or mathematical objects, which don’t exist in a material sense but are still real because they hold independently of personal opinion.

I think that's a clear and intelligible statement of Peirce's distinction between existence and reality. His point is that universals such as logical laws are constitutive of nature itself but not on the same level as phenomena. Bertrand Russell also recognises this:

The relation 'north of' does not seem to exist in the same sense in which Edinburgh and London exist. If we ask 'Where and when does this relation exist?' the answer must be 'Nowhere and nowhen'. There is no place or time where we can find the relation 'north of'. It does not exist in Edinburgh any more than in London, for it relates the two and is neutral as between them. Nor can we say that it exists at any particular time. Now everything that can be apprehended by the senses or by introspection exists at some particular time. Hence the relation 'north of' is radically different from such things. It is neither in space nor in time, neither material nor mental; yet it is something. — Russell, the World of Universals

Russell is intuiting here the distinct ontological status of universals, which he calls out:

We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at which they exist (not excluding the possibility of their existing at all times). Thus thoughts and feelings, minds and physical objects exist. But universals do not exist in this sense; we shall say that they subsist or have being, where 'being' is opposed to 'existence' as being timeless.

Compare with Consider the Aristotelian conception of 'nous' (nowadays translated as intellect). It is 'the basic understanding or awareness that grounds rationality. For Aristotle, this was distinct from sensory perception, including imagination and memory, which other animals possess. Discussion of nous is connected to discussion of how the human mind sets definitions (i.e. grasps meaning) in a consistent and communicable way, and whether people must be born with some innate faculty to understand the same universal categories in the same ways' (wiki). (Peirce, of course, came before Russell and Moore's repudiation of idealism, so it was still the dominant influence in the philosophy of his day; Peirce is often categorised as an 'objective idealist' which is nearest to my own inclinations, far as I can tell.)

At the heart of that sense of knowing is something again that we can't easily see, but it's the absence of that sense of division from the world. And that sense of 'otherness' is an existential plight, a way-of-being in the world. But for the pre-moderns, the world was the expression of a will, and was related to on an 'I-thou' basis, rather than the 'us-it' basis which seems natural to moderns. The cosmos was, as it were, animated by the Logos, and this world but one station on the scala naturae, the 'stairway to heaven'. (This doesn't mean for one moment that it was all peace and light in the pre-modern world, history bears witness to that, but stay with me.) We were participants in a cosmic drama, not bystanders in an indifferent world. Before Descartes, 'ideas' were not understood as the possessions of individual minds but as ideas in the Divine Intellect (a foundational principle of Christian Platonism).

In that pre-modern context the knower has a different kind of relationship with the known. We are in some sense united with the known through the ability to grasp its essence, to know what it is. Indeed, metaphysical insight could be construed as 'knowing is-ness', seeing the essence of things.* (You can see how that even underlies early modern science, with the caveat that it is predicated on just this division of subject and object which is the source of the above-mentioned Cartesian anxiety.)

Now to your question as to whether these are 'transcendentally ideal'. I agree, but this can't be taken to mean that they're subjective. Perhaps you could say that they are characteristic of how any mind must work, not simply my mind or yours. That is closer to Peirce's sense.

In all this, I'm trying to maintain the awareness of levels of being, an heirarchical ontology. Of course we can't 'go back' to the pre-modern ontology, but we need to understand and re-interpret it.

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* Compare:

If you see "what is" then you see the universe, and denying "what is" is the origin of conflict. The beauty of the universe is in the "what is"; and to live with "what is" without effort is virtue. — J. Krishnamurti

I think this vision of 'what is', is at the heart of both philosophy and mysticism, and that we generally don't see 'what is' (tathata in Buddhist philosophy) because of that sense of otherness.

See also Sensible Form and Intelligible Form.

My understanding is limited, and deploys a limited concept of ‘real’ in order to construct my conscious experience. — Bob Ross

As it should be, and does…..

“…..the understanding which is occupied merely with empirical exercise, (…) is quite unable to do one thing, and that of very great importance, to determine, namely, the bounds that limit its employment, and to know what lies within or without its own sphere….”

……but on the other hand….

Through reason, pure reason, which is purely self-reflective, I can know that reality must be far more than what the understanding determines it to be. — Bob Ross

…..troubles abound from such insistence, insofar as….

“….the dogmatical use of reason without criticism leads to groundless assertions, against which others equally specious can always be set, thus ending unavoidably in scepticism….”

…. correction and guidance seemingly required…..

“….because it aims (…) to serve as a touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all knowledge à priori….”

….and in this case, where you’ve given understanding the power of cognizing the content of experience and calling it knowledge, you then your invite pure reason to question, arbitrate and possibly overthrow that very power.

Pure reason, in its “dogmatical” use, cannot inform you there MUST be more to reality than understanding determines, insofar as immediately upon deducing there must be, it may also deduce with equal justice there cannot be, you end up knowing neither, and you, in order to maintain rational integrity, revert back to what understanding has already told you, re: reality is that which is susceptible to sensation in general, from which, a priori, properly critiqued pure reason can only inform for that which does not appear, the reality of it remains undetermined.
—————-

you are using the concept of ‘reality’ which is a transcendental category of the understanding; and deny, for some reason, the concept as understood by self-reflective reason—by meta-cognition. — Bob Ross

Meta-cognition. Ehhhh….thinking about thinking. What a waste. Thinking about thinking just IS thinking. I don’t know how what seems to be me thinking, comes about, I haven’t a freakin’ clue. All I’m doing here, is iterating my comprehension of some theory by which the ways and means of what appears to be my thinking makes sense to me, without any possibility of it actually being the case. I’m not thinking about thinking; I’m thinking about the content of a speculative metaphysic, my actually thinking, if there be such a thing, be what it may.

So it is that within the predicates of this particular theory, there is no such thing as meta-cognition, the description of a system in operation in the talking about it, which I know because it is me describing it, is very far from the system in operation, in itself, which I don’t know at all, and for which I can say nothing**. It is only in the description can stuff like “concept as understood by self-reflective reason” be said, insofar as in the operation of the system itself, reason doesn’t understand and understanding doesn’t reason.

In my comprehension of the theory, then, it arises that, yes, I use reality as a pure conception of the understanding, a category, because that’s what the theory stipulates, and likewise deny to reason the use of that category, and all other categories, in its transcendental activities, for transcendental reason is that by which the deduction of them, the restrictive applicability of them, hence their objective validity, is given.
—————

And now it comes to pass, that this cannot be true…..

My other point, now, would be that our self-reflective reason has the ability to understand, just like it can about other transcendental things, that the true concept of reality cannot be identical to that category of the understanding which you refer; because something can be which is not sensed. — Bob Ross

…..because pure reason is the origin of the concept of reality transcendnetally in the first place, which instantiates it as the “true” concept understanding uses in its synthetical apperceptions a priori, regarding things that appear to the senses. While the category “reality” belongs to understanding for its use, and while it is not the same as the conception named reality thought to arise spontaneously in the synthesis of conceptions to phenomena for the act of judging objects, these are two very different functions of understanding itself and are deserving of their differences.
—————-

Because something can be which is not sensed, is a logical inference, which must be separated from existence. There can be conceptions, there can be intuitions, there can be judgements, the actual experiences of which are impossible, just as there can be inhabitants of some other celestial body, the experience of which may be possible. Reality can be but not be sensed, but reality is not an existent. We experience real things, or, if you like, and loosely speaking, we experience things that are in reality; either way, we do not experience reality. As it is with all the pure conceptions of the understanding deduced by pure reason transcendentally: necessity can be that required for experience but necessity is not itself sensed; causality can be that required for experience but causality is not itself sensed, and so on.

Same with pure intuitions deduced transcendentally a priori. We manufacture the conception of time to understand Nature, but we have no understanding of the reality of time itself, insofar as it can never be an appearance to sensibility, but only reason to it for its necessity as a primary condition for everything else.
—————-

If you deny this, then the very concept of ‘reality’, as a category of the understanding, is not real; nor anything which is not currently being sensed; nor anything else transcendentally determined. — Bob Ross

I do deny “reality” as a category, reality as a condition. Or, I affirm that “reality” as a category, is not real, as well as all else transcendentally originated. As far as the real juxtapositioned to the not currently being sensed, still leaves the possibility of sensation in the future, by which the reality of the thing would then be given. Reality, being defined as the reception of sensation in general, makes no allowance for time, or, which is the same thing, allows for sensation in any time.

Is this legitimate? Yes, not only legitimate, but necessary, within the predicates of this particular speculative metaphysics, for which logic is the only arbiter. The more pertinent question then becomes….is this particular metaphysics itself, or the tripartite syllogistic logic which grounds it, legitimate, and for that, only a subjective motivation or inclination suffices for the determination of an answer.

(** and Wittgenstein thought he had itself an epiphany. (Sigh) Sorry, dude; long before you it had already been covered)
—————-

….how can something which isn’t real cognize something which is? — Bob Ross

First you have to prove why it must be that only the real can cognize the real. Or, prove from a pure, empirically grounded, science, that the non-real cannot cognize the real. In no other way can you prove it is impossible the merely valid can be sufficient to cognize the real. Failing that, it comes about that we already know how something which isn’t real can cognize the real. Whether or not that knowledge is worth a damn, is another question altogether.

My apologies on the long delay on my reply! I had intended to reply to this another time as I had some other conversations in play, and only remembered this recently.

Firstly, “a priori” refers, within the context of transcendental investigations, as “that which is independent of any possible experience—viz., independent of empirical data”. — Bob Ross

If we say 'experience' here is 'empirical data', then I'm fine with this. Our thoughts, memories, etc are all 'experience', but I suppose not define here. What we should be careful with is defining thoughts that are based on experience, vs thoughts that have no basis on experience. For example, if I remember a tree, my memory is now based on the experience and identify of a tree. True 'non-empirical' based experiences are what we would call 'instincts'. When a newborn is born for example it cries, and it can breath even though it hasn't breathed yet. The moment after it breathes, any thought on breathing is based on empirical experience.

“Knowledge” is just a justified, true belief (with truth being a version of correspondence theory) or, more generically, ~”having information which is accurate”. — Bob Ross

A JTB theory of knowledge has long been countered by "The Gettier Problem". But lets go with the idea that knowledge is something obtained through reason that is the best stab available at understanding reality. What is apriori knowledge if apriori is simply instinct? The moment a baby kicks, it knows what its like to kick through its empirical sensations. The moment a child learns about ''the number 1' its now empirical knowledge. 'Apriori knowledge' is a misnomer. It doesn't make any sense.

The proposition “all bodies are extended” is universally true for human experience and a priori because the way we experience is in space (necessarily); and so this is a priori known. — Bob Ross

Notice that even in this sentence you justified a claim of apriori by saying 'we experience'. All bodies are extended is something we empirically learn by experience, not anything we are born with.

This immediately incites the question: “if A is knowledge and B is knowledge, then aren’t they inheriting the same type of knowledge and, if so, thereby the question of ‘what is knowledge?’

Of course, you probably have an answer to this that I don’t remember….it has been a while (; — Bob Ross

Yes, I did, and it has been a while. :) You may want to re-read it again now that you're much more versed in philosophy and discussions, or at least the summary that was posted right after it on the revision I posted a while back. So we don't get into that too deeply right now and can remain focused on the point here, I'll simply answer, "Yes, its consistent at its base between the two types".

Briefly, I will also say, that your schema doesn’t negate the possibility of a priori “knowledge” (in your sense of knowledge): it would be applicable knowledge, as the whole metaphysical endeavor of transcendental investigation would be applicable knowledge. — Bob Ross

Its similar, but not exactly the same. The most like apriori is distinctive knowledge. Thus if I kick, I have an experience of that kick, and identify it distinctively in some way from the rest of my experience. I know that experience distinctively. It doesn't mean that if I kick, a burst of air will erupt and shatter a wall in front of me. For that, I need to apply my kick to the air to see if that result happens.

The question becomes: “why don’t you think that we can apply a priori knowledge without contradiction and reasonably to the forms of experience (viz., the necessary preconditions for the possibility of experience) given that we both agree that our experience is representational?”. — Bob Ross

My disagreement purely rests on the fact that 'apriori knowledge' does not make sense as I noted above. The thing that is aprior is instinct or innate capability, not knowledge.

The fact that we can do math in different bases does not negate that the same mathematical operations are occurring, and that they are synthetical, a priori propositions. — Bob Ross

There is no instinct to do math in any base. It takes time for this to develop in humans.

"Quantity recognition: around 6 months
Quantity recognition is often the first mathematical skill children learn. Well before counting, babies as young as 6 months can demonstrate a basic understanding of quantities just by observing objects. Research suggests that babies can distinguish between different quantities, especially when the difference is significant—for example, six apples versus 12 apples.

By 10 to 12 months, babies may apply this skill when making choices."
https://blog.lovevery.com/skills-stages/numbers-counting/#:~:text=Quantity%20recognition%3A%20around%206%20months&text=Research%20suggests%20that%20babies%20can,this%20skill%20when%20making%20choices.

It is purely an abstract thing that cannot be applicably known.

Ehhhh, then you cannot claim to know that there must be a thing-in-itself at all; or otherwise concede that you can know applicably, through experience, that if our experience is representational then there must be a thing-in-itself. — Bob Ross

I cannot applicably claim to know there is 'a thing in itself'. Its a logical induction. Its plausible that a thing in itself exists, and implausible that it does not. Therefore its the smart money bet. But it is not applicably known, and because it is such a broad and unspecified definition, nothing else besides that fact that we say, "There must be something that exists in itself apart for what we observe" can ever be said about it.

"The thing in itself" is a space alien

Then a thing-in-itself is not a concept which is purely logical—that was my only point on this note. It is referencing something concrete. — Bob Ross

You misunderstood, I was creating a hypothetical in the example. My point was to give a concrete to the abstract. To demonstrate a possible 'thing in itself' and demonstrate that no amount of observation could discover it, as everything we observe from it leads us to view it as something completely different then what it really is as itself.

I appreciate your thoughtful response. I think I understand now what you are going for, and I agree despite our semantic differences :up: .

Like I said before, I just think it is best to reserve the term 'real', 'actual', etc. for 'it exists'; and 'existence' as 'being'. Otherwise, you end up having to posit that something can not be real but exists or what exists may not be real (depending on how the semantics are hashed out).

Good discussion, Wayfarer!

:pray: