Comments

  • A new home for TPF
    ↪Jamal

    Now that you are doing it, it seems no brainer to separate the storage room from the grille.
  • The term "metaphysics" still confuses me
    ↪180 Proof

    I like that answer because it opens up ancient through to modern iterations without putting a finger on the scale regarding them.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪Mww

    Causal agency is the language of practical reason.

    I guess I am trying to see a flip side to that where Kant says we have an experience of ourselves through intuition but that does not make us a knowable object. We don't "act" through our thinking alone that would make that possible. Kant often uses a thought experiment imagining an "intellectual intuition" we do not have. Maybe there is a kind of solipsism in that 'missing limb' approach.
  • Disproving solipsism
    What do you think Descartes’ solipsism problem was? — Mww

    In Meditations, Descartes wonders if all his experiences in the world are merely dreams and illusion. He asks if the people he sees are machines pretending to be human. He does not have the experience of making everything up, so he wonders if there is an evil demon producing the show. The recognition that a producer is needed divides the solipsism into a least two beings. Descartes opts for a good God over an evil demon which leads to a cosmological proof of said being.

    The above is what Kant considers "assuming merely on the basis of faith" in his Preface of the B edition. The cogito ergo sum would seem to undermine this view with the introduction of a rational agency. I read both A and B versions of the paralogisms as a dismantling of the "ergo" part of the sentence. A slice of that pie:

    From all this one sees that rational psychology has its origin in a mere misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which grounds the categories, is here taken for an intuition of the subject as an object, and the category of substance is applied to it. But this unity is only the unity of thinking, through which no object is given; and thus the category of substance, which always presupposes a given intuition, cannot be applied to it, and hence this subject cannot be cognized at all. — ibid. B420
    (The long footnote at the end of this passage gives a detailed breakdown of his reasoning)

    By these criteria, solipsism is an empty statement. The judgement of what exists is a process I am engaged within but did not design. It is here that Berkeley also loses the ground to declare what is imaginary or not. Humans are in the cognition through experience business. We are not allowed into the engineering room. That is why Kant has all of our experience as active agents relate strictly to the theater of Practical Reason.
  • The term "metaphysics" still confuses me
    Well, it would be quite misguided to think that one gains insight into what the word 'thehousenextdoor' means by reading the original work that gave the world the word, for then one would believe it is exclusively about what a particular house is made of, plus about its appearance. — Clarendon

    Are you suggesting that reading the actual book would be misguided?
  • The term "metaphysics" still confuses me
    ↪Wayfarer

    That is a good translation. Apostle is also good.
  • The term "metaphysics" still confuses me
    ↪Wayfarer

    Or read the book itself. If one wants to swim, jump into the pool.
  • The term "metaphysics" still confuses me
    ↪Clarendon

    I was not arguing against that idea. It is a received opinion. I figure we cannot know for sure. What the writing talks about is the best indication of its meaning.
  • The term "metaphysics" still confuses me
    For Aristotle, "Physics" is an investigation about "Phusis" or Nature.

    How ever it came to be called "Metaphysics", that book is concerned with "being as being" and whether there could be such an investigation.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪Mww

    I agree that Kant's argument does not directly approach the thesis of solipsism. Kant introduced the goal of his Refutation as:

    The only thing I can really call a supplement, and that only in the way of proof, is what I have said at B 273 in the form of a new refutation of psychological idealism, and a strict proof (the only possible one, I believe) of the objective reality of outer intuition. No matter how innocent idealism may be held to be as regards the essential ends of metaphysics (though in fact it is not so innocent), it always remains a scandal of philosophy and universal human reason that the existence of things outside us (from which we after all get the whole matter for our cognitions, even for our inner sense) should have to be assumed merely on faith, and that if it occurs to anyone to doubt it, we should be unable to answer him with a satisfactory proof. — C Pure R, Preface B XXXIX

    It is toward this end Kant figures he has overturned Berkeley and Descartes with one theorem even though they say completely different things:

    The proof that is demanded must therefore establish that we have experience and not merely imagination of outer things, which cannot be accomplished unless one can prove that even our inner experience, undoubted by Descartes, is possible only under the presupposition of outer experience. — ibid. B275

    Descartes solved his solipsism problem through a means that Kant rejects. Both Berkeley and Descartes are taking for granted a view of the self that Kant does not.

    Now Kant does say a lot of things about the "self" that involves faith. The Critique of Judgement tries to make sense of that.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    For Kant, in his time, the statement that awareness of self required the existence of "exterior" things was his argument against solipsism.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    I can deal with that challenge tomorrow. I will quote from the text I have been referring to and link it to other sections of the other Critiques.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    Then what will be the difference between our points of view?

    Will you no longer challenge what I have said in the past as you just did?

    I would rather work with that gap than agree to disagree. It is more interesting.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    I am not going to say more until we deal with your charges about my agenda.
  • Disproving solipsism
    You, on the other hand, take a bit of text and use it as the basis for what ends up being self reflection. You want every philosopher to be something like a materialist, and you take one word and draw out a materialist outlook. — frank

    That is not the case. I have argued extensively against Gerson's interpretation of materialism as a general idea in Plato and subsequent literature. Are you remembering my objections to Cornford's view of the forms as an argument for materialism? Nothing could be further from the case. I see that I have only been a cypher in your mind.

    I don't want Kant to say this or that. Or if I do, it needs to be a way to read what was written. I don't see the world the way he does in many ways. But he deserves to be fairly represented.
  • Disproving solipsism
    I have a much broader outlook. — frank
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    Pretty contemptuous last word.

    I will leave you with it.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    I am trying to avoid being cryptic by referencing specific portions of the actual text. I was sincere in my general thumbnail that you asked for. But that generality is cryptic as all general descriptions tend to be. That is why I was so reluctant to offer it.

    I am doing the best that I can as I understand effort.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    The quote you provided from SEP comes from a particular contrast between Kant and Hume. The argument about what the "I" is in the context of representations is an important issue throughout the book.

    The matter of intuition goes to a more "existential" cause of the difference of self and object when Kant says:

    The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own
    existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me.     — Critique of Pure Reason, B275
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    Since the intuitions are separated from the processes of reason a priori, differences of experience are neither what Descartes nor Berkeley described, as outlined in Kant's Refutation of Idealism.

    That approach is different from observing there are "differences" of experience that provide a context for a subject as presented in Descartes and Berkeley. It is on the same grounds that Kant resisted Hume describing causality as only a story that is told.
  • Disproving solipsism
    He's just saying that consciousness of my own existence requires something to compare and contrast with me. The use of dialectics runs through the CPR. This is a case of that. — frank
  • A quandary: How do we know there isn’t anything beyond our reality?
    Even if I had a very intimate discussions on many topics or shared some daily life experience with someone, I would not claim I know their deep true inside feelings, thoughts and wills. — Corvus

    It sounds like what you are calling "solipsism" is what other people refer to as single individuals.
  • Disproving solipsism
    Per Kant, we don't learn about space and time a posteriori. — frank

    That is more of an argument toward accepting an "ontological" limit than saying:

    He's just saying that consciousness of my own existence requires something to compare and contrast with me. The use of dialectics runs through the CPR. This is a case of that. — frank

    The Refutation of Idealism section previously linked to argues against the "any difference will do" idea.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    This is why I resisted giving a summary.

    Perhaps you could provide references that support your interpretation. On the surface, your description does not account for the emphasis upon the intuitions of space and time.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    We do not have access to an "I" as a given before our experience in the world. So, when we approach the matter as if that is not a critical feature of experience, we take on airs and imagine proximity to the divine.

    But that is not all that Kant was trying to say. My summary may be correct and not very useful heard in isolation. Or it could be incorrect which also would require more work reading the text.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪ProtagoranSocratist

    I was having fun, too. Maybe it was too culturally limited to my ruralism.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪frank

    The Introduction written by Guyer and Wood in the linked edition is the clearest summary (and limits to summary) that I have found. Kant developed his view over many years.

    For this discussion of solipsism, I suggest reading the Refutation of Idealism from B275 to B288 in the linked text. It reflects much of the previous part of the book while also trying to sharpen his use of terms.

    I will do my best to answer any questions from that common ground.
  • Disproving solipsism
    ↪ProtagoranSocratist

    Well, Kant put the "not knowing" the other way around. Here is the Theorem from the Refutation of Idealism:

    The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own
    existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me.     — Critique of Pure Reason, B275

    Same ignorance, different day.
  • A new home for TPF
    ↪Jamal
    ↪Jamal

    I am glad that the current pagination will be turned into a single document for the archives. The "Find in page" browser function will make searches one-stop shopping.

    I fixed my email so it is current and then noticed that I had turned off notifications sometime in the past. Just mentioning in case others find themselves out of the loop before the transition.
  • A quandary: How do we know there isn’t anything beyond our reality?
    ↪AmadeusD

    Fair enough, I should have minded my own business.

    Now this is not a solipsism like some have been misled on the point. — Corvus

    There are different varieties of solipsism? How can they be compared to each other? That would seem to cancel the isolation you are reporting.
  • A quandary: How do we know there isn’t anything beyond our reality?
    From what I've seen the main argument in the last two pages has been that Banno thinks if there are things we don't currently know, then Antirealism can't hold. — AmadeusD

    It is difficult to follow your argument since you base it upon an interpretation of what an interlocuter has said rather than engage in the debate proffered.
  • A new home for TPF
    I'm not all that concerned about it, I guess, otherwise I would have been doing that all along. — Janus

    I have used some stuff elsewhere but mostly considered writing here as a one-shot deal. Remembering the past for me has been about recalling discussions in OPs. Anything i said was in the context of other statements. There is a Groundhog Day movie quality to much of that.

    ↪Leontiskos


    Interesting points on how to search the site. Since the old site will be preserved, I wonder if the "advanced search" functions that work now will work there. There are words that get to the beginning of the site, long before I showed up.
  • A new home for TPF
    ↪Janus

    Without having the site do that, it is easily done by copy/pasting from the comment collection under one's name.

    I did a little of that but not into the thousands.

    It would be cool if we could transfer all that as a single file. I get the impression that those writers who are most concerned about that sort of thing are posting here from copies of their own files.
  • A quandary: How do we know there isn’t anything beyond our reality?
    Kant wrote his massive tome to show this is wrong.
    — Jamal

    Yes, I agree.     — Corvus

    It is confusing to have you acknowledge that Kant argued against your argument immediately after you claim that he supported it.
  • A new home for TPF
    Thank you, Jamal and team, for keeping the place alive. I particularly appreciate the preservation of the archives because there is so much good stuff there.

    During the transition, is keeping the email info current critical to rolling over to a new account? I have just have been relying on messages once signed in to communicate.
  • A quandary: How do we know there isn’t anything beyond our reality?
    The expression "how do we know" is peculiar in this context. It usually appears as a counter to a statement of fact made by a person.

    "How do we know that Frodo was on the balcony with a torch as described by Cicero in his testimony?"

    The request to confirm what cannot be reported upon is a diving board extended over an empty pool.
  • Reading group of Wittgenstein's Blue Book
    ↪Antony Nickles

    I have learned many things new to me in your thread. I need to think and read about it more before trying to answer your points of argument.

    Till then.
  • Greek Hedonists, Pleasure and Plato. What are the bad pleasures?
    I figure that what the dialogue Phaedrus was concerned with was how love for other people turns into wanting things for them. Once you start doing that, it may run contrary to other desires but can no longer be just about what you want.

    It seems a simple enough observation to me. I watch dogs and leaves falling from the trees.
  • Reading group of Wittgenstein's Blue Book
    But I’m interested to hear what you take thinking to consist of, and why psychology would be a part of it (or thought to be), one that needed to be separated, and for what reason. — Antony Nickles

    I spoke of 'thinking' more generally than W would probably warrant. However, from the Tractatus to the PI, the distinction between science and whatever he is doing keeps being reestablished. That difference is often depicted as a limit to what can be explained but he seems hell bent to put it in other ways.

    So, we have discussed previously where W looked at how the desire to be mysterious is recognized as a motive. But there is nothing like a move to make that an explanation for why it always happens. The latter would be an example of a reduction through psychology.
  • Reading group of Wittgenstein's Blue Book
    One starting place is to ask why W wants to separate psychology from thinking. The separation is a stumbling block to explanation.

    I take your point that we often impose one set of meanings to replace others. That does not explain why W does not reduce one set of signs into another.
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