Are they direct claims of Kant? — Corvus

Of course not. He’s dead.

He admitted to being a dualist,
— Mww
What was his exact words? — Corvus

“…The transcendental idealist, on the other hand, may be an empirical realist, or, as he is called, a dualist, that is, he may admit the existence of matter (…) From the start, we have declared ourselves to be in favor of this transcendental idealism; and our doctrine removes all difficulty in the way of accepting the existence of matter….”
(A370, in Kemp Smith, 1929)

“…. 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 (…) Now we have already declared ourselves for this transcendental idealism from the outset. Thus our doctrinea removes all reservations about assuming the existence of matter…”
(A370, Guyer/Wood, 1998)

Because from my view, it is not clear that Kant's world view was dualism. — Corvus

Kant’s worldview is a dualism. Clarity comes with the fact there cannot be a view, that isn’t itself a judgement, that is, some determined relation between the world and an understanding of it. The dualism resides in world on the one hand (as it is given), and judgement on the other (representing how the given is understood).

Hence it appears to be misunderstanding on Kant to say that Kant was a dualist, and his world view has a contradiction. — Corvus

He admitted to being a dualist, so it isn’t a misunderstanding to say he was. But it does not follow from his being an admitted dualist, that his worldview has a contradiction, although misunderstood, hence mistaken, worldviews are certainly possible.

I remain unconvinced…. — Janus

My fault for not putting up a convincing argument; nevertheless….

We visualize what we are reasoning about…. — Janus

….we agree on that.

Anyway, I’ll stick with the affirmative regarding your “are (there) any "a priori cognitions in general" which do not have their genesis either in experience or in rules that are at their basis derived from experience”.

Those principles, it seems to me, at their most basic are abstracted from reflecting on an analyzing our experiences — Janus

Well sure; that’s so easy to say, when there is already so much mathematically-inclined experience. We’ve all been exposed to number systems since a very early age. It doesn’t take long to learn that counting to 7, then continuing the count by another 5, gets you to a total of 12. From there, you easily see those two counts can never ever get you to any other number but 12.

I submit that it is from the most basic reflection and analysis of our counting experiences, that only the philosophically-inclined appreciate the apodeictic certainty, that it is impossible to arrive at 12 when all you have is a 7 and a 5. There is nothing at all contained in a 7, nor in a 5, which further authorizes you to do anything at all. From which it follows, even with experience of the existent numbers themselves being given, that whatever principle there may be regulating the use of that experience, is not contained in it. Hence the claim that while experience itself is conditioned by such principles, experience is not the condition from which they are given.

Might be easier this way: how many attempts, given only two straight lines, would it take to experience an enclosed space?

Now, before you laugh…..or maybe before you laugh any harder…..ever wonder how the very first ever farmer recognized, rather than have his sons stand guard all night, that to keep the indigenous fauna out of his wintertime food-stocks, it was necessarily required of him that he enclose such area, which he immediately and unquestionably realized to be impossible except under one and only one condition. In other words, he did NOT need the experience of destroyed crops, nor, insofar as he was the first ever, did he need the experience of other existent enclosed spaces, to know with apodeictic certainty, not so much how many lines do enclose a space, but how many do not.
————-

How ‘bout this: as soon as you imagine a triangle, that is, construct a three-sided figure in your head, so to speak, you’ve destroyed the very idea of a triangle in general.

There are things a human just knows, merely for being human. At this level, knowledge indicates that of which the negation is a contradiction.
————-

So, I don't see reason as a disembodied thing that can stand alone. — Janus

I rather think reason is certainly not a thing, and I think reason as certainly being disembodied, insofar as there is no place in any possible body in which reason as such is to be found. Nor any other abstract theoretically-constructed intellectual faculty.

Still, even granting to it greater import, does not mean reason stands alone. Reason is part of a system, after all, however speculative that may be. While it may do things of such greater import by itself because of what it is thought to be and thereby the powers thought as belonging to it, its importance is only manifest in relation to something else.
—————-

Granting there are things a human just knows merely because he’s human, neglecting, or even in spite of, natural instinct…..how do we talk about it?

Ok Thanks.

Some people regard him as the greatest philosopher ever — Gregory

They shouldn’t; he was adamant that there is no such thing as a philosopher. (A839/B867)

Speaking of contradictions albeit regardless of worldview…..
He takes great pains to qualify several well-known individuals as philosophers, yet, given the above, questions the existence of philosophers as such, rather denominating them as “teachers”, and the rest learn, not philosophy, which cannot be taught, but, merely to philosophize.

Not as important as it is interesting, I guess.

…..his system for me leaves something missing. — Gregory

Which system?

How does the suggested contradiction in his worldview relate to something missing in his system?

Just curious.

They never finished their systems to their own satisfaction. — Gregory

Kant said he did. Not only his own satisfaction, but to everyone else’s as well, assuming a commensurate ability to understand it. See Bxxiv.

Do you believe there are any "a priori cognitions in general"…. — Janus

Understanding may construct a priori cognitions concerning possible experience, true enough, re: motion is necessarily change in time but not necessarily change in space (think: rotation). But principles and mathematical axioms, on the other hand, are the transcendental constructs of reason alone, hence, while they may certainly condition possible experience, insofar as their proofs reside in the domain of empirical knowledge, they are not conditioned by it, contra Hume.

Good question, but tough to short-answer convincingly.

How could a case of contradiction which is possible in the reality and also logical thinking not make sense to you? — Corvus

First of all, nowhere in the statement that made no sense to me was the concept of reality to be found, and nowhere in the logic of my own understanding of the statement, was the deduction of the conception of reality possible.

The second statement, in response, in the form of a secondary conditional query, the conception of reality is found, so that statement makes sense to me. Now I can say, reality does not hold contradiction, that being the purview of pure a priori logic manifest in critical thought, so even though the statement makes sense, it is theoretically invalid.

Formal logic means the type of logic which uses symbols and formal languages…. — Corvus

Which is why I said “commonly, but loosely, called”, insofar as the human intellectual faculties do not use symbols or language; it is only when talking about such use, in the attempts at describing it, is various symbology necessary in order to communicate. We represent to ourselves logic in a metaphysical sense, merely that by which the system functions, with various conceptions some of which the system itself doesn’t even use. Reification writ large, and the bane of proper metaphysics.

….reason says true on X, but the logic says false on X at the same time….. — Corvus

Sorry, that makes no sense to me.

Kant, who was very interested in formal logic,
— Gregory

Kant's logic was not formal logic. It was transcendental logic i.e. he thought transcendental idealism works under the principle of the logic. — Corvus

Logic employed by the understanding is commonly, albeit loosely, called formal, but by Kant’s theory-specific terminology, called general or applied. Reason, on the other hand, employs transcendental logic, which has congruent subject/predicate form, but different origin of conceptions contained therein.

Understanding is the faculty of cognition in accordance with general/applied logic of rules, hence may or may not be empirical; reason is the faculty of determination of rules in accordance with transcendental logic, hence is never empirical. Logic is still logic, the source of its conceptions indicates the kind of logic it is, the functional domain to which it belongs.

Kantian speculative philosophy treats human intelligence as a tripartite syllogistic logical system, in which understanding provides the major either with or without conjunction with sensibility, judgement provides the minor(s) either with or without empirical representations, reason provides the conclusion, which is always and only transcendental, in accordance with pure a priori principles, the arbiter being contradiction either with itself or with experience. In this format, there is given the contingency of empirical knowledge on the one hand, and the certainty of pure a priori inference on the other.

The purity of this type of speculative analysis was taken to be sufficient ground for refuting Hume, which was the primary raison d’etre for the construction of transcendental philosophy in the first place….to falsify the standard empiricist’s claim that a priori cognitions in general, all that which cannot follow from the “constant conjunction of empirical cause and effect”, should be “consigned to the flames…”, insofar as if such were to be the case, the universality and necessity of mathematical truths cannot be explained.

….or so it seems.

was contradiction a necessary part of logic and/or reality in the worldview of Kant? — Gregory

What said, except I rather think contradiction is certainly a necessary part of logic. Or, maybe, if not a necessary part, then at least the fundamental ground for the validity of logical constructs.

Slightly different names, slightly different primary ideas, but pretty much a familiar philosophy to some.

So yeah, there’s at least one “other folk(..) who thought about this aspect of worldview before.

This is explained quite well by physicist Richard Feynman…. — Metaphysician Undercover

“….The fact that the electromagnetic field can possess momentum and energy makes it very real ... a particle makes a field, and a field acts on another particle, and the field has such familiar properties as energy content and momentum, just as particles can have....”
.....A “field” is any physical quantity which takes on different values at different points in space....
.....There have been various inventions to help the mind visualize the behavior of fields. The most correct is also the most abstract: we simply consider the fields as mathematical functions of position and time....”
(Feynman lectures, (CalTech, 1956), in Vol. II, Ch 1.5, 1963)
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I can see I’ve opened a can of worms…. — Wayfarer

Nahhhh…I get it. Pretty simple, really. It all begins with an idea, in this case, “fields”. Forgetting the altogether unremarkable commonplace rendition of field as merely grass-y ground, the idea of fields as “quantitative values in space” or fields as “subjectivity”, are nothing but the idea under which distinguishing conceptions are subsumed, but without contradicting the bare notion itself.

This field possesses, e.g., momentum and energy, that field possesses, e.g., sensibility and discursive/aesthetic judgement;
This field is the condition of every object to which it relates, that field is the condition of every subject to which it relates;
That the relations are different does not contradict the validity of the respective conditions. That every particular kind of thing called a subject belongs to a subjectivity field is no less logically coherent than every particular kind of thing called an electron belongs to an electromagnetic field.

Whether that’s of any benefit or not, whether there’s any explanatory gain…..dunno. As my ol’ buddy Stephen says…..nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.

Wonderful that after your whimsical poem….. — Wayfarer

I was merely highlighting a personally-opined absurdity, re: casting a very specific intellect into the virtually unfathomable waters of Mother Nature.

I mean….how in the HELL would we humans ever know whether a honeypot ant underground in the Sonoran desert, after having turned into a nectar larder for his hive-mates to survive on during the dry season, can be considered conscious of having done so, to have instilled feelings for an otherwise impossible-to-neglect evolutionary obligation.

So we got these cool little mini-cameras down there about ten feet of so, witness the transformation of these little guys, gawk in wide-eyed wonder, then exalt our own silliness by asking if maybe they’re embarrassed from being spied on. We would be, so why wouldn’t an ant, huh?

But why stop there. Why not offer….probably best received in some peer-reviewed anthropomorphism journal….that they’re actually proud of their evolutionary majesty, which we can justify to ourselves because they haven’t ganged up and destroyed the cameras, which OBVIOUSLY means either they’re quite comfortable exhibitionists, or, they’re perfectly aware that if they do, whoever put them there will stomp the shit out of their snug home it took three years to build.

(Sigh)

“…. There is unrest in the forest
Trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas
The trouble with the maples
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream, "Oppression"
And the oaks just shake their heads
So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
They say, "The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light".

Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw…”
————-

Not much for guidance I know. But still….for that intelligence internally sufficient to enable itself with such a notion as “subjectivity”, is just as enabled to either deny it elsewise on the one hand, or make an absolute mess of it altogether on the other.

“….It is the highly distinctive spirituality of Kant’s philosophy that provides its transformative force, its cultural gravity, and its historical specificity. At least that is what I shall argue in the following entirely provisional and experimental outline of the forms of spirituality present in the Critique of Pure Reason….”
(Spirituality and Philosophy in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, pg. 8)

Sure, just about any text can be interpreted to suit the reader….
————-

…..even if almost always at the expense of the author:

“….. This substance, merely as an object of the internal sense, gives the conception of Immateriality; as simple substance, that of Incorruptibility; its identity, as intellectual substance, gives the conception of Personality; all these three together, Spirituality. Its relation to objects in space gives us the conception of connection (commercium) with bodies. Thus it represents thinking substance as the principle of life in matter, that is, as a soul (anima), and as the ground of Animality; and this, limited and determined by the conception of spirituality, gives us that of Immortality.

Now to these conceptions relate four paralogisms of a transcendental psychology, which is falsely held to be a science of pure reason, touching the nature of our thinking being. We can, however, lay at the foundation of this science nothing but the simple and in itself perfectly contentless representation “I” which cannot even be called a conception, but merely a consciousness which accompanies all conceptions….”
(A345/B403, in Kemp Smith, 1929)
—————-

Because of this….

“…. Criticism alone can strike a blow at the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which are universally injurious—as well as of idealism and scepticism, which are dangerous to the schools, but can scarcely pass over to the public.…”
(Ibid Bxxxv)

….in which spirituality, being conspicuously absent hence apparently not universally injurious, seemingly warrants it as not only provisionally and experimentally discoverable somewhere in the text, but possibly useful, in direct opposition to the author’s declaration of the soul’s nature as “….purely negative and does not add anything to our knowledge, and the only inferences to be drawn from it are purely fictitious…” (A799/B827, in Miekeljohn, ca1852)

Philosopher: I’ll tell you how I think;
Psychologist: I’ll tell you how you think.

(Sigh)

I’m no more a fan of phenomenology than I ever was.
— Mww

Would you mind saying a little about why? — Tom Storm

Ehhhh….it’s just me; I never graduated from the continental German Enlightenment paradigm on the one hand, and never gave….never saw a reason to give….post-Kantian speculative metaphysics due diligence on the other.

To put a finer point on it, while admitting a somewhat incomplete grasp of phenomenology proper, that of it I do understand, has already been accounted for in Kant’s “objective unity of self-consciousness”.

While it may be perfectly valid in phenomenology that “….consciousness is the grasping of being…”, I prefer that the grasping of being should belong to understanding.

“….Consciousness as a self-contained ‘subject’….” seems better said with ego as the self-contained ‘subject’, ego representing the totality of all those representations of which the self-contained subject would be conscious.

I’m not in any position to deny the validity of phenomenology, while reserving the purely subjective right to ignore it.

Hume's expression of the vulgars….. — Corvus

HA!! Yeah, Schopenhauer uses the word, too. Not as pejorative as we tend for it these days. Kant was a little more kind, just calling out as common rather than vulgar.

Still, we see changes in meaning for words in our own language, in addition to translation difficulties in others.

Many thanks for the commentary, but I must say, I’m no more a fan of phenomenology than I ever was. While I understand it was never your intention to convert anyone, but merely to present evidence for it, I don’t feel I’m missing much of significant import, especially with respect to that which “…held true for the entire classical tradition….”, of which I’m not a member.

Yeah, ol’ Dave’s Treatise is pretty good reading; lot simpler than the German-language counterarguments that came later.

I don’t see a connection between time and the idea of objects, though, when it comes right down to it. Depends on what you mean, I guess. Time and objects as such, real things….that’s different, and we do see a connection therein, via the categories.

But that question is distinctly Kantian, isn’t it? — Wayfarer

Yeah, I suppose it is. Maybe more Hume-ian. I was just looking for some background the easy way, is all.

Things might exist, unbeknown. — Banno

Of course, but irrelevant.

Understanding time requires a mind. That does not imply that time requires a mind. That's a step too far. — Banno

True enough, insofar as you’re using understanding as a verb denoting a cognitive activity within an intellectual whole, which nevertheless presupposes that which is being understood.

Understanding, as a noun representing a specific cognitive faculty, has its function predicated on the conditions of time alone, at the exclusion of space, which logically cannot be given by that which uses it. Hence, time, in and of itself, as a stand-alone conception, requires something for its validity, even if it not be understanding as such, but still within the human intellect somewhere. So….pure reason.

FYI, in Kant the former here is a metaphysical conception of time, the latter is transcendental exposition of time. The former regards its use, which we empirically verify every time we use a watch, the latter regards its origin, and that in the strict syllogistic method of propositional logic a priori, which we cannot empirically verify at all. With the empirical verification possible on the one hand in conjunction with observation, and the empirical verification impossible on the other in conjunction with the logic of infinite divisibility, arises the ideality of time. And space.

All of which makes explicit, the premises for this particular metaphysics being granted, events cannot be said to occur in temporal sequence, which implies experience thereof, unless the relative times of each are measured. Furthermore, events cannot even be supposed as occuring in temporal sequence, without such a priori condition as ground for how it is possible all of those conceptions relate to each other, regardless of any eventual or subsequent measurement.

For what it’s worth….

What's your view on time? — Corvus

As The Man says, without the “subjective constitution of our senses in general”, time is meaningless. Which translates to, as far as I’m concerned, time is only meaningful should I have occassion to determine some phenomenal duration relating two instances of it, or, some phenomenal coexistence related to a single instance.

Which still leaves the inception of time and space into our subjective constitution….assuming of course there is such a thing to begin with…..for which some pure formal metaphysics is required.

Or so it seems.

Investigate someone else’s metaphysical exposé of time, you’ll get a different set of premises for its explanation, right?

Everybody should go back to Kant, but most everybody is “done with all this (kind of) thinking”.

I’m more affirming your arguments than denying them, except for the opening statement, which I find catastrophically false, if only with respect to the CPR, re: space is no more real than time, and thereby doesn’t exit as do the real objects that are conditioned by it.

Pretty simple, really: space doesn’t move, and time doesn’t change, yet the movement of things in time is the ground of all empirical knowledge whatsoever. How to reconcile one with the other, is what the hoopla is all about.

Yeah, well, you know….no one’s gonna admit to being “done with all this thinking”, but might still judge that everyone else seems to be done with his.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say Hume’s is a contradiction, but moreso an incomplete philosophy. He just didn’t think deep enough into the abstractions prevalent in human intelligence, granting only “quantity and number”, thus relying pretty much exclusively on empirical cause/effect.

E.C.H.U., 12, 3, 132, 1748, says it all, methinks.

I never said otherwise! — Wayfarer

So manifestly tiresome, I should think, to be put in a defensive position, the accusatory ground for which having been seriously misunderstood. Or perfectly understood but miserably disavowed.

Given that Kant has already been invoked, as he usually is, it is permissible to further posit the “transcendental illusion”, whereby your defense of existence/non-existece, with respect to mind**, is mis-taken by antagonists in their collective proclamations regarding only existence (of)/non-existence (of), under the same conditions.

How foolish to ask of existence without mind, absent conjoined temporal qualification, when it is from mind the question is asked, in which that very qualification is immediately presupposed.

Existence is not an existent, from which follows existence belongs to mind alone as a pure conception; existence is given iff there is that mind capable of its deduction, and, that in which such deduction resides.

On the other hand, that which is conditioned by the pure conception, re: that which is an existent, merely indicates that on which the cognitively functional part of the human intellect performs. Cognitively functional in juxtaposition to the aesthetically pleasing.
(** reason, in all congruent instances)

All that to say this: even without any possibility of apodeictic empirical justifications, re: proofs, I agree with what you’re saying.

Science was born out of the quest for Truth, capital T…. — Wayfarer

Being more versed in the classics, what do you think an example, the chronological forerunner, of the modern(-ish) principle of induction would be, which says there can be no empirical discovery of capital T truth?

And given that “the quest for” is very far from “a determination of”, with respect to capital T truth…..I think it better said that science was born out of the incessant yet never entirely sufficient, not so much the comprehension of Nature, but comprehension of the human being’s relation to it.
————-

Conclusion — Wayfarer

As expected, well done. From this particular armchair, comes from it: the more the attempt to eliminate the explicit duality of human intelligence, the more the immersion in it. From which follows the general justification, detachment from objectivity doesn’t work.

Oh. And…please, pass the syrup?

Wonder. And the suspected deficiency thereof.

Might that be your bridge to the phenomenological “self-meditation”, by which one “….is able to liberate oneself from the captivation in which one is held by all that one accepts as being the case….”?

Phenomenology (…) is like studying the act of looking…. — Wayfarer

Not much rescuing of the subject there, insofar as the subject still has the functional necessity for understanding the content the study of looking implicates.

I know you knew, and thereby expected, such objection would arise; far be it from me to disappoint, donchaknow. (Grin)

(ever-so-slight nod, from the back of the room)

Not talking about an item.

Dunno if he states that unequivocally, but if his notion of absolute time is justified, then one has no logical recourse but to agree that time is independent of us.

But then, it is profoundly contradictory to profess the absolute of anything whatsoever, in juxtaposition to the impossibility for empirical verification, so…..

But all that really doesn’t matter, if time is given from the way we perceive, then time’s independence from the way we perceive is also contradictory, therefore, wrong.

If (….) time is coming from the way we perceive…. — frank

…..how can it possibly be independent of us?

Cool. Thanks.

I can dig the union (unity, if I may be so bold) of knower and known, but I’d like to see intellectual space allotted for procedure.