I'd say the question is: what or who is the subject of experience? — Zelebg

I think the most important thing to realise is that it's an open question. — Wayfarer

There isn’t a “subject of experience”, per se, but only the representation of an inherent, dedicated, human capacity, which each your propositions have contained in it.

If one thinks himself the subject of experience, he does so only because he thinks in relation to the object being experienced. In doing that, he still has thought nothing of the one who is thinking himself the subject, which he cannot do without the use of exactly the same phenomenon to account for the phenomenon he is using. A silly employment of the homunculus argument.

The only way to install a subject at all, is to create one within the tenets of a epistemological theory, such that something which appears to be the case (thinking) is justified. If it be granted the human cognitive system is representational, then the fundamental condition for thinking must be merely representational itself.

“....Consequently, only because I can connect a variety of given representations in one consciousness, is it possible that I can represent to myself the identity of consciousness in these representations. (...) The thought, "These representations given in intuition belong all of them to me," is accordingly just the same as, "I unite them in one self-consciousness, or can at least so unite them"; and although this thought is not itself the consciousness of the synthesis of representations, it presupposes the possibility of it; that is to say, for the reason alone that I can comprehend the variety of my representations in one consciousness, do I call them my representations, for otherwise I must have as many-coloured and various a self as are the representations of which I am conscious. Synthetical unity of the manifold in intuitions, as given a priori, is therefore the foundation of the identity of apperception itself, which antecedes a priori all determinate thought. This principle is the highest in all human cognition....”

Identity of apperception is then represented by what is commonly called the thinking subject, the “I” in I think, that to which all experiences belong as objects, to a subject that cognizes them as such.

Theoretically.

Dualism gets something right. In practice, we seem to live and talk as dualists. We all agree pre-theoretically that there are dreams and chairs. — Eee

Is this to suggest dualism got something right as the exception to the rule that is usually doesn’t?

I like the idea that concepts exist in a system or a web. To make sense of one is to rely on others close by in the network. — Eee

Concepts exist in a system, yes. But the system is (mostly) used to make sense of the world, so to say relying on one member of the system to make sense of another, isn’t quite right. It would be nearer the case, that one is used in conjunction with another.....

“....Without the sensuous faculty no object would be given to us, and without the understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind....”
“....understanding cannot intuit, and the sensuous faculty cannot think...”

......in order for the system to work in making sense of the world.
————————

subject is one more concept/object in the (ideally or largely) impersonal and interpersonal concept scheme. — Eee

Agreed. But the vast chronology of our individual existence is spent alone in our own heads, exempt from the interpersonal concept scheme, wherein the absolute subject rules in speechless dictatorial fashion.

Interesting passage. I can see the development of subsequent philosophies from it. But still, how closely did Thomist epistemology follow Platonic? We were talking Plato, yet you used Aquinas for reference, so shall I assume the latter built on the former without much advancement?

From the link:
“...Now possible intellect is supplied with an adequate stimulus to which it responds by producing a concept.”
........possible intellect assumes the name understanding, the adequate stimulus assumes the name phenomenon.

“...Abstraction, which is the proper task of active intellect. The product of abstraction is a species of an intelligible order...”.
........active intellect assumes the name pure reason; species of intelligible order assumes, or already had assumed, from Aristotle, the name categories.

Not too hard to see that, with physical science in general and astronomy in particular, well underway by or in the Enlightenment, this version of species-common epistemology became untenable. Thus the thesis that the matter of objects of sense are given their properties by the understanding by means of concepts, rather than “....divesting the form of every character that marks and indentifies it as a particular something...”.

Ever onward, right?

The key point being that this enabled philosophers to regard ideas as properties of matter - as everything became. — Wayfarer

I‘ll be the first to say I guess I don’t get it after all. You said logical principles were higher reality objects of the mind. I said later philosophy put sense objects and objects of the mind at more or less equal reality, all as objects of the mind. Then you said this allowed philosophers, presumably in Plato’s time, to regard ideas properties of matter.

I can’t make the connection from universals, which apply to logic as I understand it and to real objects in general, re: universal forms (?) but where do whatever allowed philosophers to regard ideas as properties of matter make the scene? Even if I don’t grant logical principles as universals having a higher reality but see how it can be said to be that way, how do I get from that to properties of matter?

My favored.......and long-ingrained......epistemological framework is getting in the way.

intelligible objects, such as logical principles and geometric axioms, are real, but they're not phenomenally existent; they're objects of mind (so to speak) but no less real for that. In Platonism, they have a higher degree of reality than objects of sense — Wayfarer

That’s how I understand it as well, in Platonism. Enlightenment philosophy subsequently dropped objects of mind down a peg or two, making them equal in degree of reality with objects of sense, calling them both representations, but arising from different faculties, thus having different rules of use. That, and logical principles and geometric axioms took on the name and form of judgements, the subjects and predicates thereof being objects of mind. When it comes right down to bare bones, all objects are objects of mind, except the real, and even those are represented as objects of mind (so to speak).

If we understand 'objective' to mean unbiased or ideally intersubjective, then the problem disappears. — Eee

I won’t fight over that. Intersubjective still leaves concepts as purely subjective constructs with possibly real objects which conform to them, which we call experience.

On the one hand, no human is possible without the antecedent humanity, but on the other, a general condition of some empirical unity is in itself insufficient to explain the multiplicity of disparate conditions of its particulars.
— Mww

Could you elaborate on the second part of this? — Eee

Substitute any empirical unity. All trees are the unity of trees, but the unity of trees doesn’t explain why some are hardwoods and some are soft, some broadleaf, some needle leaf. There’s something more needed than just being trees, to facilitate trees being hardwoods.

I don’t want to go too far afield here; it’s Tim’s barndance after all, and I’m not qualified to speak Plato or Platonic ideals. While I didn’t dig an accommodating response out of you comment pursuant to my query, I didn’t find anything disagreeable either, so.......call it a draw.

Such concepts are not objective, they’re used to determine what can be considered objective. They're prior to judgements of objectivity. — Wayfarer

Agreed, without equivocation or amendment.

I agree that formal concepts are 'not private' in that they're not the creation of individual minds. In that sense, they're 'public' — Wayfarer

My rendering of concepts is not objective hence private, your rendering of formal concepts is, in a sense, public. Can you illuminate the difference between private concepts that facilitate judgement of objectivity, and formal concepts that are not creations of the individual minds?

Thanks.

The main reason for my comments, I guess, is your McDowell passage, which I find agreeable, followed by the saying of things seemingly diametrically opposed to it, which I don’t. After your furtherances I understand you better, but not the opposition to McDowell. Just trying to learn something, is what it boils down to. Same with the Feser comment.

In some sense the 'we' is prior to the 'I' as a kind of software that makes the hardware fully human. — Eee

Understood, and agreed, in principle. On the one hand, no human is possible without the antecedent humanity, but on the other, a general condition of some empirical unity is in itself insufficient to explain the multiplicity of disparate conditions of its particulars. In other words, why I’m this, or why I think this, doesn’t explain why you’re that, or why you think that, merely because we’re both human. Being human is sufficient for those, but insufficient to explain why those. And if what we want to know is why, which is almost always the case, then we see it just won’t answer anything if we ground our investigation on some fundamental ontological condition.
—————-

I mostly feel like some kind of Kantian, exploring the limits of cognition from the inside. — Eee

As well we all should. When the lights go out at the end of the day, there’s nobody there but ourselves. “Know thy-self”, and all those other colloquial admonishments, doncha know. Which, ironically enough, leave off “as best you can”, or, “but you’re probably wrong”.

An illustration. — Wayfarer

Ok. The modern version of universal forms, ideals, sentiments, various sundry renditions of.....

“...that which exists a priori in the mind...”

......because.......

“.....the distinguishing characteristic of their nature consists in this, that they apply to their objects, without having borrowed anything from experience towards the representation of them....”.

.......meeting the criteria of my personal favorite, a transcendental object. My main concern with the inquiry (what is a formal concept) was, so long as, e.g. “triangularity”, is not given the authority of a category, it can be given any theory-specific name its creator deems fit. I say this because the formal concepts are reducible, insofar as triangles and thereby triangularity, presuppose quantity and relation, specifically.
———————

A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once. — Wayfarer

I hesitate in granting that any concept is objective simply because it is grasped by many subjectivities.

Even if “....to grasp a concept is simply not the same thing as having a mental image...”** is true, because the reverse is actually the case, it does not follow that grasping concepts is objective. Rather, the objects of conceptions are objective, iff one communicates his understanding of them, and they meet with congruency by other minds. Upon being asked to illustrate an object, a plurality of minds will all draw from a conceptual ideal per-existing a priori, and the drawings will all be different in particulars while similar in form. And the drawings will differentiate in direct proportion to the complexity of the concepts required for it, re: the drawings of stop signs will be closer to each other in appearance than the drawings of a house. To then say the conceptual form of these objects is objective contradicts the laying of it a priori in the mind.

Anyway...thanks for the Feser reference and the explanation.

** Feser, 2008.

OK. Thanks.

What is a formal concept?

Conceptual capacities are capacities that belong to their subject’s rationality. So another way of putting my claim is to say that our perceptual experience is permeated with rationality.
— McDowell

The important point, for me, is that concept isn't private. Concept is essentially public and social. — Eee

When you say, “that concept isn’t private”, do you mean to say by “that concept”, McDowell’s claim?

Or maybe you meant the important point is that conception isn’t private, and thereby conception is essentially public.

I submit that anything belonging to a subject’s rationality, per McDowell, is private, and to suggest that the totality of subjects in possession of rationality is the same as rationality itself being “essentially public and social” does not follow. And if rationality is not essentially public, thus is private, and rationality is grounded in “conceptual capacities”, then conceptual capacities are equally private. Which is why your “concept is essentially public and social” is false, or at least needs clarification.
——————

Some clarification is here:

So while we know that concepts are 'only in our heads,' they also make such judgment possible. — Eee

.....which is correct in the philosophical sense, which seems to indicate concepts are indeed private, but just serves as either a self-contradiction (“concept is essentially public”), or, my lack of understanding.

Help me out?

"My mind is absolutely unreliable". How would I proceed from there? Perhaps I can rely on someone else's mind. — Purple Pond

If your mind is absolutely unreliable, yet you ask after other minds for the reconciliation of the problem, you’ve immediately contradicted yourself, for the potential reliability of other minds cannot be given from the unreliability of your own.

Are we creating language or discovering it? — Mark Dennis

I would say we create it. Given any dinosaur, the existence of the object seems to pre-date any language from which is derived the name for it. On the other hand, the capacity for language would seem to be intrinsic to human nature, but even so, the invention of language presupposes its needful use.

I never thought of the yet-discovered world as abstract, but I see no great difficulty in it. Broadening the scope of a concept doesn’t necessarily falsify it.

Of necessarily and ordinarily existing things several question arise. (...) Are they both sub-species of existing things? Is one included in the other? Or is necessary existence a separate genus? — tim wood

I don’t know how we’d be able to tell the difference between an ordinarily existing thing and a necessarily existing thing. But then, we don’t say...that which exists, exists ordinarily. So maybe there is a difference, or, existing ordinarily doesn’t make any sense to begin with. Dunno.
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In different words, if existing, then existing necessarily. — tim wood

That’s the entire logical argument in a nutshell. It makes no difference what the things are, but only if there are any, and how it is that the logical argument is true.
——————

That is, is the world altogether accessible to reason? I'm obliged to think it must be. — tim wood

Science says it is. Or it used to, until it was proved there are things we are just not equipped to know. I’ll go with....of the sum of reality empirically accessible to us, it is equally accessible to our reason. I’m a YankeeVirgoBabyboomer, so not known for my optimism.
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Addendum:

I'm looking to ordinary language for guidance, and it strikes me that whatever the reality is, either it yield to language, or language to it, and with respect to reality and the real, the reality is prior. — tim wood

Reality is prior, and language yields to it, or, which is the same thing, language yields to what we think reality is. The vast majority of human thought is by means of image, as should be quite obvious, language having no occassion but for subjective introspection and objective communication.

Say hello to an infinite compendium of pure abstract concepts.

What does this do for pragmatic utility? How much pragmatic thinking grounded in rules?

This isnt Noumena its phenomena. Pure abstract is just unamed and unnoticed until someone, anyone names and notices it. Ethics as a word, was pure abstract until someone conceptualised it. — Mark Dennis

In effect, we knew all about how to treat each other, except we didn’t know it was ethics?

Am I understanding better?

If the existence that is necessary is particular to an instance of time is also saying that there are other instances when it's not, then it would seem to be contingent on the time — tim wood

Short version.....
That which exists being contingent on time implies everything which exists is contingent on time. If everything is contingent on something, we say that something is the condition for all those things contingent on it. It is accordingly we say time is the condition of all that exists. All this does is relieve us of the need of a quantity of time for the existence of things in general, while requiring a certain time for things in their relations to other things.

Long version.....
Trouble is, the condition for a thing doesn’t tell us what we want to know, which is what the thing is. If the time is the condition that makes everything possible, all we need are the conditions that make everything describable. The only way for us to describe things is by means of the concepts that we can logically apply to them, and because we are not describing time, we don’t need to think of time as a concept.

But the things we wish to know about must first be determined as describable, in order to be certain any of our concepts can ever be applicable to them, which effectively grants the possibility of knowing what they are. It would be a major evolutionary disadvantage for us to have a describing system that cannot tell itself the thing attempted to be described never was describable in the first place. Enter the categories, those pure concepts arising spontaneously from the system itself, which serve as the criteria against which all the things we wish to know about, become describable. We find, in order to be described, a thing must exist, so existence is a category; a thing must be real, so quality is a category; a thing must consist of something, so quantity is a category, and finally, a thing must be either a cause or an effect, so relation is a category. To name four of the twelve.

From here it is a short hop to understanding why we don’t need the categories for what we think, because the thought is the description and is infallible, and why time is not a category because it doesn’t set the ground for describing by means of concepts. In addition, time is divisible but the categories are not, insofar as different quantities can be attributed to time, but i.e., necessity, cannot be quantified at all, which is sufficient in itself for claiming conditions for everything and the conditions for describing everything must be irreducibly distinct from each other.
——————-

Would you agree (with me) that this is grounded in contingency? Or at least there's some work to be done to either refine or qualify "necessary existence"? — tim wood

Absolutely. There is nothing whatsoever that isn’t contingent, because the totality of our knowledge for everything is impossible. But, like I say, the human system is inherently circular, as what I just said, proves. I contradicted myself by stating a logical truth. That everything is contingent is necessarily true is self-contradictory.

(Oooooo....transcendental illusion!!! Now there’s a rabbit hole for ya!! (Grin))

Hey....we do the best we can, right?

Is there pragmatic utility in these distinctions between purely abstract and Anchored abstract? — Mark Dennis

(Stronger) Top down.....
Pragmatic utility in the distinction? I would have to say no, because of the way they’re defined. Purely abstract, the unknown, unnamed, realistically non-affective conceptions, is never even presentable to our attention, so can’t have any practical use. It seems irrational to infuse an unknown with purpose the fulfillment of which could never be shown. It follows that if half of the content of a distinction is unavailable for any practical use, the distinction itself disappears.

Dogmatic utility, on the other hand, would stand, given the definitions. That which has no practical utility for some reason remains useless because of the rule that made some thing useless, whereas that which has practical utility, also because of its rules, remains practical. Adherence to dogmatic architecture would also prevent one from overlapping the other, thus maintaining the very distinction the definitions require.

(Weaker) Bottom up......
For whatever reason it should happen we are met with an insurmountable rational inconsistency, we can attribute our inabilities to a class or realm that wasn’t available to us anyway. Then, the practical utility in the distinction would arise as the demarcation between that for which our abilities are sufficient and that for which they are not.

Dunno if I addressed your query as you meant it to be understood, but I hope so.

maybe pros and cons to thinking this way. — Mark Dennis

If it be granted knowledge is nothing but a judgement of relative truth (I know/don’t know this because of that), then knowledge is either something we are given by a certain means, or we are not given by those same means.

Judgement itself is predicated on either intuitions of phenomena, or conceptions of thought, the former is empirical knowledge, the latter is a priori knowledge, but both remain judgements.

If unknown or unnamed concepts cannot be thought, and unknown influences on reality cannot become phenomena, it follows that in neither case can a relative truth be judged, which makes explicit no knowledge is possible. Knowledge in the form of purely abstract knowledge is thereby denied and the idea of pure abstract knowledge is meaningless.

As regards anchored abstract knowledge, that which is forthwith observed, identified and named has been exposed to the tribunal of reason, because the criteria for phenomena has been met, hence lent to judgement and the possibility of empirical knowledge. Therefore, anchored abstract knowledge is anchored, but never was abstract, thus the idea of anchored abstract knowledge is denied. This, however does nothing to deny knowledge of abstracts, if such abstracts meet their necessary criteria in intuition or conception.

If it were me, I’d just call pure abstract knowledge impossible, and anchored abstract knowledge possible.
———————-

Anchoring a purely abstract concept requires giving it a physical point with which to identify it physically through language. — Mark Dennis

I can think everything about an abstract construction, such that simple co-existents become joined, without illustration or invocation of a single word.

Thanks for giving me something to chew on.

1) If something necessarily exists, it exists necessarily, yes? — tim wood

Yes.
——————-

If yes, than non-contingently, yes again? — tim wood

Yes again. Necessity always makes contingency logically impossible.
——————-

Then how can it ever not be? — tim wood

It can’t. That’s the same as saying how can it not ever be. That’s not the same as how can it always not be. Technically, “ever” is not a proper classification of time for particulars, of which there are only three: a singular instance of time, a succession of times or a permanence in all time. The first is all that is absolutely required of any necessary existence. No time, of course, is incomprehensible.
——————-

If its negation is impossible." Is this propositional negation? Or is it an existential impossibility to be? — tim wood

I’m going with both. It is obviously a logical truism, and because of that, if the existence of a thing is necessary, say, because it is logically a cause of something else, but it it is thought to not exist anyway, or its existence is denied by some other means, a categorical error is committed, insofar as a logical truism is falsified, which is a self-contradiction.
——————

I cannot think of anything that necessarily exists — tim wood

There is one and only one: the thinking subject. If there isn’t one, none of this could be happening, but it is, so.........

On the other hand, if I take mountain/erosion as metaphor for change, then I must say experience doesn’t change; each is as it is in itself. Experience is singular and successive, not a unity and changing, the technical definition of consciousness.
-Mww

You are making exactly the right point - qualia is integrated information. — Zelebg

I take you to mean I’m making the right point on consciousness, and qualia are the integrated information contained in consciousness. I’m ok with that.

While I understand how qualia arose from the predicates of modern philosophy, I don’t think they accomplish anything more than the old-fashion intuition. For me, consciousness represents the quantity of that of which we are aware, but qualia represent the quality of that of which we are aware, re: the “what it is like” addendum. The former relates to the substance of our intuitions, the latter relates to the right-ness of our intuitions. To allot the quality of right-ness to consciousness relieves our conscience of its job with respect to morality and feelings in general, and relieves judgement of its job to determine right-ness with respect to empirical cognitions.

Besides, if the totality in consciousness represents the way things are, because we cognize them as so, why do we care about what they are like? Even if we cognize incorrectly and amend that with its consequence, then the qualia will be equally incorrect and amended as well, which seems to indicate they really don’t differ that much from mere representation anyway, as regards their origin.

And ya know what else? If qualia are meant to tell me what it’s like, how come they can’t tell me what bacon smells like when it’s not right in front of me, frying away on the ol’ cooktop? I can’t represent to myself the smell of frying bacon either, but doesn’t that just say the one is no better for certain things than the other?

Anyway.....thanks for the compliment. After this, if you wish to retract it, I won’t complain.

I'm not sure what you are aiming at here...isn't erosion a process of change? — Janus

Yes, of course. And just as much as that is true, so too is the........

....matrix of primordial process or undergoing which is beneath, I.e. transcendental to, conscious experience. — Janus

.......but I nevertheless caution against the use of “experience” in the context of.....

........we experience processes and forces just as the mountain experiences erosion. — Janus

....because we don’t experience those at all, even if the transcendental system itself, does. Which is what I’m guessing you meant all along.
—————-

If primordial experience, as distinct from conscious experience, is pre-conceptual then no discursive handle can be gotten on it — Janus

Exactly. Discursive has to do with cognition by conceptions, conceptions being the sole purview of the understanding. If primordial experience is deemed pre-conceptual, it is therefore pre-understanding, hence it follows necessarily such process cannot be discursive. The primordial experience pre-conceptual is the object represented by sensation (appearance) synthesized by the imagination according to rules (schema) to the object of intuition (phenomenon), which is then presented to understanding for logical judgement. Your quoted passage perfectly exemplifies this a priori, rational activity, which is the task of reason alone to “grasp”, long before experience proper, and therefore, the cognizant subject.

ignoring all the tough questions leading up to a refutation of their own claims — creativesoul

I haven’t had any tough questions to ignore, and I’m tired of being led up to, so.....

Emerges out of, of course. That’s the opposite of prior to.

On the other hand, if I take mountain/erosion as metaphor for change, then I must say experience doesn’t change; each is as it is in itself. Experience is singular and successive, not a unity and changing, the technical definition of consciousness.

Don’t want to take you off on a tangent, but......just wonderin’.

I think human experience, primordially speaking, is prior to any such distinction — Janus

Primordial. Fundamental state or condition.

I don’t understand how one can speak about experience primordially.

And if the distinction is the subjective/objective distinction, how can experience be prior to it?

Your thoughts? — 180 Proof

First: That was hard to read.
Second: Cool. Somebody asked for my thoughts.
Finally......pretty good.

To respond:
.......All facts are contingent on the condition of the knowledge that generates them.
.......I would ask how “states of affairs” are not themselves abstractions, thus equally subject to necessary existence because their negation is impossible.

All in all.....a worth exercise.

What are logical forms taking account of?
— creativesoul

Illogical thought; irrational reasoning.
— Mww

What about logical thought, and rational reasoning? — creativesoul

What about them?

You: Why did you say that?
Me: Because (_____), so it had to be (_____).
You. Oh. Right. OK.

Now what?
————————-

You're going to have to replace it (the subjective/objective distinction) with something...
— Mww

Nah. I reject it based upon my own knowledge of all human thought and belief. I 'replaced it' with a much better understanding of all the things which are existentially dependent upon and/or consist of both the objective and the subjective. — creativesoul

Ok, fine. Your own knowledge is sufficient for you to reject something. No problem. Nevertheless, claiming the ends (I replace it) justifies the means (better understanding) says nothing whatsoever about the means. You could fall back on sufficiency here as well, re: your better understanding is sufficient to replace, but that says nothing about whether the replacement is necessary because of the better understanding. To be necessary requires adherence to a law or a principle, the enouncement of which seems to be missing.

You’re always saying that a thing is possible, or that a thing can be done, but never how it is possible or how it is done. Without a how, it is reasonable that I maintain my own knowledge for the standing and authority of the subjective/objective distinction, rather than entertain yours in rejecting it.

Hell, you haven’t even shown how the subjective/objective distinction actually is inadequate.
———————

As if it's impossible to discard. Read my threads. — creativesoul

Threads. You have threads, separate from your entries in our dialogues? So you’ve already given a how, someplace else? In the chance you meant comments in our dialogues, I haven’t seen any how’s. And when I mentioned this before, you didn’t come back with the suggestion to read your threads. You’ve never suggested other threads to me for anything.

I don’t think I’m asking too much.

morphed into a 'ready-made' set of axioms by the time of Galileo. — Joshs

I get it. Kant used Thales, but......same principle. Wonder why the extended time frame between them. Maybe Thales’ set of axioms weren’t as complete.

Interesting. Thanks for the context.

Kant's subjectivization of the empirical world didn't go far enough. — Joshs

Perhaps not. But that wasn’t the intent of the Critiques, nor the Metaphysics of Natural Science. It didn’t matter to him, because even if he entertained the idea of an objectively causal world, it would still have to relate to the human capacity to understand it. If he had entertained the idea, would the substance of the Critiques evolved? Maybe, but it’s moot, because what we have of them is all there’s ever going to be.

I can’t imagine what he would do if he even knew about such notions as universal geometric space. Can’t blame him for failing to reduce them to something, if he didn’t know what they were.

Mostly the first, in varying degrees. Progress, doncha know.

As far as I’m concerned, to wit: mere opinion, Kant was the paradigm shifter in epistemological philosophy, of which there has been no other since. But then, I’m not as acquainted with the moderns as I am with the Enlightenment, so......

Nevertheless, it’s pretty obvious what anybody said within this paradigm either supported or rejected Kant, until 20th Century theoretical physics cast a new light on the meaning of knowledge itself, re: Einstein on the con*, Schrödinger on the sorta-pro**, Gödel on the super-pro***.

*Einsteins, 1921 “Geometry and Experience”;
**Schrodinger, 1944, “What Is Life”
***Gödel, 1961, “The modern development of the foundations of mathematics in the light of philosophy”

Its idealist in a particlar way, but not anthropomorphic if we have reduced the anthropos to a process of temporalization in which the human disappears along with animals and 'natural' constituted world as a whole. — Joshs

Yes, but you haven’t reduced the anthropos, insofar as you’ve included the movement of bodies and changes in time into a system, re: “a bat would have to know....”, that we have no reason to suppose incorporates them. It’s not your fault, it’s the fault of the human system; we as humans simply can’t think in any way other than the way humans think. It’s absolutely impossible.
——————-

Husserl made this move with what he called epoche, abstracting away all empirically relative facts to arrive at minimal conditions for any experiencing whatsoever. — Joshs

Understood. I would offer that Kant did the same thing in 1787.

“...For example, if we take away by degrees from our conceptions of a body all that can be referred to mere sensuous experience—colour, hardness or softness, weight, even impenetrability—the body will then vanish; but the space which it occupied still remains...”

“...With regard to phenomena in general, we cannot think away time from them...”

“...That space and time are only forms of sensible intuition, and hence are the only conditions of the existence of things (of experience)....”
————————

recognizing a prmordial gestalt temporal relationalty as fundamental in talk about any experieincing of a world, prior to constitutied empirical beings. — Joshs

Dunno about all those modern guys, but I think I can dig enough significance out of that to agree with it.

existence is primordial. — tim wood

Primordial meaning fundamental......agreed.

If some things exist necessarily - if there are such things - then they have always existed and certainly did not spring fully-formed from the brow of logic/reason. — tim wood

If some things exist necessarily, they do not so spring, agreed, but it does not follow that they always existed. To say they always existed mandates the timeframe of permanence, which cannot be given from existence alone. A thing that exists necessarily may exist only temporarily.
——————-

And it may well be that the ability of language and thought to apprehend existence is, on the one hand, constrained, yet on the other hand, the constraint irrelevant. — tim wood

The whole paragraph is very good, but this is the key. Whether we talk about an object that does exist, or merely think an object that might exist, “existence” the primordial conception, must already abide, otherwise “to exist” has no meaning, so our apprehension of it is not really necessary. Still, it doesn’t have to be inapprenhensible; we could just let it stand as a condition, in accordance with the way we think of anything at all.

Good post.

Well done. A tip of the pointy hat.

I wonder how it all relates to Kant. What about such categories as time and space, the very principles of individuation? — petrichor

Almost everything humans talk about now can relate to what Kant has already said. Except of course, those particular things he and no one else at the time knew were even possible. Not so much space travel, for instance, but how to do space travel without killing the travelers.

Now I never knew the guy, but I’m willing to bet he would have looked at you funny for thinking space and time are categories. The very principles of empirical individuation, sure, but categories? Yeah, no.......

Minor point, and takes very little away from the well done.

So a bat wouldn't know what it is like to be a bat except in terms of what it is like to experience each new moment, and it only know what each moment is like by moving from that moment to the next. — Joshs

Correct. But anthropomorphic. All that allows us to characterize a bat, is ourselves.