Comments

  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    Sorry for another off-topic, but could someone clarify the following questions?

    1. Is it true that, for Kant, the assertion of the existence of things-in-themselves is made according to a purely analytic judgment?
    2. Do, for Kant, appearances and things-in-themselves constitute two separate kinds/levels of existence? In other words, is it true that an object must exist as appearance along with things-in-themselves, or, rather, an object-as-appearance can exist only as the thing-in-itself?

    Thanks.
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    The pure empiricists don’tMww

    How can they be completely un-Kantian if they adhere to the analytic/synthetic dichotomy? W.V.Quine has even written the article titled Two Dogmas of Empiricism, one dogma being precisely this adherence. And if this dichotomy were so "traditional", it could not play any serious role in the Copernican turn, which is hardly admissible.
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    Do you see there is scant difference between Aristotelian necessity/contingency propositional dualism, and Kantian analytic/synthetic propositional dualism?Mww

    Yes, simply because in Aristotle, there is no analytic/synthetic dichotomy since Kant has elaborated not only the synthetic a priori/a posteriori part of the distinction but the analytic as well. And this is of primary importance when it comes to the (post-)Kantian character of 'positivism'.

    Those who reject the a priori synthetic domain reject transcendental epistemological philosophy, hence cannot call themselves Kantian enough for anything.Mww

    How can they adhere to the Copernican turn then?
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    Kant didn’t innovate the analytic/synthetic dichotomyMww

    I cannot agree with this — it is Kant who introduced the sharp separation, that is, a dichotomy, between the analytical and synthetical truths. It is well established in the history of philosophy. So it is even not true to assert that Hume is close enough to Kant in this regard. Therefore, those who reject synthetic a priori propositions but adhere to the dichotomy itself are still Kantian enough to create a controversy I have formulated.
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    This is catastrophically false, from a purely transcendental Kantian point of view.Mww
    Before this suggestion can be treated as catastrophically false, the distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal must itself be justified. However, we have preliminary seen that it at least cannot be justified by appealing to the analytic/synthetic dichotomy or the Copernican turn since it supposedly constitutes the ground for them. So, please, let us concentrate more on the questions above.

    Before I respond to that, I would ask, how would you think it is so?Mww
    Well, prima facie, because the dichotomy in question is perhaps the main logical innovation of Kant that occupies a central place in his argumentation.
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    But noumena are not things-in-themselves, thus the dualism is destroyed. To say noumena could be things-in-themselves to rationalities other than those using the human representational variety, is an altogether empty assertion, for it would be impossible for us to even understand how such could be the case.Mww
    I don't fully understand why noumena are not things-in-themselves and would rather say that noumena are things-in-themselves from the point of view of Kant's implicit assumptions. But my point was not so much about dualism as about the Copernican turn. So let me summarize.

    1. The analytic/synthetic dichotomy is grounded on the distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal, not vice versa.
    2. The Copernican turn is thus possible based just on the analytic/synthetic dichotomy without appeal to synthetic a priori truths.
    3. The Copernican turn has nothing to do with a dualism, per se, but only with a singular concise, logical methodology.

    Granted these points are true, the questions arise: what does the Copernican turn consist in and how could it be ensured? Isn't a "singular concise, logical methodology" in question precisely the analytic/synthetic dichotomy in the first place? If this is so, then my main question could be reformulated as follows: what is the "bridge" between the analytic/synthetic dichotomy and the Copernican turn, given that the distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal is supposedly not an integral part of the latter?
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    Neither one are that important — Mww
    I had in mind analytic/synthetic distinction on the one hand and between phenomena and noumena on the other.

    I’d be interested in an expansion on your line 3 reasoning. — Mww
    Well, prima facie, the basics seem quite clear — since time, space, and causality are 'subjective' precisely because of grounding on synthetic a priori judgments, the role of the latter in the Copernican turn is decisive. As for the noumenal/phenomenal, it is a more complicated matter, but it is at least clear that this dualism is simply an integral part of the Copernican turn. So, I myself wonder, whether there can be an explanation of how the Copernican turn could be possible without appeal to synthetic a priori truths. The situation is complicated by the fact that the Copernican turn was seen by Kant as a metaphysical enterprise, whereas 'positivists' consider metaphysics 'meaningless'.
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    The supposition relates to how is synthetic a priori knowledge possible. I believe that is part of the 'bridge' you are speaking of...the bridge that transcends logic. — 3017amen

    Seems to me to be two very separate domains of discourse. — Mww

    Well, these are indeed rather separate domains, but both distinctions are very important for Kant, so one could suspect that they are somehow interconnected. It seems that, after all, the connection is indirect — through the doctrine of synthetic a priori judgments. But if this is so, my second question becomes particularly acute. The line of reasoning is as follows.

    1. 'Positivists' indeed want(ed) to adhere to the Copernican turn for a variety of reasons, one of them being their commitment to linguistic conventionalism, that is, the doctrine of "human-made" concepts, the dependence of the world on a thinker, or what Heidegger called 'subjectivism' in general.
    2. Thus, they tried to criticize Kant but have not strictly returned to Hume, etc. Instead, they embraced the analytic/synthetic dichotomy, while rejecting synthetic a priori truths.
    3. But given that the doctrine of synthetic a priori judgments ensures both the Copernican turn and dualism between the phenomenal and the noumenal as the necessary component of this turn, it is hard to see how to reconcile 1 and 2.

    So, the following questions arise:

    1. Is 'positivism' just a deficient Kantianism, regardless of Kant's own faults, an inconsistent doctrine that cannot be judged by its own standards?
    2. What could 'positivists' say about the epistemological and ontological status of noumena? Are they non-existent for them, or 'meaningless' like other metaphysical claims?
    3. What could those who reject the very dichotomy and Logical Positivism (Quine, etc.) say about the Copernican turn and the epistemological and ontological status of noumena?
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    Hi. If you permit, I would like to revive this topic. I will be glad if someone clarifies the following. It is not uncommon to assert that Kantian dualism between the noumenal and the phenomenal rests precisely on the analytic/synthetic dichotomy. But, after all, his point comes down to the claim that no type of judgment, including synthetic a priori, is capable to ensure knowledge of noumena. Given that, it is not easy to comprehend the exact relationship between the analytic/synthetic dichotomy and the dualism in question, that is, what the main determining factor is. In this context, the following questions arise:

    1. What is the "bridge", if any, between the analytic/synthetic dichotomy and the dualism between the phenomenal and the noumenal?
    2. If the "bridge" in question (and the Copernican turn in general) is somehow connected precisely with synthetic a priory judgments, how can those who accept the analytic/synthetic dichotomy but reject synthetic a priori truths ('positivists' in a broad sense) adhere to the Copernican turn and, given all this, what could they say about the epistemological and ontological status of noumena?

    Thanks.
  • McDowell and Hegel

    Thanks, it is useful book indeed. But preliminary it is already clear that McDowell disagrees with it's author. Thus in a direct response to Paul Redding's article he wrote, for example:

    "Redding suggests that we should frame an understanding of how Hegel diverges from Kant about perceptual experience in terms of a shift from an epistemological to a metaphysical focus, specifcally one that centres on modality, and in particular on actuality. But it strikes me as implausible that Hegel would discourage an epistemological orientation in considering perceptual experience. I need not object to Redding’s claim that Hegel’s most fundamental project is to set out a metaphysics that is directed to a comprehensive account of actuality. But that need not imply that Hegel would dissent from this idea: an account of perception must be an account of a capacity for knowledge (of the second-grade kind that empirical, as opposed to philosophical, knowledge is), and so cannot but be epistemologically oriented.

    I do not believe perception, and the experience that subserves perceptual knowledge, are even a topic for the Science of Logic, where Redding looks for a Hegelian insight that can be applied to perception and fnds it in the idea of a Satz. Hegel’s thought about perceptual experience is to be found not in the Logic but in the Realphilosophie that in a certain sense applies it, elaborating the self-actualization of the Idea; in particular in the philosophy of Spirit. And I believe Hegel’s conception of perception as a capacity for knowledge, as it emerges in the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, is not fundamentally different from Kant’s." (McDowell and Hegel, 2018 P. 241-242)

    All this supports the above thesis of Hegel as disjunctivist and makes the place of the development of Spirit in this picture along with McDowell's deliberate deviation from Hegelianism (or Hegel's from disjunctivism) obscure.