Finished Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Céline.

Started The Tunnel by William H. Gass.

guess, what counts as "instinct"? The thought, "I want a baby because X" doesn't seem like an instinct. It does seem like a preference though. Because the preference is tied to a biological phenomenon it may be people are mixing up the preference for an instinct. An instinct to me involves things like automatic responses to stimuli. — schopenhauer1

Maybe instinct isn't the best term of use, but I don't think preference is the right one either. I suspect children typically represent hope. When all other reasons are lost, it's the children we're told we have to look out for. The hope for a better tomorrow, this is a life-long project for people. To take that away from them would be tantamount to the destruction of their entire reason for being, probably many would find it cruel.

I agree with you that never being born is preferable to being born, because life is truly rotten. But because it is so rotten, I think it is understandable why people would cling to something - anything - to make it less rotten, even if it means bringing someone else into the mess. If you figured out how to get by without having kids, that's cool, good for you, but not everyone wants to live without hope. What do you propose we substitute, if not children?

We keep tumbling into the next generation, children are born because their parents were born because their parents were born because their parents were born...the best any person can do, if they can find it in themselves, is to not have children and accept that there is no hope. That is a very bleak worldview and so it is not surprising that most people will reject it, and I don't think we can blame them.

I have forked off a thread for Kant's Critique here, as to avoid getting the two books tangled up in one thread.

Introduction

Summary

I: On the difference between Pure and Empirical Knowledge

With respect to time, all knowledge begins with experience. However, this does not necessarily mean that all knowledge arises from experience. The question is, can there be knowledge independent of experience? Knowledge of this kind is called a priori, while that which is derived from experience is called a posteriori.

A priori knowledge is not simply that which may be known before some experience occurs; it is that which is absolutely independent of all experience whatsoever. Pure a priori knowledge has no empirical elements mixed up with it, whereas impure a priori knowledge has some relation to experience. Knowledge that is a posteriori - that is, empirical - is only possible through experience. For instance, “every change has a cause” is an impure a priori proposition, because the concept of change is derived only from experience.

II: The Human Intellect, even in an Unphilosophical State, is in Possession of Certain Cognitions “a priori”

How can we distinguish between a pure and an empirical cognition? The two tests for purity are that of necessity and universality. The empirical can never provide either, for experience cannot tell us that some phenomenon must be of some way, or that all phenomena are of some way. Empirical universality is an arbitrary extension of validity from most cases to all cases. In contradistinction, pure (a priori) cognition is characterized by its necessity and strict universality. Both need not be established for a cognition to be deemed pure; and it is enough to demonstrate only one, as neither one is a feature of the empirical.

That humans possess judgements that are necessary and strictly universal can be demonstrated by any mathematical proposition. But also, scientific propositions like “every change has a cause” (although being an impure a priori proposition) possesses both necessity and universality due to the conception of a cause necessarily and universally being connected to an effect, since a cause would not be a cause if it had no effect. Furthermore, empirical judgements could not acquire any degree of certainty if the principles they are based on are themselves also empirical. Finally, there are also concepts that remain after we have stripped away all that is empirical, such as the concepts of body and substance.

III: Philosophy stands in need of a Science which shall Determine the Possibility, Principles, and Extent of Human Knowledge “a priori”

Some human cognitions seem to extend the range of judgements beyond that of possible experience, by means of concepts with no corresponding object of experience. This transcendental, or supersensible, realm of thought holds problems of reason which are of great importance to humans and of which doubt or indifference does not restrain us from inquiring into. These include God, the freedom of the will, and immortality. The science which deals with these problems is called metaphysics. It has been dogmatic from the beginning because it has taken on this task without first investigating its capacity to do so.

Since it deals with questions outside the safe ground of experience, the foundations of metaphysics ought to be investigated before going any further. But humans have a natural desire to expand their knowledge on these important questions, and so go about doing so (and very quickly) without knowing whether this is possible. At any rate, mathematics has had such undeniable success as an a priori science, that metaphysics is taken to have the same fruitfulness. Just as a dove, flying through thin air, may believe it would fly even more effortlessly if it were to be in airless space, metaphysicians see in the independence from experience a freedom for limitless thought. Indeed, outside of experience, metaphysics encounters very little resistance to rapid and complex theorizing.

But regardless of all the effort and enthusiasm, there has been no real progress in metaphysics. Every new metaphysical theory is another attempt to blindly stumble around in the dark. Part of this has to do with the desire to finish the edifice of knowledge as quickly as possible, and only reflect upon the foundations when absolutely required to. But also, a great deal of the operations of reason consist in the analysis of concepts, which does not introduce any new matter or content (but merely clarifies that which was already contained in the concepts). However, reason unconsciously slips into a second mode of function, where it connects foreign concepts to each other, without knowing how these are connected. These two modes are explored in the next section.

IV: Of the Difference Between Analytical and Synthetical Judgements

In all judgements where the relation between the subject and the predicate is cogitated, this relation is possible in two ways: either the predicate belongs to the subject and is contained within the conception of the subject, or the predicate lies outside of the subject, though it stands in connection with it. The former judgement is termed analytical, the latter synthetical.

Analytical judgements are those in which the connection is cogitated through identity and can be called explicative; synthetical judgements are cogitated without identity and can be called augmentative. An example analytical judgement might be “all bodies are extended”, because extension is built into the concept of body. An example synthetical judgement might be “all bodies are heavy”, as the concept of weight is not contained in the concept of body, but nevertheless is related to it by means of experience.

In this way, all judgements of experience are synthetical, since analytic judgements have no recourse to go outside of the sphere of conceptions with the application of the principle of contradiction. The principle of contradiction is what establishes a priori knowledge as necessary and universal. Whereas synthetical judgements conjoin concepts contingently as part of a whole, which is called the synthesis of intuitions.

Analytical judgements are always a priori (pure), but synthetical judgements are not always a posteriori (empirical). A synthetic a priori judgement would occur without the aid of experience; indeed, it is the characteristic of an a priori judgement to be necessary and universal, which cannot be established through experience. All speculative knowledge, such as metaphysics, is synthetic a priori.

V: In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason, Synthetical Judgements “a priori” are contained as Principles

All mathematical judgements are a priori synthetical. Consider the proposition 7 + 5 = 12. This is not an analytic proposition, as the number 12 is not contained in the concept of the sum of 7 and 5, i.e. (7 + 5 = SUM) is not the same proposition as (7 + 5 = 12). In order to derive 12 from the sum of 7 and 5, we need to resort to an intuition corresponding to one of the concepts, such as the fingers on a hand. This becomes more clear when doing more complex mathematical operations. The same can be said of the proposition that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. The concept of shortest is not contained in the concept of line, and so is a wholly new addition to the concept, the synthesis of which is achieved through an intuition.

Natural philosophy (physics) also contains synthetical a priori judgements as principles. For instance, the propositions that the quantity of matter in the universe remains constant, or that an action must equal a reaction in terms of motion, are both synthetic. The necessity and universality of these claims is clear, so they are indeed a priori. But they are also synthetical, as they involve concepts that do not share an identity, e.g. matter with permanency.

Metaphysics, too, must contain synthetic a priori judgements. It must not simply clarify the concepts we have of things, but actually extend the knowledge we have of them to regions beyond possible experience. A metaphysical proposition like “the world must have a beginning” involves necessity, so it is a priori. And the concepts of world and beginning are not contained within one another, so a judgement using them must be synthetic, which requires an intuition as its ground. But since the judgement is a priori, it cannot appeal to experience for this ground, so some other intuition must be used for the judgement to be valid.

VI: The Universal Problem of Pure Reason

It can be advantageous to put a number of different investigations under a single question; for the purposes of this essay, the question is this: how are synthetical a priori judgements possible? The entire existence or downfall of the science of metaphysics depends on the answer to this single question.

The reason metaphysics has vacillated for so long with no progress is because the distinction between analytical and synthetical judgements was never properly drawn. David Hume was the closest to suggesting it, but he failed to accept that certain propositions - like those containing the concept of causality - could be possible, because he thought they were simply confused notions borrowed from experience and habit. However, had he applied his skepticism universally, he would have had to reject all mathematics, which would have been absurd.

Because mathematics and natural philosophy have undeniably made progress in the extension of our knowledge, the aforementioned question can be asked for them as, “how are they possible?”, since it is already evident that they are. But with metaphysics, which has made such miserable progress, the question is rather, “is metaphysics possible?” Metaphysics as a natural and powerful human disposition is certainly possible, but the real question is whether metaphysics is possible as a science; that is, whether we can possess knowledge of the objects in which it treats.

The critique of (pure) reason is what can lead to the establishment of this science. It is not a large science, as its object of study is only Reason itself. Once Reason understands itself, it can determine the limits of its application, namely to that of objects outside of experience. This is a completely different procedure to any other done in the past; the focus is on determining how the concepts used in metaphysics come about a priori. Although metaphysics has consistently failed in the past, it is indispensable to human reason, so it is prudent to assess what the limits of reason are with respect to this science.

VII: Idea and Division of a Particular Science, under the Name of a Critique of Pure Reason

The science which deals with all that has been said is called the Critique of Pure Reason, since reason is the faculty which provides the principles of knowledge a priori. The Critique is a propaedutic to the complete system of pure reason, which would be called transcendental philosophy. The term transcendental here means all knowledge which is occupied not with objects, but with the mode in which we cognize these objects, as far as this mode is a priori. For the purposes of this essay, the focus will only be the principles of a priori synthesis, as a guide and preparation for a complete transcendental organon. The Critique of Pure Reason is the complete idea of a transcendental philosophy, but not the science itself. There must be nothing empirical involved in its concepts, for its subject is pure reason.

It is divided into two parts: a Doctrine of the Elements, and a Doctrine of the Method. The former is subdivided into two parts, which deal with the two sources of human knowledge, sense and understanding. Objects of sense are given, while objects of understanding are thought. The conditions under which objects are given must precede the conditions under which objects are thought, so the conditions of sensibility will be addressed first.

Questions:

• In V, Kant says

Arithmetical propositions are therefore always synthetical, of which we may become more clearly convinced by trying large numbers.

Is this appeal to our psychological limitations appropriate for a transcendental argument?

• In V, Kant says

Some few principles preposited by geometricians are, indeed, really analytical, and depend on the principle of contradiction. They serve, however, like identical propositions, as links in a chain of method, not as principles [...] What causes us here to commonly believe that the predicate of such apodeictic judgements is already contained in our conception, and that the judgement is therefore analytical, is merely the equivocal nature of the expression.

What does Kant mean here? This paragraph was very confusing to me.

Can we say the brain is an analogue computer being able to simulate all physical processes in thd world, even a lightning flash? — Prishon

You could, but it would be question-begging to say that it is a simulation without any justification. The world in our heads need not be anything like the world outside of it.

The statement, "I want a car" and "I want a baby" are absolutely the same as far as I see. One does not have any more unconscious pull than another. The wanting of something is simply the wanting of something. — schopenhauer1

I think this probably the key point here. You don't see the pull of having kids. OK. But most people do, for whatever reason. Certainly cultural indoctrination has a lot to do here, with cities being population farms and all that. But people were procreating long before civilization. There is an instinctual aspect to it. For what reason would a hunter-gatherer have offspring, their own material benefit? Hardly, because it's just another mouth to feed. Infanticide and presumably abortions were quite common back then.

Probably a more interesting question would be to ask why people have children, and whether there can be a substitute for doing so. I remain unconvinced that there is something that can fill that need for a child that so many people have.

The PDF is available for free from that page, if you're interested in reading more than the abstract.

I found Graham Harman's take on Metzinger's PSM to be interesting. I read The Ego Tunnel a while back, and while I know it's not his magnum opus, I found parts of it to be puzzling. Certainly an intriguing/baffling/horrifying theory nonetheless.

:up:

The US pulling out of Afghanistan:

Do you have any thoughts on where the "next Vietnam/Afghanistan" will be?

Got nagged into joining a reading group at my work, a few months back we started Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.

The book is a steaming pile of shit, I do not recommend it at all. Save your time, most of it is just atrocious.

Thus, antinatality is mostly a pathological aberration like clinical depression or Tourett Syndrome; where it's a deliberate stance, such as in my case, it's (mostly) a matter of moral luck when one achieves it. — 180 Proof

:up: Hence why I consider procreation to be an act of blameless wrongdoing.

Thanks for the detailed responses, I appreciate it :up:

Pure knowledge a priori is that with which no empirical element is mixed up....”
**impure a priori knowledge, also considered as either intuition, metaphysically, or memory, psychologically. — Mww

Okay, memory (or imagination) was the thing I had in mind when I wondered about Kant's definition of the a priori. I can taste a strawberry, but I can also remember or imagine the taste of a strawberry. But the pure a priori is that which is absolutely independent of all experience (=sensibility?).

That does not mean that I can have pure a priori thoughts, though:

Pure a priori knowledge, because it is being herein defined as absent any experience, must then be determined by something other than sensibility. And the only thing remaining after eliminating sensibility, is thought. Therefore, the theoretical ground is laid for deriving the possibility of pure a priori knowledge from understanding alone, which is the faculty of thought. — Mww

Without the sensuous faculty no object would be given to us, and without the understanding no object would be thought. — Mww

From the simplest analytical proposition, A = A, to the most complex abstract synthetical mathematical calculus, the proofs of all logical forms depend on empirical conditions. — Mww

Kant starts the Critique by claiming all knowledge begins with experience. Within the context of the above quotes, does this basically mean that thought is always tied to sensibility, but is nevertheless different from it?

The way in which pure a priori knowledge is apodeitic is becaiuse it arises from the understanding alone, an internal cognitive faculty, thereby granting sufficient causality for certainty, in that there is no other influence on it. That which arises from itself, cannot be other than it is, which holds the same value as truth, but truth restricted to the very domain from which it is given. — Mww

That makes sense. Apodeiticity comes from the closed nature of the understanding, it is complete and unalterable. Truth is restricted to the domain in which it is conditioned, the thing-in-itself is literally outside of truth (for humans). Correct?

The question then becomes....does reason ever reach that state of affairs, and the Kantian speculative metaphysics proves it does not, and it cannot. — Mww

Do you mean that reason cannot ever reach absolute proof for empirical propositions, or that reason cannot ever reach absolute proof (within the domain of the human mind) for any proposition whatsoever?

Sensation arises from the matter of objects and is the initiation of the process by which the system is going to determine how the object is to be known; intuitions are the forms to which the matter attains, whatever that objects may be. — Mww

Hence it is as necessary for the mind to make its conceptions sensuous (that is, to join to them the object in intuition), as to make its intuitions intelligible (that is, to bring them under conceptions) — Mww

What I don't understand is how "form" is different from "concept"; sensations (matter) are given form (intuitions), but intuitions themselves are unintelligible without being brought under a concept by the understanding through an act of synthesis involving the pure concepts.

My biggest source of confusion while reading Kant has been with the meaning of these words: intuition, object, and representation. They seem to often be used in different ways and it's difficult for me to keep track of what they mean in each context.

As someone who seems to know quite a lot about semiotics and is passionate about its applications to philosophy and science, what books would you recommend someone read to begin learning about it?

How did you find Against the Grain?

Finished the Introduction and Transcendental Aesthetic. Some questions:

• Kant says that knowledge a priori is that which is absolutely independent of all experience. He contrasts this with a posteriori knowledge which is possible only through experience; he uses the analogy of a man knowing that an object will fall because of prior experiences of them doing so. Yet it seems to me that we can conceive of having empirical knowledge about something without every actually experiencing it ourselves. Kant surely doesn't mean that we actually have to experience something in order for it to count as empirical knowledge, is it more like it having the possibility of being experienced which makes it empirical knowledge?
• If I understand correctly, intuitions immediately relate to objects, which are given to us as representations through sensation, which is the mode of sensibility. In other words: sensibility is the capacity to receive representations from objects which affect us; it does this through sensation; sensation is the way in which (empirical) intuitions relate to an object. Here is what I do not get: what is the difference between a sensation and an intuition (what more is there to an intuition other than sensation?), what is meant by "affect" if not simply interacting with us in some way, and what is the difference between the term representation of an object and the term object?
• In what way is a priori knowledge apodictic that makes it impossible for empirical knowledge to provide the same universality and necessity? That 7 + 5 = 12 is a synthetic a priori true proposition is certainly plausible to me, but that it is necessarily and universally true that 7 + 5 = 12 is not. Do I have anything but my current and previous cogitations of this to justify my belief? For what reason do I have to believe that it may not be different in the future?

Thanks, I plan on reading Schopenhauer after Kant.

I realized I am not getting the most out of Allison's book if I don't read Kant's Critique alongside with. My own progress is going to be a bit slower on account of balancing two technical books at the same time.

Kant has a wonderful note in the preface to the first edition of the Critique:

We very often hear complaints of the shallowness of the present age, and of the decay of profound science. But I do not think that those which rest upon a secure foundation, such as mathematics, physical science, etc., in the least deserve this reproach, but that they rather maintain their ancient fame, and in the latter case, indeed, far surpass it. The same would be the case with the other kinds of cognition, if their principles were but firmly established. In the absence of this security, indifference, doubt, and finally, severe criticism are rather signs of a profound habit of thought. Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds of exemption from the examination of this tribunal. But, if they are exempted, they become the subjects of just suspicion, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination. — Kant

I'm not following. Anyway, SO or Reddit would be a better place to discuss this.

I don't think the way the OS for Debian would allow elevated privilege before the OS would restore default vales and the administrator informed of a hacking attempt on root. — Shawn

You could have the kernel monitor whenever write operations are attempted on root, and report them then. Processes can't open files without going through the kernel, which checks the permissions of the user against the permissions of the file.

If software is somehow able to access and modify files without the kernel first checking its authorization, then you have a bigger security problem. That just shouldn't happen.

That could be an issue; but, the kernel would simply revert itself back to a default state after an intrusion attempt. — Shawn

How? If this TimeShift program gets hacked, it could have its revert abilities removed.

Could you point out where this is in use? — Shawn

Hashes are used all over cryptography and data integrity. I don't any specific examples on hand, but the simple implementation of what I said before can be done by anyone who is familiar with the shell.

What if a friendly actor needs to make a change to this root folder for legitimate reasons? What if this TimeShift program gets hacked in some way? It seems like a major security vulnerability for a program other than the kernel to have access to this sort of thing.

Couldn't you get a crypto hash of whatever files you're worried about and then set up a cronjob to periodically calculate the hash and compare it to the stored one? If the hashes don't match, time to restore a backup. That's an oversimplified idea that is already in use.

But, the thing I'm trying to do is have this being a real time process by mounting the OS onto RAM and directly monitoring it (in Linux) by a program called TimeShift.

For example, when a hacker tries to alter the system, he would be able to do so because the OS is predefined to always be restored to default settings when a change is detected by System Restore in Windows or TimeShift in Linux. — Shawn

I'm confused, the kernel is already "mounted" in RAM if you mean that it already has its code in some location in RAM. The kernel (and OS in general) needs to be in RAM so context switching to kernel space and subsequent kernel operations is as fast as possible. After all, the kernel is just another process which happens to have been given special privileges by the CPU during the boot sequence.

Are you proposing that the operating system monitors itself?

political nihilism — 180 Proof

What do you mean by this?

Chapter 6: The Intellectual Conditions of Human Knowledge

This chapter was short but dense. I understand the overall argument, but I'm not sure if I understand a few of the details. I have included a few questions afterwards.

Also, I'm glad to see this thread has started getting more traction. Good discussions!

Summary:

The sensible conditions of human knowledge (the a priori intuitions of space and time) were covered in the previous chapter; this chapter focuses on the intellectual conditions of human knowledge, otherwise called the pure concepts of the understanding, or categories. Kant claims to have made a major advance over Aristotle, because he thinks that his catalog is not only complete, but that it can be demonstrated as being so. Kant goes about deriving the catalog from his analysis of the nature of judgement. His argument moves from the forms of general logic to the pure concepts of understanding.

Somewhat confusingly, “pure” does not indicate a priority with concepts as it does with intuitions. There are in fact a priori concepts which express formal conditions of intuition, which are the concern of mathematics. But a pure concept is really just a shortened version of a pure concept of understanding; “pure” in this case refers to its origin (“seat”) in the nature of human knowledge as that which expresses a fundamental law of the understanding, and which has no reference to the manifold of intuition.

Why pure concepts must be presupposed as necessary intellectual conditions of judgement: without pure concepts, there would not be any concepts at all.

Recall that the essential act of thought is judgement, and the function of judgement is to provide determinate representations (synthesis). The task of judgement is to provide a unification of representations under a concept; every judgement is a conceptualization, and vice versa.

Thus every judgement requires there be some pre-given concepts. So there must be some presupposed concepts that cannot be regarded as products of prior judgements; these are the pure concepts of understanding. These pure concepts are second-order rules for the generation of other rules (concepts). Without these concepts, there would be no concepts at all.

The relationship between the pure concepts and the logical forms

Kant correlates the pure concepts of understanding with the “forms of judgement”, by which he means the various ways in which the representational unity derived from a judgement is possible. Each form is also called a “logical function” or a “moment of thought”, and are grouped under four sets. At least one function from each set must be used in each judgement. Allison does not include an explicit table of the forms of judgement, nor of the pure concepts of understanding, so I have reproduced them below from my copy of the Critique:

Forms of judgement:

• Quantity of judgements:
  - Universal
  - Particular
  - Singular
• Quality:
  - Affirmative
  - Negative
  - Infinite
• Relation:
  - Categorical
  - Hypothetical
  - Disjunctive
• Modality:
  - Problematical
  - Assertorical
  - Apodeictical

Pure concepts of the understanding:

• Of Quantity:
  - Unity
  - Plurality
  - Totality
• Of Quality:
  - Reality
  - Negation
  - Limitation
• Of Relation:
  - Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens)
  - Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)
  - Of Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient)
• Of Modality:
  - Possibility - Impossibility
  - Existence - Non-existence
  - Necessity - Contingence

The table of logical functions is taken by Kant to yield the table of pure concepts. Since every judgement is a conceptualization, then each of the logical forms of judgement has its own particular way of conceptualizing representations. In order to judge under a logical form, one must already possess a corresponding concept. At least one logical function from each set must be used in every judgement.

Demonstrating the correlation between the tables

Allison continues on to what he considers to be Kant’s explicit argument for the correlation between the table of logical functions of judgement and the table of pure concepts of understanding. Kant says:

“The same function which gives unity to the various representations in a judgement also gives unity to the mere synthesis of various representations in an intuition; and this unity, in its most general expression, we entitle the pure concept of the understanding. The same understanding, through the same operations by which in concepts, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a judgement, also introduces a transcendental content into its representations, by means of the synthetic unity of the manifold in intuition in general. On this account we call these representations pure concepts of the understanding, which apply a priori to objects - a conclusion which general logic cannot establish.” — Kant

By “transcendental content”, Kant means the form of the thought of an object in general. To introduce transcendental content into representations is to relate them to an object. A pure concept is that under which the objective validity of the synthesis of a judgement is thought; in other words, it is a rule that dictates how an object can be thought if it is to be determined by a judgement of a logical form.

For instance, the pure concept of substance (the conceptual correlate of the categorical logical form) dictates that the subject of a categorical judgement be conceived as a bearer of properties, and not a predicate of something else; that is to say, the subject is necessarily considered as if it were a substance (the ontological status of the pure concept of substance arises from its hypostatization; it need not be the case that this hypostatization is actually real for the concept to perform its function).

Both general and transcendental logic involve this same function of judgement, but at different “levels”; this is what allows Kant to derive the pure concepts (used at the transcendental level) from the logical functions (used at the general level). It is not the case of there being two distinct activities (analysis:general logic, synthesis: transcendental logic) of two separate faculties (the understanding and the imagination); it is rather a single activity (synthesis) of a single faculty (the understanding), operating at two distinct levels (general and transcendental).

Therefore, if we assume that the understanding has such a transcendental function (which has not been established yet), and that it uses this function in the same way in which it judges, then the logical functions that it uses when it unites concepts in a judgement are also the forms it uses to unite the intuitive manifold when determining an object for judgement. The pure concepts of understanding are nothing more than the logical functions of judgement, when applied to the manifold of intuition.

Shortcomings of Kant’s argument

Despite his defense of it in general, Allison does not forget aspects of Kant’s argument that are weak. He believes that Kant’s defense of the correlation of the disjunctive function with the pure concept of community is a failure. The disjunctive function is only understood in the sense of an exclusive disjunction, but the pure concept of community is understood as reciprocal connection; there is some degree of similarity in the sense that they both involve the coordination of elements in some way or another, but it’s not enough to actually show that the concept of community is derived from the disjunctive function.

The other shortcoming Allison notes is Kant’s claim that he has supplied a complete table of categories by deriving it from the logical functions of judgement. Even if we ignore the preceding issue of the disjunctive:community correlation, there still stands the issue of whether the table of logical functions of judgement is complete itself. Kant never supplies any argument demonstrating that this is the case. Why indeed are these forms of judgement the only ones? And if there are more logical functions, then there would also be more pure concepts, in which case Kant would be incorrect to state that his table of categories is complete.

Regardless of these two failings, Allison believes that the key takeaway is that Kant demonstrates that judgement requires a set of categorial a priori concepts, which he calls the pure concepts of understanding.

Questions:

• What exactly is "the understanding"? Kant calls it the "faculty of judgement"; so is the understanding just some "thing" that does all the judging?
• What exactly is a "representation"? This term has been used to describe multiple different things but I don't know what it actually means.
• Allison says that at least one logical function from each set (of the table of forms of judgement) must be used in every judgement; why is this the case?
• Allison notes that there is only one faculty (the understanding) operating at two different levels (the general and the transcendental). Am I correct to say that general logic applies to analytic judgements, and transcendental logic applies to synthetic judgements? If so, then why are all actions of the understanding called synthesis?

As to dependence on social order, next time you're out and about, try to take in how much social order is in play to make your world work. As I imagine you do not loom your own sheets, I suspect you cannot get out of bed in the morning or into it at night without wrapping yourself in the products of social order.

Just for fun, can you list anything you provide for yourself that is not dependent on social order? — tim wood

I never said I am a completely self-sufficient individual. I understand the importance of gun control in maintaining the social order that you and I have been conditioned to be helpless without. I'm just pointing out that this is a restriction on something that I consider to be important to the overall dignity of a human being, that being their ability to defend themselves against other people.

The overall idea is: strip everyone of the ability to defend themselves, so this isn't ever used as a means to hurt people. When tragedy strikes, don't let the people defend themselves, let them be rescued. I understand that this desire to be able to protect oneself may not be reasonable to satisfy in the society we live in. I understand that it may be a case of choosing a lesser evil. But to me, this is a sign that something is wrong with society. Being able to defend yourself is a basic human right; but a technological society cannot give this to its citizens, because technological weapons in the hands of individuals would undermine it. Yet it is this technological society that produces these weapons to begin with. Gun nuts want their guns but they don't understand that the society that has produced these guns cannot allow the nuts to have them. If gun nuts got their way, there wouldn't be a society left to make the guns they so love.

Or in simpler terms, I have a family. Are they safer if I have and wear guns to protect them, or if I do not have guns. Safer? Not safer? — tim wood

I won't disagree with you about people generally being safer without there being some guy with an AR walking down the street. My point was that I don't see how we can have safe gun laws while also respecting a person's wish (right?) to be able to defend themselves. Technology has made the concept of self-defense practically obsolete. Gun enthusiasts are clinging to a value (a perfectly legitimate value) which is now outdated due to the weapons they claim to love.

Centuries ago, it was not really a big deal to walk around with a sword or a pistol. You could stab or shoot a couple people, maybe, but these weapons aren't obscenely lethal. Nowadays such a weapon is useless against an automatic rifle. The only chance a person has to defend themselves from someone with a gun (and not depend on someone else) is if they also have a gun (and if they know how to use it). But if the threat to the overall community is to deemed to be too great to allow people to bear arms, then the system will disarm the public and convince them that it's for the greater good. This gradually conditions them into being dependent upon a social order (and not themselves) to provide aid in times of crisis. In my opinion, this is a gross violation of human dignity.

Can you explain why Kant makes this claim? What is empirical idealism and why would transcendental realism entail it? Is empirical idealism the proposed "God's eye view"? — Marchesk

I take empirical idealism to mean that we are only acquainted with the private data of our own minds. There is no reference to inter-subjectivity. Transcendental realism entails empirical idealism because it doesn't give any good explanation as to how we possess any knowledge at all. As I understand it, this basically means the our representations could be arbitrary and have absolutely no ground. Kant introduces a priori forms and concepts and by doing so gives grounding to knowledge, not of the thing-in-itself but of a shared, intersubjective world of experience.

I think Allison has more to say about empirical idealism later in the book. I don't know if I completely understand it either.

The theocentric "God's eye view" is the transcendental realist idea of a mind that is an infinitely-amplified version of our own mind, which is able to perceive objects as they "really are" in space and time. It's the difference between seeing only part of the picture and seeing all of the picture.

What is the justification for there being a confusion? I can imagine that naivie/direct realists would deny there was one, and say that of course appearances are how things are, taking into account the necessary details of the environment (lighting conditions or what not), and the limits of our sensory organs. — Marchesk

It's not just secondary-like properties that could be smoothed out under better conditions for perception, or if you possessed that God's eye point of view. It's more about there being nothing in common between the thing in itself and an appearance as it appears in space and time. Space and time are taken to be meaningful only when predicated on appearances; they are meaningless when applied to the thing in itself.

I've always wondered why there is a leap to saying the objects cannot have an existence as represented by us, such as extension in space and time. If the objects have an independent existence, and this existence is related somehow to human sensibility, then why can't that be some form of spacetime? — Marchesk

Also here I believe Allison devotes a chapter to discussing how we are to make sense of the notion of a transcendental thing in itself. For now I will say that, according to Kant, it is a condition of human sensibility to view objects as distinguished from themselves and the self as existing in space. Perhaps it is the case that we cannot help but imagine the thing in itself as existing in space, but all that points to is the way in which human sensibility is and not the way the thing in itself is.

There may be people who either should or are obliged to be armed most of the time. But for the rest of us, in my book, it takes a real pussy to wear, and to think he needs to wear, a gun beyond need. — tim wood

Wearing a gun can be a totum that represents someone's desire to be self-sufficient and prepared to defend themselves. Obviously it can be a danger to other people, since having a gun doesn't mean you know how to use it. And the sheer killing capacity of a gun (compared with a sword or a knife) may overshadow its symbolic role. But the idea that people shouldn't wear guns because other people with guns will protect them just seems like an admission of helplessness and dependency.

That's a good question. Ultimately it does seem that Kant's position on the a priori intuitive nature of space and time relies upon his belief that they are conditions for the possibility of experience and that they cannot be anything but this. I think he is correct to say that we are unable to represent objects without space just as we are unable to represent alteration without time; the very notion of object-hood requires space. I think I might not be convinced that space cannot also be a qualitatively similar thing-in-itself. I know Allison addresses this point in chapter 5, so perhaps I don't fully understand the material. It's mostly just a hunch.

I am sort of deliberately keeping myself in the dark for the time being as to not spoil the surprise, but certainly there are counter-arguments to Allison's conception of Kant, and I am becoming more and more curious about them. I am particularly interested in reading more about speculative realism. I read part of Meillassoux' After Finitude and some Graham Harman correlationist stuff a few years back when I was wet behind the ears. I didn't fully understand all of it, but one point stuck with me (and I won't be able to give it justice here): that if transcendental idealism is true, then philosophers ought to be telling scientists (geologists, cosmologists, paleontologists) that what they profess to study never really actually happened as they say it did. @schopenhauer1 gives a quote earlier in this thread from Schopenhauer that is relevant to this issue.

Chapter 5: The Sensible Conditions of Human Knowledge

This was a long and dense chapter, though rewarding in its contents. I have separated the summary into sections to better organize and connect the arguments.

Summary:

Kant lists three exhaustive possibilities regarding the ontological status of space and time. They are the absolutistic, relational and critical positions, advocated by Newton, Leibniz and Kant, respectively. The chief concern of the Transcendental Aesthetic is to demonstrate the truth of the critical position (the transcendental ideality of space), and Kant goes about doing so by showing that space and time are a priori intuitions. Allison chooses to focus on Kant’s arguments for space, as they are generally in parallel with those of time.

The a priority of space

Kant says:

“Space is not an empirical concept which has been derived from outer experiences. For in order that certain sensations be referred to something outside me (that is, to something in another region of space from that in which I find myself), and similarly in order that I may be able to represent them as outside and alongside one another, and accordingly as not only different but as in different places, the representation of space must be presupposed. The representation of space cannot, therefore, be empirically obtained from the relations of outer experience. On the contrary, this outer experience is itself possible at all only through that representation. — Kant

Space is a necessary a priori representation, which underlies all outer intuitions. We can never represent to ourselves the absence of space, though we can quite well think it as empty of objects. It must therefore be regarded as the condition of the possibility of appearances, and not as a determination dependent upon them. It is an a priori representation, which necessarily underlies outer experience.”

Allison believes that these are two separate arguments that aim to establish the apriority of space, but that the second argument is much stronger than the first.

The first argument for the apriority of space: distinguishing objects from themselves and the self

Kant is arguing here that objects are only apprehensible by humans as distinct both from themselves and from the self if they are represented in space; this representation cannot be empirical (a posteriori, it cannot precede that which it makes possible), so it must be a priori.

This argument contains two presuppositions: that the representation of space is necessary in order for humans to refer to sensations external to themselves, and that it is also needed for humans to apprehend objects as external to each other. By the term “outer sense”, Kant means a sense through which one can become perceptually aware of objects as distinct from oneself; and by the term “inner sense”, he means a sense through which one can become perceptually aware of oneself and one’s states. Space as the condition of outer sense is not taken to be a logical necessity. Kant is not stating a tautology when he claims that space is the conditions for the possibility of outer sense, because space is not the only conceivable way of doing so - but it is this way for humans.

Similarly, when Kant says that space is the condition for the possibility of distinguishing objects from one another, he is not making a tautology. For humans to distinguish objects, these objects need to not only be qualitatively different but also numerically different; they need to reside in different places in space. But it need not be the case there are no other forms of distinguishing objects from one another that are nonspatial. Spatiality is the means in which humans distinguish objects from one another; these are not identical!

Some have objected by arguing that Kant ignores the possibility that space is an empirical representation which is mutually conditioned by other empirical representations; in other words, space could be derived as an abstraction from a complete concept of it and other empirical representations. But this misses the thrust of Kant’s argument: it is not merely that we cannot have representations of things without the representation of space, but that space operates as the underlying means in which these representations are apprehended. Furthermore, it is also the case that the awareness of the distinctness of objects from one another is a condition for the representation of space, for that is putting the cart before the horse. Space must not simply be concurrent, but also prior, to the representation of objects.

The second argument for the apriority of space: conceiving space as empty of objects

In the second argument, Kant says that since we can conceive of space as empty of objects, but that we cannot conceive of objects without space, it must be that space be considered as a condition for the appearances of these objects, and not simply a determination of them. Space is prior to the apprehension of distinct objects, and functions as a condition of doing so. And again, it is not a logical condition, nor is it a psychological condition (as in, it just happens to be the case that humans are unable to remove space from appearances); it is an epistemic condition for the possibility of representing distinct objects. It is through representing appearances as spatial that we represent them as “outer” - as distinct from ourselves (and also from each other). If space were to be removed, there would be no sensibility.

Space as an intuition

Kant’s arguments for the a priority of space have been covered. Allison then takes on Kant’s arguments for space as an intuition. There are two arguments, the second of which was completely re-done in another version. Allison focuses on the second of the second argument.

The first argument for space as an intuition: space is a totum analyticum; so it is not a concept

The first intuition argument assumes the exhaustive nature of the concept-intuition distinction, and goes about demonstrating that space cannot be a concept, and so consequently it must be an intuition. Kant claims that we can only ever represent to ourselves one space, which all places are parts of. However, space is not just a totality, or an aggregate of places. The parts of a totality are logically prior to the whole; this is the case in general for the marks of a concept. But the parts of space are only given in and through a single unified space. In other words, space is a totum analyticum. Since the parts do not precede the whole, as is the case with concepts, this means that space must be an intuition.

The second argument for space as an intuition: space has infinite intension; so it is not a concept

The second intuition argument assumes that space is represented as an infinite given magnitude and takes this to be conclusive that it is an intuition. In the process of explaining the second version of this argument (the first is quickly dismissed), Kant also further explains the differences between concepts and intuitions.

A concept has a complex logical form that involves both extension and intension. Extensionally, every concept has other concepts under it, arranged hierarchically in terms of generality, with each lower species of concept introducing new differences. Intensionally, every concept contains other concepts within it as component parts; this is the inverse as extension, as the lower species of concepts with greater differentia contain the higher concepts within themselves.

Compare this with an intuition, which is a representation of an individual. All parts of an intuition are contained within and presuppose the whole. Intuitions are divided by limitation, not differentia. Recall how this is also how a totum analyticum is structured.

The second argument uses these structures to illustrate how concepts and intuitions involve infinity. Concepts handle infinity with respect to its extension; there can be an indefinite number of concepts falling underneath it. Intuitions handle infinity with respect to intention; they can have an infinite number of parts within it, coexisting. Allison says that concepts cannot have infinite intension because such an infinite concept could not be grasped by the human mind. And space is given as an infinite collection of parts, just as an intuition is.

If this is the case though, does this contradict what Kant has to say in the Antinomies about the infinity of the world in space and time? Allison thinks there are different notions of infinity at play here. Space is always represented as being bounded by more of the same; there is a limitless progression of an all-encompassing space. This part of the text was a bit obscure, but if I am understanding correctly, the key point here is that space (and time) are tota analytica, but a world-totality is a totum syntheticum; space is divided into parts, while a world-totality is build up from its parts.

Given-ness, and the different species of intuition

Allison moves on to Kant’s notion of “given-ness”, as when Kant claims that “space is represented as an infinite given magnitude.” Kant uses the term “pure manifold” to describe the preconceptual framework that guides and limits human cognition. Space is never perceived as limitless, but rather spatial regions are perceived under the “pre-intuition” that they are parts of a limitless space. As an example, Allison quotes Schulze who illustrates how, in order to draw a line from one point to another, there must already be a space in which to draw it. It is this space that Kant calls a pure manifold.

In a very dense series of paragraphs, Allison explains how there are three different senses of the term “pure intuition”. There is a “formal intuition”, which is a determinate (conceptualized) pure intuition; there is also a “form of intuition”, which is an indeterminate (unconceptualized) pure intuition. The latter can either be the manner of intuiting, or it can be the essential structure (form) of that which is intuited.

So there is a form of the intuited, a form of intuiting and a formal intuition. A given, infinite, single and all-inclusive space which contains within it the manifold of spaces cannot be simply the capacity to intuit spatially, nor can it be a formal intuition (as it is not represented as an object); it must be the form of the intuited. Kant says:

“Space, represented as object (as we are required to do in geometry), contains more than mere form of intuition; it also contains [gives/supplies] combination of the manifold, given according to the form of sensibility, in an intuitive representation, so that the form of intuition gives only the manifold, the formal intuition gives the unity of representation.” — Kant

A crucial point raised by Allison is that a formal intuition (a determinate pure intuition of universal and necessary features of objects qua intuited) is a hybrid that requires both the form of intuition and a concept by means of which this form is determined.

Geometry and Incongruent Parts

Kant’s discussion of geometry is often taken to be the primary argument for the transcendental ideality of space, but Allison believes this is false. The discussion is brief, for nothing in Allison’s argument depends on this aspect of Kant’s thought. Geometry is taken to be a body of synthetic a priori propositions; from this, Kant concludes that this can only be explained if the representation of space is an a priori intuition, and therefore that space itself is transcendentally ideal and the form of outer sense.

Two points are raised by Allison. One, that the transcendental ideality of space is a necessary but not sufficient condition of geometry being a synthetic a priori science; in which case, if the latter is false, the former need not be; and two, the argument gets its to conclusion only by means of the a priori and intuitive nature of the representation of space; so if this can be established by other means (such as the arguments made earlier in this chapter), the argument from geometry can be bypassed. The most the geometry argument can prove is that the representation of space is an a priori intuition; that space itself is transcendentally ideal must be proven in other ways.

The “paradox of incongruent counterparts” is roughly that there are objects which are qualitatively identical but yet cannot be substituted for one another because they are different in their external relations, such as spherical triangles. I confess that I read this particular section no less than five times and I still don’t fully understand it. Regardless, Allison believes it is not a strong argument for Kant’s position.

Ontological conclusions

It is towards the end of the chapter that Allison moves to the overall argument Kant makes for the transcendental ideality of space. Before, it was focused on the nature of the representation of space (as an a priori intuition), but now it shifts to the ontological status of space itself (given that the representation of space is an a priori intuition). Kant draws two conclusions, and then claims that space is empirically real and transcendentally ideal.

The first ontological conclusion entailed from the representation of space as an a priori intuition: space is not a property of things in themselves

The first conclusion is that space does not represent any property of things in themselves (in the transcendental sense), nor in their relations to one another. This means that the representation of space, which was established to be an a priori intuition, does not contain any properties that can be predicated of things when they are considered apart from the subjective conditions of human intuition. Kant asserts (though without any justification) that no determination of an object can be intuited prior to the existence of this object and so therefore none can be intuited a priori.

The second ontological conclusion entailed from the representation of space as an a priori intuition: space is a condition of sensibility

Kant’s second conclusion is that space is nothing but the form of all appearances of outer sense; it is the subjective condition of sensibility under which outer intuition is possible for humans.

The transcendental ideality of space

From these two conclusions, Kant draws the third conclusion of the transcendental ideality of space:

“It is, therefore, solely from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, of extended things, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition under which alone we can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the representation of space stands for nothing whatsoever. This predicate can be ascribed to things only insofar as they appear to us, that is, only to objects of sensibility.” — Kant

From this it can be garnered that Kant believes that spatial predicates are limited to appearances, the objects of sensibility, and cannot be applied to the things in themselves. The empirical reality of space comes from that notion that these predicates are applicable to these outer appearances, and so can be considered objectively real in the empirical sense. The empirical reality thesis is easy to make, but the transcendental ideality thesis is more difficult. Allison says that it is hard to find such an argument, but he endeavors to show that the transcendental ideality of space can be derived from the a priori and intuitive nature of its representation.

A priori intuitions are possible only if they are forms of sensibility and thus transcendentally ideal

To start, Allison points out that since concepts cannot be related immediately to objects, they can be formed independently of any experience of them. We can even think of concepts to which no object corresponds to, which is why we can think (but not know) the thing-in-itself. An intuition, on the other hand, is immediately related to the object in which it (re)presents to the mind. The problem of an a priori intuition is to explain how it is possible for an intuition to have nonempirical content, to not have content derived from the affections of an object? This would be impossible if the intuition presented things as they are in themselves, and not just for a priori intuitions but for empirical intuitions as well. But Kant is focused on a priori intuitions; by rejecting the aforementioned notion that a priori intuitions can have nonempirical content corresponding to things-in-themselves, it stands that these intuitions must contain nothing but the form of sensibility which predates all the actual empirical intuitions given from the affections of objects. An a priori intuition is possible if and only iff it presents to the mind a form of its own sensibility.

Allison says there are two steps to the overall argument: that an a priori intuition is possible if it contains a form of sensibility, and that such an intuition is possible only if it does this.

The first component of the argument for the transcendental ideality of space: an a priori intuition is possible if it contains a form of sensibility

To analyze the first component, Allison defines a few terms, as what Kant means by “form of sensibility” is not straightforward. “Appearance” is an ontologically neutral term, which refers to an object that is given in experience (contrasted with those that are merely conceived). “Form” means condition”, and “matter” means that which is conditioned by a form. A “form of appearance” is a feature of an appearance in virtue of which its elements are related to one another; the representation of space functions as a form in this sense.

Recall that “form of intuition” can refer to either the formal structure of intuited objects, or the mode in which these objects are intuited. The former sense is equivalent to a form of appearance, but the latter is inherently subjective and related to the mind’s receptive capacity.

“Form of sensibility” can also be taken in two ways, both having references to mind. It can either be a form of sensibly intuiting (sometimes called a form of receptivity), or a form of objects qua sensibly intuited. Allison refers to these as forms of sensibility(1) and forms of sensibility(2). In claiming that a form of appearances (intuited objects) is a form of sensibility(2), Kant is also claiming that it pertains to these objects in virtue of the mind’s form of sensibility(1). Thus the first step in Kant’s overall argument here is saying that, if an intuition is a form of sensibility(2), then this is due to the form of sensibility(1), which in turn entails that the intuition must be both a priori (as it is necessary and universal for all subjects with the same form of sensibility(1)) and pure (as its source is not in any sensible data). Therefore, if we assume that the representation of space is a form of sensibility(2), then it is a pure a priori intuition.

The second component of the argument for the transcendental ideality of space: an a priori intuition is possible only if it contains a form of sensibility

The second step is more complicated than the first. Broadly construed, the only other alternatives for the possibility of an a priori intuition are the Newtonian and Leibnizian positions. Kant’s argument seems actually mostly compatible with the Newtonian absolutist view of space. Indeed, why can’t space (and time) be transcendentally real and the form of experience of transcendentally real things rather than just mere appearance? Yet Kant explicitly rejects the Newtonian view when he says that “space does not represent any property of things in themselves,” and any a priori intuition of a thing in itself.

Kant believes that the Newtonian theory is incapable of accounting for the possibility that the representation of space functions as a form of human experience; in other words, taking space to be an ontological condition of objects is incompatible with it being an epistemic condition of them. Excluding the Kantian position that space is a form of sensibility, there are two alternatives: that we have an innate idea of space that exists in a “pre-established harmony” with the real space, or that the idea of space is derived from the experience of real space. The first alternative is ad hoc, while the second denies that space can function as a condition of the possibility of the experience of objects. There is a contradiction involved with the notion that the representation of a condition can have its source in that which is conditioned.

Ultimately, the question of how an a priori intuition is possible is actually equivalent to the question of how the representation of space can function as a condition of sensibility. Therefore, everything rests on Kant’s claim that the representation of space functions as a form of human experience.

The “neglected alternative”: could space be both a form of sensibility and a thing-in-itself?

But might it be the case that space is a form of human sensibility but that it is also a corresponding feature of things-in-themselves? How can Kant hold that things-in-themselves are unknowable, but simultaneously hold that they are not spatial? This is known as the “neglected alternative”, which has been assumed to have been ignored by Kant. Of course, the Antinomies could be used to justify Kant’s position, though as we have seen they are not very strong.

Allison notes, however, that while space as a form of sensibility(2) is inherently subjective and so thus the numerical identity of this form with a real space is impossible, qualitative similarity is also empty of any meaning. It is not as the “colored spectacles” analogy claims it to be, where space is akin to pink-colored glasses in a world that happens to also be pink in-itself. If Kant is correct when he says that space is a form of sensibility, then spatiality simply is not a predicate that one can meaningfully apply to things-in-themselves.

It never was moral to have children, but nowadays it's undeniable.

Nice, that's a sweet copy. I have a hardback anthology of Kant's works by the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1952, part of their "Great Books of the Western World" series. It smells delightful :grin:

Allison is one hell of a scholar, that's for sure.

Chapter 4: Discursivity and Judgment

I thought this chapter to be excellent, though certainly dense. It is a chapter in which a lot of important terminology gets explained. I am definitely glad I decided to start over with this text here. Kant's ideas are fascinating but I feel that they take a great deal of patience to fully understand and appreciate.

Summary:

Kant claims that discursive (or conceptual) knowledge is not the only type of knowledge, but that it is the only type of knowledge possible for humans. He explicitly rejects the classical empiricist notion that there can be a purely receptive, sensible intuition of an object without any conceptualization. But what are concepts and what are sensible intuitions, according to Kant?

A concept is a general representation of what is common to a set of objects. Concepts refer to an object mediately by means of a feature, which several objects may have in common. They are always universal and they serve as a rule for the mind to organize representations into an “analytic unity”. Concepts are used by the understanding to judge; Kant characterizes concepts as “predicates of possible judgments”.

The matter, or content, of empirical concepts are the sensible features that are thought in it as its marks, derived from experience and corresponding to the sensible properties of things. The form of a concept is another word for its universality (generality), which is the case for all concepts. It's important to note that simply having a collection of sensible impressions that are associated with one another is not equivalent to possessing a concept. A concept requires the thought of applying these properties to other possible objects. Doing this transforms the impressions into marks, which are partial concepts. Kant says this thought is produced by a series of logical acts that he bundles together under a single term, reflection.

An intuition, on the other hand, is a "singular representation”, which refers immediately to its object. It is a direct mode of representation, which presents a single object to the mind. A key point here is that intuitions do not represent objects until they are brought under concepts during a judgement. It needs to be kept clear whether an intuition is conceptualized or indeterminate. (Allison notes that Kant uses the term “intuition” in more than one way. He says there are three ways Kant uses it: the mental content (aforementioned), an object, and the act of intuiting.)

For Kant, neither intuitions nor concepts alone can yield knowledge; only together can they do so. Through judgement, the faculty of understanding applies concepts to sensible intuitions. Intuitions provide the content for judgements, while concepts provide the rules in accordance with which this content is determined.

Judgement is a mediate knowledge of an object; a representation of a representation. No concept is immediately related to its object, but only to some other representation of it, whether that be an intuition or another concept. The essential function (task) of every act of judgement is to produce a unity of representations under a concept. If this function is fulfilled, then this concept can be regarded as “real”, or alternatively as a determination.

The distinguishing characteristic of the relationship of representations in a judgement lies in its objective validity; they have the capacity to be true or false. Compare this to the unification that occurs in subjective associative acts of imagination, which do not possess this validity. Allison promises to further explain this distinction in a later chapter.

The chapter moves on to the analytic-synthetic distinction. The introduction to the Critique contains two different versions of this distinction.

The first version is that analytic judgements are those in which the predicate belongs to the subject; it is covertly contained within it; this connection is said to be thought through identity. The law of contradiction is the principle of all analytic judgements. Synthetic judgements are those in which the predicate lies outside of the subject, but is connected to it; this connection is said to be thought without identity.

Allison believes the second version is greatly superior. Analytic judgements are explicative, while synthetic judgements are ampliative. Synthetic judgements add to the subject concept a new predicate, while analytic judgements do not. In other words, synthetic judgements extend our knowledge, while analytic judgements clarify it. Actually, Kant claims that analytic judgements can extend our knowledge too; what the distinction is really about is the content of these judgements. Analytic judgements extend knowledge by “formal” means while synthetic judgements extend it by “material” means.

An analytic judgement has the general structure of: In this case, the concept b is contained inside the concept (a + b) as a mark. All analytic judgements are a priori, and since the truth of the judgement can be determined by analyzing the concept, no real object (x) need exist that satisfies these concepts. The judgement is purely “formal”. Kant’s conception of analyticity rests upon the notion that a concept is a set of marks (which are also concepts). For a concept to be contained means for it to be a mark, or mark of a mark, of a concept.

A synthetic judgement has the general structure of: In this case, the concept c is not contained within the concept (a + b), although they refer to and are thus connected by the same identical object x, the subject of the judgement. The material extension of our knowledge comes from providing a determination of x that is not already contained in the concept (a + b).

Synthetic judgements can only materially extend our knowledge if the concepts in it are related to intuition. Since judgements can only ever relate concepts to other representations (concepts or intuitions), and since only intuitions stand in immediate relation to objects, then any concept that is a real determination of an object must be related to an intuition. In fact, both the subject and the predicate concepts must be related to the intuition of the object for the connection of these concepts thought in the judgement to be objectively valid.

Problems for traditional metaphysics arise as soon as the analytic-synthetic distinction is made. Kant claims that the question of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements is the central problem of metaphysics because everything else in metaphysics hinges upon this question.

Philosophers have long drawn the distinction between a priori and a posteriori judgements, which differ in how they are known (grounded), or more specifically, whether experience grounds the judgement. The a priori is independent of experience because the criteria for it are necessity and universality, which cannot be grounded empirically. Conversely, yhe a posteriori grounded in experience.

The question then is, can synthetic judgements have non-empirical grounds? Can synthetic a priori judgements be made? How is a non-empirical, extra-conceptual and extra-logical ground of judgement possible? How could we extend our knowledge materially beyond a given concept, independently of any experience of the object that is thought through that concept?

Kant’s answer is that synthetic a priori judgements, predictably, require a priori (“pure”) representations. Kant says:

“Knowledge is a judgement from which a concept arises that has objective validity, i.e., to which a corresponding object in experience can be given. All experience, however, consists of the intuition of an object, i.e., an immediate and singular representation, through which the object is given to knowledge, and of a concept, i.e., a mediate representation through a mark which is common to several objects, through which it is thought. One of these two modes of representation alone cannot constitute knowledge, and if there is to be synthetic knowledge a priori, there must also be a priori intuitions as well as concepts.” — Kant

An “impure” synthetic a priori judgement is one that attempts to connect a pure concept predicate with an empirical concept subject, without any appeal to experience. But according to Kant, this type of judgement cannot have any objective validity. This is what is so disastrous about the analytic-synthetic distinction with respect to traditional metaphysics. Empirical intuitions are characterized by their particularity, and as such are incapable of expressing the universality and necessity that is thought in the pure concepts of a synthetic a priori judgement. Transcendentally realistic metaphysics are ungrounded because there are no intuitions that answer to the concepts in question!

Against the Grain was great, I couldn't stop reading it. I've also read part of Seeing Like A State, though that required more commitment than I was able to give at the time.

There is no determinate goal, just a perpetual drive for progress and improvement of efficiency. Things are just supposed to keep getting better and better, without rest, and certainly without any hesitation or doubt or worries that they might be getting worse. If we don't keep going forward we might start wondering why we are going forward, and we can't have that...we must progress, for the sake of progress!

In The Technological System, Ellul has this to say about "posts" and other vague terms:

Certain sociologists fully realize that we are no longer in an industrial society [...] But they employ strange words: postindustrial, or advanced industrial society. I find it quite remarkable that in a time when the use of mathematics is being developed in the human sciences, people can employ such imprecise and meaningless words.

[...]

Postindustrial? This simply means that we have passed the industrial stage. And now?

In what way does this indicate the slightest feature, render the slightest idea of what our society is like? If someone knew nothing about these things, one could precisely define the machine, industry, hence industrial society. But how can we communicate anything about a "post"?

Would Bell ever dream of defining the political society of the seventeenth century as postfeudal, or that of the nineteenth century as postmonarchic? Likewise, the term "advanced or developed industrial society" makes no sense. "Developed"? This can only mean that industry has developed further. So we must still be living in a society that is industrial, only more so.

[...]

Z. Brzezinski also figured he could add something absolutely new by coining the term "technetronic". [...] I certainly won't deny that Brzezinski has very accurately brought out new features of society in its present or imminent phase, but I don't see the need for coining a new term. [...] The traits that Brzezinski discerns in his technetronic society are actually the traits of a technological society. And much as I like his honest book, I am forced to admit that he simply went along with the fad of making up a - seemingly - esoteric vocabulary in order to give the impression of coming up with something new. What he says is quite standard in regard to technological society. All that is new here is the word "technetronic", which is unjustified. "Technology" amply suffices for everything he discusses. — Ellul

It seems that incest will always be extremely rare so I don’t see how it could threaten the concept of family for a whole society. — TheHedoMinimalist

Incest might be rare in part because it is seen as a taboo. Do you know how popular incest porn is?

Probably incest is a taboo at least in part because it can really mess up family dynamics. Imagine a friend tells another friend they love them romantically or erotically, but the love is not reciprocated. Already an awkward situation that can sometimes end friendships right then. Now imagine this happening between siblings, who may live in the same house, who share the same parents, and cannot nearly as easily separate in their relationship. Very awkward.