I don't find much to disagree with there so I'll just comment on this:

*I could go on at length about how a culture, particularly a historic culture, where everyone believes something without question. Is very different to what we experience in our disparate culture. Magic does happen, religious narratives do come to life. I witnessed such myself in India. — Punshhh

There is certainly a power to collective belief.

Making sense for somebody, isn’t the attempt to make him believe… — Mww

…just like that. — Mww

Exactly. Imagine if there were no plurality of views.

Thanks, I can make sense of what you say there. I'm radically open to entertaining different perspectives, and I'm not wedded to any of them, or even really to being overly concerned whether they are correct or not. It's more a case that some resonate and others not so much. We're just a bunch of ignorant monkeys, after all...or at least that's one perspective.

Hmmm…..the in-itself is purely conceptual, as a mere notion of the understanding, thus not real, so of the two choices, and in conjunction with conceptions being merely representations, I’m forced to go with imaginary. But every conception is representation of a thought, so while to conceive/imagine/think is always mind-dependent, we can further imagine such mind-dependent in-itself conceptions as representing a real mind-independent thing, by qualifying the conditions the conception is supposed to satisfy. This is what he meant by the thought of something being not at all contradictory. — Mww

I'll try another way of looking at this and see if it makes sense to you. I am going to kind of repeat what I already said. So, you say "the in itself is purely conceptual"―I'm going to modify that in line with the "use/ mention" distinction. Accordingly we would then have "'the in itself' is purely conceptual". So, the idea 'the in itself' is undoubtedly purely conceptual. What does the idea refer to? Well, it refers to the in itself of course.

So, I posed the question as to whether the in itself is imaginary or real. You say you are forced to go with imaginary, but then you go on to say that we (you) can further imagine that the mind-dependent conception of the in itself could represent a real mind-independent thing, by qualifying the conditions the conception is supposed to satisfy. This would seem to mean, to me at least, that we can equally think of the in itself as imaginary or real, while acknowledging that we cannot be at all certain whether it is imaginary or real, and if real, just what it is.

So, then I would say the inference to the best explanation, given that the in itself is thought to give rise to the for-us, and since the for-us is real, would be that the in itself is real, but can be real for us only to the extent of what our senses reveal of it, and as to the rest it can only be imagined, and is hence in that regard, for us ideal.

I agree with the rest of what you say in that post, I'm just not sure whether you will agree with the above.

You're talking nonsense just like Corvus is. I see no substantial difference between the two phrases. Why does one appear dogmatic, and the other not dogmatic to you? Are you that sensitive to the qualification of "nothing but"? — Metaphysician Undercover

The first statement says that space and time are relevant to or operative in some domain, which doesn't rule out that they are also relevant to or operative in other domains. The second says they are relevant to and operative in only one domain. If you cannot see the difference in meaning between the two statements then I don't know what else to say.

Yes, this tension could label Kant as dogmatic on noumena: he is meant to remain entirely agnostic, yet he slips into asserting what the noumenon cannot be, which, in effect, are claims about the thing-in-itself. Is this just one those performative contradictions many theories seem to generate? — Tom Storm

Any attempt to explicate just how things are does seem to generate inconsistencies, paradoxes, antinomies and I guess these could all be seen as performative contradictions. It seems to be inherent in every dialectical argument to conjure the spectre of its negation.

"Space and time are the pure forms of intution"―not dogmatic.
"Space and time are nothing but the pure forms of intution"―dogmatic.

This is some good stuff, I must say. Well-thought, well-written.

Two relatively minor counterarguments, if I may:

One, at the beginning, where you relate the in-itself to mind-independence. No conception can be mind-independent, and any thinking with respect to a mere concept, is itself conceptual, hence likewise must not be mind-independent.

“…. The concept of a thing that is not to be thought of as an object of the senses but rather as a thing in itself (solely through a pure understanding), is not at all contradictory…” (A255/B310)

The text designates the thing-in-itself as a conception, so….. — Mww

Thanks. It seems to me that the thought of the in itself is the thought of that which is human mind-independent. Yet, as you say, the thought of the in itself cannot be human mind-independent. Is the in itself purely imaginary or is it real? If it is purely imaginary, then it would be human mind-dependent, if it is real then it would be human mind-independent. Did anything exist prior to humans ? If yes, then it was human mind-independent.

So, it seems you are right that Kant is not inconsistent if he counts the in itself as merely conceptual.

I think correctly placed, the logic adhering to the “in-itself” says, that because there are things that appear, there must be things in themselves from which the things that appear are given.

It is in this way the perceiver is relieved from being in any way necessary causality for the things that appear, which immediately falsifies the proposition we create our own reality, and as an offshoot of that he can say he doesn’t care where a thing comes from or how it got to be as it is, but only cares about how he is to know it, the possibility of which is the primary consideration of the CPR thesis anyway. — Mww

Right, that's very clear―Kant is only concerned with how we can know and know about that which is experienced (and that which may possibly be experienced). Would you say the refusal to infer from experience the nature of the in itself (while acknowledging that it cannot be certainly known) is motivated by the practical reason of making room for faith?

:up:

It’s as if Kant doesn’t want to be a full-blown idealist and therefore argues that there must be things-in-themselves that are unknowable, the product of our senses and cognitive apparatus. — Tom Storm

I'd say the producer, not the product, of our senses and cognitive apparatus seems more apt.

Once we start saying, of the in itself, that “it exists,” “it is independent,” “it has properties,” we have already introduced the very conceptual determinations that the notion of the in-itself was supposed to suspend. — Wayfarer

I don't see how you can escape the contradiction if you say

the “in itself” is what lies beyond our conceptual and sensory reach. — Wayfarer

which is exactly to say that the in itself is human mind-independent.

Also, when you say "the in-itself is...whatever", you have posited it as something (not some thing of course) to which some predicate or even no predicate at all may be attached, and this devolves into incoherence because it makes the appearance of saying something while actually saying nothing at all.

You say I think Kant is dogmatic, and I do because Kant, having said we can say nothing about the in itself, inconsistently and illegitimately denies that the in itself is temporal, spatial or differentiated in any way, which is the same as to say it is either nothing at all or amorphous. He would be right to say that we cannot be sure as to what the spatiotemporal status of the in itself else, and that by very definition.

So I get that it can rightly be said that the in itself cannot be known to be spatial, temporal or differentiated in the ways that we understand from our experience inasmuch as we have defined it as being beyond experience, but it does stretch credibility to think that something which is either utterly amorphous or else nothing at all could give rise to the world of phenomena. Kant posits it simply on the logical grounds that if there are appearances then there must be something which appears.

The idea also depends on accepting that the in itself is completely inaccessible to us, but if it gives rise to the world of differentiated spatiotemporal phenomena, if phenomena depend upon it, then by definition we do have access to it, even if we do not have exhaustive access to it. On the other hand if it has nothing at all to do with sense experience then it is completely irrelevant and as good as nothing at all.

In any case, lack of certainty does not preclude reasoned speculation about the in itself, particularly if it is accepted that the phenomenal world of experience is dependent on the in itself. And note, you objected to the "it", but the "it" is already couched within the in itself. Much of what you say seems to come down to the attempt to play policeman to what we are allowed, not merely to claim or speculate, but to say coherently at all, and I do find that approach dogmatic. One persons' incoherence may be another's coherence.

I'm the first to admit that our understanding is limited by language, given its inherently dualistic nature. On the other hand our understanding is also facilitated by language. Our experience itself is, pre-linguistically, non-dual, and that experience plays a powerful part in our intuitive synthetic assessments of how things are. If we try to drill down strictly in analysis, we are always going to strike paradoxes, antinomies and aporia. So, I think a more playful, allusive kind of language is called for, free of the excessive concern with knowing whether we are strictly correct or not. Seek insight, not certainty.

Thanks for your great effort. There is a lot there and I'm running out of time today so I will read through and if I have time select bits that seem to warrant comment or need clarification.

….the fact noumena represents things that cannot be cognize says nothing about the things that can, and noumena cannot because they lack intuition, they lack intuition because there is nothing given to sensibility relating noumena to the pure forms of intuition, space and time;
….that which can be cognized, then, does have associated intuition, which then requires an exposition for the possibility of intuition;
….for the possibility of intuition is the necessity of an external object given to the senses, which is called a undetermined object of empirical intuition (A20/B34), or, an appearance in the sense of being presented to, as opposed to looking-like. Appearing to, not appearing as; — Mww

This seems to capture what I was alluding to. Noumena cannot be cognized, whereas things in themselves can be cognized, only not as they are in themselves. That said Noumena" suggests plurality. The term "thing in itself" has an ambiguity about it―it could refer to the thing which appears to us and is represented as a phenomenon or it could refer to the perceptually unknowable "whole" which Schopenhauer posits as the singular noumenon. Since the unknowable whole cannot be cognized, then it seems it might count as noumenal.

That's all I've time for now. (it is 8.29AM here in Australia).

PS: I realized I left a bracket off the quote from you which means you probably were not alerted to my response. I just edited this a little, and I think I have no more to say at the moment. If you want to respond I will be interested to read.
.

What I mean is this: the “in itself” is what lies beyond our conceptual and sensory reach. It is not just unknown in practice; it is unknowable in principle insofar as any determination already brings the mind’s discriminations to bear. Even to say “it exists independently” is already to ascribe an ontological predicate to what is supposed to lie beyond all predication. — Wayfarer

You contradict yourself―you say "the in itself is what lies beyond our conceptual and sensory reach", which is the very definition of human mind-independence. Then you say we cannot predicate its independence. Make up your mind. Is there an itself? If there is it is utterly independent of our perceptions and consciousness.

If there isn't then the commonality of experience, the shared world cannot be explained, and we would be left with a mere inexplicable phenomenalism or else some form of realism that allows us epistemological access to ontically mind-independent reality. You need to be consistent in your thinking or else you are really saying nothing.

I’m not saying that anyone should believe it, or that I believe it. But that we should at least acknowledge that it was believed by all the adherents of these religions movements and is depicted en masse in their iconography and teachings. And was accepted as true by the whole population prior to the Cartesian divide. — Punshhh

I don't think this assessment is accurate if the Ancient Greeks philosophers are taken into account.

All I’m saying is that if we are going to consider transcendence, we have to somehow translate what is revealed to people during revelation into something amenable to philosophical discourse. That there is no other way. It is rather like Kant’s neumenon. Philosophy accepts the neumenon into discursive discourse, why not transcendence? It’s rather like a positive form of neumenon. — Punshhh

Perhaps, but 'revelation' is a loaded term―I prefer 'altered states' or 'non-ordinary states'. Kant's noumenon is specifically defined as that of which no experience at all is possible. The question about revelation is as to whether what is revealed is the same as what is articulated. The question is whether adequate discursive articulation is possible. I tend to think not. In fact I think the same about ordinary states―they are made to seem ordinary by the assumption that our talk in terms of identities adequately characterizes them, captures their nature.

For Husserl and the other thinkers I mentioned there are no thing-in-themselves. Not just because humans or animals must be present for them to be perceived, but because a world seen in itself, apart from humans or animals, is a temporal flux of qualitative change with respect to itself. — Joshs

I agree―we identify things as determinate things, as being this or that. On the other hand I think there is structure in the temporal flux or field of differential intensities that is the determinator, that enables the reliable appearance of a shared world for both humans and animals. If not all would be anarchic chaos, and no discourse at all possible.

Spinoza, yes. Hegel and Whitehead, no. For the latter two the idea of mathematical truths that are utterly independent of history, world, relation, or realization is not just false, it is philosophically incoherent. — Joshs

I'm not going to argue about Hegel, as he is complicated and variously interpreted, including as having links with the Hermetic Tradition, but I think you need to look closer at Whitehead. In his ontology there are actual occasions, more or less evanescent events that make up the spatiotemporal flux that constitutes reality, and there are eternal objects―atemporal potentials that are "ingressed" (a Whiteheadian term that Levin has adopted) in the actual occasions. Basically the actualization of eternal potentials. Mathematical objects, or better, patterns, and forms, including ontic forms.

Whitehead stands Plato on his head as Marx did with Hegel―or perhaps better, stood Plato on his feet (as Marx said he did with Hegel), in that he denied that actual reality is the dim, imperfect copy of eternal forms, but their actualization, without which they would be effectively nothing at all. The eternal objects together constitute the totality of possibility, which is of course, numerically speaking, far greater than actuality, but greater only in that sense.

But there are bodhistvas galore and people who achieve a realisation of Nirvana, who are enlightened. — Punshhh

Are there? How do you know?

There is reincarnation, although modern commentators seem to contort this into something that isn’t the transmigration of souls, but the transmission of some kind of common being, or essence which is undefined. — Punshhh

Again, how do you know there is reincarnation?

Yes, but they are allegorical of transfigured, God like beings inhabiting a heavenly realm. — Punshhh

Yes, of course they are allegorical―I was only pointing out that all our supposedly transcendent imagery really derives from what we have seen in this world.

It’s time we accepted that all this religious activity, iconography and religious practices are shouting from the roof tops that there is a heavenly world, a Nirvana underlaying our known world, that is primary to it and that our world is a pale reflection of this reality. — Punshhh

I don't see any reason to believe that. That said, I don't deny that others might feel they have reasons to believe it. For me the idea that our world is a pale reflection of some other reality is unsupportable, since this world and our experiences in it and of it are all we know.

Or in other words to believe religious doctrine. It is an exercise in the blind leading the blind, in the absence of revelation. — Punshhh

This makes no sense to me. There are many religious doctrines, incompatible with one another, and I have no desire to be led by the blind.

Interesting. Here is where phenomenology (and hermeneutics, enactivism, poststructuralism and the later Wittgenstein) differs. The claim there is no such thing as a non-relational quality. Furthermore, a quality is an event, a change of relation. — Joshs

Sure, there is a sense in which it can be said that the quality of roundness or mass is a mere potential unless it interacts with something, is felt. But that doesn't change the fact that objects that have mass and are round may exist without ever having been perceived by any human or even animal. A round rock might be dislodged by water or wind and roll down a hill in a remote place that has never been visited by humans, or even animals.

No, it shows that there is enough similarity between the ways that each of us construct pattens of sense-making out of the flux that we can create abstractive idealizations that we call empirical objectivity. — Joshs

This seems incorrect to me. Sure, the ways in which we see things are mediated by our sensory systems, but it is the ways things are seen, not what is seen that is mediated. If everybody sees a cube on the left and a sphere on the right that cannot be explained by the similarity of the human visual system alone.

Levin buys into a mathematical platonism that goes back to Leibnitz and ignores all the thinking since Kant that this OP is drawing from. He assumes arbitrary mathematical truths in themselves which are utterly non-relational and then wants to integrate these pure ‘non-physical’ truths with evolutionary processes.

Like pi, e, and many other remarkable constants, forms emerge from mathematics in ways that cannot be explained by any kind of history or properties of the physical world – they would be this way even if the physical world was entirely different. — Joshs

Levin is merely speculating at this stage, and his thinking is more in line with Spinoza, Hegel and Whitehead than with Leibniz. He is a scientist, so maybe he doesn't labour under an academic assumption that insight is to be found only in the mainstream, or that there is a progressive line of academic authority in philosophy.

Levin is about testing explanatory hypotheses for phenomena which cannot be explained in terms of mechanical causation or evolution and thinking rather in terms of final and formal causes, ideas which, as you no doubt know, go back to Aristotle.

I think there is something to be made of the idea. For example, the table is somehow more than the sum of its parts. — Ludwig V

Sure, a very different sense of 'transcendence' that the one I was addressing.

There is no change without energy, no constitution of anything without energy. The changes, the possibilities for different constitutions of things, seem to be lawlike, directed towards particular kinds of forms. What is matter if not energy? Particles are configurations of energy, fields consist of energy. Cells, which are basically electrochemical networks have recently been found to clump together to form multicellular networks which, without having evolved, can cooperate to solve problems. See the work of Michael Levins for more information.

:ok:

I've read some of both, and much much more of Heidegger, and where I find difficulty is only where the language is obscure or ambiguous. The basic ideas are very simple, the elaborations are tortuous, and in my view, often unnecessarily analytical (and not always in a good way).

My view is that the great philosophers contribute one or two or a few new ideas, new ways of looking at things, and that is their value. The rest is "filler" for me―a waste of time. I think the idea of attending closely, as closely as possible, to experience is a great idea, and it wasn't invented by Husserl, Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty. There is so much mythology that gets built up around these figures, who were just very smart, very obsessed men who came up with some good ideas.

That said, if the academic life is attractive to you, then I would say 'go for it'. As for the practice, the more I attend to my experience without falling into trying to analyze the fuck out of it, the richer my life becomes. What more can we realistically hope for than an enriched life?

So the pattern constituting the rabbit expresses a different logic or relations. I call the logic of pattern a system of rationality. — Joshs

Fair enough. The direct experience for me is just seeing a visual pattern that can be read either way. Being interested in reading and writing poetry and also drawing and painting this is nothing new or surprising to me. Just as we often see forms or faces emerging form natural formations of rocks or clouds for example, so when I paint in a more "abstract" mode I often find similar images emerging there.

Do these qualities inhere in the things themselves independent of our encounter with them, or only in our response to these things, in how they affect us? By quality, I mean human feelings in the sense that the quality of an object is something that is felt, sensed by us. According to this definition, if a physical object, defined by qualities such as mass or roundness, may not evoke the same feelings in different percipients, then we cannot call these qualities of the object, but qualities of the interaction between the object and ourselves. — Joshs

I'd say that some qualities are relational and others are intrinsic to physical objects. Opacity of most things other than glass, the heaviness (mass) of stones and wood, the liquid flowingness of water and so on. I think roundness is a real non-relational quality, as I do form and pattern in general. Due to scale some characteristics may not be perceptible to some creatures; insects for example.

Are qualities like mass and roundness universally felt as the same by all of us, or do we simply hypothesize that the differences among us in qualitative sense of the same object amounts to subjective variation in the experience of an objectively invariant quality inhering in the object itself? Can we ever prove this hypothesis, or must we take it as a given if we are to act as physicalists? — Joshs

I believe anyone will feel the mass of a stone for example. It may feel heavier to a smaller, weaker person, obviously. If you tested a thousand people and asked them which of two stones, a relatively small one and a relatively large one, is the heavier, I don't believe there would be any disagreement. I believe that if you showed any number of people a sphere and a cube and asked them to identify which is which, that there would be no disagreement. This shows that the characteristics of objects are not human-dependent. Even my dog can tell the difference between a ball and a heavy stone―he won't try to pick up anything too large for his jaws.

I’m not trying to refute physicalism. It isnt wrong and it isn’t merely an attachment . It is a model and models
are intrinsic and necessary to our experience. Are all models relative? Phenomenology says that is it is what all models have in common (the subject-object structure of temporality) which is non-relative, rather than it being the case that we can get beyond perspectivalism to how the world really is in itself absent our participation. — Joshs

I'm not trying to defend physicalism either. As a metaphysical position I probably find it the most plausible. That said, I'm not totally averse to Kastrup's speculations (although I would say it is mind not consciousness which might be more coherently considered fundamental). On the other hand I am naturally averse to thinking in terms of fundamentality at all.

If I put on my physicalist hat, I would say that the physical, that is energetic configurations, are inherently mind-like in some way that is very hard, maybe impossible, to articulate clearly. I don't know if you are familiar with the experiments being carried out by Michael Levin. If not, if you are interested search his name and you will find plenty of material. I won't go into detail, but he hypothesizes a "platonic morpho-space" which he thinks is his currently best hypothesis to explain what he observes with clumps of human and other cells spontaneously organizing themselves such as to be able to problem solve in various ways. It's fascinating.

I agree with you that we certainly cannot "get beyond" human perspectives, but I think some perspectives are more plausible than others. That said, since there is no universally acceptable criteria for assessing plausibility, and since others will not find most plausible what I do, I acknowledge that metaphysics is largely a matter of taste.

This is one reason why it attracts me. If only it wasn't so fucking difficult — Tom Storm

Do you mean the theory or the practice? If phenomenology consists in attending to experience, then the theory is unnecessary―which is not to say the practice is easy.

Apologies for a bad choice of word. I didn’t mean taboo in that sense. I’ve only ever used it in the sense of a quiet, or unspoken, consensus not to go somewhere. — Punshhh

Fair enough―I guess "taboo" could just mean 'not acceptable'. It has been used on here in the other sense―to suggest that there is a fear of religion and/or the transcendent that explains why it is eschewed in philosophy.

The Buddhist, vedantic and Abrahamic traditions out of which philosophy and the sciences sprang was steeped in the understanding and implicit acceptance of a transcendent ground of being. — Punshhh

I'd say that is true of the Vedantic and Abrahamic traditions. It's not so straightforward with Buddhism―there the predominant idea seems to be that there is no ground of being. On the other hand Buddhism as a whole is a multifaceted movement, and very much open to various interpretations.

Their walls are plastered with divine iconography in which a transcendent, or divine ground of being is implicitly portrayed. — Punshhh

Such images are always imaginary amalgamations of imagery derived from this world of course. Think about the portrayal of God in Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel.

Perhaps it is time to look at the elephant in the room and include it in discussions of the ground of being. — Punshhh

I suppose you could say that the ground of being, if it were anything more than just an idea, would be transcendent. And the idea itself is thought of as an idea of something transcendental (as opposed to transcendent) insofar as it is not empirically evident.

How do thoughts relate to brain in this model? What would it mean to say a thought is not reducible to a neural process? If phenomenology isn't monist what exactly does co-emergence mean? — Tom Storm

Phenomenology brackets the question about the external world, of which I would say neural processes, if considered mind-independent, would be part. I see phenomenology as attempting to elaborate what lived experience is like, and I think it oversteps its bounds if it meddles with metaphysics and ontology. Of course lived experience is primary for us but it doesn't follow that it is primary tout court. I think that claim would be the epitome of anthropocentrism―and hence I find claims that the physical world did not exist prior to human life absurd.

So, I think phenomenology would treat neural processes as an idea which is secondary and derivative of our lived experience. There is a sense in which I can agree with that. Hundreds of years ago there was of course lived experience and there was then no idea of neural processes. But that there was at one time lived experience and no neural processes is an epistemological, not an ontological, fact. Did neural processes only come into existence when we could detect them? That would also seem to be an absurd conclusion.

I'm not sure what the idea is here. If consciousness is an aspect of the energy, what other aspects does this energy have? What does it do? Do you mean the energy is electromagnetism, and consciousness is an aspect of that? Or some other form of energy? — Patterner

The idea would be more that energy is fundamentally intelligent, directed. I wouldn't call that consciousness. I don't think intelligence, experience and consciousness are all the same. I see consciousness emerging out of experience and experience emerging out of intelligence. By 'intelligence' I don't mean discursive intelligence, but more like instincnt and more than instinct―creative problem-solving. You could call it 'will', but the danger there would be that the idea of premeditation might sneak in.

Imagine we are looking at a picture which can appear as either a duck or a rabbit. The system of rationality (the particular way the lines and curves are defined and organized into a whole gestalt frame of meaning) differs between the duck and the rabbit, and it differs qualitatively, valuatively, as a ‘felt’ sense of meaning . A physicalist will say , yes but we can locate the underlying facts which explain this difference. — Joshs

I don't understand visual phenomena like the duck/ rabbit as rational at all. I see them as just ambiguous patterns which can resemble more than one thing. Does it look like a beak or ears? Which resemblance do I notice first?

We can as phenomenologists study the process of constructing qualitative systems of rationality, but this will not lead us to a physicalist explanation, since the physicalist explanation presupposes the developed framework of a qualitative system of rationality. — Joshs

Physicalism does not rule out qualities, though. All physical things have their attributes or characteristics, which is the same as to say qualities. A particle may have the quality of mass or not. An orange has the quality of roundness, and of appearing to us as orange. In fact I can't see how anything non-physical could have a quality. If by 'quality' you just mean 'human feeling' then sure physical objects as such do not have human or animal feelings, and they may not even evoke the same feelings in different percipients.

There are is no end to the variety of qualitative systems of meaning we can constitute, and physicalism is just one historically produced narrative. It is not the world which is physical, or based on energy, it is a narrative which emerged a few centuries ago and which we have been quite attached to. We are so blinded by the usefulness of that narrative we can’t see through it or beyond it, as though we were all living in The Truman Show. — Joshs

Everything you say there is equally a narrative told from a particular perspective which is just one among many. I don't say the world is "based on energy" I say it is most primordially energetic, ever-changing. Your saying that physicalism is just a narrative which we have become attached to, is itself a psychologising narrative designed with the intention of refuting physicalism as a mere attachment. Physicalism comes in many forms, as does naturalism. These are all attempts to understand the world we find ourselves in while being informed by science. None of these metaphysical pictures is certain―the best we can hope for is plausibility given what we know from experience. I think you are in danger of succumbing to a postmodern relativism.

I've often thought that we are living in an anti-modernist, neo-Romantic period where everything is centred around emotionalism and we are no longer generally convinced by reasoning or science, which seem to be widely understood as joy killers, the enemy of the human. Lived experience is seen as overriding institutional knowledge, with self-expression and personal freedom framed as moral imperatives.

I don’t see widespread objectification of the world as an emerging trend so much as a mystification of everything: a vanquishing of certainty, a privileging of subjective experience, an obsession with authenticity and a re-enchantment of nature, bordering on its worship. To me, this looks like a legacy of the 1960s counterculture that never really went away despite the best efforts of the 1980's. — Tom Storm

The anti-modernist, neo-Romantic thing seems apt to me up here in Nimbin. :wink: I don't know what's its like in the cities these days―I haven't lived right in a city for nearly thirty years. I visit Sydney about once a year, but the people I catch up with there are friends from Sydney Uni and artists―philosophical, creative and literary types.

I think the story is very different for the everyday person, that is the majority―they seem hypnotized by TV and social media, and preoccupied with paying their mortgages or rent, while being keen in their precious time off to do as much in the way of 'fun' leisure activities as possible. I don't see much re-enchantment of nature there. Certainly there is a privileging of the individual, of the over-riding importance of being entertained and having a good time as much as possible.

I don't think philosophical materialism is the problem―I think it is consumerism, the obsession with material "goods" and personal comfort that is really the problem. I don't think loss of meaning, in the sense of loss of the ability to be convinced by overarching narratives is the problem either―I think it likely that most people only ever gave lip-service to such religious institutions in the interest of conforming with their social milieu. Those interested in philosophy or spirituality are a rare breed―most people thing it is a load of crap, just a waste of time.

Right, of course we are looking at a ship not a mental image of one― this is shown by the fact that we can maintain a clear (but constantly changing) view of the approaching ship as it docks, and while we then in turn approach it and step on board. One cannot board a mental image.

If so, it is only the dualism of implict vs explicit, surface versus depth, abstractive vs primary. It seems to me these aren’t properties so much as dimensions. — Joshs

That makes sense to me.

If one is a physicalist, one will not notice the way the underlying value framework is indispensable to the direct intelligibility of all physicist accounts. One then will say that values are properties of subjective feeling ‘sprinkled over’ the properties of the physicalist account. That’s dualism, and it doesn’t require the postulation of a supernatural or non-natural realm. — Joshs

I don't see why one could not be a (non-eliminative) physicalist without devolving into some form of dualism. One could maintain that subjective feelings are perfectly real events and are also completely physical, and that they only seem non-physical to us on account of the bewitchments of dualistic language.

On this view it would be energy which would be understood to be fundamental and consciousness (or mind, instinct or intelligence) would be included as being an ineliminable aspect of energy insofar as it behaves in a lawlike manner and constitutes the structures and processes we call "things" in an intelligent and intelligible manner. Any quality I can think of seems to be unintelligible if thought of as lacking energy.

This is basically Whitehead's view at least as I understand it.

By contrast, the phenomenological move is not to say that consciousness is another property of reality, but that the very distinction between “neutral physical” and “felt subjective” is a theoretical artifact. Worldhood, for Heidegger, is already affectively attuned; intentionality, for Husserl, is already value-laden and sense-bestowing. Affect and mattering are not added to a neutral base; they are conditions under which anything shows up as a base at all. — Joshs

The problem for phenomenology is that all of what is said above is also a "theoretical artefact". Property dualism is discursively inescapable. I think that is why the later Heidegger reverted to poetic language. Dualism is not inherent in lived experience and the primal synthetic apprehension of things, but it is inherent in any and every saying that is the product of analysis.

You've provided no counter-argument, just hand-waving.

It fits the definition of a taboo to me. I don’t know what your objection is, so can’t, or wouldn’t comment. — Punshhh

It's simple; "taboo" implies a socially conditioned introjection governing responses and the presence of fear.

No, we know from observation that metals expland more than wood, for example does with heat, and wood more than metals with moisture. We know that wood will burn and (most) metals wll not from observation and that metals become hotter when left out in the sun whereas than many other materials.

Also the Aboriginal understanding of the the land and behavior of animals did not rely on their stories. The stories are like theories that attempt to explain why what has been observed is as it is.

?

Yes I can see this, although I would suggest that transcendence can be brought into the mix. But I have noticed a taboo on this forum around transcendence, so won’t push it further unless asked to. — Punshhh

Why interpret a principled rejection of the idea of transcendence as a "taboo"? It seems that some folk seek to psychologically explain away the holding of views which contradict ideas they hold instead of presenting cogent arguments in support of those ideas.

I don't think in terms of transcendence because the idea of a transcendent realm or reality seems unintelligible to me, or else simply a reification of a conception of this world into another imaginary register, so to speak, and I don't think the idea is at all helpful philosophically.

For me, philosophy calls upon us to come to terms with this world, this life.

I don't recall Wittgenstein's remark about poetry, but I'm prepared to believe it. I seem to remember that he says somewhere that one could write a whole book of philosophy that consisted of nothing by jokes. — Ludwig V

I remember reading his comment about philosophical jokes too. Perhaps the point of both the reference to poetry and jokes was that the overly explicit nature of cold analysis cannot capture what is philosophically important or escape from the befuddling dualism which is inherent in propositional language.

Ah. Yeah. How is it that codons mean amino acids, and strings of codons mean proteins. Sure, everything about them and the whole process of protein synthesis is physics. But that doesn't solve the mystery. — Patterner

The idea that everything is physical does not entail that everything can be explained in terms of physics. The apprehension of the meaning of a poem might be a neural, that is physical, process, but the meaning apprehended cannot be explained in terms of physics.

I'm saying that some technology is based on observation of how things behave, not on theories that explain why they behave the way they do. The analogue thermometer is based on the observation that things expand when heated, an observation which does not rely upon a theory of the nature of heat.

A telescope is based on the observation that lenses magnify the view of objects and is not reliant on a theory of optics. Even if the theory of optics came first and the actual telescope second, our knowing that telescopes magnify the appearance of objects does not rely on an understanding of the theory of optics.

Our observations of the behavior of animals, plants and nature in general does not rely on theories. Aboriginal peoples understood nature very well without need of scientific theories.

Thermometers seem to be accurate enough to serve the medical industry. In my experience they show I have elevated temperature when I experience the symptoms of fever. Sure things like boiling point can vary due to atmospheric pressure, but this can also be accurately accounted for by barometer. I'm not claiming that instruments are absolutely accurate, whatever that might mean, but they are accurate enough to serve our purposes, and their accuracy wouldn't change if we suddenely found that our theories as to how they work were incorrect.

if Kastrup says Schopenhauer says….
— Mww

I don’t think he does. — Wayfarer


Ok, good to know. — Mww

I don't know if Kastrup says Schopenhauer says, but he most definitely did say in the interview I mentioned that he thinks we have access to the noumenon via introspection.

Also I'd be interested if you can provide a citation from Kant where he explicitly says that the noumenon is not the thing in itself., and/ or if you could provide a coherent distinction between the two concepts. I can see a distinction between things in themselves and the noumenon because things in themselves are for Kant either real things or just kind of formal placeholders. But Schopenhauer rejects things in themselves and collapses the idea to the thing in self. If the noumenon cannot be multiple, then the term noumena, which suggests plurality (as with phenomenon and phenomena) is incoherent.

But using a thermometer involves applying a theory of heat, and using a telescope involves applying a theory of light. — Banno

is it just a theory of heat or light, or is using what we know works like using a ruler to measure? I mean a thermometer works reliably as attested by experience regardless of whether we believe heat is the agitation of molecules and a telescope works to make objects appear closer regardless of whether we think light consists of particles or waves.

The observational knowledge of science is of course true. The hypotheses and theories as to how the processes observed work are defeasible models. They cannot be definitively demonstrated to be true. For example can we say that relativity theory is true? What would that mean? Truth seems to be regarding statements about states of affairs. What state of affairs could make relativity theory true?

Relativity gives us a more accurate method for predicting or plotting trajectories and positions than Newtonian mechanics, so is it then more true? Can we equate accuracy and truth? Does truth come in degrees like accuracy?

I don't see much to disagree with there except I would say the subject is immanent, not transcendent. I see the notion of transcendence as being purely conceptual.

Yes, what it is like cannot be subject to ontological analysis, even though we may be able to give inadequate verbal descriptions of it. The descriptions, if they are to be intelligible, are always in terms of sense objects and bodily states, sensations and feelings. — Janus

I'm always fascinated by the fact that a question that seems, on the face of it, to have a perfectly straightforward answer manages to persuade us that it has no proper answer at all. The descriptions are gestures towards what escapes description. But if the description is not the real thing, it cannot substitute for the real thing in our experience. — Ludwig V

Yes, description of lived experience in our necessarily dualistic language is the best we can do in the discursive mode. The evocative languages of poetry and literature, the visual arts and music do it much better in my view. Both Heidegger and Wittgenstein said that the best way to do philosophy would be to use poetic language.

And of course the description is not the real thing and cannot substitute for the real thing in our experience.

How do you mean? Any particular aspects of biology? — Patterner

Even the activities of cells cannot be understood without introducing the idea of signs (biosemiotics).

I'm not very familiar with Kastrup's philosophy, but in one of interviews (I think with Curt Jaimungal) he says that we know something of the noumen (sic) via introspection. He refers to it as consciousness not will. From my own reading of Kant (admittedly years ago) I don't see a coherent distinction between the duality of thing (for us) and thing in itself and the duality of phenomena (things for us) and noumena (things in themselves).

Your thinking seems to align with my own, insofar as it resonates more with the Vedic tradition than the Buddhist. Having said that I can't claim to be committed to, or convinced of, any idealist model, but if I had to choose it would be a model that posits a universal or collective mind.

However, I don't take the subject to be transcendent or transcendental. I tend not to think of universal mind (if it is real or even just as an idea) as being subject to anything. The subject is the other to the object, and both arise due to the dualistic nature of our thinking, in my view. And I would say that is as much the case under a naturalistic, even materialistic, model as it is under an idealist model.

:up:

You said "certainty is never obtained in the hard sciences." I would think that includes everything involved in the internal combustion engine. — Patterner

I don't think so. The working of the engine can be observed directly―transparent models have been constructed. It's like saying that we don't really know how clocks work―we do know.

What emergent system that doesn't involve consciousness can't be explained in terms of physics? — Patterner

Biology cannot adequately be explained in terms of physics.

Not a source of wonder?

I still don't see an argument that supports a conclusion that any particular metaphysics or presupposition is needed in order to do science. — Janus


Clearly, I disagree, although many people feel is you do. — T Clark

I don’t see it that way. Science looks for knowledge—not the same as truth. And as Collingwood wrote: — T Clark

Knowledge sounds too subjective and loose. Science is a rigorous subject which pursues verified truth on reality and universe. My knowledge on Astronomy is rudimentary. I wouldn't say it has much to do with Science. — Corvus

I agree with T Clark that science is the search for knowledge―for knowing how things work―and not for truth. This is so because scientific theories cannot be proven to be true, and even whether they can be definitively falsified is apparently a matter of debate among philosophers of science. By "theory" I am not referring to observational posits. If I say "all swans are white" that can be falsified by discovering one swan of a different colour. If I say "there are black swans" that can be verified by discovering one black swan.

So, it seems we can say that the observation of nature is concerned with what appears to be the case, and that could count as a search for truth. With complex theories like relativity, and QT, it seems to be more about a search for what works. We cannot directly observe the warping of spacetime or the collapse of the wave-function, and it seems that what is the case, or truth, is relevant only to what can be confirmed or dis-confirmed by direct observation or mathematics and logic.

If we understand science to be simply involved in coming to understand how things seem to work, then what would you cite as being a necessary presupposition underpinning that investigation?

Sure. But we don't say, "Well, we can't prove the combustion engine works the way we think it does for the reasons we think it does, so there's no point in making any. After all, what reason do we have to think the next one we make will work? — Patterner

The internal combustion engine is well understood. The understanding of its workings were not the kind of thing I had in mind when I spoke of scientific theories.

We certainly are not aware of the existence of the former without the latter. — Patterner

We are in vivo, and until modern times always were altogether, unaware of neural activity. We don't directly perceive neural activity giving rise to consciousness, we correlate the two on the basis of neural imaging and first person reportage.

When it comes to your example, the internal combustion engine, we do directly see the combustion of the fuel giving rise to motion.

They make clear that everything is not reducible to or explainable in terms of the physical. — Patterner

I think it is undeniably true that most of human life cannot be explained in terms of physics. On the other hand physics certainly seems to be the basis of chemistry and chemistry the basis of life and life the basis of consciousness, and even if this is so it still doesn't follow that emergent systems can necessarily be understood comprehensively in terms of the systems they emerge from. Try understanding poetry, art or music in terms of physics, or even biology, and see how far you get.