/lit/ - Literature

I think it was so that he wasn’t called a subjective idealist.

Kant's critical philosophy is a series of elaborate copes

understand recursion fgt

>>19742904
recursion makes sense in a purely logical context. Kant says anything from the senses can't be used to form any sort of logical statement about the thing in itself because it is completely stripped away from experience. I dont get how recursion applies

Because Kant's concern is not to do "dogmatic" idealistic metaphysics, it's to preserve the possibility of certain scientific judgments (i.e. judgments that can hold together in a systematic framework of knowledge) about the empirical world. He takes for granted that the latter exists. That's also why sense and understanding are severed for Kant and not "deduced" from any higher faculty, as they are for Fichte and others who interpreted Kant as a subjective idealist. Kant sees no need to deduce the faculties, because their being the condition of our representations is as "given" as the content of the representations themselves. He isn't doing idealist metaphysics. He's doing a form of phenomenology.

For Kant, the content of sensations (of both our inner experience of our minds and our ordinary external senses) is irreducibly "other," irreducibly "positive" and "contingent," it can't be logically deduced by the understanding or by reason. It genuinely comes from "outside" and is ultimately beyond our representation of it. But we can never know where it comes from or what its innate structure is, because all of our ideas, including our capacity to imagine "things" in causal and spatial relations (like a "thing" "outside" of us "affecting" us), are a priori. All we can say about what's "out there" is that it exists, and even that is dangerous, if you take "existence" to be a logical statement or predicate from which other truths could be derived.

Kant reduces the pre-representational content of our sensations to an "X," a residuum left over when we theoretically abstract from all the conditions of experience and try to picture a bare "thing" or the "raw data" of our sensations. That X is always there, but that's all the external world can be for us ultimately, just the quasi-knowledge that it's "there."

This introduces the most famous logical paradox in Kant and one from which it's generally acknowledged he can't recover (at least within the terms he uses - Schopenhauer later makes a slightly better attempt at defending a version of Kant's position by platonizing it): the fact that Kant is obviously describing a causal relation between the X and our reception of it, despite saying that cause-effect relations are themselves concepts and can't apply to X. This complaint was raised by Schulze (Aenesidemus, who it's worth noting was Schopenhauer's teacher) first but others saw it too and it was common knowledge after a while.

>>19742960
But this logical failure of Kant should be distinguished from what he thought and saw in his philosophy. When you picture what Kant sees when he sees the world, don't picture a subject locked inside a windowless room or opaque sphere or whatever, picture more or less normal world, with Kant puzzling over how our JUDGMENTS about our EMPIRICAL EXPERIENCES of it can hold. What he's really doing is trying to make a kind of framework of logical empiricism, to secure at least the internal coherence and validity of the natural science of Newton and the 18th century. He just isn't really thinking too much of dualistic mental imagery, he's always picturing ordinary objects, and then worrying about how our logical statements and systematic descriptions of them can "hold." He's really trying to answer Hume, not become Fichte or Berkeley.

One good proof of this is that Kant predicted Herschel's discovery of Uranus and made other, similar predictions about cosmology (he is famously the originator of the nebular hypothesis that solar systems and galaxies form by collapsing into discs of dense matter due to angular momentum, which is correct). The discovery was made the same year the first Critique came out, and Kant then sought "I told you so" credit. So he clearly thinks Uranus is "there," and is fine with using our supposedly solipsistic representations to predict objective states of affairs out in reality. Is this an inconsistency with his ultimate denial of any knowledge of necessary relations out in reality itself, yes pretty much, but that's the nature of philosophy. It's why people like Helmholtz and Mach developed more explicit forms of structural realism and problems of reference and verification became the dominant issues for generations.

>>19742960
>>19742966
great response thank you

>>19742911
is there logic in flow?
look anon, kant's ideas are used in relation independent of his writing. applying logic to recursion is not the only attribution to such 'mechanics'.

in all formal systems there needs to be a fail state in order to exist. if you are applying 'sense' in the Hegelian context, you can only really approach things that refer back to themselves as logical propositions. i think the starting point of nature naturing and nature becoming has closer resonance to the transcendental.

is kantian approaches to space and time one that is applicable to modern physics/mechanics?

>>19742966
>he's really trying to answer Hume
thoughts on anti-correlationism?

>>19742832
Naw that white boy was trippin

>>19742832
I'm increasingly not sure. At first this seems readily apparent; of course he needs it. Half the point is to respond to Hume, and to save/justify the inductive reasoning of the emerging sciences (the other point being to save traditional Christian values from the Enlightenment sciences, rationalism, and resultant relativeism). How can you have empiricism, natural science as a valid source of knowledge without the noumenal world? The common correspondence definition truth requires that, if we are to declare a statement such as "Theseus is standing," true under an empirical framework, we must observe that Theseus is standing and not be mislead (e.g. hallucinating, mistaking Socrates for Theseus, etc.). The distinction of some observed being true, and the higher bar of an observation having to correspond to a "real" world is at least as old as Plato's Theatetus. Much of the sciences isn't about how to make observations and test inductive hypotheses, but rather how to justify the belief that observation corresponds to reality, some benchmark of consensus and replication that assures of that the thing measured is "real."

I always thought this made sense, but there are plenty of avenues through which to attack appeals to the noumenal. Our ideas about physicalism are all mental abstractions. These models are inheritly shaped by our faculties and by the workings of universals/symbols on our comprehension. Our entire set of tools for coming to know the truth of the noumenal requires an observer and makes no sense without positing one. Indeed, our language works like this too.

I always thought I had to go out on a limb to accept physicalism as true despite this because I wanted to accept physicalist philosophies of mind. Dualist philosophies of mind have little to recommend themselves above solipsism and are contradicted by empircle observation at every step, so it seems hard to avoid embracing a physicalist mind-body philosophy.

What I've realized though is that a physicalist mind-body philosophy and an idealist or agnostic ontology doesn't create a viscous circle. Even if you accept idealism, that doesn't mean reality conforms to your will or other minds don't exist. Reality still follows patterns and laws. So you can hold that reality is only accessible as mental objects, perhaps can only be said to exist as such, while still saying that physicalism, a set of mental abstractions based on observation, described how those mental objects work, including mind-body interactions. Certainly seems circular, but I don't think it has to be a vicious circle. Even if you hold to idealism, you can also hold physicalists theories as accurately describing how the mental objects corresponding to noumena behave. Science isn't really concerned with the ontological status of noumena after all, it's concerned with theory predicting future observation, being replicable, etc.

>>19742832
Wasn’t he trying to ground the phenomenon to being which isn’t dependent on the perceiver? The phenomenon without the thing-in-itself then becomes an infinite series of representations. It seems more parsimonious to ground the being of objects in a singular in-itself which causes the phenomenon.
t. Baby Kantian (pls correct if I’m wrong)

>>19742832

https://www.lacan.com/symptom16/kant.html

>>19742832
symptomatic kant
>ib4cocaine

>>19742832
You don't understand Kant at all. Appearances are aspects of things in themselves. The latter are the object of thought, but our thought is only general, so we have only the thought of something in general (the = x); nonetheless this 'something' is not itself an appearance, but properly an object of thought, a thing which we try to think in itself. but because we cannot think concretely without the help of sensibility. the object = x is something-in-itself in general. moreover, intuition does not give us objects at all. our intuition is receptive but intuition itself is not objective. it doesn't try to think anything or bring anything into being because it doesn't try to think at all. a divine intuition would not give objects; but neither does our finite intuition take objects; rather it offers up arrangements of relations. we can freely produce such relations in drawing. but when we draw we do not by our drawing give or create an object; we only create an object FOR thought; hence thought tries to think something using what is given in intuition, which is not the object but sensibility.

>>19742832
OP, aren't you offering an inappropriately teleological account of philosophy?

>Was the "thing in itself" even necessary for his philosophy?
>I don't get what it accomplishes . . .

It almost sounds like you're treating philosophy like building a house. Is this brick necessary? What does this support beam accomplish?

Kant arrived at the notion of things-in-themselves because it's a difficult notion to avoid. Of course he was correct to say there's a difference between things-in-themselves and things are they appear to us.

>>19742832
> Kant
Philosophies incompatible with reality, like German Idealism, have as grand precursor: Kant, whose grand precursor was Luther. The latter became the socio-political agitation against Western (Hispanic-Greco-Latin) Civilization, pretending that interpretation of sacred texts can happen under any authority including one's own conscience. Paradoxically, by underlining the concept of a nature corrupted by the fall, he proposed the impossibility of adequately articulating faith and all reason; factually excluding the exercise of transcendent self-foundation that is philosophy. By sidelining reason for a vaguely defined faith, autonomy of that faith sediments into autonomy of reason and morality, giving birth to modern subjectivity. Hence, it is no surprise that the protestant current has generated tens of thousands of reformation movements; one of them being Pietism, the reform within the reformation. That conception, under which Kant was educated, was another example eminent from the internal movement of reform. Nevertheless, understanding this total incapacitation of reason could not be efficacious, Kant consciously prescinded the classic philosophic reflection to create a new reflexive exercise. Parallelly, his discard of metaphysical and moral fundamentations as a starting point towards non-material affirmations, along with his careful reading of Hume, have been used to misinterpret his new reflexive exercise as skeptic philosophy.

It is NOT a coincidence that German Idealism was formed only after the Spanish Baroque ended, because Hispanic literature of that era lessoned humans to survive and preserve themselves in a deceit, by making them compatible with reality and avoiding idealisms. Let us NOT forget, German Idealism was the matrix of two aberrant revolutions in EUROPE: The French Revolution that disparaged Europeans, and the Nazi Revolution with its failure to anticipate its tragic defeat.

>It almost sounds like you're treating philosophy like building a house.

>>19748018
>Of course he was correct to say there's a difference between things-in-themselves and things are they appear to us.
Uhh, no he wasn't? Unless by "difference" you mean one exists and one doesn't, which is the only difference.

>>19748486
You must be quite a unique character, being able to see things independently of the light they reflect.

>>19748546
There are only things as they appear to us. And Kant's supposed "thing in itself" is not quantitative "things" anyway, which are phenomena themselves. That would be a misreading (because the thing-in-itself cannot be given plurality). I really don't believe you've understood him.

>>19748609
I am curious as to how exactly you're rebutting the idea of the thing-in-itself.

I will admit that I am no Kant scholar, and desu I actually prefer Hegel. But I am curious as to what your specific line of reasoning is.

>>19748648
My reasoning is that there is no sufficient reason to even presume it exists. This is also the rebuttal to your assertion that Kant did not have a teleology. He was a Protestant apologist for metaphysical beliefs, just like Hegel, and that was his teleological purpose with respect to his idealism. This is also the most basic bitch Nietzschean criticism of Kant and Hegel.

The transcendental object (noumenon or thing-in-itself) does not possess any attributes, by Kant's own admission. Existence is not an attribute or predicate, by Kant's own admission, when refuting the ontological argument (ie existence can only be given concretely by the senses). The thing-in-itself, by definition, cannot be given by the senses. Therefore it does not exist.

>>19742832

>>19748679
>The thing-in-itself, by definition, cannot be given by the senses. Therefore it does not exist.

You'll forgive me if I find this to be extremely unconvincing, given the limitations of human perception.

>>19748846
So you believe intellectual intuition is a possibility then? Kant acknowledged this, but if you want to acknowledge its possibility it is the same as effectively reverting to a scholastic dogmatism. Hence what I just said about the teleology of Kant's system. It is essentially purposely leaving the doors open for religion.

>>19748856
To begin, I think we would all agree that we all have some faculty of our mind which can generate a kind of imagery, albeit lacking the reality of what we take to be real in our physical experience. Now, I also think that we would agree that from time to time we have a type of experience that also lacks the intense reality of our conscious physical experience and occurs while we are sleeping; these experiences we call dreams.

Now, we usually take the imaginative faculty during waking life to be subject to our will and as a result imaginings are within our control. On the other hand, in our dream experiences, many events appear to occur against our will. However, I think that both dreams and waking imaginings are both products of our imaginative faculty. Why then is it that one experience is taken to be voluntary and the other involuntary?

I think an analogy to the functioning of the imaginative faculty could be made with the functioning our lungs; our breathing process can occur on a voluntary and involuntary level. It is constantly occurring in the background unconsciously and involuntarily, but enters our consciousness when we voluntarily take over the breathing process. In comparison, dreaming is like unconscious involuntary breathing in so far as in dreaming the dream events occur against our will and, although we are conscious of the dream, we lack the self-awareness to be conscious that we are *in* a dream; waking imaginings, on the other hand, are like conscious breathing, in that we are imagining in accordance with our will and our aware that they our only our imagings; we are self aware and do not become identified with the imaginings, that is to say, lose self-awareness.

Now notice that waking reality has a more intense reality, or sensual intensity, than dreams, and dreams have a more intense reality than waking imaginings. In this way, I hypothesize that waking reality, dream worlds, and waking imaginings are all a continuum of the products of our imaginative faculty. If this is so, then to continue with the breathing analogy, then there may be ways to taking conscious, self-aware, and voluntary control of dreams, and in fact there are many who claim to have developed this ability through what is called lucid dreaming. Furthermore, if we achieve the ability to alter our dream reality, then if our waking reality is also a product of our imaginative faculty, which I believe it is, then believe we may also be able to alter waking reality by attaining a type of self awareness. Now, how this self- awareness is to be obtained I am not sure, but I suspect that the methods of Yoga are, in fact, the path to this self-awareness, and, as a result, a path to becoming divine in a very literal sense

>>19742871
underrated post

also, it all emanates from his pietist upbringing

>>19748856
I think that there is obviously a limitation on human perception -- empirical, demonstrable, beyond rationale dispute -- and we shouldn't pretend that what we perceive comprehends all reality.

>>19748931
Kant's theory of the thing-in-itself has nothing to do necessarily with a limitation on empirical perception. This is obviously true and varies from person to person. The point is that nothing, even theoretically, given via perception can help you understand the thing-in-itself. And based on the reasoning I just gave, this is enough for Kant's theory to be self-refuting. So long as something is given to the senses, it cannot be the thing-in-itself. Therefore it does not exist because, again according to Kant, our senses are the only arbiter of what is real or not. To reverse that view (that senses are not the only arbiter of reality) is to permit the ontological argument for the existence of God.

>>19748940
>Kant's theory of the thing-in-itself has nothing to do necessarily with a limitation on empirical perception.
Not him, but isn’t the thing-in-itself just reality as it is independent of perception? Do you believe that there is a world outside of the mind?

>>19748956
No.

>>19748940
Fair enough. I'm no Kant scholar, but that seems a fair reading to me.

Where does he explicitly say that our senses are the only arbiter of what is real or not? This seems as though it might be a somewhat problematic point given his insistence on the division of a prior v. a posteriori knowledge, as well as the dialectic of reason in Groundwork.

>>19748966
So where is the limit of empirical perception?

>>19748981
The limits of your imagination

>>19748987
The limit limit of your imagination is imagination.
>Yes.
Fair enough.

>>19748993

>>19748973
>Where does he explicitly say that our senses are the only arbiter of what is real or not?
I can't remember the exact section number in KRV, but it is titled with "Refutation of the Ontological Argument" or something obviously similar. He states that the only way to determine something's existence is its presence through the senses (because otherwise one can add attributes to an object in though, making it both real and God). For example, a coin which hypothetically exists is exactly the same in terms of the other categories as a coin which actually exists, the only difference being the latter is real, as it is given to the senses. Reality is one of the possible categories of the understanding, but it can only be an affirmative judgement through possible experience becoming actual experience (ie, in sense data), and even then, the coin is no different qua coin, only qua being.
> given his insistence on the division of a prior v. a posteriori knowledge
Knowledge and existence are two of the big contention points in all discussions of his work. Kant never really hints that he is a mathematical realist, which are the only things that could potentially be "real" for him that are not given to the senses (although for them to be real they must make an impression on the intuition, which is closely related to the senses).

>>19749065

>>19749065
thnx

>>19749065
>He states that the only way to determine something's existence is its presence through the senses
How does he determine that the senses exist if the only way to determine the existence of something is through the senses?

>>19749141
Bc they obviously exist schizo. Take meds.

>>19749167
Is the schizo meme a valid way of determining the existence of something in Kant’s philosophy?

>>19749175
Yes. It is.

>>19749176
Kek