/lit/ - Literature

>>22305959
>the only example of a thing in itself we have, ourselves
refuted by Kant in
§ 20. Of the Application of the Categories to Objects of the Senses in general.

>We have now arrived at the proper place for explaining the paradox which must have struck every one in our exposition of the internal sense (SS 6), namely—how this sense represents us to our own consciousness, only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in ourselves, because, to wit, we intuite ourselves only as we are inwardly affected. Now this appears to be contradictory, inasmuch as we thus stand in a passive relation to ourselves; and therefore in the systems of psychology, the internal sense is commonly held to be one with the faculty of apperception, while we, on the contrary, carefully distinguish them.

>>22306017
>we intuit ourselves only as we are inwardly affected
you don't get it, in Whitehead's pragmatist influenced thought, and thanks to the fact that there are no isolated conceptions, no subject-object distinction, and everything is interdependent, "ourselves" is nothing more than those inward affectations, because we are nothing more than a collection of prehensions which have the form of subjective feelings.

>>22306027
and btw this is a direct consequence of the pragmaticist maxim, which states that all the effects of an idea serve to fully express the idea itself.

>>22306035
>>22306017

now there's also a problem with this maxim when you try to extend it beyond just concepts (since Peirce only intended it to make logical ideas clearer, but Whitehead got it filtered through James, he naturally expanded the spirit of it), which is that, if you say that, for example, a color is merely a collection of effects on our brain, how does it get the feeling of a color, which is irreducible? this is why Whitehead created the category of the ultimate, and creativity, which explain how a plurality of prehensions form a complex in their concrescences which is essentially novel, i.e. different than the sum of its parts.

thus we see that Kant's statement that there is an "ourselves in itself" which is distinct from the inward affectations of that self which we are capable of thinking about is now completely incoherent, because there is no "ourselves" beyond the collection of prehensions (the drops of experience) which are the experiences of those affectations of ourself, when they come together in a concrescence to form a novel entity distinct from merely the sum of the affectations.

>>22305959
Crump

>>22305959
You don't get Whitehead. His is a system of speculative philosophy, not a tract on epistemology; indeed he literally said that epistemology has to be founded on ontology: what he did.

Similarly the epistemological subject/object distinction was, in White's view, as an inheritance of Aristotle's logical subject/predicate logic which required a minimum and maximum of two distinct terms in any logical relation, being crystalised into a metaphysical distinction.
White denies the subject/predicate logic, and so too the metaphysical implications of that. This has nothing to do with apperception. The self's mental states (coordinate to physical) has nothing to do with anything: the realist doctrine springs from the fact that White's distinction between mind and matter is tenuous, non existent, really; he thought that mental states has a direct relation with physical ones, just in a monistic, Hegelian logical manner, rather than the subject/predicate logic which would require a mental state to be put in a hermetic twin relation to a given physical one: on what is the mental state based, then, if it can't found itself (in that isolated relation to a separate physical object) on the physical object it's coordinate to?
By doing this Whitehead allows a realist view. This is not epistemologically derived in a Cartesian manner from questioning out own mental states: this wouldn't work for Whitehead.

The point is that Whitehead gave up epistemological rigour because he believed modern linguistic issues prevented a fixed meaning being applied to everything. Whitehead's was an attempt, not a dogmatic Hegelian try at absolute rationalism.

>>22307526
Yeah I know. I’m saying this epistemology is implicit in whitehead. I derived it from him. His speculative scheme doesn’t apply to anything unless he assumes that there are actual entities distinct from ourselves, which would end up being things in themselves. When he says God is an actual entity he already assumes he’s broke Kant’s epistemology, since an actual entity has characteristics, he has already got knowledge about God, the ultimate thing in itself. And where else could whitehead have derived his analysis if actual entities except from analysis of ourselves, the only actual entity which we are?

>>22307555
You're misunderstanding how the move away from subject/predicate logic obviates the usual Dualist issues with the inside and outside world. The route you're trying to take leads to an infinite regress, as there's no way to explain the epistemological reduction towards a mind without paradox.

>>22305959
"The meaning of an occasion, then, is far wider than that which is initially formed in concrescence. Insofar as the occasion becomes related to the far-reaching effects of its meaning, it transcends itself, becoming related to all that is. And yet it is just itself which is so related: it is its own meaning, and no other, which is affirmed, contrasted, deepened, and judged through its transpersonal relations in the entire nature of God. The final completion of an occasion is its transformation in God through its relation to all others in the unifying concrescence of God, manifesting the primordial vision of God. This completion must be felt by the occasion itself, since its immediacy is retained in its satisfaction, and since this satisfaction is now grounded in God's own subjective concrescence through its transitional creativity and through God's subjective form."

"...the activity whereby the occasion experiences this completion is directed by God - it is God's subjectivity into which the occasion is now incorporated, and hence God's subjective aim and God's own freedom governs the process. The occasion is therefore not free to accept or reject its completion within God, for freedom belongs with the concrescing subject. This is now God. The occasion's freedom was exercised in its finite process of becoming, and was exhausted in that process. Hence its incorporation into God is an incorporation into the freedom of God. Insofar as the occasions finite decision moved in conformity with God's own desires for it, then the occasion's experience of God's freedom would be experienced as an extension and fulfilment of its own freedom; insofar as its finite decision was contrary to God's purposes, the experience of God's freedom would be felt as the restriction of its own."

>>22307570
"Insofar as the finite immediacy involved consciousness, that consciousness is retained in God, but now as an aspect of God's own consciousness. God is conscious of feeling each prehension in terms of a mutuality of subjective form, which is to say that God feels each prehension within the consequent nature in terms of all other prehensions, with contrasts, intensifications, and judgment. Since it is God's concrescence sustaining the finite satisfaction within God, the finite satisfaction has become a participant in God, so that its finite consciousness is related to divine consciousness, and hence participates in the mutuality of subjective form whereby it is completed through the contrasts developed above. The concrescing contrasts are governed by God's subjective aim, flowing from God's primordial envisagement. Hence the movement of the finite occasion in God is a movement of integration with God's primordial vision."

"Inasmuch as the consequent nature of God is everlastingly expanding, the whole to which the occasion relates is everlastingly changing; the meaning of the occasion derives new perspectives of enriching and of enrichment with every prehension of God. An occasion in God thus retains is own value, that which God has reenacted in bringing it again to birth, but experiences an ever-intensifying meaning to that value as it continuously feels its worth beyond itself. It is able to feel this worth, first of all, because the immediacy of its satisfaction relates to the transitional effects of this satisfaction, which is the complete of the entity, and second, because this completion is mediated to it through the concrescing activity of the everlasting nature of God."

>>22307560
Can you explain how the subject and predicate of predicate logic is related to the “subject” as in the knower of an object? The subject of a proposition is actually the object of someone’s perception or thought, because it’s the transcendental subject that’s thinking the predicate of the logical subject. The only similarity been “the subject” as in the thinker of an object and the subject of a logical proposition is a name.

Whitehead still had the problem of the outside world because if two actual entities are distinct, like me and someone else, then it implies my objectification of the other guy doesn’t capture the other guys experience but alters it in when the public matter of fact gets converted into a subjective feeling.

>>22307585
You're confusing three types of Logic: Aristotlean, Kantian transcendental and Modern propositional logic. The criticism is equally applicable to Kant's transcendental logic as it is to Aristotle's. The subject/object thing is just that a two term logical structure is the minimum necessary to predicate a quality of a thing. Thing leads, such as in Kant, to the belief in its necessity: two things are needed for any relationship at all, and thus anything at all, as epistemology requires a logic. This, for Whitehead, is not the case. A thing can stand on its own. This is what he means when he says facts themselves are atomic, whereas thoughts and propositions are complex.

I advise you to read Whitehead again.

>>22307686
I wasn’t confusing them lol. Perhaps I used the wrong term since by predicate logic I meant Aristotelian Logic. Anyway I don’t understand how any of this changes the things that I’ve said. Please explain how the statement “a thing can stand on its own” and “whithead denies subject/predicate logic” changes anything I said about God being an actual entity and the experience of an actual entity is changed when it’s objectified by another. I mean, the very fact that Whitehead distinguishes between “private” and “public” shows he still has a notion of the things I am talking about. It sounds like you have one interpretation of Whitehead and that’s the only thing you’re capable of talking about. I’m not talking about anything related to what you’re saying. I get that Whitehead gets rid of the issues of distinguishing the inside and outside world, that’s literally what I’ve been saying. That’s what I mean by the fact that I am a plurality implies I can know the world itself.

I advise you to read my posts again.

>>22307686
Also btw I’m not clear on how exactly Whitehead denies Aristotelian logic since he says one of the purposes of soeculative philosophy is to i terprey propositions.

Doesn't kant already refer to the souls as a thing in itself?

>>22307856
I saw that quote posted that said if you could prove the soul or the thinking being was a simple substance or something it would invalidate the critique. But anyway you can’t prove the soul exists according to the critique if it is a thing in itself. And whitehead wouldn’t say the soul is a simple substance anyway since even God is not simple in Whitehead.

>>22307686
>A thing can stand on its own
So would whitehead say that transwomen are women?

>>22307864
I don't really follow, I'm still not fluent on Kant. I think what I meant to say was that didn't Kant say that 'you' yourself are a thing-in-itself? I only read the prolegomena.

>>22307899
I’m pretty sure the first post addresses this >>22306017

>>22306017
So is inner sense the system of experience applied to... concepts? Ideas?