Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2023 6:58 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2023 7:50 am
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2023 7:27 am
1 Exactly what is the noumenon?
2 Why is the noumenon a useful illusion?
3 Please cite one example of Kant saying that there is no reality outside or beyond what humans can know. I could have missed it - so this is a genuine request.
1. I have already mentioned this a "1000" times where Kant explained what is the noumenon in contrast to the phenomena.
Kant: Phenomena vs Noumena [B294-B310]
viewtopic.php?t=40170
Kant: Phenomena vs Noumena [B306-B315]
2. A noumenon cannot never be real in the positive empirical sense [mind-related], but it can be merely thought as an intelligible thought only.
E.g. of empirical noumenon are perfect circle, perfect triangle, square, geometry shapes. These noumenon do not exist within empirical reality but they are used as standards as guide to make more realistic shapes.
As such they are useful illusions.
God as thing-in-itself is an intelligible idea which cannot be empirical, but God is nevertheless useful for theists to soothe their cognitive dissonance with its salvific value and the illusory has other utilities to the majority.
3. If you are familiar with the CPR, the whole CPR assert there is no reality that can be empirically known.
- The Possibility of Experience is, then, what gives Objective Reality to all our a priori Modes of Knowledge. B195
- they [Appearances] are yet the only Objects in regard to which our Knowledge can possess Objective Reality,
that is, in respect of which there is an Intuition corresponding to the Concepts. B335
- There will therefore be Syllogisms which contain no Empirical premisses, and by means of which we conclude from something which we know* to something else of which we have no Concept,
and to which, owing to an inevitable Illusion, we yet ascribe Objective Reality. B397
Re B397, without grounding on what is knowable [empirical] humans are deluded by pure reason to illusions but ignorantly insist such has objective reality.
Nowhere here does Kant say that there can be no
reality beyond or outside what humans can know.
To say the object orbits the subject is not to say the object doesn't exist.
Kant never said the object orbits the subject.
You have to read the whole of Kant's CPR to assert;
"Nowhere here does Kant say that there can be no
reality beyond or outside what humans can know."
with any confidence.
Despite my explanation above and request to read the mentioned chapter,
you are grounding your view of reality on philosophical realism which Kant critiqued as based on Pure Reason, as such is chasing after an illusion.
This is why you are so bewitched with the starting point "there can be no
reality beyond or outside what humans can know."
Here is another point where I have mentioned often;
- 1. Philosophical realists [mind-independence] claim there are objects that exist beyond or outside what humans can know. Kant stated such objects as claimed by p-realists are intelligible objects, i.e. noumenon which are illusory.
The noumenon is an intelligible object, i.e. merely a thought, not a matter-of-fact [FSK-ed].
Phenomena are sensible objects in reality, not merely as appearances but cover what emerged and realized, capable of being FSK-ed.
Phenomena that emerged and realized as reality are the only things that can be known via FSKs.
- Phenomena [sensible] vs Noumena [Intelligible]
1a: At the same time, if we entitle certain Objects, as Appearances, Sensible entities 2 (Phenomena),
then since we thus distinguish the Mode in which we intuit them from the nature that belongs to them in-themselves,
it is implied in this distinction that we place the latter [in-themselves], considered in their own nature,
although we do not so intuit them, or that we place other Possible Things, which are not Objects of our Senses but are Thought as Objects merely through the Understanding,
in opposition to the former [Phenomena, sensible entities],
and that in so doing we entitle them Intelligible Entities 1 (Noumena).B306
1b. If by 'Noumenon' we mean a Thing so far as it is not an Object of our Sensible Intuition, and so abstract from our Mode of intuiting it, {then} this is a Noumenon in the negative sense of the term. B306
1c: But if we understand by it an Object of a non-Sensible Intuition, we thereby presuppose a special Mode of Intuition, namely, the intellectual, which is not that which we possess, and of which we cannot comprehend even the Possibility. This would be 'Noumenon' in the positive sense of the term. B306
1d. Doubtless, indeed, there are Intelligible entities corresponding to the Sensible entities;
there may also be Intelligible entities to which our Sensible Faculty of Intuition has no Relation whatsoever;
but our Concepts of Understanding, being mere Forms of Thought for our Sensible Intuition, could not in the least apply to them {intelligible entities}.
That, therefore, which we entitle 'Noumenon' must be understood as being [re intelligible entities] such only in a negative sense. B309
1e. ...when the Object is not a Phenomenon (that is, is a Noumenon);
and it is in this latter sense {as Noumena} that the Object is taken,
when it is thought as merely Intelligible, that is to say, as being Given to the Understanding alone, and not to the Senses. B313
2. For the Intelligible [object] would require a quite
peculiar Intuition which we do not possess,
and in the absence of this [Intuition] [the intelligible object] would be for us nothing at all;
and, on the other hand, it is also evident that Appearances could not be Objects-in-Themselves. CPR B336
The noumenon [as claimed by p-realist] which is supposed to be a reality beyond knowledge, if to exist as real, theoretically, would need a peculiar intuition, but humans do not possess such an intelligible intuition to realize the noumenon as an intelligible object.
So, there can be no
mind-independent reality* beyond or outside what humans can know."
* mind independent reality as claimed by philosophical realists.
I anticipate it is not easy for you to grasp the above but try to chew on it you may get it.
Btw, I don't have an onus to cure your ignorance in this case.