Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 10:47 am
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 9:05 am
Thank you for the way you defined, linked, AND put in the work to explain here without expecting the outside sources to do the defining. But I am not sure how some of what you added as conclusions match? I'm guessing you are relating this to your theory about morality?
Note 1 lead to 2 and concluded with 3.
1. I started with man had evolved with the necessary container metaphor of inside and outside [external] which comprised of things [some thing] existing externally.
2. But this default of things to things-in-itself lead to various sufferings and terrible evil & violence.
3. Therefore to relieve the sufferings and prevent terrible evil and violence, it is essential we view reality from an additional perspective, there is 'nothing' in correspond to those things and things-in-themselves.
The above is not related directly to morality.
I had to read through the whole post to get what you were trying indirectly to link to vice (evil & violence). How do you interpret vice (or virtue) as themselves 'real' in light of dismissing the actual objects referenced by our senses as 'not real'? You are appearing to support the religious interpretation of assuming moral
values as something
more real than physics itself as though all due to the practice of sorting out concepts in logical containers (classes). Thus throw it out of the repretoire of rationalizing using classes? This to me is like saying that given humanity cannot get rid of things they don't like, commit suicide...get rid of humanity for it being the apriori
necessary cause that leads to 'bad' things existing ( = things we don't like)!
"Containers" are just a physical analogue to "classes", a necessary foundation to any reasoning. You could not even assert a 'complement' exists if you deny classification is needed for reasoning because you require separating the meaning of some given thing, X, to something it is not, non-X. And this 'X' here I am using IS a 'container', of which contains
VARIABLE possible things you might select. That is, X references some set that has membership INSIDE the 'container' we label, "X", here.
I haven't read Kant other than in secondary philosophical collections summarizing significant works. [...although I have a few of his works on my shelf that I may read at some point.] I still do not understand some distinctions here. A 'thing-in-itself', if treated as unreal or uncertain is only a reflection on the fact that we cannot know anything other than from our senses. But this then includes the senses itself as you work your way from the perceived 'things-in-themselves' to that which approaches that which does the perceiving.
When we deal with the term noumenon aka thing-in-itself we must not be driven by the default there is 'a thing' of some sort.
We must resist and suspend any judgment re thing-in-itself until we reach conclusion of that term.
The final conclusion is the thing-in-itself is not a real thing per se but merely an illusion generated by the mind relying on pseudo-rationality.
Here is how Kant demonstrated the thing-in-itself arise deceptively as a real thing but it is actually an illusion;
Kant, from CPR wrote:
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 [the thing in itself] of which we have no Concept, and to which, owing to an inevitable Illusion, we yet ascribe Objective Reality.
These conclusions [of the thing-it-itself] are, then, rather to be called pseudo-Rational 2 than Rational, although in view of their Origin they may well lay claim to the latter title [rational], since they [conclusions] are not fictitious and have not arisen fortuitously, but have sprung from the very Nature of Reason.
They [conclusions of things-in-themselves] are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself.
Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them.
After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the Illusion, which unceasingly mocks and torments him.
The above is very heavy stuff, hope you get an idea of what Kant is trying to convey.
Without prior context, it appears that he is saying that if we trust what we sense if 'conclusively real' to reference the objects we infer by the image as also 'real', then the premises that construct this reality have to be also understood as 'real'. BUT when all we have is the imperfect sensations as the only accepted reality to start from that is also our 'conclusion' to a logical argument, the premises cannot themselves be 'real' without pretending them. In other words, he is arguing that logic
should be able to stand alone purely without empiricism (science). He is arguing that all things can be argued using ONLY logic and some
apriori premises that themselves are 'absolutes' that cannot be questioned.
You could be reading into him wrong if you don't agree with this interpretation of the quote you gave. Given his meaning of "Pure Reasoning" is about questioning whether we require trusting the sensations of our experience as any MORE real than some
apriori assumptions about 'absolutes' because our sensations themselves are illusions that cannot prove the realities outside as 'real'. We just infer them INDUCTIVELY. Note that Syllogistic
or formal logic is DEDUCTIVE whereas science (the reasoning via our senses only) is INDUCTIVE only. So he appears to be against those demanding to place formal logic on the back burner while emphasizing science is the more 'rational' form of reasoning.
Kant did not mention, but there is an inherent psychological drive the compel humans to insist on extend empirical things to things without empirical elements, without concepts [sense elements] but yet as having objective reality, i.e. real.
But the reality is they are trapped within an illusion which is psychological soothing, so they will cling to what is soothing [the security blanket or dummy].
I agree to the problem of induction that Kant is referencing. I also agree to the
Platonic absolutes he is addressing as real, even if we cannot find
instances of them. This is because he was assuming that these apriori absolutes are 'forms' that have to be true in order for the instances to be true empirically; but if you begin with the instances from our senses to induce some general form (the reverse engineering of a deductive argument), the premises cannot be 'deduced' as
real without knowing for certain that your own sensation is NOT a mere illusion. You also cannot KNOW the other people's sensations but require gambling that they see what you do. So the scientific empiricism is less certain than logic using absolutes. All you need is one instance of experience to know THAT some 'absolute' exists. For example, if you experience the following as some experience,
I am looking at something I can sit on [Conclusion based on the senses]
then you know that there is SOME 'form' (formula) that can represent this, namely the experience as you sense it above. That is, all I need to know THAT
A chair exists [a general formula that summarizes ALL "things you can sit on"] is that at least ONE chair exists by the experience. But the 'absolute' concept of what the universal idea of a "
chair" is has to be both possible and real but not literally something you can witness without exhaustively pointing to "all things one can sit on".
The eye, for example, only takes in the image of those outside objects that are indeterminately real for being distinctly changing. But it cannot perceive itself even given a mirror because it still remains just a perpective of something defined as a 'reflected self' if it does. This means that the means for it to define its world is to assign that which doesn't change to that which does. That which doesn't (or comes closest), defines itself as a postulate. The complement of this is its 'existence' (ex- out -I- oneself -stance .....or -is- + -tense).
The eye is merely an organ of human perception which comprise many parts. In a way, it is the conscious-self [comprising many parts] that is conscious of what is perceived.
The conscious-self cannot perceive itself, so by the above pseudo-rational process [re Kant] the "self" 'rationalize' there is a self-in-itself, i.e. a soul that survive physical death. According to Kant, Hume, Buddhism and others, such a soul is an illusion, i.e. not a real thing or thing-in-itself.
As you can see, Kant, Hume and Buddhism are implying there is 'nothing' to this idealized some thing claimed to be a soul that survives physical death.
This is contrast to the OP's 'No Nothingness'.
The reality is the consequences of reifying an illusory soul as real lead to terrible suffering, evil and violence as theists try to defend their soul's [thing-in-itself] passage to eternal life and paradise. This is so evident with theists of the Abrahamic religions.
Here is where you lose me. Kant argues FOR equating the "thing-in-itself" to "the perception of it" as both 'inferior' forms of reasoning IF those arguing for the empirical trust in "the perception of it" as 'superior'. He is just saying those who assume that observations alone are necessary as a foundation for reasoning are less secure than seeking for universal absolutes.
I actually was thinking recently about how set theories postulate axioms that permit you to CREATE sets if you begin with a proper logical sentence (a form) that describes what such a set can 'contain'. For instance, "the set that contains all sets that are not sets of themselves" is paradoxical if literally real. The question you have to ask is if it is appropriate to assume we can begin from an image first and then assume a reality can be constructed (or discovered) from it as a model/form(ula)? The pure scientist would say NO. The pure reasoner would say YES.
["pure" above means the strictest exclusive form of rationalizing. So the 'pure scientist' is one who strictly trust observations as real; The 'pure reasoner' strictly trusts only the forms (the fill-in-the-blanks logic) without respect to what arguments you can make when you put real constants in them.]
You said I was thinking of things as 'containers' and yes, this is true. I don't see any other alternative that doesn't have this property other than refusing to interpret things by keeping it in the foggy mist of permanent indecision and indetermination. You appear to recognize duality of things that represent something given and its complement. How can this NOT permit the idea of 'containment'?
As I had alluded, the container metaphor is a necessary default via evolution, so I will live with it but we should not be dogmatic about it. Thus it is necessary to suspend such views where it is necessary to abandon it where required.
Are you interpreting/misinterpreting "container" as not real by Kant? This should not be the inference if you do because those 'blanks' to be filled in
are containers.
Example form (by Kant's reference to Syllogistic logic):
All (___) are (___).
is a syllogistic premise. Also, the full argument, using variable literals for term containers and the whole argument is also a 'container' here:
All X are Y
X exists
Y exists
So without reference to those other works, what is concerning to you about what I ask using only "Totality" and its complement to imply nothing? I'm not sure what you are getting at. All of what you just said is interesting but I don't know what it has to say about the concept of 'nothing'. I can't tell if you think it is real, not real, indeterminate, ineffible...?
What I am saying is we should not be too focus that something must be in something, or 'nothing' must be in some totality.
It is sufficient to merely adopt the view like Newton's Third Law, for every-thing there is a corresponding no-thing or nothing, note for every Yin there is its complementary Yang, and similar principles.
Intuitively this is not an easy as the evolved default compels there must always be some thing thus driven to reduce the thing to the thing-in-itself, the first cause, the prime mover, God, the ONE, and the likes.
It is unavoidable. I think you may be mixing some interpretion of my use of "containers" here. A 'set' is a container; a 'variable' is a container, even the 'constants' are containers of themselves (pure or 'proper' containers).
My argument would likely be approved by Kant, not against his view. That is, I am using only pure reasoning to infer that an "absolute nothing" exists.
Proof that:
Absolutely Nothing --> Absolutely Something:
A(1)Absolultely Nothing exists....................................[Assumption]
1(2)Absolutely Nothing & Absolutely Something ..............[Absolutely Nothing = Absolute Nothing & Absolutely Nothing]
1(3)Absolutely Something exists..................................[&Elimination]
The premises here are
apriori assumptions NOT based on empiricism even though the conclusion IS empirical. That is, we cannot find a better deductive proof that could lead to the true conclusion, even IF (1) was not merely an assumption but true.
But if (1) was not an assumption, then Absolutely Nothing is an
apriori statement and demonstrates premises that are themselves not able to be false as the conclusion remains true as we expect. This proves in Kant's way of thinking, that this argument is 'sound' even if no one is around to observe the conclusion. Thus you wouldn't need a human observer to prove that something exists using only Pure Reasoning.