Philosophy Now Forum

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 7:17 am Kant merely provided the assumption or at best a hypothesis for something X, i.e. the thing-in-itself, but that is not accepting there is really something X beyond experience.
At the conclusion, Kant confirms the hypothesis of something-X is an illusion.

Kant in CPR wrote:Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them [the illusions].
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.

A hypothesis about the reality of the thing-in-itself, can't be an illusion. Kant could only confirm that certain belief in the reality of the thing-in-itself, is an illusion.

Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 8:06 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 10:13 am As I had suggested you have to be very familiar with the history of how the analytic philosophers got interested in Kant from the start, i.e. with Peter Strawson's The Bounds of Reason.

I read somewhere [need to search for it] Strawson initially found certain aspects of the Transcendental Analytic of Kant interesting to some degree but to his horror he later discovered the whole of the CPR is too metaphysical for him, thus he never ventured to study Kant thoroughly and fully. But by then he was committed academically with Kant.

It is the same with Guyer who abhorred Kant's philosophy but nevertheless was trapped into it as a profession and found it too late to change direction thus got involved with translating, teaching and involving with various Kantian project. Show me where Guyer ever stated anything positive about Kant central idea?

After Guyer's generations those analytic philosophers who ever got involved with Kant's philosophers are already armed with knives [inherited from Guyer et al] when they deal with Kant's philosophy. Again show me one Guyer's disciple who had stated anything positive about Kant central idea?

These analytical philosophers has ideological, psychological, cultural, political anti-Kantian blood in them.

This ad hominem argument against Kant's scholars that you don't agree with is a major fallacy of yours. Saying they have "anti-Kantian blood in them", "armed with knives" is the kind of argument one would expect from dogmatic cultist followers. And so you make assessments about Paul Guyer and other scholars in terms of "stating positive things". They just give their best interpretation, that might be biased by other philosophical doctrines, but in that sense no less biased than any other interpretation that you would endorse. If I said that Henry Allison got carried away in his "passion for Kant", the argument would be meaningless for proving him wrong.

Nope.
I am merely describing [perhaps a bit flowery] what is the real events and reality based on the typical psychological, cultural and political states of philosophical realists views on Kant.
Note Ferder's very nasty snides in his summarizing of Garve's longer genial review of the CPR.

From sensory appearances, which are distinguished from other representations only through the subjective condition that space and time are conjoined with them, the understanding makes objects. It makes them.
-Garve-Ferder Review

The way Ferder summarized the point was deliberately done to make Kant looked stupid.

Regardless of what I state about Guyer et. al. or you about Allison, the crunch must be based on evidences.

Because it is not the subject matter of epistemology? How is asking what we actually know related to asking what there actually is?

At present I am reading on Pierce, Dewey, Rorty, and the pragmatists who I believed do talk sense when they critique the realists who keep focusing on "what there actually is out there."
This is the wrong starting point of their philosophies that caused all sort of unresolvable philosophical problems.

You cannot be too classical with epistemology.
If epistemology is about knowledge, then we must be able to have knowledge of 'what is ontology' about. The knowledge and answer is substance-ontology is chasing illusions.

No, that's not "regardless of epistemology or ontology", that is precisely "regarding epistemology or ontology".

It is the empirical reality without the need for epistemology or ontology.
All you have are sense-data of the supposed [if it ever exist] independent external thing.

But you have no proof of that ontological/epistemological claim. People having the pre-theoretical view, having the manifest image, does not necessarily entail having a scientific image of reality that can categorically deny the existence of mind-independent objects "in touch" with our brainly ideas of them.

What is most reliable knowledge is empirically-based scientific knowledge.
Note the term mind-independence implied separateness, there is is no question of "in touch" [i.e. sensible].
Based on scientific knowledge and the realists mind-independent view there is always a reality gap [medium] between the subject and the external object.

I surely did. Since you cannot prove that the sense data is not connected to the objects, which is what would necessarily be implied in 1.1 (the division between subjects and objects is true.
Subjects are just a different class of objects and the "internal" domain is subsumed within the "external" realm), you cannot prove ontological realism to be false. You can take, of course, the non-realist ontological position, but then will have to deal with its epistemological shortcomings.

As I had stated, I have nothing to do with 1.1, 1.2 or 2.1-3 which is related to substance-ontology which generate the subject versus object distinction.

You have not addressed my point re;
"Based on this fact that you only have access to the sense data and cannot access the real independent thing, you are definitely an idealist. You cannot deny this."
Based on this [sense-data only in your brain] can you justify you are not an idealist?

Atla wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 7:56 am A hypothesis about the reality of the thing-in-itself, can't be an illusion. Kant could only confirm that certain belief in the reality of the thing-in-itself, is an illusion.

A hypothesis implied a belief.
In this case, what is hypothesized -a belief that a thing-in-itself that exists an unknowable- is confirmed to be chasing an illusion.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:05 am

Atla wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 7:56 am A hypothesis about the reality of the thing-in-itself, can't be an illusion. Kant could only confirm that certain belief in the reality of the thing-in-itself, is an illusion.

A hypothesis implied a belief.
In this case, what is hypothesized -a belief that a thing-in-itself that exists an unknowable- is confirmed to be chasing an illusion.

Why? Then your belief that there is no thing in itself, is also confirmed to be chasing an illusion. We can't tell either way.

Atla wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:10 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:05 am

Atla wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 7:56 am A hypothesis about the reality of the thing-in-itself, can't be an illusion. Kant could only confirm that certain belief in the reality of the thing-in-itself, is an illusion.

A hypothesis implied a belief.
In this case, what is hypothesized -a belief that a thing-in-itself that exists an unknowable- is confirmed to be chasing an illusion.

Why? Then your belief that there is no thing in itself, is also confirmed to be chasing an illusion. We can't tell either way.

It is not MY belief per se.
Kant had proven in his CPR that to reify the thing-in-itself as real is chasing an illusion, i.e. being deluded by one's own mind.

Here is a clue to the whole argument [of 732 pages] in the CPR on how Kant concluded the reification of the thing-in-itself as really real is illusory;

Kant in CPR wrote:They [conclusions] are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself.
Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them [the illusions].
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.
B397

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:20 am

Atla wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:10 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:05 am
A hypothesis implied a belief.
In this case, what is hypothesized -a belief that a thing-in-itself that exists an unknowable- is confirmed to be chasing an illusion.

Why? Then your belief that there is no thing in itself, is also confirmed to be chasing an illusion. We can't tell either way.

It is not MY belief per se.
Kant had proven in his CPR that to reify the thing-in-itself as real is chasing an illusion, i.e. being deluded by one's own mind.

Here is a clue to the whole argument [of 732 pages] in the CPR on how Kant concluded the reification of the thing-in-itself as really real is illusory;

Kant in CPR wrote:They [conclusions] are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself.
Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them [the illusions].
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.
B397

If that's what he really meant then he failed at basic logic. Logic works both ways: we can't tell whether or not the thing-in-itself actually exists, therefore both believing that it's really real and believing that it doesn't exist, are chasing illusions.

Atla wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:24 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:20 am

Atla wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:10 am
Why? Then your belief that there is no thing in itself, is also confirmed to be chasing an illusion. We can't tell either way.

It is not MY belief per se.
Kant had proven in his CPR that to reify the thing-in-itself as real is chasing an illusion, i.e. being deluded by one's own mind.

Here is a clue to the whole argument [of 732 pages] in the CPR on how Kant concluded the reification of the thing-in-itself as really real is illusory;

Kant in CPR wrote:They [conclusions] are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself.
Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them [the illusions].
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.
B397

If that's what he really meant then he failed at basic logic. Logic works both ways: we can't tell whether or not the thing-in-itself actually exists, therefore both believing that it's really real and believing that it doesn't exist, are chasing illusions.

You are like a kindergarten student insisting his private mathematics [a mathematician] teacher is wrong in teaching that 1 +1 = 2. You maintained such an attitude in most of your posts, that is why I never bothered to respond most of the time.

Suggest you read and understand the 732 pages of Kant's argument before you express any arrogance.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:40 am

Atla wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:24 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 8:20 am
It is not MY belief per se.
Kant had proven in his CPR that to reify the thing-in-itself as real is chasing an illusion, i.e. being deluded by one's own mind.

Here is a clue to the whole argument [of 732 pages] in the CPR on how Kant concluded the reification of the thing-in-itself as really real is illusory;

If that's what he really meant then he failed at basic logic. Logic works both ways: we can't tell whether or not the thing-in-itself actually exists, therefore both believing that it's really real and believing that it doesn't exist, are chasing illusions.

You are like a kindergarten student insisting his private mathematics [a mathematician] teacher is wrong in teaching that 1 +1 = 2. You maintained such an attitude in most of your posts, that is why I never bothered to respond most of the time.

Suggest you read and understand the 732 pages of Kant's argument before you express any arrogance.

In other words you have no counter argument to the above massive logical error.

I read the first few chapters of his work btw, stopped when he got space and time wrong. His view was too simplistic, he saw the first twist but didn't see the second twist. I may continue reading him if people can argue why he's right, you apparently can't.

Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 7:29 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 9:13 am Kant had a specific definition of “what is matter.” So in this case, matter is just matter, i.e. no question of ‘materialism’ nor immaterialism.
When I mentioned ‘materialism’ it is to argue that such a term cannot be true.

If Kant had some predicates about matter, that would be an ontological stance. Is it a property of objects or not? If not, where else does it come from?

As mentioned earlier, there are many perspectives to what is ontology, i.e. not merely substance-ontology and the likes.

Here is one perspective [re pragmatism] which is not substance related but grounded on processes;

Granting this, Dewey notes, is not a distinctly pragmatic, or even philosophical move; nor is it the consequence of an attempt to subsume “Nature” under an all-absorbing human moralism, as Santayana charged.

Rather, it is metaphysics’ most plausible adjustment to the fact that philosophy has recognized and incorporated the methods of inquiry that made experimental science so successful.

Given the recognition that perspectives are real and dynamic, the revision any traditional metaphysics must undergo is fundamental;
“substance” has to be replaced by “process” as the basic ontological category.

But this is what experimental science already practices.
-Hilderbrand

Similarly Kant's approach is similarly 'process' based.

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Change is the universal substrate of material reality, and things are the delineated part of change that is stable enough for our uses. There's no discrepancy between process and substance just like there's none between brain and mind.

Ultimately everything is change, but that's not our substrate because we can never access the ultimate. Our mental/"spiritual" substrate is things - sets of boundary conditions.

Veritas Aequitas wrote:I have stated many times, but you simply ignored it. By Kant's Copernican Revolution it is implied he rejected substance ontology.

This does not address my argument. Responding to an argument with "Kant didn't believe that" is not an argument.

The only alternatives to the claim that things are made of stuff are either the claim that things are made of "non-stuff", or that things simply don't exist. And these things include the whole Kantian universe of things, whatever he believes they are, because he surely believes they ARE something. And more importantly, he believes they are something for someone, which puts back into the game an entity, a thinking entity, but nevertheless a thing of a different nature than the things it perceives. In every case, the alternatives are all absurd.

Veritas Aequitas wrote:I am the one who raised the OP so I am setting the intention therein, i.e. the OP's reality-in-itself is the same thing-in-itself in the above definition of substance ontology.

However, you do not deny that there are subjective experiences of things, therefore implying the subject, or at least the experience alone without the subject. This doctrine of an empirical realm that stands on its own without things in themselves to connect with, but with its own universe of entities, corresponds exactly to what ontological anti-realism entails:

1.2 Ontological non-realism (anti-realism): the division between subjects and objects is not true. All that exists is the "internal" domain of subjects, where "external" objects are just products of the senses and mind.

But you cannot prove ontological anti-realism. Dismissing ontology still leaves you with things to deal with and explain, and the path that the idealist, anti-realist project chooses, is the path of the "constant passing of meaning" in epistemic justifications, perspectivity without the viewer and the viewed. That is why Husserl, a self-proclaimed transcendental idealist and heir of Kant's phenomenological project, posited his own ontology. Eventually, the project shoots itself in the foot.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: The point is the philosophical realists [you included] take the stance that there is really something X i.e. the thing-in-itself that beyond the appearance of X.

Actually, the point is that the ontological anti-realists [you included] take the stance that there isn't really something X beyond the appearance of X. It is their point of departure, not the conclusion.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Kant on the other hand, start with direct sensations, appearances and experiences and make the attempt to understand what are these about without taking the stance that there is really something X i.e. the thing-in-itself that exists as real beyond the appearance of X.

The problem with that is this: to take the "direct sensations, appearances and experiences" as something real is no different than taking for real the things beyond sensations, it just erases the realist division between subjects and objects and postulates an empirical, psychological, anti-realist division of subjects and objects of our sensibility, subsuming the latter ones into the first. That's why he's immediately forced to believe, along with Berkeley, that the experience in itself is an illusion. It's like a movie going on in your mind, there are characters, places, a plot, everything, but they are just a projection on a screen, behind which there's nothing. Trying to understand them as if their presence in our experience was justified objectively is futile, because they are supposedly projected there by our subjectivity. Objective idealism is even more nonsense than its subjective companion.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Kant merely provided the assumption or at best a hypothesis for something X, i.e. the thing-in-itself, but that is not accepting there is really something X beyond experience.
At the conclusion, Kant confirms the hypothesis of something-X is an illusion.

There's no path there from an hypothesis to a conclusion, he actually departs from the anti-realist stance. If you depart from an anti-realist stance, you will end up confirming your anti-realist stance. It's purely circular reasoning. One might contend that the same happens to the realist stance, but there's the key issue of science and empirical knowledge, which will have a justified place within the realistic framework, while having none in the anti-realist framework. The reality of "direct sensations, appearances and experiences" is even less justified than anything else.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Kant had already warned realists and people like you;

Kant in the CPR wrote:Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them [the illusions].
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.
B397

This is why you are unable to understand the above views thus wrongly and continually imposes YOUR realist's view onto Kant.

That's a rather silly, dogmatic quote, equivalent to Christian preachers answering the challenge of Jesus resurrecting with the claim: "it is true, because it says right here in the Bible" and then warning against skeptics like me.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: If you refer to the wiki link re ontology above,
you will note there are many perspectives to ontology besides substance-ontology.

Since you find that link relevant, let's stay in it for a while.
In that link one finds that ontology is the "science of being". And it defines being as "anything that exists" and it goes on to say that being "means the material or immaterial existence of a thing". When you look up at "existence" it says that it "is the ability of an entity to interact with physical or mental reality". It refers to ontology as "the branch of philosophy that studies concepts such as existence, being, becoming, and reality". When you look up at reality, it says that it is "the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence". As we can see then, ontology by itself does not imply a commitment to a substantial "thing in itself", just to plain existence as a being, which can in theory be an immaterial entity. Worth noting that "mental things", mental reality, still the subject of ontology, is regarded as part of reality. This means that denying substance ontology on behalf of anti-realism will not allow you to get rid of ontology. We got Husserl, remember.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Note I referred to Kant's Copernican Revolution approach which has nothing to do with substance-ontology [grounded on the thing-in-itself].
Kant explicitly rejected ontology and if there is any ontology to Kant's view, it is definitely not substance-ontology.
Where Kant dealt with objects, they are empirical objects without any substance-ontological elements.

Fine, let him reject ontology, substance ontology or whatever ontology. If he rejects it, then he has abandoned any possibility of making ontological statements. "Things in themselves don't exist or can't exist" is an ontological statement. And if his empirical objects had any objective property, such claims would be of an ontological nature, too. One has to wonder also, what about the empirical objects "humans"? If they were not beings, ontologically speaking, what would they be exactly?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Where there is something that knows, it is not an ontological self but an empirical self that dissolve upon physical death.

This supposedly answers my last question, but it's utter nonsense. What "physical" death? You mean the death of epistemological objects? Why would they have any necessity of dying? And why would that death be physical?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: I am not involved with 1.2 substance-ontological non-realism.
Mine is substance-ontological nihilism [i.e. nothing to do with substance-ontology] whilst I am entangled with empirical reality.

What is there to conceal?
I am openly entangled with empirical reality.

I have nothing to do with substance-ontology, thus substance-ontological-nihilists is meaningless to me.

Again, if one wants to remain within the bounds of sensible experience, then one can only make claims about what is found within the bounds of sensible experience. Denying substance ontology still leaves you with ontology, which you had already said was meaningless, so you're actually claiming ontological nihilism, which actually implies the radical position that there's nothing at all, and that doesn't seem to be your actual stance. It only works for you to run away from the logical traps you have put yourself into.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Kant's basis of 'matter' is based on real empirical experiences, sensation and the likes.
When I experienced seeing an apple and eating it for survival or pleasure, there is no need to bother where is the ULTIMATE source it came from -other than I had planted the tree or bought the apple from the market.

If one doesn't bother about the ultimate source from which an apple came about, then why would one make claims about the existence of that ultimate source? Would it make sense that after not even bothering, one suddenly jumped to say: "I'm sure there's nothing more behind the experience of the apple".

Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 1:58 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote:I have stated many times, but you simply ignored it. By Kant's Copernican Revolution it is implied he rejected substance ontology.

This does not address my argument. Responding to an argument with "Kant didn't believe that" is not an argument.

You assumed I am that stupid to respond to your argument with your statement "Kant didn't believe that"?
When I refer to Kant's Copernican Revolution, it imply I am referring to its whole context [which I had presented many times] in addressing my point.
It appears you do not understand the essentials of Kant's Copernican Revolution which I had mentioned and explained many times.

Kant in CPR wrote:Hitherto it has been assumed that all our Knowledge must conform to Objects.
But all attempts to extend our Knowledge of Objects by establishing something in regard to them a priori, by means of Concepts, have, on this assumption, ended in Failure.

We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of Metaphysics, if we suppose that Objects must conform to our Knowledge.
Bxvi

In the full context of the above, Kant claimed "all attempts" by the philosophical realists for the ultimate external things has "ended in failure".

When he proposed "that Objects must conform to our Knowledge" it is implied that he wanted to start with knowledge and experience to justify whether there is an object-in-itself and NOT to take it the object-in-itself is GIVEN.

Your problem is you are stuck in the philosophical realist dogmatic stance thus cannot understand Kant's proposals.

The only alternatives to the claim that things are made of stuff are either the claim that things are made of "non-stuff", or that things simply don't exist.
And these things include the whole Kantian universe of things, whatever he believes they are, because he surely believes they ARE something.
And more importantly, he believes they are something for someone, which puts back into the game an entity, a thinking entity, but nevertheless a thing of a different nature than the things it perceives. In every case, the alternatives are all absurd.

There you go, you are being rhetoric based on your rigid perspective, i.e. the only alternative to stuff is "non stuff".
Why must that be the the case?
Note Kant in the above quote re his Copernican Revolution had already stated, "all attempts" such as yours had ended up in failure.
As such, there is no way Kant believed they [ARE] something.
For the sake of common sense and other reasons, Kant merely assumed [hypothetical] there is the noumena aka the thing-in-itself.

As I had stated Kant only believed in empirical things and the empirical person.

I can understand why it is absurd to you because you are stuck in the dogmatic philosophical realists' stance and psychological state at risk. I also agree it is absurd if we view it from the common sense perspective.
But it is not absurd in a more realistic philosophical sense.

Veritas Aequitas wrote:I am the one who raised the OP so I am setting the intention therein, i.e. the OP's reality-in-itself is the same thing-in-itself in the above definition of substance ontology.

However, you do not deny that there are subjective experiences of things, therefore implying the subject, or at least the experience alone without the subject. This doctrine of an empirical realm that stands on its own without things in themselves to connect with, but with its own universe of entities, corresponds exactly to what ontological anti-realism entails:

1.2 Ontological non-realism (anti-realism): the division between subjects and objects is not true. All that exists is the "internal" domain of subjects, where "external" objects are just products of the senses and mind.

But you cannot prove ontological anti-realism. Dismissing ontology still leaves you with things to deal with and explain, and the path that the idealist, anti-realist project chooses, is the path of the "constant passing of meaning" in epistemic justifications, perspectivity without the viewer and the viewed. That is why Husserl, a self-proclaimed transcendental idealist and heir of Kant's phenomenological project, posited his own ontology. Eventually, the project shoots itself in the foot.

Note very sure of your point.
What I can say is Kant [me included] do not have any problem justifying empirical realism and transcendental idealism.

Within empirical realism, the subject is independent of the object thus there exists and external reality independent of the human mind [at that level]. However all the above are subsumed within transcendental idealism, i.e. not independent of the human conditions.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: The point is the philosophical realists [you included] take the stance that there is really something X i.e. the thing-in-itself that beyond the appearance of X.

Actually, the point is that the ontological anti-realists [you included] take the stance that there isn't really something X beyond the appearance of X. It is their point of departure, not the conclusion.

From the transcendental idealism POV, it can be justified there isn't really something X beyond the appearance of X.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Kant on the other hand, start with direct sensations, appearances and experiences and make the attempt to understand what are these about without taking the stance that there is really something X i.e. the thing-in-itself that exists as real beyond the appearance of X.

The problem with that is this: to take the "direct sensations, appearances and experiences" as something real is no different than taking for real the things beyond sensations,
it just erases the realist division between subjects and objects
and postulates an empirical, psychological, anti-realist division of subjects and objects of our sensibility, subsuming the latter ones into the first.

That's why he's immediately forced to believe, along with Berkeley, that the experience in itself is an illusion.
It's like a movie going on in your mind, there are characters, places, a plot, everything, but they are just a projection on a screen, behind which there's nothing. Trying to understand them as if their presence in our experience was justified objectively is futile, because they are supposedly projected there by our subjectivity. Objective idealism is even more nonsense than its subjective companion.

There is a big difference if "direct sensations, appearances and experiences" as something real without there is the thing-in-itself beyond sensation. This is why there is a big difference between the realists' and idealists' views.

Both Kant and Berkeley never claimed experience itself is an illusion.
What they claimed is "that thing-in-itself which is experienced" when reified like you do, is an illusion.
From an empirical realist POV, Kant accept experience itself is really real.

Why Kant rejected that something-X beyond appearance and experience is to open up room for further exploration into the mind and thus the psychological state why realists must insist on their claim of an external independent reality plus for other reasons that can contribute to the progress of humanity.

There's no path there from an hypothesis to a conclusion, he actually departs from the anti-realist stance. If you depart from an anti-realist stance, you will end up confirming your anti-realist stance. It's purely circular reasoning. One might contend that the same happens to the realist stance, but there's the key issue of science and empirical knowledge, which will have a justified place within the realistic framework, while having none in the anti-realist framework. The reality of "direct sensations, appearances and experiences" is even less justified than anything else.

It is not that easy to end up with the anti-realist stance by faith alone.
Kant wrote the CPR [one long argument] to justify his anti-philosophical-realist i.e. his transcendental idealism and empirical realism stance.

The reality of "direct sensations, appearances and experiences" are verifiable and justifiable by science within the scientific FSK. Kant is relying upon science to do that.

That's a rather silly, dogmatic quote, equivalent to Christian preachers answering the challenge of Jesus resurrecting with the claim: "it is true, because it says right here in the Bible" and then warning against skeptics like me.

You did not present solid counter why that is silly?
You have to understand Kant's argument fully on that point before you make noise to say it is silly.

Note Kant's CPR is one long argument of >800 pages, thus I cannot present that whole argument to substantiate my point. You'll need to understand the whole argument before you condemn it as silly.

Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 1:58 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: If you refer to the wiki link re ontology above,
you will note there are many perspectives to ontology besides substance-ontology.

Since you find that link relevant, let's stay in it for a while.
In that link one finds that ontology is the "science of being". And it defines being as "anything that exists" and it goes on to say that being "means the material or immaterial existence of a thing". When you look up at "existence" it says that it "is the ability of an entity to interact with physical or mental reality". It refers to ontology as "the branch of philosophy that studies concepts such as existence, being, becoming, and reality". When you look up at reality, it says that it is "the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence".

As we can see then, ontology by itself does not imply a commitment to a substantial "thing in itself", just to plain existence as a being, which can in theory be an immaterial entity. Worth noting that "mental things", mental reality, still the subject of ontology, is regarded as part of reality.
This means that denying substance ontology on behalf of anti-realism will not allow you to get rid of ontology. We got Husserl, remember.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology
My point re the quote was there are many perspectives to ontology.
The term ontology re study of being can range from very loose, broad to a more narrow and definite meaning.

My intent was to point to you is your stance of ontology is that of substance-ontology, the thing-in-itself ontology and the realists' ontology of an external independent object.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Note I referred to Kant's Copernican Revolution approach which has nothing to do with substance-ontology [grounded on the thing-in-itself].
Kant explicitly rejected ontology and if there is any ontology to Kant's view, it is definitely not substance-ontology.
Where Kant dealt with objects, they are empirical objects without any substance-ontological elements.

Fine, let him reject ontology, substance ontology or whatever ontology. If he rejects it, then he has abandoned any possibility of making ontological statements. "Things in themselves don't exist or can't exist" is an ontological statement.
And if his empirical objects had any objective property, such claims would be of an ontological nature, too.
One has to wonder also, what about the empirical objects "humans"? If they were not beings, ontologically speaking, what would they be exactly?

When Kant rejected ontology, surely he could still discuss it from a negative point of view just like how non-theists argue against the idea of God and theism.

If you insist, the ontology to the human being is, the living human person is just an empirical object with consciousness.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Where there is something that knows, it is not an ontological self but an empirical self that dissolve upon physical death.

This supposedly answers my last question, but it's utter nonsense. What "physical" death? You mean the death of epistemological objects? Why would they have any necessity of dying? And why would that death be physical?

A human person is a physical thing, you insist it is not?
The human person is a living empirical object with consciousness.
When the person is dead [scientifically and medically] it is no more an empirical object with consciousness.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: I am not involved with 1.2 substance-ontological non-realism.
Mine is substance-ontological nihilism [i.e. nothing to do with substance-ontology] whilst I am entangled with empirical reality.

What is there to conceal?
I am openly entangled with empirical reality.

I have nothing to do with substance-ontology, thus substance-ontological-nihilists is meaningless to me.

Again, if one wants to remain within the bounds of sensible experience, then one can only make claims about what is found within the bounds of sensible experience. Denying substance ontology still leaves you with ontology, which you had already said was meaningless, so you're actually claiming ontological nihilism, which actually implies the radical position that there's nothing at all, and that doesn't seem to be your actual stance. It only works for you to run away from the logical traps you have put yourself into.

Remember, there are may perspectives to what is ontology from the broadest sense to the narrowest sense.
What I deny is the sort of specific ontology [substance, thing-in-itself, philosophical-realist] your are claiming.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Kant's basis of 'matter' is based on real empirical experiences, sensation and the likes.
When I experienced seeing an apple and eating it for survival or pleasure, there is no need to bother where is the ULTIMATE source it came from -other than I had planted the tree or bought the apple from the market.

If one doesn't bother about the ultimate source from which an apple came about, then why would one make claims about the existence of that ultimate source? Would it make sense that after not even bothering, one suddenly jumped to say: "I'm sure there's nothing more behind the experience of the apple".

Why people claimed about the ultimate source [the next and ultimate cause] is due to their psychology? If you bother to dig deep it is related to a very desperate existential crisis.
Note Hume's problem of causation which is reduced to constant conjunction, customs and habits, thus psychology.

Note Kant's implication that there is this inherent unavoidable psychology that seduce people into such illusions and delusions of something X beyond sensations, appearance and experiences.
To Kant there is no something X but there is a whole shebang of cognitive, psychological, chemical, etc. processes in entanglement with the environment beyond sensations, appearance, experiences and knowing.
These are the important knowledge that can contribute the progress of humanity.

Insisting like the philosophical realists that there are independent things is useful but too restrictive in enabling the future progress of humanity as compared to Kant's empirical realism / transcendental idealism.

Btw, are you familiar with Wittgenstein's
"Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent”

The above is not literally but refer to ontological issues like the above.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 5:16 am Why Kant rejected that something-X beyond appearance and experience

It continues to amaze that you see your idiotic take on Kant as "deep". Do you really think he wrote a 800 pages book just to say that "there can't be anything beyond appearances"? You spent 50000 years reading Kant full-time for this?

Fyi, correctly rejecting substance theory doesn't mean that there can't be any thing-in-itself. It just means that if the thing-in-itself exists, then it either isn't made of any'thing' ("made of" is old spiritual/religious nonsense), or we can't know what it's made of. You need lessons in basic logic.

[quote=Atla post_id=512081 time=1622113518 user_id=15497]
[quote="Veritas Aequitas" post_id=512064 time=1622089014 user_id=7896]
Why Kant rejected that something-X beyond appearance and experience
[/quote]
It continues to amaze that you see your idiotic take on Kant as "deep". Do you really think he wrote a 800 pages book just to say that "there can't be anything beyond appearances"? You spent 50000 years reading Kant full-time for this?

Fyi, correctly rejecting substance theory doesn't mean that there can't be any thing-in-itself. It just means that if the thing-in-itself exists, then it either isn't made of any'thing' ("made of" is old spiritual/religious nonsense), or we can't know what it's made of. You need lessons in basic logic.
[/quote]

I've given necessary and sufficient answers to everything y'all are talking about. Apparently basic logic isn't the problem here, but that is being used unwisely to expand the exploration of the opposite direction of Truth.