Philosophy Now Forum

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Eyeon wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 6:36 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 5:26 am It is not the case of scientifying the thing-in-itself.

I was talking about the idealists which came after Kant (Frege, Ficthe, Shelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel).

Thus a thing is real in one sense and unreal [an illusion] in another sense.

How can a thing be real and unreal?

The Neo-Kantians could not free themselves from the illusion as mentioned above and that is why they always fall back to the thing-in-itself as something.

I mean, the thing-in-itself is a perfectly reasonable thing to fall back onto even if they ended up failing.

Veritas holds a special contempt for those who reify the thing-in-itself. He also holds a special contempt for those who don't reify the goal of human survival as a thing-in-itself.

Eyeon wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 6:36 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 5:26 am It is not the case of scientifying the thing-in-itself.

I was talking about the idealists which came after Kant (Frege, Ficthe, Shelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel).

Yes, I am referring to those idealists as well but I think Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was not of the same group.
Despite Kant demonstrating and warned [B397 -CoPR] that reifying the thing-in-itself is delusional, they continue to reify the thing-in-itself due to an inherent compulsion to do so. E.g. Schopenhauer - the Will, Hegel - the Absolute, Ficthe - the ultimate self and the likes.

Thus a thing is real in one sense and unreal [an illusion] in another sense.

How can a thing be real and unreal?

P can be not-P at the same time provided not in the same sense [perspective].
So a "thing" be real and unreal at the same time provided not in the same sense [perspective, context]

The Neo-Kantians could not free themselves from the illusion as mentioned above and that is why they always fall back to the thing-in-itself as something.

I mean, the thing-in-itself is a perfectly reasonable thing to fall back onto even if they ended up failing.

Yes, the thing-in-itself is reasonable thing to fall back onto even if they ended up failing, BUT not in the Perfect sense.

When people fall back onto the thing-in-itself [absolute unconditional], at the extreme what we get is terrible evil and violence when believers cling desperately to a God [thing-in-itself] to save their souls from hell but have to comply with their God's commands to kill and commit evil upon non-believers. E.g.;

What causes muslims to be violent?
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=30042

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Eyeon wrote: ↑Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:43 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Aug 29, 2020 4:23 am Yes, I am referring to those idealists as well but I think Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was not of the same group.
Despite Kant demonstrating and warned [B397 -CoPR] that reifying the thing-in-itself is delusional, they continue to reify the thing-in-itself due to an inherent compulsion to do so. E.g. Schopenhauer - the Will, Hegel - the Absolute, Ficthe - the ultimate self and the likes.

A warning from Kant is one thing, but Kant wasn't saying that reifying the thing-in-itself is delusional. Instead he was saying that the thing-in-itself is necessary upon the contingency of reason being a scientific endeavor rather than a purely rational one.

Kant demonstrated with proof, reifying the thing-in-itself is an illusion.
Kant did not use the term delusional, but reifying an illusion [thing-in-itself] persistently [e.g. theists] is delusional.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/delusional

Why the majority 99.99% cannot understand this is because it is a default within ALL humans. It takes very sublime philosophical reflection to understand [not necessary to agree] the point.

It is the same with the human default of the inherent carbohydrate/glucose C6H12O6 drive till the point of addiction and those who are ignorant of this default ended up being terribly obese and die to various associated diseases.

P can be not-P at the same time provided not in the same sense [perspective].
So a "thing" be real and unreal at the same time provided not in the same sense [perspective, context]

Mathematically, P cannot be equal to not-P, or P = -P is unreasonable.

Note this is a Philosophy Forum.

• In logic, the law of non-contradiction (LNC) (also known as the law of contradiction, principle of non-contradiction (PNC), or the principle of contradiction) states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time,- wiki

Yes, the thing-in-itself is reasonable thing to fall back onto even if they ended up failing, BUT not in the Perfect sense.

Perfection is achievable, not automatic. For instance, if I were to go and climb a mountain tomorrow it would be shit, however if I train myself over time to climb then the climbing is achievable, and the view would be perfect (for me).

I meant absolute perfect in this case.
Perfection is achievable conditionally but not absolutely.

Relative and conditional perfection is possible;
Scoring 100/100 in an objective test is perfection but only relative to the test questions set and the person taking the test.
Scoring 10/10 is a diving competition is perfection but conditioned upon human judges based on human-based standards.

I don't particularly like Kant, but I think he does deserve lots of credit.
Veritas's droning on and on about the mortal sin of reification, like there wouldn't be a world of difference between reifying a rock and reifying some made-up absolute God, paints Kant as a goddamn idiot too.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:21 pm Phenomena = appearances, and noumena = things-in-themselves, so far so good (if I understood correctly).

But did he understand that technically and objectively, all phenomena are noumena (the noumena in the human head)? So some of the noumenon is directly 'knowable'.

I haven't read the thread so pardon me if this has been said.

I think you've hit on a crucially important philosophical point but I wouldn't express it quite like this.

Kant thought there could be more than one thing-in-itself and this is logically impossible given its definition of being indistinguishable. If the thing-in-itself is unitary then, as you say, this would suggest that it is shared by all phenomena including human beings. Thus he cannot be sure we do not have access to knowledge of the noumenon.

Mysticism would say we do have such access, but not quite in these terms. The Buddhist Nibbana may be defined as a phenomena without a noumenon, and this indicates a subtlety Kant did not explore (afaik).

He argues all phenomena (as appearances) reduce to the noumenon (or, paradoxically, multiple noumena), but did not make the connection that you have to consciousness and the unitary nature of the noumenon.

I am not a Kant scholar so this may be subject to corrections.

I noted a comment that all knowledge has a sensory origin, which would scupper your idea, but this a false view.

PeteJ wrote: ↑Fri Sep 04, 2020 2:53 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:21 pm Phenomena = appearances, and noumena = things-in-themselves, so far so good (if I understood correctly).

But did he understand that technically and objectively, all phenomena are noumena (the noumena in the human head)? So some of the noumenon is directly 'knowable'.

I haven't read the thread so pardon me if this has been said.

I think you've hit on a crucially important philosophical point but I wouldn't express it quite like this.

Kant thought there could be more than one thing-in-itself and this is logically impossible given its definition of being indistinguishable. If the thing-in-itself is unitary then, as you say, this would suggest that it is shared by all phenomena including human beings. Thus he cannot be sure we do not have access to knowledge of the noumenon.

Mysticism would say we do have such access, but not quite in these terms. The Buddhist Nibbana may be defined as a phenomena without a noumenon, and this indicates a subtlety Kant did not explore (afaik).

He argues all phenomena (as appearances) reduce to the noumenon (or, paradoxically, multiple noumena), but did not make the connection that you have to consciousness and the unitary nature of the noumenon.

I am not a Kant scholar so this may be subject to corrections.

I noted a comment that all knowledge has a sensory origin, which would scupper your idea, but this a false view.

What's truly puzzling to me, is how it's possible that we've had all these supposedly great Western philosophers since Kant, and yet somehow this critical issue was never really discovered by anyone. (Which I'd say pretty much resulted in Western philosophy reaching a dead end, when it comes to the big questions.)

And then came the quantum revolution, which brutally forced this insight on us (there's just no way around it, unless we resign ourselves to some silly literal magical mind-versus-physical-world dualism). Yet nearly a century after that latest revolution, our philosophers still haven't discovered the above issue.

Like, what the hell?

Atla wrote: ↑Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:38 am What's truly puzzling to me, is how it's possible that we've had all these supposedly great Western philosophers since Kant, and yet somehow this critical issue was never really discovered by anyone. (Which I'd say pretty much resulted in Western philosophy reaching a dead end, when it comes to the big questions.)

And then came the quantum revolution, which brutally forced this insight on us (there's just no way around it, unless we resign ourselves to some silly literal magical mind-versus-physical-world dualism). Yet nearly a century after that latest revolution, our philosophers still haven't discovered the above issue.

Like, what the hell?

My sentiments exactly. I cannot grasp how the phlosophy department can be so dense, I've been wondering about this for for twenty years and still don't have a satisfactory answer.

I suspect the internet will be the death of this poor scholarship. These days, thanks to the internet, any amateur can do better.

PeteJ wrote: ↑Sun Sep 06, 2020 12:41 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:38 am What's truly puzzling to me, is how it's possible that we've had all these supposedly great Western philosophers since Kant, and yet somehow this critical issue was never really discovered by anyone. (Which I'd say pretty much resulted in Western philosophy reaching a dead end, when it comes to the big questions.)

And then came the quantum revolution, which brutally forced this insight on us (there's just no way around it, unless we resign ourselves to some silly literal magical mind-versus-physical-world dualism). Yet nearly a century after that latest revolution, our philosophers still haven't discovered the above issue.

Like, what the hell?

My sentiments exactly. I cannot grasp how the phlosophy department can be so dense, I've been wondering about this for for twenty years and still don't have a satisfactory answer.

I suspect the internet will be the death of this poor scholarship. These days, thanks to the internet, any amateur can do better.

Exactly..

This passage seems relevant if one makes the connections.

"The history of Western philosophy is filled with discussion, in one guise or another, of what is often called the ‘transcendental’ subject and object. The terms invoke the idea of a hidden self behind the phenomenal self and a hidden object behind the phenomenal object. Although Kant positioned the transcendental ‘things-in-themselves’ as methodological concepts rather than as metaphysical entities, the tendency since Kant has often been to reify them and then debate their objective existence. Idealists have typically wanted to exclude the transcendental object from philosophical discussion on the grounds of its alleged non-existence, while materialists have generally wanted to exclude the transcendental subject on the same grounds.

The idea behind modern phenomenalism would be that neither the transcendental object or subject exists in any concrete sense. Instead, one would postulate various possible combinations of phenomenal objects, the most coherent, complex and structured of which could be viewable as constituting emergent conceptual minds such as our own. In this case, the universe could be seen as fundamentally rooted in phenomena or mind.

As a result, there would be a tendency to reify mental phenomena, as in Berkeleian objective substance monism. However, I would argue that to do so would be as much of a mistake as to reify physical entities, since even the most basic mental properties can be shown to have a conceptual, and hence relative, non-objective aspect. In this idea’s original context, mainstream Buddhist philosophy, one would say that the reason to avoid endowing anything, including a qualitative state or a self, with the property of intrinsic, independent reality is that no object can be logically established without implicit or explicit reference to the causes and conditions which enable it to exist - including its parts and attributes and the very fact that a consciousness is required to mentally designate it a distinct entity in the first place. This principle is known as ‘dependent origination’ or ‘the interdependent nature of reality’. “

Edward Barkin
‘Relative Phenomenalism’
JCS Vol 10 No. 8 (2003)