Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

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Fooloso4
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Fooloso4 »

Spectrum:
What Kant introduced here is something like the Observer's Effect in Science, but Kant's view is related to reality rather than merely Science.
Where does he say that observation or perception alters what is observed or perceived?
First there is no [none at all] absolute independent reality out there waiting to be perceived by humans and corresponded with to find the truth of it.
Where does he say this? Did quarks and black holes and galaxies that have only recently been discovered exist? Do things we will discover exist prior to being discovered? What is their ontological status prior to being discovered?
I am not sure how much time you have spent on reading and researching Kant, but you do not seem to have a good grasp this Kantian Middle-Way.
I have no grasp of the "Kantian Middle-Way", most likely because it is nothing more than your attempt to synthesize Kant and whatever it is you think the Middle Way is. Kant did take a position between realism and idealism but this has nothing to do with the Buddhist

Your view that the thing-in-itself still have the potential for positiveness in some form is merely another degree [lesser] along the same continuum of the theological impulse to reify the thing-in-itself.

My view is as I have stated: we have no access to the thing in itself. The world is not created by the human mind. There was a time when the human mind did not exist but we have good evidence that something did. In fact there is good evidence that through most of the history of the universe man did not exist yet something did. Or do you imagine the recent discoveries "emerged" only when nothing was discovered and became something?
Again, according to Kant, there are no independent Laws of Nature waiting out there for humans to discover.
Nature and the laws of nature are not the same, just as an object and the description of an object are not the same.
Note Kant stated 'we can have no acquaintance with an object that corresponds to an idea.'
This is because all transcendental ideas are illusory.

After the noumenon, all consideration relates to illusions;

Kant in CPR wrote:
WE have already entitled Dialectic-in-General a Logic of Illusion. A293
About illusion Kant says:
For truth and illusion are not in the object, insofar as it is intuited, but in the judgment about it insofar as it is thought. Thus it is correctly said that the senses do not err; yet not because they always judge correctly, but because they do not judge at all. Hence truth, as much as error, and thus also illusion as leading to the
latter, are to be found only in judgments, i.e., only in the relation of the object to our understanding. (B350)
Spectrum:
What is available is merely a Problematic concept, i.e. a question to be dealt with. There is nothing positive [object or otherwise] at this point.
What we have is illusory and if reified [as soul, god or Whole Universe] is an illusion.
Transcendental judgment and faith are not the same. The objects of faith - God, soul, etc. are not illusions. Illusion lies in judgments about these objects. Both that they exist and that they do not exist as something known or determined by reason are judgments, and since these judgments are made on the basis of reason alone they lead to error and illusion.
Not sure what is the full context of this point but there is no way Kant would leave any room for 'matter' to exists by itself.
The first chapter of the Metaphysical Foundations [of Natural Science], the Phoronomy, considers the quantity of motion of matter and how it is to be constructed in intuition a priori (so as to produce the kind of rules that are necessary for our experience of matter in motion). (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-science/)
Like the theory of the Physical Monadology, the Metaphysical Foundations presents a “dynamical” theory of matter according to which material substance is constituted by an interaction between attractive and repulsive forces. (https://www.iep.utm.edu/kantview/#SH4a)
Spectrum:
… in the case of Buddhism I humbly leave a 1% hole …
It is not about texts or doctrines but experience. Texts and doctrines are “painting of a rice cake”. Whatever conceptual constructs you have built they only interfere with the truth revealed in transcendent, unmediated experience. In this respect Kant and Buddhism are diametrically opposed. Kant rejects the possibility of unmediated experience.
Yes, there is not much problem for me re Kant and Buddhism.
For you … Whether you correctly understand what you find unproblematic is something else. The literature identifies many problems.
The impulse that drive one to say 'that beyond what we can know is something' is a psychological issue.
The limits of human understanding and knowledge do not limit existence.
When we understand by whatever ways the idea of God is raised is illusory, there is no need to bother with 'God does not exist'. It is like being indifferent to the question of 'Square-circle does not exist'. It is unnecessary to raise such a question.
That there cannot be a square -circle is something that can be determined by definition. The same cannot be said about the existence of God. There is nothing contradictory about God existing.
Point is by default any question raised with the idea of God, it is illusory.
Point is, God and the idea of God are not the same. From the idea of God we cannot determine, that is, correctly judge God’s existence.
If the empirical and reason is not used what else is there for any reasonable consideration.
You are equivocating - what can be determined by reason and what is a reasonable consideration are not the same. Did Kant claim that faith in God is unreasonable or is that merely a reflection of your prejudice?
If we relied on faith, it is still an illusion regardless.
Again, it is the transcendental judgment that God exists or does not exist that is an illusion. Whether or not God exists is not something we can determine by pure reason or empirical evidence.
Empirical illusions is one thing but transcendental logical illusions [within sensibility and intuitions] are at the extreme end of delusion which require psychology to deal with it.
Kant deals with it. He is not doing psychology as he uses the term or as it is typically used.
Objectivity is intersubjectively shared consensus.
Objectivity is for Kant universal subjectivity, that is, what is according to the transcendental structure of the mind.
Dreyfus influenced many of his readers to take a very personal view of Dasein.
I still don’t know what this means and do not see its relevance.
The Categories are not proven empirically but as I had stated above, via justifiable with reason a priori.
The categories are the transcendental condition for the possibility of experience. There are many who think the categories are not real or justified.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

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The problem with empiricism is, that it states that definitions can be made without dependency of the viewpoint of the problem. The is nowadays clear due to the quantum mechanical viewpoint of personal measurment. Which states true probablistic dependencies according to the measurement. A definition depenndent on such a local measurment could be different for different spectators , with it the absolute standpoint of empiricism could be lost, if the measurement then turns out to be a philosophical consequence. Which is for neuroscience possible !!!
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

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For example neurons could be built in a macroscopic way in the same manner for two individuals. But the measurement for another neuron system in the brain could be different in a quantum mechanical way. So two mostly the same built neural systems, could out of reasons of stochastic filtering result into two totally different systems. Due to the fact that the measuring of neural impulses of the two systems filters out the stochastics of quantum mechanics differently. So this unperceivable difference in filtering the same stochastics of neurons could result in totally different behavious. In other words, for two biologica neural systems, the reality perceived could be totally different although their physical state would be the same for every human beeing.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

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Especially if the filtering is then dependent on quantum statistics as well.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by SimpleGuy »

So kants empiricism is lead by quantum mechanics and the theory of neural systems, as well as the measuring axiom of quantum mechanics and their projection probabilities ad adsurdum. But not all western views state an absolute reality from Schopenhauers , "Welt als Wille und Vorstellung", translated as "World as Will and own spiritual mind" as for Nietzsches " Wille zur Macht", "Will for power" (which even claims to be a european way to another european owned buddhistic reality). Heidegger was not the first who thought that the metaphysical mechanisms in a language can forge the reality though its hermeneutical consequences. People like Hegel who has the fundamental principle of the world spririt , which can just be percieved via close to shamanic experience, depict a not always that unmetaphysical reality.
Spectrum
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Spectrum »

Fooloso4 wrote: July 17th, 2018, 12:37 pm Spectrum:
What Kant introduced here is something like the Observer's Effect in Science, but Kant's view is related to reality rather than merely Science.
Where does he say that observation or perception alters what is observed or perceived?
I don't have the CPR on my finger tips at present [..I have to reread the CPR] so I cannot confirm on the above.

However my earlier point is to demonstrate the subject is a participant of what is reality as opposed to the Philosophical Realists' view that reality is absolutely independent of the subject/observer.
First there is no [none at all] absolute independent reality out there waiting to be perceived by humans and corresponded with to find the truth of it.
Where does he say this? Did quarks and black holes and galaxies that have only recently been discovered exist? Do things we will discover exist prior to being discovered? What is their ontological status prior to being discovered?
Quarks, blackholes, galaxies and grounded on the fundamental of the human Framework and System. In this case, they are grounded on the Scientific Framework and System.
Per CPR there are no quarks-in-themselves, there are only quarks as conditioned by the human made Scientific Framework of Physics and consensus by scientist peers.
Try as you may, there is no other ways.
But as I had stated, because of human psychology you are likely to be compelled to believe quarks still exist in someways, perhaps unqualified or qualified.

I have been debating the issue 'Did the moon existed before humanity?'
The point is before or after are time-based and time is not an absolutely thing-in-itself.
Therefore there is no moon-in-itself that exist before humanity in the absolute sense.
The moon exists only as a human-based moon and not as a moon-in-itself as claimed by the Philosophical Realist or in various degrees of such by others.
I am not sure how much time you have spent on reading and researching Kant, but you do not seem to have a good grasp this Kantian Middle-Way.
I have no grasp of the "Kantian Middle-Way", most likely because it is nothing more than your attempt to synthesize Kant and whatever it is you think the Middle Way is. Kant did take a position between realism and idealism but this has nothing to do with the Buddhist.
The Buddhist Middle-Way is fundamentally taking the middle position within any two extremes while adapting to any of the extreme where circumstances warrant.
Your view that the thing-in-itself still have the potential for positiveness in some form is merely another degree [lesser] along the same continuum of the theological impulse to reify the thing-in-itself.
My view is as I have stated: we have no access to the thing in itself. The world is not created by the human mind. There was a time when the human mind did not exist but we have good evidence that something did. In fact there is good evidence that through most of the history of the universe man did not exist yet something did. Or do you imagine the recent discoveries "emerged" only when nothing was discovered and became something?
Note my point above re there is no moon-in-itself before humans existed.
The point is while our psychological condition compelled to believe the moon existed before humanity, there is no way one can conclude there is a moon-in-itself existed before there were humans. Whichever way, it has be based on human perception and reason.

Here is one clue re spontaneous emerge.
In this case, the 3D face of Einstein emerges spontaneously with the activation of human consciousness. There is no 3D Einstein Face to begin with. So where did the 3D Face of Einstein came from?
We can see the difference between before and after in the above case and more or less understand what is going on.

The case with our general reality [emerging spontaneously] is similar to the above, but the philosophy and mechanics is more difficult to understand.
Point is we are so embedded into spontaneous emergence by default from the beginning of evolution that we take that for granted.
What I am aware is the realization of the truth of emergence of reality require very deep and wide reflection.
Again, according to Kant, there are no independent Laws of Nature waiting out there for humans to discover.
Nature and the laws of nature are not the same, just as an object and the description of an object are not the same.
Note the case of seeing a 3D Einstein face in the above example is not a description but an actual experience and interaction.
In the case of the Laws of Nature, there is the emergence aspect like how the 3D face emerges and our description of that emergence.
Kant stated Laws of Nature are what we have introduced which is different from what we have discovered and described of the Laws of Nature.
Note Kant stated 'we can have no acquaintance with an object that corresponds to an idea.'
This is because all transcendental ideas are illusory.

After the noumenon, all consideration relates to illusions;

Kant in CPR wrote:
WE have already entitled Dialectic-in-General a Logic of Illusion. A293
About illusion Kant says:
For truth and illusion are not in the object, insofar as it is intuited, but in the judgment about it insofar as it is thought. Thus it is correctly said that the senses do not err; yet not because they always judge correctly, but because they do not judge at all. Hence truth, as much as error, and thus also illusion as leading to the
latter, are to be found only in judgments, i.e., only in the relation of the object to our understanding. (B350)
In the normal situation [exception like synaethesia which Kant is not aware] there is no illusion because the senses do not judge on what is an 'object'. What is sensed is what the senses get.

Say for example;
Something passed quickly before your eyes and disappear behind door.
Your intuition and senses would have recorded for what it is.
But once one is not sure and reason [judges] then error could arise, e.g. that person could think it was a bird that flown by when a video showed it is not.

In another situation, an illusion [empirical] could arise when one wrongly judge a rope as snake.

But if a person bring up the idea of God [i.e. non-intuition] and insist it exists then that has to be an illusion based on judgement.
Someone could be wrong about a rope being a snake, i.e. there is still an empirical object that is intuited, but in the case of an idea of God, there is no pre-existing object/thing at all that could be mistaken.

Note Kant has a very specific definition for the term 'idea' in contrast to a concept. A concept has empirical and sensible elements. An idea has nothing, i.e. it can only be an illusion.

What is available is merely a Problematic concept, i.e. a question to be dealt with. There is nothing positive [object or otherwise] at this point.
What we have is illusory and if reified [as soul, god or Whole Universe] is an illusion.
Transcendental judgment and faith are not the same. The objects of faith - God, soul, etc. are not illusions. Illusion lies in judgments about these objects. Both that they exist and that they do not exist as something known or determined by reason are judgments, and since these judgments are made on the basis of reason alone they lead to error and illusion.
The term 'objects of faith' is misleading.
Faith = beliefs without proofs and reason.
Beliefs are merely thoughts.
Thus it is more appropriate to state 'thoughts of faith' rather than 'objects of faiths.'
Therefore God & soul are merely thoughts of faith or more specifically ideas of faith.
If one were to confine God and soul as merely thoughts only, there is no issue.
But the moment one were to think of God & Soul and object or things which may or may not exists, then that is illusory the resultant objects/things are illusions.

If a theist insists God exists, that is illusory.
If an agnostic state, we cannot prove God does not exist, that is also illusory.

Re issue om 'matter' I will get back to that later.
… in the case of Buddhism I humbly leave a 1% hole …
It is not about texts or doctrines but experience. Texts and doctrines are “painting of a rice cake”. Whatever conceptual constructs you have built they only interfere with the truth revealed in transcendent, unmediated experience. In this respect Kant and Buddhism are diametrically opposed. Kant rejects the possibility of unmediated experience.
Yes, there is not much problem for me re Kant and Buddhism.
For you … Whether you correctly understand what you find unproblematic is something else. The literature identifies many problems.
In Buddhism, especially in the higher levels, the texts is an important as the experience.
The 'Right View' of the Noble 8 Fold Paths include learning from texts and knowledge.
The major difference is Kant [mainly theoretical principles] did not come up with practical exercises for the individual to align with his philosophy.
The impulse that drive one to say 'that beyond what we can know is something' is a psychological issue.
The limits of human understanding and knowledge do not limit existence.
Existence is not something that is absolutely independent of minds. Since reality is interdependent with mind, the human mind limits human existence.
Point is by default any question raised with the idea of God, it is illusory.
Point is, God and the idea of God are not the same. From the idea of God we cannot determine, that is, correctly judge God’s existence.
As explained above, the idea of God is empty of any thing, i.e. illusory.
In the case of a rope being mistaken for a snake, there is still something conceptual to fall on, i.e. rope and snake are empirical things. An idea in contrast to a concept containing nothing, i.e. nothing sensible nor intuition.
If the empirical and reason is not used what else is there for any reasonable consideration.
You are equivocating - what can be determined by reason and what is a reasonable consideration are not the same. Did Kant claim that faith in God is unreasonable or is that merely a reflection of your prejudice?
Kant condemned the point of where God is reified as something real by the clergy and imposed on others as in institutional religions.

Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/ ... 3part1.pdf

Kant had no problem with the reasoned thought of 'God' but one must understand the idea of God is merely an illusion [not to take it for real] but nevertheless can be useful as a regulative use [re morality].
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.
Spectrum
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Spectrum »

Fooloso4 wrote: July 17th, 2018, 12:37 pm
Not sure what is the full context of this point but there is no way Kant would leave any room for 'matter' to exists by itself.
The first chapter of the Metaphysical Foundations [of Natural Science], the Phoronomy, considers the quantity of motion of matter and how it is to be constructed in intuition a priori (so as to produce the kind of rules that are necessary for our experience of matter in motion). (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-science/)
Like the theory of the Physical Monadology, the Metaphysical Foundations presents a “dynamical” theory of matter according to which material substance is constituted by an interaction between attractive and repulsive forces. (https://www.iep.utm.edu/kantview/#SH4a)
There is no need to go into the details.
In general, Kant agree whatever of Science as long as we are referring to possible objects of experience.
The thing-in-itself or God is not a possible object of experience, thus cannot be scientific.
Where the Critique had shown the necessary conceptual forms to which all possible objects of experience must conform, the Metaphysical Foundations specifies in greater detail what exactly the physical constitution of these objects must be like.
If the topic is "matter' than is has to be related to objects of possible experience.

Kant do not agree with the 'matter' of the Philosophical Materialists aka Philosophical Realists where 'matter' is taken as matter-in-itself that is independent of the human conditions.
If we relied on faith, it is still an illusion regardless.
Again, it is the transcendental judgment that God exists or does not exist that is an illusion. Whether or not God exists is not something we can determine by pure reason or empirical evidence.
Note according to A339 B396 quoted many times earlier, we can reasoned out the existence of God based on Pure Reason [not normal reason] but this is pseudo-rational and resulting in an illusion.
There is no God-in-itself for humans to judge whether God exists or does not exist.

Kant implied psychologically [mocked and deceived] humans are compelled to arrive at an idea of God somehow and many reified such an idea which results as an illusion. The fact is the idea of God is illusory but theists deceived themselves by insisting God is real to the extent it is empirically real based on faith.
Empirical illusions is one thing but transcendental logical illusions [within sensibility and intuitions] are at the extreme end of delusion which require psychology to deal with it.
Kant deals with it. He is not doing psychology as he uses the term or as it is typically used.
Yes Kant did not introduce psychology, but the manner he described how theists are duped to turn whatever is subjective as objective reality imply the workings of psychology.
This is what I mean we have to move further from Kant and introduce psychology, i.e. Heidegger's "existential" psychology to deal to explain this part of the problem.
The Categories are not proven empirically but as I had stated above, via justifiable with reason a priori.
The categories are the transcendental condition for the possibility of experience. There are many who think the categories are not real or justified.
The categories are contentious.
A system of categories is a complete list of highest kinds or genera. Traditionally, following Aristotle, these have been thought of as highest genera of entities (in the widest sense of the term), so that a system of categories undertaken in this realist spirit would ideally provide an inventory of everything there is, thus answering the most basic of metaphysical questions: “What is there?”

Skepticism about our ability to discern a unique system of basic categories of ‘reality itself’ has led others to approach category systems not with the aim of cataloging the highest kinds in the world itself, but rather with the aim of elucidating the categories of our conceptual system or language.

Thus Kant makes the shift to a conceptualist approach by drawing out the categories that are a priori necessary for any possible cognition of objects. Since such categories are guaranteed to apply to any possible object of cognition, they retain a certain sort of ontological import, although this application is limited to phenomena, not the thing in itself.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/categories/
It is not a question of whether the categories are real or not.
As long as we understand its limits and use within context and qualification, there is no issue with it.
At present we deal with the categories in a 'black box' approach.
However in the future as neuroscience advances we would be able to dig deeper into the brain to establish the correlation between neural workings and the categories.

The worst abuse of the category is that of causality where it is assumed an unproven God is the real and first cause of reality.
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.
Fooloso4
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Fooloso4 »

Spectrum:
Quarks, blackholes, galaxies and grounded on the fundamental of the human Framework and System. In this case, they are grounded on the Scientific Framework and System.
Quarks, black holes, and galaxies are not grounded on anything human. They existed before there were human beings to ground anything at all. Our discovery, observation, and understanding of them occur within the scientific framework.
Per CPR there are no quarks-in-themselves, there are only quarks as conditioned by the human made Scientific Framework of Physics and consensus by scientist peers.
Nonsense. Since quarks are fundamental particles that make up everything including human beings they cannot be conditioned by human beings. Scientific consensus has to do with our understanding of them not their existence.
But as I had stated, because of human psychology you are likely to be compelled to believe quarks still exist in someways, perhaps unqualified or qualified.
It has nothing to do with human psychology. It is a matter of basic scientific understanding of the world. Quarks exist in the same way they always have
I have been debating the issue 'Did the moon existed before humanity?'
The moon is estimated to be 4.53 billion years old. This is based on radiometric dating from moon rocks retrieved by Apollo 14. Did humanity exist 4.53 billion years ago?
The point is before or after are time-based and time is not an absolutely thing-in-itself.
It is absurd to believe that nothing happened in the universe prior to the existence of human beings.
The moon exists only as a human-based moon and not as a moon-in-itself as claimed by the Philosophical Realist or in various degrees of such by others.
You seem to be mistaking Kant’s transcendental idealism for the “problematic idealism” of Descartes or “dogmatic idealism” of Berkeley he rejects. See Kant’s refutation of idealism:
Refutation of Idealism:
Idealism (I mean material idealism) is the theory that declares the existence of objects in space outside us to be either merely doubtful and indemonstrable,
or else false and impossible; the former is the problematic idealism of Descartes, who declares only one empirical assertion (assertio), namely I am, to be indubitable; the latter is the dogmatic idealism of Berkeley, who declares space, together with all the things to which it is attached as an inseparable condition, to be something that is impossible in itself, and who therefore also declares things in space to be merely imaginary. (B 274)
Spectrum:
The Buddhist Middle-Way is fundamentally taking the middle position within any two extremes while adapting to any of the extreme where circumstances warrant.
As I said, Kant did take a position between realism and idealism but this has nothing to do with Buddhism. One might as well call it Kant’s Aristotelian golden mean.
Here is one clue re spontaneous emerge.
In this case, the 3D face of Einstein emerges spontaneously with the activation of human consciousness.
The image does not emerge spontaneously out of nothing. The mask is there. It is a matter of how we see it. Take the mask away and there is no "spontaneous emergence" of Einstein’s face.
The case with our general reality [emerging spontaneously] is similar to the above …
In both cases there is something there that is seen in a particular way by us because we are the creatures we are. The moon does not spontaneously emerge. An asteroid on a direct path with the moon will collide with it whether there are humans to witness it or not. Millions of years later we see the results of just such occurrences that may appear to us as the face of the man in the moon. The face is a human construct, the craters are not.
Note the case of seeing a 3D Einstein face in the above example is not a description but an actual experience and interaction.
It is, according to Kant, a representation - a visual picture. A description is a linguistic picture. Both represent something whose existence Kant thinks it is wrong to either doubt or attribute to the creation of the mind.

Kant’s refutation of idealism goes on to pose a theorem and proof.
Theorem:
The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me. (B275)

Thus the perception of this persistent thing is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation
of a thing outside me. Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is possible only by means of the existence of actual things that
I perceive outside myself. Now consciousness in time is necessarily combined with the consciousness of the possibility of this time-determination:
Therefore it is also necessarily combined with the existence of the things outside me, as the condition of time-determination; i.e.,the consciousness of my own existence is at the same time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things outside me.(B275-276)
Now you may be psychologically predisposed to reject this but you need more than bald assertion if you are to make a persuasive argument that Kant rejects his own words confirming the existence of actual things outside himself.

Spectrum:
The term 'objects of faith' is misleading.

The object of faith refers to the specific thing one has faith in. Martians would be the object of faith if one has faith in the existence of Martians. There is nothing misleading about this use of the term ‘object’. Kant himself uses the term.
But the moment one were to think of God & Soul and object or things which may or may not exists, then that is illusory the resultant objects/things are illusions.
Once again (we have been over this before), transcendental illusion arises when we think we can make objective claims based on reason alone. God, according to Kant, is not an object of knowledge but of faith. He does not place faith in an illusion:
Kant's response is that a “need of practical reason” is not a matter of inclination or mere psychological bent. It is not, like desire, something idiosyncratic, contingent, or variable from one person to the next. He asserts instead that this need arises “from an objective determining ground of the will” (5:143n) and, at least as argued in the Critique of Practical Reason, the Highest Good is an object of faith for us, because it is “an a priori necessary object of our will and inseparably bound up with the moral law” (5:114). As such, he contends that “the impossibility of the first must also prove the falsity of the second” (5:114), and thus, our practical conviction or faith is secured by something that necessarily pertains to us all, via the authority and bindingness of the moral law. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant ... rReaTraDia)
Spectrum:
If a theist insists God exists, that is illusory.
If an agnostic state, we cannot prove God does not exist, that is also illusory.
It is telling that you do not include the views of the atheist or your own anti-theist view. It is not illusory to claim that we cannot prove that God does not exist.
Kant condemned the point of where God is reified as something real by the clergy and imposed on others as in institutional religions.

Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/ ... 3part1.pdf
You provide a link to part one. If you read the whole of the text it does not support your claims. Kant does not condemn faith but rather what he takes to be errors made in the name of faith. This does not mean that faith in God is an error or based on an illusion, but rather that certain claims and assumptions lead to illusion. From Four Part 2:
To begin with, I take the following proposition to be a principle requiring no proof: Whatever, over and above good life-conduct, man fancies that he can do to become well-pleasing to God is mere religious illusion and pseudo-service of God.

It is not that being pleasing to God is an illusion, the illusion is that more that good conduct is necessary to be well-pleasing to God.

The disposition of virtue occupies itself with something real which of itself is well-pleasing to God and which harmonizes with the world’s highest good …
To ascribe the highest worth to that disposition is not an illusion, like faith in the devotional exercises of the church, but is a direct contribution which promotes the highest good of the world.

To believe that there may be works of grace and that perhaps these may even be necessary to supplement the incompleteness of our struggle toward virtue–that is all we can say on this subject; beyond this we are incapable of determining anything concerning their distinctive marks and still less are we able to do anything to produce them.

So the basic principle of an ecclesiastical faith, a principle that remedies or prevents all religious illusion, is this, that such a faith must contain within itself, along with the statutory articles with which it cannot as yet wholly dispense, still another principle, of setting up the religion of good life-conduct as the real end, in order, at some future time, to be able entirely to dispense with the statutory articles.


But thus far we do not see that those who, in their own opinion, are extraordinarily favored (the chosen ones) surpass in the very least the naturally honest man, who can be relied upon in social intercourse, in business, or in trouble; on the contrary, taken as a whole, the chosen ones can scarcely abide comparison with him, which proves that the right course is not to go from grace to virtue but rather progress from virtue to pardoning grace.
Spectrum:
Not sure what is the full context of this point but there is no way Kant would leave any room for 'matter' to exists by itself.

The thing-in-itself or God is not a possible object of experience, thus cannot be scientific.
These are two very different claims. It is correct that the thing in itself cannot be a possible object of experience, but this does not mean that Kant rejected the existence of matter apart from the way we represent it to ourselves.
There is no God-in-itself for humans to judge whether God exists or does not exist.
The claim that there is no God in itself is itself a judgment. Your claim is God does not exist therefore we cannot judge whether God exists or not.

I don’t expect the following will convince you but might be helpful to others who are not blinded by anti-theological bias who might be reading this and have become confused by your claims.

Things in themselves affect us, activating our sensible faculty (A190, A387).

Kant is committed to both of the following theses:

(Existence) There are things in themselves.

(Humility) We know nothing about things in themselves.



The concept of things in themselves is the concept of the (unknowable by us) objects (or aspects of objects) that appear to us the 3D world of space and time. They are the grounds of phenomena, while the transcendental object is the very abstract idea of those objects in space and time as the targets of our cognitive activity. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant ... obThinThem)
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Spectrum »

Fooloso4 wrote: July 19th, 2018, 9:41 am Spectrum:
Quarks, blackholes, galaxies and grounded on the fundamental of the human Framework and System. In this case, they are grounded on the Scientific Framework and System.
Quarks, black holes, and galaxies are not grounded on anything human. They existed before there were human beings to ground anything at all.
How can you conclude of the above without being a human?
Therefore whatever conclusion you arrive on the above has to be [imperative] grounded on the human conditions.
This is a fact we cannot avoid when we dig further into more refine philosophy.

Note I agree with the obvious from the basis/perspective of time and Science, blackholes, moon, etc. existed before there were humans.
But the ultimate Kantian view is whatever has existed or is existing is grounded on the human condition.

It is something like this, main-set[subset];

1.0 Human Conditions [1.1 moon existed before there were humans].
1.1 has to be the subset of 1.0.

You can continue;
Z.0 Human Conditions {1.0 human conditions [1.1 moon existed before there were humans]}

Point is the factor of 'Human Conditions' will always be the precedent overriding factor.
Our discovery, observation, and understanding of them occur within the scientific framework.
Yes that is ONLY true relative to the Scientific Framework, thus your conclusion has to be conditional to the Scientific Framework
Since the Scientific Framework is human-made, thus ultimately whatever conclusion that is scientific must be grounded inevitably on the human conditions.

As Kant had argued there is no way we can let go of the human conditions in determining anything of reality.
In the introduction, Kant critiqued Plato's independent free floating universals as a basis/premise of determining reality and this point is carried out throughout his whole argument in the CPR.
Misled 1 by such a proof of the Power of Reason, the demand for the extension of Knowledge recognises no Limits. [A5] [B9]
The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty Space.

It was thus that Plato left the World of the Senses, as setting too narrow Limits to 2 the Understanding, and ventured out beyond it on the wings of the Ideas, in the empty Space of the Pure Understanding.
He [Plato] did not observe that with all his efforts he made no advance meeting no resistance that might, as it were, serve as a support upon which he could take a stand, to which he could apply his powers, and so set his Understanding in motion.
It is, indeed, the common fate of Human Reason to complete its Speculative Structures as speedily as may be, and only afterwards to enquire whether the foundations are reliable.
All sorts of excuses will then be appealed to, in order to reassure us of their solidity, or rather indeed 3 to enable us to dispense altogether with so late and so dangerous an enquiry.
A5 B9
Per CPR there are no quarks-in-themselves, there are only quarks as conditioned by the human made Scientific Framework of Physics and consensus by scientist peers.
Nonsense. Since quarks are fundamental particles that make up everything including human beings they cannot be conditioned by human beings. Scientific consensus has to do with our understanding of them not their existence.
Why not?
In this case they are conditioned by human beings at the meta-level.
How can you arrive at the conclusion "quarks are fundamental particles that make up everything including humans" without the inevitable involvement of human beings acting in consensus.

That is the point why Kant assert there is no-thing-itself. There are only thing-by-ourselves. If one extend beyond this where the human conditions are detached the conclusions will end up with illusions.
But as I had stated, because of human psychology you are likely to be compelled to believe quarks still exist in someways, perhaps unqualified or qualified.
It has nothing to do with human psychology. It is a matter of basic scientific understanding of the world. Quarks exist in the same way they always have.
Note the Scientific Framework by scientists is merely very mechanical model, there is still the meta-element of philosophy-proper underlying the Scientific Framework. When we dig into this, it will inevitably involve the human conditions and thus human psychology in the subtlest very refine manner.

E.g. The principles of cause and effect is so obvious in normal experience and perception but Hume argued correctly the underlying principle to the obvious is human psychology of customs, habits and constant conjunctions.
I have been debating the issue 'Did the moon existed before humanity?'
The moon is estimated to be 4.53 billion years old. This is based on radiometric dating from moon rocks retrieved by Apollo 14. Did humanity exist 4.53 billion years ago?
This MUST be and ONLY a scientific conclusion which is based on the human-agreed Scientific Framework. Without the Scientific Framework there is no way you can reach such a conclusion.
The point is before or after are time-based and time is not an absolutely thing-in-itself.
It is absurd to believe that nothing happened in the universe prior to the existence of human beings.
I agree it is absurd, but that is based on the conventional idea of time and the Scientific Framework.
As mentioned if we transcend into the philosophical framework, there is more to it where every scientific theory is opened to questions.
The moon exists only as a human-based moon and not as a moon-in-itself as claimed by the Philosophical Realist or in various degrees of such by others.
You seem to be mistaking Kant’s transcendental idealism for the “problematic idealism” of Descartes or “dogmatic idealism” of Berkeley he rejects. See Kant’s refutation of idealism:
Refutation of Idealism:
Idealism (I mean material idealism) is the theory that declares the existence of objects in space outside us to be either merely doubtful and indemonstrable,
or else false and impossible; the former is the problematic idealism of Descartes, who declares only one empirical assertion (assertio), namely I am, to be indubitable; the latter is the dogmatic idealism of Berkeley, who declares space, together with all the things to which it is attached as an inseparable condition, to be something that is impossible in itself, and who therefore also declares things in space to be merely imaginary. (B 274)
I understand Kant's refutation of Berkeley's and Descartes idealism.

Kant's idealism is different from Berkeley's and Descartes idealism, but Kant's view is still "idealism" i.e. Transcendental Realism.
Note Kant's transcendental realism is presented as follows;

Transcendental Idealism [Empirical Realism].
i.e. Empirical Realism in this case is a subset of Transcendental Realism.
nb: "subset"

Within empirical realism, Kant agreed with the external world of independent objects within space. Things in space for Kant are real external objects,
but this whole perspective of externalness and independence is a subset of Transcendental Idealism.

I am aware this is the contentious issues between Guyer [you are reading] and Allison [expounded Transcendental Idealism in its true essence].
https://www.amazon.com/Kants-Transcende ... 0300102666
This is why it is so difficult for you to understand my view of Kant's thing-in-itself as ultimately an illusion.
I can understand your point re externalness and that thingness of the thing-in-itself and I believe your view is short of another deeper perspective.
The Buddhist Middle-Way is fundamentally taking the middle position within any two extremes while adapting to any of the extreme where circumstances warrant.
As I said, Kant did take a position between realism and idealism but this has nothing to do with Buddhism. One might as well call it Kant’s Aristotelian golden mean.
Kant reconciled realism and idealism as mentioned above, i.e.;
Transcendental idealism [empirical realism] where
realism is a subset of transcendental idealism.

One point [to be discussed]:
You may not realize, but Kant had argued, in your case of not totally giving up the idea of the thing-in-itself, you are actually believing in the same manner of the problematic and dogmatic idealism of Descartes and Berkeley respectively.

Prior to the CPR Kant was a pure breed dogmatic rationalist [contrast empiricism -Hume] but he took the middle way to reconcile rationalism with empiricism.

Kant's Middle-Way in principle is the same as that of Buddhism which has different forms but not different in its essence. It is will tedious for me to present arguments on this similarities.
Here is one clue re spontaneous emerge.
In this case, the 3D face of Einstein emerges spontaneously with the activation of human consciousness.
The image does not emerge spontaneously out of nothing. The mask is there. It is a matter of how we see it. Take the mask away and there is no "spontaneous emergence" of Einstein’s face.
I mentioned it is only a clue where I have used an example with an empirical base, i.e. the physical mask.
With reality [all there is], we are referring to the thing-in-itself [contentious] as the base which we have no idea whatever object/thing as it is.

Yes, no mask in the above case means no 'spontaneous emergence' but note it happen only with faces, not other common things.
Consider this possibility for re spontaneous emergence of reality;
Take away human consciousness and all humans, there would be no spontaneous emergence of reality.
I understand you will argue otherwise, but you can only do it because you as human is still conscious.
The case with our general reality [emerging spontaneously] is similar to the above …
In both cases there is something there that is seen in a particular way by us because we are the creatures we are. The moon does not spontaneously emerge. An asteroid on a direct path with the moon will collide with it whether there are humans to witness it or not. Millions of years later we see the results of just such occurrences that may appear to us as the face of the man in the moon. The face is a human construct, the craters are not.
Actually beyond scientific knowledge, the moon and craters are also human construct in one perspective.
  • Is there a moon-in-itself? NO .. it is only a ball of rocks and earth.
    Are a ball of rocks and earth in themselves? NO - there are only molecules of various elements.
    Are there molecules in themselves? NO -- they are only bundles of electrons and protons.
    Are the protons-in-themselves? NO -- there are only quarks appearing and disappearing and depending on how one observe them [re Wave Function Collapse ].
    The typical ultimate to the above is we don't know what is ultimately there but many claim what is ultimate is the God Particle.
    The truth is whatever ultimate if insisted upon is an illusion.
Whatever moon you think is existing or have existed before there are human beings, is ultimately [as I have presented above] an illusion in the transcendental idealist sense while it is an external object in the empirical realist sense.
Note the case of seeing a 3D Einstein face in the above example is not a description but an actual experience and interaction.
It is, according to Kant, a representation - a visual picture. A description is a linguistic picture. Both represent something whose existence Kant thinks it is wrong to either doubt or attribute to the creation of the mind.
It is some sort of representation but the 3D Einstein Face is an illusion because the real thing is a concave mask.
The real representation should be an image of a concave mask.

My point is, what you perceive as reality in the 'normal' sense, is not the real thing but an illusion [special type].
The words you perceive in your computer screens are realistically pixels in black or various colors.
The apple you have eaten was/is merely a bundle of electrons, protons, quarks and according to Kant, nothing in particular in the ultimate sense.
Kant’s refutation of idealism goes on to pose a theorem and proof.
Theorem:
The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me. (B275)

Thus the perception of this persistent thing is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation
of a thing outside me. Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is possible only by means of the existence of actual things that
I perceive outside myself. Now consciousness in time is necessarily combined with the consciousness of the possibility of this time-determination:
Therefore it is also necessarily combined with the existence of the things outside me, as the condition of time-determination; i.e.,the consciousness of my own existence is at the same time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things outside me.(B275-276)
Now you may be psychologically predisposed to reject this but you need more than bald assertion if you are to make a persuasive argument that Kant rejects his own words confirming the existence of actual things outside himself.
I have an over view of Kant refutation of the Descartes and Berkeley's idealism but he did not refute his own idealism, i.e. his Transcendental Idealism.
As stated, Kant's overall view is this;
Transcendental Idealism [empirical realism as a subset]

There are a lot of nuances involved to explain this complex point, I will have to refresh the tedious CPR if I need to get into the details.
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Spectrum »

Fooloso4, I will address the other parts of the post later.
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Fooloso4 »

Spectrum:
How can you conclude of the above without being a human?
What I conclude and the content of the conclusion are not the same. If I solve a murder mystery that does not mean I played a part in the murder.
Therefore whatever conclusion you arrive on the above has to be [imperative] grounded on the human conditions.
This is a fact we cannot avoid when we dig further into more refine philosophy.
It is not more refined philosophy it is sloppy thinking.
But the ultimate Kantian view is whatever has existed or is existing is grounded on the human condition.
That is not the ultimate Kantian view, it is nothing more than your incorrect interpretation of Kant. Nowhere does he say that whatever has existed or is existing is grounded on the human condition. You can talk in circles but you cannot point to where he asserts this.
As Kant had argued there is no way we can let go of the human conditions in determining anything of reality.
In the introduction, Kant critiqued Plato's independent free floating universals as a basis/premise of determining reality and this point is carried out throughout his whole argument in the CPR.
Kant’s criticism of Plato’s Forms, as quoted, is that:
... Plato left the World of the Senses
How can you arrive at the conclusion "quarks are fundamental particles that make up everything including humans" without the inevitable involvement of human beings acting in consensus.
Again you conflate human activity with what that activity reveals.
That is the point why Kant assert there is no-thing-itself.
It is you who asserts this. Where does Kant make this assertion? What he says is that there is no knowledge of things in themselves. It is an epistemological rather than ontological claim.
E.g. The principles of cause and effect is so obvious in normal experience and perception but Hume argued correctly the underlying principle to the obvious is human psychology of customs, habits and constant conjunctions.
But Kant does not agree. Kant denies that it is customs, habits and constant conjunctions, it is a matter of the a priori transcendental conditions, that is, the structure of the mind. We are not psychologically compelled to believe in quarks.
I understand Kant's refutation of Berkeley's and Descartes idealism.
Then why do you make the same mistakes?
I am aware this is the contentious issues between Guyer [you are reading] and Allison [expounded Transcendental Idealism in its true essence].
This is a smokescreen. I am not reading Guyer. I have referenced his translation of Kant. You have not identified a single problem with that translation. Name dropping is not a substitute for philosophy. Whether Allison expounded the "true essence" of Transcendental Idealism and whether you have correctly understood Allison only compounds the problem of interpreting Kant. But if Allison provides support for any of your claims that I have questioned then by all means cite what he says.
You may not realize, but Kant had argued, in your case of not totally giving up the idea of the thing-in-itself, you are actually believing in the same manner of the problematic and dogmatic idealism of Descartes and Berkeley respectively.
Where does he say this? Where have I said anything that can be construed as Descartes problematic or Berkeley’s dogmatic idealism?
Yes, no mask in the above case means no 'spontaneous emergence' but note it happen only with faces, not other common things.
Actually, it does. It is called Pareidolia. It includes but is not limited to facial patterns.
It is some sort of representation but the 3D Einstein Face is an illusion because the real thing is a concave mask.
But according to you that too is an illusion. If all is illusion the term has no meaning since it does not distinguish between illusion and what is not an illusion.
My point is, what you perceive as reality in the 'normal' sense, is not the real thing but an illusion [special type].
What does the “real thing” mean?
I have an over view of Kant refutation of the Descartes and Berkeley's idealism but he did not refute his own idealism, i.e. his Transcendental Idealism.
Of course not. What he does, however, is refute your own form of idealism that rejects Kant’s theorem:
The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me. (B275)
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Spectrum »

Fooloso4 wrote: July 20th, 2018, 10:11 am Spectrum:
How can you conclude of the above without being a human?
What I conclude and the content of the conclusion are not the same. If I solve a murder mystery that does not mean I played a part in the murder.
You are conflating transcendental idealism with empirical realism in this case.
In empirical realism, the perceiver is never the perceived or as Kant stated that cannot be nothing that appear in appearance.
But in Transcendental Idealism, the "perceived" fall back to the perceiver but in another different [higher or more refine] perspective.

Therefore what you conclude [individually] is the same [in a different perspective] as the content-of-what-you-have-concluded, the latter is linked to you on a collective basis.

For example, in one perspective a piece of carbon is obviously different from a piece of diamond. But in the molecular perspective, they are of exactly the same molecules i.e. pure carbon but in different construct.

You could have solved a murder mystery as an individual detective and is very obvious in the legal or normal sense, you are not the murderer.
However in another perspective [nb], i.e. collectively you cannot absolved yourself totally as related to the murder that had happened.
The point is, in another perspective, you as a individual human is part and parcel of the reality you are in, thus cannot absolve yourself from the realities of that reality you are in.
Note the Butterfly Effect, i.e. a flap of a butterfly wing in China can cause a hurricane in the Caribbean.

Therefore you cannot conclude whatever without being a human being.
Therefore whatever conclusion you arrive on the above has to be [imperative] grounded on the human conditions.
This is a fact we cannot avoid when we dig further into more refine philosophy.
It is not more refined philosophy it is sloppy thinking.

Note my explanation above, re the need to shift into and toggle between various perspectives which you are unable or do not want to.
But the ultimate Kantian view is whatever has existed or is existing is grounded on the human condition.
That is not the ultimate Kantian view, it is nothing more than your incorrect interpretation of Kant. Nowhere does he say that whatever has existed or is existing is grounded on the human condition. You can talk in circles but you cannot point to where he asserts this.
As I had stated I am not in tip-top [peak] condition with the CPR at present where I can pick and combine passages to deliver my point. For that I will have to refresh for at least a month in re-reading the whole of the CPR.
Nevertheless I am very well versed with the general theme and overall principles of the CPR.
The clue to Kant grounding of the human condition is his Copernican Revolution. From there Kant based his theory on everything human, i.e. sensibility, experience, understanding [empirical reasoning] and pure reason. There is nothing else apart from these human-based faculties.
As Kant had argued there is no way we can let go of the human conditions in determining anything of reality.
In the introduction, Kant critiqued Plato's independent free floating universals as a basis/premise of determining reality and this point is carried out throughout his whole argument in the CPR.
Kant’s criticism of Plato’s Forms, as quoted, is that:
... Plato left the World of the Senses
That is the point.
For Kant what is real is grounded on sensibility, experience, understanding [empirical reasoning].
In context Plato left the World of the Senses and thus experience, understanding and jumped straight into Pure Reason, the Home of Illusion.

Note Kant delineated where the illusion, the ideas, i.e. thing-in-itself comes in after the senses and pure understanding;
WE have now not merely explored the territory of Pure Understanding, and carefully surveyed every part of it, but have also measured its extent, and assigned to everything in it its rightful place.
This domain is an island, enclosed by Nature itself within unalterable Limits. A236 B295
It is the land of Truth -- enchanting name! -- surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the native home of Illusion, where many a fog bank and many a swiftly melting iceberg give the deceptive Appearance of farther shores, deluding the adventurous seafarer ever anew with empty hopes, and engaging him in enterprises which he can never abandon and yet is unable to carry to completion.
A236 B295
The above complements A339 B397 where even the wise will be deceived by those illusions.
How can you arrive at the conclusion "quarks are fundamental particles that make up everything including humans" without the inevitable involvement of human beings acting in consensus.
Again you conflate human activity with what that activity reveals.
Note my above explanation re different perspectives.
That is the point why Kant assert there is no-thing-itself.
It is you who asserts this. Where does Kant make this assertion? What he says is that there is no knowledge of things in themselves. It is an epistemological rather than ontological claim.
The thing-in-itself is from ontology of the traditionalists.
Kant condemned ontology [his definition] as not possible, so there is no question/consideration of any ontological claim at all.
There is an epistemological element, but the whole of the CPR expounds what is reality [without ontology and metaphysics at all]. What we have is a Spontaneous Emergent Reality. [SER].
E.g. The principles of cause and effect is so obvious in normal experience and perception but Hume argued correctly the underlying principle to the obvious is human psychology of customs, habits and constant conjunctions.
But Kant does not agree. Kant denies that it is customs, habits and constant conjunctions, it is a matter of the a priori transcendental conditions, that is, the structure of the mind. We are not psychologically compelled to believe in quarks.
I don't believe Kant rejected Hume's concept outright [..I have to verify and confirm].
The 'structure of the mind' will inevitably lead to psychology [i.e. mind, what else].
During Kant's time the knowledge base of neuroscience was negligible, so he just take it for granted the Pure Concept of Understanding [Categories] and other relevant mental elements are somewhere in mind.
Note Plato insist there are universals floating out there independently of the subject.

Yes, we are not psychologically compelled to believe in quarks like a Schizo's belief of their own created visions, but nevertheless from another perspective the belief and objective reality of quarks has a psychological basis. As we dug deep into Physics, the elements of the human condition are inevitable, e.g. Observer's Effect, Wave Collapse Function.
I understand Kant's refutation of Berkeley's and Descartes idealism.
Then why do you make the same mistakes?
Where did I make the same mistake?
I mentioned I am with Kant's Transcendental Idealism, not the idealism of Berkeley nor Descartes.
I am aware this is the contentious issues between Guyer [you are reading] and Allison [expounded Transcendental Idealism in its true essence].
This is a smokescreen. I am not reading Guyer. I have referenced his translation of Kant. You have not identified a single problem with that translation. Name dropping is not a substitute for philosophy. Whether Allison expounded the "true essence" of Transcendental Idealism and whether you have correctly understood Allison only compounds the problem of interpreting Kant. But if Allison provides support for any of your claims that I have questioned then by all means cite what he says.
I think that is the problem if you are not reading the CPR directly from Guyer or other translation but relied on secondary sources.
I only mentioned Allison on the side re Transcendental Idealism, my understanding of Kant is based on direct reading the CPR [albeit English translations, not German] in combination with Eastern philosophies and other fields of knowledge.
You may not realize, but Kant had argued, in your case of not totally giving up the idea of the thing-in-itself, you are actually believing in the same manner of the problematic and dogmatic idealism of Descartes and Berkeley respectively.
Where does he say this? Where have I said anything that can be construed as Descartes problematic or Berkeley’s dogmatic idealism?[/quote]

Note A369;
Kant in CPR wrote:It is, in fact, this Transcendental Realist who afterwards plays the part of Empirical Idealist.
After wrongly supposing that Objects of the Senses, if they are to be External, must have an Existence-by-themselves, and independently of the Senses, he [the Empirical Idealist] finds that, judged from this point of view, all our sensuous Representations are inadequate to establish their Reality.
I understand you are not an outright Philosophical Realist, but that remnant view you have resemble that of the Transcendental Realist, i.e. you believe there is some 'thing' underlying external objects or something cannot come from nothing.
As Kant stated above, the transcendental realist then is also a Empirical Idealist which is of the same set as the idealism of Descartes and Berkeley albeit in different form.
Yes, no mask in the above case means no 'spontaneous emergence' but note it happen only with faces, not other common things.
Actually, it does. It is called Pareidolia. It includes but is not limited to facial patterns.
Yes, the point is that has something to do with the human conditions a priori.
It is some sort of representation but the 3D Einstein Face is an illusion because the real thing is a concave mask.
But according to you that too is an illusion. If all is illusion the term has no meaning since it does not distinguish between illusion and what is not an illusion.
Yes that concave mask is also an illusion in another perspective as there is no such thing as a concave_mask in-itself. So what we think is reality is actually illusion upon illusion upon illusion.. ad infinitum without any grounded thing-that-appear.
What is most real is seeeming "I AM" but that is also an illusion, soul-in-itself.

Note Russell's dilemma;
[Russell was a hardcore realist but he shifted perspective in this case].
Bertrand Russell wrote:Such questions are bewildering, and it is difficult to know that even the strangest hypotheses may not be true.

Thus our familiar table, which has roused but the slightest thoughts in us hitherto, has become a problem full of surprising possibilities.
The one thing we know about it is that it is not what it seems.
Beyond this modest result, so far, we have the most complete liberty of conjecture.

Leibniz tells us it is a community of souls: Berkeley tells us it is an idea in the mind of God; sober science, scarcely less wonderful, tells us it is a vast collection of electric charges in violent motion.
Among these surprising possibilities, doubt suggests that perhaps there is no table at all.
My point is, what you perceive as reality in the 'normal' sense, is not the real thing but an illusion [special type].
What does the “real thing” mean?
What is 'real' is basically conditional to the Framework and System used.
Realness as dependent on a Framework and System thus comes in degrees.
At present what is most real is Scientific Knowledge of things.
I have an over view of Kant refutation of the Descartes and Berkeley's idealism but he did not refute his own idealism, i.e. his Transcendental Idealism.
Of course not. What he does, however, is refute your own form of idealism that rejects Kant’s theorem:
It is not my own form of idealism. I agreed with and accepted Kant's Transcendental Idealism.
The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me. (B275)
This point representing Kant's Empirical Realism is merely a subset of Kant's Transcendental Idealism.

Note I highlighted;

Main set: Transcendental Idealism (subset: Empirical Realism)

Note this point re external objects are Nothing;
Kant in CPR wrote:External Objects (bodies), however, are mere Appearances, and are therefore nothing but a Species of my Representations, the Objects of which are something only through these Representations.
Apart from them they are nothing. A370
Kant explain he is a transcendental Idealist;
(note Kant stated 'nothing' not at-the-least-something)
Kant in CPR wrote:From the start, we have declared ourselves in favour of this Transcendental Idealism; and our Doctrine thus removes all difficulty in the way of accepting the Existence of Matter on the unaided testimony of our mere Self-Consciousness, or of declaring it to be thereby proved in the same manner as the Existence of myself as a Thinking Being is proved.
There can be no question that I am conscious of my Representations; these Representations and I myself, who have the Representations, therefore exist.
External Objects (bodies), however, are mere Appearances, and are therefore nothing but a Species of my Representations, the Objects of which are something only through these Representations.
Apart from them they are nothing. A370
Kant's belief of a Transcendental Idealist who can also be an empirical realist [not philosophical realist],
Kant in CPR wrote:The Transcendental Idealist, ...., may be an Empirical Realist or, as he is called, a dualist; that is, he may admit the Existence of Matter without going outside his mere Self-Consciousness, or assuming anything more than the certainty of his Representations, that is, the cogito, ergo sum.
For he considers this Matter and even its Inner Possibility to be Appearance merely; and Appearance, if separated from our Sensibility, is nothing.
Matter is with him, therefore, only a Species of Representations (Intuition), which are called External, not as standing in Relation to Objects-in-themselves, External, but because they relate Perceptions to the Space in which all Things are External to one another, while yet the Space itself is in us.
You on the other hand is not with Kant as a Transcendental Idealist because to you appearance is separated from sensibility and is representing that-which-appears.
You believe that-which-appears is something, but Kant declared as above is 'nothing', i.e. as explained in detail within the realm of Pure Reason is an illusion.
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.
Fooloso4
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Fooloso4 »

Spectrum:
What I conclude and the content of the conclusion are not the same. If I solve a murder mystery that does not mean I played a part in the murder.

You are conflating transcendental idealism with empirical realism in this case.
We have been over this:
The realist, in the transcendental signification, makes these modifications of our sensibility into things subsisting in themselves, and hence makes mere representations into things in themselves (A491/B519)
You could have solved a murder mystery as an individual detective and is very obvious in the legal or normal sense, you are not the murderer.
However in another perspective [nb], i.e. collectively you cannot absolved yourself totally as related to the murder that had happened.
The point is, in another perspective, you as a individual human is part and parcel of the reality you are in, thus cannot absolve yourself from the realities of that reality you are in.
Note the Butterfly Effect, i.e. a flap of a butterfly wing in China can cause a hurricane in the Caribbean.

You are reaching and floundering.
Therefore you cannot conclude whatever without being a human being.
That is tautologically and trivially true: a human being cannot conclude anything without being a human being.
That is the point.
For Kant what is real is grounded on sensibility, experience, understanding [empirical reasoning].
In context Plato left the World of the Senses and thus experience, understanding and jumped straight into Pure Reason, the Home of Illusion.
You are having trouble keeping track of the argument. We were discussing the empirical world. Introducing Plato’s Forms only muddies the turbid waters.
Kant condemned ontology [his definition] as not possible, so there is no question/consideration of any ontological claim at all.
Exactly, and so, you cannot make any definitive claims about the existence of things in themselves for all we can know are things as they appear to us, that is, through our representations.
The 'structure of the mind' will inevitably lead to psychology [i.e. mind, what else].
Kant’s concern is transcendental. He considered psychology to be empirical.
I understand Kant's refutation of Berkeley's and Descartes idealism.
Then why do you make the same mistakes?
Where did I make the same mistake?
When you doubt the existence of anything external or non-mind dependent.
I think that is the problem if you are not reading the CPR directly from Guyer or other translation but relied on secondary sources.
I do both, but have not read Guyer as a secondary source. As with reading any difficult author secondary sources are an aid not a substitute. The secondary literature reveals interpretative differences and should stand as a reminder that no interpretation, including your own, stands as the final word.
I understand you are not an outright Philosophical Realist, but that remnant view you have resemble that of the Transcendental Realist, i.e. you believe there is some 'thing' underlying external objects or something cannot come from nothing.
Please stop telling me what I believe and stick to what I actually say.
Note this point re external objects are Nothing
As the quote shows, he says that External Objects (bodies) are mere Appearances, and are therefore nothing but a Species of my Representations.

Guyer’s translation:
But now external objects (bodies) are merely appearances, hence also nothing other than a species of my representations, whose objects are something only through these representations, but are nothing separated from them.
Kant goes on to say:
The transcendental object that grounds both outer appearances and inner intuition is neither matter nor a thinking being in itself, but rather an unknown ground of those appearances that supply us with our empirical concepts of the former as well as the latter. (A380)
And:
This latter thesis implies that all possible speculative knowledge through reason is confined to objects of experience.
Still—and this is important—although we can’t know these objects as things in themselves, we must at least be able to think them as things in themselves. For otherwise we would be landed with the absurd conclusion that there could be an appearance without something that appears. (B xxvi-xxvii)
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Felix
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Felix »

Fooloso4 said that, according to Kant, "transcendental illusion arises when we think we can make objective claims based on reason alone."

But he also claimed we can make synthetic apriori judgements (e.g., through mathematics), why are these not also "transcendental illusions"?
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
Spectrum
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Joined: December 21st, 2010, 1:25 am
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Re: Heidegger: All Prior Western Views of Being Are Wrong!

Post by Spectrum »

Fooloso4 wrote: July 21st, 2018, 11:07 am Spectrum:
What I conclude and the content of the conclusion are not the same. If I solve a murder mystery that does not mean I played a part in the murder.

You are conflating transcendental idealism with empirical realism in this case.
We have been over this:
The realist, in the transcendental signification, makes these modifications of our sensibility into things subsisting in themselves, and hence makes mere representations into things in themselves (A491/B519)
I don't see A491 as directly relevant in this case.

You stated the one who conclude is different from what is concluded.
I had asked;
How can you conclude anything without being a human being.

I had explained, in a meta-perspective both are the same and interdependent just as the very contrasting piece of charcoal and diamond are both pure carbon.
You could have solved a murder mystery as an individual detective and is very obvious in the legal or normal sense, you are not the murderer.
However in another perspective [nb], i.e. collectively you cannot absolved yourself totally as related to the murder that had happened.
The point is, in another perspective, you as a individual human is part and parcel of the reality you are in, thus cannot absolve yourself from the realities of that reality you are in.
Note the Butterfly Effect, i.e. a flap of a butterfly wing in China can cause a hurricane in the Caribbean.
You are reaching and floundering.
I am introducing a meta-perspective but you cannot follow.
Therefore you cannot conclude whatever without being a human being.
That is tautologically and trivially true: a human being cannot conclude anything without being a human being.
That is the point from the perspective of a language game and thus essential for further philosophical analysis.
You may conclude [empirical idealism] a table exist out there independent of your physical self.
But that conclusion can only be done by you as a human being.
Therefore there is a linkage between you and the conclusion.

Kant realized the approach of an independent something from human being has been a lost cause to understand the subtle levels of reality, that is why he proposed his Copernican Revolution.

That is the point.
For Kant what is real is grounded on sensibility, experience, understanding [empirical reasoning].
In context Plato left the World of the Senses and thus experience, understanding and jumped straight into Pure Reason, the Home of Illusion.
You are having trouble keeping track of the argument. We were discussing the empirical world. Introducing Plato’s Forms only muddies the turbid waters.
Note the whole argument re the thing-in-itself stretches across the empirical to Pure Reason.
It was Kant who condemned Plato of muddying the water from empirical world to the
'Home of Illusion.'
Kant condemned ontology [his definition] as not possible, so there is no question/consideration of any ontological claim at all.
Exactly, and so, you cannot make any definitive claims about the existence of things in themselves for all we can know are things as they appear to us, that is, through our representations.
I agree with the above.
While you state we cannot make any definitive claim of things-in-themselves, you seem to be very definite of the indefinite of something that cannot be known of the thing-in-itself.
The 'structure of the mind' will inevitably lead to psychology [i.e. mind, what else].
Kant’s concern is transcendental. He considered psychology to be empirical.
I am not saying Kant ventured deeply into psychology.
What I meant is, from what Kant had presented, we need psychology to open up the details to find more detailed solutions.
To that Heidegger had provided an opening re his analysis of Dasein re Angst and others.
We should thus use psychology to explore further to get a more clearer picture and I believe the various neurosciences, IT and AGI [artificial general intelligence] will expedite the process in the near future.
I understand Kant's refutation of Berkeley's and Descartes idealism.
Then why do you make the same mistakes?
Where did I make the same mistake?
When you doubt the existence of anything external or non-mind dependent.
Note I accept Kant's Transcendental Idealism with its subset Empirical Realism.
Within the subset of Empirical Realism I cognize the existence of external or non-mind dependent objects.
But at the meta Transcendental Idealism level, this 'externalness from mind' is encompassed by the human mind collectively.
I understand you are not an outright Philosophical Realist, but that remnant view you have resemble that of the Transcendental Realist, i.e. you believe there is some 'thing' underlying external objects or something cannot come from nothing.
Please stop telling me what I believe and stick to what I actually say.
I am inferring from your various post.
If I am wrong, then clarify what is your exact position.
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.
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