Londoner wrote:Spectrum wrote:[
Note Kant never asserted the noumena nor thing-in-itself existed per se. Kant merely used both noumena and thing-in-itself to limit knowledge empirically and by reason. Then Kant reasoned at a higher level and argued away the existence of any reified noumena and the thing-in-itself. This is how I am able to relate the idea of the thing-in-itself with psychology and evolutionary psychology and neuroscience.
As Schopenhauer stated, Fichte OTOH ignored the point re noumena and thing-in-itself totally from his starting point. Fichte focus was on the self, i.e. the subject only and no further.
If you disagree, you'll have to reread Kant [original CPR] again and get a refresher on his ideas.
Regarding Fichte, everyone quotes the (disapproving) Schopenhauer comment on him:
For this purpose, he at once did away with the essential and most meritorious part of the Kantian doctrine, the distinction between a priori and a posteriori and thus that between the phenomenon and the thing-in-itself.
Isn't that what you are saying Kant did himself?
So perhaps one of us will have to do the rereading. You express a certainty about what Kant meant (assuming he had a clear position) that isn't shared by most readers, not just me and Schopenhauer..
You write Kant '
argued away the existence of any reified noumena. But you can't first use noumena ('reified'?) to 'limit knowledge' and then 'argue them away', That would be like using a hammer to drive a nail and then deny the existence of the hammer. Sounds more like Wittgenstein than Kant.
My point was, Fichte just ignored the thing-in-itself, while Kant brought in the noumena and thing-in-itself then explain them away with justifications.
It is just like scientists discussing hallucinations then explaining what are hallucinated are not reality.
The noumena and thing-in-itself are like hallucinations [empirically based].
Kant recognized humans are reifying the impossible and the non-existence of reality, example, soul, God, then he explained why there are merely mental thoughts and not real things.
But you can't first use noumena ('reified'?) to 'limit knowledge' and then 'argue them away', That would be like using a hammer to drive a nail and then deny the existence of the hammer. Sounds more like Wittgenstein than Kant.
It is not easy to understand Kant's philosophy.
In this case Kant is very systematic and discuss the problem in a step by step manner.
First Kant deliberated on the 'known' and place the noumena as a limit to it before the 'unknown'.
Next Kant reconciled the noumena as the thing-in-itself [unknown].
Then Kant proved the thing-in-itself is merely a thought [psychological] that has no substance in reality.
Here is a parallel but cruder example from Russell;
Bertrand Russell wrote:All definite knowledge – so I should contend – belongs to science; all dogmas as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology.
But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack from both sides, and this No Man’s Land is philosophy.
Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative minds are such as science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem so convincing as they did in former centuries.
In this case just after definite knowledge [known] and at the edge of the "no man's land" lies the "noumena" and when this noumena is stretched to be dogma by theologians, e.g. the ontological soul, god, that would the idea of the thing-in-itself.
I suggest you re-read up Kant's CPR.
-- Updated Sun Aug 13, 2017 10:42 pm to add the following --
[b]Prothero[/b] wrote:Even a cursory review of Kantian scholarship reveals there is more than one line of thinking on this. There are the two world views, the dual aspect views and the idealist views. Of course people who take the time come to one view or the other and then defend that and regard it as the correct view.
Kant himself was not much help giving one impression if one statement and the other impression in another area or in a later edition. There is confusion about his meaning regarding "transcendental objects", "thing in itself" and "noumena".
Some interpretations the two world camp is essentially realist while placing severe limitations on our ability to "know" the independent real.
This is a relevant point.
It is not easy to understand Kant's philosophy and whilst Kant is very systematic and rational in his approach, the way he write it [in German, made worst by translation] is not very helpful. His one sentence can occupy half a page. This is why I had to spend 3 years FULL TIME reading and researching Kant because I knew there is something solid in his philosophy from the base of my Buddhist background.
Those who read and research Kant's philosophies often end up in various camps with varying degrees of understanding his philosophy. Kant recognized
antinomies [unresolvable dualistic views] are inevitable in philosophical discussion and he provided means to reconcile them but not many understood his work in this.
Prior to Kant, I did full time research [> 3 years] on Buddhist philosophies and this has enable me to understand the full picture of Kant's philosophy. Buddhist philosophies are not well organized intellectually while Kant's presentation is logically rigorous and the two complement each other to enable the full picture of reality to emerge.
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.