/lit/ - Literature

It depends if you are willing to believe something based on what you have personally assessed and judged to be acceptable evidence, even though, at it's most fundamental level, it's can't be logically proven.

Something exists, and it's probably very similar to what we conventionally call reality; however, we perceive and describe this reality through a series of abstracted models, whose accuracy can only be verified against other abstracted models.

>>3641457
>transcendental idealism
its fine
>phenomenalism
controversial
>epistemology
what about it?
>Do we have access to things in themselves
of course not

just move the fuck on to hegel or schopenhauer's critique of kant. why do you care what other people's opinions are?

>>3641511

>>3641486
>Something exists, and it's probably very similar to what we conventionally call reality
I don't know. I remember back when I was reading Descartes' first meditations (Part 1 and 2) and thinking 'what if this guy knew about the internet and had seen the film the matrix and...'. That is, he questioned reality because of his ability to dream, but the level of advancement that our species would come to achieve was well beyond his grasp. We are now discussing the possibility of technological consciousness in neurological simulations -- that shit would have blown his mind.

The next thought to me was 'what if we are like Descartes now?' That is, what if there is not only a huge amount of potential advancement unknown to us, but entire aspects of 'reality' that we don't know because we either lack the sophistication to perceive it yet, or it's always imperceptible.

Then, reading through the sceptics, I began to adopt scepticism, but also realised that the fine tuning of models guarantees their reliability -- with respect to self -- but doesn't validate them:

Imagine you are inside a peanut; that almost figure 8 shape of two distinct chambers. You are in the left chamber ... with a blind man. That blind man is feeling around the surface of the peanut and describing it to you, who is then writing it down. That description of the interior is what we have of reality -- it does model the inside of the peanut, and we can always tweak the descriptions to get a slightly more accurate one, but at any moment we could discover the other chamber.

>>3641457
It's all obscure backfiring useless arbitrary shit. Drop all metaphysics. It's better for your mental health. When someone told Diogenes that movement doesn't exist he walked away. Any speculation beyond the practical and concrete is merely the intellect gone wild. The only way metaphysics have merit is as a fixed and accepted system that functions as a coping mechanism, but even that can crumble. It's better to do without.

>>3641457
>transcendental idealism
Kant's specific method of transcendental idealism has been pretty thoroughly refuted by advances in scientific and mathematical knowledge. Mathematical truths can be proven to be analytic through set theory and Einstein's theory of relativity seems to suggest that things-in-themselves are situated in real space. This leads us back to Hume's problem of induction.
>phenomenalism
I'm still reading through my Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel so I'll get back to you but eh seems p cool even though it doesn't provide a real answer to many problems.
>epistemology
p cool as well.

>Do we have access to things in themselves or only just mental ideas/representations
I think that, to best answer this question, you should do as >>3641511 suggested and move on to post-kantian philosophy. you'll see a definite shift in philosophy to focusing on the individual and how the individual comes to shape his reality, a paradigm shift wholly precipitated by Kant.

I'm no expert, just a student myself. Would love to discuss these ideas more though.

As I recall, Schopenhauer and Niezsche took the Ding-an-sich and the noumenal plane of reality to be the "will to" X (X=power for Nietzsche). Of course, I am just a student, but I would recommend Durant's "The Story of Philosophy" for a cogent intro to Kant.
Also, I think Kant is becoming more relevant today. I am a physicist (by training), and will only point you to the ideas of Wheeler and Weizsacker.

>technological consciousness
10/10
smack yourself for me please

>>3641603
prejudiced baby materialist waiting eagerly for science to reveal the fundamental nature of reality to him? aww, 'tso cute
those that show little to no appreciation of metaphysics are usually the types that got into philosophy for the wrong reasons

>>3641603
i'm inclined to agree that questions of ontology and epistemology are more important than those of metaphysics, but i feel like you're a little biased here.
>The only way metaphysics have merit is as a fixed and accepted system that functions as a coping mechanism

sounds like you're thinking of metaphysical systems as having a kind of religious dogmatism, which would suggest you're confused over the use of the term dogmatism in metaphysics.

>>3641561
>technological consciousness
10/10
smack yourself for me please

>>3641603
prejudiced baby materialist waiting eagerly for science to reveal the fundamental nature of reality to him? aww, 'tso cute
those that show little to no appreciation of metaphysics are usually the types that got into philosophy for the wrong reasons

>>3641648
I meant that metaphysics are completely arbitrary so they have no actual use aside from manipulation your own mental states.

>>3641649
>prejudiced baby materialist waiting eagerly for science to reveal the fundamental nature of reality to him? aww, 'tso cute those that show little to no appreciation of metaphysics are usually the types that got into philosophy for the wrong reasons
I'm not fond of either materialism or scientism, it's merely that I've grown tired of the futility of (metaphysical) speculation. If you want to label me in any way scepticism and quietism would be more apt.

>>3641626
>transcendental idealism has been pretty thoroughly refuted by advances in scientific and mathematical knowledge
Just stop

>>3641662
great post m8 real 10/10 content

>>3641649
>>technological consciousness
>10/10
>smack yourself for me please
2/10. Apply yourself.

>>3641685
Saying that science refutes metaphysics is like saying that math disproves aesthetics. It's completely nonsensical.

>>3641692
>math disproves aesthetics
Aesthetics is nonsensical; maths is all we have in aesthetics.

>>3641692
>Saying that science refutes metaphysics
nobody said that. kant's *specific* system of transcendental idealism was grounded in synthetic a priori intuitions of space and time. if space and time can be proven to be analytic then the system fails.

kant's knowledge of mathematics was limited at the time, and his system relies on the universality of Euclidean geometries which are not necessarily indicative of they way the universe is actually structed. kant did the best with what he could at the time, but his system doesn't still hold up.

>>3641685
>>3641691
le philosophically illiterate minions have been successfully summoned

>>3641692
transcendental idealism =/= metaphysics
what are you on about?

>>3641702
>le philosophically illiterate minions have been successfully summoned
Please, you only debase yourself with that crap. Grow up.

>>3641700
>>3641702
Sorry friends, I misread. Disregard that post please.

Kant is full of shit. You cannot experience something without using the senses, since the only way of validating any sort of information in the material world is through sense data, with or without the aide of a machine for things which cannot be perceived by the human body alone (ex. infrared, gamma rays).

His intellectual goose chase about the noumenal realm is the only way he could justify the existence of god. His father was a clergyman so he was obviously abused into believing in the delusions of mysticism. That is the false premise he was working on, the thing he took for granted in his logical process- the existence of a deity. Since god cannot be perceived by man, is consciousness without form, all powerful and all knowing etc., there must be some way for him to exist, which is justified in Kant's thought by separating the phenomenal and the noumenal.

>>3641721

Kant was not particularly religious in his adult life, he was agnostic.

>>3641700
Could you briefly explain what's the difference between synthetic a priori and analytic?

>>3641730
It's not that he wasn't religious, it's that he still had to leave that window open for god to exist.

>>3641721
>You cannot experience something without using the senses
technically right but missing the point

I think Kant was working what philosophers much more intelligent than I am like to call the 'Cartesian bubble' of a subject contemplating objects. I`m reading Heidegger right now and contemplating how he got rid of the subject-object theory of cognition and of subjects relating to the outside world. Enlightening stuff.

>>3641754
*Kant was working with what
I`m half asleep,apologies.

>>3641721
>Kant is full of shit.
No he isn't you idiot
A lot of his stuff still holds up

>>3641746
>it's that he still had to leave that window open for god to exist.
Does this make you angry, my friend?

>>3641694

>>3641763
Damn, just how bad at philosophy are you? We are not stuck in the 1800's any more, striving for some objective concept of beauty. The only methods of describing any aesthetic judgement are founded on empirical or mathematical models.

>>3641746
...and that invalidates his entire philosophy?

>>3641769

>>3641769
herp derp

>>3641769
>1800's were striving for some objective concept of beauty
this didn't even happen
pretty much all agreed that the aesthetic judgement is subjective

>>3641738
well kant sees humes "relations of ideas/matters of fact" as involving two different questions about knowledge.

the epistemological question, whether knowledge is a priori (known without reference to experience) or a posteriori (knowledge known only from experience)

and the semantic question. this divides judgements into analytic (necessarily true or axiomatic) statements which logically can't be refuted. kant gives the example of "all bodies are extended", i quite like russell's example that "a tall man is a man". synthetic judgements express more than an axiom, such that the former cannot be deduced from the latter or vice versa. a good example is "John F. Kennedy was assassinated". neither the concept of John F. Kennedy or assassinated includes the other without reference to experience. because of hume's proof that causality is not analytic, the opposite of synthetic judgements can always hold true, even if experience tells us it may not. All propositions we know only through experience are synthetic.

These can be arranged in a sort of matrix (pic related).
Analytic a priori judgements are those that can be deduced without reference to experience, through knowledge of only the concepts, and are therefore logical statements ("all bodies are extended").
Analytic a posteriori judgements are purely hypothetical and cannot truly exist, as all analytic statements should be provable without reference to experience.
Synthetic a posteriori judgments are judgements wholly about experience, such as "the water in the kettle is boiling".
Synthetic a priori judgments are those which are known to be true independent of experience, but the denial of which is still a logical possibility. Kant believes that objects in experience are only objects insofar as they are structured by principles of the mind (namely time and space) that can be known a priori and also be synthetic. Kant also believes causation to be synthetic and a priori.

Does this help?

>>3641694
get out

>>3641769
>has never read nietzsche or bergson
>in fact, has never read anything at all

No. It is all merely convention or a language game and if anything you may desire to analyze it from various perspectives, creating an archaeology a la Foucault or otherwise speak about it in idealized terms like Wittgenstein et al. but really they were kidding themselves to think that even ''common usage'' for language can disavow the impact of the material conditions of life (i.e. economics)

>>3641830
>implying bergson is worth reading
>implying nietzsche even got laid.
seriously i was thinking of it today, and for all the talk that nietzsche put out about how a philosopher should know how to live his life better than the common man (this he stole from the romans) and yet he was a betamax

>>3641790
>pretty much all agreed that the aesthetic judgement is subjective
Hegel - "Art is the first stage in which the absolute spirit is manifest immediately to sense-perception, and is thus an objective rather than subjective revelation of beauty.
Kant, "the aesthetic experience of beauty is a judgement of a subjective but similar human truth, since all people will objectively agree that “this rose is beautiful.”

Yeah, no. This is exactly the kind of bollocks that I was talking about.

>>3641841
no.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aesthetic-judgment/#1.1
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-aesthetics/#2.3.5

can't be arsed to check on hegel though

>>3641839
>implying you know shit about the good life

>>3641746

You have to do that to do that to be honest

>>3641839
Yeah living in hotels in the Swiss Alps and the Italian Riviera while dining out everyday, getting your flaneur on and reading and writing to your heart's content with a suitcase full of drugs fucking napolitan peasant girls really is a shit life.

>>3641861
I'm not familiar with the two in the back.

>>3641877
>to do that to do that to be

>>3641856
>Saying no to a direct quote.

Either way, your links prove my point. Thanks.

>>3641824
TBH I still don't fully understand it but your post was certainly educative. I will give it a second thought, thank you.

>>3641909
If you've any more questions feel free to ask. I'm not sure what yr background in philosophy is so I hesitate to go into too little or too much detail. Kant's philosophy is pretty dense and not easy to grasp but if you read up on yr Hume and some of the other empiricists to see what Kant was tackling, it begins to make sense.

This article may help
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/

>>3641899
>rah rah rah I'm a Wikipedia contrarian.