How do idealists explain the origin/the coming into being of the intellect/the subject?

How do idealists explain the origin/the coming into being of the intellect/the subject?

Well if Berkely is your example God did it (or does it rather)

Roughly: they don't. They may allude here and then to the historicity of any particular human soul, but then make it clear their concerns are elsewhere. Consider Kant:

>There is no doubt whatever that all our cognition begins with experience as far as time is concerned. No cognition in us precedes experience, and with experience every cognition begins.

>The human being is obviously in one part phenomenon, but in another part, namely in regard to certain faculties, he is a merely intelligible object, because the actions of this object cannot at all be ascribed to the receptivity of sensibility.

The human being is, in regard to certain of his faculties, purely intelligible. He's seeking for a priori structures that are constitutive for experience, so causal accounts of how those a priori structures come to be are beside the question. It's precisely the possibility of phenomena he wishes to demonstrate.

You may, of course, wonder why he makes his particular assumptions about the object of his investigations, but that they're there is obvious. And it's equally obvious that someone like Kant has a ready answer to your question: "I don't speak of the coming to be of the understanding or transcendental unity of apperception because I would be begging the question were I to try--I'm interested in how we have the ability to inquire into the coming-to-be of an object at all. My understanding or apperception is not an object, properly speaking. It makes no sense to give an account of their genesis."

Does that make sense? I know it may sound like bullshit, but is that description of what I think he says understandable, before any discussion of whether or not it's true?

>Does that make sense?
nope

Let me put it this way: Giving an empirical explanation for how any particular object came to be (how did this rock get here?) does not preclude giving an account of the nature of that object (what is this rock like?).

It's the same with the Intellect or the Understanding. Kant, in my example, was very interested in empirical psychology, and he certainly believed that any particular cognition was CAUSED (viz, your current brain-state followed in a determined way from another brain-state prior in time).

But he didn't think it was meaningless to ask what whether or not there was an non-empirical account to be given of the nature of and justification FOR that cognition. And such a transcendental account would, being non-empirical, would not and could never be an explanation of the GENESIS of the Understanding--because it's a non-empirical account. Get it?

>Giving an empirical explanation for how any particular object came to be (how did this rock get here?) does not preclude giving an account of the nature of that object (what is this rock like?).
>It's the same with the Intellect or the Understanding
so you can describe the rock without having to explain its origin
so you can describe the intellect without having to explain its origin
okay but you're still not explaining the intellect's origin

>Kant, in my example, was very interested in empirical psychology, and he certainly believed that any particular cognition was CAUSED (viz, your current brain-state followed in a determined way from another brain-state prior in time).
brain states are caused
there is a chain
just like there is a chain of causality in rocks
but there is something else inquiring into these brain-states
so now there is the rock and now the image of the rock and the intellect
so, like you said, still not explaining the intellect's origin

>But he didn't think it was meaningless to ask what whether or not there was an non-empirical account to be given of the nature of and justification FOR that cognition. And such a transcendental account would, being non-empirical, would not and could never be an explanation of the GENESIS of the Understanding--because it's a non-empirical account.
but there is a bottom
let's not worry about explaining its origin
let's just describe the intellect or process or thing or whatever that is allowing us to notice this chain of brain states
this whatever is outside of this brain-state chain or rock chain
let's describe this whatever and put the question of the origin of brain states aside for now

>My understanding or apperception is not an object, properly speaking.
>It makes no sense to give an account of their genesis.
isn't the understanding of a language-using human different than the understanding of a non-language using jellyfish creature (human ancestor)
so the understanding is an object since it is something that changes through time
it is similar to the rock
but then he could move back another step to a non-language form of consciousness or intellect or process or thing
or he could divide this split and make the inquiring form of intellect his only concern
but there has to be a jump from non-language form of consciousness or intellect or process or thing to the
>I'm interested in how we have the ability to inquire into the coming-to-be of an object at all
this ability to inquire has to arise, unless you deny this process and coming to be
to arise it has exist outside of our current ability to inquire into it

i guess my problem is the jump
if there is a jump then there was something existing prior to the cognitive faculty
a proto-cognitive faculty
to objecify the proto-cognitive faculty with the cognitive faculty seems like an error unless this cognitive faculty is eternal and exists outside of causality
but why assume this for this particular version of the cognitive faculty but not the proto-cognitive faculty

i don't get how he can say his account is transcendental if the thing he's describing is no different than a rock

i mean it's different but a rock is different than a star and a jellyfish and lots of things but they're all subject to the process of change

Yes, it sounds like we're on the same page. As you said, let's describe this whatever and put the question of the origin of brain states aside for now (or, we can attack the idealist right here: "You haven't sufficiently convinced me that there is such as thing as "the understanding" that can be described. I have no motivation to follow the transcendental deduction until we get the above out of the way.")

But, if we grant him the right to carry on his inquiry:

>isn't the understanding of a language-using human different than the understanding of a non-language using jellyfish creature (human ancestor)

Yes, they may well be different (I have no empirical psychology of a non-language using creature, but I'll grant both that such a creature may have something like our faculty of understanding AND was a human ancestor).

>so the understanding is an object since it is something that changes through time

No. The understanding described by an idealist like Kant, is not an object. It is unconditioned, a "spontaneous" faculty. Yes, in a different sense, the understanding may have changed over time (the non-language using creature I provisionally granted need not have any of the same categories, for example. The table of categories could have "changed over time" and I could, in principle, do a transcendental deduction for every existent creature and show a family tree connecting their understandings), but at that point I am switching back to talking about objects (tables of categories) and induction or probabilistic reasoning, rather than deduction.

>Kant's view is not just that space is not a property of things independent of intuition per se, but that space is not a property of things independent of a priori intuition.
seems obvious that space was the property of something that existed prior to the emergence of our particular cognitive faculty
does kant believe that without our intellect time and space does not exist?

>The understanding described by an idealist like Kant, is not an object. It is unconditioned, a "spontaneous" faculty.
how can he say this?

also this whole cognitive faculty/subject vs objects out there thing
what is his reasoning for this split in reality?

even if a jellyfish has a simpler cognitive faculty
even if a non-living thing like a rock has an even simpler cognitive faculty
there is still this split between the subject(s?) and the objects
so does everything have a cognitive faculty in some form?
if so, is everything both subject and object? and there's interaction between various objects and their connected cognitive faculties
and he's only concerned with one particular class of objects (humans) and their cognitive faculty or faculties and breaks it down into categories
so the mystery of the existence of everything is just split into the mystery of the existence of subjects/cognitive faculties and the mystery of existence of objects

The intellect serves the Will.

Life, uh, finds a way.

subjects are just dissociative processes of the cosmic mind.

but he tries to drain some of the mystery by describing our particular cognitive faculty but the cognitive faculties and objects are not something we can know outside of our experience of them

but at bottom the objects as well as the cognitive faculties are or at least could be eternally changing and coming into being and dying

so berkeley would say all that exists for us is what our minds perceive, what exists outside of that is god's mind
and kant would say all that exists for us is what our minds perceive (and here they are in specific symmetrical categories), what exists outside of that is unknown

because you need this outside of perception existence of something to explain how things are if we didn't have nervous systems or heads or any sensing organs

>if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, then all constitution space and time themselves would disappear
the only way this makes sense is if all of our ancestors down the chain to non-organic beings to everything else there is has a subjective constitution

and god damn rocks don't even have anything to perceive with unless they're hiding it real well

it seems like time and space are inherent in the thing in itself

does any of this even have any connection to aesthetics or ethics? idk, thank you for your replies guy who was replying earlier
i should probably read the critique of pure reason before trying to talk about this
but in a way it seems outside of what i am interested in

>seems obvious that space was the property of something that existed prior to the emergence of our particular cognitive faculty

That doesn't seem obvious to me at all. This is one of the places where I feel firmly right along there with Kant: Try to imagine space (filled with beings, if you will) without humans around to see it. But wait! Haven't I asked you to do something impossible? To both "imagine" it yet do it "without minds like ours" around? And what was YOUR mind doing when you imagined it? Weren't you "around," in a sense?

>does kant believe that without our intellect time and space does not exist?

Yes, absolutely. Because for him existence is a category of our understanding. Not saying believe it to be true, but that's what he seems to be saying.

>how can he say this?

Good question. It's always a good question, to ask "how did you come to believe this and say it?" It seems to me that Kant is firmly Cartesian, ultimately. He makes a big deal about the fact that any judgement may be prefaced with "I think..." He takes takes this, among other things, that the understanding is spontaneous and metaphysically free.

>also this whole cognitive faculty/subject vs objects out there thing
>what is his reasoning for this split in reality?

Another million dollar question. I don't know the answer. I'd point out that it's misleading to characterize the objects as being "out there," if by that you mean "outside of and completely independent of our faculties of perception." One of Kant's fundamental starting points is the idea that phenomena are always and in every case "already ours" in some sense.

>subjects are just dissociative processes of the cosmic mind.

I don't understand. Could you say more?

>because you need this outside of perception existence of something to explain how things are if we didn't have nervous systems or heads or any sensing organs

I don't think we can explain "how things are" outside of our perception of them. It seems a pretty inescapable problem that all my perceptions are always and in every case mine, and I mean that in a loose way and not as the principle of any particular philosophical system.

Thought I would ask: why would I need to inquire "how things are" without me? What possible interest could I have in a hypothetical "nature of things as they are, without reference to me or my nervous system or what have you?"

Wouldn't, e.g., the concept of space as-it-is, irrespective of the human intellect be an entirely empty concept FOR US if we tried to use the concept without human imagination or sensation?

i can't imagine it outside of my perception but fossils are clues that something did exist outside of my perception since the fossils were there before there were human eyes to see them
my perception of the fossils is still my perception but it is the perception of something that was conditioned into a particular form without any human mind distorting or shaping it

him thinking existence as a category of our understanding seems to depend on an assumption that the human species is fixed
do you know if he believed that?

then the split in reality thing brings up language crap

>subjects are just dissociative processes of the cosmic mind.
this wasn't me

>Thought I would ask: why would I need to inquire "how things are" without me? What possible interest could I have in a hypothetical "nature of things as they are, without reference to me or my nervous system or what have you?"
don't know the psychology of that, probably similar to wanting to know what's inside the wrapped boxes under the christmas tree

one day there's a being that doesn't exist in time and space because there is no faculty for time and space

then the next day there's a being that doesn't exist in time and space but a faculty for time and space mysteriously emerges (not in time and space since it doesn't exist) then that being that didn't exist in time and space now exists in time and space because a time and space faculty mysteriously emerged from something not in time and space

something is wrong here

also this movement from "day 1" to "day 2" shows that time existed before the emergence of a faculty if the faculty did emerge

the emergence of the faculty of causality implies causality so a faculty for causality isn't really a faculty for causality
maybe a faculty for "detecting" causality but something that formed over time cannot for the time it was formed in

form*

where am i going wrong here?

>Try to imagine space (filled with beings, if you will) without humans around to see it. But wait! Haven't I asked you to do something impossible? To both "imagine" it yet do it "without minds like ours" around? And what was YOUR mind doing when you imagined it? Weren't you "around," in a sense?
also i can't imagine x-rays or radio waves but there are clues that they exist
i don't need to be able to perceive them directly

>where am i going wrong?

You're trying to answer an ill-formed question within the scope of a very poor explanation of Kant's project, which takes the human subject as given, it's empirical origin as completely explainable by the sciences as any other phenomenon. Kant is concerned with objectivity-as-such, with how we, humans, relate to the objects of our experience as objects, and how this experience is possible. Time and space as pure forms of intuition* are the necessary substratum of this encountering--insofar as an object *is* an object for us, it will have an extensive and intensive magnitude, and it will have a definite determination *in* time relative to other objects. We can very easily imagine and even draft proofs and provide physical evidence of a time when before humans existed--but the objects we represent to ourselves of this prior time, of anything that can be said to exist prior to our coming-to-be, will still be so determined, and it is actually that they are so determined that we can even begin to speak of the "objective reality" of this pre-human past.

*"intuition" is in Kant to be understood in its original latin sense of "intueri", to look upon. This is rendered by Kant in German as "Anschauung", which is the substantive of the verb anschauen: to look at. This should provide a clue as to what Kant's really on about.

>You're trying to answer an ill-formed question within the scope of a very poor explanation of Kant's project, which takes the human subject as given, it's empirical origin as completely explainable by the sciences as any other phenomenon.
the origin of the human subject doesn't have to be completely explainable but unless you are willing to maintain that the human subject has always existed then the human subject has to come into being

>We can very easily imagine and even draft proofs and provide physical evidence of a time when before humans existed--but the objects we represent to ourselves of this prior time, of anything that can be said to exist prior to our coming-to-be, will still be so determined, and it is actually that they are so determined that we can even begin to speak of the "objective reality" of this pre-human past.
so here you're agreeing that things existed before humans existed (so there is a non-human encountered reality) but those things that existed before humans existed are now encountered by humans as humans encounter things
i don't see why you equate this human encountering with the non-human-encountered existence of the things you say exist
you are just substituting the term "objective reality" for "human-encountered reality" for something that is really "non-human-encountered reality"

>Kant is concerned with objectivity-as-such, with how we, humans, relate to the objects of our experience as objects, and how this experience is possible.
so he's concerned with human-encountered reality, how he believes this particular encountering is possible and the mechanics of it

>Time and space as pure forms of intuition* are the necessary substratum of this [human] encountering--insofar as an object *is* an object for us, it will have an extensive and intensive magnitude, and it will have a definite determination *in* time relative to other objects.
so here i guess you are going into the details of how this human encountering occurs but the details aren't important to my question unless you are saying time and space and causality do not exist without this ability for humans to encounter things
because 'time and space as pure forms of intuition as the necessary substratum of this encountering' came into being within non-human-encountered reality where this 'time and space as pure forms of intuition as the necessary substratum of this encountering' did not exist
so there were at least two states of affairs: #1 (non-human-encountered reality) and #2 (human-encountered reality)
this change occurred in time
so time is integral to non-human-encountered reality even if it is integral to human-encountered reality as well

There is no encountering without the human. Being *is* regardless of our engagement with it, but it's essence separate from our inquiry into it is unknowable.

Reality is not the same thing as existence for Kant. All of the traditional metaphysical categories Kant employs still retain much of their original meaning, but with his own mark inscribed on then. So, in the case of 'reality' what is 'real' odd what belongs to the essence of the 'res', the thing, the object as such. Space and time belong to the object-as-encountered as the substratum, the forgrounding of that encountering. For objects to be objects they must be found in space and in determinate relations in time. This 'reality' precedes any determination of existence, which is merely a modality of objects, a way of anticipating their encounter as sensible.

>There is no encountering without the human
there is no human encountering without the human but that doesn't mean there are no other forms of encountering
do we really have to immediately encounter things as other things encounter things to suppose that other things are able to encounter things? especially since we are causally linked to non-human beings? why suppose that one day our ancestors are not encountering things and the next day they are encountering things simply because they arrived at a mode of encountering similar to how we encounter things now?

>Being *is* regardless of our engagement with it, but its essence separate from our inquiry into it is unknowable.
how is it completely unknowable? we can see examples of non-human forms of life encountering things (plants, for example)
we know that humans emerged from similar non-human lifeforms
do we really have to 'feel' as a plant 'feels to conjecture that there are other modes of encountering?

How can you know anything independent if your means of knowing it?

We have knowledge, extensive knowledge, of the world as it was before or coming to it. By that knowledge is still 'anthropocentric'--it is determined by the very way we can make it knowable to us. Certainly you can conjecture what is like to be a tree, that's basically just fancy. And anyway, Kant is after something more fundamental here--the possibility of experience as such, and so the possibly of knowledge, of a 'natural order' to the world we encounter. This requires a specific kind of engagement with the world,and so a specific kind of metaphysics.