How exactly and why does Kant assert the possibility of a noumena?

you're confusing the thing-in-itself (noumenon in the negative sense) with the transcendental object
the thing-in-itself is simply the appearance abstracted from the mode of sensible intuition

Noumenal objects are not perceived--quite the opposite, they can only be posed in absolute abstraction from intuition.

Space and time are not categories of the understanding--they are the pure forms of intuition. Nor are they a priori 'analytical', as they are not judgements.

The arenas of knowledge which Kant claims we can have synthetic a priori and apodictic knowledge do not require a 'consensus', as they are knowable--A PRIORI.

etc etc etc.

You ever seen an apple from all sides at once? Can you imagine if you could? No? Well, there's you problem.

They are the same thing, though 'noumenon' has a broader extension than 'transcendental object'. Both are merely intelligible, and not objects of possible experience.

lots of critics agree with you that his shit folds into idealism

Nothing prevents it per se, but what you're asking is to prove a negative. The burden to prove that perceptions of phenomena are necessarily accurate to objective noumena is on you. No one has ever claimed that phenomena are necessarily not tied to noumena, only that it's dubious.

you didnt read the critique, did you

ugh

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this comment seems more cartesian than kantian

true/10

I haven't read kant. However, is it as simple as posing an object to our senses and then introducing a negation of our understanding and faculty to resolve what we don't know (or what we won't be able to know) through conflict and synthesis?
From what I have read it seems as if kant only introduced the negation of our representation of an object to better understand that object, only to find we then cannot.
Couldn't our sense perception be embedded in the representative structure of nature itself, and by this be accurately representative of it? That is, if we don't necessarily inflict thought onto the object.
I only dispose of thoughts accuracy due to its counter development by that of language and culture, which I feel is an entirely different discussion, albeit related indefinitely with this one.
But say, due to our capacity for sensory experience, and judging by our ability to void inferential thought, wouldn't it be possible to represent reality as is? Physical reality seems to exhibit some form of representation naturally (sound, vibration, etc) and wouldn't it be possible our means for that representation is embedded in reality and is therefore accurate to some extent, albeit concatenated subsequently to natures 'existence' ??
I'm probably thinking about this wrong! Still fairly new to philosophy.

>if we don't necessarily inflict thought onto the object
if

>wouldn't it be possible our means for that representation is embedded in reality

>You ever seen an apple from all sides at once? Can you imagine if you could? No? Well, there's you problem.

>I haven't read Kant

you could have stopped there

>You ever seen an apple from all sides at once? Can you imagine if you could? No? Well, there's you problem
Don't we only come to this possibility through abstraction? Is it necessary to posit the accurate representation of an object (apple) to a form we know we're unable to comply with? I feel as if that only creates an issue different than the Noumenon's representation by ourselves. If our representation is embedded in nature's representational structure, then seeing things in the dimension we're in isn't necessarily inaccurate, but rather incomplete, and these words shouldn't be conflated imo.
>if
The thing with thought is it now commences us to question the possibility of an accurate funneling of information, which may not be entirely implausible. If representation is natural, and we are partly embedded within it, couldn't we alter the language/sign/system we use to convey sensory information in a form more accurate?

I can imagine an apple seen from all sides at once. It's like you faggots don't know about UV skin mapping.

>Don't we only come to this possibility through abstraction?
No, we don't come to it at all.

>nature's representational structure
I see you're still confusing nature with the contents of your head.

I want a plush toy resembling you that says: "user thinks I am him, for some reason." when squeezed.

>couldn't we alter the language/sign/system we use to convey sensory information in a form more accurate?
As if the divide between noumena and phenomena wasn't wide enough, your plan to arrive to the thing in itself of nature is... to introduce human-made signifiers, which are always in an arbitrary relationship with the signified.

Go read Kant right now. You can read his Prolegomena first if his first Critique is too hard.

>mapping
A map is 2d, the thing in itself is a 3d solid, your point?

>human-made signifiers
they wouldn't be arbitrary, they'd mirror the physical objects in what is perceived, rather than abstract them and add "meaning".
>I see you're still confusing nature with the contents of your head.
Ok, obviously there is a possibility that correlationism is happening, all I am saying is, due to us being embedded within nature, may it be possible that there exists, as a natural form of interaction, the representation of one object by another? I am saying representation doesn't exist solely to the inferential mind, and that it rather exists as a means of interaction between things outside of our understanding of them, and that we as beings embedded within reality, have this quality ourselves, and exhibit it through our senses, prior to the obstruction of inferential thought.
Why wouldn't this be a possibility? We'd receive an object as is through 2 layers (possibly more) by funneling information, by the naturalistic method that is representation between objects. If there is something more to an object what would that be? A meaning? some teleological essence? If we aren't to correlate human inference/meaning unto an object, what left is there besides that of its interaction with other objects, and its makeup as an existing thing, both of which can be possibly represented by physical reality of instruments mimicking that as such.
I now see this problem as both the negation of correlationism and the existence of it by doing so, and staying skeptical. If we are to doubt that our representation of a thing is accurate, even by natural methods of representation, we're positing something unknown, but if we dismiss this, we're still liable to this unknown, if it exists.

>What is to prevent a claim that our senses form a genuine perspective of the world?
Nothing. But for Kant, us having senses means we never really perceive the noumena.

>I am saying representation doesn't exist solely to the inferential mind, and that it rather exists as a means of interaction between things outside of our understanding of them, and that we as beings embedded within reality, have this quality ourselves, and exhibit it through our senses, prior to the obstruction of inferential thought.

I'd take you up on this is more detail, but I'm on my phone and on the move, so I'll just suggest 1) the Critique of Judgement, which introduces this notion of 'embededness', or embodied being, as well as grounding judgment, i.e. that which was taken for granted in CPR, in a more primordial relation to objects. Mite details on the work itself.

From there you might look into Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, all whom take up many of Kant's themes, offer substantial critiques, and greatly expand on this idea of non-discursive engagement with objects.

Also Graham Harman and 'object-oriented philosophy'.

Thank you for continuing the discussion rather than just writing me off. I'll definitely get to reading these!

>they'd mirror the physical objects
How the fuck does A-P-P-L-E or a series of 0s and 1s have anything to do with the thing in itself?

>in what is perceived
What we perceive is a portion of the object's surface, the physical object is more than some stupid portion of a surface, while the signifier is even less.

>We'd receive an object as is through 2 layers (possibly more) by funneling information
Congratulations: you've integrated information from two different senses by using not perception, which clearly is insufficient, but the powers of reason.

Now we can do science. This in Kantian terms would be called synthetic judgement a posteriori, it is no longer intuition (perception alone).

Kant's Coperinican revolution is to bridge the gap between an empiricism that confuses sense data with things, like you do, with a rationalism that confuses an individual's mind with the objects around him. We need senses because the damn things are really out there, and the mind to make sense (love this English expression here) of them. This way science is possible. Yay.

Kant did all of this without knowing the first thing about contemporary neuroscience.

mathematics, according to K-dog, is a synthetic a priori, not an analytic.

>How the fuck does A-P-P-L-E or a series of 0s and 1s have anything to do with the thing in itself?
Physical indentation, signs, visual recreation, etc.
>physical object is more than some stupid portion of a surface
We can know material substance by scientific observation based of pure experience and interaction with the object, while maintaining a distance from the applying meaning to what is observed.
>while the signifier is even less.
Obviously.
>you've integrated information from two different senses by using not perception, which clearly is insufficient, but the powers of reason.
Where in my post did I mention reason? Im saying, in order to discuss what is being done, we must conceptualize and iterate what would most likely be happening. Our conceptualization of the processes, again, may not be inaccurate either, but that's another discussion. What I meant by funneling information was not literal, but a metaphorical representation of the physical process of one object, naturally representing another, and so on.
> This in Kantian terms would be called synthetic judgement a posteriori, it is no longer intuition (perception alone).
YES OBVIOUSLY! None of this is hard to understand, what I'm saying or questioning is whether or not there are ways of representing things from the perception naturally by process of representation that is in reality a real mode of occurrence separated from our "reason" "inference" and the like. And I also understand by categorizing it in this fashion, we're already abstracted from that thing we're speaking of, hence while I proposed a naturalistic way of linguistic representation using not letters, but physical indentation or visual reflection, (etc), instead, to properly mirror the objects by that of our senses, rather than add conceptualization properties to them.
> empiricism that confuses sense data with things
Yes, again, obviously. There are alternatives, albeit varying in quality, that propose a different interpretation of the reality. This conceptual negation is of necessity to account for the difference between our representation of reality, and the actuality of reality, but this distinction may be bridged differently.

>Physical indentation
>visual recreation, etc.
None of that is found in the letters A-P-P-L-E. Read Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, too when you're done with Kant.
>signs
So your plan to get from signifier to the thing itself is... more signs, now? Signs, which redirect to other signs, which redirect to other signs... where is the part where we escape from the network of self-reference that is called language, and the Derridean nightmare thereof?
>scientific observation based of pure experience
Scientific research is not a collection of the photons that struck the investigator's retina. THINK MOAR
>Where in my post did I mention reason?
You didn't, but you gonna need some neurons, or AI, to piece two different sensorial experiences together.
>OBVIOUSLY
If it's so obvious then you are cordially invited to stop saying sensist crap already. So far you do not seem to have grasped Kant's "Copernican Revolution" just yet.
>representing things from the perception naturally by process of representation
No datum is uninterpreted.

>I proposed a naturalistic way of linguistic representation using not letters, but physical indentation or visual reflection
You're adding barriers between subject and object, not removing them. A photo can become invalid as soon as you change, say, clothing or haircut. It's one frame. Sight can use a finite amout of frames for a while and can conceivably spot changes that occur then. A personal name isn't worse, it's something you can take to your grave.

To figure out that the guy in the picture was supposed to be you all along, the AI has to do some processing. Same goes for animals looking at a mirror and understanding (or not) that the creature in front of them was a mirror image of them all along.

Biological brains need to do some work to receive any information no matter how simple, what is left unprocessed is not available.

>None of that is found in the letters A-P-P-L-E
I wasn't implying the continuation of using letters :p
>more signs, now
I realize there is a problem, all I was doing was suggesting there may be a better quality of signs.
> investigator's retina
Wasn't referring to the investigator :p think moar (also, yes there is conceptualization going on- things are no longer "in-it-self")
>need some neurons, or AI, to piece two different sensorial experiences together
so, not reason then in a literal sense. Opens up a case for a new discussion. But also, mending the ways in which we conceptualize may lead to a natural representation.
>No datum is uninterpreted.
mend interpretation, find alternatives, idk.
>Biological brains need to do some work to receive any information no matter how simple, what is left unprocessed is not available.
exactly and that's the problem. These things they're doing and applying aren't representative of natural reality, they are, as you've said, processed information, by and through means that may or may not be accurately characterizing the thing in which they believe is uncharacterizable after a certain extent of processing.
>A personal name
isn't something depicting reality:p
>To figure out that the guy in the picture was supposed to be you all along, the AI has to do some processing
our understanding of individuation may be wrong in its entirety.

This is what happens when you don't start with the Greeks. You two fucks have ruined this discussion.

:)

He supposes the noumenon because nothing comes from nothing.

>How exactly and why does Kant assert the possibility of a noumena?
He doesn't. Although he does suggest the existence of noumena as a "reality" which is filtered in our world-perception through the categories, he changed his mind after some critics pointed out a glaring contradiction in stating the existence of the unknownable noumena.

I think Hegel's critique of Kant rightly rejects the noumena and thing-in-itself, not only because postulate its existence means postulate the existence of the unknownable, none of this is needed in Kant's philosophical construction - one could very well accept or reject the existence of noumena because it plays no part whatsoever in the trascendental deduction. Hegel's philosophical thought is build on Kantan thought but rejecting, among other premises, the idea of a noumenical world - thus we fall into the absolute idealism.

It is interesting to note that Nietzsche pointed out that Kant invented noumena to save morality. Nietzsche sardonic commentary has more of truth that a Kant-lover like me would be willing to accept at first glance, but he is right: if we are to believe Kant system as it developed by Kant himself, the phenomenical universe is completely deterministic, therefore, morality is meaningless - Kant would argue that although the phenomenical world is deterministic, morality, trascendental as it is according to Kant, acts upon whatever is beyond the phenomenical, this is the noumenal, and in some indirect way change the world we live in.

Latter tradition, after having rejected a large part of Kant's philosophy of science - because we know we're not in the world Kant thought fully determined by Newtonian physics - has either fully rejected the noumena or adopted the view of the noumenal as a negative limit to categorical knowledge.

Because there can't be an appearance without that which appears. That's so far as I remember literally the only reason he gives. Though the noumenon ends up serving a subtler purpose in the system as a whole, as a negative ideal.

warosu.org/lit/thread/7103072

Sorry for not having the energy to write something fresh - I should be studying instead - but it probably would have been mostly a rehash of what's contained there.

Kill yourself

>objective consensus about a limited set of objects
holy shit this is so dumb

haven't read kant but want to feel like you have an opinion?

no I meant that ''consensus amongst a few humans'' has nothing to do with truth.
a consensus is just a consensus and the only connection to the fantasy of ''going beyond the senses which deceive us'' remains a fantasy.

also, only rationalists believe that ''the senses deceive the ''''''''''''''the reason'''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''

shut up you ignorant whore

noumena would make a neat name for a cat.

Our forms of perception DO represent the world as it actually stands. It's just that these perceptions are the *effect* of this world, and it is impossible to take an effect alone to determine its cause. At any rate it's important to understand what *formal* or *transcendental* idealism really is. He's saying that the matter comes from outside of us, but the form it takes comes from within us. Representations we have must take a certain form, must have certain boundaries, constraints, and rules, which it must take in order to be experiencable by us. By sorting out what part of our perception belongs to form, and what belongs to matter, we can then make a much better prediction of what pure reason by itself can discover, since anything that is not representable under the forms of representations is unthinkable.

Now, you asked the question backwards. What you're asking in your second statement is how exactly and why does Kant assert the possibility of phenomena, e.g, form. If you were to ask how and why he asserts the possibility of noumena one would typically take this to mean how does he prove things really exist, how does he refute idealism.

The way that Kant refutes idealism is pretty bad. I love Kant but I (as well as the german idealists who followed him) am totally unsatisfied with it.

Kant's proof is that in order to *determine* time, which means, the synthesis of our a priori intuition of time that unifies the manifold in perception, we must already presuppose something permanent in our perception. Because we perceive time as external relations by reference to the permanent in space, like the sun's motion in respect to the earth. Now, he says that from inner sense alone we don't have anything permanent, that is a permanent intuition, to synthesis time judgements. Two incorrect arguments can be made against this- one, that we DO have an idea in us already to use for time determinations, which is the I itself. The I cannot be used as it is not an intuition, it's a presentation of a thinking subject's self-activity, which lacks any determinate predicates. Secondly, that we can use imagination to create presentations, e.g a dream. But Kant here says that dreams are still reproductions of previously intuited objects of experience.

1. no forms of our cognition form categories. Categories are there as pure forms of intellect and are necessary for the mind to build what we call experience.
2. Forms don't 'define' our reality. They straight away 'create' it inside the mind - they are like the mathematical functions necessary to run a computer program.
3. Kant never draws a conclusion on whether the categories (pure forms of intellect) allow you to know what reality truly is. He postulates that there may be something outside (noumena) because the brute contents of intuition, which are then re-shaped by the forms into phenomenons (i.e. experience/perceived things), does not seem like something the mind could create on its own. The mind does not create content, it re-shapes it and re-order it. This should answer your first question about the possibility of noumena.
4. The whole point of Kant is saying that it is possible to have knowledge of certain relations (such as causality) NOT because they are 'real' relations in the world, but because they are formal principles necessary for the mind to build phenomena (experience/perception). The question of whether the phenomena build by the mind are accurate or not does not concern him. He wants to claim that there is something to know and that, contrarily to what Hume said, relations are observable and knowable - and not only that: they are necessary to even have what Hume calls experience.

Kant's move against Hume is one of the most elegant philosophical moves ever done in the history of philosophy, in my opinion.

He does assert the POSSIBILITY of noumena, when he claims that the brute contents of intuition may have an external source. But this was already just a possibility (and not a certainty) in the Critique of Pure Reason.
He did not claim noumena existed, he said it could be possible they did.

wrong. Read the chapter "refutation of idealism". He doesn't take Descarte's problematic stance on noumena, as he says, he "proves" that a thing-in-itself exists.

>Human made signifiers
>Arbitrary
Habitual is a much better description. Signifiers can be conventional (i.e. symbolic signs) but signers/signs have to be reliable to their objects to work properly (or at all). Arbitrariness is a weird concept to grapple with signification - signs might be purely symbolic but its not like there is no reason a sign represents the thing it does; ultimately there has to be some cash-out for a sign to survive in use.

While theres a lot to be appreciated, I feel like Kant doesn't refute Hume as much as people claim. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Hume never said that relations are unknowable entirely, just that they are unempirical, the product of convention/habit alone. Kant was correct to assert their necessity for experience; but his attempt to bring them back into empiricism kind of muddies what the hell empiricism is all about (things in our experience AND things in themselves). In light of Darwin, the idea that relations are "customs" seems to be saved.

Empiricism is not about the distinction between things in experience and things in themselves. The main claim of empiricism is that the things you know by experience are the things in themselves, i.e. you gain actual knowledge from experience.
Now, if one only focuses on knowledge coming from outside (experience), one falls into Hume criticism: certain things (such as causal relations) are never directly observed. We don't really 'experience' causal relation, in the same way in which we experience the color red. Therefore, Hume says, there can't be any knowledge of those relations.

Kant says that instead knowledge is those relations is possible: relations such as causality are part of the forms of intellect. They are not 'customs' and cannot be 'built' by observation, for it is impossible to 'observe' without them in the first place.
Take, for instance, the category of unity: it is impossible to conceive objects if they are not unities. it would be impossible to talk about things in any way - and even to perceive them as separated/identified from others - without that category.
I think after Kant there is no way empiricism can survive without referring to some actual inner formal structure which builds the way we perceive things. Without such structure, it is impossible to experience things. But if such a structure exists, knowledge of this structure is not empirical knowledge - in the sense that it is not knowledge that comes by experiencing someting as an observer experiences an external object.

>signers/signs have to be reliable to their objects to work properly (or at all)
This is just plain false for the spoken and written word.

Why do people think words operate like Peirce's icons? Why?

Fair enough, I just dont really it as a refutation of Hume so much as building upon him; but there are still problems. How can we know about the forms of intuition if we can't know them empirically? Kant's pure intuition is ultimately too much like Descartes' light of pure reason; we actually must observe our own forms of intuition through themselves, perceiving them as objects to be processed into phenomena. There is no true internal knowledge, and the success of science after Kant shows this: there is no meaningful way to separate internal and external knowledge in our empirical observations.
>knowledge of this structure is not empirical knowledge
It is, for it must be, for there can be no knowledge that exists before the forms of intuition. To know the forms of intuition is really like breaking a part a TV to see how it converts radio signals into images; and once we know how it does it, we can then use the images to deduce what the radio-waves themselves must be.

>Why do people think words operate like Peirce's icons? Why?
Did you even read my post at all? I specifically said they are NOT iconic - they are SYMBOLIC (the third type of representament). If we really want to get into Peirce, then he agrees with me: signs (specifically sign vehicle, the representements) have to be RELIABLY (note: NOT similar, NOR causally) related to their objects. In other words, the same object has to roughly determine the same sign for that relationship to exist at all. Otherwise, the sign would not be functioning as a sign. Think about it this way: if "rock" meant rock one utterance, and meant pencil another utterance, and etc so that is never twice referred to the same object, what right would we say that uttering "rock" acts as sign at all, since it would fail to produce interpretants in our mind?

Can you please give an example of a word that doesnt mean something reliably that is actually used? There literally can't be meaningless words (unless we simply want to call anything that can be spelled and voiced a word).

>possibility
try fact dipshit
the human brain is so ultra limited
the noumena is reality itself, the lacanian real more or less
idk maybe fuck w/ sartre or something
phenomena isn't shit
consciousness ain't shit
get real brah
get noumenal lmao

>not understanding the indeterminacy of translation

literally the ONLY post in this ENTIRE thread that is on the right path

FFUUCCKK TTHHIISS SSTTUUPPIIDD BBOOAARRDD

In my experience, most noumena are fanged.

the noumena is not reality, that is the thing in itself. The noumena is an accurate representation of reality.

I did

but you do not know what is accurate or not, until you know the reality itself+ the discrpency wrt whatever model you created

>Think about it this way: if "rock" meant rock one utterance, and meant pencil another utterance, and etc so that is never twice referred to the same object, what right would we say that uttering "rock" acts as sign at all
I can definitely say "stop" to mean, say, bus stop or tell you to cease your movement, you really need to catch up with dem language games.

You too.

Anyway, I am abundantly convinced that "normalfag philosophy" includes picture theory as far as the philosophy of language is concerned.

I do not agree with your last part: knowledge without experience is possible.

Yes but the judgment you do when you know the forms of pure intuition is different from an empirical judgment.

An empirical judgement is a synthetic a posteriori judgement, such as 'a rose is red'. It is directly derived from observation, but the predicate can not have universal value, therefore it cannot be used in science.

Then there are analytic a priori judgement, where the predicate is already implied in the definition of the subject, such as 'bodies are extended' or 'a triangle is a figure with three sides, ant the sum of its internal angles is 180°. This is an example where you don't need experience to gain knowledge - even though this kind of knowledge really is just an analysis of the working definition of a subject. The problem Kant has with this kind of judgement is that it does not progress toward anything, it does not add anything to the definition of the subject.

The main question of Kantian philosophy is whethere a third kind of judgement, the synthethic a priori judgement, is possible. This judgement should add something to what we know about the subject (synthetic) without being derived from experience (a priori). Those kind of judgement are the ones allowing the progress of science.
An example of this are, for him, mathematical laws. 7+5=12, in his opinion, is a possible sythetic a priori judgment, since the result 12 is not already implied in the definition of 7 and 5 and, moreover, the result of the operation is not drawn from experience. We don't need to sum 5 things to 7 things to know that the sum is 12: we just need a working concept of what a unit is, and even without experience we can get to the result.

Now, according to Kant, knowledge of the pure forms of intellect is a kind of analytic a priori judgement: it is the analytic part of the transcendental logic. It means that he is breaking down a fact (the phenomenon) into its constitutive parts. The pure forms of intellect are already implied in the phenomenon as its necessary formal principles.
Take, for instance, the category of unity: no phenomenon would appear if it was not conceived as a 'something', which is the same as to say, if it was not conceived as a 'unity'. Therefore, a formal principle organizing intuition into unities is one of the conditions of possibility of a phenomenon.
The point is: I don't really learn this from observation. It is not the perception of a phaenomenon X that gives me the knowledge that formal principles are necessary to have experience, but the fact itself of having experience already implies that. The fact that formal principles are necessary from observation is not learn through observation, but through analysis of the conditions of possibility of observation itself.

It is not like breaking a TV apart and watch inside. Kant never opens the TV: he analyses what kind of principles make a TV possible - doing this not require observation.

sorry the second line was meant to be in green text.

>Yes but the judgment you do when you know the forms of pure intuition is different from an empirical judgment.

(and please forgive the numerous typos!)

>Kant invented noumena to save morality
he had to I guess, since he wanted to disconnect morality from the phenomenal and contigent.
I've never thought of it that way though

I know it's a meme, but I guess for those not reading it in German some nuances are missing. And also there isn't concept of noumena, even Kant had one notion of it in his early work and another one in his later work. However the concept itself goes back to the scepticist Sextus Empiricus. Mostly it could be understood as a kind of subcategory "Ding an sich". It means something within of beyond the human understanding, which isn't part of the empirical/ sensual experianced world and has a different quality. In his dissertion he still believes noumena to be accesable to us a kind of platonic perspective. Later in Kritik der reinen Vernunft he paraphrased says noumena is the problematic terminus for another kind of object, which needs another kind than the human perspective (also a problem in it of itself). In his ethic work he goes beyond this definiens and talks about a humans giving themself a legal system/ law. In this sense noumena means in this context a reasoning of an hypotetical ideal human as oppossed to the factually existing imperfect human.

Except for the fact that we have to perceive and continually build math and science for them to have any relationship with our perception of reality.
They are tools. As real as the rest of them.

...