Imo, as far as Kant is concerned, the concept of the noumena is used as a 'wall' to prevent and ensure that the speculations of pure reason are not carried too far to be claimed as objective reality from the back door.
The usual 'thing-in-itself do not exists' because Kant said it is so, is too simplistic.
To really understand this concept and its purpose, we need to comprehend the 90% of the iceberg that support this principle.

Yes, my friend, I understand that. A week ago I was arguing from noumena, but I found myself not satisfied. Kant was right about abuses of pure reason, especially in the cases he attacked. But what is this noumena concept? Does he violate his own rules against pure reason? For what does "noumena" refer to? Nothing, ultimately. It's by definition not a part of our experience, except as the paradoxical concept of that which is not a part of our experience. Kant was a genius, and a leap for philosophy. But there were some kinks in his system. He thought, if I understand him right, that time and causality were transcendental. I think he was wrong on this. I think the analytic can be stripped down to unity and negation. I also think the "transcendental unity of apperception" is an empty concept. I think that Hegel worked out Kant's kinks....by abolishing paradoxical distinctions.

Objectivity is grounded in social practice, not by "noumena" in the least. A world without any sort of consensus would be an utterly subjective world. Instead, we all seem to see the same objects, and we know this because of language, and not because of transcendental idealism. Still, Kant deserves praise. He jumped on all the right issues.

If by 'noumenon' we mean a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensible intuition, and so abstract from our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the term.
But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensible intuition, we thereby presuppose a special mode of intuition, namely, the intellectual, which is not that which we possess, and of which we cannot comprehend even the possibility. This would be 'noumenon' in the positive sense of the term...
...........
That, therefore, which we entitle 'noumenon' must be understood as being such only in a negative sense.

Kant insisted that the 'noumenon' must be understood in the negative sense which reconcile with his critique of pure reason, i.e. no objectivity outside our sensible intuition.

I noted, to understand and give justification to Kant's ideas, we need to understand every sentence, paragraph, chapter and then the whole book as one idea. I am still trying to get a good grasp of his idea.
Kant's ideas are not wrong in the foolish sense, but they may not be appropriate if we change the perspective, assumptions and circumstances that his ideas were related to.
Thus if we were to discuss the concepts of Kant, e.g. time, space, transcendental, apperception, we need to pick them up with a fine-toothed comb through his Critique of Pure Reason.

Locke allowed that we never see the things themselves but only the sensory images that impinge upon our consciousness, only ideas as they called them (hence idealism).

Yes, what else could it possibly be? Since if Johnson believed he refuted Berkeley, what else could be the explanation of that except that Johnson did not understand Berkeley?. We needn't even show how he misunderstood Berkeley. His mere disagreement with Berkeley is enough to save us that trouble. (I thought that Pyrrho's quote from Stove was supposed to show that Johnson did misunderstand Berkeley, by the way).

I think that Locke was a 'representational realist'. I don't think he said that, I think this is more or less what Berkeley said in response to Locke, whom I am pretty sure, thought that ideas represent objects.

we need to understand every sentence, paragraph, chapter and then the whole book as one idea

Originally Posted by Humanity
we need to understand every sentence, paragraph, chapter and then the whole book as one idea

that is a pretty tall order. From my admittedly sketchy reading thus far, it seems that Kant himself is not entirely consistent in his expressions and ideas, and besides, the entire corpus of his writing is regarded as a kind of intellectual Everest in western thought. I think we can learn things from Kant - well I think I have anyway - while still short of this kind of total mastery of his writings.

Here is a point from Kant to explain why Johnson misunderstood Berkeley.



When Johnson kicked the stone, he was basing on the assumption that Berkeley denied the existence of external objects of the senses.
By kicking the stone, he was trying to prove that the stone exists as an external object independent of his senses.

Berkeley stated very clearly that he did not deny the existence of external objects.
What he asserted was, an unthought matter is an impossibility which is similar to what Kant had stated above.

In Johnson's demonstration, he was merely kicking a 'strawman' based on a mis-understanding, misinterpretation and misrepresentation of Berkeley's idea.

If Johnson had misunderstood Berkeley idea in the first place, it would be impossible for him to refute Berkeley's original idea.

Berkeley certainly did deny that there were external objects. Although he did not deny that there were physical objects, i.e. the objects of physics. But he did deny that there were material objects, i.e. objects that were not spiritual, i.e. immaterial. (You confuse physical objects, e.g. chairs and tables, which Berkeley affirmed there were, with material objects, which he denied chairs and tables were.

What Johnson did (in part) was to demonstrate that chairs and tables (and stones, of course) were not merely physical objects (which they were) but also material objects.

How does Johnson kicking an immaterial tree with his immaterial foot prove the materiality of those physical objects? If he had kicked a tree with his foot in his dreams and had felt the pangs of pain in his dreams as a result of his action, he would not have proven that he was awake. His actions were as pointless as his understanding was faulty.

I believe the distinction of what we call the material world is not that it is external--though it well may be--; rather it is that the world is shared by many of us, that I may see the tree that you see, and a thousand other people may see the tree, and agree that it is a hawthorn tree, and agree upon its estimated height, and agree that its lowest bough was apparently broken off, and that the letters RG+BY have been carved inside a heart symbol about 14 inches below and 11 inches to the right of the broken bough of the tree. And because we share all these details and know them to be consistently apparent over time, we agree that the tree exists exterior (to our own minds). We agree that the idea of the tree, though it be all that we may ever know about it, is not the total reality of the tree, but that something accessible to all our minds is the final reality from which our idea of the tree derives.

Therefore, we say that the reality of the tree is exterior to our minds, not interior as our ideas are. In this sense, the tree would still be exterior (to our minds) even if it originates as an idea in the mind of God. And it will never be verifiable whether the final nature of reality is material or immaterial, so the only distinction of importance is whether reality is exterior/external or interior/internal.

Samm

But Johnson did not kick an immaterial tree with an immaterial foot. An immaterial foot would have gone right through an immaterial tree, but Johnson's foot did not go through the tree. That is exactly what it means for something to be material, They do not penetrate each other. The one stops the other. People do not kick trees with feet in dreams. What they do is dream they kick trees with feet. (By the way, it was a stone, not a tree). What makes something material is that it exists even when no one believes it exists. It exists even if there are no minds.

What makes something material is that it exists even when no one believes it exists. It exists even if there are no minds.

world is pretty much as common sense would have it. All objects are composed of matter, they occupy space, and have properties such as size, shape, texture, smell, taste and colour. These properties are usually perceived correctly. So, when we look at and touch things we see and feel those things directly, and so perceive them as they really are. Objects continue to obey the laws of physics and retain all their properties whether or not there is anyone present to observe them doing so."[1]quantum phenomena or with the twin retinal images. This lack of supervenience

By the way, what does this mean? "People do not kick trees with feet in dreams. What they do is dream they kick trees with feet." Don't you wish you'd never said that? :bigsmile:

Samm

This is 'naive realism in a nutshell'. This is described in Wikipedia as


(My emphasis)

What Johnson is not getting in all of this, is that the argument is not about the nature of stones. It is about the nature of experience. Johnson assumes that his experience is veridical. He does not turn his attention on himself, and say 'what is the perception of kicking, etc'.

That is why he misunderstands Berkeley.

Of course not. It is true. Dreaming that something happens is not that something happening. If I dream I am in India riding on an elephant, that does not mean that I am in India, riding on an elephant. You know that.

Thank you for that valuable passage from Kant. It is easy to see why Kant wrote that, for he did not want to be counted as an Idealist, and of course Kant did deny the existence of "the external objects of the senses" for, according to Kant, the "external objects of the senses" were but phenomenal, and so, mental and internal. However, Kant did, of course, assert that there was an externality, although it did not consist of external objects of any kind; the noumenon. So, in that quote, Kant is covering himself. Of course, that does not save him from being wrong about Idealism. Berkeley certainly did deny that there were external objects. Although he did not deny that there were physical objects, i.e. the objects of physics. But he did deny that there were material objects, i.e. objects that were not spiritual, i.e. immaterial. (You confuse physical objects, e.g. chairs and tables, which Berkeley affirmed there were, with material objects, which he denied chairs and tables were.
What Johnson did (in part) was to demonstrate that chairs and tables (and stones, of course) were not merely physical objects (which they were) but also material objects.

Immaterialism is the theory propounded by Bishop Berkeley in the 18th century which holds that there are no material objects, only minds and ideas in those minds.

Although I don't really like the insinuation of the term "naive", since that implies that I am unaware of why people object to direct realism, I don't really mind being called a naive realist, since I think that naive realism (with the qualifications I just mentioned) is substantially true.

It is, after all true that if the stone and the foot were both immaterial, the foot would go through the stone. But that didn't happen. Or do you think that it did happen, but it escaped notice?

The argument is not about experience. It is, as you point out, about how experience is caused. The most reasonable explanation I know of is that our experience is caused by material bodies. Have you a better explanation?

Suppose that you are dreaming a really vivid dream about riding an elephant in India. How do you know you are dreaming? You don't. Suppose that the nature of your existence in this world is like the nature of a really vivid dream insofar as it is all in your mind, insofar as it is all of the character of mental image like our dreams. In fact, it is of the character of mental images because our experiences are not immediate; as we are aware of some experiences our senses are in-taking another set of experiences that will process through the brain to our consciousness. The same experiences that enter our consciousness from sensory experience could as well enter our consciousness from our imagination or from dreams.

Samm

Kant in his Critique wrote a chapter on "The refutation of Idealism" to contrast his 'Transcendental Idealism' from Berkeley's 'Dogmatic Idealism'.

Despite the differentiation, both Kant and Berkeley in general are Idealist of the same mould with slight variations.
Both believe that physical objects have external existence in the common sense perspective, but do not have absolute existence without taking the 'mind' into consideration.
In a way, both will admit they are naive realists from the common sense perspective, but being good philosophers they had the intellectual foresignt to challenge the prevailing majority view then.

Kant's statement on what Idealist believes is applicable to Berkeley.
I am highlighting this because i know there was a misunderstanding of Berkeley's idealism based on a 'strawman' of immaterialism. i.e.



Having read Berkeley's Treatise, i am very confident that the above is a wrong interpretation of Berkeley's idea.
Berkeley was too intelligent to propound such a stupid theory as stated by the 'strawman' above.

The core ideas of all known idealists is fundamentally to expand the narrow views of common sense and to counter the philosophical realists' view that reality is absolutely independent of mind.

Johnson misinterpretated Berkeley that material objects exists only as ideas in mind, and wrongly basing on the container metaphor.

If Johnson and Berkeley were to meet face to face, I ams sure Berkeley would have told Johnson the following;

Berkeley to Johnson:
"Don't be stupid, I believe the stone in front of me exists external to myself as we normally understand within the common sense.
If I kicked the stone, i will feel the solidness of the stone and possible pain.
But for you (Johnson) to believe that the stone exists absolutely independent of the observer is philosophical doubtful.
My philosophical answer to this is, .................... ideas, mind, god and blah blah blah..