What would reality be like, devoid of its intelligible structure?

No objects. No relations between objects. No names. No thoughts. Nothing but a chaos of sensation. Utterly meaningless sound-light-feelies.

5.61 Logic pervades the world: the limits of the world are also its limits. So we cannot say in logic, 'The world has this in it, and this, but not that.' For that would appear to presuppose that we were excluding certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case, since it would require that logic should go beyond the limits of the world; for only in that way could it view those limits from the other side as well. We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think we cannot say either.
5.62 This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.
5.621 The world and life are one.
5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)
5.631 There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains ideas. If I wrote a book called The World as l found it, I should have to include a report on my body, and should have to say which parts were subordinate to my will, and which were not, etc., this being a method of isolating the subject, or rather of showing that in an important sense there is no subject; for it alone could not be mentioned in that book.-
5.632 The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of the world.
5.633 Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be found? You will say that this is exactly like the case of the eye and the visual field. But really you do not see the eye. And nothing in the visual field allows you to infer that it is seen by an eye.
5.6331 For the form of the visual field is surely not like this
5.634 This is connected with the fact that no part of our experience is at the same time a priori. Whatever we see could be other than it is. Whatever we can describe at all could be other than it is. There is no a priori order of things.
5.64 Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.
5.641 Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the self in a non-psychological way. What brings the self into philosophy is the fact that 'the world is my world'. The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world-not a part of it.

This is another spin on the Hegel/Wittgenstein relation. This is one of my fav parts of the TLP.

Ok, so I waxed poetic. But I've written so much about this on this forum that I can't resist a new metaphor now and then.

Do you know this concept? Qualia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now, the other part is asking yourself how this qualia junk is structured.
This is a simple starting point. Immanuel Kant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it-or at least similar thoughts.-So it is not a textbook.-Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it.
The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is misunderstood. The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.
Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather-not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).
It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense.

In my opinion, Kant's noumena attempts the impossible, which is to point beyond the limits of thought.

It functions like the word "infinite" as a mere negation, still in itself quite "processed" (unlike the noumena it is supposed to refer to) or finite (unlike the "true" infinite it attempts to refer to)

I'm not saying I'm a member of this party, but it's a fascinating debate. Kronecker did his best to destroy the career of Cantor. It's like Mr. Finite versus Mr. Infinite. I think Cantor is valid, but his infinite is no more truly thinkable than Kant's unbounded space. He was influenced by the Ein Soph, the first letter of which he used to notate his transfinites. Yes, the transfinites are justified, but this does not mean they can be processed in their fullness. No more than pi can be exhausted.
Finitism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thanks. But none of this helps clarify what you said at all.

And I am familiar with these things as a graduate student in philosophy. So I strongly recommed that you check out my own professor's scholarly entry on Kant's Theory of Judgment in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy here. Much better.

Kant's Theory of Judgment (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Wikipedia is a very poor source on Kant.

For Qualia and its associated problems in the Philosophy of Mind, you might try here too:

Qualia (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Inverted Qualia (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

the real is rational to the object(s) its self , because of what it is , in the first place

The noumena for Kant was merely a theoretical device he postulated against the metaphysicans to limit what they could and could not sesnibly talk about. He didn't "attempt" anything with it.

*Word salad* again. I don't understand this.

I know that Wiki is a poor source, but I can't teleport books. :sarcastic: You know how it goes. It's a quick and obvious reference.

For me, Kant is great, but flawed. Hegel is flawed too, but he makes that leap from transcendental to absolute idealism.

The noumena concept is, in my view, a stepping stone. At some point, it started to seem absurd.

And I think it was Fichte who first attacked it? Don't get me wrong. I have enormous respect for Kant. He wanted to ground objectivity. But I think objectivity is grounded in logos, which I suppose is in the direction of Witt.

For Kant, Space was both Transcendentally Ideal and Empirically Real, but what does this have to do with "Cantor's being valid"? How is Cantor valid?

The plus sign symbolizes logos, and in this context, self-conscious logos, that understands itself as the collision of qualia and form of forms (transcendental unity). In terms of the trinity, only the son is real (logos), but the son deduces the peanut butter and jelly he is made of. Accident and essence. Qualia and unity/negation.

Or Quality and Quantity.

I can't make any sense of this at all, sorry.

We have parallel situations, you might say. The idea of the noumena and the idea of infinity are both paradoxical. Or let us say that they tricky concepts.

The more we think about the concept of noumena, the more we see how empty it is.

Why is Kant flawed?

What is the difference between "transcendental" and "absolute" idealism as you understand it?

Absolute idealism is an ontologically monistic philosophy attributed to G. W. F. Hegel. It is Hegel's account of how being is ultimately comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole. Hegel asserted that in order for the thinking subject (human reason or consciousness) to be able to know its object (the world) at all, there must be in some sense an identity of thought and being. Otherwise, the subject would never have access to the object and we would have no certainty about any of our knowledge of the world. To account for the differences between thought and being, however, as well as the richness and diversity of each, the unity of thought and being cannot be expressed as the abstract identity "A=A". Absolute idealism is the attempt to demonstrate this unity using a new "speculative" philosophical method, which requires new concepts and rules of logic. According to Hegel, the absolute ground of being is essentially a dynamic, historical process of necessity that unfolds by itself in the form of increasingly complex forms of being and of consciousness, ultimately giving rise to all the diversity in the world and in the concepts with which we think and make sense of the world.

"Noumena" was not a concept for Kant.

This makes idealism "absolute." Appearance is reality. The idea of a reality behind appearance is still just appearance...but if all there is is appearance, then appearance becomes a questionable expression. Might as well say reality. Hegel continues this, and dissolves mind-matter dichotomies.

Did you read that Wittgenstein quote about the self? About logic being the limit of the world? What is the difference between mind and matter? Mind can be thought of as the intelligible structure of "matter," but "matter" is already an abstraction, already mind...but so is "mind."

At some point, the system of concepts (that's us) becomes conscious of itself as a system of concepts (self-conscious logos, and logos means discourse, hence the word logical.)

But this requires quite the journey through error.

In fact, Hegel presented the history of philosophy itself as the slow evolution of the absolute's consciousness of itself.

The absolute is a sort of negative theology word, in my opinion.

If the mind-matter duality is bogus,

Well, I don't think causality is transcendental.

I also think the Categories can be reduced to lower terms. (meaning fewer categories.)

I prefer the root of Hegel's logic, which happens to mesh with Wittgenstein's TLP.

IMO, a person has to look at the structure of thought. What is abstraction? What is concept? I have littered the metaphysics and language section with my ideas on this, so allow me to refer you there.

Absolute idealism abolishes the noumena.

Which means it abolishes the dichotomy of reality-in-itself and reality-as-it-appears.

But that is a crude reduction.

Noumena is certainly a concept, no matter what dodges Kant or anyone attempts. It's obvious a concept. Else it is just a series of letters. Come on. Seriously.

what is the object?

what is the real?

how can the real be "rational to" the object?

How can I "be rational" to my television?

"rational" is an intransitive, not transitive, verb. So how can I rational something?

because the real is based on the object

without the object there is no basis for reality

your TV doesn't think

rational or reason is actually very flexible , as compared to logic ( logic is based on the conclusion of the reasoning , logic , does not by nature of its self bring in further knowledge of ology(s) , logic may question reason , but doesn't in and of its self draw in knowledge , thats not logic purpose )

How is absolute Idealism different than transcendental idealism?

Hegel's absolute idealism sounds just like Berekely's Metaphysical Idealism all over again. He turns matter into mind, and mind into matter--which is absurd. And FYI, Hegel's philosophy is widely looked down upon by philosophers in mainstream analytic philosophy for being completely nonsensical and confusing. I don't understand it. I never did.



But Witt- never said matter just is mind.



huh? I am a "system of concepts"? What happens if I lose all concepts through amnesia? Do I cease to exist?



Why?



yes, that is Hegel's mysteriously Metaphysically-Loaded nonsensical "Evolution of the Absolute in time" which I don't understand at all. I seriously don't know what that means.



What is a "negative theory of the world"?



Why is the distinction "Bogus"?

---------- Post added 04-11-2010 at 10:43 PM ----------



What does "transcendental" mean for Kant?

Cauality is both transcendentally ideal and empirically real.



Which Categories would you propose to "reduce," and why?

What are "lower terms"?



What is the "root of Hegel's logic"?



Unfortunately, I haven't understood anything at all that you've said.



How does absolute idealism "abolish" the noumena. What is the "noumena"?



Kant never proposed such a distinction. That was George Berkeley's distinction.

What does the "thing-in-itself" mean for Kant?



To which "reduction" are you referring?



It might be a concept for Hegel. But certainly not for Kant.

For Kant, all concepts were either pure and empirical. The thing in itself was neither.

Like I said, the "thing in itself" was merely a theoretical postulate Kant used to attack the metaphysicians who thought knowledge could reach beyond the bounds of sense-experience. But Kant never said the only thing immediately know is what is given in sense-experience. Never. That's Berkeley's Idea, not Kant's.

And it is widely agreed among extant Kantian Scholars that Hegel misunderstood Kant completely. He did.

G.W.F. Hegel's The Phenomenology of Mind (1807) is an extensive and wide-ranging investigation of how knowledge is obtained of absolute truth, and of how spirit reveals itself as absolute reality. Hegel maintains that knowledge is not separated from, or external to, absolute reality, but that knowledge is itself reality, and that reality is mental and spiritual. For Hegel, reality is rational and logical. Reality is the conceptual totality of absolute mind and spirit. Knowledge reaches its goal when it arrives at the Absolute, and when it no longer has to search beyond itself, because in the Absolute it finds itself.
According to Hegel, the Absolute is Spirit, and Spirit is Reality.1 All truth is within the Absolute. The Absolute has self-existence; i.e. it has being-for-itself. The Absolute results from a process of becoming and developing itself.

Sure. But how can I be "rational to" an object? What does that mean to be "rational to something"?

Of course not.....but how can I be "rational to my TV"?

How does that answer my question?

You said that you can "be rational to an object."

I asked, "how can you be rational to an object"?

"Being rational" is a property of correct thinking.

But how do I rational objects?

I can kick objects, I can slam objects, I can move objects.

But how do I rational objects?