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Perception and the Physical World

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Oh, please quito ready.

Here are some subjective qualities, and not a complete list: Infinites, existence, God, justice, social and political equality, freedom, loudness, intelligence, and ambivalence. If a thing is an object, even like the moon in the sky it is an object of sense. Sense tells us that it is, and knowledge tells us what it is, and its relationship to our own life gives it its meaning.

What do you consider the difference is between belief and knowledge. I trust it is certainty and veracity. But knowledge is never complete, and belief seeks completeness without knowledge. Still one can know a thing short of being able to prove a thing. Before it was possible for a monkey to know a lion as an objective reality, to give any precision to its beliefs regarding those jaws of death, or to be able to describe it in detail, or talk about it; it still knew what a lion was. Knowledge is judgement and we can often judge a thing without consciously or critically doing so. If you know a leaf is green no amount of consequential knowledge to the opposite will sway you. So what if colors are green? We look at vegetation and see green. The conclusion can then be made that all that is green is vegetation, and since that means life to us we like it.

How are God and existence subjective qualities? Qualities of what? Let alone subjective. Kant (and Hume too) has argued that existence is not a quality at all. And How is the noun, "God" the name of a quality?

One important difference between believing and knowing is that you can believe what is false, but you cannot know what is false. A second important difference is that you cannot know without adequate justification, but you can believe without adequate justification, or even any justification.

You can know without being certain. For instance, I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador, although I can imagine circumstances which would show that I was mistaken. For example, I can certainly imagine that the Ecuadorean legislature has, in secret, passed a bill to make Guyaquil (Ecuador's second city) the capital. But, since that has not happened I know that Quito is Ecuador's capital, although I am not certain it is.

But my point was that belief is subjective since you can discover whether you believe a proposition is true simply by looking into your own mind. But that knowledge is objective because you cannot discover that you know that a proposition is true simply by looking into your own mind.

@kennethamy,

To everybody:):

I would like to reiterate Locke's position,

It was John Locke's position that when we perceive objects we do not perceive the objects as they are said to exist in themselves.

John Locke states that what we perceive are rather, ideas (modern writers speak of " sense-data" or "sensa" or "percepts") not physical objects. Whether or not the sense-data resemble the physical objects to which they are believed to "correspond" in some sense, they are at any rate distinct from them. This philosophical theory is commonly called (epistemological) dualism.

According to Locke, who held a special form of this theory, we are mistaken in supposing that to all the qualities of our sense-data there correspond similar qualities in the objects. Colours, for example, correspond to certain arrangements of the molecules at the surfaces of physical objects by virtue of which the latter reflect light of a particular wave length into the eyes of sentient organisms, but such structures do not resemble sensations of colour. The apparently brown penny "as it is in itself" does not have a colour nor a degree of temperature at all, any more than the fire has a quality resembling the pain it produces!

On the other hand, said Locke, ideas of shape and size and motion and weight do correspond to similar properties of physical objects. The penny may not have that particular shape which it appears to have under certain conditions, but it does have a shape; and it may not have the particular size it appears to have from such and such a distance (it certainly could not have all the apparent sizes, for that would contradict the assumption of constancy of size), but it does have a size. Those qualities which are in the objects themselves, he called "primary," and those which only characterize our sense-data he called "secondary."

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

To everybody:):

I would like to reiterate Locke's position,

It was John Locke's position that when we perceive objects we do not perceive the objects as they are said to exist in themselves.

John Locke states that what we perceive are rather, ideas (modern writers speak of " sense-data" or "sensa" or "percepts") not physical objects. Whether or not the sense-data resemble the physical objects to which they are believed to "correspond" in some sense, they are at any rate distinct from them. This philosophical theory is commonly called (epistemological) dualism.

According to Locke, who held a special form of this theory, we are mistaken in supposing that to all the qualities of our sense-data there correspond similar qualities in the objects. Colours, for example, correspond to certain arrangements of the molecules at the surfaces of physical objects by virtue of which the latter reflect light of a particular wave length into the eyes of sentient organisms, but such structures do not resemble sensations of colour. The apparently brown penny "as it is in itself" does not have a colour nor a degree of temperature at all, any more than the fire has a quality resembling the pain it produces!

On the other hand, said Locke, ideas of shape and size and motion and weight do correspond to similar properties of physical objects. The penny may not have that particular shape which it appears to have under certain conditions, but it does have a shape; and it may not have the particular size it appears to have from such and such a distance (it certainly could not have all the apparent sizes, for that would contradict the assumption of constancy of size), but it does have a size. Those qualities which are in the objects themselves, he called "primary," and those which only characterize our sense-data he called "secondary."

Hi Pythagorean!! Smile

I still do not believe Lock underlined to a sufficient degree the distinction of apparent reality [conditioned reality]. He does not make it clear that a statement about any said object is really in fact a statement about a relation, not about the subject not about the object, but their relation----the relation between subject and object. Indeed this is what passes for knowledge, and is commonly misunderstood as qualities belonging to object. Apparent reality is in itself, a creation.

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

To everybody:):

I would like to reiterate Locke's position,

It was John Locke's position that when we perceive objects we do not perceive the objects as they are said to exist in themselves.

John Locke states that what we perceive are rather, ideas (modern writers speak of " sense-data" or "sensa" or "percepts") not physical objects. Whether or not the sense-data resemble the physical objects to which they are believed to "correspond" in some sense, they are at any rate distinct from them. This philosophical theory is commonly called (epistemological) dualism.

According to Locke, who held a special form of this theory, we are mistaken in supposing that to all the qualities of our sense-data there correspond similar qualities in the objects. Colours, for example, correspond to certain arrangements of the molecules at the surfaces of physical objects by virtue of which the latter reflect light of a particular wave length into the eyes of sentient organisms, but such structures do not resemble sensations of colour. The apparently brown penny "as it is in itself" does not have a colour nor a degree of temperature at all, any more than the fire has a quality resembling the pain it produces!

On the other hand, said Locke, ideas of shape and size and motion and weight do correspond to similar properties of physical objects. The penny may not have that particular shape which it appears to have under certain conditions, but it does have a shape; and it may not have the particular size it appears to have from such and such a distance (it certainly could not have all the apparent sizes, for that would contradict the assumption of constancy of size), but it does have a size. Those qualities which are in the objects themselves, he called "primary," and those which only characterize our sense-data he called "secondary."

I wonder why the fact that the penny's shape (the original example from Locke) or its color, look different depending on the circumstances in which we observe it means that it does not have a (real) shape or real color. Are we to suppose that if the penny did have a (real) shape or (real) color, it would have to seem to have that shape or color under all possible circumstances in which we observe it? Why? In fact, if a penny always looked the same way no matter how I observed it, I would think something funny was going on. Pennies (and things in general) are supposed to look different in different conditions of observation). That is why the (real) color of an object is the color it appears to have to the normal observer under normal conditions.

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

To everybody:):

I would like to reiterate Locke's position,

It was John Locke's position that when we perceive objects we do not perceive the objects as they are said to exist in themselves.

John Locke states that what we perceive are rather, ideas (modern writers speak of " sense-data" or "sensa" or "percepts") not physical objects. Whether or not the sense-data resemble the physical objects to which they are believed to "correspond" in some sense, they are at any rate distinct from them. This philosophical theory is commonly called (epistemological) dualism.

According to Locke, who held a special form of this theory, we are mistaken in supposing that to all the qualities of our sense-data there correspond similar qualities in the objects. Colours, for example, correspond to certain arrangements of the molecules at the surfaces of physical objects by virtue of which the latter reflect light of a particular wave length into the eyes of sentient organisms, but such structures do not resemble sensations of colour. The apparently brown penny "as it is in itself" does not have a colour nor a degree of temperature at all, any more than the fire has a quality resembling the pain it produces!

On the other hand, said Locke, ideas of shape and size and motion and weight do correspond to similar properties of physical objects. The penny may not have that particular shape which it appears to have under certain conditions, but it does have a shape; and it may not have the particular size it appears to have from such and such a distance (it certainly could not have all the apparent sizes, for that would contradict the assumption of constancy of size), but it does have a size. Those qualities which are in the objects themselves, he called "primary," and those which only characterize our sense-data he called "secondary."

What we know are Ideas, and ideas are what we know. Qualities are what we perceive, and what we perceive are qualities, (properties). The hard part is that many objects are not simple objects consisting of a single quality as a simple idea, but are conceptual manifolds. To know a penny one must know the idea of the penny, but to know it as an idea is to understand what it may seem like in every circumstance, which is every kind of quality it has plus every variable of quality. Pennies are easy. Things in nature like leaves are complex by another magnitude of complexity. How many qualities of color might a leaf demonstrate in time? How might its location or weight or shape or temperature change?

We recognize things by their qualities. When we have recognized enough qualities we imagine what concept the object belongs to, and rightly or wrongly account that we know its character. Do we see things by their qualities? Absolutely, in my opinion, since we see, perceive, qualities. When we understand the nature of our qualities we can compare them as quanitites. When we do not understand them we can still perceive them. If a coin warms to the touch as gold does, or a copper coin does more slowly than gold we can say we undertand something of its character even if the means to objectively compare coins is beyond our ability.

Ultimately complete knowledge is beyond all of us. As we learn more we change the concept we know by, and the process will never be complete. If knowledge is incomplete, and the concept is incomplete it is because our ideas stand far beyond our ability to verify. We always know more than we can prove. Concepts have always outstripped the ability of science to test them for truth, just as insight has always beat knowledge in a fair race.

What is called primary and secondary qualities corespond to objective and subjective judgements about some thing. Yet, since primary qualities rest upon scientific method and instraments resulting from our understanding of individual qualities, they will only be less subjective and more objective.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

What we know are Ideas, and ideas are what we know. Qualities are what we perceive, and what we perceive are qualities, (properties). The hard part is that many objects are not simple objects consisting of a single quality as a simple idea, but are conceptual manifolds. To know a penny one must know the idea of the penny, but to know it as an idea is to understand what it may seem like in every circumstance, which is every kind of quality it has plus every variable of quality. Pennies are easy. Things in nature like leaves are complex by another magnitude of complexity. How many qualities of color might a leaf demonstrate in time? How might its location or weight or shape or temperature change?

We recognize things by their qualities. When we have recognized enough qualities we imagine what concept the object belongs to, and rightly or wrongly account that we know its character. Do we see things by their qualities? Absolutely, in my opinion, since we see, perceive, qualities. When we understand the nature of our qualities we can compare them as quanitites. When we do not understand them we can still perceive them. If a coin warms to the touch as gold does, or a copper coin does more slowly than gold we can say we undertand something of its character even if the means to objectively compare coins is beyond our ability.

Ultimately complete knowledge is beyond all of us. As we learn more we change the concept we know by, and the process will never be complete. If knowledge is incomplete, and the concept is incomplete it is because our ideas stand far beyond our ability to verify. We always know more than we can prove. Concepts have always outstripped the ability of science to test them for truth, just as insight has always beat knowledge in a fair race.

What is called primary and secondary qualities corespond to objective and subjective judgements about some thing. Yet, since primary qualities rest upon scientific method and instraments resulting from our understanding of individual qualities, they will only be less subjective and more objective.

I have never known an Idea in my life, and neither, I must, admit have I ever known a penny, save in the sense that if someone asks me whether I know that penny, meaning, do I recognize that penny. But except in that sense, "knowing a penny" is not a English phrase.

What I do know are true statements or propositions (although, alas!,not all of them). I know, for instance, the statement or proposition that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. I am not at all sure what you mean by the term "idea" (or "Idea" as you spelled it) since that term has a number of meanings. In philosophy it sometimes means something like "concept", and sometimes what has been called a "sense-datum". I do have (I hope) concepts like the concept of a capital of a country, and if there are such entities as sense-data, I suppose I have had a few of those too. But I have never known either a concept or a sense-datum.

Bertrand Russell held that the sense in which I "know" my sense-data (or, I suppose, concepts) is what he called, "knowledge by acquaintance". Namely, I am "acquainted" (aware?) of my concepts and sense-data (if there are any such things).

P.S. I am really not clear what you might mean by "complete knowledge", so I am just guessing. But I guess that I "completely" know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. Do you have any reason to object to that?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

I have never known an Idea in my life, and neither, I must, admit have I ever known a penny, save in the sense that if someone asks me whether I know that penny, meaning, do I recognize that penny. But except in that sense, "knowing a penny" is not a English phrase.

If you can recognize a penny it is because you know a penny, and you know when you grasp the concept, and no one ever completely grasps the concept without objective knowledge of the object in question.

Quote:

What I do know are true statements or propositions (although, alas!,not all of them). I know, for instance, the statement or proposition that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. I am not at all sure what you mean by the term "idea" (or "Idea" as you spelled it) since that term has a number of meanings. In philosophy it sometimes means something like "concept", and sometimes what has been called a "sense-datum". I do have (I hope) concepts like the concept of a capital of a country, and if there are such entities as sense-data, I suppose I have had a few of those too. But I have never known either a concept or a sense-datum.

False. You can make true statements about what you know, but I would argue, that you know more than you can be certain is true. Idea, form, notion, concept, image all sort of point to the same understanding. I don't think people know concepts, but know with concepts. Every word in the dictionary is a concept because each is a bit of knowledge that can be defined and used to build a greater sense of understanding. Was is seldom possible with a dictionary definition is to reference the concept to the reality represented. And, just as with other concepts, each time a word is used it is redefined, so concepts are never complete, and concepts never have all the knowledge each is capable of holding. We can always learn more of finite objective reality.

Quote:

Bertrand Russell held that the sense in which I "know" my sense-data (or, I suppose, concepts) is what he called, "knowledge by acquaintance". Namely, I am "acquainted" (aware?) of my concepts and sense-data (if there are any such things).

For example I learned what identity and conservation were while trying to define them myself without a word. If I had learned the words as a concept, and the definition of the words, I may have been able by aquaintance to identify identity and conservation. I don't think a person gets the concept really until the have seen the object conceptualized as an object in reality. Finite Objective Knowledge is what concepts are made of, and learning the concept before the object is a short cut to knowledge, but by itself does not give anyone the ability to make rational judgements. If a concept means that a person has visited an object before, and made critical judgements in regard to it, then, I, going with information in hand to the same object may learn faster, and take it a step further.

Quote:

P.S. I am really not clear what you might mean by "complete knowledge", so I am just guessing. But I guess that I "completely" know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. Do you have any reason to object to that?

I would suggest that as a sort of meaningless bit of information, by itself. Unless one knows everthing essential to placing Quito on a map and globe and understanding the relationship of capital to other cities, who lives there, why they live there, if there is a there there, where it is from here, and etc. I think it is entirely possible to learn about Quito to the point were one can make true statements in regard to it. No matter how one tries, one will never know all there is to know about Quito, or any other subject. We can know enough. We can know some. And we can know more than we can usually prove. Just as reality overlaps truth completely, as all thing that are true are also real, -truth completely covers knowledge. If we know something it is because it is true whether we can prove it or not. If it is false knowledge it is not knowledge at all. If truth must be verifyable it will always wait on greater knowledge still.

The reality of truth is this: Truth is not always true, and so not always truth because like all concepts it is a form of relationship. Some times to have the relationship we must agree that what is not true is true, even when we know better. If the point of truth is lonliness then tell me another lie. It will be easier to swallow if I wash it down with a beer. File this last part if you find it confusing.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

If you can recognize a penny it is because you know a penny, and you know when you grasp the concept, and no one ever completely grasps the concept without objective knowledge of the object in question.

False. You can make true statements about what you know, but I would argue, that you know more than you can be certain is true. Idea, form, notion, concept, image all sort of point to the same understanding. I don't think people know concepts, but know with concepts. Every word in the dictionary is a concept because each is a bit of knowledge that can be defined and used to build a greater sense of understanding. Was is seldom possible with a dictionary definition is to reference the concept to the reality represented. And, just as with other concepts, each time a word is used it is redefined, so concepts are never complete, and concepts never have all the knowledge each is capable of holding. We can always learn more of finite objective reality.

For example I learned what identity and conservation were while trying to define them myself without a word. If I had learned the words as a concept, and the definition of the words, I may have been able by aquaintance to identify identity and conservation. I don't think a person gets the concept really until the have seen the object conceptualized as an object in reality. Finite Objective Knowledge is what concepts are made of, and learning the concept before the object is a short cut to knowledge, but by itself does not give anyone the ability to make rational judgements. If a concept means that a person has visited an object before, and made critical judgements in regard to it, then, I, going with information in hand to the same object may learn faster, and take it a step further.

I would suggest that as a sort of meaningless bit of information, by itself. Unless one knows everthing essential to placing Quito on a map and globe and understanding the relationship of capital to other cities, who lives there, why they live there, if there is a there there, where it is from here, and etc. I think it is entirely possible to learn about Quito to the point were one can make true statements in regard to it. No matter how one tries, one will never know all there is to know about Quito, or any other subject. We can know enough. We can know some. And we can know more than we can usually prove. Just as reality overlaps truth completely, as all thing that are true are also real, -truth completely covers knowledge. If we know something it is because it is true whether we can prove it or not. If it is false knowledge it is not knowledge at all. If truth must be verifyable it will always wait on greater knowledge still.

The reality of truth is this: Truth is not always true, and so not always truth because like all concepts it is a form of relationship. Some times to have the relationship we must agree that what is not true is true, even when we know better. If the point of truth is lonliness then tell me another lie. It will be easier to swallow if I wash it down with a beer. File this last part if you find it confusing.

I cannot "know" objects save in the sense of recognizing them. What I can know are propositions or statements about objects. For instance, I can know that the ball is red, or that there is a table in the next room. But I cannot "know" a table, nor can I "know" a ball.

I never have claimed to be certain about anything. By "certain" I mean know without the possibility of error. That would amount to infallibility, and I have never claimed to be infallible since "to err is human". But I (and you) know a great many things. I know that water is H20; that Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and, yes, that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. But, again, I do not claim to be absolutely certain about those propositions in the sense that it would be impossible that I should be mistaken about them. However, what I do claim is that I am not mistaken about them, and that my justification for them is sufficient for me to claim that I know them.

I don't have to know "all there is to know about Quito" in order to know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. Indeed, I really have no idea what it would even mean "to know all about Quito" and I suggest that you do not know what that means either. Why do you think that knowing that Quito is a meaningless bit of information? I can't think why you say that. In any case, I don't claim to know what is meaningful (whatever that might be) but I do claim to know many things such as those three propositions I have just listed. (But I think that, for instance, I know that many people were killed in World War 2, and I don't think that anyone believes that is a "meaningless bit of information")

If by "truth is not always true" you mean that true statement are not always true, I am afraid that is a contradiction. True statements are true is a necessary truth. I cannot imagine what you can literally mean when you say that true statements are not always true. That sounds like a bit of poetry to me. It is true that sometimes (I hope not often) we may have (in order to have a "relationship") lie to others. But that unfortunate necessity, (if it exists) surely does not show that true statement are not always true. What it shows is that sometimes we may have to lie and tell others that what is true is not true. I am not sure that I would want to have a "relationship" that required a lie to maintain it.

@Pythagorean,

I think that the trouble lies in what kant calls metaphysics. All of our perceptions combined give us a form of a priori synthetical knowledge. But a priori in the sense that we have seen objects like the one we think we have a priori knowledge of.

A priori knowledge as such only exists in the conditions for our perception (/the conditions for existance?). As such we do have a priori knowledge of quantity, quality, modality and relation. We cannot a priori say what form they will take though.

In that sense we also cannot say that the things we have thought are necessary for an object really are that. It may just as well just be in our heads. Colors are a good example of that. The thought that Grass is grean is true if and only if grass indeed is green. In reality grass only appears green to most of us. People or being with other eyes percieve grass as having a different color.

Therefore I think the question is not what truth is, but is it possible for us to know truth as such?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

I cannot "know" objects save in the sense of recognizing them. What I can know are propositions or statements about objects. For instance, I can know that the ball is red, or that there is a table in the next room. But I cannot "know" a table, nor can I "know" a ball.

How do you recognize objects you don't know? At some point everyone has to say: yes this is the thing I know. In my short spell in the university I had an ATL professor who talked about two men on a train seeing a herd of brown cows. Th first said: Look at the beautiful herd of brown cows! The Second man said: They are only brown on this side.
It is possible that we cannot know anything we cannot see both sides of, but knowledge is also a function of intuition, imagination, and recollection. All of these at once present a picture, or idea in our minds when we recognize something new as something known. Knowledge is judgement, and if you can judge, and not just speak the truth regarding a, or any finite object then you know it. What we do is in regard to reality even if the tool we use to know is the concept. If the concept were not true to reality we could not change reality, and that is something humanity has been doing for a long time. If the question is: Whether our knowledge will ever be complete, so that knowledge means that we know all? The answer is that the knife of investigation can always skin off another layer of reality to reveal the meat below. One generation says they know the tree is green, and the next says why the tree is green and each is as justified in saying they know what they know.

Quote:

I never have claimed to be certain about anything. By "certain" I mean know without the possibility of error. That would amount to infallibility, and I have never claimed to be infallible since "to err is human". But I (and you) know a great many things. I know that water is H20; that Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and, yes, that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. But, again, I do not claim to be absolutely certain about those propositions in the sense that it would be impossible that I should be mistaken about them. However, what I do claim is that I am not mistaken about them, and that my justification for them is sufficient for me to claim that I know them.

I don't have to know "all there is to know about Quito" in order to know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. Indeed, I really have no idea what it would even mean "to know all about Quito" and I suggest that you do not know what that means either. Why do you think that knowing that Quito is a meaningless bit of information? I can't think why you say that. In any case, I don't claim to know what is meaningful (whatever that might be) but I do claim to know many things such as those three propositions I have just listed. (But I think that, for instance, I know that many people were killed in World War 2, and I don't think that anyone believes that is a "meaningless bit of information")

You have already told me almost all I can say I know about Quito, and since I have it on faith, I don't count on it for much. No judgement stands in issolation. No one learns a fact about physics, but learns physics as a scientific discipline. Even systems of belief pretenting to be knowledge stand together for support. I have never, personally learned anything of value as a fact. My education is incomplete. My formal education is minimal. I have only been able to learn by putting every fact as much in relation to every other as possible. If I say I know a little of everything it might sound like I know a lot of nothing. What I think I know is what people know, which is to say, I think I know where human knowledge stands at this moment, and I know what people used to think they knew, and how they thought they knew, and what has changed to the present. If I am a polymath, I am an uneducated one. Knowledge for me is not one specific fact, but knowing how each particular fact relates, which is meaning, as meaning is value. In the example beginning this discussion regarding the penny, if one does not know how the penny relates, and what the penny means, or has no sense of the knowledge of metalurgy involved in its minting, or the economy to which it belongs, its value in relation to other currency; then one does not know enough. Knowledge is not issolated knowledge, but something complete. Knowledge is judgement which involves many aspects of an object, but is not just about the object, but is about all objects. It is as important to ask how do we learn, as how do we know, since beginning with so much hearsay, and suppositions is not very auspicious unless one is blessed witha curious and critical mind.

Quote:

If by "truth is not always true" you mean that true statement are not always true, I am afraid that is a contradiction. True statements are true is a necessary truth. I cannot imagine what you can literally mean when you say that true statements are not always true. That sounds like a bit of poetry to me. It is true that sometimes (I hope not often) we may have (in order to have a "relationship") lie to others. But that unfortunate necessity, (if it exists) surely does not show that true statement are not always true. What it shows is that sometimes we may have to lie and tell others that what is true is not true. I am not sure that I would want to have a "relationship" that required a lie to maintain it.

Do not be afraid, Earthling. My contradictions will not harm you! The truth is not always true -means that truth is a form of relationship as well as a perfect ideal representation of reality. Truth is a social and emotional phenomenon. Everybody feels true just as they feel real, but very often people harbor great contradictions within their lives, -their selves. If you challenge what a person accepts as true you are challenging the person in their emotional home, their soul, if you will. I would consider myself both happy and wise if I could keep all contradictions external to myself.

I pity the poor philosophers, and sceptics, and scientists that dared to tell the truth and died on a pile of cinders. They gave up the only important thing, life, to give to people a non thing, truth, when those people could not give that non thing -truth- a value. I think I would rather have the truth and have my life than have nothing. Truth is only a form. The relationship is essential to our lives even if truth might be essential to the improvement of our lives. I would not tell you to lie. I might tell you to hint at the truth if the truth were something to enrage the population. Just as people look at themselves as true, each should look at the truth as a personal and prized possession. There are only certain people you can share with. If we are coy with the truth then time will tell it for us. If one people disregards the truth another will displace them with the truth. Can you say one does not know when knowledge makes every army victorious?

In terms of human relationship the truth is a fast fish, or a ginger bread man. If you got it fine. It belongs for the moment to the one who owns it, but tomorrow a new truth will supplant your truth, and the treasure you hold so tightly will be sand. Reality is an absolute, and knowledge is relative, and what we can say truly about what we know is very relative and subjective.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

How do you recognize objects you don't know? At some point everyone has to say: yes this is the thing I know. In my short spell in the university I had an ATL professor who talked about two men on a train seeing a herd of brown cows. Th first said: Look at the beautiful herd of brown cows! The Second man said: They are only brown on this side.
It is possible that we cannot know anything we cannot see both sides of, but knowledge is also a function of intuition, imagination, and recollection. All of these at once present a picture, or idea in our minds when we recognize something new as something known. Knowledge is judgement, and if you can judge, and not just speak the truth regarding a, or any finite object then you know it. What we do is in regard to reality even if the tool we use to know is the concept. If the concept were not true to reality we could not change reality, and that is something humanity has been doing for a long time. If the question is: Whether our knowledge will ever be complete, so that knowledge means that we know all? The answer is that the knife of investigation can always skin off another layer of reality to reveal the meat beneith. One generation says they know the tree is green, and the next says why the tree is green and each is as justified in saying they know what they know.

You have already told me almost all I can say I know about Quito, and since I have it on faith I don't count on it for much. No judgement stands in issolation. No one learns a fact about physics, but learns physics as a scientific discipline. Even systems of belief pretenting to be knowledge stand together for support. I have never, personally learned anything of value as a fact. My education is incomplete. My formal education is minimal. I have only been able to learn by putting every fact as much in relation to every other as possible. If I say I know a little of everything it might sound like I know a lot of nothing. What I think I know is what people know, which is to say, I think I know where human knowledge stands at this moment, and I know what people used to think they knew, and howthey thought they knew, and what has changed to the present. If I am a polymath I am an uneducated one. Knowledge for me is not one specific fact, but knowing how each particular fact relates, which is meaning, as meaning is value. In the example beginning this discussion regarding the penny, if one does not know how the penny relates, and what the penny means, or has no sense of the knowledge of metalurgy involved in its minting, or the economy to which it belongs, its value in relation to other currency; then one does not know enough. Knowledge is not issolated knowledge, but something complete. Knowledge is judgement which involves many aspects of an object, but is not just about the object, but is about all objects. It is as important to ask how do we learn, as how do we know, since beginning with so much hearsay, and suppositions is not very auspicious unless one is blessed witha curious and critical mind.

If by "truth is not always true" you mean that true statement are not always true, I am afraid that is a contradiction. True statements are true is a necessary truth. I cannot imagine what you can literally mean when you say that true statements are not always true. That sounds like a bit of poetry to me. It is true that sometimes (I hope not often) we may have (in order to have a "relationship") lie to others. But that unfortunate necessity, (if it exists) surely does not show that true statement are not always true. What it shows is that sometimes we may have to lie and tell others that what is true is not true. I am not sure that I would want to have a "relationship" that required a lie to maintain it.

The truth is not always true means that truth is a form of relationship as well as a perfect ideal representation of reality. Truth is a social and emotional phenomenon. Everybody feels true just as they feel real, but very often people harbor great contradictions within their lives, their selves. If you challenge what a person accepts as true you are challenging the person in their emotional home, their soul, if you will. I would consider myself both happy and wise if I could keep all contradictions external to myself.

I pity the poor philosophers, and sceptics, and scientists that dared to tell the truth and died on a pile of cinders. They gave up the only important thing, life, to give to people a non thing, truth, when those people could not give that non thing truth a value. I think I would rather have the truth and have my life than have nothing. Truth is only a form. The relationship is essential to our lives even if truth might be essential to the improvement of our lives. I would not tell you to lie. I might tell you to hint at the truth if the truth were something to enrage the population. Just as people look at themselves as true, each should look at the truth as a personal and prized possession. There are only certain people you can share with. If we are coy with the truth then time will tell it for us. If one people disregards the truth another will displace them with the truth. Can you say one does not know when knowledge makes every army victorious?

In terms of human relationship the truth is a fast fish, or a ginger bread man. If you got it fine. It belongs for the moment to the one who owns it, but tomorrow a new truth will supplant your truth, and the treasure you hold so tightly will be sand.[/quote]

In the example beginning this discussion regarding the penny, if one does not know how the penny relates, and what the penny means, or has no sense of the knowledge of metalurgy involved in its minting, or the economy to which it belongs, its value in relation to other currency; then one does not know enough.

I know enough to know that a penny is a coin, for instance. And that in U.S. currency it is worth 1/100th of a dollar. I know many things about pennies. And so do you. But I do not have to know everything there is to know about a penny (and I have no idea what that would be, and neither do you) in order to know quite a few things about pennies. In fact, I don't have to know everything there is to know about anything (if, indeed, the phrase, "Everything known about X" has any clear meaning) in order to know many things about it. What we can claim to know is limited by context. In most contexts we confine what we can be said to know about something to what, in that context, it is important to know. For instance, I do not have to know anything about metallurgy, in order to know a great deal about pennies in the context of what a penny is worth.

Your views about what knowledge is, are confused with a certain picture you seem to have about what knowledge should be. You think that unless one knows all, one cannot know some (or at least the "some" is insignificant) But that would imply that no one could know something, since, it is clear that no one can know everything. But that no one can know something is false. So the view that no one can know unless he knows everything must be false. Another part of the picture you seem to have about knowledge is that unless one is absolutely certain (where that means, "cannot be mistaken") one does not know at all. But that also seems to be false. For I know that, for instance, Quito is the capital of Ecuador, but although I am not mistaken about that, I can see how I might be mistaken about that. (The confusion is between the truth that if I know, I am not mistaken, with the falsity that if I know, I cannot be mistaken).

What is ideal is one thing, what is real is another thing. (Although Plato confused the two). And the rejection of the real because it is not ideal is an ancient philosophical error, which is not less an error for being ancient.

@kennethamy,

Quote:

kennethamy wrote:
The truth is not always true means that truth is a form of relationship as well as a perfect ideal representation of reality. Truth is a social and emotional phenomenon. Everybody feels true just as they feel real, but very often people harbor great contradictions within their lives, their selves. If you challenge what a person accepts as true you are challenging the person in their emotional home, their soul, if you will. I would consider myself both happy and wise if I could keep all contradictions external to myself.

I pity the poor philosophers, and sceptics, and scientists that dared to tell the truth and died on a pile of cinders. They gave up the only important thing, life, to give to people a non thing, truth, when those people could not give that non thing truth a value. I think I would rather have the truth and have my life than have nothing. Truth is only a form. The relationship is essential to our lives even if truth might be essential to the improvement of our lives. I would not tell you to lie. I might tell you to hint at the truth if the truth were something to enrage the population. Just as people look at themselves as true, each should look at the truth as a personal and prized possession. There are only certain people you can share with. If we are coy with the truth then time will tell it for us. If one people disregards the truth another will displace them with the truth. Can you say one does not know when knowledge makes every army victorious?

In terms of human relationship the truth is a fast fish, or a ginger bread man. If you got it fine. It belongs for the moment to the one who owns it, but tomorrow a new truth will supplant your truth, and the treasure you hold so tightly will be sand.

In the example beginning this discussion regarding the penny, if one does not know how the penny relates, and what the penny means, or has no sense of the knowledge of metalurgy involved in its minting, or the economy to which it belongs, its value in relation to other currency; then one does not know enough.

I know enough to know that a penny is a coin, for instance. And that in U.S. currency it is worth 1/100th of a dollar. I know many things about pennies. And so do you. But I do not have to know everything there is to know about a penny (and I have no idea what that would be, and neither do you) in order to know quite a few things about pennies. In fact, I don't have to know everything there is to know about anything (if, indeed, the phrase, "Everything known about X" has any clear meaning) in order to know many things about it. What we can claim to know is limited by context. In most contexts we confine what we can be said to know about something to what, in that context, it is important to know. For instance, I do not have to know anything about metallurgy, in order to know a great deal about pennies in the context of what a penny is worth.

Your views about what knowledge is, are confused with a certain picture you seem to have about what knowledge should be. You think that unless one knows all, one cannot know some (or at least the "some" is insignificant) But that would imply that no one could know something, since, it is clear that no one can know everything. But that no one can know something is false. So the view that no one can know unless he knows everything must be false. Another part of the picture you seem to have about knowledge is that unless one is absolutely certain (where that means, "cannot be mistaken") one does not know at all. But that also seems to be false. For I know that, for instance, Quito is the capital of Ecuador, but although I am not mistaken about that, I can see how I might be mistaken about that. (The confusion is between the truth that if I know, I am not mistaken, with the falsity that if I know, I cannot be mistaken).

What is ideal is one thing, what is real is another thing. (Although Plato confused the two). And the rejection of the real because it is not ideal is an ancient philosophical error, which is not less an error for being ancient.

@Fido,

If you knew only one thing you would know nothing. Knowledge is judgement, and to judge one must have other knowledge to judge by. To say some true thing about some strange object is meaningless unless you, with knowledge, are talking to me as some one with knowledge as well; in particular: The meaning of words. You say: The table top is hard and flat. What is hard and flat? Where is the meaning if not ultimately in sense and experience, then in judgement, and then in the ability to communicate the judgement in forms of meaning. Knowledge, like a truth, is a form of relationship, not only between external reality and external reality, but between external reality and conceptual, internal reality; and then between people who relate through the forms of knowledge and experience.[/quote]

If you knew only one thing you would know nothing.

But that is an obvious contradiction. If you knew only one thing, you would not know nothing, you would know that one thing. You cannot both know nothing, and know one thing.

It may be that I have to know other things to know something, but that means only, that if I know something I know other things, not that if I know only one thing, then I know nothing.

You just toss about the term "meaningless" as if it was clear what it means. You probably mean by "meaningless" insignificant, or unimportant, but not "incomprehensible".If I know only that Bigfoot is a large creature, and nothing else about Bigfoot, I do know something. Perhaps not in your opinion significant, but still I know something about Bigfoot.

I am sorry, but I do not know what "conceptual internal reality" is. I agree that for me to know that the table is brown, I must have the concepts of table and brown, but so what? I can still know that the table is brown without knowing anything else.

@kennethamy,

Quote:

kennethamy wrote:
If you knew only one thing you would know nothing. Knowledge is judgement, and to judge one must have other knowledge to judge by. To say some true thing about some strange object is meaningless unless you, with knowledge, are talking to me as some one with knowledge as well; in particular: The meaning of words. You say: The table top is hard and flat. What is hard and flat? Where is the meaning if not ultimately in sense and experience, then in judgement, and then in the ability to communicate the judgement in forms of meaning. Knowledge, like a truth, is a form of relationship, not only between external reality and external reality, but between external reality and conceptual, internal reality; and then between people who relate through the forms of knowledge and experience.

If you knew only one thing you would know nothing.

But that is an obvious contradiction. If you knew only one thing, you would not know nothing, you would know that one thing. You cannot both know nothing, and know one thing.

[/quote]
Maybe a contradiction; but more an exageration bent on illustration.
If you think about when you may have known nothing; how did you reach that point of knowing something, -and all you know today? It is a question of learning more than knowing. We can know, and the proof of this is in that we can do, affect our environment with our knowledge. But, how do we learn and how do we know? Knowledge, like learning is a form of relationship, and of course, I say this about all things as something I have learned. We do not know as individuals. We do not experience truth as individuals. We do experience phenomenon as individuals. But if I may, let me direct your attention to how you learned as a child. Some one once said that if we taught the ABCs like we teach other subjects no one would ever learn to read. But ABCs are taught like all things children are taught, by rote, and repetition. Why? Children are not taught, but trained or conditioned. Why?

There is no logical process involved in a child's learning. Everything is given by society, so that our reference points are given before we reach the stage of conscious learning. What we are given by society is always far more than we can discover as individuals. So we cannot say we learn when we learn on our own without putting it into perspective with all we have learned from society. Since we never exactly know only one thing any more than we can know nothing then what I said was not a contradiction as much as a logical impossibility. The truth is that knowledge is cumulative, built in part on a predisposition to learn, but also upon many facts given to us before we have the mental ability to reason. Yet, even as adults we cannot learn, and so know, any phenomenon that are not repetitive. We do not learn everything we see in a day, nor every emotion we feel because they are transitory. If they would repeat we could take some lesson from them, and know: At such and such a time tomorrow I will see this, or feel that; and that knowledge would constitute a conception.

An action state is essential to learning too, and that is context: What was going on when you were learning. An action state can be almost anything; a scent, a sound, a feeling that occured while you were focused. But my main point here is that no knowledge is isolated from all other knowledge, and when we know it is social knowledge based almost entirely on what humanity knows. As soon as you learn humanity knows, and you know with it.

Quote:

It may be that I have to know other things to know something, but that means only, that if I know something I know other things, not that if I know only one thing, then I know nothing.

Forgive me friend. I have found that if I can get some one to look twice at what I write that I have a better chance of getting them to think once about it.

Quote:

You just toss about the term "meaningless" as if it was clear what it means. You probably mean by "meaningless" insignificant, or unimportant, but not "incomprehensible".If I know only that Bigfoot is a large creature, and nothing else about Bigfoot, I do know something. Perhaps not in your opinion significant, but still I know something about Bigfoot.

I am sorry, but I do not know what "conceptual internal reality" is. I agree that for me to know that the table is brown, I must have the concepts of table and brown, but so what? I can still know that the table is brown without knowing anything else.

If we approach a table whether we know the table in advance, or can describe the table to a t or not; when we get to the table and examine it we may find that the table is a sense orchestration that we can conduct as we please and play over as often as we wish and in what ever order. We forget that as children we could take the time to do just this: to examine life in microscopia, and find something new at every visit. The table top is flat. This is something our hands and our eyes can tell us; but 'flat' is given to us as a meaning long before we know it as a sense experience at this given table. So you must ask: Would I know the color of the table was brown if I did not know what brown was as a color? Go to the store to pick out paint with your wife, and you will find colors you did not know ever existed. Did they exist in your mind as knowledge before you had the word to associate with them? Knowledge requires repetiton, because conceptualization requires repetition; but then it also needs association, and this is the begining of meaning: context. Then all things we know require an emotional significance. We remember our embarassments. We remember what startles us, frightens us, or makes us happy. We remember the faces of those we love and those we fear. Knowledge is remembered. This internal conceptual reality is knowledge in relation to what we already know, and in relation to how we feel, as emotions are -who we are. So, even though knowledge is social, and comes to us almost entirely discovered and proved, it is also individual; and a very personal experience. It does not matter what the rest of the world knows. We do not give full credit for the source or the purpose of knowledge. We say: I Know! Yet, No one ever knows alone.

@Fido,

Maybe a contradiction; but more an exageration bent on illustration.
If you think about when you may have known nothing; how did you reach that point of knowing something, -and all you know today? It is a question of learning more than knowing. We can know, and the proof of this is in that we can do, affect our environment with our knowledge. But, how do we learn and how do we know? Knowledge, like learning is a form of relationship, and of course, I say this about all things as something I have learned. We do not know as individuals. We do not experience truth as individuals. We do experience phenomenon as individuals. But if I may, let me direct your attention to how you learned as a child. Some one once said that if we taught the ABCs like we teach other subjects no one would ever learn to read. But ABCs are taught like all things children are taught, by rote, and repetition. Why? Children are not taught, but trained or conditioned. Why?

There is no logical process involved in a child's learning. Everything is given by society, so that our reference points are given before we reach the stage of conscious learning. What we are given by society is always far more than we can discover as individuals. So we cannot say we learn when we learn on our own without putting it into perspective with all we have learned from society. Since we never exactly know only one thing any more than we can know nothing then what I said was not a contradiction as much as a logical impossibility. The truth is that knowledge is cumulative, built in part on a predisposition to learn, but also upon many facts given to us before we have the mental ability to reason. Yet, even as adults we cannot learn, and so know, any phenomenon that are not repetitive. We do not learn everything we see in a day, nor every emotion we feel because they are transitory. If they would repeat we could take some lesson from them, and know: At such and such a time tomorrow I will see this, or feel that; and that knowledge would constitute a conception.

An action state is essential to learning too, and that is context: What was going on when you were learning. An action state can be almost anything; a scent, a sound, a feeling that occured while you were focused. But my main point here is that no knowledge is isolated from all other knowledge, and when we know it is social knowledge based almost entirely on what humanity knows. As soon as you learn humanity knows, and you know with it.

Forgive me friend. I have found that if I can get some one to look twice at what I write that I have a better chance of getting them to think once about it.

If we approach a table whether we know the table in advance, or can describe the table to a t or not; when we get to the table and examine it we may find that the table is a sense orchestration that we can conduct as we please and play over as often as we wish and in what ever order. We forget that as children we could take the time to do just this: to examine life in microscopia, and find something new at every visit. The table top is flat. This is something our hands and our eyes can tell us; but 'flat' is given to us as a meaning long before we know it as a sense experience at this given table. So you must ask: Would I know the color of the table was brown if I did not know what brown was as a color? Go to the store to pick out paint with your wife, and you will find colors you did not know ever existed. Did they exist in your mind as knowledge before you had the word to associate with them? Knowledge requires repetiton, because conceptualization requires repetition; but then it also needs association, and this is the begining of meaning: context. Then all things we know require an emotional significance. We remember our embarassments. We remember what startles us, frightens us, or makes us happy. We remember the faces of those we love and those we fear. Knowledge is remembered. This internal conceptual reality is knowledge in relation to what we already know, and in relation to how we feel, as emotions are -who we are. So, even though knowledge is social, and comes to us almost entirely discovered and proved, it is also individual; and a very personal experience. It does not matter what the rest of the world knows. We do not give full credit for the source or the purpose of knowledge. We say: I Know! Yet, No one ever knows alone.[/quote]

I know things only against a background of other things that I know. That is true. But that does not mean that the background must be of all knowledge. I do not have to know everything (whatever that would come to) in order to know something. Enough (as they say) is as good as a feast. Again I point out that your depiction of knowledge is that of some ideal, not of a reality. Knowledge need not be (and cannot be) universal. And knowledge need not be, and cannot be, certain.

@kennethamy,

Yes, I think that if were possible to divide reality into two pieces along one line it would be the line dividing what is known from what is not known. The vast majority of what any person knows is common knowledge, common to humanity, common to every nation, and common to ones community and ones time. We have our personal experiences but learn by those nearest to us how to give them meaning. We have our language for which no one has to create a vocabulary. If we get lost some one will show us the way for every path is worn. At the beginning of our knowledge, it is all given. Do we ever ask if A is A, or if A says A? We accept because we do not know, and can know only because we accept. Knowledge is culture. Knowledge is morals and virtues. Human life is a bank of knowledge, and it is for this reason that every death is a tragedy for the living, because We cannot know what the dead know. We can't know their living history. We can ask them what the have endured and how they managed. When we learn, it is because we know, and it does not matter how much is taken on faith, as that faith is not only the past of mankind but our future. Here is the place of the living person. It is some great thing if each learns to survive, and better if one can learn something new; but best of all is to understand, for this is a thing not even a mountain of dead from days past can do.

@Fido,

I would like to add here for the benefit of visitors a portion of text from the Wiki entry on Transcendental Idealism:

Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant presents it as the point of view which holds that our experience of things is about how they appear to us, not about those things as they are in and of themselves.

[CENTER]. . .[/CENTER]

Perhaps the best way to approach transcendental idealism is by looking at Kant's account of how we intuit (Ge: anschauen) objects. What's relevant here is that space and time, rather than being real things-in-themselves or empirically mediated appearances (Ge: Erscheinungen), are the very forms of intuition (Ge: Anschauung) by which we must perceive objects. They are hence neither to be considered properties that we may attribute to objects in perceiving them, nor substantial entities of themselves. They are in that sense subjective, yet necessary preconditions of any given object insofar as this object is an appearance and not a thing-in-itself. Humans necessarily perceive objects spatially and temporally. This is part of what it means for a human to cognize an object, to perceive it as something both spatial and temporal. These are all claims Kant argues for in the section of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled the Transcendental Aesthetic. This section is devoted to the inquiry of the a priori conditions of (human) sensibility, i.e. the faculty by which objects are apprehended.

[CENTER]. . .[/CENTER]

Kant succinctly defined transcendental idealism in this way:[INDENT][E]verything intuited or perceived in space and time, and therefore all objects of a possible experience, are nothing but phenomenal appearances, that is, mere representations, which in the way in which they are represented to us, as extended beings, or as series of changes, have no independent, self-subsistent existence apart from our thoughts.[/INDENT][INDENT]- Critique of Pure Reason, A491[/INDENT]

With regard to the adjective "transcendental" itself, Kant defined it in the following way when he used it to describe knowledge:[INDENT]"I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects, even before we experience them."[/INDENT][INDENT]- Critique of Pure Reason, A12[/INDENT]And In the first edition of the Critique, Kant stated:

"However exaggerated and absurd it may sound, to say that the understanding is itself the source of the laws of nature, . . . such an assertion is none the less correct." (Transcendental Deduction, Section 3).

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

I would like to add here for the benefit of visitors a portion of text from the Wiki entry on Transcendental Idealism:

Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant presents it as the point of view which holds that our experience of things is about how they appear to us, not about those things as they are in and of themselves.

[CENTER]. . .[/CENTER]

Perhaps the best way to approach transcendental idealism is by looking at Kant's account of how we intuit (Ge: anschauen) objects. What's relevant here is that space and time, rather than being real things-in-themselves or empirically mediated appearances (Ge: Erscheinungen), are the very forms of intuition (Ge: Anschauung) by which we must perceive objects. They are hence neither to be considered properties that we may attribute to objects in perceiving them, nor substantial entities of themselves. They are in that sense subjective, yet necessary preconditions of any given object insofar as this object is an appearance and not a thing-in-itself. Humans necessarily perceive objects spatially and temporally. This is part of what it means for a human to cognize an object, to perceive it as something both spatial and temporal. These are all claims Kant argues for in the section of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled the Transcendental Aesthetic. This section is devoted to the inquiry of the a priori conditions of (human) sensibility, i.e. the faculty by which objects are apprehended.

[CENTER]. . .[/CENTER]

Kant succinctly defined transcendental idealism in this way:[INDENT][E]verything intuited or perceived in space and time, and therefore all objects of a possible experience, are nothing but phenomenal appearances, that is, mere representations, which in the way in which they are represented to us, as extended beings, or as series of changes, have no independent, self-subsistent existence apart from our thoughts.[/INDENT][INDENT]- Critique of Pure Reason, A491[/INDENT]

With regard to the adjective "transcendental" itself, Kant defined it in the following way when he used it to describe knowledge:[INDENT]"I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects, even before we experience them."[/INDENT][INDENT]- Critique of Pure Reason, A12[/INDENT]And In the first edition of the Critique, Kant stated:

"However exaggerated and absurd it may sound, to say that the understanding is itself the source of the laws of nature, . . . such an assertion is none the less correct." (Transcendental Deduction, Section 3).

I like the way Kant explains things; but I must disagree. First with this last statement, since nature has its own logic and what we call logical only follows nature. Second, I say that what we sense has its own being, but what it lacks apart from our thoughts is meaning. And third: that space and time are subjective since we occupy space, and are time. We live, we are life which is a special form of matter that exists in time, and manipulates matter in space. Normally these quasi concepts only give subjective context to reality, but to people they are the only objective reality.
Look up what Kant says of transendental imagination. If I understand his point, it is how we recognize phenomenon as fitting into a catagory without having the whole finite object in our hands. We cannot possibly see things whole; or their whole nature. We sense a part that stands for the whole, and with imagination and a portion of the object we transend to a sense of the whole. This is the quality that allows our reference to God or existence as real concepts, as wholes when they are infinites.

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

I would like to add here for the benefit of visitors a portion of text from the Wiki entry on Transcendental Idealism:

Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant presents it as the point of view which holds that our experience of things is about how they appear to us, not about those things as they are in and of themselves.

[CENTER]. . .[/CENTER]

Although of course it is true that our experience of things is how they appear to us, after all, how could it possibly be otherwise, so that is a trivial truism, Kant wants to say that how things appear to us is not how they are "in themselves". For, he claims that things are entirely different as they are "in themselves" from the way we experience them. Now, it is, of course, a common feature of our lives that we sometimes experience things as they are not really. We commonly make mistakes of perception. We may believe that there is a cat in the corner of the room, but when we shine a light on that place, and come closer, we find that what we believed was a cat, turned out to be an old boot. But Kant is not talking about that kind of thing, although he is clearly inspired by that kind of thing. For although we do make mistakes of perception like the one I just described, we can, as I also described, correct those mistakes by means of perception, only better perception. But Kant is saying that there is a kind of universal error of perception we all make which it is impossible for us to correct, since perception itself is infected. Kant says that whatever it is there is in the corner, even if we determine it is an old boot and not a cat, nevertheless, we are mistaken to think it is an old boot. But what it truly is, "in itself" independent of any possible experience we can have of it, we cannot know. It is, to adapt the words or a different philosopher, John Locke, it is a something "we know not what". For our only understanding of what it is can be through our experiences, but we have just seen that what it is "in itself" is not available to us by means of experience. So, according to Kant, we are stuck in invincible ignorance.

Now, let us suppose when we hear this story told by Kant that we nod our heads and say, "well yes, that may be so". We are ignorant of how things are "in themselves". But, even if this may be so, has Kant given us any reason to think that it is so? That fact (if it is one) that it is possible does not mean that it is true, after all. Does Kant give us any reason to think that his story is true?

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

I like the way Kant explains things; but I must disagree. First with this last statement, since nature has its own logic and what we call logical only follows nature.

I disagree with you here on the grounds that as humans we do in fact correspond to nature and any opinion that nature posesses an independent logic must rest soley upon the points of it with which we correspond. For example, our physical bodies are part of nature and understanding one gives to us also an understanding of the other. And since it is true that we do things with or use our physical bodies via the operation of our minds, then it is fair to say that we also do things with or use nature via the operation of our minds. In this sense nature also 'follows' our logic. If the plurality that's found in nature is to be understood or related in any way it can only be so by way of intelligible intellectual processes and not brute or blind empirical terms.

What I mean here is it can not be proven that nature posesses its own independent logic anymore than it can be proven that there exist absolute things as time and space. Nature corresponds with our minds and vice versa through the understanding, through the natural order of things. We can not imagine or conceptualize nature as existing without perception - and I would say there is a definite state of equality between that which is perceived by us in nature and that which is thought to be perceived i.e. an intelligible equality of relations exists between thought and the physical world.

Schopenhauer expressed it more generally as "no object without a subject." That is, it is impossible for something to be an object of human conception without its being conceived by a human subject. As Berkeley put it, any attempt to conceive of perceptual objects as existing "without the mind" requires "that you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy. When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the whole contemplating our own ideas" (Principles of Human Knowledge, Section 23).

Fido wrote:

And third: that space and time are subjective since we occupy space, and are time. We live, we are life which is a special form of matter that exists in time, and manipulates matter in space. Normally these quasi concepts only give subjective context to reality, but to people they are the only objective reality.

That's quaint, but I think the basic point is that we do not occupy space and time; or more specifically all of us together and indeed the whole universe (whatever that is) are said to occupy one space or one point about space and one point about time. What I mean is that motion is illusory, or that's the way that I interpret the philosophy. There is no space or time because these things are transcendental appearances.

I would even argue that each of the spaces that we all occupy is really the same space, or the same non-space, if you will. When we walk forward into a different room, for example, we are actually occupying the same exact (non-)space as before as we merely displace "energies," as the phenomenologists might say, or conserve the total perception of motion. Do we move through the world or does the world move through us? I think it's a fair question because we can't conceive of absolute time without an individual instance of time and we can't conceive of absolute space without an example of it; therefore I would argue, they don't exist as such. Because who are we if we are not natural and what is nature when it perceives itself but symmetrical and uniform? If it is intelligible or intelligibly connected, I would argue, then it remains unmoved.

Fido wrote:

Look up what Kant says of transendental imagination. If I understand his point, it is how we recognize phenomenon as fitting into a catagory without having the whole finite object in our hands. We cannot possibly see things whole; or their whole nature. We sense a part that stands for the whole, and with imagination and a portion of the object we transend to a sense of the whole. This is the quality that allows our reference to God or existence as real concepts, as wholes when they are infinites.

Well said. Smile

But it seems to me that we can either let the physical world go and try to see the whole by abstracting the truth or remain blinded by what 'the many' think are realities.

What we recognize in the phenomena or its abstract, causal relationships is something that is not an emprical object in nature, what we recognize in the mere phenomena is something that is eternally motionless yet intelligible. We call it truth. And furthermore our method of ascending to it is through contemplation, stillness, uniformity and simplicity; the virtue of philosophy.

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