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Thu 27 Dec, 2007 11:12 pm
Subject: A being who experiences an object
Object: The things experienced
Good definitions? probably not. Use this for sake of argument: I am the subject and everything I experience are objects. Kant says that the world I experience is shaped by my mind. I receive information about the world outside of me through my faculty of sensibility. This faculty has certain rules that it uses to organize the world, specifically the intuitions space and time. After these objects come into my mind through my sensibility, they are further organized by understanding through the concepts that the understanding possesses (the categories).
Now, these are not the external objects themselves that I come to know, they are merely representation of the actual external objects. I never experience the external objects directly, I only experience the external objects through my sensibility and understanding. The knowledge I come to have of the external objects are only representations because I cannot have the physical objects in my mind, I can only have the representations of them that my mind creates through my sensibility and understanding.
Now the fundamental question: Are the representations objects also? I know they are not the external objects themselves, but they are the objects of my experience (in fact, they would be the only objects I can know). From this, one must conclude that experience is completely subjective, since I am the subject that creates the objects (I create the objects (representations) because my sensibility and understanding build the objects (representations) from the external objects experienced through the sensibility, which imparts the intuitions space and time, and the understanding, which organizes the sense data according to the categories).
Now, questions I need help with:
1) Am I correct in my survey? If I am not, where did I go wrong.
2) If I am correct, does this create a new subject-object problem? It obviously destroys Descartes subject-object problem, because the objects are no longer separated from us, they are part of us.
3) Again, if I am correct, do we now have three definitions: The subject, the external objects, and the objects that are my representations?
@de Silentio,
After further research, I found that my whole post can be proven wrong by showing that Kant is not a 'Representationalist'. I have interpreted Kant this way from the beginning, but I may be wrong.
However, I have found arguments on both sides. Does anyone have insight into this?
@de Silentio,
By assuming that experience is completely subjective do you mean to say that there is no way of proving there is an logical basis for the substance that you experience? If so, there should be no way for you to explain causality or to make judgements based on experience, acording to Kant. The fact that you are able to do so indicates some sort of objective reality. If I misinterpreted what you said ignore this post
Either way, interesting take on the subject-object problem!
@Edvin,
Edvin wrote:By assuming that experience is completely subjective do you mean to say that there is no way of proving there is an logical basis for the substance that you experience? If so, there should be no way for you to explain causality or to make judgements based on experience, acording to Kant. The fact that you are able to do so indicates some sort of objective reality. If I misinterpreted what you said ignore this post
Either way, interesting take on the subject-object problem!
Unforunatly I had to put Kant down until this semester of school is over, which really bums me out.
From what I understand, we are the producers of the objective reality, subjectively. Since it is our minds that produce the matter that is outside of us (the phenomena).
The problem with Philosophy is that if you set it down for any time period, it starts to fade away. I will point you to the MIT opencourseware site on Kant. It is basically the outline for the Kant class at MIT, complete with course notes. Try these on for size:
http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-201Fall-2005/B7961313-B9DE-45DF-BD8C-53C16384AE77/0/14_refutations.pdf
Also, the home for the Kant site is:
MIT OpenCourseWare | Linguistics and Philosophy | 24.201 Topics in the History of Philosophy: Kant, Fall 2005 | Home
I cannot wait until I have time to study philosophy again, because I will be jumping right back into Kant. When this happens (end of April), I hope to have great conversations with you. Till then, I will only be able to give short, reletively uninformed answers.
@de Silentio,
I would say that the impression of the object can be considered an object only in a meaningless way. I mean there is an object reality and then there is your observation conveyed to you through stimuli. The stimuli is object only in that it is a means of conveyance. Lets say you see a tree, the tree is conveyed to you by the light that reflects off of it and is precieved by your eyes. The light is real but it has no meaning until it reacts with the object and the subject. Again, the perception of the light could be construed as an object in the form of changes in your visual cortex but the changes on your visual cortex is just a reaction to stimuli so it really has little meaning as an object.
It doesn't matter though because an object has no meaning until it is subjected to observation. By this I mean that whatever the tree is beyond my peception of it has no meaning to me. Not to say that I should quit investigaing all the many aspects of the tree, naturally and scientifically. If I look at the tree with X-rays or infrared light I might learn more than with the natural eye, but these examinations are still subjective perceptions of an object.
Abstract concepts that have no external reality can then only be real in that they exist in the mind. Pain, fear, and other intangible concepts are real only in that they are conditions in us. They are not conveyed from an object. That is as far as I can go in calling a perception an object reality.
I get the feeling I'm out on a limb and the branch is cracking. I'm not sure I really know what I'm talking about.
@de Silentio,
Ogden, don't sell yourself short, you are doing very well. So well in fact that I will have to spend my 2 hours of free time tomorrow thinking up a response. I wish I could tonight, but time doesn't permit.
I am curious as to how you came to this conclusion. I sense some Kantian philosophy in your post (perhaps because he the last philosopher I studied). But it seems as though you took Kant to a new level (perhaps some existentialism or postmodernism?) I know I shouldn't ask this question, but your post impresses my feable mind.
@de Silentio,
Hello De Silentio, and thank you. I hold you and so many others in this forum in such high regard. I love the really great arguments and the deep understanding you all seem to have about other philosophers and history.
I never read Kant. I'm reading an old text book "History of philosophy vol. 6 by Ryan. It discusses some great stuff like St. Anselms ontological argument, Sartre's unifying/ailianating Third, and unity succession and identity in Hume. This book also has a section on subjectivity, facts and values with discussion of Isreal Shefflers "Science and Subjectivity". I read some Descart online but found his ontological argument weak. I have read book one and am now reading book three of the Daniel J. Boorstin trilogy "The Seekers". Boorstin is a fantasic writer and historian.
The classic philosophical arguments are all new to me and I plan on a continued path of study that ballances this forum and reading. Some of the greats I want to read include Hume, Kant, Whitehead, Lebniz, but I will just follow my interests and buy used books when I find them.
Thanks again and I look forward to your posts:D
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