Atla wrote: ↑Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:21 pm
Phenomena = appearances, and noumena = things-in-themselves, so far so good (if I understood correctly).
But did he understand that technically and objectively, all phenomena are noumena (the noumena in the human head)? So some of the noumenon is directly 'knowable'.
I studied Kant's CPR full time for 3 years so I know Kant reasonably well.
Phenomena [empirical] are constituted by various elements and 'appearances' is one of those constituents.
Is it well known appearances of a thing [object] is very subjective to the subject's mind, so the quest is what is the real thing that is not dependent on appearances and other subjective elements [the realist position].
Note the Problem re the Correspondence Theory of Truth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspon ... y_of_truth
In a quest of this sort, it is inevitable one will be chasing turtles all the way thus to nowhere.
To stop from chasing turtles all the way, Kant propose we
assume [with reasonable justifications] the ultimate real empirical thing is the noumenon. This 'noumenon' will be like a ceiling concept to stop endless speculation so that one can gather a reasonably complete knowledge what is an an empirical thing.
Kant's intention for the noumenon is merely an assumption and limitation to a partial stage to his thesis, thus not to confirm there is something or an object in the positive sense.
- The Concept of a Noumenon is thus a merely limiting Concept, the Function of which is to curb the pretensions of Sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment.
At the same time it [Noumenon] is no arbitrary invention; it is Bound up with the Limitation of Sensibility, though it [Noumenon] cannot affirm anything Positive beyond the Field of Sensibility.
CPR - B311
Note 'field of sensibility' is the empirical world.
Once Kant has exhausted justifying what is the empirical, he shifted the
concept of the noumenon [empirical assumption] to the
idea of thing-in-itself within the sphere of thoughts and reason [the Understanding], i.e. that of ideas.
Here is where Kant demonstrated how theists jumped off [are duped] from ungrounded sensibility to reify the idea [thing-in-itself] as a real God when in fact this is merely an illusion, i.e. a transcendental illusion.
- There will therefore be Syllogisms which contain no Empirical premisses, and by means of which we conclude from something which we know to something else [thing-in-itself] of which we have no Concept, and to which, owing to an inevitable Illusion, we yet ascribe Objective Reality.
These conclusions are, then, rather to be called pseudo-Rational 2 than Rational, although in view of their Origin they may well lay claim to the latter title, since they are not fictitious and have not arisen fortuitously, but have sprung from the very Nature of Reason.
They [things-in-themselves] are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself. Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them. After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the Illusion [thing-in-itself], which unceasingly mocks and torments him.
B397
In the last statement, there is an implication of psychology involved in the above.
The conclusion from Kant is there is no real noumenon and no real thing-in-itself.
What Kant concluded is reality is conditioned upon the human condition [psychology involved] as when he first hypothesized in his Copernican Revolution, i.e.
- We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of Metaphysics, if we suppose that Objects must conform to our Knowledge.
..
We should then be proceeding precisely on the lines of Copernicus' primary Hypothesis. 1
Failing of satisfactory progress of explaining the movements of the heavenly bodies on the supposition that they all revolved round the spectator, he tried whether he might not have better success if he made the spectator to revolve and the stars to remain at rest. (B xvi)