Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

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Conde Lucanor
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 11:52 am If you researched into Kant's work, as I had said there are two 'main' camps.
What is the issue where I agree more with one camp from the other?
There are many camps in which Kant's scholarship can be divided depending on many criteria. One criterion that is not one of those is what you agree with and what you don't.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 11:52 am I never said "Humans exist, but ultimately they actually don't exist."
Humans do exist as empirical objects or entities.
Humans do not exist as non-spatiotemporal objects such as souls that can survives physical death.
There you go again. You have said once again that flesh and bone humans exist, but ultimately they actually don't exist as mind-independent objects.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 5:10 am I raised the above OP to support my point [within the discussion in the Ethical Theory section] that there is no fact-in-itself, thus no moral-fact-in-itself.
What could make morality objective? by Peter Holmes
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24601

Since there are no moral-fact-in-itself, the moral-fact-deniers are merely denying an illusion.
Since there are no moral-fact-in-itself, what we have are moral-fact-in-FSK, i.e. human-based moral "facts".

Obviously I know the answer and is confident one cannot Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists.
Therefore there is no moral-fact-in-itself, and so the moral-fact-deniers are merely denying an illusion.
Whatever the circumstances around posting the OP, the problem stated in the OP is concerned only with the existence of an independent reality-in-itself, and asks about proofs of it. Just aim and shoot, it says. And then places Kant as the goalkeeper. The problem is Kant doesn't have much to do with that task.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 5:10 am
Of course, the OP is so eager to show that an independent reality does not exist that it forgot that Kant himself did not and could not take that ontological commitment.
It is clear in the text of the CPR, Kant rejected the traditional sense of ontology.
Did you read the article you referenced earlier, i.e.
Transcendental Idealism and Ontological Agnosticism

Therein Mcwherter acknowledged Kant rejected traditional ontology but he countered Kant was not successful with his claims in his TI arguments in the CPR.
That's the whole point, if you reject ontology, you're not committed to make ontological claims. But here you are, committed to ontological claims, and saying Kant is your partner on this.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 5:10 am I have read the whole article thoroughly and Mcwherter's conclusion is based on his failure to understand Kant's CPR fully since he was restrained by his rigid dogmatic transcendental realistic perspective.
That's your standard claim against anything critical of Kant and the CPR, but it has been shown that it is you who doesn't get Kant correctly.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

The existence of the soul after death does not contradict it moving from one context of existence to another. The emptiness of the soul on it's own terms necessitates it as a state which transitions from one context to another and as surviving through newer contexts. It exists through contexts and as the contexts change so does the state of the soul.

The survival of the soul after death is the transition of being from one dimension to another.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 10:27 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 5:14 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 12:51 pm
All that reading of Wittgenstein, Rorty, and whoever your "Ash Heap of History" dude is has gone completely to waste if you can't see a problem with that statement.
Point is when Wittgenstein, Rorty, and that "Ash Heap of History" dude rejected the philosophical realists' position, they are automatically anti-philosophical_realist, albeit with their different philosophies.
You didn't understand at least two of those writers then. Perhaps you didn't draw enough flow charts.
The later-Wittgenstein is obviously anti-philosophical_realism. As for Rorty, he claimed he is neither realist nor anti-realist. But like I say, if one is not a realist then one is an anti-realist, i.e. one cannot be in two shoes at the same time in the same stance.

If you list what I don't understand then I can counter.

Note the middle-way of Buddhism where one can be p and not-p at the same time but in difference stances and perspectives.
Adopting the middle way is like the tightrope-walker whose focus is on the rope but will tilt to either side to optimize with the direction of the wind.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 5:20 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote:
Note Kant did not claim time and space only exist in minds.
What Kant claimed is space and time are imperative human-conditions of human cognition of reality [things, objects, etc.]
As such whatever are things in time and space cannot be independent of the human conditions.

What is real must exist within space and time.
Things in time and space cannot be independent of the human conditions.
The thing-in-itself the supposedly unknowable thing is beyond space and time, thus is independent of the human conditions.
Since the thing-in-itself do not exists within space and time, it cannot be real at all.
"Human conditions" is a mislabeling and substitute term for "human cognition", ergo, what you really mean is minds. That's what the ideality of time and space is, something constructed a priori in minds. That is not to say, according to most Kant scholars, that objects do not exist independently of human minds, it just means that the way we know them, as spatiotemporal objects, is not how they really are, and we cannot know how they really are. It's pure nonsense, but that's what Kant's doctrine is about.
You are shooting at your own strawman.
You have not read and do not understand Kant's full argument but yet arrogantly condemned Kant's doctrine as nonsense.
This is typical of the logical positivists [LPs] with their bastardized philosophies; the LPs will condemn any other philosophies that do not agree with theirs as nonsense, woo woo, metaphysical etc.

Human cognition is not merely time and space or mind but cover the whole shebang of what is to be human, thus whatever the human conditions.
Veritas Aequitas wrote:
As mentioned above all of reality that is actual and real is within space and time.
If there is no spatiotemporal ontology, there is no ultimate ontology.
One is tempted to ask: then what makes something "a reality"?, what are the conditions for defining it as "actual and real"?, and what guarantees its reality as not being illusions? And what ultimately makes the difference between considering the appearance of objects an actual, real "appearance of the object" and considering its appearance as the appearance of a real, actual object, independent of its cognition.
In the past whether an appearance of a things is real or not was based on common sense [crude], then theological authority, but now it is scientific reality within the scientific framework and system of knowledge.

At present, what is actual and real is confined to verification and justification empirically and philosophically within a credible specific framework and system of knowledge without any confirmation of any ontological independent entity.

At present the most credible FSK is the scientific framework and system. Thus at present, whenever people need to confirm whether a thing is real or not, they subject that thing to the scientific process to confirm its reality.
But then the scientific FSK is constructed by humans and relied on human consensus, thus what is most real at present is merely conditioned upon the human conditions.

Note what grounds scientific truth of the real is grounded on experiences, observation and the human conditions. Science [not all scientists agree with that] merely assumed there some thing independent of the human conditions but this assumption is not significant at all.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: What is a contradiction is only if p and not-p are claimed as true within the same time and same sense.
My 1 and 2 are at the same time but in different senses/perspectives.
Well, you need to settle for the perspective that answers the question: do humans, flesh and bone humans, exist as mind-independent objects?
I had already stated and can confirm the following "humans, flesh and bone humans, exist as mind-independent objects." i.e. from the empirical realism perspective. In this case, you, I, other humans, objects in space are independent of each other.
BUT the above is subsumed within Transcendental Idealism.
What is the problem with the above?
Veritas Aequitas wrote: You got it wrong with Kant.

Kant never asserted 'the appearance of the Moon to my cognition, is an illusion.'
You will never be able to produce any reference from Kant to support your claim.

What Kant claimed as real is that whole experience of the cognition of the Moon which include the appearance and the whole shebang connected with the experience, knowledge and cognition as expressed in the whole of CPR and transcendental idealism.

It is an illusion when you claim the appearance of the Moon is corresponded with an unknowable moon-in-itself.
You just said what you said Kant didn't say.
Are you so sure, especially when you have not read Kant's CPR fully and thoroughly.
Show me the texts in the CPR to support your point.

Here is what Kant stated in the CPR,
Kant in CPR wrote:To this [Transcendental] Idealism there is opposed a Transcendental Realism which regards Time and Space as something Given in-themselves, independently of our Sensibility.

The Transcendental Realist thus interprets Outer Appearances (their Reality being taken as granted) as Things-in-Themselves, which exist independently of us and of our Sensibility, and which are therefore Outside us the phrase 'outside us' being interpreted in conformity with Pure Concepts of Understanding.

It is, in fact, this Transcendental Realist who afterwards plays the part of Empirical Idealist.

After wrongly supposing that Objects of the Senses, if they are to be External, must have an Existence-by-themselves, and independently of the Senses, he finds that, judged from this point of view [transcendental realism], all our sensuous Representations are inadequate to establish their Reality.
CPR A369
From the above it is implied, you the transcendental realist interpret the Outer Appearance of the moon as the moon-it-itself existing independent of the human conditions.

In the above view [transcendental realism] "inevitably falls into difficulties" thus has no certainty there exists also the Object corresponding to it.

In later chapters, Kant demonstrate this difficulty land the transcendental realists in clinging onto an illusion.
Kant in CPR wrote:Transcendental Realism, on the other hand, inevitably falls into difficulties, and finds itself obliged to give way to Empirical Idealism, in that it regards the Objects of Outer Sense as something distinct from the Senses themselves, treating mere Appearances as Self-Subsistent Beings, existing outside us.

On such a view [transcendental realism] as this, however clearly we may be conscious 1 of our Representation of these Things, it is still far from certain that, if the Representation exists, there exists also the Object corresponding to it.
A371
If the Moon is real, its existence predates the existence of the humans that at one moment cognized it. If that was not the case, the Moon would be an illusion.
You cannot say it's real and at the same time say it does not correspond to reality.
Saying that what amounts for being real is the experience itself is what starts all the trouble for TI and explains why even though Kant tries to distance himself from Berkeley, he doesn't quite achieve it.
Kant in one perspective accept the existence of the moon predates the existence of humans BUT that view is subsumed within transcendental idealism which is ultimately conditioned upon human conditions.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: As with theists, it is cowardly to resort to asking one to prove a negative.
The difference is that theists assume as criteria of proof the same realist ontological framework and they fail to deliver the positive proof. Once you assume an anti-realist framework in which there can't be no ontological proof because the proof criteria itself is not legitimized by epistemological positions, then it is a different ball game and the anti-realist can basically say nothing and ask nothing. Anything goes.
What I claimed is supported by texts from Kant's CPR as I have shown above, i.e. when transcendental realists claimed, say, the moon-it-itself exists as real and is absolutely independent of the human conditions, then the transcendental realist [you] is clinging on to an illusion.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:32 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 11:52 am If you researched into Kant's work, as I had said there are two 'main' camps.
What is the issue where I agree more with one camp from the other?
There are many camps in which Kant's scholarship can be divided depending on many criteria. One criterion that is not one of those is what you agree with and what you don't.
There are two main [note 'main'] camps with MANY different sub-divisions in each.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 11:52 am I never said "Humans exist, but ultimately they actually don't exist."
Humans do exist as empirical objects or entities.
Humans do not exist as non-spatiotemporal objects such as souls that can survives physical death.
There you go again. You have said once again that flesh and bone humans exist, but ultimately they actually don't exist as mind-independent objects.
Despite my mentioning "souls that can survives physical death" you are ignoring it.
You have to take note you are rigidly and dogmatically stuck in a different paradigm [transcendental realism] thus cannot see [not necessary agree with] my view at all.

Note Allison argued the transcendental realists' [yours] view is basically 'theocentric' i.e. you are trying to view reality like a GOD perceiving things as independent of itself [God's Eye View].
It is because of this presumption [without proof] that is causing all the problem for you.

I stated [my intended principle] is, flesh and bone humans exists [.. i.e. empirical realism] BUT ultimately they cannot exists independent of the human conditions which is part and parcel of reality - i.e. all-there-is.

My points above are supported by texts from the CPR [.. I have read and researched] but I don't have them on my finger tips and will take quite an amount of time for me to pick and sort them out, so I am avoiding this until I come across them readily like I did with the quote from A369-70-71 earlier in the previous post.
Last edited by Veritas Aequitas on Wed May 12, 2021 8:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:49 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 5:10 am I raised the above OP to support my point [within the discussion in the Ethical Theory section] that there is no fact-in-itself, thus no moral-fact-in-itself.
What could make morality objective? by Peter Holmes
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24601

Since there are no moral-fact-in-itself, the moral-fact-deniers are merely denying an illusion.
Since there are no moral-fact-in-itself, what we have are moral-fact-in-FSK, i.e. human-based moral "facts".

Obviously I know the answer and is confident one cannot Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists.
Therefore there is no moral-fact-in-itself, and so the moral-fact-deniers are merely denying an illusion.
Whatever the circumstances around posting the OP, the problem stated in the OP is concerned only with the existence of an independent reality-in-itself, and asks about proofs of it. Just aim and shoot, it says. And then places Kant as the goalkeeper. The problem is Kant doesn't have much to do with that task.
There you go again with so much arrogance when you have so limited knowledge of Kant's philosophies. The above is more pertinent and critical when it comes to Kant's morality and ethics.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 5:10 am
Of course, the OP is so eager to show that an independent reality does not exist that it forgot that Kant himself did not and could not take that ontological commitment.
It is clear in the text of the CPR, Kant rejected the traditional sense of ontology.
Did you read the article you referenced earlier, i.e.
Transcendental Idealism and Ontological Agnosticism

Therein Mcwherter acknowledged Kant rejected traditional ontology but he countered Kant was not successful with his claims in his TI arguments in the CPR.
That's the whole point, if you reject ontology, you're not committed to make ontological claims. But here you are, committed to ontological claims, and saying Kant is your partner on this.
Nope I am rejecting Ontology [traditional thing-in-itself] as with Kant.

Note Mcwherter's Abstract;
Mcwherter wrote:Within these debates, Kant’s rejection of ontology (of the kind exemplified by Wolff and Baumgarten) has received comparatively little treatment, although it is often acknowledged.
The present essay seeks to contribute to the secondary literature on Kant by offering an analysis of this claim and elaborating its consequences for Transcendental Idealism.
This will take the form of a critical examination of Transcendental Idealism’s supposed ontological agnosticism—that is, its disavowal of any ontological claims.
The overall conclusion is that Kant’s rejection of ontology is deeply problematic, and to such an extent that it may be necessary to reconsider the possibilities of defending Transcendental Idealism as a purely epistemological, non-ontological doctrine.
Why 'ontological agnosticism' when using the term 'disavowal'?
Kant categorically denied [also derided] 'ontology' [traditional] in his CPR.

Mcwherter knew Kant's rejection of ontology which is expressed by Kant in the CPR. But Mcwherter is so obsessed with Transcendental Realism [like you] [blinded] that he insisted that Kant's rejection of ontology is problematic, but that is based only on his ignorance of the full argument of Kant's CPR.
It is like a typical but arrogant young schoolboy telling Einstein is wrong with the Theory of Special Relativity.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 5:10 am I have read the whole article thoroughly and Mcwherter's conclusion is based on his failure to understand Kant's CPR fully since he was restrained by his rigid dogmatic transcendental realistic perspective.
That's your standard claim against anything critical of Kant and the CPR, but it has been shown that it is you who doesn't get Kant correctly.
Off hand, Mcwherter is a transcendental realist [like you] which Kant [as a transcendental idealist] had condemned as inadequate, note my earlier post on the issue.
viewtopic.php?p=510654#p510654

I have read through Mcwherter's article and I had to fill it with 'green' counter points at every turn.
I am not producing them [to save time] unless you insist, but you have to read through Mcwherter's article thoroughly first.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 7:07 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 10:27 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 5:14 am
Point is when Wittgenstein, Rorty, and that "Ash Heap of History" dude rejected the philosophical realists' position, they are automatically anti-philosophical_realist, albeit with their different philosophies.
You didn't understand at least two of those writers then. Perhaps you didn't draw enough flow charts.
The later-Wittgenstein is obviously anti-philosophical_realism. As for Rorty, he claimed he is neither realist nor anti-realist. But like I say, if one is not a realist then one is an anti-realist, i.e. one cannot be in two shoes at the same time in the same stance.
I want to be clear, I am not taking a position on the subject of whether "reality is really really real". I am making the point that it is a false dichotomy to suggest everybody must be for or against the proposition. There is at least one third option - the question is nonsensical, literally meaningless.

According to that third position, the only possibly interesting thing about it is the question of how, under normal language, we can find that questions of the form "is $NOUN really there?" can work perfectly well if the $NOUN is Jerry in accounting, or a small pot of mustard or any other nouns representing things in the world you can point at, but doesn't easily make it clear that nouns representing things too nebular to point at don't fit. Basically, is "reality" a noun just like any other? No.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 9:42 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 7:07 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 10:27 am
You didn't understand at least two of those writers then. Perhaps you didn't draw enough flow charts.
The later-Wittgenstein is obviously anti-philosophical_realism. As for Rorty, he claimed he is neither realist nor anti-realist. But like I say, if one is not a realist then one is an anti-realist, i.e. one cannot be in two shoes at the same time in the same stance.
I want to be clear, I am not taking a position on the subject of whether "reality is really really real". I am making the point that it is a false dichotomy to suggest everybody must be for or against the proposition. There is at least one third option - the question is nonsensical, literally meaningless.

According to that third position, the only possibly interesting thing about it is the question of how, under normal language, we can find that questions of the form "is $NOUN really there?" can work perfectly well if the $NOUN is Jerry in accounting, or a small pot of mustard or any other nouns representing things in the world you can point at, but doesn't easily make it clear that nouns representing things too nebular to point at don't fit. Basically, is "reality" a noun just like any other? No.
Note, to the Muslim Fundamentalist Jihadists, Allah is literally really-really real, to the extent the jihadists want to really kill you and others as non-believers [Q5:33] as commanded by their real Allah so that they can gain their guaranteed passage to paradise and their bonus of 72 virgins.

So in this case, the question of whether Allah is really-really real is very critical to humanity.
The task in this case is for philosophy to solidly convince Muslims [especially to the jihadists] their so claimed really-real-Allah is actually an assumed fiction. Once it is proven without doubt, then the ideology of Islam will be defanged and there will no killing of non-believers as driven by the ideology of Islam.

So the question is NOT nonsensical, and NOT literally meaningless.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 7:23 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 9:42 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 7:07 am
The later-Wittgenstein is obviously anti-philosophical_realism. As for Rorty, he claimed he is neither realist nor anti-realist. But like I say, if one is not a realist then one is an anti-realist, i.e. one cannot be in two shoes at the same time in the same stance.
I want to be clear, I am not taking a position on the subject of whether "reality is really really real". I am making the point that it is a false dichotomy to suggest everybody must be for or against the proposition. There is at least one third option - the question is nonsensical, literally meaningless.

According to that third position, the only possibly interesting thing about it is the question of how, under normal language, we can find that questions of the form "is $NOUN really there?" can work perfectly well if the $NOUN is Jerry in accounting, or a small pot of mustard or any other nouns representing things in the world you can point at, but doesn't easily make it clear that nouns representing things too nebular to point at don't fit. Basically, is "reality" a noun just like any other? No.
Note, to the Muslim Fundamentalist Jihadists, Allah is literally really-really real, to the extent the jihadists want to really kill you and others as non-believers [Q5:33] as commanded by their real Allah so that they can gain their guaranteed passage to paradise and their bonus of 72 virgins.

So in this case, the question of whether Allah is really-really real is very critical to humanity.
The task in this case is for philosophy to solidly convince Muslims [especially to the jihadists] their so claimed really-real-Allah is actually an assumed fiction. Once it is proven without doubt, then the ideology of Islam will be defanged and there will no killing of non-believers as driven by the ideology of Islam.

So the question is NOT nonsensical, and NOT literally meaningless.
That was weird. But I am not interested in your obsession with islam and none of what you wrote there has anything at all to do with what you were quoting and supposedly responding to.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Aequitas Veritas wrote: You are shooting at your own strawman.
You have not read and do not understand Kant's full argument but yet arrogantly condemned Kant's doctrine as nonsense.
This is typical of the logical positivists [LPs] with their bastardized philosophies; the LPs will condemn any other philosophies that do not agree with theirs as nonsense, woo woo, metaphysical etc.
I have not explicitly endorsed nor implied Logical Positivism, so that's an straw man fallacy of yours. I have already stated that I'm more inclined towards Critical Realism, which is a position born in direct challenge to Logical Positivism.

In condemning TI, I'm not more arrogant than you condemning realism.
Aequitas Veritas wrote: At present, what is actual and real is confined to verification and justification empirically and philosophically within a credible specific framework and system of knowledge without any confirmation of any ontological independent entity.

At present the most credible FSK is the scientific framework and system. Thus at present, whenever people need to confirm whether a thing is real or not, they subject that thing to the scientific process to confirm its reality.
But then the scientific FSK is constructed by humans and relied on human consensus, thus what is most real at present is merely conditioned upon the human conditions.

Note what grounds scientific truth of the real is grounded on experiences, observation and the human conditions. Science [not all scientists agree with that] merely assumed there some thing independent of the human conditions but this assumption is not significant at all.
As all phenomenalists and idealists, you give the status of "actual and real" to mere constructions of language, to self-referential meanings, which end up being meaningless. That's why appealing to the "credibility" of science is one of the contradictory stances of idealism, which following its own doctrines, only leads to epistemological agnosticism and from there to the "anything goes" camp. The whole confusion stems from the epistemological assumptions of idealists: not making the appropriate distinction between what can be known and what can be. That we know what things actually are via human-conditioned epistemological constructions is not the same as things being human-constructed. Things ARE actual and real precisely because they ARE independent of humans conditions.
Aequitas Veritas wrote: I had already stated and can confirm the following "humans, flesh and bone humans, exist as mind-independent objects." i.e. from the empirical realism perspective. In this case, you, I, other humans, objects in space are independent of each other.
BUT the above is subsumed within Transcendental Idealism.
What is the problem with the above?
The problem with the above is that you still refuse to answer directly and without giving resolution to the conditional clause. You say "if X perspective, then Z is real, but X is subsumed within Y perspective". And then when I ask what is real for Y perspective, you come back with "if X perspective, then Z is real, but X is subsumed within Y perspective". When I ask: is Z real for Y perspective?, you repeat the same mantra.
Aequitas Veritas wrote: From the above it is implied, you the transcendental realist interpret the Outer Appearance of the moon as the moon-it-itself existing independent of the human conditions.

In the above view [transcendental realism] "inevitably falls into difficulties" thus has no certainty there exists also the Object corresponding to it.

In later chapters, Kant demonstrate this difficulty land the transcendental realists in clinging onto an illusion.
[...]
What I claimed is supported by texts from Kant's CPR as I have shown above, i.e. when transcendental realists claimed, say, the moon-it-itself exists as real and is absolutely independent of the human conditions, then the transcendental realist [you] is clinging on to an illusion.
No, that's the phenomenalist interpretation attributed to Berkeley. And since it became clear that the first reception of the CPR assumed this to be Kant's position, he immediately set himself to correct it. We have gone over this before. So, for Kant, what he calls the transcendental realist would see the Moon as a spatiotemporal object, thinking that this spatiotemporality is a property of the Moon itself, while Kant asserts is not, reducing such belief to an illusion (the object is not what it appears to be). He's not saying there's no actual Moon or that it can be denied that an actual Moon exists, and then many interpretations depart from there about whether he thinks there must be an actual Moon for there being an appearance of a Moon or this being a mere epistemological stance, without any ontological commitment.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:06 pm
Aequitas Veritas wrote: You are shooting at your own strawman.
You have not read and do not understand Kant's full argument but yet arrogantly condemned Kant's doctrine as nonsense.
This is typical of the logical positivists [LPs] with their bastardized philosophies; the LPs will condemn any other philosophies that do not agree with theirs as nonsense, woo woo, metaphysical etc.
I have not explicitly endorsed nor implied Logical Positivism, so that's an straw man fallacy of yours. I have already stated that I'm more inclined towards Critical Realism, which is a position born in direct challenge to Logical Positivism.

In condemning TI, I'm not more arrogant than you condemning realism.
Somehow I missed this post.

I did not mean you adopted the LPs philosophies wholesale which is now defunct.
What I imply is you are adopting some bits of their views and their typical ideological stance in condemning others who do not agree with them, pejoratively, i.e. those they think are leaning toward the metaphysical.
The similarity is you are critical of my views [empirical realism and others] so arrogantly when your views [transcendental/material realism] are groundless.
Aequitas Veritas wrote: At present, what is actual and real is confined to verification and justification empirically and philosophically within a credible specific framework and system of knowledge without any confirmation of any ontological independent entity.

At present the most credible FSK is the scientific framework and system. Thus at present, whenever people need to confirm whether a thing is real or not, they subject that thing to the scientific process to confirm its reality.
But then the scientific FSK is constructed by humans and relied on human consensus, thus what is most real at present is merely conditioned upon the human conditions.

Note what grounds scientific truth of the real is grounded on experiences, observation and the human conditions. Science [not all scientists agree with that] merely assumed there some thing independent of the human conditions but this assumption is not significant at all.
As all phenomenalists and idealists, you give the status of "actual and real" to mere constructions of language, to self-referential meanings, which end up being meaningless. That's why appealing to the "credibility" of science is one of the contradictory stances of idealism, which following its own doctrines, only leads to epistemological agnosticism and from there to the "anything goes" camp. The whole confusion stems from the epistemological assumptions of idealists: not making the appropriate distinction between what can be known and what can be. That we know what things actually are via human-conditioned epistemological constructions is not the same as things being human-constructed. Things ARE actual and real precisely because they ARE independent of humans conditions.
Somehow you are very obstinate and fixated in branding me as a phenomenalist and the typical idealist when I have stated so many times I am not.
As such that is your strawman.

I have told you a "million" times I am not the typical "idealist" but rather is an empirical realist or a transcendental idealist.

Aequitas Veritas wrote: I had already stated and can confirm the following "humans, flesh and bone humans, exist as mind-independent objects." i.e. from the empirical realism perspective. In this case, you, I, other humans, objects in space are independent of each other.
BUT the above is subsumed within Transcendental Idealism.
What is the problem with the above?
The problem with the above is that you still refuse to answer directly and without giving resolution to the conditional clause.
You say "if X perspective, then Z is real, but X is subsumed within Y perspective".
And then when I ask what is real for Y perspective, you come back with "if X perspective, then Z is real, but X is subsumed within Y perspective".
When I ask: is Z real for Y perspective?, you repeat the same mantra.
I believe you missed my point due to your dogmatic view re transcendental realism.

Let me rephrase,
What is real-Z is only within the perspective of reality, but that is subsumed within Y.
Since there is only the perspective of reality [Kant Category of reality] there is no question of what is real-Z within perspective-Y.
To insist there is a real-Z within perspective-Y is chasing an illusion.
Aequitas Veritas wrote: From the above it is implied, you the transcendental realist interpret the Outer Appearance of the moon as the moon-it-itself existing independent of the human conditions.

In the above view [transcendental realism] "inevitably falls into difficulties" thus has no certainty there exists also the Object corresponding to it.

In later chapters, Kant demonstrate this difficulty land the transcendental realists in clinging onto an illusion.
[...]
What I claimed is supported by texts from Kant's CPR as I have shown above, i.e. when transcendental realists claimed, say, the moon-it-itself exists as real and is absolutely independent of the human conditions, then the transcendental realist [you] is clinging on to an illusion.
No, that's the phenomenalist interpretation attributed to Berkeley.
And since it became clear that the first reception of the CPR assumed this to be Kant's position, he immediately set himself to correct it. We have gone over this before.

So, for Kant, what he calls the transcendental realist would see the Moon as a spatiotemporal object, thinking that this spatiotemporality is a property of the Moon itself, while Kant asserts is not, reducing such belief to an illusion (the object is not what it appears to be).
He's not saying there's no actual Moon or that it can be denied that an actual Moon exists, and then many interpretations depart from there about whether he thinks there must be an actual Moon for there being an appearance of a Moon or this being a mere epistemological stance, without any ontological commitment.
Show me evidence where did Berkeley,
"interpret the Outer Appearance of the moon as the moon-it-itself existing independent of the human conditions."

Berkeley interpreted outer-appearances are merely ideas in the mind from perceptions and they do not exist as thing-in-itself, thus moon-in-itself.
This is why to Berkeley, the moon do not exists if no one is perceiving but exists only in the mind of God.

Note the first critic of the CPR wrongly assumed Kant's position to be the same as Berkeley.
Kant did not 'correct' his original position [transcendental idealism] but merely responded by making his original position clearer in the Prolegomena and elsewhere while at the same time denounced that particular critic as lazy [to understand the CPR thoroughly], ignorant and stupid.

Last few days I had been researching on the early critics of the CPR and there were critics and supporters of Kant's position in the early days while Kant was still alive.

The first review and critique was the Ferder-Garve Review which was actually a summarized version by Ferder of a more lengthy Garve's original review. Ferder deliberately presented Kant's view by associating the CPR as Berkeley's which at that time was condemned by realists.

Ferder invented such statement to make Kant look really stupid or bad [re Sassen];
Ferder-Garve wrote:From sensory appearances, which are distinguished from other representations only through the subjective condition that space and time are conjoined with them, the understanding makes objects. It makes them.
Kant never mean the bolded and it is stupid to imagine that and note the repetition "makes" to stress this stupid point.
And given that one of Kant's chief objections to the FGr was not that it got his views wrong but that it presented his conclusions in so brief and stark a fashion as to make them appear ridiculous,"
I have read the original longer Garve's Review and Garve never condemned Kant's position like what Ferder did.
Sassen commented,
Matters might have been different had Garve's version been the first review of the content of the Critique to be published, because it was written much more soberly, very much in the mode of a student who, admiring the teacher, tries to comprehend some new and difficult material.
Btw, did you read Kant retort in the appendix of the Prolegomena.
Here are some bits of it [suggest you read it yourself]..
Kant in Prolegomena wrote:I find myself, with my reviewer [1st review of the CPR – the Ferder-Garve Review], in quite another position.
He [my reviewer] seems not to see at all the real matter of the investigation with which (successfully or unsuccessfully) I have been occupied.
It is either impatience at thinking out a lengthy work, or vexation at a threatened reform of a Science in which he believed he had brought everything to perfection long ago, or, what I am unwilling to imagine, real narrow-mindedness, that prevents him from ever carrying his thoughts beyond his school - Metaphysics.

In short, he [the reviewer] passes impatiently in review a long series of Propositions, by which, without knowing their premises, we can think nothing, intersperses here and there his censure, the reason of which the reader understands just as little as the Propositions against which it is directed; and hence [his report] can neither serve the public nor damage me, in the Judgment of experts.

I should, for these reasons, have passed over this Judgment altogether, were it not that it may afford me occasion for some explanations which may in some cases save the readers of these Prolegomena from a misconception.

In order to take a position from which my reviewer could most easily set the whole work in a most unfavorable light, without venturing to trouble himself with any special investigation, he begins and ends by saying:

"This work is a System of Transcendent (or, as he translates it, of higher) Idealism."42.

A glance at this line soon showed me the sort of criticism that I had to expect,
much as though the reviewer were one who had never seen or heard of Geometry, having found a Euclid, and coming upon various figures in turning over its leaves, were to say, on being asked his opinion of it:
"The work is a text-book of drawing; the author introduces a peculiar terminology, in order to give dark, incomprehensible directions, which in the end teach nothing more than what everyone can effect by a fair natural accuracy of eye, etc."

...
The reviewer criticizes here and there, makes sweeping criticisms,
a mode prudently chosen, since it does not betray one's own Knowledge or ignorance;
a single thorough criticism in detail, had it touched the main question, as is only fair,
would have exposed, it may be my error,
or it may be my reviewer's measure of insight into this species of research.

A Judgment which seeks all that is characteristic of my book, first supposed to be metaphysically heterodox, in a mere innovation of the nomenclature, proves clearly that my would-be judge has understood nothing of the subject, and in addition, has not understood himself.

The reviewer, then, understands nothing of my work, and possibly also nothing of the spirit and essential Nature of Metaphysics itself; and it is not, what I would rather assume, the hurry of a man incensed at the labor of plodding through so many obstacles, that threw an unfavorable shadow over the work lying before him, and made its fundamental features unrecognizable.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

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Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 7:59 am
If you are not addressing your question to what you believe is independent of you, you are just writing to yourself. Are you just writing to yourself?
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

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Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 10:39 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:06 pm I have not explicitly endorsed nor implied Logical Positivism, so that's an straw man fallacy of yours. I have already stated that I'm more inclined towards Critical Realism, which is a position born in direct challenge to Logical Positivism.

In condemning TI, I'm not more arrogant than you condemning realism.
I did not mean you adopted the LPs philosophies wholesale which is now defunct.
What I imply is you are adopting some bits of their views and their typical ideological stance in condemning others who do not agree with them, pejoratively, i.e. those they think are leaning toward the metaphysical.
The similarity is you are critical of my views [empirical realism and others] so arrogantly when your views [transcendental/material realism] are groundless.
By your own criteria, LP could not be defunct. It is still discussed and has influenced some philosophers, no less than Kantianism.

Having views which coincide with LP philosophies does not make one an endorser of the whole body of doctrines of LP. I certainly would prefer, nonetheless, endorsing LP than endorsing idealism in any of its forms.

Your ad hominems are grounded in another fallacy. To condemn opponents pejoratively would require insulting them, being deprecatory, but I have never referred to any person in such terms. I have only pointed at and condemned ideas, doctrines, in no less derogatory terms that you have used against the doctrines you oppose. I have respect for Kant, Berkeley, etc., and give them the credit they deserve in the history of philosophy, being alongside many others that, while ultimately wrong in the doctrines they promoted, nevertheless contributed in important discussions that enriched our philosophical culture. That doesn't mean one should treat their ideas with a soft glove.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 10:39 am Somehow you are very obstinate and fixated in branding me as a phenomenalist and the typical idealist when I have stated so many times I am not.
As such that is your strawman.

I have told you a "million" times I am not the typical "idealist" but rather is an empirical realist or a transcendental idealist.
You have branded yourself as a Kantian and an idealist. Kant himself has been branded a phenomenalist or at least a precursor or phenomenalism, and Husserl, the father of modern phenomenology, branded himself a transcendental idealist. You cannot get away from the phenomenalist labeling so easily, calling it a straw man, without taking distance at the same time from transcendental idealism. There may be important distinctions on the grounds that one can favor either an epistemological interpretation of Kant's work or an ontological one, as has already been discussed, but it has been precisely my intention that you settle for one perspective, which so far you have not, moving from one position to another that contradicts it, or a mixture of positions that do not correspond to the labels you assign for yourself. In the end, I really care very little about labels, which is not your case.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 10:39 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:06 pm
Aequitas Veritas wrote: I had already stated and can confirm the following "humans, flesh and bone humans, exist as mind-independent objects." i.e. from the empirical realism perspective. In this case, you, I, other humans, objects in space are independent of each other.
BUT the above is subsumed within Transcendental Idealism.
What is the problem with the above?
The problem with the above is that you still refuse to answer directly and without giving resolution to the conditional clause.
You say "if X perspective, then Z is real, but X is subsumed within Y perspective".
And then when I ask what is real for Y perspective, you come back with "if X perspective, then Z is real, but X is subsumed within Y perspective".
When I ask: is Z real for Y perspective?, you repeat the same mantra.
I believe you missed my point due to your dogmatic view re transcendental realism.

Let me rephrase,
What is real-Z is only within the perspective of reality, but that is subsumed within Y.
Since there is only the perspective of reality [Kant Category of reality] there is no question of what is real-Z within perspective-Y.
To insist there is a real-Z within perspective-Y is chasing an illusion.
From that last statement we get that humans are, ultimately, illusions. It's not that they don't exist empirically, but don't exist at all. And so, according to the doctrine you embrace, a transcendental realist about humans, is only chasing illusions, as there are no real, actual humans, as mind-independent objects. This is completely absurd.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 10:39 am Show me evidence where did Berkeley,
"interpret the Outer Appearance of the moon as the moon-it-itself existing independent of the human conditions."

Berkeley interpreted outer-appearances are merely ideas in the mind from perceptions and they do not exist as thing-in-itself, thus moon-in-itself.
This is why to Berkeley, the moon do not exists if no one is perceiving but exists only in the mind of God.
You didn't get it. I never said Berkeley thought of "the Outer Appearance of the moon as the moon-it-itself existing independent of the human conditions." Quite the opposite, but then I pointed at you saying that Kant's position is that "when transcendental realists claimed, say, the moon-it-itself exists as real and is absolutely independent of the human conditions, then the transcendental realist [you] is clinging on to an illusion." So, there must be humans cognizing the object Moon for there being such and object, and when not perceived by humans, this object ceases to be. That is consistent with Berkeley's subjective idealism, yet you claim is Kant's TI. You have clearly stated that both deny the Moon in itself ever existing. I have contended that this is not exactly what Kant said, but if you want to say I'm misinterpreting you on what Kant said, then you cannot keep peddling the view that for Kant the Moon cannot exist in itself as a mind-independent object. Your reply that "things in themselves" are not to be understood as ontological things, but epistemological things, actually sends you closer again to Berkeley, as epistemological things are necessarily mind-only things. That gets you in trouble even more quickly than subjective idealism.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

RCSaunders wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 7:58 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 7:59 am
If you are not addressing your question to what you believe is independent of you, you are just writing to yourself. Are you just writing to yourself?
You are too stuck in a dogmatic realist paradigm.

Note I have been arguing I am an empirical realist but that is subsumed within transcendental idealism. You need to update yourself on this argument.

Within empirical realism [which you are not] there is an independent external world out there. So my OP is addressed to people out there.
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