The quote B397 is from the 2nd Edition of the CPR published in 1787. The Prolegomena was published in 1783 i.e. before the 2nd Edition but after the 1st edition [1781]. There is nothing thereafter the above where Kant published corrections.Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:54 pmThat is the opposite of what he said. His writing in the CPR gives ground to the strong phenomenalism interpretation, which he despised and proceeded to clarify in other writings and editions of the CPR.Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Apr 16, 2021 8:07 am Thus to Kant what is objective reality is confined to cognition and experiences, i.e. whatever is empirical only.
Kant never asserted the thing-in-itself is objectively real.
see the B397 quote from CPR in the later part of this post.
He does claim the thing in itself is objectively real, that its existence outside of us is guaranteed and it affects our sensibility, making phenomena foundationally grounded and possible, but we only know its form or appearance, contributing ourselves (so Kant thought) with space and time.
So, there are real objects, they are not illusions. He uses very straight words to clarify his doctrine, he says he does not agree with the idealist interpretation about representations that "no object external to them corresponds in fact". He says that "things... existing outside us are given", that "there are bodies without us".
Where Kant stated things are real and external [not illusions], that is within his empirical realism which is subsumed with his Transcendental Idealism [TI] where TI stated things-in-themselves are illusions.
As I had stated above, things that appear are real and not illusion but that is within Kant's empirical realism.In the Transcendental Aesthetic (2nd edition) he goes on to say:
III. If I say: in space and time intuition represents both outer objects as well as the self-intuition of the mind as each affects our senses, i.e., as it appears, that is not to say that these objects would be a mere illusion. ... Thus I do not say that bodies merely seem to exist outside me or that my soul only seems to be given ... It would be my own fault if I made that which I should count as appearance into mere illusion.
Note Kant stated the following;
- "What the Things-in-Themselves may be, I do not know, nor do I need to know, since a Thing can never come before me except in Appearance. A277 B333"
Note my point above with reference to empirical realism versus transcendental idealism.I'm not saying that this was an explanation of what the thing in itself really is, Kant clearly says we cannot know. What he is saying is that regardless of they merely appearing to us in one way, they are actual objects independent of us, "outside of us". He always talks about the ideality of space and time and of all the relations and properties attributed to objects, but that these objects are actually existing, not mere illusions.Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Apr 16, 2021 8:07 am The above passage was Kant's explanation on the conflation of Kant's idealism with the rest of idealism. That is why he used "contrary" explicit and impliedly.
The above passage is not an explanation of what the thing-in-itself really is which is explained in context within 834 pages in the CPR.
You got it wrong with Berkeley.The reality of the independent external world within sensibility and experience can only mean, in order to be a coherent statement, merely the reality of its appearance as forms in our sensibility.Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Apr 16, 2021 8:07 am When Kant used the phrase "I grant by all means that there are bodies without us" he was using that within Empirical Realism.
I have stated many times [here? and elsewhere] the empirical realism of Kant recognized the reality of the independent external world within sensibility and experience, BUT this empirical realism is subsumed within Transcendental Idealism [as defined by Kant]. The grounding of Transcendental Idealism is grounded by human conditions, e.g. space and time.
By definition, being real only in our sensibility would categorically deny the existence of the independent external world, which Kant says would put his doctrine along with Berkeley's (or how he interpreted Berkeley's), entailing the idea that the external world is an illusion, which Kant denies. Appearance, he says, does not entail illusion. The grounding by human conditions is what gives phenomena (according to Kant), but not the noumena:
Berkeley supposedly claimed all of reality are in the mind, thus there is no sense of externality, i.e. external world.
Kant did not claim all of reality is in the mind.
Kant also did not claim being real is only with sensibility, but entails the Understanding as well.
Kant wrote:For if the senses merely represent something to us as it appears, then this something must also be in itself a thing, and an object of a non-sensible intuition, i.e., of the understanding, i.e., a cognition must be possible in which no sensibility is encountered, and which alone has absolutely objective reality, through which, namely, objects are represented to us as they are, in contrast to the empirical use of our understanding, in which things are only cognized as they appear...
...This was the result of the entire Transcendental Aesthetic, and it also follows naturally from the concept of an appearance in general that something must correspond to it which is not in itself appearance, for appearance can be nothing for itself and outside of our kind of representation; thus...the word "appearance" must already indicate a relation to something...which in itself, without this constitution of our sensibility (on which the form of our intuition is grounded), must be something, i.e., an object independent of sensibility.
That "an object independent of sensibility" is the noumenon which in the subsequent pages of the CPR is demonstrated to be an illusion. Note again,
- "What the Things-in-Themselves may be, I do not know, nor do I need to know, since a Thing can never come before me except in Appearance. A277 B333"
Kant specifically stated in the CPR, the things-in-themselves do not have any objective validity [see B397 quote above] outside the sphere of sensibility with the understanding.You are just misrepresenting Kant's view, which is not necessarily a huge mistake, given that he gave good grounds himself for being misrepresented, specially along the lines of strong phenomenalism, a view that he tried to correct from his interpreters. Things are for him only illusions in the sense of the properties related to time and space that we attribute them, but not illusions in the sense of their existence. So, following Kant's view, they are not "ultimately" illusions, but realities of which we supposedly know nothing else.Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Apr 16, 2021 8:07 am The something which we know is the supposed 'thing-in-itself' you are referring to above, but it has no qualities of sensibilities and experience.
But due to psychological desperations, the majority of humans, speculated and REIFY that inevitable illusion [the thing-in-itself] which they ascribe Objective Reality even when there are no empirical elements nor empirical concepts.
This Illusion will unceasingly mocks and torments him. This is why some realists like Peter, Sculptor, PantFlashers and their likes [not you] are so desperate and aggressive to condemn others who do not agree with them, with venom, just like the arrogant logical positivists [defunct] and the classical analytic philosophers of old.
When you claim ultimate reality, that is with the PURE Understanding [naked of sensible concepts] thus are illusions.
Here is a remark from Caygill;
- The fundamental illegitimate use of noumena is to attribute Objectivity to them, to move from
- 'a mode of determining the Object by thought alone - a merely logical Form without content'
to
what 'seems to us to be a mode in which the Object exists in-itself (noumenon) without regard to Intuition' [sensibility]
- 'a mode of determining the Object by thought alone - a merely logical Form without content'
I told you I researched Kant's CPR [main focus] and his other works for 3 years full time thus I am very familiar [not an expert] with his main themes. My knowledge is on par with the notable Kant scholars [all the main principles] except I am rusty and will not be able to retrieve the knowledge in the CPR as fast as them, since they are specialists and teach Kant's works day in day out.Being very familiar with what is entailed in Kant's Critique and his whole philosophical project means being familiar, among other things, with the scholarship on Kant. Since I don't claim expertise myself, nor you claim expertise by yourself either, we are left with our better of worse informed opinions on the matter. That, of course, at best would only settle how is Kant to be interpreted, but will leave still open the full critique of his work, including the refutations that came along later. Transcendental Idealism by all means is now a defunct doctrine.Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Apr 16, 2021 8:07 am You will not have any credibility to represent nor express Kant's view accurately unless you are very familiar [not necessary agree] with what are in the 834 pages of Kant's CPR.
Transcendental Idealism by all means is NOT a defunct doctrine but adopted by many neo-Kantians who agree with it.
Note this article on TI and the long list of bibliography therein.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant ... -idealism/
Note this;
Allison, H 2004, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, New Haven: Yale University Press. Revised and Enlarged Edition.