That's simply not true. And of course there are logical consequences to saying you can't know something. Didn't Descartes start by rejecting all certainties and then proceeding to claim the one thing he could be certain of? Doesn't agnosticism have logical consequences? Doesn't skepticism?Londoner wrote: There are no logical consequences to saying you can't know something. You only start doing logic once you have made an assumption that something is either true (or false).
I must remind you that it was you who introduced the problem as stated:Londoner wrote:If 'there is (or there isn't) a noumenal world behind phenomena' was an empirical question, then we couldn't answer it empirically because empiricism is about phenomena. If you claim to be in a position to know, then it must be on the basis of non-empirical evidence.
Now I shall ask you: were you approaching the problem empirically or any other way?Londoner wrote:If we posit there is a noumenal world behind phenomena, then by definition phenomena are 'related' to the noumenal, but the point is we do not - cannot - know how.
I brought a case to which everyone is familiar, but I never gave a reason to believe I subscribed to Plato's view. I can use the trolley problem and not necessarily I must subscribe to the original intention of its proponents.Londoner wrote:I notice that in your last reply you bring in Plato's cave! As I wrote last time, are you sure you are a materialist?
Any propositional statement with the intention of asserting a truth implies the firm belief from the one who makes the claim. Both claims can be either true or false, but not at the same time, because they contradict each other.Londoner wrote:I don't understand why you think 'claims #1 and #2 (there is, or isn't, a noumenal world) are posited as claims we are certain of'.
I clearly explained that it implied acknowledgement of "one of them being true or false".Londoner wrote:Nor do I understand why you write that Claim #3 (that we cannot know) does not deny them. You cannot both assume you know something and also that you don't.
I never talked about "assume", which is not taking a firm position at all. You either subscribe to claim 1, 2 or 3 and advocate for your choice as hard as you want to. I you can't subscribe to any of such propositions, you can say so and proceed to explain to what you subscribe to. I guess one day we will find out.
That completely contradicts the statement you provided and from which these options originated:Londoner wrote:And I would add that in the case of the options you offered, (there is or isn't a noumenal world, or we don't know), they are actually all equally meaningless because we have no idea what the word 'noumenal' refers to.
Are you saying now that your own statement was meaningless and we don't know what you were referring to?Londoner wrote:If we posit there is a noumenal world behind phenomena, then by definition phenomena are 'related' to the noumenal, but the point is we do not - cannot - know how.
I thought that "there are no logical consequences to saying you can't know something." But anyway...all that follows after that in your post is conditioned by that one statement of "we cannot be certain about anything", implying that all of that is a mere assumption, an act of faith, grounded on nothing else but our desire to believe it. Anything could be, including the notion that all that we perceive is directly related to the underlying order of things, prior to our perception. So, if we were to remain faithful to your claim, it wouldn't be that "we must still create a model", but that "we can still create a model..."Londoner wrote:Although we cannot be certain about anything, we must still...
.Londoner wrote:.Conde Lucanor wrote: And even more, by accepting the claim above, you are also acknowledging that there's a connection between noumena and phenomena, that the first one determines the latter, and that it is the reason why we can assert that there is a noumena
Yes, I acknowledge the connection in that I understand that is what the word 'noumena' means. I also understand what 'angel' is supposed to mean, but it doesn't follow that I must therefore assert angels exist, or even agree that the concept of an angel is clear or comprehensible.
But that's exactly what you did. You said that was the reason we could posit the existence of noumena:
Londoner wrote:the position I have been arguing throughout; that because some phenomena exhibit a regularity and independence from our will we can posit there is a noumenal world
If you want to use Hollywood as a criteria for the validity of sentences, OK. Me might consider Shakespeare plays, as well.Londoner wrote:
A dead person saying 'I live' is unusual outside horror films but it is perfectly comprehensible. We understand the monster lives in a sense, but not in the usual sense. 'Live' supplies the predicate. Similarly, if we asked the person 'Are you alive?' and they answered 'I am' then we understand the 'am' is short for 'am alive'.
You're just entangled with grammar, not with a real philosophical problem. As I explained before, in Spanish grammar you will find a construction which is perfectly consistent with the verb "to be" in non-copulative sentences: "yo soy" and "yo no soy" have subjects and predicates.Londoner wrote:Not if the intransitive verb contradicts the existence of its subject. 'We didn't talk' has subject, but We weren't we does not.Conde Lucanor wrote:What refers to something is the predicate. That which it refers to is the subject. All of the phrases above had a subject and a predicate, so they had meaning. You are left then only with the possibility that the verb had no object to which the action is directed, but there are intransitive verbs which still convey full meaning.
The only advocacy of other worlds besides the physical we have seen lately in this thread is yours. I have only advocated for the one and only world. The fact that we can represent that world in our minds does not mean it is a different realm, the same way that I will not support the view that all that happens in a computer is an ontological "virtual world".Londoner wrote:You think there are two worlds, the one which is experienced through the senses and also another world behind that world.Conde Lucanor wrote:You can't be a materialist without being a realist. Materialists are monistic, acknowledging one physical world, which is experienced through the senses.