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Kant (Question Thread)
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Posted 10/26/09 - 12:48 AM:
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#1
In the transcendental exposition of the concept of space, Kant writes:

Space does not represent any property of object as things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their relations to each other; in other words, space does not represent to us any determinations of objects such as attaches to the objects themselves, and would remain, even though all subjective conditions of the intuition were abstracted.


My question is: because space re-presents objects, and all spatial determinations are not applicable to things in themselves, does space as a formal condition of experience (a) subject the object to its conditions; or (b) merely present aspects of the objects which are conducive to presentation in space?
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Posted 10/26/09 - 01:34 AM:
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The human mind internally constructs sense data into spatial objects.
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Posted 10/26/09 - 01:42 AM:
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The main purpose of this thread is twofold (a) present my questions about Kant's transcendental exposition; (b) present common questions about the exposition.

Our expositions, consequently, teach the reality (i.e., the objective validity) of space in regard of all which can be presented to us externally as objects, and at the same time also the ideality of space in regard to objects when they are considered by means of reason as things in themselves, that is, without reference to the constitution of our sensibility. We maintain, therefore, the empirical reality of space in regard to all possible external experience, although we must admit its transcendental ideality...


Henry Allison interprets the distinction Kant draws in the following way:

Taken in its empirical sense, 'ideality' characterizes the private data of an individual mind...[including] any mental content in the ordinary sense of 'mental.' 'Reality,' construed in the empirical sense, refers to the intersubjectively accessible, spatiotemporally ordered realm of objects of human experience.

At the transcendental level...'ideality' is used to characterize the universal, necessary, and therefore, a priori conditions of human konwledge...[as] subjective conditions in terms of which alone the human mind is capable of receiving the data for thought or experience.


If Allison's formulation of the division between empirical and transcendental levels of reflection is correct, then what can be made of Kant's claim that empirical reality has "objective validity"? That is, what grounds does Kant have for maintaining that the objects presented empirically actually have mind-independence, or are a particular human's experience? Why are we not left with the same skeptical doubts about the existence of objects which we had before Kant's exposition?
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Posted 10/26/09 - 01:45 AM:
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The human mind internally constructs sense data into spatial objects.


Is that Kant's opinion? Sense-data are typically defined as the objects of sensations. To Kant, these have empirical validity. The question is what Kant believes occurs when the transcendentally ideal object becomes empirically real. Is there a reason to exclude uniformity from the transcendentally ideal object, even if they are unknown to reason? I am asking what Kant's opinion is. He speaks as if he were undecided.

That is, supposing I don't misunderstand what "transcendentally ideal object" means.
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Posted 10/26/09 - 01:54 PM:
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If Allison's formulation of the division between empirical and transcendental levels of reflection is correct, then what can be made of Kant's claim that empirical reality has "objective validity"? That is, what grounds does Kant have for maintaining that the objects presented empirically actually have mind-independence, or are a particular human's experience?

I'm pretty sure Kant does not claim that empirical reality has objective reality in the mind-independence sense. When he talks about objectivity, he is as good as always referring to it in the intersubjective accessibility sense. Something which, if correct, makes empirical realism rather hollow. Or flat, like theatrical scenery — to comfort Kant's realist contemporaries, perhaps?

Why are we not left with the same skeptical doubts about the existence of objects which we had before Kant's exposition?

I think Kant's reply to this is found in the part of the Critique called "Refutation of Idealism" (or something similar). I didn't quite understand it when I read it (this morning, incidentally), but I can sketch the argument as far as I remember (don't have the book at hand right now): We are immediately aware of being in time. This is already having secured the inner sense. No evidence is required other than said consciousness itself. Now, as this inner sense somehow entails an outer sense, the existence of an external world (I guess merely an apparent, empirical world) is proven. What I didn't understand was how exactly the inner sense entails an outer sense. He elaborates on it, but I can't remember what he wrote.

That was probably anything but accurate, so you should read it yourself, if you think the passage might answer your questions. Please embarrass me with corrections if I got everything wrong smiling face

Another thing: The outer sense thus secured has no determinate content, but is merely a form of experience (I think). Here's another problem I have (or at least so I am imagining right now): Even if the move from inner to outer sense works perfectly, how exactly is this endpoint a refutation of idealism? It's very puzzling.

I'm reading the Critique itself and Allison's "Kant's Transcendental Idealism" these days. It would be very valuable to me to try to participate in discussion of topics like the ones you've touched on here. I'll come better prepared next time smiling face
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Posted 10/26/09 - 08:00 PM:
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quickly wrote:
My question is: because space re-presents objects, and all spatial determinations are not applicable to things in themselves, does space as a formal condition of experience (a) subject the object to its conditions; or (b) merely present aspects of the objects which are conducive to presentation in space?


It's a). If an object is to be given through the spatial intuition, it must conform to the conditions established by such intuition. This is the consequence of the copernican turn.

quickly wrote:
If Allison's formulation of the division between empirical and transcendental levels of reflection is correct, then what can be made of Kant's claim that empirical reality has "objective validity"? That is, what grounds does Kant have for maintaining that the objects presented empirically actually have mind-independence, or are a particular human's experience? Why are we not left with the same skeptical doubts about the existence of objects which we had before Kant's exposition?


This is the part of the CPR that I'm not too familiar with, but I think that Kant could argue in the following way. The transcendental conditions of experience, i.e. pure intuitions and pure concepts, are formal, i.e. they're but the conditions, the shell of experience. The content is the empirical input, and it is not produced by ourselves, but given to us. Hence there must be something "external" that feeds these contents. Let's call it "noumenon". The things in themselves, as such, become a transcendental condition, because the cognitive apparatus (in kantian philosophy) requires experience to set it in motion (remember the motto: all knowledge begins with experience, but no all knowledge derives from experience).

Grom wrote:
When he talks about objectivity, he is as good as always referring to it in the intersubjective accessibility sense.


Actually, I don't think there's any reference to intersubjectivity. Kantian philosophy is inherently subjective. When Kant talks about objectivity, he understands it as "being subject to a universal law". Check Kant's deduction of the pure concepts: his tactic is to show that, in order for intuitions to yield objective knowledge, there must be something that brings about the "lawlikeness" connection of the intuitions. And that is nothing else but a pure concept, e.g. cause-effect.
"Neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary language has no exact logic." P.F. Strawson
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Posted 10/26/09 - 09:00 PM:
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Timothy wrote:


Actually, I don't think there's any reference to intersubjectivity. Kantian philosophy is inherently subjective. When Kant talks about objectivity, he understands it as "being subject to a universal law". Check Kant's deduction of the pure concepts: his tactic is to show that, in order for intuitions to yield objective knowledge, there must be something that brings about the "lawlikeness" connection of the intuitions. And that is nothing else but a pure concept, e.g. cause-effect.



Just wondering, did you actually mean to say that "Kantian philosophy is inherently objective."? Kant assumed an 'objective reality' and thus it would be incorrect to claim that his philosophy is 'inhently subjective.' A little further in the quote you refer to "objective knowledge" so I'm thinking the first sentence may contain a typo(?).

Kant simultaneously embraced both 'transcendental idealism' and 'empirical realism.' Indeed his objective in the Refutation was to defend emprical realism, against 'empirical idealism.'

Edited by Mako on 10/26/09 - 10:12 PM
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Posted 10/26/09 - 10:26 PM:
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@ Mako:
Just wondering, did you actually mean to say that "Kantian philosophy is inherently objective."? Kant assumed an 'objective reality' and thus I believe it would be incorrect to claim that his philosophy is 'inhently subjective.' You go on to refer to "objective knowledge in the above quote so I'm thinking the first sentence contains a typo, at least going by the gist of that paragraph as a whole.


Kant does use "objective" in the following sense (from Aesthetic/Space): "[Our] exposition therefore establishes the reality, that is, the objective validity, of space in respect of whatever can be presented to us outwardly as object, but also...the ideality of space in respect of things when they are considered in themselves through reason...[or] without regard to the constitution of our sensibility"

So I think that if by an "objective object" instead "that which is subject to the external sense, viz., the form of sensibilty," or is empirically real, then they can use the word "objective" but also must distinguish between the object for-the-subject and the object-for-another (to adopt a different phraseology).

@ Timothy:
It's a). If an object is to be given through the spatial intuition, it must conform to the conditions established by such intuition. This is the consequence of the copernican turn.


But I don't think this is necessarily the case, nor specifies how to understand the meaning of such a phrase. Yes, it's a truism to say "[the object] must conform to the conditions established by such intuition," but Kant in turn will use two different sets of phrases: (a) the object is determined by the subjective conditions; (b) the object is not necessarily determined because the subject is agnostic to the transcendentally ideal object. I am going with (a), however, because of his comments on the internal sense and the necessary affect which it must have upon the ego.

The transcendental conditions of experience, i.e. pure intuitions and pure concepts, are formal, i.e. they're but the conditions, the shell of experience. The content is the empirical input, and it is not produced by ourselves, but given to us. Hence there must be something "external" that feeds these contents. Let's call it "noumenon". The things in themselves, as such, become a transcendental condition, because the cognitive apparatus (in kantian philosophy) requires experience to set it in motion (remember the motto: all knowledge begins with experience, but no all knowledge derives from experience).


Yes, and I think this is the same type of problem which Russell and the sense-data theorists who bypassed Hume had. As Moore points out, having a sensation of an "x-thing" and having an experience of an "x-thing as x" require one either admit of concepts or universals, or at least knowledge of logical relations of objects. I'm not sure what you mean by "the content of the empirical input...is not produced by ourselves, but given to us," though: the content is encountered but still subject to the formal conditions of space and time.

@ Grom:
I'm pretty sure Kant does not claim that empirical reality has objective reality in the mind-independence sense. When he talks about objectivity, he is as good as always referring to it in the intersubjective accessibility sense. Something which, if correct, makes empirical realism rather hollow.


Sorry, I'm fairly sure I should have said "not causally dependent upon the mind," but that it is "formally dependent on the mind," in terms of the objective reality of the mind. I think it was this innovation that allows Kant to break with some of the more mainstream idealist traditions. But I'd like to hear why that isn't the case and why it makes empirical realism "hollow." The notion of intersubjectivity is more recent, but I think it could be applied fruitfully to Hume.

I will read the sections you pointed out, however.
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Posted 10/27/09 - 03:21 PM:
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quickly wrote:
My question is: because space re-presents objects, and all spatial determinations are not applicable to things in themselves, does space as a formal condition of experience (a) subject the object to its conditions; or (b) merely present aspects of the objects which are conducive to presentation in space?

Timothy wrote:
It's a). If an object is to be given through the spatial intuition, it must conform to the conditions established by such intuition. This is the consequence of the copernican turn.

I think Timothy's reply is correct, but only if you limit the question to concern the empirical object. With regard to the transcendental object on the other hand, the question remains open, as it leads beyond the limits of our understanding to try to judge whether the transcendental object is like or unlike the empirical object, whether the latter is an aspect of the former, or whether the two are completely different and separate. I think it is a helpful idea to think of the empirical object as an aspect of the transcendental object, but this idea is not true — or if it is, we cannot know.

In today's reading, I found what I think is a very good explanation of what the transcendental object is. I hope you agree it is relevant in the above context:

From "CPR, B344-5":
Understanding [...] limits sensibility, but does not thereby extend its own sphere. In the process of warning the latter that it must not presume to claim applicability to things-in-themselves but only to appearances, it does indeed think for itself an object in itself, but only as transcendental object, which is the cause of appearance and therefore not itself appearance, and which can be thought neither as quantity nor as reality nor as substance etc. (because these concepts always require sensible forms in which they determine an object). We are completely ignorant whether it is to be met within us or outside us, whether it would be at once removed with the cessation of sensibility, or whether in the absence of sensibility it would still remain. If we are pleased to name this object noumenon for the reason that its representation is not sensible, we are free to do so. But since we can apply to it none of the concepts of our understanding, the representation remains for us empty, and is of no service except to mark the limits of our sensible knowledge and to leave open a space which we can fill neither through possible experience nor through pure understanding.

Timothy wrote:
Actually, I don't think there's any reference to intersubjectivity.

No, I don't think he ever uses the word, and perhaps it would be wrong to use it about his thought. But I think it is fitting, because the objectivity he secures is merely with regard to empirical objects, which, as far as I understand at this point is just a given sensible manifold synthesized according to the firm rules of human understanding and somehow all bound together in neat packets of cognition called objects. Now, what makes cognition like this objectively true is not that it is true of the transcendental, mind-independent object, but that it is a necessary and universal judgment by the understanding of what is presented to it in sensibility. The reason we can communicate these cognitions is merely the fact that we share this firm structure in our human understanding.

Another thing I found today was the following interesting statement Kant has about truth:

From "CPR, B349-350":
[T]ruth or illusion is not in the object, in so far as it is intuited, but in the judgment about it, in so far as it is thought. It is therefore correct to say that the senses do not err -- not because they always judge rightly but because they do not judge at all. Truth and error, therefore, and consequently also illusion as leading to error, are only to be found in the judgment, i.e. only in the relation of the object to our understanding.

I take from this that truth and objectivity is founded merely of the function of our cognitive apparatus, and you must admit that this is subjective — not in the sense that it is private or accidental or incommunicable, but in the sense that it pertains to the subject.

quickly wrote:
Sorry, I'm fairly sure I should have said "not causally dependent upon the mind," but that it is "formally dependent on the mind," in terms of the objective reality of the mind. I think it was this innovation that allows Kant to break with some of the more mainstream idealist traditions. But I'd like to hear why that isn't the case and why it makes empirical realism "hollow." The notion of intersubjectivity is more recent, but I think it could be applied fruitfully to Hume.

That correction makes perfect sense, and I think it is a good way to put it. And as far as I see, it is perfectly consistent with the "intersubjective accessibility" sense of objectivity I suggested (elaborated on above). I should perhaps drop the term intersubjective. But I'm just not comfortable with using too strong language when what we're talking about is merely empirical. To my mind at least, it is a source of confusion. If I can allow myself to go out on a bit of a tangent here: I would prefer something like constructivist language — or better yet, some kind of fictionalist framework. But I don't think these fit well with Kant. I suspect he thought that the culturally accumulated cognition of empirical reality was near completion — perfection —, just as he thought about geometry and insinuated about physics (or so I vaguely remember). This has of course shown itself to be very far from true. The world within the reach of human cognition has revealed itself to be far less tidy and orderly than Kant and most of his contemporaries thought, or even could have imagined. Now, this, I think, is good reason to go beyond Kant somehow, perhaps in the direction I hinted to. But before I move on to try and do that, I'd like to understand Kant better, on his own terms. And his are not constructivist terms. He clearly wants to secure a realism we can live safely in (empirical realism). The reason I think this is hollow is that Kant at the same time says of it that its claims cannot reach beyond very severe limits. Turning then to proclaim this tiny island of human cognitive habitation "real" in any sense whatsoever jumps out at me as very misleading — as a comforting deception, the worst kind.
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Posted 10/29/09 - 09:29 PM:
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quickly wrote:
But I don't think this is necessarily the case, nor specifies how to understand the meaning of such a phrase.


If an object does not conform to the conditions established by the spatial intuition, then simply the "object" will not be spatially given to us! i.e. there would be no object in that sense. If something fails to "fit" the spatial drawer within the subject, then it simply will not be something to the subject; it would be as if the so-called object never existed. Hence the necessity...

quickly wrote:
Yes, it's a truism to say "[the object] must conform to the conditions established by such intuition," but Kant in turn will use two different sets of phrases: (a) the object is determined by the subjective conditions; (b) the object is not necessarily determined because the subject is agnostic to the transcendentally ideal object.


Kant understands "object" as that which is determined by the pure forms of intuitions and the pure concepts. In b), you seem to be using object in a different sense, thus making ambiguous the concept. In b) you would not say "object", but "thing-in-itself", that which is utterly inaccessible to us, yet transcendentally necessary.

quickly wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by "the content of the empirical input...is not produced by ourselves, but given to us," though: the content is encountered but still subject to the formal conditions of space and time.


Encountered works equally well. What I meant by saying that the empirical content is "given" is just that the source of it is not ourselves, as is the case of spatial and temporal intuitions, but something else, i.e. the external reality, the things-in-themselves (according to Kant, of course).

Grom wrote:
I think Timothy's reply is correct, but only if you limit the question to concern the empirical object.


A limit which must be drawn, don't you think? Precisely because there's nothing we can know about the "transcendental object", things-in-themselves. But these are not technically objects. An object is something you've already apprehended, it is something to you. But things-in-themselves are just a necessary condition for all the process to occur, not some object out there from which only we can perceive a few features or something if the sort. That's why I think b) in the OP is not an option in kantian philosophy

"Neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary language has no exact logic." P.F. Strawson
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