[lit-ideas] Re: consider once again the
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 21:28:27 +0100
>A phenomena is anything subject to empirical verification. To some, a
noumenon is the intellectual conception of the thing in itself; others
define it as anything beyond the realm of direct empirical verification.>
Leaving aside the highly problematic character of "empirical verification"
(which does not exist in the traditional inductive sense), and accepting that a
"phenomenon" is something connected with experience and our "internal world",
it is not at all right to posit that "a
noumenon is the intellectual conception of the thing in itself".
A noumenon is, especially for Kant, not the "intellectual conception" of the
thing in itself but a term for a thing in itself. Perhaps the simplest way to
understand 'things in themselves' is as those objects in the "external world"
to which pertains at least some of our "internal world" of 'experience': it is
Kant's view that the character of these objects in the external world is
fundamentally unknowable, whereas it is Popper's view that they may be known by
way of conjecture - but even Popper would accept Kant's key thesis that our
knowledge of such objects is a product of how our cognitive apparatus is
disposed to respond to properties of those objects and is never an unmediated
reflection of the objects themselves. So even for a metaphysical realist like
Popper, Kant is correct in denying such objects are ever "knowable" in the
fully God-like sense where "knowledge" is something like a full reflection of
the object untainted by the subjectivity of
the knower. There is a permanent screen between us and the "external world",
and a permanent distinction between the screen of our "internal world" of
phenomenal experience and the "external world" of objects to which that
experience may pertain.
The "intellectual conception" of a 'thing in itself' is therefore (a) not a
thing in itself (and thus not a noumenon) (b) something that belongs to the
phenomenal and not the noumenal world - or, in other terms, something that
belongs in our "internal world" and not in the "external world".
>Since
all we can discuss are phenomena, everything else (the world without us
to perceive it) is an intellectual construct, hence an act of belief or
imagination.>
The comment that, given the above, we can discuss only "phenomena" is also
highly problematic, even to Kant. But, as indicated, it is a mistake,
especially in Kant's philosophy, to think that "everything else" (e.g.
everything apart from "phenomena") is "an intellectual construct": as
indicated, the noumena or 'things-in-themselves', that exist beyond our
phenomenal experience of them, are not "an intellectual construct" at all (if
they were then Kant would not argue they are fundamentally unknowable [for "an
intellectual construct" cannot be fundamentally unknowable in this sense]).
Though admittedly the positing of a distinction between "phenomena" and
"noumena" may be "an intellectual construct" of sorts, it is not a mere
"intellectual construct" but a fact of reality that there are both phenomena
and noumena. In other words, noumena exist 'noumenalogically' and not at all as
an "intellectual construct" of any sort (the idea that Kant's noumena are an
"intellectual construct" would be to collapse Kant's "transcendental idealism"
into "idealism" in something like the Berkleyan manner: and it may be suggested
that the term "transcendental idealism" is here unfortunate - itself misleading
given the realist elements in Kant's philosophy).
Donal
Still waitg to hear where Socrates suggests intentional wrong-doing is
impossible or where Popper makes an anti-Cartesian point about connoiseurs. Ah,
the silence.
On Friday, 12 September 2014, 19:48, Eric <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> nobody knows what is the "own" noumena? what the fuck are you talking about?
A phenomena is anything subject to empirical verification. To some, a noumenon
is the intellectual conception of the thing in itself; others define it as
anything beyond the realm of direct empirical verification.
Since all we can discuss are phenomena, everything else (the world without us
to perceive it) is an intellectual construct, hence an act of belief or
imagination.
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