Post by gaffoPost by Immortalistantinomies ('conflict of laws') which are usually described as 'paradox' or
'contradiction'. An example of one Kant sought to deal with is whether the
universe has a beginning (first cause) or whether it has always existed.
interesting - like Light is a Particle and/or a Wave. or the conflict
between relativity and quantum mechanics.
Actually it is the difference between "Necesisity" and "Contingency" in relation
to (mediation) or non_immediate inference. We are dealing with contingencies here
which means they can be either true or false depending upon the circumstances.
But as you know a necessary truth must be true by definition of the subject. So
in that respect you are right about QM as an analogy.
Post by gaffobeing a Solipsist myself "light" "particle" "wave"/etc. have no external
reality - or if they do I cannot prove they do. for sanity I assume they
do of course.
Are you saying you don't exist then? Or if you are bold enough to claim you are a
solipsist and exist, what are you existing in?
Post by gaffoPost by Immortalisthttp://www.rep.routledge.com/article/DB047SECT8
http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/kant.htm
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-15
you must be in the alt.philosophy group.................been many yrs
since Kant.
Solipsism is the only valid philosophy IMO. Kant was full of it.
Is there any way for you to defend this argument that Kant was full of it? Can
you present a persuasive argument based upon what he says?
-----
Here are some snips about Kant's opinion about idealism and Berkeley's
inmaterialism (solipsism) and some about the cogitos (I AM);
The traditional "refutation" of idealism, (attributed to a "Dr. Johnson" as a
refutation of Bishop George Berkeley's version of idealism) suggests that, to
"disprove" idealism, all one has to do is kick something (or someone). As if to
say, "oh, so you don't believe in matter; then this shouldn't hurt a bit! But,
herein lies the problem. The only evidence sited for matter is "experience."
Remember when Hume referred to both "inward and outward sentiment?" He meant we
have the experience of stuff going on inside of us and the experience of stuff
going of outside of us. Both are experiences! Recall Kant's synthetic a priori
knowledge--the 12 categories including space and time, which filter the Noumena
into Phenomena. It is very similar here. In both cases there is "something"
outside that is then put into the minds structure and turned into an experience.
In both cases you can say that "you are not reading this text" and be perfectly
accurate! After Kant wrote his main book explaining how the mind constructs our
experience of the phenomenal realm, philosophers began wondering what
justification is there for the noumena? The Idealists answer is, there can be no
justification from experience.
http://commhum.mccneb.edu/dweber/101%20INTRO/Workbook/Chpt-3/3-2%20Idealism.htm
Refutation of Idealism - Kant argues that temporal judgments about one's own
states require reference to objects which endure in a way that mental
representations themselves do not, and therefore that consciousness of oneself
also implies consciousness of objects external to oneself [B 275-6] also [B
xxxix-xli].
http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/DB047SECT7
When the Critique of Pure Reason was first published Kant was horrified when some
critics took him to be proposing a form of idealism not unlike, for example,
Berkeley's notorious immaterialism. On the face of it, it wouldn't be utterly
silly, given the arguments of the Aesthetic and Analytic, to suppose that Kant
was claiming that we construct the 'real world' in a way determined by the nature
of our sensory and intellectual apparatus, and that therefore there was simply no
such thing as the 'real world'. However Kant insists that this is not what he is
arguing, and in the second edition he adds a short section, 'The Refutation of
Idealism', where he argues against what he calls material idealism and
distinguishes it from transcendental idealism. We're going to concentrate on how
effective this refutation of material idealism is.
http://tinyurl.com/2sqpx
Kant's "Refutation of Empirical Idealism" has an anti-Cartesian conclusion:
"inner experience in general is only possible through outer experience in
general" (B 278). Due to wide-spread preoccupation with Cartesian skepticism, and
to the anti-naturalism of early analytic philosophy (reflected in its basic
division between "conceptual" and "empirical" issues), most of Kant's recent
anglophone commentators have sought a purely conceptual, "analytic" argument in
Kant's Refutation of Idealism--and then criticized Kant when no such plausible
argument can be reconstructed from his text. They charge that Kant's
transcendental arguments must argue by elimination, though they fail to eliminate
the possibility of Descartes' evil deceiver, or alternative forms of cognition,
or the possibility that the mere (individually subjective) appearances of things
would suffice for the possibility of self-consciousness.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/~j018/ktpr-bl.htm
----------------------------
Realism in the Refutation of Idealism
Andrew Brook
Summary
In the Refutation of Idealism and in a long footnote on the same subject added to
the second-edition Preface, Kant seems to say things that point, prima facie,
strongly in the direction of realism. Because any such view would seem to be
completely incompatible with the doctrine of the unknowability of things as they
are and some of his other views, few commentators have been willing to take them
at face value. In this paper, we examine these indications of realism, and then
propose a way to render them compatible with things in themselves being
unknowable. The key move is to distinguish between being aware of something and
having knowledge of it. Kant made this distinction a centrepiece of his treatment
of awareness of self. Did it also enter his thinking about awareness of objects?
Kant's dominant view of the sensible foundation of knowledge is that we are
immediately aware of nothing but our own representations. However, as Paul Guyer
has so richly documented, a streak of direct realism can also be found in his
work from time to time, a streak that would seem to be in considerable tension
with the official view. In the first Critique, this streak of realism shows up
most clearly in the Refutation of Idealism: he tells us at one point that we must
have "an immediate awareness of the existence of other things outside me" (B276),
of "an external thing distinct from all my representations" (Bxli), being careful
in these statements to include both the empirical sense of externality, being
located in space (`outside me', `external thing') and the transcendental sense
(`other things', i.e. things other than myself, which are `distinct from all my
representations').
In the first Critique the Refutation of Idealism is given in two parts. In
addition to the section so named, it is taken up in a long footnote appended to
the new Preface. There Kant tells us that he was not happy with some of the
details of the official argument and asks that certain passages in the footnote
be substituted. I will treat the original argument and the long supplementary
footnote together.
The central argument of the Refutation runs as follows.(1)
First, "I am aware of my own existence as determined in time" (B275). What he
means by "determined in time" is unclear in the Refutation, but gets clarified in
the footnote. He means;
the application of the apparatus of location
in time to myself in any way whatsoever:
recognizing earlier and later stages of myself and
combining them, comparing the time of events in
me to the time of other events, locating
myself in time, and so on.
Secondly, I do not determine myself in time on the basis of anything represented
to me about myself. When I am aware of myself as subject of experience,
determinations of time are not represented at all. This form of self-awareness is
a merely intellectual representation of the spontaneity of the thinking subject.
This `I' has not, therefore the least predicate of intuition, which as permanent,
might serve as correlate for the determination of time in inner sense -- in the
manner in which, for instance, impenetrability serves in our empirical intuition
of matter [B278].
Thus, if I am going to determine my own existence in time, I could only do it via
the contents of inner sense. In any case, my temporal apparatus can be applied at
all only to intuitions, only to something that has a manifold, a multiplicity of
items (Bxl). For me to be able to apply temporal predicates to myself, therefore,
I must do so via applying it to intuitions. For this, however, not just any old
intuitions will do; mere multiplicity is not enough.
To apply temporal predicates, we must also be able to identify
change. To identify change, however, we must be able to
identify something as persisting through the change --
we must be able to identify something permanent.
For this, awareness of the contents of inner sense
can serve no better than awareness of self as subject.
Moreover, and this is a third and key move, by themselves and cut off from things
other than ourselves (Bxxxix fn.), neither representations nor any contents of a
representation could do any better at representing permanence.
... the representation of [the permanent] may be very transitory and variable
like all our other representations, not excepting those of matter, it yet refers
to something permanent. The latter must therefore be an external thing distinct
from all my representations ... [Bxli; my emphasis].
Our representations are constantly changing; indeed, they cease altogether for a
number of hours each night.
Therefore, the representation of permanence cannot
consist in anything permanent in representations.
Instead, from the contents of various representations
we must somehow extract something that we can
treat as a representation of a persisting object.
If this object were merely a property of myself, however, it would have no
permanence either. Therefore, an object could be represented as permanent only if
it is "an external thing distinct from all my representations" (Bxli);
I must be aware of at least some thing that
is neither a representation nor myself.
"In other words, the awareness of my existence
is at the same time an immediate awareness of
the existence of other things outside me" (B276).
At least some of the intentional objects of my representations must tell me of
the existence of real, independently-existing objects. QED. Kant is now
advocating some form of direct realism.(2)
http://www.carleton.ca/~abrook/REFUT-ID.htm
---------------------------------------------
Is there anything to the argument of the Refutation? It is hard to tell. Even if
we grant that objects of representations have no permanence, why are they not
able to represent permanence unless they represent something other in the
transcendental sense than oneself? Kant says nothing to help us. Perhaps he is
confusing objects of representation containing no permanence, in the sense of not
being permanent, with them not being able to represent permanence. Whatever, for
the argument of the Refutation, Kant must show that representations cannot
represent permanence by themselves. There are other controversial premises, too,
but here I do not intend to examine Kant's argument. Instead, I want to focus on
the realist conclusion. What are its implications? Can it be squared with other
things in the critical philosophy, in particular the doctrine of the
unknowability of things in themselves?
For Kant did not give one inch on the unknowability of the noumenal in the second
edition. Nor, for that matter, does he ever say that he is abandoning the idea
that we are aware only of our own representations. So what are we to make of the
new realism? Can having immediate awareness of "an external thing distinct from
all my representations" be squared with the rest of the critical philosophy?
To begin our search, notice first that the argument of the Refutation is by no
means unanticipated in the first edition, though many seem to believe the
opposite. Only the location, some details of the structure, and of course the
conclusion are new. When Kant turns to the Paralogisms as a whole in the first
edition, immediately after the discussion of the fourth Paralogism, he says:
... the appearance to outer sense has something fixed or abiding which supplies a
substratum to its transitory determinations ..., whereas time, which is the sole
form of our inner intuition, has nothing abiding and therefore yields knowledge
only of ... change ..., not of any object that can be thereby determined. For in
what we entitle `soul' everything is in continual flux and there is nothing
abiding except ... the `I', which ... has no content, and therefore no manifold
... [A381].
Kant's argument for the first Analogy, the Principle of Permanence of Substance,
is likewise similar in structure to the argument of the Refutation. The same is
true of the argument-structure of A108. Like the Refutation, all these passages
start from self-awareness, though the Refutation starts from empirical
self-awareness of myself as determined in time, not transcendental awareness of
myself as myself, a point Allison makes.(3) Likewise, the fundamental idea in all
these passages is that I could appear to myself as I do only if my
representations have a certain character; in the case of the Refutation,
"awareness of my existence is bound up by way of identity (identisch verbunden)
with the awareness of ... something outside me" (Bxl).(4) Of course, the
Refutation reaches a stronger conclusion than the first-edition passages. It
argues that representations must represent objects external in the transcendental
sense, i.e., object genuinely other than myself, whereas the first-edition
passages argue only that objects must be located in space and time and tied
together under the Categories. Nevertheless, at least the argument-structure of
the Refutation is not a radical departure from the first edition.(5)
So what are the implications of the new doctrine? Kant's new doctrine can be
split into two: as well as the new notion that we are aware of objects other than
ourselves, there is a new concept of what a genuinely external object is like.
Unlike the discussion of the fourth Paralogism, Kant is now drawing a deep
distinction between representation of an object and at least some objects; now at
least some objects are quite distinct from our representations of them. In the
first edition, the distinction between `real objects independent of our
representations' and `intentional objects whose existence depends on our
representations' depended merely on our passivity to the former and denseness of
causal integration. Now it takes on some real strength.
With this change seems to go a change in Kant's conception of matter. In the
first edition, Kant treated matter as a mere feature of appearances -- a feature
that consists of the objects of these appearances having extension,
impenetrability, cohesion, and motion (A358) -- and contrasted it with things as
they actually are (A268=B324).
Matter is with [the transcendental idealist], therefore, only a species of
representations (intuition), which are called external, not as standing in
relation to objects in themselves external, but because they relate perceptions
to the space in which all things are external to one another, while yet the space
itself is in us [A370]
What the `substrate' (A350) of matter might be like, what "inwardly belongs to
it" (A277=B333, a nice Leibnizian term), is hidden from us. All we can be aware
of are its effects on our representations. In the Refutation, this doctrine of
matter undergoes a transformation. Having argued that we must have immediate
awareness of something other than ourselves that is permanent, Kant says in Note
2. that "... we have nothing permanent ... save only matter" (B278, his
emphasis). He then gives the earth and the sun as his example -- we can see the
sun move by comparing it to the earth's permanence. To our immense frustration,
this elusive hint is all Kant gives us, but it is enough to indicate that he now
seems to believe that matter exists independently of us.(6)
Must Kant also abandon or modify his doctrine of the ideality of space? This is
the doctrine that space has no extra-mental existence. Though it might still be
us who impose spatial matrices, it would surely be utterly unmotivated now to
continue to insist that things as they are could not have spatial properties. If
so, the treasured distinction of the first edition between being external to me
in space (a state compatible with being a property of me) and being an object
other than me should disappear, too. Unfortunately, Kant gives us nothing to
allow us to pursue these questions further, not in the first Critique at least.
So let us turn to the final question I will consider: Can the new view be squared
with the doctrine of the unknowability of things as they are? One way to solve
the problem would be to construe the new claims about awareness of `other things
outside me' as falling within transcendental idealism. This would immediately
solve the problem, and is the approach Allison takes: he construes the new
awareness as merely a new application of the general doctrine of Kant's mentioned
earlier, that we are aware of only representations (hereafter OR, for `only
representations').(7) Guyer takes Kant's realist pronouncements more seriously,
quoting his saying that we have an "intellectual intuition" of "other things
outside me" which is "not a mere representation of them in space" (i.e. not
intuitional). Despite this, Guyer cannot bring himself to suggest that Kant could
contradict OR any more than Allison. In Guyer's view, Kant is merely claiming
that we must presuppose "that there are external objects", not that we must be
immediately aware of them; our representations do not actually present objects
other than oneself, they just presuppose such objects.(8) So let us ask: Why does
even a commentator as sensitive to the realist strain in Kant as Guyer refuse to
accept his realist pronouncements at face value? What makes him foist such a
complicated and implausible account on Kant?
I do not think that it could be merely because the new pronouncements are
inconsistent with OR. OR is not only extraordinarily implausible, it has caused
no end of mischief in the history of philosophy. Any reason to think that Kant
edged away from it at some points in his career would be a reason to rejoice.
Rather, I think the reason has to be that the new doctrine seems to be so
blatantly inconsistent with the doctrine of the unknowability of the noumenal.
Our task is to see if that is so.
Though it has been little remarked upon in the literature, Kant made a
distinction between being aware of something and having knowledge of it that is
vital to the question before us. Most of the time the distinction arose in
connection with awareness of self of a certain kind, so let us first explore it
in that context. In the first edition, he says that we can denote the self
"without noting in it any quality whatsoever" (A355). In the second edition, he
speaks of an "awareness of self" that is "very far from being a knowledge of the
self" (B158), and that we are aware of ourselves "not as we appear, or as we are,
but only that we are" (B157). Kant seems to be invoking exactly the same
non-knowledge but still immediate awareness of the self in the long footnote: "I
am aware of my existence in time ... , and this is more than to be aware merely
of my representations" (Bxl, my emphasis). Now entertain an interesting if
necessarily speculative idea: suppose Kant applied the same analysis to awareness
of things other than the self? Suppose he distinguished immediate awareness of
objects other than oneself from knowledge of them, too? If so, he could have his
new claims about our immediate awareness of them without violating his old view
that we have no knowledge of them. There is a bit of evidence to support this
speculation, though not much -- Kant makes a few statements that point to it.
In the long footnote, Kant puts his new idea in a surprisingly large number of
different ways. Sometimes he puts it in exactly the way we have been examining:
"the determination of my existence in time is possible only through the existence
of actual things which I perceive outside me" (B275-6). Sometimes he puts it in a
way that does not actually imply direct realism at all: we must have "awareness
of a relation to something outside me" (Bxl). But sometimes he puts it this way:
we must have merely immediate awareness of "the existence of other things outside
me" (B276, my emphases in all cases). This claim could easily have behind it the
distinction between being aware of something and knowing anything about it that
we have just explored in connection with awareness of self.
As an exception to any two-world picture of phenomena and noumena, this new view
would be drastic; it would be a death sentence for OR. If we are immediately
aware of the world as it is, the idea that the world as it is never appears in
any way in our representations has to go. Neither implication seems to me to be
fatal for a suggestion that Kant might have held, or at least have been working
his way toward, the new view.
In fact, in one respect, the Refutation may go further with immediate awareness
of things as they are than even the other second edition passages just cited did.
In the Refutation we are not just aware of objects other than ourselves, we even
have one piece of knowledge of them: that they are permanent, some of them
anyway. This would mean that on this one point, our representations of the world
would actually represent the world as it is. Walker has expressed a fear that
allowing immediate awareness of the self would open a flood-gate to knowledge of
the noumenal. So far as awareness of self is concerned, I think his worry is
groundless.(9) With respect to the statements in the Refutation and the long
footnote we have been examining, however, he may well have a point. Even here,
Kant could still cogently insist, we have no immediate, unconstructed awareness
of any other property of anything, so have no other knowledge of their
properties.
Is there any reason to think that Kant might have applied his notion of a kind of
`transcendental' reference to self in which no qualities are noted to things
other than oneself? One reason is that for Kant, awareness of self and awareness
of things other than self are symmetrical. If so, and if there is a form of
reference to self that requires no description or concept-application, then Kant
could well have made use of a notion of a similar form of reference to objects.
On the reading of the Refutation that I am suggesting, reference to self and
reference to objects other than the self would display just this symmetry. In
both cases, we may have no knowledge of the things to which we refer, knowledge
of them as they are, but in both cases our acts of reference would refer to and
thus make us aware of the objects themselves, not just representations of them.
Of oneself these acts would yield a `bare consciousness' (A346=B404) of the self
that is "very far from being a knowledge of the self" (B158). Of things other
than oneself, they would yield "an immediate awareness of the existence of other
things outside me" (B276) that would be equally far from being a knowledge of
them.
The distinction between being aware of something and knowing anything of it
points to an important theory of reference. On this distinction, reference could
`reach all the way' to its object, yet description could remain an act of
constructive concept-application, even to the point of the constructor not being
able to know whether it is ever accurate -- reference could reach a real object,
free of potentially distorting judgment or description, and yet all possible room
for description to be `theory-laden' and otherwise influenced by the cognitive
apparatus of the mind doing the describing could be preserved. When Kant called a
certain kind of reference transcendental designation (A355), he may even have had
something like this in mind; when reference `notes no qualities', is
non-ascriptive, it would be transcending the apperceptive, synthesizing
activities of the mind. Once such an act of non-ascriptive reference is made, it
would immediately be surrounded by an `umbra' of cognitive manipulations, of
course: the undescribed object to which reference has been made would be judged,
described, propositional attitudes would be taken up to it, theories could be
formed about it, and so on. It would be at this stage but only at the this stage
that we would enter the realm of knowledge. For one thing, knowledge requires the
possibility of error -- incorrect judgment or description -- and there would be
no possibility of this kind of error in an act of non-ascriptive reference.(10)
It would also be at this stage that we would enter the realm of what cannot be
checked against things as they are, where we could now understand the latter to
be the objects to which we have achieved reference. In fact, the possibilities
for descriptive error within this theory of reference are vast, so vast that even
something as basic as how I carve the world up into objects could be in error.
But what would not be in error when I have achieved reference is a belief that I
am referring to and therefore am aware of something -- something other than
myself. This sort of theory of reference is quite different from the picture
generally accepted in Anglo-American philosophy since WWII, in which reference is
always under a description. However, it or a view like it does have contemporary
proponents, including Putnam, Kripke, and the later Wittgenstein. It is at the
heart of most paradigm-based semantics theories. If I am right, once again Kant
proves to be more than a cultural artefact, a mere earlier stage in our
intellectual history.
http://www.carleton.ca/~abrook/REFUT-ID.htm
---------------------------------------
KANT AND HIS REFUTATION OF IDEALISM*
36. Kant's refutation of idealism in the second edition of the Critic of the Pure
Reason has been often held to be inconsistent with his main position or even to
be knowingly sophistical. It appears to me to be one of the numerous passages in
that work which betray an elaborated and vigorous analysis, marred in the
exposition by the attempt to state the argument more abstractly and
demonstratively than the thought would warrant.
In "Note 1," Kant says that his argument beats idealism at its own game. How is
that? The idealist says that all that we know immediately, that is, otherwise
than inferentially, is what is present in the mind; and things out of the mind
are not so present. The whole idealist position turns upon this conception of the
present.
37. The idealistic argument turns upon the assumption that certain things are
absolutely "present," namely what we have in mind at the moment, and that nothing
else can be immediately, that is, otherwise than inferentially known. When this
is once granted, the idealist has no difficulty in showing that that external
existence which we cannot know immediately we cannot know, at all. Some of the
arguments used for this purpose are of little value, because they only go to show
that our knowledge of an external world is fallible; now there is a world of
difference between fallible knowledge and no knowledge.
However, I think it would have to be admitted as a matter of logic that if we
have no immediate perception of a non-ego, we can have no reason to admit the
supposition of an existence so contrary to all experience as that would in that
case be. 38. But what evidence is there that we can immediately know only what is
"present" to the mind? The idealists generally treat this as self-evident; but,
as Clifford jestingly says, " it is evident " is a phrase which only means " we
do not know how to prove."
The proposition that we can immediately perceive only what is present seems to me
parallel to that other vulgar prejudice that "a thing cannot act where it is
not." An opinion which can only defend itself by such a sounding phrase is pretty
sure to be wrong. That a thing cannot act where it is not is plainly an induction
from ordinary experience, which shows no forces except such as act through the
resistance of materials, with the exception of gravity which, owing to its being
the same for all bodies,does not appear in ordinary experience like a force. But
further experience shows that attractions and repulsions are the universal types
of forces. A thing may be said to be wherever it acts; but the notion that a
particle is absolutely present in one part of space and absolutely absent from
all the rest of space is devoid of all foundation.
In like manner, the idea that we can immediately perceive only what is present
seems to be founded on our ordinary experience |p17 that we cannot recall and
reexamine the events of yesterday nor know otherwise than by inference what is to
happen tomorrow. Obviously, then, the first move toward beating idealism at its
own game is to remark that we apprehend our own ideas only as flowing in time,
and since neither the future nor the past, however near they may be, is present,
there is as much difficulty in conceiving our perception of what passes within us
as in conceiving external perception. If so, replies the idealist, instead of
giving up idealism we must go still further to nihilism. Kant does not notice
this retort; but it is clear from his footnote that he would have said: Not so;
for it is impossible we should so much as think we think in time unless we do
think in time; or rather, dismissing blind impossibility, the mere imagination of
time is a clear perception of the past.
Hamilton* stupidly objects to Reid's phrase "immediate memory"; but an immediate,
intuitive consciousness of time clearly exists wherever time exists. But once
grant immediate knowledge in time, and what becomes of the idealist theory that
we immediately know only the present? For the present can contain no time. 39.
But Kant does not pursue this line of thought along the straight road to its
natural result; because he is a sort of idealist himself. Namely, though not
idealistic as to the substance of things, he is partially so in regard to their
accidents. Accordingly, he introduces his distinction of the variable and the
persistent (beharrlich), and seeks to show that the only way we can apprehend our
own flow of ideas, binding them together as a connected flow, is by attaching
them to an immediately perceived persistent externality. He refuses to inquire
how that immediate external consciousness is possible, though such an inquiry
might have probed the foundations of his system.
http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/exexwo_90.htm
-----------------------------------
§5. The Refutation of Idealism and the Distinction Between Perception and
Imagination
§5.1 Introduction
According to Kant, the argument in the Refutation of Idealism is supposed to
"establish that we have experience and not merely imagination of outer things".
This focus on the distinction between perception (experience of outer things) and
imagination is easy to overlook because of the apparently disparate notions upon
which the argument draws: consciousness of self, time determination, and the
immediacy of inner and outer sense. Kant claims that the refutation is directed
against the problematic idealism that he attributes to Descartes, and not against
the dogmatic idealism of Berkeley. Problematic idealism, according to Kant, holds
that the existence of things outside of me is "doubtful and indemonstrable",
whereas dogmatic idealism holds that the existence of things outside me is
impossible.
The two idealisms are surely distinct. Nonetheless, Kant recognized how easily
problematic idealism can lead to dogmatism. Both use cases of illusion and
hallucination to make their arguments. Problematic idealism uses illusion and
hallucination to establish the unreliability of inference from the subjective
qualitative character of mental states to objective properties of objects.
Dogmatic idealism uses illusion and hallucination to establish that the contents
of mental states remain identical regardless of the existence of external
objects. A principled distinction between perception and imagination undercuts
both sorts of idealism. Although Kant addresses problematic idealism in the
refutation, he leaves dogmatic idealism to a note in the unrevised B edition,
where he says that the question it raises is "whether we have only an inner sense
but no outer one, rather merely outer imagination." But this is the question that
the refutation is intended to answer against the problematic idealist - of
whether we have experience and not merely imagination of outer things. If the
refutation undercuts both problematic and dogmatic idealism, why does Kant direct
it only against problematic idealism?
For two reasons. First, he thinks that the Transcendental Analytic has already
refuted dogmatic idealism by establishing that space is not a property of things
in themselves. In other words, Kant holds that transcendental idealism, with its
distinction between the empirically real and the transcendentally ideal undercuts
dogmatic idealism by making spatio-temporal experience a necessary feature of our
experience of empirical objects. Second, the distinction between perception and
imagination that undercuts both idealisms can be made, according to Kant, only by
denying the central theses of problematic idealism: one, that the immediate
object of experience is an object of inner sense; the other that all perception
is mediated by inference from the immediate object of inner sense to external
objects. "The proof that is demanded [for a refutation of problematic
idealism].cannot be accomplished unless one can prove that even our inner
experience, undoubted by Descartes, is possible only under the presupposition of
outer experience."
Kant refutes problematic idealism not by establishing the reliability of
inference from the immediate objects of inner sense to external objects, but by
denying that the only immediate objects of experience are objects of inner sense,
and by denying that perception is inferentially mediated by objects of inner
sense. Significantly, Kant does not deny that perception is mediated. To do so
would be inconsistent with the rest of his project: perception, as empirical
representation, is possible only through the synthesis of the imagination, the
unity of apperception and the application of the categories, which are processes
of mediation. When Kant claims that perception is immediate, he is denying that
perception is mediated in the way that the problematic idealist thinks of
mediation, namely by inference based on the intrinsic properties of the mental
state and of the object that it represents.
In other words, Kant's empirical realism is a kind of direct realism, as defined
in chapter two. In addition, the direct realism advocated in the refutation, like
Reid's realism, is bound up with the notion that the content of perception is
externally individuated. Kant denies the central theses of problematic idealism
by showing that perception, or outer sense, is made possible only by the
existence of objects that are distinct from our perception of them and by showing
that imagination is dependent on perception. Kant shows that perception is a kind
of representation that depends on the existence of the object which it
represents - it is a de re, or demonstrative representation. An imagination, on
the other hand, is not the kind of representation which depends for on the
existence of the object which it represents - there need be no unicorn before me
in order for me to imagine or hallucinate a unicorn.
§5.2 The Refutation of Idealism
The main argument in the Refutation of Idealism can be broken down into the
following premises :
RI1) "I am conscious of my existence as determined in time. "
RI2) According to the first analogy, all time-determination presupposes the
perception of a persistent thing.
RI3) The persistent thing that I perceive cannot be an intuition in me.
RI4) The perception of the persistent thing depends on the persistent thing and
not on my representing the persisting thing.
RI5) \ My consciousness of my existence as determined in time is possible only if
I perceive something that persists outside of me.
Premise RI1 is shared by Kant and the sort of idealist against whom the
refutation is directed. Kant and the problematic idealist agree that I experience
my own mental states and that I experience them as my own, over time. The
problematic idealist, however, confers epistemological priority on inner
experience, which is certain because it is immediate; it is not the product of
inference. Putative outer experience, however, is possible only mediately by
inference from mental states given immediately in inner experience. The
problematic idealist, then, does not merely agree to the premise that I am
conscious of my existence as determined in time; she also holds that such
consciousness has special epistemological status, which is used to undermine the
epistemological status of perception. The refutation will show that this position
is internally inconsistent because the problematic idealist cannot hold RI1 while
also holding that all our perceptions may be mere imaginations. As Kant writes,
"the game that idealism plays has with greater justice been turned against it,"
and as Margaret Wilson comments:
"Kant's conclusion could be rephrased as follows: "I know I exist in time"
entails (in conjunction with other knowable premises) that I have or have had
veridical perceptions of a permanent entity in space. Such a conclusion could be
said to 'answer' the Cartesian by establishing that, contrary to what the
arguments from hallucination, etc. seem to suggest, there is actually an
inconsistency in maintaining the Cartesian assumptions about self-knowledge in
conjunction with the view that all one's 'outer' perceptions might be
non-veridical "
Premise RI2, that all time determination presupposes a thing persistent in
perception is supposed to have been established by the first analogy, which I
shall not examine in detail. Roughly, the argument is that in order for me to be
conscious of my existence in time, I must be conscious of changes in my
representations because time is not an object of perception and
time-determination is perceived as change. But to perceive change, one must
perceive it relative to something that persists. Thus, this 'something that
persists' must also be an object of perception: this is the 'persistent in
perception'.
Premise RI3, that the persistent thing that I perceive cannot be an intuition in
me, is stated by Kant in the unrevised B edition as "This persisting thing,
however, cannot be something in me, since my own existence in time can first be
determined only through this persistent thing." In the revised Preface to this
edition, Kant replaces this with the following:
"This persisting thing, however, cannot be an intuition in me. For all grounds of
determination of my existence that can be encountered in me are representations,
and as such require something persistent that is distinct even from them, in
relation to which their change, thus my existence in the time in which they
change, can be determined."
This premise rules out the possibility that the persisting thing that I perceive
is a representation in me - an object of inner sense. The argument in the first
analogy that supports premise RI2 requires that in order for me to be conscious
of my self as determined in time, I must be conscious of a change in my
representations, but I cannot be conscious of this change save by perceiving a
persisting thing against which the change in my representation can be measured.
Perceiving something permanent in perception, then, is a precondition for
consciousness of changing representations. If the persisting thing were a
representation, my consciousness of it would require the perception of a
persisting thing that is not a representation, and so ad infinitum. Consciousness
of the persisting thing (perception) is prior both to consciousness of
representations and to consciousness of self, which means that consciousness of
the persisting thing cannot be consciousness of a representation.
The substituted remark from the B Preface also makes clear what Kant intends by
the spatial metaphors in me and outside me. The persisting thing that I perceive
is a thing outside me in the sense that it is distinct from my representing it.
The persisting thing that I perceive cannot be an intuition in me, because the
perception - which allows me to become aware of the succession of
representations, and my determination in time - must be a representation of
something distinct from my representation of it. Its esse cannot be percipi. But
no mere representation is distinct from my representation of it - the esse of
representation is percipi - and so the persisting thing that I perceive cannot be
a representation. And, finally, no representation can itself be the persisting
thing because representations themselves do not persist over time - they are
necessarily fleeting.
Premise RI4 states that the perception of the persistent thing depends for its
existence on that thing and not upon my representing it. This premise requires
that the perception of the persisting thing is a de re or demonstrative form of
representation: "Thus the perception of this persistent thing is possible only
through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of a thing
outside me." In other words, when I perceive the persisting thing I represent not
'that there is a persisting thing outside me' but, about that persisting thing
outside me, that it is thus and so. The conclusion of the refutation is that my
consciousness of my existence as determined in time is possible only if I
perceive something that persists outside me. It is important to note that for
Kant perception of something that persists outside me is distinct from perception
that something persists outside me: only the former is sufficient for
consciousness of self in time. In the latter sort of representation, if one
succeeds in picking out an object, one will have done so only by having given a
successful description of the object, and such description can occur in the
absence of any object which corresponds to it. The existence of the latter sort
of representation, however, depends on its picking out an object, and it picks
out its object directly, without the aid of description.
§5.3 Immediacy
The argument in the refutation demonstrates that "inner experience, undoubted by
Descartes, is possible only under the presupposition of outer experience" by
showing that perception of external objects - outer experience - is required for
consciousness of my self in time - inner experience. But does it show, as Kant
claims, that "outer experience is really immediate.so that inner experience
itself is consequently only mediate."? Kant says that inner sense is mediate
because it is made possible only if we have outer sense. This use of 'mediate'
indicates something like 'presupposes something else' while 'immediate' suggests
'is presupposed by something else'. Kant is merely making reference to the form
of the refutation as a transcendental argument. The problematic idealist doubts
that which makes possible what she regards as most certain. Call this use of
'mediate' and 'immediate' the 'presuppositional' use. Kant's claim that inner
sense is mediate uses 'mediate' presuppositionally; thus, he should not be read
as saying that inner experience is the product of inference from outer
experience.
On the other hand, the immediacy of outer experience is not merely a claim about
the form of the refutation; it is claim about the de re/demonstrative nature of
perception as revealed in premise RI4. Kant is not merely claiming that outer
sense is presupposed by, and thus prior to, inner sense, but also that outer
sense is not mediated in the way that the problematic idealist insists it must
be. In Note 1, Kant provides the argument against which his refutation is
directed.
Idealism assumed that the only immediate experience is inner experience, and that
from that outer things could only be inferred, but, as in any case in which one
infers from given effects to determinate causes, only unreliably, since the cause
of the representations that we perhaps falsely ascribe to outer things can also
lie in us.
The conclusion is left unstated, but the full argument is as follows:
PI1) The only immediate objects of experience are objects of inner sense.
PI2) The existence of objects outside us can be known only mediately, by
inference from the immediate objects of experience.
PI3) Such inferences from the immediate objects of experience to things known
only mediately by them are unreliable.
PI4) Unreliable inferences cannot be the basis of knowledge.
PI5) \ We can have no knowledge of the existence of objects outside us.
According to the idealist, whether something is immediate or mediate depends on
whether it is the product of inference. Call this the 'inferential' use. After
Kant presents the problematic idealist's argument, he makes it clear that the
refutation is intended to undercut premise PI1, that the only immediate objects
of experience are objects of inner sense. "Yet here it is proved that outer
experience is really immediate.." The kind of immediacy referred to in premise
PI1 can't be undermined by showing that inner experience is made possible only by
outer experience. One could hold premise PI2, that the existence of objects
outside us can be known only mediately, by inference from the immediate objects
of experience, while also holding the conclusion of the refutation that if we
never experienced objects outside us there would be no immediate objects of
experience. One could hold, for example, that we experience external objects by
experiencing their effects; that these effects are the only immediate object of
experience; that without external objects there would be no immediate object of
experience. Kant must claim that outer experience is immediate in the
non-inferential sense, not just the presuppositional sense, in order to undermine
premise PI1.
Kant rejects premise PI2, that the only way we can know external objects is by
inference from objects of inner sense. But he also rejects an even stronger
thesis, holding that in perception we cannot make inferences to outer objects
from inspecting objects of inner sense. Objects of inner sense simply lack the
intrinsic properties required to form a first-person inferential basis for
judgments about objects of outer sense. Objects of inner sense lack the
properties characteristic of objects of outer sense: unity, necessary connection
with other objects, and so on. The relation between objects of inner sense and
objects of outer sense can never be an internal relation - a relation based on
intrinsic properties of the relata.
Whatever relation objects of inner sense could bear to objects of outer sense
would be determined not by the properties of the relata but by the forms of
intuition and understanding that provide the only rules by which such connections
can be made.
"Combination does not lie in the objects, however, and cannot as it were be
borrowed from them through perception.
Thus we ourselves bring into the appearances that order and regularity in them
that we call nature, and moreover we would not be able to find it there if we, or
the nature of our mind, had not originally put it there. "
In other words, whatever relation objects of inner sense bear to objects of outer
sense, it must be an external relation afforded by cognition itself. It is
precisely because the objects of perception are determined by rules that we
generate - by external relations - that perception is direct rather than
indirect. Perception is a representational relation between items connected to
each other not internally but by a rule that we apply. Perception represents
objects not by inferences made from the intrinsic character of mental items but
by having been connected according to an external rule.
Kant rejects premise PI1 in the idealist's argument - that the only immediate
objects of experience are the objects of inner sense - because he regards the
objects of perception as immediate in the sense that we experience them
non-inferentially by a de re/demonstrative representation. That outer experience
is immediate in the non-inferential sense follows from the kind of representation
that perception must be in order for it to enable consciousness of
representations and of self. It is the kind of representation, as Kant says, that
is "possible only through a thing outside me and not through a mere
representation of a thing outside me." It is also the kind of representation that
takes an object not in virtue of the intrinsic properties of the representation
and the object but in virtue of their extrinsic properties which are conferred by
cognition according to a rule. This kind of representation - a de
re/demonstrative representation - is not and cannot be a product of inference
alone.
§5.4 The Distinction Between Perception and Imagination
Recall that the refutation is intended to "establish that we have experience and
not merely imagination of outer things". As has been shown, Kant regards the
experience of outer things as immediate. In the notes that follow the refutation,
Kant addresses the question whether the immediate experience of outer things,
i.e. perception, is possible. In a footnote to Note 1, he identifies two
questions: (a) whether immediate perception is possible with (b) whether our
consciousness of outer things counts as experience rather than mere imagination:
"The immediate consciousness of the existence of outer things is not presupposed
but proved in the preceding theorem [the Refutation of Idealism], whether we have
insight into the possibility of this consciousness or not. The question about the
latter would be whether we have only an inner sense but no outer one, rather
merely outer imagination. But it is clear that in order for us even to imagine
something as external, i.e., to exhibit it to sense in intuition, we must already
have an outer sense."
Here, and in Note 3, Kant addresses the problematic idealist's move from PI3 and
PI4 to PI5, from the claim that for any given perception, inference from
immediate sensory experience to the object of the perception is unreliable, to
the claim that we can have no knowledge of objects outside of us, a distinction
exploited by the dogmatic idealist. Kant recognizes that this move allows that
our experience could remain just as it is even if no objects existed outside of
us. He must maintain the position argued in premise RI4 that perception is a kind
of de re/demonstrative representation, while allowing for the possibility of
illusion and hallucination. But it is this possibility that the problematic
idealist exploits.
The problematic idealist asks: if, for any given perceptual experience, our
experience could remain the same, whether or not the object of the perceptual
experience is an object existing outside us, why suppose that perception is
reliable? The dogmatic idealist asks: if, for any given perceptual experience,
our experience could remain the same, whether or not the object of the perceptual
experience is an object existing outside us, why suppose that any perceptual
experiences imply such external objects? Kant's answer to these questions is
threefold. First, consistent with the refutation of idealism, he maintains that
perception is a kind of de re/demonstrative representation, the kind that depends
upon the existence of the object it represents. Second, he holds that illusion
and hallucination are not de re/demonstrative representations, and so are not
species of perception. Third, and most important he argues that illusion and
hallucination are dependent on perception. Once again, Kant plays idealism's game
against itself by showing that illusion and hallucination, which the idealist
uses to undermine the reliability and possibility of perception, actually
presuppose perception.
Hallucinations and illusions, like perceptions, are representations, and like
perceptions they represent their objects as external. Any theory of perception
must address this shared feature of perception, illusion and hallucination. Kant
acknowledges that imagination can represent objects as external, but he denies
that it can represent external objects. This is why premise RI4 of the refutation
is concerned to distinguish de re/demonstrative representation from descriptive
representation. A representation that there is a persisting thing is not
sufficient for time determination; only a representation of a persisting thing
makes possible the perception of change required for consciousness of self in
time. In Note 3 to the refutation, Kant writes,
"From the fact that the existence of outer objects is required for the
possibility of a determinate consciousness of our self it does not follow that
every intuitive representation of outer things includes at the same time their
existence, for that may well be the effect of the imagination (in dreams as well
as in delusions). "
In other words, some of our intuitive representations of outer things do not
depend upon the existence of the objects that they represent - they are not de
re/demonstrative representations. Imagination represents some of its objects as
external. But these are dreams and delusions, effects of the imagination, not
cases of perception. Imaginations and perceptions are different sorts of
representation: imagination represents objects regardless of the existence of the
objects that it represents; perception, as Kant writes, is "possible only through
the actuality of outer objects."
Finally, imagination presupposes perception. Kant gives two arguments to support
this claim. The first appears in Note 3: ".but [dreams and delusions] are
possible merely through the reproduction of previous outer perceptions, which, as
has been shown, are possible only through the actuality of outer objects." In
other words, dreams, illusions and hallucination are representations assembled
from previous outer perceptions through reproduction and synthesis. Furthermore,
the representations that are reproduced are perceptions - representations of
external objects rather than mere representations as of an external object; thus,
there would be no dreams or delusions without perceptions.
This differs from the familiar empiricist position on imagination in a striking
way: Kant is not claiming that in dreams and delusions we jumble together
previous sensations or objects of inner sense; he is claiming that we reproduce
and synthesize previous perceptions - representations of outer objects. This is
made clear by how Kant regards the objects of inner sense and sensations, which
do not represent objects as external. A sensation of red differs from a
perception of a red thing primarily because the former represents nothing
external. No reproduction and synthesis of sensations or objects of inner sense
could account for the fact that we represent the objects of dreams and delusions
as external. Only a relation to some thing distinct from representation can
afford the kind of consciousness required to represent something as external;
only the externalist character of perception can account for the phenomenal
character of dreams and delusions. When in dreams and delusions we represent
objects as external, we make a mistake, but this mistake is possible only because
we are able to get it right some of the time. As Carl Posy writes in
"Transcendental Idealism and Causality", "Kant, of course, clearly holds that
sensory information alone would never suffice to provide the "dignity of relation
to an object" (A197)"
Kant's second argument for the priority of perception over imagination makes
clear how different his conception is from the empiricist's. In a footnote to
Note 1, Kant writes:
"But it is clear that in order for us even to imagine something as external,
i.e., to exhibit it to sense in intuition, we must already have an outer sense,
and by this means immediately distinguish the mere receptivity of an outer
intuition from the spontaneity that characterizes every imagination. For even to
merely imagine an outer sense would itself annihilate the faculty of intuition,
which is to be determined through the imagination. "
If imagination were able on its own to represent some of its objects as external,
i.e., without our ever having been effected by an external object, the faculty of
intuition would be otiose. Kant is not claiming that we never imagine the objects
we take to be external, nor that we never hallucinate or suffer illusions.
Rather, he claims that the ability to hallucinate and suffer illusions depends
upon the ability to perceive. As Arthur Collins writes in Possible Experience:
Understanding Kant's Critique of Pure Reason:
"In cases of seeming perception where there is no apprehension of something that
exists outside the mind, the episode is just an illusion and not an apprehension
of a spatial reality that is somehow also an inner reality. The aberration
consists in the absence (nonexistence) of the outer spatial thing that seems to
be present and not in the presence of an inner spatial thing. Since there are no
inner spatial things, we cannot advert to such things in order to explain what
happens in aberrant perception. It is desirous to keep in focus Kant's conception
of imagination as "thought of an object that is not present."
Since objects are required for the possibility of experience, we can say that
only perceivers hallucinate, only a subject who can really experience an object
can seem to experience one. "
We can perceive because the imagination can apprehend, reproduce and synthesize,
because our self-consciousness allows us to represent objects as unities and
because the categories enable us to make the judgments that make possible the
very distinction between an external and internal object. Imagination of an
object as external requires these same cognitive conditions. In order to
hallucinate an oasis in a desert, I must apprehend, reproduce and synthesize the
impressions that make up the phenomenal content of the hallucination. In order to
move my body towards the hallucination and drink its hallucinatory water, I must
represent not only the oasis but myself and my relation to it. In order to see
the oasis as an oasis, and regard it (wrongly) as something that may save my
life, I must apply the categories. Although the conditions that make perception
possible make dreams and delusions possible as well, the conditions themselves -
particularly consciousness of myself as determined in time - are possible only
because perception is not the same as imagination. If perception were
imagination, if it merely represented objects as external rather than
representing external objects, neither perception nor imagination would be
possible. Only on the possibility of perceptions, which provide a demonstrative
reference to external objects, can one account for the fact that illusions,
dreams and hallucinations purport to represent external objects. As William
Harper writes,
"The Refutation of Idealism argues that only outer appearances can provide
demonstrative reference to content that can determine a truth of the matter about
what is to count as my subjective empirical self. On this view only insofar as
this self is determined by outer appearances - only insofar as it is pinned down
by the path of my body through a world of outer things - can it provide a subject
to which the appearances of inner sense can be attributed.
On this view the demon hypothesis in my own case is incoherent because it assumes
away the reference that is required to provide the content that could make it
count as true. "
In §1 of this chapter I argued that for Kant, the problem of perceptual
objectivity is not whether we're getting it right about the world, but whether we
're getting at a world about which we can be right (or wrong), at all. I
described Kant's notion of perceptual objectivity as representational purport.
Kant calls our perceptions objective because they aim at material, external
objects as their target. Perceptions have this target because they are formed
according to rules and norms built into our faculties, norms that specify the
conditions of 'objecthood' prior to our forming any particular perceptions of
particular objects. What makes perceptions into representations of objects for
Kant is not any quality that they have, but our forming them according to norms
that specify what it is for us to represent an object at all. I identified Kant's
central notion of objectivity with objective validity. Perceptions have objective
validity because they aim at representing objects. A perception has objective
reality only if it is applied to something of which it is true, i.e., only if the
representation purports to be about a specific object or state of affairs and is
in fact about that object or state-of-affairs. The conditions of objective
validity are conditions of the possibility of representing an object in
perception at all; they serve as conditions of objectivity prior to any actual
perceptual interaction with the world. Thus, objective validity is prior to
objective reality.
Kant's discussion of the priority of perception over imagination in the
refutation makes clear that imaginations of outer objects - dreams and
delusions - have objective validity but not objective reality, as I argued in §
4. The conditions of the possibility of representing an object in perceptions are
conditions of representational purport. Hallucinations and illusions also purport
to represent the world, and so fall under the same conditions. Hallucinations and
illusions, however, are not applied to any actual object or state of affairs of
which they could be true and so do not possess objective reality. Hallucination
and illusion seem like perceptions, but they are not perceptions because they do
not possess objective reality. That hallucinations and illusions possess
objective validity also explains why they can't be made up of mere sensations:
sensations do not posses objective validity and do not purport to be about
objects. Kant undermines idealism by distinguishing between perception and
imagination without sacrificing the phenomenological observation that
hallucinations and illusions, like perception, purport to represent the world.
§5.5 Skepticism
Kant's remarks about dreams and delusions specify what sorts of skepticism are
ruled out in the refutation. Dogmatic and problematic idealism can lead to three
different types of skepticism. All three trade on the fact that perceptions,
illusions, dreams and hallucinations purport to represent the world. The first
questions whether, for any given perception, we can distinguish it from a mere
imagination. The second questions whether perceptual experience can be the basis
of knowledge given that perception is the result of inference and that we may
infer as easily (though wrongly) to the existence of external objects from
hallucination and illusion as from perception. This skepticism follows from
problematic idealism. The third sort of skepticism questions whether all
perception is mere imagination and concludes that the existence of an external
world is explanatorily unnecessary. This skepticism follows from dogmatic
idealism. The refutation, according to Kant, rules out the second and third sorts
of skepticism, but not the first:
"Here it had to be proved only that inner experience in general is possible only
through outer experience in general. Whether this or that putative experience is
not mere imagination must be ascertained according to its particular
determinations and through its coherence with the criteria of all actual
experience. "
Like the idealists against whom Kant argues, he accepts that hallucination,
illusion and misperception purport to represent the world. He refutes the second
type of skepticism by denying that perception is mediated by inference, showing
that the immediate experience which the problematic idealist regards as epistemol
ogically prior to perception actually presupposes perception. He refutes the
third type of skepticism by denying that imagination is identical with
perception, showing that the imagination of outer objects which the dogmatic
idealist claims forms our 'perceptual' experience actually presupposes the
perception of outer objects.
The first sort of skepticism, which questions, for any given perception, whether
we can distinguish it from a mere imagination, doesn't seem to trouble Kant.
This, he says "must be ascertained according to its particular determinations and
through its coherence with the criteria of all actual experience." In other
words, if we can tell that a particular perceptual experience is actually a
perception and not merely an imagination, we will be able to do so only by
comparing it with the objects to which it appears to be related and by
determining whether the experience is coherent with the rest of our experiences.
Kant's indifference to this skeptical worry is unsurprising given that the first
Critique is less concerned with questions of the very possibility of experience
about which justificatory questions might then be raised.
http://www.lclark.edu/~rebeccac/kantskep.html
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http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~jlbermud/transcendental%25idealism.pdf
http://www.fordham.edu/philosophy/davenport/texts/refideal.htm
http://philarete.home.mindspring.com/philosophy/kant.html
Post by gaffoDecarte was right with Meditations then went beyond what he could prove.
Cogito, Ergo Sum (The Circle Game) Descartes
THE CIRCLE GAME: "Descartes was a philosophical disaster!" Attacking Descate's
Cogito from within Descartes's own logical structure rather than from a modern
context.
Examining Descartes's philosophy from within its own logical structure, we see
that Descartes is unable to escape the necessity of an observer in his attempt to
find a foundation for his philosophy. As I will show, he grounds his philosophy
on the postulates of his ability to discern truth from fiction and his own
existence. Descartes foundationalist philosophy fails, as a result, because
neither the infallibility and integrity of the observer nor the observer's
existence are certain.
Descartes attempts to create a foundationalist philosophy based on a single,
undeniable truth which he knows to be "fixed and assured". He takes "I think,
therefore I am" "as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking",
believing that this is the only truth which is necessary to found a philosophy.
His logical structure , however, relies on a second postulate. He claims that
"the capacity to judge correctly and to distinguish the true from the false is
naturally equal in all men". This postulate is more fundamental to his logical
structure than the cogito because without it, he cannot escape the skepticism of
his foundationalist structure.
Unpacking the significance of this postulate is somewhat of a metaphysical
thicket, but the effort is well rewarded. There is no question that by thinking
"I think, therefore I am", Descartes is thinking. Beyond the statement of his
existence, however, Descartes cannot form any other conclusion unless he has the
ability to discern the truth of a thought-except the conclusion that he is, there
is no method to discern a true thought from a thought implanted into his head by
an other being unless he can make the distinction himself. If he is to make any
progress in his philosophy, he must rely on this second postulate.
Even with this condition, Descartes's philosophy remains unstable. His first
postulate, the cogito, fails because it depends on the integrity of the subject,
the ego. Unlike a similar postulate of mathematics, such as x+0=x, which does not
depend on the integrity of the observer in order to be true, Descartes's
postulate is singularly tied to the subject because the subject, the "I", is an
integral part of the statement. In the postulate, the "I" must be distinct since
the cogito makes no claims about the existence of anything outside the mind.
Descartes admits, however, that the mind is subject to failings caused by the
body:
"the mind depends so much on the temperament and on the disposition of the organs
of the body, that if it is possible to find some means of rendering men as a
whole wiser and more dexterous than they have been hitherto, I believe it must be
sought in medicine".
Furthermore, the mind cannot be sure of even its own state. Descartes admits that
"there are no conclusive signs by means of which one can distinguish clearly
between being awake and being asleep". Most significantly, however, Descartes
requires the fallibility of his mind in order to prove the existence of God.
Within his proof, Descartes gives as an antecedent to his argument the
observation that "my being was not completely perfect" when it was created. But
the infallible ability to discern truth is, by nature of its indisputeability, a
form of perfection. He appears to be directly contradicting his second postulate,
the ability to discern truth from fiction. This logical breakdown within
Descartes's argument hints at a much greater problem, however.
Descartes has a problem of authorship. That he exists and that he conceives of
his existence are synonymous according to the cogito postulate. Furthermore, the
existence of anything outside of his mind depends on his own existence. He is
assured of the existence of the rest of the Universe by his perception of
thinking of it. If the observer stops observing himself, he ceases to exist,
however. Thus the reality of the Universe within Descartes's system depends on
his ability to conceive of it, which in turn requires that he exist. This
introduces a rather interesting problem in to his philosophy.
By the time he has completed his proof of the existence of God, Descartes
concludes that his own existence is dependent of the existence of God. Because he
creates a foundationalist philosophy, Descartes must believe that the laws of the
Universe are deriveable from the cogito postulate. After attempting to establish
the existence of God, however, he admits that "I have observed certain laws which
God has so established in nature and of which he has impressed such notions in
our souls". According to his postulates, all that is in Descartes's mind is the
result of the fact that he thinks, yet here he seems to be adding yet another
subject to the set of actors upon which his philosophy rests. The validity of the
claims he has already made are again questioned by further doubt over the author
of existence:
"And who can give me the assurance that this God has not arranged that there
should be no earth, no heaven, no extended body, no figure, no magnitude, or
place, and that nevertheless I should have the perception of all these things,
and the persuasion that they do not exist other than as I see them?"
Clearly, Descartes would not want to add dependency on a second subject to his
philosophy but he nonetheless accepts the notion that not all existence can be
attributed to his thoughts alone. God, he qualifies, must also have authorship:
"if the objective reality of any one of my ideas is such that I know clearly that
it is not within me, either formally or eminently, and that consequently I cannot
myself be its cause, it follows necessarily from this that I am not alone in the
world, but that there is besides some other being who exists, and who is the
cause of this idea."
It is illogical that such a being, whose existence in the Universe is dependent
on the thoughts and observations of an observer could also be the author of the
same observer's thoughts. Surely Descartes realized this but he seems to ignore
its significance. He declares "God is necessarily the author of my existence" and
so falls into a circular dependency, where his own existence is dependent on a
God whose existence in the Universe is dependent on Descartes's ability to
conceive of God and to determine the truth of such a perception. Because the
observer is thus permanently trapped within Descartes's web of logic, the entire
foundation of the structure is unsound.
With the foundation of Descartes carefully laid structure crumbling in front of
close examination, it appears, a philosophical failure. Such an evaluation is
made strong if it comes from within the logical structure that Descartes
presents. The job is easy, however, because Descartes establishes such a
dependent, recursive structure that his entire fabrication falls under its own
twisted weight.
http://www.stanford.edu/~bwark/papers/circle_game.html
Post by gaffoHume had a realistic outlook in not assumng a truth underneath one's
experiences.
--
http://baltimorechronicle.com/041704reTreason.shtml
http://www.truthinaction.net/iraq/illegaljayne.htm
As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both
instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged.
And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air
-- however slight -lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
Justice William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court (1939-75)
"It shows us that there were senior people in the Bush administration who
were seriously contemplating the use of torture, and trying to figure out
whether there were any legal loopholes that might allow them to commit
criminal acts, They seem to be putting forward a theory that the president
in wartime can essentially do what he wants regardless of what the law
may say,"
Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch - commenting upon Defense
Department Lawyer
Will Dunham's 56-page legalization of torture memo.
If you add all of those up, you should have a conservative rebellion against
the giant corporation in the White House masquerading as a human being named
George W. Bush. Just as progressives have been abandoned by the corporate
Democrats and told, "You got nowhere to go other than to stay home or
vote for
the Democrats", this is the fate of the authentic conservatives in the
Republican Party.
Ralph Nader - June 2004 - The American Conservative Magazine
"But I believe in torture and I will torture you."
-An American soldier shares the joys of Democracy with
an Iraqi prisoner.
"My mother praises me for fighting the Americans. If we are killed,
our wives and mothers will rejoice that we died defending the
freedom of our country.
-Iraqi Mahdi fighter
"We were bleeding from 3 a.m. until sunrise, soon American soldiers came.
One of them kicked me to see if I was alive. I pretended I was dead
so he wouldn't kill me. The soldier was laughing, when Yousef cried,
the soldier said: "'No, stop,"
-Shihab, survivor of USSA bombing of Iraqi wedding.
"the absolute convergence of the neoconservatives with the Christian
Zionists
and the pro-Israel lobby, driving U.S. Mideast policy."
-Don Wagner, an evangelical South Carolina minister
"Bush, in Austin, criticized President Clinton's administration for
the Kosovo military action.'Victory means exit strategy, and it's important
for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is,' Bush said."
Houston Chronicle 4/9/99
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to
destabilize their country."
Washington, D.C., May 5, 2004
"The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem
of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major
incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh my God, shouldn't we be organized
to deal with this?'"
- Paul Bremer, speaking to a McCormick Tribune Foundation conference
on terrorism in Wheaton, Ill. on Feb. 26, 2001.
"On Jan. 26, 1998, President Clinton received a letter imploring him to use
his State of the Union address to make removal of Saddam Hussein's regime
the "aim of American foreign policy" and to use military action because
"diplomacy is failing." Were Clinton to do that, the signers pledged, they
would "offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor."
Signing the pledge were Elliott Abrams, Bill Bennett, John Bolton, Robert
Kagan, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Richard L. Armitage, Jeffrey
Bergner,
Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, Peter W. Rodman,
William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber, R. James Woolsey and Robert B. Zoellick,
Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Four years before 9/11, the neocons had
Baghdad on their minds."
-philip (usenet)
"I had better things to do in the 60s than fight in Vietnam,"
-Richard Cheney, Kerry critic.
"I hope they will understand that in order for this government to get up
and running
- to be effective - some of its sovereignty will have to be given
back, if I can put it that way,
or limited by them, It's sovereignty but [some] of that sovereignty they
are going to allow us to exercise
on their behalf and with their permission."
- Powell 4/27/04
"We're trying to explain how things are going, and they are going as they
are going," he said, adding: "Some things are going well and some things
obviously are not going well. You're going to have good days and bad days."
On the road to democracy, this "is one moment, and there will be other
moments. And there will be good moments and there will be less good
moments."
- Rumsfeld 4/6/04
"I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this
country's gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty's gift to
every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on
the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread
of freedom."
~ Bush the Crusader
RUSSERT: Are you prepared to lose?
BUSH: No, I'm not going to lose.
RUSSERT: If you did, what would you do?
BUSH: Well, I don't plan on losing. I've got a vision for what I want to
do for the country.
See, I know exactly where I want to lead.................And we got
changing times
here in America, too., 2/8/04
"And that's very important for, I think, the people to understand where
I'm coming from,
to know that this is a dangerous world. I wish it wasn't. I'm a war
president.
I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with
war on my mind.
- pResident of the United State of America, 2/8/04
"Let's talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We know that
based on intelligence, that he has been very, very good at hiding
these kinds of efforts. He's had years to get good at it and we know
he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, on "Meet the Press", 3/16/03
"I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the
Iraqis had nuclear weapons."
- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 6/24/03
"I think in this case international law
stood in the way of doing the right thing (invading Iraq)."
- Richard Perle
"He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with
respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project
conventional power against his neighbours."
- Colin Powell February 24 2001
"We have been successful for the last ten years in keeping
him from developing those weapons and we will continue to be successful."
"He threatens not the United States."
"But I also thought that we had pretty
much removed his stings and frankly for ten years we really have."
'But what is interesting is that with the regime that has been in place
for the past ten years, I think a pretty good job has been done of
keeping him from breaking out and suddenly showing up one day and saying
"look what I got." He hasn't been able to do that.'
- Colin Powell February 26 2001
Tell me Mr. Solipsist, if the world doesn't exist why have you decided to be
persuaded by liberal propoganda in it?