tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1860307875990258501.post5617525972580828069..comments2024-02-12T09:12:21.978-06:00Comments on Non-Kantradiction: Understanding Judgments as Thought-PropositionsErik Christiansonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15747258914239065813noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1860307875990258501.post-12466911830016144152010-01-04T18:30:11.114-06:002010-01-04T18:30:11.114-06:00I can wait to deal with complaints coming from Mai...I can wait to deal with complaints coming from Maimon and similar objections from others in later posts. This blog is not to defend Kant, however, and I would rather provide a structured guide to understanding Kant before handling criticisms that take a vastly different interpretive approach. I respect Maimon's criticism just as much as Kant did, but Kant's respect for Maimon should not be confused for conceding to him.<br /><br />Concerning the validity of the question: I will still address it in a future post.Erik Christiansonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15747258914239065813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1860307875990258501.post-82648004567632178082010-01-03T17:27:21.970-06:002010-01-03T17:27:21.970-06:00Erik, thanks for cleaning up my typo-ridden deleti...Erik, thanks for cleaning up my typo-ridden deletions! Back to Kant's central question, I personally have no idea what the question "how are a priori synthetic judgments possible? means. If I don't, I suspect others do not either.<br /><br />Hume, of course, thought a priori synthetic judgments were not possible, which is a proposition easy to understand-- he believed the class of a priori synthetic propositions is empty. To refute this, we merely need to supply a valid counterexample. For example, *if* 5+7=12 is an a priori synthetic judgment, then we have a counterexample which refutes Hume.<br /><br />Kant's plodding non-answer to his central non-question involved claiming the ideal psychological bureaucracy mentioned above (poor Kant couldn't help it-- Germans love bureaucracy!) "allows" such judgments, or "conditions" them, or is "presupposed" by them. Of course, we could have just asked, "What is a synthetic judgment?" which is a completely different question than asking how they are possible. I don't believe that 5+7=12 is a synthetic proposition, though how we're formulating the questions, as is usually the case in philosophy, is far more important than the answers we can conjure from our minds.<br /><br />Wrongly and often, when philosophers use words such as "presuppose," "is conditioned by," et cetera, they want to use entailment, but not in a logical sense, but in a get-out-of-jail-free sense. For instance, Popper once remarked someplace that induction "presupposes" the future resembles the past, and hence escaped from his logical prison to assert that scientific propositions are never confirmed, only refuted. Which is nonsense-- that the future will resemble the past is a conclusion of induction. Popper, by using a word like "presupposes," created something that syntactically looks like entailment while having the idea of entailment drop out. I'm challenging you to prove that Kant's mistakes are not of a similar kind. After all, Kant could have just asked if there were any a priori synthetic propositions, or if the a priori excludes the synthetic. What exactly is Kant requesting, when he asks *how* a priori synthetic propositions are possible?jhbowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12377271992125388319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1860307875990258501.post-71151084570419951402010-01-03T17:05:16.289-06:002010-01-03T17:05:16.289-06:00My objections to Kant's project are external, ...My objections to Kant's project are external, in that I don't believe he is asking well-formed questions. But the best critique of Kantian philosophy comes from Solomon Maimon, regarded by Kant himself as his best critic. Fichte even believed that Maimon overturned the critical project, a development that opened the doors for Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. Maimon's criticism is powerful because it was internal-- he accepted Kant's own premises, something which I do not.<br /><br />Maimon accepted that the objectivity of knowledge cannot be measured by a standard outside of experience. But can we establish it within experience, given Kant's principles?<br /><br />For example, Maimon believed that Kant's dualism between understanding and sensibility prohibits concepts from applying to a posteriori intuitions. Understanding, as Kant defined it, is something intellectual, active, and formal, standing above space and time. Sensibility, as Kant defined it, is something purely empirical, passive, and material, standing completely within space and time. Maimon argued these two faculties are too heterogenous for any interaction to occur.<br /><br />Maimon also noted that Kant had no criterion to detect when, if ever, his categories apply to experience. Experience itself cannot determine when a category applies to it. Kant claimed his categories were a necessary condition for an objective experience, but a skeptic can honestly assert that Kant begs the question by admitting his own personal experience is a phantasmagoria lacking any necessary order.<br /><br />It follows that there is an insurmountable gap between the categories and the immanent laws of science. Since the categories are compatible with any order of experience, they themselves do not determine which order prevails. This is why Kant's successors deployed the Absolute, the World-Spirit, and other miscreants to tie the remnants of the critical system together.jhbowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12377271992125388319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1860307875990258501.post-10239238922292733532010-01-03T00:25:10.653-06:002010-01-03T00:25:10.653-06:00I can understand the question "How are a prio...I can understand the question "How are a priori synthetic judgments possible?" without much difficulty considering that it is being asked off the coat tails of Hume saying that they are impossible, and the manner in which it was dismissed. <br /><br />Since this post isn't properly on the question of how judgments are possible, and just about how to understand a judgment in general, I won't give further discussion to this. However, I will write something in reply and already had set to this task in anticipation.Erik Christiansonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15747258914239065813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1860307875990258501.post-57443009190059654082010-01-01T19:56:44.492-06:002010-01-01T19:56:44.492-06:00Hi Erik! I like what you've done with the plac...Hi Erik! I like what you've done with the place!<br /><br />As you probably know, my main concern with the Kantian project is whether we're asking well-formed questions.<br /><br />"Are judgments possible?" "Is there an analysis of judgment?" and "What does judgment entail?" all make sense, in that, we know what kind of answers we're looking for. To answer the first question, we merely need to supply a specific judgment. The second question requests a reduction, as if judgment is a composite notion made up of smaller components. The third asks what judgment implies -- for example, a concrete judgment implies a concrete judger; if judgment is possible then there can be possible judgers; and so forth.<br /><br />This being said, I'm not convinced whether it makes sense to ask how judgments are possible.<br /><br />In daily life, when we ask if something is possible, we have two contingent propositions in mind improbable in relation to each other, and we ask whether there exists a third contingent proposition we can add to our cognitive set to increase the probability of the set in question collectively. So, if p and q are contingent, we intelligibly can ask "how is q possible, *given* p?" An answer involves adding one or more contingent propositions r, s, t... to our set of propositions. For example-- question: "How did this movie make a profit, given it bombed in the United States?" An answer: "The film generated huge revenues overseas." So far so good; I don't believe anyone will dispute this.<br /><br />However, this doesn't work if one of the propositions is necessary. For example, "How is modus ponens possible, given the specific heat capacity of water is 4186 J/(kg·K)?" To even answer this question is to make a mistake. In addition, if we asked how something is possible, when only a single contingent proposition is involved without the "given p" part of our how-is-it-possible-question, we also are not asking a well-formed question. "How is it possible the White Sox play in Chicago?" "How is it possible the Earth has a single Moon?" "How is it possible Jason Bowden is male?"<br /><br />Things always get philosophically suspicious when questions can be asked iteratively. Do we know our knowledge? Do we believe our beliefs? We could ask how is it possible that judgments are possible. Or how is it possible that it is possible that judgments are possible. Or how it is possible that it is possible that it is possible that judgments are possible. These simply are not well-formed questions, and without well-formed questions, we can have abuse maybe, but no arguments. We go wrong just by asking them!<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y<br /><br />M: Look, I CAME HERE FOR AN ARGUMENT, I'm not going to just stand...!!<br />Q: OH, oh I'm sorry, but this is abuse.<br />M: Oh, I see, well, that explains it.<br />Q: Ah yes, you want room 12A, Just along the corridor.jhbowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12377271992125388319noreply@blogger.com