Phenomenological Exercises for Understanding 'objects' in Kant

(This isn't perfect, and serves more as a start and conversation piece.)

It isn't obvious what people are talking about when they speak of objects or things.  Speaking of objects becomes more confusing when members of the conversation have any philosophical training.  The problem, however, isn't that we should avoid philosophical training, but that philosophical training must be continually re-grounded in its sources.

This is an attempt to walk through Kant's account of an object by providing some simple instructions and remarks.  I will write in a manner different from Kant, but still using his account as my guide.  Read the numbers in order (which means skipping up and down through sections).

Object

1) Look at something.  Pick it up.

4) The object is something of the sight and feel, but it is more than that.

7) You can imagine the object you're holding, and modify it in thought to be slightly different, but still possible.  You are experiencing the imagined object, but in a distinct way from the one you're holding.

10) The object could have been understood as something other than what it was understood to be.  With your attention turned to this, you may find other ways of understanding it as well or wonder what you would think of it if you weren't familiar with it at all. (E.g., a ball could have been understood as a paperweight.)

Object in General

2) You aren't picking up your sight of what you are seeing, but something else.  It isn't the feel of what you are feeling that is picked up either.

5) Note that the object is still there, and that its still-being-there isn't some part of its look or feel, yet this is something we can say of the thing.  Note that this is something said of the thing, and not of our unifying the thing.

8) Note how you can consider an imagined object in all the respects you can consider the sighted and felt one.

11) Any other understanding of the object would leave its character of still-being-there intact.

Appearance (perception)

3) Yet, you see and feel something, which apparently we can speak of separately.

6) Even though the object remains there, the look and feel changes as you adjust it in your hands and field of vision.

9) You do not see or feel the imagined object, yet it has a presence akin to the sighted and felt object.

12) The look doesn't provide enough information to comprehend why the object is taken to be what it is if it could be seen another way (as in 10).  It also provides no ground for the object still-being-there.  So, how does the appearance relate to the object we think apart from differentiating it from the imagined object?

Pure Forms of Intuition

13) Looks and feels are in space and time, but space and time aren't themselves looks or feels.  The character of objects as still-being-there, which does not appear depends on time, but time itself isn't a thing that is still-being-there or else it would, too, be in time.

Between Object in General and things-in-themselves

The difference between an object in general and a thing-in-itself can be seen in a simple experiment.  Think or see properties of an object as it appears.  These properties depend upon the characters of the object in general (i.e., still-being-there).  Now, wonder if the object in general itself has these properties that the ball has when considered with its appearance.  

The object in general does have these properties since these properties are given in the appearance which originally relates to it.  The object in general is simply the unity of the appearances via the manner of representation in space and time, it is not an additional object 'behind' the appearance.  When we treat the object in general, which is our thought of the 'real thing', as if it were itself questionable concerning properties, then we produce a new object: the thing-in-itself. 

Clearing up some Confusion Around 'thinking a thing'

Thinking of a thing can mean that we verbalize to ourselves about it internally.  However, thinking a thing can just mean the manner in which we access a thing apart from its look and feel.

When we think of the object we are experiencing, this means just refers to the manner in which the object is accessed by us apart from the look and feel.  Pay attention to this while going through the above again.

But I thought that we cannot know things-in-themselves?

Kant says that we cannot know things-in-themselves, but that does not mean that we are denied thinking such things.  In fact, thoughts of things-in-themselves are part of our experience of the object, even if the thing-in-itself is not given with the experience of the object: what is given is the appearance.

Notes on Development Hell

It took quite a bit of effort to illustrate how the appearance is only problematically related to the object of experience.

On the other hand, I had to show an affinity between the object in general and object.  This was not that hard, however, since it was easy enough to talk about the object's still-being-there

Resolution to a Paradox of Objectivity

When judging objectively we act as sovereigns, but also as subjects: we command, but must also obey.  Put less tersely: when we judge objectively we are making a claim against the judgment of all, yet if our judgment is not open to the trial of all it fails its claim to objectivity.  Being a sovereign and also a subject is a paradoxical condition, and so it may seem we act in a contradictory manner when pursuing objective knowledge.

One thing that may be suggested about this paradox is to accept that we cannot judge objectively, and that each submits his subjective judgment to the community.  We may then say it is the community that advances objectively.  However, even in this case we find a problem: if an individual cannot judge what would at least be a candidate for objectivity then there is no way to legitimate a conversion of a collection of subjective judgments into objective ones.  

The distinction between objective candidacy and objectivity can help us develop some insights.  When we judge something objectively, and so demand universal agreement, we always produce at minimum a candidate for objectivity.  This is to say we really demand universal agreement for the judgment of candidacy for objectivity.  This tells us something interesting about objectivity itself: even though we judge particular characteristics of objects to be objective, the objectivity of the judgment does not depend on these characteristics, instead it depends upon some capacity in our own judging that recognizes these characteristics as universally affirmable.  Because this universal affirmability thought in the objective judgment comes before the actual trial it is thought a priori and provides a reflection of how we think others (i.e. humans) relative to the conditions of our own judgments.  Put briefly: judging something as objective submits a characteristic to be approved, but also contains an a priori judgment of candidacy for objectivity which is the same time a judgment of what it is to be a subject.  (Those familiar with Kant will gain in understanding by reflecting on the categories of the understanding, or the apprehension of the beautiful.)

Typically the consideration of what it is to be a subject per se is not considered in objective investigations.  This should be entirely expected, since it is a strict pre-condition of such investigations.  However, when we find difficulties, and conflicts, in our attempt to advance in our objective judgments it would be a good exercise to return to the foundations and form of the judgments themselves and to investigate if we are having a conflict in the same kind of judgment, or really in two different kinds of judgments under the same name (objective).

Philosophy (critical philosophy) should seek an agreement about the characterization of judgments generally.  In our case with judgments concerning the candidacy of objectivity, we are seeking agreement in how to talk about ourselves and our relationships to each other in judging, and to lay a stronger foundation for universal communicability and for the understanding (read: science, or morals).  Wherever we find a priori rules at work we should seek to understand how those things condition our universal judgments, but also how they condition the understanding of ourselves.  Agreement in terms on these matters would be no small gain for culture and the advance of humanity.

Ways of Thinking Objects in Judgments

Orientation:

   It would seem strange to say that we treat non-objects as objects in propositions, but there are abundant cases where this is certainly true.  There is the case of impossible objects, such as God, souls, and other hyper-physical concepts of things, as well as the case of non-objects that we talk about, but do not attempt physical or hyper-physical employment; propositions themselves provide such an example: 'proposition' refers either to something written or to the content of a thought; the content of a thought is not an object but a way of speaking about our understanding of an object.

   Three modes of understanding objects are important in propositions: as phenomenal, as noumenal and as formal.  These three modes of understanding objects are as possible objects, non-objects and impossible objects respectively.  Understanding the differences between these helps one detect when an object is being treated incorrectly in a judgment so these errors can be critiqued.  The importance of Kantian critique involves itself in exposing these potential misjudgments.  I will give a brief description of each of these modes and then show some of the many implications of these distinctions.

Phenomenal Objects:

   These objects are fairly easy to understand because they are objects found in the world that we deal with every day.  These objects are treated as existing, or as possibly existing, which is where some discussion is important.

   There is a difference between an object that we see and one that we do not. If we treat an object we do not see as still existing this is perfectly legitimate, but it should be recognized that the object is gone and the thought of it alone has continued.  If an object leaves our field of view we treat the object like it still exists, but in only the start does the object appear to us.  Because we can and do treat objects that don't appear to us as still existing (object permanence) prediction is possible.  A problem can arise, however, when an object that has not appeared, and cannot appear (is impossible) is treated as possibly existing, or as an object that actually exists.

Noumenal Objects:

   To talk about impossible objects doesn't mean that they are contradictory or false, but that their concept makes them understood in such a way that they could not be given in any experience without a contradiction.  When one considers a concept of God that thinks of him as an unlimited being, it is easy to see that he could not be contained in any limited cognition through concepts, so when we treat of the object God (in this conception) we treat of him noumenally or else, as thought of as being contained in a possible finite experience, we would contradict the concept we were trying to employ.

   I find much criticism leveled against the noumenal.  This criticism suggests that it is a sort of slipping in judgment or dogmatism, and that it does not make sense for us to assume that there is this noumenal realm.  The Kantian rejoinder to this criticism is agreement: it is absurd to assume that there is a noumenal realm that exists, but it would also be absurd to think it impossible - and all that is important about the noumenal is that we can think it.  Nothing that suggests itself in the noumenal realm can be said to exist, since it does not fall into the category of existence, but by the very fact that we do think objects that would contradict themselves if understood as phenomenal demands a way of accounting for this type of object: we are accounting for a way we actually do think of objects.  We should be extremely critical of the employment of noumenal objects outside of the mere possibility of thinking them, as they represent a class of unknowable (yet thinkable) objects.

Formal Objects:

   These objects are logical in nature, they are ideal ways of thinking that do not attempt to describe actual objects.  I will examine these objects in two ways, first how they are important for logic generally considered, then also as considered for transcendental logic.

Formal Objects in Logic:

   Formal objects in logic allow us to create formal falsehoods and contradictions.  Examine this contradiction for a moment:

 'A is not A'

'A' is not a determined object but a placeholder for an object.  However, no matter what concepts fall under 'A', we know that they are incompatible with 'not A'.

Formal Objects in Transcendental Logic:

   General logic abstracts from the objects in general, giving us knowledge of objects in general, but of no particular object.  Transcendental logic abstracts from the form of thought and constitutes a knowledge of knowing.

   Formal objects are troublesome because they are ideal descriptions derived from abstractions of immanent thoughts about the world.  There are thoughts we have that involve objects that must be taken either noumenally and phenomenally, and it is in the formal that these two things can be confused, leading to the derivation of principles that are valid in form, but impossible of any object.  It is formal objects that we must be critical of, because our sense and understanding themselves cannot be in error themselves, but our formal evaluations can fall into confusion.

   In general logic we can be sure that any object considered in 'A is not A' will produce a contradiction, but this is only so long as we treat of the object employed as phenomenal.  If we employ a noumenal object for A, such as an Unlimited Being, we aren't even sure if non-contradiction is in affect, since we do not understand how such an unlimited Being can exist, given our finite view of existence.  If we take this noumenal object to not be distinct from the phenomenal realm, all sorts of properties and principles may be derived from it that, while valid in form, can be employed to account for no possible object that can be given.  Absurdities tend to ensue.