Ouros wrote:

Well, for me, the failure of Kant to apply the PSR only in a certain realm is a good proof that his transcendental idealism isn't true.
As said before,by saying that noumens affect phenomens, it means that they are the reason of why there are phenomen in the first place. Wich also means that, pace Kant, that it apply even in the noumenon realm, even if he wanted to get ride of it

But that is not a casual relationship, it's a logical one. That's why we need to look at the solutions to the problem of affection in Kant's transcendental Idealism. Which have been, by now, tackled by many scholars, particularly Henry Allison. This question has been answered time and time again. See: Kant's Transcendental Idealism By Henry Allison. Jacobi's horns are a non-issue for the dual-aspect view. So I'm not seeing an internal inconsistency with Kant's system yet. 

I also don't understand your first objection. The first objection doesn't apply because we cannot apply criterion to things that exceed epistemic justifications. 

Miguel wrote:

Marty wrote:

If you want to have an argument for why Kant's system is true/false, that's another argument. But if you begin with Kant's premises (which you have at least tentatively accepted for the sake of argument), you end with his conclusions. You begin with the system of transcendental idealism, and there will be no fact of the matter whether what occurs in the noumenon. Yet you're insisting as holding to knoweldge of it, and then begin applying concepts to which you have no capacity of doing. So again, PSR is merely a regulative function produced by the pure concepts of understanding, and a categorical misapplication used anywhere else. 

Also the noumenon isn't question-begging. All it's positing are certain epistemic limitations in the negative sense of the term. Merely, we have certain types of concepts of understanding the world, and that's where our understanding ends. That in order to understand the world at all, as qua the discursivity thesis, you must employ concepts that are sythensized with intuitions. When you begin speculation on how things really are outside of experience, you have to give an explanation for how this is possible. Does this involve somehow going outside of concepts? Then the question would be what does that even look like?

 
But that's the whole point. By assuming Kant's premises *arguendo*, it can be shown that they ultimately (1) are false, if we are led to affirm true facts about the noumenon, or (2) that they don't cohere with our own experience, as limited-PSR would not be enough.

By rejecting 1, we are forced to conclude that ceteris paribus our experience and inference to best explanation would lead us to reject Kant's transcendental idealism. This is a valid argument and can't be denied by insisting on "transcendental idealism", because that is precisely what has been found to be lacking by the best explanation argument. So the empirical argument gives us reason to reject transcendental idealism, all things being equal. He can't reject it because it is inconsistent with TI because that would beg the question.

Of course, the Kantian may accept that and think he still has stronger reasons for holding TI, this wouldn't beg the question, but his position would still be weakened (to me, severely weakened) by the best explanation argument. That's all.

1 just doesn't hold because you're still treating the noumenon positively, attaching predicates onto it, while it can only be treated negatively. Are you familiar with this distinction in Kant to refer to the noumenon not as a positive entity (which you have) but as a negative one? Because like most standard objections given to Kan presuppose   the same criterion as one would use in transcendental realism. But these do not hold water; just a misapplication of the categories. 

Also, I'm not quite sure why the transcendental idealist has the burden of proof to prove why there "really are things determinately outside of experience in any way". Seems as though there needs to be a reason to think this which must somehow go outside of experience. Seems as though we'd need reasons to think that we can understand the world  without human conceptions. So you'll have to offer an analysis of how this is the case. And I'm just not sure what alternatives there are other than absolute idealism. 
 

Last edited by Marty (3/05/2018 10:59 pm)

Marty one worry I have is while this two-aspect view seems to avoid the straightforwardly contradictory aspects of the two-world view, it seems to leave the noumena so empty of any positive content that it's a wonder why they get posited at all. At this point, why even think it's real? Do Kant / Allison conclusively show that the two aspects don't completely overlap? Etc.

UGADawg wrote:

Marty one worry I have is while this two-aspect view seems to avoid the straightforwardly contradictory aspects of the two-world view, it seems to leave the noumena so empty of any positive content that it's a wonder why they get posited at all. At this point, why even think it's real? Do Kant / Allison conclusively show that the two aspects don't completely overlap? Etc.

 
I have only briefly mentioned it, but (perhaps I am mistaken, but it's my impression) a true Kantian would have to reject the principle of non-contradiction applies in the noumenon; he would have to think of it merely as part of our rational experience and not as a true fabric of the world. So for the Kantian we wouldn't be able to say that no contradictions can hold in the noumenon. But if this is the case, then evidently transcendental idealism is false, and we can discover it merely by grasping PNC.

Miguel wrote:

Marty I know 1 is not possible for the Kantian, but that's precisely the point, I only included it because it would be the only escape route from the empirical argument -- i.e., the only way we could explain why our experience is structured in such an orderly fashion and that therefore doesn't come across things (apparently) popping into existence for no reason. But 1 is not seen as a possibility for the Kantian because it would require us to affirm true facts about what goes on in the noumenon. I am aware it is not available for the Kantian, that's the point!

The issue is that if we reject 1, then the only way to explain why our experience is such that it involves order would be to accept PSR for the noumenon, which would rule out the possibility of beings popping into existence for no reason and being capable (also with no explanation whatsoever) of affecting our experience in such a manner that would make things appear to pop into existence for no reason. The Kantian cannot simply ignore this argument and adopt yet another brute fact without weakening his position; all things being equal, the empirical argument for PSR gives us reason to believe transcendental idealism is false. As I said the Kantian can bite the bullet and accept that his position is weakened but still believe it anyway because of "stronger reasons" or whatever, but the fact remains that, all things being equal, our experience is best explained by PSR being true and transcendental idealism being false.

I'm not sure what's even being said. The Kantian just will simply say that our experience is structured based on the pure concepts of understanding that form a synthesize with intuitions -- one of which is causality. The experience doesn't have to be explained by appealing to outside the experience, but simply internally within it by the transcendental deductions. That's what they were created for. 
 

Marty wrote:

UGADawg wrote:

Marty one worry I have is while this two-aspect view seems to avoid the straightforwardly contradictory aspects of the two-world view, it seems to leave the noumena so empty of any positive content that it's a wonder why they get posited at all. At this point, why even think it's real? Do Kant / Allison conclusively show that the two aspects don't completely overlap? Etc.

On the section of the problem of affection:

“In Wittgensteinian terms, Kant  was not trying to say what is unsayable, but merely to define the boundaries of what can be said or asked. In order to do so, however, he had to introduce the “metalanguage” of transcendental philosophy. Thus, such expression as “things as they are in themselves,” “noumena,” the “transcendental object,” and their correlates are to be understood as technical terms within this metalanguage rather than referring to transcendentally real entities.” – Henry E. Allsion

So the entire projection of Kant's work is to prove how transcendental idealism just is tenable in this way, through this metalanguage, to apply to these limitations, to give the transcendental deduction, etc.

ust like a insect who doesn't apprehend the world in the way a human might apprehend it due to clear epistemic limits, a human has limits too, and I'm just not sure why is so controverisal to posit these things. We might think we're very clever, but I'm not sure how it would be in principle possible to know everything about the world. Perhaps even logically impossible? 

Miguel wrote:

UGADawg wrote:

Marty one worry I have is while this two-aspect view seems to avoid the straightforwardly contradictory aspects of the two-world view, it seems to leave the noumena so empty of any positive content that it's a wonder why they get posited at all. At this point, why even think it's real? Do Kant / Allison conclusively show that the two aspects don't completely overlap? Etc.

 
I have only briefly mentioned it, but (perhaps I am mistaken, but it's my impression) a true Kantian would have to reject the principle of non-contradiction applies in the noumenon; he would have to think of it merely as part of our rational experience and not as a true fabric of the world. So for the Kantian we wouldn't be able to say that no contradictions can hold in the noumenon. But if this is the case, then evidently transcendental idealism is false, and we can discover it merely by grasping PNC.

Once again you're treating the noumenon a positive entity You treat it as a real thing, where there are determinations about it that can be treated as transcendental real, and then assume conclusions of its very nature to which were never given to you.

As I said, once you enter into the system of Trasncendental Idealism, you are not free to leave it since that just misses the entire point.

 

 
Can you affirm the following fact of the noumenon?

"No being can both be and not be in the same aspect at the same time"

If you can't give affirm this as a fact of the matter of what goes on in the noumenon (yes, this completely goes against Kant, that's the point), then transcendental idealism is false.

Can you rule out contradictions in the noumenon without saying anything positive about it?