WJ

Oops I forgot to ask a question. As a postscript to this little detour, does anyone think that the 'mystery', if it could be solved, would result in the 'objective' becoming one with the 'subjective'?

Only a theory of course.

Wali

John Page

Walrus:

Was this from you or someone else's summary? Just curious. Anyway, irrespective of authorship, a couple of comments:

I don't think this is true. That our perception requires/predisposes us to put our experiences into our space/time oriented storage of knowledge does not neccesarily result in us knowing the structure of the phenomenal in advance.

One only has to look at the development of relativity theory as evidence that our "inherent" method of perception (or dare I say our naturally developed metaphysical senses) don't provide a comprehensive and accurate view of the universe.

Removing the the synthetic apriori, however synthesised, gets us back to the real reality as opposed to reality as she is experienced.
We are free to believe whatever is in our minds, that is the very nature of belief. That is, you are free to believe whatever you wish independently of what I believe or wish you to believe (unless I have gained control of your mind, of course).

I don't think that A, B, or C either jointly or severally is required for a commitment to live a moral life (or to actually live one) and therefore dispute that it is reasonable to believe in any one of them.

I don't support humanism in its strict or pure sense. The human form appears to be a developing one and to assume that it has reached a reasonable form is jumping the gun. I think morals and ethics are a very important element of culture and advantage over other cultures, but to subscribe to morals absolutely tied to current human norms seems as unreasonable as tying them absolutely to an imaginary god.

If our aesthetic sense is what we have come to like in any human cultural endeavor history clearly shows it is a movable feast.

Nice to get back into the synthetic apriori groove.

Cheers, John

[ July 11, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

WJ

John!

No, the bullets aren't mine. I too had some doubt about what could be known about reality. This is why I posed the question about subjectivity/objectivity or what's in there v. out there. And of course, the open-ended question of what could be known about the 'nature' of a thing.

I do think that thru math [apriori], once again, we can create a thing (a wooden beam for a building) but because we can't create a universe, we do not understand the nature of the beam or the thing itself. We just know the raw material [it] exists.

Kind of old news I think, but is worth repeating.
So I think all this means we live in a world of opposites-apriori/aposterior. Edit; And the expression of those opposites that both science and art choose to engage in, and the various forms therof (synthetic apriori=natural sciences; postmodern irrationalism=art).

Keith, what kind of art speaks to opposites?

Wali

[ July 11, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

philechat

To WJ:

I do not think we live in a world of opposites, though I have some trouble knowing what you meant by "opposites" exactly. I prefer to see the world as gradations, with no sharp distinction between objective/subjective, or order/randomness.

We may wonder where the so-called "apriori-synthetic" ends. For what about biological and social science? Are they considered art or science? Are they more objective or subjective?

When one idea is considered "objective" and another "subjective" we are making an arbitrary distinction in our mind. These distinctions are an expression of the human mind instead of the natural world itself. "Objectivity" is but an agree-upon concept of language or repeated experience.

[ July 11, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

phaedrus

Ahh the way things get lost in time .....<a href="http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/i_es/i_es_ashok_sequenc.htm" target="_blank">Sequence from Patanjali to Postmodernity</a>

What do you think James...Has there been anything "unique" or "different" in modern philosophy compared to the ancient's work (both western and eastern) ? I guess science is a demarcator, but we cant really call it philosophy. Do we just reinvent the wheel?

WJ

Philchat!

I think the world *view* is opposites. Take a look at extremes. I mentioned one of them, apriori/aposterior.

It is our way of thinking that wants to bring them together, whether we know it or not, as Kant advocated. Keep in mind that this way of thinking specifically relates to aquiring knowledge about a some thing that we want to aquire knowledge about. The synthetic apriori is something that we must assume for any process of thought to take place regarding what can be concieved in the mind as being possible. We wonder, we speculate, we act on this premise in order to aquire knowledge and become in fact knowledgeable on 'it'.

In other words, we have a dichotomy between how knowledge is aquired throughout our lifetime on the physical earth; math is apriori, Being is aposterior.

How this relates to aethetics is that I think we tryed to digress with subjectivity/objectivity as another example. Yes there are 'gradients' in as much as what I see, I may try to emulate, when I aquire knowledge about something. IE, seeing a person doing something then me actually being and becoming what I think I want to be, just like what I saw in that person=subjectivity/objectivity interplay.

As in ethics, if I want to be a basketball player I use a similar method of interplay between the subject and object to make it become my own truth by actually becoming a basketball player, or whatever I want to be. I first see/feel want I want to be, then attempt to aquire knowledge to be that.

1.the need= the will to do=subject=me
2.the object=the will to be=the need to aquire knowledge=the unknown

Both can be transient passing (things) and both can be infinite. Both can be timeless and both can be dependent on time, depending on how we use our thinking of them (things).

When I think of these dichotomies I think of mind, matter, Being, becoming, the universe, universal truth-math, things that pass, things that change with time, ideas that change in themselves about something, etc..

I think Kant tryied to put them all together using the only thing we have, the logic of language (and reason). I believe that is one reason why it made his 'reasoning' hard to follow, whether he actually knew it or not...he critiqued it, yet he was dependent on it in his own use of critique, etc..

I don't know, just some more thoughts.

EDIT; the question of course here as to what follows, relates to aquiring knowledge about the nature of the thing. That is one reason why I posed the question about subject and object becoming one.

Wali

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

WJ

Maybe an easier or another way to look at the dichotomy (one of many) would be to add something to this statement:

'We wonder, we speculate, we act on this premise in order to aquire knowledge and become in fact knowledgeable on 'it'." Yet we do not fully know 'it'.

John Page

Walrus:

I've made some observations below from a physical standpoint - you make some good points from a third person perspective but as you end up concluding, that is always what it will be. To break the circle IMO one needs to get inside the actual subjective experience of an actual event.

Anyway, here goes:

Why synthetic for any process of thought? To compare exerience over time does not require us to make anything up. While experiences over time result in event one occuring before another this "natural" apriori can be verified independent of the process of mind. Yes, our minds can synthesise but the result is invalid only if it is an inaccurate synthesis or hypothesis. Bottom line - we can verify the subjective experience of the mind against events in the external environment.
I think of it the other way round. Math has been developed a posteriori to our experiences of the world and analyses of those experiences into patterns of the mind. Being, on the other hand, mus actually occur a priori in order for it to be experienced through the process of the mind. (It can be experimentally shown that perception of events takes time to occur).
But even before you see/feel what you want to be, it is necessary to experience the world in order to formulate one's desire. e.g. not many people who have not seen basketball want to be a basketball player.
I haven't seen any proof of something that is infinite. As far as we can tell, everything is transient.

1. You may describe something as constant, but it may be repeating (who mentioned perception of spinning colored balls?)
2. Once you die, your needs and beliefs die with you unless you have passed on their descriptions memetically.
What's this?
We also have more evidence and a lot of time!

Cheers, synthetic apriori John (yes, my name was made up for me)

Keith Russell

Greetings:

It's been a while since I read "The Critique of Pure Reason", but I remember thinking that it contained more than a bit of sophistry.

Yes, some of our knowledge is built upon prior concepts, and those concepts are integrated into new concepts that did not spring directly from one single concept or memory, but I don't see how the concept of knowledge 'a priori' can be considered a naturalistic, rational one.

While our consciousness may be 'wired' to process sensory data into conceptual data in specific fashion, I beleive that--perceptually and knowledge-wise--we are born tabula rasa, with no 'a priori' knowledge.

As far as 'art speaking to opposites', I think as good a case could be made for that, as could be made against it.

It certainly doesn't seem to be true in all, or even most, cases.

Keith.

WJ

"This distinction is very clear in Kant. Kant argued that true aesthetic pleasure is 'disinterested'. What Kant means by this is that the pleasure must be independent of any consideration of whether the object of aesthetic appreciation actually exists. Consider, for example, the pleasure we take in looking at an attractive man or woman. Much of this pleasure is not disinterested, in Kant's sense, because it is linked with a desire for that person. The possibility - real or imagined - of enjoying this person in the flesh is part of the pleasure we take in looking at them. For there to be genuine aesthetic appreciation of a person, that pleasure must be purely in the contemplation of their appearance, regardless of any thought as to their real existence."

"Plato actually opposed art on the grounds that it was an obstacle to the proper understanding of reality. In his view, true reality is the realm of the 'forms'. The forms are the perfect 'blueprints' of which actual objects are mere replicas. So, any particular chair, for example, is an inferior copy of the eternal form of the chair. Because art represents actual chairs and other objects, it is thus two-steps removed from reality. Art is effectively a representation of copies of reality. Anyone who wants to understand reality is therefore advised to avoid art!"

"Fortunately, Plato is not the last word on this subject. Opponents of Plato do not always explicitly state that art reveals the true reality behind appearances. However, they do often imply that art has an ability to help us understand reality better by revealing important, general features about it. Aristotle, for example, talked about tragedy as catharsis, which sees art as enabling us to deal with universal emotions by confronting them and, in a sense, purging them, through watching a drama. Hsun Tzu thought that music somehow reflects the harmony of the divine order, and so by cultivating a proper appreciation of music, we gain some insight into ultimate reality. Schopenhauer believed that art is an insight into the fundamental feature of reality: the will, which is the power behind all activity in the universe. And Dewey argued that art allows us to experience the unity of reality that is lost in the discord of everyday experience."

-------------

Going back to the subjective/objective dichotomy, it seems then the artist must express a truth about what is 'real' which cannot be absolute or known, but only that which happens to be known at the time; expressing the objective thru the subjective.

If that makes any sense, taking it one step further, to express beauty or ugliness from our perceptions of/about reality, is it considered a 'guide' to truth, or 'the' absolute truth? Assuming absolutes are not possible, subjectivism rears its ugly head here.

Walrus

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>