tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) (11/05/85)
[]
I have received a few comments and criticisms pertaining to a recent
article that I posted, called "Kant, Cantor, and Ineffables". What I
want to do here is respond to a few of the criticisms and, in the
process, make some clarifications.
First, there is my use of the word "appearance." The actual German
word here is, I believe, "vorstellung", as used by Kant. This is
often translated as "representation", as in the title of
Schopenhauer's _World_as_Will_and_Representation_. Sometimes, it is
translated as "idea", and sometimes simply as "presentation." It is
meant to be a very general term, denoting whatever can be before the
mind. This includes, but is not limited to, what are called
"sense-data".
Now, here is a comment received:
"It is hard to tell if you find Kant's views intelligible, but the
words seem to imply that appearances are independent of objects and do
not necessarily result from them. It seems to deny that appearances
are 'appearances OF SOMETHING'. Dreams, on the other hand, do not
result from objects, but result from imagined transformations of
previously experienced, remembered objects. Kant's (your?) approach
seems to want to blur over the distinction between the real and the
imagined, with the inescapable result of confusion..."
This is an important point. The individual who raised it wants to
restrict the use of the word "appearance", I think, to those ideas
which are the result of mind-independent objects. Of course, the
problem here is contained in the word "result", which means "causal
consequence." As Hume pointed out, all of our knowledge of cause and
effect is grounded in, and reducible to, correlations among
appearances. We cannot reach *behind* the appearances to establish a
causal relation between things-in-themselves and appearances. We
cannot show that appearances are the "result" of objects; the best we
can do is show that "objects" are a construct derived from
appearances. Kant's point is that objects, bearing causal relations
to one another in space and time appear to be a necessary feature of
our universe -- NOT because they exist mind-independently, but because
a necessary condition of an intelligible universe is that the
appearances be structured in some such way. The difference between
dreams and waking experience is a difference in the structure of the
appearances, and one structure we call "veridical" or perhaps
"objective."
Another comment:
"...Kant (Moody) is confusing the real and the imagined. I have
little problem distinguishing between what is real and what is
imagined. Therefore, I do not choose to blur my thinking by lumping
them together into a single concept. Why should you?"
But I don't. The problem is to explicate the meaning of "real" and
"imagined" without begging any questions. If appearances are the
*causal* result of things-in-themselves, then the word "causal"
*cannot* be being used in its familiar sense. And that could easily
lead to blurred thinking.
Another comment [In response to my claim that "'Noumenon' refers to
the 'thing-in-itself', apart from all appearances."]: "You are
asserting that objects and sensing of them are independent, but they
are not."
It seems to me that I am not the person asserting this.
Now, a comment from another person:
"I don't see how any of this validates mysticism."
Well, it doesn't validate mysticism, which explains why you wouldn't
see it. Mystics claim to have experiences of an aspect of reality
that defies non-paradoxical verbalization. Critics of this sort of
thing often charge that what is ineffable is meaningless. Part of the
upshot of this Kant/Cantor business is that this criticism, at least,
may be groundless.
Quantum mechanics is often attributed with a kind of ineffability.
That is, if you try to describe quantum mechanical phenomena in a
natural language, you will fall into paradoxes. The mathematical
description of quantum mechanics is consistent, but -- and let's get
this clear, folks -- it describes the structure of the appearances.
If you ask how the basic reality can be that generates those
appearances, you will be told that "No one knows how it can be that
way" (Feynman).
One of the things that I have been working up to, then, is a
demonstration that modern physics has moved from a strict empirical
realism to a more Kantian metaphysics. Is this a *skeptical*
metaphysics? (A number of people asked about skepticism) I don't
think so. Nothing here says that knowledge is impossible, but
knowledge does get interpreted in a different way. Whether this is
legitimate, is another question.
Todd Moody | {allegra|astrovax|bpa|burdvax}!sjuvax!tmoody
Philosophy Department |
St. Joseph's U. | "I couldn't fail to
Philadelphia, PA 19131 | disagree with you less."