Hello and welcome to the 13th session of Khan's Circle of Revenge. I'm going to pass the mic and camera to Resume Grastani now. Hello everyone. My apologies for cancelling last week's session. So today we will continue with the rest of our discussion on Eskimasa and if there is any time, we move to, you know, axions, anticipations, and, sorry, and analogies of experience. So, you know, as usual, if you have any questions regarding to the last session, please answer, I mean, sorry, please ask me,
or if you have any general comments with regard to particularly the last two sessions, imagination and the schema, please feel free to make those comments. Otherwise, we are going to continue with Eschemata and Eschematization of categories. I have one question, maybe like a little bit of a question. I mean, it seems like, and I mean, we discussed this briefly, but it seems like there's roughly speaking, maybe like three rules that are contained within the understanding. Like we mentioned, like it's not written anywhere,
but we entertained the figurative rules, figurative syntheses. of the perspectival image models and the correct composition. Then we also talked about the inferential intellectual rules. And then it seems like the schemata would be rules that formats the relationship between the two, ensures that the... Between the two, you mean what? Understanding and sensibility? understand sensibility but more specifically the figurative and the intellectual yes okay so i mean would it be right to see because this the idea of this come on if i'm understanding correctly it prescribes um concepts for uh it applies it says that concepts has a correct
domain of intuitions which they apply to and likewise there are certain concepts which correctly applied to intuitions. I'm thinking then that means that the rules of the schematism, um, the schematism having its foot both in intuition and understanding, it delimits the relationship between the figurative rules and the intellect. Yes, yes, the whole idea. Yes, absolutely. I mean, the whole idea of a schematism, you might think about it as, uh, enabling constraints for synthetic a priori. By enabling constraint I mean in the sense that it is the point according to Kant, the point at which the sensible intuition usefully constrains
the intellectual domain of concepts. So then the intellectual domain won't be, the application of intellectual domain won't be too arbitrary. It needs to respond to a specific, namely determinate schema concepts or object concepts or image. Yes, so this is the whole idea of eschemata, you might think of it as a process of positive constraining, as a positive limitation. It's precisely that, you know, in order for you to apply the concept in a perceptual judgment,
apply the concept of, for example, book correctly, you should be capable of constraining a particular image of a book. sorry, you should be capable of constraining the general concept of a book by a particular, perspectival and determinate image of the book. Otherwise, anything can fall under the concept of the book. A tree, a tablet, so on and so forth. So that constraining is really important with the schematization.
The schematization always about constraining, constraining the general intellectual by particular sensible. So it brackets the incorrect application. Yes, yes. Well, that's what I said. And you remember that according to Kant, eschematization is really the distillation of the principle of transcendental logic. And we know by now that transcendental logic is about logic as a canon, namely the right or the correct application of laws of logic. Thank you, that was clarifying.
Any more questions, thoughts? Yes, okay, so we go. I remember that I talked about drawing a line and keeping a tally. as a kind of a rudimentary example for elaborating schematism in Kant. So drawing the line, as you know, is also a construction carried out according to a rule, just as keeping a tally, those strokes that you were adding to each other.
but the question here is that what rule what kind of rule can't answer this question by saying that the concept of a line to so drawing a line is construction according to a rule What rule? The concept of the line. Now this is where Kant identifies concepts with the rule. Concepts are rules. Now the more important question is that are all rules concepts?
That's something that we will come later and we will try to answer it. The tentative answer for now is yes, but not all concepts are the same. There are intellectual concepts, there are intuitive concepts, so there are different classes of concepts. All of these implicit presuppositions in these passages in Critique of Pure Reason implies that Kant first understands concepts as rules and rules as concepts and rules to be different
there are different kinds of rules but nevertheless there are also different kinds of concepts which means that can't already implicitly thinks there is a hierarchy of concepts in so far as there are there is a hierarchy of rules and this would entail that all rules would be found within the understanding correct sorry I couldn't hear you this would mean that all rules are contained within them the understanding as well. Are contained in the form? Are they a part of the understanding as? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Or you might say that all the rules are at the end of the day in one way or another,
enabled and constrained by understanding. So yes, so I was saying that all of these suggest that Kant believes in a hierarchy of rules insofar as he believes in a hierarchy of concepts. So there is such a thing as hierarchy of concepts, conceptual complexity. And it's only through conceptual complexity, according to Kant, that we can uncover other
kinds of complexities, the complexity of the sensible, the complexity of the intuitive, so on and so forth. Kant says that a concept is always something general and something that serves as a rule. He says, I am guided by a rule in so far as I act under a concept. According to Wittgenstein, I do not consult the concept, core rule. It is
rather that I represent my activity in terms of the concept that is as drawing a line and I thereby know how to go on so This is really an interesting point. This is just an off-topic, tangential comment. You see from a historical philosophical perspective, usually Wittgenstein is thought to be anti-Kantian.
But the more you read the core tenets of Wittgensteinian philosophy, you see that he is very much actually beholden to Kantian philosophy, both in his picture theory of language in Tractatus, but also in philosophical investigations. he believes in philosophical I mean just the part that I just read he believes that implicitly believes that concepts are not representations it is not that I consult I represent my activities in terms of concepts concepts are not representations
of a stuff in the world They are rather what you might call to be rules through which I can represent my activity. For example, drawing a line. And hence, I know how to go on drawing a line. This is really interesting. So, and precisely because you see that the consequences of this kind of view of the concept is unfolded further by people's sellers and mostly in random, that concepts are not representations.
If you want to be very strict in terms of what you mean by representations. Yes, there is no such thing as anti-representation or you being able to talk about the world without representation. These are just like continental urban legend, which we are not going to talk about. But even when we have already been acquainted with the strict sense of representation, concepts cannot be said to be a stricto sensu representations. They are really, in fact you can say that representations are being expressed in terms
of concepts, core rules. No, this actually he says this in philosophical investigation. In Tractatus he does another thing, that's the picture theory of language in the sense that the picture theory of language is quite Kantian in the sense that he believes that in order for meaning to be legitimate, it should go, it should have simultaneously two movements, one upward toward categories and concepts and one downward toward the sensible
and the empirical. Otherwise meaning is not legitimate, is not constrained enough. And And in so far as even Kant, as we have seen, thinks that the ultimate source of truth should be empirical, you know, remember logic as canon versus logic as organon distinction in Kant, then this is essentially a Kantian distinction, this gesture in Tractatus, that he tries to anchor, because you see if meaning is only on the side of understanding, according to Wittgenstein and view, then meaning is arbitrary, it's not constrained. So how can you really make this to constrain meaning? Well, by a Kantian gesture, by anchoring it, it's an empirical source,
in its empirical source, which is what? Sensibility. So meaning should go upward toward concepts and categories and should go also downward toward its empirical source, the sensible. Which, of course, this is exactly where Carnap's axe comes and shows, and Carnap's criticism shows that this Kantian gesture of Wittgenstein is essentially misguided. It's not that this is wrong, it's just misguided.
Precisely because meaning is not about a source, meaning is not about constraint. Meaning only in so far as we are talking about a very naive understanding of meaning, meaning in terms of natural language that we can talk about such and such things. But from the perspective of general languages, of which natural language is simply a special case, we can't talk about meaning in this sense as if it should be anchored always in an empirical source of its truth. So we are not going to talk about these because, you know, hopefully I will talk about these for the next seminar when I talk about Carnap. and stuff uh but yes so with gunner stein is usually understood as an anti-kentian figure
but the more you read his court philosophy the core his core theses you realize that he's actually quite kantian So, as I said, rather, you know, Wittgenstein has reminded us, I do not consult the concept, i.e. rule, rather I represent my activity in terms of the concept, i.e. as drawing, as drawing a line, and I thereby know how to go on. In Wittgenstein's example,
in so far as I represent myself as counting by twos and know how to go on two, four, six, eight, 10, it is the rule, you know, inside a bracket plus two, add always two to whatever you are doing that determines what I say next, how to move from two to four, four to six, six to eight, eight to ten. Now, the key point for understanding the subjective deduction is that on Kant's account, a consciousness of oneself as passive, as having perceptions, also requires this kind
of rule-guided, concept-structured activity. According to Kant in A.123, he says, the objective unity of all empirical consciousness in one consciousness of original apperception is the necessary condition even of all possible perception. So to be perceptually aware of determinate, intuitable items, we need to draw them in thought. that is to say to construct appropriate images from the raw materials of the sensory manifold according to concepts or rules. The mere representation of items in a space, that is, presupposes a synthesis of representations across time,
and conversely, as the refutation of idealism will demonstrate. Again, quote from Kant. Thus, the concept of body serves as a rule for cognition of outer appearances by means of the unity of the manifold that is thought through it. However, it can be a rule for intuitions only if it represents the necessary reproduction of the manifold of given appearances, hence the synthetic unity in the consciousness of them. Thus, in the case of the perception of something outside of us, the concept of body makes necessary the representation of extension, and with it that of impenetrability, of shape, etc.
So that's how Kant's third synthesis, the synthesis of recognition in concept, is related to the role of aperceptive self-consciousness in perception. It is this aperception that must be added to the pure imagination, in order to make its function intellectual. A-124. And with the emergence of an indispensable role for concepts in perception, we have finally made contact with Kant's characterization of experience as arising from the cooperation of a passive sensibility and active understanding. For we are now in a position to elucidate the relationship between the earlier doctrine of two sources and the present account
of an experience in general and cognition of its object, as resting on what Kant says in A.1.1.5, three subjective sources of cognition, sense, imagination, and apperception. Three sources of cognition, sense, imagination and apperception. For if sense is still adverse to the contribution of receptive sensibility, that is the sensory manifold which is the first product of our being affected, then the contribution of the spontaneous understanding must be the threefold synthesis which results
from the operations of imagination and a perception and so it is. Kant says the unity of a perception in relation to the synthesis of the imagination is the understanding. A119. OK. Sir, what are you doing? Sorry, I'm talking to my cat. Any question? yes everyone everyone is called sir that's true egalitarianism I noticed
that's when I was living in Malaysia that's regardless of your gender regardless of your status everyone is called sir so I thought that okay this is really fantastic egalitarian gesture from now on I will call everyone sir and I have noticed that a couple of times people saying that Reza because English is the second language doesn't properly know the difference that sir only applies to that's fantastic okay so if you don't have question I can continue Consequently, we can now relatively at least locate the threefold synthesis
with respect to our earlier picture of Kantian perception. The understanding and the role of productive imagination determines the way in which I take up the manifold of sense into an image, which is to say a singular representation of an object in a space. As the concept of a line functions as a rule guiding the activity of drawing a line in thought, when I perceive, for example, a thick green book or red book, the concept of a book functions as a rule guiding the activity of constructing the singular representation of an object in a space, which is my image of the book.
bracketing temporarily the important details regarding time and our perception yields the picture that we have been talking about so far. You know, that's that, you know, if I think I showed it to the robot diagram so which is which was also the picture on my Facebook so you have you know some relations Sigma and tau relations the spatial and temporal relations between different components of a for example a Lego a Lego model like a robot and then these are this is called you know sensibility then this
This moves further by the act of productive imagination to the image, the intuitive, what I see of the object. I see it slant-wise now facing me and having such and such properties. And it is only then with the function of understanding that this particular object Lego model can be seen as part of the synthesis of recognition in the concepts. I see it as such and such toy Lego, this Lego robot having such and such properties.
So the concept of a robot, a Lego robot. This is what we have already talked about, is an instance of perceptual taking or intuiting what I see the object as. I see it as such and such Lego robots. you Sorry, I lost my bookmark
So, having talked about, you know, these relations, now I can come back and specifically talk about what eschematas are, Kant and what their relationship with their image is. As we know, Kant says in A.141 to 2 and B.181, he says, the image is a product of the empirical
faculty of productive imagination. The schema of sensible concepts, such as figures in space, is a product of pure, all-priority imagination through which, and in accordance with which, the image first becomes possible, but which must be connected with the concept, to which they are in themselves never fully congruent, always only by means of the schema that they designate. So, any intreatable image of an object must always necessarily be the image of the object in a determinate mode of sensible presentation.
You remember from last session that determinate mode of sensible presentation was also happened to be a perspectival mode of presentation. book now facing me a slant voice and the facing side of it has such and such properties being green being red being fake this and that it's not just one perspectival correct you know it's multiple like well you see every now every now or what you might call to be in every as curious now every a species now a species now in the sense that all of our fleeting experiences are given to
us by what you might call to be a species present a species now what was a species now if you remember from previous sessions what was future is becoming present what was now is becoming past and what was past is becoming distant, vague, sometimes even forgettable. So our species now is actually a or a species present as I mentioned is a term coined by William James. It's called to be the unit, the basic unit of experience. We know from Kant that all of our experiences have as their main component time.
as a transcendental ideality. So a species now is called a species precisely because it's not the real, it's transcendental. A species now is the unit of our experience. All of our experiences are coming in these fleeting nows, in this fleeting presence. In this fleeting presence, I always see a pic always see of a picture is perspectival sight but if you are talking about how these perspectival images are related to one another through time diachronically then we are talking about different perspectives but experience as anchored in now in the species now is always
only one perspectival. That's the constraint of us being subject. Thus and so constituted. We only sense or perceive of one certain aspects of an item in the world and not others. Hence, a specific perspectivality. Okay, so yeah, I see the perspectival, the temporal isolation of different perspectives. Yes, yes. Would you say that the schemata prescribes a possibly non-denumerable set of perspectivals
that are possible to be subsumed under the concept? Yes, absolutely, yes. Hosea calls it adumbration. Oseo calls this adumbration. I haven't found any better word for it, really. But if you want, just type Oseo and adumbration. And you see that this is precisely what Oseo means by adumbration. Okay, maybe we should have a five-minute break, and my cat is trying to get out and apparently he can't. I'm going to take him out and in five minutes we resume. The word that I was thinking was actually switching like in proof nets, you know.
Well, you see, adumbration is the whole idea in Hosserl is that how to glue all these perspectival moments together. how can if if we are always if our experiences always by virtue of these temporal constraints are always going to be one perspective versus another then how can we ever have a non-perspectival concept of an object because non-perspectivality means that we have moved from local perspective to a global multi-perspectivality and from there to non-perspectivality so Hosserlian
that Ambration tries to really answer this question. Moving from local perspectives to global perspectivality where you have already glued these perspectives and extracted an invariant, a global invariant or invariance from them. And then that is becoming your image for a non-perspectival concept of, for example, book. That right now, sitting in front of you slantwise with such color and shape, you're only aware of the facing side of it, and that's it. Okay.
Sure. It's not related to the schematism really, but it's something that came up with writing. Kant wants to maintain that time is only transcendentally real as in it's merely a condition for our experience. Yes. And that we can't say that it pertains to things themselves from what I've heard from some idealist perspectives is they want to maintain that time isn't real
while at the same time disregarding Kant's thing in itself. How so? Can you elaborate on this? So it seems like what that position runs into the idealist who... Can I see it, Alice? um as soon what what allows Kant to say that time is only transcendentally real is because he can say time isn't and we can't we can't say anything about what time is as as it is in itself
or we can't say anything about things in themselves, this is merely a condition of our thinking. But if you take away the thing in itself as an absolute limit, then you're only left with the conditions of thinking, it seems like. So then it seems like at that point you have to concede that there's some type of, if not, if you're foregoing saying anything about the ontological, about whether time is ontologically real, I can tell I'm sort of tying myself in some knots, but.
From what I'm understanding, I think, well, we can just talk about it. I mean, from what I understand, the thing is that, okay, so, most I think important thing is that to understand that the transcendental dimension of time is about the phenomenal realm, not about the nominal realm. Because we don't know what nominal realm is to ascribe temporality to it. So if that is the case, then I don't think that saying time is transcendentally real or transcendentally ideal will lead us to contradiction, precisely because we can only
attribute the characteristic of temporality to the phenomenal registers of the nominal. understanding that the nominal, as I mentioned you remember that citation I read from John Finlay, that the whole idea of the more and more you read of Kant, the phenomenal nominal, you know, and the thing in itself, you see that Kant's idea of the thing in itself, even though it is a constraint upon the phenomenal instantiation, it is always can only be approached
within the constraint of an as-if argument. As if there were such things as things in themselves we could talk about phenomenal realm. So the thing is that that Kant really, I think, believes that things in themselves, I don't really, it's really hard to say that what Kant really thinks about the nominal realm or things, but it seems that a charitable reading would say that Kant doesn't really think that this question can be approached ontologically as a sound basis. Whether you say that there is such thing as things in themselves or not.
Kant is not interested in that. What only Kant is interested in is as if there were such things as things in themselves. But then the question would be, why the hell Kant needs to posit such entities? well it's precisely because they are as if constraints upon how phenomenal realm can be instantiated so really Kant thinks of things in themselves as constrained upon our phenomenal instantiation and you see that the reason that Kant in every time that he talks about understanding logic
a priori so on so forth he ties the question to the metaphysics of sensation without sensation this is empty thought without sensation it is this without sensation is that so sensation is is really an avatar of a thing in itself even though is what you might call to be a phenomenal avatar of a thing in itself it is where you can when you can intelligibly talk about constraints. So, it is really, I genuinely don't know about this and I have seen that few people really have talked about this. And obviously, if you
think that things in themselves are merely constraints, not only constraint, but there are as-if constraints, then A lot of these points about realism, I think, actually can be challenged. You know, can we talk about realism? Because realism requires you a real object that constrains your thoughts, your knowledge. Whereas it seems to me that for Kant, things in themselves, you can't talk about them as real stuff. you don't know anything about them there are only entities that can be posited within as if arguments
arguments that have as if we were thinking that are such things as inaccessible by our sensible intuition nevertheless constrain our our understanding so if we are really going to address things in themselves uh in terms of as if arguments uh the way that Kant does then i don't think that we can so easily talk about things as reality or the real and these are to be honest with you I really desire I think open questions for me and I don't have final answer that precisely because the more and more I read of can the more and more I read commentaries of can the more and more I
realize that there are massive amounts of inconsistency in Kant's elaboration of these points it's not that he's wrong or he's not revolutionary or that he's conservative it's just that he's pretty inconsistent all the time Can I jump in and say something here? Absolutely. I'm going to turn your volume up because you're really quiet for some reason. Yeah, turn it up. But I was just thinking like if the thing in itself does exist, I mean, it would be existing outside of the category of community and you wouldn't be able to apply a predicate to it.
So could it possibly be a part of real experience? Absolutely. You see, we know that, so Kent talks about a number of times in Critique of Pure Reason that we can only talk about our own sensibility, not sensibility of other creatures, aliens, so on and so forth. The same thing can be said about the things in itself. We can only talk about our phenomenal experience. We can never talk about really the thing in itself. So if Kant thinks that we can't talk about other sensible creatures, then how the fuck can we talk about things in themselves? That's really, I think, an astonishing point.
So then, by definition, talking about things in themselves cannot be understood within the realm of the real. But simply a positive term, a postulate or a hypothesis, posited through transcendental as-if argument, as if there were such things. Because otherwise, I couldn't actually have such phenomenal experiences, such judgment, such perceptual experiences to begin with. But of course, again, taking Kant's own conclusion about as-if arguments seriously, it means that we can't really reify the conclusion reached by as-if arguments.
We can't reify things in themselves. It seems, it always seemed a little bit to me like they, the status of the things in themselves are similar in some ways to like the way we were talking about reason before we went live. like that they're sort of like a transcendental idea like like we can't have knowledge of the things of themselves but like the idea presents itself to thought and we can't yes yeah no it's what you might call to be an idea without which the system doesn't work I mean you see really I mean I genuinely I have seen Pete talk about transcendental realism and
Ray and Stellars but I genuinely want to understand that how can you rescue Kant's system without things in themselves I really don't think that is possible impossible. It's absolutely impossible. You might be gerrymandering things in themselves in terms of some other things which at the end of the day having the quality of things in themselves but you can't do away with them. And like it seems like reason itself is something that we have no sensible experience of.
Yes, but you see, at least with reason, you might say that reason is not sensible. Reason is pure in a Kantian sense. Reason is pure. yes the concrete instantiation of reason is not something that we have uh which we can talk about here and now but we know that reason okay so reason you can it depends on how you approach really reason and reason is actually flexible do we mean reason as pure logic or do we mean reason as pure understanding, as related to the sensible. If the case is the latter, then yes, I think what you are saying is absolutely correct.
But there is also people who, like Frigge, like Hosseurl, in early Hosseurl, they think that reason should not have anything to do whatsoever with the sensible. Can I ask something? Absolutely, Peter. Yes. Just from the outset, I don't know if anyone cares, but my general paradigm reading through Khan is something like, yeah, it's like a methodological error almost at the outset or something that results in all these sort of complexities. Pseudo problems.
Yes, pseudo problems and whatnot. Like if you say that all the heavenly bodies revolve around the earth, you end up with an incredibly complex sort of astrological system that's sort of Kant's cognitive system. But in the preface to the second edition, there's something that seems like it's relevant to this where he sort of says like the soul insofar as it's kind of like a phenomena is like not free while yet as belonging to a thing in itself that is not subject to that law and is therefore free and a couple of things I was just wondering as I was reading this like what like why is he saying
this um it's almost as if like the the division um like gives him a kind of license to um to not confront some some question about uh freedom or will or something yes yeah no i think you are absolutely right this is taken to eat it too or something and the mode of address is the the preface also seems like it's like addressed to authority as well. And I wondered if it was a way of sort of, I don't know, not coming into conflict with religion or authority in some way. It's not only that. I think it would just, it's at the end of the day, you see can't,
can't, okay, all of this stuff about religion, about categorical imperative estate, these are just like what you might call to be, you know, kind of appendixes that he has written for his treatise. I don't think that they are essential. I think this whole idea of the will, freedom and stuff is always for can't the question of nature subject versus nature agent versus nature and i know i really think that what you are saying absolutely has a ring of truth to it
there is i have i have written actually a text on a similar topic it's called it's online actually it's called I can't remember the exact title but something of the will. So it's about the freedom of the will. The structure of freedom and something of the will. Sorry I can't remember. Anyway, so yes, it seems to me, as I have said numerous times, it seems to me that Kant tries to divest himself, divest his philosophy from British empiricism mainly, particularly human.
He goes in the right direction and what is that? It is the formulation of the transcendental, the a priori. But then, so and in the introduction when he talks about the soul, he sees the soul from the perspective of the transcendental. It has a logic of itself and this logic is not really going to be reduced to nature, to the heteronomy of nature in the last instance. Because its origin, according to Kant, is not nature. For something not having its origin
in nature doesn't mean that it is supernatural. It means unnatural, like reason. Reason is unnatural, but to be unnatural doesn't mean that it is supernatural. It simply means that it obeys rules or laws that are not natural laws. Okay? It is the rules that it itself has constituted, the core of autonomy. So Kant believes in such a thing as this transcendental dimension of the soul. But then, as we talked about, the more and more we have seen that every time that he actually tries to talk about transcendental, the transcendental is only transcendental
in so far as the rule has a sensible content, is subordinated to the sensible, to the intuitive, the sensible intuition of the human. And that's when you get the, then why are we talking about all of this? Because what is this metaphysics of sensation? You are positing at each and every turn and you are subordinating the upriory dimension of the transcendental to it. So it seems that it's really hard to say that what really Kant's ultimate position is. I think, you see, for me, it seems that Kant's aim,
the overarching aim of critique of pure reason, is on the right track. His methodology is completely wrong and confused, for the most part. He believes in such a thing as the soul, as the dimension of the transcendental, not in a kind of Aristotelian sense or religious sense, but as a dimension of the transcendental. But then he nevertheless, as we have seen even right now in the chapter on eschematism, everything should always be subordinated in the last instance to the dimension of the sensible. Otherwise, it's what her Kant calls empty thought or form without content, which we
have said. Any Kantian who says you are peddling form without content, ask them is there such a thing as content without form? So these are, I really think, are genuine problems with Kant. Now I think that some of these have been repaired and addressed in Hegel. But then Hegel's system also falls prey to his, what you might call to be his inflated metaphysics of the concept, concept with capital C, the begreif, the notion, in a sense that the movement, the dialectical movement of the concept is an instance of what you might call to be intellectual intuition.
Well, what is intellectual intuition? How can we have intellectual intuition? So I think that really the entire edifice of German idealism, you need to look at it as a revolution in philosophy, precisely because it tries to finally overcome dogmatism or address the questions in the right way, but it does not have the sufficient methodologies to address these questions or issues coherently. And it seems to me that every time a German idealist tries to solve this problem, it digs a deeper hole for himself. Can you talk a little bit about God?
So I'm thinking about, I guess, the way Finlay kind of has this account of God that seems like it's kind of a cross between a kind of Kantian god and a Hegelian god. Like, so, okay, so first of all, so like for Kant, the transcendental ideal of God kind of bridges the gap between the thing in itself and reason, it seems like. Like it's sort of the collection of all positive properties, but also kind of the guarantor of the progress of reason or something. Yeah, absolutely. Actually, this is again an as-if argument.
God in Kant, when it ever talks about God, don't think that as if he is like one of those Lutheran villagers in Germany who actually believes in God. No, God for Kant is simply an as-if argument. It's simply a constraint. So he can actually talk about, as Hunter said, how reason unfolds, and so on and so forth about the categorical imperative. So God is an as-if argument. Hegel, I would say, that God's a little bit becomes more substantive. I think Kant is more of an atheist than Hegel, which is quite actually scary.
I think Finlay's idea of God is not either Hegelian or Kantian. It's Platonic. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It seems like he kind of arrives at a kind of like temporalized Neoplatonism or something. Yes, yes, yes. It's kind of no Platonic. It's still with hints of Platonism, yes. Yeah, but Kant's idea of God is essentially, as you said, is an as-if argument. And as-if arguments are always what you might call to be pragmatic constraints for me to lay out my system. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. So ultimately not very important to the system.
I mean, it's weird because it seems like... It is important to the system. As a constraint that we have hypothetically postulated. Right. It's a postulation that is necessary, without which the system doesn't work. But then Kant himself said that these kind of hypothetical postulations shouldn't be taken too seriously. Otherwise, you will fall in the trap of douglatism. And he seems to sort of posit faith as some other sort of whole mode of grasping. not only faith but also the idea of genius genius is also a hypothetical situations and as if argument the artist has a genius or the whole idea of genius as a function in Kent is also as an as-if argument but so the importance
of the as if is pretty high actually yes it is very high and it seems that Kent is completely understand it and he also gives adequate cautionary tales about how you should not handle an as-if argument. But despite his own cautionary tales, it seems to me that many occasions he actually takes as-if argument as if they were real. uh-huh yeah interesting okay thanks absolutely he's just kind of like he's seeing this as a common feature of even just common understanding of the universe so he's trying to explain it
through hypothetical judgment and cause and effect yes yes he's seeing this as a symptom of that Yes, yes. I mean the thing is that, this is, I mean please don't quote me on this and it's really simply a only an impression that I have at this moment. It seems to me that transcendental idealism of Kant, the transcendental is solid. But in order for it to be solid, it needs to hypothesize about something that is not transcendental,
an outside element, the sensible, the thing in itself, so on and so forth. And all of the confusions arise when When you start confounding the difference, the importance, the significance between the transcendental as the first step of thinking and transcendental as something that is hypothetically constrained by the real dimension. A metaphor for it, a really wacky metaphor, it's like the movie Hair, a computer program,
pure transcendental, it's just a bunch of axiomatics, a machine. Now, in order for it to postulate its own autonomy, it should somehow contrast itself with the outside world. And it seems to the viewer that the more that she tries to contrast herself with the outside world in order to extract the autonomy of her transcendental dimension, the more she doubts it, the more she's dragged into the heteronymy of nature, the heteronymy of causes, to the point that she is no longer a person, to the point that she is just a
node among so many other nodes, no longer a person or agent in a Kantian sense. It's like a toaster with identity problem, a programmable toaster with identity problem. Like am I really a toaster or a person? No, you are a fucking toaster. But the thing is that because you have postulated such and such elements for you to contrast yourself with, then you can actually be confused as what you are. I think really all of this, the more and more when you look at it, and I really hope you guys come back to this point,
that chapter about logic as a canon versus logic as organon is really the ultimate pinnacle of Kantian confusion. And it's the source of all of this stuff that we have been talking about. because really if transcendence if the sensible we can't talk about the sensible without the transcendental dimension then why is that in every and each instance we should subject transcendental to the sensible in order for it to be correct because isn't it the whole point that there is no
such a thing as the sensible or sense data without transcendental, that would be just an illusion. But then why is that we have to always bring it back to the metaphysics of sensation? I mean, it seems like some thesis could be held that doesn't uphold intellectual intuition by way of some sort of metaphysics of sensation. And what I mean by that is, you know, given that, you know, there's no way we can talk or perceive or have intuitions about determinate objects
without the rules which are responsible for generating them, there's room for some naturalistic description, that wouldn't exceed an as-if argument, of course, but nonetheless gives a descriptive explanation of the causal generation of objects by way of the rules which are responsible for generating them. I mean, as well... You see, I think this is what exactly Pete says in Transcendental Realism, that it is only within the framework of natural sciences that we can talk about objects. And objects are not the things in themselves precisely because they are objects. They can be, you know, explained.
They can be revised. But the whole thing is, I have one comment on this. You see, the object of natural sciences is a revisible object. Then what does, why do you need to take this object as a constraint upon the way that you were treating the thing in itself upon the phenomena, why do you need to take this object as a constraint upon the transcendental dimension, upon meaning, upon logic? Insofar as this is a revisable object, it can actually be shown at some point that this is not in fact an object. This was just an illusion. This is the whole point of science. Yeah. So this is not really a thing in itself,
precisely because it's not a positive light. Right. It's something revisible. So, I mean, this is, you know, something close to, you know, the Hegelian thesis of the thing in itself is appearance as appearance. And, I mean, I guess, like, the question for me would be, like, how can you understand the objects of experience to be... sorry, let me think for a second. Yeah, how can you say that the objects of experience can be revisable without giving absolute ground to the noumenon, while also not saying
that your experiences are being crafted by an intellectual intuition you know I mean it seems like I don't know what I think I don't think that is necessary for you to give absolute ground to the thing in itself for you to have revisable object all you need is to have revisable theory you don't need in fact any index of reality for you to have a revisable object or some instance of a thing in itself at all I mean how so I can talk about this chair and then talk talk about it's not really chair and then go further and further to atomic
sub particle description of this phenomenon and that doesn't require me to commit the thing in itself or even an object. So are you saying are you saying to basically subtract the thing in itself period? Yes. Okay yeah that makes a lot of sense. I mean I think what you would risk in doing that is risk intellectual intuition. No you see I think you know, Hegel believes that the movement of the concept is a form of intellectual intuition. I don't think that this has anything to do with intellectual intuition. Why is it we call it
intellectual intuition? It's not intuition, in fact. It's basically intellectual movement of the concept. Intellectual, that can be actually elaborated fundamentally in terms of, you know, advances in logic so it's not intuition in the kantian sense the same thing can be said about a chair i do not need an intellectual intuition to talk about this object all i need is the autonomy of my theory the language of that theory the logical model the mathematical model is derived from the logical model and some observations that can be upgraded can be more refined and then a paradigm for coordination of my observational data and my theoretical paradigm and that's all
i need really i don't need anything about commitment to the thing in itself or an absolute object over there. I really don't think that these are necessary. The more and more I am looking into this, it seems that while the goals or the objectives of critical realisms are commendable, it actually has more adverse effects, leads to more confusions than, you know, progress, cognitive progress. It makes intuition a rather mysterious thing, doesn't it?
I mean, insofar as like, you know, I understand why you're saying this isn't an intellectual intuition insofar as... I only have sensible intuition but sensible intuition already according to Kant doesn't give you anything about the object. It is not even a giganishtand. Sensible intuition, what you might call it, observational data. I don't need to be human to have sensible intuition. A microscope that has a program to analyze data as if you go to the lab has also a dimension of sensible intuition. All you need to have a causal structure to be affected thus and so by your environment and certain kinds of organization to put these sensible data together.
That's it. How are you talking about these causal structures that are able to give you some sort of sensible intuition. I mean it seems like you know in order to do that you would and I think you would agree with this is that you would need causal structure. I don't mean causal structure in the sense of causality but simply to be affected. Right yeah so I mean how would you talk about these mechanisms for being affected I mean surely... We can't talk about them. We absolutely can't talk about them. It's simply we can talk about them again in terms of postulates and in fact science only retrospectively as we were talking about it previous sessions can say that I have that there are such and such you
know elements that affect me in such and such ways no we can't we can only talk about them initially as positive as hypotheticals it is only retrospectively that we see that yes, there are such things as being affected thus and so. Again, so Kantianism again here being implemented to a certain extent. But this degree of Kantianism doesn't need for you to endorse anything like a thing in itself or an object. it's simply that there are such observational statements that I have derived from my microscope.
These are observational statements. I do not know whether they are real or not. I'm going to expand them over other samples. And then I have a theory, a logical model. I'm going to embed these observational sets of data within my logical model. I'm going to see how they hold up, how they are going to cohere. If they don't cohere, then there is either I need to change my theory or I need to take more samples. So either of these give me an excuse to go either way, make further and further investigation. So kind of what you're saying is like how Kant ties logic to experience.
It's not rigid, it's flexible. You're able to develop new forms of logic that can resume different forms of experience, is that kind of what you're saying? Yes, but you see, I think the way that Kant, what I would see that trying logic to experience, even though allows you to have more intuitive logics or transcendental logics, I think by itself it is actually quite a conservative move precisely because what it does is that subordination of logic to experience prevents you from diversifying logic on its own terms.
That's actually a point that Carnap makes in this logical syntax of language. If you have already divested logical syntax from the semantics of meaning and representation, you have more chance to lead and to give rise to different forms of logic than if you had subordinated rules of logic to the principles of sensible experience. and not only that as I have mentioned in the past sessions according to the transcendental thesis can we really talk about
the sensible or the sensible data without the logical dimension of experience coherently no, it's absolutely impossible metaphysics of sensation without a transcendental dimension of the concepts or logical dimension or the formal dimension is absolutely untenable. I really don't think that it's tenable. And of course, you know, like unbinding our space of logic and the possibilities of logic could reorganize our metaphysics of sensibility and give us...
Absolutely, yes, yes, absolutely. That's the whole point that, you know, Kant says that it's pointless to talk about other intelligences with other sensible structures. We can only talk about our own sensible structure, our own sensibility. But can we really, can we really talk about our own sensibility? What does it give you license to say something like that, that we can actually talk about our sensibility? Because our sensibility is as much obscure to us without the logical dimension that other sensible creatures, the sensibility of other sensible creatures are obscure to us.
if you don't have the logical dimension then the whole idea of sensible the sensible dimension whether it is yours or some other creatures is going to be obscure i don't see what why can't say something like that and he repeats it over and over through the critique of pure reason that you know we can we can we can only talk about our own sensible sensibility and not others. But why do you think that we can only talk about even our own sensibility? Why? You know, as if we have some sort of immediate accent to sensibility? Is that what you mean? Because that already utterly crushes your transcendental thesis. That just becomes
a humean soap opera you know yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense and so um the the fact that um some other entity you know whether it be another person or another individual through their logical faculties is able to posit you know the particular metaphysical structure of your sensibility like uh gives for uh it um it makes a lot of sense that it's the logical structure which can do that because it doesn't matter which particular sensible mind you're receiving your intuitions from as far as you're always able to give a descriptive purchase it doesn't matter it
doesn't matter the whole thing is that sensibility is problematic whether it is yours or someone else's or some other alien creature sensibility by itself is problematic the only reason that you can talk about it is through really the transcendental logical dimension and then then you can't say that oh well this is our the only sensibility that we can talk about is our own sensibility why is it because you really think that we have some sort of a special access to our own sensibility if that's the case, then what is really the transcendental? Then you are already an empiricist. You are not a transcendentalist, you are an empiricist, as if you really think that we have some sort of a special access to our own sensibility. No, our sensibility is as obscure to us as
an alien creature. So then on the other end, to what degree does that risk a commitment to a position that there's sort of an independent, aidedic realm that's axiological and normative that has characteristics that are independent of sensibility? Well, this is really, I think, the core of Hegel and Neokantianism. To say that talking about in fact sensibility and sense data without recognizing the independence
of the normative, of the logical, not normative essentially, the logical dimension is meaningless, is absolutely meaningless. And this is really Carnap's critique of Kant. I have never seen such an astonishing critique than that of Carnap, which actually Carnap's critique is aimed at Wittgenstein. But as I said earlier that main pieces of Wittgenstein also happen to be Kantian. So the whole idea is that I would say that in fact this whole independence of logic from the sensible should be radicalized because any other way is debilitating and is dogmatic.
any other way I would say is dogmatic you can only have an object in so far as you have theory you can only have content in so far as you have form Plato's thesis all other moves are debilitating. They can easily be debunked as dogmatic instances. So yes, I would say that in fact what Kant thinks is actually a bad move, I think is the necessary move. Because this whole idea of force of transcendental logic,
the way that Kant at least formulates it, not ourselves, is essentially subordination of the transcendental to the sensible, as if we have had some sort of special access to the sensible. But no, we are agent only insofar as we are inhabiting also a pure dimension of logic. And this pure dimension of logic is that which allows us to see the relations, the invariances between the sensible. And so I'm kind of trying to wrap my mind around what sort of protects from that being a return to metaphysics?
I think it actually becomes purely anti-metaphysical. Is it partly because maybe because the logical realm still doesn't cause the world? Yes, it doesn't cause the world. We're still agnostic about the relationship between the sins. Yes, it constitutes the world logically, but not metaphysically. Or possibly, we're agnostic about that fact. Yes, you see, absolutely, it's the whole idea of how actually and how possibly. how actually the world works or how actually the world is and how possibly the world is and how possibly the world works
logic is always about how possibly you can't have how actually without how possibly and in a way that's what we'll ultimately find out you could say Yes, from an Archimedean point of view. From an Archimedean point of view. Yes, from an Archimedean point of view. Okay, thanks. Am I wrong or today is like the time has been dilated? it does seem strange today have you guys manipulated time on my computer i think we still have like
under an hour left just yes no i know okay um but we can take if i need i need a glass of water and a little bit of vodka let me just go and come and fresh we will resume okay sounds good okay okay Okay. Five minute break or so? Sure. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Thank you. So actually hearing everyone's thoughts in that conversation helped me re-articulate what my original question was, which was, if you do attempt to get rid of things in themselves,
then you ensure temporality as a flexible changing nature of logical hypotheses being made or being formed. Okay, elaborate on this point a little bit. So then the thing in itself, if you take it in a positive sense, which I think Kant wouldn't have wanted actually, if you take it as a positive sense, it ensures that being may not be temporal. But if you eliminate the thing in itself and you have, take it in a negative sense, and it may not be there, then in some ways it seems like you ensure that all that being is.
Okay, just before you move forward, just before I forget, so you have already set one scenario. One is that camp doesn't want the positive sense. But how do you say that the negative sense of the thing in itself is actually the elimination of a thing in itself. How can you equate them? I think that these two are independent. I don't think it's necessarily the elimination of the thing in itself, but what it does, I think what it should... That's why I'm saying that. You see, elimination of a thing in itself,
there is no such thing as Kantianism. Right. the negative sense of the thing in itself is that it is postulate as if it is nevertheless it has a constraint that is necessary for building up the transcendental method right but if that's okay so we take that as a constraint as a negative constraint then it seems like the negative is actually a positive constraint okay negative in the sense that negative in the sense that it doesn't really we don't know whether it exists or not it's not a positive it is not a positive position right but nevertheless it enables us to do something that we couldn't do otherwise if we did not have the thing in itself right so then maybe i need to
clarify it that unless we remain agnostic to whether or not there is a positive thing in itself then we should accept temporality as as uh like ontologically real it seems like yeah does that make sense kind of yeah yeah no i think it makes sense yeah Yes, but I think the consequences of this thesis are important rather than just saying it. I think once you expand what follows from it, then things become a little bit awkward.
So, as I have mentioned, any intuitable image of an object must always necessarily be the image of the object in a determinate mode of sensible presentation, which like the image of a triangle will not be adequate to the concept of it that is not fully congruent to the general object concept but rather connected with it only by means of the schema. a schema therefore is the representation of a general procedure of the imagination for providing
a concept with its image according to Kant in A140 slash B179 here is where Kant incites that concepts function as rules come to the fore. Whereas we have seen the concepts that come together to form the conceptual intuiting, that is a singular subject term of a perceptual judgment, also function as rules guiding the process of drawing the corresponding intuited item, i.e. the image. That is what accounts for the affinity of the intuitive sensory manifold.
And this brings us back to the theme of homogeneity. Concepts can be applied in two significantly different senses. The notion of applying a concept, which is most salient in the schematism, is explicitly predicative. A concept C applies to an item in this sense if the item can be subsumed under the concept. That is to say, if it is correct to judge that the item is C or is a C, call this applies one. subscreen one. For example, a concept C applies one to X if X falls under C as an instance.
In this sense, for example, the concept of circularity applies to a round plate, But there is also a looser notion of applying a concept that is broadly functional. In this sense, we apply a concept to an item whenever the item is implicated in any actual use of the concepts, not only in the predicative applications of the concept in the first sense, but crucially also in its role as guiding the drawing or constructing of sensory images.
We can call this applies to. A concept C applies to X if the way in which X is used to be determined in accordance with C functioning as a rule. So a Kantian transcendental schema can consequently be applied to intuitions in two different senses, applies one and applies two. And it is in this way that we will be able to stand in homogeneity with the category concept on the one hand and the appearance, i.e. intuitive object, on the other. and to be both intellectual and sensible having one foot in the intuit sensible
intuition and the other in intellectual understand in the first instance as schema is applied to to the manifold of sense by being mobilized or activated in response to it and thereby determining as a rule the manner in which that manifold is taken up into a unitary figurative synthesis to form the appearance which is to say the image of an object determinately perspectively situated in a space and time this image however is also an intuition that is something intuited. And in the second instance, the schema is applied one to it
by contributing to the indexical, perspectival individual concept under which the intuited item is thought, i.e. by being incorporated into the intuiting of the appearance under an object concept, the locus of the category. So Kant, in this regard, not arguing erroneously that the appearance or the intuited item and the category, the intuiting concept, have something in common simply because each has something in common with the schema. Well, that That would be just plain misunderstanding.
Kant instead says that in order to be valid, such reasoning requires a stronger premise to the effect that there is some one thing that both the appearance and the category have in common with this schema. Kant's picture secures this stronger premise precisely by properly respecting the ambiguities in both the notion of an intuition and that of applying a concept. So if you want to understand this sense of applying a concept to intuitions which give you the two different sense of application in Eschemata, you can think of a diagram where you have concepts
of a determinate, concepts of a determinate mode of sensible presentation, namely a schema, plus object concept, which is to say non-perspectival general concept of a kind of object. Now from here you can have a schematized object concept. Now a schematized object concept includes two different senses of application, applies to and applies to one. First applies to manifold of sense and then applies one image. Manifold of sense maps onto the image. So, this is the kind of eschematism always requires you to understand the relation between
object and concept or the sensible and the intellectual or the conceptual in two different ways. so returning back to what I was just what I was just saying is that what the appearance for the intuitive image and the category called the individual concept both have in common with the schema and so with each other thus turns out to be determinate perspectivality. The intuited image presents an object as determinately
disposed in a space and encountered from a particular spatio-temporal point of view. Correlatively, the intuiting individual concept represents that intuitive image precisely as an object so disposed in a space and encountered from that point of view it is because the specific characters of both the sensory presentation and singular conceptual representation are determined by one and the same schema that is one and the same concept of a a determinate mode of sensory presentation that they necessarily track together in this way.
That is what constitute the unity of a perceptual act. That is why and how intuitive objects are homogenous with the concepts under which they are judgmentally subsumed. So, now that we have explored Kant's notion of eschemism with regards to formal mathematical concepts and empirical concepts, now we can go move forward with Kant's fundamental concern
in the Eschematism chapter which is about the pure concepts of understanding, i.e. categories, namely the relation between eschemata and categories, which is called Eschematism of categories. So we know that a schema turned out to be the concept of a determined mode of sensory representation. An schematized object concept was consequently the concept of an intuited object standing in determined perspectival, spatial, and temporal relations to the intuiting subject. As we saw earlier, however, the pure concepts of the understanding do not directly sort or classify
intuitable items in the natural world, but rather, in the first instance, other conceptual items according to their most general logical and epistemic rules. Concepts, of course, are not intuited, and so trivially. They also stand in neither a spatial nor temporal relationships to subject who mobilizes them in cognition. How then are we to understand the notion of a schematized category? Categories, quo pure concepts of understanding, are, as we know, are the forms of judgment specialized to cognitions of sensible, intuitive items. The pure categories
concern the intelligible synthetic unity of an intuitive manifold in general, its unity according to a rule under object concepts. They tell us what it is for concepts to be an object concept, the concept of an object of representations, and so I specify only the generic form of such an intelligible unity. However, by themselves, categories yield no determinate cognitions of the world. We already know this from the difference between transcendental logic and pure logic. They first become applicable only by way of determinate concepts mobilized in the context of some determinate form of sensible intuition.
The schematized categories will consequently be a specification of the pure concepts of understanding to a particular determinate form of sensible intuition. If we think of the pure categories as metaconceptual genera, their schemata will be the corresponding specific differences that limit or restrict the constraining part. And on this point Kant says, without a schemata, the categories are only functions of the understanding or concepts, but do not represent any object. The significance comes to them from sensibility, which realizes the understanding at the same
times as it restricts it. A 147, B 187. So, in this sense, at the most general level, Kent thinks of pure categories as being the same for all beings who, like us humans, are sensorily passive, discursive, aperceptive intelligences. However, notice here that something has been left out. We are temporally discursive
beings. If you remember, we are temporally discursive, apperceptive intelligences. Our most fundamental form of sensibility is time, a time that has been given to us by way of the inner sense. That is what both outer and inner experience, after all, have in common, both perception and introspection. Now, in theory, then, the pure categories could be eschemitized by being restricted to various determined forms of sensibility, only one which is our basic temporal form of sensibility that is it could provide principles of intelligible unity for various kinds of passively given
sensory manifolds only one of which is our kind in practice however as Kant himself continually stresses we can have no knowledge of any forms of sensibility other than our own and that's again one of those damning points that can't regularly brings out you know in critical moments but as we talked about you know before the break is actually quite questioner because why is that we can talk about our sensibility and not others what makes our sensibility more special than other unintelligible sensibilities if not the pure dimension of
conceptualization of understanding because otherwise we are simply what endorsing sense data we are already buying into what we set out to escape namely concept empiricism so the pure concepts of our understanding are thus schematized for us by being restricted to the role as principles of intelligible unity for temporal manifolds transcendental
schemata can then tells us our transcendental time determinations ie as what he says in a 145 B.A.T.4, a priori time determinations in accordance with rules. That's exactly what he says. The concept of the understanding contains pure synthetic unity of the manifold in general. Time, as the formal condition of the manifold of inner sense, thus of the connection of all representations,
contains an a priori manifold in pure intuition. Hence, an application of the category to appearances becomes possible by means of the transcendental time determination, which, as the schema of the concept of the understanding, mediates the subsumption of the latter under the former. A, 138 to 9, B, 177 to 8. So, Kant order these a priori time determinations in accordance with rules under four overarching rubrics or headings.
They correspond to four main divisions of the table of categories that we had earlier. These are what you might call to be a schemata pertaining to one, the time series correspond to the categories of quantity. Two, the content of time to the categories of quality. Content to categories of quality. Three, the order of time to the categories of relations. And four, the sum total of time to the categories of modality.
Now, let's see how these things hang together, how they work. As we know, Kant believes or thinks of numbers procedurally in terms of counting, understood on the model of keeping a tally that we talked about last session, by means of the temporally successive accumulation of intuited units, strokes as you were drawing them. Number, which is a representation that summarizes the successive addition of one homogeneous unit to another,
is therefore also the schema of the categories of quantity, or as Kant puts it, the pure schema of magnitude. You remember a little bit about the concept of magnitude from what was it last year or more than a year ago in the math class? The magnitude is that which can be said to be equal or not equal into something else within one and only one subject, Hermann Cohen. So intuited units are homogeneous just in case they can all be subsumed under a single
concept and any concept will do. Thus, we can count objects, for example, books, trees, stones, queens, shoes, socks, so on and so forth, but also such non-objects as twinges of pain, flashes of lightning, claps of thunder, interruptions, and performances, so on and so forth. In any event, we apply the categories of quantity in the first instance by counting under concepts. A stretch of time might be filled or empty, but if it is filled, then in the last analysis, what it is filled with is sensations.
As Kant says, as either a filled or an empty time a 143 b 182. now a particular sensation that feels a stretch of time might so to speak be affiliated with an object for example you know
the red color of this thick book You know, the richness of your perfume, the warmth of a glowing flame, so on and so forth. again it doesn't need to it doesn't it needn't be for a given a stretch of time could also be filled with a shrill of sound a shrill sound a perturbing scream a dull ache so on and so forth sorry in any case
Kant proceeds to point out that every sensation has a degree or magnitude through which it can more or less fill the same time. A, 143. B, 182. What Kant has in mind here is that temporarily congruent instances of what is qualitatively the same sensation can still vary in intensity. an instance of Kelly green can be bright or dim a shrill sound can be loud or soft and for any sensation there is a continuous spectrum of such intensities grading God as can puts it from reality
to negation that makes every reality representable as a quantum as a quantum coating a 143 B 183 can says the schema of a reality as the quantity of something in so far as it fills time is just this continuous and uniform generation of that quantity in time. As one descends in time from the sensation, there's a certain degree to its disappearance or gradually a sense from negation to its actual magnitude. So in a sense we do apply categories of quality in the first
instance by bringing the sensory contents of a stretch of time under a concept that admits of degrees. At this point in the first critique the The connection between the categories of relation and order of time is not particularly clear. Kant offers us, in essence, only a terse enumeration. He says, the schema of a substance is the persistence of the real in time, i.e. the representation of the real as a substratum of empirical time determinations in general, which endures while everything else changes. The schema of causality is the real upon which whenever it is positive, something else always follows.
It therefore consists in the succession of the manifold insofar as it is subject to a rule. And the schema of community is the simultaneity of the determinations of one accident of a substance with those of another in accordance with the general rule. So Kant's fundamental idea is that our ability to represent time as a determinately ordered linear continuum of instance, stretching from the distant past through the present into the far future, is correlative to our representing a world of causally interactive substances. But this thesis and Kant's reasons for holding it do not really come into proper focus until the analogies of experience,
which we will discuss in the next session. At this point, we will just have to treat Kant's claim as promissory note. We apply the categories of relation to thinking-intuitive items under object concepts. Now, ultimately, Kant tells us the schema possibility is the agreement of the synthesis of various representations with the conditions of time in general, and so the determination of the representation of a thing to some time, of actuality, existence at a determinate time, and of necessity,
the existence of an object at all time. In the latter two cases, the relation within the eschemata and the sum total of time is relatively straightforward. What is actual is what is in fact exists during some part of the temporality. What is necessary is what exists throughout the whole of it. What is possible then fits into this picture by being what could be consistently assigned to some one determinate part of the temporal whole. since opposites cannot exist in one thing at the same time. From the table of categories and table of judgments that we saw earlier.
In any event, in the first instance, we apply the categories of modality by making objective judgments about what could be, is, or is always the case. so the Eschemism chapter establishes that and how it is possible to apply the pure concepts of the understanding in judgment and in particular in synthetic judgments to objects of possible experience Kant concludes that is the only way in which we can legitimately apply the categories.
He says A. 146 slash B. 185. He says, thus the schemata of the pure concepts of understanding are the true and the sole conditions for providing them with a relation to objects, thus with significance, and hence the categories are in the end of none but a possible empirical use, since they merely serve to subject appearances to general rules of synthesis through grounds of an a priori necessary unity, on account of the necessary unification of all consciousness in original apperception.
and thereby to make them fit for a thorough going connection in one experience so i think we can pause here there's like a little bit more on eschematism that i will continue next session but so let's hear if you have anything otherwise i would like you to read a couple of passages i have highlighted from finlay's uh kent and the transcendental subject transcendental object
Can I ask a question? Sure. What types of, what level of image models would you say are produced with during adumbration? I think types that you might call to be global types in the sense that you can
think about like a kind of a statistical predictive paradigm processing that we have been talking about. Yeah that's exactly sort of what I think. so you you see you bike you have you you see a um an apple right so in every species presence this apple is being presented to you perspective a particular perspective uh face is round so you interact with it and Again, perspectively you see it's that if I bite this side of it that is facing me,
it's cool, it's juicy, it's fleshy, and so on and so forth. So you interact with it in different time periods. Each time you are always presented by a particular perspectival image of this. so adumbration is when you try to glue these like a sheafification like a sheaf like the exactly like a sheaf a sheaf of these particular local perspectives like a sheaf a bundle of sheaves of you know you know wheat you put them together and that becomes your adumbration a kind of global image that you have derived from your local perspectival interactions with
the object that now you can say uncritically because you don't still have a concept well that this apple is a red through and through even though this apple is not red and through and through that this apple is red is cool throughout which might not be and science in fact shows that is not the case even critical judgment or basic critical judgments shows that this is not the case so this is what hosseum calls adam bration you know extracting global invariances from particular local look uh engage perspectival engagements with an object
to me this is complicated a little bit like um through like the difference between um like actual empirical encounters and a statistical um uh generalization where the different encounters are approximated. Yes, but Christian, you see, the thing is that our empirical encounters are in fact, if we are not going to subsume these empirical under an implicit concept, they are in fact the statistical. That's what exactly Szilard's picturing or Wittgenstein's picturing is. They are statistical. They are statistical. Because how else
can we in fact you see the whole function of memory how how else can i say i have for example it's like a camera i'm looking at this apple from this perspective how else can i when okay and time t1 i have looked at this apple got a snapshot it's called s1 then i rotated a little bit when i was trying to bite into it is a snapshot called S2. How else other than a statistical inference, which of course doesn't require you to consciously make this statistical inference, this is exactly what your nervous system, your brain does,
is cognitive unconsciousness. That's exactly what your brain does. How else can you make a connection between S1 and S2? So I could create a seamless transition between the two, between a snapshot of this apple at S1 and a snapshot of it at S2. yeah I mean I see what you're saying um but I mean wouldn't there be a difference between this bottom up gluing together of different encounters and say the anticipative generation of an image model of a variety of image models of say looking around the apple
insofar as like each image model is a projection of some function which is able to generate all the individual. It's hard to answer but you see looking into the principles of a statistical inference and particularly the way that at least today being elaborated by way of information theory I don't think that there is any kind of you know in commensurability within this bottom-up approach and anticipatory model the whole idea is that shows that simply you make anticipations by creating series of a
statistical samples that's all that's basically Carnap's principle of inductive logic. Yeah. This whole idea of a degree of measure function or degree of confirmation. C parenthesis H comma R parenthesis closed equals to sorry C C, C, parenthesis E, comma H, parenthesis close equals to R. R is a real number, a quantity, which this quantity can actually coincide with a degree of confirmation,
what you might call to be an image sample, to like anticipatory model, if this number, a real number, vacillates or oscillates between 0.5 and 1. Anything other than that can actually be ruled out. Okay. I think I have it clear in my head. I don't know if you would agree, but I I think I've got it. You see, I think you have read that paper I wrote for Glass Read, the one on three nightmares of the inductive mind. So you see, you can read it also as this whole idea of a statistical induction.
It's not that a statistical induction doesn't have any use. is just simply we can't draw rational conclusions from it, precisely because it is statistical. And from the point of a statistical analysis, the point of conceptual analysis, there is a whole massive gap. And the idea is that you can do all of these kinds of stuff that we are talking about, adumbrations and stuff, at the level of statistical encounters with an object. And that's really the point of formal learning. That's the whole point of formal learning. Deep learning, neural network,
these are all just subdivisions of formal learning. So it would make sense, though, to differentiate an adumbration acquired through sampling data in an adumbration achieved through a complete evaluation of the possibility of like a marginalized possibility space. Yes, yeah, I mean there are really complex models of statistical analysis, which can be fundamentally algorithmically implemented, which means that they are not, it's not as if they, it's not as if they are, that they are rational, It's just that we do not have their, we are not implementing their algorithms.
But they can be implemented, yes, and actually can be shown that you can actually do, can anticipate such and such properties over such and such sample frequencies. These are just all, I mean, really, I think, I mean, I have told you, I have told many of you that reading Carnap's was really enlightening precisely because all of this stuff has been really talked about by Carnap in far more depth and profundity than any philosopher I have seen, whether contemporary or old. And on this regard, I really, really recommend, I think, 1950 work of Carnap, Fundamental Logic of Probability Theory.
It's absolutely astonishing the way that he has talked about this. Yes, the whole idea is that such an inductivist approach or a statistical Bayesian approach doesn't really allow us to create something like concepts. but nevertheless it's fundamentally strong the way that that he tries to analyze it in terms of formal learning paradigm Yes, you can you can easily arrive at properties of objects and The real a strange thing is that you know This is what already happening in the computer science in deep learning in machine learning then why is that we are always saying that well computers don't know this
computers can't metaphorize computers can never be like our humans but this is exactly what we already do then why is that we are not questioning our own implicit capacities and we only question explicit capacities of the machine if If this is not an apartheid, then what is it? It's an apartheid against the machine. Just because we know what the machines do and we don't know what we do, unless we do it exactly the same way, we are always put the fault against the machine and we give ourselves pass. And these are absolutely, I think, human biases. These are the jades of humanism that needs to be overcome.
So, just back to not to hit this too hard, but would it make sense to differentiate subsumption through an accumulation of perspectival image models? and the generation of image models through having assumed the subsumption of a concept. Can you, can you, okay, I think I know what you are saying but I'm still a bit vague. Can you make this clear through an example?
Yeah, so like with an apple, you know. Okay, an apple, yes. You glue together all of the sides of like turning around and you have that as a sample set of data. Uh-huh, uh-huh. And then you think like, okay, you know, I've got other apples, you know. And like say you've done this with like a million different apples and then you want to like predict like what the shape, volume, texture, whatever of like another apple is going to be. like according to likely phenomenon. And then each different part of this anticipated apple, you know, like those projections would, it seems to me to be reasonably differentiated
from the perspectival image models that were sampled. You know, the generation of the image models of the hypothetical statistically inferred apple in the future, those image models ought to have some sort of functional differentiation with the image model's sample. Yes, but isn't it obvious? I mean obviously if we are arriving at a statistical model which fits into a
measure function or a quantitative measure function obviously it is not reducible to perspectival instances right yeah I mean this is obvious isn't it really the whole point of a statistical analysis. Your measure functions never really is reducible to the probability of your empirical instances. Yeah, I mean it's clear to me, you know, like technically. I just was wondering if you thought that there's room for like differentiating different types of subsumption. I need to think about this. This is actually, okay, let me write this i i i i don't know i need to uh i i can't say either either way apologies of the digression no it's not it's a really good question um and i know where you are
going to go with this question i just really don't know i i haven't thought about this pure and simple Is it? I need to end the broadcast today, but if people want to stay in the Hangout, they can, but I have to leave on time today. Unless anyone has any last remaining questions. All right. Thanks, everyone. I'm going to stop it now. Thanks, everyone.