Hello and welcome to the fourth session of Kant's Circle of Revenge with Reza Negri Stani. I'll pass it off to him now. Okay, thanks Theo. Hello everyone. So, as I promised, we are going to talk about transcendental aesthetics, the doctrine of elements, working on the question of space and time. I have some notes from different people and some of my own notes on the question of space and then I move to the question of time. The
question of time is mostly I want to read parts of the forthcoming manuscript for you I think the question of time is fundamental and we can't really overemphasize this almost and is rightly overemphasizing it. So I think it would be great to somehow give a proper attention to the question of time in transcendental aesthetics. Okay, so before going that way, let's hear if you have thoughts, if you have questions, anything. And then we will start.
I will just read, we'll make some observations, and hopefully at the end, we will come back to the discussions and any kind of questions that you might have. Not really a question, but something maybe to suggest something that might be useful to focus on. Kind of goes to the question that I asked before the class started regarding it. I guess you could say just really briefly the conservatism of Kant in relationship to issues of temporality and whatnot like like like whether it's like complete
a priori conditions or whether whether they're synthetically revisable or not and on that subject well there is I will read it for you there is this line in in Transcendental Aesthetics, Section 1 on the space, we can't obviously recognize it already that space and time, at least the way that we represent them as a priori forms of intuition or appearances, are for us, are for us, for humans.
He says, he doesn't rule out that there might be some other being, some other forms of intelligence that would have fundamentally different representation of space and time. So Kant already, I mean, this charge of conservatism against Kant cannot be put forward in this direction because that doesn't hold any ground. Kant already admits to this fact. But what I think is quite damning, and we can't really go into that kind of critical lens unfortunately, is that the very fact that can't seize time as this, what you might
call to be unidirectional flow, moving from earlier to later, from past, present to future, that doesn't hold any ground. The very idea of temporality is to be questioned. And anything that comes after Kant, any philosopher of time, that are talking about whether time is punctual or de-rational like Bergson, I think they don't really pay enough attention to the main question of time. Why is that? Time exists. Why even do we need to talk about time in this temporal configuration?
And I don't really think that any philosopher ever has made so much attempt, of course partly unsuccessfully, I said partly, unsuccessfully than John Magda Gart and later on Russell, quite surprisingly Bertrand Russell. In physics, Boltzmann, Boltzmann is the one that Hans Reichenbach says that there have been many philosophers have tried to answer the question, the challenge of time, why time exists and why is it temporal in either in the sense
of earlier, later, or past, present, future. But no philosopher can really answer this question other than a philosopher who was in fact a physicist armed with mathematical sciences. This is from his book, Hans Reichenbach's book called The Direction of Time. And I absolutely agree with this. whole question of why is that we need to give such primary emphasis to time is quite dubious and hasn't been challenged yet. My thought about this is that the question of time and
The question of temporality is ultimately a pragmatic question, which is somehow in line with Kant's original thesis, that time is transcendentally ideal. So the question of temporality of time is something that subjective agents, aperceptive agents can benefit from. It is not a question that is justified even to pose outside of the realm of agency.
I have never seen a dealing with that philosophy of temporality of time that tries to approach time on its own ground, divested from the sphere of agency, and can be seen as coherent or even consistent. There is a huge, huge stuff going on here, and I think Kant was right ultimately. I mean, time is transcendentally ideal. Talking about time outside of the transcendental ideality, by that Kant means that it's especially
It's specifically and only related to the question of a perceptive subjectivity agency, thinking subject. Outside of that, any kind of question of time would be just dogmatic metaphysics. And I do think this is real. There is a huge, massive amount of conclusions that you can make out of it. You know, Russell was right that time doesn't matter. And you see this particularly in continental philosophy. Continental philosophy is built on this whole idea of valorization of time, of temporality, of past, present, future, earlier than, later than, so on and so forth.
But time doesn't matter. As Hegel or Plato would say, the aim of the agent or the thinking subject is not to think in terms of time, but to come to this phase of concrete self-consciousness where you understand that time doesn't matter. So does ceasing to exist in time, because nothing, as Parmenides would say, exists in time. So Reza, where does Russell say that? It's our knowledge of external world, yes.
Could you also see what you were saying about Hegel's script for time to be really interesting, but I'm not sure I fully understood it. Hegel, one of the greatest, I think, and one of the most cryptic, and Hegel, I think, only repeats this one time. It's in Encyclopedia, in the section on time, which comes after the section on space. And Hegel doesn't exactly say something like that. I'm just paraphrasing it. A spirit is time. Mind is time. not metaphorically but literally a space the spirit is time what does it exactly
mean hey hegel literally believes that time in the sense that philosophers talk about it as a kind of metaphysics of time or even phenomenology of time like William James, they don't matter. Yes, they are what you might call to be enabling factors or constraints for the rise of the spirit, for the rise of the transcendental subject, thinking subject. But the point is not to abide by these constraints, but to arrive at a definition of mindedness,
of subjectivity, of geistic, of spirituality, not in a religious or mystical sense, but in a fundamentally Hegelian philosophy of mind sense, of geisticness, where you can say that thought lives in its own time. Thought lives in its own time and there is no time beyond the life of thought, the life of mind. That's essentially a Hegelian thesis. But of course the first person who really puts this forward is Plato. Plato thinks that intellect, intelligence is timeless. Not that it doesn't have time, but it's time in general. And Hague,
of course Plato respectively, takes this thesis and refines this thesis from Parmenides. Parmenides is the prince of those philosophers who believe that the question of time needs to be challenged, that the ultimate goal of thinking is not to be a slave or under the tutelage of temporality, but turning thinking into its own time. It seems like that same move that Kant makes to restrain himself from saying anything about
time as such. Yes. that's the move that is what leads to the idea of the noumenon, right? So in some way the notion of… No, not really. Because Kant is actually, I will read you some paragraph, Kant is actually quite fundamentally tries to still save a distance between a space as you know outside of our transcendental ideal sphere and space in itself the spaces in
itself from thing itself things in themselves are contained in the space the space is not equal to them or is not identical to them so let's still for cancer space plays a fundamentally different role that nominal objects you You see, Kant is quite, I think Kant is here very, very sophisticated, that he doesn't see a space and time as essentially nominal or identical or even somehow some weird sense to be directly connected to things in themselves.
Kant, in fact, refuses to talk about a space in itself. So when I said the space itself was just like analogically speaking. But yeah, I think Kant is really a strength. You know, when you think that he's conservative and just everything falls into that phenomenal, nominal dichotomy in his philosophy, he refused sometimes to surrender everything to that dichotomy. i i think one of the things i find really hard to understand about any um well one thing i should say or clarify is i think there's a difference between abstaining from
saying anything about time which is in part what kant wants to do about time in itself or not even time in itself it's he just wants to talk about time for the subject but there's a difference between abstaining from saying anything and saying that things in themselves or the thing in itself or some you know outside a metaphysics of timelessness or sort of a static version of eternity and it seems like that timelessness well eternity doesn't mean a staticness, I think eternity only means a staticness if you are trying to approach the idea or trying to conceive an idea of time using your restricted representational resources
as an aperceptive subject. And that's the way that Hugh Price addresses this question quite coherent, that the paradoxes of aestheticsness, of the paradoxes of block universe, paradoxes of retrocausality, so on and so forth, that you get all the paradoxes of time and eternity usually arise not because you think eternity on its own ground as a concept rather than as a metaphysical reality, when you, instead of that, you think about the concept of eternity or time using the resources and prioritizing those resources of your own subjective perception,
namely temporality. Yes, eternity might appear to us infinity. And that's really Hegel's critique of Kant, which I don't think that any person who says that Kant ever preempted Hegel's idea of critique of infinity, I think just bullshit. This is really a genuine critique. The idea of infinity, that we think infinity is something static, is something primordial. That's just more along the line of mythological idea of eternity. But from a philosophical standpoint, that's not really what it means.
It's only when we try to compare our so-called dynamic temporality with infinity and eternity that these antinomies emerge. Now, Hegel shows that this dynamicity of temporality is itself questionable because even in its Kantian transcendental exposition, there is nothing that can show that this so-called temporal time flows or is dynamic or is basically constantly in the process of flux of becoming.
Nothing really shows that, nothing corroborates it once you look into it carefully. So I think these are all questions that we thought that you need to be very careful and by you I mean all, everyone, every reader. When we think about eternity, we should suspend in a Hegelian sense this question of aestheticness, the question of what you might call to be block universe, the question of some primordial entity. Because those notions are the byproducts of us prioritizing our entrenched temporal beliefs.
So when we admit that time or temporality is transcendentally ideal, i.e. it is not real, And there is no basis for us to use these concepts in order to think that eternity is a static. Before we get too far into our discussion of time, I think it might be related to that too could we talk about there's notion of the immediate an intuition of space and how this relates to imagination memory and can't and also sellers
mentioning of representing a part of space I'm going to do this of infinite space yes that would be that would be my job today yes don't worry I will get to this yes yes I will not go I will not answer intentionally your question this time because this is exactly why we are going to talk I mean in whole and you see actually when we are talking about memory you know this is a question of memory for Kent or at least for Kent's commentators is not is neither directly connected to the question of a space nor to the question of time
You can think of memory in contemporary sense as this construct, as a system that somehow is capable of making a very rudimentary integration between the space as given by outer sense and time as given by inner sense. but memory by itself in Kant doesn't have a direct connection with either of these two in fact many people come Kantian commentators at least the early commentators thought that memory obviously you know when we are talking about thinking about memory we are thinking that the
most obvious connection between memory is with time rather than the space you know the whole idea of impression, a past impression, a present reproduction and a future anticipation of an event, right? But the whole idea that for Kant this is not time, the sequence of sense impression, reproduction and anticipation doesn't translate to the idea of temporality. It's in fact part of his critique of Hume. We'll talk about this today. Hugh Price, Hugh Price.
H, yes, yes, yes, Stanley has put it there already. I mean, I know that, you know, continental philosophers are obsessed with question of time. So as I. But it's one of those places that I would say that it requires real, real, you know, care. And unfortunately, I don't see that any continental philosopher has worked with care on this front. Yes, they have come up with fantastic observations, which should not be dismissed at all.
But the question of care, I don't think that you can attribute the continental philosophers when thinking about the question of time whether as time as something real or Kantian transcendental ideal of temporality I I have a few suggestions if you are interested to go on and reading on this stuff I would suggest Ludwig Boltzmann lectures on gas theory the last section is to this day I would say it's the most revolutionary thing ever written in the question of time. Hans Reichenbach that I mentioned, the direction of time. Hugh Price, Time's Arrow and Archimedean
View. JJC is smart, Problems of Space and Time. Particularly the introduction, it's actually a collection that's you know a smart was a super materialist you know I don't think that you can find in our philosophy and more materialist person than smart but is really a fantastic philosopher he has a very nice introduction the rest of the essays are also about time by people like Quine and you know Grunbaum and many other people and if you want to read just about the
fundamentals of the philosophical issues around the question of space and time since time of Kant or even before that up to rise of modern physics and somehow beyond I mean the ultimate work has been written on this and today until today and this is still considered to be the most classic work is Adolf Grunbaum fundamental philosophical problems in the space and time and lastly if you want to look at new kind of work on this domain question of time with regard to
science with regard to philosophy the critique of the positions that have already been put forward is just often off Nick work on second law of thermodynamics and the question of time so it's a JOS space UFNIK, something like that, or just one N. I got it. So UFFINK. Yes. Thank you.
OK. Let's have a break because we are going to just go straight forward to the space and time, and time and we are not going to take any more questions until the end of the session. Can I ask a question? Okay yeah sure sure Maria please. So this is it seems to be that like space or time can't be really thought of without space. No time can be thought without the space. Because doesn't time imply like there even like succession implies that there must be a space within time that the idea of anything that can proceed or follow any anything else imply space yes okay so
this traditionally comes under two time series so what are these two time series they are usually and it's not just two but I'm really meant it's actually three people call I mean John Mac the guards introduced them is called a series and B series so one of these series is when we are talking about the sequences of events or processes or relations okay like later earlier there and later than of that kind and another time we are talking about past present and future which you can think about it in terms of you know various continental
pre-neal philosophical concepts like the question of Rackley Tien flocks becoming duration so on so forth now when it comes to the later earlier than and later than yes time has always a component of a space but you see that the component of the space doesn't mean that time is a spatialized essentially Sometimes it does, but not inherently. Time is not always, even in that sense, is not spatialized. Because what we are talking about, we are talking about two relata or two sets of relations
between an event or a process that is happening. one the relator between stuff processes relations as attributed to an entities that occupies a spatial location namely a spatialized and also we are talking about a different set of relator which are not those kinds of relata. They have connections with them, but there are different sets of relata. These are temporal sets of relata. Just something happens earlier than later.
Yes, that already presupposes that we are talking about process or entity that has a spatial characteristics, spatial relations. But this idea of earlier than later than by itself is irreducible to those sets. It has nothing to do where that thing happens, what kind of spatial coordinate we are talking about, so on and so forth. So, yes, there are connections between spatial relations and temporal relations, particularly when we are talking about earlier than, later than sequences of events.
But the extent of these connections is not prima facie obvious. Kant thinks that those spatial relator are given by our outer sense, an entirely different part of mind. Whereas those temporal, sequential, relato are given by inner sense. Now of course there are both parts of sensibility, which already presupposes that Kant thinks that there is a connection between a spatial relations, picked up by the outer sense, and
internal or inner sequential relations picked up by inner sets. But this doesn't mean that time is essentially a spaceship. All it means that, yes, we are talking about entities in time. So obviously, when we are talking about entities in time, these entities require for them to have some location in a space. Now, with regard to the other series, namely past, present and future, that fundamentally depends on the specificity of the philosophy of temporality that we are talking about.
People like Bergson absolutely do not believe that time can ever be spatialized. like Sellars think that time can be specialized under some caveats, but this doesn't mean that time is spatialized as such. But there are also other people, you know, like Hans Reichenbach, who think that time is absolutely spatialized. So it all depends on how you interpret one these two series a series and b series sequentiality and temporality and two the relation between a spatial relator and time relator at the level of a series or b series
i mean obviously the different ways of how you can combine these based on what you think is the case can lead to you know different kind of positions with regard to a space and time questions this makes quite Christian I can't hear you I muted myself because I thought Maria was gonna say something oh no go ahead okay yeah this makes a lot of sense and I mean I mean you said that for example heckle said that time is spirit, is mind, and something else that Hegel said is that
negativity for itself is time. And I think this really corroborates the thesis of like time not being necessarily spatialized, but with certain caveats can in certain circumstances be it because time being an intelligent structuring mind, the temporal, the sequentialization of time would be in many cases one necessary consequence which follows from a negativity for itself a intelligent structuring mind yes yes and here a question arises I mean
also you know since we are reading cans and in party on this so far as a question of a space and time is extremely important for the rest of the critique of pure reason because it somehow sets the ground for those of you are interested I really suggest reading you know the classic essay written by John MacTaggart John Ellis MacTaggart on reality of time this is not by any means to endorse MacTaggart's view but simply for you to acquaint yourself with this subtleties as going on with this a series b series how they are interrelated so
on and so forth. A far more sophisticated account of this philosophy of time with regard to A series, B series and also C series is the two volume written by John Magdaigarne at the end of his life, The Nature of Existence. That I think is absolutely one of the most fundamentally profound works done in the in 20th century it's and the very fact that this work is so obscure it's just beyond me it's it's truly the critique that it delivers it's it's beyond words and one of the greatest ideas of Macta guard is that
from from a very basic idea that so basically his critique is that okay we We know that we should not mistake the characteristics of experience, namely temporality and spatiality, for the characteristics of reality. But what does that mean? This seems to be something that any today's non-correlationist would admit. But when you go to the extent of this question, what you see, what it entails to take, then you see that it is far from ... It actually really decimates a lot of what is going on
as philosophy today, particularly in the content of circles. The idea that one cannot miss a characteristic of experiencing subject with characteristics of reality. Okay, let's have a break and come back. Sounds good. See everyone in five minutes. Okay. Thank you.
Maria, yeah, I can do that to you. If you go to the News Center Seminar page, if you're looking, and you go to the Pete Wiffendale, it doesn't have Ben Woodard's name on it, but if you click Join Classroom, and then when you go to Google Classrooms, it will be there.
and then it does, I still can't access the one that Stately posted, but it's in the About section, and yeah, you can find it there. Wait, which classroom? Which classroom specifically? It's, it's, philosophy as system, an introduction to, oh, okay, okay. And I don't know, there's this other one it's actually I think it's it's better than this one just because it's more more detailed this one the one that is in the class it's probably more easily digestible there's like a trying to find it it's quite
Is that drive not in the Plasphere system? It's not in the drive, it's in the about. But no, you can't get access to the one that's doing it, but I got access to this other one. I'll find what I was mentioning later after class, It's hard to have to do some keyboard magic. Also I wanted to mention that
precisely because Kant is such a systematic philosopher when we are talking about the idea of systematicity systematicity means that we are talking about ramifying paths. This is the very idea of system, ultimately the nature of thinking. When you think about something, if you take the idea of thinking seriously, then you should follow what follows from your thought. And that can lead you to some fundamentally twisted surprises. The same thing about reading in Kant.
So was Hegel. Sorry. One second. so which what does what does this mean that you know you will arrive at thoughts that you think that are not directly related to Kant, but nevertheless they bother you. They are like these itches, intellectual itches. So I've noticed that all of you have stuff that you
can compare with your reading of Kant, but insofar as you think that they are not directly connected to our topic in our class you don't ask questions about them feel free to ask questions post them in the classroom and I really genuinely think that now that we are talking about people like Max and guards and all these other philosophers it would be great if you can take a look at Max and guards classic essay on reality of time those of you who are particularly interested in the question of time and you know make kind of comparative comments between the
two and ask questions or any on any other topic that you feel that is somehow being challenged or brought under the question now that we have you know kind of some how explain the basic elements of the doctrine of transcendental philosophy because this is ultimately if we are we are not here to do the job of a scholar who simply is interested in Kant and nothing more. The task of philosophy is not to be the archivist of thought but to follow what follows from
thinking. So, I remember that I finished my talk last session with this very brief exposition on what Sellars following Kent called a pink ice cube the difference between seeing of and seeing to
from now on words we are going to accommodate a new jargon in the tradition of Solaresian philosophy, analytic philosophy particularly, what you might call the nebulous point within analytic and continental. We are going to distinguish between terms, notions, and concepts by giving them proper numerical distinction. So seeing of an ice cube, of a pink ice cube, I see of it the facing side and the colored
side, nothing more. When I see this as an ice cube, I am in an entirely different territory. What territory is that? It's a territory of perceptual judgment. We are in the business of judging, or what still ours call perceptual takings, taking something as. So we can distinguish These idea of seeing of and seeing as, as seeing one and seeing two.
Seeing one and seeing two. Think of this adding a subscript to seeing, of and seeing as. So seeing of going to be seeing one and seeing as, as, which is the proper judgmental or conceptual territory is sync too. Correspondingly, we can think of awareness of a proto-conceptual or preconceptual subject, analogically speaking, because there is no such a thing as a proto-conceptual subject.
Subjectivity is defined by the use and application of concepts. There is no such a thing as the subject of senses. That wouldn't be a subject. So nevertheless, we are going to think about an intelligence, the awareness or consciousness of intelligence, who is proto or preconceptual as awareness one and a subject that is in full possession of conceptual judging resources as awareness too.
From now on we are going to numerically distinguish these things otherwise we will fall into confusion. As I told you neuroscience, cognitive science, content of philosophy, even analytic philosophy, the more you read about this stuff subjectivity consciousness thinking consciousness self-consciousness so on and so forth these are just all really confused you know commentaries because in what sense can we say a warm things or rock things or forest thing as or I
I don't know, hyperobjects think. No, this is just stupid, this idea. You need to have a criteria of thinking in order to apply that criteria rightfully to what you think is the phenomena you are talking about. Otherwise, confusion ensues, and confusion is not the premise of philosophy. It is what philosophy strives to get rid of, to purge. So far as we are in the business of philosophy, we should avoid using such umbrella terms.
We are going to numerically distinguish them from one another. So, when we are looking at a pink ice cube, let me self-advertise, going back to my manuscript, think of this as a thought experiment. A robot who has been equipped with a constructive situational memory in the sense that it is capable of it is wired to record it is basically equipped with some sensors
like us haptic senses I know a smell visual or even more senses that we have and also it's equipped with a constructive memory that is capable that allows it to record the original sensory impressions of how it encountered an item in the world at time t1 but also remember the impression of that memory at time t2 but the very idea what I'm calling it constructive or situational
memory is that memory is not like a hard drive that you can just pop stuff on it and later retreat memory plays a function in subjectivity in the constitution of the subjectivity in the sense that memory ultimately tries to coordinate between our representation of items in the world or what Kant might call proto-objects and our actions in the world how we behave in the world in a
rudimentary sense of behavior so obviously in that sense when I encounter an object in the past and I had a sense impression of it now that I am encountering that same item in the world my impression wouldn't be exactly the same as the impression that I had a time to you why because I am in a new situation I am affected quite literally by new parameters of interaction with that item and those parameters will
change my impression we call this slightly changed situational sense impression a reproduction is what can't calls it sense impression reproduction now so you can analogically speaking don't say Reza said that these are the same thing we can analogically compare sense impression and reproduction with what you might call past and present impressions of an object or memory of an object so in addition to sense impression and reproduction which are
functions of memory we have something else an anticipation obviously as I said memory plays a function in an organism in a subject memory is supposed to create an internal model that allows for the organism to have the most optimal action based on the most optimal perceptual model on the environment imagine a predator a predator has chased a rabbit
during this chase the first time this chase certain parameters were registered involuntarily without the direct self-consciousness of that organism on on the brain or the nervous systems of the other predator so the predator already knows certain parameters no one no one this is not knowledge this is simply consciousness a consciousness that is registered by your nervous system to which you in fact might be completely ignorant. You don't know what they are. These are just causal interactions. So as a predator, you have chased a rabbit.
You know that under this and this parameters, knowing one, the prey behaves like that in that kind of environment in the past. Now you have chased that rabbit again. And now precisely because the environment and the situation has changed, you get a slightly different results, but also some invariant behaviors. Until the rabbit flies, the rabbit escapes, goes behind the rock.
This is what we call a reproduction. Now imagine I'm a super predator, a good predator who wants to catch this rabbit no matter what. Obviously, the memory here plays a fundamental role in so far as it allows me to synthesize. We are talking analogically here. We are not talking about me as a thinking subject. We are talking about proto-semantic pre-conceptual subjects. subjects. The memory allows me to synthesize or integrate or assemble a model in which
I can single out some perceptual invariances of this chase regardless of those situational, circumstantial variations. No matter how much, no matter I'm chasing this rabbit in the snow, in a grass field, under this circumstance or that circumstance, there are certain invariant features of the rabbit flight. The memory is supposed to integrate, that's the function of constructive memory, to integrate these features into invariant features.
So I can predict with reasonable accuracy what would be the behavior of this rabbit if I would have chased it. This is called anticipation. So memory, the ultimate function of memory is really this, creating anticipatory models. that can coordinate between perception and action in the environment. So imagine that we have equipped our automaton or robot or rudimentary AI with this constructive memory.
We have given it also some sensors and some effectors. We have also given it with some behavioral regularities. that it ought to survive like humans by eating by having reproductive capacity some stuff revolutionary stuff now we are going to at this point that we can talk about the question of space and time What would be the role of the space and time for this rudimentary intelligence, this pre or proto conceptual form of intelligence that is merely equipped with awareness one?
It only sees one of the objects, not see two objects as. Before moving forward, any question? These are a little bit convoluted. I can understand that. Ask question if you need. This seems to resemble level one, level two, in Plato's divided line. Yes, yes, and also the hierarchy of Kentian, you know faculties from from sensibility to intuition to imagination to
understanding and reason yes so would it be a question of constituting concept on its own versus constituting concept as connected with other concepts no you see at the level awareness one we are not talking about concepts we are not talk because cons what are concepts concepts are simply when we are talking about concepts we are talking about the content conceptual content we are when you are talking about conceptual content we are talking about inferential links that make such a conceptual content in so far as these inferential links are quite diverse
We can't ascribe conceptual content or the use and application of concepts to our rudimentary form of intelligence. Nevertheless, that is the point. That's, and this is a fundamental Kantian thesis, are concepts of a space like this tree is standing in front of me at such and such angles. you know this is a concept a concept of a spatial relations such relations are
not given to our rudimentary intelligence of awareness one or seeing one but can't wants to say that even though our rudimentary intelligence doesn't have such and such concepts, spatial relations. Nevertheless, it has some rudimentary germ of some basic spatial relations which are more complex spatial relations and concepts in their complexity and richness mobilize and disambiguate and disambiguate obviously
the very fact that we have concepts is not because these concepts have given to us by god but obviously they are products of the mind right so if there are the products of the mind then and insofar as mind has different hierarchies, you can trace the origin of these concepts in mind to some more basic root. And that's the sense of space and time. Awareness One. Seeing One.
So, with that, now that we have a little bit of resources to move forward our discussion, say that it is from this gesture of talking about seeing one or awareness one or proto-conceptual
of pre-semantic intelligence that Kant begins his analysis of mind. And so far the analysis, the conceptual analysis of the mind coincides with the question of answering transcendental deduction, namely corroborating the epistemic legitimacy of our objective a priori knowledge that we begin our discussion remember in the past session I mentioned that through that double form of abstraction that
can have proposed ultimately we were supposed to isolate what can called sensibility. What would be this pink ice cube that we have been talking about as the object, as the Gegenstand, of our Seeing One or Awareness One if we had also abstracted the sensibility from it.
Imagine first you abstract substance and causal properties from these pink ice cubes, then you abstract primary and secondary qualities, shape and color, then you abstract also the seeing one namely the facing and color side of this cube what would remain space space yes and that's exactly can concludes that all that remains after this abstraction or extension and form. A cubical region here in this case,
that was originally represented as filled with ice, subsequently with cool and pink, and now with nothing at all. That is, the space that was occupied by the body, which has now entirely disappeared now can't calls this a pure form of sensibility or equivalently pure intuition And this would be at seeing one? This is even prior than seeing one. This is a constitutive of seeing one, as you might say.
Okay. And this would be the root as well? The root, yeah. what you might call, what Cam calls a necessary condition for the possibility of seeing one. Or aware. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So now it's like, it just seems like there should be some distinction between sensibility and intuition or something. Yes, you see, we haven't got to intuition. we are talking about is about sensibility but for Kant's sensibility sensibility is what you might call to be the hyper priors or entrenched
constraints on the intuition because ultimately Kent is not really interested in sensibility neither inner sense or outer sense what he's interested in is how the mind functions okay as as the organ of synthetic a priori or objective priori objective knowledge of the world now what he wants to say that once you take the sensible the sensible things not sensibility as such sensible things out of this cube you are left with something else and that's a space now
you see that brings the distinction between Kant and Leibniz also because Leibniz thinks that these sensible thingies that are standing in a space and have thus and so relations with one another make the very representation of a space. But Kant wants to say that the concept of a space, sorry not concept, absolutely never use the concept when when can't call call talks about space never use the word constant it's representation of space the representation of the space is different from the sensible
objects or items that are contained in it so when he means that abstract sensibility means that abstract the sensibility as associated with those sensible objects that are contained in space. All you will end up with is the a priori form of sensible intuitions. intuitions. Intuition not in the sense that, as I mentioned, at the level of sensibility, we can't even talk about objects. We can't even talk about seeing one. Seeing one is
properly speaking is at the level of intuition, manifold of intuition. Because at the level of sensibility all we all get is just a confused flux now one goddamn being affected by one goddamn object in the world after one goddamn object nothing more intuition is when these sensations are organized synchronically and and diachronically in space and time. Now Kant wants to tell us that take these what you might call to say proto-objects or items
in the walls away, abstract them away and something will remain, something that is not reducible to neither the proto-object nor the full object nor those sensible fluxes, but something that organizes them, an a priori component, and that's the space. I'm kind of thinking here, I mean this might be misguided, but like with the introduction
of scene two, I mean what that would mean for scene one is that sort of like the explicitated information from scene 2 would actually be like contained or impinged within the medium of sense or of scene 1 partially yeah partially not we'll get to this it's basically the idea is that the The manifold of intuition, the intuitive objects, gives us only a perspectival image of the
item in the world. As I mentioned, you always see the pink ice cube only perspectival, what Sellars calls a point of viewish encounter with the world. always at if you really abstract all this stuff that are part of the conceptual resources and as I said you can't use them at these lower level faculties then what you see of these objects of this book is just the facing side of it and the color side nothing more so at this level we always look at
the stuff in the world perspectively our encounters with the items in the world are not anything more than point of view wish but at the level of seeing too at at the level of concepts, I see this not as something that it faces me edgewise or this way or that way and only I see the color side of it, but I see it as this thick green book, okay? This thick and green book is no longer a perspectival encounter, concept.
It's only the image, what Kant calls singular representation of a particular item in the world, that is perspectival. But concepts are not perspectival, and that's what makes them the true components of our judgments about what's going on in the world. because they are not simply restrained by this or that subject's particular encounter, lived experience with that, this or that particular subject. They are concepts, they are shared among subjects. They gave them an a-perspectival view of the world,
you know one that is not no longer restrained by the point of viewish position of the subjects and then there's not perspective stealing his question touches upon this I'm reading so seeing one is when sensory materials have been organized into it's not a giga shorn yet in what you might call to be analogically positive as a giga ishton it's what you might call to be a proto sensible object because even When talking about object requires perceptual judgments, required concepts.
I can't talk about this sensible object as this green big book unless I have the concept of book, the concept of green, and the concept of thick, being thick. So analogically posited, yes, it's a Gaganesh term, but as a matter of fact, it's a de facto proto-object. It's a sensible item and that's why I'm here using the word items once in a while and sometimes I use the word object. Stuff, this is just a stuff for me. So, so saying one is sensory materials have been organized into the Gaganesh time. forms of sensible space and time? Yes, with that caveat I mentioned about the word
geggenishton here. And seeing two would deal with object, the object of thought. No, seeing two here is really the geggenishton, the full geggenishton, the full sensible object. At At the level of seeing one, we don't see the sensible object. All we see of the object is its image model. An image model, so what Kant called image, namely rudimentary function of imagination for Kant, is a singular representation of an object that I can only encounter in my particular lived experience and encounter with that stuff in the world
perspectively I only see this side the color side the edges and that's it I don't see it as an object seeing two is really the giganish time is this so so So would seeing two entail a, not maybe necessarily, but at least in some instances a perspectival component, after the object is constituted as such, and being constituted according to numinal acts, would the Gegenstand also entail a certain, like, quote-unquote, amount of
seeing one insofar as seeing two gains logical interiority? Yes, okay. So Kant never really fully answers some of these questions, and this is, many Many philosophers have worked after this, Hossel is one of them, the idea of, if you know anything about it, the idea of Hossel's adumbrations. So you see in seeing one, I see this side and I see this colored side, nothing else. I don't see this as a cuboid or rectangular shape that is this side that is also green
and it's actually a book. First, I don't see it as a book because I don't have the concept of the book. Concept of the book, you need to have a category, you need to have concepts, okay? That's not available to me at this level. at this level I see this side now at this level of basic what you might call to be the intuitive intuitive seeing one in tweeted which I mentioned last session I only see this side now the function of imagination for can't and move flash forwarding a little bit is that it somehow tells you that there in
there are other faculties between this kind of intuitive item in your mind and categories that are different hierarchies that are great and some of All these grades entail what you might call securing or singling out the perceptual invariance of different sides of the subject, like as if you were rotating this 3D and you are recording it by way of your impressions, reproductions and anticipations. With every one you see thus and so surface, you also intuit a rectangular object.
For cells call this adumbration. Now what is the role of this higher ordered intuited object? Well that is really the so-called image. a perceptual invariance of different sides of the subject, different properties that are not immediately given to my senses. That even if I don't immediately sense the back of this, how it looks like, I adumbrate that it looks like thus and so, okay? So that is the image. There's a perceptual invariance.
know, people, those of you who know about deep learning, that's exactly the principle that deep learning or neural networks work with. And that is the image that is supplied for a concept. The concept of a book is one that needs to satisfy or need to coordinate, not satisfy, to coordinate such and such perceptual invariances, having thus and so shapes and properties in the space and time. So it's sort of like an answer to a query about the world.
Yes. Yeah, yes, absolutely. I mean, the whole idea that Kant tries to, you know, Put forward is this kind of interactionist computation between the subject and the world. Query, answer, answer query. What is query for the environment? It should be answered by the subject. And what is a query by the subject is a constraint by an environment. Question if I move forward. Can I ask a question?
Sure. Kant always seems to give the impression that they've come out of nowhere or that they're sort of, they're just, it's like we're born with them or something. It's almost like the causal relation. all the mysteries of souls and sometimes talk about inborn, inborn. He used the Latin word ingenuum, means latent in soul. Yes, yes, absolutely. But wouldn't it make sense to say that they arrived latent in the soul through encounters with objects first? It just seems to me the causal relation is like reversed or something.
Can you elaborate on this causal relations and the latency? you know you're kind of just grasping around the world or something or an infant is or some sort of like ancestor being is grasping around the world and in turn the nature of space or time is kind of imprinted in the mind in the form of this infant or this sort of primordial subject it's always like
there's already a subject and it already has space and time pre-program yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that is really fantastic. So, so yes, so Kant doesn't believe that space and time are something out there that imprint themselves on your mind, because that would be just the myth of the given. So Kant thinks, according to his transcendental term, that space and time are already part of what you might call to be protomind. Protomind. What, as you say here, so I want to rule out two things, or not rule out, but just make
an observation about two sides of Kant. So sometimes Kant comes up with these highly esoteric, almost mystical ideas after he has ranted on and on about why we should not give in to dogmatic metaphysics. A great example of this is a paragraph that he makes about the role of eschematism. There is a, you should read it, we'll get to it at some point. When he ascribes the role of eschemata to this deep mystery of the soul.
I mean, what the fuck does that even mean, deep mystery of the soul? but this is really one of those points that is usually used as a linchpin by his critics to say that well Kent didn't know anything and he was conservative no can't actually next sentence makes this a little bit more clarified he associates that deep mystery in the function of the role with nature, that there are stuff given to us by nature, but there are stuff that are purely the functions of the mind.
When those things are given to us by nature, we can't really talk about them. Now, from an evolutionary perspective, an evolutionary neurocognitive scientist might object to this idea, but I think there is a grain of truth to this. It's a fundamentally sinister grain of truth to this, in the sense that how can you, as I said how can you if your representational system has some evolutionary undergirding or some evolutionary inductive biases how can you then step outside of the circle how can
you know what is exactly the nature of this nature that gave you such constraints? This is a genuine epistemological question and I would challenge any philosopher who comes with counter attacks to reply to this. So this is one thing. Well at the same time, as you say, Kant believes that there are some necessary conditions of realizations or necessary conditions of possibility that are not essentially of mind or cognitive
acts but nevertheless they are absolutely necessary for the realization of what we call mind and hence the objectivity of our priori knowledge with regard to the world. Space and time are among these. Yes, I think that Kant absolutely believes in something like a proto-subject. It's not a full judgment, judging, conceptually equipped, semantic, a perceptive subject, an agent or what you might call, but nevertheless it is a germ,
a seed, what Kant calls a seed. I mean what Hegel calls a seed. In fact, Hegel takes this idea from Kant. The concept of mind is like a seed, it's like a blueprint from which you can construct the idea of mind as being thus and so transcendental. Now Kant absolutely I think believe in this and I don't have any issue whatsoever with this identification of pre-semantic and proto-subjectivity. Precisely because yes, Kant's exposition on this issue might be inadequate, but I think it opens up a far more interesting avenue for philosophical inquiry.
That, sure, Kant is a transcendentalist, Kant believes in reason, he's a rationalist, he's quite a staunch rationalist, but the very fact that he opens up this avenue for purto-subjectivity before the rise of judgments and concepts means that he leaves a room and a space for naturalization of the normative subject, of the conceptual rational subject. I think that's a really an exciting avenue. And you know, it might not be right or a great interpretation,
but I think we can be generous and attributed to Kant. This very idea of purto-subjectivity that you are talking about is essentially what we might call to be naturalistic germ of the rationalist conceptual using subject, the rational agency. Stanley had a question. Stanley, if you don't want to talk, I can read it from the sidebar. Otherwise, if you want to try using your mic. Do you have a preference?
We can't hear you now if you're talking. Okay. So I'll just read it in the sidebar out loud. I was going to ask about machine vision with reference to earlier discussion of perception and perceptual invariance, but also want to nail down this hierarchy of ways of seeing yeah well okay I will I will come up with some stuff some references let me let me think about them post them in a classroom but I mean it's not directly directly connected to our discussion, we can't. But I posted some stuff on Peli Gritzer work on Facebook.
And I think that some of them are, even if it's outside of this Kantian discussion, I think it can be connected back. But I will come up with some suggestions. And okay, with regard to your Yes, okay, the hierarchy of ways of seeing, I think we, a little bit fast forwarded, don't worry, we will come back and fully cover these. All we are going to discuss at this point the role of space and time namely a priori forms that will survive once you even abstract
the sensible proto-giganeshant, once you even abstract the sensible object. But nevertheless don't worry about it, that's basically what we are going to talk about, whole idea of hierarchy from seeing one to seeing two. And that's exactly what Kant's transcendental psychology is. Kant's transcendental psychology is ultimately the move from seeing one to seeing two, with understanding that Kant's transcendental psychology is there to answer the question of transcendental deduction by what right can we claim that our objective and priori knowledge of right that becomes then the one of the you know central
issues in this whole course So, seems that I'm running out of beer here. Infinite tribulations. So as I mentioned that, you know, Kant says that isolates sensibility by separating off everything that the understanding thinks through its concepts so that nothing but empirical intuition remains.
Then detach from the latter everything that belongs to sensation so that nothing remains except pure intuition in that sense of, you know, sensible root of intuition, not the manifold of intuition and the mere form of appearances which is the only thing that sensibility can make available a priori now if you if you have read transcendental aesthetic which I'm sure you have can says earlier that's in the appearance which corresponds to sensation is its matter, whereas its form is that which
allows the manifold of appearance to be ordered in certain relations. In describing the sort of double abstraction which we talked about last session, by which he will isolate sensibility, can suggest that once everything conceptual has been divested from what remains ultimately is still an intuition in the sense of an empirical intuition, not kind of cognitive intuition but empirical intuition. So that's a response to the idea of the relation with the intuition, Chagis asked intuition and sensibility and the whole trajectory of this abstraction.
What we are dealing with here is empirical intuition and Kant already had clarified what he means by empirical intuition, namely the direct encounter with an item in the world, which owes its matter to sensation and its form to sensibility, but nothing at all to understanding. Obviously because it lacks categories or pure concepts of understanding. The understanding turns out to be implicated in all cognitions, singular as well as general. Now Kant here tends to remember more or less this at different times resulting in enough
intellectual philosophical slippage in his usage of intuition. And that has created massive amounts of unnecessary confusions in philosophy afterward, particularly in the 20th century among, sorry to say, content of philosophers. This very idea that when you talk about intuitions, people think that, oh well, when you say that intuition is such and such, people think that intuition, you mean by intuition some sort of like you know gut feeling this germ of creativity and productive no that's not what can means by intuition sorry yes can means by intuition this kind of
gut feeling creative impulse but this is not really intuition this is a function of the intuiting cognitive act the actual function the primary rudimentary function of intuition is singling out the intuitive object not as a kind of aesthetic creative component but as a kind of analytic component it's basically a material a material from which you build this and that kind of cognitive act. And so, I mean, yeah, I'm sure that,
so by now you have come to this conclusion that using the way that we use common sense vocabularies, no matter how much we think that they are theoretical, is not really the best way of going on and read philosophers. In philosophy, I mean good philosophy, it's not all philosophies. Certainly not French philosophy, I'm just joking. The good philosophy is the one that always tries to stay with the most crystal clear definition
of jargons that they are using. Coming with the crystal clear definition is the least that you can do. Because even if you come with the crystal clear definition, there is so much unnecessary ambivalence there. To create additional ambivalence, to create to think that you are making some sort of, you know, good creative philosophy, It just leads to unnecessary confusion, unnecessary bad interpretations. Yes, sometimes they are necessary to do these kinds of stylistic choices, and I absolutely
love some French philosophers who have done that. But here we are trying to look into the history of philosophy. how concepts evolve the Sally you need to comment on that thing he has a good excuse of low bandwidth now. Okay, let's get back to our exegesis. So the generic
notion of an object, of empirical intuition, as I mentioned, is what can call appearance. Although the notion ultimately subsumes a little bit more, to To begin with, it is most useful to think of Kantian appearances as sort of things that we primofasci encounter in experiences. Otter appearances is therefore roughly what you might call to be equivalent to our everyday expression of physical objects. Not gegganishtand. There is no gegganishtand here. Gegganishtands are cognitive objects. There are not objects for thought, but there are nevertheless objects constituted by cognitive acts, by mental acts.
We're talking about simply items in the world, stuff outside of us, physical objects. While appearances in general subsume the empirical self as well, that is, our own inner state in so far as they are experientially accessible to us through introspection. Now, Kant is also very, very clear about this idea that there is a related systematic ambiguity between the notion of appearance and the notion of object, Geganishtand, and later takes some effort to explain this.
He says, now one can, to be sure, call everything and even every representation, insofar as one is conscious of it, an object. object, only what this word is to mean in the case of appearances, not insofar as they are as representations, objects, but rather only insofar as they designate an object requires deeper investigation. So with this stuff, with this rudimentary stuff, we are coming back to that pink ice
cube. We have already abstracted isolated sensibility from it as part of metaphysical exposition, which Kant contrast with what he calls transcendental exposition, which addresses the epistemology of a space. In another part, also Kant has a very useful way of understanding transcendental exposition of a space in the sense that he says imagine that if you were looking at some concept as
principles necessary for how you look at other components of the a priori cognition. It gives that status to space and time as well as part of his transcendental exposition. Now, now that we have abstracted sensibility from the ice cube and all we left with the space we can come back and look at a little bit of historical background that led to this
particular transcendental and metaphysical exposition of the space by Kant versus Leibniz, Locke, Crucius and Christian Wolf. Now if you are a representative realist like Locke, even if you think that the space has formal being, you are going to have trouble in explaining how is that. We can come to have a concept of it. The problem is that the space is actually impotent. A pink ice cube can perhaps act on us to produce a representation of it, in the sense of Kantian
empirical intuition. But the space occupied by the pink ice cube can similarly act on us to produce a representation of it. Hence, it's not a formal being. It doesn't affect us causally, by itself. So once we have abstracted all that sensibility from it, then we can say that it is a being, a formal being, insofar as it somehow affects us thus and so, like items in the world. However, it is important for Kemp's story that the space and time themselves are individuals,
that is, given in intuitions, singular representations, and not mere concepts. You see, I remember I corrected myself at one time, I said the concept of a space with concept of time no these are not concepts are representations precisely because they are individuals they are always given in intuitions in our singular representations namely images or seeing one of objects or seeing one of objects or awareness one of objects not seeing two or awareness to which belong to the domain of the concept
so you know in response to people like lock Locke can't argue that this kind of account or conception of a space cannot be correct. He says in 823B38, space is not an empirical concept that has been drawn from outer experiences. You can't get to the concept of a space simply by piling up concepts of a spatial characteristics. of the spatial characteristics are systematic, and the central focus of the systematicity is the concept of three-dimensional spatial continuum. The systematic structure of the
family or class of concepts of spatial characteristics presupposes the concept of unitary individual, namely a space. One can't think of a point, line, plane or solid except as a point, line, plane or solid in a space. But to be located in a space at all is to be in one place rather than another. Remember what I told you about hyper priors the constraints of bilocation and location and that's exactly that's
what Kent here talks about one can't think of a point line plane or solid except as a point line plane or solid in the space but to be located in a space at all is to be in one place rather than another there is no such thing as by location in the space at least from the perspective of appearing objects or items in the world and so the whole of space is implicit in every spatial experience also a spatiality is isn't an optional feature of our outer experience it's not something that we can simply say that well something that we chose to have it we can't
represent other things or items in the world without a space and we can never represent that there is no space. So from this perspective, Pace-Hume, there couldn't be a world consisting of a single representing of a red dot and nothing else. That kind of empirical impression that Hume puts forward. Even a A red dot must be represented in a spatial and temporal world that is, so to speak, already sketched in however vaguely and schematically, and that can't ever be filled incompletely.
The fundamental theme of Kant's first two arguments in transcendental aesthetics, then is that the representation of a space holds universally and necessarily of outer experience and so is a priori the space that's what can says and that's called from Kent space is a necessary representation a priori that is the ground of all outer intuitions So, again, back to this idea that, as I mentioned, space is not a concept, the way that Kant
puts it forward in transcendental aesthetics. We are talking about representation of space, we are talking about a singular representation. As Kant says, a space is not a discursive or, as is said, general concept of relations of things in general, but a pure intuition. A25B39. There is only one space. Again, called Kant. If one speaks of many spaces, one understands by that only parts of one and the same unique a space. And the concept of a space is a basic form. So it's not a representation of the
form F, i.e., what you might call it to be a definite description that is mediated by the concept of a kind of sort of thing. Hence it is not discursive in the sense of having the kind of internal conceptual complexity that could make it possible for propositions of geometry to be in principle analyzable down to the analytic, all, for example, AB is A form. So you see here, Kant actually makes a fantastic revolutionary move by saying that the space is not a concept and singular representation is trying to and in so
far as we know that everything is going to be built on this intuition for a space and time and forms of intuition he tries to come closer to the very idea of synthetic a priori because if he had had chosen the space to be a concept then it would have relapsed back to the analytic domain once again but he wants to break apart from the analytic the analogicity of the concept So, on the other hand, since we can think coherently of empty space, the concept of
a space is not the concept of a characteristics, quality of relation, which needs to be exemplified to be present. The concept of a space is not the concept of something adjectival or thing in a space. The concept of a space is the concept of an individual. Whether considered in relation to its contents or in relation to its parts, a space is essentially a one in contrast to a many. But this one, many contrast, is not the contrast between a characteristic and its instantiation
which exemplify it, or a concept and its instances which fall under it. The many outer objects and the infinitely many parts of a space, namely a spatial regions or vocations neither exemplify a space nor fall under it but rather are in it and as Kant says here therefore the original representation of a space is an a priori intuition not a concept because it is neither about falling under the concept nor a concept applied to many it's not it's not about the dialectics
between particular instances and the generic one it's not about what you might call to be platonic participations or mid-axis And here, I mean, Kant makes some rather, you know, quick, albeit implicit comments about Newtonian space, Newtonian conceptual space. I mean, there are so many kind of commentaries out there that they try to say that Kantian
representation of a space was completely Newtonian. I think these are just misguided. Yes, sure, he was influenced like any, every philosopher by his science of time, but he actually gave a very, you know, was critical of the Newtonian concept of space. Now the problem with, for Kant, the problem with Newtonian theory is essentially that a quasi-substantial space would not consist of anything. Since our intuition is sensible, if a space were such a quasi-substance, it could be given to us in experience only as a sensory content but as we have
seen we arrived at the pure intuition of a space precisely by abstracting away in thoughts from all sensory contents and we cannot thus abstract the space from any outer intuition. We can't eliminate the space as something to be abstracted. Space is the final product of abstraction from sensibility. But then what did it require something to answer that query though? You know, like you have space as the query but then how do you test the validity of that?
elaborate a little bit on this. So like let's just say you're I mean you're it's just hard to imagine all of the different representations of space like a cube like if you have the representation of a cube, do you require a manifestation of a cube like a or like a book or something to validate that query or is it just enough to think that the shape of a book could exist spatially to validate it. Like if there was just nothing, no, like, you know, the distal causes or the unseen causes to sort of give form to that notion of space. Like I'm just trying to, like, if I'm imagining just space with nothing in it, just like I'm in space, but there's nothing in
space to sort of, you know, I'm thinking of a cube. So, all right, I have that idea, but at some at some point it seems like I would need to see something that is a cube to sort of validate that query. Well, that is, that is, brings us back to one of the things that also Theo mentioned. He compared it with the thing in itself, and I said that Kant is actually quite very observant to not call it a thing in itself. But what you might call to be, it has characteristics similar to the thing in itself. It is not a thing in itself. What are these similar characteristics? Kant thinks that the space is a conceptless exteriority.
So we can't just go on and stand in the space pretending as if we were in the space. there wouldn't be us in space anymore, because that required to smuggle a new piece of abstraction beyond and over space. So, Kant thinks that the shape of the cube are simply relata, a spatial relata instantiated at the level of the sensible but in so far as he wants to take this task of abstraction to its ultimate with Christian was saying the ultimate frontier is that he needs to
get rid of the sensible obviously at this level relata also needs to be abstracted or to be eliminated to be isolated once you take away relations then you still you have some what you might call to be fundamental constraints even not that kind of Kantian idea of conceptless exteriority but still you have some additional constraints what I mentioned two things can never cohabit at the same time or one thing cannot exist these are
laws these are a priori laws and another thing that is important is that Kant That doesn't want to talk about real space at this point. This is not to talk about real space, that as if object was in a space and somehow you really took abstract away its color, shape, etc. and there was something outside of this object. No. All these as if inside our thoughts, inside our mind, that we are abstracting the shapes, the colors, the substance and all the other stuff and still even if we have abstracted
all that which is sensible, still there is something in mind, an a priori, that even it is not sensible, is there and put constraints on how we think about sensible items in the world. Like some prior laws, the prohibition on bilocation and co-location. As the most, Renathams called this basic, actually Renathams has a fantastic Kantian essay on this, that That he thinks that, you know, this laws of bi-prohibition of laws of bilocation and colocation
are the most important parts of our neural processing. What you might call to be the kind of laws that we- and Kant of course is quite vague about this. Where are they coming from? We don't know. he thinks that they are given us in our depth of soul that's that that there is something that even if we have taken all this stuff away that there are some laws that even if we didn't know anything about this analogically speaking we could say that this book cannot exist at the same time at two locations. So there is something here, yes, we can challenge Kant about what is exactly
these things. You see, already Kant has tried so much to identify the sense of a space or representation of a space with a priori, a priori rules. He obviously doesn't see a space as a thing at this point when you have abstracted everything but simply as some principles as he had said it already he had already mentioned one of these principles an object cannot coexist at two different locations at the same time so it's really i think important yes i think there are challenges i am really trying to think about this how to can you can address this coherently but in order to at least for now mitigate the confusion, it's very important to first
one, distinguish what Kant means by space, which is related to transcendental structure of mind, and the space as in itself, as some external reality. Two, the idea that Kant characterizes space as principle. And he had already said in Transcendental Exposition that some concepts can be posed and principles like these lenses that allow us to look carefully into how the mechanism
of synthetic a priori is possible. So with this observation I think there is a way to address coherently the question of the space as transcendental ideal because that's what at this point what is interesting. Let's talk about the question of the space as a real thing. But at the same time I think that understanding of our space even as principle is something
that can be subjected to a systematic critique. And I have been thinking about this stuff, but I mean, it's really hard to pinpoint, you know, the exact Kantian a wrong move. Because he has already ruled out so many things from his observation. Space is not a concept. Space are singular representations that are treated as principles,
that allow it to shed light on scientific a priori. to space is not something real outside of us we are talking about transcendental the idea of space so on and so forth so with this idea I don't think that we can we can we can condemn him with some of these charges that what does remain really after abstracting the shape of a cube can we even talk about space you well if you think about the real space yes you can't talk about because already can't has implied that space is conceptless exteriority as as a real thing but also can't has talked about that these are just principles yes even
if you take get rid of the shape you still are bound to certain spatial constraints in the order of appearances you won't see the same thing at two different location at the same time you won't see one thing two things coinciding with one another at the specific spatial temporal coordinate I mean, would it maybe, I mean, because you said that it wouldn't be sensible. I mean, sort of what I'm thinking is like with space as a principle, but we've been able
of abstract from all of the sensible particular characteristics of say ice cube that I mean the query I mean it's sort of like I guess you could say a computational interactive way would be like in the like an expressive declarative retrieval of the information that explicitates in an abstracted way yeah qualities of the ice cube yes yes absolutely yes yes what I'm thinking here I mean where where maybe space would still remain is like like to not
get rid of like sensibility entirely like that is you know being thus and so affected in saying that the retrieval of that information it is a thus and so way no you are right you are right you are like yeah I can I can completely understand your and that's that's a really I think think a main issue and I need to think about it I haven't seen any response to this that yes the whole point is about sensibility let's not even talk about the shape of the cube so idea of sensibility now the very fact that we see that an object can't bi locate or co-locate or two objects cannot co-locate
that has already component of sensibility you know that has a component so when you get rid of this component of sensibility then what does exactly remain after this that can you with adequate philosophical coherency call a representation of a space I think just like any sort of manifold which is containing like the expressive abstract information that is able to articulate or express being thus and so affected, like that medium needs as a principle like something like the idea of a space insofar as that information
is in some way or another being like like spatially articulated like within that medium yes yes i mean it seems that yes i mean You know, I have seen so many people, particularly among the new generation of philosophers and mathematicians, I will post some of their stuff on the Google Classroom, that they defend the idea of Kant's transcendental logic, particularly the transcendental exposition of space by way of resorting to category theory theory and kind of mathematics.
But it seems to me that in all of camps, yes, sensible presentation is always parameterized with the space. But, it appears to be, at least reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, but it seems to me that Kant also somehow, always presupposing, always implicitly, that what he thinks to be the principles of the space and not as a real thing but as a transcendental ideal
is always parameterized by the sensible. So when you abstract or isolate sensibility, then it is really hard to say what does exactly remain of a space, even as a principle, rather than as an individual representation. I mean, this is Kant's ultimate idea that, you know, if you wanted to talk about just a very, very brief way of formulating how Kant addresses the question of space and time
In transcendental aesthetics, sorry, it would be that the space only offers us relations without relato, and a confused phenomenal melange in which we can only problematically disentangle the substantial agencies operative in the latter. time respectively only offers us sequences infected with vanishingness, that's earlier and later, which cannot best suggest the presence of a permanent underlying agency. So Kant's posited space and time in order to, not on the side of reality but on the
side of mind, he posited these entities in order to somehow use them as what you might called to be armature or the fundaments of how to glue these different confused aspects of an item in the world together so that it allows us to arrive at what you might call to be the constitution of objectivity and also sensible object. But the way that I can see it, as I have mentioned to you, these are quite actually, you know, some of the moves are justified and some of the moves are highly questionable.
And as I said, I'm still thinking and I don't think that enough great challenging discussion has been launched against this particular aspect of Kantian philosophy. People usually attack Kant by way of, well, Kant was Newtonian, the idea of a space was Newtonian. No, this is not, it has no relevance. The very idea, the way that how he tries to undergoes the representation of a space and time where the constitution of a gay eshan and ultimately the constitution of objectivity, that's important. And that I don't think that people have paid enough attention to this.
What are we doing with regard to time? Can I read one more page before we retire for the day i think yeah we can go a little bit longer because we started a little bit late if everyone's okay with that all right for me i'm actually like over my my tiredness somehow so that's that's good i i think i wanted to pose a question in regards to space too because it seems i'm not sure if i understand it completely but it seems like Let me read this one more page and then I will get a few more questions and that will
be it. How's that? That sounds good. Okay. So, as I mentioned, you know, so I mentioned a little bit of a, and I promised Aaron that I will come back to Crucius, and I do plan to come back to Crucius and Christian Wolff, I will just I mentioned a little bit of Neutron let me just talk about a bit of like this in can't challenge your life Nietzschean concept of a space so from that hopefully next session next session we can follow some of this metaphysical backgrounds of Kent so what the fundamental problems with
Leibnizian relational theory of space is that it cannot account for the possibility of synthetic a priori geometrical propositions. So what is a relational theory of space, Leibnizian relational theory of space? I mean think Think of monads, monads are just this windowless sealed off quiditas or things that are related to one another, they create links, you know, simply by way of their relations.
And like these things that the idea is that the space is ultimately the relation between these things, between these monads, or in Kant's instance what you might call to be between items in the world and nothing more. So Kant wants to rule this out insofar as he thinks that this relational theory cannot account for the possibility of synthetic or priori geometrical propositions. empirical concepts together with that on which they are grounded, namely empirical intuitions,
cannot yield any synthetic proposition except one that is also merely empirical, that is, a proposition of experience. Thus, it can never contain necessity and absolute universality, qua priority, of the sort that is characteristics of all propositions in geometry. So Kant's strategy with regard to a space and in opposition to people like Locke, Leibniz,
and you know, Wolff and Crucius, is that to maintain the inadequacy of our conceptions of the intuitively given structures of space, rather than the other way around. A space is not just some general manner in which, you know, extended parts and their limiting points are related to one another. If it were, there would be no such a difference as that between the left hand and the right hand. Space has to be an actual structure of regions even in the absence of matter.
It is the prime ground of the possibility of combining material parts. So this fact shows itself in innumerable physical and biological differences. the difference between the screws which turn to right, the screws which turn to left, etc., etc. Obviously Kant has here chosen a strategy of subordinating conception to intuition. Intuition reveals differences of which conception knows nothing. Hegel and Bergson will follow him on this path. particularly in regard to the continuous and developing
and the developing but he could equally well have chosen the strategy of subordinating intuition to conception after the fashion of Leibniz and Christian Wolff and he does in fact do so in dissertation which I mentioned last session and in the critical writing For their space and time, on account of their inconceivable properties, are firmly relegated to the status of mere appearances." Now, Kant thinks that understanding or reason or the mind has not the slightest difficulty
in framing either concept or in grasping its possibility. The formation of both concepts involves no more than the mind's native capacity to distinguish parts within holes and its capacity to fit parts together so as to form holes. That the part and holes must be substantial and real, and not merely ideal. But when however the mind tries to intuit or envisage an actual instance of either concept, it comes up against an absolute barrier in the form of an infinite series of division or augmentations which can never be completed in time, and which also characterize space.
For time and space are alike such that their division can be continued indifferently without yielding us simple elements, points and instants are not isolable elements but merely boundaries, while augmentations by successive additions can likewise be carried on indifferently without yielding us the cosmic whole that we are trying to compass. For as Kant says, for since in a continuum there is no term to the regress from a whole to its giveable parts, and the infinite no term to the progress from the parts to a given whole,
a complete analysis is in the former case impossible, and a complete synthesis in the latter case, nor can the whole be completely thought out in conformity with the laws of intuition, whether as regards its composition in the former case or as regards its totality in the latter. This intuitive barrier is not, however, a conceptual barrier and is quite mistaken to confuse the intuitively unillustrateable or unimaginable with the conceptually unthinkable.
So this brings us to this idea that space, we cannot, might not be able to intuit space once we isolate the shape of the cube, but this doesn't mean that we cannot conceptually think about it. Because that's exactly I would say that it's Kant's ultimate response to all this stupid bullshit that has been given against him in terms of anti-correlationist movement. This is it. This is what you want to the origin of a speculative realism. This is Kant's idea. You can't intuit about the space but this doesn't mean that you can't think about it you know you can't intuitively know it but that doesn't
mean that you can't conceptually think it's no even if you saw like a perfect business cube yes would it completely overlap uh-huh yes yes So, and so any conceptual thinking would be necessarily like proto-sensible as well, like even if it might make some sort of, might be conducive to some sort of like perspectival, like sensible intuition in addition, like the main thrust would be that like you would be like, like there would be a explicitized articulation of
like the abstract information pertaining to the cube, like prior to any sensible perception of it, once those faculties conceptualize about space have been developed. You see, the thing is that Kant, you know, I always, you know, I have made some comments about Kant's conservatism, but I only say it from the perspective of the history of philosophy. Kant's conservatism is far less conservative than unfortunately so
many continental, contemporary and analytical philosophers today. I mean the idea is that Kant believes in two different functions of reason. One is a pure reason and the other one is the, are the laws of understanding and reason, what you might think about the correlation between pure concepts of understanding and principles. Now he thinks that when you are thinking, for example, in your case, thinking about a cube or any of all of these examples that we have made in the past couple of sessions, is that there is no way that thinking intuitively about these items means that we can violate
the laws of understanding and reason. But at the same time, he believes that... There are some things called objects of pure reason, and objects of pure reasons are not simply subject to the laws of intuitive cognition which are indexed by the correlation between understanding of reason. So this is, I think, a magnificent thing. This idea that he thinks, so he's now imparting a speculative power to a faculty called pure
reason whose objects are not even supposed to obey the laws of intuitive cognition. And he really thinks that some of this stuff that we are talking about, space and time, are ultimately the subjects of not the laws of intuitive cognition but the laws of pure reason. Thank you.
That was clarifying, I think. I love that I think caveat at the end. I think. We'll see. You can ask me more questions. Not yet. No, not right now. Okay. Anyone? People who have been silent today? Caroline, Aaron, Maria a little bit. Can I start some of her? Sure, absolutely. I think what you were saying was Kant's response to the anti-correlationists today
was that conceptual understanding can work back on the facial intuition. sorry not essentially that simply go on go on go on please sorry yeah but aren't you just you're still not um you you're still just operating on your own intuition right you're not what the what the metaphysicians what Leibniz was attempting to do and what not was was to
look at likes like space itself like out there or something so how does how does that how does how does Kant now actually responding to them sure I don't think there can't you know as I mentioned that's you know we need you know obviously is is a figure inside the history of philosophy and all philosophers are always constrained by these historical junctures from which you know they have emerged. Obviously Kant doesn't give a full satisfying answer to this. Now I think a way being if we are going to be generous readers of Kant, we are going to answer to this question in the sense that first
Correlationism is perfectly a sound thesis at the level of epistemology. We can't know things outside of concepts. Any person who would say that you can know about some stuff outside or inside of you without concepts is just verging on unintelligibility. Pure materialism in that sense is absolute rubbish, is complete unintelligibility, there is no justification for it. So from an epistemological knowledge perspective, can correlationism, nothing wrong with it,
are necessary for us to think or know about things that are outside of us. Now, but there is also a difference between knowledge and thinking. Let's thinking about, and by that knowledge and thinking I mostly emphasize on the difference between intuitive knowledge or intuitively knowledge whose resources have been supplied by intuition and thinking with understanding that at least in this sense whose resources
have been supplied by concepts of pure reason. Now obviously we can't know death because death marks the very end of our experience. There won't be any intuition. The whole phenomenon of death just makes this idea of knowing what death is problematic. But this doesn't mean that we cannot think about death. concepts. Now of course some concepts are derived from our sensory experience, from our intuitive sensory experience. But there are also concepts of pure reason. Think of
logic. Do we ever have any reference to sensory intuition or intuitive components when we are manipulating symbols, when we make meaning by shuffling syntax, syntactical forms? No, We don't. That was Frigge's attack on Kant's psychologism, so was Hosea, so was Carnot. So there is such a thing as concepts which either are divorced from the intuitive components of cognition or have relative autonomy to them, like speculative thinking, which is
on the side of logic, speculative and objective logic as Hegel would say it. So with that said, yes from that point we can think about death, with the understanding that of course that would require us to also criticize how much of what we think are concepts of pure reason are actually concepts of pure reason and not in some subterfuge hidden way concepts that are merely just intuitive thoughts as you might would say. So there is, this is a labor, a labor that comes with the understanding of first separate
knowledge from intuitive knowledge from thinking. Then understand what they require, treat them on their own grounds. Then also see the extent that they are related within and thinking, knowledge and thinking. Or in Hegelian sense, within and within science, knowledge and science. By science, it doesn't mean empirical science, but science of thought. Once we do this, then that's only when we can really coherently answer the question of how much, in fact, we can stay away from that negative form of correlationism, which
says that we can't even think death. and stay in what you might call to be the positive form of correlation, which says that the knowledge of death, yes you can't know death because it's outside of your intuitive boundaries, but you can't think death. This all comes down to see how much we can separate, adequately speaking, the concepts of thinking from the intuitive resources of our individual particular thoughts or understanding. And ultimately Hegel answers these questions, tries to answer these questions, in terms
of the difference but also continuity between phenomenological knowledge of mind or spirit the science of logic, namely pure speculative objective thought. There is a great Peter, you should also read, probably you have already know this, a friend
of mine Peter Wolfendale read his essay called transcendental realism which tries to you know really kind of separate these issues in the topic of correlation is that this whole umbrella attack launched against Kentian philosophy and transcendental philosophy is just unjustified. There is a good correlationism that needs to be preserved because otherwise materialism would be unintelligible and also there is something like a bad correlationism that tries to say that to conflate or elide the distinction between knowing and thinking.
Well, we're definitely past our time now. I have time and a little bit of a space left for the next session. Sounds good. So just so everyone knows, we are starting now at 1 p.m. Eastern time. I apologize if there's confusion about that. It's 12. Sorry, I just misspoke. We will be starting at 12 p.m. I'm sorry. That's why there's confusion. Yes.
OK, guys. Thank you, everyone. I mean, I noticed that the Google Classroom page is mostly empty. I mean, just ignore me. I'm a little bit swamped these days. But I will answer whenever is necessary. It would be great to have conversation, because we are at the most primitive level here. This is going to get even more vague and more difficult and demanding. It would be great if we can have some sort of more collective conversation and absolutely don't worry about this stuff that I don't know the meaning of that word.
No one really knows. Talk to a Kansas scholar. A greatest old Kansas scholar might not even agree with another great Kansas scholar about the definition of this or that vocabulary. It comes naturally with the territory. So yes, please post. And I'm going to also, either tonight or tomorrow, let you know about the next chapter that we should read and I will come up with some recommendations with regard to reading also in a supplementary
text from those exegesis that I mentioned to you by Salars and others. Sounds good. I think I'll post my question in the classroom then because it has to do with the relation of the faculties of understanding and sense. Absolutely. All right. I'll stop the broadcast. Thank you everyone. Thank you Reza. I'll try to get into that classroom. Yes.