[MD] Kant's Motorcycle

Mon Dec 4 11:43:53 PST 2006

Case,

Please explain Kant's "noumenal world". The things that are NOT perceived by
man, and how he knows of this reality?

Micah

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org]On Behalf Of Case
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 1:29 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

Micah,

No, you are confusing sensation and perception. Sensations are just neurons
firing. Perception is the organization of these impulses into thoughts and
knowledge. Kant was saying that something in our nature contributes to this
process of knowledge formation.

You are missing the point that sensation is just the activity of the
receptor neurons in, for example, our retinas. Perception is the
classification of those impulses into color and shape. Color and shape are
properties of our perception not of TITs or for that matter of our senses.
Color and shape are properties that emerge from the internal structuring of
sense data. That IS what Kant was talking about.

Case

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Micah
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 2:12 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

Case,

What I am saying is, our senses can be our only link to reality, there is no
alternative source. You seem to be saying that our perceptions are suspect.
That is not what Kant is saying. I agree our perceptions can be suspect. All
thought is a product of the senses, but humans are fallible, and perceptions
differ, which leads us to shared objective reality.

Micah

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org]On Behalf Of Case
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 12:54 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

What Kant was saying is that senses alone do not produce knowledge.
Sensation is just neurons firing. What you seem to be arguing in favor of is
Hume's position that all thought is the product of sensation. Kant was
saying that meaning is derived from the senses but that there are
constraints one how meaning is constructed. Sensations are organized into
perceptions and perceptions into cognition. Our understanding is the product
of our senses and our rational functioning. Neither is adequate alone.

Case

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Micah
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 1:43 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

Case,

What we know of our biology comes from our senses. Our senses are our
biology.

Micah

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org]On Behalf Of Case
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 12:35 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

Not exactly, Kant agreed with the empiricists that information comes in
through the senses. But he agreed with the rationalists that we have other
sources of information. Reality is constructed out of this interplay of the
senses and our biology.

Case

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Micah
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 12:59 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

Case,

I understand what Kant is saying about TITS. He is saying there is a reality
we cannot know. How does he know that, since our only connection to reality
is our senses. He is using his senses to disqualify his senses. I do agree
that we anthropomorphize reality, but that is not a disqualification of
reality, as Kant does.

Micah

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org]On Behalf Of Case
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 11:37 AM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

Micah,

You keep saying this like it is significant. Do you think your sense tell
you everything? Do you think your senses are accurate all the time? I think
you confuses sensation and perception and perception and cognition. We only
have five senses for example and they operate only within a limited range.
Kant was talking about something else though. He was saying that something
in our organic structure causes us to organize our sensations in particular
ways.

Case

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Micah
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 12:18 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

Case,

Help me with this thread. How does Kant know his senses can't be trust to
know TITS? How does he know that there are TITS? Is he using senses that
can't be trusted? How does he know when to trust his senses and when not to?

Micah

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org]On Behalf Of Case
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 10:59 AM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

SA,

I am not terribly interested in Kant's ethics. I agree with Pirsig that they
are ugly. Talking about duty and what we 'ought' to do is far less
interesting to me that what we actually do.

Bentham's contention that we act so as to receive pleasure and avoid pain
strikes me as dead on. They are of course problems with creating an ethics
out of this and whole greatest good theory has its own set of problems but
at least it is based on something observable.

In addition whether they, ought to or not much of what drives our culture
today is the cynical and purposeful manipulation of pleasure and pain.

Case

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Heather Perella
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 11:25 AM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

Case,

     Here is a quote I find similar to Pirsig about
Kant.  You were looking for what Pirsig liked about
Kant, I believe, so, here it is as follows in "Zen and
Western Thought" by Masao Abe:

     "Kant established the possibility of metaphysical
knowledge not by employing theoretical reason
concerned with objects in external nature, but only be
appealing to reason in its practical use.   Such
practical use turns pure reason deeply within and
roots Subjective moral determination in one's own
will... His perspective took the morality of man
neither as being nor as non-being, but as that which
'ought to be'.  As the standpoint of a Subjective
practical principle, it found its basis in a
transcendental ethical ought which in every case
unconditionally commanded what 'you really ought to
do'.  Therefore, this 'ought', which Kant took to be
the only principle by which metaphysics is possible,
denied Aristotelian U or 'Being', but did not take mu
or 'non-being' as the basic principle.  Kant instead
took the position of the Subjective, practical ri of
ri [principle of principle], which regards precisely
the performance of duty for duty's sake as true
freedom."  [ri is the relative and empirical level of
the universal level, whereas Ri is the absolute and
metaphysical level what Kant calls Sollen (Ought).
Aristotle on the absolute and metaphysical level came
up with Being, and Nargarjuna Nothingness (Emptiness)
or in Japanese these are Ri, U, Mu respectively, each
of these are distinct metaphysics]

     What is similar, I think, is that Kant's reason
is moral.  It is even described by Masao Abe as moral
reason, and I quote, "Therefore, Kant's fundamental
principle of the possibility of metaphysics, even if
called the 'principle of principles', was not that of
Mussen (must) i.e., natural necessity, which in
principle establishes the laws of nature in general,
but that of Sollen (Ought), i.e., moral necessity,
which is the foundation of the moral law in general...
Kant moved the problem of morality to the field of the
human will, and thereby established the 'Ought' as the
principle of pure practical reason.  For Kant, reason
is practical in essence; moreover, precisely thereby
it is metaphysical."

     Pirsig and Kant's use of moral is practice and
reason, is a similarity.  Also, "Kant repudiated all
ancient metaphysics since Aristotle as dogmatic..."
(Also Masao)

     Just puttin' more Kant into this thread, as you
wish to discuss Kant, Case.

hope this helped.

woods,
SA

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