[MD] Kant's Motorcycle

Tue Dec 5 11:47:50 PST 2006

Micah

Don't we assume you exist to write these emails,
yet we have never experienced your presence.
Are you not an unknown although not unknowable
thing in itself?

David M

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Micah" <micah at roarkplumbing.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 5:58 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle

> Case,
>
> The "Noumenal" is an unknowable reality according to Kant. Yet he knows of
> it, how is that? The obvious point is that he is using his senses to deny
> his senses. Kant's stance is the mystical. A mystic creates an unknowable
> alternative reality in order to deny reality, it's usually called 
> religion.
> Kant was trying to rationalize mysticism.
>
> How can we know TITS exist, if they're unknowable?
>
> You seem to think Kant was is some middle ground, when he was merely 
> trying
> to make rationality mystical.
>
> A rock isn't really a rock, that's just our perception, it is really
> unknowable! That's cute! It's TITS! More cute!
>
> A rock is a rock, A is A. Existence exists. Reality is reality.
>
> Kant says reality is not reality.
>
> I understand senses, perceptions and Kant...and so do you.
>
> 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 3:29 PM
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle
>
>
> Micah,
>
> Sure, the noumenal world is the TITs. The things sensed as opposed to our
> sensation OF them. We exist purely in the phenomenal world where our
> sensation of TITs is organized into perceptions. We know only our internal
> world.
>
> The discussion here is about whether TITs exist at all. Kant thought they
> did. I do too. The pragmatists seem to be saying that only experience 
> exists
> and the mystical monists don't seem to think TITs exists either.
>
> But I still think you have sensation and perception confused. You seem to
> use them interchangeably.
>
> 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 2:44 PM
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Kant's Motorcycle
>
> 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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