aaron
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Post by aaron on May 7, 2019 16:39:04 GMT
I'm reading it right now, and I think Flo might read it soon, so I figure it would be good to have a place to discuss it. I'm sure I will have questions—in fact I already have some, which I may post later.
Alternative thread title: the ergopraxis explains kant
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Post by morallawwithin on May 7, 2019 18:17:35 GMT
Prolly won't read the first critique soon but I plan on reading the PROLEGOMENA this summer! Will post thoughts here.
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aaron
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Post by aaron on May 7, 2019 20:50:43 GMT
Ok, here's a question. In Part 1 of the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant writes:
I suppose that Kant probably has God in mind here, but I want to probe the implications of this a bit. Is Kant countenancing the possibility that there could be other beings who are similarly limited as we are, but for whom the relevant form of experience is different? Or does Kant think that for any limited intelligence, the form of experience will have to be the same as it is for us? (If "form of experience" is an infelicitous phrase here, let me know.)
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Post by ergopraxis on May 7, 2019 22:00:46 GMT
That is exactly what he is thinking. Kant thinks that all thinking subjects, as such thinking subjects, would utilize the same categories of judgment, largely because these are the forms of thought as such, and hence if they didn't utilize them, they wouldn't be thinking beings. But something like this doesn't hold with sensible intuition. An other being could conceivably not subject the content of its experience to the same a priori intuitions (which are the internal intuition of time and the external intuition of space, for us), since those forms of sensibility don't seem to be necessary conditions for any sort of sensible intuition as such. The inverse also holds. So we might find non-rational animals that share the same forms of sensibility, even though they don't have the ability of discursive thought, and hence don't have the categories of judgment to structure their experience into knowledge. The former is an objectionable view, largely because it's unclear how it fits in with the ideality of the a priori intuitions (which might not be discursive, concepts, but they are still not merely psychological elements).
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aaron
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Post by aaron on May 8, 2019 20:33:12 GMT
Thanks, Mr. Praxis, that's very helpful. So, downstream of that, the obvious question: what is the source of these forms of sensibility, especially if they're not supposed to be psychological (or merely psychology; I don't yet know what difference that "merely" is tracking). The person who taught me Kant in college (amusingly, not the person I took a seminar on the first critique from*) was also insistent on this point. But I have to say I find it hard to know what positive view to put in the place of the naïve psychological reading (nor how it would interact with psychology). I take it it'll relate to his version of the primary/secondary quality distinction: time and space should not be understood on analogy to colors, etc., which I presume are merely psychological (there's no issue with birds seeing, and us not seeing, ultraviolet colors).
Another thing I've been wondering about, which I think turns on how the above question gets answered, is what reason Kant would have for thinking the form of sensibility is fixed. Why shouldn't the form of my sensibility change over time? Is it merely contingent that it doesn't?
*said person's main method of teaching the critique was to read key passages back to us and then sort of gesture at them while saying "see?!?"
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aaron
Junior Member
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Post by aaron on May 8, 2019 20:34:25 GMT
Oh, and Flo, definitely feel free to use this thread for Prolegomena thoughts. No reason this thread has to be restricted to just the First Critique.
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Post by morallawwithin on May 9, 2019 5:41:54 GMT
Oh, and Flo, definitely feel free to use this thread for Prolegomena thoughts. No reason this thread has to be restricted to just the First Critique. Neato, plan to start it after I finish Beiser & SR&PM by Churchland!
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