Metaphysics as an Illegitimate Source of Knowledge

If anyone thinks of metaphysics (in the sense of gaining knowledge of that which is beyond the possibility of all experience) as a legitimate practice, then, I would ask, how can one distinguish it from the human imagination (irregardless of how plausible it may sound)?

Metaphysics, again as I understand it, proposes criteria for discerning 'impossible worlds' (i.e. ways actuality necessarily cannot be) from 'possible worlds' (i.e. ways actuality can be) - btw, I'm an actualist, not a possibilist - thereby concerning the most general states of affairs; unlike the sciences, which consist of testing models of how possible transformations of specific, physical (class, or domain, of) states of affairs from one to another (can be made to) happen, and thus is explanatory (even if only approximative, probabilistic), metaphysics explains only concepts abstracted from, and therefore useful for categorizing, (experience of(?)) 'how things are', and does not explain any facts of the matter. Metaphysics is not theoretical.

There’s more to metaphysics than just imagination it also includes reasoning not based upon experience but using deduction thereof such as found in math. It also includes tautologies which again are aspects of reason.

Consequently, there is no means of performing standard, traditional ontology nor investigations into the world as it is in-itself.

There’s more to metaphysics than just imagination it also includes reasoning not based upon experience but using deduction thereof such as found in math

You might like this quote by Kant as to what metaphysics is from his Critique of Pure reason preface.

People have lots of ideas about what "metaphysics" is. Our discussions of the subject are always tangled up in disagreements about the meaning of the word. Your definition is certainly not what I mean when I talk about metaphysics. More importantly, I don't think it's consistent with what most other people think it is either.

metaphysics explains only concepts abstracted from, and therefore useful for categorizing, (experience of(?)) 'how things are', and does not explain any facts of the matter. Metaphysics is not theoretical.

Metaphysics also exposes the error in our thinking. So, while that does not count as "knowledge", it makes us examine, or even discover, how we think ordinarily about reality, or the carelessness of how we think, or what we take for granted as true.

Presently, science is trying to explain consciousness with the ontological assumption that materialism/physicalism is the case. If, in ten thousand years, that scientific project still has not given a definitive answer to the hard problem/mind-body problem, wouldn't that be strong evidence that materialism/physicalism is not true?

You are basically saying, and correct me if I am wrong, that metaphysics doesn't actually get at ontology (like Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, etc. thought): instead, it just is a useful model for experience.

Metaphysics is not theoretical.

…..how can one distinguish (metaphysics) from the human imagination….

Metaphysics is a discipline; imagination is a faculty.

1. Reasoning based upon experience to make claims about something beyond experience, as opposed to merely creating a predictive model for experience, is indistinguishable from human imagination; because that claim is not grounded in experience. It is all fine and well to claim that I should expect things within experience to behave like X, but to posit that about things beyond experience is completely devoid of empirical content

2. Math and logic are grounded in empirical arguments. We can introspectively analyze how we reason to construct them both, and, in the case of math, test to see how well they relate to the world outside of us.

There’s more to metaphysics than just imagination it also includes reasoning not based upon experience but using deduction thereof such as found in math. It also includes tautologies which again are aspects of reason

Metaphysics also exposes the error in our thinking. So, while that does not count as "knowledge", it makes us examine, or even discover, how we think ordinarily about reality, or the carelessness of how we think, or what we take for granted as true.

In the sense that I defined it in the OP, I don't think we need metaphysics to expose errors in our reasoning: we can do so without making ontological claims

Metaphysics grounds an age, in that through a specific interpretation of what is and through a specific comprehension of truth it gives to that age the basis upon which it is essentially formed. This basis holds complete dominion over all the phenomena that distinguish the age. Conversely, in order that there may be an adequate reflection upon these phenomena themselves, the metaphysical basis for them must let itself be apprehended.

I was under impression that metaphysics has remained unchanged since the days of Aristotle whose work did not really gain traction until the age of Reason or Enlightenment beginning in the 17th century where Kant, Liebniz and others built upon it ?

metaphysics explains only concepts (….) and does not explain any facts of the matter.

I have no problem with this, since it isn't metaphysics in the more traditional sense

I am using the traditional term going back to leibniz, Kant, etc.

What say you?

What do you mean by it then?

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality. This includes the first principles of: being or existence, identity, change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity, actuality, and possibility.

metaphysics is, in fact, indistinguishable from human imagination

And I think we can say that part of General Relativity is important for metaphysics. We shouldn't have a metaphysics that says modern physics is wrong. It would be a bad system, imo.

Metaphysics grounds an age, in that through a specific interpretation of what is and through a specific comprehension of truth it gives to that age the basis upon which it is essentially formed. This basis holds complete dominion over all the phenomena that distinguish the age. Conversely, in order that there may be an adequate reflection upon these phenomena themselves, the metaphysical basis for them must let itself be apprehended.

Either we hold onto some kind of metaphysics or we do not. If we deny that metaphysics is legitimate, then we are left with the view that all there is, is sense data, for us.

A metaphysics is not a piece of evidence or a collection of facts to be compared against scientific claims. It’s the meta-framework within which scientific claims, facts and evidence are intelligible. Change the metaphysics and we don’t ‘disprove’ a science’s facts, we change their sense and relevance.

I replied in that manner to avoid someone asking "what do you mean by metaphysics?", if I say that sense-data is what remains if you deny metaphysics, then they know I'm talking about the world.

In the sense that I defined it in the OP, I don't think we need metaphysics to expose errors in our reasoning: we can do so without making ontological claims.

If anyone thinks of metaphysics (in the sense of gaining knowledge of that which is beyond the possibility of all experience) as a legitimate practice, then, I would ask, how can one distinguish it from the human imagination (irregardless of how plausible it may sound)?

What say you?

Overall I think it's a mistake to dismiss metaphysics.

This is neither a charitable nor close reading of what I actually wrote, Bob

Translation: Physics (Aristotle et al), not metaphysics, "is a useful model of experience" (i.e. physical reality, or publicly intelligible aspect of the real, aka "nature"). Metaphysics consists in categorical criteria for making hypothetical, or "useful models..."

Maybe that's clearer?

Metaphysics is a discipline; imagination is a faculty.

Even if one chooses to deny to imagination the denomination of faculty, metaphysics is still a discipline, and in which case, the distinction remains that imagination is not.

Yes I agree with you, metaphysics in its nature is not always concerned with producing knowledge but it’s more of a method of thinking and reasoning . You can leave that to science which employs metaphysical methods and theories to yield knowledge such as testable theories that behave as expected in the real world so it’s a fore runner to the scientific method.

Take this tautology: All bachelors are unmarried men. Now you don’t need to go around and check if this is true as this is self evident and knowledge of its truth is produced in the sentence itself.

Metaphysics is a purely speculative and knowledge is a by product of its enquiry rather than its ultimate aim as it makes no claims of knowledge therefore it remains purely theoretical and abstract.

I think it was Einstein who said “imagination is more important than knowledge” and it seems to me quantum theory is ripe for metaphysical speculations of how things at the subatomic scale don’t behave as expected according to ordinary experience.

I made a thread specifically related to this question with posters positing that math precedes the physical empirical universe but that there are correlation between the two either by accident or design:

We wouldn’t be able to distinguish truth from error in the first place if we didn’t have a pre-existing system of criteria ( theory) on the basis of which to make such determinations. Theory is a manifestation of a metaphysical viewpoint

The profoundly creative work of science consists not in exposing errors in reasoning but in changing the subject, turning the frame on its head, redefining the criteria of truth and error, not just checking our answers to old questions but asking different questions

If the watershed for the traditional sense of metaphysics is Kant and Enlightenment philosophy in general, and metaphysics in such traditional sense has only to do with conceptions, it follows that to combine metaphysics with, juxtaposition it to, or ground it in, imagination, is very far from the traditional sense.

First, concerning the sources of metaphysical cognition, it already lies in the concept of metaphysics that they cannot be empirical. The principlesb of such cognition (which include not only its fundamental propositionsc or basic principles, but also its fundamental concepts) must therefore never be taken from experience; for the cognition is supposed to be not physical but metaphysical, i.e., lying beyond experience. Therefore it will be based upon neither outer experience, which constitutes the source of physics proper, nor inner, which provides the foundation of empirical psychology

I completely agree with you.

I'll just provide a conventional definition:
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality. This includes the first principles of: being or existence, identity, change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity, actuality, and possibility. — Wikipedia - Metphysics

That is not at all the same as:
metaphysics is, in fact, indistinguishable from human imagination

Either we hold onto some kind of metaphysics or we do not. If we deny that metaphysics is legitimate, then we are left with the view that all there is, is sense data, for us.

All the traditional topics of metaphysics, materialism, the self, dualism, free will, things-in-themselves, the nature of objects and so on, would be impossible to formulate absent imagination.

We shouldn't have a metaphysics that says modern physics is wrong

There is no other task that makes us think in a way that does not involve memorization of equation, procedure, or statistics than metaphysics. Philosophical discussions is natural to humans.

This sounds very Kantian.

'Philosophy', Etienne Gilson remarked 'generally buries its undertakers'. Also applies to metaphysics.

In it the nature of 'the knowledge of what is' that is the major subject. The nature of what truly is, which is not subject to change and decay, the imperishable.

Isn't this a metaphysical question? The Metaphysicians have been asking and investigating on the nature of Metaphysics and its legitimacy of the claims. One of the point of CPR by Kant was to find out, "How Metaphysics is possible as a Science."

Another question one could ask is whether metaphysics is necessary at all and if so why ? I would answer in the positive for the reasons that it’s the father of the scientific method not only in its rationality and application of reason to the real world but hypothetical scenarios which if it’s able to contemplate with rigour, robustness and clarity than it’s results could not be wrong from a hypothetical standpoint. The upshot of this is just like math can correspond to reality so can metaphysics without having to invoke experience.

If the results of experience or observation match the results of metaphysical speculation can we not say that metaphysics has succeeded in this regard?

In modern science especially quantum physics the lines between metaphysics and physics have become blurrier and blurrier so it’s fair to ask who will get us out of this muddle, physics proper with its application of empiricism which finds it is limited when explaining physical phenomena at the quantum level or metaphysics? Or perhaps a combination of both?

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like you are saying ‘metaphysics’ is the over-arching means of determining ‘physics’ ...

Not at all: it just means all of our knowledge is contrained by the possible forms of experience. Saying we have sense-data is a part of the contemporary model that is useful for navigating experience.

I am arguing it is illegitimate because it is purely imaginative: there is not an ounce of empirical content tied to it.

I wouldn’t say that modern physics is wrong, I would say that the metaphysical claims, which is separate but usually conjoined with the science, should be interpreted as models for the possibility of experience and not actual claims about the world in-itself.

Depending on how you define it, yes. In the sense I defined it in the OP, no.

I think, for him, pure reason is quite different from imagination. For me, not so much.

True, but this is not a conventional definition in philosophy: it is an adequate colloquial rundown.

Absolutely sense-data or sensations or however you want to call it, is fundamental to any metaphysics.

I think you’re right insofar as metaphysics is an exercise in imagination and intuition. But I also think metaphysical inquiry can help other forms of inquiry by eliminating the inpossible from our questioning, serving to constrain the scope of empirical studies to a reasonable domain of inquiry, and tempering the mind for such a task.

I think you’re right insofar as metaphysics is an exercise in imagination and intuition. But I also think metaphysical inquiry can help other forms of inquiry by eliminating the inpossible from our questioning, serving to constrain the scope of empirical studies to a reasonable domain of inquiry, and tempering the mind for such a task.

Hume's talk of the self, or Locke's talk about personhood, or Leibniz discussing innate ideas, these things pertain more to the way we think about the world, than the world itself.

Cudworth, the most elaborate and fierce innatist of the 17th century, even more than Descartes and Leibniz is correct on the role of the senses:

They provide the occasion of experience within which innate ideas are able to arise. If we don't get experience, ideas won't develop.

I think (@Mww might confirm)…..that it was a pragmatic moral necessity to assume a transcendent moral order, even if it could not be proven by reason alone.

Metaphysics is indistinguishable from the human imagination because it claims knowledge of that which is beyond the possible forms of experience (namely, space and time) which can never be empirically grounded. However, it is perfectly possible to limit traditional metaphysical claims to the possibility of experience, such that we only attempt to provide a map of what to experience--but this is no longer metaphysics: instead, it is pragmatic modelling of possible experience.

If one takes away the possible forms of their experience and we do not accept claims indistinguishable from the imagination (no matter how plausible), then there is nothing intelligible left: there is nothing to be said about the world in-itself.

If one takes away the possible forms of their experience and we do not accept claims indistinguishable from the imagination (no matter how plausible), then there is nothing intelligible left: there is nothing to be said about the world in-itself.
— Bob Ross

Again, correct. We can only know of the world in-itself through logical limitations and consequences. Namely, some "thing" must be there. But beyond that, everything is a model we create that attempts to represent what is there...

Making sense of “what is there” seems to me paramount, and not entirely fruitless.

We can only know of the world in-itself through logical limitations and consequences. Namely, some "thing" must be there. But beyond that, everything is a model we create that attempts to represent what is there. Knowledge is the the logical application of our representations for our best chance at matching to the consequences of its existence. But such an existence can only be known as the representations we hold, as we only know how the thing in-itself impacts the world, not what it truly is to exist as itself unobserved

No, definitely not. By analogy, for instance, the rules – generalizations abstracted from design (logical) space – for valid moves in chess (e.g. metaphysics) are not "over-arching means of determining" winning strategies for playing chess (e.g. physical theories).

Constrained in relation to what?

Also, experience of what?

Absolutely sense-data or sensations or however you want to call it, is fundamental to any metaphysics.

I think the minimum requirement of agreement should be, that metaphysics is about the world.

Someone who calls themselves a materialist or an idealist use evidence all the time, they'll say that, for example, the collapse of wave function counts as evidence for idealism, or they'll say that the progress of neuroscientific evidence proves materialism is correct.

So, you'd have to specify a bit, what you mean by not having an ounce of empirical data. As I see it, experience must count as empirical content, otherwise we are using the word "empirical" to mean, "publicly observable", these are not the same thing.

Sounds as if some kind of model-centric version would count as part of metaphysics for you. Because saying "model of possible experience" without specifying what this relates to, doesn't amount to much, so far as I can see.

I have nothing to define, but would you not agree that the OP's claim sounds like Metaphysical itself?

"X is unknowable." is also a Metaphysical comment.

Because if it were Science, they will make up some hypothesis on the object they want to find out.

For me, metaphysics it's the most important part of philosophy. My objection to your OP is that you attempt to discredit metaphysics using a definition that I, and most philosophers, don't believe is correct.

I've noted before I generally do not use philosophical terms such as 'metaphysics' in discussions, because as you can see from the many replies, no one can agree what they actually mean.

We can only know of the world in-itself through logical limitations and consequences. Namely, some "thing" must be there

If you recall the idea of "discrete experience", we part and parcel reality as we wish within our own minds. I can view a field of grass, a blade of grass, or a piece of grass. I do not even need to call it "grass". It is the applications of these identities in practice which determine their usefulness in representing how a thing in-itself impacts the world in a way that is not-contradicted by its existence.

Just wanted to chime in at how I thought this was a really great post!

On my end, I am using the definition used in the Kantian tradition, as well as Leibniz and many before him.

If you have a different definition, then let’s hear it: I am more than happy to entertain other definitions.

I'm not a Kant scholar, but I've read "Critique of Pure Reason." I don't remember it saying anything like "metaphysics is, in fact, indistinguishable from human imagination." I doubt that it did and I doubt that Kant thought it. I can't speak to Leibnitz, but I would be surprised if he felt that way.

Constrained by our possible forms of experience: space and time. Just because I experience the outer world in space and time, it does not follow that they exist in the outer world itself; nor that anything I derive from my experience, which is conditioned by them, pertains to anything beyond it. Instead, it only holds valid insofar as it references a possible experience from a being which has a similar ‘type’ of experience as myself.

I agree, if by ‘about the world’ you take it to mean that one is deriving what the world fundamentally is in-itself: knowledge of the absolute, the whole, the totality of existence, that which transcends you, ontology, etc.

So, in other words, the ontological claims get stripped out, and what is left is the claim that we have reasons to consider the world that we experience as idealistic or physicalist (or what not) and not that the world in-itself actually is any of those.

I guess I am not entirely following: the model relates to possible experience. Metaphysics, as the study of what which is beyond the possibility of experience, is ontological in nature. For me, a model is not an ontology: the former is a map for navigation, which may or may not be accurate to the territory, and the latter is a theory of what the territory is.

Would you say, then, that metaphysics is informed by physics, and never vice-versa?

... for how could an abstraction from experience necessarily pertain to that which is beyond it?

How do people arrive at metaphysical conjectures if not via imagining them?

Metaphysics is rational, at best, and itself is never theoretical (i.e. explanatory of nature). E.g. 'interpretations' of QM are metaphysical (re: ontology), not epistemological (i.e. predictive, or conclusive)³ – in Aristotlean terms they 'come after (i.e. categorical generalizations from, or (as per Collingwood) absolute presuppositions of)¹ the physics'. This is why Spinoza's scientia intuitiva¹ follows from common ideas³ which in turn follow from imaginary (inadequate) ideas² (the latter two e.g. as per Peirce/Dewey). Of course, there are other 'interpretations of metaphysics' but I find them less rational (i.e. unsound, anachronistic)² or irrational (i.e. invalid, faith-based / idealist / subjectivist).

I'm not a Kant scholar, but I've read "Critique of Pure Reason." I don't remember it saying anything like "metaphysics is, in fact, indistinguishable from human imagination." I doubt that it did and I doubt that Kant thought it. I can't speak to Leibnitz, but I would be surprised if he felt that way.

First, concerning the sources of metaphysical cognition, it already lies in the concept of metaphysics that they cannot be empirical. The principlesb of such cognition (which include not only its fundamental propositionsc or basic principles, but also its fundamental concepts) must therefore never be taken from experience; for the cognition is supposed to be not physical but metaphysical, i.e., lying beyond experience. Therefore it will be based upon neither outer experience, which constitutes the source of physics proper, nor inner, which provides the foundation of empirical psychology

The same way they do any other ideas - thinking, using intuition, or reasoning.

Kant:Space is not an empirical concept which has been derived from outer experiences. For in order that certain sensations be referred to something outside me (that is, to something in another region of space from that in which I find myself), and similarly in order that I may be able to represent them as outside and alongside one another, and accordingly as not only different but as in different places, the representation of space must already underlie them [dazu muß die Vorstellung des Raumes schon zum Grunde liegen]. Therefore, the representation of space cannot be obtained through experience from the relations of outer appearance; this outer experience is itself possible at all only through that representation...

...Space is a necessary a priori representation that underlies all outer intuitions. One can never forge a representation of the absence of space, though one can quite well think that no things are to be met within it. It must therefore be regarded as the condition of the possibility of appearances, and not as a determination dependent upon them, and it is an a priori representation that necessarily underlies outer appearances.

This is my fault, as I have been using the “world in-itself” terminology to refer to whatever exists beyond one’s experience, but I actually distinguish the “world in-itself” from “the absolute”: the former is actually a product of the model wherein organisms are thought to represent the world, and the latter is whatever exists completely sans anything we gain from our experience.

The subtle difference, and contention I would have with your above quote, is that we cannot know, independently of evidence gathered from our experience (which is constrained by our possible forms of experience), that we represent objects in a space and time that transcends us: takeaway the forms of our experience (namely space and time that doesn’t transcend us) and it equally unintelligible that there is some “thing” out there. In other words, some “thing” being out there is a part of a model itself as well.

To build off of this, I would say that our “discrete experience” of the objects, such as blades of grass, says nothing about what may exist in the world which transcends our possible forms: not even that there is a blade of grass—irregardless of what we label it.

“Logical”, “model”, “representation”. I just want to point out that these concepts get their sense from to a particular sort of metaphysical foundation. If we shifted to a different metaphysics,

Why only, "through logical limitations and consequences"? Could you elaborate?

I'd be more inclined to say, that we can only know the world through our nature, and the nature of other people, including the imaginitive thinking of our intellectual ancestors who managed to point the way towards having a more accurate view of nature, and... and... and...

Is that contradictory?

They can be useful words, but in philosophical conversation in which we are trying to come to an objective solution to a problem, these words have so much cultural subjectivity loaded into them that their meaning become debates within a debate… When having a discussion that needs clarity, we should remove such words where possible to focus on the true issue we wish to discuss.

What about words like worldview, cultural subjectivity, formulation of problems, perspective, frame of reference, bias, set of presuppositions, paradigm?

Astronomical and physics based evidence suggests otherwise, if you take these sciences seriously, you have to seriously consider that the external world exists.

Not to mention archeological evidence

Yes, all these sciences are constrained by our modes of cognition, but when our cognition coincides with aspects of the external world, we get a science.

If that's not enough, or if you think this is not firm enough foundation, then, the only sense which I think cannot be "thought away", is solidity or impenetrability. Everything else is could be modified.

So either we assert, full stop, that we cannot know anything about the external world, or we say that some aspects we can tease out, most of them we cannot.

But we have to be somewhat realistic, we cannot attain the kind of certainty you are looking for, that is, one that defeats skepticism about these topics.

But then by definition, we cannot say what metaphysics is, because it is beyond all possible experience.

My point was simple, we have a model, which we use to navigate the world as is given to us. If there was no world, we wouldn't need a model.

Inferences with "beyond" premises (e.g. magic, myths, ideals), whether or not they are valid, cannot be sound. Metaphysics is rational, at best, and itself is never theoretical (i.e. explanatory of nature)

He says similar things about time. Is it your position that space and time are illegitimate concepts?

I am not sure if the OP's definition on Metaphysics is formally accepted by the public and academics. Metaphysics doesn't use imagination and conjectures all the time as its investigative methods.

For instance, Kant's Metaphysics arrives at its conclusions via rigorous logical arguments.

and it asks and investigates the topics these subjects cannot deal with or ask, such as the "why" questions.

If you start trying to wrap your head around the emergence of physical properties as the manifestation of pointer states in the process of the decoherence of quantum superposition from the web of entanglement it is hard not to think that you're thinking in metaphysical terms.

Can you please define what you mean by ‘metaphysics’?

Because, to me, metaphysics is ‘“beyond” premises’

My definition of metaphysics is that is the study of that which is beyond the possibility of experience, and not that it is a process of using the imagination. For most metaphysicians, they use principles like parsimony, explanatory power, internal/external coherence, (logical) consistency, intuitions, etc. to determine metaphysical theories.

Logic devoid of empirically verified content is indistinguishable from the imagination. I can make a logically consistent argument for the world being comprised of one giant cookie monster.

Of course, it attempts to answer questions we humans want to answer, but there is a reason we can’t legitimately: there is no way to ground it in reality, since all we have of reality is our experience of it and the questions metaphysics tries to answer (as a matter of ontology) is beyond that experience.

For instance, Kant's Metaphysics arrives at its conclusions via rigorous logical arguments. Aristotle's Metaphysics analyses the abstract concepts and universals again via logic. I don't see any imagination there at all.

Logic supplies no content; it consists in procedural rules.

Kant's philosophy is the product of logically constrained imagination; that is it consists in imagining the entailments of some basic premises in a logically rigorous, i.e. coherent and consistent, way.

But the point is that it doesn't tell the whole story. Rather, it raises a whole host of questions about the relationships between "properties" and events, and why some configurations are "preferred" by the universe versus others

Science is one colour on the palette. Metaphysics is about the palette, and the picture, and the painter, and the model.

In those cases, science uses hypotheses which are imagination in nature.

If you are only relying on the observable and verifiable objects only, you would have very little to work with.

For instance most of the astronomical objects are unreachable from earth. They are only viewable by telescope from a far distance.

In this case, their studies and investigations are metaphysical rather than scientific

Where empirically verified content is devoid, Logic uses inference for coming to their conclusions which is one of the main empirical scientific methods.

Could you please clarify which logic you mean here? There are vast many different types of Logic.

Deductive Logic
Inductive Logic
Predicate Logic
Philosophical Logic
Modal Logic
Non-Classical Logic
Dialectic Logic

Of course, it attempts to answer questions we humans want to answer, but there is a reason we can’t legitimately: there is no way to ground it in reality, since all we have of reality is our experience of it and the questions metaphysics tries to answer (as a matter of ontology) is beyond that experience. — Bob Ross

I don't understand this point here. Could you please elaborate in detail with some examples please? Thanks.

I never said the external world doesn’t exist; and astronomy and physics produce models of reality based off of predicting our experience (i.e., empirical evidence) and thusly are only valid insofar as they reference experience, which is conditioned by our forms thereof.

All of archeological discoveries are conditioned, epistemically, by our possible forms of knowledge (namely space and time): if not, then please provide me with any empirical evidence you have of any archeology whatsoever which is not derived nor contingent at all on human (or animal) experience.

I disagree. When our cognition can be predicted, we have science. Whether or not one wants to imagine that that predictability suggests a correspondence to reality (beyond our cognition) is another matter.

If you think I am wrong, then I would challenge you to either (1) provide a means of providing empirical evidence for a claim which pertains to that which is beyond our experience or (2) provide justification for how we can know that our experience is accurate to the external world (of which is not appealing to models of reality which are determined by predicting our experience: which, naturally, are conditioned by our experience).

But a model doesn’t really make claims about things beyond possible experience: it just says, hey, look, we can predict stuff in experience if we treat stuff like they are this, so, until we come up with a more predictive model, let’s use that to navigate experience. It doesn’t say: this is actually how the world in-itself is.

Could you please clarify which logic you mean here? There are vast many different types of Logic.

Could you please elaborate your points with the relevant quotes from Kant's CPR or any of his own writings?

I have no problem with the imagination being used to try to sort of something empirical—it is when we going beyond the empirical that gets sketchy to me.

Every valid aspect of science is a prediction about something which could be possibly experienced. Metaphysics is about that which, in principle, can never be.

Viewing it from a telescope is a form of experiencing it. How do you ‘view’ whether the world is actually made of a physical or mental substance? Or that there actually are Universals, or just particulars?

Positing hypotheses to try to predict objects within possible experience is not metaphysics.

All of these (except maybe ‘dialectic logic’, depending on what you mean there) share that pertain to the form of argumentation and not the content.

Of course! Metaphysics, in the sense that I defined it in the OP, is about ontological things; that is, about that which is beyond the possibility of experience (e.g., Universals vs. particulars, nature of time, nature of space, substances, etc.). Now, all we can ever know empirically is from our experience, so the best we can ever do in terms of explaining the ‘nature’ of things is what is conditioned, right off the bat, by our possible forms of experience (and, not to mention, our means of cognizing the world) (namely space and time) and thusly are only valid constrained to them. Take away your forms of experience, and everyone else’s, and what is intelligible left (with any metaphysical claim you can think of)? Absolutely nothing.

None of them provide any content.

t is a characterization of Kant's philosophy that applies to synthetic philosophies in general. Wherever there is creativity, it is a product of the imagination.

My definition of metaphysics is that is the study of that which is beyond the possibility of experience,

What say you?

Kant, as can be seen in your quote of CPR, was making most of his arguments from the model that we represent the world;

Instead, it just notes that we ‘experience’ with two possible forms: space and time. Whether, in our model of reality, we attribute those forms to our representative faculties is irrelevant.

I would go for a more Kantian view that space and time do not pertain to the world as it is in-itself: there’s no noumenal space and time.

Can you please define what you mean by ‘metaphysics’?

For example, I define it as "the study of that which is beyond the possibility of experience".

IME, metaphysics has always been the reflective study of the most general prerequisites (i.e. ontology) for rationally making sense – interpreting the paradigm changes, research programs & provisional results – of physics (i.e. the counter-intuitive, defeasible study of nature (i.e. ontics)).

Here is a paper by Kit Fine on the topic, "What is Metaphysics?"

“…the elements of meta­physics are those of penultimate generality, next in generality to the logical elements. Thus anything more general than a metaphysical element will
be logical and anything less general will be neither metaphysical nor logi­cal. If we were to think of logic as relating to the structure of thought and of metaphysics as relating to the structure of reality, then logic would provide us with the most general traits of thought and metaphysics with the most general traits of reality.”

t is a characterization of Kant's philosophy that applies to synthetic philosophies in general. Wherever there is creativity, it is a product of the imagination.
— Janus

I would appreciate the direct quotes from Kant's own books supporting your points. Thanks.

The existence of computers based on logical operations says nothing about content. Various logics are formalizations of the rules that are understood to govern thinking; consistency, non-contradiction and so on, and do not themselves mandate any particular view about anything.

I haven't claimed Kant said that—I am saying it, so your request for supporting quotes from Kant is not relevant.

Yes, models of reality - not models of models

if on the right track, tell us something about the way the world works absent us. Yes, experience tells us this, yes models are not reality, but they refer to it, not to a model.

Correct. But I ask you, is there any other way to get any knowledge at all about anything, that's not through a particular experience, related to the relevant creature? Knowledge is relational.

But you are limiting the historical scope of metaphysics only to things-in-themselves, not even Kant did this. He spoke about morals and religion as aspects of metaphysics.

And even Kant had things to say about things-in-themselves, that they are non-relational, and that they ground the objects of experience.

Finally, we should recognize, that appearances are part of empirical reality.

I do not know why you insist on using this as the benchmark for metaphysics.

The way you are defining external world precludes evidence which shows that there are things absent us. Like planets or the stars...Unless you say that because all we have is a model, this model doesn't get to things in themselves, ergo planets and stars are not external to us.

I agree we possibly can't have knowledge of things in themselves, but I don't restrict metaphysics or reality to these terms - I don't see a good reason for doing so.

I mean, are we going to ask a model for it to predict something which is beyond all possible experience? That's incoherent.

But then, why is there any reason to believe that a more predictive model will tell us about things beyond all possible experience? We are still stuck in the same cage you set up.

Can you trust all your empirical perception and observation? Are the data you gathered via your senses 100% error free?

I doubt so called valid scientific knowledge in that nature would be much use.

The knowledge derived from the visual experience via telescope from millions of miles away from the astral objects without any kind of direct contact is nothing more than imaginary conjectures and inferences

Metaphysics can deal with any objects and methodology if they are related to their topics, and also as part of their investigations.

The whole Marxist movement and running of the countries has been based on the Dialectic Logic. And All those logic listed above are used in many different sciences and technologies for applications to real life situations and device designs.

Many of the concepts such as Time, Space, Substance are also studied by Physics, Chemistry and QM too. You are not just discarding metaphysics, but totally discarding also the general Science as well.

How do you know something is beyond possibility of experience, if you had not experienced it at all?

If something is truly beyond possibility of experience, then you wouldn't even be able to mention it, because you have never experienced it, and your stance is that whatever beyond possibility of your experience is unknowable?

Therefore it couldn't possibly be your criteria for declaring it is metaphysics

I am not sure what you mean by experience too.  Does it mean visible and audible and touchable objects only?  Things that we talk about, fantasize, and even imagine, should they not also be mental experience in nature?

The nature of experience is that it expands with knowledge. Compare the experience of the human, versus that of the single-celled creatures from which we sprang. Consider the experience of a symphony by a trained musician versus someone with no musical knowledge. Thomas Nagel stresses the point that our tools for comprehending reality are limited, but those limits are constantly evolving.

You say "modeling," I say "ontology."

To "define ... that which is beyond" seems patent nonsense to me.

Also, "the possibility of experience" amounts to an anthropic / subjectivity-bias (contra Copernicus' mediocity principle & Peirce's fallibilism). Typical idealism.

IME, metaphysics has always been the reflective study of the most general prerequisites (i.e. ontology) for rationally making sense – interpreting the paradigm changes, research programs & provisional results – of physics (i.e. the counter-intuitive, defeasible study of nature (i.e. ontics)).

In other words, metaphysics describes what also must be the case and not be the case in order for 'whatever we think can or cannot be the case'

Study nature; then reflect on 'what makes it possible to study nature' (not merely to have 'subjective experiences') – Aristotle surpasses his teacher Plato here – this is metaphysics, or where ("first") philosophizing begins ("in wonder").

The various branches of Logic has been used for the real life technology applications by adding the contents into the formulas for a long time. I suppose they are the knowledge for the specialists.

Fine’s paper is an illustration of the divide between Analytic and contemporary Continental ways of thinking about metaphysics.

By contrast, for contemporary Continentalists of various stripes, logic is not more general than metaphysics, it is the contingent product of a certain era of metaphysics.

That's fair. I distinguish the two to separate two mindsets: the former being just one who wants to be able to predict experience, and the other thinks they are actually getting at knowledge of the world in-itself.

Fine’s paper is an illustration of the divide between Analytic and contemporary Continental ways of thinking about metaphysics.
— Joshs

I don’t think this is plausible, and largely because Fine’s construal of metaphysics is the classical construal, stretching back thousands of years. It predates the curious dichotomy between the analytic and continental schools.

You seem to be defining logic differently than Fine does. You seem to have in mind particular logics or particular epochs in logic. Fine is thinking of logic as that which pertains to the structure of thought itself

I am not saying that philosophy is an illegitimate practice.

No I cannot. The model which I have of experience is that I represent the world, and those representations are imperfect.

I think all scientific knowledge, absent metaphysical claims, are perfectly compatible with my view. For example, I should expect that my body is made of cells (as this has been empirically verified plenty enough), but takeaway my possible forms of experience, and the possible forms of other people’s experience (which is similar to my own), and it is not clear at all that we have any reason to believe there are cells at all, let alone bodies, let alone space and time, etc.

I don’t think they just use pure imagination to determine stars, they use empirical evidence and hypothesized predictions.

Could you please define what you mean by “metaphysics”?

I didn’t follow the relevance of this part: could you please elaborate? My point was that logic pertains to the form of an argument (of reasoning): not the content. There is no such thing as a valid theory of logic that provides its own content as well as the form of that content.

So metaphysics is the long history of people thinking about such things which go beyond empirical reality; and so I can easily define it that way without knowing anything (in truth) about that which is beyond experience.

I would say ‘experience’ is that first-person immediate knowledge that one has, which includes their mental life, such as things which only are immediately apprehended in time (as opposed to space).

such as things which only are immediately apprehended in time (as opposed to space).

The contents themselves are not the stuff of logic. but are merely set out in accordance with its strictures.

And again, regarding my saying that all synthetic philosophy is a creative exercise of the speculative imagination, that was not meant to apply exclusively to Kant, so asking for quotes from Kant is not appropriate.

I would say it is a model of experience--not necessarily reality. It is empirically ungrounded, I would say, to claim that our experience gives us any sort of accuracy into reality (unless by ‘reality’ you just mean the human conception of it).

On what grounds can your models of reality (or, more accurately, of experience) be said to tell us about something beyond that experience (i.e., ‘absent of you’)? I cannot know that the world has the chair of which I am sitting on right now nor that it persists in that world when no one is experiencing it—but I can say that one should expect, all else being equal, to experience it in the same manner next time.

I would say that the ‘world in-itself’ as whatever is strictly beyond our experience is the ‘absolute’ and the ‘world in-itself’ within the model that we represent the world is one which would have to have certain properties (presupposed by the model itself)(such as causality, they “impact” us in some way, etc.).

I am not intending to say that metaphysics is solely the study of things-in-themselves: I am merely noting that it is impossible to know them (other than what is presupposed by the model that we represent them) and that we know nothing of the absolute.

However, we have no clue if there are stars and planets, let alone our own bodies, let alone space and time, beyond what is conditioned by our experience. You know what I mean?

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like modeling our experience is a part of metaphysics for you; which just means we are semantically disagreeing (which is fine).

Exactly. So why think that when it does predict something within experience that it would ever verify something that is beyond it? Which I think you anticipated my response here with:

In that case, your models are not much different from imaginations either. Because you are rejecting metaphysics under the ground of the imperfect knowledge which is beyond your experiences, which you think as imagination.

Yes. Well put.

Philosophical statements are not propositions about the world

You unwarrantedly assume that such an inquiry attempts to determine 'how things are' and then criticize it for failing to do so

And your 'antirealist' (mis)conception of science is inadequate as well insofar as natural sciences consist in models of phenomena, which are not remotely what you keep calling "models of experience" (e.g. Neo-kantian "symbolic forms")

In that case, your models are not much different from imaginations either

Because you are rejecting metaphysics under the ground of the imperfect knowledge which is beyond your experiences,

Your body is made of cells? I am not sure if it is a scientific knowledge

Just because you have empirically verified knowledge doesn't mean it is scientific knowledge.

But it seems clear that your limiting the scope of knowledge to what you can only observe and verify, and it narrows and limits the depth and amount of knowledge you could ge

Because you would reject any more complicated and deeper knowledge under the excuse of not observable, non verifiable metaphysical knowledge

I never said they are pure imaginations. They are conjectures and imagination in nature.

I will not go into the definition of Metaphysics because you can find them on the internet.

Metaphysics is about Ontology just like Fine said in his writing. It is conceptualised ontology. For instance, I can ask, discuss or investigate anything about any object as a metaphysical object without having to be concerned with the ins and outs of Biology or Physics or Ethics or a person .... because they are all Beings. In other words, they are Things. (Read Heidegger, What is a Thing?") When an object is viewed as a Being or a Thing, I can ask anything - the meanings, functions, origins, types... and why and how without having to use laboratory instruments

Your comments on Logic seem to be limited to the classic and symbolic logic. The formulas in different types of logic are replaced with the variables and contents for them to be the main operating logic in the microprocessor of devices or political movements.

Again, I feel you are limiting and restricting on what metaphysics do in terms of going beyond the reality. The vast area of Philosophy of Mind, Language, Logic, Ethics are metaphysical in nature. It is the nature of questions they ask, and the methods it uses which is different from the other subjects, and it deals with all things existing in the universe.

For you using the term, and accepting the fact that you have your own "mental life" proves you are using a Metaphysical concept. Because your mental life is an entity that is beyond possibility of experience by another person, from the rest of the population in the universe points of view it is a Metaphysical entity

Another example of the metaphysical concepts, that you seem to accept as the reality is Time and Space.

If you have science in mind, then I do think you have a model of reality, as close as we can get to it. Sure, it is the human conception, there being no other we can access, unless we do so indirectly. It seems we disagree on what science describes.

By definition, there is not chair absent us, a planet or an atom is a different thing, something we postulate which belongs in the external world.

I would say that the ‘world in-itself’ as whatever is strictly beyond our experience is the ‘absolute’ and the ‘world in-itself’ within the model that we represent the world is one which would have to have certain properties (presupposed by the model itself)(such as causality, they “impact” us in some way, etc.). — Bob Ross

I don't follow your argument here.

Then this is quite different from the title of the OP, because you say you have in mind metaphysics in the sense of beyond all possible experience

I would add then, that physics in this sense, is metaphysics, because it postulates things that, though discovered through experience, do not depend on experience for existence.

I think I follow, but there is more evidence to consider than what reaches consciousness. What reaches experience is but a small portion of everything there is. We don't experience photons - in the sense in which we are aware of them working in us - nor do we experience electrons or plenty of hues in the electromagnetic spectrum and so on.

The issue I have is that, given the title of the OP, you are saying or insinuating that metaphysics is an illegitimate source of knowledge, I disagree with that, because I think it covers much more than whatever is "beyond all possible experience."

my OP is using the definition of metaphysics which is the study of that which is beyond all possible experience, so within that terminology I am saying it is an illegitimate source of knowledge… I think the single biggest problem for Kant is that he starts out with a model and not pure experience. We should always start epistemically with pure experience. We do not know immediately that our conscious experience is a representation, once we do take up that model then Kant’s arguments come into play.

“We must show that idealism is on the same level as empiricism itself. Both take the objective world as the object of their analysis, when this comes first neither in time nor in virtue of its meaning; and both are incapable of expressing the peculiar way in which perceptual consciousness constitutes its object. Both keep their distance in relation to perception, instead of sticking closely to it.”

Give an example of a ‘philosophical statement’ which is not a proposition which references the world in any manner.

Metaphysics is the attempt at determining ‘what things are’. No?

Kant’s metaphysics grounds the condition of possibility of experience in something prior to experience. This turns the subjective categories into in-themselves objects, transcendent to the experience they condition.

Your recommendation to start out from pure experience runs the risk of substituting for Kant’s idealist metaphysics an empiricist metaphysics in which we assume the objects of pure experience can be made to appear to us disconnected from the presuppositions and expectations we bring to our apprehension of them.

Phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty, who advocated a return to the things themselves, argues that the pure experience of things always comes already conditioned by prior experience. Things appear out of a background interpretive field.

Really? How about ...

Metaphysics is the attempt at determining ‘what things are’. No?
No. It's more like an "attempt at" deducing concepts and interpretions of "what things are".

We experience things with preconstructed abilities to represent; but this isn’t where knowledge starts: that’s a model we came up with to predict our experience. It could be that we don’t represent anything at all, nor do ‘we’ exist in the world as it actual is.

How is the claim, for example, “all truths are relative” not a grammatical statement that is truth-apt? Or “Consciousness is fundamental to reality”, or “mathematical structures are real”, … ?

Metaphysics is the attempt at determining ‘what things are’. No?
—Bob Ross

No. It's more like an "attempt at" deducing concepts and interpretions of"what things are". —180 Proof

That’s the same thing.

My point is that it is a study that thinks it can get at what reality actually is, and what things in that reality are.

So what is the point of the comment? Logic has been used extensively in real life, science and technology and metaphysics. You add the contents to the logic and process, and get the result you want. Logic has no content, because you hadn't added any?

I am sure your comment was with Kant's metaphysics, and it sounded unfounded, hence I asked for the original quotes supporting your points. It is a norm for asking the original quotes if the points you are making are unclear. Never not appropriate.

How do you know how accurate the knowledge humans can gain through the prism of their experience to reality? Why can’t reality be, for example, actually acausal, irrational, etc.?

My point was that the chair does exist, if it there right now, independently of your observation of it; but that this is just a model of experience, and that is not to say that reality has chairs, atoms, nor planets like we perceive them.

So, the phenomena vs. in-itself is an incomplete: the absolute is whatever exists beyond our possible forms of experience, and the in-themselves and phenomena are within the possibility of our experience.

But the knowledge of them is dependent on our experience, and so we can only say that we should expect them to behave within experience as if they persisted beyond our experience in a similar manner within a noumenal space and time—knowing full well we know nothing about what is actually happening in the world in-itself.

But my OP is using the definition of metaphysics which is the study of that which is beyond all possible experience, so within that terminology I am saying it is an illegitimate source of knowledge (which you seem to agree with, but disagree with the semantics).

But [Bob Ross] who studies metaphysics as that which is beyond all possible experience? Not Descartes, not Locke nor much that come to mind prior to Kant.

Logics determine the forms that contents must take. The point of the comment was to remind you that logic, as such, tells us nothing about the world.

Yes, but I quickly added that it applies to all synthetic or speculative philosophy just as it does to the arts. It might be possible to make the case that it applies to any philosophy which is not simply repeating what others have already said, but I am not concerned with making that stronger claim. To put the point simply, if we are creating new ideas, imagination must be involved. How could it be otherwise?

The comment that Logic doesn't add any content sounds like the bowl is empty, it is not very useful.

Philosophy rarely uses imagination. It mainly uses intuition, reasoning and logic, even for discovering new ideas.

The main operation of Philosophy is not about creating new ideas, but evaluating the existing ideas and claims with the critical analysis and reasoning, and judge them as valid or nonsense.

I think phenomenologists would agree that our ability to represent or model is not primary. They would say instead that there is no experience of any kind that is not conditioned by prior experience, which anticipatively projects forward into and shapes what we actually experience

This mutual dependence between subjective projection and objective appearance is most fundamentally what the world actually is, and we can never get beyond or beneath this intertwined structure of experience to get to an independently objective world or an inner subjective realm.

And the truth-makers for these statements are?

e.g. An assembled pile of logs, Bob, is not equivalent to a painting of "a log cabin".

Those modifiers ain't working ...

Metaphysics is the study of what it rationally makes sense to say about the most general prerequisites and implications of counterintuitive physics

On the other hand, would you not agree that it gives us knowledge of what it is possible to imagine as well as what it is not possible to imagine?

Sure, I can get on board with that. But it doesn't give us knowledge of reality (other than knowledge of human conceivability).

Because our experiments show us that the data we are receiving reacts from something that is not merely mental - in other words, there is retrodiction that fits in to events we can now see and evaluate. Which is why I believe that when are mental faculties happen to coincide with aspects of the external world, we have a science.

Chairs are folk-psychological concepts, heck, you if you put a trashcan upside down, you can call it and use it as a chair

A chair does not remain in the world, something very much like a photon will remain.

Here I disagree completely, things in themselves must be the ground stuff of reality. Adding another layer does fall prey to infinite regress. Which is why I think in these domains we stick to negative claims about what they cannot be.

Because atoms and planets behave as if we were not watching them

But who studies metaphysics as that which is beyond all possible experience? Not Descartes, not Locke nor much that come to mind prior to Kant.

Where we disagree then, is that I think epistemic structural realism is correct, science really does describe the structural components of the world, as they are mind-independently (not beyond all possible experience), but you go beyond and say, science describes our experience of the world, not aspects independent of us, so I think that's the main issue.

The OP's definition of metaphysics is too restrictive, so it seems the discussions will end up nowhere, even after months of circling around the points.

Also the OP conclusion that metaphysics is an illegitimate source of knowledge seems inconsistent with the content of the arguments in the OP's replies. The content of the OP's post is filled with both metaphysical and pseudo metaphysical concepts and comments, which are self contradictory and inconsistent.

Not very useful to who? The fact that logic is not about content, but about form stands whether you think it is useful or not.

How about you present an example of a philosophical claim, from anywhere you like, and tell me what you think it is based on.

Otherwise, I have no further interest in wasting my time responding to your unargued assertions.

Then, what is your definition? I don’t remember you ever giving one (although I may just be misremembering)

Could you please give me an example (so that we can go over it)?

How do you know this? Those experiments are just experiences more precisely and rationally carried out (than every-day-to-day ones). Thusly, it cannot be said that we receive anything if we take away the forms of our experience, since there isn’t even justification for there being causality.

But this is just a semantic issue. I am talking about the thing which we normally call a ‘chair’, which is not a trashcan flipped upside down. My point was that the thing we point out as a chair is just as real as what we point out as an atom.

But they can’t be said to ground reality sans the model, which is where Kant goes wrong, since we cannot grant that anything we experience exists beyond it. Takeaway the forms of one’s experience, and nothing we experienced remains.

How did they define metaphysics?

I would say they study things independent of us: but the very concept of “independence of oneself” is conditioned by those forms of experience, and are not valid beyond that.

Can a statement not be truth-apt without having a truth-maker?

As for what is beyond the possible forms of experience - who knows what types of experience are possible? The human psyche is still a vast uncharted ocean, with realms of possibility that we might never dream of. I think it's a mistake to deprecate the imagination, after all, Einstein himself said imagination was more important than knowledge. He discovered the theory of relativity mainly through thought-experiments.

Overall I think it's a mistake to dismiss metaphysics.

As I have said already, my definition is various. But I usually go by metaphysics is philosophy itself.
…

All my previous posts in this thread have been pointing out on this issue. But your replies seemed not relevant to my points.

But this sounds as if experience is experience of something that is only a representation and nothing else in any case. I don't think that follows, are natural numbers a representation or are they real constituents of reality?

That 2+2=4, regardless of how you write the numbers, will be a fact, regardless of people being around or not, it's a fact - it's true regardless of belief or consciousness.

As for causality, again, yes, we discover it through experience. But we have to options: either things "just happen", that is, there is no reason why light can't escape a black hole, which suggests that there is no reason why light could escape a black hole, or why a photon couldn't turn in to an electron.

I don't agree. It's not a semantic issue, but a conceptual one. We don't sit on what we interpret as "spikes", but we could sit on many things - that depends on what we take to fit under the conception of chair.

An atom is not like this, I cannot, with significant flexibility, decide that an atom is a proton or that energy is made of particles. That doesn't happen with chairs or tables or keys, etc.

We can't have a form of experience without something providing that form which is not experience. Otherwise, I could, by mere thinking change a notebook to a puddle of water. But I can't. Something prevents me, which is not my imagination, but a fact about something existing.

What makes a statement "truth-apt" that does not refer, even if only in principle, to at least one truth-maker?

However, I must confess ignorance on whether the things-in-themselves adhere to mathematical principles; but I can say that our representations (of them) do (as a priori means by which we represent them in space and time).

So, I am starting to embrace Kantianism a bit more: I find it quite plausible that causality is the necessary inference we make of (intuited) sensations and thusly is it a priori certain—albeit not necessarily pertaining to the objects-in-themselves.

However, yes, one could just argued inductively for causality; but then it doesn’t carry the necessity that the term used to mean.

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, you are just noting that the concept of a chair is looser than the concept of an atom, which I agree with.

I apologize for the belated response. I was very busy the past week (or so), but I can assure you that your response was not forgotten.

Ok, so, after thoroughly digesting my own OP for the past week or so, I think I understand more what you are getting at; and I am going to provide a counter-argument to my OP as an amending thereof. Please, if you are still interested in this discussion board, read it and let me know what you think.

That it is a-priori is not in doubt. Nevertheless, it is intelligible for me to suppose that there is a reason (which we may not know, nor ever know) for why the universe acts in one way rather than another, than for no reason at all, meaning, that in a few seconds, we'd begin to see apples going back up to the trees and so forth.

It's a bit stronger. I believe an atom has mind-independent properties, a chair does not. But we do not know if an atom reaches the in itself or no.

A truth-maker is a referent to which a truth-claim (i.e. truth-bearer) statement refers that makes the statement true; it's not the "agent" asserting or "making" the statement.

“x makes it true that p” is a construction that signifies, if it signifies anything at all, a relation borne to a truth-bearer by something else, a truth-maker

Yes, by all means. I will read your counter-argument, and get back to you. My response will also be not too quick due to other things I have to do in my daily life. Please bear with us. :) Thank you.

I am not talking about truth-bearing statements but, rather, truth-apt statements, which appear to be different: the former is a proposition which is true, which clearly indicates the need of a truth-maker, and the latter is merely the capacity to be true or false.

Let's take one of your previous examples (of a philosophical statement that you say is non-propositional): "Consciousness is fundamental [s]to[/s] reality"^^. Are you saying that, in principle, that statement is not truth-apt?

Are you, likewise, saying it is a non-cognitive statement?

"In principle" there is not any fact of the matter that can make the statement true. At most, it's a supposition expressed (confusedly) in a declarative, or categorical, form (as philosophers are wont to do).

Who? You raised the issue. Who else? Yes, I was saying because you never added content to logic, maybe that is your point on logic? My use of Logic was always full of content.

That is my own point on Philosophical methodology. If you want examples, read up on Philosophy of Language, or any Analytic Philosophy.

So what? Logic is about the form, not the content, but I haven't denied that thought processes and arguments, whether logically valid or not, have content. Try to address what I'm actually saying and not what you imagine I'm saying, and the conversation might improve

If you cannot present your own ideas in your own words, and address what I'm actually saying instead of strawman versions, instead of giving me unwanted reading advice and misinterpreting, whether deliberately or not, my words, then responding to you is a waste of time and energy.

…..three note-worthy points:

1. There is a world (independent of 'me');
2. There is an 'I' (or 'me') which is in that world; and
3.There is a distinction between my experience of and the world itself.

Firstly, all three of these are transcendent claims assumed as true…..

More distortions...you're doubling down on your ignorance, clutching at straws...time wasting.

My point was there are different types of logic, some contentless, some content given, or filled. They don't work all the same.

While there may indeed be different types of logic, I would still ask, which type of logic has its content already given?

….what you meant by logic is "contentless"?

I can still agree that logic is contentless, under the presupposition that logic, as such, is only a methodological form in itself.

Logic is possible to be studied, but wouldn't be useful for the practical uses in the real world.

…your view on logic is too narrow.

Logic is possible to be studied, but wouldn't be useful for the practical uses in the real world.

Regarding Kantian general and transcendental logic, these are merely differences in the source of the representations contained in our cognitions. The former is with respect to the relations of a priori cognitions themselves to each other, regardless of the source of the representations contained therein, while the latter regards only those relations which have only to do with what makes a priori cognition possible. So while they technically are different types of logic, they still abide by the same rules of logic, which reduces to the congruency of relations of representations even in different types of cognition.

Exactly right. Logic, the critical method, is useless for knowing, but categorically necessary for making things known.

Contentless logic is a pseudo logic, or logic in just a shell with no meaning.

Yes, that is kind of the point. When you understand logic you understand that any meaning it has is a logical consequence of the inputs to the logic, and the inputs are not logic. It's good to be able to recognize the distinction.

That sounds like a circular statement.

any meaning it has is a logical consequence of the inputs to the logic, and the inputs are not logic.

Might that be because you equate "logic" with "thought"?

That seems different from my understanding of General and Transcendental logic in Kant.

My thoughts on Logic is that, contents is the precondition of thoughts, and thoughts is the precondition of Logic.  Therefore, without content, Logic is impossible.  Contentless logic is pseudo logic, or logic in just a shell with no meaning.

…the world of reason….

As for meaning, logic in itself, as a function of understanding, has to do with establishment of non-contradictory judgements alone. As with the concrete pad, empirical meaning can never arise without the a priori elimination of contradictions.

Out of curiosity, what does that mean to you?

Also, you were going to tell me which type of logic has its content already contained in it.

So, you don’t think the property of ‘being able to sit on it’ is mind-independent?

No. This case, and other cases of manifest reality are mind dependent. Being able to sit on is a mental construction as are the things we designate as "sittable".

I don't believe this applies to atoms and particles.

Do you mean that the property of sittable-ness is a construction of human minds?

But we still learn a posteriori whether a thing has this property? Or is it a priori?

….they are all the contents of thought.

Of course logic is the form of a thinking system, but it needs the contents.

Without the content, how could you have demonstrated the logic?

If you empty your thoughts, then there will be no logic.

All logic must have the contents to operate.

Without it (re: content), it is a pseudo logic or a shell with nothing in it.

Logic is really only that by which our judgement is orderly, and adhere to the means for correcting itself.

….how would logic be able to correct itself…..

I think there is an element of both. I don't think it is completely a posteriori, for if it were, we wouldn't be able to associate anything as being something we can sit on. This has to connect to some mental model that is innate in us.

Similarly, I don't think it can be entirely a-priori. We need experience with objects to stimulate such ideas. If we never encountered anything we could sit on, say we only experience a spiky world, perhaps the idea of sitting wouldn't arise.

But that's how I see it, which may be somewhat peculiar.

Judgement corrects itself.

I'm not sure. Perhaps mathematics is different, we don't encounter numbers in experience.

How can metaphysical statements or standpoints be truth-apt if their truth is undecidable? The only way I could parse that would be to say that they might be true even though we have no imaginable way of determining their truth.

Even if I grant all three points are assumed as true, what makes them transcendent claims?

Sorry Bob, I missed this somehow.

No. This case, and other cases of manifest reality are mind dependent. Being able to sit on is a mental construction as are the things we designate as "sittable".

So, I agree with you that the idea of "one" or "many" is not cause by seeing one thing or many, but rather by the perceived contrast between them, which I think comes down to pattern recognition. It is pattern recognition, differences and similarities, that conveys perceptual information to us.

As to the slave recognizing squares, I think the etymology word geometry shows that it is likely that people saw actual rectangles, squares and circles as laid out in fencing of land and architecture, and that the idea of perfect geometric forms is abstracted from that experience.

I agree with you that there is a sense in which number and geometry "goes beyond" concrete particulars, but only insofar as it is abstracted from our perceptual experience of concrete particulars. In other words, I don't think there is any coherent sense in which number and geometry could be said to be completely transcendent of the phenomenal world.

That's plausible, though I would stress or emphasize that whatever pattern we perceive is internal, so the objects or us contrasting objects and things stimulates us to see a pattern.

This may be putting too much emphasis on a small point, nevertheless I'd argue that what we see are quite often very distorted examples of triangles or circles in experience, but that we interpret them as being perfect. We notice that our interpretation is mistaken when we go and check the triangle looking thing and see that a line is curved or not connecting, etc.

It's somewhat akin to seeing a pattern on a wall or the floor, and seeing what looks like a face, when it's just certain points arranged in a certain manner.

This is the issue of Platonism in mathematics, a topic I can barely cover. Maybe you are correct. I do find it somewhat puzzling that we have an idea of a perfect triangle or perfect square, when we know we won't find it in experience.

I tend to think the language of 'internal versus external' may not be helpful here. I would say both the objects and us (comparing and) contrasting objects pruduces the seeing of patterns.

We do tend to see faces and bodily forms in natural patterns (especially when hallucinogens are involved) but I think the potential for interpreting such patterns in various ways is there in the objects as real configurations.

As you say earlier classic geometric forms are rarely found in nature apart from the spherical dewdrops, the circular appearance of the moon, and the sun, hexagonal honeycombs, and so on. Some igneous rock forms are also quite geometric. And of course, then you have the advent of human land parceling and building. These natural and humanly produced phenomena, as you said, may appear perfect for all intents and purpose but on closer measuring and analysis reveal themselves to be imperfect. Once we have the concept of the imperfect its dialectical counterpart, the imperfect, naturally follows I would say.

What do you mean by a conceptual supposition or interpretation?

Sure, the emphasis I am making is one of objects being, strictly speaking, a mental construction on the occasion of sense. Both are necessary in practice.

Which to me raises the question, then why the heck do we have the idea of perfection in objects at all? It's quite curious.

But faces on a wooden wall or interpreting perfect geometry when such things don't exist, seem to me to be the way we view the world, being the creatures that we are.

I agree in the sense that we never perceive the whole of any object; so the idea of a whole object or entity, its identity, is "constructed" from various views or touches of things as well as the fact that we all perceive the same things.

As I said, it seems to me that the realization of imperfection or imperfect accuracy automatically entails the idea of perfect accuracy.

Yes, I agree we contribute a conceptual element in order to see anything as something familiar. But I also think this must be constrained by the things we perceive as well as by our own natures. I think the same goes for animals too inasmuch as they are able to re-cognize familiar things. If this is right then it follows that there is more to "seeing as" than just acquisition of cultural conventions or symbolic language capability.

Again: philosophical statements.

I rather position transcendent in opposition to immanent rather than transcendental, that’s all.

What do you mean by "immanent", and how it is contrasted to "transcendental"?

But what about everything else? I agree that having imperfection seems to entail having the idea of perfection, but outside of isolated cases, I don't see why this apparent fact of our constitution is this way.

The problem here, out of many which can be pointed to, is to so much what we add to things, but more so what the objects give to us. It's very obscure. Although no longer tenable, Locke's distinction of primary secondary qualities is a useful heuristic.

I mentioned building before. When building it is desirable to get everything as level plumb and square as possible, otherwise errors compound and horrible difficulties arise if one's initial setting out has been too far from perfect. So, accuracy is a practical necessity and once understood the idea of perfect accuracy, although unattainable, follows.

I would say that following empirical investigation, scientific observation, analysis and theory, show us what objects appear to give us. Once it is realized that we are dealing with things only as they appear the idea of things as they are in themselves logically, dialectically, follows, it seems to me.

Our investigations are always already carried out from within the cognitively given shared world, and they can be our only guide.

I agree that Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities is a valid one, as far as it goes; but it cannot get us beyond appearances. For me it seems that the most important thing for humans just is the world of appearances, it is the only real world for us. On the other hand I think the fcat that we conceive of the "in itself" has had huge consequences for the intellectual and imaginative life of humanity. So, the in itself may, as some say, "drop out of the conversation" but the fact that we can think the in itself as the idea of what we cannot think and can never know is a different matter.

I'm a bit skeptical. I could imagine a case in which "good enough" would do the job, with no conception of perfection. I'm entertaining the idea that perfection is something transferred over from mathematics, but I admit I have to think about this in more depth. Outside of that, currently, I don't see why perfection must necessarily arise for us, though it does.

Yet many did think that the things we experienced were things in themselves, it follows naturally from common sense. It became a serious topic of enquiry in the 17th century.

It's the most fascinating topic of all for me. I wish some of the classics (and contemporaries) talked about it much more.

But what we do have may suffice, given how hard the topic is, and how little we can say about it.

so would 'immanent' be simply possible [human] knowledge of things?

You don't think the inevitable idea of degrees of accuracy logically terminates in the idea of perfect accuracy? To my way of thinking this would be similar to how the idea of infinity logically follows from there being no limit to counting, or the idea of degrees of darkness or cold terminates in the idea of absolute darkness or cold.

It seems reasonable to think we do experience things in themselves if that is taken to mean that how things are in themselves (including ourselves of course) is determinative of what we experience. But it is a different thing to say that we could experience things as they are in themselves; the very idea stipulates that we cannot because the distinction is based on saying that whatever we can experience of things is things as they appear to us and the in itself is the dialectical counterpart of that.

You could add numbers for a long time, and not necessarily have the idea of infinity, because for all you know, numbers could come to an end. Infinity is an idea that goes "beyond" numbers alone, it's a different, though perhaps related concept.

Likewise, with improving something.

if there is no light or if say, you point out that a dog and a bear experience the world differently from us, who has the "correct view" of the world?

My view is that animals will probably see things differently because they are differently constituted and equipped. So, it would seem to follow that we and the other animals all see things as they naturally appear to the particular beings we are. Those appearances I would say are all "correct", all real functions of the "in-itself" nature of ourselves, other animals and the world.