Notes (2)

(5) Epistemology & Psychology

Quine argued that traditional epistemologists ruled out psychology as the starting point for epistemology because psychology is a part of science and it is science that epistemologists attempt to justify. Thus it was circular reasoning.

This is how Quine actually puts it:

“If the epistemologists goal is validation of the grounds of empirical science, he defeats his purpose by using psychology or other empirical science in the validation.” (304)

Yet, in a sense, the aprioristic epistemologist is also using psychology. Sure, he isn't using the science of psychology or its findings. Yet he is using psychology in that he's using his own mind (or the collective mind of all epistemologists). Thus the aprioristic epistemologist can rely more on psychology than the naturalist epistemologist.

Of course there's a distinction to be made here between the science of psychology and the lone epistemologist's analyses of his own mind. Yet it's still his own mind. And psychologists study minds and behaviour. Not only that: they don't rely on their own minds or their own behaviours. They study such things scientifically.

Thus, if I'm right, the aprioristic epistemologist is also “validating the grounds of empirical science” with psychology anyway.

(6) Roger Penrose & Intuitive Truth

It's clear that Roger Penrose is utterly committed to the use or existence of intuition – Platonic intuition. The way John Horgan puts his position is by saying that “[g]enuine truths exude a beauty, a rightness, a self-evident quality that gives them the power of revelation” (2). His commitment to intuitive truth - and the necessary connection between truth and beauty - is so strong that he thinks that superstring theories is false because it “did not possess these traits”.

Many things can be asked here.

One, why is there a necessary - or any - relation between truth and beauty? What is meant by beauty and to whom are these truths beautiful? To whom are these truths “self-evident” and how much must a mathematician or physicist know before they become self-evident to them?

Clearly they can't be self-evident to those who know no maths. They may not even be self-evident to those who know a lot of maths. So if they're only self-evident to experts in certain areas of higher-mathematics, then in what sense can they be said to be self-evident at all? That's like saying that once I've spent years learning about chess, then the good moves became self-evident to me.

Alternatively, perhaps the truths of superstring theory are ugly. Or is Penrose talking about the whole superstring show – the entire theory?

(7) E.O Wilson: Super-Reductionist?

If anything, E.O Wilson was once more of an intellectual imperialist or explanatory monopolist than a scientific reductionist.

In the early days of Sociobiology: The News Synthesis (1975) Wilson believed that “sociobiology would eventually subsume not only sociology, but also psychology, anthropology, and all the 'soft' social sciences” (145). He also believed that the same could be applied to philosophy, politics and ethics/moral philosophy! According to John Horgan, Wilson even wrote “about how finding from sociobiology would help resolve political and moral issues” (147). I've also read him being very dismissive of philosophy – specifically analytic philosophy.

However, when Wilson gives an example of all this (at least when it comes to religion), it all sounds fairly reasonable... to me at least.

For example, Horgan goes on to say that Wilson

“intended to argue that religious tenets can and should be 'empirically tested' ad rejected if they are incompatible with scientific truths”.

He got even more specific than that. He suggested that

“the Catholic church might examine whether its prohibition against abortion – a dogma that contributes to overpopulation – conflicts with the larger moral goal of preserving all the earth's biodiversity” (147).

Having said all that, there's nothing particularly sociobiological about what has just been said. Scientific, yes; though not sociobiological or even biological. Indeed such arguments have been advanced by philosophers whom Wilson probably wouldn't have much time for. And he wouldn't have much time for such philosophers (such as Peter Singer) because their arguments would no doubt contain few – if any – references to science, let alone to sociobiology. Still, the argument hold or fall regardless of their references to science.

(8) Physics is Maths

Physics is utterly dependent on mathematics. So much so that John Horgan puts it this way:

“Numerical models work better in some cases than in others. They work particularly well in astronomy and particle physics, because the relevant objects and forces conform to their mathematical definitions so precisely.”

Horgan goes further than that. He says that many of the 'entities' of physics are actually mathematical entities or forces. He writes:

“... mathematics helps physicists definite what is otherwise undefinable. A quark is a purely mathematical construct. It has no meaning apart from its mathematical definition. The properties of quarks – charm, colour, strangeness – are mathematical properties that have no analogue in the macroscopic world we inhabit.” (203)

This isn't to say that quarks are nothing other than maths or the numbers which express their nature (otherwise why the words “their nature”?). It's to say that we couldn't say much – or anything – about quarks without the requisite mathematics.

Though surely we can follow on from that and become quark reductionists (as it were): we can question if there really is something beyond the mathematical formulations which express the nature of quarks. In other words, what's left after we take the maths away? Nothing or just a little something “we know not what”? What can be said without the maths? And what is said without it, is it misleading and purely analogical? Indeed would we be better off without the analogies, metaphors and picture painting?

Notes (1)

(1) Christof Koch Admits There's a Mind-Body Problem

Even hardcore “reductionists” admit that there's a problem with providing a scientific account of subjective states.

For example, Koch admitted to John Horgan that

“all science can do is provide a detailed map of the physical processes that correlate with different subjective states” (182).

Moreover, Koch said: “I don't see how any science can explain [the mind-body problem].”

Koch admitted it's a problem. Or perhaps he simply responded without thinking to Horgan's use of the phrase “mind-body problem”. In other words, it isn't a problem as such, only something that can't be achieved. (Though isn't that a good definition of a problem?) In addition, perhaps this particular expression of the “problem” is simply a conceptual or theoretical impossibility. In other words, it's impossible in principle to offer more that the “physical processes that correlate with different subjective states”. What more can be offered? What else is there?

(2) Consciousness is Off-limits to Science

Daniel Dennett gives a rather simple and commonsensical explanation as to why so many people are never satisfied with any - or even all - theories of consciousness/mind. He says that “[w]e can't explain anything to everyone's satisfaction”. And then Horgan gives some examples.

He says that “many people are dissatisfied with science's explanations of, say, photosynthesis or biological reproduction” (179). However, it's still the case, Dennett says, that “the sense of mystery is gone from photosynthesis or reproduction”.

This isn't to say that Dennett's theory of consciousness is rejected for these reasons. Or that all of them are rejected for these reasons. However, regardless of Dennett's own theories, this may explain the problem which many people have with all theories of consciousness. Perhaps they don't think what Dennett calls the “mystery” has been truly solved. More tellingly, many don't want the mystery of consciousness to be solved. Or, as Dennett himself says about Colin McGinn and other 'mysterians', they “don't want consciousness to fall to science”. They also “like the idea that this is off-limits to science”. But when they think or say this (if they ever do admit it), then they aren't really doing either science or philosophy: they're doing religion, morality or even politics.

(3) Alan Turing & Computers which Learn

In the 1940s Alan Turing tried to create a machine with “intuition” or with “initiative”. He attempted to achieve this by introduction a random element into the machine or computer.

This has been achieved.

To put it how John Horgan puts it:

“Proponents of artificial intelligence rebut Penrose's Godel argument by contending that one can always design a computer to broaden its own base of axioms to solve a new problem; in fact, such learning algorithms are rather common (although they are still extremely crude in comparison to the human mind).” (177)

Of course even though there are computers which contain axioms which enable them to solve their own problems by broadening their own base of axioms (learning algorithms), that may not mean that this automatically refutes Penrose's “Godel argument”. Or, alternatively, that it actually displays genuine artificial intelligence. It does mean, however, that computers learn. What else could it be called other than learning? Still, can it be called 'artificial intelligence'? Of course it can; though that would depend – as it always does – on definitions. Does it mean that a computer is conscious? I would intuitively say: absolutely not!

Added to this one can add the examples which Daniel Dennett offers. He says that there are

“software-writing programmes and software-debugging programmes and code that heals itself, you create new artefacts that have a life of their own” (180).

(4) Subjective States: Functional & Physical States

John Horgan wrote the following words in 1996 (or at least that's when the book was first published):

“Given the rate at which neuroscientists are learning about it, within a few decades they may have a highly effective map of the brain, one that correlates specific neural processes to specific mental functions – including consciousness as defined by Crick and Koch.” (188)

Well, we are nearly two decades on from 1996: has this been achieved? Have neuroscientists been able to “correlate specific neural processes to specific mental functions”? Which functions is Horgan referring to? Seeing a blue object? Making the calculation 2 + 2 = 4? Finding one's way around a cluttered room? Or even listening to Brian Ferneyhough?

Clearly these correlations between mental functions and neural processes (bits of the brain) don't immediately bring on board “subjective states” or consciousness. Nonetheless, they all involve subjective states and consciousness. Even a mental calculation clearly involves subjective states and consciousness. A mental computation - if not the equation itself - will even involve subjective states and what philosophers call qualia. Nonetheless, they can be studied as functions and as correlations with neuronal states and processes. Consciousness and subjective states are another, if related, problem.

Christopher Peacocke: Sensations and Concepts

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The conceptual nature of experience (as derived from sensations) is supposedly shown by an example from the philosopher Christopher Peacocke, as seen in the main image above.

This suggest that concepts (of columns, in this instance) are determining our experiences.

Readers may immediately suspect that there must be at least some people who do indeed see four rows, rather than three columns. In other words, there’s no obvious reason why we shouldn’t see four rows.

This may also have something to do with the spacing of the dots, and the wideness of the gaps between the columns. Thus, the gap between the columns is wider than the gap between the individual dots. This may lead most viewers to see three columns, rather than four rows.

Christopher Peacocke’s point, however, is that the sensations alone don’t determine the experience. Indeed, on this picture, if it were just a question of sensations alone, then it wouldn’t actually be an experience. (Experience is often said to be “under an aspect”.)

The same applies to another example from Peacocke.

One person may see the object which we call a “sphere”, though not (as it were?) apply the concept [sphere] to it. Another person will indeed apply the concept [sphere] to that very same object.

On the other hand, and more likely, most people won’t actually apply the concept at all. That is, the concept will belong to the object from the beginning. In other words, many subjects non-cognitively experience a sphere as a sphere. A person without the concept [sphere], on the other hand, will still either apply a concept to the sphere, or a concept will belong to the sphere.

In the technical details of contemporary analytic philosophy.

Peacocke himself says that “sensational properties do not determine representational content”. On this picture, then, concepts must be part of the story too.

Peacocke does go on to say that “grouping properties [i.e., the arrays into columns not rows] are sensational rather than representational”. Peacocke admits that the array example

“seems to suggest that we are concerned with representational, not a sensational, property: the concept of a column enters the content”.

The problem is (in Peacocke’s argument) that “grouping [is a] sensational property”. Surely grouping (in this example) will rely on sensations, although sensations alone won’t entirely determine the grouping. Thus, Peacocke is making a distinction here between grouping and sensations. Indeed, he’s saying that grouping isn’t conceptual (or “representational”).

On this particular aspect, Peacocke doesn’t go into detail. He does say, however, that in “switches of aspect the sensational properties [remain] constant”.

Martin Davies and Colin McGinn

The British philosopher Martin Davies spots a dualism in Christopher Peacocke’s position.

Davies says that (in Peacocke’s story) there’s

“a sensational (non-representational) substrate upon which the representational superstructure [] is erected” .

Or

>) Representational superstructure

>) Sensational (non-representational) substrate

As with Ned Block’s notions of “access-consciousness” and “phenomenal-consciousness”, Davies quite happily accepts “non-representational properties of experience”, but “without embracing the idea of a sensational substrate”.

The British philosopher Colin McGinn also characterises the position represented by philosophers like Peacocke. He states that they accept

“prerepresentational yet intrinsic level of description of experiences: that is, a level of description that is phenomenal yet noncontentful”.

Perhaps the problem is that Peacocke thinks in terms of “protopropositional content” — i.e., nonconceptual content. This is almost — or indeed literally — an acceptance that content prior to “propositional judgement” can’t be conceptual. In that case, then, propositions (almost literally?) must make (or determine) concepts. That is why protopropositional content is nonconceptual content. However, if we don’t accept an entirely linguistic basis for concepts, then we needn’t believe in Peacocke’s non-conceptual content.

Davies points out that Peacocke is happy to accept the conceptualisations of “sensational properties”. He says that Peacocke shows us examples of

“pairs of experience with the same sensational properties but different representational properties”.

Yet Peacocke also shows us

“pairs of experiences with the same representational properties but different sensational properties”.

Does all this show us that these “different sensational properties” are nonconceptual?

It seems to hint at the fact (or possibility) that sensational properties aren’t representing anything.

[The other cases cited by Peacocke are based on technical empirical psychological research on subjective experience, which is difficult to comment upon.]

Peacocke, however, appears to make a mistake. He says that a person

“waking up in an unfamiliar position or place [will have] minimal representational content”.

Mental or cognitive unfamiliarity doesn’t entail a lack of conceptual content. That’s because the person waking up will still conceptualise his unfamiliar position or place.

So perhaps this example only displays Peacocke’s linguistic (or propositional) bias.

Of course, the person waking up may not be able to describe the position or place very well, or form “propositional judgements” about it. However, that may be irrelevant to conceptual and/or representational content.

According to the British philosopher Michael Tye, when the place or position becomes “rich” with “representational content”, then this may simply be a case of applying “descriptive labels [] to the array”. Propositions and propositional judgements are simply additions to the conceptual content which already exists.

Tye also says that

“computational routines [propositional judgements] process this activity and assign an appropriate descriptive term”.

Some readers may believe that Peacocke’s propositional (or linguistic) bias causes problems for various of his positions. However, it can be doubted that Peacocke would actually deny his linguistic (or propositional) bias. To Peacocke, the bias itself wouldn’t cause problems in his eyes. It’s simply part of the reality of conceptual experience.

[The British philosopher Peter Geach was explicit about his propositional — or linguistic — bias vis-à-vis concepts and mental content. See his Mental Acts and Their objects, which was published in 1957.]

According to Michael Tye again, “phenomenal content” is by definition nonconceptual . And he too offers us us his own dualism between “phenomenal content” and belief. We have (a)

“A content is classified as phenomenal only if it is nonconceptual and poised [for use by the cognitive centres].”

against (b):

“Beliefs [] lie within the conceptual arena, rather than providing inputs to it.”

This is almost foundationalist in that “phenomenal content” is seen as input to be worked upon later (if only a split second later).

Beliefs, on the other hand, are outputs.

Indeed, if this is truly foundationalist, then a) above would be the Given.

It certainly seems foundationalist when Tye makes the epistemic point that phenomenal content is “poised for use by the cognitive centres”. That is, phenomenal content comes (epistemically) before such use.

Yet Tye makes the point that phenomenal content is still “representational”.

How can this be?

How can something represent “that there are such and such co-instantiated locational and nonlocational features” without concepts?

---

Note:

At least some of what has been said in the above will be relevant to the Rabbit–duck illusion, which was made popular by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Is Phenomenal Consciousness Non-Conceptual?

You can hear a church bell and not hear it as a church bell. That is, concepts may not be applied to the sounds you hear. Similarly, you can see a fridge; though not see it as a fridge. Your visual sensory receptors are stimulated by the light-waves from the fridge and eventually such data enters consciousness; though you haven’t applied the concept [fridge] to the fridge.

Are these examples of experiences in the strict sense?

It could be the case that while these sensory stimulations are entering consciousness, the mind is applying concepts to other things instead. So the sensory input from the fridge or the church bells are, as it were, in outer consciousness. The sensations or perceptions aren’t experiences in that the mind doesn’t infer anything from the church bell or the fridge (they're not “poised for reasoning”, as Ned Block puts it). The sensations are cognitively impotent and irrelevant.

Nothing is derived from the sound of the church bells or the sight of the fridge because they're not heard as church bells or seen as a fridge. Indeed no concepts are applied. They're certainly not an epistemological “given” because there's no cognitive awareness of the sensations or perceptions. These sensations - not experiences - can't be the ground for inferences, knowledge or anything. They are, ultimately, vacuous. The sensations from the fridge or the church bells aren't accompanied by a higher-order thought to the effect that there's any cognitive application of concepts to the sensations.

The terms of the trade have it that the sensation of hearing the church bells (though not as church bells), and seeing the fridge (though not as a fridge), are examples of “phenomenal consciousness without access-consciousness” (according to Ned Block).  “Access-consciousness” (AC) includes the application of concepts to “phenomenal consciousness”(PC). Phenomenal consciousness alone isn't experience or awareness.

John Searle clarifies things a little here (1990). He says that we can call the fridge or the church-bell sensations (not his examples) examples of “peripheral consciousness”. I wouldn’t also use Searle’s “inattentiveness” because there may have been no reason why we should have been attentive to the fridge or the church bells. They may, however, be in “peripheral consciousness”.

A better example than the church bell and the fridge would be someone saying to you, “I’m going to kill you right now!”. The sound-waves from this person’s voice will eventually enter your consciousness as phenomenal consciousness; though you don’t take the words in. (That’s why it’s pure phenomenal consciousness.) You'll have no knowledge of the sentence’s meaning. All you may have are the sensations: their phenomenal non-cognitive reality. This example may be an example of peripheral consciousness and, this time, perhaps also inattentiveness. Though it wouldn’t be an experience and therefore not the basis of reasoning. (I'm willing to concede that at some lower level of consciousness the sentence’s meaning could have been taken on board in a manner which is vaguely similar to what happens with blind-sight.)

The example of “I’m going to kill you right now!” can’t be compared to, say, driving on autopilot. If there were genuinely no access-consciousness or awareness of the ins-and-outs of driving, then such a person would crash. However, if you'd applied concepts to - or been access conscious of - the utterance “I’m going to kill you right now!” (presuming it was a real threat), then you'd have done something about it. Therefore the auditory sensation of “I’m going to kill you right now!” was indeed non-conceptual; though not an experience. Alternatively, driving on autopilot is – partly – a conceptualised event and therefore an experience: if an inattentive experience.

I can quite happily accept phenomenal consciousness as something distinct from conceptual experience without allowing non-conceptual experience or, alternatively, phenomenal consciousness without concepts.

Jennifer Church cites an example of putative non-conceptual phenomenal consciousness. She writes:

“Consider the example of a noise that I suddenly realise I have been hearing for the last hour. Block uses it to show that, prior to my realization, there is phenomenal-consciousness without access- consciousness…” (1995)

The above doesn’t go against the necessity of conceptual experience because such phenomenal-consciousness wouldn't be experience in my (or Kant’s) sense. It would be peripheral consciousness (Searle) or perhaps it would be in what can be called outer consciousness. However, Church even denies (or doubts) the possibility of true peripheral consciousness or phenomenal-consciousness without access-consciousness. She continues:

“…it seems that I would have accessed it [the noise] sooner had it been a matter of greater importance – and thus…it was accessible all along. Finally, it is not even clear that it was not actually accessed all along insofar as it rationally guided my behaviour in causing me to speak louder…”

If my “I’m going to kill you!” example earlier is a possibility, then Church’s arguments may go too far and don’t work for my example. My example is pure phenomenal-consciousness. Church, therefore, doesn’t give us an argument against the independence and purity of phenomenal-consciousness from AC. She gives us an example of something which may appear at first to be independent and pure PC; but which in fact isn't. She says that she would have “accessed the noise sooner had it been a matter of greater importance”, which gives the game away. Not even Ned Block would accept that scenario as independent and pure PC. This would, I think, simply be a case of Searle's inattentiveness. Similarly, Church says that all along she was speaking loudly. So clearly the noise was AC; though not the center of her attention. Her example doesn't, therefore, work as an argument against independent and pure PC.

What about Block himself?

For a start, I’m not quite sure what Block means by “aware” in his “You were aware of the noise all along” (1992). It seems to be an idiosyncratic usage of that word. However, the implication must be that concepts (of some shape or form) were applied - or belonged - to the noise all along: otherwise how would he have known that it was a noise before he was AC of it at noon? If he wasn’t applying concepts, then how did he know it was a noise before such a realisation? The atomic concept [noise] is just as much a concept as the molecular concept [the noise of a drill]. The atomic concept [drill] may have been applied to the atomic concept [noise] at t², but at t¹ the atomic concept [noise] was still applied (or belonged) to the noise (vis-à-vis Ned Block himself). Consequently, how could it have been pure and independent PC of the noise if all these assessments are correct?

Indeed Block himself (a paragraph later) comes up with an alternative way of describing this putative before-noon pure and independent example of PC: “P-consciousness without attention.” I would say, perhaps only as a paraphrase, PC with inattentive AC; which doesn’t rule out AC and, therefore, the deployment of concepts. To use Searle’s term, the noise before noon was “peripherally conscious”; though not an example of pure and unadulterated PC.

Block does say that although PC and AC are distinct, they often (or always?) do occur together. Block’s example of “P-consciousness of the noise” and “A-consciousness of it” isn't quite as clearly defined as he thinks (in the noise example, that is). It now remains to be seen whether the conceptual experience before noon does actually entail – limited – AC (in Block’s sense).

Strangely enough, while writing the above there was a noise outside my flat. I didn’t pay attention to it. I was inattentive. It was in peripheral consciousness (or in my topographical outer-consciousness). However, I knew all along that it was a noise. Indeed I knew it was a car alarm. If the car alarm’s noise had seamlessly turned into a woman’s scream (if you can imagine such a thing), I would have been attentive to the scream. This simply means that a different concept [a woman’s scream] was applied or belonged to a seamless change to another noise: the car alarm. The car alarm’s noise was no less conceptual, only the concept [a woman’s scream] would make me attentive; whereas the concept [a car alarm] made me indifferent.

Perhaps concepts are applied (or belong) to all noises. Therefore all noises are AC for Darwinian reasons. If we didn’t deploy or notice what kind of noises the sounds were (or apply or notice their conceptual content), we wouldn’t be ready for an unexpected attack or suchlike. We'd be unprepared. That’s why I would notice the woman’s scream and seemingly ignore the car alarm. If car alarms were infrequent, I wouldn’t ignore them either. The fact is, however, I didn’t ignore the car alarm completely: I was simply inattentive.

Prima facie, PC on its own can’t be conceptual. Could we say that “what something is like” is conceptual? Would that even make sense? The same may be true of PC states like hearing, smelling, tasting and the having of pains. All these seem non-conceptual – at first. They aren't about anything in and of themselves. (Alternatively, we could say that they aren’t representational or intentional.) Some philosophers call these things “intrinsic”. The idea of a pain (say, a toothache) as conceptual seems strange. Similarly with the smell of beer. However, there’s nothing to stop concepts being applied to them. Or, more likely, these phenomenal properties may come along with conceptual baggage. We can still accept that PC is distinct. A toothache has a feel - a “what it’s like” - that’s hard to describe in words. However, concepts are applied (or sometimes come with) pains. These concepts aren’t always descriptions.

For example, [a toothache] is itself a concept made-up of two atomic concepts [tooth] and [ache]. The first concept [tooth] isn't descriptive of pain; though the concept [ache] is. We could ask what sort of concept or description it actually is. It’s not much of one. It’s not descriptive like “The King of France”- it’s a single concept. It’s like a pointer to what it’s like without actually describing what it’s like. It’s also like a name or noun and unlike a definite description or ostensive definition. The concept [ache] may get its identity from non-linguistic comparisons with other previous toothaches or other aches. It would be an imaginative rather than a linguistic concept.

Block writes:

“Even pain typically has some kind of representational content. Pains often represent something (the cause of the pain? The pain itself?) as somewhere (in the leg).” (1992)

Similarly with smells, tastes, sounds, sights, etc. They aren't intrinsically conceptual. They're indeed distinguishable from AC or concepts. However, they come with concepts and concepts are applied to them. Therefore PC states become the objects of concepts. (Or PC properties do.) Block says that “P-consciousness is often representational”. Representations are conceptual. Concepts make-up representations. Representations are intentional – they're about something.

References

1) Block, Ned, 'Begging the Question Against Phenomenal Consciousness' (1992)

2) Church, Jennifer, 'Fallacies or Analyses?' (1995)
3) Searle, John, 'Who is computing with the brain?' (1990)

Kant & Hume on the Nature of God

 

According to Kant, God is experience- or evidence-transcendent. In this sense, he quite agreed with Hume.

Kant also believed that Hume thought that “we apply only ontological predicates (eternity, omnipresence, omnipotence)” to God. What Hume required were “properties which can yield a concept in concreto”. The ontological predicates, according to Kant, were “superadded”. That is, predicates such as eternity, omnipresence and omnipotence aren't intrinsic properties. They are, if you like, simply God's abilities and powers. What Hume wanted is a “criterion of identity” (to use a 20^th century term) for God's nature, not simply descriptions of His abilities and powers.

It’s as if someone were to describe a rose by saying that “it delights people and is an emblem of love”, instead of saying that roses are "red, physically constituted by certain natural materials and give off a sweet pungency". Hume was asking:

What is God? I don’t want to know His powers or what He does.

Kant would have said that God's intrinsic properties are beyond us because such properties can only be given in experience. This prompts the question: Aren’t the properties of omnipotence, omnipresence also given only in experience? Isn't part of God’s essence, as it were, the fact that He is beyond experience? Not only that: part of God’s essence (for Kant) is that He is beyond experience. If we wanted more than this, we would be, Kant said, guilty of “anthropomorphism”. This is what many theists were guilty of in Kant's day (as well as later).

In a sense Kant sympathised with Hume’s deism and sided with him against theism and all other “anthropomorphisms”. Theism, or at least anthropomorphism, is for crude God-lovers who somehow project their own properties or attributes onto God (as Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud were later to elaborate upon). However, despite what's been said, Humean deism is going too far... or so Kant thought. Kant’s view of deism is unequivocal. He says, “nothing can come” of it. Not only that: it “is of no value” and “cannot serve as any foundation to religion or morals”.

So whereas theism is too human (Nietzsche's “all too human”), deism is too anti-human. Kant therefore attempted, as ever, to find some kind of middle way between the two extremes.

Kant was unhappy with anthropomorphism (therefore theism?). We mustn't “transfer predicates from the world of sense to a being quite distinct from the world”. The end result of Kant’s vision of God is therefore quite unequivocal. We must

“acknowledge that the Supreme Being is quite inscrutable and even unthinkable in any determinate way as to what it is in itself”.

God is, therefore, another noumenol being.

Kant again agreed with Hume who thought that it's wise

“not to carry the use of reason dogmatically beyond the field of all possible experience”.

However, Kant had a problem with this dogmatic attitude towards reason itself. He thought that Hume shouldn't “consider the field of experience as one which bounds itself in the eyes of our reason”. Reason therefore comes to Kant’s rescue again. Reason can take us beyond “all possible experience” and give us the means to understand, if not know, God Himself (in this instance). Indeed Kant called Hume’s dogmatism towards reason “scepticism”. And Kant, yet again, attempted to find “the true mean between dogmatism…and scepticism”.

Kant reiterated why he thought that we can transcend experience. He said that experience

“does not bound itself; it only proceeds in every case from the conditioned to some other equally conditioned thing”.

However, experience’s

“boundary must lie quite without it, and this is the field of the pure beings of the understanding”.

Of course it's reason which takes us to these “pure beings of the understanding”. It's also natural theology, via reason, which takes us beyond “the boundary of human reason”. It “looks beyond this boundary to the idea of a Supreme Being”.

Yet again Kant shows us that there's an illusive bridge between the offerings of experience and that which is beyond experience. He concedes

“that reason by all it’s a priori principles never teaches us anything more than objects of possible experience”.

This doesn't mean that

“this limitation does not prevent reason from leading us to the objective boundary of experience, viz., to the reference to something which is not itself an object of experience but must be the highest ground of all experience”.

Kant concedes that reason “does not, however, teach us anything concerning the thing in itself”. So what does reason do? It “only instructs us as regards its own complete and highest use in the field of possible experience”. Reason takes us beyond possible experience; though only into the field of conjecture, supposition and speculation. It doesn't give us absolute knowledge of what lies beyond the boundaries of possible experience. It does, though, show us the boundaries themselves and what may lie beyond them.

Kant was clear that it's metaphysics itself that takes us beyond the bounds of possible experience. He said that pure reason is compelled “to quite the mere contemplation of nature, to transcend all possible experience” and to “endeavour to produce the thing…called metaphysics”.

Metaphysics frees “our concepts from the fetters of experience and from the limits of the mere contemplation of nature” and allows us into the “field containing mere objects for the pure understanding which no sensibility can reach”. It's in passages like this that Kant shows us how far removed from the tenets of empiricism he was; despite the fact that he, in certain senses, fused empiricism and rationalism. The empiricists believed that there's no knowledge beyond experience. Kant agreed. However Kant also believed that metaphysics took us beyond experience into the realm of “pure beings” which, nevertheless, couldn't be known. It was these flights of fancy that traditional empiricism was against. Indeed later 20th century empiricists - the logical empiricists - thought that it's precisely these Kantian flights of fancy (even if they didn't claim to give us knowledge) which resulted in metaphysics itself becoming “meaningless” or “nonsense”.

Kant did indeed strike a balance between extreme rationalism (which has no time at all for experiences or the senses) and extreme empiricism (which equally has no time for anything which is putatively beyond sense experience). Kant himself criticised Plato for floating off into the ether because he had no solid moorings in the world of sense. However, Kant also accused hard-core empiricists (such as Hume) of being “sceptics”.

Was it the case, then, that Kant was between a rock and a hard place? Or, as David Lewis once put it, was Kant “between the rock of fallibilism and the whirlpool of scepticism” (in his paper 'Elusive Knowledge' of 1996)? Does it indeed make sense to talk about what lies beyond sense experience? Equally, doesn’t empiricism (in its extreme forms) annihilate the very practice of metaphysics and, ultimately, all philosophy?

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*) All the passages from Kant are taken from his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (the Paul Carus translation of 1902).

Kant on Analytic & Synthetic Judgements

 

According to Kant, analytic judgements are made up of subject and a predicate. The predicate expresses nothing which isn't already contained in the subject.

Take this analytic judgement:

         “All bodies are extended.”

Here the subject is “all bodies” and the predicate is “(are) extended”. Within the subject is contained the concept [extended]. According to Kant, “I have not amplified the concept of body, but only analysed it."

Now take the following:

      “All bodies have weight.”

Here the subject is again “all bodies” and this time the predicate is “have weight”. This judgement is synthetic because the predicate “have weight” isn't contained in the subject “all bodies”. This predicate, therefore, “amplifies” rather than “analyses” the subject.

We now have two terms which sum up what's just been written:

       “explicative judgement” – adds nothing to the subject = analytic

       “ampliative judgement” – increases the given cognition = synthetic

In what way do we know the analytic judgement to be true or false? We know it a priori. Take this judgement:

       “Gold is a yellow metal.”

The concepts involved in the judgement above are empirical in nature. However, the statement above, according to Kant, can still be known to be true a priori. The reason for this is that, again, the predicate “yellow metal” adds nothing to the subject “gold”. According to Kant, we “require no experience beyond our concept of gold”. Yellowness (as it were) is contained in the concept [gold]. That means that the statement can be known to be true a priori.

Arithmetic

According to Kant, arithmetical judgements are all synthetic and not analytic, as was commonly thought in his time (e.g. by Hume). However

         7+ 5 = 12

is still knowable a priori; though it's nevertheless synthetic. Arithmetical statements are a priori “because they carry with them necessity, which cannot be obtained from experience”.

Why isn’t the above a mere analytic judgement such as “a = a”? Why is it synthetic and a priori? After all

         7 + 5 = 12

basically means

        12 = 12

which is a tautology of the kind

        A = A.

And

        7 + 5 = 13

would be a contradiction of the kind

    12 = 13

or

     A = B

Why does Kant think that 7 + 5 = 12 is a priori as well as synthetic? This is how Kant himself puts it:

“The concept of twelve is by no means thought by merely thinking of the combination of seven and five…”

Kant continues:

“…analyse this possible sum as we may, we shall not discover twelve in the concept.”

We can't find the concept [12] within the concept [7 + 5]. What more do we need? According to Kant:

“We must go beyond these concepts by calling to our aid some intuition corresponding to one of them, i.e., either our five fingers or five points…”

This is very difficult to grasp without an explication of the notion of intuition. However, it's the intuition itself that's synthetic. Therefore the “five fingers or five points” needed for the intuition are derived from experience. Therefore they're synthetic (or the experience is). The judgement is synthetic a priori. To use Kant’s terms, the concept [12] is an “amplification” of the concept [7 + 5].

What about geometry?

Geometry

Take the following principle of geometry:

            “A straight line is the shortest path between two points.”

According to Kant, that statement is a synthetic judgement. Though it's also knowable a priori. It's relatively easy to see why the above is knowable a priori, but why is it also synthetic? Kant says:

“The concept of the shortest is therefore altogether additional and cannot be obtained by any analysis of the concept of the straight line.”

The concept [shortest] isn't contained in the concept a [straight line]. Or, more accurately, the concept [the shortest path between two points] isn't contained in the concept [a straight line]. Here again, according to Kant, “intuition must come to aid us”. Presumably here the (empirical) intuition is this:

           a------------------------------------------b

That is, a straight line between two points.

Kant then summarises all the above. He calls synthetic a priori judgements “apodeictic”; just as we would call an analytic judgement “apodeictic”. Such judgements are apodeictic because the predicate is already contained in the subject. However, unlike a pure analytic judgement, such as

             “All bodies are bodies.”

we need a “necessarily present intuition” which supplies the synthetic part of the judgement or statement. Unlike the above analytic statement,

      

“the predicate [12] belongs to this concept [7 + 5] necessarily indeed, yet not directly but indirectly by means of a necessarily present intuition”.

Kant went beyond the mere empirical synthesis of perceptions. He thought that there is a priori synthesis too. When perceptions are synthesized a priori, they are given, according to Kant, “universal validity”.