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    We cannot know anything about things in themselves other ... — Carmelics
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Skepticism
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    We cannot know anything about things in themselves other than the bare fact that they exist independently of our representations.

    SkepticismTruth & Knowledge
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Our most fundamental ways of representing things (space and time) cannot be true of things in themselves.
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    • 2.Knowledge of things requires that our representational forms apply to those things.
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    • 3.If our representational forms do not apply to things in themselves, those things are cognitively inaccessible beyond their bare existence.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The very act of positing things-in-themselves as causally affecting sensibility already applies the category of causality beyond possible experience.
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    • 2.If causality is a form of representation that cannot apply to things-in-themselves, then Kant's own account of how appearances arise is incoherent.
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    • 3.Therefore the boundary between appearances and things-in-themselves cannot be drawn in the way the claim requires, undermining the epistemic limit it asserts.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Peirce and the pragmatist tradition argue that successful long-run scientific inquiry converges on truths that constrain and are constrained by mind-independent reality.
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    • 2.If our representational practices systematically track structural features of reality through predictive success, we have inferential access to more than bare existence.
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    • 3.Structural realists like Worrall independently support this: what we know of things-in-themselves is their relational-mathematical structure, not mere existence.
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    Related

    If causality is a form of representation that cannot apply to things-in-themselv...If our representational forms do not apply to things in themselves, those things...If our representational practices systematically track structural features of re...Knowledge of things requires that our representational forms apply to those thin...
    +5 moreShow less
    Our most fundamental ways of representing things (space and time) cannot be true...Peirce and the pragmatist tradition argue that successful long-run scientific in...Structural realists like Worrall independently support this: what we know of thi...The very act of positing things-in-themselves as causally affecting sensibility ...Therefore the boundary between appearances and things-in-themselves cannot be dr...

    Similar

    Kant claims we cannot have knowledge of things in themselves86%Kant does not deny the existence of things independent from our repres...84%Something exists independently of our representations of it.83%We can have no theoretical knowledge of the ultimate constitution of r...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: idealism
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    So, Kant concludes, in order to be necessarily true throughout their domain, the synthetic a priori propositions about space and time—and this includes not just the specific propositions of geometry or mathematics more generally but also the general propositions derived in the metaphysical expositions, such as that space and time are infinite singular wholes with parts rather than instances—must be true only of the representations on which we impose our own forms of intuition, and cannot be true
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit