Kant's proof aganist Hume's opinion

[STT]

Here is Hume’s opinion: Hume thought that it was crucial that philosophy stay true to our sensory experience of the world. However, he argued that our experience tells us much less about the world than we usually think. For example Causation: We never really observe one thing causing another to happen. We might see one billiard ball roll into another, and then see the second billiard ball roll off. But all we really observe are the billiard balls at various times and places. Our experience of one ball causing the other to roll off is something extra, over and above the times and places we see the billiard balls occupying. So, for Hume, causation isn’t something we observe in the world. It’s something extra that our minds add to the events we observe.

Kant’s views are very complicated – but, in a nutshell, he tried to show that the possibility of a world that didn’t conform to the rules and patterns that our mind imposes on experience was nonsensical.

So do you have any idea Kant’s proof?

 

[Gorgias]

So do you have any idea Kant’s proof?

First reaction? It’s good form to cite explicitly the sources that you quote, and to identify that you’ve actually copy-and-pasted someone else’s writings.

That way, we know we’re discussing someone else’s thought, not yours, and see everything he wrote and discuss it in its entirety.

 

[STT]

First reaction? It’s good form to cite explicitly the sources that you quote, and to identify that you’ve actually copy-and-pasted someone else’s writings.

That way, we know we’re discussing someone else’s thought, not yours, and see everything he wrote and discuss it in its entirety.

Yes. That is the source. Do you have any idea what Kant is talking about? I am already reading section 4 in here.

 

[Rhubarb]

Hume and Kant differed about a great deal of philosophical question, if not all. What point are you specifically asking about? Just causality?

 

[STT]

Hume and Kant differed about a great deal of philosophical question, if not all. What point are you specifically asking about? Just causality?

No just causality. Our minds apparently are able to construct and add knowledge to what we experience (the causality in the example provided in OP). The problem that Hume noticed is that do these habits of our minds – to experience the world as if it contained causally connected events; to experience ourselves as more than bundles of impressions and feelings – corresponded to the way things really are in the world? In other words, are they the right ways of thinking about causation and ourselves?

This idea inspired Kant and he notice that he need to prove it. He noticed that Hume was right to point out that philosophical reflection uncovers ways that we can’t avoid thinking about and experiencing the world – as stretching through space, as unfolding over time, as containing causally connected events. But he was wrong to suggest that these might just be facts about us – arbitrary habits of our minds.

So I was wondering if anybody in here is aware of his proof in simple word.

 

[tm21]

I highly recommend you read the book “Ten Philisophical Mistakes” by Mortimer J. Adler. He show’s you how both Hume and Kant (and others) have serious errors in their philosophical propositions. For example, Hume proposed that knowledge is merely sense experience…that there are no essences or natures. He rejected any metaphysical explanation of reality. Ironically his belief that all knowledge is empirical is not empirically known…an obvious self contradiction! If we cannot know natures, then we cannot know the nature of knowledge. Obviously man DOES know natures!

 

[Tomdstone]

No just causality. Our minds apparently are able to construct and add knowledge to what we experience (the causality in the example provided in OP). The problem that Hume noticed is that do these habits of our minds – to experience the world as if it contained causally connected events; to experience ourselves as more than bundles of impressions and feelings – corresponded to the way things really are in the world? In other words, are they the right ways of thinking about causation and ourselves?

This idea inspired Kant and he notice that he need to prove it. He noticed that Hume was right to point out that philosophical reflection uncovers ways that we can’t avoid thinking about and experiencing the world – as stretching through space, as unfolding over time, as containing causally connected events. But he was wrong to suggest that these might just be facts about us – arbitrary habits of our minds.

So I was wondering if anybody in here is aware of his proof in simple word.

It is going to depend on how you define causality.

 

[OneSheep]

Here is Hume’s opinion: Hume thought that it was crucial that philosophy stay true to our sensory experience of the world. However, he argued that our experience tells us much less about the world than we usually think. For example Causation: We never really observe one thing causing another to happen. We might see one billiard ball roll into another, and then see the second billiard ball roll off. But all we really observe are the billiard balls at various times and places. Our experience of one ball causing the other to roll off is something extra, over and above the times and places we see the billiard balls occupying. So, for Hume, causation isn’t something we observe in the world. It’s something extra that our minds add to the events we observe.

Kant’s views are very complicated – but, in a nutshell, he tried to show that the possibility of a world that didn’t conform to the rules and patterns that our mind imposes on experience was nonsensical.

So do you have any idea Kant’s proof?

I am very fond of Hume, his work is so much more accessible and I love his respect for understanding an individual’s perspective. If I had time, I would read more Hume!

As far as what you are saying about Kant’s perspective, I can make a lot of sense out of a slightly modified version of what you wrote:

he tried to show that the possibility of a world that didn’t conform to the rules and patterns that our mind interprets from experience was nonsensical.

It would be “nonsensical” because it is beyond our senses. To me, this does not say that Kant eliminates the possibility that there are causes beyond our senses.

I have the disadvantage of not knowing or understanding Kant’s writings, and I am probably misrepresenting his thoughts, but I’m interested in the topic because I have heard that Kant disputed Hume’s writing.

 

[Gorgias]

So I was wondering if anybody in here is aware of his proof in simple word.

Have you tried Googling “Kant on Hume”…?

(When it comes to Kant, I don’t know that there’s anything valuable that can be said simply or briefly… )

 

[STT]

Have you tried Googling “Kant on Hume”…?

(When it comes to Kant, I don’t know that there’s anything valuable that can be said simply or briefly… )

Thanks for the tip. I found a long explanation in here and a shorter one in here.

 

[Gorgias]

Thanks for the tip. I found a long explanation in here and a shorter one in here.

Yep… I’m reading through the Stanford article now. Good stuff…

 

[STT]

Yep… I’m reading through the Stanford article now. Good stuff…

Actually I think the idea behind Kant’s proof is very simple: Lets think of the billiard balls for simplicity. That is true that the process of moving and colliding balls is a sequence of events. That is what we experience but the ability to hit the cue ball in specific way to get a desirable result requires the knowledge of causality. So to summarize I think both Kant and Hume are right. Hume was right because as view point of an observer all thing which matter is the experience. Kant however is right because the sole experience is not enough to do the job and you need the knowledge of causality to perform a specific task. I hope this helps.

I would be thankful if you could summarize Kant’s proof once you understand it.

 

[levinas12]

I would be thankful if you could summarize Kant’s proof once you understand it.

Kant was awaken from his “dogmatic” slumber by Hume. What does this mean? Hume opened up a conversation about how “we” construct the world. But this “we” is a special “we”, it is the transcendental “we” … this “we” is somehow outside the “world” being constructed.

For example, this transcendental “we” imposes the notion of causality on the flux of sensory experience. Likewise the notion of substance. And so on with the other metaphysical categories.

This turns traditional (Greek and medieval) philosophy upside down. The transcendental “we” does not “receive” the form, the structure from a pre-existing world; no, the “we” puts the form into the original “chaos” (somewhat like God does in Genesis). “We” are the maker, the engineer, the source of all meaning…

Yet “we” do all this without knowing at first that “we” are the ones doing it. We start off thinking that we receive the meaning from “outside” us. But really, without “us”, there is no “world” (understood as the structure of meaning).

Hence Kant refers to all this as a Copernican revolution - a reversal of the traditional way of thinking about reality. Instead of the “sun”, we are the “center” of the “solar system”.

This is why Hume is so important - Kant simply makes more explicit the transcendental machinery that is already at work in Hume. They are two peas in the same pod.

Now where is Hume/Kant “wrong”; and where are they “right”? That’s the question we face today after the “collapse” of modern philosophy.

 

[levinas12]

Postscript:

It’s crucial to distinguish between the empirical “we” that’s inside the world as one item among many and the transcendental “we” which is entirely “outside”. This is the key to understanding Hume/Kant.

Of course, we must ask whether this distinction is “correct”.

Well, we could start by looking at “we” - why isn’t it just “I”. Where does “we” come in?

With Descartes, it was just “I” - this is what has been called Cartesian solitude.

“I” seems more primordial than “we” - yet can there be an “I” without there being “other I’s”?

Personal pronouns, “I”, “you”, “we”, “they”, seem implicated in one another, “internally related” to one another, like “north” and “south” . We can’t have one without the other.

Isn’t philosophy fun?

 

[Tomdstone]

Isn’t philosophy fun?

Too many questions, but not many agreed upon answers. There may be lots of “answers” or responses but there is generally widespread disagreement on what is the right answer. And the disagreements are among professionals in the field. So, for someone looking for the correct answer to a question, no, philosophy is not fun. It is close to chaotic. Lots of discussions which go nowhere to getting the correct answer.

 

[STT]

Kant was awaken from his “dogmatic” slumber by Hume. What does this mean? Hume opened up a conversation about how “we” construct the world. But this “we” is a special “we”, it is the transcendental “we” … this “we” is somehow outside the “world” being constructed.

For example, this transcendental “we” imposes the notion of causality on the flux of sensory experience. Likewise the notion of substance. And so on with the other metaphysical categories.

This turns traditional (Greek and medieval) philosophy upside down. The transcendental “we” does not “receive” the form, the structure from a pre-existing world; no, the “we” puts the form into the original “chaos” (somewhat like God does in Genesis). “We” are the maker, the engineer, the source of all meaning…

Yet “we” do all this without knowing at first that “we” are the ones doing it. We start off thinking that we receive the meaning from “outside” us. But really, without “us”, there is no “world” (understood as the structure of meaning).

Hence Kant refers to all this as a Copernican revolution - a reversal of the traditional way of thinking about reality. Instead of the “sun”, we are the “center” of the “solar system”.

This is why Hume is so important - Kant simply makes more explicit the transcendental machinery that is already at work in Hume. They are two peas in the same pod.

Now where is Hume/Kant “wrong”; and where are they “right”? That’s the question we face today after the “collapse” of modern philosophy.

What I was looking for was Kant’s proof that we are the one who are constructing knowledge.

 

[levinas12]

What I was looking for was Kant’s proof that we are the one who are constructing knowledge.

You can find it in the synthetic a priori which assures apodictic truth (universal and necessary). A posteriori empirical experience cannot be the basis for this apodicticity.

 

[levinas12]

What I was looking for was Kant’s proof that we are the one who are constructing knowledge.

Check out the sections in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason dealing with the transcendental aesthetic and the transcendental deduction of the categories.

Kant assumes the universal and necessary truth of mathematics and physics - he then looks for conditions of possibility for such universal and necessary truth. He agrees with Hume that sense perception alone cannot account for this universality and necessity. So he argues that the source must come from the transcendental “us” and not from a place “outside”.

The underlying premise is that we can only understand things that we ourselves have made. There is no non-human order (in the sense of the ancient Greek “cosmos”).

Kant is reflects the technological mentality of modernity - nature itself is meaningless chaos but, like Robinson Crusoe, we impose our own meaning on it.

 

[STT]

You can find it in the synthetic a priori which assures apodictic truth (universal and necessary). A posteriori empirical experience cannot be the basis for this apodicticity.

Thank you.

 

[STT]

Check out the sections in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason dealing with the transcendental aesthetic and the transcendental deduction of the categories.

I don’t have the book but I will look for it.

Kant assumes the universal and necessary truth of mathematics and physics - he then looks for conditions of possibility for such universal and necessary truth. He agrees with Hume that sense perception alone cannot account for this universality and necessity. So he argues that the source must come from the transcendental “us” and not from a place “outside”.

I disagree with them. I think we just derive universals from what we observe. It is simple, one apple plus one apple is two apples. Not remove apples and you get 1+1=2. We of course have the power of abstraction to distinguish one apple from its environment and another apple.

The underlying premise is that we can only understand things that we ourselves have made. There is no non-human order (in the sense of the ancient Greek “cosmos”).

I disagree. There is of course a non-human order in nature.

Kant is reflects the technological mentality of modernity - nature itself is meaningless chaos but, like Robinson Crusoe, we impose our own meaning on it.

I disagree again with this. Look at how colors and scenes can affect us. I am not sure if there is any meaning at all on what we observe and what we understand. I don’t simply understand what meaning is.