In this episode, I present Immanuel Kant's idea of Transcendental Idealism. Patreon: / theoryandphilosophy Podbean: theoretician.podbean.com/ paypal.me/theoryphilosophy IG: @theory_and_philosophy
Does transcendental idealism also see the self as an appearance of a thing existing out of itself in space and time and one which it can never really know about? Or does transcendental idealism only apply to things which are practically ‘outside’ of us?
Kant says that, "because I can connect the manifold of representations into a consciousness, it is possible for me to represent the identity of this consciousness".
Its appears the forefront of physics and where its headed right now is having to deal with many of these ideas. For instance the necessity of an "observer" as a frame of reference to navigate any hypothetical scenario in spacetime physics. Physicists are very quick to say "dont anthropomorphize this kind of observer we are talking about. It doesnt have to be a conscious observer, it could be a rock for all we care." But what so many of them somehow fail to realize is our hypothetical observer doesnt have to be conscious but it does have to be conceptualized *for us conscious beings to understand the hypothetical scenario.* Reality presumably has zero need for an "observer' as a frame of reference however us humans, us beings who only know reality through our conscious first person sensory experience *require* this idea of an observer. Just to ramble what does anything, for instance, look like without eyes to see? We can say "ok sure we view stuff through an imperfect lens but we can verify what we see with others and can know how accurate we are based on our agreement." But that is entirely missing the point. Things in themselves have no inherent appearance. Through the materialist view it's eyes and a brain that *create* a thing called appearance in the same way a nose and a brain create smells that we typical understand to be entirely subjective as things on themselves apart from its chemical triggers. But then a retort might be that although there are subjective aspects of sight like the color of objects there are also objective properties of objects we perceive such as shape and size. This is the difference between primary and secondary properties. But if we just take the materialist science of vision seriously and to its conclusion we see how absurd this is. We're told we don't see objects but the reflected light off those objects. That light hits our retinas and stimulates our brain to view the light. But we are only one point of view (well, two points to be fair since we have two eyes acting as sensors, but it's one image). What in the world does one single point of view have to do with the supposed objective appearance of an object and it's single objective shape? Objects don't exist as the 2D image from a single point of view that we see. The back of the object is as much the object as the front of it which were viewing. Wouldn't we want instead to take it's object appearance from all points of view, or even no point of view? Wouldn't its appearance be *all of the light* reflected off that object taken together? But then this is where the context of our experience breaks down and can't comprehend what an entire 3D view of an object is all at once. As if we were in 4D space and single points of view are in 3D as opposed to our 3D world where single points of view are in 2D. BUT let's not forget what we're even talking about. Reflected light off an object. What does this ultimately even have to do with the object itself? What about all the other electromagnetic waves reflecting off of it? But then we can still ask what does electromagnetism have to do with the object? Why not just take the object itself and "view it". Well because there's no such thing as a view outside the context of reflected light, eyes and a brain. It's a creation of conscious experience not an aspect of objective reality. When we programmed ways to display the 3D world on computer screens as games and other 3D software we had to deliberately choose to make all the matrix math align around a single point of view and bake in a very specific amount of perspective. Because none of that stuff is just a given as a part of reality but a structure of a created thing. Again this is taking the materialist science seriously. If it's true then this is its conclusion. Many if not most people will hand wave this away though and say something like "sure whatever, but we just have to make some assumptions to get around all that nonsense you're talking about. We see reflected light instead of objects, but it just doesn't make that much of a difference." And this is exactly why (and my point in bringing all this up) physics now has to contend with these problems. Because they simply are *actual, real problems born out of material science.* We can no longer hand wave these problems away but have to confront them head on. Unfortunately many physicist just can't wrap their head around an idealistic perspective of reality as they've spent their whole lives thinking in an entirely different context. All of this to say we can disregard Kant and Idealism only for so long. We don't need him to build some impressive technology and to get results in the frameworks that matter to us. But that's more or less a formalized game called materialism nested inside something more fundamental. Is it mind and idea? My guess is yes. Ok ramble is over.
Thanku brother very much really needed this explanation But a little doubt what is self in this ideology I have read indian oriental idealism where self is regarded as some sort of conciousness or awareness which inherently carries self(sensation or experience as a self) and cast itself upon different thoughts ,things percieved and emotions(objects of experience) etc sort of bringing them into being from a subjective point of veiw. I want to know what is mind or self here?
Enter “Quantum physics”. It’s amazing to see transcendental idealism is coming back. I think the modern liberal conception of materialist/rationalist view points are not as strong as modern science claimed in progressive circles for so long. It does put a lot of Hegel in doubt.
A great explanation of it, David. It's impressive seeing you slowly get in the flow. Tough, considering how abstract the subjects you cover can be! I wonder - how relevant is transcendental idealism to the hypothetical expression "Does a tree make a sound if no one is there to hear it?"? My two cents: a tree would make a sound, and it would be selfish to think that (at least two) humans are needed for noises to be sensed. This then makes me think of Castaway (with Tom Hanks) and how horrible it must be to live with no one else to counter your own thoughts and opinions. What a sad world that must be.
