neither/nor wrote:
[quote]Erosopher wrote:

It is exactly our experience that we are trying to account for through the a priori.

neither/nor wrote:
Polygamy. How does a priori knowledge account for that? Account for it in what sense? How does one who is not a polygamist know enough to account for it at all?

Polygamy is not a pure concept, since like the rabbit example I can imagine experience of objects without polygamy. However, we can talk about what a priori knowledge is necessary for polygamy.

neither/nor wrote:
Again: insert words like "experience", "a priori" and "knowledge" into the same observation..."John was arrested for practicing eugenics on a polygamy compound"...and how in the world are Kant's moral propositions relevant? How would your views of John's behavior be different had Kant never existed at all?

This is what seems to keep coming up, and I continuously need to repeat myself. My ability to judge this situation without Kant existing would be no different. Because Kant’s project is descriptive it doesn’t make sense to approach it in this way; it would be similar to ask Newton what natural laws would be different if he never existed – we would have the same laws, but no formulation of them. When you have a model that fits you can use it as a way to criticize models that do not fit.

neither/nor wrote:
Here, allow me to rephrase your own example of a priori knowledge. For "objects" I substituted "polgamy/polygamist":

. . .

Then you go on to rabbits...

If you read my rabbit example you would see that I was explaining why concepts like rabbit or polygamy are not pure. You revealed how carefully read my post at least.

neither/nor wrote:
Why not focus instead on those who hunt and kill rabbits as, say, garden pests. Others protest this behavior however as cruelty to animals. What a priori knowledge is available to those on both sides of the issue such that they will clearly see one side's behavior as more rationally obligatory?

This is you again asking for something different. It doesn’t make sense to say that one persons view is more rational than the other, it is that one is better than the other because it is more informed.

Somebody can provide reasons why their moral judgments are better, but they do this by talking about the empirical concepts involved – it would be ridiculous to argue about what was in common between two people (Categorical Imperative, freewill).

neither/nor wrote:
Here, in my considerably more instantiated view, is what is needed to discuss freedom "in reality". In other words, out in the world we live in:

1] a circumstantial context

2] people behaving in it

These conditions are obvious to everybody, what Kant is doing is less obvious, and more productive because of that. Pure concepts involved in morality would be answering the question of how it is possible to recognize somebody acting freely at all – how are we able to recognize our own freedom? We think our own freedom, and there are baseline concepts involved that make this possible.

neither/nor wrote:
Now, what happens when John's behavior clashes with Jim's? John wants the freedom to behave in one way but if he does so it will require that Jim not behave in the manner in which he freely chooses to.

This can happen between "rational agents" in familes, in neighborhoods, in communities...all the way up to "rational agents" who are heads of state.

Let's say the clashes here center around the war in Afghanistan. A circumstantial context with people who behave in conflicting ways. So, how does freedom as a "pure concept" play out both in here and over there?

Sans pure concepts of freedom these situations would be impossible to think. If we were unable to think about ourselves and others as free, it would just be impossible to consider these situations. The pure concepts are what is necessary for these thoughts that you are suggesting.

neither/nor wrote:
you say:

The experience of duty is the experience of the moral law.

I say:

What moral law and what duty in particular shall we discuss?

That statement is definitional. For more precision I can say that the idea of the moral law is the idea of a sum total of our duties. Our duty is something we experience in a concrete way – it seems too clear to me to try to explain it again.

neither/nor wrote:
And I am left as always with the same rejoinder: What IN THE WORLD are you talking about?

neither/nor wrote:
Yes, the essential "idea" of abortion situated in the essential "idea" of humanity situated in the essential "idea" of society. But we are trying to situate the existential reality of Mary's existential abortion in the existential reality of a particular existential law relating to the reality of existential abortions seen as or not seen as murder...

....there is a disconnect here I see considerably more than you do.

Yes. You seem unable, but most likely unwilling, to make a distinction between a persons duty (the moral law) and the laws of a state. To think that abortion is wrong or right doesn’t requires society (it does require an idea of humanity).

neither/nor wrote:
In any event, what then is the more exact [and exacting] relationship between Kant and the Grand Jury deciding Mary's exact [and exacting] fate?

Kant was a philosopher, not a law maker. His work can perhaps help us to separate the pure and empirical concepts involved in these situations and help us to be critical about them.

neither/nor wrote:
I suspect that what you call "pure concepts" I simply call the evolutionary capacity of the human mind [in its evolutionary capacity as an adjunct of the human brain...whatever that means...and no one knows for certain of course] to differentiate behaviors that come into conflict.

You can think of pure concepts as brain structures if you want, but they are first and foremost pure concepts, since we couldn’t devise any theory of the brain sans these pure ways of thinking.

neither/nor wrote:
Ah, but only one of the behaviors can triumph. So, which one will the collective minds in the collective community choose as more rather than less obligatory? And I suspect further it will be the behaviors deemed more rational by those who have the power to enforce behavior. Or, as Stalin or Hitler once put it, "how many tanks does the Pope have?"

There are different concrete behaviors made possible by the same pure concepts. When we understand what is essentially the same, the differences stand in high relief, and that is what we orient our discussion towards.


neither/nor wrote:
If we are both on the same page with my explanation so far, we can see that we are exactly in agreement.

Bingo! NOW we are getting somewhere!! ; o )

The whole purpose of me talking to you is to show that we are in agreement. But I don’t think you are engaging with me in that spirit. You don’t seem to have agreed to what I said up that that point anyway, so hopefully my comments on your comments can address why that may have been.

neither/nor wrote:
Yes, but our experiences are also [and always] deeply embedded in dasein---however finite they may be.

There is no problem talking about this situated in Dasein.

neither/nor wrote:
But I suspect when philosophers [or those philosophers Will Durant called...somewhat derisively..."epistemologists"] converge to discuss the relevancy of a priori knowledge on moral judgments, the permutations are considerably less finite.

The permutations of experience are infinite, however, the number of pure concepts needed to make that experience possible are finite.

neither/nor wrote:
After all, when you are arguing about the definitions of words used to define the meaning of concepts used to constitute what we either can or cannot know about human behavior the combinations must be practically infinite. Right?

We aren’t trying to account for all concrete forms of human behavior with pure concepts, but the possibility of any human behavior. So we look to those concepts that are necessary in any given human behavior, which is rather small really because all the variety comes from empirical concepts.

neither/nor wrote:
Well, it is possible for a man shackled to wall indefinitely in a black site set up by the CIA somewhere in Bulgaria to think of himself as "not free". But Kantians know better.

You want to deal with existential situations, but you fail to grasp them it seems. This man who is unable to move or see anything is in despair exactly because he recognizes that he is essentially free. If he didn’t recognize his freedom, this situation he is in would not be bad at all.

neither/nor wrote:
Or maybe someone about to take his own life because he sees his options dwindle down TO suicide is also free in a way he just can't quite grasp a priori.

Again, to have options that have dwindled is exactly an affirmation of our freedom, and also the value of that freedom. You are saying here that he is in despair, not because he isn’t free, but because he values freedom so much that his assessment of his limited options has lead him to choose death. That’s profoundly existential, and profoundly in support of what I am saying.

neither/nor wrote:
But: Is that really how the overwhelming preponderance of us think about being or not being "free"? No, instead, the word is always situated circumstantially in the mind of a particular "moral agent". In the mind of a particular dasein.

We are in agreement, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t talk about pure concepts, and that these can’t prove invaluable for us in their critical employment, which you should recognize is central to my discussion of them

neither/nor wrote:
Nihilism is a word-sound invented by some who, when noting the human mind's capacity to ask, "what is the essential and a priori nature, meaning, and purpose of existence?", came to conclude, "well, actually, nothing at all".

We can’t say that we have no purpose with any certainty. And the value or our reality even sans us believing in a purpose is quite evident. If we are upset by thinking we have no purpose, it is because we do see ourselves as having value essentially. If we didn’t matter to ourselves essentially nihilism would not even be possible to think.

neither/nor wrote:
Now, this may not be the most rational answer, of course. But there is not a Kantian on earth who can demonstrate it is [a priori] an irrational answer.

Well, none that I have met.

Yet?

Because we essentially matter to ourselves, this seems enough to say the form of nihilism you have suggested above is a priori false. That means it would be irrational in the strict sense that I employ rationality – being essentially without value is an impossible way to be existentially.

* * *
There is too much going on here and it makes it hard to keep a consistant discussion when these posts get so long. I feel like Socrates in the Protagoras when he complained about the long speeches. I feel that focusing on a priori knowledge will help us all, Szavieur included, to agree.

Once we have a foundation of terminology on which to discuss we can freely talk about lots of existential modes of being in a much more productive way. Right now we are incredibly limited in the depth of our ability to communicate. When you ask me about Mary all I can do right now is take it as you asking me, “what do you think is right?” I would very much like to get beyond that limitation.

Whenever you say that something is just a word-sound it is true, but we can and do define words and suggesting that we cannot undermines any reason we have to try to communicate.

szavieur wrote [180054]:

You've been looking like you're jumping from critiquing statements like, "I know that this particular abortion is wrong," to critiquing, "I know that all abortions are wrong," as if there were no difference between these two kinds of statements.

I don't critique statements so much as situate them. And I find the more they are situated up in the clouds, the less relevant they are to the rest of us actually living our lives down here in the swamp.

For example, down here in the swamp, abortions are never right or wrong. Not this abortion nor that abortion; not any abortion; and certainly not every abortion. They are instead judged to be right or wrong by individual men and women [individual daseins] who see both the swamp and the abortion from different [sometimes very different] vantage points.

Now your job [or so it seems to me] is to take the swamp and turn it into a fluffy white cloud where, through a priori knowledge and such, all the different vantage points dissolve into obligatory behaviors. Or, if not that, obligatory ways in which to think about obligatory behavior.

To make things even worse, then you seem to confuse people believing in duty with people believing in universal duty, even regarding particular kinds of actions. That makes it difficult to pin down your actual target, or even to register the kind of arsenal you're unleashing against it, here.

Again, I situate duty. I situate targets. I situate actions. I situate arsenals.

Now, you seem to situate the grinding ambiguities of contingency laden existential duty in a theoretically concocted universal duty up there in the conceptual clouds. But then I situate that in human psychology.

What, then, in your view, might the relationship be between Kant and Freud with respect to psychological defense mechanisms?

neither/nor wrote:
... abortions are never right or wrong. Not this abortion nor that abortion; not any abortion; and certainly not every abortion.

Well, that depends on your definition of right action. If it means those actions that promote the greatest net gains in the amount of happiness for all people throughout the entirety of existence, well, Mary either DOES promote those gains or she does NOT. So her action would be either right or not right (or wrong).

szavieur wrote [180055]:

My point....is that there is something to "point to," on some accounts of apriority, so that a priori can be understood to be more than just a pattern of sound with no meaning.

But the meaning we give to the sounds we make when we invent words like apriority are always situated in the meaning we give to all the other sounds we give to all the other words. And the words we use when discussing the meaning of the sound "a priori knowledge" and its relationship to the meaning of the sound "abortion" are always situated in the world we live in. The words are ever embodied, in other words. Personally, I never bought into that "Spock's Brain" approach to human reality. The mind is just a different kind of matter, I suspect.

But certainly a very "spooky" kind indeed.

...let me put it this way: what particular thing in reality does the word Dasein refer to? What can be "pointed to" in relation to existential?

But my whole point has always been that dasein is not a "thing" at all. Instead, it is an ever evolving biological, historical, cultural, experiental etc. relationship between unimaginably complex existential variables out in the world. You wish to strip away the layers of a particular human behavior in order to find the core. I suggest instead that the beahvior is basically an inextricable manifestation of the layers themselves. In some respects the layers are hopelessly subjunctive, and in other respects they obey the laws of nature. But where IN THE WORLD does one part stop and the other part begin?

And even if, a priori, there is a core, it tells us nothing about duty or obligation unless the core itself is a manifestation of determinism. Kant, of course, rejects that. But without God [a trascendental hub in the wheel of life...existence...itself] Kant is left floating in his own conceptual neologisms.

What in the world am I possibly supposed to be discovering about myself, here...[t]hat the word self doesn't refer? I'll happily invoke Ayn Rand at this point to point out how absurd that would be for me to believe.

You discover that the "self" is always in transition between prefabrication and refabrication....In transition between construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. It just depends on which new information, experience and/or relationship you encounter next.

I always assume that. It helps to explain, for example, why I once considered my "self" to be a SELF----a devout Christian, an Objectivist, a Marxist, a Communist, a Socialist, a Social Democrat, a Liberal, an Independent, a Unitarian, an existentialist, a nihilist.

Notice how I stopped using capital letters on the latter two.

What's next? You know, before oblivion itself.

A Kantian, perhaps? ; o )

neither/nor wrote:
But the meaning we give to the sounds we make when we invent words like apriority are always situated in the meaning we give to all the other sounds we give to all the other words. And the words we use when discussing the meaning of the sound "a priori knowledge" and its relationship to the meaning of the sound "abortion" are always situated in the world we live in. The words are ever embodied, in other words. Personally, I never bought into that "Spock's Brain" approach to human reality. The mind is just a different kind of matter, I suspect.

But certainly a very "spooky" kind indeed.

Does a priori refer, then? Or is it JUST a sound/some squiggles on paper or a screen? (I think it refers to something, personally.)

And even if, a priori, there is a core, it tells us nothing about duty or obligation unless the core itself is a manifestation of determinism.

That seems contradictory. If morality requires free will and determinism is opposed to free will, then the core of our obligations could not be a manifestation thereof.

You discover that the "self" is always in transition between prefabrication and refabrication....In transition between construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. It just depends on which new information, experience and/or relationship you encounter next.

I already safely believe that, more or less. The only invariant part of myself is some extremely vague, abstract, indeterminate, etc. question, I think (although there does happen to be more than nothing packed into that pure question). The rest mutates continuously unless for some reason I select part of it to remain the same for a while.

I always assume that. It helps to explain, for example, why I once considered my "self" to be a SELF----a devout Christian, an Objectivist, a Marxist, a Communist, a Socialist, a Social Democrat, a Liberal, an Independent, a Unitarian, an existentialist, a nihilist.

I've never been comfortable identifying myself with any clear-cut (is there really anything clear-cut here?) religion, political movement/party, or subculture. I used to think it was important to think of myself as gay (and suffered a slight "existential crisis," I'll admit, when confronted with feelings inconsistent with only wanting to be with guys), but I don't even believe in sexual orientation anymore. I'm not sure what label, if any, I'd generally attach to myself at this point.

neither/nor wrote:

[szavieur] seeks to yank the discussion into a metaphysical fog---what can or can not be "absoltutely known"?

szavieur wrote [180062]:

No, that's not what I meant. I meant that what YOU mean by "right" and "wrong" is something no one can know without being omniscient, whereas what I mean by it is something a person can know, even if he or she doesn't know anything else. In other words, we're both correct, in a way.

Indeed, what any man or woman means [deontologically] by "right" or "wrong" is necessarily problematic unless he or she is omniscient. Right? That's why I always speak of right and wrong behavior parenthetically.

Now, you are "correct", however, only when you successfully transition from a priori knowledge to a posteriori obligations. And you fail to do this out in the world. At least in the manner in which I understand "failure".

Existentially, for example.

It IS important that men can't get pregnant whereas women can, but this doesn't mean that my girlfriend (if I had one) could just reasonably shrug off my concerns about our potential kid when it comes to deciding whether to carry her pregnancy to term.

Well, suppose she insists that her objections to your interjections are unreasonable. Suppose she does shrug it off. How in the world would you craft an argument that would send her's reeling?

Instead, just as others will ever argue heatedly about the morality of choosing abortion they will ever argue heatedly about her shrug.

Then what?

It's not like they would argue heatedly over whether or not she actually HAD the abortion. There a priori knowledge fits in seamlessly with a posteriori reality: she either did or she didn't.

neither nor wrote:

So, a priori, is Steinen's fanciful observation relevant or not?

It's relevant but mistaken. It's just not necessarily true that if men could get pregnant, they'd sanctify ending pregnancy prematurely. They MIGHT, but if they did while they now tend (if they tend) to regard it as profane instead, this could very well just be hypocrisy (which is itself usually wrong).

It is mistaken more so because it is, in reality, fanciful. And I surely agree that, were men able to become pregnant, any number of men might still view abortion as murder. And many more as immoral behavior. But what does not change is that, like women, they would be expressing only a subjective assessment of something that can never be encompassed objectively.

How do you know that it's "not, philosophically, a categorical" imperative?

I suggested it is more a practical or a utilitarian necessity in a world where behaviors will clash and thus must be regulated. But, of course: I can't ever KNOW it is not a philosophical imperative. I can only ask you to outline an agrument that would clearly demonstrate objectively how it, in fact, is.


....what if people can give the "Moral Law" to themselves? Then people can know for themselves, for certain, what's rational or irrational. (Again, the definition of rationality makes a lot of the difference, here.)

Well, duh. People can convince themselves that anything is true, right? I mean, Christ, look at all the incredibly mind-boggling things they already have!!!

Remember, for example, Heaven's Gate....or the Branch Davidians?

Not only that but, once so convinced, many will embody this belief all the way to the grave. But what is this really but extreme examples of how far people are willing to go to obviate the nihilistic, fractured "self" in order to feel emotionally and psychologically grounded in Self.

To date there have been literally thousands of them. And folks like Kant [construed or misconstrued] lay the intellectual foundation for a transendental, post-phenomenal Reality where "right" becomes Right and "wrong" becomes Wrong.

Psychology!