eXageration The expression of an idea may not lie in the sounds of words, or the inner dialogue of the written form. Even here today artists attempt to convey, at best, an idea – something that is far reaching and stretches beyond the physical realm of the subject itself and into the conceptual. And it stands to reason that the artists of the world, of all people, should come to understand and familiarise themselves with the knowing of ideas and their communication via representation. For the art world deals in totality with the representation of ideas, not merely in its subject formation, but also in more pure forms of sensory modes; as such in music, moving picture, and interactive works that consist of smells and physical contact. Yet even at this point, where a realisation takes place – a realisation that communication is merely the analysis of mutliple levels of sensory data with a metaphorical link to the realm of what is real -,

The knowledge of real objects is immediately insubstantiated when one recognises an obvious truth – that rational sensory beings cannot know real objects as they are but merely as they are represented to us by our sensible intuition. As Kant would have us believe, real knowledge of true forms is only obtained via non-sensible intuition; knowledge is instantanous and subsequently without thought, for if one were to interact with forms one needs a sensible intuition and therefore can only know their interactions with their relative appearances. In this way Kant splits the realm of all possible knowledge into two categories – phenomena: the term reflecting what sensible entities the subject itself has derived from empirical data, the senses. – noumena: a thing which is not to be thought of, as an object of the senses but as a thing in itself, solely through pure understanding.

“All existence and all change in time have thus to be viewed as simply a mode of the existence of that which remains and persists. In all appearances the permanent is the object itself, that is, substance as phenomenon; everything, on the other hand, which changes or can change belongs only to the way in which substance or substances exist, and therefore to their determinations. ”


the artist will attempt to extend the representation into the emotional plane and communicate with the audience further afield; the referential art formation. The idea however, is simultanouesly contained within the montage of sensory data but also lost within its midst. It seems with every effort that is made into the representation of this unsensory form the foremost intention of the art seems to become ever more obscured and isolated from the creation that was sparked, and is the vessel, for the beast. Since the idea can only be intuitively grasped by the subject itself other rational beings must partake in an analysis of empirical data that must be critiqued as mere appearances of their true forms that remain unknowable by the beholder. It cannot be assumed that the same sensory information will result in the same experience for all rational objects; the processes of sensing are not in any way determinably the same, although perhaps similar and measurable; the only form of intermediate understanding is via the categories of judgement that were stumbled upon by Aristotle and further developed by Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and the Post-Structualists. In this sense rational beings may be content with a false and limited sense of understanding in the tautological structures of language; in the sense that the rational being names an appearance thus and evidently knowledge arises.

“But who I was, or where, or from what cause,
Knew not; to speak I tried, and forwith spake,
My tongue obeyed and readily could name
Whate’er I saw.” – milton

Deconstruction begins with Derrida. The examination of literary texts holds key to the examination of the social fabric that not only holds the tautological truths together in a fixed form of understanding, but also the basis on which social references and symbolisms can be related. And yet there are numerous forms of analysis. From psychoanalytic (Freudian) to the English philosphies such as Hobbes; the Marxist account right through to feminism – and yet certain intellectuals will have it stand to reason that all perspectives are equally valid. Despite the patent difficulties inherently intertwined with the expression of an idea the artist will still feebly attempt to recreate this dream of intuitive representation. Such Fear: Fear of Misconception. Stanley Fish examines the ocurrence of linguistic misconception – such has been exemplified by Randy Newman’s “Short People Got No Reason To Live, and Swifts “Verses on the Death of Dr Swift”, exploring how rational beings may understand linguistic subtlies such as irony, metonymy, metaphor, hyperbole, and the list continues. The artist uses these tools not only to shape what the idea is but then again also what it is not.

“Well, that’s Philosophy I’ve read,
And Law and Medicine, and I fear
Theology too, from A to Z;
Hard studies all, that have cost me dear.
And so I sit, poor silly man,
No wiser now than when I began.”  ¶ 2:13 am 0 Comments

  PHIL2505: Groundwork - Sections 2 & 3 FIRST FORMULATION OF THE UNIVERSAL LAW
(402) "Since i have deprived..."

Rational behaviour is only conformity to an universal law.
-> the obedience of any law does not illicit 'respect'
Reason can only give 'respect' to something that is valid internally and by itself.

when does an universal law become normative -> binding to us?
=> look into the second section
Normative characteristics come from our ability to self-determine the laws' binding to the individual.
E.G. false promises

2nd ARGUMENT WITHIN GROUNDWORK (412)
Pratical reason as the will
-> adopt principles in order to act
contrast will with (arbitary) choice -> whim
The will is the faculty that allows us to choose the good, and the will allows us to hold the good and restrain ourselves to act in its light because the will can pursue its end despite its inclination.

Maxims are not moral principles, specifically not categorical imperatives, they are self-imposed practical principles or self-imposed rules that guide action.

Hypothetical imperatives
-> ends driven
-> pursue skilled ends
-> prudence; seek happiness
-> instrumental

Categorical Imperatives
-> unconditional
-> something we ought to do
-> intrinsic worth
-> no alterior end

Hypothetical imperatives are not moral imperatives and are distinguished fro the categorical imperative because they are in effect ends driven or are imperatives of skill.

Categorical imperatives have no conditions and thus have no ends to motivate us. The imperative neccessity realised by our reason motivates us.

The conditions are set up to show us that moral (or categorical) imperatives are binding upon us OR why they ought to be binding upon us.

FORMULA OF THE UNIVERSAL LAW (420-1)

"act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become an universal law" (421)

"act as if the maxim of your action should through your will become a law of nature." (421)

Laws, we reasonably ascent to, that are applicable to everyone under all circumstances.

EGs.
1. suicide violates a duty to oneself
2. false promises violates our duty to others
3. not pursuing one's talents violates a duty to oneself
4. refusing to help others violates our duties to others

The categorical imperative tell us that we "ought not to take the liberty of making an exception to it for ourselves (or just this once) to the advantage of our inclination." (424)

HUMANITY AS AN ENDS IN ITSELF

The idea of duty implies an analytic understaning of the notion of categorical imperatives; however there is a lack of motivation.

The moral law must be established a priori - with nothing empirical (must meet this demand) - this is what gives it necessity.

Labels: notes, philosophy

  ¶ 2:44 pm 0 Comments

  Celebrity? Why am I not one? Last Friday i travelled to Balmain, and upon seeing a banner (advertisement) i was mildly amused. I had thought that an inspirational artist had made an ironic social comment on the horrid state of the celebrity status within Australia and its media. The graphic included the text: "Celebrity Circus!" in bold comical font. The affect was quite efficient in conveying the ridiculous nature to which Australian tv had sunk to with such programming as 'Dancing With The Stars', 'Big Brother: Season 5(?), and 'The OC'. In which untrained, boring, and lewd characters/wannabe actors are presented to us in an unsightly and vividly stifled condition. I thought the analogy to a circus, in the derogatory sense of course, was quite satisfactory - 'on the mark'.

Nevertheless some time later, within Hunters Hill, i discovered a billboard with the same graphic and text; however this version still had the channel Nine logo and splurge at the bottom of the advertisement. At once everything had become clear. Someone had neatly subverted the add at Balmain, but still the beast survived, and yet another brain numbing show would be aired on free to air Australian television. Sometimes i wonder if the broadcasters actually work on the ratings system; becaue if they did i would beleive higher quality shows would be put on air as to entice people that have 'lost their way' in the tv world and now read a book instead. I realise there are a lot of people who supposedly enjoy viewing this programs, yet i am still unable to meet one of these people. Perhaps it is because i get out too much and dont spend enough time over at other people's homes watching tv.  ¶ 7:45 pm 0 Comments

  You Are The Wanderer...I Am The Flower?
You are the flower.

Labels: art

  ¶ 6:13 pm 1 Comments

  PHIL2505: First Part Of The GroundWork For The Metaphysics of Morals PREFACE:
- aim...Supreme Principle of Morality

Key features of autonomy:
1) A rational agent is self-governing/self-legislating. We impose the standards of moral judgement on ourselves.
2) Rational agents are ends in themselves. Each agent alone can make their decisions concerning right and wrong action.

The Influence of the EMOTIONS
The emotions themselves cannot be justification for action.

THE GOOD WILL

Underlying common moral understanfin is Good-Will.
-> begins by asserting the only unlimited good is the Good-Will (393)....must also assume that agents have the capacity to be free.
=> to "prove" this (the good will thing): compare with other possible candidates -> inherently desirable traits.
* concludes that is the will is not good the traits may be bent to evil.
- Without good-will the aspiration of happiness may corrupt us.
~> we can't think of the good-will as being like any other virtue, some fixed quality of human nature. In fact to consider it as such is naive and harmful.
-> then you either have it or you dont (this thought is obviously wrong...for KANT everyone must have the ability to have good-will as a std for all rational agents.)

=> KANT believes everyone has good-will underlying in order that autonomy can trump any self-interested (hurtful) desires.

DUTY: (397-401)

Acting in ACCORDANCE: is where we look to find an expression of the good will.

Acting in CONFORMITY: doing the right thing because it seems right, has ulterior motives. eg self-interest.

TWO (2) KINDS OF MOTIVATION
1) Indirect Inclination
There is no immediate inclination to act from duty but only because they are impelled to do so through another inclination.
EG Shopkeeper.

2) Direct Inclination
Someone does what is right not from duty but because someone is so constituded that they are beneficiant to others simply because they find "an inner satisfaction in spreading joy around them". (398)
-> no genuine moral worth

-> this is like acting from duty in the sense that it aims to help other, but the ground is an inclination, so it is not acting from duty. What KANT is trying to distinguish is the idea that we act from duty when we are self constraining.

MORAL WORTH AND MAXIMS

First Proposition:
action hs moral worth when done from duty. (393-398) no ulteriors

Second Proposition:
"an action performed from duty has its moral worth not in the purpose/end to be attained by it, but in the maxim in accordance with which it is decided upon," and this does not require that it be achieved, only that the action be driven by "the principle of volition in accordance with which the actoin is done without regard for any object of the faculty of desire." (399-400)

Moral Worth; "nowhere else than in the principle of the will without regard for the ends that can be bought about bu such an action." (400)

Third Proposition:
Duty is the necessity of an action from 'respect' for the law.

The ground on which the action is based is solely from the respec of the objective and subjective attributes of the law.

RESPECT FOR THE LAW

The law is a command because it has two (2) features...

1) Objectivity - is all that could motivate us once we set aside our inclination.

2) Subjective Feeling - from the subjective side this objectivity instils respect. Because of its objectivity we recognise its necessity. We are motivated to act because we 'feel' its necessity.

"duty is the necessity to act out of respect for the law"(400)

In recognition of the objectivity of the law it implies a necessity of action; thus the subjective feeling gives us a respect for the law in which we act from
=> recognition of our value of good will.

* Respect from the correct determination of the good will.

* refer to footnote on pg. 401

Labels: philosophy

  ¶ 5:12 pm 0 Comments

  ENGL2104: Second Essay At the opening of Pope's Rape of the Lock, Ariel appears to assert that supernatural entities such as himself exert great power over human affairs when he claims, "the Sylphss contrive all" (I, 104). To what extent does the action of the poem bear out this claim?

Supernatural themes and entities are prevalent within many works of the restoration period, their purposes and descriptions vary, however within Pope’s work, The Rape of The Lock, there are two defined supernatural entities at work; the ‘sprites’ and ‘Fate’. These two entities are somewhat at battle with each other throughout the story, that is to say that the will of the Fates seems to conflict with the divine purpose of the sprites in protecting beauty that is an attribute of Belinda. Nevertheless the action of the poem does decidedly claim that supernatural entities, be it via direct interference or their internal conflict, do hold a substantial will to power in the mortal realm. Not only is this claim asserted by Ariel within the poem’s opening canto, but is also strengthened by the continual acknowledgement of the actions and motives of the sprites and Fates throughout the poem and its conclusory end. The active elements within the poem, and the deeds of the mortal characters, do not show that the supernatural beings have complete control over human affairs, but does demonstrate a control to the extent of achieving a greater ends; such as illustrated at the conclusion of the poem as the lock is placed at a heavenly abode.
The strongest supernatural actions are those of Ariel, a sprite presented as some type of commanding Sylph, who takes the charge of protecting the beauty as embodied by Belinda. Ariel’s speech to his fellow Sprites is similar to the address to the angels, and again similar to Satan’s address to the fallen angels within Milton’s Paradise Lost; the relationship here is a mock representation of the power and importance that is attributed to the scene. Pope has worked into the poem numerous references to Milton’s angelic counterparts in order to strengthen this mock relationship of the poem within the history of the epic, and also to assist the audience in their understanding of the relationship these supernatural entities supposedly have with the world of men and women – Adam an Eve.




‘Know farther yet; whoever fair and chaste
Rejects mankind, is by some Sylph embraced:
For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease
Assume what sexes and what shapes they please.’
(I, 67-70)

Fate urged the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain
(But airy substance soon unites again),
(III, 151)

Nevertheless, on a relative scale, quite within the bounds of the poem in itself, the Sprites do hold a relative authority to that of the Angels within Paradise Lost, for this is the aim of the mock style. Yet Ariel points out explicitly that “our humbler province is to tend the fair, / not less pleasing, though less glorious care” (II, 91). And yet the Sprites take to the task as seriously as any other, intent on staving off “some dread event” (I, 109) that is to threaten such beauty as placed on earth. It is enough to say here that the Sprites are self-aware, self-convinced, of their own abilities to affect change within human affairs; however, and it is important to note, that the Sprites do not have knowledge like that of Milton’s angels to know the will of God, or a greater plan. Such a point can be made when it becomes clear that the mortal vessel, the Baron, used to carry out the action of defilement, that of removing the lock, has in support another clear set of supernatural beings.

For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had implored
Propitious heaven, and every power adored,
But chiefly Love – to Love an altar built,
Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt.
There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves;
And all the trophies of his former loves.
With tender billets-doux he lights the pyre,
And breathes three amorous sighs to raise the fire;
Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes
Soon to obtain, and possess, the prize:
The powers gave ear, and granted half his prayer;
The rest the winds dispersed in empty air.
(II, 35-45)

In this essence the ‘powers’ are using the Baron’s own will and desires to in turn enact a will and ends of their own, one that us mere mortals are not intended to understand – at least not until the very end. The Sprites on one hand carry out their work and tasks whereas on the other the Fates have greater control in a way that they can shift subtly the ends to which human actions will bring about. In this course the Sprites seemed to be limited in affecting change of human affairs outside the actions of man and women themselves. However this only due to the fact that the actions of the Sprites are answerable to Fate; thus an interesting prospect is brought up whether the actions of the Sprites hindered or helped in some ways the result of Fate. In a similar fashion Shakespeare examines the actions of the supernatural and Fate on the course of mankind within MacBeth; whether the actions of the three witches shaped Fate and MacBeth himself, or ‘twas it merely human decision.
Yet in a most direct way Pope demonstrates the ability of the Sprites to directly sway human interaction via the card game in Canto III. Simply by the Sylphs’ interaction with the cards in themselves, “the aerial guard descend, and sit on each important card” (III, 31), and will these stronger cards into the playing hand of Belinda. The playing out of the game is likened to a battle within a war, an analogy that immediately conjures to the mind the ritualistic pre-war ceremonies to respective gods and powers to bring about victory. In this case, the battle between Belinda and the Baron, a similar discourse arises, the Sprites invoked perform their duty to assist in bringing about victory; not only by placing strong suit cards within Belinda’s hand but also with strategic information to bring about a coup de’tat. Pope uses this card sense and the analogy to war to draw the point of supernatural participation in a double-edged fashion. For as explained the Sprites have worked their will upon the game, yet however on a larger level Fate has had its way again. In the wake of Belinda’s victory the Baron is further enticed to take what prize he wishes and call it his own. The card game itself is suggestive of the fateful nature of cards, and their link to the spiritual via tarot, not only are the Sprites at work within the game of ‘Ombre’, but fate has used the ends of the game to shape further inevitable action. For “fate inclined the field” (III, 66) toward Baron, indicates to the audience fate’s siding with the Baron’s mischief, all the while “thoughtless mortals [are] ever blind to fate” (III, 101). In as much as Pope examples the power and control these supernatural Sprites have over human affairs, they are overshadowed by a great supernatural power, namely fate. In this sense we can limit Ariel’s, and similar supernatural entities’ ability to exert great power over human affairs within the construction of yet another supernatural power, one superior, that of Fate.

Swift to the lock a thousand Sprites repair,
A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair,
And thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear;
Thrice she looked back, and thrice the foe drew near.
(III, 135-138)

A Sylph too warned me of the threats of fate,
In mystic visions, now believed too late!
(IV, 160-1)

Despite the movement of the Sprites their actions do not deter the hidden intentions of Belinda and her disposition toward the Baron. However, her actions do not play into her imagined outcome, rather into a fateful position in which the Baron is easily ably to complete half of his desire. Half the desire incomplete, the Baron also becomes a ‘victim’ of fate in as much as his imagined outcome is left destitute, enacting half of his will collapsed the second – Belinda shall love him no more. And yet fate is still unfinished, because a predetermined path from above suggests that a lesson is in the making, to be arrived at when all parts are played out.

Even then before the fatal engine closed,
A wretched Sylph too fondly interposed;
Fate urged the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain
(But airy substance soon unites again),
(III, 149-152)

Suitably summarised is the Sprites ineptness to counter the compounding movement of events that from the very beginning they set out to prevent. Throughout the poem, as highlighted by the three selected passages, the actions of the Sprites seem futile when faced with the will of Fate. In essence the supernatural presence of fate has been accompanying the mortal individuals as much as it has been accompanying entities such as Ariel. The predetermined nature of the Sprites unending endeavour to preserve beauty had all along signified the work of fate and greater achievement; likewise with the intentions of the mortals entwined with the story are bound to a predetermined nature in which participation is a practical necessity.
So much as the supernatural entities work within the purpose of Fate they are able to influence, control, and exert great power over human affairs. The conclusion that pope presents within Rape of the Lock is not that one being has an assertive power over another, but that the hand of fate uses the interaction of beings to ends that outlasts all and in this case consecrates the lock to an everlasting fame. Whether this is an allusion by Pope to the poem itself (literature in general) or his message of good humour in the face of determined fate is uncertain. Nevertheless the ability of supernatural beings is questioned within Rape of the Lock, and is concluded to have the same masters as mere mortals.




Bibliogrpahy

Doody, Margarat A. The Daring Muse Cambridge university Press 1984

Price Martin. The Oxford Anthology of English Literature: the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century Oxford Press 1973

Rosseau, G.S. 20th Centruy Interpretations of “Rape of the Lock”: A Collection of Critical Essays Englewood Cliffs 1969

Labels: english, essay

  ¶ 11:35 pm 0 Comments

  Distinction Between Noumena and Phenomena The terms phenomena and noumena are key to Kant’s Transcendental Idealism in as much as both terms help define the realm of possible knowledge as defined by Kant. That is, the world of possible knowledge is made available to us, all rational beings, only through the process of experience; the simultaneous use of intuitive data with conceptual thought. Immediately a dialectic, one that Kant hopes to reconcile, is brought about to explain knowledge, and following thus three analogous binary relationships are examined: appearances and things-in-themselves, empirical objects and transcendental objects, and phenomena and noumena. All of which have a corresponding relationship, however despite similarities no one term of the six is interchangeable with another; the belief of such interchangeability has been the downfall of many critics and led to their misunderstanding of Kant. It is within a properly defined and discussed examination with comparison of both phenomena and noumena, as Kant’s terms, that the distinction can be found and then appropriately drawn to explicate the further distinctions between appearances/things-in-themselves and empirical objects/transcendental objects.
The term phenomena, is used largely referring to the objects of experience, however the term, similarly with noumena, deals directly with the subject of experience, the rational being that is doing the experiencing. When put into different words the phenomena can be understood as the term reflecting what sensible entities the subject itself has derived from empirical data, the senses. Examined in this way one may be able to see why phenomena may be used as a synonym for appearances and empirical objects, however Kant uses the three terms to illustrate three stages of change of what seems to be the same (or very similar thing). It must be noted here for the rest of the paper that Kant absolutely asserts the difference between these six terms, that he is not merely emphasising a change in perspective of the one object, but that the object itself must change as the subject experiences it; this is a result of the indirect relationship to the thing-in-itself and the interactive nature of experience. That at one point there exists empirical objects that we can know determinately via the senses because they expound empirical information, appearances, that are in turn experienced by rational beings via concept and intuition, the result is phenomena – a determinate object of experience to which we have attached a concept. Although at once these terms may seem to be ascribed to the same thing along a path, or time, the arguments put forward within the Critique of Pure Reason show that it is important to understand the various subtle differences within each, which thus helps to explain and strengthen the distance between rational beings in the world and the things-in-themselves being in the world.

“All existence and all change in time have thus to be viewed as simply a mode of the existence of that which remains and persists. In all appearances the permanent is the object itself, that is, substance as phenomenon; everything, on the other hand, which changes or can change belongs only to the way in which substance or substances exist, and therefore to their determinations. ”

For Phenomena is a positive definition in the sense that it is something that rational beings have in terms of their experience and thus it is a term we can define and relate within language itself; consisting of attributes that are phrased and coined with the user in mind. Phenomena should be thought of in such a way that we understand it to be our avenue for possible experience and therefore knowledge, so as to understand phenomena is to understand our derivation of all our knowledge. However in this aspect it must be limited, according to Kant, so that we cannot possibly assume that there are not other means in which one may receive empirical data. That is to say that phenomena is relative to each, whom experiences, in that it is the term ascribed to the way in which appearances are conceptualised as objects within the schema of experience. To limit phenomena, or on the other hand to explore other possibilities of perception, the term noumena is created, however it is such a term that cannot be determined.

“If the objective reality of a concept cannot be in any way known, while yet the concept contains no contradiction and also at the same time is connected with other modes of knowledge that involve given concepts which it serves to limit, I entitle that concept problematic. The concept of noumena – that is, of a thing which is not to be thought of, as an object of the senses but as a thing in itself, solely through pure understanding – is not in any way contradictory. ”

Note that within the previously quoted text that Kant wishes us to think of noumena as a thing-in-itself but is not the thing-in-itself. This is largely misquoted and thus leads to a misinterpretation of noumena as the thing-in-itself, which it blatantly cannot be. For example if we substitute the term noumena in place of the thing-in-itself within the Critique of Pure Reason it becomes apparent that Kant was considering two separate ideas. For it is plainly apparent that Kant insists that there are absolutely, beyond doubt, things-in-themselves existing within reality; how can their not be, if there were not, the appearances that we perceive would not exist and there would be no empirical data. On the other hand, noumena, this assuredness of existence is not apparent; the term is used in a completely conceptual basis to compliment and limit the term phenomena and possible knowledge. For at no point in the Critique of Pure Reason is it suggested that the methods of perception, senses, that we are familiar with as rational beings are the only methods of perception and therefore are the only means by which knowledge can be gained. Therefore noumena for us cannot bring knowledge because it is not with an empirical base; all knowledge arises from experience, which is grounded within the empirical. On this side noumena is examined as objects that are thought by pure understanding alone, without empirical data, with however other concepts that play a limiting factor on the general object of the noumena.
For if the senses represent something to us merely as it appears, this something must also in itself be a thing, and an object of a non-sensible intuition, that is of the understanding. It is implied in this distinction that we place the latter, considered in their own nature, although we do not so intuit them, or that we place other possible things, which are not objects of our senses but are thought as objects merely through the understanding, in opposition to the former, and that in doing so we entitle them intelligible entities (noumena).
Therefore it is important to stress that noumena, in opposition to phenomena, is an indeterminate object because it is not at all tied to the empirical realm from which rational beings draw knowledge; true knowledge can only be determinate. Noumenon is also mistaken as the Transcendental Object and the Thing-In-Itself, however due to the definition of noumenon it cannot be, no matter how close its behaviour, neither of these things. Firstly it cannot be the transcendental object because the noumena is ascribed to the concept (intelligible entity) of the object (the expounder of appearance – the thing-in-itself) as it is, which defines noumena as a pure thought, one without multiplicity and lack of empirical content. The transcendental object may have multiplicity, needing not to exist as a pure thought object, and ultimately cannot exist as a pure self-contained object due to its determinate link to the empirical world. In this way noumena would be falsely understood as the transcendental object. In a similar vain the noumenon cannot be interpreted as the thing-in-itself, no matter how closely the negative term of noumena resembles that of the thing-in-itself in behaviour, because the noumenon is the thought of the object as engendered by the subject – the being in possession of the noumenon. In this sense the noumenon is within the subject, as thought, and therefore cannot have any direct or indirect empirical affect on the subject. The thing-in-itself does exist in the empirical realm independent of the subject that may experience the appearance of the thing-in-itself via sensory intuition, thus it has an empirical value attributed to it, something the noumenon by very definition cannot have.
If by ‘noumenon’ we mean a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensible intuition, and so abstract from our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the term. But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensible intuition, we thereby presuppose a special mode of intuition, namely, the intellectual, which is not that which we possess, and of which we cannot even comprehend even the possibility.
In so far as we have looked at what the noumena is not, definition in its negative sense (used as a problematic and limiting concept), it can be understood as something that we cannot understand but use in a general sense of perspective, acknowledging what we cannot know. However in a positive sense of the term noumena are the things that are apprehended by a non-receptive or non-sensible intuition. Thus to understand noumena is to understand, or exhibit, non-sensible intuition, which is impossible for us as rational beings, nevertheless we may define noumena in a relative context to that which is not phenomena. It is within the nature of noumena itself that it can only be described by what it is not, for it is a concept that is so far out of our understanding that language itself makes no exception for its inclusion – some critics attack this point in such a way, that to give a term in which nothing can be explained is as good as giving us nothing.
Noumena can come to be thought of in three distinct variations; that as it is inextricably bound to phenomena, that as it is unthought by a rational being not in possession of a non-sensible (non-receptive) intuition, and finally (ostracised from any subjective context) as a pure indeterminate thought without empirical existence. From these three variations of explaining noumena there can derive an unknown yet recognisable absence, hole of knowledge, that contains somewhere within the – ephemeral – noumena. As it is bound to the phenomena the noumena is not representative of a concept of an object but rather as a limiting tool upon our sensibility, one that should be acknowledged and used so that one can be aware of the determinability of their knowledge. For Kant argues that the only knowledge that should concern rational beings is true knowledge, and rational being can only achieve true knowledge from experience that is empirically derived.

“In order that a noumenon signify a true object, distinguishable from all phenomena, it is not enough that my thoughts about it be free of all conditions of sensible intuition. I must in addition have reason to posit another form of intuition than this sensible one, by means of which such an object could be given. Otherwise my thought of a noumenon is quite empty although without contradiction. ”

The sense of noumena as by a subject that has a non-sensible intuition is not something beings without this special intuition can comprehend, but it is something we can define, especially alluding to the means in which noumena comes about within the mind. That is to say that noumena, in its own concept, must be defined inherently with its means of apprehension. Thus in the same way that phenomena is understood inherently with sensible intuition, the noumena must be defined with its means of apprehension – non-sensible intuition. It is as though we examine yet another apprehension via the acknowledgement of our own and thus we do not discount the possibility of another form of apprehension dissimilar to our own to be available to another being. So that in this way it is to be understood that knowledge gained from noumena is not empirically based, for noumena has no grounding in empirical objects, thus noumena for us cannot bear knowledge. Therefore the existence of noumena rests on the existence of a non-sensible intuition, a truth that is impossible to know via sensible representation; and intuition that is not affected by apprehended objects.

If I remove from empirical knowledge all thought (through categories), no knowledge of any object remains. For through mere intuition nothing at all is thought, and the fact that this affection of sensibility is in me does not [by itself] amount to a relation of such representation to any object. But if, on the other hand, I leave aside all intuition, the form of thought still remains – there thus results the concept of a noumenon.

Here Kant finally breaks down noumenon into a bare concept that it can be thought of in context to phenomenon and knowledge. Effectually noumenon as concept is ultimately something that cannot be finitely assigned value, but is represented through the absolute form of thought. Arguably the form of thought is also something that exists outside reasonable fields of discussion and explanation. However if it can be accepted that with the removal of all intuition there still remains a basic framework for thought, it stands to reason that a being with non-sensible intuition would likewise also have the same, if not similar, framework for thought. In this sense we can understand noumena as a different means to phenomena that fills this framework of thought.
The distinction between phenomena and noumena is better understood when both are treated as forms (methods) in which the framework for thinking can be filled in. Phenomenon on the one hand has its intuitive basis within the empirical domain for rational beings that have a sensible intuition, whereas the noumenon has its intuitive basis independent of the empirical domain for beings that have a non-sensible intuition. “A phenomenon is an ‘object of possible experience’, whereas a noumenon is an object knowable to thought alone, and which does not make sense to be described as the object of experience.” Thus the distinction is drawn upon the line of apprehension, and the absence of sensible objects being apprehending in the course of a non-sensible intuition. The phenomena is completely knowable in principle as any object of scientific (empirical) investigation; as the noumena, for rational beings with sensible intuition, exists as a problem of sensibility, unconditioned (unempirical) knowledge, that can only be defined in a negative sense due to the limitations of a sensible institutively derived language.

Bibliography
Allison, Henry E. “Kant’s Transcendental Idealism” Yale University, 1983
Ameriks, Karl. “Interpreting Kant’s Critique” Oxford University Press, 2003
Collins, Arthur W. “Possible Experience: Understanding Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason” University of California Press, 1999
Ewing, A.C. “A Short Commentary On Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason” Methuen Press, 1965
Findlay, J.N. “Kant and the Transcendental Object” Clarendon Press Oxford, 1981
Grier, Michelle. “Kant’s Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion” Cambridge University Press, 2001
Heidegger, Martin. “Phenomoenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason” Indiana University Press, 1997
Kant, Immanuel. “Critique of Pure Reason” Cambridge University Press, 1998
Scruton, Roger. “Kant” Oxford University Press, 1982
Wolff, Robert P. (Editor) “Kant: A Collection of Critical Essays”
Schrader, George “The Transcendental Dialectic: The Thing-In-Itself in Kantian Philosophy” Macmillan Press, 1968

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  undone

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  undo copy

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  runthrough

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  META 4: inception if each of us had a different kind of sense perception - if we could only percieve things now as a bird now as a worm, now as a plant, or if one of us saw a stimulus as red, another as blue, while a third even heard the same stimulus as souns - then now one would speak of such a regularity of nature, rather, nature would be grasped only as a creation which is subjective in the highest degree

there exists no word for these intuitions; when man sees them he grows dumb, or else he speaks only in forbidden metaphors and in unherd-of combinations of concepts

the rational man, in fear of intuition, stands beside the intuitive man, who scorns abstraction; the latter is just as irrational as the former is inartistic

the misplacement of the transcendental apperception may be the modern man's greatest failure; that within one fell swoop not only has one's perspective become universal but also law

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  META 4: English "forefather, foreground - for four fore and 4"

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  META 4: Latin "four denarios"

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  META 4: French "Because we were made as one we continue as one"

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  META 4: Chinese "what was thundered and undone behold the two make one"

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