Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Logical Pluralism', 'Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic' and 'Reasons and Persons'

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3 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities
I can make no sense of the red experience being similar to the quality in the object [Kant]
     Full Idea: I can make little sense of the assertion that the sensation of red is similar to the property of the vermilion [cinnabar] which excites this sensation in me.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 290)
     A reaction: A sensible remark. In Kant's case it is probably a part of his scepticism that his intuitions reveal anything directly about reality. Locke seems to have thought (reasonably enough) that the experience contains some sort of valid information.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / e. Primary/secondary critique
I count the primary features of things (as well as the secondary ones) as mere appearances [Kant]
     Full Idea: I also count as mere appearances, in addition to [heat, colour, taste], the remaining qualities of bodies which are called primariae, extension, place, and space in general, with all that depends on it (impenetrability or materiality, shape etc.).
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 289 n.II)
     A reaction: He sides with Berkeley and Hume against Locke and Boyle. He denies being an idealist (Idea 16923), so it seems to me that Kant might be described as a 'phenomenalist'.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
I can't intuit a present thing in itself, because the properties can't enter my representations [Kant]
     Full Idea: It seems inconceivable how the intuition of a thing that is present should make me know it as it is in itself, for its properties cannot migrate into my faculty of representation.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 282)
     A reaction: One might compare this with Locke's distinction of primary and secondary, where the primary properties seem to 'migrate into my faculty of representation', but the secondary ones fail to do so. I think I prefer Locke. This idea threatens idealism.