Ilya Startsev

Yes, or maybe it's that Roecklein and I don't agree upon anything. In that case I would love to debate the issues with him directly.

Is he serious? After such thinking I must conclude that Roecklein is either an idiot or an atomist himself.

Tell me this is not intuitive (contra Kant):

I fail to grasp that, and Kant's explanations are of no help. I guess I need to read more of his critics. I surely wouldn't call Locke a pure empiricist, but an atomist? That's a very strange claim, so I will have to read the article to understand the argument. Is Roecklein sure that he was not reading Kant? Locke's categories are intuitive and perceptible, like those in Aristotle. Similarly, Roecklein wouldn't claim that Aristotle reduced objects to 'bundles of qualities', right?

As in: physical universe -- imperfect, laws -- perfect.

Yes, the blank slate is a difficult topic, especially considering evidence such as this. Nonetheless, I'd still interpret Locke that he only meant the blank content of consciousness, not the structure of consciousness, since he believed in the soul.

I started reading Rovelli's article, but I already can't take it anymore. He shows off being so smart with not 'antagonism' but using aspects of all interpretations of quantum mechanics, and as if in the end it's all based on simple postulates and principles, etc. He is evidently in the Epicurean tradition, so I've categorized him as a #4 on the simplified Diagram on this page. Also, after reading on Smolin and his crazy theories (reflecting Leibniz and also inspired by him in some ways), I've categorized the latter as a #2. In an additional hypothesis I've had, dual-positional categories are balanced by single-positional ones, in this case #2 is balanced by #4. The 2-4 pair seems a stable one in my personal experience and research.

I would like to argue the opposite. I think that Kantian scholars idealize Kant and thus misinterpret and misunderstand Kant just as Harriman idealized and thus misinterpreted and misunderstood Aristotle. Here is a passage from SEP on Hermann Cohen (sec. 10): In contrast to what this 'majority' believes, Kant was only interested in mind and is today supported by some psychological evidence.

"Aristotle’s secularism and advocacy of reason". Aristotle's believed in the Prime Mover (i.e. God) and had his entire metaphysics depend on Him. He also believed in the heart as the seat of the soul. Aristotle believed in the importance of emotions in his rhetoric. He also was no rationalist but accepted both the role of reason and empirical data in inferences (see, e.g. "Introduction" to Aristotle's Prior and Posterior Analytics by W. D. Ross, Oxford UP, 1957).

The best video I've ever seen against climate change is this: I highly recommend watching it.

Maybe you could also explain, as I am confused on this topic, what led to Peikoff's break off with Harriman. I mean, Harriman is with TAS now. Did Peikoff finally realize that Harriman was off on the topics of the book? Or was it something different? I downloaded Rovelli's article, but I am not sure I'd be interested in reading science any time soon. I am all about philosophy right now, and I can tell you right front: I do not respect Rovelli's philosophy. It's not an attack. It's a matter of fact.

This is excellent news. It shows evidence of a segment of the connection between quantum and cosmic levels (here on earth). Two things I want to elaborate on for you specifically, EC, as you are new to this discussion: I argued against the Loop quantum gravity, a theory that competes with string theory but bases itself also on quantum gravity (but philosophically vastly different). Also, when I mentioned that gravity for strings is an a posteriori fact (and even than a fact of mathematics, not an empirical fact), I want to stress that a posteriori doesn't exclude necessary conclusions, as Saul Kripke wonderfully argued, contrary to what all Kantians believe.

New Buddha, I sincerely apologize concerning ad hominem attacks. I try to delete them when I proofread my comments, but some do get through, based on emotions I feel at the moment. Notice also, although that doesn't excuse me one bit, that they are indirect attacks. I would never directly attack anyone on this forum! Yes, there is also a contradiction on my part (based also on emotions, rather than proper reasoning). When you brought up LQG I was a bit surprised because I've never heard about it before, and since I disagreed with the Atomic article I decided to attack the theory too, not realizing that my disagreement was with its philosophy, not science, of this particular writer. (It's funny, though, that he also confuses philosophy with science, as in his book on Anaximander.) In any case, we should stick to philosophy here, as I am not a professional scientist, just an amateur like Peikoff is. The 'deception' part is a rhetorical tactic I've used too often, so I will try to hold off on that. I respect Peikoff greatly (much more so than Rovelli), and when the contradiction was obvious I hated attacking him. I am also surprised that Lee Smolin "approved" of Harriman's book (that's indeed quite a shift in the scientific community if that is indeed so!), as I didn't grasp that from your previous comment. Could you reference exactly the "approval"? Only a posteriori as an explanation, yes, as happens in M-theory (necessitating the presence of gravity by the structure of strings). In any case, as I quoted from Wikipedia, gravity is added after quantum evidence was coded into strings. Yes, and here I once again refer to string theory. Notice that Einstein's and Hawking's original explanations (equations, descriptions) had nothing to do with actual quanta. The idea that information is not lost in black holes and that holographic principle is fruitful in understanding them comes from Leonard Susskind, one of co-founders of string theory (and the principle exponent, I would say). In the Diagram I've added him as an integrator of a completely new kind, undiscovered yet by Peikoff or any of Objectivists. But seeing that someone on this forum is actually approving of him is another great surprise (of today)!

I stopped reading Harriman after two of his passages. The first one is his inaccurate attribution of rationalism and 'secularism' to Aristotle: That's deception concerning knowing who Aristotle really was (if you were ever serious about studying him). The second passage showed the complete failure of Harriman's entire project of The Logical Leap (edited by Peikoff): This is an overgeneralization that is flawed at the root. First of all, there is no way of knowing everything that's going on, as integrations are complex and multi-leveled. Secondly, only someone who is looking top-down (from an authoritative position) could even attempt to judge such absolute knowledge possible to acquire in this lifetime. And thirdly, Harriman contradicts himself when he starts to enumerate various points and aspects of integration, even though in this quote he evidently says it is not necessary to do so, when you are dealing with a (nebulous) "total." Frankly, and additionally, neither Harriman (M.S.) nor Peikoff (PhD in philosophy) grasp the current work in quantum mechanics and the interpretations of this theory, which are not all fantasies, contrary to what these men would like us to believe. One obvious flaw of The DIM is its consistency in getting all the advanced physical facts wrong. (Ask any professional physicist and they will laugh Peikoff's Ch. 6 out of discussion.) Now, as for the quoted attacks on string theory: About each point: 1) That is called the false vacua of the multiverse, a complexity of a much greater scale than we before could even imagine about our reality (and some unfortunately still can't, even after given rigorous formalizations). 2) I've already said in the previous comment that observation of a multiverse is not impossible a priori; the theory is very new and so ahead of its time that experimental science of a greater scale still needs to catch up to it. Perhaps starting to develop one's imagination won't hurt before we tackle the advanced problems of physics with this theory. 3a) Even though its far-reaching conclusions have yet to be proven, string theory (in toto) depends only on observable evidence already gathered thanks to quantum and relativity theories. In contrast to what some may believe, string theory doesn't postulate any new and undiscovered forces (such as gravitons) or fields (such as inflatons). Instead, it only describes all the currently known evidence and data about both the quantum and the cosmic scales (distinguishing the two). Without yet being able to observe the internal structure of particles, string theory postulates particles as strings, that is, strings being particles themselves, particle motion and quantum numbers attributed to how strings behave. Each unique string structure corresponds to factual data of individual particles (electrons, quarks, etc.). Hence, each particle from The Standard Model is visualized as a string. This visualization is crucial, both mathematically and intuitively, to be able to grasp problems of the universe that we would otherwise fail to even approach. 3b) I am not sure if you realize that Einstein's 'spooky action at a distance' came out to be true and is a fact today known as quantum entanglement. Without the string theory's explanation of particle motions in multiple dimensions, there is no intuitive way of explaining quantum entanglement. Hence, it is the strength of the string theory in taking account of actual, otherwise unexplainable phenomena on not only quantum level but also on the cosmic level (such as black holes). Concerning advanced physics that you seem to favor without actually understanding what it entails, here is something: The inductive approach shared by integrators is to go ground up. In this case, ground-up, and not top-down, is the view of string theory. LQG, in its very description, contradicts integration. On the other hand, let me be more sympathetic. There is a new, more or less promising theory that combines spacetime quantization and multiple dimensions. Roberts seems to integratively grasp how spacetime can be properly quantized without atomistic reduction of LQG, and he also simplifies (or dumbs down) the 11 dimensions from the M-theory extension of string theory. Now, his view is interesting and may provide new ideas and perspectives on old problems, but I doubt it could count for more, as it is still very limiting, compared to competing theories. In any case, I will leave you with your own thoughts.

Actually I quite grasped this. That's why I wrote that they perceived nature as a whole. The only way something can be a whole is if it is determined by its form of essence. Hence the failure of Kant's epistemology. I am also aware that Newton and Locke didn't use the essentialist thinking of Aristotle; however, they still retained essences by other means, as things in themselves and centers of mass, somethings that directly inhere to objects and have a unifying (integrative) nature. Quantum gravity is a false flag problem operating in physics to promote the kind of disintegration I spoke of. In order to realize that there is no gravity, as such, on the quantum level, one needs to make a single mental operation: distinguish quantum and cosmic levels. Once you do, you'd realize that just because they find gravity on the cosmic level, it doesn't necessarily follow that quantum level will have it too. Searching for gravity as such on the quantum level is like searching for Santa Claus. No matter how much you believe in it (him), you won't find the actual thing (person), but you may find imitators. Frankly, I don't understand what the big deal is with not accepting string theory. The intuitive aspect of string theory is that it finds gravity in the connection of quantum and cosmic levels, not on each level alone. Now, a connection would have gravity, surely, as you have gravity on one end of this line. Without this connection, however, you cannot find gravity among quanta, no matter how much you'd try to reduce the entire cosmos to quantum phenomena: your ultimate result is a failure, which, of course, if you are a DIS, you'd cover up to suit your purposes and continue to go at it or maybe even LIE about it (gasp! some scientists lie about global warming data because they believe in it so much and want others to believe (i.e. be deceived)!). This is the B.S. that I am talking about. Santa Claus. Only with a different name. It's like saying that 1 (quantum) = 14 (cosmos). In reality, those of us who are reasonable enough should know the absolute truth that 1 =/= 14, or that 14 =/= 1. In fact, it is necessarily so that 14 can never equal 1, so cosmos can never equal quantum. Are you an Objectivist, New Buddha, or what? Why be deceived by these people, when Rand or Peikoff never would? Now, concerning empirical predictions of string theory. People like Rovelli indeed have claimed that it is impossible to show that multiverse exists. However, we also thought other things were impossible to show, such as that atoms exist or what happens at the moment of the Big Bang. It takes time to find a way to prove or show something. Today, there is no way to prove that multiverse exists, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that in the future we could find such an apparatus (whether mathematical or experimental) that would help some genius prove this by showing that multiverse exists. At least it shouldn't be as hard as finding a graviton or an inflaton, in which so many anti-string theorists believe so vehemently. It would help, however, to find such a (logical) frame of reference that would allow one to see how a string-theory multiverse (vs. gravitons or inflatons) is possible. All it is is a grander scale universe, say, a 16, compared to our very limited observable one.

The conclusions I hold from my research is that labels, influences, and theologies are independent from philosophy. The fabric of the history of philosophy is full of dynamical interactions between philosophers. As an example, let's briefly examine five of them: 1) Berkeley, 2) Descartes (interchangeable with Leibniz), 3) Kant, 4) Hume, and 5) Newton (interchangeable with Locke). All five are within different types of philosophies or philosophical traditions (formalized into categories) with different Positions, Directions, and/or Scopes. Here is a cut from the Diagram, reflecting the structures of these five philosophers (philosophies). Note also that these structures are not dependent on time (or space or horizontal representation) and thus are metaphysical (it doesn't matter whether Democritus is found 2 million years into the future and Kant 2 million years in the past, the point is that they are included within the same category). To relate to Peikoff: 1 & 2 are MIS, 3 & 4 are DIS, and 5 is INT. Note their differences. They were all influenced by materialists, perhaps, as you mention, but nonetheless they have differences that are significant. I wrote before on this thread that I believe Descartes and Hume had the greatest influence on Kant. The reason I wrote that is that the substance of Descartes and Hume indeed could have genuinely affected Kant because they all share Kant's Scope. In contrast, Newton and Berkeley do not share Kant's Scope and hence Kant could have only been affected by (his or his mentor's) interpretations of their works rather than the substance of their work. Now, I know some of you may be saying: but wait, Hume was following Berkeley's tradition! Well, not really. It's like saying that Kant was following Newton's tradition, but he really wasn't, as Boydstun's article shows. Instead, Hume was following a radically reduced version (an interpretation) of Berkeley's philosophy. The significant difference between these two so-called empiricists is that Hume was basically a skeptic and Berkeley wasn't. For an example, consider Berkeley's 'conflict' with Malebranche, who claimed that all ideas and all of reality are only known by God, not by people. Berkeley was furious. He said that nothing contradicted his philosophy more because he believed that we can know everything, since, according to him, everything is simply our ideas. Now, if only he compared Malebranche and Hume then the differences would have been much more pronounced, showing that actually he had much less conflict with the first than with the second. This is an example of how one (Hume) was influenced by Berkeley but did not keep the substance of that philosophy. Influences like these lead to faulty labels (as Hume called himself an idealist because of Berkeley), showing that not only labels but also influences can be in name only and understood incompletely indeed. A question: does anyone know whether Berkeley and Hume ever met or corresponded, and if so what they told or wrote to each other? I am interested in whether they found more similarities or conflicts between them. Re Atomic theory article: "Einstein provides, after 2,300 years, the proof of the accuracy of Democritus’s insight: matter is granular." - This is fascinating, considering that Einstein at first, following Mach, didn't believe in atoms, and then that his views match more Platonic than Democritean philosophy. Talk about how suppression of information works out at the end! "the loss of the works of Democritus in their entirety is the greatest intellectual tragedy to ensue from the collapse of the old classical civilisation" - I would say the same about the loss of the works of Anaximander, the author of the first philosophical tractate. "We have been left with all of Aristotle" - this is false. His dialogues are not extant. "Perhaps if all the works of Democritus had survived, and nothing of Aristotle’s, the intellectual history of our civilisation would have been better." That's a jump to a conclusion. It would have been different, for sure, but with Democritus we would have had science progress much more beyond spiritual evolution and so we would have lost our humanity much sooner. Democritus was anti-spiritual, a kind of scientist-robot we see today quite often (I would call Richard Feynman as one, although he was a sarcastic s.o.b.). If there was no Aristotle, there would be no civilization, as we would have disintegrated in conflicts, deteriorating climate, and wars, whose weaponry and effects were caused by scientists and engineers of a materialist calling. No one destroys matter more than materialists themselves do. (See collider and fission experiments.) "The closure of the ancient schools such as those of Athens and Alexandria, and the destruction of all the texts not in accordance with Christian ideas..." - I see an underhand anti-Christian tendency here. First, Alexandrian library was set on fire by a Muslim once. Second, Christian Scholastics, by their meticulous and organized reasoning, caused much change in the scientific front. It's just that change in the Middle Ages was slow because science and religion (spirituality) were in continuous interaction, dialogue, and harmony (like we see in tolerant and proper political and academic work, since such evolution is slow). Today's postmodernist tendency (portraying the so-called "life" in the article) is the product of the deterioration of that harmony at a quickening pace leading us to who-knows-where. "The sense of the profound unity of things, derived from the knowledge that we are all made of the same substance as are the stars, and the sea" - That's not "unity" but plurality. Atoms divide, not unite, especially in death. "We are all sprung from heavenly seed. All alike have the same father..." (qt. from Lucretius) - that's some use of religious/spiritual language to displace religion/spirituality by means of reducing the 'divine plan' to the decentralizing ground of being, like that of Giordano Bruno, who, like other materialists, didn't believe in the absolute center of the universe. "For Lucretius, religion is ignorance: reason is the torch that enlightens." - The author is evidently agreeing with Lucretius, ignoring that the premodern constituted reasonable religion, modern - reasonable science, and postmodern - irrationality that claims science must concern itself only with fragments and never unity (unless such unity is ludicrous, as in some of ideas of David Deutsch). Rovelli's skewed interpretation of the bygone era: there was "little attention to nature; the idea that forms preceding things determine the structure of the world". First, there was plenty of attention to nature (indeed nature, and not matter), as shows the idea of form. People back then thought that nature was a whole and not a chaotic and random plurality of independent fragments all battling each other in order to survive but ultimately end their mingling struggles in absolute death. That's the trouble with reading non-academic work like that from AEON: it reflects too much the prejudices of an author. In this case, the author is an easy pick for a materialist and thus a DIS. It's also funny how the author portrays "fear of death" as an evil. As Stephen Jay Gould argued, fear of death is natural for beings with emotions. Only robots do not fear death, robots that only care for disintegration in order to have a peek into matter. And is that peek worth it, or would humanity not handle it after all, without a proper spiritual experience preceding it and preparing us for it? At the end, it's so much Rovelli's poetry for mean ends. The idea should not be merely how you rhetorically describe the fabric of your thoughts but also the substance of that which you favor. All praise the truth in Rovelli's words: "And there is the simple idea of the finite divisibility of things – the granular quality of the world. It is the idea that stops the infinite between our fingers. This idea is at the root of the atomic hypothesis, but it has returned with augmented force in quantum mechanics." One thing that needs pointing out is that scientists do not stop at dividing the finite things ad infinitum (at their "fingers"). Concerning all their fantasies of trying to disintegrate the very fabric of space and time (by calling it a 'reconciliation' of relativity and quantum mechanics), there is no such thing as 'quantum gravity', no 'gravitons', no 'inflatons', and other imperfectly imaginary ways of destroying the world we live in. The reconciliation of relativity and quantum mechanics is fruitfully continuing through string theory, so there is no need for any Democritean jumpstart of whatever anti-spiritual processes the author has in mind. I support things properly and slowly done, not things rushed through because of some inspirational authority. "With quantum gravity, the last barrier will fall" - the last barriers of reason, spirituality, and humanity, I suppose.

I was told it by a professor, and it stuck with me because it goes against of what I generally thought of Locke, even though I have yet to read any of Locke too. (All my conjectures here are formed by the intuitive fit within the Diagram. The ironic thing is that I have yet to get a philosopher wrong.) Here is an example of contextual thinking in my own methodology: An explanation that I currently favor is that Locke could have said such a thing because, for example, he wrote many other strange things, such as the thought experiments of a prince and a cobbler changing bodies and an occurrence of cloning through a teleportation device (see IEP on Nozick, sec. 4). This also favors a conclusion that rationalism and empiricism are pseudoterms because you can never find a 100% rationalist (e.g. what about Descartes' experiments on animals?) or a 100% empiricist (as Locke evidently wasn't).

This is very relevant and insightful. Thank you for this thought. It really brings forth Kant's doing in a new light. Yes, a transition, you are right.

To mix Newton and Leibniz seems abhorrent to me. As Peikoff argues, Newton stems from Aristotle (even while building a mathematical apparatus out of the latter's logical one), while Leibniz, well, is a guy of 'harmonic' and individuating fantasy, which tries to converge the 'parallel' universes of Plato and Democritus. And to further mix fantasy with something true is to, well, get Kant. As Rand properly understood, Kant is indeed a mixture of good and bad, right and wrong. And there surely is nothing worse than this. I would sooner accept Leibniz with his explanation that a hand moves both out of the accord with free will and, simultaneously, out of matter's random motion, fortuitously coinciding with the motion of the hand, than go along with Kant's brown singular upright existent as chair... or tree... or... you get the point. (You can have an infinity of properties, and they won't mean a concrete thing.) Also, leptons are actual physical particles. That they can be mathematized as 'pure points' shouldn't bare the point of stressing, since this fact is secondary, as are interpretations of quantum mechanics compared to the actual things happening on the quantum level. On the other hand, I am still confused over Locke's metaphysical particle that has no extension. I mean, what's the point of that? It has nothing to do with empiricism. In the beginning of the quote on page 14 of Boydstun's piece (sorry for an earlier misspelling), Kant equates matter with sensation. This is very interesting because I also thought so when I read about sensation in Rand's theory of concepts. That is, sensation as physical particles. But while developing my own epistemology, I started thinking of sensation as thoughts externally stimulated by such particles or matter in general. The issue here is whether to think of sensations as internal or external, and even then we indeed have what is external inside of us (the same particles travel in our brains and bodies as well). I guess there is no conflict then, just something to think through. But there is a conflict when you reduce percepts to sensation (matter), however conditioned transcendentally, as in the passage I quoted above from Kant's KrV. Of course, we have the same trouble of promoting sensation over perception with the likes of Thomas Reid and A. N. Whitehead, but for some reason I still have a greater problem with Kant than with these two. I also like Boydstun's pointers toward the fact that noumenon in Kant is a "limiting idea" that regulates how "we employ in thinking our way about the phenomenal world" (p. 18). It is necessary to stress that noumenon is nothing besides this, contrary to what many interpreters of Kant like to think. Noumenon is not really important to Kant other than of such a peripheral role that it plays in his philosophy. The closest concept I can think of to parallel that of Kant is Democritus's bottomless well. Do you know of it, Boydstun? I don't think it's improper to compare the two, since, as New Buddha mentioned (although Boydstun shows that Kant was more like a failure in some instances of physics), they are both physicists to some extent and both employ the same concept about the formation of cosmos in a vortex. (Kant indeed borrowed this idea from Democritus.) Democritus was first ignored by Plato, but then his fame spread in Renaissance and Enlightenment. Nonetheless Kant derides him in Crit3, §72, for subjectivism in causality, even though his own system employs "a subjective principle of Reason for the Judgement, which as regulative (not constitutive) is just as necessarily valid for our human Judgement as if it were an objective principle" (Crit3, §76, italics here). The other issue is why Democritus was ignored by Plato. Is it because Democritus called himself a 'materialist'? That's what I don't understand in academia: so much weight is given to mere words that it's ridiculous. These are just WORDS, people, learn to think independently of what someone else says but don't ignore it. I love these phrases: "corporeal metaphysics" and "metaphysics of matter" (p. 19, from Boydstun's piece). I think it reflects much of Kant's contribution to philosophy. Re New Buddha latest post: Lucretius was an Epicurean, which in my book doesn't count as Democritean. The major difference, paralleling the difference between Hume and Kant, is that the first were indeterminists, whereas the second were determinists. These are very different materialist views indeed (even though the second pair called themselves 'idealists'. It doesn't matter what someone calls himself; we need to look at what they specifically thought and how they related to others.) The link to the Diagram doesn't show reasons for why individuals are added to the list, but merely includes them as a way to demonstrate inductively the choices and outline the data range. The Diagram is an ever-in-progress project. To actually prove every individual on it and many more that I've added since then (currently 666 individuals) would take not only my lifetime but lifetimes of many in the school of philosophy I am trying to start and promote. Hence the reason for my desire to get a PhD in philosophy (by the way today I was accepted into a Master's program in it). Newton's sympathy toward Democritus doesn't necessarily show that he was a materialist like that. Bacon, without understanding Aristotle, also famously quipped against the Socratics and similarly sympathized with materialists. However, if we look at Bacon's tradition, his empiricism is nothing like materialism. There are many other philosophers and/or scientists (even modern ones, like Carl Sagan) who were inspired by Democritus but who evidently didn't reflect him in their philosophies. So the second conclusion that I derive from my research, following not to trust what people call themselves, is not to equate influences (like those shown on Wikipedia) with the substance of philosophy influenced. For example, I am evidently influenced by Rand and Peikoff, but my philosophy also obviously (ask StrictlyLogical, who hates me, for example) has nothing to do with Rand's or Peikoff's. Again, labels and influences mean nothing without substance to prove the connections. As a third conclusion, theology has nothing to do with philosophy, as Kant determinately showed. It bares naught whether an individual is a theist or an atheist, considering that one can be a subjective theist like Giordano Bruno, for a notorious example. Hence Newton's comment concerning theological interpretation of materialists draws no significant content for philosophy in general. There is lots on mechanistic vs. teleological views of nature in the second part of Kant's Crit3. He goes back and forth there like he did in the antinomies in Crit1 and reflects much of Descartes and Democritus. The latter's anti- or quasi-teleological view is reflected in this particular quote from Kant: Cf. to the (long, sorry) passage from Aristotle arguing against Democritus's view (atomists, namely Leucippus (c. 480 BC) & Democritus (c. 460 BC), implied in bold): There are many other passages from other ancient writers who discussed Democritus's views, but this should do for now. Concerning the infinite universe in Kant (as per Boystun, p. 29; and in Crit3, e.g. V), it is very much the infinite worlds in Democritus. There are other similarities as well, but enumerating all is like chasing an inductive rabbit: either you accept my categorization of Kant along with Democritus or you don't; there is no necessary, deductive line of reasoning for me to follow here, as the theory needs to be developed further and come to maturity in the hands of serious philosophers. The funny thing is that if you understand how the Diagram works, there is nothing else necessary to 'prove' categorizations, as they are very intuitive (more so than Peikoff's system of one/many) and bypass all the data debris by getting at the essence of a particular consciousness, and there can be no better proof than the accuracy of this statement. I will have to read the Atomic article later, thanks for the reference!

I am glad that worked out for it. I must hold off reading Boydstrun's piece, however, as reading it on computer is killing me. I will have to take it a piece at a time.

You mean this passage, concerning 'the nature of perception'? I've paid attention to this paragraph from my first reading of the Meiklejohn's translation. I knew there was something wrong about it, namely that it doesn't show what perception is. Rather, it reduces it to properties (such as quantity) and ultimately disintegrates it into nonexistence. A very sad epistemology indeed. Very apt, considering that Kant believed that he was missing the 'physical' part of his philosophy, so he delved into it before he died (see SEP, last pp. of sec. 1). I accept the distinction, especially with Putnam's critique of Quine. The problem is not with this distinction (even though it becomes pretty complex and confused after Carnap plays with it). The problem, as I stated, concerns Kant's epistemic understanding of perception. And no, this doesn't stray from the topic of this discussion. Peikoff was right that Kant was a disintegrator. I have yet to see evidence to the contrary.

Because, like, there is 'brown' floating in imaginary space and so you necessarily imagine a chair? Why not, I don't know, a tree instead?

I wish there were something that had to do with an elaboration on how exactly Kant 'disproved' Locke's realism. Perhaps that discussion should involve Kantian understanding of perception versus the Lockean one. I am still struggling with the so-called 'perception' in Kant. Just because you got abstract properties of objects (a priori categories) put into mental space and time forms and with imaginary and schematic handwaving somehow you get 'perceptions'? I feel like there is a major gap in Kant's philosophy exactly where actual perceptions should be, but some of these Kantian lovers (like from CSKP and NAKS) maybe like to think that 'perception' is complete in Kant and works perfectly well, so there is no need to add anything extra or elaborate further on the topic. Am I right?

I really appreciate this information, Boydstun, and really, anything you write. Your academic style on the topic is out of the ordinary on this or any Objectivist forum. Considering especially that I'd like to write a dissertation on the problem of perception, from Locke, through T. Read, Kant, perhaps some Schopenhauer and some of the moderns (like Merleau-Ponty, Whitehead, and Kelley), your references add to the good cause.

Regardless of Rand's ignorance concerning Kant's epistemology, this is not exactly what transcendental means in Kant. Rather than a creation of reality, it is a mechanism for justifiably, necessarily deriving knowledge (experience) from synthesis of thought and sensation. Hence Maurice Merleau-Ponty's argument that Kant takes reality as the scientific perceiver (idealist) is through the theoretical faculties of mind and not changing reality in any external, mutually interdependent way. On the other hand, the concept 'reality' can be interpreted in two different ways: phenomenal or noumenal, neither of which is changeable. I assumed you meant phenomenal, but Rand understood neither in Kant. Is it true? Source, please. No, The Matrix is purely Platonic, unless you are one of those who confuses Platonism with Kantianism. That's a joke. Peikoff himself said that he couldn't understand Kant other than through interpretations by others. Kant was too difficult to read for him, and, judging by his critique in Synthetic/Analytic dichotomy, he only misinterprets Kant, and does so grossly and unfavorably. Peikoff is simply stuck in the noncontradiction without being able to moderately perceive Kant. His going to extremes of interpreting Kant reflects in such statements that, But Kant showed, through antinomies, that contradictions are located only in mind, along with all definitions and judgements that help us grasp what's real. The problem ultimately rests in the incommensurability of definitions of Rand/Peikoff and Kant. In my personal verdict, Kant's fault is that he mixed up his understandings of practical (read: commonsensical) with theoretical (read: philosophical), losing on the practical end. Subordination to the self-interest of the brain as such, particularly its inner workings. Is that so? Even that Kant was a 'witch-doctor'? Or that he simply should be taken as an a priori evil and false in his writings, without even an ability to prove him so or understand him rightly (and justly at that)? I think the point in Kant is that in order for us to examine the motivation, the clearest way to find the duty is when we receive suffering for our actions. Then either there will be duty involved or there wouldn't. In the case when we receive happiness, our inclinations toward such reward could have entwined with the sense of duty, if there was such, and hence, in this case, we cannot fish out the true reason for our actions and know whether it was a moral duty or a simple emotion. Concerning your comment that ethics, as such, has nothing to do with epistemology, in Kant they are connected. The epistemic element of practical reason that also begins his normative examinations is the conclusion in pure reason from the first Critique. Hence practical reason is also, at the core, a pure (lawful) reason, whose only difference from theoretical reason is that it bypasses the phenomenal and impulsively reaches within toward the noumenal, yet ever in vain and without completing sainthood in life (or eternally, that we could know of). Frankly, B.S. Not even close to a Bachelor at that. Or to a Kantian in canon. Yes, it's ironic that Nazis also killed Jews out of duty to the Führer, who wished to save Capitalism from Jews/Bolsheviks and all other 'degenerates' in order to build a cultural heaven on earth. Not that this connects to Kant in any way, in contrast to what Peikoff believes.