My thanks to John Woodward for his thoughts, as follows:

 >Previous Message [mine - KM] said:

 >"I'm very grateful to DS who, off-line, has answered my question about
the acceptability of Hugo Munsterberg's reference in 1916 to 'the forms
of the outer world, namely, space, time and causality'.

 >"Quite rightly, DS says that these three 'categories' don't stand up
in 'Kantian' terms because they are already 'in here' and determine
cognition, perception and imagination for Kant."

 >I am curious about the need to continually understand these 'external'
categories as 'interior.' Surely Kant and Schopenhauer were right when
discussing the interface of subject with the 'outer' world, but, if I
remember correctly, Kant suggests things such as space and time are
given to us a priori.

 >Causality is not qua function 'given' to us; rather our understanding
of causality is produced through the system described by Schopenhauer.
My daughter wants to play with things we tell her are hot; if we allow
her to get burned she will learn the causal relationship between heat
and pain. But our understanding of causality cannot prepare us for
certain quantum mechanical phenomena, most notably and actual "spooky
action at a distance" (truly one of the greatest terms for a natural
phenomenon!). Any physicist worth his salt will tell you that causality
is innate in the universe, our understanding of it is not.

 >I think the work of Husserl, the most 'scientific' of the
phenomenologists (not intended as a slur on his character) suggested
that these a priori functions of time, space, and causality are aspects
of the transcendental subjectivity. Should we substitute 'space-time
continuum' for transcendental subjectivity?
--
As I say, thanks John.  Largely just for my own benefit, here are some
notes ...

In my usage henceforth, I will aim, for clarity's sake, to replace the
phrases 'the forms of the outer world' and 'the forms of the inner
world' with: 'the forms of KNOWING the [outer/inner] world'.

There's a useful little book called 'Schopenhauer: Metaphysics and Art'
(1998) by Michael Tanner of Cambridge Uni.  I quote the following from
its opening pages ...

'In Hume's view, we are unable to perceive one event causing another;
all we can observe is one event following immediately after another.'

'Kant [awoken from his "dogmatic slumbers" by Hume's troubling
observation, which I gather has never been disproved] claimed that the
framework of experience is supplied not from outside, from the external
world itself, but by us.  In order for our experience, both of the
external world and of ourselves, to be intelligible, it must conform to
certain principles (not Kant's word).  We have to experience the
external world as being in time and space; and we have to experience the
contents of that world as being causally related, having persistence
through time, and so forth.  Kant produced a highly elaborate chain of
argument to show that this must be true, and this argument was of a type
that has had the greatest influence since.  Kant called it
"transcendental": a misleading term, but what it comes to is this.  We
begin with some undeniable statement, such as that we have sensory
experiences.  The question then arises of what has to be the case for
that statement to be true.  That is a transcendental question, and the
answer to it gives us the transcendental presuppositions of experience.'

Here, Tanner quotes the opening paragraph of Schoenhauer's 'The World as
Will and Representation' to show that he - Schopenhauer - was in basic
agreement with Kant thus far:

'"The world is my representation": this is a truth valid with reference
to every living and knowing being, although man alone can bring it into
reflective, abstract consciousness.  If he really does so, philosophical
discernment has dawned on him.  It then becomes clear and certain to him
that he does not know a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a
sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world around him is only a
representation, in other words, only in reference to another thing,
namely that which represents, and this is himself.  If anything can be
expressed a priori, it is this; for it is the statement of that form of
all possible and conceivable experience, a form that is more general
than all others, than time, space, and causality, for all these
presuppose it.'
--
So it seems that causality is indeed, first and foremost, inner.
Whatever quantum mechanics shows about the predictability of certain
events, they are still 'phenomena' of the brain - John himself uses that
word 'phenomena' to describe them.

But it is on this same matter that I recall years ago getting into a
long argument with a Schopenhauerian.  Ironic, then, that I (NOT a
trained philosopher!) now take the Schopenhauerian position!

I feel very vulnerable ...

- Ken Mogg

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