Colleagues,
Here's a quote that provides the Kantian and Schopenhauerian perspective on
the discussion:
Page 232, The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin D. Yalom
"Schopenhauer's "major work began with a critique and an extension of Kant,
who revolutionized philosophy through his insight that we constitute rather
than perceive reality. Kant realized that all our sense data are filtered
through our neural apparatus and reassembled therein to provide us with a
picture that we call reality but which in fact is only a chimera, a fiction
that emerges from our conceptualizing and categorizing mind. Indeed, even
cause and effect, sequence, quantity, space, time are conceptualizations,
constructs, not entities "out there" in nature.
"Furthermore, we cannot "see" past our processed version of what's out
there; we have no way of knowing what is "really" there - that is, the
entity that exists prior to our perceptual and intellectual processing. The
primary entity, which Kant called ding an sich (the thing in itself), will
and must remain forever unknowable to us.
"Though Schopenhauer agreed that we can never know the "thing in itself," he
believed we can get closer to it than Kant had thought. In his opinion,
Kant had overlooked a major source of valuable information about the
perceived (the phenomenal) world: our own bodies! Bodies are material
objects. They exist in time and space. And each of us has an extraordinary
rich knowledge of our bodies - knowledge stemming not from our perceptual
and conceptual apparatus but from direct knowledge from inside, knowledge
stemming from our feelings.
"From our bodies we gain knowledge that we cannot conceptualize and
communicate because the greater part of our inner lives is unknown to us.
It is repressed and not permitted to break into consciousness, because
knowing our deeper natures (our cruelty, fear, envy, sexual lust,
aggression, self-seeking) would cause us more disturbance than we could
bear."
Jerry
>
> Terry at this stage is still setting up his spectroscope and is concerned that
> the wavelengths of the florescent lights in the supermarket might not match
> the spectrum of daylight, thus altering the reflected wavelengths off the
> fruit. As to the electroencephalograph, it's just a tangle of wires on the
> floor. The black hole beckons!
>
> Ken, by contrast, is a more careful star trekker, and boldly goes where many
> have gone before him, ending up in the black hole of knowledge. Once again we
> have a paradox, but a different and much scarier one, in which knowledge and
> life become ignorance and death.
>
>
--
Jerry Diethelm
Architect - Landscape Architect
Planning & Urban Design Consultant
Prof. Emeritus of Landscape Architecture
and Community Service € University of Oregon
2652 Agate St., Eugene, OR 97403
€ e-mail: [log in to unmask]
€ web: http://pages.uoregon.edu/diethelm/
€ 541-686-0585 home/work 541-346-1441 UO
€ 541-206-2947 work/cell
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