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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 * * Film-Philosophy Email Discussion Salon. After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to. To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask] For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon. **