This subject is still unsettled in my mind (excuse any misuses of phenomenal and nuomenal, they are still new to me)…
Does it make sense to be agnostic about nuomenal reality? Is there any evidence to suggest that nuomenal reality exists?
We’re all familiar with phenomenal reality. It is the one we experience on a daily basis. It seems there is overwhelming evidence of phenomenal reality, but no evidence of nuomenal reality. So doe sit make sense to be agnostic about nuomenal reality?
If it costs nothing to be agnostic vs. nuomenal then sure, it makes sense. If you find there to be some behavioural cost to such a position, then perhaps not. Can’t go around wearing old pieces of battleship armour all the time just in case that bus that might hit you tomorrow actually does choose this particular tomorrow to hit you.
We choose to ignore the simple forward answer , because we dont like it … Then we created our a suitable answer … 
The more I think about it, the more this question doesn’t make sense. If it’s noumenal, then it’s not accessible and if it’s accessible, then it’s already phenomenal, not noumenal. Connecting the two is similar to the causal arguments Creationists present. In this way, noumenal reality is similar to how religious beliefs work: we can never know for sure just by the account of its definition, but we choose to believe it to be so, nonetheless.
Pandora, I think you’ve got Kant nailed, there. The key to understanding him is to realise that he makes no sense.
Damnit Faust, I was hoping this thread would fade into obscurity. It’s becoming more and more obvious now that I am a preschooler trying to discuss differential equations with professors…
I think it was a fair and interesting question, which i think Tab had the best answer for.
I think I need to read more Kant, amongst others, so I have more valid input for the discussion.
My only formal training is “What the Bleep Do We Know?” And apparently the answer to that question, in relation to the movie-makers, is nothing.
I think we should first say what Kant thinks and why, and then decide if he’s right. According to Kant, the Phenominal realm is the world of our perceptions, and therefore the only world we have sensory or perceptual access to. But the Nuomenal realm is that which causes our perceptions. In other worlds, Nuomenal reality causes phenomenal reality, and therefore the latter is dependent on the former for its very existence. Interestingly enough, according to Kant, Nuomenal reality is not a matter for belief or faith at all: we know that it exists precisely becasue our perceptions must have a cause external to our perceptions (the world is not our dream).
But as to what this Nuomenal reality is like, Kant is, in fact, much more agnostic. We cannot know what it is like because we have no epistemological grounds to say anything certain about it besides that it exists; everything else is speculation.
Personally, I find it hard to disagree with Kant about the existence and nature of the Nuomenal realm.
I like simple things so I’m going to restate the question, “Does it make sense to be agnostic about nuomenal reality?” as -
“Does it make sense to be unwilling to commit to an opinion about the existence of things as-they-are, independent of our observing those things?”
I have no way of knowing for sure but I have a pretty strong belief that my parents existed before I was born. It’s dark now but I’m relatively sure the sun still exists and will come up tomorrow. I’ve never observed my kidneys but I believe I have two. I wasn’t there but I’ve been told men landed on the moon…etc., etc., etc.
When deciding what to be agnostic about, we could talk about primary and secondary characteristics of things. A red ball’s primary characteristic is that it is round - independent of the observer. It’s secondary characteristic is that it’s red - dependent on the observer, unless we define red by the electromagnetic frequency in which case it’s a primary characteristic, independent of the observer as well.
Physics is the study of how the world works, or to put it nuomenally, things as-they-are. Physicists, or scientists in general, are unwilling to commit to opinion (agnostic) - that’s why we have scientific theories. In theory a ball is red because it’s absorbing/reflecting a certain electromagnetic frequency, but it’s only red if you see it as red…and maybe in the dark it turns black…because color is a sense perception…very dependent on the observer. Mathematicians on the other hand have proofs and they can prove the ball is round - they know the ball doesn’t turn into a cube when you turn your back on it or morph into the shape of a banana when the lights go out…
Whatever.
My apologies in advance if I’ve oversimplified this or twisted the question into one I wanted to answer rather than the one asked.
Hello Smith,
I find it hard to see the reason for believing that there is a necessary connection between the world of our perception and it’s supposed noumenal cause. It isn’t inconceivable that the world of our perception isn’t caused by the things in themselves. Even by putting aside the dream and demon scenarios as implausible, what reason have we to think that it is therefore the real things in themselves that create the phenomenal world? But now I must ask; what value is there to a knowledge of the thing in itself? Why ought there be a desire to understand this cause of our perceptions? In principle, what is there to be gained from such knowledge?
Hello xzc,
I agree with what you are saying, but I think you might be misunderstanding what I’m saying about Kant. If I’m right about Kant, the term “thing in itself” is just a label for that which causes our perceptions, whatever “that” is. The thing in itself is not, for Kant, the “real” object; the real object is our perception (and the concepts that our mind applies to it). The things in themselves are not necessarily objects, not necessarily on a one-to-one correspondence to our perceptions, not necessarily resembling our perceptions. In fact, the noumenal world, and things in themselves (if I read Kant correctly) are completely beyond our knowledge, completely other. They are the subject of metaphysics, morals, and religion. That is one of the major points that Kant is making in his Critique of Pure Reason. So there is no knowledge of it, at all. The only knowledge of it is that it exists, whatever it is. (well, not exactly: Kant also thinks that the nuomenal realm is timeless and spaceless, but how could he know that?)
You bring up an even better point, though: why “ought there be a desire to understand” the nuomenal realm? Why do we want to ‘break out’ of our perceptual world and take part in a world independent of our combined perceptions? Kant thinks it is part of our rational makeup to do so. In science, we want to describe and explain a world that is independent of our perceptions of it; in religion, we want to know what God is and we want to know that we live eternally; in moral philosophy, we want to know that we have free will to make morality possible. Kant thinks these are all mistakes, and the source of all metaphysical problems in philosophy. The external world, God and immortality, and free will are all transcendental ideas: while they all have a signficicant purpose in our metaphysics and our lives, they can never be a part of our knowledge. So as a reply to your comment, I say there is much to be gained from these ideas, but not knowledge. For example, to live your life as if you had free will is imperative to a moral life.
The whole Kant stuff is complex and confusing, but sometimes makes sense.
Hello justjack1,
These are all things that are not part of nuomenal reality for Kant because they are all possible perceptions. Those are all things that are verifiable and can be not only believed, but known. The phenominal realm, if I read Kant correctly, is not just my perceptions right now, but the entire collective perceptual world; and not only that, but the rules and laws and concepts that must apply to them (like substance, causality, space, time, etc.). Statements about nuomenal reality would be ones about things that are, in principle, unperceivable.
DD,
I think the question becomes clearer when we clarify what we mean by “reality”. For example, does mathematics exist? Does the empty set exist?
If I’m imagining a unicorn, what is the noumenal reality - that the unicorn exists, or that the unicorn exists in some imaginative way for me? Clearly the first is false and the second is true. Whichever your definition, is it more complicated than that?
Please note: I haven’t read any Kant on the matter, but on the other hand, Kant does tend to obscure an issue with his frequently misleading redefinitions. I think his main strength is in overcomplicating an issue, not in addressing it efficiently.
I think agnosticism is always the safest way to go with anything. Although, could phenomena be consider the ‘evidence’ for noumena? After all, it predicts it.
I tried that. It doesn’t work.