Quote:
Originally Posted by modest
Immanuel Kant said (and I agree)
Originally Posted by Kant
All our knowledge begins with the senses
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I do not agree with Kant here. I think it is logically true that knowledge cannot
begin with the senses. To say one "knows" implies that first must be a 'thing' to know. Knowledge must begin with some'thing' that exists (let us call it an ontological element--this thing that exists) that senses can perceive that are given to consciousness to process as knowledge. In other words, existence takes priority over consciousness. Kant is the grand master of the flawed philosophic position in history of philosophy of the primacy of consciousness over existence.
I like this statement much better than Kant's
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Franz Brentano
.."every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself"
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My answer to the OP question--"what exists", is that "existence exists". This is known as an axiomatic concept--it does not require 'proof'--it is the basis of all philosophic 'proof'. The relationship between what exists (metaphysics) and how to know what exists (epistemology) derives from realization that consciousness not only functions to identify what exists external to it, consciousness itself exists--it is a faculty with a specific identity.
Consciousness has a job within living things, just as stomach and spleen and liver and heart etc.
Consciousness is not metaphysically active, it does not create what enters into it, it transforms in the same way stomach takes food molecules that pass though it and transforms them, or the heart takes blood that flows through it and provides energy to it. Consciousness is epistemologically active--it processes things that exists that flow into it via the senses and uses these ontological elements to form concepts. So, we can say stomach transforms matter, heart transforms energy, consciousness transforms information--simplistic but it gets the point across.
