From: John Foster <borealis-AT-mail.wellsgray.net>
Subject: RE: Image/tree
Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 22:36:25 -0700


Kenneth,

what I was attempting to say was quite simple. The 'in itself' is simply a 
postulated entity that exists 'in itself'. As soon as any knowledge of this 
entity occurs or is communicated some how to another entity or even to an 
entity with an 'in itself' it becomes something other, a representation of 
itself or a 'for itself'. All I was attempting to say was that the 'in 
itself' provides no evidence, nor any phenomenon. An 'in itself' then 
cannot exist. As soon as it comes to have any existence, it is a 'for 
itself'. This applies to concepts, and any objects, ie. they have no 
internal relations that we can be interested in. Well they could but we 
don't seem to recall any of importance.

Thus if one can think that we can never know a thing 'in itself' then I 
agree, but we still have no evidence that an 'in itself' truly exists. In 
fact the existence of a thing that cannot have any appearance or a 'for 
itself' is a logical impossibility since there can never be any evidence 
that even one 'in itself' exists.

Absolute knowledge is the immediate knowledge of sense certainty, and the 
principle difference arises when the object of sense appears to be 
intending something. Even a true chimera, if it arises in the field of 
vision of a person in the forest, would have a similar effect that a real 
chimera would have on the same person. As long as one experiences certainty 
that the sense knowledge is real, convincing, it is persuasive enough. In 
this example an hallucination is as real as the image of the real thing. 
Strange example, but nontheless powerful.

What I am saying is that it does not matter what a tree is 'in itself' 
because there is enough shared reality that is common among people, and 
perhaps animals when recognizing what a tree is in terms of ecological 
function, use values, and other properties such as appearance that it does 
not really matter if there is even an 'in itself'. Some one long ago 
postulated the 'in itself' to scare off future philosophers from taking any 
interest in philosophy. Sartre refers to the "en soi", and so does Hegel, 
and so does Kant calling it noumena as opposed to phenomena. Of course no 
one really understands what they actually meant really.

I guess what they really mean to say is that there must logically be 
something other than appearance or representation that is somehow not at 
all a representation or image or appearance or phenomenon.

Thanks for your reply,

John


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