Unanswered Questions of Metaphysics Remain Unanswerable

From a debate on transcendental realism v. empiricism:

According to Immanuel Kant’s transcendental realism, our experience of reality is not a direct encounter with the noumena (things as they truly are) but rather with phenomena (how things appear to us). In Kant’s framework, the mind actively organizes and interprets noumenal information through its intrinsic faculties—such as the categories of space and time—in order to construct the phenomenal world we perceive.

Shackelford asserts that Kant’s theory of noumena introduces a contradiction: how can Kant claim we have no knowledge of noumena while simultaneously asserting that it exists? However, the fact that we cannot access or know the noumenal does not invalidate its existence. This can be illustrated by the example of a locked safe: we may not have the key to unlock its contents, but we still recognize that the safe exists and likely contains something. Similarly, the noumenal realm remains inaccessible not because it is non-existent, but because human cognition is fundamentally incapable of reaching it. The acknowledgment of its existence is precisely what sets the limits of our understanding.

In Shackelford’s discussion of atoms, he argues that proving their existence is easier than discovering them. Yet he overlooks a central issue: the atom, while empirically verified in the phenomenal world, cannot be definitively said to exist in the noumenal world. While empirical discoveries like atoms can be “proven” phenomenally, their existence outside human cognition remains unknowable. We cannot step outside our own minds to confirm their existence in the noumenal realm. Thus, the atom as we know it is a product of the mind’s structuring activity—a phenomenon, not an objective fact independent of consciousness.

Drawing on quantum mechanics, the collapse of the wave function may serve to illustrate Kant’s metaphysics. The wave function describes a superposition of potential states, but the actual state of a particle is unknown until it is observed. The unmeasured state could be said to represent the particle’s noumenal essence. Once observation occurs, the wave function collapses and the particle assumes a determinate phenomenal state. Although the phenomenal state is accessible to us, the noumenal nature of the particle remains untouched. This analogy underscores Kant’s claim that reality as it is in itself remains forever beyond the limits of empirical observation.

Overall, Shackelford places undue faith in empiricism as a means to answer metaphysical questions, claiming it offers certainty and permanence. On the contrary, our perception of the world is inherently limited. The existence of things-in-themselves—the noumena—remains beyond our cognitive grasp. This is reinforced by principles in quantum mechanics, where measurement reveals only the phenomenal, not the noumenal. Therefore, despite Shackelford’s critique, Kant’s transcendental realism remains a robust and accurate description of the limits of human knowledge.