Kantian metaphysics and epistemology is superior to Objectivist epistemology and metaphysics

Please disregard Con’s forfeit. His case can be found in this document: https://docs.google.com...According to Con there are three basic axioms of Objectivism: existence exists, things which exist must exist as things, and there is consciousness to perceive existence. Con claims that Kant denies these axioms, but I don’t really see it pointed out how. The last principle is the only place where I can see any possible disconnect with Kant. However, Kant never said we don’t perceive reality. There’s clearly something beyond our senses that’s providing a stimulus. Indirect realism is hardly radical. Countless philosophers have adhered to it and very few of them have denied that we perceive reality. As outlined last round, Rand’s Empiricistic foundationalism fails for a few reasons. Con’s answer, unfortunately, does not address my argument. I was aware of the argument that he makes now because Peikoff uses it in his book. It’s a decent explanation of how direct realism works while also opposing naive realism. But I did not make the argument that a stick in water appearing bent refutes objectivism. According to Rand, the stick appearing bent is actually a demonstration of the faithfulness of sense perception because the senses accurately portray the behavior of light in water. She’d argue that it’s because the mind doesn’t portray a straight stick that the senses are being faithful. In other words, because the image isn’t picked apart and formed into something that’s not directly given in the senses. However, I have provided examples where the mind does just that. In fact, it is constantly happening. As explained last round, whenever you close one eye, the mind fills in the missing portions on its own. In other words, our perception isn’t accurate. We perceive what’s not actually there. This is due to percepts, not concepts. Another example mentioned is that our sense of sight is dominant and can override other senses. That can skew perception since, as shown, by seeing someone's lips move, our senses will report that he’s saying something that he’s really not. When one sense overrides another to report something not actually being heard, it is obvious that there is an actual illusion and that the senses are being faulty, not our conceptual judgements. Perception thus cannot be treated as an objective & unquestionable foundation to all of knowledge. Moreover, Rand's direct realism is false for the fact that reality does not consist of all the categories that we conceive of it having. There are no intrinsic divisions in reality. Kant's categories underline a conceptual scheme that we bring to bear on reality. Without it, we wouldn't be able to get across the street. We'd have no way of navigating such a disorderly world. The order of reality is provided by us. We impose it upon reality in experience. This fact is not unfortunate; it's necessary for basic functioning in the world. Our conceptions of temporality, causality, unity, necessity, and possibility, which we employ so effortlessly and without thought, are not derived by the senses. The senses only tell us what is, not what might be or must be. Even if these concepts could be provided by the senses, it would take an extremely long time before we could derive them.The fact is that if we’re to buy into Rand’s defense of direct realism, we have to be able to apply the same reasoning to show that Kant’s phenomenal realm is entirely objective as well. Rand argues that, despite the fact that the mind adds its own bend on what we perceive, sense perception is direct and objective, because we can see a perception merely as the interaction between us and the world; or the effects that the world has on our organs. However, this is not entirely different from Kant. Kant also views perception as the interaction between our faculties and reality. He merely rejects Rand’s direct realism and maintains that the forms of intuition and the categories are not found in experience but are brought to bear on experience in order to make experience intelligible. In one sense, Kant’s concepts do arise from experience in that they came about from evolution. Most likely, creatures in the past did have to rely solely on perception and gradually were able to form concepts. Innate concepts infer a clear survival advantage. Evolution has prepared the mind with an array of conceptual tools for seeing the world in a way that will make sense to us and allow us to navigate reality with ease. Rand maintains that these concepts are entirely absent at birth and that we develope them naturally. However this view is clearly problematic as we employ these concepts with such ease and it’s impossible to see how one could form them solely from experience, at least so quickly. There’s a reason why Empiricism has tended to culminate in skepticism. As I stated last round, any philosophical system that leaves the configuration of concepts entirely up to a foundationalist Empiricism will not escape subjectivism, despite whatever Rand my claim. Con hasn’t provided an explanation for how an Objectivist would derive the notion of causality. Con only says that Hume’s concept of causality was wrong in that it it does not treat identity as the reason for causes. This, however, is not my point. The question is how the concept of causality is derived in the first place, not what causality is. It’s simply not relevant whether A=A is debatable. How the concept of causality is gained is what I wish to explicate. According to Hume, it’s because of constant conjunction, which I’ve already shown can’t be the case. Kant’s account is that causality is embedded in the categories. I’d say Objectivism is even more at pains to answer the question than Hume, because Objectivism employs an almost Rationalist argument. Rand says "the law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act" [1]. The argument is highly reminiscent of traditional Rationalist arguments. In fact, it requires a priori knowledge of identity to work. What in sense perception gives us the notion that everything has a specific nature that it must conform to? Reality is in a constant state of flux, so why would an Objectivist (as in, someone whose’ faculties operate according to the Objectivist framework) believe that the sun maintains its specific identity over time and change? Why do entities stay the same today and tomorrow? Saying that it’s because A=A is Rationalistic and can’t be derived from experience. Furthermore, Con’s account does not provide an explanation for causal power. It merely says that objects behave a certain way because that is their identity. It does not show why we see events as arising from other events. It does not show why we see a particular connection between events, such that one isolated event is somehow connected to another isolated event. Con argues that transcendental idealism results in all knowledge being illusory. However, I explained why this is simply a distortion of Kant and how Objectivism is closer to subjectivity. Before knowledge can be said to be objective, it has to be incorporated under an a priori manifold. A posteriori knowledge is contingent. It only tells us about the actual world and not what could be the case or can’t be the case. A priori knowledge is the only means of arriving at necessity and universality, and thus objectivity. If you say that the rock is warm because the sun shines, then you've gone beyond what’s given in the senses. You’ve subsumed the perception under the category of causality. Synthesizing the concepts of the energy of the sun with heat produces a necessarily and universally true judgement about the world. Kant thought it obvious that Newtonian science was objective. The real question was how this is even possible. If the a priori concepts and intuitions preclude objectivity, then objectivity is simply impossible, which hurts Rand much more than Kant. Con rejects a priori knowledge on the basis that the concepts can’t arise from knowledge without first having the contents of the concept validated by sense perception. Remember that Kant does maintain that reason cannot unearth the facts of the world by sole recourse of its own resources. Kant even states, "concepts without percepts are empty; percepts without concepts are blind” [2]. The latter means that perception cannot stand alone but must be subsumed under categories. We have Newtonian science and can see that it is objective. This objectivity is only possible with the a priori categories and the manifold of space and time.Peikoff and Rand simply give a horribly distorted picture of Kant. Peikoff portrays Kant as arguing that perception is a limitation. That we need to somehow escape perception to have actual knowledge. The concepts, logic and senses do not deprive us from knowledge; they are what give us objective knowledge in the first place. Of course we have knowledge of reality. Rand’s misrepresentation is massive. She portrays Kant as a subjectivist and a skeptic. He was neither. I did not misunderstand the Objectivists’ tabula rasa stance, and I’m confused at why Con thinks I did. My argument has nothing to do with innate mechanisms that govern basis functioning; it regards innate cognitive ideas that supply the ability to learn. Of course children don't innately know any languages; however, they have an innate knowledge of its grammar. This is clearly indicated by the effortlessness by which children gain an understanding of language. Children grasp the structure of language more easily than would be expected without some cognitive predisposition. Con doesn’t actually show how I misrepresented Objectivism. Con’s explanation of tabula rasa is entirely compatible with all of my arguments. [1] http://goo.gl...[2] http://goo.gl...