Can you start philosophy without disproving scepticism?

Quoting Hobbez

I've noticed that there haven't really been any crippling defeats in scepticism, which makes me wonder, can't you disprove any philosophy?

This is false. Wittgenstein disproved global skepticism by his analysis of hinge beliefs. Global skepticism is self-defeating.

Skepticism in general is good, but today it seems like people are equivocating hyper-skepticism with intelligence, when really all it is, is intellectual laziness.

Reply to Hobbez The issue is not how to defeat scepticism but how to use it usefully. Doubt is always possible, but doubt can always be minimised. And it is the possibility of having minimal doubt that then becomes your best ground for holding to a belief. It is scepticism which is the ultimate basis for any conviction.

And that is just to restate standard "scientific" reasoning. We advance an idea and then try hard to doubt it. If it survives the test, you're good.

The issue with philosophy of course is that there is a tendency to avoid putting ideas to real life tests. Many take philosophy to be a purely rational exercise, and so beyond the constraints of empiricism.

But then look at the actual value of pursuing scepticism in the philosophical tradition. What it has done is clarify epistemology. It in fact used to establish what we can actually hope to know, and how we should best go about doing that.

Where scepticism goes off the rails is in ontology. It might be entertaining to consider the unlikely - like that the world doesn't exist, it's all in the mind, or it's all demonic illusion. But it is not useful to pretend to believe the unlikely. You don't really doubt unless you are fully prepared to act on that doubt. At which point it has just turned into a belief.

Quoting apokrisis

Where scepticism goes off the rails is in ontology. It might be entertaining to consider the unlikely - like that the world doesn't exist, it's all in the mind, or it's all demonic illusion. But it is not useful to pretend to believe the unlikely. You don't really doubt unless you are fully prepared to act on that doubt. At which point it has just turned into a belief.

A Buddhist perspective on epistemology is that there are two types of "truth": ultimate and conventional. Conventional truths are made of ultimate truths, but are not legitimate in themselves. An example of this as an analogy might be the denial of objects, or mereological nihilism. We commonly see objects around us, from vacuum cleaners to clouds to tigers to moons. But the mereological nihilist will argue that these objects don't actually "exist" and that only the various mereological simples do in various arrangements and patterns (cloud-like, tiger-like, etc). In this case, it could be said that the object is the conventional truth and the part-simples are the ultimate truth.

Indeed the Buddha was a heavy empiricist and quite skeptical of unobservables and static entities. The idea of staticity is a conventional truth, according to Gautama.

But Gautama was also very much so a pragmatist. He did not advocate philosophizing for the sake of philosophizing. Instead, action, according to Gautama, should be primarily focused on the soteriological endeavor. This means that conventional knowledge may still be useful for us to achieve some end. This can be compared to the concept of desert, or perhaps even karma depending on the interpretation.

The bottom line is that conventional truth is only useful if it is harnessed for a greater cause: in the Buddha's case, it was soteriological release from birth. So the Buddhist tradition definitely has pragmatic aspects, not in search of truth per se but in search of truth for the sake of karmic release.

What is the purpose behind westernized pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey)? In what sense are we to see theories as "useful", i.e. to what end? Is truth simply equivalent to what is useful, or is usefulness the best method of obtaining truth in the correspondence sense of knowledge? If the latter, then pragmatism seems to become more of a methodology than a metaphysical theory of knowledge itself.

Quoting darthbarracuda

What is the purpose behind westernized pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey)? In what sense are we to see theories as "useful", i.e. to what end? Is truth simply equivalent to what is useful, or is usefulness the best method of obtaining truth in the correspondence sense of knowledge? If the latter, then pragmatism seems to become more of a methodology than a metaphysical theory of knowledge itself.

Socrates said, "Know thyself" and championed the Truth above all else. Wittgenstein and pragmatists like him are all part of the Socratic tradition. Without a personal truth and authenticity there is nothing to discuss and nothing to be done about it whether you consider yourself a pragmatist or not.

Reply to Hobbez Skepticism cannot be completely defeated until we are in possession of absolutely certain knowledge of some kind, by definition.

Until then, skepticism cannot be defeated but it can be mitigated. You could doubt that if you drop a T.V on your foot that you would experience pain, or even doubt that pain is real. Alternatively if you've ever accidentally performed a similar experiment perhaps making certain presumptions about the world won't seem so problematic or ttuth=compromising after all.

Pain is real enough... The force of gravity is very reliable... Et cetra...

Quoting darthbarracuda

What is the purpose behind westernized pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey)? In what sense are we to see theories as "useful", i.e. to what end? Is truth simply equivalent to what is useful, or is usefulness the best method of obtaining truth in the correspondence sense of knowledge? If the latter, then pragmatism seems to become more of a methodology than a metaphysical theory of knowledge itself.

I have asked apo what amounts to this question many times in many contexts and forms; and this is just where he always seems to fail to be able to respond.

For example here is the latest example, form the 'Is Truth Mind Dependent?' thread"

[i]"But I think that is actually the salient point. How we think our beliefs concerning the Real work for us is precisely how we think they do or do not contribute to our flourishing.

When it comes to the nature of the Real, there can be no empirical evidence, and our decision therefore cannot be an epistemic, but must be an ethical, one.

Faith and personal preference are not blind but are based on what we think works best for us."[/i]

There seems to be no answer as to how pragmatism can actually be of any philosophical importance and become something more than merely a kind of heuristic formula for understanding the nature of the methodology of science. As soon as we necessarily become involved in trying to understand how holding beliefs can be justified by their usefulness to us in more than merely practical ways, we become involved in questions of truth in senses that go well beyond any merely pragmatic understanding of truth.

Quoting darthbarracuda

Is truth simply equivalent to what is useful, or is usefulness the best method of obtaining truth in the correspondence sense of knowledge? If the latter, then pragmatism seems to become more of a methodology than a metaphysical theory of knowledge itself.

The advantage of pragmatism is that it makes purpose central to epistemology - there is always going to be a reason that gives some inquiry its meaning - but then doesn't presume the nature of that purpose.

So done right, it ought to alert you to the further issue of motivations. The philosophical illusion would be that inquiry is ever dispassionate - a naive pursuit of "truth".

So for instance, you are championing some particular purpose - soteriological release from rebirth. My pragmatic response is where is the evidence that this is any kind of ultimate truth? Why should we think it true in an ontological sense?

Pragmatism - done right - would separate the inquiry after truth from the issue of whose purpose is being served. It is thus as much about the self as the world. And it recognises the philosophical self is always going to be a biological and sociological artifact. Thus it stresses that truth finds its limits in a community of inquiring minds.

Quoting John

I have asked apo what amounts to this question many times in many contexts and forms; and this is just where he always seems to fail to be able to respond.

That's a bit rich. You quoted what was a reply to your posts and then restated your own position. I was happy enough to leave it at that. What more was there to say if you didn't offer anything new?

Quoting John

There seems to be no answer as to how pragmatism can actually be of any philosophical importance and become something more than merely a kind of heuristic formula for understanding the nature of the methodology of science. As soon as we necessarily become involved in trying to understand how holding beliefs can be justified by their usefulness to us in more than merely practical ways, we become involved in questions of truth in senses that go well beyond any merely pragmatic understanding of truth.

The answer is blowing in the wind, because quantum mechanics is a pragmatic science and the next generation supercomputers will illuminate the entire situation in ways that no mere words can. The Contextual sciences have already been succeeding in planting the seeds of the next scientific revolution, while traditional approaches have all failed miserably. It is the end of metaphysics as we know them which is what Wittgenstein pointed out was coming and what Socrates railed against. It means philosophy that isn't founded on ethics will become a contradiction in terms even according to the physical evidence.

Reply to apokrisis

I restated my position because you never answered the central question; which was how are we to assess whether a belief contributes to flourishing unless we hold some ethical position which goes beyond pragmatism, about what exactly constitutes flourishing?

Reply to wuliheron

I'm sorry Woolly Heron, I don't have any clue as to what you are talking about.

Quoting John

I'm sorry Woolly Heron, I don't have any clue as to what you are talking about.

While the positivists and others have claimed they will usher in the next scientific revolution it is the Contextualists and newer disciplines such as fuzzy logic and Fractal Geometry who are invading every branch of the sciences and steadily building up a new tool kit for the next scientific revolution. The next generation computers are the last piece of the puzzle that will make most traditional metaphysical approaches outdated.

Socrates was the father of modern academic philosophy who changed the course of academia from largely focusing on metaphysical arguments like Zeno to focusing more on developing logic and ethics. The problem holding things up so far has been the full development of logic based on first principles, but that will soon be resolved and there will be no way to deny which logic or ethics are more applicable when they conform to all the physical evidence. Systems logic, as many have claimed for decades now, is the future of both philosophy and the sciences.

Quoting John

how are we to assess whether a belief contributes to flourishing unless we hold some ethical position which goes beyond pragmatism, about what exactly constitutes flourishing?

And my answer was that your presumption of transcendence - going beyond - is at odds with my presumption of ontological naturalism.

So my hypothesis - which I submit to the test of pragmatic reasoning - is that flourishing for us as natural beings would be primarily defined in terms of our biological and cultural evolution. There is no "higher purpose" as you - apparently with theistic ontic commitments - might believe. If a naturalist looks "higher", then that is when the cosmic purpose of generalised entropification comes into view.

And then I would also again remind you that you seem stuck with the populist Jamesian notion of pragmatist philosophy - the one that best fits the "American Dream" as a notion of flourishing. :)

I have always stresssed that I am talking about the original Peircean version - and perhaps should signal that by saying "Pragmaticism". But I try to avoid extra jargon as much as possible.

The big deal about Peircean Pragmaticism, as again I have endlessly said, is that it does end up being ontology as well as epistemology. It is a theory about how meaning or purpose in any guise develops immanently via self-organisation, even at a Cosmological level of being.

So Pragmaticism as epistemology leads to Semeiotics as ontology. Peirce was of course the last truly ambitious metaphysician.

Reply to wuliheron

Still no clearer...

Quoting John

Still no clearer...

A theory of everything is coming in the near future and, according to all the evidence, it will be a pragmatic Contextualist philosophy that will establish that classical philosophies and metaphysics are actually pragmatic as well according to all the physical evidence.

Reply to apokrisis

OK, that's a fair enough answer, but we are still left with the fact that transcendence, or not, is a purely faith-based presumption either way. This question seems to inevitably be a question of what we choose to believe is the ultimate truth about being. Do we choose to believe what we believe about that on the basis of how we think it will contribute to our flourishing? The problem is, though, that in order to to do that we must already have a notion of what flourishing is, and that notion will always already be based on whether we believe in transcendence or not. Do you see then how it cannot be reduced to a merely pragmatic question?

Reply to Hobbez David Hume was a skeptic throughout his career, yet he wrote a lot of great philosophy in that time. The vast majority of philosophy isn't about proving stuff.

Quoting John

OK, that's a fair enough answer, but we are still left with the fact that transcendence, or not, is a purely faith-based presumption either way.

But how is it strictly faith based in my case?

I have clearly framed the alternatives using metaphysical reasoning. I already accept that existence is teleological. And then from there, it is either going to be the case that "purpose" arises immanently/naturalistically, or it acts on us from without in some transcendent/supernatural sense.

So that next leads to deriving testable consequences. If those are the two possiblities, which appears to have the greater weight of evidence in its favour?

So really, faith or "free choice" has nothing to do with what I end up believing. That is just your wishful thinking.

Quoting John

The problem is, though, that in order to to do that we must already have a notion of what flourishing is, and that notion will always already be based on whether we believe in transcendence or not. Do you see then how it cannot be reduced to a merely pragmatic question?

Again, if you check out the real Peirce, you will see how this is handled by abduction. The necessity of starting with a guess is taken for granted. We don't have to start in certainty for certainty (as the systematic minimisation of doubt) to be what eventually develops.

The position you are expressing is that you find yourself simply believing something for no particular reason - you grew up in some cultural setting and discovered you have "a faith". And now you are unwilling to apply a method of questioning that might require you to believe anything different.

I'm not sure why your methodology is superior to mine. Surely I'm right to say I will accept the results of a properly-conducted, open-minded, inquiry rather than dogmatically stick to the first idea I discovered myself to be holding.

Quoting apokrisis

So really, faith or "free choice" has nothing to do with what I end up believing. That is just your wishful thinking

Sure, what you end up believing might be the result of an enquiry, but prior to that you have already decided to place your faith in one line of enquiry rather than another.

So I am not claiming my methodology, or enquiry, is superior to yours; the truth is I am claiming is that they are, although obviously not the same, equivalent in that they are both rational elaborations of groundless presuppositions.

Quoting John

but prior to that you have already decided to place your faith in one line of enquiry rather than another.

How is that the case when the inquiry is framed in terms of two strongly counterposed views? The "act of faith" involves two complementary rational possibilities. And that then is what guides the empirical inquiry.

As I keep saying, you don't have an inquiry if you can't define your counterfactuals. Most professions of "faith" turn out to be simply vague pronouncements that could never be either supported or dismissed with any confidence.

Quoting John

So I am not claiming my methodology, or enquiry, is superior to yours; the truth is I am claiming is that they are, although obviously not the same, equivalent in that they are both rational elaborations of groundless presuppositions.

And of course I don't accept your characterisation that presuppositions must be groundless. At the very least, they have to be crisply posed in counterfactual manner. And at worst, they will already be our best "intuitive" guesses.

So it comes down to the nature of the evidence - which in my case would be public, and in your case private. I know which I find superior.

Quoting apokrisis

So it comes down to the nature of the evidence - which in my case would be public, and in your case private. I know which I find superior.

Yes, exactly, they are the two kinds of evidence; and it is any presumption of the superiority of one or the other when it comes to our beliefs about transcendence that can be nothing more than an act of faith, because to ask for evidence to support any assessment of the relative values of the two kinds of evidence would necessarily be to beg the question.

Reply to John So I can believe there are hedgehogs living at the bottom of my garden and you can believe there are pixies at the bottom of yours. But evidentially we are on an equal footing.

Hmmm.

Reply to apokrisis

Those are beliefs concerning empirical entities; a different matter entirely. Obviously empirical evidence wins in that context.

That said, if you constantly and reliably saw pixies at the bottom of your garden, and only you could see them, and in every other way your experience was normal; what would you believe then?

Quoting John

what would you believe then?

What do you say I ought to believe?

Reply to apokrisis

Come on apo, it's not de rigueur to respond to a question with a question.

Reply to John Up to you if you want to demonstrate it was a serious question.

DarthBarracuda:A Buddhist perspective on epistemology is that there are two types of "truth": ultimate and conventional. Conventional truths are made of ultimate truths, but are not legitimate in themselves.

It is true that Mah?y?na Buddhism distinguishes 'ultimate and conventional', but the distinction isn't quite like that. In fact it turns out to be a difficult distinction to draw - but one key point is that conventional entities are existent, but they have no intrinsic reality or nature ('sva-bhava' meaning 'self-originated'). The 'ultimate truth' is what is perceived by the Buddha, whereas the conventional truth is that of the proverbial 'man in the street' (who might be quite an educated person in many ways.)

There are interesting links between Mah?y?na Buddhism and Greek scepticism, going back to Pyrrho, founder of Pyrrhonian scepticism, who is believed to have visited ancient Gandhara (now in the war-ravaged Afghanistan, renamed 'Khandahar') during the Greco-Alexandrian conquest of India, for which see:

Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia, Christopher I. Beckwith, http://a.co/b62SPWy

Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism (Studies in Comparative Philosophy and Religion), Adrian Kuzminski http://a.co/2W3w02a

The original scepticism was essentially a renunciate philosophy - Diogenes and Pyrrho were both what would be called 'sadhakas' in Indian culture. So their scepticism was in regard to what 'the hoi polloi' - the common man, the mass of people - take to be true - very similiar to the idea of the 'conventional truth' of the Buddhists. Acceptance of conventional truth was the veil that had to be pierced by methodical doubt (or actually, 'suspension of judgement', or epoche). But scepticism degenerated into academic scepticism and sophism, which was the subject of severe criticism by Plato.

Another really interesting title along these lines:

Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato, Katja Maria Vogt, http://a.co/eOOOEOM

Katja Vogt:In Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato, Oxford University Press (2012), paperback (2015), I explore a Socratic intuition about the difference between belief and knowledge. Beliefs, doxai, are deficient cognitive attitudes. In believing something, one accepts some content as true without knowing that it is true; one holds something to be true that could turn out to be false. Since our actions reflect what we hold to be true, holding beliefs is potentially harmful for oneself and others. Accordingly, beliefs are ethically worrisome and even, in the words of Plato’s Socrates, “shameful.” As I argue, this is a serious philosophical proposal. It speaks to intuitions we are likely to share, but it involves a notion of belief that is rather different from contemporary notions. Today, it is a widespread assumption that true beliefs are better than false beliefs, and that some true beliefs (perhaps those that come with justifications) qualify as knowledge. Socratic epistemology offers a genuinely different picture. In aiming for knowledge, one must aim to get rid of beliefs. Knowledge does not entail belief. Belief and knowledge differ in such important ways that they cannot both count as kinds of belief. As long as one does not have knowledge, one should reserve judgment and investigate by thinking through possible ways of seeing things.

I argue that the ancient skeptics and Stoics draw many of these ideas from Plato’s dialogues, revising Socratic-Platonic arguments as they see fit. Belief and Truth retraces their steps through interpretations of the Apology, Ion, Republic, Theaetetus, and Philebus, reconstructs Pyrrhonian investigation and thought, and illuminates the connections between ancient skepticism and relativism, as well as the Stoic view that beliefs do not even merit the evaluations “true” and “false.” The ancient skeptics, on my reading, develop versions of the Socratic idea that an unexamined life is worth nothing. Ultimately, I hope to defend the guiding intuitions of skepticism against so-called dogmatism, understood as a confident attitude of laying out how things are. A life of investigation may well be a compelling enterprise. Contrary to the presumption that it is impossible or absurd to try to do without doxa, I argue that modes of thought that are to some degree hypothetical –that involve the proviso that one is likely to encounter new arguments and evidence as time proceeds – are often called for.

Reply to apokrisis

Well, it was a fair, reasonable and serious question about a hypothetically possible situation. If you don't want to answer it, that's on you, not on me.

Reply to John I would believe I was hallucinating. Now what would you believe as inference to the best explanation?

Reply to apokrisis

If I always saw the pixies there and only there, and did not anywhere else see anything anybody else could not see, then I would probably conclude that for some unknown reason I was able to see something there that no one else could.

Reply to John Why wouldn't you conclude that this "unknown reeason" was a hallucination? On what grounds are you dismissing the hypothesis exactly?

Reply to apokrisis

On the fact that I always see them and don't see such unusual things anywhere else. The fact that no one else ( a vanishingly tiny sample of humanity) I know can see them would be no reason to conclude that I don't possess a faculty that allows me to see what some, or perhaps many or even most, others cannot see.

Also, if they reliably appeared as real to me as a hedgehog would, and they responded by running into the bushes and hiding if I got too close, why would I not believe they were not merely hallucinations?

Quoting Hobbez

. I don't know, I just feel like there is no way to fully disprove Scepticism.

That's correct but the sooner you realize that the game isn't about proofs the better. Empirical claims are not provable. Proofs are pertinent to mathematics and logic, and even in that realm they're only relative to how particular systems of mathematics and logic are constructed.

Rather than proofs, your focus should be on why you'd believe any claim over the claim(s) that is contradictory to it. Focus on the reasons you have to believe a claim, where you should have reasons other than the fact that what a claim describes is possible, and beyond that you have to assess whether you have better and/or more reasons to believe one claim versus another. None of that is going to be about proof.

Reply to John You are avoiding answering my question. What here constitutes reasonable evidence of this not being a hallucination?

Reply to apokrisis

Not at all. I'm saying that under the stipulated conditions I would have no good reason to think i was hallucinating. If you think I would have good reasons to believe that, then lay it out for me.

Reply to John I'm baffled which stipulated condition you think rules out hallucinations here. Your point stretching makes it clear you don't have a good argument.

Reply to apokrisis

The fact that I am not a drug taker, do not suffer from mental illness or have any other unusual ecperiences. I shouldn't have to spell it out; a modicum of good faith should have already made it clear to you by now.

In any case you are simply prejudicially assuming that the default assumption should be hallucination; you are assuming what you need to argue for. Why should I suspect hallucination in the absence of the usual markers for it, as I have stipulated? I'm looking for an argument not merely an invocation of some assumed normative principle. It is precisely the value of such normative principles which is in question. It's laughable that you try to paint the situation to look like I don't have a good argument, when I don't need an argument to believe according to my experience, which is always the natural default, and it is rather you who are being asked to provide an argument as to why I shouldn't trust my experience.

Look at it from another angle; apart from any considerations about the objective truth of my belief (it's actual accordance with reality which cannot ever be known for sure anyway) what would it matter if I believed there were pixies there, if that belief is in complete accordance with my own repeatedly and soberly confirmed experience? What do you think the pragmatist, who acknowledges that the truth of the matter, in the normally understood correspondence sense, cannot be known and is hence irrelevant, will say would be the appropriate pragmatic considerations in a case such as this, where the choice would seem to be to either capitulate to the common opinion out of fear of what might be thought of me, or to follow what seems plain and irrefutably in accordance with my experience?

[quote=Hobbez]I've noticed that there haven't really been any crippling defeats in scepticism, which makes me wonder, can't you disprove any philosophy. You can read something such as Rene Descartes, with his 'I think, therefore I am' and I realised it was based on logic. So couldn't an Evil Demon fool you into believing in Logic? And once you say that, couldn't you just argue with any philosophy, saying 'How do you know?' and end it there. I don't know, I just feel like there is no way to fully disprove Scepticism. What do you think?[/quote]
I think scepticism is fine. Then again, I determine nothing.

Quoting John

The fact that I am not a drug taker, do not suffer from mental illness or have any other unusual ecperiences.

Thus proving my point. All one can do is constrain one's uncertainty as to what might be the explanation by adding further constraining information. You can work to rule out empirical possibilities in this kind of fashion.

And yet, one can indeed constrain one's uncertainty like this. It is reasonable. And also, as I say, it starts with the attempt to eliminate the most obvious explanations, not by jumping straight to the most incredible.

Quoting John

In any case you are simply prejudicially assuming that the default assumption should be hallucination;

Yes. Of course I start with the most reasonable belief. It would be crackpot to do anything else.

Quoting John

rather you who are being asked to provide an argument as to why I shouldn't trust my experience

But that reason has already been stipulated. All your friends joining you at the bottom of the garden can see the hedgehog, but are now looking at you wondering about your sanity as you chatter away to the little pixies only you think you see.

Or maybe they slipped you the drugs and are now having a good laugh. That would certainly be a more plausible explanation rather than that you were experiencing something real, wouldn't you say?

And if you don't, then explain just why.

Quoting John

what would it matter if I believed there were pixies there,

Err....

Scepticism at its most basic is doubting what is generally taken for granted. You can be sceptical about specific things, or sceptical in a more general sense, in the sense of challenging conventional wisdom.

Scientific method relies on scepticism in the sense that it ascertains by observation and experiment what the real causes of some event or phenomena is. But science can also become a conventional belief-system, in the case of 'believing in the scientific worldview' which makes general statements about life, the universe and everything. A lot of what is described as scepticism nowadays is tacitly based on the idea of what is and what isn't felt to be 'scientifically respectable'.

I think a useful scepticism is to question conventional beliefs, the kinds of things that we normally assume to be true - especially those things that 'everyone knows'. That is a useful form of scepticism. Where it becomes a hindrance is when it starts to niggle and doubt for the sake of it. 'Oh yeah? Prove it!' Hardly any point debating that kind of scepticism.

Reply to apokrisis

Well, you're ignoring the stipulations that I always see the pixies, and that I am well aware that others don't see them, and that I don't have any other unusual experiences.

This whole discussion about pixies has been a side issue, in any case; because I already acknowledged that empirical evidence is self-evidently the evidence of choice when it comes to empirical matters.

Also, exactly what is the "err" meant to signify? What would it matter if I was a sane, well-functioning, high achieving person in every way, who never experienced hallucinations ( leaving aside the question as to whether the unique case of the pixies are hallucinations or not) but because I happened to inexplicably constantly see pixies in my garden, I chose to believe that they were not hallucinations, while suspending judgement as to what they were (which I actually think would be the most reasonable course in the hypothetical example I have given).

Actually it is believed by some that people in the past really did see such entities as fairies and pixies; but that we have simply lost the capacity. Of course the modern explanation is going to be that they were hallucinating; see figments of their imaginations; but how many non-drug affected, non-'mentally ill' people experience such convincing hallucinations today? The other point is that most thinkers these days only allow for two possibilities; either something is objectively, observer-independently real or it is merely imaginary. Perhaps there are other possibilities we no longer allow due to our objectivised view of the world.

And you still haven't offered any argument as to why we should think hallucination would be the best explanation; you just keep asserting it over and over. Perhaps you should open up the throttle on the old mind a little; it might be in a bit of a rut.
;)

Reply to John So your bottom line is scepticism about hallucinations and credulity about pixies. Cool.

Reply to apokrisis

:-}

I have taken a photo of fairies.
[url=https://postimage.org/]

This is a high resolution image, http://www.anbdesign.co.uk/wood.jpg

I once started a thread with this photo on the internationalskeptics forum(James Randi forum). It was fascinating the lengths they went to to discredit what was before their eyes.

So I can see at least 22 good faces including some three dimensional looking beings in this photo and for someone who is new to it they probably can't see any of them.

How many can you see? Or do you deny they are there?

Quoting Punshhh

How many can you see?

None. Especially because I see no boots.

Quoting John

. As soon as we necessarily become involved in trying to understand how holding beliefs can be justified by their usefulness to us in more than merely practical ways,

I don't understand the idea there. What is useful to us in more than merely practical ways?

Reply to Terrapin Station Not you again! I hope.

Reply to Punshhh

In one sense, a la personal identity, it's always me again, but in terms of (onto)logical identity (rather than personal identity), I'm different from moment to moment, we only have genidentity, so it's never me again, and your hopes are realized, just as if I were the genie of your dreams.

Phew that's a relief, the person I was thinking of would never have said that!

Anyway, I don't believe that you can't see any fairies, you just haven't looked hard enough. You're to skeptical, because your world view denies their presence.

Reply to Terrapin Station

If something contributes to a feeling of well-being, for example, that is distinguishable from something that contributes only to my project of building a house, in terms of the latter being merely practically useful and the former not being merely practically useful.

Reply to John

It doesn't really make sense to me because I think of practical and useful being two terms for more or less the same thing.

Who could ever want to 'disprove' (odd word) scepticism? I like to know that annoying little terrier is always snapping and yapping at my heels.

Reply to Punshhh OK - none.

Reply to Wayfarer I have found it's difficult to explain to someone where to look and what to look for. I think it can raise some interesting issues about how perception affects empirical knowledge. Once a person has seen one of the faces, they always see it clearly whenever they look at the photo. It's as though it is really obvious and they can't easily imagine not seeing it. While someone who has not seen it can struggle and struggle and just not see it.

On the sceptics forum, they just kept sayings it's paredoila and wouldn't consider anything else.

Let me try and tell you where a face is. If you roughly divide the bottom and the left side of the photo into ten squares like a grid reference, Zero at the bottom left corner. There is a light brown tabby cat looking out towards you, but looking past you slightly to your right, in the second square across the bottom and first up, in fact it's chin is almost touching the bottom of the photo. It appears to be wearing a white bib under its chin.

Anyway, I am thinking that we are programmed to consider something like a face as an important thing in our environment and have highly acute perception of facial recognition. This suggests that we have a strong anthropocentric bias. The implication being that any ideology we find pragmatically useful, perhaps, is given a bias of importance and correctness above its station.

P.s. There is a cheeky green goblin in the dead centre looking to your right with a dark coloured tricorn hat on. A prize to who can see him first.

Don't know what it means to be practiced at that, but when I was a kid I had a room with board paneling full of knots, and I could see a lot of eerie faces. After looking for a minute or two, I see 9.

Good start, any in 3D. Have you seen the wolf man yet?

I was once in a state where I saw faces everywhere, I was in an emotionally unstable condition at the time. But I have retained the propensity to do it.

Reply to Terrapin Station

Fine, it's up to you if you want to deprive yourself of a perfectly valid distinction.

Reply to Punshhh

Yeah, a couple. Is the wolf man the bottom center stump thing?

No but I just saw a bat face there.
He is if you go by the grid reference I mentioned above. He is second square in from the left(if the photo is ten squares wide and a fraction over half way up. He is the darke green area and is looking out at you, but slightly down and to your right. The dark area is his chest and just above and slightly to the right is his face.

Whoops wrong thread. The trouble with late night messages.

Reply to Punshhh

I think I see what you mean. Looks like a troll to me. Like dark green moss eyes, and the white bark patch for the nose. I also see a sweet adorable dragon thing that is super obvious looking. It's just up and right of center, that stick with the moss on it that is running right and slightly upward.

Reply to Wosret The white bit is just to the right of his long nose, like a dogs nose and two slightly darker bits are his ears sticking up above his head. Yes I know the super obvious looking one, but to me it's a pixie face, on the end of that branch which goes up to the right corner. Have you noticed ther a re a few ghoulish faces to the right of him?

Oh, I see it now. Yeah, those were the first couple that I noticed. Do you see that like flamey ghost bottom halfway left abouts, with one extra firey eye? That one's cool too.

Quoting Punshhh

There is a light brown tabby cat looking out towards you

Well, I can't see it. Mind you I had something similar occur years ago when someone showed me a book of 'magic eye' images, that you're supposed to look past, and then they click into place. Never did see any of them either.

Reply to Wosret What colour's the flames eye, I can't quite make it out?
It's getting late here, I need to crash now. Feel I'm going to have some vivid dreams;)

Reply to Wayfarer Yes, I have noticed that some people don't see them so easily. I might have to draw one, zooming in is just to blurred.

Reply to Punshhh

Orange yellow fire color. Looks in a small little square like spot, like bottom two thirds to left, looks like flames under, a greyish ghoulish ghost thing, which has orangey yellow eyes, and our right his left eye is like all black rock shooter extra flamey with a trail going up and to the right slightly.

Reply to Punshhh

I agree that it is easily with the smaller rather than the enlarged image.

Reply to Wosret Yes I think I see it now, I think I couldn't see it, because I had already seen that as a cat. Right on the bottom two tenths in from the left.

Reply to Punshhh

If you squint at it, the image has the kind of 'fractal' structure that Pollock's paintings do. I have often seen all kinds of faces and figures emerging when I look at reproductions of Pollock's paintings. I think he exploited this emergence of subconscious (collective unconscious?) imagery in his earlier more surrealist paintings, and suppressed it, probably under the influence of Clement Greenberg, in his later, more formal works.

This tendency for faces and figures and other scenes to emerge from the fractal structures of natural forms, like clouds, rock formations and lichen on walls, and so on, apparently fascinated Leonardo da Vinci, by the way.

I have seen faces and figures in some of my own works hung on the walls of the living room, especially when viewed in lower light conditions and when I have smoked something.

Quoting darthbarracuda

This is false. Wittgenstein disproved global skepticism by his analysis of hinge beliefs. Global skepticism is self-defeating.

I don't think he quite succeeded. Consider a possible hinge belief. My left arm belongs to me. I can't doubt that. I can wave my left hand in front of my face. Seems like this a great candidate for a hinge belief.

Except it turns out there is a rare brain condition where people come to believe that a certain part of their body doesn't belong to them. There is even a brain condition where people ignore an entire side of their body as if it doesn't exist.

Let's try another hinge belief. I'm alive. I can't doubt that, right? I breathe, I pinch myself and feel pain, I experience hunger, thirst, I interact with objects and others, etc.

But then again, there is yet another brain condition where people feel like they're ghosts. Everything seems hollowed out to them.

One more. I can't really doubt that my partner or family member is someone else that looks like them in disguise, right? You can't live closely with someone over time and actually believe they are some kind of doppelganger. Another hinge beliefs.

But yet again, there is a brain condition where people come to believe that someone close to them has been replaced by a double. This has to do with losing access to the feelings they used to have for that person.

So in all those rather strong looking hinge cases, it is possible to have brain trauma so that you actually do doubt what seems to be undoubtable, in a real, every day lived sense.

Beyond that, we have the Truman Show, The Matrix, Brains in a Vat, being stuck inside a Holodeck program indistinguishable from the real world, etc. that all show at least the possibility of global beliefs being radically mistaken. And if our current computing technology continues to advance, some of those scenarios could become possible. The latest VR is quite a bit better than the VR of the 90s. We can only imagine VR or total immersion in the 2050s, or the possibility of whole brain emulation.

Nick Bostrom has even written about the death of realism given future technologies, where we lose the ability to distinguish generated experiences from real ones.

Reply to Marchesk there's a difference between philosophy and science fiction although it's sometimes a hard thing to explain.

Quoting Marchesk

So in all those rather strong looking hinge cases, it is possible to have brain trauma so that you actually do doubt what seems to be undoubtable, in a real, every day lived sense.

I agree Marchesk these are interesting cases relating to the issue of doubt. My feeling is though that they do not contradict what Wittgenstein was saying, though I haven't gone back to 'On Certainty' to check. I think the fundamental point remains that doubt can only rest on some certainties. The certainties these people with brain trauma accept are by 'objective' standards wrong, but those people still act on them. (Mostly: in some cases they seem to act on knowledge they avow that they don't consciously have)

In a sense each of us, existentially, is in the same position: I accept that some things I am certain of may be objectively wrong. There are moments when I was sure something was the case, and then a few moments later - as in a card game, say, when I was convinced all the hearts had been played except mine, then one turns up in an opponent's hand - I realise I was mistaken. The trauma-sufferers have, in the specific respect for which they have a trauma, lost the ability to realise they were mistaken.

Reply to John

Well, it's not as if I can just will it to make sense to me because it seems like a good distinction to you. I have no problem with there being different sorts of utility or practicality; I just can't (yet) grasp a distinction between utility/use(fulness) and practicality.

Quoting Wayfarer

there's a difference between philosophy and science fiction although it's sometimes a hard thing to explain.

Brain trauma and the sometimes odd disorders which result aren't science fiction. The rest is, for now, but notice how nobody has shown that it's technologically impossible to create a simulacra indistinguishable to our senses from the real thing. The most I've seen anyone try to refute it is Dennett, who claims that the combinatorial explosion of providing a brain in a vat with all the inputs every moment dwarfs any future computing capacity. But there are computer scientists who dispute that claim.

Reply to Terrapin Station

So you don't think any distinction between things which merely entertain us, things which imbue our lives with a sense of meaning or beauty and things which have direct practical applications is meaningful? You don't take there to be any genuine logic at all behind any such distinction? In short, you simply don't understand any such distinction? For you all those kinds of things mentioned are simply practically useful, and that's it; end of analysis?

Quoting Marchesk

But there are computer scientists who dispute that claim.

But again, they're not philosophers. Existence is more than, and other than, 'an array of information' or even 'a set of beliefs'. What is the organising principle that draws together and synthesises all the information, beliefs, ideas, into a unitary experience? Science doesn't know that, it's a very subtle matter and only known first-person.

Reply to Marchesk The hinge beliefs Wittgenstein primarily focused on were those required for reason itself. Skepticism and doubt are inherently rational. They depend upon the ability to reason. You can't have global skepticism because that would entail doubt of reason itself. We can doubt the fruits of reason, sure, but reason itself cannot be doubted on pain of contradiction. It is always a given.

Reply to John Yes, I visited the Abstract Expressionist exhibition at th Royal Academy a couple of weeks ago. There were lots of nice Pollocks there, not to mention Rothko's, also Barnett Newman who I was particularly taken by.

As you say art explores and exploits these ideas.

The reason why I posted my photo is that it is unusual in that it has a number of clear two and three dimensional imaginary beings in it. Along with that peculiar phenomena of not being able to see it and them when you do, not being able to not see it, as a way of examining the human psyche. I will draw a couple of the faces, which might draw them out of the picture.

Quoting John

So you don't think any distinction between things which merely entertain us, things which imbue our lives with a sense of meaning or beauty and things which have direct practical applications is meaningful? You don't take there to be any genuine logic at all behind any such distinction? In short, you simply don't understand any such distinction? For you all those kinds of things mentioned are simply practically useful, and that's it; end of analysis?

It seems like either you didn't read what I wrote or you didn't understand it. I said, "I have no problem with there being different sorts of utility or practicality; I just can't (yet) grasp a distinction between utility/use(fulness) and practicality." So for example something that entertains you is one sort of utility/practicality, and something that doesn't entertain you but that accomplishes something that you're required to accomplish (to meet some goal you have) is another sort of utility/practicality.

Quoting darthbarracuda

The hinge beliefs Wittgenstein primarily focused on were those required for reason itself. Skepticism and doubt are inherently rational. They depend upon the ability to reason. You can't have global skepticism because that would entail doubt of reason itself. We can doubt the fruits of reason, sure, but reason itself cannot be doubted on pain of contradiction. It is always a given.

I think you may be mistaken here. Why do you think that we cannot doubt reason itself? You describe a distinction between reason and "the fruits of reason". Your claim that to doubt reason itself would be contradictory is a fruit of reason, and can be doubted. So your claim that reason itself cannot be doubted appears to be baseless. I see no reason to believe that this would be contradictory, it's just a matter of one doubting one's own ability to do something, and this we do all the time.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover To put it another way, then, you can't criticize language without using language. You can't argue against argument without using argument. You can't fully disprove or withdraw from reason without using reason in the process of doubt.

Reply to apokrisis What does pragmatism have to say about two competing theories of equal plausibility and appeal? You say you are a realist about an external world if I remember correctly, whereas I am actually leaning towards straight-up idealism. Both are able to capture the same things. They are empirically equivalent. Realism, in my view, could be seen as a historical and biased prejudice.

Quoting darthbarracuda

To put it another way, then, you can't criticize language without using language. You can't argue against argument without using argument. You can't fully disprove or withdraw from reason without using reason in the process of doubt.

But we're talking about skepticism, and doubt, here. Why do you need language to doubt? Why do you need to "argue against" in order to doubt? And most of all, why would you think that you need to "fully disprove" something in order to doubt it? That is clearly contradictory. Fully disproving is to rid oneself of doubt. So all these things which may come about as the result of doubt, it appears like you want to equate them with doubt. But that's a mistake if these things are cause by doubt, then doubt is prior to them.

Quoting darthbarracuda

What does pragmatism have to say about two competing theories of equal plausibility and appeal?

If that is the case, then of course it doesn't matter which theory you employ. But is that a realistic scenario? How often would you get such perfect symmetry?

Of course, in arriving at theories, you almost always need two such rival approaches that capture the research communities imagination. Any well organised academic field always organises itself in this dialectical fashion. If it seems possible to be a lumper on some issue, then there will be a matching camp of splitters. This dichotomisation of the possibilities is the most efficient way of ensuring the whole of the explanation space is being canvased.

But then eventually, the aim is to find the optimal theory - usually the one that most efficiently connects a purpose to an outcome.

Quoting darthbarracuda

You say you are a realist about an external world if I remember correctly, whereas I am actually leaning towards straight-up idealism. Both are able to capture the same things. They are empirically equivalent. Realism, in my view, could be seen as a historical and biased prejudice.

Well, given that I'm a pragmatist, I'm neither a realist, nor an idealist.

Realism vs idealism is an expression of the dialectical dynamic in academia that I just spoke about. It is natural that these two extremes would be pushed in intellectual history so as to discover the most complete opposites of what might be the case.

But then the successful theory can't be some simplistic belief in one or the other - the reduction to a monism. Pragmatism is instead the acceptance that there is an irreducible triadism at work - a modelling relation. The world actually is divided not into world and mind, but world and sign. And that is the theory that best accounts for the empirical facts of human psychology.

Reply to Hobbez IF, Skepticism requires unassailable provable justification to support a claim as fact....This skepticism is a process which doesn't allow its own exercise, logically speaking , though, it's 'supposed to be' a logical process.
What we call proof , is an assertion of fact. They are requiring an assertion of fact to support that something else is fact .,, a circular requirement.
I'm thinking that skepticism requires one to entertain that there may or may not be demons screwing with us. I don't see that as helpful.

But , If I am Not a skeptic, I accept some things as axiomatically true in and of themselves , I don't have to entertain that other idea, because I can rely on my logic from axiomatic truth onward. (I think therefore I exist ,so something exists , if something exists, then everything that exists is factually true.) and so, I can require that someone must prove those demons exist, in a universe that does exist.

The skeptics position, is then to try to prove me wrong , in a situation in which they can take nothing as factually true. So they are wrong, I can call them wrong , and all they can correctly do, is just sulk about it. :)

Five pages of what in a generous mood I will call 'philosophy' seem to demonstrate what is intuitively and by definition the case, that one cannot disprove scepticism without starting philosophy. Indeed, since scepticism is a philosophical position, one cannot even articulate it without starting philosophy.

Can you start philosophy without disproving scepticism?

It follows from the above, that either one can start philosophy without disproving scepticism or one cannot start philosophy. But we have started, and therefore the question can be answered in the affirmative.

And they say philosophy never makes progress.

Quoting unenlightened

one cannot disprove scepticism without starting philosophy. Indeed, since scepticism is a philosophical position, one cannot even articulate it without starting philosophy.

Great point

Reply to Hobbez

" You can read something such as Rene Descartes, with his 'I think, therefore I am' and I realised it was based on logic. So couldn't an Evil Demon fool you into believing in Logic?"

The point is not that the demon is tricking us, but at that point we cannot deny that we exist. It is the unmovable point; a point that cannot be doubted because the act of doubting creates it. Whether the demon is involved in shaping that reasoning is moot, as those are the rules of reason we are bound by. Descartes' demon is just another word for reality, just as the word subjective is as well. The question is not what is reality made of, but rather it is: how can we interact with reality?

Skepticism arises from the dubious assumption that we'd never see the real world, only our own impressions, ideas, or sensed "data". Too many thinkers have been taking that assumption for granted.