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Metaphysician Undercover

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I think we're having a fine discussion. Why do you think we need to be certain of anything in order to have a discussion? Usually in discussion I find...
February 06, 2018 at 03:07
I don't know, I really don't play chess and I'm only vaguely familiar with it. I'm not really into games. I had bad experiences as a child, finding ou...
February 06, 2018 at 02:55
Right, I wouldn't play if I thought the person might cheat. How would I know whether the person was a cheater or not?
February 06, 2018 at 02:47
Yes, we assume that there are "hinge-propositions". The point I am making, is that as we are "delving into their nature", it becomes more and more evi...
February 06, 2018 at 02:23
You can't say that the authoritarian tendencies didn't come out in the TV show. And, I'm very sure they were quite evident to most everyone who knew h...
February 06, 2018 at 02:10
So why would anyone insist that hinge propositions are indubitable? They are not certainties, and they are only accepted if one feels obliged to do so...
February 06, 2018 at 01:48
A given is something taken for granted. But it's not necessary to take it for granted, one may decline it, just like a proposition may be declined, an...
February 06, 2018 at 01:34
I am saying that such commitments may not be certainties at all. In fact I think it's a mistake to refer to them as certainties.
February 06, 2018 at 01:26
It's not a question of who is forcing the act, it's a matter of who is acting, who's act it is. That's why motive and intention are irrelevant. Aqusti...
February 06, 2018 at 01:22
I disagree that these "non-propositional commitments" are necessarily certainties. It is just as likely that an individual is committed to an attitude...
February 06, 2018 at 01:07
Right, the law recognizes intent. But there is nothing to indicate that when a person acts under duress the act is not the person's act. That is contr...
February 05, 2018 at 20:36
You continue with your faulty logic. You argue "if an action is not freely chosen, it is not mine, in a very important sense of the term". But you hav...
February 05, 2018 at 14:28
Doubt is not knowing, so it's not a case of knowing that something isn't quite right, I'd say it's more like an intuition. Intuition is not a knowledg...
February 05, 2018 at 13:33
Doubt is not only the result of failed prediction. Whenever something doesn't seem quite right, there is cause for doubt. So doubt precedes action in ...
February 05, 2018 at 05:06
Thanks, I appreciate the respect. You've now resorted to standard determinism. If you believe in determinism, and think that you are not responsible f...
February 05, 2018 at 04:25
Why must skepticism be refuted? If it is an essential aspect of epistemology then respect it as such. Trying to sweep it under the carpet, or treating...
February 05, 2018 at 03:53
If he's not knowing, then I think he's doubting. Agree?
February 05, 2018 at 03:48
No, it's an illusion of distinction. That I freely choose to have something in no way provides any real means for classifying whether that thing is mi...
February 04, 2018 at 17:36
OK, so this would be a process of understanding one's own conscious mind, self-reflection. Further, you seem to articulate that one can understand a r...
February 04, 2018 at 17:27
As I said, I find your position here to be contradictory nonsense. You claim some of your thoughts are "in one sense mine", and in another sense "not ...
February 04, 2018 at 15:37
I've explained this to you already in this thread, but I'll explain it again. To doubt is to request justification. Knowledge requires justification. ...
February 04, 2018 at 15:07
Like I said, in my daily endeavours I accept such things without a doubt. But since we're discussing fundamental principles of epistemology here, I se...
February 04, 2018 at 04:41
This is nonsense, and contradictory. "I have intrusive thoughts" implies necessarily, through the use of "I have", that the thoughts are yours. To go ...
February 03, 2018 at 16:04
Right, this confirms what I said. Wittgenstein claims at 194 that objective certainty is when the possibility of mistake has been logically excluded. ...
February 03, 2018 at 15:46
You're not familiar with cosmology, are you?
February 03, 2018 at 14:45
Though it was not a formalized concept at his time Aristotle clearly believed in free will, as is evident from his discussion of the potential for fut...
February 03, 2018 at 14:23
This is not correct. "4" must necessarily refer to one unit. Each of the numerals, "2", "3", etc., refer to individual units. If "4" referred to four ...
February 03, 2018 at 03:00
That's not true though. We cannot produce a mathematical model of the universe which is independent from perspective. This is one of the key things th...
February 03, 2018 at 02:20
I think we understand each other sufficiently, and maybe agree on some key points enough, that I could probably attempt another approach to the topic ...
February 03, 2018 at 02:13
Oh Sunny, you didn't discuss it in your next post. Can you explain what you mean by this "reverse time"?
February 02, 2018 at 14:26
He wouldn't, but that's exactly what doubt is, being unsure. In general practise, I do not doubt "2+2=4", I use these mathematical principles all the ...
February 02, 2018 at 14:07
No, the point I made is that the way that the world is, is completely dependent on one's temporal perspective. Without a subject, an observer, there i...
February 02, 2018 at 12:55
I don't know about that. It may not be wise to attempt with the conscious mind to understand what the subconscious is doing. This puzzle might be impo...
February 02, 2018 at 04:24
The issue might be best understood from a temporal perspective. Consider that the human being is endowed with a very particular temporal perspective. ...
February 01, 2018 at 14:07
Why would you say that doubting the meaning of something is not a sensible form of doubt?. I think not understanding the meaning is the basis of all d...
February 01, 2018 at 13:20
I really can't understand this claim. Suppose that a person is overcome with a severe illness causing delusion, and hallucinations, with the appearanc...
February 01, 2018 at 02:31
The question I think is what attracts one's attention. The way you ask the question, the issue of why do you want to think about this particular probl...
February 01, 2018 at 01:10
You expressed a complete misunderstanding of what I said, and then went off to criticise that misunderstanding. What I 've been trying to tell you ove...
January 31, 2018 at 14:31
That's a good way of stating the issue with doubt. Because of #2, the fact that doubt is relative to the particular individual, in the particular situ...
January 31, 2018 at 04:07
We all think, thinking is not an illness. What is "behind the thinking that causes it" is the person's interests. We all have interests, and we all th...
January 31, 2018 at 03:31
I think that such a person has an illness which makes him feel like there is a conspiracy against him. The rumination itself is not the problem, it is...
January 30, 2018 at 21:55
Oh, I see that you insist on using "doubt" differently than me. You want to restrict "doubt" such that it would only be used if you thought something ...
January 30, 2018 at 21:15
Your numbers are totally arbitrary. If you use "doubt" in this way, you have no clear division as to what probability ought to be doubted, and what pr...
January 30, 2018 at 14:08
Yeah, that's how we've been discussing doubt, in relation to certainty, in the sense of "it is certain". "It is likely" has a different meaning from "...
January 30, 2018 at 02:29
This would exclude anyone from buying a lottery ticket. And that's why Wittgenstein's argument, that doubt can be excluded if it is unreasonable, is i...
January 29, 2018 at 16:36
I don't claim to be a doctor on this matter. You, not I, seem to think that there is a clear distinction between anxiety of the healthy type, and anxi...
January 29, 2018 at 16:01
You just keep asserting, but I have justification. The possibility of mistake indicates that the belief may be wrong, and if the belief may be wrong, ...
January 29, 2018 at 14:20
Looks like a very twisted description of rumination. Rumination is not repetitive in the negative sense described, as if the exact same thing is gone ...
January 28, 2018 at 15:08
It's called "insubordination". Look it up.
January 28, 2018 at 14:03
Here: My OED defines ruminate as "meditate, ponder". And you insist that meditation is so good, and rumination is so bad. How do you spin "rumination"...
January 28, 2018 at 13:52