Banno

Apo must be having a bad day. It usually take three or four posts to goad him into an ad hom. 8-) (Sorry, Mum.)

The problem is solved in realising that there is a way of understanding a rule that is not given by another rule, but in actually following the rule i...

Exactly. The ground has moved; we are no longer playing chess.

I much prefer my question. One hopes not to need celestial mechanics and Bayesian Inference in order to plan one's breakfast with confidence.

Agreed. So Magnus (et al.) sees this point too, but for whatever reason does not see its import.

Basically, so what? Is the argument that we don't have any reason to think it true, and therefore it is false? But that's obviously invalid. The coffe...

Yes. Of course Magnus is right that we can do whatever we want. But that still leaves the question of what to do. There's no point in arguing for cohe...

Thanks for clarifying - my apologies for the pedantry.

I can see how Wittgenstein would look odd from your point of view. "Language game" gained such notoriety in the eighties ad nineties that it became al...

I'd suggest that our accounts of what is going on should look to simplicity, coherence and consistency. Integrity, if you like. Same goes for the thin...

Gravity and such, perhaps; but otherwise, no. But that's not right. There are all sorts of things that we can't do - walk through walls, Fly like supe...

So, what should one doubt? It's a question worth asking.

I'm just a grumpy old bastard. But it is interesting to see your thinking progress. I suspect you would agree with much that Wittgenstein says - as i ...

Know gets a bit complex here. But it was suggested that I ask what reasons you have to doubt such things? What reason is there to doubt that the coffe...

One would think it a simple point; but it is being doubted interminably in @"Sam26"'s thoughts on Epistemology

Yes; doubt requires justification, too.

"Why is it reasonably probable that the past predicts the future?" That's the wrong question. The right question is "What grounds do you have to think...

The sequence in which every coin is heads. If that shows up, then the sequence in which every coin is tails does not. This argument is not dissimilar ...

Yes. That's rather the point.

So far as hands and chairs and capitals of France go, it doesn't do too bad a job.

Edit: Hm. I suspect Sam might agree. It's as if he started a thread on sports cars and it turned into a thread about sewing.

Perhaps that is one mistake. Another would be to suppose that there is an ultimate arbiter. The world is complex. There's something odd about thinking...

One of the frustrations of discussing philosophy in an open forum is that the interesting topics disappear in the noisy background. Not relevant to th...

What?

So do we agree that it's got nothing to do with the main topic, which is belief as a propositional attitude? I think you have helpedset out a nice dis...

Still looks like mixed use. Is the could modal or probable?

To my eye you are just replacing Certainty/uncertainty with certainty/probably. Words are our tools. We can't just assume that the word means the same...

SO we have certain as a propositional attitude, certain as a mode, and certain as a probability. Three uses. I'm interested in the first one. That see...

OK. DO you remember why we are talking about probability? I don't.

That's not what I argued, Meta. Do you doubt that twice two is four? Could you? And if you came across someone who could, what would you make of them?

I am beginning to suspect that Magnus and Humpty Dumpty would agree as to the theory of meaning. Hereabouts, it is hard to come by a white swan, but t...

Curious. How is "It is certain that..." different from "It is true that..."?

How is that an example of certainty not being a propositional attitude? Michael is certain that there are no hearts in the pack. Looks like it sets ou...

Popper never intended falsification to be used on mathematics.

So in your view only necessary statements can be certain? Well, I don't think necessary and certain mean the very same thing. Because while I am certa...

I don't. I verify that twice two is four... well, I don't understand how it needs verification. In understanding what is being said, I am certain of i...

@"Michael" -Did we reach any agreement on certainty, truth and necessity being distinct things? What do others think of this?

So have I understood you correctly? You are saying that because one might doubt more complex equations, one might also doubt that twice two is four?

I doubt it. O:)

Wittgenstein might have said the very same thing. He was a senior engineer in the Austrian army during the war, and had a famous "negative opinion" of...

Indeed; even Descartes thought so.

Oh, yes. Necessary implies it is true in every possible world. 100% probable implies it is true. Being certain implies that it is indubitable. Three d...

Certain means the same as necessary?

There's a religious zeal associated with the mantra "Doubt Everything". Doubt is not a bad thing, provided it does not dissuade you from doing mathema...

Interesting locution. What is this immunity here? 2+2=4 is not immune to doubt? But doubt here could only mean that the doubter did not know what "2",...

It is perhaps worth pointing out again that believing something is performing an evaluation. It is choosing this over that. Of course you could have m...

That there is a problem. Do his tastebuds work incorrectly? Or has he misunderstood the meaning of the words "lemon" or "bitter"? These are reasonable...

So is it reasonable to suppose that there are aliens interfering with our taste buds? Bedlam is ful of such reasonable folk.

Lemons are bitter. If @"Magnus Anderson" wants to say repeatedly that they are not bitter, that tells us something about Magnus, not something about l...

the thing is, belief and certainty are attitudes, and hence explicitly invoke value. So it’s not “given this evidence one does believe....”; it’s “giv...