So, say you walk into a cafe' and you sit down with a freshly ordered dirty chai-latte, and upon the table, that you choose, lies a small napkin with the quotation: "I will suppose... that some evil demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies to deceive me." - Descartes This entails that S can never know if P is true ; S = someone and P = proposition ( there is an external world) Signed . - one wise skeptic The only thing you could quite possibly posit is that.. "AH! HAH! I see this cunning skeptic has tried to pull a fast one on me!" "By the Skeptic positing that I can never know p, that is to say he is self refuting his ownself that he cant "know" or qualify that we cannot ascertain the truth or falisty of P." But what good is this for you? If you yourself do not want to fall into the same trap, all you can use is a subjunctive conditional that states: (I) If P then S believes in P or (II) if not P then S could believe in P or not. We are left to not only convince the skeptic that he is wrong, but we must concede that neither yourself or the skeptic can ever know if there is an external world. discuss! also, Im pulling this from Edmund Gettier - Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? G.E Moores - Proof for an External World Robert Nozick - Philosophical Explanations
LOL... you rang? But, yea, man, regarding your post here, let me say that, first off, Sartre once wrote, "If every metaphysics in fact presupposes a theory of knowledge, then every theory of knowledge in fact presupposes a metaphysics". Now, by me quoting Sartre here, I want to convey what Sartre's alluding to in his quote... which is, epistemology is the true foundation for the question of whether or not there is an "external world"; meaning, before one can inquire into metaphysical questions, one needs to set the standards (and criterion) upon which they can differentiate, in the first place, between truth and falsehood, that is, a person must resolve their epistemology before denying or accepting any proposition and assertion.
"For, before men can reason together, they must agree in first principles; and it is impossible to reason with a man who has no principles in common with you." -- Thomas Reid A skeptic can only refute another, if, and only if, the skeptic accepts the same epistemological principles of the person they are supposdley arguing against; and, also, a particular person being approached by a skeptic can only accept said skeptic's skepticism (argument), if, and only if, that person accepts the same epistemological principles of the skeptic. Thomas Reid hits the head on the nail with his quote.
Agree here. That is my conclusion but viewed in a different way. The skeptic wins ( and does well for testing me!) on the grounds of not allowing me a victory. If i were to meet such a skeptic as I had described I feel like we would negotiate that neither of us can really disprove each others argument. I have my belief, and his.. well his, are his (radical as they may seem .. although atoms and subatomic particles, and sub-sub atomic particles (bosons or quarks?!) constituting all matter is pretty extreme and does seem.. something like.. surreal. ) Interesting enough, In my class we just covered Keith DeRose "Contextualism and Knowledge Attributes" I'm excited to see the pragmatic power this holds, even if I cant prove my nominalist,realist metaphysics
Also, here is an intro to paper listed above 'The inescapbility of Gettier Problems' by Ms. Linda Zagzebski!
Skepticism can never really be wrong....the only thing that is certain for sure is our mind, the only thing that we can not doubt is doubt itself
Note even the mind... there is a mental disorder called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard_delusion ; and people think they are dead. lol.. so there is no mind.. but Idk .. its hard to think its even possible. If any logical capabilities are intact then I find it hard pressed that these people couldn't see that any kind of conciousness is a sign of existence.
1.) If a child was unaware of the fact that the earth revolves around the sun.. does that mean the earth doesn't revolve around the sun? 2.) How do you know such a thing? And do you know such a thing? Are you really denying thought by way of thinking..?