RE: Formulating a rational defense of skepticism (a work in progress)
August 31, 2012 at 2:36 am
(This post was last modified: August 31, 2012 at 2:46 am by Vincenzo Vinny G..)
(August 31, 2012 at 1:28 am)Rhythm Wrote: Care to explain how one might leverage skepticism against skepticisim? Would that be like "not believing in not believing"? lol.
Why do any of those truths need to be protected?
Good questions. And all in once piece!
When you decide to be skeptical of a claim, you implicitly justify the skepticism with the belief that "it is better to be skeptical than not to be skeptical of a given claim". Let's call this 'axiom S' as a nickname. Axiom S, if true, is a good, solid reason to be a skeptic. So if you believe Axiom S to be true, you believe it is true that it's better to be a skeptic.
But the question is, why should you believe that axiom S is true? After all, if axiom S is true, and you should be skeptical of claims, doesn't that mean that you should be skeptical of axiom S? After all, axiom S is the claim that "it is better to be skeptical than not skeptical of a given claim".
So if you are a skeptic about everything, you will have to be a skeptic about your skepticism too. This is a clearly a problem for a skeptic. It makes you irrational to be a skeptic.
But you asked a second question: Why do certain truths need to be protected? I presume you are referring to the truths I listed.
Well, think about it- would you be able to rationally justify anything you did if you didn't really exist? How about if the world around us was not real? Would you still feel obligated to obey the laws? And if you couldn't trust your intuitions, how could you make any decision, or believe anything in cases where you go by intuition?
All these things are necessary foundational beliefs for your everyday life. If you don't believe any of these things are true, you can't have a functional existence. This is why you have to find a way to protect them. To keep skepticism from putting them into doubt, and thus destroying any rational basis for doing anything with your life. This will take you to a hardcore sort of existential nihilism if you can't put a boundary on skepticism.
(August 31, 2012 at 1:49 am)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: I'm following you, yes. I've given much thought to the subject in an attempt to be as consistent and rational in my views as possible.
The axioms that I consciously use are these:
A1) Reality exists. (tautological as per the definition of reality)
A2) Reality is observable. (the converse, while not self-refuting, puts one in a rather untenable position)
A3) I exist. (I believe the converse is sufficiently self-refuting to make this a useful and defensible axiom)
A2 does not imply that a particular observer may observe all of reality, of course. The observer must be properly located (spatially, temporally, etc) and be equipped with necessary sensory organs or technology to make an observation.
It's my opinion that pure reason is limited, and that empiricism and reason must be used together to maximize the value of observation. I'll add that individual observation is not necessarily trustworthy and should not be treated as such unless independently and vigorously confirmed, and that it is reasonable to conclude the the probability that an observation reflects reality correlates to the quality of confirmation.
(August 31, 2012 at 1:49 am)idunno Wrote: wouldn't logic also be necessary for a coherent worldview?
Logic falls under the umbrella of reason, which the OP addressed.
Good! I'm not alone here! All this time I thought this would sound like gibberish to everybody!
A3 is clearly defensible rationally provided you define yourself minimally as consciousness, or a mind. As soon as you start to add extraneous properties like "I exist, and I am a male, or I am white, or I have two hands", skepticism automatically gobbles all those properties up. What if your senses are mistaken? What if you are hallucinating? What if you are a brain in a vat?
Skepticism is a hungry beast. It only leaves us with our most basic essence of existence: Our minds.
So as far as I can see, A3 can only say "I exist and I can be sure that I am a mind, possibly more".
To bring the rest of our properties into reality, I imagine A2 comes in. You believe your properties are real, because you believe A2. So you go from a disembodied mind, to a full human being.
Is this the same way you approach it so far?
