RE: Are all forms of religious faith indicative of insanity? (My counter example.)
May 10, 2015 at 5:28 pm
(This post was last modified: May 10, 2015 at 5:38 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Quote:Radical skeptics need to explain to me why they accept the existence of other minds and the existence of a 'real world' that is not a subjective construct.The first bit is simple, the second bit is nuanced, as there's no reason that a radical skeptic could not accept that the world, as we experience it, is a subjective construct while still maintaining that there is a "real world" to which that construct is referent.
I accept that there are other minds both because I experience my own, and other creatures who express the behaviors I associate with my own. I also experience the structure of those creatures with minds and they seem to be capable of possessing that descriptor.
Similarly, I understand that my construct is manufactured and subjective - and also that it could be nothing other than manufactured and subjective...by reference to the equipment I use to manufacture it..which is adequate, deeply flawed, and localized to my own body. Nevetherless, that equipment does not, itself, manufacture the inputs. It is sensory equipment, and there must be something for it to sense.....for the world to be sensible...
I could be wrong about any of that up there (after all, I;m a radical skeptic..lol)...but if I were...then it wouldn't matter (no questions or answers would.....), eh? If I;m a brain in a vat, and there are no others, then I am speaking to myself...and will only yield that which I already know as a result. If there is no "real world" then there is no me, by extension..as part of that "real world". If, on the other hand, there is a "real world" but I have no access to it, again..brain in a vat stuff (except no vat..because there is no real world)....then no comment I may have about the real world applies, I have no access. If both apply, that there are no other minds and no real world (or I have no access)...........then you and I have gone down a road neither of us actually subscribes to, and a road from which no known system of arranging thought can be expected to yield truth - or even a semi-accurate guess.........
(lack of hysteria and recognition of others -whatever- are not requirements for reason, so no...to your question...possessing those two traits would not make one an "essentially reasonable" person. Though I'd wager it's part of what makes someone a fairly run of the mill person..which is good enough for me.)
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