Not a philosophy student, but it seems to me that your question is basicly this:
If everything is uncertain (including reality, state of my brain, etc.), how can I become certain about anything?
And the answer is:
Taking your question literally, you can’t.
In real life, we don’t take it literally. We don’t start by feeling uncertain about literally everything at the same time. We take some things as granted and most people don’t examine them (which is functionally equivalent to having axioms); and some people examine them step by step, but not all at the same time (which is functionally equivalent to circular reasoning).
Not quite- I had several questions, and you’re somewhat misinterpreting the one you’ve discussing. I’ll try and clarify it to you. There are two sides in the argument, the Foundationalists (mostly skeptics) and the Coherentists. So far I’ve been Foundationalist but not committed on skepticism. Logically of course there is no reason to assume that one or the other is the only possible posistion, but it makes a good heuristic for quick summary of what’s been covered so far.
-The Foundationalists in this particular argument are Strong Foundationalists (weak Foundationalism got thrown out at the beginning), who contend that you can only rationally believe something if you can justify it based on self-evident truths (in the sense that they must be true in any possible universe) or if you can infer them from such truths.
-The Coherentists in this particular argument contend basically that all beliefs are ultimately justified by reference to each other. This is circular, and yet justified.
-The Foundationalists have put the contention that probability is OFF THE TABLE. This is because it is impossible to create a concept of probability that is not simply a subjective feeling that does not rest on the presumption that empirical evidence is valid (which they dispute). This gets back to their argument that it is IRRATIONAL to believe in the existence of the world.
-The Coherentists countered with the concept of “tenability”- believing X provisionally but willing to discard it should new evidence come along.
-I have already, arguing close to the Foundationalist side, pointed out that just because humans DO reason in a certain way in practice does not give any reason for believing it is a valid form of reasoning.
-Both sides have agreed that purely circular arguments are off the table. Hence, both the Foundationalists and the Coherentists have agreed not to use any reference to actual human behaviour to justify one theory over the other.
Could you give me examples of “self-evident truths” other than mathematical equations or tautologies? To me it seems that if you are allowed to use only things that are true in all possible universes, you can only get to conclusions that are true in all possible universes. (In other words, there is no way I could ever believe “my name is Viliam” using only the Strong Foundationalist methods.)
Well, in that case the intuitive answer would be that the Foundationalists have successfully argued themselves into a spectacularly convincing corner, and meanwhile I’ll just be over here using all this “unverifiable” “knowledge” to figure out how to deal with the “real” “world”.
And in any case, if you’re invoking an Evil Demon you’re lost regardless, it’s the epistemologic equivalent of “but what if all your arguments are actually wrong and you just can’t see it”, to which the answer would be “In that case I am quite hopelessly lost but it doesn’t look that way to me, and what more do you expect me to say?”
I suppose an argument could be made that “if such a thing as evolution exists it seems implausible for it to create a brain that expends an awful lot of food intake on being irrepairably wrong about the things it knows, and if not even evolution exists our view of the cosmos is so lost as to be irrepairable regardless”.
Sometimes I wonder if philosophy should be taught in a largely noun-free environment. (Points for correct answers, points deducted for Noun Usage?) Get people’s minds off the what, and on the how and why. Obsession with describing states will be the death of philosophy...
Firstly, you’re getting mixed up. The Foundationalist side are trying to downplay the Evil Demon Argument as much as possible whilst the Coherentist side claims it refutes Foundationalism as it means nothing can be known.
Both sides plus myself plus practically everybody agrees that just because intuition states X doesn’t mean X is true. So how can you invoke it with any plausibility in a debate?
IF evolution works as suspected, there are still other ways that humans could survive other than correlation of beliefs with reality depending on how everything else works.
Not a philosophy student, but it seems to me that your question is basicly this:
If everything is uncertain (including reality, state of my brain, etc.), how can I become certain about anything?
And the answer is:
Taking your question literally, you can’t.
In real life, we don’t take it literally. We don’t start by feeling uncertain about literally everything at the same time. We take some things as granted and most people don’t examine them (which is functionally equivalent to having axioms); and some people examine them step by step, but not all at the same time (which is functionally equivalent to circular reasoning).
Not quite- I had several questions, and you’re somewhat misinterpreting the one you’ve discussing. I’ll try and clarify it to you. There are two sides in the argument, the Foundationalists (mostly skeptics) and the Coherentists. So far I’ve been Foundationalist but not committed on skepticism. Logically of course there is no reason to assume that one or the other is the only possible posistion, but it makes a good heuristic for quick summary of what’s been covered so far.
-The Foundationalists in this particular argument are Strong Foundationalists (weak Foundationalism got thrown out at the beginning), who contend that you can only rationally believe something if you can justify it based on self-evident truths (in the sense that they must be true in any possible universe) or if you can infer them from such truths.
-The Coherentists in this particular argument contend basically that all beliefs are ultimately justified by reference to each other. This is circular, and yet justified.
-The Foundationalists have put the contention that probability is OFF THE TABLE. This is because it is impossible to create a concept of probability that is not simply a subjective feeling that does not rest on the presumption that empirical evidence is valid (which they dispute). This gets back to their argument that it is IRRATIONAL to believe in the existence of the world.
-The Coherentists countered with the concept of “tenability”- believing X provisionally but willing to discard it should new evidence come along.
-I have already, arguing close to the Foundationalist side, pointed out that just because humans DO reason in a certain way in practice does not give any reason for believing it is a valid form of reasoning.
-Both sides have agreed that purely circular arguments are off the table. Hence, both the Foundationalists and the Coherentists have agreed not to use any reference to actual human behaviour to justify one theory over the other.
Could you give me examples of “self-evident truths” other than mathematical equations or tautologies? To me it seems that if you are allowed to use only things that are true in all possible universes, you can only get to conclusions that are true in all possible universes. (In other words, there is no way I could ever believe “my name is Viliam” using only the Strong Foundationalist methods.)
Yes, the Foundationalist would agree with that. They would not see a problem with it- that is the legitimate limit of knowledge.
Well, in that case the intuitive answer would be that the Foundationalists have successfully argued themselves into a spectacularly convincing corner, and meanwhile I’ll just be over here using all this “unverifiable” “knowledge” to figure out how to deal with the “real” “world”.
And in any case, if you’re invoking an Evil Demon you’re lost regardless, it’s the epistemologic equivalent of “but what if all your arguments are actually wrong and you just can’t see it”, to which the answer would be “In that case I am quite hopelessly lost but it doesn’t look that way to me, and what more do you expect me to say?”
I suppose an argument could be made that “if such a thing as evolution exists it seems implausible for it to create a brain that expends an awful lot of food intake on being irrepairably wrong about the things it knows, and if not even evolution exists our view of the cosmos is so lost as to be irrepairable regardless”.
Sometimes I wonder if philosophy should be taught in a largely noun-free environment. (Points for correct answers, points deducted for Noun Usage?) Get people’s minds off the what, and on the how and why. Obsession with describing states will be the death of philosophy...
Firstly, you’re getting mixed up. The Foundationalist side are trying to downplay the Evil Demon Argument as much as possible whilst the Coherentist side claims it refutes Foundationalism as it means nothing can be known.
Both sides plus myself plus practically everybody agrees that just because intuition states X doesn’t mean X is true. So how can you invoke it with any plausibility in a debate?
IF evolution works as suspected, there are still other ways that humans could survive other than correlation of beliefs with reality depending on how everything else works.