This seems like another instance of “people who say they’re not doing philosophy are in fact doing bad philosophy.”
I think a lot of folks hope they can avoid the philosophical tangle and just get on with what they care about and find ways to not have to deal with nasty philosophical problems, especially I think the problem of the criterion. And you can, and philosophy even gives it a name: pragmatism. You can be a pragmatist about whatever you want by putting up a stop sign that says “yep, not going to look at this, going to take it as not only ontologically basic but real so I can avoid dealing with the infinite regress we find whenever we try to reduce everything”. And the catch is that we all must be pragmatists about something if we are to get on with anything, since the alternative seems to be uncomputable (again, due to the problem of the criterion and its many guises). So far so good, philosophy work discharged.
But then some people, especially people who identify as scientists and rationalists, have this idea that they don’t put up stop signs, they always keep going to the best of their ability, and when reality says “here, enjoy some actual unknowability” this creates serious problems for the person. Their identity is at stake in so much as it is tied to reductionism and realism (or, as is the case with Sabine, some kind of shadow realism? her position is not self consistent as you point out), they suffer cognitive dissonance, and they choose to resolve it by making the same epistemological leap of faith we are all forced to make by the problem of the criterion, but then denying that any leap was made and instead claiming it was just seeing things as they really are, and if pressed on it then doing some weird gymnastics like Sabine seems to do here to try to hide from what knowing even means.
I think a lot of folks hope they can avoid the philosophical tangle and just get on with what they care about and find ways to not have to deal with nasty philosophical problems, especially I think the problem of the criterion. And you can, and philosophy even gives it a name: pragmatism. You can be a pragmatist about whatever you want by putting up a stop sign that says “yep, not going to look at this, going to take it as not only ontologically basic but real so I can avoid dealing with the infinite regress we find whenever we try to reduce everything”. And the catch is that we all must be pragmatists about something if we are to get on with anything, since the alternative seems to be uncomputable (again, due to the problem of the criterion and its many guises). So far so good, philosophy work discharged.
But then some people, especially people who identify as scientists and rationalists, have this idea that they don’t put up stop signs, they always keep going to the best of their ability, and when reality says “here, enjoy some actual unknowability” this creates serious problems for the person. Their identity is at stake in so much as it is tied to reductionism and realism (or, as is the case with Sabine, some kind of shadow realism? her position is not self consistent as you point out), they suffer cognitive dissonance, and they choose to resolve it by making the same epistemological leap of faith we are all forced to make by the problem of the criterion, but then denying that any leap was made and instead claiming it was just seeing things as they really are, and if pressed on it then doing some weird gymnastics like Sabine seems to do here to try to hide from what knowing even means.