Circular arguments have no correlation with reality except by chance- you may as well make something up and believe it. It would make about as much sense.
It is correct that if skepticism is correct then there is nothing we can do. Logically speaking, since probability doesn’t exist there is a probability of 100%.
It means we cannot be justified in knowing anything, and are isolated from any objective reality. The basic rules of probability from which we assume the reliability of memory, senses etc are taken on religious style faith.
I’ve been trying to find a way around this, but you are probably right.
I mean I am checking and and again just in case because I don’t like the idea that scepticism is right.
I’m not familiar with that notion.
Any account which assumes we do live our lives, or proscribes ways to do so, is not sceptical at all.
Besides, your argument is circular as you assume the world’s existence. It also involves argument ad populorum, appealing to popular belief rather than evidence. Showing that humans are incapable of believing X does not refute X.
Can you clarify here? Starting from no assumptions whatsoever, how do things such as Cox’s theorem get to the basic axioms of probability from which it can be inferred that the universe probably exists, that memories are probably accurate, and that induction probably works?
Sam Harris, for a start, gives very good reasons. Maybe you should read him- he puts it better.
See my below response gedymin.
Complete elimination of error would logically imply knowing the truth.
Something like empirical positivism is like a castle on air- it makes assumptions with no basis in reality.
You really should add a fourth- the principle of induction. You also misinterpret my premise- it is not that nobody could possibly disagree, but that the ideas could not possibly be false, even under an Evil Demon argument.
The problem is the same as the Isolation Objection to Coherentism- that if there is any actual correlation to reality, it is merely by chance rather than through actual evidence. This is because both groups have no basis for their assumptions.
If we can have no a priori knowledge, it means skepticism wins because everything is based on faith. Given this, I try to find a means to make a priori knowledge work despite objections, both of this sort and skeptical.
If this is right, then radical skepticism wins entirely. The point is if it can be shown false on probabilities.
Yes and no. I do believe it hopeless, but I search because I’m looking anyway,
As I already mentioned, it is probability itself which must be justified in the first place. How do you do that?
Not true- Sam Harris concludes it’s incoherent. That’s at the VERY START of what you linked to.
The concept of free will doesn’t make sense, so the proposition of its truth turns out to be self-evidently wrong after a certain amont of thought. It’s still self-evident because it requires no assumptions.
I explained my context was the refutation of philosophical scepticism in general- what I was after should have been clear.
1- You assume that the criterion of self-evidence should be based on being universally convincing. Why should this necessarily be so? Self-evidence comes when the contrary proposition simply doesn’t make sense, as it were (simplistic example: free will). The question is how to deal with that with regards to demonstrating the validity of probability/induction. 2- Because the fundamental starting assumption is unjustified, we are no more justified in believing we know the truth than the people who believe in God on faith.
I know it’s not self-evident that we don’t with certainty (and I said argument, not experiment), but I’m not trying to get to the conclusion we don’t live in such a simulation- only that it is improbable.
You have a point. Then how do you justify induction?
“Self-evident” in the sense that they don’t need any starting assumptions whatsoever. The point I am making repeatedly because others don’t seem to get it is that if there is no way to justify the premise that the world exists without resort to assumptions, then we’re no better than the people who believe in God on faith.
I am searching for a way to deal with the Evil Demon Argument etc. for that reason. As for said philosophers, they have a different concept of a self from Descartes and so to an extent are talking about different things.
On the first point, if you get to a conclusion within logic which marks it as “self-defeating”, then from a logical perspective logic doesn’t work. Non-logic doesn’t matter for those who aren’t logical, but for a logical person logic matters.
On the second point, once you start postulating actually viable alternatives to the world not existing, and considering the Evil Demon Argument, there is nothing in there which is actually dealt with.
I highly doubt those authors address the idea of scepticism in the sense of showing from first principles that probability is legitimate, in a way that addresses such things as Descarte’s Evil Demon Argument. They are discussing how to implement probability, not whether the entire concept is legitimate.
You are denying the validity of self-evidence here, and admittedly there is a problem with properly establishing self-evident ideas. That’s part of my problem, admittedly, and what I am trying to bypass somehow.
The logical sceptic could argue that they are showing that logic is self-defeating- that when logic is taken to its ultimate conclusion it is shown to be false, therefore logically logic should be rejected. This is precisely what I would argue.
As for the matter of reality- if it exists, then of course it doesn’t go away when we stop believing it. But how do we know that?
This assumes the falsity of skepticism to begin with. Even then, it is possible for a circular argument to be internally inconsistent.