do you mean a particular conception of the external world with so much detail; or the simple fact of something external to you? which is true on its face…
No, just that external things exist.
The G.E Moore approach has failed miserably.
what? who said that?
if you want to instruct me in doubting my external world then you will fail since to put that to me is to assume a distinction between us.
I see that you, because I did indeed ask him atleast one question, just apodictically proved that the imaginary friend which I talked to during my childhood was actually externally existent. I will, now that I understand that he does exist in a location, have to relocate him.
He is a libertarian because it pleases him. I am a libertarian because it pleases me. Makes sense to me.
It’s dream doubt. How do you know you’re truly awake? How do you know you’re not in delirium, in a coma, or that you haven’t created your own subjective world where I’m merely an extension of your imagination? I know this sounds far-fetched, but it’s at least possible, this does happen to people. As long as it’s possible, the theist, at best, can say that his faith is no different than my faith in kind, but only in degree.
Okay. Now apply that same skepticism to the bible or any other revealed religion…
It’s way more sensible to believe in one’s existence and the world’s than to believe in political/religious fairy tales made up by theocrats.
Without reference to any deity, clearly.
Look, Descartes: your perfection-as-an-idea-can-only-come-from-a-perfect-being argument devolves into Anselm’s Refuted To Death Ontological Argument, and no amount of trying to use different concepts in place of perfection will do anything other than show how intellectually dishonest you are. You can’t just substitute words and think your argument is then valid, Rene. Idiots like Van Til and the rest of the presuppositionalists have tried to take up the mantle, but they still can’t escape that their arguments, inevitably and inexorably, devolve into the Ontological argument.
The fact that I exist means I exist in something.
Marxist polylogism?
ok; now you are back to doubting only particular appearances of the external world. this is on from the concept of ‘external world’ which is a give.
I Ryan must have missed that also.
Yeah, but, I would like to actually hear it.
The fact that you exist does not prove an external world, nor does it show that you can trust your senses, or anything else really. At best, it shows that there isn’t an evil GOD bent on deception.
Granted, but not all epistemologists are Marxists. Marxists, if they pursue their train of thought, must logically come to these conclusions.
I’m not saying Descartes’ conclusion is sound; all I’m saying is that he showed faith is necessary, people must create posits in order to progress (the invention of imaginary/irrational numbers, for example). This means that in principle your faith is no different from my faith, or the faith of anyone else. Now, you may take the pragmatic approach and say your faith is generally more fruitful, but that’s debatable as well.
No, I’m doubting it in its entirety.
There is no point in acting if you are screwed (as defined). If you’re screwed then you might as well not even trust your thoughts, so why would anyone need a reason. I did use the phrase “leap of faith”, which may have overplayed the religious parallel I was building. There is no logical position if you are screwed, since otherwise there is no logic or nothing to do with that logic (unless you like doing math). It is logically impossible to deny the possibility of truth.
and some people just posit to make posits or make themselves feel better, or get by without thinking hard.
I dont posit anything when I say I exist. I do.
I dont posit anything when I say that not everything is me.
these are facts. not working assumptions. they are not possible candidates for reassessment as are the positivistic scientific ‘laws’.
you are play doubting, you arent seriously doubting. because you cannot doubt what you know is true.
here’s a little exercise, i fele the need to give you some good stuff to doubt over.
A=A
does it? does it really? i recommend a solid hour of doubting this and then ‘someone’ will get back to you with more suggestions.
No, you’re right about that. Descartes showed that you can know you exist without any form of faith whatsoever. And Kant proved the existence of time. He tried to prove the existence of the external world, but it’s not satisfactory either (claims senses exist outside of us).
I agree. The question is how can we create a strong foundation for science without appealing to GOD as an authority (when I say GOD, I mean some external 3rd party)?
A theist can say the same exact thing. As long as there’s doubt and as long as you acknowledge it as a possibility, then you’re working on faith as well.
Well, there are many who doubt the validity of that statement as well, but I won’t go there. Either way, it’s not part of the ‘external world’ (or as Kant puts it, “not met in space”).
Nihilism is fun for 5 minutes and then we go back to our non-existant lives.
I reject all of this, and I can do so because I believe in GOD. That’s the point. You can reject GOD, and accept all of the things I accept, but you’re doing so on faith (just like me).
I cannot deny that I exist, nor that there is a world external to myself without engaging in a performative contradiction.
Actually, it does. To exist means that you do so somewhere, i.e. that which is external to you.
We necessarily do, or else lkhd,smng kuijrh;n s,m ;kjyh;kj5h ;m,d
Religious skepticism is a mental masturbatory dead-end.
No, he did not. Faith is wholly unnecessary. And don’t even think about equivocating faith with no rational reason to believe otherwise.
My only faith is my senses.