this is certainly the sort of stuff that has historically be called "philosophy," even if some of it might fall into literary analysis. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And we could find many other examples that illustrate how variously "philosophy" has been understood. I like keeping the umbrella open wide. @Joshs reminded us that Witt didn't view his later work as philosophy at all. (Or so he said! I wonder about his rhetoric sometimes.) (Witt's, not Josh's!). Would it matter? I'm Hegelian in the sense that I believe philosophy is constantly trying to understand its own nature, but using definitions and discriminations to try to winnow the field doesn't seem like the right way to get this knowledge.

But his move removes doubt from its usual context, and especially it's usual consequences. — Ludwig V

Absolutely right. So I read you as saying, "There is only one good purpose to which doubt can be put -- its usual context -- and because Descartes is suggesting otherwise, it's unsatisfying, like shaking hands without touching."

But we can instead say, "This is why Descartes is a great philosopher, not just an interesting one. He believed he had found a whole new and important use for doubt, one that is precisely not its ordinary use. And the ramifications of his idea were so provocative that we've been discussing it ever since!"

Again, we'd need to really dig in to his reasons for "inventing" Methodical Doubt, and what he hoped it could accomplish. I'm willing, if you like.

But improvising on the basis of an unreliable memory is also quite fun. — Ludwig V

:rofl: Story of my life.

Now you are switching back to wholesale undermining of an entire class. We have ways of telling when our sense our misleading us (I prefer "telling when we have misinterpreted our senses"). How else does Descartes know that he has been misled in the past? This won't do at all. — Ludwig V

Yes, the doubt here is applied to the class, not individuals within the class. The "how else" question is largely answered by Descartes in terms of dreaming. He says he's been misled in a dream --and not known it at the time -- to such an extent that he thinks we have to take the possibility as real. But remember, the question is not "Did it happen?" but "Could it happen?" Of course you may feel it simply could not, but that's disagreeing about a result concerning what can be doubted, not the method itself.

But if we want to eliminate all contingent statements from our knowledge base, we'll end up in a sad state, don't you think? — Ludwig V

Yes! That's why Descartes is so concerned to win back all (or most) of the territory he concedes as uncertain. He uses doubt to demonstrate, in the end, a method by which we can learn what is certain.

Shouldn't we demand clarity as much from those asking questions as those seeking answers? — Banno

Why does the question remain unanswered? Why is it ignored? — Banno

Yes, these are the right questions to pose. If you think they're legitimate in any given case, I'll take that to mean that you agree with Williamson to some extent. And yes, we can't address every problem, but must pick the most tractable and interesting.

Isn’t the way I’ talking here in the spirit of the article? — Fire Ologist

Yes, I thought that might be what you meant, but since physics is science par excellence, I wasn't sure I understood you. Actually, it raises an interesting question: There is the rigor of science, such as seen in physics, but also something else in phil which doesn't claim to be science at all.

he doesn’t so much dissolve all philosophical questions as shows us that scientific , logical and mathematical domains are not self-grounding but instead are contingent and relative products dependent for their grounding on an underlying process of temporalization. Unlike writers like Husserl, Heidegger and Deleuze, Wittgenstein was reluctant to call the questioning that uncovers this process philosophical. He thought of philosophy as the imposing of metaphysical presuppositions (picture theories) on experience but not the self-reflexively transformative process of experiencing itself. — Joshs

All well said, thanks. The part I bolded is where the question of method, obviously, remains open for us. We need not agree with Witt about what constitutes philosophy, while still valuing his accomplishments, under whatever description.

Is this all in the right neighborhood of what Banno is saying? — Fire Ologist

@Banno will have to speak for himself. I don't think so. I looked back to try to see where you got "scientific" from and couldn't find it. Could you explain why you're casting this in terms of what is most or least "scientific"?

The Wittgensteinian Ur-picture, which I don't share, is that "philosophy leaves everything as it was." It is a diagnostic tool to help us understand where our language led us astray. Once we've done that, we'll be left with very little to worry about. Genuine problems will be assigned, or promoted, to the disciplines that study them, such as physics and politics. You can see why this is often viewed as a therapeutic understanding of philosophy -- or, less elevatedly, as plumbing out the pipes.

I think this is what Banno is describing. Again, he will tell us, I'm sure. Personally, I think a dose of Doctor Witt's therapy is a very good thing for all of us from time to time, especially when we get a strong hunch that our terminology is backing us into implausible corners. As I said to Banno above, I don't think all the important philosophical questions can be treated and dissolved in this way, but it's a fantastically useful technique to have at the ready.

It makes a difference to me whether I’m doing something because I think it’s right rather than only because it’s what’s expected of me. — T Clark

OK, I see that. I hope our moral understanding can support that difference.



A good, interesting discussion, which helps lay bare just how far down the difference in perspective goes. Let me quote two things:

there are two categories of descriptively moral behaviors. As I described, the first category of moral norms increases cooperation within an ingroup but can exploit (sometimes coerce) outgroups. The second category solves cooperation problems within ingroups and does not exploit outgroups - as Golden Rule and so forth. — Mark S

When I describe a behavior as innately immoral, I mean that it creates cooperation problems. — Mark S

Now you have every right to describe morality and immorality in this way, and you are scrupulous in calling the behaviors "descriptively moral" rather than just "moral." If there is nothing further to the idea of the moral than a certain group of behaviors that assist humans in cooperating, such a description sounds plausible to me.

But what I'm claiming, along with a few others here, I think, is that this misses entirely what "moral" means, except as a sociological or biological description. When I ask, "Is X the right thing to do?" I'm not posing a question about whether X is consistent with the evolutionary strategy you describe. Of course, nine times out of ten -- perhaps 99 out of 100 -- it may well be. Cooperation, the Golden Rule, etc. are usually very consonant with what I will decide is the right thing to do.

But there are two problems. First, trivially, this is not always the case, unless we mandate the equation by stipulative definition. More importantly, when I choose what I think is right, I do so for ethical/philosophical reasons that do not refer back to cooperation or ingroups and outgroups. Or if they do, I have to ethically justify that connection, rather than merely describe or assert it. In other words, if you ask me, "Why do you think X was the right thing to do?" and I reply, "Because it increases cooperation within an ingroup," you have every reason to persist and ask me, "But why is that a good thing? Is it always? Why in this case?" etc.

I'm trying to avoid putting this in terms of "is can't generate ought," but that's what it comes down to. Mother Nature is what she is, but ethical questions are about what I ought to do. It takes an independent argument to establish that the two are the same.

But sometimes there may also be good reasons not to follow those rules, or at least to question them. When that happens, the difference between morality and social control is important. There’s a difference between doing what’s right, and doing what’s expected of you. — T Clark

Yes, I think so too. So what we're asking is, Is that "difference" also something that can be subsumed under the same scientific explanation from which we derive the theory of morality as social control? Maybe I'm not getting exactly what you mean yet, but it seems to me that is impossible. Doesn't the theory have to account for all we want to say about morality? How can it leave an escape clause for things that are actually right, as opposed to learned or evolved rule-following behaviors?

Since I don't know if the Matrix exists or not, I take the red pill as an experiment. When I wake up in a "new reality", how do I know it is the true reality and not just another [part of the] program? How do the "Masters" know if their reality is a simulation or not? — Harry Hindu

Yes, very good. The "maybe I'm in a simulation" thought experiment can never deliver us out of it.

I don't think the "Masters" would . . . — Harry Hindu

This is where the whole thing gets too vague for me. Who knows what the hell such beings would or wouldn't consider worthwhile?

...we should be open and explicit about the unclarity of the question and the inconclusiveness of our attempts to answer it, and our dissatisfaction with both should motivate attempts to improve our methods. — p. 12

Yes, and notice how this paragraph begins: "Of course, we are often unable to answer an important philosophical question by rigorous argument, or even to formulate the question clearly. High standards then demand not that we should ignore the question, otherwise little progress would be made, but that . . ." and then your quote follows.

My worry about both (some) analytic phil and (some) Witt-derived phil is that the thus-far unanswered questions are indeed ignored, or rather ruled out as nonsensical. "Solve or dissolve," in other words. Let me ask you directly: Do you think there is a warrant for that, or is Williamson correct here? This clearly goes to the heart of the meta-discussion about method.

And what does the honest philosopher (language plumber) think politics is? Total bullshit? — Fire Ologist

The pairing of politics with physics suggests an answer. Neither is bullshit in the least, but (on this view) neither one is philosophy either.

It seems to me to be a question of what we can logically doubt, — Janus

I'm not sure; it's more complicated than it looks.

Descartes doesn't start with, "The LNC is true; therefore . . . " He seems to place relatively little weight on the status of logical certainties. Indeed, he says that the evil demon could make us wrong even about "2+2 = 4". Would he agree, then, that his methodical doubt should exempt logical truths? Evidently not. "I think," for Descartes, has a certainty and an incorrigibility that "LNC" does not.

So if I say that the LNC is indubitable -- that it is not possible to doubt it -- Descartes wants me to explain this in the same way I would explain the alleged indubitability of perceptions, and he doesn't think I can do that. The evil demon holds sway not only over the physical world, but the logical world as well. (Once the demon's sway is broken, as the Meditations proceed, we can recover certainty about logic and much else.)

This raises enormous problems for the role of logic in Descartes' own method, of course.

That said, if we accept a rough equation of "What can be logically doubted" and "What it is possible to doubt," then yes, you've described the general level of doubt that Descartes is employing. He's using methodical doubt for a specific, highly unusual purpose -- a kind of metaphysical litmus test. As I wrote to @Ludwig V, there's a lot more to be said about why Descartes thought this would be so effective as a means of discovering certainty.

It seems to me that Descartes was pushing for metaphysical certainty, and I think it has been amply demonstrated that metaphysical certainty is impossible. — Janus

Hmm. Is the cogito meant to be an example of metaphysical certainty? Many philosophers do disagree that the cogito does what Descartes wanted it to, but to say it's been "amply demonstrated" is an exaggeration, wouldn't you say? Or perhaps you have some other level of metaphysical certainty in mind.

"J" is unsearchable. — Banno

I could do several riffs on that, but I'll spare everyone!

Seriously, is that a problem? No one has ever mentioned it to me. I don't mind changing my monicker if it improves functionality.

Do you mean we shouldn’t spend much time as philosopher’s, or in general? — T Clark

Oh, as philosophers. The scientific questions are important and interesting, but best left to the appropriate specialists.

I think the sociological or biological explanation undermine the basis for some moral positions. — T Clark

Yes, this is the key question. If we did have a convincing sociological or biological (I'll just say "scientific" from now on) explanation for why people form moral beliefs, would that also show us that the content of those beliefs must be mistaken, or at least misunderstood by those who hold them?

Probably to get any further with that, we'd need to be more specific about which moral positions we're talking about. I notice you say some moral positions. Which do you think are most vulnerable to scientific deconstruction here?

Or are we foolish to use words like "good" and "right," misunderstanding them to mean this special something, which doesn't really obtain apart from Mother Nature's adaptations?
— J

I’m not sure it’s foolish, but it does seem like people want to have it both ways. — T Clark

The ones who like evolutionary explanations of morality, but also hold out for the traditional meanings, do want to have it both ways, yes. That's one reason I don't think we should spend much time on the evolutionary (or sociological) question. It will never get us the philosophical answers we're looking for. The same thing applies to the point @Count Timothy von Icarus was making earlier about theoretical reason: No doubt there's an evolutionary explanation for that too, but it doesn't actually explain any of the interesting problems about rationality.

But we might agree on a methodology, such that working out a suitable language in which to state the problem comes first, then we see if there is anything left over that looks like philosophy. — Banno

Sure, that's reasonable. As you know, I think philosophical disagreement is all too often only a wrangle over terminology, which is probably similar to what you mean. But once there's a tentative agreement on terms, what's left over does look like philosophy to me, at least enough of the time to be worth pursuing. "Solve or dissolve" sounds good in theory, but it seems contrary to the way philosophy has been practiced over the ages. Granted, a strict linguistic approach has an answer to that: It's been wrongly practiced. But it's not clear to me whether that determination can be made on a linguistic/semantic basis alone.

A huge topic, obviously.

Yes, if it were demonstrated, I’m not sure how much it would change my view, though perhaps it would. — Tom Storm

This puts an interesting light on it. Because how would it be demonstrated, exactly? One of the reasons people give for finding this whole line of speculation irrelevant is that we have nothing to compare "reality" to, since we're inside of the only reality we know. But if a demonstration necessarily showed there was another reality, we would now have a meaningful point of comparison. We could think about "us here" versus "the simulator people out there." I bet that would be part of the big difference such a demonstration would make -- the comparison is no longer a vacuous one.

Chalmers also goes into this, if memory serves. It's an excellent book.

Excellent response, and I add my expression of interest, and hope @Joshs has time to respond about the creativity question. He knows that I value his take on these philosophers, despite my misgivings about many of them.

You could even argue, from a Christian perspective, that God’s creation resembles a kind of simulation, a world designed, fabricated and set in motion to run the program of human existence and see what unfolds. — Tom Storm

Yes, this analogy is made very clear in David Chalmers' book about all this, Reality +. What is the difference between a creation and a simulation?

[If] we're living in a simulation, what difference does it make? What actually changes? — Tom Storm

You'd think the answer would be "Nothing," but we feel it makes a huge difference. Especially if the simulation is the one called divine creation. Are we wrong to feel this way? I say no. That it may make no practical difference is not the same as saying it makes no intellectual difference. Knowledge for its own sake is highly prized, though perhaps it shouldn't be, on the grounds that that makes no difference. I can't think of a single thing that would change for me if I had never heard of the diplodocus, yet I find myself very glad I have. Similarly, if it could be shown for certain that we live in a (non-divinely-created) simulation, I'm positive I wouldn't react with indifference.

Interesting question is, how would I react? :smile:

It seems to me if morality developed biologically through evolution then it could have developed differently than it did. — T Clark

Yes. And if one is content to say that morality "just means" whatever evolution equipped us with in terms of group behaviors, there'd be no argument; sure it could have been different, if conditions were different. But that is not what (most of us) want to know about morality. We want to know, in addition to any evolutionary facts, whether there is something actually good or right about the behaviors it encourages. Or are we foolish to use words like "good" and "right," misunderstanding them to mean this special something, which doesn't really obtain apart from Mother Nature's adaptations?

Yes, I'm being difficult. Some readers might feel that I should be more charitable. — Ludwig V

Not at all. This moment in Western philosophy deserves the most careful scrutiny. And your reading is not uncharitable in the sense that you're determined to put the worst construction on what Descartes is saying. You, and I, both want simply to understand what he was up to.

I think we should take Descartes at his word when he says that he does not intend "methodical doubt" to be applied in daily life. His quoted words in the letter make that pretty clear, and Williams cites a number of other instances.

So we have to ask, Why, then, apply it as part of his Method? What can be achieved by conjuring up a sort of doubt that would never occur to us in real life? You say:

all he does here is to announce that we are not supposed to take our methodical doubts seriously. Which undermines the entire project. — Ludwig V

but I think he does more than that. He wants us to take methodical doubt very seriously indeed, as a method of ascertaining what might constitute certain knowledge. I called this a kind of "giving the Devil his due" skepticism; Williams calls it "pre-emptive skepticism," meaning much the same thing. Descartes wants certainty, not merely what seems overwhelmingly likely. So he's willing to make enormous concessions to what a hardened skeptic might claim.

Now here you may part company with his inventory of what could be doubted. You say:

Is it possible that I don't in fact have two hands? To put it another way, someone who thinks that it is possible that he is being duped by an evil demon has a pretty elastic sense of what is possible. — Ludwig V

Elastic is hardly the word! Descartes has to conceive the possibility that all his experiences (save one, as we will see) could be illusory. But -- his grounds for thinking that being two-handed could be doubted have nothing to do with comparing the certainty of this belief with the certainty of some other belief. Here, as with the demon, it is "the possibility of universal illusion." So if you want to say that Descartes goes too far here -- that there's no need for the rigamarole of methodical doubt because we already know what can't be doubted -- you'd have to show why the demon (or Matrix!) hypothesis is impossible. And there are a number of modern arguments, broadly analytic or Wittgensteinian in nature, that make that case.

I think generally when we affirm what is obvious, we do so by comparing the obvious thing with something less obvious, but that strategy is not open to you here, if you meet Descartes on his own ground. It's not that "I have two hands" must be shown to be indubitable, but rather that "whatever I affirm that I perceive clearly and distinctly" is indubitable -- that is, cannot, under any circumstances, be mistaken. So, with respect, this isn't quite it:

The programme is to consider each of our doubts, in order to distinguish the uncertain from the certain. — Ludwig V

That's just what Descartes finds self-evidently absurd. We're pushing doubt a level up, instead, and asking what is possible to doubt, not how we would go about settling an actual occasion of doubt.
And yes, I do indeed believe that Descartes is not asserting anything as in fact doubtful. Rather, he is asserting what may possibly be doubted. You say:

What do you mean by saying that he is not asserting his doubt? Are all his assertions in Meditation 1 not really assertions? They certainly conform to the normal requirements for asserting doubt. — Ludwig V

I don't think so. I read him as asserting what is possible, not what is the case. It's the difference between saying, "That bird could be an oriole" and "That bird is an oriole." These are both assertions; if I make the first one, it will be true if the bird could be an oriole, and false if it could not be. The second assertion says something quite different; it will be true if the bird is in fact an oriole, false if it is not. I believe the former mode is what Descartes is talking about.

Lots more to say on this subject! -- especially, we can go into a lot more depth about why Descartes has such faith in Methodical Doubt as a method that will lead to certainty. But I'll stop bending your ear -- tell me what you think.

Or do we take it as read that there has been progress in these areas? That would be my preference, allowing us to proceed further in to the essay. — Banno

Let's do that. We could disagree with some of Williamson's example without disputing his overall point: Within analytical philosophy, there is better understanding of the problems -- and even some resolutions of disputes -- than there was in Russell's day.

a defence of the use of philosophy of language. — Banno

Williamson is very good here, because he's not didactic about semantics; he clearly doesn't believe that an exclusively language-oriented method is enough. Rather, he's arguing that, without linguistic self-scrutiny, none of the other good stuff will happen. If anything, his telescope analogy is too generous. As he says, there's a limited sense in which you can study the stars while knowing nothing about telescopes, but I don't think that's even possible with philosophy. What happens, at even the simplest levels, is exactly what you quote here:

the validity of their reasoning depends on unexamined assumptions about the structure of the language in which they reason. — p.9

As for discipline, I'm not thrilled with Williamson's discussion, but I do agree with what you say here:

Is the upshot here that philosophy cannot be done well by an amateur? I don't think so. More that it can not be done well by a dilettante. But also, it is not served by elitism, but discipline. — Banno

My issue with W and discipline is that, if we take seriously the various examples he gives of approaches that can provide discipline, we wind up wondering if "discipline" is really the right word for what he has in mind. These sound to me more like guidelines or standards -- which is fine, and that would prevent us from "making shite up." (When will you learn to spell properly? :grin: ). To me, a discipline implies a fairly rigorous practice, something you have to study and get good at. But W says: "To be 'disciplined' by X . . . is to make a systematic conscious effort to conform to the deliverances of X," and I suppose I can live with that.

What was encoded in our moral sense was cooperation strategies. Confounding the means (reproductive fitness) of encoding morality in the biology underlying our moral sense and what was actually encoded (cooperation strategies) can be a serious error when discussing human morality.
— Mark S
You may not care about the species, but I expect you will find you prefer to live in a cooperative society. — Mark S

I think you're suggesting that "cooperation strategies" is how we ought to fill in "universal function," above. The point of the evolutionary work is to inculcate these strategies. That may be so. But doesn't the standard objection still apply? Suppose I don't prefer to live in a cooperative society, or even actively prefer to do what I can to harm it? Is this immoral because it goes against our evolutionary imperatives, or because there is actually something wrong about it? I think it's clear at this point that we can't simply collapse the difference and say that "wrong" just means "against the evolutionary imperatives," yes?

I see this as a well-considered version of an evolutionary explanation for morality. As such, I think we need to pose the usual objection: If morality equates, in some sense, to "what is beneficial for the species" -- its "universal function" -- why does that entail that I should care what is beneficial for the species, or regard that as in any way a good for me?

I don't think that's an idle or theoretical question. In my own life, I'm not aware of caring much about humans as such, or how we might fare in the future. It's implausible that the things I do care about morally are only tricking me, so to speak, into acting for the species' well-being. Or if that is in fact the case, it seems quite reasonable for me to reject this goal in favor of doing what good I can for the actual beings around me. That this in turn might further our generic human well-being would be morally irrelevant.

But your OP is complex, and if I've oversimplified or misunderstood, please say so.

We treat others with kindness and compassion because we like each other. The fact that we came to like each other through the actions of natural selection doesn’t change that fact. — T Clark

This makes a similar point.

Isn't the present paper just that, an example of self-reflexive philosophy [in analytic terms]? — Banno

Yes, it is, and reading ahead, I notice that Williamson faults the paper for "exhibiting hardly any of the virtues that it recommends"! So I put brackets around "in analytic terms," above. I hope one of the good questions that will come out this discussion will concern whether it's possible to do what Williamson is doing while staying within strict analytic-phil confines.

If asking only those questions which suit it's method is asking what bread is made of, rather then what everything is made of, then I think it an agreeable approach. There's a lot to be said for working on questions that are at least answerable. — Banno

True. I'll hold off until you walk us through the entire paper. But just as an example of a question that isn't an "everything" question, while at the same time is hard to frame in terms of analytic phil: How should we understand the self-reflexive nature of philosophical inquiry? Is there something important about the fact that philosophical inquiry must also be about itself, and must be done from a point of view?

I'm not sure this can be rendered in terms of logical self-reference, but I'm happy to learn more.

I can resist anything except temptation. I would welcome reading your answers. — Ludwig V

Very good, Oscar. :wink:

But do we really understand what methodical doubt means, if it does not mean doubt? — Ludwig V

It does mean doubt, but applied in a special way. I think Cartesian methodical doubt has two negative characteristics:

It is not a means of questioning each experience we may have, to determine if it is "real."

It is not supposed to carry over into daily life at all, but rather serve as a method for discovering what we may know for certain.

To the first point, Bernard Williams puts it succinctly: "There is the universal possibility of illusion, and there is the possibility of universal illusion." Descartes argues that any given perceptual experience might be illusory (based on the idea that we may be dreaming). But this does not mean that perceptual experience in toto must be unreliable. These are two different thoughts; the latter does not follow from the former. You can believe that any given X is illusory without also having to believe that, therefore, all Xs are illusory.

So this is not an attempt to determine what must in fact be illusory. It is not a method we take into our everyday experiences. Neither the specific nor the general sort of doubt is being asserted. At this juncture, Descartes wants to know what is possible, not what is true. His idea is that, if we can find something about which not even the possibility of doubt can be raised, we will have found a foundation upon which to build our knowledge of the world.

Does that fit your sense of Descartes' project?

Is there any philosopher since Descartes who has actually defended, as opposed to trying to resolve, scepticism? — Ludwig V

So if the above sketch is on the mark, then I'd say that Descartes does not defend skepticism at all. Really, he wants to defeat it. His methodical doubt is a version of giving the Devil his due, of being willing to concede every conceivable lack of certainty in the interests of making his case strong. Had Descartes used this method and discovered nothing that was certain (and been able to rest content with that), I'd call him a skeptic, if an unhappy one.

I've never been quite sure why Descartes is sometimes seen as "introducing doubt" or "questioning certainty" of previously unshakable ideas. He is merely pointing out, correctly, that the possibility of doubt exists in the places he names. At no point does he recommend that we in fact doubt sense perceptions, either one by one or collectively. In a letter to one of his critics, he says:

A man decides to eat nothing, because he’s never certain that his food hasn’t been poisoned, and he thinks that he isn’t obliged to eat when it isn’t transparently clear that the food will keep him alive, and that it is better to wait for death by abstaining than to kill himself by eating. Such a man would be rightly regarded as mad and as responsible for his own death. — Descartes to Hyperaspistes, viii.1641

Descartes compares this to an absurd practical attitude of constant "methodical doubt" and concludes: "This is so self-evident to everyone that I’m surprised that anyone could think otherwise."

I don’t believe philosophy’s goal is to understand the world around us, but to provide various tools to do so. — Skalidris

Would you go so far as to say that philosophy also suggests which aspects of the world need to be better understood? Or is that pretty much up to each culture and/or philosopher?

That the progress here is formal, technical and complex does not detract from the fact of progress. — Banno

I've read about this far with you. Williamson is touching on a favorite topic of mine, the lack of progress in answering traditional philosophical questions. He's more optimistic, of course.

So far in the article, I'd note a couple of things:

- Progress may not be identical with closure on a given topic. I could lament that we haven't answered or achieved agreement on a host of questions, but still acknowledge we've made progress in understanding them. For that matter, rather than lamenting, I could postulate that a lack of closure is a hallmark of what constitutes philosophy.

- One can agree, as I do, that one of the strong points of analytic philosophy is its ability to demarcate good questions that can actually be sharpened and better understood. Within that framework, everything Williamson says about where we stand in 2025 compared to 1925 is correct, as best I know. I'll be interested to see, though, whether he's able to "bootstrap" analytical phil out of the charge that it has selected only those questions which suit its methods.

the lounge can also hold interesting discussions, but the topic doesn't especially address philosophy, and that's why it ends there. I recommend you visit it. You will not get disappointed. :wink: — javi2541997

Thanks for the tip. Perhaps I'll have a look!

I think you know quite well that this is not "constructive criticism," or a disinterested diagnosis of "insecurity":

allowing you to escape into a fabricated world of illusion, with a close buddy. Avoid the distractions which reality forces upon you, and really build your own little dream scene. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's meant to be hurtful and disparaging.

But I've said enough.

I believe the point of this thread is not to be philosophical but to ask us if we use private messages to interact privately with other members. — javi2541997

Exactly. So the response to such a question is abuse? I don't get it. If the thread were in the Lounge, would that make it OK to be sarcastic and disrespectful? (Perhaps so; I never visit the Lounge.)

It states a personal opinion. The replies are bound to be opinions about the person, — Metaphysician Undercover

So let me see how this works. I say, "In my opinion, that's a beautiful painting." And you are "bound to reply", "You aren't very smart"? No other options? Man, I hope your real-life conversations don't go that way! :grin:

But do we really understand what methodical doubt means, if it does not mean doubt? — Ludwig V

Is there any philosopher since Descartes who has actually defended, as opposed to trying to resolve, scepticism? — Ludwig V

I'll respect your wish not to engage with Descartes at the moment, though I'd enjoy that conversation. Suffice it to say, both your questions deserve thoughtful answers.

By refusing in turn to engage with them we give them no air...which is as it should be. Posturing erudition is no substitute for sound thinking and good will. — Janus

Thanks for that. I agree, though not necessarily about the erudition; many people on TPF are indeed erudite about specific philosophers, no posturing. Such knowledge on its own isn't enough, sadly, to lead to thoughtful conversation.

the passion of the response overwhelmingly carries the case in the OP. — Banno

The OP was good, and could have been discussed intelligently, including by those who disagreed with your basic bifurcation, and/or your conception of philosophy. Disagreement, for some, leads to anger and personal berating, which is a shame.

Thanks for outlining how you understand the word. — Ludwig V

You're welcome. FWIW, I was going for an understanding of "common-sense reality," not "reality" as such, which is very hard to use effectively at all.

I'm fascinated by the temptation (which I partly share) to deny that tables and rocks are "really" solid when the explanation actually affirms, and does not deny, that solidity is, in everyday contexts, exactly what it seems to be. The same phenomenon is capable of two different and incompatible interpretations. What can we make of this? — Ludwig V

I think we can dissolve the problem by pointing to the equivocations. "Solid" can mean a couple of different things, and it's only when the uses get confused that it looks like there's a problem. I'm not sure they're even incompatible, at least not in a puzzling sense -- as you say, we get a deeper, more accurate explanation for how good old common-sense "solidity" is actually accomplished.

I agree that bringing in "really" as a qualifier for "solid" is hopeless!

Part of that is noticing that Cartesian scepticism is not the only variety of scepticism, — Ludwig V

I'm reading Bernard Williams' book on Descartes at the moment, and he reminds us that Descartes several times warns us not to take his methodical doubt as genuine doubt -- the sort of doubt it might be reasonable to have about, say, sense perceptions. In the Discourse, he contrasts his method with what we normally do, which is to "follow opinions which one knows to be very uncertain, just as though they were indubitable." Instead, for the purposes of his project:

I thought it was necessary that I do just the opposite, and that I should reject, just as though it were absolutely false, everything in which I could imagine the slightest doubt. . . So, since our senses deceive us sometimes [my emphasis] I wished to suppose that there was nothing which was as they make us imagine. — Discourse on the Method, VI 31-32

As Williams discusses, Descartes is not trying to say that it is in any way reasonable to go from "can deceive us sometimes" to "deserve to be doubted as a whole." This is a philosophical method designed to find some criteria for knowledge, not a way of life. Why such a methodical, unreasonable doubt would help us do this, is another story, which Descartes goes on to explain.

The lack of progress makes me think science won't figure out consciousness. — RogueAI

I sympathize. But I'm a huge fan of science and it constantly surprises me. Going way out on a limb here . . . In the year 3025, humans will look back on us and say, "Wow, they really thought their concepts of 'physical' and 'conscious' and 'causality' could produce results! How far we've come."

Yes, appreciate the talk very much.

That's a scientific mystery, not a philosophical one. Life reduces to chemistry, so the idea that chemicals sloshing around could give rise to a self-replicating molecule in some vanishingly remote chain of events isn't hard to swallow. There's no Hard Problem associated with it. — RogueAI

Hmm. So you're saying that a "self-replicating molecule" is much less mysterious than a "conscious entity"? If we're invoking a "vanishingly remote chain of events" here, why can't we do so for consciousness as well?

I have a feeling that the abiogenesis problem only looks different and more scientific because we've made better progress on it. There certainly used to be a Hard Problem associated with it, and it's still no picnic. I expect the same will prove true for consciousness. Chalmers didn't mean the Hard Problem of consciousness was intractable, or a sign that we necessarily weren't thinking about it correctly. He just meant that, at the moment, we don't have a good research program for answering it.

But in any case, I do have a better sense of why the whole "consciousness as emergent property" claim could seem extraordinary to you, thanks.

OK, that's helpful. But don't you have to run the same argument against the idea of life emerging?

OK, so if we were going to continue conversing, I'd have a pretty good idea what you meant by "world," and could phrase my own thoughts accordingly.

You could be a solipsist for all I know. — Harry Hindu

Or a Communist! :wink:

I think the point is that we'd have to talk about it, and find out whether our ideas of a "shared world" are congruent. It's not so much a debate that's needed, about whose construal is better -- that might come later. We can't debate if we don't first figure out what we're talking about. And it's been my observation that very ordinary terms like "shared" become complex when we enter the Philosophy Room, hence requiring discussion.

Your response shows exactly why @Banno might prefer a PM discussion. He poses a perfectly reasonable question to the members, and you slam into him. Why? What are you hoping that will achieve? If you think his ideas about PMs are open to some concerns, can't that be said civilly and respectfully? Sigh . . . I guess it's the world we live in today.

The point being made is that doubt takes place against a background of certainty.
— Banno
So that's Banno's diagnosis - it's about scepticism. — Ludwig V

I don't follow that. How does skepticism enter the picture? I took @Banno to mean that we wouldn't have a reason to doubt something or find it odd unless we were used to things being a certain way. That's not meant to be skeptical doubt, I don't think.

The deeper question that I think we should be talking about is what lies behind the ancient philosophical tradition of denying common sense reality. — Ludwig V

Part of common-sense reality is a robust confidence that we can accept it. "Reality" here refers not only to the content of whatever beliefs and perceptions we may have, but also to the efficacy of our own equipment, so to speak. I read the early Greeks as mostly questioning (not denying) the former. But there are many examples to pick from, and I shouldn't generalize.

It's probably one of the most challenging disambiguations. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It sure is, and the "reason/cause" subspecies of disambiguation has always seemed to me especially important to understand. The problem can be put sort of crudely, in the context of free will: If we believe we are free to make choices, in more or less the ways we commonly think we are, then that means we are also free to make mental choices. We will not be caused or forced to think any particular thing, or at least we needn't be.

So a "reason" for thinking something -- say, that a conclusion follows from its premises -- has to have a dual character. We want to say, on the one hand, that nothing has compelled us to this conclusion, at the level of brute neuronal activity. We have freely chosen to think that X is true, based on reasons. But on the other hand, we want to say that the reason is compelling at the logical or epistemological level. We do not have a choice, at that level -- not if we want to think what is true.

So we're looking for a way to differentiate a cause from a reason, at the propositional or mental level, that can account for both these aspects. I would say additionally that, as we work on this problem, we want to pay attention to our usual ways of talking about it. We don't, for instance, say that I am caused to believe the Pythagorean theorem. We tend to reserve "cause" for physical events (this is a big generalization, of course) and "reason" for things we choose or decide. Understandably, if there is no choice or decision -- if one adopts a hardcore physicalism or determinism -- then the distinction rather collapses.