So perhaps Descartes is never fully convinced that there is an outside world — Lionino

We need to make a distinction between the argument from doubt and his work, specifically his work in medicine, optics, and physics. I don't think he needed to be convinced that there was an outside world because he never really doubted it.

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I think it is a rhetorical strategy. After all, if he doubted that there are men in the world why bother writing and publishing?

As I see it, he begins by calling everything into doubt in order to call the authority of the Church and "the philosopher", Aristotle, into doubt.

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I have insufficient grounds to claim there are men ... — Lionino

I think that this kind of skepticism gets things backwards. It is not a matter of grounding the claim that there are men, but of providing grounds for doubting that there are men. The ability to doubt is not a good reason to doubt. Claiming that there are men does not require grounds. Claiming that there are men on Mars does.

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This seems to assume a naïve realist view of many things. — Lionino

I have been called worse, but I want to avoid getting entangled in such distinctions. I think Wittgenstein's notion of a hinge is right.

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There are a few threads on the forum that discuss hinges. As I understand them they are things that in the normal course of our lives are not called into question and around which other things turn. To whom would the proposition "men exist" be addressed? What information does it convey that we do not already know?

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