One way of understanding the so-called problem of the “Cartesian Circle” illustrates the Pyrrhonian point: Descartes is relying throughout the Meditations on his power of reasoning to remove the skeptical doubts that he raises, but to do so requires that he exempt at least some of the propositions obtained through reasoning from the doubts that he raised in the “First Meditation” about the epistemic reliability of our faculties. A possible Cartesian reply could be as simple as paraphrasing Luther: Here I stand, as a philosopher with confidence in reason, and as such I can do no other.
In other words, I am only trying to show that, according to our epistemological framework, nothing can be proven . . . the argument itself is very much like vanilla Cartesian skepticism: you could be mistaken about anything! — Paralogism
Think about it this way: why worry about/focus on certainty or proof?
Also, isn't "P, a proposition about x, is certain or has been proved, otherwise we can know nothing about x" a false dichotomy?
Is it? Can you show another alternative? — Paralogism
So scientific statements like those (1) are not asserting certainty or proof, and (2) are not saying "we know nothing about this."
But they're knowledge claims, no? We say that we know that feldspars are a group of rock-forming tectosilicate minerals that make up about 41% of the Earth's continental crust by weight, for example.
Is that not the way you've understood what scientific claims are doing to this point?
What are permissible criteria for either defining or testing a mistake in the reasoning process?
Here is another way of formulating the problem: — Paralogism
That isn't an epistemological claim. The phrase 'I know' is being used colloquially, in the context of common sense. You have to first build up a whole epistemology to assert that the scientific method and our perceptions are generally accurate. — Paralogism
If global skepticism holds, then we have no more reason to believe in scientific claims than any other type of claim. An assertion about feldspars would be based on faith. — Paralogism
Well, I suppose if one can't coherently suggest that something might be wrong or mistaken. I'm not sure what that could be. You say 'logically speaking', but even the laws of logic can't be assumed against the commonsense argument. — Paralogism
I'm not knowledgeable enough to give my opinion on just what it is they *are* within that framework — Paralogism
I explained this already. They're knowledge claims. Knowledge doesn't imply certainty or proof.
Why do you think that claims "need to (ultimately) justify themselves"?
If you know something there's no need to "know that you know," anymore than if you're running, say, you need to "run that you run." "Knowing that you know," among other things, seems to suggest that there is, or needs to be, something certain about knowledge, and as I've expressed a few times, that is a mistake.
Rather, the statement is used to highlight the infinite regress of justification which fallibilism creates (how do you know A, and how do you know your explanation for why A is true, etc). The incoherence is the point. — Paralogism
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