There's a religious zeal associated with the mantra "Doubt Everything". Doubt is not a bad thing, provided it does not dissuade you from doing mathematics or playing chess or squeezing lemon onto your fish and chips.
Those who follow Wittgenstein hereabouts, myself included, have been a little bit disingenuous in their reporting of OC, as those who have actually read it will know. Time to come clean.
The indubitable can indeed be doubted, albeit only under specific circumstances.
The argument is, roughly, that in a given language game (and it is all language games), there are certain things that cannot sensibly be doubted. So in geometry the three angles of a triangle add to a straight angle and in Chess the bishop moves only diagonally.
However, language games themselves are subject to change. So in some geometries the angles of a triangle add to more than a straight angle, in others to less; once the pawn could only move one square, but to speed the game this was changed to two squares for its initial move.
In such cases it is very important to understand which game is being played. — Banno
Cartesian doubt has always struck me as a kind of hilarious false drama, as if a drama queen were to write philosophy. — StreetlightX
What do you mean by "actually given in perception"? How could this be different than what people in general consider to be given in perception? — Janus
Cartesian doubt has always struck me as a kind of hilarious false drama, as if a drama queen were to write philosophy. — StreetlightX
2+2=4 is not immune to doubt? But doubt here could only mean that the doubter did not know what "2", "+", "=" or "4" meant... — Banno
So what is it they are doubting? Not that 2+2=4, because they do not understand what that means, and so could not doubt it. — Banno
The argument is, roughly, that in a given language game (and it is all language games), there are certain things that cannot sensibly be doubted. So in geometry the three angles of a triangle add to a straight angle and in Chess the bishop moves only diagonally. — Banno
2+2=4 is not immune to doubt? But doubt here could only mean that the doubter did not know what "2", "+", "=" or "4" meant...
So what is it they are doubting? Not that 2+2=4, because they do not understand what that means, and so could not doubt it. — Banno
There's a religious zeal associated with the mantra "Doubt Everything". Doubt is not a bad thing, provided it does not dissuade you from doing mathematics or playing chess or squeezing lemon onto your fish and chips. — Banno
My orientation is extensional rather than intensional. I focus on actions first and words second. I have a negative opinion of philosophies that put way too much emphasis on language and other social conventions. — Magnus Anderson
So have I understood you correctly? You are saying that because one might doubt more complex equations, one might also doubt that twice two is four? — Banno
You verify that a mathematical equation is true by checking whether it belongs to some set of mathematical equations. — Magnus Anderson
1) if something is possibly false then it isn't certain — Michael
No, certainty is a propositional attitude — Banno
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