The skeptical challenge remains the same in both scenarios. — Moliere
So the skeptic claims that we can't know about the external world because it's possible to doubt it? — Marchesk
That's a really high standard for knowledge. — Marchesk
The skeptic' is a bogeyman in philosophy discussions, nothing more. — fdrake
Well, there is Nick Bostrom's simulation argument. Sounds like he and quite a few others took it somewhat seriously.
In a parallel universe where Cartesian skepticism was never developed, someone who turns up here writing: "I have a proof that knowledge is impossible, what if there is a demon tricking all our intuitions and knowledge and all we know is the demon's machinations? How can we truly know anything now? The only answer is God.' would have their thread scoured from the forum almost as quickly as an objectivist Holocaust denier. — fdrake
Allowing the skeptic their innocent imaginings is already giving them enough rope to hang you. We do have knowledge; so the skeptic is wrong in any case. — fdrake
It's probably true that what makes demon-like scenarios so enduring is that they play on the intuition that doubt is set against knowledge. They also invite their reader to imagine knowledge devoid of the contexts it arises in, so it's not surprising knowledge seems unattainable in this light: the deck is stacked.
But it's also true that dealing with the skeptic is something every student taking an introductory epistemology module, or someone with an interest in philosophy reading an introductory text, will be acquainted with. At least Cartesian skepticism. Without that context, it's madness to believe it; and deferred madness - to the hypothetical everyman 'the skeptic'- to give it much weigh
I'd say that the same would happen in the universe we actually inhabit.
If memory serves, actually, that did happen with several supposed radical skeptics on this forum :D. (or perhaps the last iteration?)
That the skeptic is wrong isn't the interesting part of the thought experiment, I'd say. Aren't many philosophers wrong, after all? But they can still be of philosophical interest to read. Here what's interesting is why the radical skeptic is wrong -- where is the error? -- and also, supposing these conditions of skepticism, is there some way to persuade the skeptic?
I don't disagree with this. As I said to Marchsk, I think that looking at the meaning of knowledge is what's fruitful. And the fact that the skeptical scenario plays off of intuitions is also what's fruitful -- because those commonly held intuitions are fallible and often mistaken.
Do you think Descartes was mad?
I don't think entertaining doubt, even of the radical sort, is madness -- whether it be a Great Philosopher, or someone before Descartes who had similar thoughts
You may not find skeptical doubts persuasive, but that doesn't seem enough to make a charge of madness against said doubt. Especially as Descartes lays out his arguments -- obviously there was no tradition of Descartes prior to Descartes, but madness isn't what I'd say is where his thinking comes from.
Why on earth would we need to persuade the skeptic away from their infantile delusions and performative contradictions? The deck is stacked in their favour, they will destroy all knowledge (hypothetically) if you let them. — fdrake
The skeptic isn't a real person, no one acts as if knowledge is impossible, no one thinks that way either. The skeptic is a philosophical construct aligned with the mere possibilities of erroneous justification, and the mere possibilities of error in every belief. We should stop giving into this alternate personality every student of philosophy can adopt, salivating in response to improbable, unjustifiable fear of error which implicates all of reality in a personal conspiracy against them. — fdrake
Attempting to find necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge outside of the contexts knowledge arises in is a pointless exercise. If the examination of intuitions is the goal and sole reason to entertain 'the skeptic', why not look at how people come to knowledge in the real world? — fdrake
Believing in the utility of skeptic thought experiments actually has real consequences for epistemology: for one, the skeptic (and the JTB enterprise it is coupled with) are entirely concerned with propositional knowledge. Secondly, they don't allow any incorporation of learning skills or learning facts to resultant knowledge-how and knowledge-that. And for three-the skeptical hypothesis is indifferent to how beliefs and competences form networks that allow people to act skilfully in the real world.
Far from analysing how people actually obtain knowledge; the corner of philosophical discourse devoted to the skeptic isn't even examining the conditions of possibility for knowledge - it's far too constrained for that. Dealing solely with propositions, hypothetical justifications and the mere possibility of error in belief. — fdrake
It is even an impoverished form of skepticism, the pyrrhonists at least espoused skepticism for a practical reason, and prescribe ataraxia as an appropriate response to the real lack of 'ultimate justifications'. What is the character of someone who really believes in Cartesian skepticism? They are paralytically obsessed with the impossibility of knowledge while constantly embodying its use. — fdrake
I don't disagree that the skeptical scenario has real consequences for one's epistemology. But I don't think dismissal is the exact right response, either. While we have no need to address the skeptic, while we can investigate knowledge otherwise I would also say that one is not devoted to JTB forms of knowledge just by way of responding to the skeptical scenario. Like, at all.
Surely the only people who espouse the Cartesian scenario as something which "destroys" knowledge are students of philosophy, and worth engaging for pedagogical purposes only. While that may be the case, I don't think it makes sense to just dismiss the scenario. There are reasonable responses to it.
To wonder how, not to adopt the method as actual and forget the solution. Or, as I think most do, passing over isn't all bad. But it does strike me as being a-philosophical.
Holding or studying JTB is neither necessary nor sufficient for responding to skepticism, the point I'm making is that skeptical scenarios are close conceptually to accounts of propositional knowledge, especially necessary/sufficient conditions for it. Propositions are the target of justifications, justifications are undermined through skeptical scenarios (can say the same about Gettier cases). You can vary what counts as an adequate justification, and in doing so attack the skeptic: eg. fallibilist justification sweeps the rug from under their feet, foundationalist justification under the guise of hinge propositions attempts to do the same; but it's still the same highly constrained and a-historical account of knowledge that makes sense as something for the skeptic to attack. Can radical doubts be formulated in the same way against, say, knowing how to ride a bike? Specifically, sufficient conditions for knowing how to ride a bike are competences - which don't always have propositional equivalents — fdrake
Conceptual/contextual baggage of radical skeptical inquiry destroys the context in which knowledge arises, taking it to a bizarre intellectual limit in which paranoid delusions become respectable avenues of thought, lived life is condensed into a logical network of linked propositions; engaged with merely through assent and disbelief, and anything within the bounds of possibility masquerades as justified belief. — fdrake
Then what's the point in pretending to be the skeptic? Do we really carry a copy of a rebuttal for every skeptical scenario to allow knowledge to take place? — fdrake
Maybe it's a non-philosophical approach to skepticism. The skeptic and propositional knowledge are inseparably joined through the unilateral need for philosophically rigorous dismissal of the skeptic; the philosopher is pretending to be the skeptic through interlocution and the distinction between them dissolves in the process; only to be re-contextualised as an imagined enemy. The enemy only makes sense in the context of the theatre of skeptical arguments.
Seeing it as a philosopher's dramatisation of an imagined struggle - when reason reconciles itself with paranoid delusion - takes the sting out of it, no? — fdrake
It's a good question. I think it may depend upon whether or not you'd consider riding a bike in the vat is the same as riding a bike outside of the vat. I wouldn't change the scenario (especially since I consider the radical scenario pretty much the same, rationally, just with different dressings). I just wonder if we could count these as competences or not. — Moliere
Wouldn't any a priori investigation do the same?
Also, doesn't any investigation bring along conceptual or contextual baggage? There are, after all, only so many words to use. And philosophy has a long history.
I think many, if not all, philosophical puzzles are like this. There is no point to them -- they are fully and completely useless. But engaging in them is a good exercise of the intellect, and formulating responses are the same. And often what is useful is what comes out of such inquiries -- but the inquiries aren't bounded by the terms of use or purpose.
To give other examples, what is the point of of formulating the question of the meaning of being such that it becomes meaningful again? What is the point to formulating a general theory of justice? What's the point of understanding knowledge historically, as opposed to a-historically?
Heh. I can see it doing so for some people. I suppose it would have to sting in the first place, though. :D I don't feel that sting as much precisely because I'm not a skeptic, and have formulated thoughts and responses to the scenario that were sufficient for myself.
I think you're misreading me as a quietist, this isn't my intention. I'm interested in 'the skeptic' as a discursive role here. Hence all the references to the character of the skeptic and describing how the transformation between 'normal philosopher' and 'skeptic' is inherent in 'the skeptic' (and hence radical skepticism) as a philosophical construct. Still doing philosophy here. — fdrake
It seems you agree that the only escape is to ironically disavow the judgemental whispers of our angry God. — fdrake
It seems to me that by changing our intuitions and questioning our initial beliefs about knowledge that the skeptical scenario is avoided before it gets off the ground. But if we have such intuitions about knowledge, etc., then the skeptical scenario's philosophical point is that it puts those very intuitions into question.
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