Because thought exists the existence of an I thinking does not necessarily follow. — Marcus de Brun
I shall consider the following argument for skepticism:
(1) Either (a) I see that I have hands or (b) it merely seems to me that I have hands because I’m deceived by Descartes’ evil demon.
(2) According to the skeptic, whenever I seem to see that I have hands, it is always logically possible that I’m deceived by Descartes’ evil demon.
(3) Hence I can never really know for sure whether I really have hands.
...
(*) Whenever it seems to the subject that he's in state (a), it is always possible for him to actually be in state (b).
But (*) is incoherent. — Fafner
As I see it, if (1)(b) is logically possible, then (*) is coherent. That it seems to the subject that he's in state (a) (and (b) seems impossible to him) doesn't imply that he's in state (a). Which leaves (b) as a logical possibility. — Andrew M
And so you've proved that thought alone exists. To whom?As such we are left with thought, nothing more and nothing less. The question then follows what is to be done with this thing... thought. — Marcus de Brun
The skeptic of course doesn't claim to know whether I'm in state (1a) or (1b), but he claims that even if I'm lucky and I'm in fact in state (1a), the possibility of a mistake still exists, which I cannot rule out. But my point is that if one is in fact in state (1a) then there's no possibility of him to have the same experience and be mistaken. — Fafner
What do you mean "falilibility" of all processes? How do they fail? Is it our senses that fail us, or our interpretation of what they represent? When you say, "all processes" do you also mean processes like fusion and the evolving process of organisms by natural selection? Did natural selection fail in some way? By whose standards?One evil demon is enough to get the skeptical argument about certainty going - in fact you don't strictly speaking need the evil demon in any case. If you burrow into Descartes's argument it is, in the abstract, simply based on the idea of the fallibility of all processes, and that obtaining knowledge is a process. — MetaphysicsNow
Why would one want to get around facts if one is trying to get at knowledge? We have instinctive knowledge and we have learned knowledge. Which one are you talking about?He "gets around" this by introducing his clear and distinct ideas which provide us with knowledge without having to go through a process of acheiving it. — MetaphysicsNow
Well, that's the thing. There is no distinction. Dualism is false. Mind and matter interact so they are made of the same substance. Whether you want to call that substance "non-physical/mental", or "physical/matter", does it really matter? No, it doesn't. Descartes went through all that trouble for nothing.We've long since moved on from Descartes obsession with certainty - but he changed the terms of the philosophical debate: prior to him the big distinction in metaphysics was between form and content, after him it was all about mind and matter. — MetaphysicsNow
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