I've noticed that there haven't really been any crippling defeats in scepticism, which makes me wonder, can't you disprove any philosophy? — Hobbez

This is false. Wittgenstein disproved global skepticism by his analysis of hinge beliefs. Global skepticism is self-defeating.

Skepticism in general is good, but today it seems like people are equivocating hyper-skepticism with intelligence, when really all it is, is intellectual laziness.

The issue is not how to defeat scepticism but how to use it usefully. Doubt is always possible, but doubt can always be minimised. And it is the possibility of having minimal doubt that then becomes your best ground for holding to a belief. It is scepticism which is the ultimate basis for any conviction.

And that is just to restate standard "scientific" reasoning. We advance an idea and then try hard to doubt it. If it survives the test, you're good.

The issue with philosophy of course is that there is a tendency to avoid putting ideas to real life tests. Many take philosophy to be a purely rational exercise, and so beyond the constraints of empiricism.

But then look at the actual value of pursuing scepticism in the philosophical tradition. What it has done is clarify epistemology. It in fact used to establish what we can actually hope to know, and how we should best go about doing that.

Where scepticism goes off the rails is in ontology. It might be entertaining to consider the unlikely - like that the world doesn't exist, it's all in the mind, or it's all demonic illusion. But it is not useful to pretend to believe the unlikely. You don't really doubt unless you are fully prepared to act on that doubt. At which point it has just turned into a belief.

Where scepticism goes off the rails is in ontology. It might be entertaining to consider the unlikely - like that the world doesn't exist, it's all in the mind, or it's all demonic illusion. But it is not useful to pretend to believe the unlikely. You don't really doubt unless you are fully prepared to act on that doubt. At which point it has just turned into a belief. — apokrisis

A Buddhist perspective on epistemology is that there are two types of "truth": ultimate and conventional. Conventional truths are made of ultimate truths, but are not legitimate in themselves. An example of this as an analogy might be the denial of objects, or mereological nihilism. We commonly see objects around us, from vacuum cleaners to clouds to tigers to moons. But the mereological nihilist will argue that these objects don't actually "exist" and that only the various mereological simples do in various arrangements and patterns (cloud-like, tiger-like, etc). In this case, it could be said that the object is the conventional truth and the part-simples are the ultimate truth.

Indeed the Buddha was a heavy empiricist and quite skeptical of unobservables and static entities. The idea of staticity is a conventional truth, according to Gautama.

But Gautama was also very much so a pragmatist. He did not advocate philosophizing for the sake of philosophizing. Instead, action, according to Gautama, should be primarily focused on the soteriological endeavor. This means that conventional knowledge may still be useful for us to achieve some end. This can be compared to the concept of desert, or perhaps even karma depending on the interpretation.

The bottom line is that conventional truth is only useful if it is harnessed for a greater cause: in the Buddha's case, it was soteriological release from birth. So the Buddhist tradition definitely has pragmatic aspects, not in search of truth per se but in search of truth for the sake of karmic release.

What is the purpose behind westernized pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey)? In what sense are we to see theories as "useful", i.e. to what end? Is truth simply equivalent to what is useful, or is usefulness the best method of obtaining truth in the correspondence sense of knowledge? If the latter, then pragmatism seems to become more of a methodology than a metaphysical theory of knowledge itself.

What is the purpose behind westernized pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey)? In what sense are we to see theories as "useful", i.e. to what end? Is truth simply equivalent to what is useful, or is usefulness the best method of obtaining truth in the correspondence sense of knowledge? If the latter, then pragmatism seems to become more of a methodology than a metaphysical theory of knowledge itself. — darthbarracuda

Socrates said, "Know thyself" and championed the Truth above all else. Wittgenstein and pragmatists like him are all part of the Socratic tradition. Without a personal truth and authenticity there is nothing to discuss and nothing to be done about it whether you consider yourself a pragmatist or not.

Skepticism cannot be completely defeated until we are in possession of absolutely certain knowledge of some kind, by definition.

Until then, skepticism cannot be defeated but it can be mitigated. You could doubt that if you drop a T.V on your foot that you would experience pain, or even doubt that pain is real. Alternatively if you've ever accidentally performed a similar experiment perhaps making certain presumptions about the world won't seem so problematic or ttuth=compromising after all.

Pain is real enough... The force of gravity is very reliable... Et cetra...

What is the purpose behind westernized pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey)? In what sense are we to see theories as "useful", i.e. to what end? Is truth simply equivalent to what is useful, or is usefulness the best method of obtaining truth in the correspondence sense of knowledge? If the latter, then pragmatism seems to become more of a methodology than a metaphysical theory of knowledge itself. — darthbarracuda

I have asked apo what amounts to this question many times in many contexts and forms; and this is just where he always seems to fail to be able to respond.

For example here is the latest example, form the 'Is Truth Mind Dependent?' thread"

"But I think that is actually the salient point. How we think our beliefs concerning the Real work for us is precisely how we think they do or do not contribute to our flourishing.

When it comes to the nature of the Real, there can be no empirical evidence, and our decision therefore cannot be an epistemic, but must be an ethical, one.

Faith and personal preference are not blind but are based on what we think works best for us."

There seems to be no answer as to how pragmatism can actually be of any philosophical importance and become something more than merely a kind of heuristic formula for understanding the nature of the methodology of science. As soon as we necessarily become involved in trying to understand how holding beliefs can be justified by their usefulness to us in more than merely practical ways, we become involved in questions of truth in senses that go well beyond any merely pragmatic understanding of truth.

Is truth simply equivalent to what is useful, or is usefulness the best method of obtaining truth in the correspondence sense of knowledge? If the latter, then pragmatism seems to become more of a methodology than a metaphysical theory of knowledge itself. — darthbarracuda

The advantage of pragmatism is that it makes purpose central to epistemology - there is always going to be a reason that gives some inquiry its meaning - but then doesn't presume the nature of that purpose.

So done right, it ought to alert you to the further issue of motivations. The philosophical illusion would be that inquiry is ever dispassionate - a naive pursuit of "truth".

So for instance, you are championing some particular purpose - soteriological release from rebirth. My pragmatic response is where is the evidence that this is any kind of ultimate truth? Why should we think it true in an ontological sense?

Pragmatism - done right - would separate the inquiry after truth from the issue of whose purpose is being served. It is thus as much about the self as the world. And it recognises the philosophical self is always going to be a biological and sociological artifact. Thus it stresses that truth finds its limits in a community of inquiring minds.

I have asked apo what amounts to this question many times in many contexts and forms; and this is just where he always seems to fail to be able to respond. — John

That's a bit rich. You quoted what was a reply to your posts and then restated your own position. I was happy enough to leave it at that. What more was there to say if you didn't offer anything new?

There seems to be no answer as to how pragmatism can actually be of any philosophical importance and become something more than merely a kind of heuristic formula for understanding the nature of the methodology of science. As soon as we necessarily become involved in trying to understand how holding beliefs can be justified by their usefulness to us in more than merely practical ways, we become involved in questions of truth in senses that go well beyond any merely pragmatic understanding of truth. — John

The answer is blowing in the wind, because quantum mechanics is a pragmatic science and the next generation supercomputers will illuminate the entire situation in ways that no mere words can. The Contextual sciences have already been succeeding in planting the seeds of the next scientific revolution, while traditional approaches have all failed miserably. It is the end of metaphysics as we know them which is what Wittgenstein pointed out was coming and what Socrates railed against. It means philosophy that isn't founded on ethics will become a contradiction in terms even according to the physical evidence.

I restated my position because you never answered the central question; which was how are we to assess whether a belief contributes to flourishing unless we hold some ethical position which goes beyond pragmatism, about what exactly constitutes flourishing?

I'm sorry Woolly Heron, I don't have any clue as to what you are talking about.

I'm sorry Woolly Heron, I don't have any clue as to what you are talking about. — John

While the positivists and others have claimed they will usher in the next scientific revolution it is the Contextualists and newer disciplines such as fuzzy logic and Fractal Geometry who are invading every branch of the sciences and steadily building up a new tool kit for the next scientific revolution. The next generation computers are the last piece of the puzzle that will make most traditional metaphysical approaches outdated.

Socrates was the father of modern academic philosophy who changed the course of academia from largely focusing on metaphysical arguments like Zeno to focusing more on developing logic and ethics. The problem holding things up so far has been the full development of logic based on first principles, but that will soon be resolved and there will be no way to deny which logic or ethics are more applicable when they conform to all the physical evidence. Systems logic, as many have claimed for decades now, is the future of both philosophy and the sciences.

how are we to assess whether a belief contributes to flourishing unless we hold some ethical position which goes beyond pragmatism, about what exactly constitutes flourishing? — John

And my answer was that your presumption of transcendence - going beyond - is at odds with my presumption of ontological naturalism.

So my hypothesis - which I submit to the test of pragmatic reasoning - is that flourishing for us as natural beings would be primarily defined in terms of our biological and cultural evolution. There is no "higher purpose" as you - apparently with theistic ontic commitments - might believe. If a naturalist looks "higher", then that is when the cosmic purpose of generalised entropification comes into view.

And then I would also again remind you that you seem stuck with the populist Jamesian notion of pragmatist philosophy - the one that best fits the "American Dream" as a notion of flourishing. :)

I have always stresssed that I am talking about the original Peircean version - and perhaps should signal that by saying "Pragmaticism". But I try to avoid extra jargon as much as possible.

The big deal about Peircean Pragmaticism, as again I have endlessly said, is that it does end up being ontology as well as epistemology. It is a theory about how meaning or purpose in any guise develops immanently via self-organisation, even at a Cosmological level of being.

So Pragmaticism as epistemology leads to Semeiotics as ontology. Peirce was of course the last truly ambitious metaphysician.

Still no clearer...

Still no clearer... — John

A theory of everything is coming in the near future and, according to all the evidence, it will be a pragmatic Contextualist philosophy that will establish that classical philosophies and metaphysics are actually pragmatic as well according to all the physical evidence.

OK, that's a fair enough answer, but we are still left with the fact that transcendence, or not, is a purely faith-based presumption either way. This question seems to inevitably be a question of what we choose to believe is the ultimate truth about being. Do we choose to believe what we believe about that on the basis of how we think it will contribute to our flourishing? The problem is, though, that in order to to do that we must already have a notion of what flourishing is, and that notion will always already be based on whether we believe in transcendence or not. Do you see then how it cannot be reduced to a merely pragmatic question?

David Hume was a skeptic throughout his career, yet he wrote a lot of great philosophy in that time. The vast majority of philosophy isn't about proving stuff.

OK, that's a fair enough answer, but we are still left with the fact that transcendence, or not, is a purely faith-based presumption either way. — John

But how is it strictly faith based in my case?

I have clearly framed the alternatives using metaphysical reasoning. I already accept that existence is teleological. And then from there, it is either going to be the case that "purpose" arises immanently/naturalistically, or it acts on us from without in some transcendent/supernatural sense.

So that next leads to deriving testable consequences. If those are the two possiblities, which appears to have the greater weight of evidence in its favour?

So really, faith or "free choice" has nothing to do with what I end up believing. That is just your wishful thinking.

The problem is, though, that in order to to do that we must already have a notion of what flourishing is, and that notion will always already be based on whether we believe in transcendence or not. Do you see then how it cannot be reduced to a merely pragmatic question? — John

Again, if you check out the real Peirce, you will see how this is handled by abduction. The necessity of starting with a guess is taken for granted. We don't have to start in certainty for certainty (as the systematic minimisation of doubt) to be what eventually develops.

The position you are expressing is that you find yourself simply believing something for no particular reason - you grew up in some cultural setting and discovered you have "a faith". And now you are unwilling to apply a method of questioning that might require you to believe anything different.

I'm not sure why your methodology is superior to mine. Surely I'm right to say I will accept the results of a properly-conducted, open-minded, inquiry rather than dogmatically stick to the first idea I discovered myself to be holding.

So really, faith or "free choice" has nothing to do with what I end up believing. That is just your wishful thinking — apokrisis

Sure, what you end up believing might be the result of an enquiry, but prior to that you have already decided to place your faith in one line of enquiry rather than another.

So I am not claiming my methodology, or enquiry, is superior to yours; the truth is I am claiming is that they are, although obviously not the same, equivalent in that they are both rational elaborations of groundless presuppositions.

but prior to that you have already decided to place your faith in one line of enquiry rather than another. — John

How is that the case when the inquiry is framed in terms of two strongly counterposed views? The "act of faith" involves two complementary rational possibilities. And that then is what guides the empirical inquiry.

As I keep saying, you don't have an inquiry if you can't define your counterfactuals. Most professions of "faith" turn out to be simply vague pronouncements that could never be either supported or dismissed with any confidence.

So I am not claiming my methodology, or enquiry, is superior to yours; the truth is I am claiming is that they are, although obviously not the same, equivalent in that they are both rational elaborations of groundless presuppositions. — John

And of course I don't accept your characterisation that presuppositions must be groundless. At the very least, they have to be crisply posed in counterfactual manner. And at worst, they will already be our best "intuitive" guesses.

So it comes down to the nature of the evidence - which in my case would be public, and in your case private. I know which I find superior.

So it comes down to the nature of the evidence - which in my case would be public, and in your case private. I know which I find superior. — apokrisis

Yes, exactly, they are the two kinds of evidence; and it is any presumption of the superiority of one or the other when it comes to our beliefs about transcendence that can be nothing more than an act of faith, because to ask for evidence to support any assessment of the relative values of the two kinds of evidence would necessarily be to beg the question.

So I can believe there are hedgehogs living at the bottom of my garden and you can believe there are pixies at the bottom of yours. But evidentially we are on an equal footing.

Hmmm.

Those are beliefs concerning empirical entities; a different matter entirely. Obviously empirical evidence wins in that context.

That said, if you constantly and reliably saw pixies at the bottom of your garden, and only you could see them, and in every other way your experience was normal; what would you believe then?

what would you believe then? — John

What do you say I ought to believe?

Come on apo, it's not de rigueur to respond to a question with a question.

Up to you if you want to demonstrate it was a serious question.

A Buddhist perspective on epistemology is that there are two types of "truth": ultimate and conventional. Conventional truths are made of ultimate truths, but are not legitimate in themselves. — DarthBarracuda

It is true that Mahāyāna Buddhism distinguishes 'ultimate and conventional', but the distinction isn't quite like that. In fact it turns out to be a difficult distinction to draw - but one key point is that conventional entities are existent, but they have no intrinsic reality or nature ('sva-bhava' meaning 'self-originated'). The 'ultimate truth' is what is perceived by the Buddha, whereas the conventional truth is that of the proverbial 'man in the street' (who might be quite an educated person in many ways.)

There are interesting links between Mahāyāna Buddhism and Greek scepticism, going back to Pyrrho, founder of Pyrrhonian scepticism, who is believed to have visited ancient Gandhara (now in the war-ravaged Afghanistan, renamed 'Khandahar') during the Greco-Alexandrian conquest of India, for which see:

Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia, Christopher I. Beckwith, http://a.co/b62SPWy

Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism (Studies in Comparative Philosophy and Religion), Adrian Kuzminski http://a.co/2W3w02a

The original scepticism was essentially a renunciate philosophy - Diogenes and Pyrrho were both what would be called 'sadhakas' in Indian culture. So their scepticism was in regard to what 'the hoi polloi' - the common man, the mass of people - take to be true - very similiar to the idea of the 'conventional truth' of the Buddhists. Acceptance of conventional truth was the veil that had to be pierced by methodical doubt (or actually, 'suspension of judgement', or epoche). But scepticism degenerated into academic scepticism and sophism, which was the subject of severe criticism by Plato.

Another really interesting title along these lines:

Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato, Katja Maria Vogt, http://a.co/eOOOEOM

In Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato, Oxford University Press (2012), paperback (2015), I explore a Socratic intuition about the difference between belief and knowledge. Beliefs, doxai, are deficient cognitive attitudes. In believing something, one accepts some content as true without knowing that it is true; one holds something to be true that could turn out to be false. Since our actions reflect what we hold to be true, holding beliefs is potentially harmful for oneself and others. Accordingly, beliefs are ethically worrisome and even, in the words of Plato’s Socrates, “shameful.” As I argue, this is a serious philosophical proposal. It speaks to intuitions we are likely to share, but it involves a notion of belief that is rather different from contemporary notions. Today, it is a widespread assumption that true beliefs are better than false beliefs, and that some true beliefs (perhaps those that come with justifications) qualify as knowledge. Socratic epistemology offers a genuinely different picture. In aiming for knowledge, one must aim to get rid of beliefs. Knowledge does not entail belief. Belief and knowledge differ in such important ways that they cannot both count as kinds of belief. As long as one does not have knowledge, one should reserve judgment and investigate by thinking through possible ways of seeing things.

I argue that the ancient skeptics and Stoics draw many of these ideas from Plato’s dialogues, revising Socratic-Platonic arguments as they see fit. Belief and Truth retraces their steps through interpretations of the Apology, Ion, Republic, Theaetetus, and Philebus, reconstructs Pyrrhonian investigation and thought, and illuminates the connections between ancient skepticism and relativism, as well as the Stoic view that beliefs do not even merit the evaluations “true” and “false.” The ancient skeptics, on my reading, develop versions of the Socratic idea that an unexamined life is worth nothing. Ultimately, I hope to defend the guiding intuitions of skepticism against so-called dogmatism, understood as a confident attitude of laying out how things are. A life of investigation may well be a compelling enterprise. Contrary to the presumption that it is impossible or absurd to try to do without doxa, I argue that modes of thought that are to some degree hypothetical –that involve the proviso that one is likely to encounter new arguments and evidence as time proceeds – are often called for. — Katja Vogt

Well, it was a fair, reasonable and serious question about a hypothetically possible situation. If you don't want to answer it, that's on you, not on me.

I would believe I was hallucinating. Now what would you believe as inference to the best explanation?

If I always saw the pixies there and only there, and did not anywhere else see anything anybody else could not see, then I would probably conclude that for some unknown reason I was able to see something there that no one else could.