Our Minimal Epistemic Commitment (Fixing Descartes' Cogito)

Pie

Thanks to Descartes and many others, it's surprisingly common to meet with the assumption that the external world, the one beyond 'my' experience, is merely a more or less reasonable hypothesis. On this view, hairdryers and toothpicks are just handy ways to organize sensations...and electrons and quarks are just handy ways to organize hairdryers and toothpicks. I seem to see other people, but I can't be sure, because what I mean by person is roughly what I mean by 'I,' this existence I know 'directly.' My states of mind, my thoughts and sensations, are phosphorescently present for me, infinitely intimate. I can no more be wrong about what I mean by a word or how I see a patch of color than 2 + 2 can equal 5. And so on. I extend the same courtesy to you out there, behind the mask of your face and its smiles and grimaces, just in case you exist back there. What's the attraction ? Start somewhere that's obviously safe (certain) and extend from there, testing everything new in the light of what's already passed a test.

Let me offer an alternative, hopefully featuring this original selling point (starting somewhere safe.) It doesn't make sense for us to doubt whether there is something for us to be right or wrong about in the first place. It doesn't make sense for us to use logic and concepts to a argue against the bindingness or publicness or force of logic and concepts. I claim that the minimum rational intelligible epistemic situation is a plurality of persons subject to the same logic and together in a world that they can be right or wrong about. I intentionally leave open the details of persons and world and logic here, for these are very much part of what's discussed, just as I'm doing now. How do I support my claim ?
I point out that any attempt to deny it assumes what it would deny. Since I expect objections, I'll stop here. We can get into the details together...

Tom Storm

I point out that any attempt to deny it assumes what it would deny. Since I expect objections, I'll stop here. We can get into the details together... — Pie

Yep, fair enough - I think this point has also been made by others here in passing.

I've generally held to the presuppositions that I live in a reality that appears to be physical and there are others who share this reality with me who have similar experiences - capacities and vulnerabilities - and that while I can dismantle any ideas I might have about all this and play a bunch of games about what is real and what is not real, in practical terms, in making life choices and going about my business, it makes little sense - and there are no advantages - when these presuppositions are doubted.

Pie

I think this point has also been made by others here in passing. — Tom Storm

:up:

I think my points go back at least to 'commonsense' philosophy, which reacted to Hume.

The philosophy of common sense developed as a reaction against the skepticism of David Hume and the subjective idealism of George Berkeley, both of which seemed to issue from an excessive stress on ideas. This provided what seemed to the common sense philosophers to be a false start leading from fundamental premises to absurdities. This false start stemmed from René Descartes and John Locke inasmuch as they gave to ideas an importance that inevitably made everything else succumb to them.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy-of-common-sense

I've generally held to the presuppositions that I live in a reality that appears to be physical and there are others who share this reality with me who have similar experiences - capacities and vulnerabilities - and ... it make little sense - and there are no advantages - to doubt these presuppositions. — Tom Storm

:up:

I basically agree, though I like philosophy enough to want to find the best way to make sense of 'appear' and 'physical.' But that's just fine-tuning the details.

Michael

I point out that any attempt to deny it assumes what it would deny. — Pie

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that solipsism assumes other minds, that idealism assumes an external material world, that eliminative materialism assumes mental states, etc.?

Tom Storm

I like philosophy enough to want to find the best way to make sense of 'appear' and 'physical.' But that's just fine-tuning the details. — Pie

Yes, well this seems to be where the fun is found.

Pie

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that solipsism assumes other minds, that idealism assumes an external world, that eliminative materialism assumes mental states, etc.? — Michael

We need to go back to the absolutely minimal notion of whatever there is to make correct or incorrect statements about. We might annoyingly write this as ~~world,~~ with the under-erasure gimmick functioning as a reminder that it's not atoms-and-void or medium-sized-dry-goods or synchornized monads that's intended, but the X that plays the role of target for our claims. Philosophers make various claims about the nature of this inherently/implicitly public/shared X.

For instance, if I claim that "idealism assumes an external world," I'm arguing for the truth or at least the warrantability of a belief about this space that we share.

Pie

Yes, well this seems to be where the fun is found — Tom Storm

It's good clean neurotic fun.

Michael

↪Pie

The solipsist will say that the world is one's own mind (or for the epistemic solipsist, that one's own mind is the only worldly thing that can be known), and the idealist will say that the world is immaterial. So I'm still not entirely sure what you're trying to say.

Pie

↪Michael

What is implicit in a philosopher's arguing a claim ?

Michael

↪Pie

I don't know, perhaps you could tell me.

Pie

↪Michael

What is the claim about ? An otherwise radically unspecified world. 'The world is atoms and void.' 'The world is overlapping dreams.' 'John did that out of greed.'

What is the difference between reckless assertion and an argument ? Conforming to a logic that binds or ought to bind all rational participants to assent the conclusion, if the argument is sound.

Michael

What is the claim about ? An otherwise radically unspecified world. — Pie

It's about what does or doesn't exist, and the nature of what exists.

What is the difference between reckless assertion and an argument ? Conforming to a logic that binds or ought to bind all rational minds. — Pie

Which logic? Classical? Free? Paraconsistent?

Regardless, I'm not sure what this has to do with either solipsism or idealism. Neither of these positions are anti-logic.

Pie

It's about what does or doesn't exist, and the nature of what exists. — Michael

OK, but debating what 'exists' means is fair game, no?

Michael

↪Pie

Yes.

Pie

Which logic? Classical? Free? Paraconsistent? — Michael

Excellent question ! But you have not yet caught me off guard. Philosophy is, among other things, figuring out WTF rationality is in the light of our best guess so far.

Pie

Yes. — Michael

It seems to me that everything is up for debate except that there is something we can be wrong about. Or am I wrong about that ?

Michael

t seems to me that everything is up for debate except for there to be something that's up for debate. — Pie

Yes. And that something can be the existence of other minds, or an external material world, or God, or the soul, or mind-independent mathematical entities.

So, again, I don't really understand what you're trying to say here.

Pie

Yes. And that something can be the existence of other minds, or an external material world, or God, or the soul, or mind-independent mathematical entities. — Michael

If 'external material world' means something very specific like atoms-and-the-void that bang on our sense organs, then I consider it reasonable or sensible to doubt that. We can doubt that the world-we-share is like that.

But if 'external world' means 'that which we can be wrong or right about,' (the world-we-share) it's incoherent to deny or doubt it.

The solipsist says : It's wrong to think there's something we can be wrong about.

If he's a rational solipsist, his logic is binding for you and me too.

Michael

But if 'external world' means "that which we can be wrong or right about," it's incoherent to reject or doubt it. — Pie

Given that the solipsist says that solipsism is right and non-solipsism wrong, and that the idealist says that idealism is right and materialism/dualism wrong, and that the anti-realist says that anti-realism is right and realism wrong, this clearly isn't what any of these positions mean by "external world".

But also your claim above is ambiguous. Which of these are you saying is incoherent?

1. "there's nothing that we can be right or wrong about"
2. "none of the things that we can be right or wrong about exist"

Mww

It doesn't make sense for us to use logic (...) to a argue against the (...) force of logic.... — Pie

It makes perfect sense, for us, taken as a community of identical intelligences. It makes no sense for each of us, individually, with respect to ourselves alone. The intrinsic circularity of human reason, formerly called its illusory nature, in the most basic construction and use of logic and logical principles a priori, has been exposed for centuries.

We need to go back to the absolutely minimal notion of whatever there is to make correct or incorrect statements about. — Pie

How to know that, without the antecedent conditions for making correct or incorrect statements. Getting back to the minimal notions for that which justifies the conditions for the correctness of statements.....
————-

I claim that the minimum rational intelligible epistemic situation is a plurality of persons subject to the same logic — Pie

The absolutely necessary ground for the possibility of skeptical opinion, the very thing said to not make sense for us, insofar as any one subject operating from congruent logical form yet employing dissimilar objects premised by his own logical principles, can readily, and possibly successfully, argue against any other subject’s logic.

Affirming cogito, while not doing much to “fix” it.

More cart-before-the-horse metaphysics.....

Pie

It makes perfect sense, for us, taken as a community of identical intelligences. — Mww

Please clarify. Do you claim that it makes sense to argue against the force of logic ?

Pie

Affirming cogito, while not doing much to “fix” it. — Mww

I think you miss the point. It's not 'I think' but 'we think.' Or is it just you who thinks I haven't fixed it ? But why should I be bound by such idiosyncratic babble ? Unless of course it's not just babble...and you appeal to a reason or logic that binds us both...

More cart-before-the-horse metaphysics..... — Mww

That's what I might say about any approach that starts with an isolated subject.

I hope it's not rude if I request that you use complete sentences. This stuff is complicated enough already.

Pie

Which of these are you saying is incoherent? — Michael

This one. "There's nothing that we can be right or wrong about."

I put it this way, just to sharpen the point : "It's wrong to think there's something we can be wrong about."

Michael

This one. "There's nothing that we can be right or wrong about." — Pie

Who makes such a claim?

Pie

Who makes such a claim? — Michael

It's a satirical translation of solipsism.

Michael

It's a free, satirical translation of solipsism. — Pie

Solipsists don't make such a claim though. Epistemological solipsists only say that we can't know that there are other minds and ontological solipsists say that "there are other minds" is false.

Pie

↪Michael

I'm trying to dig to the gist of the appearance / reality distinction, which seems tied in to the concept of the self.

Pie

Epistemological solipsists only say that we can't know that there are other minds and ontological solipsists say that "there are other minds" is false. — Michael

So epistemological solipsists say that we might be wrong to think that there's something we could be wrong about ?

Michael

I'm trying to dig to the gist of the appearance / reality distinction, which seems tied in to the concept of the self. — Pie

Then I think you're drawing an invalid conclusion and so your reductio ad absurdum is a non sequitur, because nothing about saying that only one's mind and mental phenomena exists entails that no claims are truth-apt.

So epistemological solipsists say that we might be wrong to think that we could be wrong ? We can't be sure about whether there's something we can be wrong about. — Pie

I don't know what you mean here. They just claim that we can't know that there are other minds, just as agnostics claim that we can't know whether or not God exists, and I claim that we can't know what will happen in the distant future.

Pie

They just claim that we can't know that there are other minds — Michael

Consider though : their claim is about other minds. 'Other minds can't know whether there are other minds.' The keyword is we. They make assertions about norms, about whether it's reasonable or not (in this case not) for other minds to assume or assert without justification that there are other minds.

Pie

.

nothing about saying that only one's mind and mental phenomena exists entails that no claims are truth-apt. — Michael

If the solipsist is arguing a thesis as a philosopher, he's implicitly describing our shared situation, if only minimally in what assumptions or inferences are appropriate for all members of the rational community.

Our Minimal Epistemic Commitment (Fixing Descartes' Cogito)

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