I'm arguing that they cannot be wrong about claims assuming "all that exists is my mind" (or some variation of that).

If they can't be wrong assuming "all that exists is my mind" (or some variation of that), and they want to retain the possibility of being wrong, they must reject the assumption. — Isaac

Again, consider the two scenarios:

1. Only my mind exists
2. Only my mind and God exist

God's (non-)existence is mind-independent. Whether or not God exists has nothing to do with what I believe. As such, I can be wrong. According to you, if I can be wrong – if God's (non-)existence is mind-independent – then something other than my mind exists. Therefore 1 is false and 2 is true. Therefore, if God's (non-)existence is mind-independent then God exists.

Obviously this is fallacious reasoning. Being wrong doesn't depend on the existence of something other than my mind. It is possible that 1 is true and so that God doesn't exist, and so I'd be wrong if I claimed that he did.

Pre-given carries a temporal implication. Pre-....what? — Mww

I just mean that humans slowly extended their concept system and that individuals do the same. I don't think humans are born with all the concepts that humans might eventually use explicitly. Concepts are invented. Individuals master more and more of them as they develop intellectually. Using concepts is perhaps best thought of as a skill.

Conceptions refer to something represented by its object, but there are concepts that refer to something that does not have an object that represents it. Cause is a concept, but there is no representable cause object, but only objects represented as being caused or causal. Beauty is a concept, but there is no beauty object, only objects that are beautiful. — Mww

Representation isn't the only possible metaphor here, and we don't have to have to accept an entity for a noun. In lower level math, students are taught to use interval notation like $( - \infty, 23]$. We have a symbol/word for infinity, but it's not in the real number system, despite being written down just like numbers that actually are.

Must we assume that 'the' has a referent ? Must we assume that words are tags for immaterial entities in the first place ? Or are thoughts just patterns in our doings...which are also (along these same lines) not to be understood in terms of some 'pure' materiality, a mere shadow cast by a sheet with eyeholes cut in it.

I will grant that this is one of the temptations toward some kind of Platonism, and Sellars treats it specifically, trying to do justice to our intuitions without multiplying entities unnecessarily. I don't pretend that anyone has said the last word. I only mention that we have options, that the issue is open.

Sellars often described his realistic naturalism as ‘nominalistic,’ but the point is not so much to deny that there are abstracta as to tell us what language that uses abstract singular terms is doing for us and how differently it functions from language using concrete singular terms. If we understand how abstract singular terms function, the claims of the Platonist metaphysician seem an elaborate (and perhaps misleading) way to make a simpler, more pragmatic point. First, Sellars argues that the then-prevalent standard of ontological commitment —being the value of a variable of quantification— is mistaken (GE, NAO). Such a criterion makes the indeterminate reference of quantified variables more primitive than any form of determinate reference. This is incompatible with Sellars’s understanding of naturalism, and he claims it also gets the grammar of existence claims wrong. (Sellars construes quantification substitutionally; see Lance 1996.) Sellars proposes a different standard: we are committed to the kinds of things we can explicitly name and classify in the ground-level, empirical, object-language statements we take to be true.

In ordinary language we often talk about meanings, properties, propositions, etc., thus apparently committing ourselves to the existence of such abstracta. Sellars interprets such talk as material mode metalinguistic speech about the functional roles of expression-kinds. Thus, a sentence such as

Euclidean triangularity entails having angles that sum to two right angles
conveys information about the function of the •triangle•, namely, that its use (in Euclidean contexts)entitles one to a •has angles summing to two right angles•. Similarly, Sellars interprets fact-talk as material mode metalinguistic speech about truths. The only things to which we are ontologically committed by the use of abstract singular terms are linguistic items: specifically, expression-tokens that participate in complex causal systems which involve, inter alia, normatively assessable interactions between language users and the world. In Sellars’s reconstruction of it, talk of abstract entities does not have explanatory force, but is involved in making explicit certain linguistic norms.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sellars/#Sema

.....which implies the concepts used in private thought don’t actually matter here. That’s fine, concepts are nothing but notions in a speculative theory with respect to human cognition. Something makes private thought possible, or, there is no such thing as private thought. Pick your own preferred bondage, right? Would you saw off the limb you’re sitting on, by allowing that humans think, but find no authorization for allowing it? — Mww

There's no need to deny private thought...or the necessity of brains and hearts. The point is just that public 'koncepts' are a sine qua non in a way that private concepts are not. Naturally I think we do have private concepts, and I 'know' (intuit) what people are trying to say when they talk about the hard problem. But I can also see the logical disaster in any denial of public concepts...direct self-contradiction, not even subtle, as in the related case of thinking one's virtue is behind and not constituted by one's virtuous acts. 'Trust me: this music is better than it sounds.'

(Well, shucks, Mr. Bill. If you’ve seen enough injustice, you know what justice is, because it isn’t that.)

It isn’t that ad infinitum still doesn’t tell you what it is, and if you are not informed as to what it is, you cannot explain why it seems otherwise. So the lackadaisically disinterested end up with, “well, damned if I know. It just is”, then go about their day kicking the cat or running over the trash barrel some fool left in the driveway. — Mww

This is a bit sentimental.

Is it not a triviality that justice is one of the broader and more ambiguous concepts ? Yet rationality is also broad. Is it justice for the guilty to go free and the innocent to be punished ? I think not. Now ask me who the guilty are, who the innocent. Those who did and didn't do the crime. And what is crime ? A violation of the law. And what is law ? ...

Personally I find Rawls plausible.

Rawls's theory of "justice as fairness" recommends equal basic liberties, equality of opportunity, and facilitating the maximum benefit to the least advantaged members of society in any case where inequalities may occur. Rawls's argument for these principles of social justice uses a thought experiment called the "original position", in which people deliberately select what kind of society they would choose to live in if they did not know which social position they would personally occupy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawls

I add what I consider backgrounding of the OP, from, as might be expected, the philosopher who got me thinking about our minimal situation, along with our ability to articulate that situation, to make the norms that were already binding more explicit.

...Discursive commitments (to begin with, doxastic ones) are distinguished by their specifically inferential articulation: what counts as evidence for them, what else they commit us to, what other commitments they are incompatible with in the sense of precluding entitlement to. This is a reading of what it is for the norms in question to be specifically conceptual norms. The overall idea is that the rationality that qualifies us as sapients (and not merely sentients) can be identified with being a player in the social, implicitly normative game of offering and assessing, producing and consuming, reasons.

I further endorse an expressive view of logic. That is, I see the characteristic role that distinguishes specifically logical vocabulary as being making explicit, in the form of a claim, features of the game of giving and asking for reasons in virtue of which bits of nonlogical vocabulary play the roles that they do. The paradigm is the conditional. Before introducing this locution, one can do something, namely endorse an inference. After introducing the conditional, one can now say that the inference is a good one. The expressive role of the conditional is to make explicit, in the form of a claim, what before was implicit in our practice of distinguishing some inferences as good.

Again, consider the two scenarios:

1. Only my mind exists
2. Only my mind and God exist — Michael

Under 1 it is impossible to be wrong about anything. If only your mind exists you would know everything there is to know, including whether only your mind exists.

The solipsist wants to retain the possibility of being wrong, so must reject 1.

Once the solipsist has rejected 1, they know 2 must be either possible (or necessary if you're imaging mutually exclusive scenarios).

Under 1 it is impossible to be wrong about anything. — Isaac

You can be wrong about things other than your mind existing, e.g. God.

Once you see it, the self-contradiction will be so glaring that you'll be amazed how cozy you were with it for so many years. — Pie

I think you're falling into some kind of dogma. Sounds ilke you're speaking about religious conversion. And with all this talk about "little ghosts" and "pineal glands" which has nothing to do with what I'm saying,I really have no idea what you are talking about. So nothing to respond to.

I speculate that it's the very background theological bias I'm criticizing that's tempting my opponents to insist that concepts must be crystalline and perfectly definite to be public. That's like thinking the Charleston (the dance) is perfectly definite or that there's one exactly right way to perform a song. — Pie

Again this has nothing to do with what I've been saying. I'll try again; concepts are not public; usages of them as expressed in communicative language are. It is always individuals that understand concepts, and they each have their own unique understandings which is the result of natural diversity and the diversity of experience and circumstance that brings with it different associations and affects, none of which can be separated from the understandings they are associated with, and all of which is private unless publicly expressed. And even then, no public expression can capture all of an individual's private experience.

Now admittedly I am basing this on my own understanding of my own experience and extrapolating to assume that it is more or less the same for others. I don't know this, just because their experience is private and inaccessible to me except to the extent that what they tell me is accurate, but this just goes to reinforces the point.

Under 1 it is impossible to be wrong about anything. — Isaac

I think I understand your misunderstanding.

Let's say that a number of coins are hidden in a house. I search the house and find 10 coins. If there are only 10 coins then I know where all the coins are, but I don't know that there are only 10 coins. As far as I know, there may be an 11th coin that is still hidden. Whether or not there is an 11th coin is independent of the 10 coins I have found, even if there are only 10 coins. And I'm wrong if I claim that there is an 11th coin.

So one or more things exist. I know that I exist. If I am the only thing that exists then I know of everything that exists, but I don't know that I am the only thing that exists. As far as I know, there may be something other than me that exists. Whether or not something other than me exists is independent of me, even if I am the only thing that exists. And I'm wrong if I claim that something other than me exists.

Under 1 it is impossible to be wrong about anything. — Isaac


You can be wrong about things other than your mind existing, e.g. God. — Michael

1 specifically states that nothing exists other than my mind. So how can I be wrong about the existence of other things under that assumption? I've already declared (by assuming 1), that no other things exist. I can't simultaneously hold a belief that some do (so as to be wrong about that).

I can be wrong about assuming 1, but even without any further data about the rightness or wrongness of 1, I can say that if I assume 1, I can't be wrong about anything else, following from that assumption.

Since I want to retain the possibility of being wrong about things I must reject that assumption.

Let's say that a number of coins are hidden in a house. I search the house and find 10 coins. If there are only 10 coins then I know where all the coins are, but I don't know that there are only 10 coins. As far as I know, there may be an 11th coin that is still hidden. Whether or not there is an 11th coin is independent of the 10 coins I have found, even if there are only 10 coins. And I'm wrong if I claim that there is an 11th coin. — Michael

This is just saying that the solipsist could be wrong about solipsism. That's not my argument. My argument is that the solipsist cannot be wrong about anything else, if they are right about solipsism.

This is just saying that the solipsist could be wrong about solipsism. That's not my argument. My argument is that the solipsist cannot be wrong about anything else, if they are right about solipsism. — Isaac

If nothing exists other than my mind, and I am not conscious of all its contents, then I could be wrong about some things.

This is just saying that the solipsist could be wrong about solipsism. That's not my argument. My argument is that the solipsist cannot be wrong about anything else, if they are right about solipsism. — Isaac

I would take this further. It seems to me that if the solipsism is correct, then how is it that there is a language (PLA)? There would be no argument about other minds, language is logically dependent on other minds, if W. is correct, and I believe he is.

1 specifically states that nothing exists other than my mind. So how can I be wrong about the existence of other things under that assumption? I've already declared (by assuming 1), that no other things exist. I can't simultaneously hold a belief that some do (so as to be wrong about that).

I can be wrong about assuming 1, but even without any further data about the rightness or wrongness of 1, I can say that if I assume 1, I can't be wrong about anything else, following from that assumption.

Since I want to retain the possibility of being wrong about things I must reject that assumption. — Isaac

The solipsist doesn't know which of 1 and 2 is true. Your claim that if 1 is true then the solipsist knows that 1 is true is false.

This is just saying that the solipsist could be wrong about solipsism. That's not my argument. My argument is that the solipsist cannot be wrong about anything else, if they are right about solipsism. — Isaac

And that doesn't follow. If the solipsist is right in saying that they cannot know which of 1 and 2 is true then even if 1 is true they are wrong if they believe that 2 is true.

If nothing exists other than my mind, and I am not conscious of all its contents, then I could be wrong about some things. — Janus

Absolutely. But if there's a part of your mind that you're not consciously aware of then it suffers from exactly the same problem that the external world suffers from, for the solipsist. It can't be proven to exist. So it's inconsistent for the solipsist to use it's existence in a theory explaining how the external world might not exist (and yet they can still be wrong). If the external world is doubted because it can't be proven, then so must the unconscious mind be.

It seems to me that if the solipsism is correct, then how is it that there is a language (PLA)? There would be no argument about other minds, language is logically dependent on other minds, if W. is correct, and I believe he is. — Sam26

Yes, I agree. I think the notion that one could even consider whether there's an external world or not is nonsense. The very grammar of '... or not' implies some external measure of 'rightness'. I think (though I defer to your expertise on Wittgenstein) that his rule-following paradox applies here. Being 'right' is about following the rule, but (McDowell's version) we must use the rule to understand it. Here I take successful use to be distinguished form unsuccessful use necesarily by an external arbiter (otherwise we're back in the paradox again). So we cannot understand s rule without external arbitration.

Your claim that if 1 is true then the solipsist knows that 1 is true is false. — Michael

I don't see how.

even if 1 is true they are wrong if they believe that 2 is true. — Michael

If 1 is true, they cannot believe 2 is true.

If 1 is true, they cannot believe 2 is true. — Isaac

Of course they can. Why wouldn't they?

Of course they can. Why wouldn't they? — Michael

Because if 1 is true, then nothing else exists other than their mind. It follows from that, that if a thing is not in their mind it doesn't exist. Therefore they already know (under the assumption of 1), that no other things exist.

They might be wrong about 1, but they obviously cannot be wrong about 1, assuming 1 is true.

Because if 1 is true, then nothing else exists other than their mind. It follows from that, that if a thing is not in their mind it doesn't exist. Therefore they already know (under the assumption of 1), that no other things exist.

They might be wrong about 1, but they obviously cannot be wrong about 1, assuming 1 is true. — Isaac

Your logic makes no sense. Consider, either one of these two scenarios is the case:

1. Only my mind and seven billion other minds and a material universe exist
2. Only my mind and seven billion other minds and a material universe and God exist

Your reasoning is that if 1 is true then nobody can believe that God exists. Obviously that's wrong.

Your reasoning is that if 1 is true then nobody can believe that God exists. — Michael

Nobody who is assuming 1 is true can, yes.

Assuming 1 is true, is the same thing as assuming god doesn't exist (the use of 'only').

One cannot coherently assume god doesn't exist and believe god does exist.

Nobody who is assuming 1 is true can, yes.

Assuming 1 is true, is the same thing as assuming god doesn't exist (the use of 'only').

One cannot coherently assume god doesn't exist and believe god does exist. — Isaac

The epistemological solipsist isn't assuming 1. It's the ontological solipsist that assumes 1.

An epistemological solipsist can believe 2, and he's wrong if 1, or he can believe 1, and he's wrong if 2.

And with all this talk about "little ghosts" and "pineal glands" which has nothing to do with what I'm saying,I really have no idea what you are talking about. — Janus

I'm teasing all you quasi-Cartesians for not seeing the logical disaster, despite it's having been pointed out long before me.

I'll try again; concepts are not public; usages of them as expressed in communicative language are. — Janus

Concepts, koncepts, khancepts, conecepts. @Mww already tried this. Given the context, our minimal epistemic commitment as foolosophers, the theme is clearly public communication. In your doctrinal subjectivism, 'concepts' must be understood as something in the ectoplasm. Very well then. Keep that word for yourself, asking 'usages' to the lifting. (Or maybe we can have a ladder of 17 species of concept-like entities. ) All I care about is the 'surface layer'...the public language that philosophers must use to settle beliefs rationally together. Cling if you must to your ontology of secret things, but you must propose and defend it publicly (with words that don't mean whatever you want them to mean) to play philosopher rather than mystic. Try the game yourself. What is necessary for the concept of a philosopher to make sense ?

It is always individuals that understand concepts, and they each have their own unique understandings which is the result of natural diversity and the diversity of experience and circumstance that brings with it different associations and affects, — Janus

I grant this, just as I grant that the nearsighted person and the colorblind person see the same tree differently. Who ever claimed otherwise ? As a rule, we never stop mastering concepts, often adding new ones to those we are mastering. As a tribe, new concepts are forged and some old concepts are discarded, fall out of use. There's no need to deny the central role of the self in all of this. Here's a metaphor that seems rightish to me (note that gap between the minimal epistemic given and more adventurous conjectures, please) : members of the tribe run slightly different versions of the same softwhere, trading updates, keeping one another 'honest' in terms of syntax/concepts/usage as if on a more organic type of blockchain. No one need to dance the Charleston or Justice perfectly for it to be a working concept.

Now admittedly I am basing this on my own understanding of my own experience and extrapolating to assume that it is more or less the same for others. I don't know this, just because their experience is private and inaccessible to me except to the extent that what they tell me is accurate, but this just goes to reinforces the point. — Janus

I am familiar with that view, but I find other theories more plausible. 'Experience' names a ghost. I don't deny it's utility in ordinary language, but I question its epistemological use in more careful talk. Perhaps it's better to just note that we believe people when they say they have a toothache, and that we accept certain inferences involving the concept. "He couldn't sleep, because he had a toothache." 'Experience' has a public grammar or its nonsense. Some would treat it as a useless X, denying it to the arbitrarily convincing P-Zombie and attributing it to the otherwise identical Real Boy -- missing the absurdity of an epistemological concept without public criteria for its application.

And here's a scholar summarizing: — Pie

....and at the very end of that “scholar” summarizing, is a get-out-of-jail-free card, or, as I already mentioned, suited himself for his own ends:

“....Such an account depends on a particular interpretation of Kant’s texts, and is both ambitious and highly complex in its ramifications....”, which is fitting, insofar as perusal of the various translations of the texts themselves, say nothing about reason’s autonomy. Kant would never have lasted as long as he has, as the GoTo Guy of epistemological metaphysics, if he insisted the will and pure reason occupied the same legislative chair.

But I understand the derivation of the interpretation, in that, for Kant, autonomy is complete freedom from outside influence, and Kant says reason is subject to its own critique, which is not outside influence, hence someone reads autonomy into it. Which is either fine and worthy, or fast and loose, depending on how much the genius himself is respected.
————-

I just presented an opportunity for you to ask yourself a question....
— Mww

Are you really asking me how I'd apply a concept ? — Pie

Nope; just wanted to see how you’d respond to a direct inquiry. I wouldn’t know and hardly care about how you do whatever it is you do.
————

Representation isn't the only possible metaphor here, and we don't have to have to accept an entity for a noun. — Pie

You’re doing that; reason must accept that which is for that which is not, in the simplest non-contradictory way possible. That which is accepted into the system is nothing but representation, for acceptance of the thing itself is absolutely impossible. An entity for an entity, pure and simple.

But you’re correct: we don’t have to accept anything, and in our dialectic, one theory over another. But whatever we do accept should be completely examined, understandable and not infringe on the natural order. With yours, I must say, stuff like....

Concepts, koncepts, khancepts, conecepts. — Pie

......is mere sophistical subterfuge.

:up:

The epistemological solipsist isn't assuming 1. It's the ontological solipsist that assumes 1. — Michael

I'm assuming you're referring now to your previous 1&2? Otherwise I can't make much sense of this.

He is assuming 1, when he entertains 1.

He entertains 1 and finds that if he were to believe it true he would not be wrong about anything (bar that initial assumption)

From this he can deduce that he could not plausibly believe 1.

Thus his claim that he doesn't know whether either 1or 2 are true is false.

He's just established that he cannot plausibly believe 1, so 1 cannot be true.

....and at the very end of that “scholar” summarizing, is a get-out-of-jail-free card, or, as I already mentioned, suited himself for his own ends: — Mww

Like you perhaps ? Or me ? We present the claims that seem most reasonable to us for criticism. The individual has a role to play. We settle which beliefs are warranted together, in clashes like ours right now.

Need I remind you that I insisted that Kant himself can eat worms ? Except inasmuch as he offers reasons that bind us all...

which is fitting, insofar as perusal of the various translations of the texts themselves, say nothing about reason’s autonomy. — Mww

I hope your point doesn't hinge on the choice of a synonym.

"Autonomy is an individual’s capacity for self-determination or self-governance."
https://iep.utm.edu/autonomy/

"It is requisite to reason’s lawgiving that it should need to presuppose only itself, because a rule is objectively and universally valid only when it holds without the contingent, subjective conditions that distinguish one rational being from another." Kant

"Kant further developed the idea of moral autonomy as having authority over one’s actions."
https://iep.utm.edu/autonomy/

You can of course assert Kant scholarship featured on the IEP is all wrong.

You’re doing that; reason must accept that which is for that which is not, in the simplest non-contradictory way possible. That which is accepted into the system is nothing but representation, for acceptance of the thing itself is absolutely impossible. An entity for an entity, pure and simple. — Mww

Prove it. And I don't mean prove the triviality that the metaphor of representation is strong indeed in the tradition of philosophy. Nor do I deny that this metaphor is both tempting and even useful. Do we not compulsively employ a metaphors of vision, of seeing.

The thing-itself is a problematic concept. Tempting, I admit, but problematic. I reject the idea that we have no choice.

Do we need the mountain-in-itself ? Is that not already just the mountain ? Perhaps the world just 'is' that which is the case. What I'm skeptical about is whether there's much or even anything to say about truth, and/or about what makes a claim true rather than warranted. The grammar here seems to be absolute and vanishing. If true claims can be unwarranted and unwarranted claims true, perhaps we muddy the water by looking for something behind what the claims claim to be about.

......is mere sophistical subterfuge. — Mww

If we allow for your 'private' 'Cartesian' (pseudo-)concepts, then only Kant really knew or ever could know what he really-really-really meant and his kangaroo cousin may well have devised a Critique of Pure Kangaroo Reason without being vain or dexterous enough to write it down --- or perhaps it was scratched in turf of Tasmania, unnoticed by us.

Our minimum rational epistemic situation must includes the possibility of discussion. Just as reason is one and universal, so must be the language in which it occurs. The philosopher as such is 'primordially'/'grammatically' in a (shared) language-world, subject to a universal, autonomous reason. I claim that this is implicit in any concept of the philosopher that we can reasonably recognize as significant and binding.

This is your reasoning:

I believe that God does not exist
I am wrong if God exists
Therefore either God exists or I cannot be wrong

The conclusion doesn’t follow. And the same for:

I believe that an external world does not exist
I am wrong if an external world exists
Therefore either an external world exists or I cannot be wrong

The conclusion in both cases should be:

Either X exists or I am not wrong

Your mistake is in going from "I am not wrong" to "I cannot be wrong" because in modal logical p → □p is invalid, and so p ∧ ¬□p → ◇¬p is valid.

If X's non-existence is not necessarily true then it is possible that X exists even if X doesn't exist, and it is possible to be wrong about X not existing even if I am not wrong about X not existing.

This latter point should be obvious because when I say “I believe X but I could be wrong” I’m not saying “I believe X but I am wrong”. My claim that I could be wrong is true even if I'm not wrong.

Kant would never have lasted as long as he has, as the GoTo Guy of epistemological metaphysics, if he insisted the will and pure reason occupied the same legislative chair. — Mww

He hasn't lasted though. We owe the model T our respect perhaps, but we don't drive one today. Even in his own time he had his critics, as documented in Beiser. He was (justly) accused of idealism (in a self-subverting way), while also obviously trying to have his Jesus and his Newton at the same time (which doesn't age well, not for those who are comfortably godless). I'm pretty sure you can out-nerd me on Kant, and this isn't the thread for a detailed discussion, but I can't resist challenging this 'go to gut' characterization.

Another example of the poor reasoning:

1. it is raining
2. it is not raining

If I entertain 1 I will find that if I were to believe it true I would not be wrong about it raining. Therefore, if I can be wrong about it raining 1 must be false and so 2 must be true.

But then the exact same reasoning will lead to the conclusion that 2 must be false and 1 true.

Obviously this is wrong.