I think that the truth of "God does not exist" is mind-independent. And I think that "God does not exist" is true. But I don't think that God's non-existence "exists" as some Platonic fact.

And the same with maths. — Michael

I can maybe relate, but I think we still have to resolve the ambiguity, because there are versions of God (fixed versions) that I might accept (and that traditional theists would not accept.) Mathematical facts might be like facts about norms...about a community. The irrationality of root 2 seems about equivalent to the fact that mathematician ought to endorse the claim. $\sqrt{2} \notin \mathbb{Q}$ is (approximately) "there is an acceptable proof for [ the irrationality of root 2 ]." And this is approximately a fact about what mathematicians do and/or ought to accept (as a function of the familiarity of the theorem.)

Mathematical facts might be like facts about norms. The irrationality of root 2 seems about equivalent to the fact that mathematician ought to endorse the claim. — Pie

Norms can apply to a single person, too. Even if I'm the only man alive I ought to endorse the irrationality of root 2.

But leaving maths aside, even if the solipsist knows that only his mental phenomena exists he doesn't know what his mental phenomena will be tomorrow, and so he doesn't know everything. — Michael

To me, his not knowing about his own mind...gives him something external to that mind. If a man has a Freudian unconscious, he has an unexplored basement, an other to him as ego.

I prefer to join 'world' with 'something I can be wrong about.' Otherwise, the mind that knows is not the mind that is unknown...or at least things get messy.

What is the 'I' ?

To me, his not knowing about his own mind...gives him something external to that mind. If a man has a Freudian unconscious, he has an unexplored basement, an other to him as ego.

I prefer to join 'world' with 'something I can be wrong about.' — Pie

As I've said before, there's a difference between saying that I can be wrong about something and saying that something other than my mind exists. From here:

If my mind is the only thing that exists then "God exists" is false. If my mind and God are the only things that exist then "God exists" is true. The solipsist doesn't know which of these two scenarios is the case.

Even if only my mind exists I can be wrong about whether or not God exists.

So forget the word "external". Your claim is "we can be wrong about things" and the solipsist's claim is "only my mind can be known to exist". These claims are not incompatible as I have been trying to show.

As I've said before, there's a difference between saying that I can be wrong about something and saying that something other than my mind exists. — Michael

Oh I know we see this issue differently. I think the concepts are loose enough here, unanchored as they are by any practical application, that it's pointless to talk of right or wrong, for we'd just be asserting our preference again.

For me the issue was always essentially about whether there was something other than the mind, which is how I took 'external.' The solipsist seems to contemplate the possibility that there is only appearance and nothing behind it, collapsing the appearance-reality distinction. I take this to also be a collapse of the the parallel or equivalent mind-world distinction.

Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality coordinated with it.” — Witt

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. — Isaac

True, if solipsism is defeated by my lack of omniscience then it is defeated simply by the fact that I don't know what will happen in the future, or even simply the fact that I don't know whether solipsism is true. The epistemological solipsist could retort that what I experience could be explained by either the existence of an external world or unconscious dimensions of my mind, which could be thought to place both hypotheses on equal footing.

Concepts, koncepts, khancepts, conecepts. Mww already tried this. — Pie

More attempted dismissal by lame ridicule? I thought you were concerned with rational argument. @Mww already "tried" it, and it failed...to do what... convince you? Big surprise! Try convincing the theist there is no God... You will never convince the dogmatists to go against their beliefs, or one who pays attention to their own experience,,,by mere "rational" argument. And this is for quite different reasons in the two cases.

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 ? — Pie

I know there are secret experiences, so I don't have to defend anything. I actually don't care if you agree with me or not; I'm just reporting my own experience; you can (and no doubt will) think whatever you like about what I report; it means little to me.

And that's the problem with this normative rationailty ideology: it's a horrible idea, it's the fantasy of the machine men, the thought police and the political correctiphiles. It's a misapplied transposition of Kant's categorical imperative: the 'rationality normalizing imperative'.

People will always have differing worldviews: it's a phenomenon of natural diversity. The Peircean notion of the truth asymptotically approached by the "community of enquirers" is a sick fantasy; another sad attempt, like many religions, to devalue and stamp out our animal natures.

What is necessary for a philosopher to make sense? To speak coherently and in terms that anyone prepared to make the effort can understand,,,although obviously not necessarily agree with.

'Experience' names a ghost. I don't deny it's utility in ordinary language, but I question its epistemological use in more careful talk. — Pie

I think it's more plausible that we all understand what "experience" means (in our own unique ways of course, although most likely roughly enough the same to understand one another) just because it is obvious to anyone who reflects on their own experience that we do have experiences. It is (sufficient commonality of) personal experience that underpins public usage, not the other way around, in my view.

And that's the problem with this normative rationailty ideology: it's a horrible idea, it's the fantasy of the machine men, the thought police and the political correctiphiles. — Janus

I see.

More attempted dismissal by lame ridicule? I thought you were concerned with rational argument. — Janus

We can joke too. We do want to be machine men. Was it not you who introduced folk psychoanalysis, calling Brandom and Sellars 'anal', railing against a paradoxically up-your-arse concern with justification, in defense of the soul's imagery ? I try to mirror the tone of the person I'm talking with. I am willing to change course if you are.

People will always have differing worldviews: it's a phenomenon of natural diversity. — Janus

But this is obvious. Why should we worry about settling beliefs rationally in the first place if there weren't so many candidates to choose from ? It's because you and I and the other folks are free that we can ask for reasons, demand justifications for claims. Where we might agree is that a rational person can be a hypocrite or a fanatic. Is Ayn Rand a hero of rationality ? Quite the opposite in my view. A boxer gets in the ring, and philosopher suffers exposure to difference, tarries with the negative.
Like Milton and Spinoza and Kant and others, I think free speech is crucial, so don't count me an enemy of diversity simply because I seek the best beliefs like everyone else.

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.
...
Reason must subject itself to critique in all its undertakings, and cannot restrict the freedom of critique through any prohibition without damaging itself and drawing upon itself a disadvantageous suspicion. For there is nothing so important because of its utility, nothing so holy, that it may be exempted from this searching review and inspection, which knows no respect for persons [i.e. does not recognize any person as bearing more authority than any other—GW]. On this freedom rests the very existence of reason, which has no dictatorial authority, but whose claim is never anything more than the agreement of free citizens, each of whom must be able to express his reservations, indeed even his veto, without holding back. (A738f/B766f, translation slightly modified) — Kant

The Peircean notion of the truth asymptotically approached by the "community of enquirers" is a sick fantasy; another sad attempt, like many religions, to devalue and stamp out our animal natures. — Janus

I think Peirce's idea is worthy, but my own view of truth, a descendant perhaps, is deflationary. I claim that the 'religion' metaphor is misleading. It's a bit absurd to conflate faith and rationalism. What's that leave you with ? What's your just-right porridge with so much proscribed ? Or do you insult reason to make room for faith as well as an unleashed animality ? Are we talking The Crucified or Dionysos ?

I have received, sir, your new book decrying the human species, and I thank you.(1) You will please men, of whom you speak the truth, but you will not correct them. One cannot paint in stronger colors the horrors of human society, from which our ignorance and our weakness promise so many consolations. One has never taken up so much wit in wishing us all beasts--it gives us a desire to walk on all fours when we read your work.

http://reflectionsonlandusetranslationsmorebycew.com/FrenchinAmericadelaSalleandVoltaire/VoltaireRousseau.html

What is necessary for a philosopher to make sense? To speak coherently and in terms that anyone prepared to make the effort can understand,,,although obviously not necessarily agree with. — Janus

:up:
And that means the need a common-public language to be in together, which is to say [also] a common-public world for that language to be about. You left out normative rationality. The first two requirements (arguably just one language-world) are those for any kind of communication.

It is (sufficient commonality of) personal experience that underpins public usage, not the other way around, in my view. — Janus

I think this is the natural way to think of it. But I take it to be one of the great discoveries of philosophy to have flipped things around. This flip, this revelation of the priority of the 'we' before the 'I' and the 'external' to the 'internal'...I take to be what's great in Wittgenstein and Heidegger. As I see it, one is one before one is someone in particular. Everyday Dasein is Anyone, tribal second nature incarnate.

We do want to be machine men. Was it not you who introduced folk psychoanalysis, calling Brandom and Sellars 'anal', railing against a paradoxically up-your-arse concern with justification, in defense of the soul's imagery ? — Pie

No, I was saying that I personally find Brandom and Sellar's approaches too anal, too concerned with "getting it right" in some objective fashion. I said that my concern is that if you follow that path you will disappear up your own arse, and then corrected that to "disappear up the public arse".

Why should we worry about settling beliefs rationally in the first place if there weren't so many candidates to choose from ? — Pie

I'm not worried about that. I'm here to present my views and hear the views of others, and see if they seem plausible or interesting to me; that's all. I'm not here to thrash out some normatively mandated consensus, because I think think rationality is only a matter of consistency with what follows from the essentially groundless starting assumptions we all make on the basis, not of cogent argument or observation, but of what seems most plausible to us personally; in other words rationality mandates only validity, not soundness once the boundaries of the empirical realm have been crossed.

I think free speech is crucial, so don't count me an enemy of diversity simply because I seek the best beliefs like everyone else. — Pie

You're assuming that there are "best beliefs"; the same for everyone: I don't share that assumption.

Or do you insult reason to make room for faith as well as an unleashed animality ? — Pie

I don't "insult reason"; I just don't seek to corral it. I also think we all indulge in faith of one kind or another, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

And that means the need a common-public language to be in together, which is to say [also] a common-public world for that language to be about. You left out normative rationality. The first two requirements (arguably just one language-world) are those for any kind of communication. — Pie

Of course there is a natural normativity at work in that we all use the same words; albeit in different combinations. The only normativity I see as being appropriate and necessary to rationality is consistency and validity (conclusions following from premises) as I already said.

I think this is the natural way to think of it. But I take it to be one of the great discoveries of philosophy to have flipped things around. This flip, this revelation of the priority of the 'we' before the 'I' and the 'external' to the 'internal'...I take to be what's great in Wittgenstein and Heidegger. As I see it, one is one before one is someone in particular. Everyday Dasein is Anyone, tribal second nature incarnate. — Pie

I think this is the natural way to think of it. But I take it to be one of the great discoveries of philosophy to have flipped things around. This flip, this revelation of the priority of the 'we' before the 'I' and the 'external' to the 'internal'...I take to be what's great in Wittgenstein and Heidegger. As I see it, one is one before one is someone in particular. Everyday Dasein is Anyone, tribal second nature incarnate. — Pie

Of course there is way in which that is true. But I disagree when it comes to diversity of ideas; our cultures should not be straitjackets. I think Heidegger was very concerned about authenticity, about living one's life and thinking one's thoughts in accordance with individual experience, judgement and resolve, not following "das Man"; not doing and thinking "what One does".

I've read some anthropological work that suggests that hunter/gatherers (ironically) honour the autonomy of the individual, even children, more than modern western culture does. That said, of course we, in fact all people who live in societies and communities, are all, more or less socially conditioned. So I don't deny that the range of human experience, the range of possibilities open to us are determined to some degree by culture and language, and also by geography and circumstance.

When dreaming, we can become conscious that we are dreaming (lucid dreams), but we can't/don't control the objects/people in our dreams. They seem to have a life/mind of their own, oui? Does that strengthen/weaken Descartes' argument? I dunno, you be the judge!

Can we control the thoughts that our minds spontaneously produce? When we write, the words just come to us, don't they? Can we control whether or not particular words occur to us before they've occur to us?

Can we control the thoughts that our minds spontaneously produce? When we write, the words just come to us, don't they? Can we control whether or not particular words occur to us before they've occur to us? — Janus

All I can muster with what I know is superb questions.

:up:

No, I was saying that I personally find Brandom and Sellar's approaches too anal, too concerned with "getting it right" in some objective fashion. — Janus

For some of us, getting it right is the job. Objective is good.

You're assuming that there are "best beliefs"; the same for everyone: I don't share that assumption. — Janus

I don't think atheism would suit my mom. Perhaps it's best not to believe there are best beliefs ? I'm kidding. But I would like to have true beliefs, justified beliefs, reasonable beliefs.

I also think we all indulge in faith of one kind or another, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. — Janus

I still think it's either a bad metaphor or a dilution of 'faith' into something insignificant. If everybody is X, no one is, because nothing is picked out.

our cultures should not be straitjackets. — Janus

But who would say otherwise ? Is the Enlightenment to be understood as more of a prison than a release ?

I think Heidegger was very concerned about authenticity, about living one's life and thinking one's thoughts in accordance with individual experience, judgement and resolve, not following "das Man"; not doing and thinking "what One does". — Janus

It's as if you think I'm advising human beings to be thrown in interpretedness, to have prejudices they don't even know they have (co-revealed with the other in the interpretation thereof, as Gadamer described.) Given your seeming 'Cartesian' leanings, it's my opinion that you are missing some good stuff, which I locate in Dreyfus on 'the who of everyday dasein.' "Language speaks and not the human."
It's not that the 'we' ought to have priority over the 'I.' It's more like the 'I' is an appendage. Language is the 'water' we swim in as 'spiritual' [cultural, self-made, historical] beings. We're in it as much as it's in us. That's my claim, anyway.

Language, world, us ...equiprimordial shamrock trinity....

If only your mind exists then you know of everything that exists. But it doesn't follow that you know that no other stuff exists. — Michael

You don't seem to be responding to anything I've said.

Assume your mind is all that exists.

Imagine that world (the one where your mind is all that exists). You know everything. You must do since all that exists in that world is your mind. You, in that world, might not know, in that world, that all that exists is your mind, but we, in this world can logically see that you in that world would know everything there is to know.

Thus we, in this world (the would be solipsist) reject the possibility of that world as implausible.

Having rejected it as implausible, we can't then coherently also claim not to know if it's the case.

Remember the examples of the coins. If only 10 coins exist and if I know that 10 coins exist then I know of all the coins that exist. But it doesn't follow that I know that there aren't more coins. — Michael

Yep. Because you've changed minds to coins. Coins don't contain all that is thought of.

The contingency "If only 10 coins exist..." has no implication for knowledge (we might not know as much in the possible world we're imagining). So when you use coins, your example is correct. The possible world in which there are only 10 coins is almost identical to ours in terms of knowledge, truth and wrongness. It just contains fewer coins.

The contingency "If only minds exist..." does have implications for knowledge because knowledge is about the external world. In the possible world where only minds exist we have to change the whole definition of what it means to know something, we have to change the whole game of having justifications, the whole meaning of 'truth', the whole matter of what it is to be 'wrong'. In that world (with us assuming that world is true), all of that has to change.

I'm trying to cash out some of those changes. There might well be better ways, but what you can't do is ignore those changes and treat the language around knowledge, truth, and wrongness as if they were unaltered by the new fact of your possible world, as if they applied in the same way with the same meanings.

For some of us, getting it right is the job. Objective is good. — Pie

For some of us, right: I can agree with that. Perhaps for all of us, we only believe what we feel we have gotten right. But the feeling of getting it right in areas where getting it right cannot be precisely determined is an individual matter. It's also a private matter: someone might say they feel they have got it right, but be lying.

But I would like to have true beliefs, justified beliefs, reasonable beliefs. — Pie

I would say we very often don't, and cannot, know if our beliefs are true or justified, and we can only know they are reasonable if they are consistent with our preferred set of starting assumptions.

I still think it's either a bad metaphor or a dilution of 'faith' into something insignificant. If everybody is X, no one is, because nothing is picked out. — Pie

I think that is a non sequitur: if everyone is human, then no one is...?

But who would say otherwise ? Is the Enlightenment to be understood as more of a prison than a release ? — Pie

Depends on how you look at it. I'd say it's a mixed bag. Is scientism better than religion? I think the notion of normative rationality is a form of scientism; the idea that philosophy can and should emulate science.

Given your seeming 'Cartesian' leanings — Pie

I don't have Cartesian leanings, so I have no idea what you are referring to. It seems to me that you are tendentiously interpreting what I say through a Cartesian lens, all the better to dismiss it by.

We're in it as much as it's in us. That's my claim, anyway. — Pie

I don't disagree with this. I fully acknowledge that having language opens up new avenues of experience. Recall that all I've been arguing is that there is private experience, and that language can never capture the whole of experience, not so much because it is ineffable (although I think that is part of it, since parts of experience cannot be captured by language at all), but because it is too complex and subtly nuanced. To argue that experience is impossible without language would be to argue that every animal on Earth bar us does not experience anything at all; and I find that thought absurd.

I know there are secret experiences, so I don't have to defend anything. I actually don't care if you agree with me or not; I'm just reporting my own experience; you can (and no doubt will) think whatever you like about what I report; it means little to me. — Janus

I take it as a given that we aren't sharing diary entries here. You can 'know' that you have a closer walk with Jesus, 'know' that your third eye is opened, 'know' that AI will destroy the world. Plenty of people 'just know,' but surely that's not the ideal here. You indeed don't have to defend anything, but philosophers, at least one version of them, like defending their claims, care about incisive criticisms, and improve their system of beliefs. But obviously you can do you. I just don't see why you bother with debate given what I take to be almost an irrationalism. *Maybe it's just this one issue you are talking about. Hard to say.

I don't have Cartesian leanings, so I have no idea what you are referring to. — Janus

No offense. But by my lights you do. The key point (what I refer to) is the emphasis on the internal as the given.

I think the notion of normative rationality is a form of scientism; — Janus

I think you know not what you say. Or maybe you really are an irrationalist. There are some fun versions of it.

Enlightenment is the human being’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding [= reason] without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. Sapere aude! [Dare to be wise!] Have courage to make use of your own understanding [= reason]! is thus the motto of enlightenment.

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.
...
Reason must subject itself to critique in all its undertakings, and cannot restrict the freedom of critique through any prohibition without damaging itself and drawing upon itself a disadvantageous suspicion. For there is nothing so important because of its utility, nothing so holy, that it may be exempted from this searching review and inspection, which knows no respect for persons [i.e. does not recognize any person as bearing more authority than any other—GW]. On this freedom rests the very existence of reason, which has no dictatorial authority, but whose claim is never anything more than the agreement of free citizens, each of whom must be able to express his reservations, indeed even his veto, without holding back. (A738f/B766f, translation slightly modified)
...
To make use of one’s own reason means no more than to ask oneself, whenever one is supposed to assume something, whether one could find it feasible to make the ground or the rule on which one assumes it into a universal principle for the use of reason.

[N]ot even the slightest degree of wisdom can be poured into a man by others; rather he must bring it forth from himself. The precept for reaching it contains three leading maxims: (1) Think for oneself, (2) Think into the place of the other [person] (in communication with human beings), (3) Always think consistently with oneself.

I would say we very often don't, and cannot, know if our beliefs are true or justified, and we can only know they are reasonable if they are consistent with our preferred set of starting assumptions. — Janus

I think we can have some sense of whether they are justified...or what are controlled experiments for ? We decide what counts as justification after all. Normative.

Consider practical life too. Metaphysics is full of doubt and ambiguity, but ordinary life is full of conjecture and refutation and confirmation.

But obviously you can do you. I just don't see why you bother with debate given what I take to be almost an irrationalism. — Pie

You're not listening. I am open to criticism, but any criticism will be parsed through my own critical filter and accepted or rejected depending on how I judge its plausibility. I want to improve my ideas, but I don't judge them against some notion of normative rationality. I like hearing other express their views and make their arguments, but again they are always assessed by me according to my own particular understanding of things. I would like to think it is the same for others.

No offense. But by my lights you do. The key point (what I refer to) is the emphasis on the internal as the given. — Pie

"The internal"; my thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations are what is most immediately present to me. Your thoughts, feelings and sensations are present to me only insofar as they can be conveyed by what you say about them: if you are being honest. If you are lying or hiding your thoughts and feelings then I may have no idea; unless I feel your actions are giving you away, and I could be wrong about that. None of this has anything to do with Descartes.

I think we can have some sense of whether they are justified...or what are controlled experiments for ? We decide what counts as justification after all. Normative. — Pie

Controlled experiments are the province of science, not philosophy, in my view.

I'm familiar with Kant's version, and I have little argument with it; but I don't think he has the same thing in mind that you do.

The epistemological solipsist could retort that what I experience could be explained by either the existence of an external world or unconscious dimensions of my mind, which could be thought to place both hypotheses on equal footing. — Janus

Yes, I think that makes sense. One way or another, in order to retain talk of 'knowledge', or 'truth', or 'wrongness' at all, the way we understand it, the would be solipsist has to have something external to the system doing the inferring, in order that some of those inferences could be wrong.

The question then is why reject the external world?

The question then is why reject the external world? — Isaac

In my view, rejection of the external world is absurd, and solipsism is absurd. I find the idea that I could be the only mind in the universe, not only implausible, but completely untenable. That said, I also acknowledge that what people find plausible depends on their foundational assumptions. if people "flatten everything out" such that they assess plausibility only in terms of what they believe is absolutely certain, then I can see how they might adopt solipsism.

They can argue that only their own mind is immediately present to them, and therefore either that it is certain that there are no other minds, or that it is at least more plausible that there are no other minds, or minimally that they cannot know there are other minds, so the safest thing is to live with that conclusion; which of course they will fail to do. It seems a ridiculous performative contradiction to me, but then what do I know?

They can argue that only their own mind is immediately present to them, and therefore either that it is certain that there are no other minds, or that it is at least more plausible that there are no other minds, or minimally that they cannot know there are other minds — Janus

My question is what could they possibly mean by "other minds", or even the expression "... there are", if all there is is their own mind. If we're to ask "is there an external world?" I'm not sure what to make of the question. To me asking the question "is there...?" assumes there's an external world and I'm enquiring as to its contents. If we're to remove that assumption, I don't know what "is there...?" could mean. Of whom/what would we be asking the question? From where would an answer come?

the safest thing is to live with that conclusion; which of course they will fail to do. — Janus

Ha! Yes. By far the most compelling argument against solipsism.

You, in that world, might not know, in that world, that all that exists is your mind — Isaac

Then I don't know everything.

And as I said to Pie, there's more to knowledge than just knowledge of what exists. In such a world I might not know the square root of two, I might not know what I would have seen had I chosen a different course of action, I might not know what I will feel tomorrow, etc.

You are conflating "X knows of everything that exists" and "X knows everything". These are not the same thing. The former would be true, the latter not.

But this really just comes down to some straightforward logic:

p ≔ only my mind exists
Bp ≔ I believe that p

1. Bp (premise)
2. ¬□p (premise)
3. Bp ∧ ◇¬p (from 1 and 2)

3 is just what it means to possibly be wrong.

But this really just comes down to some straightforward logic:

p ≔ only my mind exists
Bp ≔ I believe that p

1. Bp (premise)
2. ¬□p (premise)
3. Bp ∧ ◇¬p (from 1 and 2)

3 is just what it means to possibly be wrong. — Michael

Perhaps you'd indulge me by putting this into logical form for comparison.

1. The world is such that I know everything.
2. The world is not such that I know everything.

Either 1 or 2 is correct, but I don't know which.

Under 1, do I know everything?

Under 1, do I know everything? — Isaac

Yes, because it explicitly says so.

Yes, because it explicitly says so. — Michael

Right. My argument is that "all there is is my mind" just as explicitly says so. It is impossible for you to not know everything if all there is is your mind. Therefore the claim "all there is is my mind" is equivalent to the claim "I know everything".