Even the cogito could be wrong?

We could be il-logical and therefore mistaken that to think we must exist. Or we could be in some kind of illusion such as a simulation with fabricated rules of logic. The cogito is built upon the unprovable assumption that we are thinking logically and our rules of logic are correct.

Besides the cogito, what absolute knowledge do we have? — Cidat

None. In despite of what many humans hold to be grand truths, our knowledge is always subject to doubt, misconception, expansion, misinterpretation, revision and adjustment. The cogito thingie... I guess you have to start someplace. There couldn't be any knowledge without a knower of some kind. We do need a fairly strong basis to believe we exist, but we can never be 100% certain of our own identity.

I answer this hear if you're interested in something serious and not surface level. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1

What do we measure knowledge with if not with our lifetime? There was no possibility of knowledge prior to birth, nor will there be after death.

I suppose, if forced to speculate, that if I really attempt to focus on what happened the few instances prior to the spark of consciousness arose, there was just total "darkness", for want of any word whatsoever.

If I extrapolate that state prior to being conscious, to a future state in which I will no longer be conscious, then I suppose the best "knowledge" I have, is that there will be "darkness" for a very long time.

Assuming there is no afterlife, or reincarnation and so on.

If we can dispense with the doubt that everything is possibly an illusion and therefore an epiphenomenon of an underlying truth, there are many indisputable facts. Why wouldn't these facts count as a provisional kinds of absolute knowledge.

I need to absorb water to survive as a large mammal currently. This doesn't eliminate the possibility that I could survive without water in some unknown future by some novel physiology but many would agree the fact is indisputable.

Besides the cogito, what absolute knowledge do we have? — Cidat

Aren't there problems with the cogito? Assuming that there is an 'I' doing the thinking. And what exactly is it we know about thinking?

I worked for many years with people experiencing schizophrenia, many of whom have thoughts they can't explain and that they believe not to be their thoughts. Thought insertion is a fairly common phenomenon.

Within certain systems of thought, rigorously defined, there are absolutes. Mathematics, for instance. In general it's best to avoid any such perspective. Except death and taxes.

Besides the cogito, what absolute knowledge do we have? — Cidat

The cogito is a tautology; if it is true that I think, that there is an "I" that thinks, then of course it is also true that I exist. Something is going on, that much we know, and thinking certainly seems to be one of the things going on. Perception is another, sensation is another, desire is another: if it is true that there is an "I" perceiving, feeling, desiring, then it is also true that I am.

All our knowledge is relative...to how things appear, so in that sense none of it is absolute. We can think 'absolute' as the binary opposite of 'relative', but it does not follow that we can know anything absolute.

...absolute knowledge... — Cidat

Are you asking, what is indubitable? Beyond doubt?

There's a lot of work to be done here, sorting out knowledge from certainty and belief and doubt and truth and so on.

Why wouldn't these facts count as a provisional kinds of absolute knowledge. — Nils Loc

Only because no single individual knows all of them. We each know some facts we're sure of - mainly regarding such simple physical matters as what we require to survive. As a species, we also pool such knowledge in repositories available to the human community. When we each draw information from such a repository - library, internet, tribal chronicles, rock art - we trust it and rely on. Does that make the knowledge absolute?
Close enough for practical purposes, but not 100%. It always needs updating, correcting, adding detail.

:chin:

IMHO, I absolutely know that no one has "absolute knowledge" of everything (including 'the Absolute').

Yes, we know that because it is impossible.

Are you asking, what is indubitable? Beyond doubt? — Banno

I think what is being asked is more than that. Some things are indubitable, but only within a context or contexts. The idea of absolute knowledge as I understand it refers to knowledge which is both true, indubitable and transcendent of all and any context; an obvious impossibility.

A universal negative judgment is absolute.

The cogito is a tautology; if it is true that I think, that there is an "I" that thinks, then of course it is also true that I exist. Something is going on, that much we know, and thinking certainly seems to be one of the things going on. Perception is another, sensation is another, desire is another: if it is true that there is an "I" perceiving, feeling, desiring, then it is also true that I am. — Janus

Does something being a tautology make it false, if it’s really so? A tautology, just because it’s one, isn’t a falsity.

All our knowledge is relative...to how things appear, so in that sense none of it is absolute. We can think 'absolute' as the binary opposite of 'relative', but it does not follow that we can know anything absolute. — Janus

How do you understand the term “absolute”?

Aren't there problems with the cogito? Assuming that there is an 'I' doing the thinking. And what exactly is it we know about thinking? — Tom Storm

What makes something an “assumption,” according to you?

Aren't there problems with the cogito? Assuming that there is an 'I' doing the thinking. And what exactly is it we know about thinking?
— Tom Storm

What makes something an “assumption,” according to you? — ItIsWhatItIs

It's not about what I think assumption means. The idea of thinking assumes there is a thinker - that's essentially what the cogito says, right? "I" being the thinker ('therefore I am'). Here's one issue; I have known many people who experience thoughts who are convinced those thoughts are coming from someone else. How do we determine that any thinking you experience is yours, that there is a you, an 'I am'? In relation to "I think therefore I am' Nietzsche also argued that there is an assumption being made that there is thinking and that I know what thinking is.

The idea of thinking assumes there is a thinker — Tom Storm

So, the thinker is assumed but the idea of thinking isn’t? What makes it that the latter isn’t but the former is?

I have known many people who experience thoughts who are convinced those thoughts are coming from someone else. How do we determine that any thinking you experience is yours, that there is a you, an 'I am'? — Tom Storm

Doesn’t the fact that those people think that presuppose that they’ve already determined themselves as thinkers in contrast to others? If not, how could they think that they were getting thoughts from someone else, i.e., distinguish between a sender & a receiver mind (so to speak)?

So, the thinker is assumed but the idea of thinking isn’t? — ItIsWhatItIs

No. I already made this point. Both are assumed.

Doesn’t the fact that those people think that presuppose that they’ve already determined themselves as thinkers in contrast to others? If not, how could they think that they were getting thoughts from someone else, i.e., distinguish between a sender & a receiver mind (so to speak)? — ItIsWhatItIs

The salient point is that there may not a straight forward 'I am' as the Cogito suggests. The experience of thought insertion leads some folk to doubt that they are a self and that their thinking may not be their own.

A thread such as this is always amusing.

There's the argument, never quite made explicit, that since we can put "absolute" in front of "knowledge", it follows that we don't actually know anything. seems to think something along these lines, although perhaps their argument is that because we are occasionally mistaken about what we think we know, we therefore do not know anything. It's a bit of pop philosophy, a bowdlerised fablsificationism or simplified pragmatism. But it's wrong.

Because you do know stuff. Like which draw your socks are in and what your phone number is and occasionally even where your keys are. It takes training in philosophy to deny this. And even more philosophy to learn otherwise.

There's the view of philosophy as needing a foundation of certainty, a replacement for the by now mortally dismembered Cogito. It doesn't occur to folk that we might start with the location of the socks and keys, with the confidence of our everyday activities; such things just don't seem sufficiently profound. And philosophy is no fun if it is not profound. So off we go, .

And there are the many sages, mostly retired engineers, it seems, who suppose of a sudden that a lifetime spent working with databases and counterweights has uniquely prepared them to answer the many questions those silly philosophers have been unable to solve, but who mostly havn't understood the question in the first place.

And there's the occasional curmudgeon, grumping about the good old days when the quality of posts was so much higher and how the young folk nowadays wouldn't know a bad argument if it hit them in the arse.

Not I, of course.

Does something being a tautology make it false, if it’s really so? A tautology, just because it’s one, isn’t a falsity. — ItIsWhatItIs

Tautologies don't tell us anything about the nature of things.

How do you understand the term “absolute”? — ItIsWhatItIs

It means 'not relative', not relative to any other thing or context.

A universal negative judgment is absolute. — ItIsWhatItIs

Meaning what? All our judgements and knowledge, whetger true or false, are relative to us, so none are absolute.

So, the thinker is assumed but the idea of thinking isn’t? What makes it that the latter isn’t but the former is? — ItIsWhatItIs

Thinking is experienced, the thinker is not; the thinker is an idea, an artefact of thinking. There must be thinking if there is an idea of a thinker, but it doesn't follow that there is a thinker, since the thinker could be nothing but an idea.

Besides the cogito, what absolute knowledge do we have? That is, besides the cogito, is everything we claim to know temporary (that is, may go away during our lifespan) or is some knowledge absolute (never go away during our lifespan)? — Cidat

There is absolute knowledge.

although perhaps their argument is that because we are occasionally mistaken about what we think we know, we therefore do not know anything. — Banno

That's nowhere near what I said. I said, we have plenty of knowledge, both individual and pooled, that's accurate enough for practical used, but it's never prefect, complete or absolute.

Close enough for practical purposes, but not 100%. It always needs updating, correcting, adding detail. — Vera Mont

At 7:53 PM EST on July 24 2023, the person with the avatar name "creativesoul" posted on a philosophy forum.

Since when is perfection and omniscience necessary for knowledge???

:worry:

Since when is perfection and omniscience necessary for knowledge??? — creativesoul

Yes, why make any criteria for absolute knowledge impossible. Instead we could just rely on ordinary language as when someone says "I know with absolutely certainty at this time that..." and said knowledge also can't reasonably be doubted, Is accepted as universal fact.

I'm absolutely certain at this time that if we remove your head from your body by whatever method you will die. No one can dispute this without an appeal to some extreme contingency or medical miracle that doesn't currently exist. That I know there could be hypothetical exceptions just further informs the perfection of such knowledge.

Maybe the next Black Swan will be a Talking Bodiless Head... Then we will just get used to the fact that some people don't die by absolute decapitation.

I said, we have plenty of knowledge, both individual and pooled, that's accurate enough for practical used, but it's never prefect, complete or absolute. — Vera Mont

Maybe. Or maybe you hadn't actually considered what you were claiming. We know you read my post, since you replied to it - it's too later for you to pretend otherwise.

Knowledge is not green either, and was never meant to be. Was it ever meant to be "perfect, complete or absolute"? Perhaps such terms are no more applicable here than "green"...

All this by way of pointing out that we do know things, and not just for practical purpose. Reliance on pragmatism comes from looking only at a limited set of cases. We know lots of things.

We know you read my post, since you replied to it — Banno

A well chosen example. People on this forum accuse each other of responding to posts they haven't read, but as you note that's simply impossible. We all know for a fact that @Vera Mont read every word of your post before she clicked on the little arrow.

Tautologies don't tell us anything about the nature of things. — Janus

They actually do, just no novel information.

There’s no way to argue that “X = X” can’t express “the nature” of “X,” granted that it doesn’t express any (relatively) new information about it.

It means 'not relative', not relative to any other thing or context. — Janus

Is what’s “not relative to any other or context” conceivable? If not, why do you speak on something that’s not thought?

Meaning what? All our judgements and knowledge, whetger true or false, are relative to us, so none are absolute. — Janus

... “relative to us.” Does that imply that if wasn’t relative to just “us,” it’d be “absolute”; that is, that it’s just because that it’s just related to “us,” that it’s deemed “relative”; as if a relation to someone beside(s) “us” would qualify it as “absolute”?

Or are you saying that any relationship excludes a thing from being “absolute”?

No. I already made this point. Both are assumed. — Tom Storm

... & you’ve yet to define what disqualifies a thing from being “assumed” or an “assumption.” When I first asked you, this was your response...

It's not about what I think assumption means. — Tom Storm

This may be one of the least philosophical things that I think that I’ve ever heard (no disrespect is meant here, truly). Of course what you think a word means within your argument is significant. If it’s meaningless to you, how am I ever to grasp your meaning?

The salient point is that there may not a straight forward 'I am' as the Cogito suggests. The experience of thought insertion leads some folk to doubt that they are a self and that their thinking may not be their own. — Tom Storm

Saying & thinking a thing are two different things. In other words, just because something is vocalized doesn’t mean that it’s true.

They actually do, just no novel information.

There’s no way to argue that “X = X” can’t express “the nature” of “X,” granted that it doesn’t express any (relatively) new information about it. — ItIsWhatItIs

I think that the only information about things is given by their relations, not by their identity. Identity itself is nothing without difference.

Is what’s “not relative to any other or context” conceivable? If not, why do you speak on something that’s not thought? — ItIsWhatItIs

But the absolute is thought as the polar opposite to the relative.

Or are you saying that any relationship excludes a thing from being “absolute”? — ItIsWhatItIs

I'm saying that the nature of anything which depends on its relations with other things is relative, not absolute. In philosophy, historically speaking, the only entity which qualified as absolute was the Absolute: namely God, because God was thought to be the only being whose existence did not depend on anything else.

I think that the only information about things is given by their relations, not by their identity. — Janus

I'm saying that the nature of anything which depends on its relations with other things is relative, not absolute. — Janus

According to you, is there a smallest possible relation? If so, how many members comprise it?

According to you, is there a smallest possible relation? — ItIsWhatItIs

Do you mean relations between the smallest possible things?