Answering Objections to Skepticism

[@Wbjpen]

A typical dismissal to "I hold no beliefs" would be "then put your hand on a stove and see what happens, do you not believe it will hurt you?" This is the kind of retort I struggle with because of all the common presumptions about what belief is. Fantastic video!

[@polemizator723]

Notes 2:14 Why lack of position dont require Defence? Not justifield but defence. Defence broader meaning If I have no position or proclivity about killiking, people still will want to explain myself. I probably have proclivity to explain that I am no dagerous. Burzenia of proof is just a rule. Position has a broader meaning than belief. 4:06 It is possible that have a claim and dont need to be justifield. The burden of proof cam be unjustifield. 8:46 No because like it more but because is more useful. We can act if... And is more useful. We must choose between options that we have in our action. This sceptic like saing that we ,zmust" should or shouldnt but it is unjustifield from hos own not-viewpoint. Emotion. ,,Desise of dogmatism" But sceptic dont know is dogmatism justifield or not. Because sceptic dont know anythink. SCEPTIC DON'T KNOW THAT THIS FOOD IS RAT OR APPLE OR SOMETHINK ELSE. THEY CAN ONLY SAY THAT MAYBY THIS IS RAT BUT CANNOT DENY DEGMATIC THAT CLAIM THAT IS APPLE. The only pathetic argument against dogmatism is compiration to dessise and dead rat. And saing that you not have to choose. But you can choose. And sceltic can't say that is bad or wrong decision or you shouldnt do it. It is just a decision because qe dont know if some claim is justifield or not.

[@lreadlResurrected]

This is the most lucid piece of obfuscation I would be able to imagine if I had an imagination. It is simultaneously brilliant and moronic, true and false, transcendent and banal, answering all of the questions by questioning all of the answers. Its logic is irrefutably self-refuting and undeniable except where it is not. I don't believe a word of it, but I am convinced of its truth yet skeptical of its conclusions.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

lreadlResurrected That was a work of art. Down with classical logic. #includethemiddle

[@lreadlResurrected]

To that I can only say, Jabberwocky. Have a good one, Carneades.org

[@yunoewig3095]

The main problem I currently perceive in the skeptic's position is that, paradoxically, it seems to be fertile ground for all kinds of weird, preposterous beliefs to arise. For once you have established(?) that rationality is self-defeating(?), and 'throw it away altogether' it is no longer valid to use it as a means of invalidating irrational beliefs. I am thus left with no reason why I should restrain from believing anything I might desire. You may argue that if I can believe something on no grounds, I may just as well believe anything else, but this appeals to a certain principle of parsimony, which cannot be justified. So it seems we are left with no counter-argument against arbitrary (from the viewpoint of an external observer) irrational beliefs. It seems to me skepticism throws away the baby with the bucket. We are faced with several options on how to interpret the world and guide our actions. Skepticism says all options are bad. Ok, that's the first step, but that's not the whole story, it seems that now we must try to figure out what is worse and what is not so bad, so that we might be able to at least select 'the best out of a bad lot'. But perhaps(?) in the end the choice is subjective(?) and all beliefs are really quite equivalent(??)… I personally find scientific explanations much more satisfactory than mythical ones, but perhaps this is just a matter of personal preference (???). I must say I find it quite preposterous to think in these terms, but perhaps it is just my personal bias(?)… It seems to me that rationality is the 'hygiene' of the mind. Without it, we are completely at a loss as to in which direction we should go and everything becomes just a matter of personal preference.

[@yunoewig3095]

To phrase my argument differently, suppose that a subject S believes that rationality is a valid method of inquiry, and also holds a certain irrational belief B, which he has not yet tested against the rational method. Now through a process of critical analysis, he arrives at the conclusion that the rational method is self-defeating and therefores discards it as a valid method of inquiry. But since S has not yet analysed belief B, he still holds it; and in fact he has no longer any means to critically analyse it and therefore will continue to hold it even though it is an irrational belief.

[@yunoewig3095]

Maybe I am misrepresenting the skeptic's position here. If so, please tell me how, if you may.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio It seems to me that you are correct and that in some ways this is a good place to put some pressure on the skeptic. But I'm not sure that the argument is going to hold water as an objection, since I think that's it's applicable to everyone. . Imagine someone who holds a completely arbitrary viewpoint, and rejects reason, logic etc. It seems to me that you are correct at that if the skeptic can't show that their own beliefs in some way contradict (or without the law of non contradiction, if they say something in one area of their beliefs that another area would not allow them to say), but the skeptic can say that they are not rational as explained by classical logic. They would probably agree and ask what is so important about rationality. I don't think that the dogmatist can say anything more to object to them. If you don't accept the LNC, showing that your beliefs lead to a contradiction or are irrational is irrelevant. . In that case, let's talk about subjectivity. It seems to me that you are correct to say that it all comes down to person preference. Certain people like certain beliefs, and others like other beliefs. Some people like having rules for their beliefs to follow, others do not. I see no way that one can objectively demonstrate that one system is better than another. . To your example with S, there are a number of things. First, it seems that, a la Quine's web of belief, one would analyse the outermost beliefs first and then work inward eventually ending up at the beliefs in things like the LEM and the LNC. But it's possible that in this case the person went about it another way. Second, the skeptic at least is always looking for knowledge and beliefs, therefore, if they lacked rationality, but had a belief or possible belief they would try to find a non-contradictory system to house that belief, before assenting to it. They would search for justification for that belief. Third, once we have thrown out rationality, beliefs being rational or irrational is simply a matter of preference as you noted above. So being left with some irrational belief is no worse than someone that was a Christian, but became an atheist, still being left with some un-examined belief that would be in conflict with their Christianity. It no longer matters because they no longer accept that system.

[@werrkowalski2985]

A skeptic may claim that he doesn't know if any proposition is true, but for that to even follow he needs to accept a set of meta-claims, it is not clear to me why on the view that one doesn't know if any propositions are true, this itself is the correct propositional attitude without accepting some meta-claims, like for example that "there is such thing as propositions", or "it is possible for some belief to not be true". And then if these claims are not accepted, then there would be meta-meta-claims that one would need to accept in order to claim he doesn't know if the meta-claims are true and so on. I imagine a skeptic may try to claim that he doesn't know if any such claim of an infinite series of meta-claims is true, but that appears to be an example of a vicious regress, where the result of every single step depends on the result of a step further on in the series. A skeptic needs to accept a certain paradigm, within this paradigm you may conclude that no belief is justified, and that you should hold no beliefs, but if say you accepted trivialism, you would have to accept that every proposition is true.

[@Elgeneralsimo69]

Here are my counter-objections to your objections built around the thesis that Indirect Skepticism as you've described is a rational philosophical stance to take. Objection 1: _I want to restate here that this statement pigeonholes the Indirect Skeptic to classical Boolean logic with a reliance on LEM._ As you yourself have stated, there are many other logic under the sun and while Indirect Skepticism is a good starting point, it's problems in my eyes (infinite regress of inaction, seeking absolute truths in a world where there are relative truths, etc) point to the deficiencies in LEM as defining contradictions and the necessity for us to move to a higher order logic and create a more "modern" skeptic In other word, *_the Indirect Skeptic is to the Modern Skeptic as Aristotle is to Galileo_* Just like the indirect skeptic and Aristotle where good starting points to understand their respective fields, over time new maths, thoughts, and evidence have come to light such that Aristotle's views were seen to be paradoxical and contradictory and thus necessitating Galileo and ultimately Newton... ... in the same way that new maths, thoughts, and evidence have come to light such that IMO the Indirect Skeptic views are seen as paradoxical and contradictory and thus necessitates something more. Objection 2: _If you make no claims because you have no beliefs as you state here, then you aren't playing the game of truth-seeking or philosophy. Hence a "no claims" skeptic is by definition engaging in something other than philosophy as you've defined in your videos._ As I've also stated elsewhere, this is like you not playing baseball and then claiming that you've committed no errors in baseball; it is a trivially true position, a vacuous truth and as Wiki warns: "_Outside of mathematics, statements which can be characterized informally as vacuously true can be misleading._" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth So the Indirect Skeptics insistence on vacuous truths as a foundation is, by all accounts, "misleading". Objection 3: _In order to access the belief of being human or asleep, you must first have beliefs about those states._ If you've never heard or used the word "human", then it is vacuously true that you will never believe that you are human. But if you have access to that word, then your belief in that word does in fact matter to what you believe even if it has no effect on others who also have access to that word _and_ others that still don't have access to that word; to them, you can never and will never be human if they never believe in the concepts and learning behind that word to begin with Objection 4: _Doubt from lack of evidence makes one ignorant; doubting in light of evidence is stupid_ To doubt that one is human because they've never been exposed to the word or concept of human... ... is different than doubting one is human even though all the definitions and how the concept of "human' has been presented to that one apply to that one; the former has no control over what they are ignorant about while the latter is in full control of what they are stupid about. Objection 5: _Gravity, dropping and pen form a self-consistent network that the evil deceiver cannot affect_ If the ED makes it so ALL pens dropping in ALL places and ALL times conform to the SAME BUT INCORRECT laws of nature... ... then what exactly is he deceiving us about and what exactly is "correct" about the laws of nature that the ED is deceiving us about? Your ED is nothing more than a restatement of plato's cave with the same resolutions (or not). Also the infinite regress of inaction is clearly shown for when you get steak and bread, then you should hold out for lobster and wine... and when you get that you should hold out for cavier and louis XIV... and so on until you starve to death. Since the skeptic has no filter, there is always the doubt that there is a better choice to be had and thus by the offered rationale for refusing the rats, you will always starve regardless of what is offered to you.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Goodness, you have been watching and commenting on a great deal of my videos. I cannot promise I can respond to everything, but I will do my best. Objection 1: One day (probably not soon, as it seems people want set theory before non-classical logic) I will do a series on non-classical logics, and I will address these concerns. Suffice to say, that if the system that I am objecting to lacks a LEM or LNC, it will have some set of rules or axioms which may be broken. I have yet to see a system which does not have within itself some inherent problems (if not contradictions, something else that it, as a formal system prohibits). Objection 2: Your claim is that the skeptic is not "doing philosophy" because they are not defending a position, merely critiquing others. Surely this depends on your definition of doing philosophy, but if my making arguments, and objecting to those of others does not qualify under your definition, I am fine with that (though it does seem to be begging the question against the skeptic). Objection 3: I don't need to know what a word means to use it, even to use it correctly. Why do my beliefs about the sounds coming out of my mouth or the shapes on a computer screen change the validity of the arguments expressed by those sounds or keystrokes? It seems I can believe an argument that I am presenting is false, but that does not make the argument unsound or invalid. Objection 4: Why would you believe anything until it has been proven to you? The idea that evidence supports any given theory more than another is brought into question by the problem of underdetermination (kzbin.info/www/bejne/maCbkpd_g7V2pNU). I have yet to see any reason to believe any given proposition, therefore, why should I believe them? Objection 5: Perhaps ED makes the pen fly ten times around the universe and then actually drop, while we only see an image drop. Perhaps tomorrow ED will make all of the "laws" of the universe stop working. The problem of induction demonstrates that simply because something continues to happen does not mean that it will continue to happen. Only a circular argument can justify the uniformity of nature. (kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZWblKuOm7V9i5Y) The problem with the metaphor is that the skeptic will never starve from lack of belief. Doubt, a state of pure ataraxia is calming, not problematic.

[@Elgeneralsimo69]

"Goodness, you have been watching and commenting on a great deal of my videos. I cannot promise I can respond to everything, but I will do my best" They are as much notes to myself as they are questions to you so don't worry as I don't expect you to address them all. BUT there is a general thread to my critiques of your defense of Indirect Skepticism that do seem to orbit around the topic of which logic you choose to use and, IMO, a inconsistent use of temporal logic. That's something for you to think about and maybe ask me about if you think it worthwhile to expand on.

[@Elgeneralsimo69]

RE: Obj. 1) "I have yet to see a system which does not have within itself some inherent problems " Nor do I believe you ever will. My personal philosophy is one of min/max and not initial/terminal... that is I seek to minimize the problems not eliminate them altogether as there is no evidence in nature than anything is 100% efficient or 100% fault free or 100% really anything... "change is the only constant" is trite but frightfully true when you spend time doing physics like I have. This is why it's a fool's errand to search for these absolutes; in doing so you are no different than people that seek absolute frames of reference between Newton said they should be there despite. RE: Obj. 2) I'm happy with wikipedia's def:" the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.". By all accounts if all one strives for is doubting the above, then perhaps it is better stated that you are only doing one half of the job, the easy part, deconstruction, with no regard for or intention of engaging in the difficult job, construction. RE: Obj. 3) "I don't need to know what a word means to use it, even to use it correctly." But you still need to know the word to begin with. Thus, you must have been exposed to the word "human" in order to have any access to what is meant by "human". Otherwise, it's just a random bunch of letters that one picks out of thin air. "It seems I can believe an argument that I am presenting is false, but that does not make the argument unsound or invalid." That is lying, where you are presenting a ~T and implying a T. As I've said in other comments, this is asking your logic system to make a comment on ~⟙> ⟙ which is fundamentally illogical. So it stands to reason that if we accept and know there are liars into our system, then anything they say as input to our system is by definition invalid by virtue of them being liars. "Why would you believe anything until it has been proven to you? " Because of the requirement for and evidence of symmetry breaking, spontaneous or otherwise. Nature is FULL of examples where it has to break a symmetry based on (seemingly) equivalent choices. Nature doesn't come to an epistemological halt to ponder which course of action to take, it obvious does take a course of action. In the same light, there are perfectly symmetrical options where there is no functional difference between going left and going right (entering a roundabout with only one entrance and one exit), and to wait for "proof" that one option is preferable to the other leads to the infinite regress of indecision. Thus there is a necessity to break the symmetry and to believe something prior to or in spite of, proof. "The idea that evidence supports any given theory more than another is brought into question by the problem of underdetermination " This is only a problem if you consider the addition of trivial or vacuous truths to your system as affecting your system. As I don't, as I think any logical system works equally well by only accepting (p>q)&p)>q and not ((p>q)&p)>qv[rvsvtv...] in the same way that we accept 1+1 =2 and not 1+1=2*1*1 or 1+1= 2 (+1-1+1-1+1-1), then I don't any problem of underdetermination as presented it in that video. RE: Obj. 5) "Perhaps ED makes the pen fly ten times around the universe and then actually drop, while we only see an image drop. " If it does this every time a pen drop, then that is the rational version of the universe. To think otherwise, that the ED was not doing this, would be irrational as there would be no evidence accessible to me that would indicate otherwise. "Perhaps tomorrow ED will make all of the "laws" of the universe stop working." What effect would that have on us? For my PhD, I studied the sudden emergence of bubble universes, solutions to physics that cause, as you say, the univese to stop working. The result there was that the bubble would move at the speed of light and we'd never see it: one instant we are here, the next literal nothingness of which we cannot conceive. On the other hand, if the laws change and we change with them, then again I don't have access to any evidence to tell me that the new laws aren't the rational laws. "The problem of induction demonstrates that simply because something continues to happen does not mean that it will continue to happen. " I disagree. The problem of induction demonstrates that for a theory with no top or bottom. With a properly defined floor or ceiling, you don't run into those problems. And as I remember saying in a video on that topic, if you don't like tops and bottoms, then a circular theory where top = bottom is also a viable alternative.

[@Elgeneralsimo69]

"The problem with the metaphor is that the skeptic will never starve from lack of belief. Doubt, a state of pure ataraxia is calming, not problematic" A person that never knows that chocolate exists will never stave from wanting for chocolate. Ataraxia based on trivial and vacuous truths is in itself a trivial and vacuous state of Ataraxia. I prefer a balance of doubt and certainty where there is never absolute doubt and never absolute certainty. In effect, while you deem doubt Obligatory, Ob(d) (in reference to you Modal Logics videos).... ... I only deem it as Omissible, Om(d), or Optional, Op(d)

[@zverh]

Also 《I lack belief.》 is in of itself a belief, hence knowledge claim.

[@cshahbazi1220]

My objection to skepticism has always been very similar to the 3rd one in this video but with different wording. First off your response to it wasn't convincing, atheism in fact being a very good example. Atheism isn't holding no belief regarding god, it's the belief that god does not exist. It is indeed a position, the only difference being that in a sense it's a "default" position meaning that the burden of proof is on whom claims god exists. However that's being generous because I believe that even atheism needs to be justified. But my more precise objection (which as I said is very similar to #3) is this: If skepticism means doubting everything, that means the skeptic should doubt skepticism itself. That would mean doubting that you doubt everything. And doubting that you doubt that you doubt everything, and so forth. You have consciously accepted to doubt everything, that nothing is certain. Of course I'd also argue there are then some things you can know for certain such as your existence which is what Des Cartes famously concluded. I just see no way around it. Then about the external world, the evidence does not point to an evil demon, there has been absolutely no evidence for it, the same way there has been no evidence that there's russell's teapot. In both cases you're proposing a system that is compatible with the evidence but has no evidence for the actual extra claim. It's like seeing a mountain from afar and saying there is an eagle with 3 eggs on top of it, and someone else sees the same image and just says I see a mountain. Well yes if there is indeed an eagle with 3 eggs the current evidence would have supported it but what justification was there before you actually saw them? By this logic you're giving equal treatment to an infinite number of possibilities, everything can be probable and you would indeed have an actual infinite of probabilities and if every possibility would have a probability of any real number then you'd end up with an infinite net probability which is absurd (the net probability should be 1).

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Sina Shahbazi I have a great video coming up on the definition of the distinctions between atheists, agnostics, and theists. But until then, here's some reasons that "dogmatic atheism" (the claim that God does not exist) is actually really unsustainable and impossible to prove. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bqqzkouZfb1onNU. *"If skepticism means doubting everything, that means the skeptic should doubt skepticism itself. That would mean doubting that you doubt everything. And doubting that you doubt that you doubt everything, and so forth. You have consciously accepted to doubt everything, that nothing is certain."* Skepticism, is the state of being of not having beliefs, it is not a belief in itself. Therefore, saying that you should doubt skepticism is simply making a category mistake. Skepticism is the position of not having any beliefs. The skeptic does not have anything that they could doubt, since doubt is something that applies to beliefs, and they don't have any. *"Of course I'd also argue there are then some things you can know for certain such as your existence which is what Des Cartes famously concluded. I just see no way around it."* The Cogito (I think therefore I am) has quite its share of problems too. Here are some videos on the subject: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bIC1eWSajbGIrpI, kzbin.info/www/bejne/eYW5gHuumpyso5I, kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6WmZnSffa6sptU, and from this series kzbin.info/www/bejne/jp-Tf6aVbamLd8k. To your final claim about evidence, there is just as much evidence for an evil deceiver as there is for not. Both are completely and perfectly supported by the evidence that we see. Why should you give less probability to one that posits fewer entities, (in the evil deceiver scenario you one have two things, you and ED, over one that posits billions of entities that you have never seen or experienced. The external world is the eagle and the eggs, because it has yet to be proven. There are quite a few problems with occam's razor kzbin.info/www/bejne/hKC7qYOln8msi5Y and there is nothing to say that one of two empirically equivalent theories is better than the other. kzbin.info/www/bejne/maCbkpd_g7V2pNU. Finally, a little calculus can tell us that you can have an infinite geometric series of rational (and therefore real) numbers that add up to one. Just look at the solution to one of Zeno's paradoxes. 1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16....=1 or

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Carneades.org Sorry the math didn't post The sum of (1/2)^i with i starting at 1 and moving toward infinity equals 1.

[@cshahbazi1220]

Carneades.org First on the math, an infinite number of positive numbers only can converge and equal a finite number if and only if there is no positive real number which all numbers are greater than. In the sum of 1/2^n there is no positive real number which is smaller than any number of the continuum. This is the same for every other sum of infinite positive numbers that do converge. In the case of infinite equally probable true states of the world, either each state is actually absolutely false (since it would have a 0 probability) or you'll give each even a tiny probability of being true and since they're all a real equal number you'll have a sum probability of infinite. Alternatively you can play favorites among beliefs claiming some beliefs are more probable or less probable than others which [b]might[/b] solve the issue if you can actually demonstrate that there is some pattern amongst these beliefs' probability that could converge, but this is implying different probabilities regarding different beliefs and that's not what you're aiming for. Also on the Cogito, I'm unconvinced by the objections. I actually have a reformulated version of it which you replace think with experience. It doesn't actually make the argument any more tight proof as I believe it to be irrefutable. I mean if the ED or anything else is giving you illusions, then by definition it's still giving [b]you[/b] illusions which mean false experiences, but they are experiences nonetheless and you are having them. There is no way around it. An easy analogy would be an ancient king receiving a letter from another king, perhaps it was fabricated by someone else, but he still got a letter (the king being the "I" and the letter being any experience). I realized the category mistake though, so thank you, I guess that objection does not apply anymore.

[@llkiii3139]

There isn't a single person on this planet who holds "no beliefs." In the very act of speaking the sentence, "I have no beliefs" the skeptic shows us that he in fact holds all sorts of beliefs. He believes that when he utters that sentence the listener will hear him and understand him. If he's speaking English, he's showing us that he believes that the English language exists and that other human beings besides himself speak it as well. When he uploads a video about skepticism to KZbin, he shows us that he believes the Internet exists. When he drives his car, he shows us that he believes in the existence of the internal combustion engine and also that he believes that pressing on the gas pedal makes his car accelerate while pressing on the brake pedal makes his car slow down. As he takes any goal-directed action whatsoever, the skeptic is performatively demonstrating that he does hold beliefs. How can the skeptic account for concept formation? By what means did the skeptic form concepts such as skepticism, belief, doubt, truth, etc.? The skeptic demands justification for beliefs while simultaneously denying the very process by which he formed the concept of belief (and all the other concepts he constantly uses).

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+LLK III There are a lot of unjustified claims here. Let's unpack them. 1) If you say somehting you expect someone to understand it. Many people talk to themselves, talk to their dog, yell and their computer, but don't expect any of those things to understand them. Just because one says something does not mean that one beleives one will be understood. 2) If you say something in a language you must believe that language exists. there are children who have never heard of the concept of a langauge, but are still able to communicate in it, furthermore, I could easily be a nominalist and not believe in abstract things like "langauges" Show me a language, I can't have a sense experience of a language, so why should I beleive it exists? 3)By saying something you msut believe that someone else exists. This plays into the point earlier about people who talk to themselves and things that are not people, but also it seems completely legitimate to suspect that you might be in the matrix or dreaming and therefore not hold the bellief other peopel exist. 4) Using something means you must believe that it exists. I can use the internet and drive a car in a dream, but I can realize that I am dreaming and therefore not claim they exist. Furthermore, computers can drive cars and use the internet, but we don't claim that they have beleifs, why must humans? And the point with all of these is that it is not on me, the skeptic to prove you wrong. The burden of proof lies on the claimant. It is your job to show that any of these propositions must be true in all cases. As for accounting for beleif formation, the simple answer is that the skeptic does not need to, since the skeptic doe snot believe in belief formation to begin with. But the longer answer has to do with proclivities and other mental states. Simply it seems liek action is much more inspired by desire than beleif.

[@llkiii3139]

Carneades.org You're having an experience of a language in this very conversation. How can you claim not to believe in the existence of language while using language as the very vehicle for making your claims in the first place? You believe that English exists and that I speak it. Otherwise why would you even bother replying to me in English in the first place? What would be the point? You have all kinds of expectations about how your actions will produce reactions. You have tons of beliefs and you act on them constantly. Just like eveyone else does. You claim you have no beliefs, but to me that just comes across as a copout.

[@llkiii3139]

Carneades.org Also I asked you about concept formation, not belief formation. How did you come to form concepts such as belief, proof, scepticism, justification, etc.? What process lead to your ability to understand and employ all these concepts? I think you are guilty of the stolen concept fallacy. You use concepts but seem to deny the process by which those concepts are formed. You are throwing all sorts of concepts around here but how is it that you came to acquire those concepts in the first place? And how is it that I (and many others) also came to acquire those same concepts? The fact that millions of people can use these concepts amongst ourselves in conversations such as these seems to point to some sort of shared reality.

[@godofleverege1829]

LLK III like a snake trying to eat its tail

[@godofleverege1829]

LLK III you are right about the concepts it requires a leap of faith that they are right and exists 😂 it seems there is alot shit that be should be in place for a skeptic to carry out anything 😂

[@nATATATpsn]

Skepticism has always been a fun philosophical exercise. Trouble is I could never "walk it out" as they say, especially because I tend to agree that if someone really were a skeptic, they probably would never have bothered to learn the philosophically acceptable vernacular for saying so.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Nathanael Walsh In my experience no one starts as a skeptic. They become a skeptic by challenging their previous beliefs until none are left. One of my goals with this channel is to attempt to "walk it out" as you say. To attempt to find someone that can offer a real concrete argument against skepticism. I have yet to find one.

[@nATATATpsn]

Yeah, I actually really appreciate this channel. One of the things that gets me is when I've heard you seem to affirm that you have no beliefs, and I can't tell if we are just quibbling over word choice here but, I just can't imagine that to be the case. I mean, I see that you can work it out through logical arguments that it works, but I mean, therapist and psychologists make a living off of showing us that we hold beliefs we didn't even know we did. I would take it that if you wake up and eat some sort of food then you hold the belief that the food will provide you with whatever it is you're hoping to get out of it. On the subject of logic, and your ability to use it to affirm utter skepticism, I should think you'd also be skeptical of the "rules of logic" any other human could provide you with, as they (in and of themselves) seem little more than appeal to majority at best. Really all you have is your own sense, your own intuition. and sure that's a buzz word, I get it, but I'd be curious to know how you escape such a conclusion. Because if you accept it you're just asserting that your intuition is more reliable than others.. and I suspect you don't mean to be affirming that at all...

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Nathanael Walsh I'm glad you appreciate the channel. Here would be my responses to these claims. The psychologist and the philosopher might have different definitions of the world belief. In philosophy a belief is a proposition that you consciously accept. When psychologists "uncover" subconcsious beliefs, it seems to me what they are doing is uncovering emotions, or feelings that we have towards certain propositions. Rarely would someone ever say in a counseling session "I finally realize that I believe in the Law of the Excluded Middle." They would be more likely to aver "I realize that I have always blamed my father for my mother's death." It has much more to do with a feeling than a specific proposition, as if they were confronted with that proposition, they would probably assent to it. . As to breakfast, it seems to me that I don't know that I'm eating oatmeal every morning. I could still be asleep dreaming, this has happened to me. I could in fact be eating a similar grain that I have mistaken for oatmeal. I don't believe that I am going to get anything out of the oatmeal because I don't even believe that it's oatmeal. And at the end of the day, I might have beliefs, I don't claim to know that I don't have any beliefs, that's just what it seems like to me. I could of course be wrong. Beliefs could in fact be a kind of fish and I could really be a crazy fisherman that has a whole pile of beliefs in his house. But as a madman, I don't know this. . As for logic, as I note in this series, I'm trying to find a consistent system of logic. I borrow the systems of others in the hope that they will be successful, but they inevitably lead to contradictions and I reject them. I'm not asserting that my intuition is reliable, I'm showing other's that their's is not, and searching for someone's that is.

[@tasneemsakifibnealam949]

Just found out your channel today & have been binge watching since. Have to say some of your videos have been very useful for me like the underdetermination of scientific theory. And some I feel I need to have more knowledge to understand. Maybe I will need go through your videos from the beginning. I think I can also understand, if I am not misrepresenting your view, how you have come to the conclusion of philosophical skepticism (not sure if "conclusion" is right word to use here but you know what I am implying). Now let me ask you, not that I am challenging your position, just a simple question: How practical is it to be a philosophical skeptic? Have you ever thought that is it wise to question thinks the answer of which are impossible or implausible to know via rationality as rationality may not be the end all and be all? What if there is something which is supra-rational & there are other means to know the truth if it exists? About my personal belief, I am a muslim & I believe that there must be a necessary being which have an independent will & caused the contingent existence. Deistic notion makes that being imperfect which then contradict the term necessary. That being created the universe for purpose & sent revelations for human kind & the last of that is Qur'an which is still perfectly preserved unlike the other major world scriptures like bible. Even I thought about severe kind of skepticism in the past but intuitively it just did not make sense to me. One can only build his worldview with what he has. Without holding(or maybe using in your case) any kind of axiomatic belief one simply can not function. Islamic worldview is built upon fitra which is a natural disposition to know a necessary being i.e God exists & He is worthy of worship. It also has rationality, basic sense of morality, appreciation of beauty embedded into it. Just thought sharing it as you might not have known much about islam. Obviously there's Qur'an from where you can learn more about the religion. I think you would also love someone like Imam Ghazali. Read his works on skepticism maybe, if you haven't already. Probably you have already made videos about what I asked or said in my comment. I'll try to check it out. A reply would be great btw. Again benefitted from you videos. Thank you.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Thanks for your thoughts. It is quite practical to be a skeptic, I function just fine without beliefs, living my life, making videos etc. I am open to the possibility of knowledge, I am searching for it, I just have not found it yet. I have plenty of other propositional attitudes to keep me happy, like hope, wonder, hypotheses, etc. I'm skeptical of the ontological argument you offer (kzbin.info/aero/PLz0n_SjOttTdnrfjO-54ZQClX1wDhOUdX). Despite having lived many years in Muslim countries, I am still working to completely familiarize myself with all of the works of the Muslim and Arab philosophers. I would be interested in your views on Averroes's refutation of al-Ghazali, or Ibn al-Rawandi's Kitab al-zumurrud. Thanks for watching! I am glad you have enjoyed.

[@gutzimmumdo4910]

how do you know u dont hold any belief?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I don't know anything, including whether or not I have beliefs. I doubt you think a rock has beliefs, but you surely would not claim that because that rock does not know it lacks beliefs, that it must in fact have beliefs. I lack all beliefs, just like a table or a chair lacks all beliefs. What is confusing about that?

[@matheusrezende1527]

how would you respond to the present objection: If you claim that there is no certanty at all, how does this sentence can be certain? Wouldn't it be controversial to affirm so surely that there is no certanty? if there is no certanty, how can you know such a thing surely??

[@yunoewig3095]

How would you answer the objection that you are a skeptic out of convenience (it is easier to say "I don't know" than to assume a position)? (Note that I am not making such a claim, merely asking how you would answer such an objection)

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio I would say that I have tried very hard to assume a position. I have in the past held various positions, but have had them refuted time and again. Whenever someone presents me with a position, I try to see if it is viable. I just have not found one yet. It seems to me that it is actually easier to say that you hold a specific position and not honestly consider each new position, than to take each new position at face value and test it with the hope of being able to adopt it.

[@yunoewig3095]

Carneades.org Many people wish they had an instruction manual on how to live their lives. If someone comes by and shows with very convincing arguments that nothing can be known, this can be taken to be such an instruction manual. It would, therefore, assert that the quest for knowledge is futile, and we should therefore instead experience life rather than trying to obtain knowledge about the world. It seems then that one would lose motivation to try to continue to test various hypotheses since there is no hope that they will be of any value, and one can reasonably expect that they will be ultimately flawed.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio That sounds a great deal like academic skepticism over Pyrrhonian or indirect skepticism. The arguments are not sufficient to show that nothing can ever be known (as such a claim would be equally subject to doubt), simply that we don't know yet if we know anything. While this might pose a problem for the dogmatic skeptics, the Indirect Skeptics don't take this as a maxim or ultimatum, but rather an unexplored frontier. An opportunity to discover something.

[@NotOptimized]

is it not a truth claim to say I don't know if knowledge is possible.

[@TheUntergangMan]

Why not apply Occam's razor to Objection V? Literally an infinite number of possible explanations could be proposed for an observed phenomenon, but only one of them is both maximally simple and consistent with observations.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

r_df34 I'm skeptical of Occam's Ravor for a number of reasons. Here are a few: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hKC7qYOln8msi5Y and kzbin.info/www/bejne/bHLZinaKh91qaLM.

[@DJK5364]

Whatever happened to gullible Gary Smith? Has he been forgotten? So tragic

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+DJK5364 One day perhaps, but I started to make the video(s) and I was not clear as to the purpose they were serving so I scraped them. I might just do one at some point in the future, though.

[@bertrandnzomigni8084]

As a skepic, can you prove that justification have any normative power ? If you can't, why bother to try to justifiy your beliefs in the first place ?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I am an indirect skeptic. I talk about justification because that is what my interlocutors think is important. I am not convinced that it has special power, epistemists (at least the internalist ones) do. If you think that something else can turn true beliefs into knowledge feel free to offer it.

[@bertrandnzomigni8084]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene I don't think that knowledge as the epistemists describe it is possible. The whole concept seems to be flawed.

[@bertrandnzomigni8084]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene But if you want to know how to acquire knowledge, i advise you to read C.S Pierce and on his logic of inquiry

[@lockvirtompson5287]

Lately i haven´t had the brainpower left over to engage with this wonderful channel :( I wonder if i could get a clarification on the answer to the third objection. Because it sounds to me that "One need not believe that they are in a state for them to be in that state" ignoring the consequences of this not being true, this does sound like a claim or at least a belief. To me this smells like a infinite regress. Or am i mistaken?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Lockvir Tompson Interesting thought, but I think it can be resolved with a simple change in language. Here would be the better way to state that: I have never been shown that in order for you to believe that you are in a state, you must believe that you are in that state. Therefore I cannot assent to that proposition. However if this is assumed under an indirect proof we can show that this will lead to absurd conclusions like the claim that you must know that you are dreaming when you are dreaming. Therefore either I've made a mistake or we should reject the claim. I don't know which so I suspend judgement. Does that make sense?

[@lockvirtompson5287]

Makes perfect sense. I had an inkling that there was a perfectly good answer to this, so i just had to ask because otherwise this would be gnawing at my brain for the rest of the week. Thanks!

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Lockvir Tompson No problem, thanks for watching (when your brain isn't too tired)!

[@andystitt3887]

If you suspend judgment aren’t you asserting the negatively dogmatic position not knowing?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

For any given claim, you can believe that it is true, you can believe that it is false or you can lack a belief on it. The first to dogmatically assert things, the third does not. I doubt you have any belief about what your grandfather was doing exactly 50 years before today. But thst does not mean you are making a negative assertion. Merely thst you lack a belief one way or the other.

[@justasimplemathematicallye3917]

If the evil demon is deceiving everything about the world then his existence itself is a deception. So even by entertaining the idea that an evil deceptive demon exists you are proving that he does not exist

[@yunoewig3095]

O Vain Philosopher, consum'd with passion Of things futile art thou, for the world moveth All but indifferent to thy vexation, The world careth not ’bout thy philosophy! For riseth not the sun in the great skies, And set’th it not in the immense horizon? Day after day, it’s born and then it dies, Thou canst deny not these plain facts with reason! Vain is the quest of the philosopher! Denieth truth and falsehood: all we are told, Aver'th he, thou canst trust not, canst not know; Denieth good and evil? Nay, behold, Set thine own wretched eyes on this brave world, And peer the hands of God and Lucifer!

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio Nice poem. I would point out that most people care a great deal for philosophy as they care about what is true and what is good. I don't deny these, I ask you to prove them. I lie not in the nihilist came the says that nothing can be known, I simply ask you to prove something is known for me. Anything. It's not my fault that no one can answer the challenge. it reminds me of the poem from my opening video: Religion and science claim to provide Methods to find knowledge and open eyes yet we disagree when told to divide fact from fiction or the truth from the lies Yet our project we must not abandon, Searching for knowledge too high are the stakes, Just proceed in a rigorous fashion To assure we never err or mistake. Pursuant to the goal I challenge you Send me your true, most closely held beliefs, I'll poke prod and test them in order to From this postmodern soup offer relief. Come one come all and here your knowledge hone The gauntlet of Socrates has been thrown.

[@yunoewig3095]

Carneades.org Simple men might care but Nature she doth not Everywhere thou starest seest thou her in action Many a war's been fought over trivial quarrels For Nature doth not crown men of any faction And when the standards are much too high to meet Thou canst not expect answers to thy queries Deny not this fact though: needest thou to eat Or die: that is the truth; the rest are tales of fairies So if thou seek'st the truth gaze at thy bare hands Gaze with thine own eyes; behold, the truth is there! For the truth is raw! Words cannot contain The beauty of the world nor its mysteries Rhyme, philosophise and thou wilt remain lost Plunge into thy heart and thou wilt understand!

[@ostihpem]

@carneades: You do not believe any proposition p to be true? If that is the case you couldn't even come up with your indirect skepticism proofs because to do so you have to make an assumption where you at least have to presuppose that it is true that you make this very assumption right now. Why not say: I believe - like any other human being - that a proposition p is true/false, but I have no certainty about it. You can actually prove that for any p and then conclude: either that very statement is true or it is not. If it is true I don't know s.h.i.t. and that's about it. If it is wrong I do know something, but since I am confident my statement is true I have to wait and see if one day someone comes up and proves that I am wrong. So on one hand you can believe in things, but wiser than a dogmatic, because you can at least see your fallability. I find that kind of skepticism more natural. In any way, Skepticism is in no way a better epistemological position than e.g. dogmatism. Both cannot prove their position, both can be right or wrong, yes, even a Pyrrhonian could be wrong, because it might be simply wrong that he pauses judgement or an omnipotent god could make it happen that pausing judgement is false even if it doesn't seem to us. Like in any science, at the bottom of a field and without proper axioms everything becomes fuzzy and uncertain, the same in epistemology.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

ostihpem There's a difference between believing p to be true and assuming p's truth for the sake of argument. Many mathematicians and logicians assume that various statements that they claim to be false are true to run reductio ad absurdum style arguments on them. If assuming something for the sake of argument were equivalent to believing it, then we would have to claim that anyone that has ever done an indirect proof believes both p and not p. . The worry that I have with claiming to believe in propositions that you are not certain of is that this seems that either 1) You have a certain degree of belief in that proposition and therefore will most likely fall prey to the problems of Bayesian Epistemology or 2) You lack any reason whatsoever for believing that p, or have not way to justify your belief in p. Either one worries me as allowing us to take any arbitrary proposition on faith. . It is an interesting objection to claim that perhaps the dogmatist and the skeptic are on the same level. That in fact when the skeptic seems to lack belief in something, in fact they are believing it and when the dogmatist tries to believe something they are in fact doubting it. However, once we are here, the skeptic has already won. The difference between the skeptic and the dogmatist is that the skeptic is still trying to find a way out of the pit of ignorance. The dogmatist sits in the pit and claims they have already escaped.

[@ostihpem]

You say you do not believe in any p to be true. But you have to believe in the truth of the following proposition: "I assume p's truth for the sake of the argument". Do you see my point? You can doubt p, but can you doubt your doubt about p? Therefore I like the skeptic version where you believe in things (to be true), just as normal, but you do not believe to be certain about it. I think it's also called fallibilism.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

ostihpem I don't need to believe in the truth of the proposition "I assume p's truth for the sake of the argument". I can hope that it is the case. I can desire that it be the case. I can say it. I can type it. These are all unrelated to assenting to it (which is the key feature of belief that sets it apart from these other relations to this proposition). I don't claim either that p is the case, or that I don't know that p is the case. It could be the case that I do in fact know that p is the case. But I'm not sure. Fallibilism is separate from skepticism. It basically allows for bad justification. To me this is just lowering the bar, its just contextualism in disguise.

[@ostihpem]

Imagine you would not believe in the truth of any proposition. Then how can you make a statement x at all? You do not believe x to be true. You do not believe "x" to be true. You do not believe "I hope 'x' is the case" to be true. ... First, at one point you might have to admit that you believe in the truth of a statement. You might doubt the truth of a statement, but usually you do not doubt/hope for the truth that you just made a statement. You just believe it. Second, even if you could do this forever, why should you or I think you say something at all if you always just hope to hope to hope to hope.... So basically my question to the pyrrhonian skeptic is: Why should I even listen to what you say if - by your own position - it's up in the air if you just saying something at all? Even worse: Ask yourself: Why should I listen to myself if it is up to the air that I just say something at all?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

ostihpem You don't have to believe what you say for it to have meaning. Dadaist poetry can have meaning even if created randomly. Scenes of plays have been written with only machines talking (www.amazon.com/lol-other-modern-devised-plays/dp/1484144457) Belief in a statement is not required for that statement to have meaning. The reason you should listen is that the words, whether anyone believes them or not, constitute a proof that certain positions that people do believe are contradictory.

[@PotterSuppositionalist]

Excellent presentation, Carneades.org . I understand your position, even if we don't agree on everything. But I wonder why you frame your arguments exclusively oriented toward classical logic? That seems odd considering you provide good reasons to reject it as untenable. The same goes for internalism. Once the horse is dead, it seem cruel to continue beating it.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Potter Suppositionalist Right now, it's the most popular opinion out there. And more than anything it is the pre-theoretical conception that most people would assent to if presented with it. I'll get to the others soon, but frankly if everyone was exploring alternative options to intternalism and classical logic that would be great. It's very ingrained in philosophy and the way that we do philosophy right now.

[@PotterSuppositionalist]

Carneades.org Thank you, I look forward to it. It seems most people consider _logic_ to be a unified and changeless school, but the existence of competing fields of logic show that not to be the case. I'm currently interested in learning about paraconsistent logic and dialectical methodology, in part due to writing of UK logician Graham Priest.

[@bodach7524]

Potter Suppositionalist "Once the horse is dead , it seems cruel to continue beating it .It is not cruel to beat a dead horse; it is cruel to beat a live one.

[@andystitt3887]

Can you doubt the existence of fallacies?

[@Paradoxarn.]

You're presenting a false dichotomy in arguing for skepticism by contrasting it with "dogmatism". This also makes you assertions that you lack beliefs sound hollow, since it seems like you believe in this dichotomy. There isn't just skeptics and dogmatists, there are also those who believe in knowledge without entrenching themselves in any particular view, they simply believe what they think is the most convincing and most rational. I simply cannot take seriously your claim that you don't have any beliefs when you assert with such extreme conviction that you don't have any beliefs. You assert that the indirect skeptic makes no assertions and so on, it just isn't coherent. You are certainly correct that you need not believe that you don't believe to lack belief but just as you need to believe that you're dreaming to (honestly) claim that you're dreaming and just as you need to believe that you're human to claim you're human, the same is true for belief. You need to believe that you lack beliefs in order to honestly claim it. But even if I took your assertions at face value, that you lack beliefs, that doesn't mean that you escape the burden of justification. Sure you need not justify your beliefs but you still need to justify you actions. As you've previously stated, while you can suspend your beliefs (I'll agree for the sake of argument) you can't suspend your actions. This means that you'll be forced to make a choice, which means you'll be forced to make a justification. Why? For the same reasons you have to justify beliefs, otherwise you're being irrational. The problem for the skeptic is that in order to justify something, one need to believe something. Thus, if we believe the skeptic then we will be forced to conclude that skepticism is an irrational position. You analogy with the rats made me think of people who are starving in Africa. If someone were serving rats to such people, would you then say to the starving people "Stop, don't eat that! You should demand something better than rats, at least you should wait for some bread." I'm sure you wouldn't think highly of someone who did so without personally offering an alternative. Just because good enough isn't perfect doesn't mean that good enough isn't good enough. What I must ask is if both the belief in a realistic external reality and the belief in an evil deceiver is supported by all the evidence and makes exactly the same predictions then isn't a belief in one a belief in the other. It seem to me that these metaphysical "theories" are just different ways of saying the same thing. They are just different formulations and the effort to make them seem separate is just smoke and mirrors.

[@TovarishchEndymion]

+Paradoxarn If you believe knowledge is possible, then you're a dogmatist, by definition. Going by what you believe is the most rational seems more like normal skepticism than philosophical skepticism. If you don't make any claims for your method of rationality being sound, then it is irrelevant to the philosophical skeptic.

[@Paradoxarn.]

Stuxnet If one believes in dogma, then one is a dogmatist, otherwise not. The only reasons I can fathom for someone to say otherwise would be either due to ignorance of how to communicate clearly in the english language or purely as a manipulative rhetorical device.