Indirect Skepticism

A description of "Indirect Skepticism". A variant on Pyrrhonian skepticism we argue for here at Carneades.org.
Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!
Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!

[@chrispricehere]

I don't know. It sorta seems that you believe you're an Indirect Skeptic and you believe that it's consistent to suggest that "proclivities" are real. Otherwise, you wouldn't feel compelled to reject all your apparent belief commitments. It seems anyway that you believe you NEED to reject anything to be consistent. Otherwise, you call it a proclivity showing you believe that proclivities are rationales...so on and so on. Oh, and thanks for making these!

[@tgenov]

The Indirect Skeptic position leads to a performative contradiction due to a paradox of vagueness [1]. P1 is not explicit. What do you believe to be "the laws" of logic and why? A constructivist rejects LEM. It's not necessary given Diaconescu's theorem [2]. Indirectly, this is also an argument for free will because no formal system of logic can get off the ground without choosing its axioms. A dialetheists [3] rejects LNC and the principle of explosion in favour of para-consistent logics [4]. If you happen to believe that any given set of axioms or rules of inference are 'the laws' of logic that makes you a particularist and a dogmatist. This is more or less along similar lines of reasoning as Quine in his paper - Two Dogmas of Empiricism [5] [1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox [2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaconescu%27s_theorem [3] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetheism [4] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic [5] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Dogmas_of_Empiricism

[@Tylermania66]

I dont really see where the P1 mistake in calling {LNC, LI, LEM} "the laws of logic" that we use is a soritex paradox. other then that, great comment.

[@tgenov]

@@Tylermania66 The vagueness is in talking about "THE laws of logic" (using the definite particular) without explicitly stating them. You are correct that if "the laws" of logic are explicitly specified {LNC, LI, LEM} then it's no longer vague, but it is particular, therefore leading to a Particularist/Dogmatist, not a Skeptical position (as claimed).

[@anonanon7553]

I wondered the same thing, but in response to a comment above OP states that he in fact does suspend belief in whether the "laws of logic" are either correct or incorrect. He holds no belief in any set of axioms. He only uses that proof to get the dogmatist to assert that the laws of logic lead to a contradiction, so that he must join the skeptic. Does that make sense?

[@tgenov]

@@anonanon7553 the law of non-contradiction is an axiom. It prescribes that a proposition and its negation can't both be true - a claim that Dialetheists disagree with. ergo, I am not sure what it means to "suspend belief" in the LNC when it's used prescriptively. In another video Carnaedes implies that he actively works towards avoiding contradictions - I don't even go that far. To quote Walt Whitman: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large - I contain multitudes." Perhaps the moral of the story is simply that there is far more to Truth than mere logic.

[@anonanon7553]

@@tgenov Todor Genov The poster of the video claims neither to believe nor disbelieve ANY axioms of any system, including the various laws of contradiction. In a comment above he says "The skeptic shows that the laws of classical logic are contradictory, but since the skeptic might be wrong, they suspend their belief about the consequences of their reasoning, and therefore cannot assert that the laws of logic are correct or incorrect". He's merely playing the game of avoiding contradictions, without necessarily believing the game to be true or false. That's what he means by suspend belief or judgement. It's basically just performative. Personally, I really appreciate you replying and your view on things. I've also always believed that there's nothing wrong with contradiction. Ever since I was 13, and I first started questioning this stuff I thought that and I still hold that doubt today. That's actually my favorite quote of all time.

[@AnswersinReason]

Hey, found (was pointed to) your channel a couple of days ago via a Twitter friend, enjoyed the videos so far, just have some things I find off with "indirect scepticism" - I realise though, this might be my misunderstanding rather than anything being wrong, so I hope you can answer a few questions for me please? "They lack any beliefs" Do they really believe that? What I mean to say here is, are you speaking about all beliefs, they have no beliefs what so ever, or are we speaking of in things without justification? Are we speaking just of first order beliefs, or are we in an infinite regress of lacking belief? What about brute facts? "show that their position leads to a contradiction" This would indicate that you do indeed only mean first order beliefs, otherwise we'd have a bit of a contradiction. "paradoxical proposition section" It's not a valid proposition as it is purposefully illogical. Why is it not a valid proposition? It has no truthmaker to the sentence. It refers to itself and the claim that it makes, but at the same time makes no coherent claim. Have I missed something here? - I have further thoughts but answering those questions might make me realise I was going down the wrong rabbit hole.

[@AnswersinReason]

@Mr Fl0v whilst I agree with this, I'm not sure how that really answers any of my questions.

[@AnswersinReason]

@Mr Fl0v I think it's actually impossible for anyone who's alive and doesn't have something wrong with their brain to have no beliefs, even if it is really simple ones like believing they are human, that they are alive, that the ground won't open up if they step on it etc. If you had literally no beliefs you would be completely paralysed with inaction and indecision.

[@Lugyfour]

I think I just realised that I became an "indirect skeptic" some time ago without knowing it.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Awesome! Join the club. :)

[@Elgeneralsimo69]

1:19 Isn't "attitude" synonymous with "belief"? To "hold an attitude" about something is equivalent to "believing" in that something. 6:09 Yes, yes it is. Functionally, "wonder, hope, and desire" perform no different function than "belief"; you've only exchanged a declaration of belief for a question of wonder: "I believe god exists", which is a strong(est?) statement of belief for "I wonder if god exists?", which is a weaker (null?) statement of belief, or "I hope god exists" and "I desire for god to exist" and "I doubt god exists", which are all stronger statements of belief, or "Consider god exists", which is a speculative statement of belief. It is the shades of connotation that one ascribes to each different word that you are, incorrectly IMO, relying for your *_belief_* that you have no *_beliefs_*. It is for this reason that you can "get by with desire, wonder, and doubt" since they are all just shades of belief. 7:00, "Proclivity" is just another word for an "irrational belief" or "axiom", since they irrationally believe that by acting as if cars exist they are somehow reaching more "truth". This is no more "rational" than believing that by acting as if the cars did not exist they would be somehow reaching more "truth". Proclivity thus suffers from the same criticism (or lack thereof) ascribed to belief because as I'm proving, they are equivalent, isomorphic. On the other, more interesting hand, if you are arguing for "instinct" such that the skeptic doesn't know why they do anything nor believe in any reason you'd give them for that, that is a different and all together more interesting ball of wax. I could see the case of building a set of beliefs that would be inaccessible to the believer and thus constitute a set of instincts. This form of "instinctual skepticism" makes sense to me but I'm not sure if that is how it's used. After all, there is a series of beliefs underlying the statement "I should avoid fast moving objects" given that in martial arts (or ball sports) for example, the opposite is true and I have to belief the opposite to be true to train. But most disturbing is that by ascribing the basis of you actions on something that, by your own definition, has no rational justification and thus could be false. Consider that as it is not true that you should always avoid any fast moving object, y ou are holding onto an irrational belief and thus, as I state again below, the basis of indirect skepticism rationality is, at it's core, an irrational concept anyway! 2:14 So assume all tautologies. Find a one contradiction in that tautology, which is itself a contradiction. Use this to negate all tautologies. or ∀⟙(∃⟙>⟘)>~⟙ The very basis of indirect skepticism rationality is based on the contradiction that ∃⟙>⟘. 3:23 As I've mentioned in other comments, this is the problem with divorcing temporal logic from logical arguments. The paradox presented is resolved by adding _"...at all times."_ to P1 and _"...at some time."_ to P2 and P3. With those addendums there is no paradox in P4 and P5. 5:28 The roundabout example I gave in another video where I argue the skeptic in the manner of Carneades (as I said then but I now know as indirect skepticism) would still starve or have to make an "irrational" decision. Thus when "push comes to shove", a skeptic of any color would still be forced to make an irrational decision or die. Would not a more tenable position thus be that as a skeptic one doesn't seek to make NO irrational decisions but just to actively MINIMIZE them?

[@ronlongo]

OK so you might want to take this all with a grain of salt. My admittedly possibly tricky memory just seems to compel me to feel that I should say that it's very possible that I enjoyed the proof where I suspect the conclusion was that the laws of logic are false. But I'm not entirely certain I feel that way, and anyway doubt this thought matters to you, Carneades or whoever produced this video. Moreover I'm not entirely certain why (or if) I'm submitting a comment. Though it just does seem to be the case that it's impossible for me to not act and so I guess I might be acting right now (though this could very well be something else). I think I'm having trouble editing this because what sorta seems to be the problem is that I'm just not sure I can distinguish one object form another (of even know for sure if there are objects) because I'm not entirely sure what an object is, or that what I think are my eyes are really sending me any sort of meaningful information at all. So there seems to be the problem that I'm not entirely sure I can even speak a language, but if I could I might very well be doing just that at some point in time. So I doubt I want to suggest (but perhaps not assert) that I don't think your video (or whatever that is) convinced me of much of anything, and I perhaps did not after all find it thought provoking. Not sure but probably not very sincerely, Ron (or maybe something like that)

[@gutzimmumdo4910]

8:25 "animals act without propositional attitudes (how do you know this?), therefore we can do things without belief" does that follows? How do you know animals dont have beliefs if they dont have a lenguaje?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I don't know it. I am an indirect skeptic, I assume the positions of others as an indirect proof, show they lead to contradictions, and then dismiss them. Most dogmatists claim that animals have no propositional attitudes, because most dogmatists think that animals do not understand language. If you think that animals are able to speak language, feel free to object.

[@afm4711]

Your argument that "proves" a contradiction from logic does not work. The problem is that you have not specified how propositions need to be formed. You actually believe that everything you can concoct from words is a proposition. Well, if that is not the case. It is quite obvious that just concatenating words does not always lead to propositions to which P1 could be applied. Consequently there must be rules that govern how propositions have to be formed. This means that your P3 goes out the window. So you have a problem: you actually do believe something, you are not arguing without believes. And your argument is baseless.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Andreas Müller If you start excluding things from being propositions, the revenge paradox will just take over. kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6Svgn59msSUn9k

[@afm4711]

Well, you have to. You simple cannot expect to ever get anything reasonable out of "green sentence wants this ears". Even if you require that propositions are syntactically correct like "this sentence wants green ears", it does not make much sense. And if you go so far as to require that they be syntactically correct, you can also require that they are not self contradictory.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Andreas Müller you are missing the point of the revenge paradox. There is an important difference between you sentence and the Liar revenge paradox. Take the following two sentences: P: P is meaningless or P is false. T: P is meaningless or P is false. If you think that the statement "T1) P is meaningless" is meaningful and true, then we can add "P is false" to get T. This makes T true and meaningful. Yet you think that P, which is completely identical to T is meaningless. That's just a denial of the law of identity, at which logic will once again fall apart. If you don't think that the statement T1 is meaningful and true, then i don't know what you are saying about P, and you can't assert that it is meaningless. Note that there is no context in which "green sentence wants this ears" can be deduced logically from something that you hold, while P can be.

[@polemizator723]

Notes 1. Do someones position or laws of logic leads to contradiction? Secptic probalby should suspend judgement. So there is no way to show that someone position leads to contradiction. 3:30 It is not neseserly contradiction. Tarski found a solution. Mayby this solution is false. But mayby we just suspend judgement. 5:20 We dobmnt know that we can suspend the action. Mayby we can. 5:36 There can potencialy be also unaware belives. But whats a difference. Beetels of Wittgenstein Attitudes are beetles. I see only action. The names ,,belief" or ,,proclivity" sounds like beetles. What language game is more useful. That witch have proclivities and unwave belives to describe sceptic action or That witch have only proclivities. What is the difference between situation A. - I have provlivity to eat icecream instead grass. B I have provlivity to akt as icecream exist. The first looks unmoved by any agrument. The second could be move by argumet. Mayby the better desripcuon is unwave belief. In B Type the thinking proces can change mind. 6:42 Peterson act ,,as if God exist" it is not the same. But mayby sceptic can has proclivity to has a religion or ideology or wherever.

[@StupidTheist]

According to the classical definition of "proposition", a statement is not a proposition unless the law of excluded middle applies to it. That is, the statement must be either true or false. The statement "this proposition is false" is not a proposition. It is only a statement.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** I don't think that will be able to escape the revenge paradox though. "Either this proposition is not true, or it is not a proposition." If it is a proposition then the first half of the disjunction must be true, which we know that it cannot be, therefore it is not a proposition, but a statement. However this mean that the second half of the disjunction is true, so we can assign it a truth value, so it is a proposition after all. Therefore the second half of the disjuction must be false, so it is not a proposition and around and around we go. The Liar's Revenge Paradox

[@StupidTheist]

Carneades.org Disagree. 1) To say that a statement is not a proposition is to state that it is extra-logical (assuming our logic to be classical predicate logic.) It cannot be used in place of a proposition in a deductive argument, and it cannot be assigned a truth value which is meaningful within our logic. 2) The statement "foo bar" is not a proposition. 3) The statement "1+1=2" is a proposition. 4) Connecting two statements with a logical connective yields a proposition if and _only_ if each of the connected statements is a proposition. 5) "1+1=2 _or_ foo bar" is not a proposition. 6) "This statement is a false proposition" is not a proposition, and it cannot be assigned a truth value which is meaningful within (classical) propositional logic. 7) Since "This statement is a false proposition" is not a proposition, one cannot argue in the manner of "if it is true then... and if it is false then..." 8) "This statement is not a proposition" is not a proposition, and it cannot be assigned a truth value which is meaningful within (classical) propositional logic. 9) Since "This statement is not a proposition" is not a proposition, one cannot argue in the manner "if it is true, then... and if it is false, then...". 10) The statement "This statement is a false proposition, or it is not a proposition" is not a proposition, and one cannot argue in the manner of "if it is true, then... and if it is false, then..." 11) The "paradoxical" argument you present relies upon treating non-propositional statements as if they are propositions. It is logically invalid. The paradox is apparent, but not real.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** I see no reason to accept 4. It seems to me that we can assign "1+1=2 or foo bar" a truth value. It is true. For a disjunction, if one half is true, the whole thing is true regardless of the status of the second half. Also that claim seems to cause some more problems for what are allowed to be propositions. Take this instantiation of the LEM: 5.1) Either this proposition is true or this proposition is false. In order to hold your position you must deny that this is a proposition. And yet this proposition can be deduced from the LEM. Therefore your 4 is tantamount to denying the LEM, which was the whole point of the paradox in the first place.

[@StupidTheist]

Carneades.org *"I see no reason to accept 4. It seems to me that we can assign "1+1=2 or foo bar" a truth value. It is true. For a disjunction, if one half is true, the whole thing is true regardless of the status of the second half."* I would like to replace the expression "foo bar" by the expression "who is Bob". "foo bar" could conceivably "mean" something which is a proposition. "who is Bob" suggests a meaning that is never a proposition. Hope you don't mind. You can "assign" a truth value to "1+1=2 or who is Bob" but not in a way that is meaningful within propositional logic. If one allows as a proposition a disjunction between a proposition and a non-propositional statement, then one will be able to prove that any proposition P in propositional logic is both true and false, rendering the notion that there are "propositions" in the logic meaningless.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** I'm sorry, I'm a little confused with your change of statement. What is the important difference between "foo bar" and "who is Bob"? How is the truth value of "1+1=2 or who is Bob" not meaningful in propositional logic? How will this make any proposition true and false? I apologize for my denseness, but I honestly don't understand.

[@adnaanraja1]

To suspend belief on the basis of that argument, you have to believe that the laws of logic are contradictory or atleast believe that the conclusion is true. Suspending belief based on a reasonable argument entails believing the truth of that argument in the first place. Kindly, correct me if I'm misunderstanding.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I think you misunderstand. The sketpic lacks all beliefs, including those in the laws of logic. The indirect skeptic then encounters someone who does beleive in the laws of logic. The skeptic shows them that they are contradictory, but since the skeptic might be wrong, or have been decieved in their proof, they suspend belief about the consequences of their reasoning, and therefore cannot assert that the laws of logic are either correct or incorrect. The dogmatist on the other hand, must either assert that the laws of logic entail their own contradiciton, or join the skeptic in the lack of belief. The skeptic sage does not have beleifs and seek to doubt them, rather they lack beleifs and seek to find them.

[@andystitt3887]

Doesn’t Phyrrhoinsm sort of assert a negatively dogmatic position about if it cat be known that knowledge is possible?

[@shashvatshukla]

My takeaways: There are other propositional attitudes other than belief. Belief is this very sure commitment that a sceptic does not want to make so he can get by rephrasing everything in terms of other attitudes such as proclivity or things being "seemingly true". This clarifies how it is possible to live as a sceptic. I feel that the main value here was showing clearly how belief does not play a part in arguments or action as we think it might.

[@jocr1971]

to say something 'just seems' and to then act according to the seeming is still an act on a belief. for example. you could be crossing a street. you see a car heading at you. you think, "Hmm, it seems as if a car is heading towards me." if you don't accept it to be the case(have a belief) and move out of the way, you will be killed.

[@jameswest6761]

Isn't the liar's paradox a self reference paradox resulting only from the fact that you are using a language in which one can make a statement which references itself?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+james west But the problem is that we have a language which can make statements and does reference itself. The job of logic is to correctly map what we say onto a logical framework. If logic cannot map all of language onto this logical frame work, it has failed.

[@jameswest6761]

Again though, the liar paradox isn't a problem of logic, because a logical framework in a language that does not have self referential statements does not have the lair paradox. Therefore, the liar paradox is a problem of english and other self referential languages.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+james west But the problem is that it is the job of logic to express English. And in fact, the liar's paradox is going to apply even to a basic logic so long as it contains its own metalanguage. kzbin.info/www/bejne/baavioRuo719fK8 The point is that we could solve the liars paradox by getting rid of certain precepts in logic, and we are underdetermiend (kzbin.info/www/bejne/maCbkpd_g7V2pNU) as to whether we should get rid of our expressive language or our contradictory logical framework.

[@subliminallime4321]

Objection to P3- "This proposition" is not a proposition & therefore is not the type of thing that can be true or false. It's like saying "A dog is false" or "Green is true." 'This' is a determiner, 'proposition' is a noun in the context they're used in P3. Truth (or falsehood) is a property of sentences, statements... stuff like that, not nouns. Fight me, nerds. 🧐

[@subliminallime4321]

It's like asking "Is 'one plus one equals' true or false?" It doesn't make sense! 1+1=2 is true. 1+1=5 is false. 1+1= by itself is not the type of thing that can be true or false. You need a thing on the other side of the =

[@jocr1971]

"this proposition is false." is not a proposition. it's a self-referent nonsense statement.

[@anonanon7553]

I'm really ignorant about this stuff, but I do have one question. If you're a skeptic why use a logical proof to show that the rules of logic lead to a contradiction? Logical axioms are just assumptions in the first place. Isn't it enough just to doubt that those axioms are true? If you doubt that contradiction has any bearing on or indication of truth then nothing else is necessary. Simply just doubt that something can't be both true and false at the same time. Additionally, why do you continue to play but the rules of logic, if you doubt that it should be followed in the first place? Why not just be a skeptic AND have beliefs. Who tf cares if you're not even following traditional logic anyway. I really hope you answer my questions. I'm so curious about your response. These are thoughts ive had for so long 😅

[@anonanon7553]

@Lever Du Jour I know that what I'm saying applies to my own comment. I never said it didn't. I was just wondering why he did a logical proof in the first place. But he explained in a comment below, that it was to show that the rules of logic themselves contain a contradiction. Even if you dogmatically stuck to classical axioms, you could use those very axioms to disprove themselves.

[@CosmicFaust]

Congratulations, Carneades on reaching one million KZbin video views. :)

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+Ellis Farrow Thanks! And thanks for helping me get there!

[@alittax]

The argument with animals was very interesting!

[@MrTaciturnguy]

cant we say we act based on hypothetical predictions that we never have full confidence in.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

MrTaciturnguy As I mention in the video, proclivities are just one of many ways to describe how one can act without believing something. I would personally shy away from having any beliefs even that you assent to partially, as this may turn into something like Bayesian Epistemology. The best way to phrase it might be something like pragmatic maxims. Acting in accordance with certain claims, but not assenting to their truth. But this might just boil down to proclivities. It seems to me there's a good concept at the heart of this idea, you should flesh it out some more.

[@dewinthemorning]

Hello, :) I used a part of this video (2:30-4:00) in my latest video. I added some other examples where the law of non-contradiction does not hold.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** Awesome. Thanks.

[@sronicker]

Do you believe that you don’t have beliefs?

[@Doubting_Thomas1]

What are your (and other skeptics) thoughts on getting around your argument by denying your second premise?? Namely that propositions are not necessarily true or false because there is more than just true xor false. For example there may be multiple truth values (some of which we are not aware of) or some spectrum of truth values between 0 and 1, or it is possible to have a linear combination of 0 and 1 (similar to spin in quantum mechanics).... It is just that we have not adapted our minds to handle such variations well (similar to our difficulty in handling picturing hypercubes). I can elaborate if you like on how this avoids skepticism but I suppose you get my gist

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

pj This is an interesting position and it does avoid some of the problems of the paradox. However, as I state in my series on the paradox The Modern Liar Paradox if you replace true or false with true or not true, the problem will reassert itself even for things like fuzzy logic.

[@Doubting_Thomas1]

Carneades.org I see, well now that I now about your Revenge Liar's Paradox challenge I will look attempt to work out a formal proof in such a truth system (and look into Graham Priest's formulation) and respond with the video if I get the time. When would you ideally like response videos to be submitted by?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

pj Awesome. I'm doing it on a rolling basis. But the sooner it's submitted the higher it will be on the playlist.

[@incertoa3345]

You have a paper on this? Would be awesome for my thesis.

[@andystitt3887]

Is assumption proportional attitude.

[@mikevsamuel]

Re P3, why is the sentence "This proposition is false" a proposition?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Mike Samuel Why would it not be? And even if you come up with a reason, the revenge paradox, will take over to create P3' "Either this proposition is false or it is not a proposition" If you assert that is not a proposition and therefore not true, you are claiming that it is the case that P3 is either false or not a proposition. But the statement that you try to assert, was the very statement that you said was not a proposition.

[@mikevsamuel]

Carneades.org I'm probably horribly confused about revenge, but I'll plant a flag. "This proposition is false or (there is no known computational process that halts with a unique output in (true, false) for all ontologies that bind its free variables)" seems to dodge revenge. There is no computational process that will answer the question "is there a computational process for ...", so we don't get to expand our partition to (true, false, not computable) because the latter element is not itself computable. We might find new formalisms or algorithms tomorrow that could increase our set of computable sentences in which case we would be warranted in saying new things are propositions, but we are never warranted in making the claim "P is not a proposition" because we can't compute that something is impossible to compute. I'm an intuitionist, not a skeptic, because I think we make progress by starting with open definitions of formal primitives like numbers and propositions: we can claim that something is a number or a proposition or a relation based on a constructive proof, but we cannot make the contrary claim since there is no bound on those definitions.

[@PotterSuppositionalist]

Mike Samuel If you would like an explanation of the Revenge Paradox, Carneades made this: The Liar's Revenge Paradox

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Mike Samuel It does not seem to me that this is able to evade the revenge paradox. If I take you correctly, you are saying that 1: 1) This statement is not true. Is a statement that there is no known process that will output either true or not true. I fail to see how this is not a category of propositions. Propositions that for all known processes fail to give an output. We may not be able to give an output of true or false for 1, but we surely can give an output of "There exists a known process that will provide an output" or "There does not exist a known process that will provide an output. If you think that we cannot provide such a distinction then we can't classify 1 as a statement for which there exists no known process that will provide an output, and the paradox reappears and you have not been able to tell us anything about the statement. If you think that we can state that of 1, "There exists no known process that will provide an output" then the revenge paradox will take over to give us 2: 2) Either this statement is not true or there exists no known process that will provide an output for it of T or ~T. Now we are unable to ascertain if the proposition is true, not true and on the second level if it can have a process for ascertaining if it is true or not. If there exists such a process, then the second half of the disjuction is false and the statement must be true or false. However if this is the case, the truth or falsehood of the statement is determined by the first half of the disjunction, and we cannot determine it's truth value. Therefore there must be no process for ascertaining if this proposition is true or not. But if that is the case, then the second half of the disjunction is true, and therefore the whole proposition is true, so it is not the case that there exists no known process for determining if 2 is true or not, therefore the second half must be false, and around we go again.

[@mikevsamuel]

Carneades.org As an intuitionist, I do not agree with "Therefore there must be no process for ascertaining if this proposition is true or not." The main difference of intuitionism, is that, unlike classical logic which assumes the existence of a universe, U, which can be the basis for a partition with countably many cases, intuitionism does not assume that there is a U, so does not allow this leap. I reject "when you have ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth." False dichotomies, and more generally, false partitions, are mental machinery for turning failures of imagination into false positives. It seems dodgy to treat the absence of a result as itself a result. In particular, concluding anything based on the absence of computational processes requires having computational processes that reason about computational processes. My experience as a non-academic practitioner who nevertheless does a lot of static analysis for a living is that as soon as you start trying to write programs to reason about arbitrary programs you run headfirst into the halting problem.

[@Paradoxarn.]

Watching this video I realize that I made a small mistake when making my video-response to the liars paradox, I thought I had only modified the definition of truth but I also in actuality modified the law of the excluded middle. No matter! Or even better since now that I know your position, I can show what's wrong with it. First, new law of the excluded middle: Propositions either express truth or do not express truth. "This statement is not true" therefore is not true since truth is not a property of statements. It expresses truth but isn't true. Propositional attitudes are a good try but it all hinges on you being able to divorce them from beliefs. Doubt can be interpreted as a belief that something is likely to be untrue or that it seems to be untrue. Proclivity can be interpreted as normative beliefs such as "I should act as if X was true" or perhaps just as instinctual behaviors and attitudes. Proclivity being instinctual I think only works in some situations. If that's the case, which does seem plausible, then beliefs are indispensable after all.

[@askray1000]

isn't that type of arguing just Socratic Method?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I would say that it is similar, but involves complete and global doubt, not just local doubt around the issue discussed.

[@dewinthemorning]

Wow. I didn't know I was an indirect skeptic!

[@StupidTheist]

***** You are not any kind of classical skeptic. You make assertions of truth claims right and left.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** Cool! Join the club.

[@dewinthemorning]

***** No, actually, what I do (as you would have seen if you had listened to my videos carefully!), is, I show how the assertions that famous apologists make, are false.

[@TheRealisticNihilist]

The problem is that the propositional attitudes, (wonder, doubt, hope desire) etc can probably all be paraphrased away in terms of belief. I know Bilgrami's constitutive account of intentionality had it such that the belief that one has the desire to x constitutes the desire to x. The animals thing is interesting too. On Bilgrami's view, I take it that one can have first order intentional States without second order intentional States. I feel like I can make a paraphrase of all the examples you given such that they can all be paraphrased in terms of belief.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** Proclivities, at least do not seem to be able to be as beliefs require conscious assent, while proclivities do not. And proclivities are propositional attitudes that predict action not that explain mental states. You could have the belief that "I will stand up to my father" but lack the proclivity to actually take that action when the situation arises.And, I see no reason to buy Bilgrami's view. it seems to me that having the belief "I desire a glass of water" might be sufficient for having the desire of a glass of water, but it is not necessary. If I wake up in the middle of the night, reach for my bedside table, drink some water and go back to sleep, I highly doubt that I formed any beliefs in that whole process. Frankly I doubt I could have formed a coherent sentence, much less assented to one. If we are allowed first order intentional states, without second order ones, then the skeptic is fine, as he can have those first order states, and simply never accept the second order ones, if I understand your point correctly.

[@TheRealisticNihilist]

I'm skeptical of whether beliefs need conscious assent. I'm working through that book, but I take it that first order intentional states would just be intentional states that don't refer to themselves consciously. In that sense, I suppose one could have beliefs that they were ignorant of. Bilgrami gives this example of believing your mother is in India. You can hold this belief without being conscious of it, for example.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** The question is not about beliefs that you are not currently conscious of, but rather beliefs that you were never conscious of. While you might not be consciously thinking about your mother being in India, and still believe it, it would be strange to say that you believe that your mother is in India, but you were never conscious of it. It seems to me that you must have at least some moment of assent or consciousness of assent to a statement to believe it.

[@TheRealisticNihilist]

Carneades.org I'll have to think about it. Perhaps the properties of belief haven't been parsed out add well as I'd like. I'll have to talk about this later.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** For sure. I'm still thinking about the concepts too. It's an interesting question, and it seems to me that the concepts of what we act on without belief is one of the areas of this theory that is still up for revision so I welcome thoughts and criticism on this point.

[@matthewjameswalsh]

How can we conclude P7 from the indirect proof provided above? Hasn't our proof only demonstrated that the conjunction of P1/P2 and P3 is false? Unless the Liar's Paradox is directly entailed by P1/P2, I cannot see how P1 itself is false... Our indirect proof method seems to be dialectical, that is, we are using the beliefs of an interlocutor to derive a contradiction in the interlocutor's belief set. But the interlocutor might always go back and say, " Hey, I'm not so sure about P3- something seems fishy...", and retract assent. In that case, we may be left without a key premise needed to derive a contradiction- here, P1/P2 not being enough without P3. Also, seeing that our interlocutor here is a skeptic about everything but P1/P2, then it hardly seems likely that they would assent to P3- they may suspend judgment on P3. How then can we conclude that the laws of logic themselves lead to a contradiction, when it seems that it is only the laws of logic in conjunction with the Liar's Paradox that leads to a contradiction?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Matt Walsh P3 is entailed by P1 and P2. Here's how: Take L to represent the statement "This statement is false" or in other words L=~L call this the definition of L or L Def. P1) L (AIP) P2) ~L (Id. L Def) P3) L&~L (P1,P2 Conj) P4) ~L (P1-P3 IP) P5) L (Id. L Def) P6) L&~L (P4, P5, Conj.) P7) ~(~LvL) (P6, DM) Therefore by the laws of logic alone, it is not the case that either not L or L. Or L is neither true nor false.

[@matthewjameswalsh]

Carneades.org This proof considered, I am still confused as to how the laws of logic alone lead to a contradiction, or how P3 is entailed by P1/P2 in the previous proof. It seems to me that now, we are assuming a formulation of the Liar's Paradox and then using it in a proof, resulting in a contradiction and then a challenge to the principle of bivalence in P7. This however, does not seem to result from the laws of logic themselves, but again, the laws of logic in conjunction with the formulation of the Liar's Paradox we have assumed. Can you show me how the laws of logic alone lead to a contradiction, without the Liar's Paradox? Or, can you show me in simpler terms how the Liar's Paradox is entailed by the laws of logic? I can't seem to find it here... But, perhaps my trouble is in what I assume is meant by the laws of logic. I am assuming you mean the three traditional laws of thought used in two-valued logic. If your meaning is more liberal, then I would like to know. But, I am still having trouble understanding how P=~P and thus, ~(~PvP) is entailed by P=P, ~(P&~P)/Pv~P alone. I see that using the laws of logic can lead to problems for the laws of logic. However, I cannot see how this happens without additional assumptions.

[@HxH2011DRA]

If the consquence isn't different what's le point

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

The difference is whether particular actions are justifiable, or just the way that someone acts. You are making a very different claim if you say that you have a proclivity to act a certain way, and claiming that you act a certain way based on a true and justified belief in some proposition. It is the difference between saying that you just tend to eat cheese, and saying that you believe it is your duty to eat cheese, and anyone that does not is going to hell. Both cause you to take the same action, but one is a proclivity which does not claim to have justification, the other is a belief which does.

[@HxH2011DRA]

Carneades.org I see, thanks for the response

[@TSBoncompte]

There's a case to be made against p4 here: namely, that "this proposition is false" is not a proposition. if you take "all propositions are either true or false" as a statement of definitions instead of itself a proposition, the paradox ceases to be one.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Here's the longer form argument against that claim: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gnjWd56Jf76giNE Here's the short version: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6Svgn59msSUn9k

[@TSBoncompte]

in the longer form argument there's a problem in that it conflates an utterance being not well formed grammatically with it not being well formed semantically. "i of green vrnawhd" is not well formed grammatically, but "afghanistan is false" is perfectly grammatical, it's just semantically nonsense. when people say that the liar's paradox is nonsense they mean it's nonsense in the semantic sense, not in the grammatical sense, and so it's the rules of semantics, not syntax, that depend on like space and time and various other things about the world. and this shouldn't surprise us, should it? because language uses reference. when I say "my dog is there" that sentence is only true if what is there is actually my dog, and the sentence is only truth-functional if i do in fact have a dog. there doesn't seem to be anything weird about it. if the only criterion one has for a formula to be well formed is syntax and grammar, then sure, all kinds of problems emerge, but that just goes to prove that you can't understand language as just grammar. linguists all know this, and they'll tell you in order to understand language you need to look at grammar, semantics, and even pragmatics. there's another argument against the liar's paradox that applies perfectly well to the revenge one, and that's the recursion problem. maybe it's the case that these infinitely recursive utterances are never truth functional because there is no proposition that they resolve to that can be judged. like, " this statement is not true " resolves to " this statement is not true is not true" which in turn resolves to " this statement is not true is not true is not true" and so on ad infinitum, never actually coming to something that is what the statement means, never resolving into a proposition to be evaluated, and since it doesn't contain a proposition, it is not truth functional. this argument works equally well for the liar's paradox and the liar's revenge paradox. other referential utterances, like "this statement is in room 202" do resolve to propositions, like "the piece of paper this statement is written in is spatially located in a certain room" or something. but liar's and liar's revenge don't resolve.

[@Voidsworn]

How about the proclivity to have/form beliefs?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Voidsworn What of it? It seems to be, needless to say, a proclivity that the skeptic lacks.

[@Voidsworn]

Carneades.org Hmm, I do not know about that. I do understand this: I act based upon whatever model the brain inside my skull has created, I default to whatever repeated patterns have been observed. A ball goes up, it comes down. Perhaps aspects of our internal models are labeled "beliefs", though they are not really. They are default expectations, either born with or acquired over time.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Voidsworn Interesting position. The worry I have is that it does not seem that the mind (something that has things like beliefs and desires) can be reduced to the brain (something that has neurons and blood vessels) because of zombies. Philosophical Zombies (Thought Experiment)

[@Voidsworn]

Carneades.org I consider mind more a verb, something that brains can do. I recall Daniel Dennet using pzimboes as a counter to pzombies. I look at it this way: no matter what, if I encounter an entity such as yourself and you behave in every way like I expect a nonpzombie to act, then I have to act as if you are not even if you are a pzombie as I have no reason to even consider the idea much less consider the possibility you are one.

[@Voidsworn]

Carneades.org it is similar to my views in solipsism, brain in a vat and whatever. No matter what kind of reality I live in, I have to treat it as "real". There are consequences. In all realities, if I start beating you in a crowd, I have expectations dealing with cops, jail, etc. All I consider unpleasant. I can only work with what I have and nothing I don't.

[@TheRealisticNihilist]

Can we organize a hangout or skype call with you? I have a few friends that pose some pretty good objections to this line of reasoning, but I'd like to see you discuss it with them.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** I would love to. Unfortunately, I'm working in West Africa right now, and the internet is barely fast enough to upload videos and a number of Skype programs and the like are blocked here. Sorry. If you want to post the questions, or send them I should be able to respond. But technology is really not happening here right now.

[@TheRealisticNihilist]

Carneades.org that's crazy. So I think the main sort of criticism that was tossed around dealt with inductive skepticism, but it was thought to be able to apply to your brand as well. I think the idea is that skepticism that doesn't have a practical difference is rendered moot or idle. In the case with something like inductive skepticism, if one is in the business of hypothesis forming, one can plan toward blue always being blue (following the new riddle of induction), but one can remain agnostic under a type of skepticism. I know that's not the best articulation, but I don't remember the content exactly. As far as the indirect skepticism, I don't think the difference between a belief that the car is going to hit you is really distinguishable from a reactive attitude following Bilgrami's view. Let me get back to you though, because I'm sure the objection is stronger than I'm making it or to be.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** It seems that there are many philosophical positions which represent differences in belief, but not differences in action. Would you really act differently if you were a modal realist or a modal fictionalist? I doubt it. Yet it seems awfully reductionist to say that almost all positions in philosophy are rendered moot. Is this the line that is being taken, or is there some way that would separate out skepticism from these other positions?

[@TheRealisticNihilist]

Carneades.org I think the idea is that belief is posited to account for actions. If skepticism is not affecting the actions, the question is what is the point of skepticism. We can make this analogous to a religious skepticism for example. If you withhold the belief in God, it's likely that you won't take religious actions. Also, I take it that the objection is not that is empirically indistinguishable, like modal realism, rather that is semantically indistinguishable.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** I think I'm having trouble understanding your distinction between empirically indistinguishable and semantically indistinguishable. And, as far as affecting actions, it seems that skeptics would take the action of questioning established dogmas, while non-skeptics would not. Skeptics would take actions of searching for knowledge, while non-skeptics would be complacent, claiming that they already have knowledge. However I'm not sure, and surely there are many non-skeptics that would not fall into such a category. But there are surely many people that believe in God, or a specific religion, but act against that belief or religion, right? This would not make the actions of a religious skeptic moot, just because there are some religious people that would act the same way.