Trying to escape scepticism

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

One can of course be sceptical about scepticism. Sextus Empiricus outlined the modes of Pyrrhonian scepticism, citing that a dog has a different view of the world from a man, and that we lack any objective way of saying whose view is the more accurate. I’d say we lack any objective way of finding out whether or not someone’s view is different from a dog’s. We can be sceptical about the claims made by sceptics.

But in doing so are we falling into the sceptic’s trap? In trying to attack scepticism do we become sceptics? Probably, but of course there are different classes of sceptic. Some are simply sceptical because they’re stupid.

When we attack Descartes scepticism (which he of course renounces further on in the Meditations) we become sceptics, but at least we don’t end up like him.

My advice to all is don’t fear scepticism. It can of course be used as a ‘why not?’, an inspiration to confidence and ambition.

So, next time a sceptic asks you how you know something, ask them how they know you don’t know it.

Back to the drawing board…

2

Fuck skepticism. I prefer a contextualist approach, i.e. truth conditions change depending on context. However, normally I don’t even engage with this kind of Philosophy as, for me, it is completely and totally pointless to hold the skeptical position. Not only does it seem Philosophy of little value to me, not to mention incredibly silly, but it also completely divorces the skeptic from the reality of the embodied human condition.

But, that is just my opinion.

-S

3

What’s wrong with scepticism such that you have to escape it? Embrace your lack of knowledge of anything but your perceptions. Then consider why it is that you believe what you believe. I’ve come to the conclusion that all beliefs (excepting the belief in existence of one’s own perceptions) are formed for the sake of some good that we think/feel believing will achieve. Beliefs in the existence of trees, people, love, world, memory, etc. all formed on this basis.

Sextus had a bizarre approach to “living out” the consequences of scepticism. He seemed to think the best way to deal with it was to be as inactive as possible, and otherwise to mainly follow the conventions of how society tells us to live. But he doesn’t really offer an argument for this, and many of us would find it undesirable. So why not find a way of life more desirable, even if you don’t know it’s going to work out? So what if you’re taking a risk – being inactive is also a risk.

Even when scepticism is embraced, the best way to live still seems to be following your heart. My heart tells me to accept my perceptions of this world as (mostly) real, and so I do. So what if I’m following my feelings – I don’t think there’s any better way to go about living.

Contextualism seems to be nothing more than discerning the usage of different senses of the word “know”. To make philosophical progress, we need to concentrate on each of the senses separately, and for each sense consider what we know in that sense. Otherwise we’re just fumbling around in semantics.

Towards that end I would say that one sense of knowledge is something like belief in a proposition merely by understanding it – for example, once you understand the proposition “I am seeing a computer screen” when you are seeing a computer screen, you must believe it and hence know it. A second sense of knowledge is little more than a strongly-held belief for the sake of living well. I believe I have hands because I strongly feel that without this belief my life would be much less enjoyable and worthwhile, hence I “know” I have hands in this sense. Most of our knowledge falls roughly into this second sense, with only a very narrow slice (perceptions, and some logical statements) falling into the first.

The important task is to clarify what is known in each sense, not to merely say that the word “know” has different senses and means different things in different contexts. Anybody with half a brain “knows” that.

4

Yes, you are right, the contextualist position does indeed revolve around the truth conditions for the word ‘to know’ given different contexts. I.e. the context of the Philosophy class room, or the context of my roomate asking me where the closest target is.

Following a Wittgensteinian line, I fail to accept that all my life before encountering the Skeptics when I said “I know my hands are cold” or “I know that there is a target down the street” I was incorrect.

That being said, I also want to point out that given the Skeptical framework, NO Philosophical progress could ever be made against the skeptical position. This is one of the reasons I think it is of little value.

-S

5

Skepticism must be founded upon valid foundation such that when we are skeptical of something we must have a reason for being skeptical. In philosophy or in any intellectual inquire the aim ought be always toward truth and thus skepticism and its reason must be purely intellectual, such that my reason for skepticism is logically motivated and designed and not influenced by my inherit faith or belief in a given notion as connotated by personal experience or by imagination. The reason which is valid for truth is necessity which always leads to truth if infact what is considered necessary is found to be necessary. Necessity is established when the view of thing is the perfect reflection of the thing such that the reflection itself in order to be like it is must be correct in its representation of the thing that it reflects. Empirical evidence cannot possible supply this because it ignores the processes of reflection which make experience posssible and of which lend to the discernment of the validity of experience as an intellectual measure of truth. Kant in understanding the defiency of Empiricism formulated his doctrine of Transcendentalism to find the intellectual actuality of experience and thus its truth value, value in finding truth, and in determining truthhood. Anyway, if a thing is found to not be necessary then we have valid reason to be skeptical of it however if a thing is found to be necessary then we have no valid reason to be skeptical of it.

6

My post holds true unless one is Skeptical of all reasons but then if this is so we could not conceive any reason to be skeptical of all reasons yet alone skeptical at all. The judgement given in this case is that no reason is valid but yet we in contradiction hold the judgement that “no reason is valid” which is a reason in itself. In this there is no necessity as the reflection which is the judgement contradicts the understanding which it is infact based in for its possibility of existence.

7

Is not ‘the desire to be awkward’ a reason to be sceptical?

‘purely’ - don’t make me laugh

I didn’t think one could be logically motivated, as far as I’ve experienced the world one can be motivated only by personal experience and imagination.

We only have the ‘representation’, we live in a world of appearances.

See Nietzsche, Human All Too Human, passage 16. I can’t find it online.

No, something happens, I experience it, or we experience it. I don’t need to reflect at all to make experiencing this cheese toastie possible.

Right, and how do you propose leaping from the experiences we do have, which are connected inasmuch as we see them successively, to the position where we can ascertain this necessity which you think is so important?

8

Why make progress, why not just enjoy philosophy ‘for the ride’. A rollercoaster brings you back to where you started, but it is still thrilling.

9

Unfortunately we can’t focus on different sense separately, the signifiers are always shifting

Philosophy is a haunted house full of mirrors

10

  1. Skepticism which is about knowledge concerns not the truth-condition of knowledge, but the justification condition. That is, whether we are adequately justified.

  2. Clearly, there are different kinds of justification appropriate in different contexts. As Aristotle said, we should not expect deductive demonstrations in literature any more than we should want non-demonstrative proof in mathematics. The standards of justification shift depending on the context. But the idea of justification and of adequate justification is the same.

No one would say that the meaning of “the square of” changes just because the answer changes depending on the particular number we are asking about. The square of 2 is 4, and the square of 3 is 9, but the concept of “the square of” is the same for both.

11

Someoneisatthedoor,

“Is not ‘the desire to be awkward’ a reason to be skeptical?”

I guess but certainly not one which would be valid for any aim and conseqentually determination of truth, that is, an intellectual reason it would be more or less a personal or egotistical one which has no place in any intellectual pursuit.

“‘purely’ - don’t make me laugh”

Go ahead and laugh if you want because it is good for your mental well-being so I would encourage you in it. If however you want to be serious and achieve some intellectual seriousness then prehaps you do not want to laugh for it is quite distracting and since my goal is an intellectual one it would be that your purpose is egotistical and not intellectual.

“I didn’t think one could be logically motivated, as far as I’ve experienced the world one can be motivated only by personal experience and imagination.”

The limitation of your persoanl experience is not the limitation of all experience and certainly is not the limitation of my experience. This fact, this relativity is what drives Idealists to seek what is common in experience so some common ground can be established without resorting to the primitive hypothetics of Empiricism and Science. Kant, Fitche, Schelling, and Hegel have achieved as much is different respects and I would suggest you move toward Transcendentalism as it is the valid doctrine proporting in a highly critical way. Transcendentalists strive to overcome the foolish hypothetics and generalizations the common person makes with their utterly passive nature in which they become total absolved in their experience, totally ruled by them as if they were mindless drones.

"We only have the ‘representation’, we live in a world of appearances.

See Nietzsche, Human All Too Human, passage 16. I can’t find it online."

Reflection is how objects form, the appearences are generated from reflection. Read Schelling.

“No, something happens, I experience it, or we experience it. I don’t need to reflect at all to make experiencing this cheese toastie possible.”

Reflection is responsible for the formation of representations. Again Read Schelling.

“Right, and how do you propose leaping from the experiences we do have, which are connected inasmuch as we see them successively, to the position where we can ascertain this necessity which you think is so important?”

In Emrpicism the content of experience is viewed as passive and the form of the experience as active. The content is considered to be subjective while the form is considered to be objective. It is considered possible to abstract the content through subjective activity such as imagination but in using Scientific procedures these subjective activities can be reduced if not avoided. The content is the substance of all things we experience it is the material that allows us to experience it and the form is that which gives not only the dinstinction of different experiences but the universalities as well. Now, it is either that the content is first or the form is first.

If the form is first it means that that which is active generates that which is passive, that is the objective creates the subjective. If the content is first it means that which is passive generates that which is active, that is the subjective creates the objective. Content is substance while form is the particular form of that substance, really the particular substance based in and from the original basic substance. Experience has content or else it would not be experienced for there would be nothing to experience. Experience must have form or else all experience would be the same nothing distinct, not sucessive moment, various positions, or any other qualities would appear. If form is nothing but the manifestation of content as it has been clearly established to be then it would indicates from the Empiricists view that the activity of form arises from the passivity of content.

Passivity has has to be passive to some activity otherwise what would it be passive to? Why would it be given the quality of passivity? This leads to problems as passivity is understood to be established under the cause of some activity thus content which was formerly considered passive must be active for it has been established that it precedes form. Form then must be passive as it has been established to comes after content and infact is content itself. The form is content and form is known to be illusion and so all that remains for us is the subjective which is content but it is now understood not to be passive but now, on founded necessity, known to be active.

I have realized that Schelling made an error in conceiving “self” in that while deducting the conceptions of real and ideal ,the same as form and content for us, he by assumed association deduced the concept of self. The Schelling conception of “self” is based in the Kantian sense but the Kantian conception of “self” is based on the Kantian sense of real and ideal of which Schelling deduced. He never based the conception of “self” in his own conception of real and ideal but infact in the Kantian sense. Schelling conceptions of real and ideal are bordering on the Ontological but yet he conceives the “self” in an Epistemological sense. The conception of “self” must reduced lik the conception of real and ideal to the almost Ontological sense that Schelling presents in his Transcendental Philosophy. In adjusting the conception of self it is possible to go even further after one notices what Sartre noticed the “being-in-itself” and the fact that consciousness or “being-for-itself” arises from it. “Being” is an activity just as much as "Becoming’ which is represented by “being-for-itself”. It then was possible to take Schelling almost Ontological conceptions of activity seen in a subjective light and now reinvent it in an objective light explaining the nature of the “being-in-itself” and thus the “being-for-itself” relationship to the “being-in-itself”. I have resolved all the major problems in philosophy now allowing me to develop an absolutely valid Metaphysics and trust me it will be good.

12

Without will, without ego (of some sort of other) there is no ‘intellectual pursuit’. Quit appealing to a non-subjective truth which you cannot demonstrate.

Your goal is futile, since you’ll never accomplish either the transcending of yourself or the reaching of a position from which you can assess the necessity which is so important to transcendental philosophy.

Science hasn’t a damn thing to do with it. You cannot be motivated by logic, which simply states what is logical. One is motivated by will and will alone.

That’s it, retreat back into your ‘you are conforming, I’m radical, therefore I must be right’ argument I’ve heard about a dozen times…

They aren’t, appearance are appearances, not the result of reflection. Schelling or no Schelling.

Your ‘reflection’ is simply another appearance, thus the origin of appearance is another appearance? This makes little sense, or means that we only have appearances and can say no more about it.

Reflection is just another appearance.

Depends on which ‘empiricist’ you ask.

Nope, it’s all subjective.

Nope, you’ve made an arbitrary distinction then demanded that we make on an origin. This is logocentric sophistry at its prime. Congratulations!

Answer the damn question, how do you propose leaping from the experiences we do have, which are connected inasmuch as we see them successively, to the position where we can ascertain this necessity which you think is so important?

Nope, ‘content’ ‘activity’ ‘passivity’ and the rest are all simply appearances, as momentary as they are. First you claim consciousness is the origin of experiences, then you say reflection is, now you’re equivocating over an irrelevant issue. Can you please focus on the issue at hand and not keep wandering off onto other issues?

ditto above

Again, it depends on which philosopher you ask. Hegel’s notion of Becoming is indeed pretty similar to Sartre’s of consciousnes as being-for-itself. But Nietzsche’s notion of Becoming is very different.

But none of this is relevant anyway

Would you like to explain how this was possible and not just claim that it was? In plain, grammatically consistent English? Otherwise I’m sorry, but I have little more to say to you

You can’t even write clearly!

Again, why the plea for trust? You’ve failed to answer a single one of the 50 or so questions I’ve asked you so far, all you do is provide long, dull passages of irrelevant material and assertions of your own brilliance, which you’ve yet to demonstrate. I’m a better philosopher than you, and I’m not even a philosopher.

If your ‘absolutely valid Metaphysics’ is as irrelevant, wandering, ambiguous and illogical as your posts here then it ain’t worth a dime, love

13

I’m not sure what you mean by this. Let me tell an example-story to discuss the implications of what I think you’re saying.

Suppose that I see a Coke bottle and point to it, telling my friend “that’s a coke bottle”. I have a fairly specific idea of what a coke bottle looks like, and I expect that when my friend hears my words, a very similar idea will come into his own head. But perhaps when my friend hears “that’s a coke bottle” what comes into his mind is something very different, for instance the appearance of what I would call a bear. In this case my friend can respond in two ways:

  1. “No, that’s not a coke bottle” because the words “coke bottle” cause him to imagine something not quite like what he is perceiving.

  2. “Yes, that is a coke bottle” because the words “coke bottle” cause him to imagine something very like what he is perceiving (a bear).

Now suppose that reaching an agreement here is very important to you. How do you respond to your friend? Do you abandon all hope immediately, as your quote “we can’t focus on different sense separately” suggests? Or do you try to clarify to your friend what sense of the word “coke bottle” you are using? If you choose the latter, your response to the two possibilities above could take the following form:

You: Describe to me what you think of when you hear the phrase “coke bottle”.
Friend: I think of something brown and furry, at least a couple feet long, among other things.
Y: And what did you see when I pointed and said “that’s a coke bottle”?

Friend(1): Something clear and smooth, not at all like what I was thinking of.
Friend(2): Something brown and furry, etc. just as I was thinking of.

Y(1): When I say “coke bottle”, I mean something very like what you say you saw: clear and smooth (etc). Furthermore, I think the sense you are thinking of is not commonly used by people around here and will cause confusion if you continue to use it.
F(1): Very well. Since I am a kind and charitable friend, I will add that sense of the word to how I understand the word, and mostly ignore the sense I was using before.

Y(2): My friend, I have asked the people around and they all see something clear and smooth, just as I do. Perhaps you are hallucinating and need to get some food or sleep or psychiatric evaluation.
F(2): While I’m still not sure whether it is I or you who see correctly, I understand how you use the phrase “coke bottle” and that what you mean by it is not what I mean. I will consider this new sense of the phrase for the future.

In both cases, you and your friend are able to clarify in what sense the phrase “coke bottle” is being used; that is, what it is supposed to signify. I suppose that if ALL words meant different things to different people then we would be in more trouble. “If” means “unicorn” and “and” means “John” and other such things would cause us serious problems. But as it is, there’s no evidence that anyone has such a radically bizarre understanding of words/signifiers in general. We would expect that such a bizarre understanding would manifest itself in bizarre responses to questions and an inability to follow directions. But for the most part we see that this is not the case in human beings, so it seems unlikely that ALL words mean different things to different people. It is not unusual for some words to mean different things to different people, but in that case (as above) we can rely on our common signifiers to rectify the differences.

And the fact that you (I expect) understand most of the above is also evidence for my point.

14

“Without will, without ego (of some sort of other) there is no ‘intellectual pursuit’. Quit appealing to a non-subjective truth which you cannot demonstrate.”

There is will of course but as to ego there is none. The will however is only the raw content of knowledge and arisings upon our calling in our imagination or inherited externally through sensation which nature as to the determination of what is outside ourselves, that is, as to the determination of the thing-in-itself is purely will. Such deductions I do not care to make at this time but I would refer to the long list of philosophers Existentialists and Idealists who have progressed the philosophical view of experience very far indeed while Empiricists still have no even investigated the phenomenon of experience beyond their dogmatic holding that it is passive (this belief with no foundation as since experience is passive all that is empirically derived by their belief cannot be affirmed actively to be as such). Activity s required in order for such affirmations to be made, to have ground, otherwise it reduces itself to pure relativism and subjectivity. Under Empiricism infact one cannot distinguish a law of nature from a rare phenomenon that occurs one in the history of all existence. This is because Empiricism posits what is views to be somehow the constituting value of which the viewing takes place through. That is what we experience is what we are bound to - plain dogmatic induction without necessary foundation, really, a matter of convience created from everyday dependence on experience and an underdeveloped intellectual virtually incapable of being anything but passive and holding dogmatic to ones own passivity so that experience is really all such an individual experiences. The intellectual pursuit is nonetheless the willing under which methdology is apropriated intellectually.

"Your goal is futile, since you’ll never accomplish either the transcending of yourself or the reaching of a position from which you can assess the necessity which is so important to transcendental philosophy. "

You cannot say that with postivity until you have achieved the highest state, which requires you to experiment and try either finding that transcendence is quite possible or that it would merely seem unreachable. It is plain irrational fear infact to not try to transcend and if you find yourself giving up because it seem like it is impossible then prehaps you will never reach it. However, I know for a matter of fact through the strive I went through to experiment and actually achieve it that it is indeed possible. If you really wanted truth bad enough then you would have achieved it like me but I guess for you more immediate things, smaller things, more so-called real or practical things go in the way. The name “Idealists” has significance in that it requires great amount of faith to get into the unknown never knowing if you are going to fail or suceed or what effects either end will cause. The truth of the matter is in life there should be nothing to fear because no matter if you feeel secure or not you could be dead in an instant or by fortunate circumstances life a very long life but this does not really matter. In order to known the unknown one must experience it, I have experienced it. Just because you are to fearful to enter it does not mean that it does not exist as you ignore this unknown in order to keep distance from you fear and cower away in the so-called real what is so immediate the undeveloped intellectual cannto overcome. You can cower if you want, if you like, for as long as you like but you will never get to truth until you enter the unknown and experiment. YOU/I HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE. YOU/I ARE NOTHING!!!

“Science hasn’t a damn thing to do with it. You cannot be motivated by logic, which simply states what is logical. One is motivated by will and will alone.”

Logic is a methodology through which my motivation (by will) is given character and thus in the finality as I view back upon the series of activity that formed this one act the act for me is motivated by logic. Motivated not as the source of the possibility of the action itself but motivated in its character or form, which, however are manifestations of the will but real for us because we ourselves are manifestations of the will, ao althought the will grants the content the manifestation of will we call logic which is real for me and you gives from of which gives the act knowability (the ability for us to know it). The motivation of logic is exactly the connection of one activity and another such that with logic given to the pure content of willing froms one will I give it a quality beneficial and necessary for another activity to make use of the act as product or as act itself.

“That’s it, retreat back into your ‘you are conforming, I’m radical, therefore I must be right’ argument I’ve heard about a dozen times…”

Its not really an argument but I am limited to my experience and you to yours. If I claim superiority due to a transcendent view then you have no claims against it nor I you. My argument as you call it was a refutation of your comments and not to be considered postive. It was a critica comment setting up limitations that we oth individually have to work with of which particular character you and I can regard as hypothetical and intended purely to explain and communicate an understanding rather than cast judgements and claim superiority as a sort of dogmatic elitist argument.

"They aren’t, appearance are appearances, not the result of reflection. Schelling or no Schelling.

Your ‘reflection’ is simply another appearance, thus the origin of appearance is another appearance? This makes little sense, or means that we only have appearances and can say no more about it. "

An activity called “consciousness” is “for-itself”, that is, always trying to achieve self-consciousness and eternally positing itself finitely through contradictory activities that arise from consciousness. The reflection is the act in which contradictory activities meet so that consciousness is literally meet with itself at a particular point in a particular appearence. Reflection implies the continual mutual oppositions created by opposing activities within an appearence which debilitate the two constituting activities eternally. You should have read Schelling so you could understood what “reflection” means instead of dogmatically assuming the most retarted notion which only made you seem well…not too bright.

“Depends on which ‘empiricist’ you ask.”

Any other positions and that individual could not longer call himself an Empiricist.

“Nope, it’s all subjective.”

Prehaps, but mind you I ma using subjective and objective in the Hegelian sense as dialectically opposed elements of consciousness which constantly struggle against each other transcendening toward absolute self-consciousness or as Hegel calls it more appropriately in his Phenomenology of Spirit the “Absolute Spirit”. *The focus on spirit an influence upon Hegel from Schelling.

"Nope, you’ve made an arbitrary distinction then demanded that we make on an origin. This is logocentric sophistry at its prime. Congratulations!

Answer the damn question, how do you propose leaping from the experiences we do have, which are connected inasmuch as we see them successively, to the position where we can ascertain this necessity which you think is so important?"

Do not pay attention to the distinction because I only open it up to adress the seeming difference that is there later on I resolve form as but a manifestation of content. I have answered your question but I have done it methdodically for I cannot put truth in one sentence it requires an investigation, a development, a summation among many things.

“Nope, ‘content’ ‘activity’ ‘passivity’ and the rest are all simply appearances, as momentary as they are. First you claim consciousness is the origin of experiences, then you say reflection is, now you’re equivocating over an irrelevant issue. Can you please focus on the issue at hand and not keep wandering off onto other issues?”

Consciousness is “for-itself” the for-itself nature of consciousness leads to reflection or self-consciousness. My work is just developing. It all together there is no division, it would seem it appears that way but you mistake what is appearing that is the problem at hand. You claim I do not focus but really I am the fact of the matter is you not focusing on what is appearing enough otherwise you would not think I am wandering off or claim my lack of focus.

“ditto above”

Seriousness is key. Laziness is never a good substitute.

"Again, it depends on which philosopher you ask. Hegel’s notion of Becoming is indeed pretty similar to Sartre’s of consciousnes as being-for-itself. But Nietzsche’s notion of Becoming is very different.

But none of this is relevant anyway "

Nietzsche was anti-systematic he do not believe in those various distinction the Ontological, Epistemological, Metaphysical. He just wrote inspite of those distinctions and this is what gives his work the quality in which his ideas apply to all areas of philosophy and life. Sartre and Hegel were systematic so the concept of “becoming” particularly for both has a ontological connotation but I imagine if you either removed the systematism from Hegel and Sartre or instated systematicism on Nietzsche the conceptions of “becoming” would be pretty much the same.

"Would you like to explain how this was possible and not just claim that it was? In plain, grammatically consistent English? Otherwise I’m sorry, but I have little more to say to you "

Schelling saw consciousness as infinite and “for-itself” and saw consciousness as subjective. This was supposed to be before the ontological as if this view of consciousness was Metaphysical but Schelling view of self was Epistemological therefore in assigning subjectivity to consciousness it made it post-ontological, that is, Epistemological. Sartre I am not sure either seeing this problem are accidentally adressing it positing the being-in-itself as the source of self and being-for-itself as consciousness. This created a dualism in which I found that the self as being-in-itself is an activity in which must be presupposed by a more basic activity. I took Schelling conception of consciousness, that of will seen as infinite and “for-itself” and found I can adapt it to explain the phenomenon of the creation of the being-in-itself and how it was then possible to explain how being-for-itself arose from being-in-itself. Being-for-itself or becoming is really a beings (self’s) act toward self-consciousness not of ones own being but of the will which one being is and of which all becoming is and is sustained by.

“You can’t even write clearly!”

Philosophy exists in thinking not in writing.

"Again, why the plea for trust? You’ve failed to answer a single one of the 50 or so questions I’ve asked you so far, all you do is provide long, dull passages of irrelevant material and assertions of your own brilliance, which you’ve yet to demonstrate. I’m a better philosopher than you, and I’m not even a philosopher.

If your ‘absolutely valid Metaphysics’ is as irrelevant, wandering, ambiguous and illogical as your posts here then it ain’t worth a dime, love"

I have answered all your questions but you have no accepted the answers mostly infact because you did not understand what I was talking about. Now, you may claim otherwise but the nature of your responses shows your ignorance to what I wrote, you show yourself at least to me quick to judge, assumptionary, and take little time to develop an understanding before going to judge. It is almost like you got a toolkit in which you have judgements ready at hand to hand out randomly without truly taking sufficient time to see what tool goes where or you try to fit tools in one area which does not even fit.

15

So you were both somewhere and somewhere else looking at the first ‘you being somewhere’ at the same time? That’s a neat trick, but I think you are deceiving yourself (and trying to deceive me)

You’ve experienced the unknown? Surely that makes it the known.

I never appealed to the real or the immediate, you’ve confused me with someone else. Deliberately, I’ll wager.

If that’s the case then what the fuck is writing all these posts? Nothing?

Right…

You’ve still admitted that will is prior

That’s basically a long-winded way of admitting that yes, you are using ‘my view is superior’ as one of the tenets of your argument.

Aside from weak ad hominems you’ve reverted to this conscious as prior to the experience malarky once again, which you utterly failed to prove the last time you and I (and others) went through it. So unless you’ve got anything more to add which turns this from a claim into a sound argument then kindly refrain from taking it for granted.

Balls, you call yourself a philosopher and I’d say you weren’t entitled to do so.

Yes, I understand the tradition in which you are working, though it’s not exactly my favoured area of discussion because so much of it descends into long winded tripe that doesn’t answer the big questions.

No, as I said above you’ve made an arbitrary distinction then demanded we make it an origin.

If you cannot say what you’ve got to say clearly then you are simply using a complex language game for the sake of… what? Upholding the view that you are special and you are doing something radically amazing?

Nonetheless, all you have is a collection of appearances that aren’t necessarily connected, rather than consciousness as a separate entity to Being which is seperate from reflection, and for some other reason you won’t tell me you seem to think both conscious and reflection are the one true origin of experience. Are you even trying to make sense, or are you just sticking all the right words in, hoping someone will be impressed?

No, humour is key, seriousness is for the depressed, those who wish to contrain life rather than affirm it. I’m not being lazy, I just have limited time to spend on these forums.

Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t simply ‘re-Metaphysicise’ Nietzsche’s work, and if you did you’d get something closer to Aristotle than Hegel. This comment is fantasy.

[quiote]"Would you like to explain how this was possible and not just claim that it was? In plain, grammatically consistent English? Otherwise I’m sorry, but I have little more to say to you "

Schelling saw consciousness as infinite and “for-itself” and saw consciousness as subjective. This was supposed to be before the ontological as if this view of consciousness was Metaphysical but Schelling view of self was Epistemological therefore in assigning subjectivity to consciousness it made it post-ontological, that is, Epistemological. Sartre I am not sure either seeing this problem are accidentally adressing it positing the being-in-itself as the source of self and being-for-itself as consciousness. This created a dualism in which I found that the self as being-in-itself is an activity in which must be presupposed by a more basic activity. I took Schelling conception of consciousness, that of will seen as infinite and “for-itself” and found I can adapt it to explain the phenomenon of the creation of the being-in-itself and how it was then possible to explain how being-for-itself arose from being-in-itself. Being-for-itself or becoming is really a beings (self’s) act toward self-consciousness not of ones own being but of the will which one being is and of which all becoming is and is sustained by.
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Right, so the answer as to whether you could explain something clearly is evidently ‘no’

If a thought isn’t formed in language then you can’t say what it is. You cannot claim you think outside language and that you know exactly what these thoughts outside language are, because you can’t answer the next question, which is ‘what are these ideas’. It’s like Bertrand Russell and his notion that facts were in the world, irrespective of their being perceived.

Where I failed to understand I’ll wager it was more down to your lack of good writing than my lack of flexible understanding.

No, I questioned specific points of your arguments which were central to the whole system’s validity for which you’ve been able to show no proof. You’ve also contradicted yourself half a dozen times.

Nope, there are certain as yet unresolved questions in the history of philosophy which apply to all ontological, metaphysical, epistemological and ethical claims. You cannot claim consciousness as an entity because you’ve no idea whether or not other people’s consciousnesses work in the same way, or whether consciousness will continue to work in the way it has done (whether the future will reflect the past).

16

It sounds like what’s being discussed here is Cynicism - not Skepticism.

Skeptics do not maintain that we cannot fully know things. Skepticism says that the degree of belief should match the degree of evidence. Therefore, the Skeptics do doubt some things but there are many things Skeptics also believe, depending on the evidence.

It is the Cynics who hold the position that we can never really know anything for certain, not the Skeptics.

17

The usages of Skepticism and Cynicism you report here are neither the common usages, nor do they correspond to the beliefs of the ancient Greek schools of thought that bore those names. I am therefore puzzled as to why you would want to define the words in this way.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cynic
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=skepticism

These definitions indicate that what is being considered here is definitely skepticism and not cynicism. The Greek schools of thought to which the words refer also line up with these common definitions.

Carry on…

18

I am a being, my being is a single substance, and through which entities that I become aware of become of that substance but may distinct themselves in that fact that they have additional substances. The additional substances being based in my being are of my being and relate on a level more fundamental to that of ontological, spatial, and temporal which are mere manifestations of substances and there interactions metaphysically. When an entity is formed based in my substance which unites all substances it is the highest state of transcendence however not formed from the absolvement of all entities before it or my being itself. It is the formation of a entity among many distinct ontologically, spatially, and temporally however by its natures uniting those distinctions due to the fact that it unites all substances and thereby in-itself is free from all finity and therefore holds within it infinity. The ultimate state of transcendence is the infinity bounded to absolute finite where as all other entities are finities bound to finities. My being is one finity bound to one finity and this remains so long as I live and my life allows me to form new entities distinct of my being but of its substance. My world as I experience it appears distinct but is not and it is for this very reason that all that is in my world can be experienced. All entities remain so long as they are sustained so that my prior entities can be remain even the precense of the highest transcendent entity. This handles the metaphysics of memory quite well. Space is but the interaction of entities within a being and time is the mere changes in entities being produced, sustained, and destroyed. The relationship of among beings is indirect and through infinity. In the infinity which precedes and creates, destroys, and sustains all beings and all its entities the relationship among being occurs. I can communicate an entity to another by reducing it to the state of infinity losing my distinct substance and then it can gain the substance of another and become experienced by another being and form a new entity. The universality of communication is maintained in the fact that each being processes are the same in that they all entify from a singular substance various strands of infinity and entify them into various entities within themselves. This process is not bound to time or space as it is easily possible for me to entity under my own substance the same ontological stucture created a billion years ego or entify a thing one the other side of the galaxy with the same structure. The appearences of space and time are nothing other than the interactions of being with infinity that occur with some order only because of those being which allow some order for the otherwise chaotic infinity. If you now notice this Metaphysics of nature retains the Idealist tone while Empiricism in the face of a metaphysical understanding of nature does not hold because Empiricism holds unto the illusions as real as they appear where as Idealism doubts them thus created the same conceptual reduction in which characteristics even from Berkley or Kant are clearly seen. It is that the world order is a subjective thing however it is not firmly set on an Ontological leve but unlike Sartre with the discover of the in-itself of being granting a metaphysical understanding of being and entification which occurs in those beings. With this Metaphysics I can explain all phenomenon thereby its validity as theory can be affirmed. its ground are no matter for they are based in the ultimate ground and the only meaure of skepticism may come from the conception of this ground. The skepticism requires a test in which this theory as to its ability to explain all relationships is challenged if it fails the Metaphysics is false at least in some manner if not it is correct.