proof against scepticism

[black magick hustla]

I was arguing against a friend who is a philosophy major in some fancy university against scepticism. He is a sceptic. Here is my short argument, what do you think about it?

was arguing with a friend who is a philosophy major, (and I am not, I am a physics/math major) about how scepticism, solipsism, etc can be dissolved to nonsense using wittgensteinian dissolution. I posted this argument, tell me if it is sound:

1) Senses might be deceiving us (You say)

Lets suppose its not "might", and that it is actually true:

1) Senses deceive us.
2)If the senses deceive us, the objects we perceive are deceiving us.
3) Language as a means of communication is created in a public context. People point at objects and situations and regurgitate sounds and make facial expressions. (This is a proposition I take as self evident)
4)These objects people point at are deceiving us/ hallucinations.
5)If the language game arises in this public context, then it arises from an hallucinatory context.
6)If Language arises from this accumulation of hallucinations, then it is imbued with deception.
7) The proposition "senses are deceiving us" is formulated with deceived concepts so it unintelligible.

Does this make sense?

[BobKKKindle$]

Speaking as an amateur philosopher, I don't think it's the best objection as such because the sentence that you used to mark the conclusion of a logical argument - "language [...] is imbued with deception" - is not referring to any set of physical objects in the immediate context and can still make sense as long as all of the participants share the same understanding of the words that comprise that sentence. The best objection that I've come across against arguments that end in solipsism is from Hobbes, and basically states that even if our senses do not always convey an accurate picture of the world around us the fact that we have sensory experiences (which, in Hobbes's mechanistic conception of human behavior and experience, can only arise from physical objects pressing against the outside of our bodies and creating internal movements that affect our heart and minds) at all shows that there must indeed be something "out there" even if we are not always sure of what it is.

[Module]

Not that I know anything about skepticism outside of the brief glance I just gave to the Wiki article, but if our senses 'deceiving' us is the basis for not accepting the certainty of any conclusions, then surely you could just say that given what our senses tell us defines our experience of the world around us then it can only be what our senses tell us that is relevant to any meaningful conclusions we could draw about the world in the first place?

[JazzRemington]

2)If the senses deceive us, the objects we perceive are deceiving us.

Our senses can deceive us quite regularly, but how can an object deceive us? Why should the object be blamed for our bad senses? Is it not just sitting there being perceived by our senses?

At any rate, I think the object would have to be capable of action to some degree. A scammer can deceive me by saying that he can turn my $5 into $5,000, but how can a rubber ball deceive me? Certainly a propety of the ball can be deceiving (in the sense of an adjective)but is that the same idea as the ball deceiving me (in the sense of a verb or action)? I think saying that something can deceive one seems to assume that said object has a will of its own or in the least is capable of action.

[Pogue]

Social emotions and the private language argument (sartre and wittgenstein)

[TC]

No its completely wrong. Skepticism is a ridiculous position to hold seriously but if it were possible to defeat general knowledge skepticism analytically someone else would have done it.

The position is not even that 'senses deceive us', let alone that 'objects deceive us' (whats to say our senses relate our experience to objects? nothing to the skeptic). Rather its that there is no way to verify how if at all subjective mental experience of sensory datum relates to the world. Given this you also can't say that your experience of people or language (or of them "pointing to objects") is reliable. Simply put the proposition you take as 'self evident' is not a given in the skeptical position and in fact, the presuppositions it relies on (that experience of a presumably external world has some degree of veracity) is exactly what general knowledge skepticism is skeptical of.

Fortunately your friend will lose interest when he either 1. realizes that skepticism is an uninteresting dead-end to metaphysics 2. changes major.

[Dimentio]

Sometimes I doubt you all exist.

I am the only being existing in the entire Universe.

It was created for my sake.

;)

[black magick hustla]

No its completely wrong. Skepticism is a ridiculous position to hold seriously but if it were possible to defeat general knowledge skepticism analytically someone else would have done it.

Various people in anglo-american analytical philosophy had made proofs against it. So I guess it is a matter of opinion if they have "defeated it" or not. The most common one I can think of is just wittgensteinian dissolution of it (i.e. it is outside the logical limits of language therefore its nonsense)


Given this you also can't say that your experience of people or language (or of them "pointing to objects") is reliable.

:shrugs: I took that proposition as self-evident because he apparently also did. The issue was not that in the "objective world" (whatever is that supposed to mean) this happened, but in the "deceived" reality that we both seemed to apparently share. For example, you and me can both agree that this is an internet forum and that apples sometimes fall from tree, even if that "sense-data" is subjective. (which i dont think it is subjective/objective, I think any ontological assumptions about it its unintelligible).

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I don't think solipsism is easily defeated by analytic philosophy. I think it's easily defeated by pragmatism. I recently became a huge fan of pragmatism. Analytic philosophy is rather restrictive. Although I consider pragmatism still limited by the realities of the external world, I think it can resolve certain pre-scientific dilemmas with a simply hand wave.

You assume you're the only mind that exists. That has little relevance if you don't tell anyone. If you do, people aren't going to be happy about that conclusion. It's rather unproductive towards ethics.

I am very skeptical. I can think of few propositions that I would consider to be self-evident or true when it comes to philosophy. I think philosophy largely uses the wrong methodologies.

I think we tend to have a "hidden rationality." If someone presents a logical argument to us, and we still don't like it, something tells us that it's mistaken. Infant development shows a gradual rejection of solipsism. Although what causes this is likely a product of the mind, it's not in the "same sense." We run into a problem if our mind tells us an external world exists but reason tells us it doesn't. There seems to be an underlying mental rationality that gives us access to the external world. To say the mental conception is the cause is legitimate. It's also legitimate to say it is the external world that's the cause.

Different situations call for different methodologies. I think solipsism, idealism, materialism, are all trying to make sense of a neutral reality (neutral monism). I think Wittgenstein might not agree with you. Rather, he would say you're arguing semantics.