Can you ever be certain that you are reasoning correctly?

[Philosophaster]

From the "Beyond God and Evil" thread:

Empirical phenomena are part of the world of appearances, which may or may not be hallucinatory, in which no certainty can be found. Pinning one's hopes on the existence of a particular empirical phenomenon, such as an alien god, doesn't help one to understand the underlying principle behind all phenomena, which is the first step towards opening one's mind to the nature of Reality.

I suppose one might ask the question "Does there exist anything that isn't part of the world of appearances (which may or may not be hallucinatory)?"

Or you might take another route and boil it down to this question: "Can you ever be certain that your mind is working logically?" After all, plenty of insane people believe that they are being perfectly logical -- so how can you be sure that you aren't one of the crazy ones? And if you think you can be certain of that, why do you think so?

:-)

[earnest_seeker]

Philo, a conversation similar to this has been had already, in a thread from late last year, started by Jason: Fundamental Assumptions.

[Philosophaster]

Hmm, okay.

I hadn't been around here in a long time.

[profoundlygenius]

my question is does it really matter if your considered crazy?

crazy in my definition is only things that most people never experience and when it comes time that they hear about these things they cant immediately explain it from their pool of knowledge so they automatically dismiss it.

[Dan Rowden]

If a thought can't be questioned without it being contradictory, what does its source have to do with it?

[Philosophaster]

If a thought can't be questioned without it being contradictory, what does its source have to do with it?

Nothing. But what I'm wondering about is our own ability to tell whether something is actually contradictory or not.

[Dan Rowden]

If you can question it, the ability exists. We create contradiction. That we do so, doesn't invalidate it.

[DHodges]

I don't think you can ever be completely certain that you haven't fallen into error. The best you can do is to be constantly vigilant, on the lookout for contradiction in your thinking.

The mind is very good at fooling itself.

[Dan Rowden]

That's a recipe for not bothering to consider "certainty" possible. It's also a recipe for unfounded psychological - rather than logical - doubt arising and fucking up a perfectly good thought process.

I defy you, as always, to doubt A=A.

[Philosophaster]

If you can question it, the ability exists.

Okay. But is there any non-circular way to verify that the ability is working correctly? I.e. some way that doesn't involve using your logical faculties to check whether your logical faculties are working right.

:-P

[Dan Rowden]

The final test must of itself be circular in some sense, otherwise you have contingency. A=A is the base proposition for non-contingent logical processes.

[Philosophaster]

This is what it seems to come down to, then. Any "checking" of our reasoning processes must ultimately be circular, since the checking will itself rely on our reasoning. I guess whether we think of this as a bad thing and cause for doubt depends on whether we think of circular reasoning as something to be avoided...

[Dan Rowden]

If we think of circular reasoning to be a thing to be avoided we are either, a) insane ; b) thinking in the wrong sphere of inquiry, or, c) hmm, not sure there's a C....


Get back to you...

[Dan Rowden]

My glibness aide, hilarious as I'm sure you found it - if we begin from the unquestionable framework of "identity" based logic, we can't really fail to build a reasonable framework of logic that we can apply to all facets of life and the divisions we deem - logical, emotional, empirical, quantum etc..

It all depends on our expectations and how reasonable they are. Is it logic that fails us, or our expectations?

[Fujaro]

It is certain however that you can ever be certain that you're certain that you're reasoning correctly. Religion is based on it.

[Philosophaster]

It is certain however that you can ever be certain that you're certain that you're reasoning correctly.

Did you mean "that you can never be certain?"

[Fujaro]

It is certain however that you can ever be certain that you're certain that you're reasoning correctly.

Did you mean "that you can never be certain?"

Certain is for megalomaniacs and fools, but even that could be uncertain.

[Nick]

Philo,

Do you see how Fujaro's statements are a perfect example of Dan's explanation (A) when it comes to trying to side step "circular reasoning".

[Philosophaster]

Philo,

Do you see how Fujaro's statements are a perfect example of Dan's explanation (A) when it comes to trying to side step "circular reasoning".

No. Care to explain?

[Ryan Rudolph]

Philo,

Or you might take another route and boil it down to this question: "Can you ever be certain that your mind is working logically?" After all, plenty of insane people believe that they are being perfectly logical -- so how can you be sure that you aren't one of the crazy ones? And if you think you can be certain of that, why do you think so?

Sanity is revealed in relationship to insanity. For instance: in a group of intellectuals, the more rational ones become apparent as they are the ones who pick up on errors in thinking more often than they are caught in error themselves.

However, the ones that are rarely caught in error might just be really effective at hiding some of their illogical thoughts and ideas because they have a logical sensibility, but one can never know the true content of their minds, unless they slip up occassionally and express some of their more emotionally motivated ideas.

But in my opinion, as long as that individual can admit to themselves in hindsight that their thinking was emotionally motivated, I still consider that person "conscious" or enlighened to a relative degree.

[Nick]

Philo,

Do you see how Fujaro's statements are a perfect example of Dan's explanation (A) when it comes to trying to side step "circular reasoning".

No. Care to explain?

One ends up claiming certainty and uncertainty simultaneously, just like Fujaro has done. It is irrational, unreasonable, and entirely illogical, i.e. insane.

[Philosophaster]

One ends up claiming certainty and uncertainty simultaneously, just like Fujaro has done. It is irrational, unreasonable, and entirely illogical, i.e. insane.

It would be stupid to do that, yes, but I don't see how avoidance of circular reasoning necessarily results in that.

[skipair]

A=A isn't really "circular" in my view since there is no "leaving" or "returning". It's simply self evident.

As for being sure of what we reason to be self evident, if we have a strong emotional attachment to the thing, I think it's likely we've misidentified it.

[Fujaro]

A=A can be doubted by other than fools. The reason is that it is presented without context. But context (such as underlying assumptions) is everything. I'll now proceed to doubt the entire area (from a former post):

If you state that A=A is true, it is not given which degrees of freedom are included in this statement. It may as well be that along the n-th dimension in the Zeta Universe holds that A(x) isnotequalto A(x +1) while in all other possible dimensions for all posible values of x and y holds A(x) = A(y).

If you on the other hand by A=A mean that by definition A always is equal to A, your statement is an identity statement which is trivial or self-referring. Only trivial statements are logically absolute. But the logical correctness of trivial statements is in no way evidence for the fact that non-trivial statements can ever be called absolute.

[Dan Rowden]

It's only people who don't appreciate the implications of the law of identity that think it logically trivial.