Indeed, this doubt can also be raised about vision, and one can also claim that there is a demon deceiving me all the time.
But what relevance does that have if I don’t feel it… At the end of the day, there is a principled challenge here: even with regard to our understanding of probability, doubt can be raised.
So I didn’t understand the Rabbi’s answer, if one was really given here.

I didn’t understand the question. In your view, is this possible (that there is a demon)? Then who told you it isn’t true?
The core of my claim is that there is no way to answer skeptical arguments that trouble someone, because every answer will receive a further skeptical reply of a higher order. But I don’t think they are correct, and I’m not troubled by them, and that’s that.

Ariel,
One could argue against you as follows:

According to your view, postmodernism is correct because of reason X. But it is possible that reason X is not correct, and in fact its chance of being correct is 50/50. If so, then it is possible that you are mistaken that postmodernism is correct, because there is a 50% chance that reason X has fallen apart.

Rabbi,
I agree that there is no way to answer. But your claim that there is no way to answer does absolutely nothing to solve the question you raise of why postmodernism is not correct, and it shows that your excuse is no different from any other fundamentalism. (Though one might call it a “softer” one.)
As far as I’m concerned, indeed one can raise the doubt that there is a demon. And therefore I’m asking you, as someone who purports to refute the postmodernist basis by offering the possibility of reasonable belief even if it is not the most stable.
But you still haven’t answered me how there can be something “probable.” That concept in your framework doesn’t really represent a reality that rises above 50%; rather, you are simply starting from a different assumption.\

Oren,
I agree with you.

Not true. A fundamentalist is not willing to examine his claims and put them to a critical test. I am willing. But you haven’t raised any claim that challenges my position, and therefore I remain holding it. According to your approach, nobody is not a fundamentalist, since everyone has basic assumptions. Excuse me, that’s nonsense.

Okay, so in your case it’s an upgraded fundamentalist: on the one hand you hear other arguments, but you do not ground your own claims. As you yourself said explicitly:
"The core of my claim is that there is no way to answer skeptical arguments that trouble someone, because every answer will receive a further skeptical reply of a higher order. ***But I don’t think they are correct, and I’m not troubled by them, and that’s that.***"

The claim of postmodernism is that insofar as everything is based on basic assumptions, and all basic assumptions are in doubt, why prefer X over Y?
And yet you chose, in a fairly fundamentalist way, the side that says that I do indeed have basic assumptions that I do not question, even though I know they can be questioned—it just won’t lead me anywhere. In other words, this is somewhere between pragmatism and someone who has no other choice.

When I explain something, I expect you to try to read and understand. If everyone who is not a postmodernist is a fundamentalist, then indeed I am a fundamentalist. But that is a crooked definition. I explained the important difference between me and fundamentalism.
The fact that something can be challenged does not constitute a challenge. When you present a challenge, I’ll be happy to try to address it (because I am not a fundamentalist). In the meantime, you haven’t presented even the slightest trace of a challenge; rather, you have declared in a fundamentalist way that anything for which I have no proof is doubtful. But I, as someone who is not a fundamentalist, do not accept that assumption. In other words: one can also challenge the claim that if something can be challenged, it therefore must be challenged. But you accept that claim in a fundamentalist way.
All right, we’ve exhausted this.

What you are presenting here is that I’m falling into a mistake: if I accept claim A1, that anything against which an objection can be raised is doubtful, then with regard to A1 itself I should also ask where I get the basis to rely on it as certain.
But I think that is a mistake, because I present A1 only as a doubt and not as a certainty. So I can in any case continue attacking the other basic assumptions with its help without falling into a mistake—or perhaps, insofar as I use argument A1, it cannot be separated from the rest?

What does the Rabbi think?

If you attack by virtue of it, then you are relying on it. One cannot attack on the basis of a doubtful claim. About this it was said: doubt does not dislodge certainty. You are raising a double doubt and on that basis want us to give up something that seems probable to us.

And is that also a basic assumption, or rather a logical insight?

What’s the difference?

If it is a logical insight, then it makes no difference whether I see it as a basic assumption or not.

Those are just empty words. Even if you call it logic, clearly there is no logical necessity here. It is an assumption of methodological reasonableness: one does not attack on the basis of a doubtful claim.

After thinking a bit about the issue, I think there are two problems that the Rabbi did not address:
1. Your claim that a doubtful claim thereby attacks itself, and therefore you cannot use it, only attacks general skepticism (anything for which you have no proof is a 50/50 doubt). But if you break general skepticism down into a set of specific skeptical claims—for example: why do you think that what you see actually exists in reality? that what you hear actually exists in reality? and so on and so on—then it absolutely does not attack itself.
2. Indeed, I would agree on the methodological level that one does not attack a certain claim with a doubtful claim, if that were indeed the case. But I do not understand why the claim “what I experience really exists in reality” is a claim of certainty. What makes it more probable than its opposite?!

Maybe it is important to emphasize that I understand that we have no logical tools to examine these claims because of the ‘emptiness of the analytic,’ and therefore they require basic assumptions that are outside the logical circle. And on the other hand we have no empiricist tools to examine these claims, because they start from the assumption that what we experience is indeed real. But why on earth assume that what I experience is more probable than its opposite? (See problem 2.)

I would be glad if the Rabbi could address these two points.

1. What you are raising is completely general skepticism. There is no reason to doubt specifically one thing that I experience as opposed to another. The fact that you present the skepticism regarding a particular claim does not change the fact that this is general skepticism. For that is exactly what you are assuming here: that anything for which you have no proof is 50-50.
2. Because to me it seems obvious. What kind of answer are you expecting? Just as what I see seems reliable to me. I have no explanations for that either, other than that it seems obvious to me.

1. I agree. (After all, the discussion between the claims can be described as ultimately revolving around the question of whether what is felt counts as proof, and if not then it goes back to being 50-50.)
2. My question is: why start from such an assumption—“what it seems to me that I see/experience etc. indeed exists objectively”? After all, that is itself the very question raised by the skeptical claim.
Indeed, I too feel that what I experience is real, but still, the fact that this is how I feel and experience things does not give it any preference over the skeptical claim.

We are repeating ourselves. Every answer I give you, you will be able to ask the same question about it. There is nothing to answer the skeptic except that I am not a skeptic.

So at least you need to answer the skeptic why you are not a skeptic..?

Absolutely not. Let him explain to me why one should be a skeptic. Without any argument, there is no need for any explanation (and as stated, every explanation will rest on basic assumptions, and the skeptic will cast doubt on those too, and in the end I will not be able to explain them, because he will always keep asking for more and more explanations). I think we’ve exhausted this.