I agree that it’s impossible to overcome doubts of this kind, because we don’t even know the nature of the enemy, or whether there even is such an enemy at all…
And I also don’t honestly think that there really is a demon deceiving me (but of course it won’t help me to think that if there really is a demon that doesn’t want me to think he exists..)
But doesn’t it bother you to think that although we have no tools to deal with such a question, it might still be true? And we can’t even say what the probability is that it isn’t true?

? I mean, how can we claim that it’s more likely that we’re right if we can’t even think about the space of possibilities and what chance there is for each possibility (after all, if they are true, as in the demon example, we can’t even be aware of them)?
It follows that anyone who claims something about the world, and not only about my perception of the world, is doomed to absolute skepticism. But that’s a very bleak reality, isn’t it? Do you have a proper solution to this?

Every explanation uses another principle, one that is more self-evident, in order to explain the claim under discussion. But there are claims that are self-evident and do not require explanation. The very demand for explanation assumes that there are such claims, otherwise nothing would have any explanation. Whoever does not accept this is doomed to be a skeptic. I am not a skeptic. I don’t need arguments for something I know.
It’s like a person who can see cannot prove to a blind person that there really are things outside and that they have an appearance. Does the fact that he has no arguments to offer the blind person mean that he should be in doubt? In my opinion, no.

But the point is that you never know whether proposition Z about the external world is true. You only know that you have a feeling of certainty in your consciousness that proposition Z is true. So everything you can derive deductively from all your knowledge and assumptions, Z1, Z2, etc., is also only about the feeling of certainty you will have internally. But not outwardly. It’s a bit like an oath taking effect on the object through the person.
I mean that there is some unbridgeable gap between external reality and the inner self. The way to solve this is perhaps to claim that all reality is only me, but that already changes the basic definitions of the world.

So in truth, regarding the external object itself, you can’t say anything, even if it exists.
And the claim made by someone who thinks something exists out there somewhere is no more correct than the skeptic who says that nothing exists there. It sounds really absurd, but seemingly that’s how it is, no? Don’t you have some synthetic rabbit in your pocket that gives at least probability, if not certainty, regarding conclusions about the world itself?

I can only repeat that if you’re looking for arguments against skepticism, you won’t find them. Either you’re a skeptic or you’re not. What answer are you expecting, if about every answer I give you’ll ask the same skeptical question? And every insight I have (or you have) is also under the same attack?
Just remember that your skeptical thesis—that if we have no direct way to connect with the world, then there is no certainty about its existence or about any particular detail in it—is itself, of course, also under that same skeptical attack. You assume it with no justification whatsoever. So I assume the opposite with no justification whatsoever.

The skeptical assumptions are never directed at the system of thought (because they themselves depend on thought), but only at the sensory system that mediates between us and the outside world.
And therefore the point is that we actually can assume the skeptical claim with very high justification. After all, it’s easy for us to understand the unbridgeable gap between the “I” and what is not-I. So it’s easy for us to accept that we will never have tools to know whether we are right. And if we have no tools to know whether we’re right, one can simply claim that every claim in that domain is insufficiently grounded.

But even if the skeptical assumption has no justification at all, in the end you still admit that your non-skeptical assumption also has no justification. And then the question arises whether it is fitting to hang on to something with no justification whatsoever.
So it’s still hard to claim that the non-skeptical claim has any greater probability than the skeptical one.

I don’t know where this distinction between thought and cognition comes from. Skeptics also challenge thought.
But beyond that, thought in itself says nothing. And when you apply the conclusions of thought to the world (only then does thought say something), the skeptical arguments immediately arise.
In short, I don’t see any point to the discussion, as I explained.

The distinction between skepticism about thought and skepticism about cognition is very clear—how can you challenge thought by means of skepticism when skepticism itself is part of thought? Therefore the only thing that can be challenged is the capacity for cognition. It is also not entirely accurate that thought cannot say anything about the world; that depends on the validity of the ontological proof.
The point is that it is legitimate to believe true things, but with respect to cognition itself we never have an immediate capacity to know whether it is true or not. And since we can never know whether it is true or not, not even a single time!! does it seem to you so unreasonable to cast doubt on it?? Seemingly that is the obvious thing.
Isn’t it?

I think everything has been explained exhaustively. As for casting doubt on thought by means of thought, there is no principled problem with that. Thought, on its own terms, cuts off its own branch, and we are therefore left in doubt. We also think about our thinking.

But the moment it cuts off all thought, it is no longer possible to continue casting doubt on thought. Because the casting of doubt itself is part of the process of thought. In other words, thought has a migo against the casting of doubt. And about this they say that there is a migo to retain possession, but no migo to extract.
And from the moment it is impossible to undermine thought, and there is no need to cast doubt on the casting of doubt, the power of skepticism grows beyond measure. And one can establish the rule that only claims known to be true are reasonable to accept. But claims for which we have no information that they are true, we have no reason to accept.
And this is why I don’t think the matter has been exhausted, because you didn’t address the point of how one can give trust when one can never check whether one was right even once. You only addressed the claim that every argument emerges from basic premises, and one can always cast doubt on those, so one has to choose either to be a skeptic or to accept the idea of clear first principles (and even if one accepts that, the question remains what they are and why).

Let’s leave the migo pilpul out of this. If from thought itself it follows that it is doubtful, then we are left in doubt: even on your view, according to which one must use thought, it itself casts doubt on itself. It’s impossible to prove by thought that thought is not valid, but the doubt only creates doubt, and there is no loop here.
As for the rest, I said what I had to say.

You used the phrase, “even according to your view that one must use thought.”
According to your view, don’t thought and logic have the height of rationalism? Are sensory data preferable to thought!? After all, even the process of accepting the senses as correct is based (if anything) on thought.

In any case, I didn’t completely understand what you meant. Did you mean that because this is only a doubt and not a certainty, one can use thought to cast doubt on it? Whereas if it were a claim of certainty, it would completely cut off thought and therefore one could not use it (because the casting of doubt also rests on thought).
But that’s not correct. Because to the extent that the doubt turns out to be correct, the principal of the error in thought counts as a certain error in thought. And to the extent that the doubt is not correct, then thought is certainly correct. Therefore one cannot cast doubt on thought itself.
For our purposes here, doubt is not a “state” in itself. It only sets up the two possibilities (correct or mistaken).

When I said “according to your view,” I meant that this too is something you admit (thought as opposed to cognition), and if you are a skeptic then you should cast doubt on thought as well. I certainly believe in thought, but also in cognition, and I am not a skeptic. I am outside the discussion.
The second part of your remarks is completely unfounded. You cast doubt on the ways of thinking and do not know whether they are valid or not. On the possibility that they are valid, they are valid, and on the possibility that they are not, they are not. You remain in doubt, that’s all.
I’ve exhausted it.

___ the second part, as you already said above.
As for the first part: to the extent that thought is not valid, do you agree that you could not have cast doubt on thought? After all, the whole process of casting doubt was itself mistaken from the outset. Even though the doubt itself turned out to be correct, it had no basis in the matter.
Really a migo. And about this our rabbis distinguished between the claimant (the skeptic), who has the power of a claim, and witnesses (that the process of thought is mistaken, which is data connected to the empirical domain); but as is known, one does not begin a legal proceeding unless there is a claimant.
In any case, what, in your view, is an acceptable claim?
I agree that someone whose only skill is casting doubt can cast doubt on the very assumption that the only thing acceptable is what cannot be doubted.

Oded, do me a favor. On the possibility that thought is not valid, it’s impossible to cast doubt on it, and there is no need to, because it isn’t valid. So the doubt remains as it was: is it valid or not.
That’s it. I won’t answer anymore, God willing.

And without an oath, and without naziriteship, and without a ban, and without prohibition and without a konam, and without excommunication, and without a shamta, and without “cursed be he” 🙂
I’ll think about it in the meantime.

I thought a bit afterward about the matter, and I am inclined to agree that there is no identity between skepticism about thought and the fact that thought is the thing casting the doubt. Because even a broken clock can be right sometimes.
But further on, you wrote above: “Just remember that your skeptical thesis… is itself, of course, also under that same skeptical attack. You assume it with no justification whatsoever. So I assume the opposite with no justification whatsoever.”

But if so, it follows from this that accepting sensory impressions is an arbitrary decision! If every decision has no prior justification, we still arrive here at the absurdity that everything is arbitrary. Even if the skeptical thesis is no better in any way than the other possibilities. Don’t you feel there is something relativistic here??

Oded,
You need to internalize that this is exactly the point. I admit that it’s really hard to understand that this is so. It brings frustration. But the understanding is that we truly have no ability to know whether our intellectual/instinctive interpretation of objective reality is correct or not. Basically, either we have no ability to know the object, or we do have the ability. This itself we do not know. That is full skepticism. The hard question is: so what do I do with this (which is itself strange, this “I”)? I think there is no person in the world who does not believe in the interpretive foundations of his thought and instincts. Every person ultimately sits on a chair or talks to a friend—because he believes they exist. Of course, this statement itself is in doubt, because who said there is a world and that I am the one thinking. But I can’t do anything with that. It is so because it is so. You simply believe in them. There’s nothing you can do. There is no decision for either side. Our lives are the decision (if they exist).

The proof of the existence of Descartes’ demon is the fact that we can think about it, and after all: ‘I think = I exist.’

Regards, S.D. Laplace
Choreographer of the dance troupe ‘And Satyrs Shall Dance’

With God’s help, 28 Av 5779

Science itself shows more than once that a physical reality that appears stable and solid is actually an “optical illusion.”

After all, everything we see and feel is really a collection of tiny particles moving through vast space, and only because of the speed of movement of those particles do we get a sensation of a continuity of matter.

The stable ground beneath our feet is only a thin covering sitting on a giant volcano of boiling lava, and it revolves around a not especially large star at the edge of a marginal galaxy, one among billions. Even the blue sky above our heads is only the result of refraction of light rays creating the impression of a blue firmament…

On the one hand, we understand that what we see and feel “is not simple reality,” and on the other hand, what we measure with precise measuring instruments enables us to grasp regularities throughout the universe and harness that regularity for the purposes we want, all this without fully understanding “what and why”…

And “between the two goats” the “thinking person” is tossed—between the goat of Laplace, which brings him to think that in just another moment he will understand and decipher all the secrets of the universe without leaving any “vacant space,” and the “goat of Descartes,” which claims in contrast that all our understanding is elusive and even what we know—we do not really understand…

And between the “two goats” the thinking person dances his wonderful dance, between the awareness that he can understand and decipher more and more of the secrets of the world and develop it, and the awareness that there will always be some realm beyond our capacity, of “I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me.”

The tension between the two opposing states of consciousness is a healthy tension. It leads a person to learn, understand, create, and develop, but with humility and with the knowledge that above him there is a “Master of the Palace,” whose servant and emissary he is.

He feels his insignificance in himself—”What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You take note of him?”—and on the other hand the greatness of his divine mission: “Yet You have made him little less than God… You make him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,” and with all his progress and achievements, he continues to deepen his awareness of “Lord, our Master, how mighty is Your name in all the earth” (Psalms 8).

Regards, S. Tz. Levinger

What does the Rabbi think about this? Even if we accept that one can cast doubt even on the very casting of doubt, we still haven’t explained why one should accept cognition. After all, there is no more reason for that than for not accepting sensory impressions. And if there is no prior justification for the matter, we arrive here at the absurdity that everything is arbitrary. Even if the skeptical thesis is no better in any way than the other possibilities. Don’t you feel there is something relativistic here??

With God’s help, 28 Av 5779

Oded—hello,

Whoever denies his sensory impressions and his cognition will stop functioning. Nobody lives like that. If a scientist does not rely on the measurements perceived through his senses, he won’t get anywhere…

So what is the case? Science accepts that what we see and feel is correct, except that it reflects a deeper and more complex reality, as I demonstrated at length in my comment above.

A person’s cognitions too reflect something correct and true, except that deeper analysis often reveals a more complex picture, within which an appropriate explanation can be given both to our feeling and to our rational understanding.

Faith in our senses and our cognition, accompanied by careful skepticism that leads us to assume that we see only part of the overall picture—that is what brings us to a synthetic vision, one that makes peace between the visible, the sensed, and the intelligible.

Regards, S. Tz. Levi-Najar, may his Rock preserve him [synthetic] 🙂

Honorable security coordinator,
I already understood the mild skepticism beforehand. And your remarks are nice insights within the twists and turns of life.
But I am focusing on the severe and incautious skepticism. And not on skepticism itself, but on its results, which sharpen the understanding that postmodernism is in fact no less correct than the synthetic view.

Because everything is built on basic assumptions, and they themselves are arbitrary—and the absurdity is that even that assumption is arbitrary.
So how do we decide which basic assumption to accept?
All the responses here from people who are not Rabbi Michael Abraham gave pragmatist answers, or that we have no other choice.
But is there no deeper and truer answer?? Because they seem to me like pretty anemic excuses ..