Dean's Seminar - Skepticism, Ancient and Modern

what colleagues and visitors can i send a warm message of welcome to you my name for those who have met me is Roger Cain I am the Dean of the School of Advanced Study and we're here this evening for the st lee visiting professorial lecture that lecture as you will realize it's being given tonight by professor michael williams who joined us in march he's here with us for six months with his wife Meredith here visiting in the School of Advanced Study and more specifically in our Institute of philosophy just a few words about Michael and then I will hand over to him for his lecture michael is an extraordinarily distinguished academic he's chair of the department of philosophy at john hopkins university he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and before coming to Hopkins he taught at and I might just run them off in a list Yale and Maryland northwestern Chicago Michigan Pennsylvania MIT you know it's a pretty distinguished path that led you Michael to your present position in John Hopkins University his main areas of interest are in epistemology of philosophy of language history of modern philosophy and tonight he's going to be talking to us about skepticism skepticism ancient and modern so Michael I invite you to give us your st lee lecture after which you have indicated and you'll be happy to take questions from us but first over to you your lecture Michael thank you okay well I think I have a fairly loud voice I don't think I really need the microphone is that right and I project the station okay well as is my won't i'm going to go through far too much material in far too little time at far too rapid a page where the last of course following from the first consideration of polishing first two this is part of an ongoing project I've been working on this off and on for more years than I care to remember and much of my theoretical work in philosophy has been in epistemology with special reference to philosophical skepticism but I've always had a background interest in the different understandings of philosophical skepticism that have manifested themselves at different periods in the history of western philosophy and one of these days I will indeed finish the manuscript on this just bears the title curious researchers as is on the significant philosophical skepticism um well I begin tonight and I would talk today actually about um the what I think of the deep cut of the deep contrast between ancient skepticism particularly peroneus baptisms and although in the last part of this lecture I will have something to say academics kept well academic skepticism as we know it from as we know it done indeed as the early models knew it from the works of Cicero and modern skepticism which originates I believe in pick up and principally in descartes meditations and even more principally in the first meditation but just to set the stage um I'm not the first person of course to have suspected that there's a very significant difference between ancient skepticism ancient Greek skepticism and modern post Cartesian skepticism I begin with a quotation from a philosopher that perhaps not everybody in the room was read with great attention that are Hagel who writes in his lectures on the history philosophy the older skepticism must be distinguished from the modern and the former alone is of a true profound nature modern skeptics make it fundamental that we must consider sensuous being what is given to sensuous consciousness to be true all else must be doubted modern skepticism is the subjectivity and vanity of consciousness which is undoubtedly invincible not however to science and truth but merely to itself this subjectivity and I think that this remark is profoundly correct and i hope to defend this claim tonight in the cause of it i'll be i'll be giving what is in fact i think a quite controversial account of the nature ancient skepticism particularly peroneus cactus as far as I know I'm the only person who accepts it and quite possibly the only person who's you've heard of it but that's because most people take ancients kept sincerely are classical scholars which I am NOT and I must have I read the text with sex that's particularly with the iron epistemology but not with the nut with the eye of the scholar and then I'll have something to say about Cartesian skepticism which is I was a good deal to make my teacher the late richard rorty but we'll put a somewhat different spin perhaps on on it and then he did well many philosophers has been aware particularly since the groundbreaking work of miles Bernie it that the skeptical problem which perhaps has and still does lie at the heart of modern discussions of philosophical skepticism the problem of our knowledge of the external world was not formulated or certainly not formulated in full generality by the ancient skeptics even though the ancient skeptical tradition from piro a younger contemporary of aristotle into the Hellenistic period of late antiquity round to the best part of 700 years you might wonder why is it they didn't get around to formulate I think this um now of course the modern problem our knowledge external world is it which is is rather spam is I think rather special it's long since escape in Descartes as we'll be discussing later of course it's it's dramatized by means for quasi theological speculation the idea of a melange janie an evil deceiver who manipulates they cards perceptual experience so that it appears that a car as if he's in a material world perhaps lecturing on why he's not being deceived by a melange in here or something of the sort like this interacting with objects around him in fact his life isn't a funny sense something like a long experience four million virtual reality a nun interrupted dream holy delusional um this problem of course as long since escaped the boundaries of professional philosophy I mean it's not that it's often given as an introductory then introduction to philosophy causes and but slugs its escape the boundary the classroom and indeed it shows up in popular films these days like the matrix I mean no doubt the rise of virtual reality technology as a as allowed us to some degree 2d theologies the problem and and give it a certain high-tech glass which no doubt makes it even more appealing to the undergraduate I think it's bought to realize that the one one way in which this differs from any problems said by the ancients is that of course the problem is not lay the anything the sketches was not really essential that's to say it's not really skeptic about our capacity to know the real nature of things in the world around us it's existential I mean as a question of is there an external world at all but is at least remotely like what we normally said the external world to be like is it say for example in any sense a material world but not and I'm perhaps in that sense they cut my line Janie is even more profound than the technological version because after all evil deceiver presumably gets to do his evil deceiving without wires computers or any particular piece of hardware what why is it that the ancients didn't get around to formulating this problem there's I think a prima facie plausible answer and surely it's part of the truth an answer to some degree favored by Myles Bernie at himself and this answer calls attention to the essentially practical nature of ancient skepticism I mean one might say following the the great French of story in the philosophy p.m. I'd oh the teacher of Michelle Foucault actually that all Greek philosophy is it essential aticle in the sense that it's ultimately ethically oriented it's the aim of all philosophy is as it were to show us how to live in the world of course the aim of standard philosophy is to show us how to live in the world given that the world and we ourselves are certain way so that I mean you know to tell us about nature so that we can live according to nature the nature of the world and the nature of ourselves um skepticism however of course it's precisely in this sense the anti philosophy philosophy it's the way to live without getting involved with questions like that but nevertheless of course the ultimate aim is that it's a way of life to describe a way of life and it seems natural to say that a philosophy which is ultimately intended to present a way of living in the world is hardly likely to extend itself to doubting the existence of the world I mean it might very well incorporate indeed will incorporate a certain measure what I call the sensual skepticism of course the skeptic will not make claims to know the real nature of things but he'll hardly doubt that there are things to be coated he's describing a way of coping with them however which doesn't depend upon knowledge of what these philosophers think of as their real nature I by contrast a card and this is of course the significance of his calling his work meditations constructed skeptical thought experiments and develops his skeptical arguments in the context of a purely theoretical inquiry Descartes after all uses skepticism methodologically as a kind of filter for certainty push skeptical arguments as far as they can go and see how where they break down but for the purpose of this project all practical and considerations have been set aside and so the argument goes Descartes can push is skeptical doubts father than it would have made sense to the ancient skeptics to push them well I don't say that that that can't be wholly wrong but I certain it's not the whole story and after all I think in fact it underestimates the difference between skepticism particularly ancient ronnian skepticism and skepticism we know it in the modern period after day card the one thing it's not just the problem of the external world that's missing from the ancient skeptics the whole panoply of modern problems of epistemology the problem of other minds the problem induction but Russell skeptical problem of our knowledge of the past those are missing too ancient / onian skepticism simply is not organized their own problems with that character but anyway I'm the handout i think i have a list of just and by no means exhaustive some of the differences come first of all periods we see has a sustained skeptical outcome not doubt but something called suspension of judgment corrosive actually begins in doubt and ends in suspension of judgment i'll say something about that in the moment secondly tourism is highly discursive I mean sexless notoriously writes books raising so to say first order problems for all the special sciences of his day he writes against the mathematicians against the physicists against the grammarians and generally against the professor it seems in subway closely rooted in or connected to genuine disagreements that people have the learned people at least of his day by contrast Cartesian skeptic I mean it skepticism turonian skepticism includes what we would recognize as general skeptical arguments for sure but it is certainly not confined to them by contrast Cartesian skepticism is wholly dependent on fully general skeptical arguments um and has nothing to do with actual disagreements I mean on the country it trades in outrageous skeptical hypothesis he stuff it's not as if anyone actually believes he or she might be dreaming all the time or is inclined to think that he or she might be the victim of the evil deceiver or trapped as a victim victim of the supercomputer in the matrix if anyone work lined to believe that I would be far more inclined to recommend medication over education maybe the it it doesn't it's one of those things if any man claim to believe it just lets do up give a deleted after say give a few so that says but there's another point of contrast even in its epistemological pump it seems to me um perónism is skeptical I mean rather dogmatic I mean Day card doesn't work at least temporarily attempt to reach skeptical conclusions but sexta seems to although we deploy skeptical arguments if you read sex it seems oddly resistant to or reluctant to draw a definitive skeptical conclusion from there there but it's not clear what they're there for in the fourth place it seems to me that pen audience's face the judgment is as I like to put it flat it's sort of all the same and thus we suspend judgment so sexist what does everyone who reached the first meditation has a sense of increase in a sense of stratification the original doubts are rather shallow and the ordinary perceptual misleading appearances often or honry perceptual illusions the round tower that looks square The Dreaming argument seems to go a bit deeper and to take in perhaps are all full of everyday knowledge of particular things in our immediate environment and then the deceiver argument is initially introduced to go deeper still a perhaps to bring in mathematics at least insofar as it's still thought to have some connection with the more abstract features of material existence so you think the doubt is as it were going deeper and somehow they're expanding and taking more and more things edits it's in a way ordering our convictions in a certain kind of orbit of epistemic priority according to have difficult they are to down and indeed Descartes will in fact really a reinstatement of these convictions in precisely the reverse order with the most difficult thing stood out proving in the end to life around Asians of knowledge when properly understood there's no sense of stratification like that unless to do i think that the fifth thing the epistemological core of Piran ism is the DIA Griffin trial amer or the regress problem the thought that if you if you put forward a proposition or something that you know it's perfectly reasonable for skeptic to ask how you know it and then when you when you after all you're the one making the claim to have more than a mere opinion and then when you say something the skeptic says what is that something you know or just another of your opinions and then if you're not careful whatever you say the question will be reiterated in an infinite regress seems balloon and it's something like that sees you so seems only one of three awful things can happen I've you go on for ever thinking of new things to say trapped in the regress or bexley at some point you tell the staff to get lost at which point he says you're simply making an assumption why did you make one to begin with and save me all the trouble or you end up inadvertently repeating something you've already said pick so you're going round in circles hardly matically bad form of reasoning now take heart does confront that problem later in the meditations it's the notorious problem the Cartesian circle but the problem of the other first meditations doesn't work that way at all it turns on what we might call in distinguishing bill at the arguments how can you tell you're not dreaming right now how can you tell that you're not the victim of the evil deceiver or the whole the supercomputer wouldn't things look just the same either way is that so that is very different form of skeptical argument from the regress problem and the lies at the of the basic of Cartesian skepticism and I believe that the historical source and indistinguishability argument is in fact academic not peroneal skepticism but but even then as I hope to argue later on the resemblances between des cartes use of such considerations as dreaming and divine deception are only superficially similar the use of them made by the academics as least as reported in Cicero's académica so I want to conclude that all these prolifically suggest the Cartesian skepticism does not originate by pushing old considerations father because as it were the practical limitations have been removed it actually involves new considerations so what I'm going to argue is the Cartesian and Peruvian sketches and dip and indeed academic skepticism differ not only aim but in what I'm going to call structure and content well to explain this a little more let me briefly introduce some analytic apparatus which which I which I deploy in the in the manuscript on which I'm working and the key idea I have is the idea of a skeptical staff hmm I like the words staff know this stance is not a doctor it's a stat it's an attitude it's a it's a it's a practical and or theoretical orientation um skeptical stances I believe can be analyzed into two principal elements which I call doctrinal and suspensive a doctrinal element is what it says it's an epistemic doctrine perhaps the doctrine that we have no knowledge or that nothing we bother everything that we accept is mere opinion something like that I'm not concerned right now what the doctrine is that's a doctrinal component and then there's a suspensive component the suspensive components involves giving something up the peroneal skeptic suspend judgment good by which he seems to me get by without beliefs all together we'll come back to that but you know there's other possibilities Hume says that psychologically it's impossible to extirpate one's natural beliefs but it is possible to start not treating them as if they're as it were you know ultimately defensible or something like that so even the humane skeptic might be thought to give something up he doesn't he doesn't give up his everyday beliefs but it does actually were somewhat different attitude towards them but he had three theoretically and few things in fact that exposure to extreme skepticism leads to a kind of epistemic modesty a tendency not to claim too much for yourself within in matters of knowledge and certainty so that's a kind of suspense available and even Cartesian skepticism is suspensive as well as well see a [ __ ] only temporarily suspended but it's suspensive IV that's the point of methodological skepticism you try to see how much how far you can actually just stop yourself from accepting things you normally accept and see where this project logically breaks down so to say and not merely psychologically I'd like to note moving to three though the doctrinal element this quite important can be mostly we call mostly strong you might say that by motely week I mean you might just say in fact we don't know anything that leaves open the possibility that by trying harder rolling up our sleeves and concentrating a bit more might actually get around to know exactly or more typically skepticism is much more remotely strong it says knowledge is impossible there's some principle as it were objection to the very aspiration to knowledge which the skeptic him exploits and then I I said that the principal elements or doctrinal and suspense if there's a secondary element i call it secretary because i think it doesn't appear in all versions of skepticism i call it following rock my former colleague Robert follow the prescriptive skepticism it's just a skeptical prescription says you shouldn't do something other you should claim to be knowledgeable or you shouldn't claim to be able to justify your beliefs you shouldn't claim to have more than me that's the first there's the element of a skeptical stands um we can also look at the extent in other words what does the skeptic what does the skeptic take his skeptical stance towards how extensive is his skepticism doctrinal or suspensive and notice they'd even be the same I mean they aren't in the case of human perhaps but this I think needs to be analyzed a little more precisely than people who write about these matters typically do I think we should distinguish skeptics epistemic target what what proposition 5 is your idea what what's he talking about here knowing the tea being justified ooh accepting that p believing the p period i mean you know these are all different um and I think sometimes rather rather crude presentations of the difference between ancient and modern skepticism in terms of practicality of one and the idea existed the other actually and which is that often put in terms of the one targeting knowledge and the other targeting believe actually confuses the the distinction between the aim of skepticism and the practical 200 epistemic timing of skepticism after all both doctrinal and suspension status isn't too different atmospheric target that you believe that the you're a prosthetic target I believe I think it's the primary pocket for the peroneal skeptical of knowledge secondary parking still but anyway they're not the same thing to say one target's knowledge the other targets believe is not the same as to say the one is suspensive in the other is not tryna if that's the that was the claim that's that's simply not true so we might look at the topical range i mean what particular judgments or propositions does the skeptic get in his sights everything universal skepticism steps it's about the external world perhaps it's not universal but might be things that the external world skepticism skeptical bounce off your mathematics maps and then finally there's the issue of contextual scope I mean when does the skeptic take up is skeptical stats or which version skeptical fats that he take up when to what extent does the peroneus skeptic carry skepticism into everyday life what extent does the cartesian not at all but notice i mean to say that skep to say maybe that's another way in which this simple theoretical practical decision this do anything for us after all they passed skepticism is perfectly suspensive but it's just a text Julie limited its suspensive within the content the initial stages of the cut of the plot of the project of pure rewiring just mean it's not suspensive it's just suspensive in a special context even human is a suspensive skeptic in the study when he suffers these periodic skeptical breakdown he's just thought so to say a sustained on consistent suspense expected he doesn't think anyone can't be well I won't go on too much about this but I think there's our analytical apparatus is very useful for exploring different forms that skepticism has taken historically and some of the simple knowledge versus believe practical versus theater just don't do it and they radically underestimate the range of options in the skeptical tradition many of which have been occupied by the way or take it up by one step to go or another and I want to move on to the third thing now with this apparatus in mind I can introduce what I call the standard marble from the standard model goes roughly like this doctrinal skepticism plus an epistemic prescription tale prescriptive skepticism leading where possible to suspensive skepticism so the skeptics is so an intimidating and the epistemic target of doctrinal epistemic skepticism is some high-value epistemic state like knowledge or justification the epistemic prescription is typically a duck's astok norm saying what you are and are not entitled to believe leading too prescriptive duck suspect skepticism inducing again where possible suspensive duck sestak skepticism so this roughly speaking the skeptic argues nothing you accept can really be rationally justified that would be the doctrine the doctrine you shouldn't accept things that you can't rationally justify and WK clip it right it's it's improper or was everywhere and for everyone to believe things upon insufficient evidence that certain said Clifford that so that would be a duck's ass thick norm so if the step that is writing is doctored you shouldn't believe anything at all that is the prescription Sosa far as you can get away with it you down that would be the standard model now i cant the standard model because it's virtually all skeptical stances that we know post a carp conform to this model the problem with the model I think is that it's had an incredibly distorting effect on people's reading of the age of septic because my first claim is that the peroni ins don't they put the peroni in stamps is not like that the parole ian stance is non-standard so let me say something about that I sitting but the standard strategy I come back to that epistemic goal plus method plus obstacle entail skeptical thesis that's how you get to the doctrinal skepticism that's the that's the cause the key move in the standard model you set a goal you explain how we're supposed to get there if we can you then find something that stands in the way of getting there and then that gives you the doctrinal skepticism that you need okay well look um if we look at their carpet remains anyone who's read the first meditation I think could see the day card skeptical stance is a paradigm of the standard model in its typical form here's just a few brief quote from they car his epistemic goal he says his certain knowledge to establish quote something firm and lasting in the sciences and this turns out to be a kind of absolute certainties Oh all reasons of Descartes will know now of course Descartes is trying to defend his highly rationalistic conception of knowledge against a certain kind of naive empiricism which he attributes to common sense and in fact associates with Alice mysterious skeleton scholasticism come back to that later but he says in the past his beliefs have come from the senses or through the senses pretty vague that as a matter of fact and that's another point that will go back to but at least the thought is so question is immediately given this goal in this method are the senses a source of certainty and then take our takes us through a sequence of obstacles everyday perceptual errors well they do seem to possibly absolute certainty but not so clearly because um they can be fixed I mean the round tapped our mayor Pierce grab the distance so go and look closer you know and then then you'll get it right and the Dreaming argument little more complicated it mean after all there's no question that being far away you know but they can't seem to think anything that I can see or think i see i can potentially dream Here I am sitting in my stove by little Hut in my dressing gown with a book on my lap but that I think wait a minute you know couldn't I be unlike ramp plant i personally dreams could I dream this anything I can experience surely I can dream and then and then finally the the evil deceiver that we talked about so three increasingly severe obstacles to get to getting to the goal via the method ducks astok norm reason now leads me to think that I should hold back my ascent from those opinion which are not completely certain and Jubal just as carefully as I do from those which are patently false so there you go suspensive ducks astok skepticism difficult says they cart but at least temporarily and in the context of your inquiry not impossible anyway you know we're not talking about psychological um inclination to believe even though I may find those difficult to suppress I could certainly so to say not rely on any of my common sense convictions in any inferences going forward until I give them better credentials than than they have at the end of the first meditation so in that sense for the content in the context of this inquiring given how ascent is induced in the context of this inquiry suspension is perfectly possible and will indeed be followed the systematic one so that's pure standard model stuff Sexton seems to me words completely differently turonian skepticism list in my reading of it it's not just practically oriented or practically intended it's practical all the way down and what do I mean by that well I simply take seriously the very first thing sexless tells us about his methods and his aims that everything sexist says that skeptics are made as it were from disappointed philosophers he says men of pound perturbed by the contradictions of things wanted to find out what was true but then they find out it tells us that the more they look into matters the more they find conflicting opinions the more they find equal plausible ways of arguing on different sides of any question and so insensibly they are brought to a general suspension of judgment on these matters so it's it's the got worse than that of our position the idea is to put yourself in the position of Puritans apps the famous donkey caught between the two bales of hay or two carrots or whatever and simply unable to move towards one of the other no now here i think jonathan barnes is absolutely right though when he says and that its a conceptual it's a success often calls this orchestrating of conflicting judgments or completely appearances or completely judgment and appearances mixing matt says that it equals strike is toast veneer done an equal strength justifies absolutely right though and he says that to say that as it were these up an opposition of equal strength it will the devolved poles of equal strength Lisa's Australian judge of judgment is a conceptual truth and it's not that there's an independent criteria or equal strength so we can then wonder will we suspend judgment did we meet that criteria as if we fight ourselves paralyzed in that way then accomplish involve the crippled and poles if I'll be so than air so as I like to put it disability to orchestrate our position is so to say criterion independent and prescription free it doesn't involve an epistemic method or criterion of knowledge it doesn't involve any element of epistemic prescription both of which are integral to standard model skepticism you simply get there by the orchestration of these are positions now as a result of this the ductile of elements in turonian skepticism his ex post facto and boldly we'd sexless doesn't actually discuss when he calls the skeptical slogans until long after his presentation of the skeptics better argument has been presented and then there the slogans are presented in various ways but the most important way presents honest then essentially progress reports my method hasn't let me down so far so far as I can tell I practice this and I've not really been able to make up my mind on these issues the Philosopher's go on about and by the way that would even include common sense convictions elevated to the rank of so to say you know object a philosophical examination that's very important that common sense is not common sense dymatize come back to that in a second now of course the reason nobody everybody quiet so far is absolutely but many not absolutely familiar at this matter of fact just like the neurontin boundary a translation up of sexist they say sexsmith says I think I mean my Creed is it was a never much and be even less as I read sex the sex that says that the basis of skepticism is for putting into our position our proposition 5 judgments and appearances you know blah blah blah so I was doing it using the Addison bunch translation such the basis of skepticism is the plane that judgments and the kingston suit can be put into our position tip I very differently there's no there's nothing at the Greek that says by playing that I mean this accent is pretty damn clear but it's the ability to lure to spread the opposition not any kind of claim about the nobility door I mean you know anybody can like okay this is where your clay falls to the ground right when you can't actually do it have you know you've got to be able to do and if I'm right you don't need any any epistemology to do it but ok so um the reason but with that with that aside I mean nobody really disputes I think what I've just said the reason they don't think it's much of the counter of other parent is amiss because the outlines of pillars room is full of general skeptical arguments the famous modes of opposition I'm not going to go over but I've already sent the heart of the visitor classic problem with the redress of justification so how does that fit with the the method of our position as I just described it how does it's quite patent that's kept that sexist does trapping the general skeptical arguments so how can I say that bruns ms practical all the way back from this way sexta suddenly employs those arguments reactively and the thought is this if you did frustrated by a staff that you constantly argues with you with first order you know you develop your view of democracy and atomism and then you said wait a minute let me give you a nice presentation of empathic looked you know if you think we're probably equally plausible that you don't know what to think and then you move up some other topic adjust the same thing again and so on and so on if you constantly frustrated either it with an interlocutor or you yourself and its really yourself as Texas is concerned it's natural to seek an escape from your frustration at first order by going at this illogical say are what we really need here is a better understanding of knowledge and justification we're not getting anywhere first on it because it seems the very first order claim an incompatible first order claim can be elaborated with roughly equal plausibility so what we've done to do is turn to epistemology and that's why sector says I accept permission liebe stoic claim that in the order the philosophy the three divisions of philosophy of lighting particular job you call this technology physics and ethics like you comes first because after all if we're going to see the truth we better have some idea about what the you know what to theirs and how we see here and you can see how someone who'd been as it were frustrated by an oppositional skeptic might think that was the way to go but that's where skeptical arguments come in skeptical arguments I believe in Borromean skepticism stand in the way of systemic physiology I mean the skepticism about first-order claims rooted in the method of opposition stands on its own TV what the elaboration of skeptical argumentation blocks is escape from first-order frustration by going epistemological now sexless does not claim and I think quite explicitly tells you in some later writings he does not need to draw a skeptical conclusion to make this point sexless concedes that it's very natural to think there must be a criterion of knowledge a way to get it there must be a way to defend the idea that some people's opinions are far more to be trusted than others sexless doesn't deny that that we have a stronger information to think that but he also things properly elaborate we have a strong regulation to think that skeptical activist are reputable and so far from grounding the method of opposition which is what most reuse of sexist think the epistemological arguments apply the method to epistemology so feronia skepticism is not a consequence of epistemic theorizing as the sketch as is the skepticism of the first meditation it's an application of them it's a special application of oppositional skepticism to the very epistemological enterprise itself skeptic so what I like what is there um the preparedness matter is derived considerations it applies to them it so there's a sense in which sexist is not an epistemological skeptic he's a skeptic about epistemology along with everything else that he's accepted about he's a skeptic about epistemology just the way that he's a skeptic in physics or a skeptic and ethics on a skeptic in grammar or indeed in any form of theoretical inquiry now all I won't talk about the practical aspect um I think it's pretty clear though that this structural context does explain quite a few of the differences receiving the brownie Cartesian scary just off the standard model so the day cards epistemic focus is is aimed to take in everything all at once needs a moat least wrong form of skepticism meter principal former skepticism least a part of the standard model needs in a certain technical doctrine you can get all those things out of it i'll leave that to something to use an exercise to the region of the honda to see how much you get out but i don't think you can get everything out of it and i really don't think it's the whole story one thing is I think I mean after all it's not as if the parolee ins and if I'm right the brownian skeptic is a bit of an epistemological opportunity says he doesn't need to inculcate a skeptical dr e ne skeptical problems good for him you know somebody comes up claim to know something or other you know we know that the senses after all why not deploy the alignment to the first better patient to question that as they can't that you know I mean I got you won't go on to say if they can't say no what having disposed two sentences we can now I reason as the source of knowledge the dronians going to have to go on and say by that FAFSA you know such an obviously a live option but there's nothing that methodological e prevents the speed the brownie expected from exploiting Cartesian considerations in his own special way and he wouldn't exploit them quite the way they copped it but he could exploit them in his own way of exploiting them but he doesn't they don't think of them and this is where I think there must be some profound difference we content between two front strut indeed there is let me say very what I think it is I think that I mean a lot of philosophers stay want to make skepticism Cartesian sketchy but here to be what I call intuitive tough to say to follow from just the most everyday banao considerations about knowledge or knowledge of the world or perception my queue has long been some of you read my previous writings has been that this is simply not so the Cartesian skepticism is holy and artifact of the special version of the representational theory of mind that they carding calm place and this theory i think has two features which are utterly essential they can't things that are first of all thought is 12 7 features thought involves the presence demand what calls idea that's a blanket term that descartes uses to cover what we might call concept the idea of a horse the idea of a golden mountain judgments which involved seventh of ideas the idea that that is golden mountain in Peru or something my father um okay um but ideas for Descartes are two features i think first of all they're representational properties that intentionality that about this is intrinsic to them to change link to them it doesn't it's not in any way explain I don't cast off a lot of business I mean sometimes find yourself wondering what the 17th century gloss was meant by idea if you turn to the first page of Port Royal liked it you find them say saying some terms are so simple and clear that the attempt to explain would be point for such a terms idea you know a historian of velocities day this is not very helpful you know I was hoping for more than that but you don't get it oh but then it really depends on come back to them the second thing is that they themselves of course however as representations of other things on pain of infinite regress are themselves known without representation and that's what immediately means they are immediate they are known to the mine but they are known without representational intermediates obviously the happy doesn't you needed an idea of an idea to be aware of an idea then you need an idea of an idea of an idea you can't have that so ideas are known the contents of the mind the contents of thought are known by near presence to consciousness and they can't thinks that where there is no representation there could be no misrepresentation and consequently things don't immediately unknown perfectly or as we say in college boy now I on tough time now to go into why he fixed it I mean they can't develops this theory essentially and then attempt to make to prove to create a more hospitable intellectual environment for the new mathematical physics than was provided by Alex cotillion scholasticism with what he thought was a kind of night in person to be 90 conceptual indirect the idea that all ideas are countries in the end through the center that we know they can trust and think this innate ideas he also thinks the true knowledge true understanding is to be wholly distinguished from the kind of represent from sensory representation which the Descartes is inexistent and very important of course nothing original about this but it is important never to forget it Descartes was a pioneer in an analytic geometry and you know um y equals x plus C doesn't immediately remind the uninitiated of a line and under the federal census we're very active think the things we can imagine for mental pictures are much better understood but they can't of course things that um representing a geometrical object algebraically as a set of points on satisfying equation gives far more information and it's far more effective in generating correct inferences than anything that involves picturing in the mind's eye and they part of some one of his early great discoveries of course was that certain problems about the about intersecting lines which are insoluble by geometrical methods available to the grease what you've got the lines represented algebraic we simply used to the problem of solving a bunch of simultaneous equations Greeks have no idea do that and Descartes famous discourse on method of course was written as an introduction to a value in which the geometry what's the first suspected substantive yes sir ok now it's ok so I the problem is that though once you've got this idea it's this idea it's not strictly just the idea that illustrator representational Hospital rates the problem it's the day themselves or object of knowledge of not represented non-representational e it's the combination and also be trinsic attack I mean it's true I did it I think it's really important to see you need both of these um look a good deal of modern philosophy of language does not pay the semantic properties how interstates can be explained independently of our capacity to interact with objects in the environment so in tanks now teasing that seems not intrinsic it has to be honest but at least in part in the context of extrinsic relations to things around it this is history documents of Davis's interpretations to me or something like that Descartes it idea to be trinsic the x value allows as it were the representational properties by these two three free of environmental consideration the fact that their themselves then encourage ibly known as fabless is that intrinsic epistemic privilege shower I mean they have they have surface a semantically dependence and epistemic privilege and it's those two things that makes them a screen between mind and world and it's putting up screen in the way but generates the problem of the external world and the reason then the degree student skeptics never had the problem of the external world is they didn't have the concept in the external world they didn't have a concept of the external world because they didn't draw the mind world boundary where they can't draws it they particularly didn't do so because it is a further features of the Cartesian might they haven't mentioned Descartes treats what he calls ideas of sensation as if they were already perceptual so perceptual States conceptual stage all the same intrinsically representational immediately now the puzzle in our house fundraiser this little Greek the last by nubs except possibly the siren eggs but they didn't leave any writings expand to us so we only know each other really growth of the mind that way because for them sensation straddle the boundary between so to say of internal representation and and embody to the Greek way the Greek sites get sex let's talk about knowledge of external objects they need in the vicinity in your surroundings after they can't external means without the mind without the mind when the cut the ancient concept of Association has been split cleanly into the conscious representation of the physiological substrate which are now conceptually wholly independent to take our budget later than the medication so the world for all we immediately know just might not be there and skepticism coach existential well in the last few minutes that's that's a horribly quick and crude sketch of an incredibly subtle view but let me say how I think Descartes introduces this view I you know I said that we often treat this problem is very immediate and obvious I don't think it's not only did not buy driver i think i mentioned popular culture i think one of the ways in which you can see the problem is more itself more of a problem is that most films based on cartesian skeptics are actually coherent I mean pic of the matrix okay and it remember te more right when he holds baton improve the district's turtle world here is one hand is another sort of these dudes don't like it to known to exist these films all have what i call the mauryan bone develop the world in which you could possibly know going up you may get to drink a blue liquid and then you get dropped in from a bath of cold water and all of a sudden the scales of the representations fall from your mind so the thing I you know Keanu Reeves now knows you no longer the battery but these merely swimming in cold water you know beneath the place where he used to be a battery why this isn't just one further clever moving the simulation is never explained and it's never explained because the story can't move forward that problem with be taken seriously I mean if you really buy the Cartesian mock pictures of the relation of mind the world then you can't drink a blue liquid and suddenly know what's going up and I think is true always build they developed that they develop the problem so-called and then what they what they give with one hand they take back with the other all of a sudden if you just get in the right frame of mind or take the right drugs hey you know the external world is immediately available well that may be a dramatic necessity but my you it is philosophically coherence and we ought to learn something from them but so how does he do this well I think they can't actually in the course of developing the arguments of the first meditation is actually introducing us to the theoretical ideas that underpin the argument some of the tougher than forgotten the items so easy to us now living 300 years later and fully familiar with card idea it's easy to forget that it didn't seem obvious today how to contact region if you read the objections to the first meditation parts and Cassander you are hardly unintelligent people when mystified by the skepticism of the first meditation hard certainly did see that it was different from all patent appeals of conflicting experiences which you would be in sexism which have been revilla fide by maintaining this is indifferent what it's a pity that our office so distinguished in my speculations did not spare the soul rubbish so Thompson's coming Sunday God kiss and II says oh well look you know you could tell her things without us people outside because if their word nothing would cause us to have these ideas that you know by the third medication because only says oh wait a minute you're saying that I might have the ideas without those things that give rise to them and then maybe I wouldn't know what there were such things oh you know it's in other words it's healthy ready for Santi has got much further into the meditations and begun to familiarize himself with the Cartesian outlook but the initial problem finally starts to make sense to him well i think that the pivot is the dream argument cost i think that's how they card does it so i just moved out very very briefly to the lunch part of my son talking you and I explain the little table that you see on the back okay here's dreaming in sexless this is all this is one brief passage in the fourth mode of suspension from the ten modes of Annisa dimas sexist different appearances come about depending on sleeping and waking when we ought to wait we view things differently from the way we do when we are asleep and when asleep differently from the way we do when awake so the existence or non-existence of the object becomes not absolute but relative relative to being asleep or awake it's likely then that Wensley we see things which are on real in waking life nothing real ones to parole for they existed sleep just as the context of waking life exists though they do not exist in sleep very briefly i think this argument to use this contrasts as it were the dream state with the waking state but there are five features um okay the first is what i call our current persuasive equivalents according to sexless dreams are as persuasive to the dreamer as waiting experiences for the person awake at the time okay at the time though our current persuasive equivalents dreams are I'm not saying this is true but it's sexist view so as you put it we assent to what is present in the present um the second is carpeted lucidity there's no suggestion in sexless about the dreams papers are non leucistic your justice compos mentis surface a thinking just clearly at least potentially when you're dreaming is as you are when you're away you're just thinking different things like oh my god I mean you know chased by a monster off you know I'm back having this argument with my late mother or something of the sort you know but the dream state is not treated us confused a for example where no question of knowledge would arise because um as it were oh really I mean you might think is in dreaming you're no more really thinking thoughts then you are riding a bicycle Ivy you know you dream that you think lucid thoughts but you're not thinking them you dream that you ride a bicycle but you're not writing well and that would be another view but that's not sexist is you um and it's quite interesting that sexist associated really just one of many states described stage-managed in the fourth mode the others are you today first suggestion its axis that young people are not listed all the old people are uploaded it just that young people old people tend to do things rather than definitely they're going to sex mr. so special where there's no reason to privilege one perspective over the other so dreamy just becomes one more stage as lucid as the waking state but no ultimate reason to give the waking state the palm in terms of revealing reality a state awareness symmetries for third feet dry college oh I just probably mean this regular way to know your way for you you know you dream exactly never asked how do i know i'm dreaming might be awake right now he seems to think that dream is no in some sense this is a different state of mind to be and waiting people know this is a different state of mind the states are different the question is which is the guide to reality but not how do i know i mean one rather than the other which is the cartesian question and I think that's connected with the fourth 32 inches content discrepancy sexless I use of the dream world is different this object from the waking world you know different things happen in dreams the things that happen in dreams typically don't happen in waking life sex the system and then the fifth is ontological neutrality I mean hey that's the dream world there's the waiting world these presents itself is real you know I've got a sister we get something rather different his sister Owen dreamy as if anyone would deny van the man who has woken up thinks that he's been dreaming of the one who's madness has subsided things the things that he saw during his madness were not true but that's not the point that issue what we're asking is what these things look like at the time than they were seen now so we see right away actually um sex the states that that isn't important deficit epistemic asymmetry between the dream state and the way from spread and if I you might be solid time but the fact is worse you're lucid you know once you wake up all then you realize you've been dreaming so when you're awake you know for sure you're awake are you dreaming you might not know whether your dream so exactly what that's telling asymmetry between dreams taping the waking state according to Cicero and I think that's a fairly common sense view it's a view we could find in Austin much of why would we have the word a dreamlike appraiser dreamlike qualities as often sentence that's a good lilia if they were really an issue here but I think the most interesting thing in Cicero is what are you socially screaming with he associated with drunkenness and madness tough to say associated streaming with states but are not cognitively lucid but after some degree the Landrum not me where you're innocent in your thinking false thoughts which are not thinking straight in the dream case according to Cicero now I think this leads to a very important distinction sister are in fact only driving I assumed from a cadet materials has two quite different sorts of indistinguishability argument the one is where at the time since you're not thinking straight you can't tell the state of being dreaming or being insane or being drunk from being Oh from being awake saying and or sober so that's one in this thing disability argument you can't at the time always tell what state you're in and that's because of the epistemic asymmetry between the space I called attention to earlier now in these states you may quote see things that don't exist drunkards papers p brats or you know the madman don't you know loser nations or whatever but Cicero is pointed not that you're actually sad this is different projects the sexist things you're aware of object in the bowl cases though dramatic waiting objects Cicero's new is no there's a sense in which you're not presenting with objects in the bad case what you can't does not like that the drunkest rats aren't there your problem is you can't distinguish between seeing and seeming to say that's the dream problem but that's the drunkenness problem now what about though um so uh note these are contacts elitist rapid space you don't know the scenic route running along the end of the bed when dry but when you're drunk you can't tell whether you're actually cities such things on daily seeming to see them so so he accept content discrepancy strange things happen in dreams but he does at the sexless epistemic asymmetry and then says in the bad stage we may not be able to tell what state were in that's the epidemic I'm now he has however a wholly separate kind of in distinguishing of the argument where the states are content converted well there's no question in an elusive state you're seeing but you can't tell what you're seeing but what states are those 28 I show you to access a AKA be better go like this that's it aka me but I assure you no I mean nothing so like today or I see guys he has a twin Titus maybe I know about Titus maybe I don't but I don't know that I'm seeing Gaia because if I went if I was seeing Titus I still think i was seeing guy I can't tell guys from titles why because nobody can tell tires from Titus they look exactly the same that double gang is so sexist arrow does have an argument in which in which as it were experiences can be as we're identically contact and the experience of sea of seeing guys is just like the experience of seeing title but that because Gaius is just like Titus in other words experiences that are content indistinguishable according to Cicero derived from indistinguishable objects where you see what's coming Descartes essentially fuses the two academic arguments into a Halloween uniform Dave Hart takes ecstasy's idea so sorry yeah take the day card first of all takes ecstasy's idea that dreaming and the bad stage slightly of demon perception are cognitively he does this by the way without argument he raises the skeptical hypothesis that he might be mad in the first meditation and says he would be mad to consider he gives you no reason why considering the possibility matt is somehow more outrageous all outlandish than considering the possibilities of God or the evil deceiver is totally manipulating his experience yeah I find it pretty difficult to say which was the more outlandish on the Atlantis to scale I'm applied to the theological version is four more hours I think even busy breeze worse than the thought that I might be crazy but if I have to choose but the point of that I think in Descartes is doing fly without ever explicitly arguing but the next place is going to consider the dream case is a case of cognitive elusive experience badness is already been obsessing so as it were we we've got cognitive lucidity in the rotation but we've now also got state awareness 70 in a new file you can't tell which state you're in that's like sec that's like cesara fun dreaming and drunken but notice you can't tell what's data but with the proviso the department of delusion in both states with Cicero does not make and then in the third case for the third page of Cartesian reading documentation you now against the background and partly introducing intrinsic intentionality and epistemic privilege for the inner representations you now diverge from sexless in replacing sex versus content discrepancy between dreams and waking with content with potential content identity dreams can simply replicate simply replicate the content of waking experience now that's a wholly new configuration of skeptical eye there's nowhere in the agent but what you've done that this by moving content convergence into the dream argument these are considerations of cicero keep separately you've been done to detach the capacity of experiences in good states and bad states to be content identical from causation by identical i give three space are internally around there's no question of guys who you can't tell from titles on the country that internally route or divinely-inspired as much as the as the dreams but not to do all the delusions of the drunk or the magnet no object necessary but at the same time unlike in cicero the bats day dreaming or diamond illusion can replicate the good stage ordinary experience but now without tying it to being aroused by ID by indistinguishable objects in the environment all drink all the demon does is radicalize this by saying for maybe actually that wouldn't even need to be the brain to internally arouse them they can't essentially sufferings you up for this idea of experience are so to say conceptually represented it fully detachable both as it were epistemically its traumatically from any sort of interaction with with the world around you you don't see that this full Cartesian bag of tricks is already honey as I said the maximum dad's big house appears later on to pull these ideas how to describe the classification in my TV he doesn't exactly the same way that the continent pulls a rabbit out of the Hat he stopped the rabbit in the Hat when you were looking and the first meditation is I think the most brilliant exercising hat stopping the history of philosophy the rabbits of the cut CZ imbibe this stuff into the Hat of property to septic linemen and then later on triumphant we pulled out as part of the solution well there's a little table there that gives you the the differences in the dreaming argument but I think in fact this deserves the mind that they can't introduces around which is skeptical arguments fully depan it's a radically new conception of subjectivity without without counterpart at least in the ancient skeptical conditions certainly not in Aristotle Plato and he breathe and as long as you work I believe within the parameters that it sets the problem will never admit of satisfactory solution and the saying goes that scum rating arm for my body part cartridges the other side of this particular coin so I want to say Hagel was right like Michael thank you very much indeed for me mentally or no just an amazingly arrow tight discourse thank you very much indeed and thank you at a personal level Michael for providing me with an intellectual rationale for watching the matrix for this great man thank you wow we could argue now we're a relatively manageable group what I suggest is that we take one or two questions here and then we all be able to continue informally discussing these issues with with Michael over a glass of not blue liquid but perhaps more red or white liquids afterwards so can I invite no first of all any questions please to Michael and back thank you very much start with suggestions as extensional skepticism under to that one public is coming one your section of sexist which really mean experienced miles translation anyway no one denies appearances I suppose that thing is repeated something all those lies two or three times and that's first penetration to the reason why sexist what push that occurs because if he does in I appearances that was also a lot of this appeals was fourfold regulative criteria it's a very discussed it's a very good question and I now have to be brief and dogmatic um I don't think that appearance is our countries and ideas that's what it comes down their first loss scope is much broader I mean um you know there are nuances of validity I mean approve the piers value yeah no one denies that the truth strikes it was founded the question is is it bad no one denies that if you're brought up in a certain way certain practices here discuss that client of judgment would be and just asking to the question is whether they are really so so it seems to me that appears right so I building on that point you bring up the fourth of way yeah I sex the sense that the skeptic track lives in practice it is answer to the ancient objection the strategy that would be destructive if you could do so no peer or not that being led around by his friends so you fall in the traffic or yeah all right that's pathetic and he uses that plastic parasite keeps doing that that's awesome that's not very good after these absolutely on the basis of people's beliefs kind of epistemic welfare or something new time to go you can stop everything taxpayer for her is very fun game but Texas I think has a police excited to do ours is but one can simply live by one who needs to be actions didn't help of me the words like it does one and how if you notice it's pretty curium its exes jude is two words which you pierced after distinguish me Alex asked us without believing a dogmatic us on dogmatic wonder how you can use those two words to be the same thing I think the problems of said what I would believe wonder how you can use those two words to me the same thing I think the problem is instead what I would believe part but I mean it's something like just reacting to the present in the present but not necessarily in the form of explicitly formulate the proposition for example you know just taking things to be taking it personally practice things would be a certain way our vehicle matter inflation probably somebody to issue the rustic versus the event skeptic I don't really I really that I don't really think so about this thing she doesn't do a lot of me I mean and if you go back to my a little apparatus I think I would draw some rather I think important is that word to me about the station between what i call the topical range of skepticism of the contextual scope of skepticism I think anything we brought within the topical range through a method it explicitly demonized it's just as a matter of fact lots of things are as it were treated that way so in the course everyday life as a kind of practical sense which means which you could call common sense but which needs to be disabled for common sense presented as some kind of list of mauryan propositions for our inspection and a wonderful remarking on sir Victor's line says when you hear more say here is one hand you suddenly understand those who think this is by no means ever you know I think that's exactly right I mean because that's not the way in which we normally just react to things when we deal with written in attract away it's a better proposition is a trigger a tender so in terms of the apparatus I presented I really would distinguish them set contextual scope from epistemic target and from so to say topical range and I think the rustic obeying distinction looked pretty crude when you've got this finer grain taxonomy but still I suppose personnel security I suppose in to realize why I've heard that correctly why he doesn't take it any further because ultimately does think in paralyze yourself introduced appearance to these regularly I think the I suppose there is just those part of his ballot of style I mean it isn't even his own kind of quiz i saw a psychological account of every day of San is presented in this world this is how it strikes me anyway that we get on I mean I can do without an epistemic right here it's so exceeds yeah yeah often has this idea that the forwarding aspect that I know yeah when you say I know you're giving your word you know you're inviting other people to agree or you're informing I sometimes they can sex this the appears or I suppose it's kind of a counseling of those normal expectations that go with and qualify decision here's how it seems to me but you know try to self don't take my word for it you know I mean rather than a comment our ideas as a Cartesian appearance it's that here's how it strikes me but you want you might want to try this map for yourself before signing up now the question please yes and your life what are your thoughts on what well it is part of that I hate hanging by my bedside where do all these late hellenistic philosophies are kind of drunk Cowboys like whatever visit as an Alberta visit bro its opposite I mean um Sarah yes it's a condom it's a kind of its kind of withdrawal from the electrolyzer price of violence and it's something quite sophisticated person to turn with simulacra I think Kobe aren't you being probably looked a bit beyond to be modestly solid it's hard to say you know he does have a sudden anticipation of biological counted up with affiliate association so your point he certainly dispenses with comedy faulty equipment but I balata he does say humans to experience home to associate getting first route with covering oops you know whatever disease and we hope they both stand out of having a beautiful as a couple in that way if this seems the word to us and that that's kind of like you but he's less theorize with you but understands itself is less to drive very fun ways you report of how you can't after going through the skeptical discipline it is you know the ones the genre what I don't call spiritual exercise Humes stands although it's a long be humble is much more deeply there are a fattass answer so you sparkle girl in reaction to that yeah well clearly that's true the breaking because I mean young the story structure not really contradicted on the other hand you so impressive that the citizens of their lair voted a tax exemption for all of us those of the day you know from somebody once said that I'm just blanking on his neighbor 19th century French transition phase 1 beta for all that they receptive death at the issue suggestion that maybe adding all these stories are paratrooper or douchebag understanding with one day the severe interesting awesome at the next thing is kind of Babu who has to be prevented from falling under the Oscar hey as a kind of like 45 but that is a lot re this mission target from a nifty back about there I think you got the saxes doesn't take much of the objection of is often times or even a perfectly good way to live without one I Haiti conceptual associates belief with judgment and so there's a way of living in terms of know how uniquely actions automatic inferential processes which he thinks anyway our differed from judge is normally understood and kind of self contacts that regulation of one's opinions and that's good enough and he calls that indifferently mundum article without belief I think that an idea to believe us explicitly formulated propositions with you Arachne to get set that's to do that and I my niece how my Xia then you see would be the objection para para fun you had to go around relying on strange this way use over you know what well it was disconnected yeah i'm not going to impose a full stop on the discussion but i think it is time for a semicolon while we adjourn to a less formal setting in which we can then continue the discussion but before we do a journey may I ask everyone if they would please in the usual way thank Michael Williams for delivering the 2010 SPV visiting professorial lecture Michael thank you very much indeed

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Keywords: History

Id: 4abCuEBa8ME

Length: 84min 48sec (5088 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 13 2012