The doubt is constructed via a conception of an evil demon; the indubitability of the self is concluded from the fact of the constructed doubt, and the reality of doubt as thought can only result in the reality of self as thought. I think, therefore I am... thought. There's nothing else to be(ing) at this point. — unenlightened

Descartes never doubted his own existence. If you realize that you have never doubted your own existence, then you have put aside whatever ax you're grinding to really listen to the man.

I don't know. I had thought you were wanting to say there is a substantive point about perceptual error in the 'John and Pooh' example beyond what is merely an error of recognition that would seem to have no ontological bearing unless it is already presumed that what is seen is "what really is". To presume that would seem to beg the question in a context where an argument to support that presumption is being asked for.

Right. How near is "near". If the sun were really perceived to be "small and near" then presumably I would be able to touch it, and then perhaps I would perceive the vaporization of my hand.

Reality is necessarily primary. All skepticism is parasitic upon it. — Marchesk

The presumption of reality is primary, no skepticism in the Cartesian sense is possible without that presumption. Ancient skepticism consisted in the letting-go of investment in that presumption of reality and the fruitless questions that arise on account of it. This leaves me free to investigate without concern about what I might find.

You had suggested back on page two that we might dissolve the notion that perceptual error had occurred by shifting the form of our explanation from "seems Y because is X under conditions Z" to "seems X under most conditions, but sometimes seems Y". That might work in the case of colors (for instance) where we are perhaps already comfortable with the idea that there is no fact of the matter, but it works less well in contexts where that doesn't hold, for example, like the time I thought I saw John sitting on my sofa but upon further review it turned out to be Pooh Bear. In that case I probably want to use an explanation of the original form (e.g. "seemed like John because is Pooh and Pooh has the same size and complexion as John, and I wasn't wearing my glasses, and I heard John's voice coming from that direction, etc..."). I wouldn't want to explain my experience via a schema that forces me to give up on the idea that it really was either John or Pooh sitting on my couch unless I have some additional reasons for thinking otherwise.

Not sure if that helps, but it's the best I can do.

OK, I see what you mean now, I think. If I'm right you mean that the conditions under which you mistake pooh for John are not determinable, as they are in the case of seeing green as blue. That's true, but I would say that the former case is not a case of a correctable perceptual error; whereas the latter is, and without any need to say that it really is, independently of my perception, Pooh, not John. Of course we naturally do think there is a mind-independent reality that determines what is seen in both cases, but I think the main point I want to make is that that is true cannot be demonstrated by any argument.

I think Sellar's was, from what I have gathered from my modest reading of and about him, and from listening to his lectures, wanting to find some way to definitively justify what we do think about mind-independent reality, and I just don't believe that is possible. Of course that does not mean we should reject our most natural beliefs, because what is the viable alternative? I think the better question is not what positive justification we can find to secure them, but rather what possible reason we could have to doubt them.

I wouldn't say that Sellars was trying to "definitively" justify anything. I think he was trying to illuminate and untangle the conceptual confusions he saw lurking at the heart of the empiricist epistemologies of his day, while offering novel alternative framings that preserved the good ideas in those epistemologies while jettisoning the bad. I don't think he was under the illusion that his work constituted some kind of a definitive refutation of idealism. At the end of the day, we all fabricate the conceptual resources necessary to believe or doubt whatever we want to our own satisfaction.

You could well be right. I have no doubt you are a more competent interpreter of Sellars than I am.

Appearance-talk, at least some appearance-talk, probably is derivative from is-talk, but I'm not sure that kind of ordinary language analysis does anything more than brush the real issue under the carpet. If I am standing in front of a whiteswashed-wall and I say it is yellow, but you and everyone else around says it is white, and lets assume we are all being sincere, I might end up yielding and saying "okay, the wall is white, but it sure as hell appears yellow to me". The question then arises is in virtue of what does the wall look, specifically, yellow to me when even by my own admission the wall itself is white? That's the kind of question that pushes Sellars, and some others in his wake, to a dual-aspect account of vision where belief accounts for all the cognitive aspects, and an adverbial analysis is given for all the sensory aspects (even in the case of veridical vision).

Yeah I had a really good time with everyone on the discord, esp voice chat - but unfortunately, it became a kind of crack for me, really accelerating my belligerent tendencies. You can be mean and contrarian and get an immediate response, instead of waiting. Speaking of which, sorry @Snakes Alive the latter half of my comments were pretty rude.

Lyotard, talking about something similar to the convo so far:

Awesome, some Wittgenstien in there... I like the self referential feature of doubt being exposed there.

Lyotard has a really interesting engagement with Wittgenstein - it's a bummer he (Lyotard) is mostly known, if at all, in relation to the term 'postmodern.' I think that makes a lot of people assume he's another Derrida, or worse, when he's anything but. He (Lyotard) has one book, Libidinal Economy that's very much in the style associated with postmodern excess, but everything else is very fastidious and, imo, absolutely brilliant. I feel like he has the cognitive approach of an AP guy, a focus on the themes of the continentals, and a sharp, precise prose-style that's all his own.

As a aspiring stoic who really is just a cynic, I think by default I digress from continental or postmodern philosophy. Yeah, I'm missing out on a lot of fun but that doesn't really make me tick.

As I said in my previous post the title of the thead should read: Appearance vs Reality vs The World. Just seems like something you'd assume as a grounding aspect to the discussion.

hard to disentangle 'reality' from 'the world' tho I agree there's a distinction. It just goes beyond Sellars into mysticism.

An aspiring stoic who's a cynic is as good a candidate as any for studying 'pomo' philosophy. Helps you separate the wheat from the chaff. The sad thing is there's lots of good wheat you can't get elsewhere but there's soooo much chaff.

I think the french know that though - their excesses are the continental equivalent of knowing wryness that characterizes many anglo philosophers. They're both having fun in different, equally exclusionary, ways.