Cheers for the recommendations.
Got a good amount to keep me busy.

Also in case anyone is interested found out the Sydney School of Continental Philosophy shut down and made all their courses public (recordings plus notes).

http://sscp.org.au/index.html

I'm quite interested in how arguments work on us, how we get convinced of various issues. How we come to hold one philosophical/political/moral/(insert almost anything)/ position as opposed to another. Most the time it's likely arguments are not integral to the process of changing our mind at all. Taking some examples like moral realism vs moral anti-realism, it seems like we could give a bunch of people the same readings and exposure to arguments and they would still end up on different sides of the discussion.

Similarly - how do various issues become fashionable, lgbtq rights/racial relations/ 99%/ war/ etc, even though the actual issue have been around for ages, they seem to come to prominence together with their own sets of new arguments which are repeated ad nausium. Then a few years later they seem to disappear once more. For example: I feel like leftys in Australia are less concerned with climate change that we were 5 years ago.

There are many things that influence our views which are not philosophical arguments. I get the feeling like philosophical arguments are often impotent.

I always come back to morality - what is the best way to think of morality.

other words, it's unbearable to think that someone else might actually be wrong about something. We can only get along if we're all equally right - at least in our own minds. Thus is born Political Correctness. — Wayfarer

Haha I'm quite comfortable with saying you are completely wrong about this. Not sure where u pulled it from.

As if anyone on a philosophy forum is uncomfortable with others being wrong :)

I really enjoyed that post, though it's not entirely accurate.

I am very attracted to the idea of polytheism atleast in the way that Dreyfus interprets it. There are many ways to live, you can follow Aphrodites or Aries neither is more correct than the other. Monotheism represents a tyranny - only one way for all.
I don't have a problem with using force to make the world how you want it to be. Like forcibly preventing child torture. But it's the person who's the tyrant not the moral truth.
To keep with the polytheistic metaphors. People who follow different gods can war to impose their wills. You can do this without proclaiming yourself the follower of the one true God, without calling the other God a false god or a lie.

is, again, 'subjectivism' - that is, morality is effective because it's 'part of your experience', it is under-written by individual commitment. So, you will respect that, because it represents the right of an individual to hold a view - but at the same time, you don't believe it amounts to anything 'objectively true'. — Wayfarer

Something like this. I think morality as commitment is also a bit of an abstraction. I don't think the morality as part of your experience is a set of rules, just the way you are compelled to act. Once we move from moral experience to moral sentences we drastically change what we are referring to.

I'm not trying to just present my own view of morality. This is in response to the argument that moral experiences (caring and feeling of obligation towards others) can be the basis of moral realism.

I think what you're actually asking for is an 'objective domain of values' - which is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask for - but in the context of a culture within which the traditional means of providing that, is absent — Wayfarer

Not really asking for it. There are plenty people that are moral realist that don't believe there is 'an objective domain of values' - sounds very platonic. I'm mostly interested in arguments for realism which don't require this 'objective domain' or something similar.

It is as if you are a limb that is numb to me, and I am a limb that is numb to you, and morality is the truth that if you damage a limb, you are damaging yourself, for all that you do not feel anything. — unenlightened

Because I don't actually feel your pain, I don't tend to care about it as much as my own, but this is merely a limitation of my senses - shortsightedness. Morality simply reminds me that you are sensitive too. — unenlightened

I haven't respondent to these aspects of your post because they don't really make sense to me. I see it a way you can choose to view others, definitely not natural for me to think like this.

It's the 'is/ought' problem again. What is the warrant for 'it is wrong' beyond subjective opinion? This is what religion and social mores used to underwrite, but now they've either been 'internalised', 'relativized' or 'subjectivised'.

I think it is quite permissible to believe that stealing anything whatever is wrong. It doesn't mean you have to perform a citizens arrest over someone shoplifting, but if I noticed it I think I would tell the shopkeeper. — Wayfarer

The reason that I don't see it as the classic is/ought problem is to do with the conception of what morality is. If morality is part of your experience, in your caring and feeling of obligations towards others - then the is ought problem does not apply. I take it that this is how Un conceives of morality. My concern is with the transformation of this experiential morality into true sentences as I view it as a transformation into something different, rather than a way of expressing our experiential morality.

Is ought problem has a different starting point.

Perhaps you are looking at the horizon, while I am looking at a bird, which is looking for grubs, and a cat which is looking at the bird with a view to lunch. Four very different views and significances. Each significance is a relation of a pov to a view. The horizon has no pov. — unenlightened

I was addressing this sentence.
"If your point of view is as real and as significant as my point of view, for all that I have no access to yours, then my obligation to you is equal to my obligation to myself."
If significance is always related to a pov, then there must be a pov in which these 2 other povs both share equal significance. If there is a cat looking at a bird and a bird looking at grubs - with you watching both. Then both the cat's and the birds povs can be equally significant to you. But they can't just be equally significant simpliciter.

When you stated that my point of view is just as significant as yours, it sounded like it was from the pov of the horizon (or the view from nowhere) which we agree does not exist. It could be that you meant that my pov is just a significant to me as your pov is to you, but that wouldn't really fit with your argument.

I don't see how you can be definite about what you are not conscious of. But of course there is much one is not conscious of that varies from person to person, habit, neurology, the state of their gut bacteria. There is much of the world one is not conscious of too. I don't think we disagree about that.

Don't get hung up about 'container'. It is just a convenient shorthand. Shall we say that to be conscious is to be the 'centre' of an 'experiential world? If that is an acceptable locution, then we can replace 'container' with 'centrality' and 'contents of consciousness' with 'experiential world'. — unenlightened

Yeh if we look at people who have suffered brain damage, it seems clear that the structure of consciousness itself has changed rather than just the contents of consciousness. But yeh it's a forum, better to be brief and sacrifice accuracy than write pages just to get past the 'consciousness as container' line in the paragraph.

My point when questioning this was the idea that the 'container is the same'. If we replace container with centrality and contents with experiential world, it makes less sense to call 'the centrality the same'. Your argument was that awareness it the same whether yours or mine and that we are not as separate as we are commonly taken to be. This argument is definitely helped if the view of consciousness is as container.

I'd be grateful if you could explain the gap, because I don't see it. The nearest I can get is that morality as pontificated in prescriptions and proscriptions is a poor substitute for the weakness of caring about others. Because I don't actually feel your pain, I don't tend to care about it as much as my own, but this is merely a limitation of my senses - shortsightedness. Morality simply reminds me that you are sensitive too. — unenlightened

This is likely the main area where we differ. The view of morality as 'caring and feeling of obligation towards another', is descriptive to pov. I would say that it is part of our experiential world, not compelling it from the outside or acting on it.

Take my compulsion/feeling of obligation not to shoplift a packet of papadams from the supermarket at 34 Elizabeth St, South Yarra Australia, between the hours of 6:23 and 6:25pm on Wednesday the 1st March 2017.
1. How do I make a true sentence out of that.
2. How do I generalise it to fit many different occasions
3. How do I apply it to others as something that isn't reliant on my own pov.
There are more issues/questions. So if I feel obligated to act in a specific way and someone else does not feel obligated. When I tell them 'it is wrong to shoplift', I'm trying to say more than 'I feel the obligation not to shoplift so you should not do it'. The gap I am speaking about is moving from the moral experience to a true sentence which applies to others even if they don't have a moral experience with regards to the same issue.

If one can speak objectively of human subjectivity, then it seems to follow that there is something generic about it. One might say that the contents of awareness are always unique, such contents including a sense of self and personal preferences, yet the container is everywhere the same -awareness is the same whether it is yours or mine.

If such is the truth, it is not directly experienced, but inferred; I do not feel your pain, but your pain is as real as mine. I do not need to be told that I ought to avoid my own pain, because it is within my direct awareness, but the need to avoid your pain emerges indirectly from the understanding that we are not as separate as immediate experience suggests.

If your point of view is as real and as significant as my point of view, for all that I have no access to yours, then my obligation to you is equal to my obligation to myself. Of course it is unnatural to talk about obligation to oneself, because it is automatic - 'when hungry I eat, when thirsty I drink'. The understanding that your hunger and thirst are just as significant as mine is the foundation of obligation to another.

It is as if you are a limb that is numb to me, and I am a limb that is numb to you, and morality is the truth that if you damage a limb, you are damaging yourself, for all that you do not feel anything. — unenlightened

It looks like we have a vastly different view of some of these issues.

What ever generic is found about human subjectivity is based on similarity not sameness. Another person has a way they go through the world, it has similarities to my way, enough similarities that we can understand each other. I can make general statements about human preferences. I don't think of consciousness is a container and definitely the difference between people is much more than the so called contents of consciousness.

It's weird for me to describe someone else pain as 'real' or as real as my own. The real aspect is the being that is in pain, the pain cannot be separated or abstracted from the being as if pain is the same between beings (just containers with the same contents).

When you speak about points of view being as significant as others, I again cannot get onto your wavelength. Significance is always significance to something, to a being, to a process, to a god. There is no abstract significance which allows us to equate each persons point of view.

With regards to 'obligation', I would see that more as compulsion (for lack of a better word). I am not immoral if I avoid food for a time even whilst hungry. It's not as if I view humans as an island either. We feel compelled to acting in various ways towards each other, we have relationships and what we view as out own obligations. My issue with realism is that this isn't enough for it. It is not limited to describing out moral compulsions, it wants to make true sentences out of them, it wants to take something quite specific to each person and simplify it, generalise it, and then insist that this is the right way to act.
There is a large gap between caring and feeling of obligation towards others and moral realism.

Sure, those things are true.

I honestly do not know if you are responding to something I have said or making an argument against realism.

Happy to hear about truths about personal subjective nature which reflect our personal subjective nature.

Do all statements of fact require a 'because?' — The Great Whatever

No, but do you think that moral facts are exactly the same as other facts with the only difference being their subject matter?
Normally you could check if someone told you that there was a cat on the mat.

So let's say you have a specific belief - maybe torturing children is wrong - then you find out that it isn't true. Is that a possibility
— shmik
Sure, but I don't think it's likely.
Haven't you ever changed your mind about something? — The Great Whatever

Sorry, did an edit to try to make my point more clear.

Wouldn't a more reasonable response be to say, 'you're right?' — The Great Whatever

I get that anti-realism isn't the norm, but so what? I don't go along with every position that is intuitively compelling if I think it's flawed.

Yes, but only because I generally believe in my own epistemic faultiness. Because of the nature of belief, I can't pick out any single moral belief I have that's wrong (else I wouldn't believe it). — The Great Whatever

So let's say you have a specific belief - maybe torturing children is wrong - then you find out that it isn't true although you still feel that torturing children is wrong. Is that a possibility or are your moral convictions such that they are entirely based on their own self evidence such that to find out one of your beliefs is untrue is the same as finding it self evidently untrue.

So when people say torturing children is wrong, you don't agree with them? — The Great Whatever

To me this conversation is similar to if you said to me, 'torturing children is wrong because it's against the bible'. When I respond that I don't believe in the bible's authority you think its strange that I'm OK with torturing children.

You seem to want to say that 'torturing children is wrong' without a 'because'. For me that doesn't make any sense. That gap between my aversion to the thought of it (torturing children), and it being a fact is insurmountable to me.

If someone says to me torturing children is wrong - I would likely say one a 3 things.
1. Nothing is wrong.
2. The way we use moral language barely makes any sense. Traditionally there was a reason that made something wrong, whether divine command or that it was somehow bad for our flourishing. Once we divorced our moral language from those reasons it stops referring to anything.
3. Yes it is horrible.

Do you think that you are wrong about certain moral facts? Wrong in a way that isn't caused just by lack of information on a topic.

Yeh that's part of my issue. I'm unwilling to take on the metaphysical commitments that I think are necessary to say that 'X is wrong'. Repulsive is as far as I can go.

If for you there it is so obvious that there is something more - then yeh, it doesn't fit with my outlook as I said in my OP.

To me the whole question is a non issue. I don't hold that there is something about the world that makes killing children wrong.

Do you hold that saying 'it is wrong to torture children' is synonymous with 'its repulsive to torture children'?

Of course I don't think it is wrong to torture children, if I did I wouldn't have made this thread.

I would view moral realism in what you call the restricted sense from your conversation with Michael.

Moral realists hold that they are saying a fact. Being against moral realism is not the same as psychopathy. To assess my psychopathy it what would be relevant to look at my attitudes towards people not whether I hold that there are true normative facts about human interaction.

People usually ain't as ambivalent about moral right and wrongness when it's about them and people they care about. Someone who's faculties are fully functional cannot witness pain and distress and not feel pain and distress themselves.

Of course it's wrong... wake up. To witness such a thing, or be subject to it, you'd not only realize it to be wrong, but trauma inducing, haunting -- effecting you the rest of your life.

Morality is inherently about subjects that can be harmed, so that it is dependent in some way on subjects that can be harmed is no problem, or drawback. The scope need not be wider, and it need not account for anything beyond this. Living things are a certain ways, and share certain interests which make some things objectively better and worse for them.

The only problem is why one ought to care at all in the first place, not whether moral statements can be justified or not. This is a nonsense question though, because we always already do. The only real problem is on the finer details where moral disputes lie, where it isn't obvious what's right and wrong. That's where the adults play. This is baby games. — Wosret

What exactly is your argument here. Looks like mixing a whole bunch of stuff together.

On the one hand your speaking about the justification of moral statements one the other how we always already care. But there clearly is a disconnect between the two being that according to the realist they are different things.
1. To the realist the caring is not an essential element of the moral statement. Some statements are true whether or not a specific person cares about them.

2. From the phenomenological perspective the whole of morality is in that caring. Morality is some description of our moral experience - of the real experiences and how we car during them.

The fact that the question of moral motivation comes up (and that you brought it up) is indicative of this disconnect. No one wanders whether them being hungry means they should eat. Just like people don't question 'why do X just because X is good' when X is something they already feel strongly compelled to do.

1) "It's wrong to torture children." This is a moral claim, and it's also true. So there are true moral claims.

Yeh if someone was torturing a child I would try to stop it. I would condemn someone who tortured children. But the question isn't asking about that. There is something more to saying 'it is wrong to torture children', something that I likely don't agree with.

I'm leaving it vague because it's vague in the question. I don't agree that somehow, there are just somethings that us as humans should for some reason not do.

From what your saying, it is is just self evident that certain actions are morally wrong. I struggle to see the self evidence of whatever is outside actions to prevent it and human condemnation of it.

Weird thread.

That means that by the time that the marbles fall out of the funnel located at the bottom of the vat statistically they HAVE to already be distributed by statistical laws. — Ergo

When you say 'statically xxx' you are saying that some situations/events/etc are more likely than others. Also it's a description not a normative statement. It's weird to hypostatize statistics as if there is some statistical force acting on the marbles.

Although the math says that infinite jars and infinite chances will "almost certainly" result in a jar filled with only one color of marbles eventually the math that tells us this is not taking into account the inherent nature of the mechanism in question.

But does the maths say this?
Your trying to play off two mathematical claims against each other, but if you flesh it out more there is not conflict at all.
1. If there is a the possibility of a jar filling up with a certain color then infinite jars will almost certainly have at least one in which there is only one color.
2. If it's impossible - lets say I set my machine to place one of each color in each jar and it never fails to do this - then even with infinite jars there will not be any with one color in a jar.

Almost every time a philosopher struck me as overrated, my opinion changed when I gained more background information or re-read them.

Probably the most overrated one to me at the moment is Singer, but I haven't read that much of his stuff.

You don't actually present any arguments not to drink.

To say X is one method to achieve Y yet there are other methods to achieve Y, isn't actually an argument against X.

Also to say X is one method to achieve Y for a specific period of time yet we should strive to achieve Y at all times, also isn't an argument against X.

Neither of these are arguments against eatin pasta.

Eating pasta is one way to satisfy hunger yet there are other ways.

Eating pasta satisfies hunger, yet we should strive to satisfy hunger as a matter of course.

Still no actual reasons to avoid pasta or alcohol.

Another quote regarding Nietzsche science and truth. The essay 'On Truth and Lies in a Non Moral Sense' is only about 10 pages and really worth reading. Also reading an essay by Nietzsche shows why it's difficult to use his quotes without context. There's often a lot going on which isn't the normal linear style of argumentation.

'Just as the bee simultaneously constructs cells and fills them with honey, so science works unceasingly in this great columbarium of concepts, the graveyard of perceptions. It is always building new, higher stories and shoring up, cleaning, and renovating the old cells; above all, it takes pains to fill up this monstrously towering framework and to arrange therein the entire empirical world, which is to say, the anthropomorphic world. Whereas the man of action binds his life to reason and its concepts so that he will not be swept away and lost, the scientific investigator builds his hut right next to the tower of science so that he will be able to work on it and to find shelter for himself beneath those bulwarks which presently exist. And he requires shelter, for there are frightful powers which continuously break in upon him, powers which oppose scientific "truth" with completely different kinds of "truths" which bear on their shields the most varied sorts of emblems. The drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive, which one cannot for a single instant dispense with in thought, for one would
thereby dispense with man himself. ' - N. On Truth and Lies

or some reason I seem to think you're Australian - perhaps something you wrote once at the old place.

If you are, then what do you think of Philip Adams as an example of someone of the Left that is very friendly, open-minded and non-abusive to those with whom he disagrees, often having them as guests on his late night talk show on Radio National. He seeks to engage with and understand them rather than shouting at or accusing them.

Is he a model of what we need more of on the Left? Or do you think that he also suffers from too many of the flaws that concern you? — andrewk

Actually I can often get on board with people on the left. Do you have any recommendations of someone similar on the right. It would be really interesting to hear, especially if they didn't just repeat the arguments which have been made by members of the liberal party over the years but provided more insight.

You say that you had had discussions about abortions for years. What did those discussions entail if no one ever brought up considerations regarding the fetus? To me it seems like anywhere one goes to participate in discussion about a controversial topic like that, there's always someone who brings up the so-called pro-life side of the argument — zookeeper

I think this has a descent amount to do with being Australian. The pro life movement is often viewed as a largely American thing. Also it is associated with Christianity. I don't think I have ever met an atheist that was pro life (or at least one that mentioned they were).
A few years ago the leader of the liberal party (the conservative party) had to play down his views on abortion. He even promised that he would not change abortion laws if he became prime minister.

increasing exposure to and agreement with the other side, and a reconsideration of how the metaphysical and ethical principles I hold to apply to various political issues. — Thorongil

Do you have any recommendations of things to read to get a balanced idea of the other side (the right)?
Also, curiously what changed your view on abortion?

I find it odd how so often I see people describing how they're disillusioned by their current or former political in-group, as if they suddenly see the motivations and shortcomings of other people on their side more clearly and realize that they're on average not that much smarter or nicer than anyone else. Or rather, I don't find it odd that people do come to those sort of realizations, but rather the fact that it often seems to be a bit of a shock to them because they so strongly identified with that group. Doesn't that just mean that they primarily identified with the people, and that the actual issues and arguments behind them were secondary? — zookeeper

I don't think this is particularly accurate. At least in my case it's more about allowing the other side to have a voice and bothering to listen to what they are saying.

There has always been reasons to dismiss the other side. On some issues it was because they were completely informed by religion, in other issue it was racism or sexism etc. Always a reason so that one didn't need to listen and even more, one knew that there was no point in listening even if you tried. It's easy to view things like that, firstly because I know conservatives who are entirely informed by their religion and I know others which definitely have prejudice.
For me now it's mainly that I am actively seeking out ideas and arguments from the right and realizing that these issue are not be entirely clear cut.

(There was some salon or slate article about how it's insensitive to discuss the reasons for Hillary's loss beyond sexism at least until female hillary supporters have time to grieve...that's insane but I've seen people in my fb circle say similar things) — csalisbury

I also think this is a large part of my thinking 'what the hell is going on?'. I had a female friend post a comment saying the election was entirely about gender. A male replied listing some other factors - her response was something about how it was so enlightening to here from men that male privileged doesn't exist.

When did this become a completely normal way to argue in a political discussion?

Well written post and I think you hit on a large part of what has been bothering me about the left.

Well, of course you're drifting right. You're growing old. Change is painful (the music these kids listen to these days, jeez), and to stave off your impending mortality, you try to grab and hang onto as much stuff as you can. — Real Gone Cat

Haha, I'm still in my 20s.

Nice, my last 4 years has been: work and read philosophy during semester, cram electrical eng during exams.

Even now I want to join the reading group but can't get enough time away from verilog.

I found the engineering informed my philosophy stuff more than the other way round.
Classes on machine learning, computer vision techniques etc.

All the same...how about that? The supposed uniqueness of human (capacity for) language is the cornerstone of many a debate. As I was only saying to my local feral geese this afternoon down by the canal. (The crows listened, but only cawed cautiously) — mcdoodle

I wander what's actually at stake here, suppose we confirm that they have an extensive language, does that impact any of your philosophical (or non-philosophical) views?

Maybe there's more to it than that... — Baden

Yeh, one of the reasons that I was thinking specifically about condemnation is that people are often not trying to convince anyone of anything at all. It's not as if people are constantly arguing with those who don't think Nazis were that bad. It seems like they lose something even if they cannot (objectively) condemn the Nazi's privately.

It's related to Kants transcendental deduction.
Kant's view is that there are certain processes that need to happen in order to get knowledge of objects.

• We get information from the world. (sensation)
• We sythesize that somehow and get intuitions, which is what we actually see or experience, colour, noises feelings, in space and time. This isn't enough for us to be able to pick out objects.
• We then use concepts to make judgements about objects. Concepts here means a kind of rule for instance, when I see XYZ it is a cat. These concepts don't really have their own existence, rather they are tools that are used to make judgments about the world and objects in it.

There are a bunch of theories about what kind of argument he's actually trying to make in the TD. Whether he's making a regressive argument that if you are having everyday normal experience then the 'categories' must be in place. There is also the progressive argument which reads Kant as saying, since the categories are in place, we can know things a priori about the world.

There are some passages in Kant which state something along the lines of - the categories gives us objective knowledge of the world. This can be read as the categories gives us knowledge which is immune from skepticism, something we can know about the world which doesn't depend on us. Or it can be that the categories give us the ability to pick out objects, so the objective knowledge is literally knowledge of objects.

Yeh it's one of those things that can make reading Kant in English misleading. Alison makes the point that there are 2 seperate German words for objective, one for the gods-eye-view meaning and one for the to-do-with-objects meaning.

I'm good with discussion on Sunday. Means I can get the reading done on Saturday if I'm falling behind.

Nice! Have you read Husserl before? I think he's probably my least favourite writer. He expresses simple things in convoluted ways. I grabbed Logical Investigations from the library but can't bring myself to open it yet.

Elucidations, Interviews with various philosophers who give an overview of a problem. Really good for this format, pity that it's all analytic philosophy.

Myoclonic Jerk, this is probably my favorite podcast. It's not 'proper' philosophy, rather comedy and exploration of some themes which are somewhat philosophical. First episode is probably the weakest.

Entitled Opinions - conversations with a guest each episode. As the title suggests, this is the most wanky thing I've heard. Some episodes are great but it's hit and miss.

London School of Economics etc Public Lectures. Some good ones. 'Sartre on the transcendental' is a summary of Sartre's transcendence of the ego which was stand out.



Courses

Berkeley Recorded Lectures
Dreyfus - Heidegger
Dreyfus - Man God and Society in Western Literature
Dreyfus - Existentialism in literature and film.

John Joseph Campbell - Theory of meaning.
John Joseph Campbell - The nature of mind.

Dreyfus take a bit of getting used to but his lectures are great.
John Joseph Campbell lecture are introductions to various topics. So the theory of meaning for example starts off with Frege and works through the various positions in phil of language that have to do with meaning and reference. It concentrates mostly on articles rather than book.
I don't like Searle's lectures much and never make it thought more than the first couple.

Rhetoric 10 - Daniel Coffeen, rhetoric lectures from Berkeley. The most enthusiastic and engaging lecturer I've heard though I rolled my eyes once in a while. The texts that he covers are really good.

Bernstein tapes, 3 lecture courses. I've only been the the CPR one, decent lecturer.

Critique of Pure Reason - Oxford. Nice intro to the CPR.

Ancient Greek History - Yale.Just for fun.

I read most of the introduction over the weekend but stopped. The introduction requires a decent amount of prior knowledge of Husserl, both his overall project and some technical distinctions he made. I read Cartesian Meditations and a bunch of secondary literature on Husserl some years ago so I picked up some references but a lot was incomprehensible to me. I'm currently looking at the 'historical context' chapter of Derrida's Voice and Phenomenon by Vernon W. Cisney, and will have another crack at the intro afterwards.

But the real world is conceptually articulated through and through; so why would we need to "make our way there"? On the contrary, it cannot be escaped... — John

By this do you just mean some kind of post-Kantian position in which the world is inseparable from us? Holding that cannot refute skepticism, you could still be a BIV.

EDIT: It also entails its own kind of skepticism. If we limit truth so that it's truth for us, we lose the great outdoors of the world apart from us.