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Are our cognitive faculties reliable?

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@ughaibu,

ughaibu;142557 wrote:

The earliest such argument, of which I'm aware, is from Arcesilaus. His argument relies on a premise that I see no reason to accept: The content of all true impressions is potentially indistinguishable or indiscernible from that of false impressions
Arcesilaus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
And I would reject this premise for reasons such as Jgweed gave. Are there any arguments that rely on only plausible premises?

Plausible premises can still be false, if our cognitive faculties are unreliable. In any case, those who argued that they were unreliable did not confine the term, "cognitive faculties" only to sense perception, but also to our rational faculties. For example, they questioned whether modus ponens was a reliable rule of inference, or whether inductive inference is reliable.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142560 wrote:

Plausible premises can still be false, if our cognitive faculties are unreliable.

Then no such skeptical argument can succeed.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;142562 wrote:

Then no such skeptical argument can succeed.

Why not? Plausible premises can also be true. In fact, that they are plausible makes it likely that they are true. (Succed=establish the conclusion). I suppose you mean, "know whether the argument has succeeded" where "know" means, "know for certain". But an argument does not have to be known to succeed for it to succeed.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142566 wrote:

Why not. Plausible premises can also be true.

Because a corollary of a successful argument would be that there is something about the argument that I cant trust.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;142568 wrote:

Because a corollary of a successful argument would be that there is something about the argument that I cant trust.

Please see my post #23. But you need not trust an argument for it to establish its conclusion. It can establish its conclusion even if you don't trust it.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142570 wrote:

Please see my post #23.

Makes no difference.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;142571 wrote:

Makes no difference.

As I just said, an argument need not be trusted by you (or anyone) for it to succeed in establishing its conclusion. Trust has nothing to do with logic.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142574 wrote:

As I just said, an argument need not be trusted by you (or anyone) for it to succeed in establishing its conclusion. Trust has nothing to do with logic.

But you have just pointed out that logic maybe flawed!
Give me an example of a skeptical argument with plausible premises which doesn't carry a self defeating corollary.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;142575 wrote:

But you have just pointed out that logic maybe flawed!
Give me an example of a skeptical argument with plausible premises which doesn't carry a self defeating corollary.

It may be, but not in the particular case. Hume's skepticism about induction does not seem to be self-defeating. His argument for it is not inductive.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;142575 wrote:

But you have just pointed out that logic maybe flawed!
Give me an example of a skeptical argument with plausible premises which doesn't carry a self defeating corollary.

Imo this is a good example why so few philosophers makes it to any high position in buisness life.

Also observe kennethamy

@HexHammer,

HexHammer;142579 wrote:

Imo this is a good example why so few philosophers makes it to any high position in buisness life.

Also observe kennethamy

What is a good example of "why so few philosophers makes it to any high position in buisness (sic) life"?

What am I an example of? And how would you know, anyway?

Indeed, what are you talking about?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142581 wrote:

What is a good example of "why so few philosophers makes it to any high position in buisness (sic) life"?

What am I an example of? And how would you know, anyway?

Indeed, what are you talking about?

Many philosophers rely on arbitary concepts that does not relate to real life in other than a rethorical way.

Relying too much on rethorics, it becomes what demagogues are made of.

@HexHammer,

HexHammer;142582 wrote:

Many philosophers rely on arbitary concepts that does not relate to real life in other than a rethorical way.

Relying too much on rethorics, it becomes what demagogues are made of.

You really don't know what you are talking about, do you, nor has what you are saying anything to do with the issue. Insofar as you are saying anything at all.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142578 wrote:

Hume's skepticism about induction does not seem to be self-defeating. His argument for it is not inductive.

Which argument do you mean?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142584 wrote:

You really don't know what you are talking about, do you, nor has what you are saying anything to do with the issue. Insofar as you are saying anything at all.

I'm afraid I do.

Let me take a wild guess, you don't have any buisness knowledge.
You are very yong, but highly evolved in lingual and philosophical knowledge.
Hardly any knowledge of psycology.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;142585 wrote:

Which argument do you mean?

His argument that we cannot show that induction is a reliable procedure. What else? There is only one Humean argument to show that induction cannot be known to be reliable.

@HexHammer,

HexHammer;142589 wrote:

You are very yong. . . .

Hilarious, too funny.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;142593 wrote:

Hilarious, too funny.

I am at heart, though.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;142593 wrote:

Hilarious, too funny.

(unfortunaly truth may be he's a guy in his 40'ies)

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142590 wrote:

His argument that we cannot show that induction is a reliable procedure. What else? There is only one Humean argument to show that induction cannot be known to be reliable.

But Hume didn't claim that being unable to justify belief in the reliability of induction, deductively, entails that induction, itself, is unreliable. Did he?

---------- Post added 03-23-2010 at 11:57 PM ----------

kennethamy;142594 wrote:

I am at heart, though.

Zelda is well aware of it.

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