Quote:
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Originally Posted by ArtificialBrandon
You find "no reason" to believe that you exist, despite holding the libertarian/objectivist view that you are an end in and of yourself.
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Perhaps I should clarify. I
do find reason to
believe that I exist. I
don't think that I
know I exist. There is a far cry between a belief and knowledge.
You should recognize that there is a huge difference between practical assumptions from which we must operate and true, absolute knowledge.
It should be recognize what is implied by the belief that man is an end in himself. It simply denies that he is a means to anything else - which I do not believe would be contradicted even if a God presides in the supernatural.
I do believe morality exists as a concept. But I think that it is a paradoxical concept, and therefore cannot logically exist. Just because one claims there is right and wrong does not mean that there is right and wrong. Of course, the concept of morality is not very well defined anyway, but I digress...
Put simply, I am like Hume, only radically rationalist rather than empiricist. In addition, I am willing to accept certain things without actually knowing if they are true for the purpose of practicality - because if I don't, the very concept of logic becomes quite... asinine, no?
That would be the basics. To get more specific, I believe that there are no basic truths which are accepted without any reason. Rather, every "axiom" is the result of an overwhelmingly probable inductive argument that occurs within the subconscious mind. For example, consider the assumption that only existing things affect other existing things. Why do we assume this? Well, have you ever seen a nonexisting thing affect an existing thing? Obviously not.
That is not to say that I believe knowledge itself is impossible, because arguments can be made from reason alone just by the very definitions of words. For example, one can say with certainty that reason is reasonable. Why? Because it must be, since it is nothing more than an abstraction created in such a manner that it does not change. There is no reification here. It is but a product of the mind, in its attempts to comprehend.
By now you may have noticed two things: 1) That I believe logic can be applied on the subconscious level, and 2) That for a rationalist, I sure do rely on experience. The first thing is true, but that opens up a huge can of worms that I do not wish to get into right now. The second, however, deals with my assertion of experience as an ongoing set of inductive arguments - for, clearly, the inductive argument is the only argument that can be made towards the material world, and therefore cannot possibly allow for certain, absolute knowledge.
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