Quote:

His cogito merely proves he exists, but it hardly establishes any certain information. Without knowing WHAT existance is, its certainty is fairly useless. The cogito demonstrates that a very abstract and likely impossible to comprehend concept is certain, however, if NOTHING about the nature of this concept is certain, then there is no certainty.

---

Quote:

Anyways, I don't think Pyrrus called it "skepticism". This was a term invented AFTER other forms of skepticism had originated. So it's stupid to argue that since this is the earliest form of skepticism, it MUST be "real skepticism", even though it wasn't called that until long after. Oldest does not equal purest, this is absolute nonsense.

---

Pyrrho was the father of skepticism and the founder of the Greek school of skepticism. His skepticism is a philosophical skepticism asserting that absolute certainty of knowledge is impossible.

The other form of skepticism is scientifical skepticism, which is what most people today refer to when they call themselves "skeptics".
"The term skeptic is now used to refer to a person who takes a critical position in a given situation, usually by employing the principles of critical thinking and the scientific method (that is, scientific skepticism) to evaluate the validity of claims and practices." -encyclopedia

So in one form of skepticism, it is doubtful that one can ever be said to have absolutely true knowledge, but the other form admits the possibility of truth.

But since we are in a philosophy forum, I'd figure you'd know which form of skepticism I was referring to  jk

Anyway, to finish off this discussion, I'd just like to point out although skepticism was accused of denying the possibility of truth, in actual fact it appears to have mainly been a critical school which merely claimed that logicians had not discovered truth.

So IMO, with Descartes came the death of philosophical skepticism and the birth of scientifical skepticism. He represents the coming forth of Truth in a pure form. He touched the ground upon which all of science has been building on and has evolved in a safe and sure manner, in which doubt is excluded from the equation.

I don't know if you understand how big of a leap Descartes's cogito is in the evolution of humanity, but it sure is a huge matter of importance. 

Quote:

Pyrrho and his school were not actually "skeptics" in the later sense of the word. They had the goal of αταραξια (ataraxia - peace of mind); once they achieved this, inquiry would halt. Later thinkers took up Pyrrho's path and extended it into fully-fledged skepticism. In the 'New Academy' Arcesilas (c. 315-241 B.C.) and Carneades (c. 213-129 B.C.) developed more theoretical perspectives. Sextus Empiricus (c. A.D. 200), the main authority for Greek skepticism, developed the position further, incorporating aspects of empiricism into the basis for evaluating knowledge. For the Academics, it sufficed to know that one did not know. Skeptics, on the other hand, did not claim either to know or to not know (considering both positions dogmatic) but attempted to 'keep on searching' for something that might be knowable.

---

Any article on skepticism will make it quite clear that it is a wide and varied school of thought. There is no "true" skepticism.

He represents the coming forth of Truth in a pure form. He touched the ground upon which all of science has been building on and has evolved in a safe and sure manner, in which doubt is excluded from the equation.



I don't know if you understand how big of a leap Descartes's cogito is in the evolution of humanity, but it sure is a huge matter of importance.

It's certainly an important event in philosophy, but that doesn't mean that it is perfect. People HAVE argued against it, sometimes quite succesfully. Just because someone has had an enormous impact does not mean that they were absolutely correct, it means that they had a large effect on others.

Quote:

His cogito merely proves he exists, but it hardly establishes any certain information. Without knowing WHAT existance is, its certainty is fairly useless. The cogito demonstrates that a very abstract and likely impossible to comprehend concept is certain, however, if NOTHING about the nature of this concept is certain, then there is no certainty.

---

Let's say we do assume that I think therefore I am is an absolute truth beyond our biases, beyond our perception, beyond our faith in our logic and existence. It's true that we exist in some form or another. I wouldn't call this an "unshakable ground", but for the sake of discussion I'd yield that much, otherwise discussion isn't very meaningful. 

If I think therefore I am is true, that still makes everything else uncertain. It shows that we exist in some form, but what form? We could exist as a brain in a vat with a computer sending signals into our neurons, and we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and our "normal" reality. We could exist in a dream where we have created our rules, and all these mathematics, this chemistry, the very facts we use are just creations our own reality.

I think therefore I am may be the grounds for existence, but that it is as far as it extends- beyond that, everything returns to subjectivity and simple perception. Absolute reality is an impossibility to the perception of one organism's (or a trillion's) minds, because it all boils down to the fact that all reality for that organism only exists within its mind.

Quote:

Whilst the preceding three arguments against the cogito (appear to) have failed, aparently successful arguments have been advanced by Bernard Williams and Zacharyas Boufoy-Bastick. A very convincing argument has been made by Bernard Williams, in his exposition of why both Lichtenberg and Descartes were mistaken. He claims that what we are dealing with when we talk of 'thought' or when we say 'I think' is something conceivable from a third-person perspective; namely objective "thought-events" in the former case, and an objective 'thinker' in the latter. The obvious problem is that from introspection, or our experience of consciousness, we have no way of moving to conclude the existence of any 'third-personal' fact, verification of which would require a thought necessarily impossible being, as Descartes is, bound to the evidence of his own consciousness alone. In his proposition of the epistemological ?Applicability Condition?, Zacharyas Boufoy-Bastick has shown Descartes? argument to be tautological. He argues that Descartes statement is based upon the assumption of ?an association between the self and the thinking which occurs? and yet ignores the concept that ?thought need not be a product of an existent entity? and, further, that Descartes can only acknowledge the existence of ?thinking?, and that such an acknowledgment does not alone justify the existence of a container of thought.

This appears to leave the slightly uncomfortable?possibly even amusing?position of introspective verification of existence, but without the possibility (on conceptual grounds) of objective knowledge of the self. Perhaps all that is left is to say is Zacharyas Boufoy-Bastick's remark "thinking allows for the existance of thinking"; 'I think, therefore I think'; or, in the slightly more ominous tone of Franz Xaver von Baader "I think therefore I am thought".

---

Quote:

Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams (September 21, 1929 ? June 10, 2003) was an English moral philosopher, noted by The Times as the "most brilliant and most important British moral philosopher of his time."

---