> Yeah, I'm just interested in how you deal with it > in your Western context. Seems to me it's kinda > the elephant in the room in terms of what it says > about the nature of knowledge. It's like this huge > edifice of epistemology is missing its foundation. >
I forgot to comment on this point which I think is very important. I'll have to think about this more. I'm not sure that there is necessarily such lack of foundation in epistemology. Just because a theoretical "problem" can be expressed in language doesn't mean that it actually exists as a limitation in our ability to be confident of our thinking. I'm not sure that this is how recent philosophers approach this issue. In my quick Web search it seems that there are modern perspectives that I am unaware of. This has been a cool thread, thanks for keeping it going. --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" > > > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > > > > > > > It's just that you can't really settle the > > > > > pragmatic issues if solipsism is theoretically > > > > > possible. > > > > > > > > I'm not sure it was ever intended to be used as an actual > > > > possibility though. > > > > > > The point is that you can't rule it out, which > > > is quite startling if you think about it, given > > > that not-solipsism is so basic to our assumptions > > > about how it all works. > > > > I don't think we need to rule it out. > > That's lucky, because it can't be done. > > Its use in philosophy > > is specific to the branch it is used in, but I haven't heard > > it expressed as an ontological realty, just as a cautionary > > tale concerning epistemological inquiry. > > That's putting it mildly! > > As you probably know it has a lot of > > implications about the limits of human knowledge and some of > > it makes sense to me. As a psychological condition it would be > > viewed as a profound pathology. In Eastern thought some of its > > perspectives are used in a different way which takes it out of > > the context of its use in Western Philosophy. > > Yeah, I'm just interested in how you deal with it > in your Western context. Seems to me it's kinda > the elephant in the room in terms of what it says > about the nature of knowledge. It's like this huge > edifice of epistemology is missing its foundation. >
