Re: knowledge & proof [was "wee people"]

Unfortunately, Don, this compares apples with metric nuts. If you go back
to Augustine, you will find his response to the skeptics who claimed that
all knowledge is impossible. He noted that, however much was doubted,
they could not doubt their own individual existence. This information is
internal and accompanies (as you imply) every conscious moment. All other
elements have an external aspect which may be illusory. So one may doubt
the existence of all other entities, though one cannot doubt the
immediate experience. You cannot conflate the internal and external as
equal elements in awareness.
Dave

On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 00:56:22 -0800 "Don Winterstein"
<dfwinterstein@msn.com> writes:
Dave,

I thought of another approach. I hope you find this more congenial,
because I appreciate the thoughtful feedback I often get from
participants on this list. Also, your comments below helped me see
things in a new way:

Dave: ...Begin from the fact that solipsism cannot be disproved, though
Descartes' /cogito/ stands. The rest of Descartes is rationalization, the
importation of what he had learned from medieval philosophy and claimed
to reject. Solipsism is incompatible with the existence of a deity other
than oneself. This directly contradicts your claims to know that God
exists as surely as you know your own existence.

Don: How do we really know we exist? It's true that it's possible to
know we exist from contemplating our own thinking, but in the real world
people know they exist long before they're even able to contemplate their
thinking. So, to get closer to the truth, Descartes' /cogito ergo sum/
needs to be modified: I interact, therefore I exist. The newborn infant
interacts with his parents: they touch, clean, caress, feed, hold, etc.,
and in so doing they convey the message to the child that he is real. He
gets his identity largely through interacting with his parents and other
caregivers. "I'm real because real people treat me as though I'm real."
Personal interactions reinforce personhood.

My strong claims for knowledge of God's existence have similar roots.
The child knows that his parents are at least as real as he is, because
he gets his sense of reality from them. By interacting intimately with
him they define him. God has interacted intimately with me in such a way
that I'm similarly convinced of his reality. Through interaction God
redefined me in a manner somewhat similar to the way in which my parents
defined me originally. All my personal assurances about personal
existence have their roots in these interactions. It would not normally
even occur to me to try to get such assurance from contemplating my
thinking.

These arguments don't satisfy the solipsism objection, but solipsism's an
abstract philosophical concept that I can't take seriously. If that
means my dues don't get paid, so be it. Your argument, I think, is that
the most compelling way for me to know I exist is to contemplate my
thinking; consequently, because of the solipsism possibility, I
necessarily know my own existence more compellingly than the existence of
any other entity. The above thoughts indicate I don't believe this is
how the world works.

In any case, the above thoughts say what I mean when I make strong claims
for knowledge of God's existence. If a person outside yourself gives you
your sense of personal reality, that person must be as real as you are.

Don
Received on Fri Nov 5 13:46:25 2004