need help! is this what is meant when people say.....?

Question

that you can never "know" that there are other people.

for example cartesian skepticism. when skepticism implies that you can never "know" anything but yourself. do they mean "know" in the context of never being able to to be anything but yourself?

there are so many objections and self refutation in cartesian skepticism and it shows that the idea of solipsism and skepticism is impossible and self refuting. however we can never "know". so it much like saying that there are monsters on the moon. but since you never been there, then you can never "know" even though you know that its clearly false.

so in conclusion the ONLY reason that skepticism cant be 100% disproven is because we can only experience ourselves. however we also know through common sense and rationaly philosophy that skepticism is NOT true. it just that we can never be anyone but ourselves. so while its implausible we still cant escape ourselves. despite the proof that skepticism is impossible

Answer 1

That would depend, of course, on who "they" are. However, there is a distinction between logical and existential impossibility.

It is existentially impossible to deny self, for one must exist in order to deny self. It is existentially impossible to deny doubt, for one must doubt in the act of denial.

However, *logical impossibility* is another matter. Logical impossibility is a concept that can be assigned a truth value of zero without reference to experiential data; and logical possibility is a concept that *cannot* be assigned a truth value of zero *without* reference to experiential data.

Hence, some critics of rationalism insist Descartes illegitimately maneuvered from existential undeniability to logical impossibility. It is logically *possible* that you do not exist (or that *anybody* exists, for that matter), but it is existentially undeniable that you exist.

I do not think the critics of rationalism carry the day, but I assume that's what your question is driving at.

I hope this helps!

Answer 2

(I'm taking a risk here and using "solopsism" for skepticism) But:

"the ONLY reason that (solopsism) cant be 100% disproven is because we can only experience ourselves"

Correct.

"know through common sense"

'Commonsense' says the world is flat, the sun goes around the earth and a bigger stone falls to the ground faster than a smaller one. It was, partly, finding out that so much of what 'common sense' told him was rubbush that started Descartes off!

"rationaly philosophy". Define rational. If what you mean is philosophy as practiced by rational current philosophy professors then no : they do not claim to "know" that solopsism is false. If you mean by "rational" some other criterion then you have to think very carefully that you don't mean "any philosophy I like says solopsism is untrue" or "any philosophy that says solopsism is untrue is rational" and fall into cicularity.

There may well be objections and contradictions in CARTESIAN skepticism. This does not invalidate "skepticism" and "solopsism" per se. That would be akin to arguing that Bush is a terrible monkey-brained president therefore all presidents are terrible monkey-brains.

Now the move from "can only know yourself" to "can only be yourself" is a non sequitur. "Being" and "knowing" are different things, it may well be true BOTH that you can only know yourself and that you can only be yourself and they may well flow from the same thing, but they do not flow from each other.

The final thing is : No. People do not mean "you can only be yourself" when they say "you can only know yourself". They mean...."you can only know yourself". You may think that's rubbish, and you may be right. However that doesn't change what THEY mean - people can say and mean incorrect things.

Answer 3

Knowledge is true opinion... Plato.

Sapere aude!

Answer 4

You explained it quite well.