Transcript Skepticism about the Skepticism Vasil Penchev • Bulgarian Academy of Sciences: Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge • [email protected] ----------------------------------------• VAF conference.

Skepticism about the Skepticism
Vasil Penchev
• Bulgarian Academy of Sciences: Institute for the
Study of Societies and Knowledge
• [email protected]
----------------------------------------• VAF conference 2015 “Skepticism”: Conference of
the Dutch-Flemish Association for Analytic
Philosophy hosted by.
• http://www.eur.nl/fw/vaf2015/
• Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Niederlands,
28-30 January 201,
• 15:15—15:45, Wednesday, January 28, 2015
The question is:
• How should skepticism refer to itself?
• The classical example might be the doubt of
Descartes, which led him to the necessary
obviousness of who doubts
• The formal logical structure is the same as the
“antinomy of the Liar”
• That new interpretation of it can be called
“antinomy of the Skeptic”
• Descartes resolved it by introducing the metaposition and furthermore defining the “Self” just as
that meta-position allows of any other position
including that of doubt
The skepticism in quantum mechanics
• Rather unexpectedly, one can reveal the
sceptic position to itself in Heisenberg’s
uncertainty in quantum mechanics
• It generates the necessity of the observer in
final analysis as what allows of that
fundamental principle of uncertainty
• As the Self of Descartes, the observer in
quantum mechanics is necessary logically for
one to be able to state certainly the
uncertainly of all, which is not the observer
Skepticism in ... incompleteness
• Not less unexpectedly, Gödel’s conception of
incompleteness of any infinite logical structure
can be interpreted as another logical and
mathematical form of skepticism about the
skepticism
• He himself revealed the structure of the “Liar”
(consequently also that of the “Skeptic”) in that
statement stating that it is untrue, which
underlies his theorems of incompleteness
• However following the solution of Descartes,
that statement should be in a meta-position to
the theory
Skepticism ... in infinity
• Infinity, which is necessary for the
construction, is what forces incompleteness
mixing the meta-position and position
• Consequently, the fundamental result of
Gödel can be interpreted as alternative or
complementary to the solution of Descartes:
• If the position and meta-position in skepticism
are not absolutely divided from each other,
skepticism about the skepticism requires
infinity and involves incompleteness
The two kinds of solution
• One can abstract those two solutions, which
can be ascribed correspondingly to Descartes
and to Gödel, as to skepticism about the
skepticism at all
• Might some other, i.e. third solution exist?
• In other words, can one reproduce the sceptic
position both to skepticism about the
skepticism and to the possible solutions of the
antinomy, which appears?
A construction
• This seems to be possible utilizing the
following construction:
• These two solutions can be considered as
two poles
• The one consist in the absolute separation of
the position from the meta-position, the other
in the absolute convergence of them
• They generate a continuum between them
consisting in turn in the gradual transition
from the absoluteness of separation to the
other, opposite absoluteness of convergence
The productive skepticism
• The skepticism is what generates that
continuum for it doubts the absoluteness
both of separation and of convergence
• Furthermore, that continuum allows of
an interpretation in terms of quantum
mechanics and quantum information as
“entanglement”
Creative skepticism
• The examples show that the skeptic position at all
as well as the skepticism about the skepticism is
rather productive in modern philosophy
• It can be revealed in a series of problems and
their solutions in physics, mathematics, and
logic, some of which are enumerated above
• Skepticism about the skepticism can be
investigated furthermore in other branches of
science as well as in contemporary art, religion,
politics, etc.