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    Descartes and Hume demand certainty about the external wo... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The skeptical requirement that one rule out all alternatives entails the KK thesis

    Descartes and Hume demand certainty about the external world, not certainty about one's own cognitive states, showing skepticism need not ascend to meta-knowledge.

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    Reasons For

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    • 1.Descartes' cogito establishes indubitability of thought itself without requiring certainty about external objects or their properties.
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    • 2.Hume's bundle theory treats perceptions as directly knowable while remaining agnostic about external substances, separating epistemological levels.
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    • 3.Skepticism about the external world operates at the object-level; claims about one's own mental states need not invoke meta-cognitive knowledge.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.Descartes' certainty about thought presupposes knowledge of what 'thinking' is—a meta-cognitive grasp of cognitive states themselves.
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    • 2.Hume cannot distinguish his perceptions from hallucinations without some certainty about how perception relates to reality—unavoidably meta-level.
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    • 3.Any skeptical doubt about external world requires the doubter to understand their own doubt, which necessarily involves meta-knowledge of cognition.
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    Key Terms

    knowledge(Distinguished from mere true belief, which may be the product of indoctrination and need not exercise deliberative capacities.)
    Justified true belief — true belief that has been arrived at through the exercise of deliberative capacities, including comparison of and deliberation among alternatives.

    Connections

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    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedSkepticism1 linked

    Related

    Any skeptical doubt about external world requires the doubter to understand thei...Descartes' certainty about thought presupposes knowledge of what 'thinking' is—a...Descartes' cogito establishes indubitability of thought itself without requiring...Hume cannot distinguish his perceptions from hallucinations without some certain...
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    Hume's bundle theory treats perceptions as directly knowable while remaining agn...Skepticism about the external world operates at the object-level; claims about o...

    Details

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    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
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    The skeptical requirement that one rule out all alternatives entails the KK thes...