Truth and Belief

There is a table and a chair in my room. A table is one thing, and a chair is a different thing. My room is in the universe. Therefore, there are at least two things in the universe

How do you know that the table and chair you see in your room are not hallucinations?

If they are hallucinations, do they still exist in the universe?

If they are not hallucinations, what certainty do you have that they are not hallucinations?

"But why would you believe that I am hallucinating? You must have some reason"

What makes you think I am a man who is guided by reason? I have no way of knowing if or even why you are hallucinating, but I do know that it is often the case that people who hallucinate do not know they are hallucinating. Macbeth's delusion may have been thwarted by his grasping for the dagger, but the hallucinations of some cannot be extinguished so easily. It is the hallucinations that closely represent reality that are the most dangerous.

I will admit, however, that my response was not an intelligent one. My lack of philosophical knowledge often shows its face in the comments I make. Although, my unintelligent questions or statements can, on rare occasions, spark subsequent questions that substantiate into something valuable. I will let you be the judge on this one.

Let's suppose you are hallucinating, and the table and chairs are not corporeal. Now, I will ask my question again, would these objects still exist in the universe? Why is this question important? Other than it fascinating me, if I can use your logic to prove that hallucinations are grounds for accepting that there are two things in the universe, what does that say of your argument? And, yet again, I may fail, but here goes:

There is an image of a table and a chair in my mind. A table is one thing, and a chair is a different thing. My mind is in the universe. Therefore, there are two things in the universe.

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I would like to add an additional comment. This is in regards to the empty skepticism that you mentioned in your post. I believe Pierce is a Pragmatist, and I see where extreme doubt has no role in Pragmatism, since Pragmatism only deals with practical outcomes that have a valuable meaning to the decisions we make.

However, I will respond that it was Descartes' "empty skepticism" that gave us the philosophy we have today. And furthermore, without Hume's skepticism, Kant may have not come to the conclusions that he did (and where would philosophy be today if he didn't?).

Either way, if I am correct in my evaluation of Pragmatism, doubt, of any kind, can play its practical role and can have an immeasurable value depending on the doubter's goal.

Remember: de omnibus dubitandum est

The term, "in" seems to me unavoidably spatial. Now, of course, if you are identifying the mind with the brain, that's something else again. But are you?

Subject: A being who experiences an object
Object: The things experienced

Good definitions? probably not. Use this for sake of argument: I am the subject and everything I experience are objects. Kant says that the world I experience is shaped by my mind. I receive information about the world outside of me through my faculty of sensibility. This faculty has certain rules that it uses to organize the world, specifically the intuitions space and time. After these objects come into my mind through my sensibility, they are further organized by understanding through the concepts that the understanding possesses (the categories).

Now, these are not the external objects themselves that I come to know, they are merely representation of the actual external objects. I never experience the external objects directly, I only experience the external objects through my sensibility and understanding. The knowledge I come to have of the external objects are only representations because I cannot have the physical objects in my mind, I can only have the representations of them that my mind creates through my sensibility and understanding.

Now the fundamental question: Are the representations objects also? I know they are not the external objects themselves, but they are the objects of my experience (in fact, they would be the only objects I can know). From this, one must conclude that experience is completely subjective, since I am the subject that creates the objects (I create the objects (representations) because my sensibility and understanding build the objects (representations) from the external objects experienced through the sensibility, which imparts the intuitions space and time, and the understanding, which organizes the sense data according to the categories).

Now, questions I need help with:

1) Am I correct in my survey? If I am not, where did I go wrong.

2) If I am correct, does this create a new subject-object problem? It obviously destroys Descartes subject-object problem, because the objects are no longer separated from us, they are part of us.

3) Again, if I am correct, do we now have three definitions: The subject, the external objects, and the objects that are my representations?

Truth comes from an awakening from within, it's a knowing that requires no proof. this is why science cannot come to grips that the unseen world is the real world. where a belief is related to the material world, which is only the effect world. richardgrant

Thinking you know without adequate evidence is not knowing, but guessing. As Mark Twain once observed, "It isn't not knowing what is so that gets people into trouble, but knowing what isn't so that does it".

I'm not sure Richard meant "without adequate evidence". It seems he is suggesting that the adequate evidence comes from within, perhaps something akin to spiritual revelation?

Though, kennethamy, you do make a good point about science. Science has no difficulty considering the unseen, even the non-physical and uncaused (your example of subatomic particles fits each of these).

Would you say the same argument holds, for example, for Buddhist meditation?

Richard talked about truth coming "from an awakening from within". Spiritual revelation is often spoken of in these terms, as are the results of Buddhist meditation.

Truth about everything. About your true nature, not your apparent nature.

Buddhist meditation often is investigation.

Maybe belief can be reserved for those things there is no way to establish the truth of.

Like: My spouse loves me.

Philosophy forums have value.

Humans have purpose.

But why should we do that? I believe that Quito is the capital of Ecuador, and that Germany is in Europe. What word should I use to express these beliefs if you are going to reserve the word for what we cannot establish the truth? But, in any case, why can't I establish the truth of "my spouse loves me"? It is certainly possible to establish the truth of "my spouse does not love me" isn't it? I imagine if she asks for a divorce, and she tells me she doesn't love me, that would go a long way to doing just that. Don't you think so?