Skepticism and Solipsism by RAW posted by Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson) at RAWIllumination.net 11 May 2012 4:23 am
Now available thanks to Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson) at RAWIllumination.net:
[This piece is a sequel to "The Compleat Skeptic." "Skepticism and Solipsism" was published in New Libertarian Weekly 100, Nov. 27, 1977. Thanks to Jesse Walker and Mike Gathers. The Mgt.]
In my last column, I pointed out that both the impeccable logic of David Hume and the experimental evidence anyone can discover through daily meditation for only a month of so, demonstrate that all we know directly is a stream of sensations. The theories that there is an "ego" experiencing this stream, and an "outside" world provoking it, are inferential, unproven and (if we are strict about applying Occam's principle of parsimony) should be rejected as illegitimate.
The main objections to this solipsistic theory are (a) it contradicts "common sense" -- i.e., the body of hominid (or primate) prejudice that is so widespread that only philosophers, mathematicians, physicists and other eccentrics ever contradict it; (b) it leads, if logically followed, to a course of behavior or non-behavior rather similar to the psychosis known as catatonia (but who is to say that the catatonics aren't the only ones who have figured out the sensible way to react to that highly agitated predicament of matter called "life"?) and (c) there's no way to argue with people who hold this belief (since you are, to them, only another temporary sensation that will pass like all the others), so to hell with them. This alternative is also known as "throwing the case out of court," which philosophers have, by and large, also done with the problem if the infinite regress.
Well, since I am not a philosopher by profession -- only a heckler of philosophers, like Socrates -- I don't have to answer questions, only raise them. Asking annoying questions, after all, is a profession in its own ...
