Random thought: YouTube “skeptics” are literally the opposite of actual skeptics.
Actual skeptics are much closer to the post modernist ideas YouTube skeptics hate...
Wtf yo.
@Fuego Most of the "skeptics" I've met take the null hypothesis to illogical extremes; I feel like they think that if something can't be proven true, it must be false, rather than allowing for the possibility that we just don't -- and possibly can't -- know.
@orrery for sure. I’m just saying that “skepticism” is an extreme epistemological claim and modern “skeptics” have nothing to do with actual skepticism at all.
Basically they’re really shitty intellectuals.
@Fuego Pretty much.
@Fuego I don't think we need to go into socraticism; we can say "our knowledge is based on these sets of assumptions which we can or can't test and here's our criteria for evaluating new evidence" but at some point all systems of understanding are rooted in the assumptions those systems must make in order to be able to say anything definitive at all.
A priori reason can really only get you as far as "I exist, I have sense data, and I know I'm thinking." After that, you have to assume stuff.