One of the things in maturing intellectually is realizing that our typical understanding of the world is most likely completely flawed.  When I learnt

On Metaphysics (1): Rediscovering Reality - by Declan B.

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2024-11-06 17:30:05

One of the things in maturing intellectually is realizing that our typical understanding of the world is most likely completely flawed.

When I learnt about formal logic, syllogism and critical thinking, I was struck by how bad I was at actually evaluating and truly understanding another person’s perspective. without unintentionally “straw-manning” them or yielding to common cognitive biases.

I also learned about Berkely, Descartes, Aquinas, and many more. But the one that really stuck out to me was David Hume. My own capacity to use inductive reasoning was shattered after I learned about Humes argument against induction. The Principle of the Uniformity of Nature (PUN) as Hume called it, was completely unjustified rationally, and so the question is, how can I know that when I get on a plane, that it won’t crash? More generally, how can I rationally know that any inductive inference I make it valid? I couldn’t justify it initially. 1

The only way I could, is that it was the best method we have. This was the turning point in my enquiry towards a pragmatist leaning. A more probabilistic approach to inference seemed appropriate here.

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