Wouldn’t it be nice if there were some chain of justifications that neither ended in an unexaminable assumption, nor was forced to examine itself under its own rules, but, instead, could be explained starting from absolute scratch to an ideal philosophy student of perfect emptiness?
Well, I’d certainly be interested, but I don’t expect to see it done any time soon. I’ve argued elsewhere in several places against the idea that you can have a perfectly empty ghost-in-the-machine; there is no argument that you can explain to a rock.
I love the phrase “ideal philosophy student of perfect emptiness” as a shorthand for this idea.
The title of the post linked to in the first two links in the quote above is also a good candidate slogan for this:
I don’t think you can, at least not if you want to have a worldview in the first place. Any system of reasoning needs to have some axioms.
See also Where Recursive Justification Hits Bottom for an argument for why this isn’t a problem.
But it is a problem if you combine it with high levels of confidence.
From that linked post:
I love the phrase “ideal philosophy student of perfect emptiness” as a shorthand for this idea.
The title of the post linked to in the first two links in the quote above is also a good candidate slogan for this: