Yeah, exactly. It sounds like he’s denying experience exists or saying that it’s illusory, which would be stupid. Experience is an epistemological first principle; it’s axiomatic.
Why would I make ‘experience’ a first principle or an axiom? That sounds utterly impractical and inefficient.
Upon reflection I think you are right in one tangential respect—characterizing experience as “axiomatic” was a poor choice of words. For a good rationalist nothing is axiomatic, i.e. with the right data you could convince me that 2+2=3 or that A is not-A.
Nevertheless, the existence and validity of your experience as such (not to confuse this with your interpretation or memory of your experience or anything else), is an incredibly fundamental truth that has been confirmed repeatedly and never disconfirmed across a vast scope of contexts (all of them actually) and is relied upon by all other knowledge. So saying that making experience a first principle or axiom is “impractical and inefficient” is rather bizarre, unless you’re talking about something completely different than I am.
Why would I make ‘experience’ a first principle or an axiom? That sounds utterly impractical and inefficient.
Upon reflection I think you are right in one tangential respect—characterizing experience as “axiomatic” was a poor choice of words. For a good rationalist nothing is axiomatic, i.e. with the right data you could convince me that 2+2=3 or that A is not-A.
Nevertheless, the existence and validity of your experience as such (not to confuse this with your interpretation or memory of your experience or anything else), is an incredibly fundamental truth that has been confirmed repeatedly and never disconfirmed across a vast scope of contexts (all of them actually) and is relied upon by all other knowledge. So saying that making experience a first principle or axiom is “impractical and inefficient” is rather bizarre, unless you’re talking about something completely different than I am.