You have to take into account that there are centuries between Socrates and Descartes. They both 'founded' completely different 'schools' of philosophy. So a harmony between the two is nothing which ever was even intended!

That brings us to the ultimate and only truth: panta rei!

I thought that was Descartes' whole point: the confirmation of existence of 'a thinking subject' comes from within the subject itself and needs no other affirmation...

I do agree with Pada1 however when he says you could never find a true harmony between Socrates and Descartes, the former, not being blinded by a dogmatic belief in the power of reason, would never accept that you can actually 'prove' our existence...

The whole 'project' of modern philosophers (modern meaning here: everything since Descartes ) is to prove that certain knowledge is possible, but none of them succesfully bypasses Socrates without making some sort of assumption, for instance: God

Which is why 'Scio ut nescio' has such an absolute power to end any discussion, and therefore I consider it cheating

First of all, I assume you are talking about the actual meaning of 'Cogito ergo sum' in which it is better to replace them 'I am' with 'I exist'. Otherwise, I would now question what 'I am' means and that this is an uncertainity.

No, I don't think you have a point about this statement. Let's assume 'you are', but the people around you are just holographic projections or something (so they 'are not' ). You consider them equally 'being' than you though because you haven't noticed this yet. Your actions would stil seemingly affect others. But your theory about being would fail.

But how about Descartes' "Cogito ergo sum"... You can't apply "scio ut nescio" to that, right... I mean, there are but two options: I either am or I am not, there is no in-between. And if I'm not, I cannot say or do anything which would affect anything at all seeing as my actions, however 'real' to me, still wouldn't exist... But my actions do seem to affect other people so the only option where I am not is if nothing is, so there's still room for doubt. However if I modify my statement from "I think, therefor I am" to "I think therefor I am if you are" I can be 100% sure of that, right? Or is there a flaw in my reasoning (Which is very possible since it is starting to get late and I haven't had a smoke for 12 hours )?

I think the correct term is socratical... (btw, this is the edit. no [edit:...] this time )

Edited by Pada1 at 22:09 on September, 09th 2002

Yes. All we can do is theorize, but there can always be something we're missing. We can try to get as close to a possible truth as possible, but we will never be able to reach it. And this is the insight of scio ut nescio - something most people will actually never come to

But he just means that you can never be 100% of anything right? Because we can't even be sure that this state of being is even real... We only participate in this being so we can never know anything for sure, right? Just checking...

Literal translation: I know that I don't know.
Meaning: I know that I know nothing.

Johann, you can't post html here... you have to use the standard tags which can be found in help -> post formatting



This is your villain type

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[a href="http://www.mutedfaith.com/quiz/vq.htm" target="new"]What Type of Villain are You?[/a][br]
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Isn't it rather I know that I know not?

[Edit: Can someone tell me a way to look at this so that the knowing does not exclude the not knowing?]

Edited by The Mole at 13:07 on September, 09th 2002

If my Latin ain't too rusty it means "I know and know not", right? Just making sure before I post a lot of irrelevant crap...

Well, yes, it's the most famous socratian (term?) sentence. With scio ut nescio, the legend says, all his discussions with his 'pupils' closed. You might apply contradictio in terminis to it, but if you look at it in a more philosophical way, you'll see the truth in it.

That's Socrates, right? Sounds to me like a 'contradictio in terminis'... Of course, I would gladly be corrected if I'm mistaken...

Scio ut nescio.

And the only thing I could say would be that you could never know for sure if you are my best friend and if I am in fact who you think I am, so you have no advantage whatsoever over me... and that's about as far as this discussion will ever take us I guess

I never claimed to know, you Pada. I just stated you can't know for sure I don't. And I said the same thing about Mole

Oh no, here we go again... Mr C, how many times are you going to try to convinve someone that you know them in real life? It didn't work when you tried it on me and I doubt your claims will hold any credibility with the Mole... I know you think it's your evil duty to try and get people paranoid but you're really going to need a new act 'cause this one ain't working...

How do you know I haven't seen you in 'real life'? I could be your best friend and you wouldn't even notice

I think it fits the Goth-type and the outsider-type equaly... They are both loners and as such can both be distrusted by the masses because the masses distrust everything that isn't the norm... God thank I'm not part of the masses

Okay, so I was referring to people who have actually seen me in real life and/or are not calling me a goth just to try and piss me off...