Do you find David Hume's skepticism self-defeating? (In that his own theory that anything outside what is viewable is testable is not true, in light of the fact that you cannot see or test this method?)
by 
Mathetes
ANSWERS: 4
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Comes in handy if you wanna be 'right', no? If you can't prove something false, that doesn't make it true. But lotsa dudes seem to ignore this! ;-)
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This question rests upon what Gilbert Ryle called a category mistake. If I want to establish that a certain assertion about the world is true, say "The cat is on the mat," then I go through the steps established by my epistemological theory. In this case, the steps would be something like "Take a look. Are the physical conditions (lighting, etc.) normal? Do you see what looks like a cat? . . .)" A theory of truth is not the same sort of thing that a matter of fact is, and is thereby evaluated by different means, say, consistency of rules, whether it renders truths consistent to other basic assumptions, etc. Many people may think Hume's view unsatisfaying, but not because of being self-defeating.
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If this is the David Hume i think it is (Auchincruive??) hahahaha if not, oh well i just laughed at nothing....
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The question could have been more clearly worded. There's enough jargon in philosophy without making it more difficult with questions that are unclearly worded.
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