Pochybovanie o všetkom vonkajšom?

• Authors: Tomáš Čana

Title variants

EN

Doubting everything external?

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

According to one traditional view, everything that is external to our mind can be doubted. Consequently, there should be no problem with our being in a position where we understand the objective meaning of some – for example, grammatical – rule, even though we have no contact with the world. This seems unproblematic. A goal of this article is to critically analyze this view and show that we cannot in fact doubt all that is external; its impetus, then, is to show that the traditional view is mistaken and – as with any language – skews our understanding of the world. At the same time, another goal is to identify the key reason why it could have seemed conceivable for so long that we could find ourselves in a position where we have a language with rules and objective meanings of terms but no contact with the world.

Keywords

EN

philosophy of language; external world; meaning; fact; communication; free will; objectivity; certainty; Descartes

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Filosofický časopis (Philosophical Journal)
• Year: 2025
• Volume: 73
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 439-452
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Tomáš Čana

• Filosofický časopis, redakce, Filosofický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic