Is first person experience reliable for knowing?

[Mixcoatl]

Ok, I'm a defender of direct experience as one of the best methods of knowing particular things. For instance, as Descartes said, I know I exist because there is something that is experiencing and I can't have a doubt for that, therefore, I can trust on my first experience in that particular thing. However, for other types of knowledge, I can't rely on my direct experience. For example: my direct experience tells me that the earth is somehow flat, but I can't be sure about this thing (actually I'm not a flat-earther, so my knowledge relies on trusting what others told me about the earth, which is another source of knowledge that I can't be sure about!!). The question is: why direct experience can be fully trusted for certain things and not for other things?

Edited Wednesday at 01:19 AM by Mixcoatl

[LordFall]

On top of having an epistemic process for validating your first person experience then I think it's solid. You know the earth is round because you have scientists that have calculated it and proved it by putting satellites into outer space and taking pictures of it. You can then have a certain burden of proof for the science involved but mainstream science proves that pretty handily. 

 

[Mixcoatl]

4 hours ago, LordFall said:

On top of having an epistemic process for validating your first person experience then I think it's solid. You know the earth is round because you have scientists that have calculated it and proved it by putting satellites into outer space and taking pictures of it. You can then have a certain burden of proof for the science involved but mainstream science proves that pretty handily. 

 

I trust science but since trust is required, it means a lower source of knowledge.

[Joseph Maynor]

For the Absolute yes, but for the relative other perspectives are required IMO.  Think about how sometimes other people see weaknesses in you and point those out to your benefit.  Or sometimes they don't point it out, but they see it.  And you see weaknesses in others too.

[Mixcoatl]

 

11 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

For the Absolute yes, but for the relative other perspectives are required IMO.  Think about how sometimes other people see weaknesses in you and point those out to your benefit.  Or sometimes they don't point it out, but they see it.  And you see weaknesses in others too.

Oh ok. I see. So the flatness or roundness of earth is a relative fact but my own existence (and existence in general) is something absolute. That's what you mean?

[Anonym]

Direct experience is only perception. I think you are not assuming there "is" a direct experience, just assuming that perception is yours

Edited 14 hours ago by Anonym

[Mixcoatl]

6 hours ago, Anonym said:

Direct experience is only perception. I think you are not assuming there "is" a direct experience, just assuming that perception is yours

I can't just assume that my existence is just perception 

[Leo Gura]

The truth is that you do not know and you are trying to use other people to compensate for that void. But the more you do that the more mistakes you will make because you can't be sure who to trust.

Direct experience is always true, but only in what it shows, not in your extrapolations and interpretations. The entire Earth being flat is not a direct experience, it is an extrapolation. If you are careful you will notice that your direct experience works with many different shapes of Earth.

You cannot turn all human knowledge into direct experience.

The solution to all this is to be very precise about when you truly don't know a thing, like the shape of the Earth. Just say you don't know. That is the truth.

Edited 7 hours ago by Leo Gura

[VioleGrace]

@Mixcoatl Great question !!