Doesn’t this effectively hand wave away the hard problem of consciousness?
i.e. even a purely reason-based understanding of truth must acknowledge that the only thing we can be certain actually exists is the mind. With no true understanding of how the mind functions, and giant gaps in our understanding of existence, the idea that universal truth can even be comprehended — much less mapped wholly onto humans capacity for reason - is just a belief. An article of faith.
It seems to me that a purely reason-based worldview must by definition acknowledge that a statement like “the truth is fully reasonable” is untenable at worst and at best just a prediction.
I'm not sure upon what basis you think such a claim can be definitively made. Nor does declaring "Kant got this wrong" help the argument.
For sake of argument, let's say the simulation hypothesis is true. Would you acknowledge that the implications of such a thing being true would have vastly different metaphysical properties than other hypotheses, e.g. "consciousness is a fundamental property of existence and all matter is conscious"?
The mind is literally the only thing we can be certain exists. We've made so much progress scientifically mapping the territory available for us to explore, that I think many people have lost sight of the vastness of the gap between what we actually know and what we have yet to understand.
It seems like you've taken a system of reasoning that was built through careful consideration (Kantianism), called the conclusions it meticulously built 'presuppositions' and hand-waved it without making substantive counterpoints.
The problem then, of course, is that burning down previous philosophy and starting 'without presuppositions' will lead inevitably to conclusions again, which you can once again call presuppositions and hand-wave.
It is itself an assumption. It is assuming that it’s possible to have no external assumptions, that being wrong requires external assumptions, and that this principle is true. You’ve already violated your own standard.
Even basic logical reasoning requires assumptions. Like the principle of non-contradiction, or that our cognitive faculties can distinguish between valid and invalid inferences. Hegel’s work doesn’t actually proceed without assumptions either; it starts with the concept of “being” and builds from there using logical principles.
If you truly had no assumptions, you couldn’t even begin to reason or make any truth claims. You’d have no framework for distinguishing truth from falsehood, valid from invalid reasoning, or meaningful from meaningless statements.
You might avoid being wrong about empirical facts, but you’d also avoid being right about anything.
The real philosophical task isn’t to eliminate all assumptions (which is impossible), but to identify foundational commitments, examine them critically, and build carefully from the most defensible starting points we can find.
But those starting points are still assumptions, and at least for the time being, there’s no reason to believe we’ve sufficiently closed the knowledge gaps necessary to operate on anything but a base set of assumptions.
Can’t be done. That’s not how human brains work, and there’s no neurological basis for the claim that it is possible.
Look, this has come full circle and we’re both just restating our positions at this point.
If you’re not just trolling, I’d highly recommend you go read some of the criticisms of Hegel’s work.
You keep dismissing/side stepping the counterpoints raised here without providing substantive arguments to back up this dismissal, so I’ll leave it there.
Religious faith is when you take the words and ideas of a man - ideas that are highly controversial and not widely accepted by philosophers or scientists - and then claim with certainty that they are the absolute truth. It’s one thing to find those ideas interesting, but another entirely to bring this kind of absolute certainty.
Hegel’s work could be described as a hypothesis at best, yet you’re treating it as gospel truth despite the fact that most philosophers find his conclusions untenable and most scientists conclude that he couldn’t have had a proper understanding of science to reach the conclusions that he reached.
Your arguments up to this point are indistinguishable from the claims made by the religious folks in my life who say they have the absolute truth because of their belief in the Bible and relationship with Jesus.
Your only defense of Hegel’s work to this point amounts to “I believe it’s true” and have been entirely circular.
