A new blog

I concluded my previous blog in March this year. The reason I did this was because I was worried that my views were continuously changing and that a blog did not accurately reflect this. I thought that because each of these posts were written in such a brief period of time, they would accurately describe the complex intricacies of the different topics. Instead, I intended to write a larger 'book' type document where I would discuss my different philosophical views with the hope that I would complete the entire document at some point.

I have since changed my mind as I believe that the real purpose of the previous blog was precisely because it served as a screenshot of my current views on a given topic, in a very short period of time. It was because of the fact that most of my posts would be completed in one sitting, that I found them interesting. It forced me to collect my thoughts together and to structure my ideas in a short period of time. There is a beauty in seeing how thoughts develop that was not captured by writing a book. Further, the open format of a blog provides some sort of psychological pressure to get writing, which I believe to be a positive thing.

Now, why is this blog called My Error Theory? This idea originates from a anti realist position in meta ethics. Moral Error Theory holds that all our moral claims are false, despite what might ordinary believe. This seems to lie against our intuitions, our perceived ability to make moral judgements. In terms of meta ethics, this is the current position I adopt. 

An idea of an error theory is also prevalent in discussions of skepticism which seems to impede on our ability to make ordinary knowledge claims. We might think that we can only claim that we know that P if we are able to eliminate all possibilities where P does not hold. Due to the possibility of skeptical scenarios, it seems that our ability to know things is very limited in scope. Whilst we still make knowledge assertions, there exists a systematic falsehood as the standards of knowledge we might think to be impossibly (or extremely) demanding. I currently adopt such a position of skepticism and hold that there exists this type of error theory in what we say. 

What can one expect from reading this blog? We recall that my previous blogs were written largely with the idea that my thoughts would be 'uncorrupted' from formal philosophy. Given that this is the third year of my Mathematics and Philosophy degree, I don't think I am able to write with the same innocence before. 

The purpose of this blog will largely be a collection of thoughts on ethical topics and views on current issues. Whilst I will address general philosophical issues, I think I will still limit these cases as before. Referring to my blog title, I expect to write with more skepticism than usual. I do not intend to express my personal positions as heavily before, but more to discuss ideas and express doubts towards conventional stances.