Can we trust our minds to know reality?
This clip is taken from Nathan Jacobs' most recent interview with Thomas Thorogood and features a reaction to a discussion between Destiny and T.K. Coleman on The Minimalists podcast. Their exchange raises a profound philosophical question: what makes our reasoning faculties trustworthy in the first place?
Nathan explores properly functioning faculties, Descartes' skepticism, moderate foundationalism, and the crucial distinction between realism and nominalism. Along the way, he argues that every act of perception, reasoning, language, and scientific inquiry already presupposes realism, making it impossible to consistently live or argue as a nominalist.
If you've ever wondered whether we can genuinely know reality—or what our ability to reason tells us about the nature of the world—this discussion offers a compelling introduction to some of philosophy's deepest questions.
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Timestamps
00:00 — A Debate About Objective Morality
06:24 — Why Our Faculties Matter
09:21 — Properly Functioning Faculties
09:48 — Hard vs Moderate Foundationalism
10:19 — Descartes and Radical Doubt
13:09 — Why Skepticism Cannot Be Lived
14:24 — Trusting Our Faculties
16:26 — The Most Important Question in Philosophy
17:26 — Realism vs Nominalism
19:14 — Why Perception Depends on Realism
20:34 — Why Logic Depends on Realism
22:17 — Why Everyone Lives Like a Realist
23:14 — Realism and Providence
24:07 — Morality, the Numinous, and Human Experience
25:52 — Every Argument Presupposes Realism
26:56 — Living Consistently With Your Worldview
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Relevant Links:
Thomas Thorogood Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNu3mGq6HhU
The Most Important Question: https://youtu.be/nVmPIMg4St4
All links:
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nathanandrewjacobs
Academia: https://vanderbilt.academia.edu/NathanAJacobs
Listen and please review the podcast elsewhere:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0hSskUtCwDT40uFbqTk3QS
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nathan-jacobs-podcast
