Question After studying philosophy, I am now so skeptical of everything that I no longer know what I should believe in. I have no idea whom I should vote for in election or whether I should be voting at all, what religion I ought to believe in if any at all, why I should bother getting married, or even why I should bother getting out of bed in the mornings. Have you found that philosophy leads to more skepticism and knowing nothing rather than clarification?

Accepted:
May 8, 2014

Comments

You asked, "Have you found that philosophy leads to more skepticism and knowing nothing rather than clarification?"

It may be that you didn't sacrifice any knowledge that you previously had. Your philosophical reflection may have revealed to you that you didn't in fact know what you took yourself to know before you engaged in it. Maybe you had confident beliefs about whom you ought to vote for, etc., and even the confident belief that you knew whom you ought to vote for, etc. Examining your grounds for those beliefs caused you to lose confidence in them. In Plato's dialogues, Socrates is portrayed as frequently showing people that they didn't in fact know what they confidently took themselves to know. That's an important discovery one can make about oneself.

Even if your philosophical reflection has made you question some of your previously held beliefs, it doesn't follow that you ought to become a wholesale skeptic. Philosophical reflection should include scrutinizing the grounds for wholesale skepticism as well. When I cover skepticism in my courses, I find that many students are drawn to it at first but become less enamored of it once we carefully examine the arguments for it. You can't "overthink" a genuine philosophical issue: it will always reward more investigation.

To answer your question in one word: No. While philosophy has led me to question many of my previously confident beliefs, as it should, it hasn't led me to conclude that I know nothing, and I don't think that the clarification it has provided me came at the cost of any knowledge I in fact had.

This is a terrific question/problem, and Stephen's response is a very good one. I merely want to point out that it's possible to have another kind of response to the situation you're confronting. I would characterize the situation as one where you realize that everything is ultimately connected to everything else, every belief has infinite implications that require exploring before they are rationally affirmed, to every position there is an objection, to every objection there is a response, and the whole process never ends ... Now if you believe that in order to know anything, or act in some rational way, the process of inquiry that produces that knowledge or action must be "completed", then you'll be in the bind you describe. But maybe THAT is the belief to be given up (and maybe the bind you describe is itself a key argument for giving up that belief). Instead recognize that deliberation and explanation must always come to a temporary end at some point -- and that you should always believe/act with the best set of principles that are available to you, with the information that is available to you, at the time of believing/acting, w/o pretense that the process is complete. Then, rather than feel frustrated, you might even feel exhilarated by realizing that the process of inquiry never ends: the world is infinitely richer, deeper, more interesting than we can possibly realize. (By way of rough analogy: if you find "life" interesting, beautiful, exhilirating, then when you discover that the number of possible life forms may be infinite, is that a source of frustration or exhilaration? Frustration if you believe that unless the process of cataloging life forms is complete then something is missing; exhilarating if you celebrate the infinite set of possibilities.)

Or from another direction. Suppose you realize that you have no better reason (ultimately) to get out of the bed in the morning than to stay in bed. If so, then that infinite process of deliberation is neutral with respect to whether you get out of bed. So don't bother undertaking it, at least not every morning. Instead do your ordinary, limited deliberation: "well sleeping is lovely, but so is keeping my job. So I better get out of bed." That is pretty darn good reasoning, if you ask me, even if it isn't "ultimate" or "completed" reasoning -- but it's also the only kind of reasoning that matters on a day-to-day basis. (And when you realize how awesome is the infinite set of deliberations that you could ultimately undertake, you might find it quite exhilarating to get out of bed -- because after you get off work today you can get home and do a little philosophy ....)

best,

ap