Topics Philosophy

Question I do not understand how can anyone with at least a BA in philosophy relate to the world and act as people that do not have one do. And I take it that the average western person lives a better more untroubled life. Why? Well, I live with my brother and from my philosophical studies at a top ten university in the world I (without being cynical) assure you that it is perfectly reasonable to doubt many core beliefs that anyone takes for granted and that make life not liveable. I am deeply concerned about how does my mental representation of the world arise, whether a sufficient relation between the phenomenology of my conscious experience and a mind‐independent physical world can be established not only for metaphysical reasons but also for epistemic ones, hoping that it can allow me to know of the existence of an external world and make judgments of it. EXAMPLE: Sitting down eating while talking to my brother. (challenging, I know) I am thinking of the traditional philosophical questions such as the existence of an external world, God, free will and ethical values. Only with these four topics, which have been extremely controversial historically and still are and which are , very importantly, UNRESOLVED, I can show how horrible or badly weird can philosophy make life be (please don't argue the Primum vivere deinde philosophari as if in a way you have to suspend jugdment as you go about doing normal life things, thats just cheap) (I am assuming you take these beliefs to their ultimate consequence and therefore doubt what I am saying you should doubt). Without these questions resolved, I cannot know whether when I have the experience of seeing and talking to my brother, there is actually someone else out there contributing to that experience that is independent of me (existence of external world), whether there is an omnipotent God that is vigilating my beliefs to possibly condemn me for thought‐crime if I am randomly thinking about something impure while talking to my brother (God) , whether I am actually deciding for myself what to tell him or I am determined to say something (free will), and whether the way I am treating him is ethical or not, or even whether there is anything of the matter to be said at all (moral realism/error theory/non-cognitivism etc etc etc). The whole and only point is that I think the following line of thought is valid and sound: 1) These four philosophical issues, to name a few, are not resolved in a complete and definite manner 2) If taken seriously, these means that in the case of talking to my brother, I should doubt his existence, the freedom to tell him what I am telling him (if he exists), the control and judgment of a superpower over what I am thinking and the morality of what I am doing (this maybe in other cases since talking can be neutral) (but not necessarily of course) 3)If you have reasons to doubt these, which I think you clearly do, and you take them seriously, the very very very basic things of life become absolutely puzzling and just, i don't know the word, i don't thing there is a word, angst i guess, you become paralized, u should at least 4)Philosophers (professors etc) do not seem to behave as someone would expect from a person that cannot give a proof of the four issues addressed 4a) either they have definite answers, which I know they don't 4b) or they don't let the doubts affect their lives, which is contrary to what an intellectually capable human being (i suppose philosophers are of course) should do So please any comments? Do you see my problem? Do you behave accordingly to what contemporary philosophy should make you behave? Thanks very much, i am very sorry if its unclear and badly written and honestly hope any qualified philosophy professor answers.

Accepted:
April 27, 2016

Comments

You write that one response

You write that one response of professional philosophers is "they don't let the doubts affect their lives, which is contrary to what an intellectually capable human being (i suppose philosophers are of course) should do "

Here's my question: why is this what an "intellectually capable human being" should do? I don't think that's even remotely obvious.

There's more or less nothing that I couldn't bring myself to doubt if I really tried. Maybe 1+2 = 3 is an exception. On the other hand, 5879+3627=9506 is something I likely could get myself to feel unsure about with a lot of effort.

But so what? It's consistent to doubt any empirical proposition. And it's psychologically possible to doubt a lot of non-empirical propositions by worrying about whether one's cognitive engine has gone on the fritz. But while all of this is true, it seems to me to have no force. The best way I've ever seen anyone make the point is the way my one-time colleague Dudley Shapere used to put it:

The possibility of doubt is not a reason for doubt.

I'd suggest, gently, that you consider taking Shapere's maxim to heart. It's possible for me to doubt that I've been alive for several decades. It's possible for me to doubt that I went to University, that I have children, that I live in Washington DC, that I've driven a car, that I'm made of flesh and blood, that I have hands. On a less personal level, I could doubt that anyone has ever been to the moon, that water is made of H2O molecules, that Canada is actually north of Alabama, that Johann Sebastian Bach lived and knew how to play the organ, that a human being as opposed to a robot wrote the question I'm responding to. The list of things I could consistently doubt is quite literally infinite (though I guess I could doubt that.) But again I ask: So what?

If you want to say that I don't know any of these things, you're appealing to a standard of knowledge based on contentious philosophical arguments. It's certainly possible to doubt that adopting a Cartesian standard of knowledge is the reasonable thing to do. The fact that some philosophers might think otherwise is psychologically and sociologically interesting, but it's not an argument for their conclusion.

I'm not saying that skeptical arguments have no value. We can learn things about concepts and standards of knowledge by thinking about philosophical skepticism. And in some cases, there are reasons for doubt that go beyond the mere possibility of doubt. But the philosophical thesis that we ought to doubt everything we possibly could doubt is, to borrow a phrase from Henry James, one of the queerest idols ever manufactured in the philosophic cave. In any case, it's a conviction that's deeply open to doubt. It seems to me that it's much more reasonable to think that I have hands or that there are other people in this coffee shop than that no one really knows anything.

I actually think that if we find ourselves in the grip of radical philosophical skepticism, the right response isn't intellectual. It's the sort of thing Hume talked about. Play billiards. Or have a good meal with some friends. Or go for a walk. Or volunteer at a soup kitchen. Or smile at the elderly lady crossing the street. Or put on some good headphones and listen to Vampire Weekend's first CD. It came out in 2008, you know, though I suppose I could be wrong about that. I particularly like "Oxford Comma." Don't ask me what it means, but it's a hella good song.