The Power of Skepticism
Avoiding the pull of first judgments
Our lives today are inundated with information. Everywhere we turn, we encounter new data, stories that conflict with each other, and ideas that we’re told are the truth.
When we encounter these, our emotions tend to immediately jump in. Our brain reads a story about something that strikes an emotional nerve and the next thing we know, our rationality has been pushed to the side and our emotion rages on.
Or to use the metaphor of Jonathan Haidt, the elephant (emotion) has tossed off its rider (reason) and is running free.
Our wiring is to blame for some of this. We have a default to truth, an internal shift that we believe outright what we are told. This likely has evolutionary origins where we had to trust those we worked closely with. Culture moves faster than evolution, however. Our biology has not caught up with our constantly shifting world. We’re therefore stuck in a rapidly changing world with ancient hardware.
The philosopher René Descartes had an answer to this dilemma. In his book, Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, he wrote:
“Doubt is the origin of wisdom.”
Descartes’ revelations pushed back against the dogmatism of the day. But it speaks to a greater need within us in our ever shifting world.
If we naturally default to a state of truth, then we are at the whims of whoever is providing the information. However, if we take a skeptic’s approach, if we question the information we are presented with rather than accept it outright, we hold a stronger ability to see truth and come to our own conclusions.
Descartes continued:
“Anything which admits of the slightest doubt I will set aside just as if I had found it to be wholly false; and I will proceed in this way until I recognize that there is no certainty.”
This belief and process, this train of thought, ultimately lead Descartes to his most famous conclusion:
“I think, therefore I am.”
Descartes believed we had to remove all opinions and judgments we had ever learned and that we needed to start fresh, see the world new, and work to relearn how the world worked.
A skeptic does not just outright reject the reality they are presented with. On the contrary, they are intrigued by it and suspend judgment until they can better investigate it. This is putting aside the ego. It is the avoidance of dogmatism. It is the rejection of accepting what we are presented with.
In order to live a good life, we must be able to distinguish truth from falsehood. We have to always keep in mind that what we see online and what we’re presented with have different goals. Sometimes it is to inform, but other times it is to misinform.
By rejecting truth outright, by keeping ego in check, by being open to changing our mind when facts rise to a certain level of authenticity and truth, then we build knowledge, then we come to see the world in a more appropriate way. We’re not pulled left and right emotionally, instead, we’ve held out on reserving judgment until we can properly determine truth.
And in the end, it is the pursuit of truth that sets us free and leads us on the path to a good life.
Thank you again for reading and I hope you found this useful. Please feel free to heart, comment, or ask questions about this post. Suggestions are always appreciated and considered.
Until next week,
D.A. DiGerolamo