What Do I Know?

"Cogito ergo sum"—I cannot possibly conceive of another phrase that holds more gravity in the philosophical world than this. For those of you who don't know what it means, it's Latin for "I think, therefore I am." Well... thank you to whoever said that because I might've never come up with that myself. But what exactly was René Descartes, the 16th-century rationalist, trying to get at with this statement? The aim was absolute certainty regarding the things that we could "certainly-for sure-without a doubt" know, and the one conclusion he reached was that: "The only thing YOU can know for certain is that YOU exist." THAT WAS IT. The end of his not-so-long list of certainties. Every other idea that has ever or will ever cross your mind is bleak in the face of certainty, open to a vast amount of interpretation, and vulnerable to the nuances of perspectivism. How blatantly absurd does that sound? That I can't be sure of anything else other than my existence? The chocolate that rests on the table right in front of me tastes sweet... I KNOW THAT. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY. How, then, can I not be 'certain' about that? Well... let's talk about that.

These people today who, in the face of any kind of indeterminacy, immediately resort to calling themselves 'skeptical'... these 'SKEPTICS,' so to speak, have been present from a very early stage of intellectual development. The reliability of one or more of our cognitive faculties has been called into question a considerable number of times over history, but it first evolved into a more concrete doctrine under Pyrrho. He developed Pyrrhonism as a school of thought, the branches of which extend into the very 'skepticism' we see today. Pyrrho's travels to the Indian subcontinent and his exposure to Buddhist philosophy greatly influenced his teachings. Pyrrhonism was all about the introduction of a state of 'epoche,' where judgments based on all non-evident propositions are suspended to achieve 'ataraxia' (a tranquil state of mind). Let me explain.

You see... when navigating through everyday life, our sensory and perspective faculties perform an immeasurable number of calculations. Imagine the fastest supercomputer you can. That's you. With these calculations, it does two things almost instantaneously:

1. Tries to fit our immediate reality into an equation.

2. If it doesn't fit, reforms this equation to fit reality.

This 'equation' is built on a system of beliefs. Its cycle of creation and recreation, I believe, begins right from the moment we develop a brain (so, in the womb) and goes on until the very end of our lives. We stack one belief on top of the other in continuation while the stack keeps sinking deep into our inner psyche. These beliefs gradually dissolve into our psyche and make us who we are. This process inevitably makes it nearly impossible not to create 'dogmas,' which are beliefs or opinions formed on experiences that are not very directly or clearly evident but merely assumptions. These 'dogmas,' Pyrrho says, are the source of all the chaos, anxieties, and conflicts in our minds. The skeptic believes that judgments based on these dogmas lead to a form of circular reasoning, which makes it impossible to reach a conclusion. This is because every criterion of truth must be judged by another criterion of truth, or any proof must be proved by another proof, and so on ad infinitum. In the end, skepticism turns out to be more a method of avoiding error than one of finding the truth.

Coming back to the chocolate. A skeptic would rather say that the chocolate "appears" sweet rather than "is" sweet. The difference doesn't sound like much but is humongous on an epistemological level. Skeptics believe that we generally take appearances to be the truth because doing so helps us navigate the world. However, they are still 'dogmas' when talking about certainty. Take a moment to process that. Don't you think it's alright if a set of beliefs helps us navigate through our world unproblematically, even if they might be 'dogmas'? In trying to function, even at the most fundamental level, there are always going to be certain beliefs that we absolutely NEED to get the ground running. SO WHAT IF THEY'RE DOGMAS? We cannot just suspend all judgment just to avoid error, right? We still need something to base our existence on. Bertrand Russell regarded radical academic skepticism as the 'lazy man's consolation' because it was quickly picked up by the unphilosophic minds of the time, who started to consider themselves as wise as the reputed men of learning.

He further argues that this kind of skepticism is not merely 'doubt' but 'dogmatic doubt' in a sense. In his book The History of Western Philosophy, he sums this up:

The man of science says, "I think it is so-and-so, but I am not sure." The man of intellectual curiosity says, "I don't know how it is, but I hope to find out." The philosophical Skeptic says, "Nobody knows, and nobody can ever know."

There's a very subtle kind of weakness in this method of systematic doubt that renders skepticism unable to prove its own conclusions. It is the possibility of self-contradiction: The rule that everything is susceptible to doubt may itself be susceptible to doubt. CHECKMATE. However, that wouldn't be much of a problem to Pyrrho too, as he wasn't trying to develop a truth-finding system but simply to achieve ataraxia.

After Pyrrho's death, Pyrrhonism was later picked up by thinkers like Timon (a disciple of Pyrrho) and Sextus Empiricus. Furthermore, its evolution into modern-day 'skepticism' was facilitated mostly by thinkers like René Descartes and David Hume, who were driven by an enthusiastic development of science after the Renaissance period in Europe. This led to a more refined form of skepticism influenced by doctrines like rationalism, empiricism, and perspectivism, some of which I will discuss with you in the future. Also, thank you for taking the time to read this!