The importance of skepticism

"I am thinking, therefore i exist" ( René Descartes )

To put this into context, Descartes was talking about how we base our lives upon assumption, our everyday live are surrounded by things we believe to be true. Because many of them are around us all the time they become difficult to detect and therefore difficult to question.

descartes used the solitude of his thought and an extreme skepticism in order to pursue what could be considered a deeper truth.

He uses his extreme skepticism in this way: assume that the only thing you can assume is real is yourself, hence the quote at the beginning. we then say that everything else that enters our mind ( everything that is ) is just an illusion or dream. this quote " i am thinking therefore i exist" is now the fundamental bases of our thought, we can now observe the world in a whole new way. building our thoughts and opinions up from the ground learning and researching. as if we were new born babies but with the mind of an adult. able at least to speak and think for themselves

this though is a rigorous way of thinking. to say that you cannot believe anything to be true unless you can prove it to be completely true. which does seem ultimately impossible.

another way of looking at it is the socratic method of thinking, a way in which socrates himself used to question the arguments of fellow citizens, he was so clever in fact he ended up being put to death, because of radical religious views.

1. Locate a statement confidently described as common sense.

2. Imagine for a moment that, despite the confidence of the person prosing it, the statement is false. Search for situations or contexts where the statement would not be true.

3. If an exception is found, though definition must be false or at least imprecise.

4. The initial statement must be nuanced to take the exception into account.

5. If one subsequently finds exceptions to the improved statements, the process should be repeated. The truth, in so far as a human being is able to attain such a thing, lies in a statement which it seems impossible to disprove.

"It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is"

Using this method of thinking allow us to firstly to win arguments, but secondly to understand more fully where truth lies.

As humans we have the ability to question, philosophically speaking we should exercise this much more to help ourselves, others and the benefit of our world.

Here is a documentary that in essence talks about our ability to question or in many cases our inability. Bill Mayher asks all the questions that we would like to ask about religion.

It is thoroughly entertaining and in places hard to watch. He does focus on some of the more extreme aspects of religion but ultimately or at least hopefully allows people to think a little harder.