I remember when I took my first philosophy course,
it was on Descartes. Taught by my mentor at UCLA,
Andrew Hsu. The course focused on Descartes'
argument for radical skepticism. Questions like,
how do we know that we can trust our senses,
especially when we've been wrong in the past,
when we know that illusions are possible, right?
How do we know that what we think we understand
and claim to be true really is true, even when
we were so certain that we were right, we sometimes
turned out to be wrong? This was the course that
got me hooked on philosophy. I mean, there's
a lot of other things that kind of drew me into
philosophy, but this was the initial kind of
the impetus for switching and dedicating myself
to philosophy. Of course, this level of skepticism
seems in many ways silly. I remember my roommate
at the time. jokingly telling me that I'll be
sure that I can trust my senses when he punches
me in the face, right? The point he was making
was that these skeptical questions are ridiculous
because at the end of the day, we'll continue
moving through life, right? Trusting our senses,
believing that the world around us is as our
senses present them to us, right? We can't do
otherwise, right? So what's the point of asking,
right? But I also think there's a good reason
to slow down and take seriously the questions
raised by even the most radical forms of skepticism.
And I believe it's even more important in this
day and age when we're bombarded by information
and we need to be better critical thinkers about
what it is that we're consuming and our justifications
for believing whatever it is that we're consuming.
The truth is that we often don't question what
we believe. This might seem insane for some people
who are like, no, I don't just believe whatever
I hear. But let's be honest here. Take a step
back. Many of our beliefs seem so obvious that
you just don't see it as beliefs that you're
holding. You never bother to ask what justification
you have for them. Some things that kind of come
to mind are things like the sun will rise tomorrow,
or if you're in California, it's like, it'll
be a sunny day, right? It's like most days, or
that it won't rain, or it's highly likely for
it to be true, right? That I see the thing that
I think I see in front of me, right? And, you
know, again, unless you know that you're under
the influence of something, you might think like,
oh, I just take it for granted. I believe that
I see whatever it is I think I see. Or that 2
plus 2 equals 4, right? Like basic arithmetic,
because you've probably been doing it just on
autopilot for so long, it's just something that
you're not even aware that it's a belief that
you hold. They're just that obvious. So you might
be puzzled if I were to ask you, like, are you
sure? Like, do you even have a reason for believing?
Like, if I sort of ask, you might actually think
that I'm insane for even asking these questions,
right? One way you can take this experience is
to say that, look, some things are just settled.
Some matters are just settled as true, and they
are never to be disputed. That position is all
well and good if there's a good reason for thinking
that the matter is actually settled and that
we don't have to question it anymore. However,
I think most of our beliefs are really not founded
on anything. It's just something that we just
believe. implicitly, right? Like object permanence.
When the brain developed the capacity to make
sense of object permanence, it just started believing
it, right? It's not as if somebody had to convince
us to believe that object permanence is a real
thing, right? Descartes' whole enterprise is
built on recognizing that many of what we do
believe are in fact or in fact believe to be
settled matter, is actually not something that
we've ever had a justification for, or at least
any good justification for. Our reasons for believing
seem to usually be based off of, I don't know
what to call it, like vibes off of repeated exposure
off of something else, but not justification.
And that includes the beliefs that we do. often
take for granted, the things that we do assume
are a settled matter. So there are two good reasons
then for us to take the skeptical argument seriously.
For one, we benefit from slowing down and taking
stock of what we believe and why we believe it,
and then asking whether we are justified in those
beliefs, whether we have good reason for holding
on to those beliefs, right? Part of this exercise
does... shed light on the beliefs that we never
bother to question, which honestly should lead
us to at least, one, develop the proper foundations,
proper justifications for believing what we believe,
but also to assign the more accurate weight we
should to the beliefs that we hold, right? So
sometimes we tend to, you know, believe with
a little bit more certainty than maybe we should.
Right. Maybe some things are not as settled as
we might think that maybe, you know, we should
believe it with 70 percent certainty rather than
90 percent certainty. So we we could probably
even if we end up holding the same beliefs, we
at least adjust the kind of weight, the kind
of certainty, the kind of, you know, you know,
the how much you want to bet on it, a type of
weight that you would put on a specific belief.
But it should also, at the end of the day, lead
us probably to true beliefs because you are actually
asking the questions that should lead you to
more accurate, more likely true beliefs, right?
But the other reason for taking skeptical arguments
seriously is that, and I think this is probably
the most more important thing, is that we develop
some epistemic virtues going forward. And most
importantly, I think it's going to be humility,
right? Let me explain. I personally find it troubling
that so many are focused primarily on being right,
on the beliefs that they hold being true. I'm
not saying that holding true beliefs is not important,
but I think that we need to start placing higher
priority on not necessarily on being right, on
holding true beliefs, but rather the way we come
to hold those beliefs, right? In other words,
holding true beliefs, I think, needs to take
a backseat to holding beliefs for the right reasons.
Suppose, for instance, that I am correct that
the Raiders win the football game next week.
But suppose I believe that because, I don't know,
I just had a feeling or a black cat crossed my
path and black cats made me think of the Raiders
uniform and that made me believe that the Raiders
were going to win. Now, suppose that it's true,
but it's probably not true. Let's just say it's
true that I happen to believe this, right? So
I hold a true belief, right? But how much value
do you place on that belief, like the fact that
I held a true belief? Probably not much. And
the reason for it is because I might have come
to a true belief, but the reason I came to that
belief was pretty stupid. It was dumb. It actually
says a lot about me that I would believe such
a thing for the reasons that I did. And I'm guessing
you wouldn't trust any of my sports predictions
if you knew this is how I came to my beliefs.
Contrast that with the information that came
out during the early days of the COVID pandemic.
Some of the information presented to the public
by Fauci and the CDC and so on. It turned out
to be incorrect or maybe not as accurate as they
had hoped, or maybe there's some nuance here
where it was correct in some ways, but it wasn't
as nuanced as it should have been. However, those
beliefs were based on the limited information
available and using good reasoning grounded in
all the additional prior knowledge that we have
of infectious diseases and so on. So there was
good reason to hold the beliefs that they did
in the time that they did, even if it turned
out to be wrong. And lo and behold, as more information
became available, as they did more research on,
you know, the specific, you know, the virus and
all this, right? Using the good methodology,
solid critical thinking, they came to correct
their beliefs. They came to adjust what they
believed to be was true. The concerns raised
by skepticism is to push us into considering
our relationship with the world and with truths
about the world in some ways, forcing us to acknowledge
our limitations, to acknowledge that we have
limited information. And the best that we can
actually do, because we can't guarantee that
we'll hold true beliefs, the best we can do is
to at least, you know, form beliefs in the right
kind of way. And this is what I mean by epistemic
virtue, right? What I mean is that we need to
develop the ability to engage with facts, with
reality, with the way that we uncover truths
about the world in the right sort of way to put
us in the best position to come to not only more
true beliefs more often than not, but also grounded
in the right reasons, right? None of us have
access to what is true. I think this is one of
the big lessons, for me anyways, of, you know,
exploring skepticism, is that the reality is
that we know a lot less than we give ourselves
credit for. There's no limits to human ego and
thinking that they know, you know, so much more
than they actually do, right? We are building
our knowledge base based off of incomplete evidence.
But we do so in the best ways that we can, utilizing
the best tools that we have. We utilize our senses,
and when our senses are insufficient, we use
various tools that are much more accurate. We
also employ logic and math to ensure that we
have solid justification and reasoning process.
Employ all these things to a limited degree in
our own imperfect sort of ways to get as close
to the truth as possible. But again, the reality
is that none of us have direct access to the
truth. We are constantly searching for the truth
through some medium, whether it's our sensory
experience or whether it's the limited tools
that we have. you know, limited understanding,
brain capacity, computers, whatever else, right?
Acknowledging these limits are not a bad thing.
Acknowledging these limits should push us to
be much more creative and to, you know, develop
new ways of better understanding the world around
us. More than anything, it should humble us to
the vast universe around us and our limited place
within it. We will be wrong most of the time.
People don't want to hear it. It doesn't feel
good, but that's the reality. We're going to
be wrong most of the time. Instead of beating
up ourselves over getting things wrong, instead
of focusing so much on whether or not we got
the answer correct, I think we would find it
to be a much more helpful process if we just
focus on how we came. to hold the false beliefs,
and sometimes even the true ones, and addressing
the process. Because at the end of the day, fixing
the process is what will lead us to correct beliefs
more often than not. Skepticism, in some sense,
is doing just that. It's pushing us to focus
on the process, to focus on the justifications
that we have for believing what we do. to weed
out the beliefs that we hold that we have insufficient
justification for so that we're forced essentially
into identifying sufficient justifications, better
justifications for the beliefs that we hold.
So as silly as it may sound to say out loud,
let me ask you, why do you believe that the world
around you is as your senses present them to
you? Because I can tell you this. I've been wrong
about a lot of things, and that includes what
it is that I believe I saw. If you know anything
about what we've learned about eyewitness testimony,
you know this, that people's eyewitness testimony
is often not very accurate. And that's because
we often don't just take in what the world gives
us. We, in some ways, create our world around
us through our senses, through our perception,
through memory, through our own desires and wishes.
We project things onto the world. So maybe it's
time for us to slow down and really reconsider
exactly why it is we believe what we do. And
maybe in that process, find a little more humility.
not as a way of, you know, denigrating ourselves,
but rather as a way of, you know, acknowledging
that, you know, this is going to be part of the
process and that we all hopefully will all be
the better for it.