Skepticism and Belief

Philosophy has always fascinated me... I thought about double-majoring in philosophy in college, but figured I was already setting myself up for poverty as an English Writing major... adding Philosophy to it logically seemed to times impoverishment likelihoods by two. 

What fascinated me about philosophy, is that even more than psychology it seemed to me to explain how people thought and why they thought that way. The reason for that is that a lot of times epistemological philosophical strains are defined by three main things: (1) If there is a truth - i.e., "logos," an underlying truth/logic that undergirds everything (2) If we can know it (3) If we can, what truths that "logos" will tell us. That's a very simplistic reduction - but it helped me make my way through several philosophy classes through undergrad.

(As a sidenote, I do use the word "logos" rather than "absolute truth" because I think logos is truer to what philosophies are seeking. In the very least, it was a word used more in ancient Greek philosophies when they were considering what logic or mode of thinking would help them understand life. 

Absolute truth I think is truncated in its uses -- whether that's inherent to its definition or as a result of its uses in society is something else to be debated some other time (including the debate, for my literary criticism fans, on whether definitions are inherent to words at all...).

It is interesting to me that in the gospel of John, which was written at a later time to a more "Greek"/Gentile audience than other gospels, by an author who, no doubt, lived at a time when he was no stranger to the Greek philosophies, uses this word to describe Christ: "In the Beginning was Logos" 

As an English major and someone fascinated with Lacan - it is also fascinating to me that they used this word which also means "speech" or -- as modern translators who translated it in John: "the Word.")

Anyways. In terms of answer those first two main questions: (1) if there is a truth/logos and (2) if we can know it - I visualize it in one of those simple four square charts. Being limited in my software capabilities right now - you'll have to draw the little box in your head for your self - but the general idea is as follows: 

(1) There is a Logos, and we can know it.                  (2) There is a Logos but we cannot know it

(3) There is not a Logos, and we know there isn't.     (4) There isn't a Logos, but we can't know that. 

Two and four interest me because in (1) and (3) there are philosophies that offer their "Logos" for knowing truth -- whether it its empiricism, realism, or anything else... but they each have flaws in their assumptions and theories that seem to say that they're not the one undergirding logos to everything, if there's something that it doesn't seem to apply to. 

Two and four are normally associated with the skeptics. The interesting thing about skeptics is that their branch of philosophy is stuck. They cannot say "This is the Logos, and we know it." or "There isn't a logos, and we know that too," because they have stated that they cannot "know" it. 

In fact, for the skeptic - all knowledge is belief. 

I suppose if I had to pick my "philosophy" then - I would have to say that I am a skeptic. And the most basic reason for this is because, when I pushed it back far enough, every philosophy, every truth, even the "tools" we think most reliable like science and math -- I realized it all starts with an "assumption" if not several.  

Perhaps it is an assumption that has been supported through multiple, thousands, trials, and not one has failed thus far, but it is nonetheless, whatever premise you start with, you are automatically making an assumption that because it has never NOT done x, y, or z - it never WILL do x, y, and z. 

Unless we have anyone who can see across and into all eternity - then we are assuming that what we "know" to be true - is true "as far as we know"

Which... if you're like me -- isn't exactly confidence-inspiring when one considers how much any one person or any one people "knows." 

And what is an assumption at is most basic core? Well... it's a belief... 

Obviously - and this is the problem that a lot of philosophies have with skepticism - is that skepticism seems the easiest to defend. Never being one to choose something because it's "easy" - that rankled with me quite a bit in a lot of my classes. 

The response that I got from a lot of people was that you didn't need to know the assumption was true across and into eternity (which would make that assumption an absolute truth) - but you could be pretty sure - to the point of "knowing it's true" about an assumption based upon the evidence and support of said assumption/premise thus far. If statistics show that 100% of the time Premise A is true - then we can logically assume that Premise A will always be true and therefore, we know it. 

That theory still didn't sit well with me in considering "claiming" any other mode of philosophy because what I found was that people who are diehard adherents to a particular philosophy have this tendency to  reject any data - experience - or example that counters their assumption.

The general idea is if someone presents a data point, experience, example, etc. that counters their assumption, the response is: "That can't be true - because it has never been that way before, therefore that point is invalid and Premise A remains true." 

You don't have to take philosophy to recognize that there's a fallacy inherent in that statement. You are limiting the very "trials" the assumption is based upon, because of the assumption. Another words you are "forcing" the data to prove your assumption true... and goes against the very assumption you made in getting to the conclusion that Premise A was true. 

The second major "slam" against Skepticism is that it's a "cop out" because in all reality, you can't LIVE life saying "you can't know anything."

Well ... that's where I disagree... because the main aim of a skeptic then should be carefully and constantly shifting through all the millions of assumptions and experiences, points of view, etc. that support or contradict those assumptions -- to find what it is that one believes to be true. It is open to dialogue between philosophies - even philosophies that seem diametrically opposed to one another - and attempting to find where there may be an assumption between those two philosophies that lead them to correspondence, rather than divergence. 

And that I think, should be a "truer" way of life than simply making assumptions and excluding anything and everything that "doesn't fit" with your prior assumption.