I CAN DOUBT EVERYTHING. THERE IS NOTHING TRUE

I would like to share my views on the topic: ‘I can doubt everything. There is nothing true.’ From my point of view I would say that I cannot doubt everything, because the moment I doubt something, that clearly shows that I believe in something and hence I cant doubt anything that I see.

This idea is mainly inclined with the skeptics. Their attitude is to question the reliability of the knowledge claims that are made by the philosophers and others. Philosophical skeptics have been engaged in questioning alleged human achievements in different fields to see if any knowledge has been or could be gained by them. They have questioned whether any necessary or indubitable information can actually be gained abut the real nature of things. Some skeptics have held that no knowledge beyond immediate experience is possible, while others have doubted even this.

Rene Descartes raised in the skeptical atmosphere of the early seventeenth century insisting that it was possible to overcome all doubt and to find an absolute basis of knowledge. By applying the skeptical method more thoroughly than the skeptics had, he claimed an indubitable truth as well as an indubitable criterion of true knowledge and a whole system of truths about reality could be found. Descartes started by rejecting all beliefs rendered dubious by the skeptical problems about sense experience, the possibility that all we know is part of a dream. In the process of trying to doubt everything Descartes claimed one basis of the indubitable truth-‘ I think therefore I am’ (Cogito ergo sum) is encountered. The very fact that ones doubt of his own existence makes one aware of the truth that one exists.

The skeptics have been continually been attacked and refuted in the history of philosophy and have been occasionally set forth as a serious view. Many people or opponents have argued from the beginning or from the time of the Greeks upto the current moment that skepticism flies in the face of common sense and ordinary belief.

Skepticism has not functioned in philosophy as merely one more position, alongside idealism, materialism and realism. Instead, it has been like an anonymous letter received by a dogmatic philosopher who does hold a position. Skeptical arguments are usually parasitical, in that they assume the premises of the dogmatist and show problems that ensure on the standard of reasoning. The skeptical critique has thrived on the desire to find a coherent and consistent account of knowledge and beliefs about the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

v Rescher, Nicholas. Skepticism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980.

v Slote, Michael A. Reason and Skepticism. New York: Humanities Press, 1970.

v Encyclopedia: Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd Edition, Donald M Borchet.