Skepticism is simply believing that we can not have complete
certainty in anything we know. There are many reasons to be skeptical for what
we know or consider a part of our knowledge. As humans we understand the world
around us through our senses. Seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, and smelling
are how we have developed the image of the environment we live in. knowing
this, all our thoughts- even the most extraordinary ones- are formed due to the
senses we have. In other words, your senses had to exist in the first place for
you to even start a thought about a specific matter. But knowing senses make up
a great deal of our understanding, we also know senses can we false, therefore
the thoughts, theories and conclusions we rely on could be false as well.
Another reason why we can be skeptical is because of our human nature that is
dependent on materials and physical concepts or examples. Us humans have a hard
time understanding or even thinking about concepts we cannot see; thus we make
examples for almost every complex concept. We try to make equations and laws to
put our knowledge in abstract form, yet be include uncertainties and
exceptions. Although there is a possibility for what we consider knowledge, but
there are also many reasons why be should be skeptical.
I agree with you about how, with the necessity of constantly including uncertainties and exceptions, we should often be skeptical. I have had at least a few teachers refuse to say that something is "always" true, because they weren't sure if there was an exception or not. It's also fascinating how humans need their senses for the majority of the knowledge they have, but since the senses can be deceived, we can never really be sure about the knowledge we have collected. However, though there should always be at least a little skepticism, it's also important to sometimes just take a chance and believe. In Biology, for example, when using T-tables to decide if one group is statistically different from another, one uses the table value for 95% confidence, since nothing can be 100%. Yet if the calculated value goes above the table value of 95%, it's accepted as statistically different, because it's probably true, since 95% is pretty high.
ReplyDeleteIn what way do humans struggle to understand thing we cannot "see"? Is there another species that is better at this? Why do you think you used the term for sight instead of sound or taste or touch?
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