You Never Know

[Geee]

PJMedia:

The ancient Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus taught his students that skepticism relieved two terrible diseases that afflicted mankind: anxiety and dogmatism. But it’s hard for most of us to live with systematic uncertainty. Only great spirits, those blessed with courage and good humor, can fully embrace it. Yet it is central to human creativity, and its value is only recognized at moments when the old consensus is falling to pieces, and the world’s direction is unknowable.

Most “knowledge” nowadays is contained in virtual boxes, sorted by specialties: economics, sociology, literature, statistics, anthropology, psychology. They are all formalized in university departments, and they aren’t flourishing. Au contraire, they are imploding. Look at all the economic theories that burned in the bonfires of the global crash starting in the fall of 2008. Look at the seemingly endless revisions to atomic theory, which apparently needs anti-matter to account for the behavior of matter. Psychological models are discarded with regularity, and now, all of a sudden, we’re told that salt is good for us!

So it’s not surprising to find a revival of skepticism. My Italian friend, Giuliano da Empoli, has written a wonderful little book called Against the Specialists; the Revenge of Humanism. It nicely lays out the case against stultifying certainty and praises humanistic skepticism. He argues elegantly that the recognition that we’re going to be wrong much or even most of the time, combined with an unrestrained search for understanding and possible solutions to our many woes, stimulates creativity.