The "Safeguard"

How do you become someone that can think?

If philosophy is about "thinking" training it stands to reason that there be some fundamental techniques that defines it. Real techniques are hard to explain in the same way that it is hard to define philosophy at all. If there is a core component that I can start you with it is safeguarding.

If you're an historian then you will see a parallel with this and what, in fact, the Enlightenment was really about. It is the technique that led to science.

Imagine two circles. You live in one and have no access to the other. How can there be a way to "know" what is in the other circle and how it effects you? Kant's solution was to make deductions based on what had to be there because of other things he could see in his world. That's the easiest way to describe it. Kant believed you could made a grand deduction about what is unknown by looking at what is known and asking yourself, "What has to be the case in the unknown for this to occur?" I'd love to elaborate, but, I fear, we would quickly leave commonsense and enter hypercriticality. No need for that. Let's just say that Kant got in trouble for making assumptions about a world he himself claimed was inaccessible.

We don't need to go that far in our intro to philosophy. Nor should we.

How does an intro student imagine the unknown (and by unknown I mean anything for which we don't have access)? For example, how should a student think about whether or not an idea is even in fact unknown? How can we know for sure what is in that unknown circle and what might, in fact, be a part of our circle? How can we improve the chances of being able to know what we don't know and what we do know?

I know, sounds like annoying philosophy. And here's the thing: To do philosophy, even for a grade, one must be committed to this process at the minimum. One must be committed to considering how it is that things are known and, in reality, how we can structure our own resources to maximize getting them right.

Think how badly these systems are set up by historical philosophers. The system we are talking about is of course called epistemology and, I might say, is the fundamental fundamental. It is the real starting point.

William James claims without a doubt that doubting is the only real position for a philosopher. If you don't believe me read how confident he makes this case in the first sections of "The Will to Believe." He references Hume, as so many after him do, who of course got himself in trouble for separating our "real"lives from our philosophy lives and then attempting to construct a system that maintains that separation.

As an intro student, ask youself: How can you be sure about uncertainty? It's a tough question and the real taking off point for philosophy. If you are a student and take your grade or your progress seriously (which all students have to eventually do) you must find a way to put yourself in a good position, a better position than James, and a place where success is possible. James of course seems to be doing it to promote his own version of faith. He is, by the way, very interesting to read, moreso than most real philosophers, but the wisdom and the contradictions seem to be displayed without a safeguard.

What is our safeguard?

I hazard to say that any real student must first decide if he is willing to build (or perhaps bring out) this safeguard as a primary technique. Socrates, for his part, put himself as a voice of this very thing in his dialogues. Each time you are asked, or ask yourself, what you truly belief about an issue, make sure there is a voice that has the wisdom (pretty natural and obvious wisdom) about truth's previous success and about what it would look like to truly consider things. There must be a voice that grows and is clear and that persists for you. This voice must consider that in the past you have been wrong, and that everyone has been wrong, and that hairless monkeys once believed that the Earth was flat. This safeguard must have the power to challenge all of your beliefs and, in terms of the deepest, it must have the freedom to continue the challenge indefinitely.

Science - though it is about strictly material objects, powers and rules - is just this thing. One must say in the most important part of their mind: "No matter how truly I believe this thing or no matter how truly it seems to be forever unknown, I have seen before how truth sneaks in and I have seen how it changes from unknown to known and I must at least consider this in all serious discussions.

And you ask yourself, How is this different from James' perpetual doubt? It does have a dramatic difference. The doubt, though maintained, is not the final voice. It is a safeguard, not a final word. Though the safeguard is there, it must lead to objectivity and value and truth, or the mission was failed from the start.

Implicit in James and in all mysticism and contradiction is the idea that the world may not or does not exist. To fans of James this sounds like a stretch, I know. But how else can the last three centuries of the "fetish of doubting" continue? Over these years as a reaction to science's statement about the materialism of the body and "soul," radical skepticism has become a psychological tool and not a path to wisdom. It has enabled the very emotional state that Hume deemphasized as (though he believed it impacting) not important and emphemeral.

As students of real philosophy and for those serious about commonsense our first commitment is to reality. If we step outside reality, our words become necessarily obscurant and lost. Though this puzzle-like way of expressing nothing has worked its way into the majority of critical thought, it leaves most readers depressed. Even the (fake) exaltant philosopher who proclaims all great philosophy as merely individual enjoyment leads a secret life. Detached from reality, he hides in the caves of his intellectual soul and fight himself and others to defend the fantasy and the truly unknown (does this seem a leap?).

What does that mean for us?

It means we avoid the trap by first valuing this safeguard. Making a natural and inevitable committment to this mental voice, this Socratic and wise step, that follows us toward reality and not away. In the back of our mind, though we push for objectification and clarity, the doubt is allowed to persist not as a true power but as an assistant.