Philosophy Based on Doubt

Erasmo Calzadilla

“… life is tragedy, and tragedy is perpetual struggle, without victory or the hope of it; it is contradiction.”  – Miguel de Unamuno

Truth -like its relative: the muse- can seldom be caught, and much less caged.  We are not even able to put it to pasture, like one 20th century thinker attempted, without dying of boredom from the melody of a flute.

Truth surrounds us when it matters least to us, but it bolts away with the slightest attempt to restrain it.  Only by translating our yearning for it into dance can we perhaps realize it conceding a piece of it to us.  But not as a docile dancer; rather, we must stand when we crouch, lean when we stand, and turn to the right as we move to the left, always in contradance.

Philosophy, a knowledge that wanders in search of truth, must be based on placing all assumptions in doubt.  Perhaps such extreme flexibility is the only way of preventing truth in its differing measures from breaking into pieces.

Neither the most implausible or marginal idea must be exempt from doubt.  Otherwise, since everything is connected to everything else, certainty would not delay expanding into other implied or related ideas.  It would be only a question of time before we would find ourselves in a rigid environment where there was barely a chance for thought…or love or life.

Since one of the tasks of philosophy has often been the study of economic and political doctrines, I therefore believe that any philosophy class that approaches these subjects must teach neither socialism nor capitalism.  Instead, it must create conditions so that those who study are able to reflect correctly, broadly and deeply about the diverse social systems that existed and continue to exist.  In this way, a fair and free assessment can be made by the student.

In my point of view, anything else -in addition to being disrespectful- would be counterproductive.

If one wants to build a more human social system (let’s call it socialism or by any other name), it’s epistemology must be sustained by the wisdom of uncertainty.

Doubt should not be paralyzing, though it must in fact be sufficiently dry to prevent the glue of the revolution from crystallizing, alienating and being alienated from the hands of its creators.

To teach about such a form of human socialism in a philosophy class would be nothing other than teaching how to think (and especially to doubt) about the question of how to build a society that allows us to continue doubting, building and living in the best possible way – for the featherless biped as well as the rest of the beings that accompany it on this cosmic ship of stones.