Everyone likes to believe they’re thinking independently. That they’ve arrived at their beliefs through logic, self-honesty, and some kind of epistemic discipline. But here’s the problem - that belief itself is suspiciously comforting. So how can you tell it’s true?
What if your worldview just happens to align neatly with your temperament, your social environment, or whatever gives you emotional relief? What if your reasoning is just post-hoc justification for instincts you already wanted to follow? That’s what scares me - not being wrong, but being convinced I’m right for reasons that are more about mood than method.
It reminds me of how people think they’d intervene in a violent situation - noble in theory, but until it happens, it’s all just talk. So I’m asking: what’s your actual evidence that you think the way you think you do? Not in terms of the content of your beliefs, but the process behind them. What makes you confident you’re reasoning - not just rationalizing?
I think that’ll be the case most of the time. The only known way to get a grasp of reality is cooperation, and the agreement to let experiment be the arbiter of truth. Which is difficult, as many systems can’t easily be experimented on in isolation (and you’re left with counterfactuals only).
Histories greatest thinkers struggled with this too. Descartes changed his famous postulate “je pense donc je suis” to “je doute donc je suis” later in life. (“I think therefore I am”, became “I doubt therefore I am”). I read that as trading reason for emotion as core to his being.