I am in love with the truth. Perhaps obsessed is a better word for Love, or at least true Love, deserves a separate consideration. I find the truth to have a neverending and incomparable appeal. I want to know the truth. I want to know all of it and always, concerning everything and everyone, in every respect and concern. In that sense I am not a humanist - I have hurt my self and the people closest to me since I have a hard time shying away from the truth. This does not mean that I don't lie, but I do feel horrible about it when I do. I find it, as a matter of principle, always better to know the horrible truth even when knowing it does you or anybody else no good.
There are obviously many downsides to such an obsession, as anybody will surly notice. One disadvantage is that truth is really hard to come by. Moreover, what's even harder than finding out the truth is knowing that you actually have found the truth. Indeed, certainty has some benefits of its own but my quest for it starts with my obsession with truth. The problem of certainty has bothered many people that it even drove some of them to do philosophy. Rene Descartes, sometimes referred to as the 'father of modern philosophy', has found certainty in doubt. He was really concerned with certainty; so concerned he was that at some point he lost all of it.
It seems to be that there is truth in doubt. Frustrations from truth-seeking failures have taught me a great many things about the benefits of the doubt. I am, however, doubtful that there can be certainty in it. For what it means is that there is nothing one can be sure of, and that one can be sure of that. That sounds peculiar to me; though I admit I am not one to dismiss contradictions off-hand. How can we really know for certain that there is nothing to be certain of? Surely it's possible that that there are indeed some things you can know for certain, we can never know.
I think it's fair to say that fidelity to the truth of doubt cannot rely on such an assertive assertion. We must admit that it is indeed possible that there are some truths that can be known for certain but which truths we may not know for certain. This does not mean, I believe, that we must suspect all things and consider all of them to be uncertain, just because we don't know if we can know them for certain.
To fully adhere to this kind of skepticism means to doubt all certainties including that of doubt itself. We must then accept some certainties, if only in the name of doubting doubt. Accepting certainties is very hard for skeptics for they too are addicted to the certainty of doubt; they cling to it like survivors to a rock. Accepting certainties is a tough job: it's suspect of arbitrariness and so demands courage. Indeed, that is a contradiction as well, but it seems to me to be a truer contradiction than the previous one. Why have I chosen this one rather than the other? I have tried to explain, but if you do not find my argument cogent, you may choose a different certainty to cling to. I will be the last to criticize you for that.
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