Gentlemen of the jury, I am grateful and I am your friend, but I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall never cease to practice philosophy, to exhort you, and in my usual way to point out to any of you whom I happen to meet: Good Sir, you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?
He went on to say:
Then, if one of you disputes and says he does care, I shall not let him go at once or leave him, but I shall question him, examine him and test him, and if I do not think he has attained the goodness he says he has, I shall reproach him because he attaches little importance to the most important things and greater importance to inferior things. I shall treat in this way anyone I happen to meet, young and old, citizen and stranger, and more so the citizens because you are more kindred to me. Be sure that this is what the god orders me to do, and I think there is no greater blessing for the city than my service to the god. For I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for your body or your wealth in preference to, or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul, but I say to you: “Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence brings about wealth and all other public and private blessings for men.”
The jury verdict rendered after this speech was guilty. The penalty the prosecutor proposed was an extreme one: death. By trial procedures in that day, the accused could suggest an alternative punishment. If the offer was viewed as reasonable at all, as for example a suggestion of exile, the jury would almost certainly have preferred it over this maximal sentence. Asked what he thought he deserved for what he had done, Socrates pondered it a bit and replied that he deserved free housing and free food of the best kind, like what the Olympic athletes received, for the rest of his life.
He was actually given free food and housing for the rest of his life, which then turned out to be a short time in a prison cell, followed by the administration of a fatal poison. He might have benefited from the advice of Lord Chesterfield, who once said, “Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.”
Wisdom is worth the pursuit. Yet, despite its enormous relevance in helping us to live good lives, nothing may be as rare in the modern world as true wisdom.
Former U.S. president Calvin Coolidge once remarked that, “Some people are suffering from lack of work, some from lack of water, many more from lack of wisdom.” And one can make the same point even more strongly today.
Although it’s sometimes considered nothing more than enhanced common sense, nothing may be less common in our time than real wisdom. We should seek to increase whatever amount we already have, adding to it as much as we can by exploring all the ultimate issues most fundamental to our understanding of life and our place in the world.
As you explore the series of philosophical questions that are raised throughout this book, you do best to keep an eye on issues of depth and practicality at each turn. You need wisdom for the journey you’re now on. And you should never settle for less.
Part 2
How Do We Know Anything?
IN THIS PART …
Develop great tools for gaining real wisdom.
Discover the mind-blowing lessons of skepticism.
Find the foundations for rational belief and knowledge.
Chapter 4
Belief, Truth, and Knowledge
IN THIS CHAPTER
Man is what he believes.
— Anton Chekov
The philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach once said, “Man is what he eats.” But you might prefer the Chekov claim just cited. You may be a lot more than what you believe, but that's a good part of who you are. You’d probably rather envision yourself as the sum total of all your most important beliefs than as an enormous collection of cheeseburgers, tacos, and chocolate chip cookies consumed throughout the years. At least, I would.
In this chapter, some vital questions will be asked about belief, and the connected ideas of truth, and knowledge. Digging into these questions will help you get clear on some of the basic building blocks of philosophical analysis. Some fundamental concepts regarding your basic intellectual connection to the world and yourself are introduced here, along with some very deep inquiries.
Understanding Belief
There may be nothing more important about you than what you believe. What you value is equally important. But some philosophers think this is just because a value is nothing more than a special sort of belief. When you value something, you believe it is important and worthy of your honor, and commitment, and preservation.
Your feelings are certainly a vital part of who you are. And so are your desires, attitudes, hopes, and dreams. But they are all either results of your beliefs, or else are in some other way dependent on those beliefs. You desire what you believe to be good or pleasant. You hope for something because you believe it will contribute to your personal happiness or your overall success. Again and again, belief is foundational to who you are.
Philosophy is often defined as the love of wisdom. At some level, we all seek wisdom for living. No one wants to wander this world as a fool, hobbled by false beliefs and distorted attitudes about important matters, or misled by counterfeit values that can lead to nothing but pain. Because of this, philosophers have always suggested that it is important for you to examine your beliefs. They want you to stop and ask whether your beliefs are really justified. Are they reasonable? Are they actually true? Are they capable of giving good guidance in life? Do you have, among your current beliefs, real and useful knowledge about the world in which you live, as well as about yourself, or are you just stuck with nothing better than mere opinion? These are questions everyone needs to ask, and answer, because too many people often get it wrong, and even backwards, believing things they’ve never examined and becoming passionately defensive about beliefs for which they had no solid evidence at all. As the great essayist Michel de Montaigne once observed,