Antti Saarilahti

Ressun lukio, Helsinki

 

I

The quote given from Bertrand Russell points out very well certain typical aspects of philosophy. To begin with: while there are many opinions on the productivity of philosophy, I doubt there is a single philosopher who would label it as a “negative” discipline. One answer to the question asked, however, is the saying: “Philosophy asks many questions but answers none”, which Russell brings up at the beginning of the quote. Philosophy doesn’t give us any definite answers to such difficult dilemmas as “what can be known” or “how to live”, the core questions of epistemology and ethics, respectively; so yes, philosophy can be seen as pointless, as a waste of time.

But then again, how could such definite answers be given? The very nature of philosophy is such that it doesn’t seek to give answers, it merely shows us possibilities which “enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom”, as Russell puts it. To give definite answers would be to succumb back to the prison of dogmatism from where we were trying to escape.

Epistemology is an excellent example of such “liberating doubt”: what can be known, it asks. We hold many things of the physical world - and beyond, for some - to be self-evident, yet an entire branch of philosophy plants the seed of doubt even here. “Cogito ergo sum”, said Descartes: “I think, therefore I am”. It is certainly not a very intuitive way of thinking to claim that only one’s own existence can be known for certain. Same goes for Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, which is practically incomprehensible to the layman. For him, it was wrong to e.g. lie no matter what the reason, yet almost everyone lies every now and then: moral philosophy is another area where traditional way of thinking can be turned upside down.

Discussing epistemology is the perfect way to move on to the third question, as that is what it’s all about. What is “certainty”? What is it to “know” something? In philosophy this common verb gets a whole new meaning, which can be illustrated somewhat by the following analogy: during the Middle Ages, people “knew” that the world is flat. Now we “know” that it is round. When in everyday life you say that you “know” you have your wallet in your pocket, a philosopher would correct you by saying: “No, dear friend, you are merely extremely certain that it is there.” Can anything be known for certain then?

When discussing the “real” world, that question becomes very problematic. However, we can say that we truly know something when the rules of the object of discussion are perfectly defined, like in mathematics. We know that 1+1=2 because we have defined and agreed upon the rules of mathematics. In fact, according to Wittgenstein, the root of every disagreement is the difference between the debaters’ suppositions or premises; the difference between what each of us holds “certain”. Now, there certainly are strong differences between opinions on the rules of our world: therefore my answer to the third question is that what you think is certain depends entirely on how certain you are about the suppositions which led you to think such a thing in the first place. And as Descartes has shown us, the chain reaction caused by that reasoning can be taken very, very far.