Member-only story
The Benefits of Doubt
Doubt that leads to knowledge about the world
“I respect faith,” said the playwright Wilson Mizner, “but doubt is what gives you an education.” We have to allow ourselves to question so that we can take in information. “Fundamentalism of any kind,” wrote Leah Hager Cohen in I Don’t Know: In Praise of Admitting Ignorance, “is the refusal to allow doubt. The opposite of fundamentalism is the willingness to say ‘I don’t know.’” When we begin to acknowledge what we don’t know, we become capable of nuance and of growth.
“Science, history, and the news are full of things that we knew, or thought we did, until we discovered we were wrong. An essential component of critical thinking is knowing what we don’t know,” wrote Daniel J. Levitin in A Field Guide to Lies. And, as Goethe said: “With knowledge comes more doubt.”
Doubt that mediates between knowledge of objects and knowledge of self
People often appeal to “gut feelings” to express felt certainty that they cannot rationally defend. They are saying as much about themselves as about their external subject matter. Robert A. Burton wrote in On Being Certain:
What kind of knowledge is “I know myself and what I would do”? Is it a conscious decision based upon deep self-contemplation or is…
