Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Skepticism is Not Critical Thinking

Skepticism as defined by Webster's as:

1) an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity, either in general or toward a particular object

2) a: the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain
b : the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism characteristic of skeptics

3) doubt concerning basic religious principles (such as immortality, providence, and revelation)

Critical thinking is the act or practice of careful goal-directed thinking (i.e applying reason and questioning assumptions) to solve problems, evaluate information, discern biases, etc. The 
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states: One could sum up the core concept that involves these three features by saying that critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking.

Skepticism is just a small part of the critical thinking process, the beginning part.  

The problem with Skepticism is that we know almost nothing with certainty, save a few mathematical or logical proofs almost everything we know is via The Inference to the Best Explanation, Since almost everything is 1) not known with certainty and 2) our knowledge of anything can change with better data or better explanations than skeptical "doubting" is a very low intellectual bar.  

Skeptics need to get into the intellectual mainstream, offer better explanations of the data, reasons why something is better understood as false rather than true; just relying on "I don't know" when in an intellectual corner; it's intellectually weak out.   


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