Robin
List,
The opposite of "doubt" might be "faith". That is to say that if one
postulates a tool which can be used in the one sense, it should be as useful
in the ohter sense. To say that one can "doubt" as in "believ[ing] that
there is more to be learned" is to say that we can, in contrast, have
"faith" that what we know is true to the same degree that doubt does NOT
apply. I could therefore say that "faith" is an "essential tool in trying
to do so [learning]".
I choose the positive of these two possibilities; that is, if I can use
faith that something is true instead of "doubt" that something else is true
in a negative sense (instead of doubting doubt so that what is taken for
true might lead to something else based on doubting it and doubting that
doubt) then I think that the more positive of the two choices is
preferable--if not downright proper since it eliminates the double-negative
of the first case.
Brett
At 02:58 PM 11/2/97 -0000, you wrote:
>> From: Brett Lane Robertson[SMTP:unameit@tctc.com]
>>
>> Descartes founded his philosophy on doubt. (Robin)
>>
>> List,
>>
>> This is a misunderstanding. Descartes utilized doubt to dispell
>> doubt...
>>
>That's what I meant. Doubt was his methodology:
>doubt all that can be doubted, until only the
>undoubtable is left, then work outwards again from
>there.
>
>(BTW, you're wrong to distinguish between doubt
>and thought: Descartes formulated the cogito
>precisely because he viewed doubt as just a
>particular kind of thinking, and so generalised
>from doubt to thought. He actually started from
>"I doubt therefore I am".)
>
>I'm sure we all agree that to eliminate doubt in a
>valid way would be ideal. The problem is that
>there is no valid way, nor can there be one. We
>cannot ever know that we know all there is to be
>known. And as long as we believe that there is
>more to be learned, doubt is an absolutely
>essential tool in trying to do so.
>
>Robin
>
Returning,
rBERTS%n
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O'Henry