Why We Need to Doubt Ourselves (And How To Approach It Effectively)

Why We Need to Doubt Ourselves (and How to Address It Effectively)

Ms. Tamara Moskal's Synopsis:

Criticism allows us to discern truth and falsehood and is the basis for philosophical knowledge-seeking. Psychological toughness is vital to self-development, leading to lower sensitivity and less suffering. We should criticize assumptions made by our emotions and investigate evidence. Fact-seeking is also helpful as a learning opportunity for personal growth. 

In Criticism Towards Anti-Critical Thought

Criticizing is the means of all doubt. You cannot doubt anything or anyone without judging their pretended value, whether actually pretentious or true. Philosophy teaches us that we need to criticize frequently on the basis of knowledge-seeking. And indeed, one of the roles of criticism is to allow us to discern between truth and falsehood. After all, an assumption might be too flawed to be deemed as correct, upon further examination. Therefore, in the name of seeking the truth, we must be willing to criticize as much as possible.

And the purpose of seeking the truth is a practical one: To act and plan in accordance to it.

The problem, however, arrives when some of us may regard criticism as "an attack" on either the things they value or on themselves. When they make this unhealthy attachment between themselves and their values and beliefs, criticizing them would by extension make them feel "attacked" or threatened.

When someone, as a result, is compelled to use fallacies such as whataboutism, we can realize that they are not secure enough have their beliefs or themselves criticized. As such this can serve as a red light, an indication, that they might not be suitable for philosophizing.

They might lack the psychological safety to allow themselves and their values to be criticized, even if they would claim that they are tough. Unfortunately for them, toughness isn't necessarily a black-or-white situation, and traits can be possessed partially as well, not necessarily by their entirety.

It is quite hard to philosophize with someone who not only regards an argument as an accusation, but also does not do much to serve a counter-argument of their own. As such, in the niche of philosophy, high sensitivity is a weakness when it distracts you from arguing reasonably, by feeling either attacked or accused.

We need not to see the other side as a threat on us. However, that would only be done once we become psychologically strong enough to quickly dismiss the false impression of being under a threat. To be as strong as that, we better not regard any criticism as an attack or insult so quickly. Instead, we need to criticize that impression and question its truthfulness.

Logical debates do not spiral into heated fights so quickly because either one or the two sides are strong enough to not regard people as a threat, especially if there is no actual threat being present (AKA, one towards your life, for example). However, that requires the cooperation of all sides involved in this exchange of ideas.

By refusing to criticize our own false impressions, we enable a culture where toughness is overlooked in the name of softness. In reality, however, toughness, while hard to attain, is imperative for our prosperity in life, and for the greater expansion of their potential as both individuals and members of organizations/communities.

Becoming tougher is also how we can really not be hurt by the world, without having to resort to threat others just because we ourselves feel threatened. In the name of greater harmony with this world, being tough is one of my top priorities when it comes to self-development. I also believe people would suffer less as a result of my gradually-reducing sensitivity. I have no longer a desire for people to suffer over weaknesses I can solve or at least reduce.

And reduction of general suffering could serve as a reason to regard a weakness partially immoral, where inner strength is a virtue to nurture and celebrate.

Obviously, by refusing to criticize what our senses and thoughts tell us, we can be quick to make much misunderstandings, caused by relying too much on our emotions as absolute credible sources of information. Instead, we can see any data/impression we receive as an opportunity to further investigate, to actually learn.

Instead of regarding any data we receive as fact, we can instead regard it as an hypothesis, deserving to be questioned in the name of the truth.

Case Example: The March 2024 Facebook Outage

On the 5th of March, 2024, Facebook's (And Meta's Platforms in general) collapsed for several hours. This event could in theory affect certain groups, social categories, and individuals, in interesting ways:

• Americans might think Chinese hackers have breached their accounts.

• People who suffer from paranoia or a victim's mentality might think they were specifically hacked while others weren't.

• People suffering from anxiety might believe they won't be able to log in to their accounts again.

The problem with these assumption only occurs when we refuse to use them as opportunities to actually learn what's going on and/or why. Should we lack the necessary willpower to doubt ourselves, we won't necessarily realize the truth. In reality, outages such as these, while not occurring often, also happened in 2021 due to the similar reason of "technical/networking issue/s" that was also the cause in 2024.

The Core Points

Without proper questioning of our beliefs, they remain beliefs until proven otherwise. Compare this to the idea of "innocent until proven guilty". The burden of proof lies on you, as the one intrigued by the belief, and also as one who might have the ability to put said belief to the test.

Otherwise, why else would we regard a belief as fact? Because of our confidence? Our confidence is not proper evidence. Fact-checking is the key to gather evidence, not having the capacity to feel emotions which confirm our beliefs.

To the universal businessman's archetype, anything can be regarded as an investment opportunity. Not necessarily of funds exclusively but also of time and effort, used to yield useful results in one way or another. When we can regard any assumption as a learning opportunity to invest resources to, we can use any assumption as an opportunity to grow and become more knowledgeable.

Nurturing a studious culture is therefore key to doubting anything and anyone, not as something that threatened us, but as an opportunity for improvement and transformation into wiser beings. When we regard criticism as a threat, we deny ourselves the growth of our knowledge.

And the whole point of philosophy, in the first place, is to grow our knowledge.

Let us all do so, not only to learn more, but to actually feel more secure around those who don't really threat our lives, and don't have to threat our wellbeing. All it takes initally is to question ourselves.

Hail Philosocom.