Philosophy Assignment
Doubt is one of the key elements of philosophical thinking, and is key to much of philosophy. And in many examples, stories and theories based on philosophical ideas, doubt is the key to escaping the false tedium of existence.
The cave by Plato is one such theory which is highly based around doubt, where some prisoners are in a cave, and the way they are held stops them from looking around and seeing beyond the false illusions they consider reality. Here, doubt is extremely important, but is only evident when an event beyond one prisoner’s choice occurs and makes him doubt the world he sees is the true reality. Here, doubt is what causes him, once he has been set free for a time, to question what he thought was fact, and to question his beliefs that the shadows of the real world were the actual objects. In all, doubt caused him to break out of his box way of thinking, and see the light which is the representation of the actual truth. And like in many theories, movies and other stories of this kind, it was a mixture of strange events, which then caused him to doubt the ‘real world’ and to come to his senses about what existence really is like.
It also shows that while doubt allows us to think twice about what we perceive as reality, it is also a dangerous thing, as the right way, and the enlightened way may not be the popular way. This was shown especially in the ideas of Socrates, and in the cave when the escaped prisoner returned to the other. This is possible because while you have been enlightened and can now see the truth, the other people around you probably did not experience the same and cannot see anything other than the illusions they think are true which they have believed in for years, and think you are the one who is wrong.
Another idea relating to doubt, and doubting what is meant to be true, is Socrates speeches and theories. Him being someone who thinks totally independently from the overbearing authority of his day, he says people should use doubt to think carefully, think twice if must be, about what has been said is fact. He also said that people should not act like sheep, and should think for themselves (which is partly why he thought Democracy wasn’t such a brilliant idea at all).
According to Socrates therefore, the role of doubt in Philosophy is as something which is at the heart of many good theories, and encourages people to break away from common opinion, as this common opinion isn’t always, and often, is not right. Socrates said with these ideas that doubt is what, if you used, can help people make the difficult transition between a sheep who follows the others to a thinking person, a philosopher who like Socrates, wouldn’t be prepared to just take ‘information’ at face value and rely on the ‘knowledge’ shown by others.
The Matrix is another story which is based around the same philosophical theories, and there, doubt is important as it causes the main character to see oddities unexplained by his knowledge of technology and software. It is then doubt that leads him to choose to take the pill, and escape what he thought was the real world.
All these examples prove that doubt is an extremely key part of Philosophy, and that it helps people to act intelligent, and think for themselves. It is the one thing that according to the theories, stories and other media covering these philosophical ideas helps people to escape the cave/box/matrix or the like, and to think as an intelligent person rather than to simply follow everything the crowd does, or to simply obey the majority like the other, less enlightened people.
So in all, doubt is the actual key to enlightenment in philosophy, and the actual thing that allows people to see the light, and learn the truth, or to develop their own theories not in agreement with what authority, or democratic decisions say is the truth.
Remember doubt is the one thing that allows us, along with free will and independence to think for ourselves, rather than simply follow orders or think as if we were programmed. That is why doubt is important for philosophy.
Part 2
While the box/cave/matrix is a world we are used to in other minds and experience, Philosophers do not agree the easy way through existence should be taken, and that we should think outside of the constraints of the taught way of thinking, and be prepared to see the light, and the truth.
Philosophers argue this because the box way of thinking which we traditionally live inside, or the cave, is not the correct way of thinking, and the most important part of philosophy is finding out the truth about the world, rather than simply taking everything as seen at face value. This is because the truth is incredibly important to us, more so than an easy way of living our lives.
There are many arguments however by people who agree with what is traditionally taught, and do not want us to doubt things in our lives, one being by religions who teach a way of teaching which they say is the only truth, and that people who doubt such beliefs will be worse off.
Then there are the kind of people who want to take life as it is, and believe everything they have been told without thinking, in order to maintain an easier lifestyle as they know it. They generally would argue that there is not a point to trying to find the truth, and that we should just live our lives in the ways we were brought up thinking to.
That is countered by philosophers who would argue that living in that such way is going right along with what great thinkers like Socrates thought was wrong, and was acting like a sheep instead of an intelligent human being. They would argue that we should instead doubt what we don’t understand, or that is unusual, and not be tricked into believing what many others already believe and think nothing of.
In all though, philosophers say we should try and escape the box/cave/matrix as philosophy is about the finding if the truth, and using our intelligence, and doubting the world around, we can break away from these prisons of the mind and hope to find true knowledge, which is what philosophy says is the main goal in existence.