Asking "where is our anchor to reality? What ties our beliefs-forming mechanisms to the way things really are?" Morris moves onward for answers in his next question, The questions of radical skepticism.
Radical skepticism of the past, present, and future presents itself in Bertrand Russell's Five Minute Philosophy, which asserts, "The entire universe sprang into existence from nothing five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, apparent fossils in the ground, wrinkles on people's faces, and other signs of age all instantly formed and thoroughly deceptive." If this hypothesis is true, writes Dr. Morris, all his past-oriented beliefs would be false because, "nothing existed before that cosmic appearance act five minutes past." The point of radical skepticism's Five Minute Hypothesis is not to convince the student of its assertion, but to challenge her/him to prove the hypothesis to be false.
Turning now to our beliefs of the present, Morris turns to the "Father of Modern of Philosophy," Rene Descartes, who in the 17th century asked, "How do you know that it's not all a dream?" Or, Descarte asked, "How can we be certain our beliefs are not created by an evil demon who has us hypnotized?" Writes Tom Morris,
We cannot refute The Dream Hypothesis, or the Demon Hypothesis, or any such
wild,comprehensive scenario. We can't even come up with a single shred of positive,
independent evidence that either of these radical alternatives is false. (p. 64)
The author then glances at radical skepticism about the future by employing Futuristic Nihilism. In this philosophic vehicle, " the future is now just one huge void."
The futuristic nihilist points out that the future does not exist. In order for a
belief to be true, the object about which it is true must be among the furniture
of reality, and that object must have the property attributed to it in that belief.
At any second, we could wake up from Descartes Dream and find things in
the immediate future to be very different from what we might have inductively
inferred. [derived a conclusion using part to whole reasoning]
Or Descartes' Demon could snap his fingers and wake us up to a radically divergent
future from anything we had in time. (p. 64)
There is no good answer to the suppositions, as radical skepticism " shows us that there is very little room in human life for cocky, arrogant dogmatism." Morris thus concludes Chapter Five, and goes on in Chapter Six: The Amazing Reality Of Basic Beliefs to further test the cajones of our beliefs by evaluating the foundations of knowledge held in Empiricism (experience) and Rationalism (reason) , the tests of knowledge provided by Evidentialism, the Principle of Belief Conservation, and the rational choice to believe the possibility of achieving the impossible through the application of Precursive Faith.
By doubting we come at the truth.
Cicero
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