2022-04-22
33 分钟For more information and full transcripts of the podcast, check out philosophisethis.org.
For updates about new episodes, check out Instagram at philosophisethispodcast, all one word, on X at I am Stephen West.
Be well, and I hope you love the show today.
So something that's been hammered home on this show pretty regularly in the past, maybe a little bit too much at times,
is something that at this point seems like it's become a bit of a philosophical truism.
It's the realization that you can never really know anything for certain.
Now, who really cares when anybody says something like this?
Like what are they even saying?
Are they certain that we can't know anything for certain?
This is a line that when it's said in polite conversation can seem to some people like this sort of dusty old undergraduate credo,
an idea that at best is pointless because it's really not saying anything,
and at worst, completely deletes the possibility of a discussion right at the outset.
Then again, there are other people out there that would see this statement as something that is undeniably true,
something that's necessary for any level of nuanced thinking, and that if there's a mistake being made here,
the mistake lies in the person who hears that you can't know anything for certain,
and then decides to sit around and do nothing because,
hey, you can't know anything for certain anyway, guess I'll grab me a bag of skeptical Cheetos and just call it a life.
See, there's a lot of discussion among fans of philosophy about what the value of philosophy is in today's day and age.
Why is philosophy even important in modern times?
And there's a lot of answers to this,