Doubt

Philosophical aspects

To doubt, is this a weakness?

The weakness gives a report on a lack of strength, in this case at an intellectual level. It is not considerable nor which may undergo beneficiation. The weak one is lower than different, it inspires sometimes pity. Thus if it is declared that to doubt is to show weakness, one gives value only to the things which are duly shown and certified thus that with those which make these assertions. A contrario , if it is admitted that to doubt can be useful, sometimes even necessary, and thus that is a quality, one gives importance to the handing-over in question and the opening towards divergent horizons. Is the doubt a refusal to admit the Vérité S or makes it possible it to establish the true truths, to approach some or to be even resigned to the fact that there are some no which are single and sufficient? To call in question what appears obvious makes it possible the man to advance or the fact on the contrary of stagnating in a sterile state of uncertainty?

To devalue this state by questioning and to say that the Homme should doubt nothing, it is to want a rigor without fault. It is to claim that one can and that one must hold a perfect knowledge and that the hesitation does not find there more its place that it should not find there in the daily behavior of each one. On the other hand, to attach importance to the doubt, gives birth to the idea that it can form integral part of a Esprit structured, mature and that without the doubt one cannot approach a more true Connaissance.

Appearance of the scientific doubt

The scientific doubt made its appearance with the Philosophe S, the Mathématicien S and the Physicien S. They revolutionized concepts that some, like the Église, had interest to maintain such as they had been considered centuries before. It is after the judgment of Galileo in 1633, to have called into question the principle that the Ground is the center of the definite Univers and to have been the release of a whole ideological upheaval, that Descartes gave an account of the errors which the certainty generate in the spirits. Contrary to the skeptics, it did not use the doubt to doubt but set up a radical, excessive method but only in one temporary phase, an aim of releasing themselves from the doubt, and of making it evolve/move. It is the appearance of the Cartesian Doute, or methodological Doute. This scientific Doute thus applies to the demonstrable things, to which one can find an answer more or less verifiable. There is also a category of completely different doubts which gathers questions of an existential nature, all that one will name " Métaphysique (; after the physique"). They relate to subjects to which the man cannot claim to bring an answer which is certain and demonstrable.

The doubt from a metaphysical point of view

During certain moments and under particular conditions, the doubt can be mortal. These moments require sometimes a cold blood and a determination which should not be disturbed. It is enough to imagine a pilot of Formule 1 for which only one moment of hesitation can cause the Mort. In these extreme situations, not to doubt is a quality because that could quickly become fatal. To doubt can be also a manner of making opposition to obviousnesses which one does not want to admit, a manner of refusing to conceive that there exists for certain things of true nondebatable truths. In this point, to doubt is a weakness because that shows for an individual an incapacity to be hung up again with reality. One can see the spirit like any construction: one needs strong foundations, structured, to be able to evolve/move in an interesting and “normal” way. On the basis of this idea, one can easily understand that an excessive and quasi-permanent doubt has strong Chance S to show failures and a lack of confidence in oneself and in the others. If one doubts all, all the time, there cannot be progression. To deny the strong foundations and veracious each Raisonnement makes disappear all Logique. The person who doubts at this point is unbalanced, psychologically unstable and tests suffering not to be able to progress and to make a success of its Vie as she would like it can be. In this case, that shows a real incapacity or incompetence to know or to do something, it is even more than one weakness, it is a Handicap. The doubt skeptic, does not bring anything interesting to him. It is besides what Rene Descartes reproached him. It finally only carries out to still make more shade and solidifies uncertainty on the tackled problem. But even if one speaks only about one philosophical doubt, metaphysical and constructive, certain people can be destabilized, to feel distressed, lost vis-a-vis the catch of Conscience that practically nothing is certain. At this time there, can one consider that to doubt is a force?

But the doubt preserves at the same time a role and a utility which one cannot tap to him. To doubt, it is to admit that one can be mistaken and be misled by our direction or by our clean Pensée S. One can take the example of the optical illusions or even of the Rêve S like does it Rene Descartes. In these moments, one does not doubt only what one believes true is not the truth whereas precisely our judgment is deluded. To refuse the doubt, it is to close itself with the possibility that reality can be different and thus be likely to be mistaken. Paradoxically, that can be a means of having the clearer ideas. There are also medical reasons to doubt. One tends to think that the memory and the impressions that it makes us feel are completely objective and thus true whereas it is known today that these impressions depend enter other of the Connection S which take place between the neurons and which vary according to the frame of mind, of the emotional state, and so much of other variables. The cultural Environnement also can be a factor not to be neglected. The education which one received and medium in which one grew forged in us concepts which can be inaccurate. All the more of reasons to find that it is legitimate and reasonable to doubt. The doubt can make it possible to demolish the generally accepted ideas, the Préjugé S and thus to listen to its clean Raison to advance. Thus one realizes that the doubt can enter a completely different dimension. Acting more to disavow a truth where being sign of an unspecified incapacity, there exists indeed a manner of doubting which makes it possible to progress in a search not of an absolute truth but bringing a more moderate reality where one account precisely of this shift returns than there can be between what appears real to us and what is it really. To philosophize, it is above all to doubt. It is to admit that one does not know and to hold account in its reasoning of it as Socrate did it. Descartes proposes in Méditations metaphysics, a method to doubt voluntarily and temporarily all. It is a question of not taking as bases only what is absolutely indémontable and to consider initially that all the remainder is Faux to eliminate any risk to be misused from the beginning. It is from there that its first certainty comes: “It was necessary necessarily that me, which thought, was something. And noticing that this truth: I thus think I am, was so firm and if assured that the most extravagant assumptions of the skeptics were not able to shake it”. This method thus makes it possible to convey its reasoning and to use the doubt to try to raise it or to make it progress. But there are also other practiced manners which are less strict to reflect a question and to try to advance answers.

In the Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies, the doubt is a big part of the deliberation. He is regarded as necessary to raise his conscience. The apparent certainty are reconsidered and one thinks of the significances of the life. Indeed, in this reasoning, the idea is found that perceptions which one has of what one believes being the life are illusory or are only one very small portion of reality. In this case there, it becomes paramount to develop a capacity to bring the doubt towards considerations which are less obvious and sometimes difficult to include/understand or to accept.

The doubt can thus be differentiated according to whether it is verifiable or that it is of a metaphysical nature. A permanent excess of uncertainty ends up corroding the Personnalité. It prevents the people concerned from being able to make trustful and sure choices while being they. It can even deprive them of relations with the others or degrade them since they can trust with nothing. To live in such a blur and without reference mark is not desirable. That degrades quality of life. The doubt is here much more than one weakness. But it also should be realized that the true certainty are extremely rare, even impossible. The evolution can be carried out only by handing-over in questions created by the doubt. A creative doubt is not a weakness. It makes it possible to tackle a problem with more prudence and of subtlety by drawing aside the prejudices and the a priori . But does the man have always this capacity to doubt in a constructive way?

Quotations

"To doubt is a weakness? " Manuel Dos Santos
" To doubt is a force of the spirit but a weakness of the action! " Jonathan Garcia
"Only the Certitude that I have, it is to be in the doute" Pierre Desproges
" The doubt is the salt of the spirit, without the point of the doubt, all knowledge are soon pourries" Alain
" The problem of the world, it is that the imbeciles are presumptuous and stuffed intelligent people of doutes." Bertrand Russell
" Nobody is more frightening than that which forever of doutes." Jacques Sternberg
" To believe with certainty, it is necessary to start with douter." Polish Proverb

Internal bonds

External bonds

Benjamin Ball, Of the madness of the doubt, Lessons on the mental diseases (31ème lesson), ED. Asselin and Houzeau, Paris, 1890.

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