Continued from The Ouroboros & Philosophy (I)

There is something awfully wrong in this train of thought, isn’t there? How could reason undermine itself with any integrity? It seems that it can’t: to reason that reason itself is unreasonable is absurd, thus we have no reason to believe it although reason itself may tell us so. It’s a dreadful argument, one which begs the question: how do we save reason from devouring itself?

What influenced my thoughts on the matter more than anything else was the work of Blaise Pascal, who treated the issue of scepticism in his fragmented apology of the Christian religion, known as his Pensées. It was in this work that Pascal first caught my attention when he declared that

There is an open war among men, in which each must take a part, and side with either dogmatism or scepticism. For he who remains neutral is above all a sceptic.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées

When I first read this, I realised the importance of having a foundation for knowledge, even if it is taken in part on faith. Contrary to my prior opinion, faith is no mere blind belief. Rather, to have faith in something is to trust in it. Although this is without absolute certainty, there may very well be reason enough to have faith. As Pascal memorably wrote:

Nature confutes the sceptics, and reason confutes the dogmatists.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées

For example, David Hume’s problem of induction might lead me to doubt that the apple will fall to the ground on this particular occasion when I drop it, but I have reason enough to trust that it will. He is quite right to say that I do not observe the causal connection of A → B, but I have seen A precede B enough times to have a reasonable belief that B will follow A. Perhaps there is reason to doubt this proposition. However, on balance, there appears to be far more reason to have faith in this proposition than there is to doubt it. There is, after all, evidence either way; so why suspend my judgement?

I understood the need for faith, for a foundation and a platform upon which reason stands. Of course, that’s not to say every foundation is just as true as any other. There’s better and worse foundations as well as better and worse reasons to accept them. What constitutes a “better” reason is, of course, a fair question, which deserves comprehensive treatment. For now, suffice it to say that what I realised was that the world tells us an awful lot, if only we’ll let it.

To be continued…