THE VALUE OF SCEPTICISM

                IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
Nwanyanwu Chris

The preoccupation of man with regard to the reality at his fore and even beyond is to come to grasp with the nature of such reality. The knowledge of the nature of the reality is not just an ordinary knowledge but an accurate and reliable knowledge; such that the bearer will not only be sure of what he has as knowledge but also will be able to disseminate it with pride and confidence.

Knowledge as it is cannot just be any belief that is true. It goes beyond this into providing a standard and an unshakeable foundation for what can be regarded as knowledge. This foundation which must be very strong in its strictest sense is the justification we all clamour for whenever we ask the question of “how come?” This question in itself is not just an attempt to deny the truth of what is being communicated. Rather, it is a question that paves way for the sufficient grounding of what has been communicated.

Like we said earlier, the purpose of inquiring into reality is to come to full, strong and reliable grasp of it. It is in this light that we shall come to recognize and possibly appreciate the role of doubt in human knowledge; for while it does not deny what is regarded as knowledge, it makes sure that both the knowledge giver and the receiver are very certain of what they are taking in at any point in time.

Knowledge of anything cannot be neglected for without it, one is lost in any scenario he finds himself of which that which he has not would have helped a great deal. That is why our beloved ancestor Francis Bacon will say that knowledge is power. To those who have it, they are powerful and the contrary becomes the lot of those who do not marry it. But then in as much as knowledge is power and we all desire it and ought to, it does not give room to accept that which cannot out rightly be regarded as knowledge. That is why there is always a scrutiny before acceptance of any true belief. This scrutiny is done by the seat of justification of what is given. It is worthy of note to mention here that justification could be rationally-based as well as empirically-based depending on the type of matter at hand. Significantly, this justification is brought about by doubt or scepticism.

The word doubt has often being used by many people without a clear understanding of what it really means. Besides whatever meaning the nearest dictionaries could afford us, doubt has a very peculiar nature. Doubt is just like an intermediary between believing and not believing. As a go-between, it is neither in support of believing nor not believing. Instead it stands at the middle in order to have sufficient reason why it will fall on any of the side it eventually does. To doubt does not necessarily imply a total or absolute non-agreement of matters. Instead it implies that for it (doubt) to fall on the side of believing, it must have gathered sufficient reason for such.

Another worthy note to be made about doubt is that, it is not permanent but temporal. It is within the ambience of its temporality that doubt finds its value by really investigating the matter at hand so as to establish what the case - the truth really is. Doubt really searches the basis for its concord with the given and this is done with the aim of determining the truth.

Taking Thomas the Apostle as a case study, he doubted not just because he did not want to believe the resurrection of Christ, but because he wanted to be absolutely sure about what he may believe in. In other words, he wanted to ascertain the truth of the resurrection of Christ. In this case, something is rather commendable about the act of Thomas. This is because he was not going to surrender himself to any kind of man except Christ. While remembering what Christ said about false prophets and teachers who will come and claim to be Christ, he could not submit himself to any other person except the real and pierced Christ. He knows too well that it is possible for a false Christ to come and present himself as the risen Lord. Of course, that will be very easy for the Apostles to believe in him since Christ promised to resurrect from the dead and the Apostles are looking forward to see the risen lord. Hence, Thomas not only insisted on seeing the pierced Christ but also to put his hands in those pierced holes in the body of Christ.

Consequently, Thomas’ doubt was totally turned to belief immediately he saw the proof. If the resurrection of Christ was merely an illusion, the touching of the body of Christ, the putting of the finger into the hands as Thomas did would certainly have cured any such illusion. Furthermore, when Christ appeared to his disciples after His resurrection, he ate food, they saw the food vanish; he took bread, they saw the bread break. On another occasion, he gave them bread and fish and they were satisfied of their hunger.

The above experience does not happen when there is only a dream or an illusion. None of the Apostles expected a resurrection at least from their human perspective, so they had to be convinced the hard way as Thomas was. Even Christ himself knew that it is not really the best to believe without convictions that was why he made several appearances to the Apostles after his resurrection to prove to them that he has truly risen. We can still make an allusion to our beloved ancestor Descartes who doubted just to believe certainly in the things he postulated later wards. As re rightly said, he doubted in order to believe. These examples and many other go a long way to reveal to us that doubt has a role it plays in human knowledge.

Doubt is of great value to man in his daily relationship with fellow human beings as regards knowledge acquisitions. This is the case with the many beliefs we hold on in life about one thing or the other. We should not just swallow whatever we receive; instead we should sprinkle the sugar of doubt on that matter and then take time to ascertain the truth of the matter. Unfortunately, most of us have received false knowledge claims and then have acted wrongly on that basis.

Although we must know and we strive to know, we should not be in haste to accept or reject what is given to us. Instead, we should take our time to justify what we may hold on to or discard. The period of this important action is the period of doubt and since the outcome will be something better, it therefore demonstrates the value of scepticism in human knowledge.