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Originally Posted by CCIP
How do we know anything?
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My reason tells me that we don't. We can know facts, but the reality behind those facts remains unknown, and can only be guessed at. Even the facts themselves are taken on faith.
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There is faith in reason, which isn't 'wrong' by any means, but it does invite uncritical reliance and open it to be used as a weapon indeed.
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I think putting faith in reason is just like putting faith in anything else: trusting in something you can't be sure of. Reason allows us to work out problems, but it also, if used honestly, exposes the fact that anything we think we know may possibly be wrong. Reason used to justify a belief isn't reason at all, but willful ignorance of what we still don't know. This means that reason can't be used to 'win' an argument, but only to expose the flaws in an argument, and this is true of all sides of a question. Reason can be used to attempt to reach a concensus, but, like logic, it can only show what's wrong with an argument, not everything that's right about it.
This is why I consider it a curse. For me, reason only shows me where I'm wrong, never where I'm right. This means I spend a lot of time seeing where I'm wrong.