musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

Are you sure?


Sometimes I wonder if I am becoming a sceptic; I am unsure whether it should be spelled with a ‘c’ or a ‘k’, but that’s to  be expected, I think: in an age where certainty is currency, doubt has become a radical act.[i] In a way, I think social media is to blame; it’s all too easy to accept and re-post something cleverly put, than to question why it was posted in the first place. But what if doubt isn’t weakness, but wisdom? What if the most intellectually courageous stance is to embrace the productive discomfort of uncertainty?

The word ‘scepticism’ comes from the Greek skeptikos, meaning enquirer; not follower… My father used to tell me that the world is full of answers and my job was to discover the right questions. Until recently I used to think he had it backwards, but now I suspect that he was trying to get me to think differently about problems: a collaborative search for truth, not an adversarial one. A search that recognizes that, at least for moral, religious or philosophical questions, the answer may vary with where you are and who you ask. What is true in one place, is not in another; instead of merely shrugging away the difference, perhaps consider whether our accepted truth is actually wrong: it may even be helpful to try on the clothes of the other for a while -it’s still you that the mirror sees…

So that leads me to ask if I can ever know that what I believe is correct: is it merely a consensus thing, or something I have come to believe because of the data to which I have been exposed? Of course both of these have been known to err: things change, and so does judgement. One of the historical skeptical approaches I have found helpful was that of Marcus Tullius Cicero, an orator, public advocate and statesman of the very late Roman Republican period (he was a childhood friend, and later enemy, of Julius Caesar). Cicero belonged to what we now call the Sceptical Academy, founded originally by Plato.

The Academic Sceptics believed that we get our knowledge from just two sources: our senses and our ability to reason. These, of course, can also get it wrong from time to time, so it is wiser not to make absolute pronouncements about Truth and to stick instead to provisional beliefs, the strength of which are calibrated to be proportional to the evidence we have to back them up. This is where Cicero comes in: he coined the word probabilis in Latin, from which we derive the concept of probability. Probabilities come in degrees from ‘apparently true’, to ‘uncontradictably true’ (my words) and finally ‘thoroughly explored’ (the equivalent of modern scientific knowledge). All rather prescient, I think.

Along those same lines, the mysterious Pyrrho surfaces. He believed that ‘The chief good is the suspension of the judgment, which tranquility of mind follows like its shadow.’ In other words, ‘the suspension of judgment about all sorts of things that are not evident, like metaphysical questions (Does God exist?), political issues (Should I support this or that candidate?).’ If we support one opinion too firmly, then any argument against that is taken as a personal affront.

A way to guard against this affront he believed, was to acquire the habit of arguing both in favour and against a given notion, with the goal of generating self-doubt. Although Pyrrho thought it might give you tranquility of mind (ataraxia), did he wonder if this would actually inspire confidence among those friends who were asking him for advice? Perhaps I skimmed the article, too quickly…

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My opinion about a restaurant she was thinking of visiting was the subject of Judy’s short text the other day. I didn’t really feel I could do it justice in a brief reply-text, so I decided to answer in a more comprehensive Pyrrho-driven Email.

I wanted to break my experience with the restaurant into short, easily assimilable aliquots: price (too expensive); food available (not enough choice unless you really like Mexican food -which I don’t); service (really good if you choose an expensive item, erratic if you low-bar it -no doubt also an indication of the likely size of the tip); ambience (too noisy for someone who depends on hearing aids if they want to carry on a conversation); and finally would I ever go there again (no!!). I thought about that for a moment, and then removed one of the exclamation marks so as not to frighten her.

Not content with my rather one-sided view, though, I thought I should try to counterbalance the negativity I was afraid I had accidentally unleashed. ‘On the other hand’, I typed, ‘I might have enjoyed it more had I not gone there alone; I would have found the ambience tolerable if I had brought my noise-cancelling earphones; and if there had been other choices than Mexican somewhere on the menu for someone (like me) who had wandered in there by mistake.’

Before I pushed ‘send’ on my phone, I re-read my answer and thought it was fairly well balanced, given I had only been there once. I was happy that I’d recently read the article on Skepticism, and especially Pyrrho’s suggestion of arguing for and against something in order to achieve peace of mind. I didn’t want to wholly endorse a restaurant that was not clearly accordant with facts, and so might be held against me. In a way, when I thought about it skeptically (using a ‘k’), I decided that the question had really been one of Pyrrho’s ‘which candidate should I support?’ variety and I didn’t want to affront her with a firm yeah, or nay answer. So, with a light heart and the sure and certain belief that I had answered the question she’d texted, I pushed ‘send’.

Her (still texted) answer came back very quickly, I thought. It seemed rather stilted, though: ‘I was going to ask you if you wanted to go with me to the restaurant. I suppose not, eh?’

Perhaps I hadn’t really understood the advice of the ancients. Perhaps I’m not really cut out to be a skeptic…

[i]https://psyche.co/ideas/these-lessons-in-scepticism-could-make-the-world-a-better-place

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