Introduction to Philosophy Chapter discussing the value of uncertainty and its opposition to dogmatic thinking.
Extract
[...] This consideration made me glimpse a true liberation and I soon realized that the men I had learned to esteem and admire had found, by devoting themselves to this occupation, inner freedom and serenity. Russell is a mathematician. Postulate: intellectual evidence, not questioned. It serves as a basis for other theorems, by the object of demonstrations. The postulates are the axioms for Russell. At the beginning of the 20th century, he fought (imprisoned twice) for peace during the First World War. In 1962, he attended an anti-nuclear demonstration. When Einstein joined his fight, he died. Philosophy is a journey that can lead to intellectual maturity. [...]
[...] The uncertain mind will oppose the dogmatic mind. It is amazed, wonders, searches, unlike the dogmatic mind which will lock itself into a representation of which it is a prisoner, chained. The chains are prejudices, beliefs, habits. One becomes a prisoner through a form of passivity. One is a prisoner, therefore a victim of a form of conditioning that one ignores and of which one ignores the origin. There is immaturity because this conditioned mind lets itself be lulled by illusions without reflecting. [...]
[...] Ex: Santa Claus, myself for Russell, the value of philosophy does not lie in its ability to answer the questions it asks. Indeed, it is not built on definitive knowledge that it would simply accumulate, but it asks open questions because it problematizes. Thus, it cultivates a form of uncertainty voluntarily (not passively, suffered). This is the reason why, according to Russell, this is what makes its strength, its value, far from being a handicap or a weakness. This uncertainty allows: 1. doubt and therefore an opening to multiple possibilities 2. [...]
