If We Know Nothing, Then Why Are We Here?

Philosophy supplies a variety of reasonable explanations to numerous unknown questions that involve the world, religion, and different ways of living life. Throughout history we have been given many of ideas to believe in. Some have been highly logical, and others seem to be thought up by an infant. Rarely do we come across philosophers who refuse to accept anything as its true nature. Most philosophers proclaim his or her views and include reasons why this thought exists as a sort of proof. The Ancient Greek Pyrrho (c. 365-c. 270) was a well-known skeptic who believed in not believing because we know nothing for sure.  He is credited as being the first skeptic philosopher and the inspiration for the school known as Pyrrhonism.

            Even though Pyrrho was said to have been such a profound philosopher, in this day and age he would be considered nothing less of a mad man. He extended his beliefs as far as he thought necessary. Most people believed that he would not have lived as long as he did if it was not for his friends and follows. His friends and followers were not nearly as strong of a skeptic as he. This being the case, there were always people watching after him just in case he went too in depth with his beliefs. Pyrrho neatly summarized his philosophy on the form of three questions anyone who wants to be happy should ask: What are things really like?  What attitude should we adopt to them? What will happen to someone who does adopt that attitude?

To a certain extent, I believe we should have an opened mind about the things we heard and not merely accept them as our own beliefs unless we have tested the beliefs first or have obtained prior knowledge. But at a point, when is it that questioning reality exceeds beyond the norm? He questioned his senses because they sometimes can be deceiving. Such as he would think he heard his name being called, but it was only the wind in the trees. Also he challenged reality to a point where if he came to the end of the road or cliff he would assume that he did not have enough knowledge to back the fact that he could be in danger. I don’t question his intelligence, but I do honestly value him as a philosopher.

His style of philosophy reminds me somewhat of current times. As children we were taught that certain things happened throughout the times. I question this because the way the United States tells history is by his story, which basically picking and choosing things to include in what happened based on importance to the majority. There are a lot of secrets that have been covered up in order to make the United States uphold its image. A coincident is how a black man named John Hanson appears on the back of the two dollar bill sitting in the front beside very important government leaders. It is strange that we were taught of the different governments before the Constitution of America was written, but it was taught as if there were not presidents. From research, numerous people believe that this black man was a president of the United States before the Constitution existed. This would mean Barack Obama is the first black president under the Constitution, but not the first president of the United States.

I believe his style of philosophy questions everything from God to life. In a way doesn’t this mean we should say he isn’t a philosopher since we truly don’t know? Obviously, Pyrrho doesn’t believe in religion or God. I say this because in the Bible it tells us not to question the almighty God. Another way to look religion is that it could be made up because most of the information presented really can’t be proven. The official answer is determined by where an individual’s faith lies. Yes, I believe in how the Bible says the universe happened to be formed, but the counter argument is science itself. Science doesn’t speak of an all might omniscient God. This brings me to this question; how can we know that God knows everything, if we know nothing. I totally disagree with the logic of this argument, because purely if you can’t trust yourself or a higher power to know if something is knowledge there is a possibility that there are a few screws loose in my opinion.

The extreme side of this argument is maybe we aren’t even living, but we might be dream or even our heads could be in some kind of container that still allows us to be alive. For me this is quite hard to imagine, but others call it philosophy. It is said to truly enjoy philosophy, one has to be open minded. I am open minded in the sense that if something can’t be proven then it is correct, but if it can’t be proven then it’s incorrect. You may believe that you know all kinds of things. You know that you are reading this now, for example. But skeptics would challenge this. Think about why you believe that you are actually reading this and not just imagining that you are. Can you be sure that you are right? You appear to be reading, that’s the way it seems to you .But perhaps you are hallucinating or dreaming. This is more of what Rene Descartes developed. Socrates’ insistence that all that he knew was how little he knew was a skeptical approach as well.  

In conclusion, I do not agree with his approach or knowledge, but I value him as a philosopher. Think about this, if we know nothing, then how do we know that we know nothing if we know nothing from the beginning? Well hopefully you are confused. That just lets you realize how unbelievable I think this theory is. I also believe it is important for people to discover what certain things mean to them. But instead of just not understanding his views, we should embrace them. After all, the human has come a long way even if we know nothing.

 

 

 

 

Word Count: 1,048 words 

Works Cited

Warburton, Nigel. A Little History of Philosophy. Yale University Press, 2011. Print.