Isaiah Berlin On The Value of (and Resistance to) Critical Thinking

Another quote we like, this time from the great Oxford Philosopher, Sir Isaiah Berlin:

"Philosophical questions are interesting in themselves. They often deal with assumptions on which a great many normal beliefs rest. People don't want their assumptions examined overmuch---they begin to feel uncomfortable when they are made to look into what their beliefs really rest on---but in fact the presuppositions of a great many ordinary common-sense beliefs are matters for philosophical analysis. When examined critically they sometimes turn out to be a great deal less clear, than they seemed at first sight. Philosophers, by examining them, increase men's self-knowledge.

"[But people can become uncomfortable with critical thinking] partly, I suppose, because [they] don't like being over-analysed---having their roots laid bare and closely inspected---and partly because the need for action itself precludes this kind of thing. If you are actively engaged in some form of life, then it is inhibiting and, perhaps, even in the end paralysing, if you are constantly being asked: 'why do you do this? Are you sure that the goals you are pursuing are true goals? Are you certain that what you are doing does not in some way contravene moral rules or principles or ideals which you would say that you believed in? Are you sure that some of your values are not mutually incompatible, and that you are failing to admit this to yourself?' When you are involved in some kind of dilemma, are you not sometimes so nervous of looking it in the face that you avert your gaze and try to shift responsibility from your own to some broader back---state, or church, or class, or some other association to which you belong---perhaps to the general moral code of ordinary, decent people---but shouldn't you think the problem through yourself? Too much of this daunts people or irritates them, undermines their confidence and naturally creates resistance.

"Plato makes Socrates say that an unexamined life is not worth living. But if all the members of society were sceptical intellectuals, constantly examining the presuppositions of their beliefs, nobody would be able to act at all. Yet if presuppositions are not examined, and left to lie fallow, societies may become ossified; beliefs harden into dogma, the imagination is warped, the intellect becomes sterile. Societies can decay as a result of going to sleep on some comfortable bed of unquestioned dogma. If the imagination is to be stirred, if the intellect is to work, if mental life is not to sink to a low ebb, and the pursuit of truth (or justice, or self-fulfillment) is not to cease, assumptions must be questioned, presuppositions must be challenged---sufficiently, at any rate, to keep society moving. Men and ideas advance in part by parricide, by which the children kill, if not their fathers, at least the beliefs of their fathers, and arrive at new beliefs. This is what development, progress, depend on. And in this process those who ask these disturbing questions and are intensely curious about the answers have an absolutely central role. Not many such persons are, as a rule, found in any society. When they engaged in this activity systematically and use rational methods which are themselves open to critical scrutiny, they are called philosophers."