13th March 1998

I'm trying to think about two issues at once. I need to be clear just what my objectives are. There is the question which I was led to last time, concerning the way one learns philosophy, a question which is, of course, very important to me, but it was not the question I started with. (I'll get back to that question later.)

I started off by asking, 'What is learning?' My hunch is (are philosophers allowed hunches? Of course they are!) that asking this question will provide a new angle on the subject philosophers call 'epistemology', or the theory of knowledge (from the Greek episteme). My strategy was to avoid talking about 'knowledge', as a way of avoiding the traditional problem of scepticism, or the question, 'Is knowledge possible at all?' But it is precisely what philosophers have said about 'knowledge' that is my ultimate target. In other words, I am engaged in a critique.

A critique has positive and negative aspects. It is not just knocking down false theories but the search for an alternative theory, a theory that works, or at least works better. To knock theories down just for the sake of it is vandalism, not philosophy. In asking, 'What is learning?' I am looking for a way of talking about whatever-it-is that philosophers meant to talk about when they talked about 'knowledge', only a way that doesn't leave us open to the threat of scepticism. That's not avoiding the question. It is rejecting it.

Think of it as an outflanking movement. Well, philosophers have attempted to outflank the sceptic before, but strangely the sceptic has always found a way to break free and escape. Scepticism is a problem with a lot of history, and only an ignoramus would think that they could dispose of the problem in one deft stroke.

To get back to my hunch, again and again in teaching philosophy I have found the worries of the sceptic are curiously difficult to motivate. You describe the various sceptical hypotheses in lurid detail ('An evil scientist has put you to sleep and is feeding your brain with false experiences', 'God created the world five minutes ago and you and your false memories along with it' etc. etc.) and you're met with a wall of blank expressions. It is difficult to get anyone to feel that such unlikely and absurd possibilities pose any real problem.

What should one say: that you need to undergo a rigorous training in philosophy in order to appreciate the problem of scepticism (as one needs to be trained in art or musical appreciation in order to enjoy abstract expressionist paintings or the music of John Cage)? But that begs the question whether — at least in some cases — what we call a 'rigorous training' in philosophy may not be a disguised form of brainwashing. — Which is, curiously enough, a version of the question I ended with last time!