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Zusammenfassung von Doubt: A History

Name: Doubt: A History
Rating: 3.5 (60 reviews)
Author: Jennifer Michael Hecht

Jennifer Michael Hecht

The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson

3.5 (60 Bewertungen)

20 Min.

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Western Philosophy

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Doubt: A History
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What’s in it for me? Discover how doubt is an unknown, potent force in history.

What connects ancient philosophers like Socrates and Confucius with modern scientists like Einstein? They’re great thinkers, of course, but there is something more, something not mentioned as often as their original ideas and concepts. That something is doubt.

Throughout history, doubt and doubters have played a crucial role in the development of what we now know as the modern world. This doubt has been the spark for scientific innovation, a challenge to entrenched authorities, and the foundation for new religions. It’s been the source of despair and reassuring thought alike.

So how come we don’t hear about it? These blinks investigate what most history books ignore, and show us how doubt is about more than modern scepticism.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

how fellow doubters helped Moses Mendelssohn in the eighteenth century;
why Giordano Bruno’s doubts led to his death; and
how Muslim thinker Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi preserved Greek doubt for the modern world.

Doubt, an influential force throughout time, has often been omitted from the history books.

Do you remember sitting in history class and learning about all the incredible people, full of creative ideas, who stuck to their convictions and changed the world? Well, while they’re certainly captivating, the stories history tells us tend to omit one thing: doubt.

Why?

Because the arguments and even the existence of doubters have often been wiped from the slates of history by states and religions, probably because doubters have tended to be fringe critics of just those institutions. Naturally, a state or religion wouldn’t want to give much credence to these naysayers and would avoid acknowledging them whenever possible.

Take Judaism. In 200 BCE many Jewish communities replaced their traditions with customs from Greek culture, including its language, communal exercise, and even aspects of Greek religion.

The result?

Some Jewish authorities viewed these communities as a threat and destroyed them. Now they’re barely referred to in Judaism’s official religious texts.

But even when history does mention doubters it tends to essentialize them as individuals with specific ideas. This results in a further eclipsing of the greater histories of doubt and the connections between them.

In fact, it’s even possible for a trained historian like the author to miss the signs of doubt. The history of doubt was always in her peripheral vision as she worked on other projects, and it took time for her to focus on it. It wasn’t until she saw the sheer number of doubters through history and how their ideas influenced one another that she got the idea to write a book on the subject.

And it’s lucky for you that she did, because the history of doubt encompasses both highly abstract and unknown thinkers as well as some of the most brilliant minds ever to exist. But how far back does this history go?

Doubt is an ancient and universal practice.

So, it’s clear that doubt has a greater place in history than we may have been led to believe, but how old is it? Is doubt specific to one region or is it a global phenomenon?

Actually, since the dawn of time there have been doubters. In fact, the history of doubt can be traced from Ancient Greece through the Roman empire to the Middle Ages, the philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and right up to our own modern era.

Doubters have often been persecuted and oppressed.

But just because doubters have existed across the world and throughout history doesn’t mean they’ve had it easy. Their different perspectives often caused trouble.

That’s because doubt tends to challenge the authorities and ruling classes. Throughout history there are examples of these groups responding with violence and oppression to doubters who threatened their hold on power.

Many of the attacks on religion came from great doubters.

What’s the opposite of doubt? It’s belief, of course. But what happens when these contradictory forces meet?

Religion and the doubters who have thrown it into question throughout history are a prime example. That’s because all religions believe in something, whether it’s the existence of a higher power or an afterlife, verifiable or not. For this reason, religions make a natural target for doubters.

Religions have sometimes incorporated doubt in order to address it.

So religions and doubters have often been at odds with each other. But how did religious institutions handle this fierce opposition? The classic adage applies, if you can’t beat them, join them. And if that doesn’t work, make them join you. Religions accomplished this by incorporating doubt, a universally held emotion, into their teachings.

Because everyone, even the most devout believer, is doubtful sometimes and religion couldn’t very well ignore this fact.

In rare cases, doubt has even been the basis of entirely new religions.

So, you know how doubt and religion fought and how they sometimes collaborated, but in certain cases doubt over old doctrines actually formed new religions.

That’s because doubt doesn’t have to be destructive. Some doubters have pointed out the flaws of a religion and used it as a springboard to form a new one they preferred. Take Siddhartha Gautama, better known as the Buddha, who challenged Hinduism and in the process formed a completely new faith.

Doubt and science have always gone hand in hand.

While the history of doubt and religion is mostly one of difference, there is another field that seems to naturally pair with a doubting mind: science. In fact, doubt is, in some respects, the origin of science.

How?

Doubt can make people desperate.

It wouldn’t be fair to sing the praises of doubt and all the positive effects it has had without mentioning its negative consequences: doubt can lead to desperation.

How?

Doubt has plenty of potential to positively influence your life.

Being doubtful isn’t necessarily negative. There are a number of positive things and feelings that doubt can bring us. Let’s take another look at Descartes’ philosophical musings.

His apparently depressing and futile exercise actually turned out to have positive results.

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Worum geht es in Doubt: A History?

Doubt: A History (2004) is a journey through one of time’s best kept secrets: the people who have stood up to accepted truths, even when it cost them their lives. These blinks share the stories of doubters with conviction from Ancient Greece and India to the modern era, and how they have shaped the way we live and think today.

Bestes Zitat aus Doubt: A History

Plato offers the amazing idea that contemplation of the way things really are is, in itself, a purifying process that can bring human beings into the only divinity there is.

—Jennifer Michael Hecht

Wer Doubt: A History lesen sollte

Anyone wanting to learn about the history of doubters and their observations
People who want to know what connects seemingly unrelated figures like Aristotle, Benjamin Franklin and Job
Anyone interested in religion and its critics

Über den Autor

Jennifer Michael Hecht is an American teacher, writer and philosopher. Her other well-known books include The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right Is Wrong and Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It. In addition to non-fiction, she is a prolific writer and publisher of poetry.

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