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How To Think

Theories That Refute Themselves

Arnold Zuboff untangles the problems of a particular type of bad thinking.

Sometimes, on learning that I am a philosopher, a non-philosopher who has gained the impression that it is difficult to get agreement in philosophy will tease me with the idea that philosophy can never definitely establish anything. I then like to point out to my would-be tormentor that he has just unwittingly provided me with all the material I need to refute that very thesis. For the idea that it is impossible definitely to establish any philosophical thesis is itself a substantive philosophical thesis. Therefore we can definitely establish that if my interlocutor ever definitely established his thesis that it is impossible definitely to establish any philosophical thesis, then in establishing his thesis, he would have refuted it. Thus we can definitely establish that one can never definitely establish that one can never definitely establish anything in philosophy.

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