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Question of the Month

How Can I Know Anything At All?

We start this new column with the question which plausibly must be answered before we can answer any other question.

The following answers to this central philosophical question each win a random book. (The order of the answers is not significant.)

How can I know (perceive with certainty) anything at all?

My first triumphant answer is that I can’t; gloriously confirmed by studies of philosophy, especially of David Hume.

Without the possibility of knowledge, I am left with belief: belief about all things, material or abstract. Belief about everything I chose to accept as valid; that this table is real, what scientists tell me, ideas, religions, our amazing planet and its people.

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