Everyone likes to believe they’re thinking independently. That they’ve arrived at their beliefs through logic, self-honesty, and some kind of epistemic discipline. But here’s the problem - that belief itself is suspiciously comforting. So how can you tell it’s true?
What if your worldview just happens to align neatly with your temperament, your social environment, or whatever gives you emotional relief? What if your reasoning is just post-hoc justification for instincts you already wanted to follow? That’s what scares me - not being wrong, but being convinced I’m right for reasons that are more about mood than method.
It reminds me of how people think they’d intervene in a violent situation - noble in theory, but until it happens, it’s all just talk. So I’m asking: what’s your actual evidence that you think the way you think you do? Not in terms of the content of your beliefs, but the process behind them. What makes you confident you’re reasoning - not just rationalizing?
If your reasoning is entirely based in evidence available to everyone else, that’s about as trustworthy as you can get. The less people know about it (or the more they’ve already been misinformed about it by people they -did- trust), the more likely they will not follow your reasoning.
That, for example, is why it took Tesla years to get anyone to help him build the first AC motors and generators … including Edison. Most either knew little about it or were already convinced that it couldn’t be done.