forum for week of 26 September: skepticism

I think people tend to give in because philosophical skepticism, when argued properly, is pretty convincing.

People think they know a lot of things, without actually knowing why or how they know them. Few people live their lives considering the ramifications of the theory of relativity, or quantum mechanics. Those theories have a level of precision that is not useful to people during their day to day lives. The same goes for considering the source of knowledge, as the thought involved is beyond utility for most people. We can all get by pretty well without having to think very hard, most of the time.

That sort of shallow thinking can, and does, create an environment ripe for philosophical conversion. It's easy to change someone's mind when they hadn't really made it up in the first place.