On Free Will and Self-Esteem: The Philosopher’s Lament

 

On Free Will and Self-Esteem: The Philosopher’s Lament

People with low self-esteem generally feel like “I’m not good enough.” And philosophy would ask: Why? What does that mean? Good enough according to whose judgment? Judged by what standards? For what reason? For what purpose? And according to what foundational premises? And, I think, (and I speak from personal experience), the premise is a faulty understanding, a misunderstanding, of the nature of free will. But the truth about free will is, in a way, very, very sad, so people don’t want to face the truth. But this short essay states that truth. And this truth, in a way, holds a great deal of wisdom.

It is not, ultimately, within my control whether my philosophy has any effect upon the world, or how long it lasts. The readers control that. I do not have any control over that. You should write for fun, not for effect. If the readers reject you, that does not mean you “failed.” It isn’t necessarily true that always “doing more” would make it more likely that you “succeed.”

I had been operating under a false premise: that I was responsible. The world is the sum of other people. I am not responsible for other people. Not in any way. And I have no control over them or what they do. In any way.

And when you move to a new apartment, you won’t control whether you like it or not. You can’t know that before you move in and live there. And you could get stuck in a place you don’t like. You don’t control that. And that doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. So you should not feel guilt. You accept, let go, move on, and fight your next battle.

I was writing for the wrong reason. I was writing for effect, not to have fun.

Same with gaming: Don’t play to win. Play to have fun.

Although I did have fun writing books. To paraphrase a saying, “You can’t change people, but it sure is fun to try!”

That is the premise of “yes and yes”: You don’t control whether someone wants to have sex with you or wants to date you. All you can do is put yourself out there, show up, ask, and then see what their answer is. And it’s only a match if you are a yes for them and they are a yes for you. But if they are a no for you, that doesn’t mean you did anything wrong, because you don’t control their answer. You being a yes for them is necessary but not sufficient. They have free will, so you are zero percent responsible for their answer, and they are 100% responsible for their answer. Whether the other person says yes or no after you ask them to date you or have sex with you is, from their point of view, completely determined and controlled, and, from your point of view, completely random and chaotic. You have no control, there is nothing you can do to gain control, so you are good enough, no matter what, and there is nothing you could have done better where you did wrong and were not good enough. In this context, it is impossible to not be good enough, therefore you are good enough.

For examples:

Your writing is good enough. You don’t need to write more.

You’re thin enough. You don’t need to lose weight to get a boyfriend or hook up with someone hot.

I no longer take responsibility for the moral failure of being single and not having a boyfriend despite being lonely and lovelorn and for the moral failure of not having had lots and lots of hot gay sex despite being openly LGBTQ and horny all the time.

I no longer take responsibility for the moral failure of not having gotten a PhD in philosophy from an Ivy League university and for not becoming a philosophy professor (and for sparing myself the agony of being constantly surrounded by idiots).

I no longer take responsibility for the fact that my parents abused and/or neglected me my entire life and I let them stay in my life and continue to torture me long into adulthood instead of kicking them out for far too long, and I forgave too much. I no longer take responsibility for the moral failure I inherited by being the son of fucked up insane evil parents. I no longer take moral responsibility for the fact that my parents neglected me by not getting me any diagnosis or treatment for my Autism or Social Anxiety Disorder as a child when I had no friends or in high school when I did not date, thereby traumatizing me and torturing me by making me feel like it was my fault and I had no fucking clue what was going on or why I couldn’t socialize and I blamed it all on myself. I no longer blame myself. There is nothing better that I could have done. I did not need to do better. I was, and am, good enough.

I no longer feel guilt for my life. I did the best I could given what a fucked up nightmare shitshow this world is. What I did was good enough. Life is not an easy game to play. I didn’t need to be better. I’m good enough.

You’re good enough. For what? For anything. Why? There is no justification. No justification is necessary. But, if you take the opposite position, that you’re not good enough yet, then you would always have to do more, and feel guilty for not having done enough, and focus on every negative as an area of improvement, and ignore every positive because those aren’t the areas where you need to do more, where you’re not good enough.

You might make a big mistake, and feel like now you’re not good enough to succeed anymore, and feel guilt. But, if what you are doing is within the scope of your free will, then you control whether you succeed, because you have free will, so, yes, you are still good enough to succeed. And, if what you are doing, or the result of your actions, is outside the scope of your free will, then you do not control it, and “good enough” has no meaning in this context. The one wrong thing you can do is to feel guilty, cry, feel self-pity, and give up, and blame yourself (or blame other people, or blame fate, or blame at all). If you keep fighting the fight that you have the ability to fight, or accept that which is outside your control and be at peace with what happens, those are the wise things to do.

The premise that you doing better could influence or control other people, make them like you, make them love you, make them recognize your achievement, make them give you a reward, is flawed, is false. Because they have free will. But, absent that, you are good enough for them, and guilt could rarely, if ever, be justified. Did you do good enough? Was what you did good enough – to please others? That question has no meaning. You are good enough.

You cannot influence other people or control other people, but, if you want someone else to give you something, you can ask for it, you can ask them to give it to you, and there is no reason why they would ever give it to you if you don’t ask them for it. And there are better and worse ways, more or less effective ways, of asking someone to give you something that you want from them. And no reasonable person should expect to get anything from others if you don’t ask for it in an effective way; however, with the caveat that, in whatever way you ask for it, no matter how “effective,” you still do not control them as to whether they actually give it to you.

Radical free will. Let go. Atlas, shrug. Go Galt. You are responsible for yourself, you are not responsible for other people, you do not control them, and it is not your job to take care of them, or to have an effect upon them. You can’t help them. You have no effect on them. Each person is responsible for themselves. Each individual is 100% responsible for themselves, physically, spiritually, morally, economically, socially, sexually, and romantically. Because they have free will. Either you have free will, or you don’t. If you have free will – and, yes, you do – that is what it means to have free will. That is the doctrine of radical free will.

Because you have free will, you are personally responsible for yourself, so it is your job to provide for yourself and to take care of yourself. It is your job to make the money to pay the costs of you living your ideal life, to the extent that you have the ability to get a job and work. It is your job to make friends, find love, and have hobbies, to the extent that you desire to do so. It is your job to create meaning in your life, to build a narrative of what is going on in your life and find joy and meaning in the story of your life, to the extent that you need or want to do so. It is your job to love yourself – rational selfishness and egoism and self-esteem, the core tenets of ethical Objectivism, mean nothing more than this.

And when I say “it is your job,” I mean, it is your responsibility, you are responsible, your free will controls this. But did you do this job well enough? Should you have done better? Were you good enough – to yourself? You have free will, so this was under your absolute control. But this means that you did what you did, you willed what you willed, you willed that which was your will, and you would have done nothing else, given the scenario of choices which you faced. Will is not precisely the same thing as choice: you choose your choices, but you will your will, and your will is your intention, your meaning, your truth, that which you absolutely will and would bend reality itself to your will in order to achieve, you mean and intend it so completely and so absolutely that you intend to cause it to exist, so, if you willed something, there is no reason to believe that you would have willed something else, something different, given that specific opportunity a second time. That was your free will. That was who you are. You are the person who did that. You did what you chose to do. What you willed is what you meant to do, it is what you intended to do – literally, by definition. Was it the right thing to do? That is between you – and yourself.

You live the life you will. Your life is what it is because you willed it to be. That was your will. To say that you don’t like your life, that you feel guilty about how you took care of yourself, that it wasn’t good enough – guilt does not make sense in this context. From your point of view, that was your will, that is what you declared your will to be. Starting right now, today, throw out the guilt from the past, do what you want, and do what you know you should be doing, and will the life you want. Forget the past. Then, there is no guilt, you are doing what you want, and you are doing your job. The past and future do not exist, only the present time exists, from the point of view of someone alive today, at the present time. You only have free will over yourself at the present time; you cannot change the past, or the future, but you can change today.

What is outside your control: Accept, and let go – or try to control it, which is a losing cause. Such as, for example, by political control, or legal control, which fails, because each individual has absolute free will. Another approach is my theory of faith. People want to get God to control the things which they cannot control, for their benefit, so they seek to pay God with prayers and worship and service and faith, in return for God controlling the things which are outside their control. Totally illogical: God would not, in theory, need or want your prayers, your faith, your worship, your service. God is the one who literally already has everything, so there is nothing you can give to God in return for God controlling things outside of your control. You cannot buy God’s favor. This attempt is an end run around loss of control, it is trying to control that which is outside of your control by means of religion. You don’t control God, you don’t control other people, you don’t control the world, you don’t control what happens, you don’t control everything that is, according to logic, outside your control. You can let go and accept, or tear your hair out and gnash your teeth and cut your skin to blood fighting to get control.

It isn’t that each person is an end in themselves. “End” implies a justification, a reason to use a means. There is no justification. There is no need for a justification. Human beings simply are. We live. We exist. There is no need to justify behavior, there is only the need to deny the need for any justification, deny all negativity, and live a positive, affirmative life. Don’t justify, deny the need for justification. You have free will and the absolute right to do what you will. You might have done right, or wrong, factually, for a particular purpose, which might be your chosen goal, but you do not, in the end, either need, or have, any justification whatsoever. You stand naked, alone, before God, stripped of the clothing of justification, of pretext, of excuse, of “why.” You need no excuses and there are no excuses. There is no blame, and there is no need to blame.

The great mistake in human psychology is to blame your life on other people, or blame your life on yourself, or blame your life on your parents, or blame your life on bad luck, or blame your life on your mental health disorders, or blame your life on your addictions, or blame your life on the socioeconomic class you were born into, or blame your life on what other people did to you. And then you would need to do better to compensate for it. But there is no need to blame. There is no blame. There is nothing blameworthy to blame for. The crime that rendered you not good enough was never committed, and the proof is that you are good enough. You are good. You are good enough.

It's like the hero says in the movie “Serenity,” based on the TV show “Firefly”: “You can’t change people. They are what they are.” It’s because they have free will. They can change themselves, but you can’t change them. You can change yourself, but you can’t change other people. This is the philosopher’s lament, because the philosopher understands free will, and so he knows how little he truly has any power to affect other people. And that is wisdom.

The famous motto of recovery from Alcoholics Anonymous also comes to mind: “God, grant me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Except that I would rewrite it: Reason and logic, grant me the courage to change the things that are within the scope of my free will, the serenity to accept the things that are outside the scope of my free will, and the wisdom to know the difference and to understand free will.

Randianism

Consider this list of philosophies:

Rationalism,

Empiricism,

Analytic philosophy,

Existentialism,

Phenomenology,

German Idealism,

Socialism,

Anarcho-Socialism,

State-Communism,

Libertarianism,

Moral Realism,

Solipsism.

Next, consider this list of philosophies:

Platonism,

Kantianism,

Hegelianism,

The philosophy of Nietzsche,

The philosophy of Sartre,

Aristotelianism,

The philosophy of Wittgenstein,

Marxism,

The philosophy of John Locke.

Each of these things are what ordinary people would call a "philosophy." But these are not one thing, these are two types of things, the first set of which, from the first list, is what I call a systematic philosophy, and the second set of which, from the second list set forth above, I would call an individual's philosophy. A systematic philosophy is a philosophical system comprised of a set of philosophical views, while an individual's philosophy is the philosophy of one individual philosopher. Note, however, that each systematic philosophy is formed by importing a set of ideas and views from a set of individual's philosophies, or else one individual's philosophy could form its own entire one systematic philosophy. For example, the philosophy of John Locke contributed views to Empiricism, and Marxism contributed views to socialism. Multiple individual's philosophies can contribute to the same systematic philosophy. For example, the philosophy of Nietzsche and the philosophy of Sartre both contributed to Existentialism. One systematic philosophy can also have multiple systematic philosophies which are variations or sub-parts of it as a whole. For example, Anarcho-Socialism and State-Communism are both coherent systematic philosophies in their own right, but each is also a sub-part of the broader systematic philosophy of Socialism.

Now, the question is: What is Objectivism? Is it a systemic philosophy? Or is it an individual's philosophy?

Within the Objectivist movement, there is a great debate and conflict between the open-system and closed-system Objectivists. Closed-system people believe that Objectivism is limited to the philosophy created by Ayn Rand, and it ended with her death. Open-system people believe that Objectivism can be added to and expanded by other people and is not only limited to Ayn Rand's ideas.

I have come to believe that the conflict arises from linguistic imprecision, that the closed-system people understand Objectivism to be an individual's philosophy, merely another name for Randianism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, while the open-system people believe that Objectivism is a systematic philosophy, a set of philosophical views united around the theme of a common worldview in philosophy, and therefore obviously it could be added to by anyone, although at its time of original creation, 100% of the ideas in systematic Objectivism came from having been imported from the individual's philosophy of Ayn Rand, Randianism.

The two sides in the debate do not understand each other and cannot understand what the other side is saying, because they are using two different definitions of the same word, "philosophy," so it is impossible for the two sides to communicate, and neither side understands what the other side means. If Objectivism is an individual's philosophy, then it is the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and obviously the closed-system side is correct. If Objectivism is a systematic philosophy, then it is defined by a set of philosophical views, and anyone who holds those views while adding ideas could add to it, and then obviously the open-system side is correct. The two sides mean different things and so can't see eye to eye to resolve their dispute.

I propose to solve this confusion by creating a new word, "Randianism," to describe Ayn Rand's individual's philosophy, which is defined as the philosophy of Ayn Rand, while keeping "Objectivism" as the name for the systematic philosophy, the philosophical system defined by that certain set of views about objectivity, reality, reason, rational selfishness in ethics, free-market capitalism and the moral defense of capitalism in economics, individual rights in politics, etc. At its inception, Objectivism was formed 100% from Randianism, but the two are analytically distinct, based on the understanding which I have provided.

Some critics might say that, as I have defined it, only an individual's philosophy is a "real" philosophy, and what I call a systematic philosophy is merely a historical category, or a worldview, or a philosophical view, or set of views. But that is not, in fact, how ordinary people use the term "philosophy." Each of those systematic philosophies is, in fact, a philosophy.

What is Reasoning?

Reasoning works by means of thinking along a line of reasoning. A line of reasoning is a line where each point in the line is a reason-computation that takes the conclusions from the previous point as that point’s premises, reasons what must be true if all those premises are true, forms conclusions, and then hands off those conclusions to the next point in the line to be the premises for the next point. Lines of reasoning prove things, but lines of reasoning must have their premises checked, especially if the conclusion turns out to be false or to resolve to a contradiction.

To check a line of reasoning, you start at the conclusion and work your way back up to the start, confirming that each premise which was reasoned from was correct, and a key task is to look for hidden premises, things which were assumed for the analysis without awareness or without conscious thought and deliberation choosing to accept those premises before they were adopted. Assumptions, or what you take for granted but which turns out to be not true, for examples.

To check a premise, you can assert its truth and see if it collapses to or reduces to an absurdity if it was true, and if it does then it is false; you can test it against empirical experience and evidence and observation, to see if it is false; or you can ask “why? Why would this be true?” and, if the reason behind it is incorrect or does not make sense, try again without it.

Reasoning from only true premises, if the reasoning is valid and sound and rational, produces conclusions which must be true, because the truth of the premises will cause the truth of the conclusion, because the conclusion is that which must be true if all the premises are true according to logic, but if there is at least one or more false premises, the conclusion will be false, and, if there is a premise or premises whose actual truth or falsehood you do not know, then the line of reasoning is in the condition of being able to be true or false, and you won’t know which it is.

Reason from 100% true premises is pure reason. Reasoning from false or dubious premises is corrupted reason. Pure reason produces knowledge of the truth. Note that a premise, as I see it, can be anything that is reasoned from: a perception or observation, a concrete thing, an abstraction or essence of being, a fact, a principle, a belief, an opinion, knowledge, etc. If your reasoning resolves to a contradiction or a conclusion you know must be false, take Ayn Rand’s advice: Check your premises!

The Moral Defense of Capitalism

Thesis: A moral defense of capitalism.

Premises:

1. Each thing is a thing. A thing is something, a thing is itself, and a thing is what it is. A thing is a thing in itself, a thing as such. Each thing has a nature, as what it is. The nature of a thing is the set of principles which explain how and why it is what it is and how and why it behaves as it does. Every thing has a nature, although the specific nature of a thing is subject to the specific domain to which it belongs, for example, science, math, history, philosophy, politics, psychology, etc. This understanding of the general nature of things is metaphysics. A thing’s nature can be studied and analyzed and known by reason and logic. The human mind observes things, and infers general principles from those things, and then applies those principles to other things, and, because knowledge is general and abstract and not limited to specifics, it covers cases outside of the immediate awareness or perception of the one who knows. This is epistemology.

2. Objective ethics is ethics that is based on objective facts about what things are and about what exists. If a belief is objectively true, then acting in accordance with and pursuant to that belief is the objectively right way to act. This is ethics.

3. Capitalism is the economic system where a person owns the results of their actions and of their choices as private property, and each person has the freedom to act as they choose, and to make their own decisions and to then act out those decisions, within the realm of economics and in the sense of economic action, which is generally concerned with material objects in the physical world. This is economics.

Deduction:

4. A human is a type of thing.

5. Humans have a human nature. Humans are humans.

6. Because humans are humans, humans have free will.

7. Because humans have free will, humans are personally responsible for themselves.

8. Because humans are personally responsible for themselves, each person should do the work to make the money to support themselves and live their lives.

9. Because each human should do the work to make the money to support themselves to live their lives, that is a component of the successful life, and is therefore a component of the good life, of the ethical life.

10. Because making money to support one’s life is a component of an ethical life, it follows that rational self-interest, as a desire to make enough money to live an ethical or moral life, is itself ethical and moral.

11. Money is made by doing work, thinking and reasoning and intelligence about how best to get work done, and making decisions for which one takes personal responsibility against the indecisiveness or outright stupidity that might prevent work from getting done. As such, the human mind, and the human ego, are the means of making money.

12. Capitalism is the economic system that best enables a person to make the money to support themselves to live their lives, by giving them the freedom to work, and the freedom to think, and the freedom to reap the rewards of their hard work and of their intellectual thought.

13. This is true because in capitalism the individual owns private property. Private property results from a person’s actions to do work and think thoughts, to create and trade and buy and sell economic value, which manifests itself as privately owned money or private property. Property results from actions, and actions result from choices, so private property is the means by which a person can reap the rewards or obtain the failures of their choices, their actions, and their free will.

14. Capitalism is also the only economic system that gives a person the freedom to make decisions as an individual, which decisions control that individual’s own life and actions, by granting individual freedom of choice and of action in the economic realm instead of government’s or society’s control over the individual.

15. Thus, in capitalism, a person can use their free will to make choices, have the freedom to act out those choices, and then take ownership of those choices as private property. Private property and economic profits or losses are the material physical manifestations of personal accountability and self-responsibility for one’s own actions. Capitalism represents the morality of getting what you deserve and of earning what you own. Therefore, if it is fair and just to get what you deserve, or to own what you earned, then capitalism is moral.

16. Capitalism enables an ethics where making good choices gets good results, for an individual, and be rewarded by economic profit, or making bad choices causes bad results, for which that individual, alone, will be held accountable by financial loss.

17. Therefore, capitalism aligns with the most ethical human mode of life.

18. Therefore, capitalism has moral integrity to the conditions of life under which it is possible for a person to live a life which has moral integrity to their human nature, to what they are. Capitalism operates in accordance with and pursuant to human nature, and to the nature of the ethical life.

19. Therefore, capitalism has moral integrity.

20. Therefore, capitalism is moral and ethical.

Conclusion:

21. Capitalism is the best economic system for humans because of human nature, and is therefore ethical for humans, and this was proved by reason and logic, which is based on the nature of objective reality. Indeed, capitalism, democracy, and freedom, as a political and economic system, can be seen as a reflection of the metaphysical fact that humans have free will and are therefore self-responsible for their actions and choices. A system that enables humans to be humans, and which provides for humans to live life as humans, is good, for humans, not merely in a practical sense, but good as ethics and morality and virtue. Capitalism, democracy, and freedom, is a politics and economics which reflects the ethics of human free will and is pursuant to and in accordance with human nature, and therefore accords with the principle that a thing is itself, and, therefore, that humans are humans, because it is only for humans, as humans, that the question exists of what economic system should we choose. This is good and ethical and virtuous, because, as moral agents with free will, we deserve to own the rewards, or reap the punishments, of our choices and actions, and that is justice and fairness, and capitalism is virtuous for being fair and just.

22. Capitalism is morally defensible and ethically justified.

Counterarguments:

23. This argument has been attacked in several areas: that individuals are not, in fact, personally individually responsible for everything that happens to them. But, to say this, reduces to the claim that the individual does not truly have free will. Objectivism says that each person has free will.

24. It has also been attacked by saying that groups, not individuals, make money, and that economic production is a social activity, not an individual activity, or is done by muscle and sweat and labor and brute force, not by refined thinking and intelligence and reason.

25. Brute force, without reason, could only accomplish what a caveman or a primitive civilization could accomplish; it could build pyramids by an army of slaves, but it could never land a rocket on the moon, or find ways to treat diseases. Science and technology come from reason and logic, and the role that these play in business, is an example of the extent to which reason and logic magnify the effort of brute strength, for purposes of making money. Analytically, a human has no other tools that his body, hands, and brain, with which to do work, and work gets done, so these must have been the tools which got the work done.

26. To say that economic production is social, not individual, proves nothing, because when action is done by a group, it is done by a group of individuals acting as a group, so, even if the group achieved something, each individual would have earned a share in proportion to what they contributed to the group effort. A person has free will, a person makes choices, so, to the extent that an economic actor is a moral actor or an ethical actor, that ethical and moral agent is the individual.

27. There is the argument that objective ethics does not exist, and ethics is inherently irrational and subjective, or that objective reality does not exist, and objective truth does not exist. This position collapses into an absurdity, because, if that were true, then anything goes, and no one could ever know which economic system was better or worse, or what was right or wrong, so ethics would not exist and economics would not exist, and the question of the need for a moral defense of capitalism would not exist.

Faith, Skepticism, Knowledge, Rationality

Definitions:

Faith: The absence of doubts and questions, or the condition in which doubts and questions are not allowed.

Skepticism: The condition in which doubts and questions and critical thinking are allowed, or the process by which a position is subjected to questions or doubts, but this is also the name of the belief that knowledge is impossible, as such.

Knowledge: a position or belief which is held with the belief that it cannot be wrong or that its truth is the one and only possibility.

Faith-based knowledge: knowledge that is held without doubt, without question, without testing, without evidence.

Rational knowledge: knowledge that is held, and which is asserted or claimed to be known, but which is, or can be, doubted, questioned, tested, while still maintaining its status as knowledge, or knowledge which exists in a condition where doubts and questions and critical thinking are allowed.

The tradition position holds that you must choose between faith-based knowledge or rational skepticism, but you cannot have rational knowledge. Now the question is: Is rational knowledge possible? If so, how, and under what conditions?

Consider this: Claim, or assert, that you know that X is true. Logic, or science, or math, or history, or whatever, shows that, if X is true, then experience Y will be observed. You can test or question or doubt X by looking for Y in your observations or experience.

Now, you test for Y or not Y, and run an experiment to see if Y is true, or you question or doubt Y and Y withstands the critical scrutiny and proves true, once, and you see that Y is true. Does that mean that you rationally know X?

Consider this: You test X and/or Y an infinite number of times, and X and/or Y is proven true, against doubt and question and test and experiment and experience, an infinite number of times.

Would this, then, be rational knowledge? You know that X is true because X and/or Y withstood doubt and question and critical inquiry and critical thinking, but, for N number of times which X and/or Y did so, X and/or Y might fail a test at the N+1 experiment or test or doubt or question. So you can never rationally know philosophical truth.

Yes. But the problem is: how can you possibly test X and/or Y an infinite number of times?

Consider this: If X is such that if X is true then Y will be observed, and if X is a metaphysical or philosophical principle that is universal and infinite in scope, then (and here is the important part): if X is true, then Y will prove true an infinite number of times, if doubted and questioned an infinite number of times. Y will prove true an infinite number of times, because X is true.

And, if X is true, then the application of logic and reason to thinking about X, will produce knowledge of X.

So it isn't that you rationally know X because X was proven true by an infinite number of doubts and questions being withstood with X's truth intact. Instead, you rationally know X because X is true, and X would prove true in an infinite number of questions and doubts, if such were to exist, because X is true.

But how does one gain rational knowledge that X is true, other than by the satisfaction of an infinite series of doubts of X and/or Y? By means of logic.

What matters for rational knowledge is not whether you know it, what matters is whether or not it is really true. If it is true, then you will come to know it, provided that you use reason and logic.

Contrast this position with the faith-skepticism dichotomy: the claim that knowledge must be based on faith, because reason always allows doubts, and knowledge is that which is known to always be true, so rational knowledge could only come by means of a process of an infinite series of doubts being satisfied, because, if you assert or claim that your knowledge is rational, either you or someone else is always, at any or every point in the future, entitled to question or doubt or test that position which you claim to know, and no position can satisfy every doubt and every question because there could be an infinite series of such leading into the future, so only faith, as the absence of all doubts and questions, or as a condition where you are not allowed to doubt or to question, could make knowledge possible, so you must choose either faith and knowledge, or reason and skepticism, but you can't choose reason and knowledge, you are not allowed to choose to believe that rational knowledge is possible in a practical way in reality for humans.

Objectivism rejects the faith-skepticism dichotomy. The belief that rational knowledge is possible is a core element of the philosophy of Objectivism.

The truth has nothing to fear from skepticism. Indeed, rationality is skeptical knowledge, in a sense. If someone suppresses or avoids being questioned, and seeks to censor doubts, that is the surest sign that they are hiding something, that they fear rational inquiry or critical thinking, that they want you to believe their assertions when what they say is false, and they know it is false, or they themselves don’t know but they fear it is false, in their hearts, so they attack the skeptic who questions and doubts to insulate their own doubts from irritating their guilty conscience, because your doubts become a symbol of their own doubts in their subconscious minds, and they hide from themselves. As Ayn Rand said, “to name the unnamed,” to openly state the doubt or the question or the need for a test, to openly ask why and to call the belief into question, is the surest antidote to this type of fear. When someone has no answers, they seek to avoid the questions, but if they have answers, then they do not fear, or need not fear, skepticism.