"beyond a shadow of a doubt"

Maybe with the exception of the Manson murders, OJ Simpson's trial may be the most famous judicial spectacle of my lifetime. I am not a lawyer, but the thing I remember most was that there was a criminal trial and a civil trial. In the criminal trial, the truth of murder had to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. When this failed to produce justice for the victims' family, they filed suit in civil court, where only a burden of probability of truth was required. 

This is an interesting example of how mankind gains the knowledge of what is true. This is called "epistemology." Rene Descartes, who many call the modern father of philosophy, explained finding truth this way (paraphrased): remain skeptical of what you think is true until you have removed all doubt and you are certain there is no more uncertainty. This sounds to me a bit like, "beyond a shadow of a doubt."

Descartes was a foundationalist versus a particularist. Now, don't check out on me here, this is not that complicated. All this means is that Descarte (foundationlist) believed you must peel away all the details that may obscure truth until you hit the bottom or root of something that you can trust to be true. This is much like scrapping away all the sand and debris that obscures solid ground until you hit pit gravel to trust with certainty you can lay the foundation for your house. This is opposed to those who believe there are no core principles, so they collect pieces of evidence until they have concluded there is a sufficient likelihood something is true (particularist). For something with significant consequences, like a murder trial, our legal system has decided we should be more foundationalist than particulaist. We must get to the core truth, "beyond a shadow of a doubt."

Descartes' ideas for finding truth have broad appeal and acceptance. It seems to work relatively well in finding truth in the physical world, but science can still be fraught with the limitations of particularists. So much so that any serious scientists knows that collecting details of evidence only demonstrates likelihood something is true under certain conditions, and nothing can actually be proved with 100% certainty.

Finding truth becomes much more problematic in dealing with the invisible, moralistic world. Many people are functioning particularists because they do not take the time or have the rational power to exhaust all doubt. So many become comfortable with their doubt. It's not practical to do otherwise.

However, some believe they are capable and willing to explore truth until they are certain of no more uncertainty. Eventually they find they are only fooling themselves and no one else. Even Aristotle, considered the most supreme philosopher, admitted that man can never be 100% sure using sensory perception and rational power to know what is true. Current behavioral economist Nassim Taleb calls this "epistemic arrogance," a condition that puts a person at great risk.

This is actually where faith comes in. Everybody has faith, but it seems to have been relegated to only religious circles. The truth is, everyone ultimately runs out of particulars and their faith becomes their foundation. Faith is the basic bias any person trusts while failing to remove visible uncertainty. A person's faith is the soul's sense of certainty there is no more uncertainty. Faith is our core trust in something. We have no more questions of "why?"

So, while much, if not all, of man's debate centers around what is true, maybe we should ponder more the question, "who or what do we trust?" Eliz Warren recently said, "my faith animates all that I do." This is true about faith, but not just for her, for everyone. What or who we trust deeply within our soul drives all that we are and do. Faith for each person is their "beyond a shadow of a doubt." 

It may be too scary to deeply ponder who/what you trust ....