1 In A Game Of Chicken, Cars Always Win...

"The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing."
- Socrates

Okay, think about something you know. Something you're super sure that you know and you have little to no doubt about. Something that is undeniably true. Not something like your name or your address or the best school in Chicago. Something else.

Got it? Got that undeniable fact that you absolutely know? Okay?

How do you know it?

How do you know what you know? Can you trace where you learned it? And, most importantly, how do you know that it is true?

For most things, it's easy enough to trace back to how you know what you know. Your parents may have told you why you look both ways before you cross the street and your third grade teacher may have told you how the water isn't actually blue and why the sky is. The crossing the street thing is simple enough. You look both ways because in a game of chicken between pedestrians and cars, the cars always win. The sky is blue thing is a bit harder but to call it into question you end up questioning the whole of science and that's a giant enough headache to completely forget about.

But take Shakespeare, for instance. Shakespeare is basically this amazing literature dude who died a long time ago and left us with all of these plays and sonnets and whatnot for english and lit teachers to assign to you today. (Well no but let's go with it for the time being, shall we?) Let's say you think, like a lot of others, that Shakespeare was the greatest playwright of his time and still outrank everyone else who has come after him. Let's say you think that he's moving and brilliant. How do you know that?

One might say that you know that because your teachers have been telling you so since the seventh grade. One might say it's because of all of these elements that you can find and point out in his writing. But how you know about the elements and how they apply to him? From your teachers, right? And how do you know that your teachers are correct? How do you know that you're just making mountains out of molehills in order to fill up a fifty minute period of time?

I say that I don't know anything for sure. Knowing consists of inalienable facts. And everything can have doubt and everything can be wrong. I don't know if what I know is true. I'm just guessing at life. I don't know it because I'm not sure it's true.