Nice question. I suggest that cases like the one you consider do show that in some sense we can control what we believe. The important thing is the 'in some sense' qualification. Many philosophers have argued that we can't "directly" change our beliefs at will. For instance, even if you threaten me with death, I won't be able immediately and just as a matter of will to make myself believe that the Earth is flat. I'd at least have to do something more roundabout, such as surround myself with a bunch of flat-earthers, ignore contrary evidence, and so on. Similarly, I might have to go to some efforts to ignore a piece of testimony, perhaps with the aid of hypnosis or of someone who could make that testimony look specious.

More generally, then, I would suggest that we can indirectly control what we believe if we are determined to do so: If for instance I am convinced by Pascal's "Wager" argument that it's reasonable to believe in God, I won't be able to become a theist just by snapping my fingers. However, if I surround myself with believers, listen to a lot of Creed or Lifehouse, and ignore the various skeptical challenges to theism, I'll have a good chance of cultivating belief after a while. As William James once said, after a while, belief will come and "stupefy your scruples."

Mitch Green

Thank you for your question. I think you're right to wonder whether treating depression is always justified. After all, sometimes being upset about something is an appropriate reaction. For instance, we wouldn't feel the need to "treat" someone's grief over the death of a loved one. On the other hand, while a certain amount of grief over such a situation seems justified and appropriate, one might also suggest that it is possible to take that grief too far. If I had a friend who was grieving intensely and for a very long time over the loss of a loved one, I might start to think of ways I might try to help. Similarly, while one can be entirely justified in being depressed over the state of the world, I am not sure that being clinically depressed is the *only* appropriate reaction to the world's state. This is for a number of reasons. First of all, there are a number of things to be absolutely thrilled about: a beautiful sunrise, the smell a pine forest, being able to fully trust another person, a favorite work of art, are all examples. Secondly, one appropriate response to the depressing things about the world is to try to do something that, if only in a small way, might change them. For instance, it's depressing how much poverty and hunger there are in my community. My response is to work at the local food bank, in an effort to make a small difference. I don't claim that it's the *only* appropriate response, but I would suggest that it's *one* appropriate response. Note also that I'd have a lot of trouble helping out with local hunger if I were clinically depressed.

Please let me stress that I don't for a moment think that clinical depression is something you can simply decide to overcome. Overcoming it would surely take a long time and a lot of effort. But I would suggest that depression of the sort you're experiencing is only one appropriate response to the state of the world. There are others to be considered also. One can take these options seriously without falling for a simplistic picture in which any depression is something that needs to be "cured," or in which, as you put it, "everything is going to be okay." I seriously doubt that everything ever will be okay, but that doesn't make me want to stop fighting the fight.

Your last sentence is correct, I think, with the exception of the word "improve," which I would replace with "modify" or "enhance." "Improvement" raises all the questions that critics of eugenics have raised about classifying human beings into better or worse.

By the way, we are already Transhumans, if you count glasses, sneakers, computers, etc. Perhaps the movement Transhumanism want the modifications integrated with our biology. But why would that be better?

I hope so. And I think so. Especially if we understand philosophy in a general way to involve careful reflection on what we should be doing with our lives and how we should structure our relationships and societies, I think it can help us live better lives. While reflection isn't always good (e.g., in the middle of making a tennis shot or a guitar solo), surely it is often necessary in order to see how our ideas of what it means to lead a good life and create a good community are consistent with each other and with what other people in our community think. And when we see that they are inconsistent, we can consider how best to reconcile them to find what might be called reflective equilibrium. Another way of putting these points is to say that, whether we know it or not, we all have a philosophy (a set of ideas of which we are more or less aware) that guides our decision-making and personal interactions. It seems that trying to figure out what our philosophy is will make it more likely that we will live better lives at least in the sense of living lives that better reflect our own philosophy. (Of course, some people are very aware of their philosophy but have very bad ideas about how to live, so self-reflection alone is not sufficient for leading a good life.)

OK, but maybe you are asking whether philosophy, as it is practiced by professional philosophers, can help us live better lives (I'm not sure why you put 'better' in quotation marks--perhaps because you worry that better and worse are subjective, in which case, I hope philosophy can make us lead (for real!) better lives in part by helping us see that some lives really are better than others--e.g., Elie Wiesel has really led a better life than Bernie Madoff). The answer to this question is harder, but I still hope and think that the answer is 'yes.' I hope that professional philosophers can help students do the sort of reflection suggested above and do it better than they might have otherwise. I hope we can help scientists think more clearly about some of the problems they consider (e.g., in my own case, the issue of free will and responsible agency). And I hope we can help politicians, lawyers, doctors, secret agents, etc.--the people who most directly influence the way we structure our societal relations--think more clearly about the reasons they are doing what they are doing. By helping systematize our thinking about certain subjects--e.g., what a theory is, what a political philosophy is, what counts as knowledge--I think we can, at a large scale, better achieve what I suggested above we need to do at the individual level: reflect on what we should be doing with our lives and how we should structure our social relationships in order to make them internally consistent and maximally effective.

The question whether philosophy will ever end is not quite the same as the question whether we'll ever find what you refer to as the unchallengeable truth. I'll just focus on the former question.

Of course, philosophy might end because our species or something else destroys life as we know it. That ending for philosophy would be sad but not very interesting. Your question instead seems to suggest that you're wondering whether, even if we had world enough and time (and let's add determination, also), we could answer all philosophical questions.

Some philosophers have taken a stand on this issue. For instance, Colin McGinn has argued that the "mind/body problem" cannot in principle be solved. Such a position might take either of two forms: (a) one holds that there's a definite question that needs answering, but that for some deep reason we are barred from being able to find the answer, or (b) the question is itself confused or ill-posed. Either of these positions might support the conclusion that certain philosophical problems can't be solved.

I have myself never seen a convincing argument for the conclusion, regarding a genuine philosophical question (as opposed to a confused or ill-posed one), that it cannot be answered. Of course, this needs to be set aside the historical record, which shows philosophers tending to not fully answer the questions that have vexed them for milenia. However, this does *not* show that philosophers and others who share their interests (including novelists, psychologists, and many others) have made no progress on what you call life's most puzzling mysteries. We know a great deal more about the range of possible answers to various of these questions than we did in the past--even in the recent past--as well as how many of these answers may be supported and challenged. We also know that many of the traditional questions that, for instance, vexed philosophers of Antiquity, need to be formulated with a lot more care and precision. Finally, philosophy in its very nature is constantly asking new questions that might not have been even intelligible in the past: just think of the ethical questions that genetic engineering enables us to pose.

So my (admittedly unsatisfying) answer to your question is simply: I don't know. However, I want to stress that even if "philosophy will never end," I'm not sure that would be a bad thing. The field will still make progress on old questions and pose new ones. In the meantime, I would hope that not only professional philosophers but those who are interested in the field, such as yourself, will have their lives enriched by the (possibly endless) inquiry.

Mitch Green

Thanks for your question. In general, I don't have any idea what the entire range of possible responses are to a question or comment, but here are a few to the ones you mention:

1. One response is to agree with the criticism and thereby acknowledge that these concepts are indeed meaningless.

That's one possible response, but it might leave you a little unsatisfied, so you might consider another:

2. It is perhaps true that some philosophers use terms like these (I'll talk of terms rather than concepts) in a way that is more obfuscatory than illuminating. However, it's not so hard to use 'being' as a term for everything that exists. That seems perfectly intelligible even if we can't give a full account of what that includes, that is of all that does in fact exist. Also, whereas 'nothingness' is a bit hifalutin, one can use 'nothing' with a perfectly clear meaning. For instance a person might point out that there's nothing in the fridge, meaning not that it contains nothing at all (not even air) but nothing that can feasibly be eaten. This seems pretty clear--no less clear than pointing out that there are three letters at the table or someone at the door.

The strategy here is to point out that the words in question can be used with a perfectly clear meaning. If you use those words with what you take to be a clear meaning, but one different from the cases I've given, then you should have no trouble exemplifying it with specific examples just as I've done.

Mitch Green