I feel so stupid that I am incapable of reading and of having beliefs anymore. Want to give up.

Certain people thrive on making others feel inadequate, and this holds especially true, I've found, for anonymous philosophy nerds online.

The mark of a good philosopher, however, isn't in one's ability to create a crisis of self-confidence in others, but to charitably represent their views, to offer a well-reasoned counter-argument - and, most importantly, to do so with utmost respect and in the interest of furthering a conversation.

Since all these many possible positions we might take are all being discussed in some form in the great wide world, and nothing is settled, it's disingenuous to give someone the impression that there aren't both compelling reasons for and against most of them. A good philosopher sees this objectivity and acknowledges it even if they personally prefer one side rather than the other. What you need to realize, and as a former philosophy student myself I know this from experience, is that any possible view is open to a devastating line of attack; your positions as well as (and this is key) your interlocutor's positions are all basically unsafe. There are some positions that others will have already spent many hours militating against before you showed up, and they will do everything in their power to impress you and bring you to the point of despair in your defense of those positions. In these situations, realize that 1) it isn't your job to defend a certain position, 2) to become exhausted in your defense of a position doesn't necessarily mean that that position is exhausted- it merely means that what you have to offer in defense of it is exhausted, 3) you don't need to abandon your position unless you think the points made are sufficiently undercutting, and until you've surveyed any possible counterarguments you may have missed, and 4) if you do change your mind, it's you deciding to change it, to your credit.

Remember, philosophy is fundamentally, epistemically unsettling. But... if anyone makes you feel inadequate to the task it is far more likely that you are experiencing the very same insecurity and inadequacy they themselves are living with, inflicted on you as a means to help themselves feel better (btw, these types tend toward hard-line ideological positions, and/or rarely stray from positions that offer cover by way of wide acceptance, or an assumption of wide acceptance). So, yes, highly intelligent, super impressive, knowledgeable people do this as readily as any schoolyard snot-nosed bully. Stand your ground. Take it slow. Try not to take them as seriously as they take themselves.

/r/askphilosophy Thread