This is an account of the world's greatest 'intellectual virtuosos, ' who are also humanity's greatest doubters and disbelievers, from the ancient Greek philosophers, Jesus, and the Eastern religions, to modern secular equivalents Marx, Freud and Darwin-and their attempts to reconcile the seeming meaninglessness of the universe with the human need for meaning, But how far back does this history go?ĭoubt is an ancient and universal practice.In the tradition of grand sweeping histories such as From Dawn To Decadence, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and A History of God, Hecht champions doubt and questioning as one of the great and noble, if unheralded, intellectual traditions that distinguish the Western mind especially-from Socrates to Galileo and Darwin to Wittgenstein and Hawking.

It wasn’t until she saw the sheer number of doubters through history and how their ideas influenced one another that she got the idea to write a book on the subject.Īnd it’s lucky for you that she did, because the history of doubt encompasses both highly abstract and unknown thinkers as well as some of the most brilliant minds ever to exist. The history of doubt was always in her peripheral vision as she worked on other projects, and it took time for her to focus on it. In fact, it’s even possible for a trained historian like the author to miss the signs of doubt. This results in a further eclipsing of the greater histories of doubt and the connections between them. Now they’re barely referred to in Judaism’s official religious texts.īut even when history does mention doubters it tends to essentialize them as individuals with specific ideas. Some Jewish authorities viewed these communities as a threat and destroyed them. In 200 BCE many Jewish communities replaced their traditions with customs from Greek culture, including its language, communal exercise, and even aspects of Greek religion. Naturally, a state or religion wouldn’t want to give much credence to these naysayers and would avoid acknowledging them whenever possible.

Do you remember sitting in history class and learning about all the incredible people, full of creative ideas, who stuck to their convictions and changed the world? Well, while they’re certainly captivating, the stories history tells us tend to omit one thing: doubt.īecause the arguments and even the existence of doubters have often been wiped from the slates of history by states and religions, probably because doubters have tended to be fringe critics of just those institutions.

Doubt by Jennifer Michael Hecht