The existence of what do you doubt most?

This is a question I pose before my students at Birzeit University in Palestine. Over the past few years, I have spent almost every summer in Palestine teaching a course on modern philosophy. Throughout this course, divisions between the philosophers we are reading and ourselves are steadily abandoned, as we turn to how each personal life is key to the instigation and development of thought. Ideas that arise from our lived experiences, our knowledges, our imaginations, and not least, from conversations between us inside and outside the classroom always lead us in unforeseen directions.

My question on doubt comes as we read Descartes’ The Meditations on First Philosophy, in response to his call in ‘First Meditation’ that we should doubt everything at least once in our lifetime. After some moments of silence the first answer emerges from the back of the classroom: ‘What I doubt most is the existence of good, and that we should act according to it. So far in my life, I have only witnessed those who are acting in an evil manner to be winning.’ Upon hearing that student, the rest of the students in the classroom crack out laughing. It is a laughter of relief, that someone finally dared to say what they feel, and subscribe to their own life experience and the world around them, rather than any moralistic principle they have been taught since childhood.

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