The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks
Oct 3, 2026 · 58 min · 9 segments
How do you make a decision when you might be wrong? Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci joins me to explore critical thinking and scepticism in everyday life. Drawing on his book How to Be a (Happy)…
Massimo PigliucciGuest
Jon BrooksHost
people don't remember the names, you know, the specific terms that Cornelius used, just use level one, two, three, or four.
Just think about, you know, level one is barely acceptable, two a little bit more, three significantly more, four is the highest you can get.
So ask yourself, this notion that I'm entertaining, what level is it? And that already forces you to think in a more systematic way.
Instead of saying simply true or not true, then you answer yourself in a more nuanced way.
And then there's another type of individual where they may be full of self-doubt, questioning everything to the point that they are stuck.
You know, they go down to do work and they're asking, what am I trying to do? Can I even do it? What's the point in anything? And they go down a spiral.
Is skepticism, this philosophy, useful to help this kind of person who's overthinking and in doubt all the time? Is there a healthy version of that?
Yeah, you would think that skepticism might be a problem for those people, right? Because skepticism does suggest that you should pause and think a little bit more carefully about what you're doing.
These people are already, in a sense, the way you described them, overdoing it.
So if one thing, if your doubt comes from the fact that you don't have confidence in yourself, that's a psychological issue.
If you don't have confidence in yourself, you might need help from a professional who can address that specific problem.
The kind of confidence the skeptics are talking about is confidence in the evidence.
Again, the answer to the question of how do you know this, right? So it's not about you.
It's about how confident am I that whatever I'm believing or not believing, accepting or not accepting, actually corresponds to reality.
people don't remember the names, you know, the specific terms that Cornelius used, just use level one, two, three, or four.
Just think about, you know, level one is barely acceptable, two a little bit more, three significantly more, four is the highest you can get.
So ask yourself, this notion that I'm entertaining, what level is it? And that already forces you to think in a more systematic way.
Instead of saying simply true or not true, then you answer yourself in a more nuanced way.
And then there's another type of individual where they may be full of self-doubt, questioning everything to the point that they are stuck.
You know, they go down to do work and they're asking, what am I trying to do? Can I even do it? What's the point in anything? And they go down a spiral.
Is skepticism, this philosophy, useful to help this kind of person who's overthinking and in doubt all the time? Is there a healthy version of that?
Yeah, you would think that skepticism might be a problem for those people, right? Because skepticism does suggest that you should pause and think a little bit more carefully about what you're doing.
These people are already, in a sense, the way you described them, overdoing it.
So if one thing, if your doubt comes from the fact that you don't have confidence in yourself, that's a psychological issue.
If you don't have confidence in yourself, you might need help from a professional who can address that specific problem.
The kind of confidence the skeptics are talking about is confidence in the evidence.
Again, the answer to the question of how do you know this, right? So it's not about you.
It's about how confident am I that whatever I'm believing or not believing, accepting or not accepting, actually corresponds to reality.
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