2023-06-15 at

Gaslighting ... a pointer back to Philosophy and Risk Management

One of my partners recently encountered the concept of gaslighting, from the recent popularisation of the term in memes about dating. In the context of personal relationships, gaslighting refers to one party making another party less sure about what the other party believes with regards to an objective fact.

The interesting thing is, the term is loosely adapted also to refer to discussions about subjective facts. For example, whether I like strawberries or not, is a subjective fact. Some people are very sure about their preferences, whereas others are not.

For the record, as a total troll, I generally find it amusing to toy with the beliefs of people in general. In fact my natural disposition is so suited for this that when I had to decide on which college major to pick such that I would need to do the least amount of homework, I picked the philosophy major.

The academic discipline of philosophy is analogous to the risk management department of an enterprise. It's literally the department of gaslighting. Any time anyone claims to know anything, these disciplines receive their substrate, and therefore have work to do ... in poking holes in anything anyone claims to believe in with certainty.

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