On the Formation of Clear Minds ...

The most successful strategy for living is to live in accordance with the truth. The truth is simply another name for reality. What is so is the truth and what is not so is false and if intentionally promulgated knowing it is false, a lie.

It is not always easy to know the truth because often the truth is obscured by ideas that are either not true at all or are partially true and partially false. As human beings are limited creatures it is rather likely that almost none of our ideas are wholly true. Insofar as they are true they are helpful but they will often fall short of the full truth. This is one of the reasons we can be misled so easily on occasion.

In order to form a clear mind we must find both true information and true principles that allow us to process the information, to clarify it and hone it to wear away those limitations where it falls short so that they are visible and we know them.

The most straightforward way to form a clear mind is to sit at the feet of other clear minds that have gone before us and learn. We should recognize that there is no perfectly clear mind so that even our role models, those whose minds and thought we respect no doubt made mistakes. Peter Abelard counseled universal skepticism in the sense I think of being able to doubt everything. That is fundamental to a clear mind I think. If you cannot doubt then you can become mired in an illusion of truth that is appealing but untrue. You must always be prepared to discover that you are wrong about everything.

For this reason I collect clear minds. I am under no illusion that any of my clear minds are perfect, but I respect them and learn from their thought how to think myself. Each person will likely find clear minds that appeal to them. On my short list are people like Aristotle, John Henry Newman, Thomas Aquinas, Mortimer Adler, C. S. Lewis, Theresa Avila, Dorothy Sayers, Richard Feynman and others. They don't agree on everything but they are models that I can go to and see serious men and women thoughtfully seeking the truth.