Analetheism

I can never tell how much of my experience is reality and how much is just (the reality or psychology of) me. That is of course the classic metaphysical divide: between self and external world, between self and other, between subjective and objective, between desire and fact, between appearance or illusion and reality. (Not to mention that that very divide is itself subject to doubt.) One of the great insights I have derived from amoralism is that the strength of one's conviction  (factual or normative) can be an indication of its very opposite, that is, that what-one-is-convinced-about can turn out to be false, or at least doubtful. (I won't go so far as to say that conviction is a  measure , such that what one is convinced about is doubtful  to the degree  that one is convinced it is true. But it often seems that way!)       Perhaps, then, all of the great insights of philosophy (and the content of wisdom) are instances of discovering the doubt within (felt) certainty. Thus

Like, I imagine, you, Dear Reader, whenever I form an opinion I assume it manifests Truth. A certain smug aura surrounds this feeling, especially relative to another person or people who may have a different opinion. But in recent months or years I've had a very sobering thought (I resist saying "realization" to avoid forming another smug opinion!), namely, that, far from occupying a position of Truth at these times, I may be (again, I resist saying "am in fact" ... although that is what the strength of this thought feels like) only falling into a slot relative to other slots. I thereby acquire a perspective on myself that much diminishes my presumed authority in all things; surrenders the human-oh-so-human prerogative to situate oneself in the very lap of Truth; a mini-Copernican Revolution to remove myself from the center of my known universe. Concrete (and chilling!) example: In the Trump impeachment proceedings my natural inclination is to side with the inte