I think I have a new favorite word: “disabuse.” It is used to describe the process of ridding people (or oneself) of incorrect beliefs and attitudes (e.g., “He was considering taking homeopathic remedies to avoid getting malaria, but I quickly disabused him of this notion”). I became taken with this term when I started thinking about the etymology, where it literally means “to undo” (dis-) + “an evil or wrong” (abuse). The OED traces this usage (abuse as “imposture; deceit; delusion”) to the 17th century, where Sir Thomas Urquhart asked “Do the false prophets teach you such abuses?”
In our age of cultural relativism, I find such an approach to truth refreshing… It suggests that being wrong – whether due to ignorance or willful self-deception – is a form of self-abuse… that it damages you, your relationship to the world, and your relationship to your fellow human beings. Now I acknowledge that thinking about truth in this way could easily lend itself to dogmatism, but even that is better (in my opinion) than the wishy-washy, relativistic approach that responds to every moral or intellectual quandry by saying “Oh well… they’re entitled to their own opinions.” Not necessarily!
Ideally, our social interactions should have a Socratic character, wherein we try to work out how best to (co)exist in the world. Life is a collaborative learning environment and it behooves us to disabuse ourselves (and others) of the fallacies and illusions that prevent us from living fully. What are those illusions? I’m not sure, but I think it is our existential task to try and find out.
Why don’t we all try to be a bit more disabusive?
May I disabuse you of the Enlightenment sentiment that everything is knowable, and that the world is completely free of mystery and unknowable things?
[...] and Knowability After my previous post (concerning how we should try to disabuse ourselves of erroneous thinking), I received the [...]