Given a free market, individuals making self-interested decisions will unwittingly create an effective economic system that’s in the public interest. So thought Adam Smith.
Could you change your belief if threatened with torture? Or would you merely be saying that you’d changed, when deep down you still held your original belief?
Do humans really live in anguish because they’re ‘condemned to be free’? This was a view put forward by the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.
Do we all metaphorically wear a series of different masks to present ourselves to the world in the best light possible? The sociologist Erving Goffman thought so.
What can we know for certain? Can we trust what our senses are telling us? Can we even trust absolute truths, such as those of mathematics? What if our brains are being manipulated to make basic mathematical errors?
