Several years ago I met an artist from a small community outside of Richmond, Virginia. He was producing what he called his Doubt Project. As part of the project he had invited everyone in his community for afternoon tea. At the tea he served sugar cookies molded in a puffy script spelling out “doubt.” I know only a little about his artistic intention. It is just as well that I don't know more because it was enough that I was captivated by the idea that doubt was a value of a community and that it should be celebrated. It resonated with my philosophical outlook and I wanted to leave it at that.

Doubt has occupied my thinking for the last three decades. In 1988, I wrote a book that argued that skepticism was best understood as a way of life rather than a set of technical arguments about the possibility of knowledge; and its challenge is more political than epistemological. During the course of that book I formulated what I called the deep challenge of skepticism: Can I live with fundamental doubts about the basis of my beliefs and values and, at the same time, live with the conviction and resoluteness that political responsibility requires? Can a skeptical way of life be a politically responsible life? A skeptical outlook seems to undermine the very foundations on which political criticism depends, or so it is often claimed.