The Relationship Between Knowledge and Certainty

The Relationship Between Knowledge and Certainty PDF Author: Valery Berthoud
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668839468
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 20

Get Book

Book Description
Academic Paper from the year 2018 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,3, Humboldt-University of Berlin, course: Wittgenstein’s Über Gewissheit, language: English, abstract: The relationship between knowledge and certainty varies according to conception. I argue that knowledge and certainty are usually equivalent, but there are cases in which certainty is possible without knowledge and knowledge is possible without certainty. The connection between knowledge and certainty does not change much when considering René Descartes’ philosophy because methodological skepticism consists of doubting beliefs that are uncertain. That there exist external objects is uncertain because a malicious demon could be deceiving us by creating the illusion of an external world. Although Descartes suggests that we can doubt all of our beliefs, his conception of science consists of secure insight: “Omnis scientia est cognitio certa et evidens” (Descartes 1907). This means that all science is certain and evident knowledge, or a high degree of certainty. Three centuries later, G. E.Moore had another reasoning when writing “A Defense of Common Sense” and “Proof of an External World.” He suggests that doubting that the world exists is unnecessary; we must trust that the universe exists. He is against George Berkeley’s suggestion that matter does not exist; everything is just ideas of the mind of God, and to be is to perceive. This is similar to propositions from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who was an idealist because he claimed that all possible worlds lie in God, and we are substances observing the best alternative (Leibniz 2014, §43-46). Moore suggests that it is irrational to believe such premises. He held intuitions that a person has in everyday life, the common sense philosophy. We cannot be certain yet we claim to know many things. Moore also purports that the external world is real and he tried to prove it (Moore 1993a). His argument goes as follows: P1: Here is one hand. P2: Here is another. C1: There are at least two external objects in the world. C2: Therefore, an external world exists. He argues that he had the experience of observing his hands and reiterates that at least his hands offer the sum of two objects, which at a specified time existed (Ibid.).

The Relationship Between Knowledge and Certainty

The Relationship Between Knowledge and Certainty PDF Author: Valery Berthoud
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668839468
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 20

Get Book

Book Description
Academic Paper from the year 2018 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,3, Humboldt-University of Berlin, course: Wittgenstein’s Über Gewissheit, language: English, abstract: The relationship between knowledge and certainty varies according to conception. I argue that knowledge and certainty are usually equivalent, but there are cases in which certainty is possible without knowledge and knowledge is possible without certainty. The connection between knowledge and certainty does not change much when considering René Descartes’ philosophy because methodological skepticism consists of doubting beliefs that are uncertain. That there exist external objects is uncertain because a malicious demon could be deceiving us by creating the illusion of an external world. Although Descartes suggests that we can doubt all of our beliefs, his conception of science consists of secure insight: “Omnis scientia est cognitio certa et evidens” (Descartes 1907). This means that all science is certain and evident knowledge, or a high degree of certainty. Three centuries later, G. E.Moore had another reasoning when writing “A Defense of Common Sense” and “Proof of an External World.” He suggests that doubting that the world exists is unnecessary; we must trust that the universe exists. He is against George Berkeley’s suggestion that matter does not exist; everything is just ideas of the mind of God, and to be is to perceive. This is similar to propositions from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who was an idealist because he claimed that all possible worlds lie in God, and we are substances observing the best alternative (Leibniz 2014, §43-46). Moore suggests that it is irrational to believe such premises. He held intuitions that a person has in everyday life, the common sense philosophy. We cannot be certain yet we claim to know many things. Moore also purports that the external world is real and he tried to prove it (Moore 1993a). His argument goes as follows: P1: Here is one hand. P2: Here is another. C1: There are at least two external objects in the world. C2: Therefore, an external world exists. He argues that he had the experience of observing his hands and reiterates that at least his hands offer the sum of two objects, which at a specified time existed (Ibid.).

The Relationship Between Knowledge, Belief, and Certainty

The Relationship Between Knowledge, Belief, and Certainty PDF Author: Joseph Y. Halpern
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Probabilities
Languages : en
Pages : 20

Get Book

Book Description


Knowledge and Certainty

Knowledge and Certainty PDF Author: Norman Malcolm
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book

Book Description


After Certainty

After Certainty PDF Author: Robert Pasnau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192521934
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book

Book Description
No part of philosophy is as disconnected from its history as is epistemology. After Certainty offers a reconstruction of that history, understood as a series of changing expectations about the cognitive ideal that beings such as us might hope to achieve in a world such as this. The story begins with Aristotle and then looks at how his epistemic program was developed through later antiquity and into the Middle Ages, before being dramatically reformulated in the seventeenth century. In watching these debates unfold over the centuries, one sees why epistemology has traditionally been embedded within a much larger sphere of concerns about human nature and the reality of the world we live in. It ultimately becomes clear why epistemology today has become a much narrower and specialized field, concerned with the conditions under which it is true to say, that someone knows something. Based on a series of lectures given at Oxford University, Robert Pasnau's book ranges widely over the history of philosophy, and examines in some detail the rise of science as an autonomous discipline. Ultimately Pasnau argues that we may have no good reasons to suppose ourselves capable of achieving even the most minimal standards for knowledge, and the final chapter concludes with a discussion of faith and hope.

The Likelihood of Knowledge

The Likelihood of Knowledge PDF Author: R.G. Meyers
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400929056
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Get Book

Book Description
It is convenient to divide the theory of knowledge into three sets of problems: 1. the nature of knowledge, certainty and related notions, 2. the nature and validi ty of the sources of knowledge, and 3. answers to skeptical arguments. The first set includes questions such as: What is it to know that something is the case? Does knowledge imply certainty? If not, how do they differ? What are the con ditions of knowledge? What is it to be justified in accepting something? The sec ond deals with the ways in which knowledge can be acquired. Traditional sources have included sources of premisses such as perception, memory, in trospection, innateness, revelation, testimony, and methods for drawing conclu sions such as induction and deduction, among others. Under this heading, philosophers have asked: Does innateness provide knowledge? Under what con ditions are beliefs from perception, testimony and memory justified? When does induction yield justified belief? Can induction itself be justified? Debates in this area have sometimes led philosophers to question sources (e. g. , revela tion, innateness) but usually the aim has been to clarify and increase our understanding of the notion of knowledge. The third class includes the peren nial puzzles taught to beginning students: the existence of other minds, the problem of the external world (along with questions about idealism and phenomenalism), and more general skeptical problems such as the problem of the criterion. These sets of questions are related.

On Certainty

On Certainty PDF Author: Ludwig Wittgenstein
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631120001
Category : Certainty
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Get Book

Book Description
The volume is full of thought-provoking insight which will prove a stimulus both to further study and to scholarly disagreement.

The Island of Knowledge

The Island of Knowledge PDF Author: Marcelo Gleiser
Publisher: Civitas Books
ISBN: 0465031714
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Get Book

Book Description
A natural philosophy expert who is also a physics and astronomy professor discusses the limits of scientific explanations and how our knowledge of the universe and its nature will always remain necessarily incomplete. 15,000 first printing.

Wittgenstein and Pragmatism

Wittgenstein and Pragmatism PDF Author: Anna Boncompagni
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137588470
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Get Book

Book Description
This book investigates the conflicts concerning pragmatism in Wittgenstein’s work On Certainty, through a comparison with the pragmatist tradition as expressed by its founding fathers Charles S. Peirce and William James. It also describes Wittgenstein’s first encounters with pragmatism in the 1930s and shows the relevance of Frank Ramsey in the development of his thought. Offering a balanced, critical and theoretical examination the author discusses issues such as doubt, certainty, common sense, forms of life, action and the pragmatic maxim. While highlighting the objective convergences and divergences between the two approaches, the volume makes links to ongoing debates on relativism, foundationalism, scepticism and objectivity. It will be of interest to anyone searching for new perspectives on Wittgenstein’s philosophy.

Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671

Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 PDF Author: Robert Pasnau
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191501794
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 811

Get Book

Book Description
Robert Pasnau traces the developments of metaphysical thinking through four rich but for the most part neglected centuries of philosophy, running from the thirteenth century through to the seventeenth. At no period in the history of philosophy, other than perhaps our own, have metaphysical problems received the sort of sustained attention they received during the later Middle Ages, and never has a whole philosophical tradition come crashing down as quickly and completely as did scholastic philosophy in the seventeenth century. The thirty chapters work through various fundamental metaphysical issues, sometimes focusing more on scholastic thought, sometimes on the seventeenth century. Pasnau begins with the first challenges to the classical scholasticism of Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, runs through prominent figures like John Duns Scotus and William Ockham, and ends in the seventeenth century, with the end of the first stage of developments in post-scholastic philosophy: on the continent, with Descartes and Gassendi, and in England, with Boyle and Locke.

Wittgenstein & Knowledge

Wittgenstein & Knowledge PDF Author: Thomas Morawetz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780855279578
Category : Certainty
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Get Book

Book Description