Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Certainty

  • Homo Faber

    Man is homo faber. Among the things he makes: fake certainties.

  • Butchvarov: Knowledge as Requiring Objective Certainty

    We begin with an example from Panayot Butchvarov's The Concept of Knowledge, Northwestern University Press, 1970, p. 47. [CK is the red volume on the topmost visible shelf.  Immediately to its right is Butch's Being Qua Being.  Is Butch showing without saying that epistemology is prior to metaphysics?] But now to work. There is a bag containing 99 white…

  • Their Cocks Make Them Sure

    There are those who are cocksure that there is no God, no soul, no post-mortem judgment, no ultimate meaning to human existence, and that we are all just material bits of a material world. Now it may be so for all we  know. This is not an area in which proofs or disproofs are possible. …

  • Is It Epistemically Certain That There are Substances?

    Herewith, another episode in my ongoing discussion with Lukas Novak.  Here again is his list of propositions that he claims are not only true, but knowable with (epistemic as opposed to psychological) certainty: a) God exists.b) There are substances.c) There are some necessary truths, even some de re necessary truths.d) Human cognition is capable of truth and…

  • Another Uncompelling Argument in Illustration of Our Pascalian Predicament

    This relates to my earlier discussion with Dr. Novak. See articles referenced infra. A reader thinks the following syllogism establishes its conclusion: a) What doesn't have necessity from itself is caused; b) The contingent does not have necessity from itself; Ergo c) The contingent is caused. An argument establishes its conclusion just in case: (i)…

  • Is It Epistemically Certain that Whatever Begins to Exist is Caused?

    I wrote that  1) Whatever begins to exist is caused is not epistemically certain. I don't deny that (1) is true; I deny that it can be known with certainty.  (As I explained earlier, truth and certainty are different properties.) And then I wrote that  If an argument is presented for (1), then I will…

  • Are Any Substantive Philosophical Propositions Epistemically Certain?

    I asked our Czech colleague Lukáš Novák for examples of philosophical propositions that he considers to be not only true, but knowable with certainty. He provided this list: a) God exists.b) There are substances.c) There are some necessary truths, even some de re necessary truths.d) Human cognition is capable of truth and certainty.e) There are no…

  • Which is More Certain, God or My Hands?

    A reader inquires, "I'm curious, if someone asked you what you were more certain of, your hands or belief in the existence of God, how would you respond?" The first thing a philosopher does when asked a question is examine the question.  (Would that ordinary folk, including TV pundits, would do likewise before launching into gaseous answers…

  • Could God Prove His Own Existence?

    In response to two recent posts, here and here, Jacques comments: I'm mostly persuaded by your recent posts about theism and knowledge, but I disagree about your claim that "Presumably God can prove the existence of God, if he exists, not that he needs to." Think of your condition 5 ["It is such that all…

  • Neither the Existence Nor the Nonexistence of God is Provable

    A post of mine ends like this: To theists, I say: go on being theists.  You are better off being a theist than not being one.  Your position is rationally defensible and the alternatives are rationally rejectable.  But don't fancy that you can prove the existence of God or the opposite.  In the end you…

  • Anchorage in the Certain

    We should anchor our thought in that which is most certain: the fact of change, the nearness of death, that things exist, that one is conscious, that one can say 'I' and mean it, the fact of conscience.  But man does not meditate on the certain; he chases after the uncertain and ephemeral: name and…

  • Galen Strawson: It is Certain that the Christian God does not Exist!

    Here, in The New York Review of Books: To the Editors: Thomas Nagel writes that “whether atheists or theists are right depends on facts about reality that neither of them can prove” [“A Philosopher Defends Religion,” Letters, NYR, November 8]. This is not quite right: it depends on what kind of theists we have to…

  • A Meditation on Certainty on Husserl’s Birthday

    Edmund Husserl was born on this date in 1859. In his magisterial Augustine of Hippo, Peter Brown writes of Augustine, "He wanted complete certainty on ultimate questions." (1st ed., p. 88) If you don't thrill to that line, you are no philosopher. Compare Edmund Husserl: "Ohne Gewissheit kann ich eben nicht leben." "I just can't…

  • On the Obvious

    As Hilary Putnam once said, "It ain't obvious what's obvious." Or as I like to say, "One man's datum is another man's theory." But is it obvious that it ain't obvious what's obvious?  It looks as if we have a little self-referential puzzle going here.  Does the Hilarian dictum apply to itself?  An absence of…

  • Death Penalty, Abortion, and Certainty

    Some opponents of the death penalty oppose it on the ground that one can never be certain whether the accused is guilty as charged.  Some of these people are pro-choice.  To them I say: Are you certain that the killing of the unborn is morally permissible?  How can you be sure?  How can you be…